Backwards Compatible
Disembarking
By Ruskbyte
There was a strange sound, rather like something out of a cartoon, a spring of some sort, which coincided with about a dozen of the first-years yelping in surprise and pressing towards the front of the hall, as something quite inexplicable was in the process of appearing in the middle of the hall. It was very confusing, primarily because of the rapidity with which it took place, mostly the initial sproinging sound, which drew everyone's attention to a spot near the centre of the Great Hall where a ball of... something... had appeared.
It was about three yards across, maybe a bit more, and perfectly spherical in a way that neither nature, magic or machine could achieve. It hovered a scarce inch above the stone floor, its iridescent and reflective surface seemed to shimmer and shift, always in motion even though it gave the impression of great weight and solidity. The image reflected in its smooth surface, that of the Great Hall and its dumbstruck inhabitants, seemed to distort and twist around itself before reshaping to depict a scene that was completely different.
All told the entire sequence of events, from the instant the sphere appeared, lasted perhaps the span of one deep breath. Maybe two. By the time the students and teachers settled down from their initial surprised reactions, the sphere was hanging tranquilly in the air - reflecting on its smooth face the relatively innocuous scene of what looked suspiciously like a mid to upper price hotel room.
Harry, Hermione was slightly annoyed to note, had not budged so much as an inch.
Not even when nearly half the students had jumped to their feet and the rest were shifting uneasily about in their seats. Strange occurrences were par for the course at Hogwarts, not that any of the pure-blooded students would understand the reference. Having a massive ball of... something... pop into existence in the middle of the Sorting, however, was strange enough to alarm just about everyone present. After all, as of last year all doubt that Lord Voldemort had been resurrected had been rudely blown away during the confrontation at the Ministry and the Department of Mysteries. Naturally everyone was a bit jumpy and inclined to believe the worst was about to happen at any given moment.
The fact that even Dumbledore was visibly puzzled, if not openly alarmed, by the sphere's unexplained appearance, did little to assuage the fears currently running rampant through the student population. The fact that Harry did not appear even the slightest bit interested in what was happening did little to assuage Hermione's fear, which were beginning to run almost as rampant as the rest of the students'. The fact that Harry had not even blinked in reaction to the sphere's arrival and seemed almost to have been expecting it, did not help matters either.
"What the hell is that thing?" asked Ron, on his feet and gaping at the shimmering ball of whatever.
"It's moving!" shouted someone from the Hufflepuff table, which caused the students to stir in preparation to flee just in case this proved to be a devious attack of some sort.
Dumbledore rose to his feet, his aura of authority and power momentarily drawing all eyes away from the sphere and to him as his voice boomed throughout the Great Hall. "Students, remain calm. Do not attempt to leave the hall until told to do so."
Hermione glanced away from the headmaster, as did most of the students, and turned back to stare at the sphere which did in fact seem to be moving. It was only when it became apparent that the ball of, it must have been energy of some sort she thought, was not in fact moving that they realized that it was actually the reflected scene on the sphere's surface that was moving about. Something, it was hard to make out properly, seemed to be filling the scene and blotting out the view of the hotel room until a large wooden crate emerged from the sphere's surface with a wet slurp and dropped to the floor with a dull thump.
Naturally the first years began to move well away from the sphere, until they were pressing up against the staff table or blending in with the other students sitting at the house tables. Nobody, save Harry for some reason, seemed able to take their eyes off the strange sphere and the crate now resting at its base.
"It's some sort of transportation device," Hermione whispered to Ron and Harry, receiving only a slight nod of the head from her red-haired friend and absolutely no reaction at all from the Boy Who Lived.
The scene depicted in the globe's reflection once again showed the hotel room and its furnishings. Hermione tried to make out more detail, but could only conclude that it was a fairly nondescript room, which could have belonged to any reasonably priced hotel across the world. The only fact she could gather from the limited view presented to her was that wherever the sphere was connected to, it was somewhere a great distance from Hogwarts. There was light streaming through the windows and she could just discern a hint of sky that seemed incredibly blue. The hotel and its room were someplace where it was still day though night had fallen at Hogwarts over an hour ago.
