RETURN TO SENDER
The usual: Don't own Harry, would love to have Hermione, and the jury's still out on Ron. Am not doing this for money, only for fun and enjoyment. Also don't own any of the characters or locations that may be familiar and already owned by others.
Chapter Three. Project Tic-Toc
Albus Dumbledore was shocked.
He was no stranger to travelling - magical or mundane, he'd done them all: the sucked through a tube sensation of apparition, the tug-behind-the-navel shock of portkeys, the dizzying disorientation of floo travel, the discomfort of the Tube at rush hour, the extended trips on the Hogwarts Express, the initial ear-popping discomfort as the airplane gains altitude …
This was something completely different.
One moment he was there; the next moment he was here; and the only transition he could remember was that brief - he couldn't even be sure of that - moment when it felt that he was being dissolved into nothingness before being reassembled again …
Unfortunately for him, shock and awe were not limited to his mind and thoughts. The moment he solidified, he was bent over, breathing deeply of the surprisingly cold, clean air as he tried to fight off the vertigo assaulting his body. As the darkness faded from his vision, he blinked.
His first clear view was the floor - for a moment, he wondered if they'd landed in the middle of a runic circle and he quailed at the thought of disrupting some ritual or ceremony.
He quickly dismissed the thought - the floor and the design that he was looking at was too clean, too precise - too simple for that. He tried to make sense of the design that he was standing on - all gold and black against the white floor …
And mentally slapped himself when he realized that he was looking at a huge, stylized rendition of a time turner - a golden hourglass, superimposed on a black rectangle that was, in turn, surrounded by a golden circle with a black border.
He shook his head, wondering where in Hades the she-devil had brought him - lifted his eyes and gaped.
He was in an enormous chamber, dominated by the huge, cavernous mouth of a … Tunnel? It looked like a tunnel - four times the height of a man, easily the width of ten or more people standing with arms stretched to either side.
But this couldn't be a tunnel, he thought. It looked more like the horn on top of a gramophone that had been all the rage before the Wizarding Wireless - but this was a thousand times larger, with alternating bands of white and black starting from its colossal mouth to its narrowed end.
He could also see two silver-grey, metallic half-rings suspended in mid-air inside the thing - one on each side. For a brief, incongruous moment, he thought of fingers framing a scene - and blinked, for that was exactly what they looked like: elliptical frames that focused one's attention on the thing's centre - and his heart leaped when the air between the 'frame' shimmered and he was looking at a site that would have made any British magical nostalgic, even that poor excuse for a wizard Tom Riddle aka Voldemort.
It was Hogwarts by night: massive, ethereal, beautiful - festooned with lights from its numerous windows, the towers shimmering in the moonlight, the waters of the lake glittering in starlight. It brought back his first memories of the castle, seeing it as a firstie while crossing the lake …
He snapped out of his reverie when he sensed movement - and stood there blinking in wonder.
Directly ahead of him and in front of the thing's 'mouth' were three … he wasn't sure what to call the 'furniture' he saw. They looked like a cross between a desk and a cabinet except they had sloping boxes on top with a bewildering array of flickering lights, buttons, levers and switches, nothing he ever saw before or could even associate with. Glancing around, he could see numerous 'cabinets' with similar arrays of bewildering, multi-coloured lights, buttons, switches and levers as well as glass picture frames with indecipherable pictures, geometric shapes or cascading numbers dancing across the face …
Past the cabinets on the right side was another huge structure, standing like a skeletal building, festooned again with an incomprehensible array of lights dancing all over. Beyond that was darkness - black, infinite, reinforcing his earlier thought that he was in a huge cavern of which he could see only a small part.
He noticed four people in front of him, clustered around the light-swathed 'desks'. Two were seated at the centre desk or table - a tall, slim woman with midnight black hair in a bouffant hairdo; the other a stocky man with an apparently balding head of grey hair. Both wore what appeared to be white robes - he shook his head as he recognized them as something the muggles called 'lab coats.' Both were busy flicking levers, pressing buttons, pushing things up or down, an intense look of concentration on their faces.
The other two stood behind them, talking in low tones. One was a silver-haired gentleman in a muggle uniform that he remembered well from decades past - a military uniform much favoured by the Americans who'd infested Britain during the last Great Muggle War, some of whom he'd worked with in the effort to defeat Grindelwald.
There was no doubt in his mind that the man was a high-ranking soldier, and someone used to command. To Dumbledore's confusion, however, the soldier seemed to defer to the woman beside him - a slim, short blonde with tousled hair, wearing what looked, at first glance, to be two strips of leather and floppy boots. She was in a short, cut-off top and a brown, knee-length skirt with an embroidered belt and high, leather boots - the whole ensemble showing an enticing amount of skin which left him cold - the temperature in the place was as cold as he had ever felt in the draughty halls of Hogwarts in winter.
The blonde's head jerked up, as if she'd felt his eyes on her and he felt himself impaled by the sea-green eyes which had locked unerringly on his, and he unconsciously braced himself -
"ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE!
"Are you certifiably insane, institutionally senile or simply too full of yourself to be unable to pull your arse off your head - AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT RATHER THAN WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT?"
He heard snickering behind him and knew that Xena the She-Devil was taking great pleasure in this. The two in lab coats and the gentleman in uniform glanced curiously at him but he didn't miss the amusement in their eyes or the tic in the corner of their mouths.
And that angered him - who was this little pipsqueak of a girl to tell him off like some errant schoolboy? He was Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin First Class, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the British Magical Parliament, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry -
Who was she - who were they to treat him this way?
In the coldest, most formal voice he could muster, he replied, "I do not believe I have had the pleasure?"
The blonde's eyes narrowed and darkened; Dumbledore felt the two guards at his side as well as the she-devil behind him tense at his words, but he stared back, his very mien indicating how insignificant she was to him.
She was gearing up to respond when the uniformed gentleman's worried voice stopped her: "My Lady - Gabrielle - it's starting."
The blonde maintained her impressive glare on Dumbledore for a second before turning back to the group by the desk, Xena quickly approaching her - and Dumbledore grinned at the victory.
Only to pale when he looked up at the scene playing out on the huge 'frame' within the tunnel's mouth.
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