Wrong Place, Right Time Part 2

Blackberry stepped out of her black and purple gate into a room with strange furniture and an unfamiliar dark haired young man wearing a fluffy purple bathrobe. "I come in…" she trailed off as a spell struck one of her wings from behind, getting her attention as the sickly green blast of magic washed over her wing and unraveled because of her innate magic resistance.

The young man stared in disbelief at the talking dog sized silver and gold dragon that had just stepped out of some type of portal in his living room, that could apparently talk and had accidentally blocked a death curse without dying.

"Hey!" Blackberry complained as she twisted her neck and looked behind her, trying to find out who was tossing spells at her so she could decide on an appropriate response since she'd apparently stumbled into someone's home uninvited. She glanced at the door frame that looked to have been smashed or blasted in then focused on the angry looking bald humanoid in black robes that was holding a wand, trying to figure out if the man's lack of any real nose was because of his species or if it was because of a curse.

"What are you?!" Voldemort demanded, surprised that the dragon could apparently talk, unless it was some type of trick by Potter but he seemed just as shocked.

"I'm a dragon," Blackberry replied cheerfully, choosing to ignore the wizard's tone for the moment. "Can someone tell me where I am?"

"You're in my home in Godric's Hollow," James Potter offered.

Blackberry turned her head so she could look at the young man. "Great, would a couple of gold coins cover the annoyance of my visit?"

"Can you do something about the dark wizard that is trying to kill me and my family?" James asked, having noticed how the killing curse had washed over her wing without doing anything.

Blackberry turned to look at the noseless wizard. "Why are you planning on killing them?"

"There's a prophecy, if I don't kill his son, he'll grow up and defeat me and that is something I can't allow, now stand aside," Voldemort ordered.

"Let me get this straight, you're here to kill a child because he might grow up to become a hero and defeat you?" Blackberry asked, wanting to make sure she understood the situation before she did something permanent.

"I will not be stopped by some child," Voldemort declared. "Now unless you want to die, step aside."

Blackberry used her magic tattoos to cast Flesh to Stone silently and without the normal gestures that accompanied her type of magic, turning the noseless man into a stone statue. 'It's nice to be in a world where they don't have magical items protecting them from everything and the kitchen sink.' She twisted her neck and looked at James. "I'm Blackberry Pie Grim, can I get a name?"

"James Potter," James replied, shocked that the dragon had managed to transfigure Voldemort into a statue. "How long will he stay like that?"

"Until someone breaks the spell," Blackberry replied as she walked over and stole the dark wizard's wand, happy that he hadn't been holding it too tightly. "Stone to Flesh should reverse it but it doesn't really leave any magic to dispel which means that even Disjunction is useless to reverse it."

"I've never heard of that spell or talking dragons for that matter," James admitted.

"Great, so much for getting closer to home," Blackberry muttered, wondering if the Wizard of Fate was still messing with her. "Stone to Flesh is the counterspell for the Flesh to Stone spell I used, it will also turn stone into meat, which is rather useful if you need to feed an army or if you run out of food. Disjunction is a spell that breaks just about any active spell without a chance of failure and generally disrupts magic items for a short time if it doesn't wreck them."

"That sounds useful in curse breaking," James mused. "Why are you here?"

"I'm trying to get home and my gate spell keeps dropping me in weird places," Blackberry complained, knowing the chances of getting dropped directly into a problem each time she used the spell should have been vanishingly small.

"That was the black and purple portal, right?" James asked, wondering if he could get the incantation.

"Yes," Blackberry replied as she turned her attention toward the attractive red haired young woman at the top of the stairs. "Hello."

"What's going on?" Lily asked, surprised to see a small dragon in her living room.

James gestured toward the statue of Voldemort. "This friendly dragon turned Voldemort to stone."

"I thought he'd warded himself against transfiguration," Lily said as she walked down the stairs.

"I'm a dragon," Blackberry offered smugly.

"Was turning him into stone and leaving his equipment un-transformed intentional?" Lily asked as she walked over to where James was standing.

"Yep," Blackberry agreed. "It took a couple of weeks of research to modify the original spell but I'd rather not turn my loot into stone."

