CHAPTER 1

A giant wolf was silently prowling the underbrush. He never let his immense size affect his stealth skills. Only recently he came to this rich land with so many sources of food. The others avoided the place, but he chose to go nonetheless. Hunting in the area was very easy. The local animals did not know how to detect him before it was too late. At least that's what happened to the yeanling he killed two sleeps ago.

His target was quietly chewing on the grass, the perfect prey. The adult doe was so far unconcerned. He didn't feel anything for the doe. It was only a piece of meat for him to consume later. The place he should aim for is just below the neck. That would take four leaps for him to reach now. He crept closer still for three leaps is all he wanted. That would give him the kill.

He was a few steps away from three leaps when the doe's head suddenly shot upwards. It seemed to look at him … or not … it looked a bit to his left. He stilled completely. Now he let his instincts take over. He let out a small growl as he let his body accelerate to its maximum in an instant. In a single leap he covered more than a quarter of the doe immediately ran, to his left. He chased after her with quick leaps. Second and he lands in front of the spot the doe was looking at. He barely registered a heavy pressure in the air, but ignored everything for the doe. As soon as his legs kicked off the ground, he noticed a glowing green ball of energy in his flight path. He instinctively tried to close his mouth around the ball, but something painful originated in his body very quickly.

His balance out, he landed awkwardly and lost the momentum. He knew the doe was out of his reach, but decided to run after her nonetheless. He made a few more strides and then completely gave up on it. His insides hurt more and more. He found a quiet nook and laid down to let the pain pass. It was morning time, but maybe a nap would be good.

The wolf closed his eyes, never to open them again. The pain originated from the burn he made from the plasma-like hot green ball of energy. It cooked his insides. His kidneys were coal black, stomach was burned through, and skin singed at the rear.

The glowing green ball of energy dimmed considerably with the passing of the wolf, but soon regained its green glow. It became brighter and expanded out almost touching the ground. At two and a half meters in height, it stopped expanding and hovered in place. Three unremarkable birds passed through and then flew back in. Two minutes later four men came out in light flowing green wear. They quickly looked around the small clearing and then started talking.

"There's no sign of whatever tried to stop the portal, Nev" came the voice of a man of medium height.

"I see nothing either, Blaise." the tall blond said.

"I see a previous heat signature that passed through this place. Looks to have been within the last five minutes. Can be animal or man. I don't know." the man with an almost femininely beautiful face said.

"Colin, tell the others we are all clear for now. I'll check the signatures meanwhile" the blond man, Neville, said to the feminine one.

Colin stepped back through the portal to a richly furnished room of large proportions. This is something they've been working on for several years. Twenty meters wide and covered in hieroglyphs and runes of different styles and languages, this room enjoyed the input of several billion galleons. The metallic circle supporting the portal played the role of a platform for him to step through and tell the others:

"It's clear in there. Everything is under control. Unit five, move in." Colin could easily handle any nervousness he had. He was a proud father of a great son. He handled more stressful situations than entry into a different universe. Turning around, he felt the unit move behind him. The others spread around him quickly. Funnily enough, the passage through the portal was nothing spectacular. It only was an intangible veil that blocked his vision that would disappear as soon as he crossed.

The leader in the back working along with the others took a look at his creation. It was a relatively new design. Travelling between worlds had been made easier and safer by him and his team. No matter how much Tiamat said her creations were perfect, even she admitted the efficiency of his device.

Everything was checked and rechecked about forty times at the least before the first jolt of power was sent through the machine. That day his goal of the last three years came to life. Quick strides led him towards the portal, his wife and confidante at his side. His equal, his love, his life, Xiana was everything he wanted. She was the one for whom he turned away riches unknown to man, glory only slightly imaginable. Just so he could be her lifemate in soul and body. He led her to the portal and made the first step.

Harry stepped through the portal. He came up to see a defensive formation by his entourage. Fourteen members of the Scorpion Army positioned themselves around the portal.

The world that greeted them was lush and green. There was a forest around them with many familiar and normal trees growing. They emerged in a small clearing inside the forest.

As Harry looked back, he saw an exceedingly large tree looming behind the portal. It must have been a kilometer high, if not more. The trunk was incredibly thick, about 60-70 meters in diameter.

Then he felt it, the strong magical resonance in the air. Now that he started paying attention to it, he felt a very strong magical field. This was very much unlike Earth, where magic was very thin in the air. Here it was thick and alive. He felt the magic inside of him respond to it with notes that made him distinctly happy.

"Do you feel it? Do you feel the magic?" Harry asked.

"Yes, it's beautiful! I never felt so much magic in one place, not even in the Lair," said Xiana, who stepped through the portal before him.

"I agree. We should spread out." Harry commanded. "Brooms out and lets go near that tree."

