Woah.

Hi.

There are a lot of you reading this.

It's not like I'm nervous now or anything. Not at all.

Chapter two

Sometime before the summoning

Sirius stroked Buckbeak's wing that hooked around him and lay in his lap as he lounged against the hippogriff's shoulder. He strummed the individual feathers with his thumb as his hand slowly past across them. Buckbeak himself slept contently behind Sirius, supporting his back. The muffled voice of Mrs. Weasley caused Buckbeak's ears to twitch in the direction of the disturbance as she yelled at her twins.

"I much preferred it when it was just you and me, Buckbeak," Sirius sighed.

Buckbeak lifted his head at the sound of his name.

"You know, when we weren't stuck in this damned hell hole with a family of thirty, but running around in hiding."

The hippogriff nudged Sirius's elbow with his beak and Sirius started stroking Buckbeak's head. Buckbeak closed his eyes in contentment. With his thumb, Sirius gently rubbed the soft skin just above the hippogriffs beak. In response he yawned and began to purr deep in his chest.

"I know, we are safer here and there's food... But you can't say you don't miss flying."

Suddenly, Buckbeak stopped purring and got up, causing Sirius to fall over backwards, and trotted to the other side of the room. Sirius sent a bewildered glance and asked,

"What'd I say?"

He didn't receive any response from the creature, he just kept his eyes on the door. Then the door swung open, revealing a disheveled red faced Molly Weasley. Sirius looked back at Buckbeak with a look of betrayal. The hippogriff stared back uncaringly.

"Mr. Black!" Molly snapped at him for reasons beyond his knowledge, "Dumbledore needs you in the dining hall."

"Dumbledore is here?"

"Yes! He's here!" She answered as if it was his hundredth time asking and stormed out of the room.

"As much as I enjoy and support the twins' pranks, they ought to consider pulling back a bit." Sirius said from the floor.

Buckbeak cooed and Sirius took it as an agreement.

Sirius's intentions had been to trudge into the dining room and slouch into his chair, fully displaying how miserable and unhappy he was with his (and Harry's) current arrangements. He completely understood why, but that didn't mean he was going to comply with a smile on his face. But all thoughts of self pity and bitterness immediately vanished when he opened the door to the dining hall. The gravity of the situation became clear with the number of members that sat around the table were Sirius had once eaten dinner with his mother, father, and sister.

Looking around, Hagrid, Molly, Charlie, Hestia, and Aberforth were the only members Sirius noticed missing.

Tense uncertainty and questioning dread overwhelmed the room. Several members glanced at him upon arrival, but no one said anything, as if breaking the silence might provoke the oncoming storm. Dumbledore stood at the end of the table, not with the grave tiredness that accompanied news of someone's death, but with the air of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and ready to take on more. Mad-Eye Moody sat at the end of the table near the headmaster with a strange ashen intensity on his face. Before Sirius could ask if Harry was okay, Dumbledore spoke.

"Please, have a seat, Sirius."

Nodding silently, Sirius made a point to ignore the sense of impending doom and sat down between Lupin and Mr. Weasley with a false bravado showing that he was ready to take on anything. Fake it 'till you make it, as they say. The barest hint of a smile momentarily lifted the headmasters face at the display, but it left before Sirius could notice. Already, Lupin looked calmer and Mr. Weasley less like he was preparing for his death, which subtly eased the rest of the room.

"Now that all who will be here is here, we shall begin," Dumbledore spoke to the room. "There is a good amount of information that I have to reveal and explain. Please, remember the oath of secrecy that you all made in joining the order, it is of the utmost importance to your safety and the safety of others that you keep silent on whatever you may learn tonight. I am afraid that we are limited for time, so, if you could, keep questions to yourself the best you can until I have finished."

The hesitant nods he received from Arthur and Tonks seemed to satisfy him and he continued.

"Many years ago, not long after wizards hid themselves from muggles, practices of interacting with demonic entities were common."