"Makes sense," Lily agreed. "What type of dragon are you?"

"My mother was a silver and gold dragon and my father was a white dragon, I don't really take after him except for my talent at baking, which is sort of weird for an ice dragon. It probably has something to do with my mother being an extremely powerful dragon. So, I'm basically a silver dragon with the ability to breathe fire in addition to frost."

"Is that normal where you're from?" James asked.

"Not really," she admitted. "We normally only get one type of breath weapon unless we use a spell to change it."

"Where are you from?" Lily asked, wondering if all of the dragons from where she’d come were intelligent.

"I grew up in Ishara, it's a city of magic," Blackberry explained as she silently cast Identify on the evil wizard's wand, curious about the spell that she'd been hit with. "Huh."

"Huh?" James asked.

"Most of the wands I've seen can only cast one spell a certain number of times before they burn out, this is a general magic boosting focus. Do you mind if I keep this?" Blackberry asked.

"Be my guest," James replied, not seeing a point in arguing with a dragon, especially since she'd saved them from Voldemort.

"Neat," Blackberry replied as she put the wand in her bag so that she could study it later when she had time. "So, what's the story with the dark wizard?"

"He believes that magic users are better than everyone else and wants to enslave the world," James explained.

"Idiot," Blackberry muttered. "You'd be better off finding a deserted island and building it up into a location of note and using that to fund spell research. That way you don't have to deal with the paperwork for running an entire world."

"Sounds like you've given it some thought," James said.

"Yeah," Blackberry replied with a smile. "We spent a week in one of my ethics classes coming up with ways to rule the world and then the instructor ripped them apart and explained why they wouldn't work."

"Did anyone ever get close?" Lily asked.

"One of the guys came up with a plan that involved forcing elected officials to sign magical contracts but he couldn't get the cost of the contracts down to a reasonable amount while preventing the officials from hiring someone to break the contracts, which resulted in his potential leader getting stabbed in the back."

"Shouldn't the contracts have prevented that?" Lily asked.

"Sure, but the problem is that he announced that every official in his kingdom would have to sign the contracts as a way to help prevent corruption so they had plenty of time to arrange things ahead of time, including erasing their memories of their contingency plan."

"How close did you get?" James asked.

"I couldn't come up with a viable way to deal with the dark elves before they would have killed my army of magical clones and the teacher wasn't willing to accept a diplomatic solution since my army was deemed too much of a threat," Blackberry complained.

"Dark elves," James asked as Sirius poked his head around the shattered doorframe.

Sirius froze when he saw the stone statue of Voldemort and Lily and James talking to a dog sized silver dragon. "Why do you have a dragon?"

Blackberry turned and looked at the man that had managed to sneak up on her. "Hello."

"Did the dragon just talk?" Sirius asked, wondering if he was losing his mind.

"No, you're just imagining things," James 'assured' his friend.

Sirius glanced at Lily, figuring she'd be the best person to get a straight answer from. "What's going on?"

"The nice dragon stepped out of a portal in the living room and objected to Voldemort's plan to kill Harry," James explained as Sirius walked inside.

"Hi, I'm Blackberry Pie Grim, nice to meet you," Blackberry offered as she held her hand out to the stunned looking wizard.

"Do you have a preference between Blackberry and Grim?" Sirius asked as he shook her hand, deciding that shaking her hand was probably safer than being rude.

"Blackberry is my given name, Grim is my family name and my mother's nickname so you should probably just call me Blackberry," Blackberry suggested.

"Alright…" Sirius trailed off as he realized that the statue was impossibly detailed and wearing black robes. "Why do you have a statue of Voldemort in your living room?"

"I turned the annoying dark wizard into a statue," Blackberry explained. "Let me guess, your world doesn't have magic using dragons?"

"Does breathing fire count?" Sirius asked as he turned his attention away from the statue and focused on the dragon, still a bit wary of the dragon despite the fact that she seemed nice enough since she could apparently turn wizards to stone.

"Wyverns," Blackberry muttered.

"Wait," Sirius turned his attention back to the statue. "Are you saying that's actually Voldemort?"

"Yeah," James replied with a smirk.

"Is there a reason we haven't destroyed the statue yet?" Sirius asked.

