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Nature Laughs Chapter Two- He's Not Laughing

Heimdall smiled as he watched the World-Walker make his way towards the Bifrost. He seemed happy today, as happy as the Allseeing god had seen him in almost a century. He knew it had to do with the large wolf that was trotting beside him. Fenrir seemed to have discovered a love for playing in the water, and often soaked the wizard completely during his weekly baths.

Heimdall saw Harry act irritated, but both he and the wolf knew there was no real heat to it, and that it really just amused the wizard.

Harry only smiled and acted like that on the planets in which he adopted young ones. Those were also the jumps he was extra cautious in, not wanting to die and leave the dependents unprotected until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

Harry and Fenrir arrived, racing, the wizard on his broom, and the wolf running gleefully. They arrived at nearly the same time.

"Good evening Harry, what brings you here?" Heimdall asked, though he knew very well. Whenever the wizard was happy, truly happy, he had to spread it around. Which meant that, along with the food he normally brought, Harry brought one more member.

Thor ran up behind him, color high in his cheeks from exertion as he looked at the broom Harry had used to win the race by a hair.

"That is a fascinating instrument, World-traveler! What is it?" The god asked boisterously.

Harry blinked at him as though he had no idea that Thor had followed him after the race had passed by the blond a ways back. Heimdall knew very well that, not only had he been very aware of the time Thor joined, he also planned it that way. "It's a broom." He answered simply, shrugging. "Are you hungry, Thor?"

Thor nodded seriously. "Verily."

"Alright then. Heimdall, I hope you don't mind if he joins!" Harry said, walking over to the Allseeing god with a smile. Heimdall returned it, shaking his head.

And so, like before they all settled down to eat, with one more member.

Thor, who had been curious of the world-walker since his arrival and the shocking revelation of his role in the End, expressed it as he always did. As bluntly as possible. "World-traveler, how long have you been jumping." He asked with no segue.

Harry shrugged. "There's no way to accurately tine it, because time is measured differently in almost every world, but I'd estimate around eight hundred years."

Thor frowned slightly. "Forgive me, but I thought humans only lived to be a century at best."

The wizard tilted up his eyebrow. "That's most humans, yeah. But where I come from, the oldest person I knew was one hundred and fifteen, and would have still lived quite a long time if he wasn't killed. My people are unusually long lived. But even then, I guess none of them would have lived as long as me... But you already knew I was unlike most humans." He pointed out. Thor nodded thoughtfully.

Heimdall watched the exchange with some amusement. Where most people would have grown weary of Thor's indelicate questions, Harry just answered every single one of them with patience.

"What are your travels like?" Thor finally asked, obviously the question he had been leading to. Harry had to think about that one.

Heimdall cut in. "They are varied, young Odinsson. Some better than others. How about you tell us about the first time you jumped, Harry, and then maybe the one where you inadvertently became the Emperor."

Harry groaned. "Those two specifically?" He asked, though humor was shining in his eyes.

Heimdall nodded seriously, "For contrast."

The wizard nodded. "Fine." Then began...

Harry spun around frantically, more than a little panicked. One moment he was watching the body that once belonged to the greatest Dark Lord in at least half a century crumble to so much dust, the next...

He had no idea where he was.

Another point of contention was that his right hand, which had been gripping Draco Malfoy's wand, was empty.

Without pause, he threw himself to the ground in a defensive crouch, looking around with sharp eyes.

A Death Eater must have gotten him from behind, and the young wizard cursed himself for letting himself relax too soon.

Now he was wandless, in a strange place, and... fuck him! He was naked!

Deciding instantly that his modesty was a lot less important than his life, he ignored that last point for now.

But there was no wand pointing his way. In fact, he was seemingly alone in the middle of nowhere.

Standing slowly, he sighed gladly when he saw his school trunk sitting not too far away.

He made to move towards it, but drew up his foot with a hiss as he stepped on something that sent a shock of electricity up his spine. Crouching down warily, he frowned when he realized it was the Stone, still set in the Ring.

Harry knew he had dropped the damn thing in the Forbidden Forest, losing it on purpose. And yet, here they both were in a place that was obviously not the Forest. Not a forest at all actually, he thought, glancing around again. He was well aware this could be a trap.

But unless the Death Eaters could somehow bury themselves in preparation for an overly complicated trap, there was no way anyone was hidden around here.

He was in a pretty vast field, surrounded by bright bursts of flowers he could not even begin to name.

