First Encounters

Truth be told, there was much Harry could have told Hermione - it was just a matter of finding the best way to do so. And if he knew himself at all, he knew that he would mess it up somehow. Tact had never been his strong suit, and that hadn't changed over the years he had spent among the Clayr - the only thing that had changed was his ability to stay silent, rather than to blurt out his feelings as soon as he felt them.

No, Myriel would be better suited to give the answers that Hermione sought - and those she couldn't provide, she would know of one who could.

At least Hermione's first meeting with Myriel would go a bit smoother than his own had.

His first journey beyond these rooms had not been successful. He had walked for perhaps ten minutes, before he had returned to his original room, exhausted from his trek.

It had been months since he had walked any great distance, locked in his prison cell in Azkaban. After all that time of disuse, his body could no longer handle long periods of exercise. As he collapsed back on the bed he had originally woken, Harry barely even noticed the Sending which drew a blanket over him, food and drink placed next to the bed on a small table.

When he awoke, he found the food still warm, though in his lees-addled mind he didn't take notice of the rune that floated just above the food, disappearing once he touched the food.

It was as he was eating the food - he had become accustomed to the Sendings by now - that Harry considered his next course of action. If he was going to make it beyond these rooms - and he had been here several days already, and he had seen no sign of another person - then he would have to walk for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Harry had been uncomfortable before - living with the Dursleys had ensured that he was no stranger to pain, and his stay in Azkaban had only hammered home that lesson. No, he was no afraid of pain, or even hunger.

But Azkaban had taught him one thing about himself - and that was what he feared the most. Not pain, not injury, not even death. He was most afraid of being alone.

He supposed it made sense; now that he had the time and presence of time to think about it, he realized that even as a small child he had sought out the company of others, even when he knew that it would bring him nothing but pain.

It was that fear that drew him to feet a day later. He had spent the past 24 hours exploring the rooms around him, digging through the chests to find clothing and the most comfortable shoes he could find. A small pack of what he assumed was leather, he filled with food provided by the sendings. Every time he had asked them where he could find another actual person, they always simply pointed in the direction he had originally set out for.

It never crossed his mind to request that the sending simply bring one of these people to him.

Later, when he was safe and warm and with those he could trust, Harry would look back on that moment and wonder. Why had he never even considered that there might be others that the Sendings could bring to him? And he would realize, with a sinking feeling, that he had never considered that help might come for him - that it never had before in his life, so why should this time be any different?

The clothing he found was certainly not what Harry was accustomed to; loose fitting pants that swished as he walked, a long tunic that fell nearly to his knees. The same symbol adorned the front of the tunic, was stitched into the right leg of his pants. And those comfortable shoes he had been hoping to find? Slippers. Had Harry looked, he would have found runes covering the soles of the slippers - symbols to help with comfort and durability. But he hadn't looked, and thus had little hope for the journey he knew he was about to undertake.

Harry felt rather silly, acting like he was about to go hiking when all he could see was a hallway. A dingy, narrow, dusty hallway, of course - but a hallway all the same. Not so different from some of the corridors of Hogwarts, particularly in the lower levels, beneath even the Slytherin Common Room.

But no help was coming. He truly believed that. How long had it been already? A week? Perhaps longer? Those first few days were still a haze in his memory; filled with pain and fear. At any moment he had expected to be thrown back into his cell, or to awaken to discover that it had all been a hallucination, or a dream. Yet he had been in too much pain to even move very far;

These rooms were primitive, though not as much so as the cells of Azkaban Prison had been. A chamber bot stood in the corner of the rooms he had taken as his own, and he had barely the abilityy to stumbled even to that, in those first few days.

Now, as Harry readied himself for his journey, he eyes caught on that chamber pot, and a new questions suddenly had him pausing. He had seen the Sendings taking the chamber pot before, of course, in order to empty it. The reek of it would have been overwhelming by now, if they hadn't. But where did they take it? Where was it emptied? Somewhere outside, certainly. Somewhere far beyond these rooms.

It was a simple matter to make his inquiry to one of the Sendings who had done everything in their power, up to that point, to facilitate his every demand. Moments later, Harry found himself facing another corridor, though in a much better state of repair than the one he had been presented previously.

The corridor ended abruptly after only a few minutes of walking, a blast of cold air hitting his face as he was presented with a view that was, quite honestly, both breathtakingly beautiful and starkly frightening.

Harry knew what the area around Azkaban Prison looked like; he had viewed it from the single window of his cell often enough. Azkaban Prison had been built on an island - a dreary, dark island where the wind and rain rarely let up enough for the sun to peak through, and even then it was a stunted light - a dark shadow of what he remembered from his earlier childhood.