"But demons don't-"

"I can assure you, they do exist. Now please, Sirius, let me finish," Dumbledore implored. "These entities varied in strength and power, but all were considered unruly, unpredictable, and even the weakest of them can be destructive, therefore, they were a danger to anyone involved. There were few who were able to reason with or control the creatures, while many others attempted to, only to bring about their own demise. It's recorded that the most powerful demons were capable of leveling out entire cities in a single night. Given this, the wizards in power at the time made the executive decision to eradicate the practice of summoning or any interaction with demonic beings. Those who continued the forbidden practice were hunted and executed, and all records of demons were destroyed or locked away. The Ministry of Magic is current in possession of a number of these records.

Another reason for the banning of these practices is that magic is not required for a summoning."

"Wait, what?" Stirgus spoke up in shock, "are you saying muggles can preform a summoning?!"

"That is precisely what I am saying. Wizards attempted to remove the knowledge of demons from muggles, but every attempt proved futile. I personally believe that it is because the demons were much more resistant from being cut off from muggles then they were with wizards, seeing as wizards would prove more difficult to over power. But the mere fact that muggles are capable of the practice caused Voldemort to see it as beneath him in the past."

"In the past?" Lupin breathed out, already knowing the answer.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly.

"Andrew Bolten, a bookkeeper of the Ministry's archive of forbidden books, went missing a fortnight ago. Something the ministry has found pertinent to keep quiet and out of my knowledge. You are all aware that there have been many others since then. I can confirm for a fact that Voldemort is behind their disappearances. But that's not the worst of it, I'm afraid. Around eight years ago, the Ministry found and kept an ancient book. The book contains all that is known on what the book claims to be 'the King of Demons'."

"Tomorrow night," Mad-Eye continued with a mixture of a matter of fact attitude and deadly seriousness that only he could accomplish, "Saturnus, Venus, and Murcurius will align. Many summoning rituals draw from planetary alignments and Saturnus and Venus are a powerful combination. With this and the number of people who have been taken, it is more than likely that the Dark Lord will be attempting to summon this'King of Demons'."

"Are-are you absolutely sure?" Arthur asked, licking his lips and faltering under the attention of everyone present. "I mean, if-if… they are so difficult to control, wouldn't he- wouldn't he-who-must-not-be-named want a… demon that wasn't too powerful to control?"

"I do not believe that Voldemort's pride would allow him to attempt to summon anything less."

It took a moment for the information to set in for everyone present. Tonks was the first to finish processing and asked from the other end of the table, "so, what are we waiting for? How are we going to stop this from happening?"

Dumbledore gave her a proud smile and stated, "we only require the location Voldemort will use for the summoning. The ones not here tonight are currently gathering that very information; we should have it by morning if all goes well. Until then…we must prepare for battle."

Later

To say Sirius was disappointed would be a little bit of an understatement. He had been ready for the fight of his life, but as soon as they broke into Lagras' castle, one of the Dark Lords hideouts in the middle of nowhere, the Death Eaters fled. He had only seen three in total and he hadn't even been the one to deal with them. Now he was searching the castle with Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley, and Sturgis for Andrew Bolten and the other missing people

"That door there," grunted Mad-Eye, gesturing to a pair of large wooden doors.

"Why this door, opposed to all the other doors we've passed?" Sturgis asked grumpily.

He didn't receive an answer, just a long condescending glance, with both eyes.

Kingsley patted Sturgis on the back and reminded him in a hushed voice, "he can see more than we can."

Sturgis nodded, slightly embarrassed. Then the he noticed Sirius headed for the door.

"Wait! Shouldn't we check for hexes?"

Sirius rolled his eyes, locked eyes with Sturgis and kicked the door open with a loud crash.

All reprimands for Sirius' reckless stupidity died in the owners throats when the sight beyond the door met them. For Sirius, all thoughts of boredom left him as he suddenly wished to be back in the hallway fruitlessly searching.

"My god!" Kingsley choked through the smell.

