May 2, 1998
Nobody saw it coming, although they should have.
They had already collected most of the obvious facts involved, after all: Voldemort was fully capable of concocting and executing convoluted plans with backups and fail-safes, often taking years to reach fruition. He was also a vindictive son of a bitch, perfectly willing to destroy what he couldn’t possess—and he’d broken into the Ministry years before—to hear a prophecy, they’d thought at the time, and he’d certainly tried, but he’d also laid a Portkey enchantment as a later trap, allowing him to kidnap Neville’s grandmother long afterwards.
. . . Really, it should’ve come as no surprise that, on his way through the Department of Mysteries, he might’ve made another stop. But it hadn’t occurred to any of them, either at the time or years later—and so Voldemort’s dying curse, a final strike at his enemies, went unnoticed, until it was too late.
With the death of the Dark Lord, the Department of Mysteries ended its lockdown, returning once more to “normal” reality; and the enchantment, sensing the link to its master’s life having been severed, did as it was meant to do—and blew the veiled arch in the Room of Death to pieces.
And it took the world—or at least, a very significant part of that world—with it.
Somewhere else
Unknown time
Cold. Wet. PAIN!
Galen came awake with a start as someone dumped a bucket of ice-water over his body, thunder rolling in his ears—no, it was raining; storming, in fact.
While a corner of his mind asked himself why he was lying on what appeared to be a wooden dock, in a thunderstorm, the rest of his brain was pulling him to his feet, and sending him towards the big stone structure—lighthouse, he realised abruptly—in the distance.
Running pell-mell across the dock, he bared even paused at the door, one hand slamming against it with all his momentum even as the other went for the knob he could barely see. To his relief, it opened without resistance, and he hustled inside, absently registering the sound of tearing paper as he did so, before slamming the door behind him.
“Hello?” he called out, to the mostly-dark structure. “I’m s-sorry for b-barging in—”
Bugger, he thought, now that I’ve stopped moving, the chill is setting in.
The wizard weighed the risks, before casting a Revealing Charm; at its negative response to human presences, he then began to cast other spells to dry off and warm up, even as he tried to work out where he was. It obviously wasn’t Hogwarts—in fact it sort of reminded him of that island with the hut the Dursleys had used, in Potter canon. But there hadn’t been a lighthouse on that island . . .
And there was a faint sound of music, almost swallowed by the storm. Was this not an automated lighthouse, then? But then, why had the door been unlocked?
Abruptly, Galen realised there was a scrap of paper in his left hand that read “IRL.” Thinking on it, he realised what had happened—and with extreme reluctance, he reopened the door behind him, and put it together as quickly as he could, so he could shut the damned thing again.
DEWITT—
BRING US THE
GIRL AND WIPE
AWAY THE DEBT.
THIS IS YOUR
LAST CHANCE.
“Oh, that’s reassuring,” he whispered, noting the blood spatters in the bottom-right corner.
And also familiar, but nothing he could place at the moment. It might even have been just the general tone—this setting wouldn’t have been out of place for one of his favourite hardboiled mysteries, be it film or literature . . .
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Galen stretched out his senses, trying to figure out what he could tell about this place.
Faint music drifted from somewhere up above; big band type, he thought—or “barbershop quartet” might’ve been more accurate. Not his preference, but better than several alternatives. The central pillar of the lighthouse interior, which also served as the base for a metal spiral staircase like the one in the Venice library in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” had a table in front of it with a lit candle, some hand towels, and a bowl of water. Hung on the pillar itself was a crocheted sign that said OF THY SINS SHALL I WASH THEE.
“No thanks,” he muttered. “With my luck, that’d translate to ‘drown the witch.’”
Looking past the pillar showed him a buffet like he had at home, but nothing in the drawers of it resembled clothes, or anything he could use as a weapon in case of trouble—unless you counted a jar of pickles, anyway. There were some loose coins, not a type he recognised, short of saying “American.” Either this guy was a coin collector, or he was a long way from Hogwarts.
Creeping carefully up the stairs, he passed another crocheted sign: FROM SODOM I SHALL LEAD THEE.
Oh great, mobsters threatening a fundamentalist Christian nut-job. There's no way that will end well . . .
