Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 16

He stood in bewilderment as the kitchen around him seemed to morph, changing as a new universe settled into place around him. Hermione and Sir Nicholas vanished. The sudsy pile of dishes was gone. The merry light that had resonated throughout the entire house was obliterated, as if by an unseen hand. The house was dim and dark, the worktop was dusty and rough, neglected planking creaked beneath his feet. There was the faintest of flickers in the corner - not even really a flicker, just a slight change in shadow, and he realized with chagrin that he'd set off a ward.

You don't want to reappear somewhere restricted and get into trouble, Luna's voice admonished him. The home of his babyhood was not necessarily a place where one would think to need clearance, but it appeared that the end result could be the same if he did not depart quickly, he thought, more than annoyed with the situation.

He slid noiselessly through the kitchen door, holding it open with just enough clearance for him to slither into the open great room that narrowed into the front entryway. The house was utterly silent and dark as death, but Harry still kept toward the walls, hoping that he would, at no time, make himself easily visible to whomever might be watching.

But his eyes were slow in adjusting to the darkness, and he only realized that someone else was in the room, when a blast of spellfire narrowly missed the top of his head, and shredded part of the barely swinging kitchen door.

Damn! He cursed mentally, and dropped into a crouch, making an attempt to Apparate away, but determining immediately that a ward preventing that had already been put in place. The attacker had given his general location away, at least, with the spell originating from the back corner of the room. Harry did not want give any more aid than necessary, and decided against returning fire. He cast a non-verbal Disillusionment spell on himself, and sidled toward the front door. Every nerve fiber was vibrating at high alert, as all of his Auror instincts came slamming back into play.

The adversary did not fire, but Harry could feel his presence, as surely as if he could hear each breath taken. It was as if the room was a living thing, hovering, waiting...

He could make out vague shadows now, a large and lumpy outline that could have been some piece of furniture, the patchy squares of fireplace and windows, but the rear of the room was shrouded in utmost black. He wondered how well the other person could see him...

There was another whoosh of light, and Harry flinched instinctively, although the spell missed him by a good meter. He can't see me, he thought with some measure of relief, he's guessing.

Harry was desperately trying to work out his exit strategy. He knew that whoever was firing at him could not have responded to the ward breach from elsewhere, but had already been on site; he had been much too quickly detected, even for a magical person. If someone entered through the front door, and cut off his escape, or Flooed in, bathing the room in green light, he could be in serious trouble, even leaving out the fact that he would then be outnumbered.

It was also within the realm of possibility that the person firing on him was not an enemy, but, in fact, an ally. There was no way to know, however, and with all possibilities open, he decided not to chance it. If he'd been anyone else in the world, he might have been able to try, but breaking a ward somewhere that was under apparent heavy guard and shouting at an unknown and armed assailant, "Hey, I'm Harry Potter!" would not top the list of Most Brilliant Plans of Action.

Then there were the undeniable ethics of the situation. He was sure that similar sorts of rules applied to traveling to other universes as to traveling through time. It wasn't exactly polite to go mucking about in someone else's universe. He just wanted to get out of the house and find Hermione.