"Keep your stomach, Kingsley," Moody growled warningly. The man's eye scanned the room, paused a little on the ceiling, then moved on to scan the body just in front of them, and then started frantically darting to different points on a pile of what could only be more bodies, all within three seconds. "Sturgis, go tell Dumbledore we found Bolten... and the rest of them and that he was right, they were trying to summon a demon."

Sturgis didn't even nod in reply, he just left.

"Did they?" From Sirius' very limited understanding of summonings, it looked like they had already finished.

"Do you think they would have run, like a bunch of cowards with their tails between their legs, if they had been successful?" Moody snapped.

Sirius begrudgingly admitted to himself that Mad-Eye had a point. Mad-Eye cautiously made his way over to the bodies, while Sirius inspected the body with the blue robes a few feet from the door. Kingsley tried to move into the room further, but didn't make it more than two meters. He's eye's had adjusted to the darkness of the room and he caught sight of a young woman with chocolate brown hair and a hole in her chest the size of large fist. Nausea threatened to steal away his dignity and usefulness, but Kingsley forced it down.

"That one's alive."

Mad-Eye's statement effectively got the other two's attention. They followed his gaze to the center of the room.

"Bloody hell!" Sirius honestly had no idea how he missed the kid tied up in the middle of the room with red sneakers laying next to his socked feet, but he had. Faster than some would think humanly possible, Sirius was kneeling at the kid's side, halfheartedly avoiding the blood and vomit on the floor and ignoring the bowl he sent clattering across the room.

"My god, it's a child!"

The kid, tightly gagged, looked up at Sirius with wide uncertain eyes.

"It's okay kid," he reassured him. "I'm going to get you out of here."

As soon as he cast the spell to unbind the kid, Mad-Eye yelled at him and the kid jumped up and socked him in the jaw. The kid didn't have a great arm, but the punch had taken him completely off guard, as well as the sharp kick to the hand.

"KINGSLEY, STOP THAT BOY!"

Kingsley made a feeble grab at the boy with no success. Sirius was about ready to pummel Mad-Eye for scaring the kid off. But seeing the look of slight panic on the veteran's face, Sirius realized that something was off. Suddenly the whole situation settled wrong in his gut. Mad-Eye took off after the boy.

"STOP THAT BOY!"

Sirius took off as well, passing a worried and extremely confused Kingsley. He made it into the hallway just in time to see the kid disappear around a corner at the end of the hall. That kid was fast.

"Wait, kid! Stop! Come back!" Sirius quickly passed the peg legged grump and rounded the corner, then skidded to a halt. The kid was gone.

"SIRIUS, DON'T LET THAT KID GET AWAY!"

Mad-Eye also lumbered around the corner and slowed to a stop, followed closely by Kingsley, Dumbledore, and Sturgis. Moody's eye swiveled wildly searching the hallway. His normal eye rested on the floor, where periodic smears of blood trailed to the second door to the right. The boy had gotten blood from the summoning circle on one of his socks.

"He's in there," Mad-Eye stated and started for the door.

Sirius stopped Mad-Eye by grabbing his arm.

"Mad-Eye, wait! Why ar-"

"Get off of me, Black. We don't have time for this." Mad-Eye tried to shrug Sirius off, but Sirius tightened his grip..

Mad-Eye growled and rounded on Sirius, so that they were nose to nose.

"I said get off of me, Black."

A loud snapping noise came from the room the boy hid in, causing everyone to pause and look at the door.

"Alastor, Sirius, please calm yourselves," Dumbledore cut in in an authoritative tone. Once the two backed down he continued calmly, "Alastor, the boy is in that room correct?"

Mad-Eye nodded.

"Are there anymore exits besides this door?"

Mad-Eye's eye swiveled around towards the room. "No, but there are more ways to leave a room, Dumbledore."

"Yes, that is true, but unlikely, given the number of charms and wards put on the castle to prevent just that."

Mad-Eye looked like he wanted to argue, but chose against it.

"Now," Dumbledore looked sharply from Mad-Eye to Sirius and back. "Would you care to explain why we are chasing a frightened child through the Largras castle?"