"Breaking the statue would kill him, I haven't had a chance to check for contingencies or curses," Blackberry admitted. "Most dark wizards have a couple of ways to come back from the dead. Speaking of strange things, is there a reason the wizard doesn't have a spellbook on him?"

"Most people don't walk around with spellbooks unless they're in school," Lily offered.

Blackberry twisted her head around so that she could look at Lily. "So you just memorize your spells in the morning, what happens if you get stuck somewhere?"

"Most people only look up spells if they haven't used them in a while," Lily explained.

"You're telling me that the spells don't burn out every time you use them?" Blackberry asked in surprise.

"That sounds horrible," James complained, fairly sure he would have given up magic if he had to relearn a spell every time he wanted to use it.

"Yeah," Blackberry agreed. "I'm told you get used to it, but I'm pretty sure they're lying."

"Does that mean your spells don't burn out?" Lily asked.

"No, most dragons are basically sorcerers, it's harder to learn magic but we can keep casting the same spell until we run out of mana," Blackberry explained, not seeing a point in mentioning that she had several magical items to help with mana regeneration or getting into a discussion about spell research at the moment.

"Do you have any spells that would let you locate people?" Lily asked.

"Several. I also have a crystal ball, why?" Blackberry asked.

"We had wards over the cabin, only a select group of people should have been able to find us, which certainly didn't include Voldemort. I'd like to check on the person that controlled the list."

Blackberry pulled her crystal ball out of her bag and handed it to Lily. "Just think about the person you're trying to find and they should appear in the crystal ball."

"Do I need…" Lily trailed off as the crystal ball created an image of Peter in his animagus form on a wooden beam in what looked suspiciously like a stripclub. "So much for him lying dead in a ditch."

"Yet," Sirius muttered when he realized that his friend probably hadn't been tortured until he broke to give up the Potters' location.

"How do you think Voldemort got to him?" James asked thoughtfully.

"I don't know," Sirius admitted, finding it hard to believe that his friend had sold him out without even warning him. "Do you have any Veritaserum?"

"In the lab, four drops should do it," Lily mused, wanting to make sure Peter spilled all of his secrets since he was the only person that could have sold them out.

"Veritaserum?" Blackberry asked.

"It's a powerful truth serum," Lily explained as Sirius headed for the door to the secret lab under the stairs. "What are we going to tell people about Voldemort?" she asked James, wanting to make sure they got their stories straight before more people showed up.

"I don't know," James admitted as Sirius walked into the lab. "We need to warn Dumbledore, but I want to find out why Peter sold us out first."

"Just tell people that a dimension traveling dragon showed up and decided that your dark wizard would make a nice lawn ornament," Blackberry suggested, not seeing a problem blaming everything on her since she wasn't planning on sticking around.

Lily shook her head. "The Ministry of Magic would probably try to kill you if they heard about an intelligent dragon running around."

"How much more powerful are they than the idiot I turned to stone?" Blackberry asked thoughtfully, wondering if she needed to worry about them getting through her magic resistance.

"None of the wizards in the ministry even come close," James admitted, knowing that Voldemort had used a number of dark rituals that had boosted his magical power over the years and delved into forbidden magic that the ministry couldn't openly touch.

"In that case, how much loot do they have?" Blackberry asked thoughtfully. "If they're going to try to kill someone just because they're a dragon, they obviously shouldn't be trusted with anything important, including gold, artifacts and books on magic."

"She has a point," Lily said as she handed the crystal ball back to the dragon and headed to the kitchen to grab her wand that she'd stupidly left on the counter.

"They keep most of their gold in Gringotts but they have a decent collection of ancient magical items in the Department of Mysteries and several large shelves of books filled with spells that the ministry has forbidden," James admitted, making a mental note to avoid mentioning all of the products they make out of dragonhide.

"What's a Gringotts?" Blackberry asked.

"It's the wizarding bank, it's run by goblins," James replied absently as he turned his attention to the destroyed door, wondering how long it would take a neighbor to call the police about the missing door since the Fidelius was apparently worthless.

Blackberry stared at James, wondering if she'd misheard him. "Why would you trust goblins with your gold?"