Something else was moving in the reflection, growing large as it approached the sphere. A moment later, in identical fashion to the first crate to appear, a second wooden crate emerged and dropped to the floor next to the first one. This one was a fraction longer than the first, and had "FRAGILE", "HANDLE WITH CARE" and "THIS SIDE UP" stencilled on its side. Unfortunately it had dropped with a good thump, thus breaking the first two cautions, and had also landed with the arrow from the third label pointing down to the floor.
By now the idea that Voldemort was attacking the school was beginning to fade from the minds of the students as they began instead to wonder just what exactly was going on. If this was an attack, it was a strangely quiet one. Whispers and murmurs began to fill the air as everyone began to speculate, whilst several of the teachers abandoned the staff table and made their way towards where the sphere was hovering.
A third crate made its appearance, at about the same interval as the last two, and dropped to the floor in much the same manner. The only difference this time was that the crate turned out to be a large case of some kind, made out of what looked like some kind of metal and nearly four times longer than it was tall or wide. It looked not unlike the boxes you might imagine a broom company to use when transporting their product en masse. Only on second glance did the true nature of the box reveal itself, mostly to the Muggleborn students who were able to recognise the vivid yellow and black markings painted on.
Whatever it was, it's contents were labelled as being radioactive.
This caused quite a stir when the rapidly panicking Muggleborns tried to explain to the as yet clueless Purebloods exactly what it was that had dropped so unexpectedly at their feet.
"New-clear whazzits?" asked Ron over his shoulder, listening to the excited chatter as Dean Thomas tried to explain the concept to Neville and Ginny without much success, while keeping his eyes on the sphere in anticipation of seeing whatever would emerge next.
"Imagine a Reductor Curse that can level the entire city of London in a split second," Hermione said, more interested in observing the goings on than she was in cushioning her words.
Something else was emerging from the sphere now, something different, something round. It took her several seconds but Hermione recognised the large gas cylinder for what it was a moment before it dropped to the floor with a loud clang. It wobbled on the floor for a moment before rolling on its side, causing several anxious Ravenclaws to jump up onto their table in order to save their feet as it rolled up against the bench they had been sitting on.
The next item to emerge was rather innocuous and quite at odds with everything that had come before it. It was a large box, the kind used to deliver bulk to stores, which appeared to contain several cartons of Mars Bars. This, Hermione felt, was conclusive proof that whatever was going on had nothing to do with Voldemort. Not unless the dark lord had a secret craving for the Muggle sweet, which he now intended to use in an incomprehensible bid to capture the castle. The box was quickly followed by another three boxes, all containing nothing but Mars Bars, though the third box appeared to have already been opened.
"Mars Bars?" giggled Seamus, "Oh, Trelawney is going to love that."
"Be quiet, idiot," hissed Ginny, pointing at the shimmering orb. "Something else is coming."
Neville, scrutinising the sphere with narrow eyes, ventured, "I think it's a person."
Indeed it was. Though it was impossible to clearly make out the person's features, distorted as they were in the reflection, the shape approaching the sphere now could not be mistaken for anything other than a human being. Drawing closer it seemed to pause for a moment and, with an easy swing, tossed a bright blue and green coloured knapsack through the portal. It landed on one of the wooden crates, the one with all the warning labels.
Right then something happened that surprised the occupants of the Great Hall almost as much as the appearance of the sphere. Harry Potter rose to his feet and began to stride determinedly from the Gryffindor table to where this strange mode of transportation was hanging in the air. Several people, Hermione included, called his name, but he obviously chose not to listen to them. Even Dumbledore's stern order for Harry to halt was completely ignored.
Harry was just rounding the Ravenclaw table, which had been between the sphere and the Gryffindor table, when Professor Snape stepped in front of him. The dour potions master was practically livid.
"Potter!" he snapped angrily, "Get back to your table! Now!"