Mad-Eye gave a long irritated sigh, before explaining himself. "As Stirgus may have already told you, Dumbledore, we found a summoning circle, along with Bolten, who seems to have been killed with the killing curse, while the others are all missing their hearts."

Dumbledore closed his eyes and heaved a tired sigh. He seemed to age ten years before their very eyes.

Moody continued, "seven sacrifices it would seem. There was Wolf's Bane that had already been burnt, which makes me think they've already attempted the summoning. But the lad was alive, bound and gagged in the middle of the circle and some of the sigils written on the ceiling had been activated."

The old wizards tiredness drained away and was replaced with a stern alertness. "That is concerning. Are you sure the sigils were activated?"

"Yes, Dumbledore."

"You aren't suggesting he's what they summoned, are you?!" Sirius asked, uncrossing his arms.

"You can't be serious!" Kingsley exclaimed.

"He's just a kid, not even Harry's age!" Siruis tried to reason. "He looked terrified and the punch he threw wasn't anything I would peg as otherworldly."

Dumbledore's eyebrows shot up, "he punched you?"

"And kicked his wand out of his hand." Moody informed disapprovingly.

Sirius scowled at Mad-Eye's tone. "That is besides the point! Do you really think that kid is some sort of demon?! It was just a kid!"

"Do you really think there is nothing suspicious going on? Didn't you think it was odd that he was the only one left alive?" Mad-Eye glared at Sirius. "The only one bound and gagged? In the center of the summoning circle? If you weren't always blindly rushing into things, you might have noticed something wasn't right!"

Again, that feeling of wrongness nudged the back of Sirus' mind, but he ignored it; it was just a kid.

"So what if he was alive? Maybe they hadn't gotten to him yet! Or maybe they needed a living sacrifice! I don't know much about summonings, you don't know much about summonings, because they've been taboo for so long, no one really knows anything about summonings!"

"Exactly my point! We don't know enough to understand what's going on! But there is something very wrong with the circumstances we found the boy in! You can't deny it, I know you feel it too."

"The kid isn't a demon! And he's definitely not the powerful demon king we were fearing!"

"That is not necessarily what Alastor is implying," Dumbledore answered Sirius.

"Then what, then?" He demanded in return.

"The only explanation I can think of is that the lad is a vessel for whatever they summoned," Mad-Eye answered. "The sigils meant to weaken spirits and demons were activated. And I will say there didn't seem to be anything off or wrong with the lad, but we can't take that chance."

"You are right, Alastor, this does indeed raise some concerns-"

Minerva Mcgonagall suddenly appeared next to Dumbledore with a small pop.

"The wards are down. We can now apparate as we please. We've managed to capture three more Death Eaters, they've been put with the rest. But beyond that it seems You-Know-Who's followers have all left. What are you all staring at? My presence can't be that surprising, can it?"

"I apologize, my dear," Dumbledore spoke. "I'm afraid you interrupted a rather tense conversation."

"Surly now is not the time to be arguing." Minerva admonished.

"A bit of a problem has come up ."

Minerva arched an eyebrow on her stern face.

"A boy has been found and there is reason to believe that he was meant to host the demon they summoned."

"And where is the poor boy now?!"

"He ran and hid in there." Sirius pointed, answering like a student being reprimanded by his teacher.

Immediately she marched for the door. Mad-Eye stepped in her way and started to say, "you don't seem to understa-" but Minerva cut him off.

"I understand enough! There is a boy in there that may or may not be carrying the demon inside him, more than likely against his will! And the lot of you are standing here arguing over who knows best while he is hiding in fear after who knows what he's been put through by the Dark Lord! I WILL HAVE NONE OF IT!"

She shoved past him and went to look for the poor boy. Moody silently but unhappily followed along with the others. Minerva immediately calling out to the boy and when she received no reply she cautiously began to search the room, while Moody ignored her and followed the blood trail to a broken broom. From there the trail started fading, but it was still visible and it lead right up to a cupboard. Upon seeing the cupboard, Moody let out a low growl and threw the small door open.