But what he witnessed that day was far from dark and dreary. Sunlight nearly blinded him, after so long in the dark. When his vision finally cleared enough to understand what he was seeing, Harry still had a difficult time grasping that what he was seeing was true.

A winding valley spread out before him, a wide river winding through it. All around him, snow capped mountains took up his sight, a chill wind blowing bits of snow into his face.

This wasn't right. Not even remotely. Nowhere even close to Azkaban Prison did such a place exist. And on the horizon, he could see a city; bridges and tall buildings made tiny by the distance. But it was clear that it was a city.

It wasn't until Harry stepped out onto the ledge, and into the chill air fully, that he realized that another city lay all around him. More a part of the mountain than a seperate entity, he could make out a large bridge and wide open doors, admitting horse drawn carts and individuals.

Horse drawn carts? Harry frowned as he squinted at the sight, trying to grasp what it was he was seeing.

Of course, in the wizarding world they were a bit behind the times, and the very right might still make use of of carriages. Hogwarts certainly used them, though the horses were magical in nature.

But not carriages like this. He was close enough to make out that the carriages themselves were laden down with packages, though he was still too far away to make out just what those packages might be. But these were beasts of burden, not school children being brought to a magical castle for their equally magical education.

No, none of this made any sense. It was like he had been brought back in time, or to some far flung corner of the planet where technology had not quite caught up with the lives of the people who lived there.

It was a sudden gust of strong air that brought Harry's attention back to his immediate surroundings, and away from the view that stretched out before him.

A woman sat upon a strange winged beast, that seemed both frail and yet powerful enough to carry it's rider with no sign of complaint. It's rider was female - long blonde hair pulled back into a tight braid behind her head, skin dark not from a tan, but from it's natural coloring.

The woman was regarding him in silence, her light blue eyes never wavering from his face. Like everything else he had seen since first awakening in this place, everything about her screamed old fashioned - from the strange armor that she wore, to the sword he could see strapped across her back.

And this was no ornamental sword; it was the real deal, even he could tell that with his untrained eye. No jewels of inscriptions were visible, only a rough leather sheath and a handle that had seen use, though carefully cared for.

A string of unfamiliar words came from the woman, and Harry stepped back in alarm. It was unlike any language he had ever heard, either in person or on the telly, and it only added to his confusion and fear.

Another sharp string of strange sounds came from the woman. "I - I don't understand what you're saying!" Harry finally managed to gasp out, his back pressed against the wall next to the opening he had stepped out of.

The woman frowned now, the first sign of emotion or personality he had seen in her, before he raised one hand to draw in the air, blue fire lingering where her hand had passed as she whistled out a short tune.

Harry frowned, his confusion and curiosity dampening his fear somewhat.

He always had been too curious for his own good.

"What are you-" He didn't quite manage to finish his sentence, however, as he suddenly slumped forward, unconscious.

When Harry regained consciousness, he jerked to wakefulness and into an upright position, staring wildly around himself.

He was no longer on the ledge, exposed to the elements. Instead, he lay in an austere stone room; the bed on which he lay was hard, the blanket above him thin. The only other decoration in the room was a single wooden chair, on which a woman sat.

Not that same woman as before, no - but they looked similar enough that they might have been sisters, or perhaps cousins. Her blonde hair had been allowed to flow freely down her back, however, framing her fact and making her seem somehow ... gentler.

Harry swallowed past the sudden lump of fear in his throat, staring at her with wide eyes. She returned his stare silently for a moment, before suddenly smiling.

Raising her right hand, she used her index finger to draw in the air before her, that same blue fire that the earlier woman had employed flowing in the air as she gave a soft whistle. As she did so, the air between them seemed to shimmer, faint enough that Harry had to wonder if he had imagined it.

"Good morning."

Harry started at the sudden noise, as much for how it broke the silence as the fact that had spoken in perfect English.

"I - Good morning." Harry flushed slightly at his stutter, hands fisting in the blankets beneath him as he faltered for words.

A small laugh escape the other woman. "You need not worry for your safety within these walls; we are no brutish that we would harm one as young as you, nor one who has shown no violence toward us."

Harry simply stared at her, and the woman continued in the same comfortable vein.

"Though, I do wonder - how did you find that crevasse? None I have spoken to even knew it existed, and it seems to lead deep in our home."

"I ... I don't know." Harry admitted, the woman's easy going manner putting him at ease, though he remained cautious as he watched her. "I just ... I woke up inside, a couple of days ago." Harry shrugged his shoulders, before wincing at the pain that the movement caused.

Eyes sharpening, the woman stood to her feet. "Are you in pain?"

"I'll be alright. Just ... give me a minute." Harry assured her. The last thing he wanted was for some stranger to begin examining him, no matter how nice she seemed.