As one, they took out their brooms and mounted up. They rose to a height 10 meters above the trees, which were about 15-20 meters each. They flew in the formations of diamond shape, with one man leading, two diagonally behind the first to either side and the last behind the first one.

Harry set a comfortable pace to the tree. They reached it in only 5 minutes, but they had time to look around the area in the meantime. This seemed to be a forest completely untouched by any civilization. Everything here was absolutely natural. There was a small pond two hundred meters away and an antlered animal started running about 400 meters away.

Harry took all of this in, especially a humanoid silhouette standing on the top of a faraway hill.

"I see a contact!" Harry yelled out to his team. He switched to the intercommunication device. "Turn left sixty degrees. Only a half a klick away."

"Yes, I see him."

"Understood"

The replies were all done over the intercom.

As they flew close, they landed about a hundred meters in front of him and approached on foot. Of course every one of them set a personal shield over themselves. They could not assume that the intentions of the stranger could only be benign.

As they approached him, they saw that he had the most distinct purple skin and long ears. Those ears were longer than even those of house elves. They all made sure to have relaxed and positive facial expressions.

The other man was about 6 feet tall with a well built body. His features were handsome and his eyes shone from within. He had a bow slung across his chest and a quiver of arrows on his back. There was a dagger in a sheath by his right hip and a small axe strapped to his left calf. The clothes he wore looked looked well made, but they were clearly medieval. There were two wrist sheaths that were finely crafted. Also a full pouch was hanging from his belt.

The purple man started speaking in his own tongue, most probably in greeting. The language seemed to be flowing and very beautiful. Unfortunately Harry could not understand him. Harry showed by hand signals that he could not communicate well. He pointed to his mouth and spoke a few words of greeting and shook his head. He then pointed to his head, said aloud "Talk with mind" and sent a mental communication to the purple man. The mental message read:

"Hello. My name is Harry Potter. We come from a different world. Can you understand me?"

The beautiful thing about mental communication is that it did not have language barriers. The purple man looked confused for a moment, then a large smile broke on his face. He nodded and sent a surprisingly well constructed mental message.

"Greetings to you, stranger Potter. My name is Lonius Whiteraven. What brings you to our world?"

"I am coming here because I'm looking for a beautiful world to explore. I'm a scientist and an explorer and I have seen most of what my world offers to explorers. I'm a wizard and I can make my stay here worth your while." Harry replied.

"Do not worry, stranger. The food is plentiful this time of year and I am curious about your group here. Come to my village two hours that way," the other man replied calmly.

"Thank you, Lonius" Harry sent.

"Team, this man is Lonius Whiteraven. He wants us to come to his village. It's supposed to take about two hours.

During the trip the long eared man introduced his race as KalDorei, or children of the stars. Others knew them as Night Elves. They had a long history filled with strife and tragedies. They possessed infinitely long lives and were blessed so by the goddess Elune.

The man himself turned out to be a hunter. He had been looking out for a predator that recently appeared in the area. His people took a vow in the ancient times to keep this area free of any carnivores.

Harry shared the history of his people. He told the hunter of the vast magical world in his dimension, of millions of magical users and of the billions of nonmagicals. Population in his dimension neared 8 billion sentient beings. The world lived in an age of peace for the last decade. Harry specifically left out any comments that would let Lonilus see how powerful he and his group were. He explained the wars of the magicals, the great conflict of the Vampires. After that, he told him of the uniting of the two major worlds on his planet –magical and non-magical.

Lonius was impressed with the tales that the stranger was sending him. The elf never heard of the commodities those mundanes came up with. Twenty minutes later Harry was finished with a general overview of his world. He then sent a request to see into Lonius' mind and extract the Darnassian language. He sent a mild invisible compulsion charm as well. He did not need to deal with unwanted resistance from the elf. So they stopped and Harry quickly explained what he was doing to the rest of the group. Harry looked deeply into the eyes of the elf and they stayed still. Fifteen minutes later the elf started moving around naturally, but Harry stayed that way for 4 more minutes. Then he looked into each the eyes of each of his friends and they each looked at each other for 5 minutes, while the memories were transferring. They started spreading the information virally. Each one pitched in to the transfers as soon as they were able. At the end they all had a lunch and after a 30 minute rest, moved on.

By this time, every one of them learned Darnassian. So they all talked freely with the hunter. The trip afterwards turned out to be much livelier with Lonilus telling stories of his people to all of the travellers this time. They were going south towards the outpost and reached it within the hour.

They were not met warmly. The village had a translator that started speaking to them in an unfamiliar language. Most probably this was the language spoken by humans of this world. The facial expressions of everyone were very guarded, so Harry felt a touch nervous when he started talking in Darnassian.

"Good evening, noble watchers of Nordrassil. I come to you for a visit from a different world."