"He's gone."

"What?" Minerva halted her search.

"It's a transporting cupboard. He's gone."

"Can't we follow him?" Sirius asked.

"Don't be a moron, Sirius!" Moody barked, "this enchantment isn't meant for living people!"

"Wait." Dread threatened to crush Sirius then and there, "does-does that mean..?"

"That entirely depends on how far the journey is, I'm afraid," Dumbledore answered the unfinished question grimly.

"We need to find the other side of this cupboard now!" Minerva angrily demanded with an undetectable tremor of worry.

Elsewhere

Danny was falling. Danny was falling and he couldn't breathe; his breath had been forcibly sucked from his lungs and now there seemed to be no air to replace it. He didn't even feel any wind as he fell through a void at unknown speeds. He also couldn't see anything. Everything was just a black void, later he would wonder if he had his eyes closed. No, on second thought, this wasn't falling. Danny knew falling. He was being pulled, or maybe sucked or pushed. He didn't really know, but there was definitely an outside force involved. He couldn't move, and he. couldn't. breathe!

Suddenly, there was wood underneath him and he crumpled. His face suddenly smacked into a wall, but the wall just as suddenly moved out of the way and he fell. This is what falling is. Luckily, it wasn't too far of a fall, he met wooden floor boards rather quickly. His wrists began to sting with new vigor in the areas that the ropes had rubbed raw when they hit the floor. But as soon as all the movement stopped, Danny involuntarily, yet happily, sucked in as much air his overworked lungs could hold. After a moment of recuperating, he started to catch up with reality again. He had been summoned/kidnapped and he was currently being chased, and now he was no longer hidden. His sweaty hand still tightly gripped the slick broomstick. Still breathing irregularly, Danny started to get up and looked over towards the entrance to make sure no one was at the door yet, only to blink in confusion. The evil cultist lounge was no longer there. Instead, a small room lit by a lantern with a flickering candle hanging from the ceiling, cluttered with boxes, old furniture, and jars, lots and lots of empty glass jars, and smelled like musty rugs and an old wet sponge greeted him.

Danny jumped to his feet, backing away from the cabinet he fell out of, but definitely did not climb into. After realizing what must have happened Danny growled, "Arg! Would the universe, you know, stop moving me around to random locations?!"

A door behind him slammed open and he immediately spun around, holding up his broomstick the way he had seen his mom hold her bo-staff.

A woman stood frozen in the doorway. She had a morbidly decrepit face pinched into a permanent snarl. Her back curved, giving her a harmless, yet creepy appearance. Gray wiry hair sprang out of the painfully tight bun on the top of her head.

One second they were gaping at each other, the next she was jabbing one of those sticks in his face with her gnarled finger and screamed with glee, "I CAUGHT YOU! I'VE FINALLY CAUGHT YOU! STEAL MY ROSEMARRY WILL YOU, YOU FILTHY THEIVING RA-"

Her rant was cut short when Danny, in his panic, used his staff to whack the stick-weapon out of her hand, but he underestimated her grip. Instead of the stick flying across the room like he intended, it snapped. There was a small sizzle of light as the stick snapped in half. The shocked silence was only interrupted by the tip of the stick ratting across the floor.

Her eyes, widened in horror and her mouth hung open in shock quickly twisted into pure fury, making her twice as ugly as before. Danny took this as his cue to leave. He shoved past her, causing her to break out of her shock, and she began screeching obscenities he had never heard in his life. He slammed the door shut and braced himself against the door. Looking up he found himself behind the counter of an old, antique themed, spice shop. The shop was crammed with shelves and shelves of glass jars full of what he could only assume to be spices.

A man, presumably a customer, placed a small jar back on one of the shelves and glared at the dirty, shell shocked, halfa.

"What did you do, boy?" he asked accusingly and advanced towards him.

