A smirk growing wide on her face as she looked up and seemed to stare straight at Charla herself. After this last one, the visions broke off and Charla fell back with a gasp and almost fell off the table, panting for breath and looking decidedly frightened.
...
"Oh… oh my gosh…" she whispered hoarsely to herself. "That was… that was…"
"Was that a vision?" Wendy asked hurriedly. "A premonition of the future?"
"What did you see?" Happy asked. "Did you see Natsu?"
"Yes I… yes, I saw him," Charla nodded slowly. "But not just him… I saw… I saw… oh gods… why do I get the feeling that all the stuff I saw then… was just the beginning?"
...
"This place… it's fantastic…" Charlie Weasley breathed as he drank in the sights around him. "Now this is a place where I'm sure I could quite happily settle down. And that tree! Man, if Professor Sprout got a load of that tree, she's probably die happy on the spot."
"Best not bring her out here then," Mavis smiled as she hovered nearby, looking out fondly across the island. "Though Sirius seems to be enjoying himself."
"He would be," Remus grimaced lightly as he watched the dog running around snapping lightly at each other's tails nearby. "After months of being cooped up in a house full of unpleasant memories, anyone would be."
When the group at Grimmauld Place had woken up that morning, Mavis had started talking with some of the remaining members about some of the more short-term plans for both Fairy Tail and the Order Lisanna had, naturally, been very quick to bring up the rescue of the Clipper birds from the Ministry. Though the Order remained adamant that probably the best way of getting the birds free was to try and befriend the Ministry somehow instead of doing something that would only make Fairy Tail look worse in their government's eyes, they had agreed to do their best to make sure the birds got back to their island safe and sound.
And in lieu of that, Mavis had volunteered to take a group to Tenroujima so they could see the place for themselves, which is where they were now. Mavis had been able to point out the island's exact location on a map she was shown despite the fact she couldn't pick out any of the other places they'd visited, and the group comprised of Remus, Charlie and Alastor Moody, all of whom were available. But since there was no chance of being recognised by anyone here, Sirius had been eager to come and this time nobody had denied him, which was why he and Lisanna was currently playing together.
"It's impressive, I grant you," Moody clunked over the stones, his eye spinning in his head to look up at the tree while the rest of him focused on Mavis. "But are you certain there's no chance of someone stumbling on this island by accident. That tree doesn't exactly strike me as something people won't notice."
"That is true, but there are spells woven around the island, raised by myself while I was still alive and held in place by the Tenrou Tree. Special magical filters ward people away unless they specifically intend on going there and if they do come in sight of it they usually don't notice it. They see it of course, but the magic keeps their minds from registering its presence."
"The principal sounds a little similar to a Fidelius," noted Moody. "But can anyone give the location of the island away to an enemy?"
"Yes, that they can."
"Well, perhaps its not as precise as a Fidelius then, in which only one person can give the location away effectively, unless of course that person is killed."
Sirius bounded back over and reverted back to his human shape, stretching his arms wide and grinning like a lunatic. "Oh, now this is nice. Wish this place had been around when I'd been on the run without using my lovely old family home. I'm pretty sure I could live here."
"Well, this is a place where all animals and all people with good hearts are welcome," Mavis smiled. "Which means that my answer is yes. Should the need ever arise, I give you permission to use this island as a base for the Order. There's no buildings here anymore though so you'll have to use a cave or construct something it you want a roof over your head but you may indeed use it."
"We appreciate it," Remus nodded. "But hopefully it will never get to that stage. Astonishing as this island is, it is rather out of the way, whereas Grimmauld Place is right in the middle of London, which means its more ideally located to responding to any Death Eater threats. But should Grimmauld Place ever become unusable for whatever reason, this will make a good back-up."
"As far as I'm concerned, Grimmauld Place is already unusable," Sirius scoffed.
"Unpleasant perhaps, but not unusable," Remus chuckled pointedly.
"What I wouldn't give to have a home like this though," Sirius murmured. "I dunno how the heck you'd be able to transport yourselves and this entire island back into your own universe, Mavis, but I'm half tempted to ask if I can come with. In fact, I probably would if there weren't still a few very important things to keep me here."
"Like Harry?" Mavis asked. She'd not met the boy but she'd already heard much about him.
"Like Harry," Sirius confirmed.
"Family is very important," Mavis looked up at the tree, smiling fondly as she felt nostalgia wash over her, remembering well the seven years that she'd spent living here with Zeira. "Even if that family is not yours by blood."