"Harry, you are not 'alright'." The woman admonished, and Harry frowned.

It took him longer than it should, to notice just what was wrong with that statement. But when he placed the source of his discomfort, Harry stiffened.

"How did you know my name?"

The woman merely smiled, moved to stand beside the bed, and Harry scurried back so that his back was pressed against the wall, his eyes wide.

Harry had always been brave - the foolish kind of brave, that rushed headlong into danger with barely a thought for his own safety. But Azkaban had instilled in him a cautiousness that Gryffindor had done it's best to stamp out of him.

He was frightened. Anybody would be, in this situation. But his fear was like his bravery; it wasn't the thinking kind of fear. He had been reduced to instant reactions in Azkaban. Careful planning, thoughtful discourse - these were things that had been in short supply to begin with, and they had been fully stamped out during his time in that awful place. Now, he simply reacted. He never even thought about how it might look, or whether it was 'brave' or 'cowardly'. It simply was.

"I'm going to hurt you, child." The woman admonished gently, and part of Harry bristled at that tone. She wasn't that old - certainly not old enough to be referring to him as a 'child'.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say so, but the woman kept talking before he could utter a sound.

"We Saw you - out on that ledge. And when we did, your name came to us."

"What do you mean, you saw me?" Harry asked, confused. "Did you have security cameras or something?" Maybe these people weren't as primitive as he had thought, then.

The woman frowned. "Security ... Cameras?" She was obviously confused, but moved on regardless. "I'm not sure what those are, but I can explain ... if you will allow me to check you for injuries."

Harry hesitated, eyeing her carefully. She had no weapons that he could see, but that didn't really matter. He had seen her cast magic, and in a way he had never even imagine was possible. Runes of blue fire drawn in the air, a soft whistle of music ... no words, no incantations, no wand to lose or be stripped of ...

Stripped of. Like his wand had been stripped from him, along with every dignity, every human right.

Harry drew a deep breath, closing his eyes tightly as he fought against the lump forming in his throat, the tears rising to his eyes ... the panic welling in his chest.

"Harry? Harry, listen to me." Her voice seemed somehow far away, but Harry forced his eyes open. The face before him was blurred - even more than it had been before, without his glasses to see with.

"Harry, it will be okay. If you don't want me to touch you, I won't. I just want to make certain you aren't too badly hurt, alright? Just a quick spell, and I can make sure you are alright."

Harry simply nodded, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them as turn his head away, closing his eyes once again.

If she was going to kill him, torture him ... she was going to do it. He could stop them before, and her certainly couldn't stop her.

He couldn't protect himself, or anybody else.

With his eyes closed, Harry didn't see the rune that was drawn in the air, nor the frown that marred the woman's face as words of blue fire appeared in the air before her.

"Harry, I don't know where you were before. I don't know who hurt you. But we won't hurt you here. I need you to understand that."

Harry said nothing, simply kept his arms wrapped around his legs, his body as still as possible.

A sigh escaped from the woman before she stop it. What she had read in those few moments alarmed her - and made their young guest's fear and anxiety so much more understandable.

Returning to her chair, she watched the young man before her for a moment before speaking. "You asked how I knew your name, and it's only fair that I tell you. You let me examine you, after all. And I always keep my word." There was a sharpness to her tone when she said it, and Harry risked a glance up at the strange woman. "Always." She repeated, raising one light blonde eyebrow, and Harry settled for giving a jerky nod of his head.

"I am a member of the Clayr. I ... do not think you understand what this means." At Harry's shake of the head, she smiled slightly before continuing.

"M name is Myriel. The Clayr are a people gifted with The SIght. We can see glimpses of possible futures - not The Future, understand. Simply a future that might be. I can see your confusion - and your disbelief." Myriel smiled. "I understand it. Those who do not posess this gift often look upon it with disdain. We cannot tell you what will be- we can only see what might be, should one take the right steps. We see many different paths, truly; we may only direct one to the correct path. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, though in truth he didn't truly understand. Not really.

Harry had hidden his face in hisknees at some point, and Myriel sighed. "You are welcome here, Harry. We have Seen ... we know you are in need of our aid. And we are more than willing to offer it."

Harry's head jerked up. "What have you seen?"

"Nothing specfic." Myriel's voice was calm, though inside there was a panic welling up inside of her. This boy child - something had hurt him. Something had traumatized him. She didn't know what, but she knew it was there. "The Sight doesn't always reveal as much as might like - but we know that you have been hurt, that you need our help. Our protection. And we have pledged it. I told you before - I stand by my word. We stand by our word."

Myriel finally rose to her feet once again. "Rest, Harry. You are safe here. You always will be."