Daphne rolled her eyes internally. She recognized that look. The prat was deliberately trying to bait her into asking more questions, drawing out the reveal like some dramatic storyteller.
"Harry," she said, letting some of her impatience creep back into her voice, "just tell me what you found out already."
"Alright, alright," Harry conceded, finally deciding to drop the dramatic suspense. "So, basically, from what I can decipher, it looks like the original creator of the Veil was trying to create a stable, two-way portal to another world. I also strongly believe that they originally came from that other world, which would explain why they were so desperate to get back there, as well as why we couldn't normally understand the runes they used they weren't from our magical traditions."
He paused, gathering his thoughts. "I also think they died, or were interrupted, before they could fully complete it. It's clearly missing some crucial components. For one, it doesn't specify the destination world with any precision. And more importantly, there's no anchor for the time at which they would arrive on that other world. So, basically, as it stands now, the portal just… sends you to a random, habitable planet, during a random time period, that is roughly parallel to our own planet's development."
Daphne's eyes widened considerably at that. "So… so you could, theoretically, go to a planet that hasn't even developed a livable atmosphere yet? Or one where dinosaurs are still roaming?"
"Hmm. Possibly, but most likely no, not that extreme," Harry mused. "While it's not anchored to a specific planet or a specific time, it is loosely anchored to our world, meaning that wherever you end up is still sort of… relative to our own temporal and spatial position. The world you would end up on would probably be somewhat similar to ours in terms of general development you know, sentient life, breathable air, that sort of thing. And the time range, as far as I can calculate, could only be about a thousand or two years either in the past or the future from this current point in ourtimeline. Of course," he added, a thoughtful look on his face.
"That means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things, as you don't know the specific level or rate of advancement of the creatures or civilizations on that other world. You could arrive at the exact same corresponding 'time' on an exactly similar type of world and still find yourself in a whole different, completely alien situation. Fascinating, isn't it?" he finished, a spark of genuine intellectual curiosity in his eyes.
Daphne nodded slowly, trying to process the implications. It was… one of the most peculiar, and frankly, almost entirely useless, magical artifacts she had ever heard of. A one-way ticket to who-knows-where, at who-knows-when.
"Well then," Daphne said, already thinking about the mountain of paperwork and the annoyance of later explaining this bizarre discovery to her Unspeakable colleagues.
"I guess we should have it decommissioned and destroyed as soon as possible. Clearly, it's too dangerous to leave active."
"Eventually, sure, go ahead," Harry said with a casual shrug, as he stood up and stretched languidly, like a cat waking from a nap. Daphne frowned at him, a knot of unease tightening in her stomach.
"Eventually? Why not now, Potter?" Daphne asked, her voice sharp.
Harry looked at her, a sheepish, almost guilty expression suddenly appearing on his face. "Err. Well… I was sort of… thinking of popping through it myself, next summer. You know, just to see what I get. Bit of an adventure." He seemed to shrink in on himself slightly as Daphne's glare intensified with every word that came out of his mouth.
"You. Wha-AT?" she hissed, her voice dangerously low, her wand hand twitching.
"Well, you know," Harry continued, now looking decidedly uncomfortable but still determined, "I figure my work here is pretty much done, right? Saved the world, developed a few miracle cures, all that jazz. Time for me to get onto some other great adventure, don't you think? And that portal… well, that's probably the best place to start. I know how to make a similar portal now, at least in theory. So, I figure I'll just… go to a new place, explore until I get bored of it, and then make another portal and hop to another new world. Then it's just… rinse and repeat, I guess. At least until I'm eventually killed by something interesting," he explained, as if this was the most logical and reasonable plan in the world.
What happened after that was kind of a blur for Daphne.
She vaguely remembered a red mist descending over her vision, a roaring in her ears, and then… yes, she remembered she started throwing curses at him.
Quite a few of them, actually. And she hadn't stopped for a good while now, if the smoking, rubble-strewn state of Harry's previously pristine ice cave was any indication.
Harry was currently, and wisely, hiding behind a rapidly conjured and constantly repaired stone wall, trying to shield himself from her furious onslaught.
"I really think you're overreacting just a little bit about this, Daph!" Harry called out to her from behind his crumbling wall.
Daphne, not dignifying that ridiculous statement with a verbal response, threw a powerful Bombarda Maxima straight at the center of the wall, right where she hoped his infuriating head would be.
She watched with grim satisfaction as the wall exploded inwards, and she heard a distinct, undignified squawk of surprise from the other side.
"DAPHNE!" she heard him yell from amidst the now collapsing, smoking remnants of his magical shield.
"WHAT?" she screamed back, her voice raw with anger and a healthy dose of fear for his sanity.
"Please stop! You're going to bring the whole bloody mountain down on us!" Harry yelled, his voice now laced with a genuine note of alarm.
"Then you stop being an absolute, blithering, suicidal IDIOT!" she yelled back, and sent a particularly nasty stinging hex in his general direction for good measure.
She heard a soft pop sound directly behind her and whirled around, wand raised, to see Harry standing there, looking remarkably unscathed, if a little dusty, for someone who had just had a stone wall explode on top of them.
She raised her wand to hex him again, but quicker than she could blink, faster than humanly possible, he was holding her wrist, his grip firm but not painful, her wand suddenly, inexplicably, in his other hand.