The next level appeared to be the lighthouse keeper’s living quarters, as evidenced by the bed, desk, working electric lights in the wall over the desk, bookshelves and the old-style radio which was the source of the music he’d heard—more like the Wizarding Wireless sets than anything modern.
And in all this time, there was no sign of the lighthouse keeper, though there very evidently was one.
A quick search of the desk revealed it held an old rotary phone (dead), and very old-fashioned typewriter. A map on the wall above the desk displayed the United States; on it was drawn out an elongated shape in pins and threads that he couldn’t make sense of. It looked like some giant moth or bird, stretching from New York almost to the other end of the country.
Not a waterway, not with that range; it doesn’t follow any roads . . . The closest I can think of is a radio tower’s broadcast range, but the shape’s too big – and way too uneven. Is this guy trying to track a serial killer or something . . .?
The note pinned to the corner of the map lent some weight to that theory. It read: BE PREPARED. HE’S COMING. YOU MUST STOP HIM—C.
The other paper of note was what looked like a train schedule, or something similar; all he could make out at the top was “Columbia,” though. Was he in Washington?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to still be on Earth—as opposed to, say, any number of places I can think of—but why the hell would I have wound up there, when I was in Britain?
The only explanation that came to mind was “this was the equivalent location in the planet’s revolution and rotation to where I was”; which made sense, but wasn’t at all reassuring.
“OK,” he asked himself, sitting down on the bed to take stock. “What do I know?
“I’m still alive, so it’s at least likely that the others are; Neville and Hermione are at least as tough as I am, physically, and metaphysically, Shirou and Ilya probably have me beat. Where they are, I’ve got no clue—but if I made it, then so did they and hopefully not just them . . .”
“This place still has magic,” Galen reminded himself, “and it’s at least a compatible magic to Hogwarts' witchcraft and wizardry, if not the same thing entirely. The latter would be better—it’d mean I’m still on Rowling Earth—but since I’ve no way to prove that at the moment, I’ll take what I can get.
“And since I never did master the Patronus Charm, I’ve no easy way to contact the others, if they did survive,” he concluded—before a thought occurred to him. “Oh, wait—the mirrors . . .!”
A quick rummaging through his belt pouches revealed the pieces of the mirror, too small to be usable. The same devastation had been wreaked on his other items, too, except for the Deathcloak—though its survival wasn’t really a surprise, given its nature and origins. Still, whatever Galen had been through, it hadn’t been kind to extra-dimensional spaces and their associated enchantments; he’d been lucky not to lose a hand dipping into that pouch.
So, where did that leave him . . .? In a hell of a lot of trouble, to be honest; he needed to at least figure out where and/or when he was. The map was of America, but in addition to the oddness of that elongated shape, it didn’t exactly have a “You Are Here” written on it, either.
Getting off the bed, he moved over to the next round of the staircase, over which hung the crocheted sign: TO THINE OWN LAND I SHALL TAKE THEE. There was also, further up the stairway, a bloody handprint on the wall, which caused him to freeze in place.
Is that the lighthouse keeper’s blood, or is it from the guy he “must stop,” according to the note? And why the hell do I only smell it now?
Too much seawater and oxidising metal, Galen answered his own question. It smells too much like blood to separate the scents out in this form. But that just begs the question of the source . . .
Taking a firm grip on his wand, he continued on, where the top of the staircase revealed a golden cup of some form lying on the stairs themselves, along with broken bits of wood and a trail of blood at the very top. Said trail led to a man tied to a chair, with a burlap bag over his head and a sign hung around his neck, written in blood:
DON’T DISAPPOINT US.
Before the body—and it had to be one, with the amount of blood on the floor—was a stool, with a knife and what looked like a chisel resting on it. The knife’s blade was bloody, but not nearly as gore-soaked as he’d have expected, given the mess on the floor. The chisel was oddly clean.
OK, presumably the body’s not “DeWitt,” since the message is likely for him—the lighthouse keeper, then? Which means that DeWitt isn’t the lighthouse keeper . . .
It also meant that this “bring us the girl thing” was serious, and likely to be starting soon, since the blood was still looking wet—and the kind of people who’d leave a message like this wouldn’t let it just sit around . . .