"Got that right," Charlie agreed. "Anyway, we should probably head back. We now know where we need to take the birds - now we just need to figure out a way of transporting them all here. Assuming we can find a way to get them out of the Ministry. Let's just hope that we can get that sorted soon. We should go - Kingsley will be waiting to escort you into the Department of Mysteries to get a look at that Sphere."
...
"Damn, this place gives me the willies," Gray murmured as he walked down one of the halls of Grimmauld Place, staring at the slightly macabre decorations on the walls, or rather doing his absolute best not to.
"Juvia doesn't think that Sirius-san was exaggerating when he spoke of how horrible his family was," Juvia shivered. "Sirius-san must have had a horrible childhood growing up in a place like this."
"I'm astonished anyone could grow up in a place like this at all. Or at the very least grow up and not become as twisted as the rest of the family," Gray muttered, pausing and grimacing as he belt a row of small and decidedly non-human heads on spikes nearby. "I don't even know what those are but whoever thought that would be a nice thing to put in the hall has to have gone round the twist."
"Those poor creatures," Juvia agreed.
"Shows what she knows," a grumbling voice from nearby made them both jump, and they turned to see a small, wrinkled… thing… with large and drooping bat-like ears and a long pointed nose just like row of heads. "Think they can come swanning in here, all talk of another universe and use my poor Mistress' house like a free hotel. Oh, that nasty brat's done us shame bringing in all these Mudbloods and blood traitors already but now he brings people who don't even belong in this world. People who desecrate the house even more and even freeze my Mistress' portrait. Slimy, foul alien scum tainting our very world with their unnatural magic…"
"Who the heck are you?" Gray demanded, glaring at the small thing as it continued its grumbling tirade.
"Oh, now its talking to Kreacher, poisoning his ears with the very noises it makes. Oh, it cannot go on. What other atrocities will they be bringing in next? What have they not brought in already?"
Juvia shivered slightly, under the sunken glare of this little creature, but she reasoned that he must be a resident of this house so she decided it might be best to try and get along. She knelt down in front of him and, smiling openly, she said, "Juvia is delighted to meet you, Kreacher-san. That is your name, isn't it? Juvia is sorry for intruding upon your house but Juvia is sure that if you get to know us…"
But Kreacher was bristling angrily and hissing slightly, "It thinks it can come into Kreacher's own house and mock him! Filthy water woman! Kreacher hopes it dies horribly from drowning - that would be ironic."
Juvia pulled back in shock, stung by Kreacher's words, and Gray immediately flared up and stepped up next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and glaring down at the small humanoid thing. "How dare you talk to her like that! You call us filthy!? That's rich coming from something that doesn't look like its had a bath in decades!"
Feeling Gray's comforting hand there and having him come to her defence would normally send Juvia into a maelstrom of romantic fantasising but she was too shocked by Kreacher's violent reaction to attempting to befriend him to fully register it. "Ju… Juvia is sorry if she's offended you. Is there anything Juvia can to to make up for it!?"
"It's apology is still a mockery! What has old Kreacher done to deserve being derided by some blue-haired wench from another world!"
Gray snarled. "If you don't shut that mouth of yours right now I swear I'll…!"
"What's going on here?" Mrs. Weasley's voice broke across him as she hurried up the hallway.
"This thing keeps insulting us!" Gray growled. "I thought we'd had enough of that when we'd left that Jarvey behind."
"To be fair to the Jarvey, Juvia doesn't think that his insults were attempts to be mean… like Kreacher-san's."
"Who does she think she is, coming in here where Kreacher has lived his whole life and making fun of him, and then complaining to blood traitors when Kreacher defends himself," Kreacher muttered to himself. "Vermin and wizarding wastes, every one of them."
Mrs. Weasley sighed and said, "Just leave him. He won't listen to me if I tell him to stop. Come on dears, come down to lunch. I hope you're hungry because after all you've been through you deserve a good meal."
"But why did he get so angry at Juvia?" Juvia asked as they complied and followed her towards the stairs. "Juvia was only trying to be nice."
"I think… he may have thought you were making fun of the way he talks," Mrs. Weasley ventured. "Kreacher's a House Elf, you see. Many House Elves speak in the third person and I must say its rather unusual for a human to do the same, like you do, dearie. Out of curiosity, why do you choose to talk like that? Is it how you were raised perhaps?"
...
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