Harry awoke to a rather undignified face full of damp grass and a mouth full of bland, gritty-tasting dirt.
He groaned, groggily lifting his face upwards, and spat the dirt out with a grimace before instinctively reaching for his wand and casting a quick cleaning charm on his mouth.
He immediately checked his body, his hand going to his chest, to make sure that his shrunken trunk was still securely attached to its necklace.
If it came down to it, he would need to use it for shelter, for sleeping, and for all the other basic commodities of life.
Hopefully, he would be able to find a nice, defensible cave soon, somewhere he could set up a temporary home and a new laboratory.
He finally pushed himself up to a standing position and brushed off his travel-stained clothes as he took in his new surroundings.
He looked to be in some sort of dense, ancient-looking forest. It reminded him a little of the Forbidden Forest back at Hogwarts, except this place seemed to have a lot less… palpable magical energy running through it. It felt wilder, more primal.
He debated for a moment whether he should just take to the air and fly out of here to get his bearings, or if he should try to leg it and explore on foot, when a sharp thwack sound made him jump.
An arrow suddenly flew past his head, missing him by mere inches, and slammed into the thick trunk of a tree right next to him, embedding itself quite deeply into the wood.
Harry stared at the quivering arrow for a long moment, his heart pounding in his chest. He subtly, almost instinctively, cast a powerful, invisible shielding charm around himself to make sure another one wouldn't actually hit him.
He then turned his head slowly and stared in the direction from where the arrow had come, a single, unimpressed eyebrow raised.
"If you could perhaps not do that ever again, I would greatly appreciate it," Harry said, his voice laced with mild, weary annoyance.
"A lot, actually." He finally spotted a figure hidden quite skillfully high up in the branches of a nearby tree. They had another arrow already notched and were pointing it directly at him.
The figure spoke, a string of harsh, guttural sounds in a language he did not recognize in the slightest. He sighed internally.
He guessed it was probably too much to expect them to conveniently know English in this new, random world.
"Well, it seems that you don't know my language," Harry said out loud, mostly to himself since apparently this person couldn't understand a word he was saying. "Meaning communicating with you is going to absolutely suck."
He watched as the figure skillfully, almost silently, hopped down from the tree and began to approach him with a wary, predatory grace.
As the dappled moonlight filtered through the canopy and hit the figure, he could clearly see the outline of a woman.
A tall, brunette woman, with a lean, athletic, lithe physical structure… who also happened to be entirely green-skinned and wearing virtually no clothes to speak of, just some strategically placed scraps of leather and fur.
He had to physically stop himself from immediately exclaiming out loud and running up to her for a closer, more detailed examination.
It wasn't easy to squash the ingrained researcher tendencies he had developed over decades, but he managed to rein them in, just barely, in this particular instance.
He had a strong feeling that lunging at a green, nearly naked, arrow-wielding woman in the middle of an unknown forest would probably get him into a whole lot of trouble.
The woman said something else, her voice sharp and questioning, which he just shook his head confusedly at, trying to show that he didn't understand.
"Who are you, dh'oine?" she spat, the last word sounding like a particularly nasty curse, her green eyes narrowed in suspicion. Harry got the distinct impression that "dh'oine" wasn't exactly a term of endearment.
"Oh!" Harry said, a flicker of genuine surprise on his face. "You speak English. Or, well, do you call it something else here? Common tongue, maybe? Bah, it doesn't really matter, does it?" He quickly pasted on the most friendly, non-threatening smile he could muster and held out his hand towards her.
"Name's Harry. Pleasure to meet you."
The green-skinned woman an elf, perhaps? She certainly had the pointed ears and ethereal grace often associated with them just stared at his outstretched hand as if it were some strange, potentially venomous creature.
Then, her gaze flicked up to his face, her expression completely blank, unreadable. Harry, feeling a little awkward, slowly withdrew his hand.
"Er, right," he said, trying to maintain his friendly demeanor. "Anyways, as I was saying, I'm a bit… lost, you see. So, if you could just perhaps point me in the general direction of the nearest exit to this… this rather wonderful forest, that would be just great."
"Super helpful. And if you also, for whatever strange reason, happened to have a map on you, a map of the surrounding lands, perhaps? Well, I would greatly appreciate a look at it. Just to get my bearings, you understand."
He kept his tone light, conversational, hoping to ease whatever tension was clearly radiating off her.
The elf-looking creature, however, just went right back to glaring at him, her green eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. "You need to come with me," she said, her voice flat, devoid of any warmth. "Now."
Harry tilted his head to the side, considering her demand for a moment. Then, he shrugged, a gesture of casual acceptance. He figured she was probably taking him to her leader, or her village, or whatever passed for authority in these parts.
And if the worst thing these elf-looking people had to throw at him was some medieval-era bows and arrows, well, he shouldn't really have to worry about any real problems arising, should he?
I mean, he was a literal, fire-breathing dragon, for godsakes! A few pointy sticks weren't exactly going to be a major threat.
"Okay, sure," Harry said agreeably. "Lead the way, and I'll follow, I guess. Happy to cooperate." He paused, then added, as if it were an afterthought, "Oh, I never got your name, by the way."
The green woman didn't respond to his question. Instead, she raised her bow and arrow again, aiming it directly at his chest, her expression menacing and clearly impatient.
"Walk," was all she said, her voice cold and hard as stone.