He went back downstairs to help himself to the lighthouse keeper’s wallet and the loose change he’d spotted while working his way upwards. Was that a cold reaction? Yes, without a doubt; but the dead man didn’t need it anymore, whereas he almost certainly would. With the stuff in his bags all but destroyed, his money stash was unfortunately out of reach; it struck him as better to have some than trying to magically con his way into things.
From there, he made his way up the final staircase, hoping he’d catch sight of something familiar from the top of the lighthouse—a skyline, a particular building—heck, at this point, he’d settle for knowing the direction of land . . . Of course, he passed yet another crotched sign in the process: IN NEW EDEN SOIL SHALL I PLANT THEE.
I’m noting a theme, here—is this based in some kind of cult? Is “DeWitt” a deprogrammer, maybe?
Nice thought, but it wouldn’t explain the Russian-mafia-style tactics . . .
The storm was still ongoing when he got to the top, making seeing anything a difficult task. Worse still, the catwalk was narrow; he brushed something as he turned to try and manoeuvre on it, and heard a solid ringing as a result.
Bells . . .? Too small to be intended for warning ships—and what on earth are they attached to . . .?
He frowned, and paused to look closer, lifting the still pair for closer inspection; it seemed as though the bells were engraved.
“A key and a sword . . .?” Odd symbols to be using, and they meant nothing to him, so he set the bells back, letting them ring—why were there lights flashing in sequence with the ri—
A gigantic noise, like a tugboat’s horn or whale’s song, filled the air before the bells’ last notes had even cleared, loud enough to shake the top of the tower. At the same time, red light shone from somewhere unseen, turning the sky to blood. Doing his best to walk around the catwalk, he saw no source for either beyond up, though realised that the light was pulsing in tune with the notes of the horn—and it was a horn, of some sort. Was this some kind of recognition signal . . .?
With a series of mechanical clicks, the lighthouse’s bulb itself began to flash red in a pattern, which was met again by a brief exchange from the sky. Then mechanisms began to whir, opening the cage which contained the beacon, even as it was drawn upwards, out of reach, and the floor of the chamber revolved to reveal an unfolding dentist’s chair, or something like it.
“. . . Oh, sure,” Galen muttered sarcastically. “Get in the crazy fundamentalists’ chair—what could possibly go wrong with that idea?!” After a beat, however, he sighed. “ . . . I just had to see the note about the girl, didn’t I? Damn it all . . .”
It was a stupid idea. It was the worst idea he’d ever had, if not the worst idea in the whole long, sad history of bad ideas . . . But there was an implied hostage situation going on, possibly involving a little girl. He could walk away, but he could he live with himself if he did . . .?
And besides, based on prior experiences, he and his friends tended to ended up entangled in the “major plot events” of a given universe—if this wasn’t one of those, he’d eat chicken without complaint. So if there was any chance his friends had survived, he’d likely find them somewhere at the other end of wherever this went.
“And this,” he announced to the world, “will henceforth and forevermore be known as ‘Mistake Number One.’”
He sat in the chair.
Manacles sprang up out of the armrests to imprison his wrists.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Because why not?”
The floor opened up, and panels began to spring out and encircle him as a female voice—recorded, but not electronic—announced, “Make yourself ready, pilgrim. The bindings are there as a safeguard.”
More panels shifted, including the floor, giving him a glimpse of rocket engines.
“Oh, this is going to suck . . .” Galen hissed.
“Ascension,” replied the voice, gaining a second, male tone as it continued, “Ascension in the count of FIVE . . . Count of FOUR . . . THREE . . .TWO . . . ONE . . .”
The newly-revealed rocket capsule blasted off, streaming through the storm-clouds as the recording continued, “Ascension . . . Ascension . . . Five thousand feet . . . Ten thousand feet . . . Fifteen thousand feet . . .”
“Oh, God, I must be out of my mind . . .!”
“Hallelujah,” was the only response.
The man stopped rowing in mid-stroke, seeing their boat’s intended destination blast off into the clouds.
“I didn’t see that coming,” he remarked to his female companion. “Did you?”
“. . . No,” she admitted finally. “No, I did not.”
“I don’t particularly care,” the wizard most recently known as Shirou von Einzbern said, from the other end of the boat. “I want to know who you two are, and what’s going on—now.”