Danny, who didn't need anymore encouragement, leapt over the counter and bolted for the front door. A little bell tinkled as he flew out the door and into the cold night air. He barely paused to choose which direction to run in the deserted street that was too narrow for any kind of motorized vehicles. Something nagged in the back of his brain that something was off, he didn't have time to worry about it now. His socks quickly soaked up the water from the damp cobblestone as he sprinted down the alley.

The old woman's screeching echoed through the night and down the alley; she was outside now. Danny then remembered the first rule of running away from danger: run to safety. But he had no idea where safety was; he had no idea where he was. A candlelit lamppost caught Danny's attention. Beneath the lamp, the post had a street sign that read: Knockturn Alley.

The information meant nothing. Coming to a junction, Danny made a hard right onto an equally abandoned, yet wider, alley with no place for cars. Then, halfway down the alley, a warm, welcoming light pooled across the cobble. Sounds of echoing laughter and music grew in volume with the light. Two people stumbled out of the doorway, swaying and laughing. A part of Danny wanted to cry with relief, but the fighter inside of him remembered the male in the spice shop taking the old hags side; these people may not provide the help he needed.

But his feet throbbed, his sides pinched and ached, his lungs burned, and he still couldn't go ghost; he didn't see any better options. Plus, the door was close and the screeching woman was actually getting closer. A window on the other side of the alley caught his eye. With the dark, he couldn't be sure if what he thought he saw was accurate, but it had looked like it was a shop for antique brooms. Ignoring the broom shop, Danny shot past the two drunks, through the brick archway, and through a wooden door to stop in the middle of a shabby pub full of people with drinks in hand.

He had grabbed everyone's attention in the bar. Everyone had gone quite, the loudest noise in the room was his own panting and the profanic screams coming from outside.

Locking eyes with the bartender, Danny simply stated, "I need help."

Laughter broke out through out the bar. The bartender joined them, but motioned for Danny to hide behind the counter. Sending him a grateful nod, Danny ran and leapt over the counter then ducked down, holding his broomstick close. Not even a second later the old hag appeared in the doorway. Her breathing was unpleasantly loud as she marched up to the bar.

"TOM!"

"I'm going to ask you to watch your volume, Gertrude." Tom told her calmly, but the quiet drunken snickers offset his polite approach.

"Don't mess with me, Tom! Where is the little rat!?"

Danny couldn't help but notice that she had done as Tom asked and quieted down, somewhat.

"The Leaky Cauldron doesn't have a rodent problem, Ma'am."

"THE BOY, TOM! WHERE IS THE BOY? I KNOW HE'S IN HERE! I SAW HIM COME IN HERE!"

"Minors are not allowed in the bar after ten. Now, please leave, we are celebrating the 575th anniversary of the Leaky Cauldron and you are disrupting the atmosphere." Tom scowled at the old woman.

Danny couldn't see the hag's reaction, but he could hear the customers laughter and shouts of agreement.

"He's a thief and he-!"

"Boo!"

"We don't want to hear it! Just get out!"

"Leave, you old gillywart!"

"FINE! BUT I WILL-!"

"SCRAM ALREADY!"

There was a distinct splashing noise and the sound of a heavy cup hitting the floor, then roars of laughter. Danny watched the wrinkly face of the bald bartender named Tom as his eyes followed the hag out of the bar. It was obvious when the hag had finally made it out the door; Tom's face considerably softened and he looked back down at Danny.

"Don't worry, you can come out; she's gone." He informed over the laughter.

Danny slowly stood up and everyone cheered, for reasons beyond him. The attention and all the noise made him consider bolting again.

"There he is!"

"What did you do to her, Sonny?!"

"Tom! Give him a drink!"

"Yes! Let the lad drink!"

"Aright, alright! Enough of that!" Tom barked, "leave the boy be and go back to partying! Except for you, Bolderth! You clean the mess you made!" He pointed to the discarded wooden tankard on the floor.