"They're bound by several ancient magical contracts and it's safer than trusting the Ministry of Magic," James argued.

"Just seems weird," Blackberry admitted. She gestured at the remains of the door and frame and cast Make Whole, causing all of the damage to vanish and the door to reappear as good as new.

Sirius walked out of the lab holding a couple of vials. "I don't suppose you recognize the strip club?" he asked James.

"Not a clue," James admitted. "It doesn't look like any of the clubs Lily showed us."

"I'll be right back," Blackberry said as she handed James the crystal ball. 'Scrying it should be close enough.' She cast Greater Teleport and teleported to the club then cast Hold Monster on the rat sitting on a beam watching the show.

Sirius stared at the dragon he could see in the crystal ball. "Did she just apparate into the club?"

"Looks like it," James admitted, suddenly glad that he wasn't an auror anymore since that meant the paperwork wasn't his problem.

"Dragon!" one of the patrons shouted and pointed when he saw the silver dragon hovering in the air near the ceiling, suddenly wondering if he should have refused to drink the green shit that his friend had handed him.

"Holy shit!" another man exclaimed when he looked up and saw the dragon.

Blackberry ignored the shouting as she flew over and grabbed the paralyzed rat. "Gotcha."

"What the hell is that?!" one of the drunk people demanded as he pointed at the creature that looked suspiciously like a dragon.

"It's a silver dragon!" one of the women that was watching the show told him, not taking her eyes off the dragon.

"It can't be a silver dragon, it has a couple gold scales," one of the guys at another table argued.

"Sorry for the disturbance, I'm with the Adventurer's Guild," Blackberry explained as she pulled a gold coin out of her bag and tossed it to the young woman dancing on stage who was looking at her with wonder.

"They sent you after a rat?" he asked.

"Wererat," Blackberry explained, not actually sure what the rat was other than intelligent as she hadn't asked. "Stay safe," she told them, then cast Greater Teleport, going back to the cabin with the rat and leaving the entire club staring at the ceiling where she'd vanished. "What exactly is the rat?"

James looked at the terrified and frozen rat. "He's an animagus. They're basically just wizards or witches that can turn into an animal without using a spell, his form happens to be a rat."

Lily walked out of the hallway with her wand. "Give me a minute to set up some wards so he can't escape. How long will the spell you used to freeze him last?"

"Hold Monster? A couple of minutes, is that enough time?" Blackberry asked, figuring she could always just turn him to stone if she needed to.

"Should be fine," Lily replied then proceeded to cast a spell to keep him from apparating away. "Can you put him on the ground so I can turn him back?"

"Let me try," Blackberry replied as she put the rat on the ground, "I have a spell that should keep him in human form for a couple of minutes." The dragon cast Force Shapechange, causing the rat to shriek in agony and curl up on the floor as his transformation was forcibly reversed, resulting in the rat changing into a slightly overweight man in his early twenties.

"Fuck!" Peter cursed, feeling like he'd just gone twenty rounds with a pissed off team of beaters.

"Sorry about the screaming, I figured the Hold Monster spell would keep him from saying anything," Blackberry admitted, a touch annoyed that he'd managed to break her spell because of the pain.

Sirius hit Peter with a spell to bind his arms and legs then poured five or six drops of the serum into his mouth, wanting answers. "That should do it."

"Why did you betray us?" Lily asked.

"James and Sirius were crazy," Peter explained in a monotone, barely aware of what he was saying thanks to the veritaserum. "They were always picking fights with the purebloods and making enemies. A couple of months ago Macnair told me that he'd kill my parents if I didn't help him avoid the Order raids and join up. Imagine my surprise when you made me your secret keeper, Voldemort promised that he'd spare you as long as he could kill the child."

Blackberry winced when James dropped her crystal ball and started kicking the shit out of the former rat, unable to stop the reaction despite knowing that the crystal had been spell hardened to the point where she could probably shoot it from a cannon without scratching it. She picked it up and put it back in her bag. "Should we stop him before we have to resort to necromancy for answers?"

"That's an option?" Sirius asked, not sure how to feel about his fellow Marauder.

"Speak with Dead lets the dead answer a number of questions," Blackberry explained as Lily stopped James from killing Peter by grabbing the back of his robes and tugging on them.