Harry stopped walking and regarded him for scarcely a second before reaching out with one hand and grabbing hold of the front of Snape's robes. Without so much as a twitch of effort or even a flicker of emotion on his face, Harry hoisted the man into the air so that his boots were a foot off the ground. Considering how much taller than Harry the potions master was, this was an act that almost defied belief.
"I have been instructed to report for debriefing," Harry told Snape in the same bare tone he had been using during his stay at Grimmauld Place. He continued dispassionately, "If you attempt to intervene, I will be required to kill you."
That said, in an amazing feat of sheer strength, Harry tossed the dangling Potions professor clear over the Hufflepuff table. Snape crashed into a heap with several Slytherin students, who had been watching the proceedings with wide eyes. Harry, for his part, continued on as if there had been no interruption at all. After a display such as that; nobody present would be suicidal enough to interrupt his progress again.
He came to a stop a dozen steps from the shimmering globe, just short of the first crate to have emerged from the sphere. Settling into a relaxed stance, his arms resting easy at his sides, Harry stood patiently before the sphere and waited calmly for whatever was going to happen next.
A moment later a reasonably tall and lean figure emerged from the sphere and casually stepped into the Great Hall with all the ease of someone moving from one room to another.
He was wearing plain jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, not buttoned up, that even Dumbledore would have considered dazzling. His midnight black hair was slightly longer and rangier than the figure standing immediately in front of him, curling over the collar of his shirt, and as wildly unruly as ever. He had clearly grown taller over the summer, wherever he had been hiding away, and had apparently matched Malfoy's own growth spurt and maybe exceeded it by a hair or two. His frame had filled out enough that he could now be described as slender, rather than skinny, the open front and short sleeves of his shirt revealing the sinewy definition of his muscles.
The slender rectangular frames of his new glasses gleamed silver in the torchlight, no longer overwhelming his features as the thick black frames of his old pair had. Behind the glass lenses his startling green eyes stared out at the world with wisdom and experience beyond his years and a hint of a challenge for the world to throw whatever it cared to at him so that he could meet it head on. He was also holding an apparently one-sided conversation with a small onyx ball, about the size of a gobstone, which was drifting idly in the air just above his right shoulder.
And there, half hidden beneath a fringe of hair, was a lightning shaped scar.
"Harry?" whispered Hermione, along with a dozen other people, in shocked recognition.
Without a doubt, save the fact that there was already one other Harry Potter standing directly opposite the newcomer, the young man who had just stepped through the spherical portal was none other than Harry Potter. To say the sight was disconcerting would be an injustice to the meaning of the word understatement. Hermione risked a glance at Dumbledore and saw that the headmaster was positively gobsmacked and apparently unable to hide the bewilderment he must have been feeling. This, at least to her, was much more disconcerting than having to deal with two Harrys.
The one whom she had first thought to be Harry, wearing his school robes and now standing a short distance in front of the new arrival, was focused solely on the second Harry and otherwise completely ignoring everything else that was happening around him. The second Harry, dressed in his Hawaiian shirt and looking much healthier than Hermione could ever remember seeing Harry look, was also ignoring his surroundings and continuing to argue with the black orb hanging by his shoulder.
"--don't know what you're complaining about," he was saying. "It's entirely your own fault. If you had woken me up on time we could've made the trip using smaller jumps."
He paused, appearing to be listen intently to some inaudible reply, before answering, "Please, Father. Don't tell me that we need to ration our power usage. You've just spent an entire week siphoning off all the excess geothermal energy from Mauna Loa. We're practically swimming with raw power at the moment."
Laughing at whatever reply he received, the newly arrived Harry stopped walking down the length of the Great Hall and found himself standing only six feet from the Harry which had made the trip to Hogwarts on the Express with Hermione and the other students. The newcomer raised his eyebrows and looked his counterpart up and down with a seemingly critical eye.
"Well, you certainly look familiar," he said with obvious amusement.
The smaller boy responded blandly and shocked everyone present by saying, "Doppelganger Unit One, reporting for debriefing."
"Hello, Unit One," Harry greeted with a satisfied and slightly smug smile. His eyes sparkled merrily as he regarded the slim figure waiting patiently in front of him. "It's good to see you again."
TBC...