The loud group crowed at Bolderth's misfortune and quickly moved on as Tom had asked. The bartender turned back to the Danny, taking in his appearance with a small frown. Normally, Danny would have felt self conscious under such scrutiny with the blood on his jeans and puke on the shoulder of his sweater, but at the moment all the oddities of the bartender had come to his attention. He had a British accent that didn't quite sound like the British accents Danny has heard. Also, Tom wore a tunic and an apron straight out of medieval times. In fact, everyone the bar wore strangely out of date clothes or robes. One lady, who sat at the bar scowling into her drink, wore a rumpled, bright green business suit. As if feeling his gaze, she glanced up at him. A spark of greedy curiosity shimmered in her beady eyes as she too scanned him up and down over her cat eye glasses that haphazardly sat on the tip of her nose, setting Danny further on edge.

"What's your name, young man?" Tom asked over the noise drawing Danny's attention away from the woman.

"Huh? Oh uh, Danny. Danny, my name is Danny," he stuttered out through his dry throat. "Thanks for helping me with… Gertrude…"

Tom grinned, "It was my pleasure, Danny. But isn't it a bit late for a young man, such as yourself, to be running around bothering old witches?"

Someone on the other side of the bar stumbled up onto a table and began belting a completely nonsensical song that everyone seemed to know and enjoy. A woman with bushy black hair threw her head back, laughing, a little too far and lost her balance. The man next to her tried to catch her, but they both ended up on the floor, both of them practically screamed with laughter. All of the noise grated on Danny's eardrums; he wanted to leave. He wanted out of the cramped and terribly warm building. He wanted a breath of the fresh cool air from outside.

Absently, Danny rubbed at his was something wrong with his core. The first and most obvious problem was he still couldn't access his powers. If he had to explain it to someone he may have told them it felt as though someone had wrapped his ghost core in plastic wrap; he could feel it through the thin barrier, but couldn't touch it. That lead to the second problem: It felt ready to explode. It felt too big for his chest. It buzzed with energy that begged to be released. It was highly uncomfortable and he couldn't sit still because of it. Even now his hands agitatedly twisted and tapped the broomstick and his feet wanted to move, to run. He needed to get home.

"Where are your parents, Danny?" The kind bartenders voice cut through the racket.

He hadn't noticed Tom squat down, getting closer and lowering himself past Danny's height. Suddenly, the nagging in the back of his head that insisted that something was off came back with answers in tow as Tom's words sunk in. It was night.

"We, huh, we were separated. How-how late did you say it was?"

"It should be about midnight…" He trailed off, eyebrows scrunched in worry causing his forehead to wrinkle even more.

"But… It wasn't even… I just had dinner with Sam and Tucker…"

Danny begun desperately digging through his jean pockets and nearly cried out in relief when he felt the scratched surface of his old flip phone in the front pocket. He flipped it open. Practiced fingers had already started punching in Jazz's cell number before he realized his phone wasn't on. His eyebrows crunched in worry, he could have sworn he had charged it last night. After mashing the power button a few times, he dryly licked his lips. Looking back up at the innkeeper, he missed Tom's confused expression and asked, "do you have a phone I could use? I need, I need to call my parents."

"A fown? I'm not sure what that is... But I have a bit of floo powder and a fire place you can use."

"A phone! You know, the thing you use to call…..What would I use a fireplace for?"

Tom opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He wasn't really sure what to say. So instead he pressed his lips together, not sure how to help the boy when they were completely misunderstanding each other. It could be because the boy was American.

Tom brushed off the strange interaction and over on, "here, let's get you cleaned up and then we'll figure out how we'll get you back to your parents."

Tom reached into the front pocket of his apron and pulled out a wand.

The drunken song ended and people cheered. Icy panic froze Danny as everything he had seen since he had been sitting in the park with Sam and Tucker raced through his mind and clicked. The magic sticks, the restricting symbols on the ceiling, the teleporting cabinets, the robes, the broom store, the time change, the strange clothes, the strange British accent, the lack of anything electronic, the summoning, it all added up. He was in different dimension, different timeline, different world, a different something. Getting home just became much more complicated.