"Is anyone else working for Voldemort in the Order?" Lily asked, wanting more information before they called Moody.

"I don't know," Peter admitted. "I just gave him information so the war would end sooner. I was tired of the fighting and he promised that every wizard that didn't agree with him could leave Britain."

Blackberry ignored the rat's continued whining as she focused on the magic clinging to the young man's head and left arm. "There are half a dozen spells on his head and a curse on his arm that should probably be removed."

"What does the curse do?" Sirius asked, curious what she could tell them about the dark mark.

"It basically lets its creator cause anyone with their mark pain and acts like a beacon for teleporting, bypassing any wards they’ve set up. It's also designed to resist being removed, probably so they'd have less of a chance to turn on him," Blackberry mused.

"Do you think you could remove it?" Sirius asked, wanting to make sure Peter's parents never learned that their son was stupid enough to join Voldemort in case they had to stage one last 'tragic' battle for their former friend.

"Challenge accepted…" Blackberry trailed off as her silent Remove Curse spell broke the curse without even a flicker of resistance, causing the tattoo on Peter's arm to vanish. "Seriously? That's it? I was expecting to have to resort to Disjunction or something," she admitted.

"Can you figure out what the spells on his head are?" Sirius asked, a touch surprised that she'd managed to remove the mark.

"Some type of enchantment spell," Blackberry offered as she cast a silent Greater Dispel Magic on Peter, causing all of the magic clouding his head to vanish and the young man to start bawling his eyes out. "Huh."

"Fuck!" Peter cursed when the veritaserum vanished and his mind cleared up for the first time in months. "Why the fuck did I believe him?!"

"What happened?" James asked, recognizing a hint of his old friend before the stress of the war had gotten to everyone.

"Macnair or someone must have hit me with a spell. I wanted to believe that everything would be fine, that things would calm down if we just didn't fight because I didn't want them to kill my folks and then everything got worse," Peter admitted. "I don't know why I thought he'd save you or why killing Harry was necessary, I was out of my mind."

"Do you have any…" Blackberry trailed off as someone knocked on the door.

"Is everyone alive?" Dumbledore asked, having gotten an alert about the wards when he'd gotten back to his office from the Halloween feast.

"We're alive Dumbledore, we need…" James trailed off as the door swung open and Albus was standing there with his wand drawn.

Albus blinked when he saw a silver dragon with gold highlights standing in the middle of the room. "Why do you have a dragon?"

Blackberry studied the white haired man with enchanted glasses for a couple of seconds while everyone tried to think up a story. "I fell out of a portal."

Albus blinked a couple of times when he realized the dragon had answered him and that it sounded female and was wearing a belt and several belt pouches. "We're going to come back to that, why is there a statue of Tom?"

"Because I appeared right in the middle of a confrontation and he hit me in the wing with some type of spell that created a green light. I asked him why he was there when I noticed the door was destroyed and he told me he was going to kill a child because of a prophecy. I objected and turned him into a statue when he didn't show any remorse over the whole thing."

"How long will the transformation last?" Albus asked, trying to figure out how long they had before he'd be back in action.

Blackberry glanced at the statue. "Until someone breaks the spell, which generally takes the counterspell or a supernatural ability to cure petrification."

"I can confirm the part of Voldemort getting turned to stone," James offered. "One second he was telling Blackberry to step out of the way so he could kill me and Harry and the next, he's a statue."

Albus glanced at Peter who was sprawled on the floor. "Why is Peter on the ground?"

"He got cursed and driven insane," Sirius offered. “He was so far around the bend from what they did to his head he actually believed the Dark Wanker would agree to end the war and let all his enemies go. Not sure he’s all there now to be honest.”

"That's fair," Peter admitted, not sure what the hell he'd been thinking.

"Perhaps you should start at the beginning," Albus suggested.

"You might as well come in, I'll grab some tea," Lily suggested as she headed toward the kitchen to grab the tea.

"That would be lovely," Albus agreed as he stepped inside, relieved that Lily and James weren't injured but curious about the talking dragon that had enough magic to overpower the rituals that protected Tom from being transfigured.