Shaking himself slightly, he quickly picked up the Ring, tensing just in case Death Eaters were waiting to spring something on him. When nothing happened, he slipped it on his finger (having no where else to put it in his state of dress) and continued to the trunk.

Only to trip over something that zapped him like the Ring. The only reason he did not land on his face with his bare ass in the air was the training he had gone through with Moody. Instead he twisted his body to land on nimble feet, low to the ground.

Harry almost expected it when he saw it was the Elder Wand, buried tip down in the loamy earth, that had sent him ass over teakettle.

"I'm beginning to see a pattern here." He muttered to himself, wrenching the wand from the ground.

The wizard stood again with a sigh, wondering if the Cloak was going to be his next obstacle.

With a grunt, he moved forward again, this time taking a look at the ground every few seconds. He really should have been doing that before, but he was so intent on what was around him that he made the common mistake of not looking down. Or up! No one thought to look up either! He rapidly incorperated that direction in his surveillance, cursing himself for not thinking of it before.

'Wizards have brooms, Potter!' the voice of Moody barked in his head. He winced and offered an apologetic smile to a man that was not there. That would never be there again. His trainer was dead.

Shaking off the depression that threatened to overwhelm him at that thought like a stifling blanket (Oh God, he didn't know the body count of the battle! Was it still going on? What if Ron or Hermione were-)

He wouldn't know that if he sat there naked, he thought to himself with a scowl.

He finally made it over to the trunk, throwing it open and half expecting it to be empty.

But no, there were all of the things he had put into it last time, including the Cloak, which he had half thought had been lurking on the ground somewhere waiting to trip him.

Wasting no time, he used the recovered Wand to cast detection spells at the things in the trunk, making sure there were no malignant incantations.

Nothing.

So here he was, naked, alone, originally wandlessly, in a strange place, and the only thing that could have been read as even slightly malicious was making him trip over the Wand... and even that just resupplied him with the most powerful wand in existence.

Barely even a prank, at best. Maybe it was an ill conceived prank...

But who in the world would prank him right after he defeated Voldemort?! Not even Fred and George would be that ridiculous.

Granted, the might do something like this at a less stressful time, but they wouldn't give him an easy way to rearm and reclothe himself.

Well, prank or not, Harry was not laughing.

Grunting and shrugging on some robes, he reached for the Cloak, only to recoil when it zapped him like the Ring and Wand had.

"What is that all about?" He growled. He already knew there was no malicious magic on it. But maybe it was something beyond his skill at detecting.

Then again, nothing happened after the other two Hallows did the same thing...

He pulled on the Cloak, eyes sharp on all of his surroundings. But still, nothing happened. He pulled off the Ring and tossed it into the trunk, before shrinking the whole thing down and putting it in his pocket. He had to get moving if he was going to figure out where he was.

"I managed to live in that world for all of two weeks before dying of starvation. I didn't even realize I wasn't on my own world." Harry admitted. Needless to say, the first jump had not been fun. It had been far from the worst jump, but still...

Thor tilted his head. "I do have a few questions about your story, World-traveler." He said.

"Fire away, Odinsson." Harry replied.

Thor nodded. "Well, first is, you were not naked when Sif and I found you, so was the just special circumstance of that world, or do you appear naked on every world and just put on clothes?"

The wizard grimaced. "Actually, I appeared naked in most of my first few jumps, but it didn't take long for me to figure out two things. One, that the Cloak would repair itself if torn, and two, that anything that had a Hallow in it came with me on the jumps. So I ripped off small pieces of the Cloak and sewed them into the hems of all of my clothes."

Both gods snickered at his expense, and the wizard pouted slightly. After that, Thor continued. "You mentioned people in your story, Ron, Herm-something, Moody, and Fred and Gorge."

"Ron and Hermione were my first and best friends, and most cherished allies. Kind of like the Warrior Three to you. Moody was my trainer, like I said. He could be a right bastard when you didn't get something right, but I advanced a lot under his care. And Fred and George, not gorge, were Ron's brothers. Twins and pranksters, but with the best business sense I have ever seen." He answered, his eyes going slightly misty at the memory.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Thor with a pained expression on his face. The way the World-traveler had made the twins sound was a lot like Loki.

Not as humorous as the first chapter, but someone asked for a description of the first jump, and here it is. Tune in next weekend for the next chapter, and keep an eye on Crestfallen, it'll be updated tomorrow. Lot of love.

Lionna