In Danny's small state of shock, he didn't move as the barkeeper gave the wand a small flick, said, "extergeo."

Suddenly, his clothes were no longer damp with sweat, and the smell of blood and ash vanished.

Tom was one of them.

Danny needed to get out, to run, to fly, to disappear. But all he could do right now was run. So he did. He ran over the bar, out the door, and through the crowd in the small courtyard.

Some drunken soul shouted, "there he goes again!"

Danny ignored them and sprinted down the alley. This time he noticed more of the buildings he passed: Potage's Cauldron Shop, Quality Quiddich Supplies, Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, the Daily Prophet, Magical Menagerie. But the Second Hand Brooms and Apothecary caught his attention and favor; there happened to be a narrow gap between the two buildings full of boxes and hiding places.

After confirming that no one had actually followed him, he darted into the dark corner. Easing around the wooden crates, Danny saw an old, rickety ladder with moss growing on the rungs that lead to the roof of the Apothecary shop. At the top of the ladder, he found plants. Lots and lots of overgrown potted plants. A small, abandoned green house with a few cracked glass panes and shrubbery spilling out of it sat in the middle of the rooftop. He tentatively climbed over the ledge, keeping an eye out for any movement. The leaves of the plants rustled and swayed in the small breeze, a dog barked in the distance, but other than that, there was no sound and no movement. It was quite and he was alone.

He collapsed onto the ground. For a minute he just laid there, watching the sparse clouds drift across the moonless sky. The adrenaline finally began to wear off and left his limbs feeling heavy, soggy, shaky, and useless. Adrenaline rushes seemed to always make him extremely thirsty. This time was no exception, his mouth was dry and his throats had already begun to turn into sandpaper. Swallowing thickly, he ran a trembling hand through his surprisingly clean hair. Curiosity piqued, he slowly sat up into a sitting position, looking himself over. His jeans and sweater were spotless as if they had just been through the wash. He sniffed the sleeve of his sweater and it even smelled fresh out of the drier. He experimentily ran his hand through his hair again, not a speck of dandruff.

"Magic." Danny stated out loud to the empty roof.

When the roof made no move to either confirm or deny the statement, Danny groaned and flopped back down on the roof.

"I hate magic! I was done with magic after one ghost, for crying out loud! But now everyone can do magic?! What level of hell was I summoned to!?" He ranted as loudly as he dared, throwing his arms in the air in a lighthearted and exasperated manner that didn't match the level of worry that twisted at his gut.

He had no idea how to reverse a summoning, if that was even a thing. He also wasn't sure if this place was connected to the Ghost Zone like home was. He assumed so, Frostbite did call it the Infinite Realms for a reason, but he wasn't sure. That meant the chances of finding a natural portal potentially dropped lower than the normal sliver of a chance. He knew he had absolutely no chance without his ghost half, though.

His core throbbed against the barrier. The discomfort was now approaching borderline pain; it wasn't that bad but it was getting worse and Danny had no idea what to do. He sincerely hoped that the markings worked like the Plasmius Maximus in that it only lasted for a few hours.

He lifted his head as his stomach emitted a small growl and a dull ache, reminding him that he had lost the majority of his dinner not too long ago.

Sagging his head back onto the roof, Danny heaved a sigh and closed his eyes as if to block out any other problems that might make itself known.

"This reeks."

Thank you guys for all your support and enthusiasm for this story.

I had a few wonderful people point out some flaws that totally didn't make me want to slam my head against the keyboard and die a million and one deaths.

Like the whole Beatrice \ Bellatrix thing…

(Thank you, guest #5)

The original plan was to stop the chapter as soon as Danny read the Knockturn Alley sign. So, you know. You can ignore the fact it took me six months to post again and be greatful I didn't cut this chapter in half.

Reviews are appreciated and reread over and over and over and over.

(Not a Pineapple, you made me laugh, thank you.)

Rosy out!

Date posted: 7-26-17