After enduring nine grueling hours within the metallic belly of a commercial airliner, Bryan and Remus finally touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport just as the last magnificent rays of golden sunset were disappearing beyond the distant horizon.
Taking Muggle transportation and enduring a full day of flight, cramped in seats and listening to the constant buzz of jet engines, was definitely not a pleasant experience for two genuine wizards who were accustomed to the instantaneous convenience of magical travel.
However, there was simply no helping it given their current circumstances and the delicate political situation.
The international Floo Network system connecting the various continents and capable of transporting wizards across vast oceanic distances in mere seconds came with absolutely staggering maintenance costs that required enormous financial resources to sustain.
Moreover, any commercial activities or private travel that required using these intercontinental connections required paying truly exorbitant fees to the various magical transportation authorities, as well as applying to the Ministry of Magic for official permission to access the network, it was a bureaucratic process that could take weeks or even months to complete.
Given the strained relationship between Hogwarts personnel and the British Ministry of Magic, particularly after the Ministry's stubborn refusal to acknowledge Voldemort's return and their campaign to discredit anyone who dared to speak the truth about the current crisis, Bryan had absolutely no desire to "invite humiliation upon himself" by subjecting himself to the Ministry's arbitrary approval process or giving them any opportunity to deny his travel requests for petty political reasons.
Of course, illegal entry channels and underground transportation networks did exist for those with sufficient knowledge of the wizarding world's shadier corners and enough connections to access such services.
These operations, run by smugglers, black market dealers, and various criminal enterprises, could theoretically transport wizards across international boundaries without official documentation or government approval.
However, crossing such vast oceanic distances through these illegal means came with even more astronomical prices than the official routes, often requiring payment in rare magical artifacts, favors, or sums of gold that could bankrupt even wealthy wizards.
Although both Bryan and Remus were now quite wealthy individuals, there was absolutely no need for them to play the fool with their hard-earned money by throwing it away on unnecessarily expensive black-market transportation when perfectly serviceable Muggle alternatives were readily available.
As for the possibility of flying broomsticks across the Atlantic Ocean, covering the approximately three thousand miles between London and New York through their own magical power and endurance, if the two of them had seriously attempted such a journey, they would surely have provided the officials of the Magical Congress of the United States of America with enough material for amusing anecdotes to last them several years.
"Ugh—" Bryan groaned softly as he finally managed to pull himself from the torture device that airlines optimistically called a passenger seat.
Spending such a long period of time in the cramped, claustrophobic cabin, wedged between armrests barely wide enough for a child was certainly not a pleasant experience by any reasonable standard.
The confined seats had made Bryan feel as though his back had gradually stiffened and transformed into an iron plate.
After finally emerging from the jet bridge, Bryan stood before the terminal's massive floor-to-ceiling windows, which stretched from the floor to the high ceiling above.
Through these enormous panels of glass, he gazed out at the metropolis of New York as it slowly slid into the embrace of darkness.
For a few peaceful moments, he simply stood there taking in the sight, then stretched his arms above his head in a luxurious, lazy stretch that helped work out some of the knots and tension that had accumulated in his muscles during the long flight.
Turning his head to check on his traveling companion, Bryan saw Remus likewise engaged in a series of careful stretching movements, twisting his neck from side to side and rolling his shoulders in an attempt to restore circulation and flexibility to his cramped limbs.
"Never tried Muggle air transportation before?" Bryan asked with a knowing smile, his voice carrying a tone of sympathetic amusement as he observed his friend's obvious discomfort.
"Once before—" Remus replied, his breathing was slightly unsteady as his body continued to recover from the ordeal of the long flight.
His twisting shoulders and back produced a series of creaking sounds as he replied with a bitter smile.
"Right after graduating from Hogwarts, when we were all young and foolish and thought we knew everything about the world. Sirius and James had this brilliant idea that they wanted to experience Muggle air travel, to see what it was like to fly without magic. They thought it would be the ultimate test—could anything match the thrill of a broomstick?"
"It was... not a pleasant experience, to put it mildly. About halfway through the flight, there was a baby of about six months screaming at the top of its lungs. Had been crying for nearly two hours straight. The poor mother was trying everything, and the other passengers were getting irritated too."
"And James decided to help," Bryan guessed, recognizing the pattern.
"Exactly. James being James, wanted to help and also couldn't resist the temptation to use magic during the flight." Remus shook his head. "He waited until no one was looking, then cast the quietest Silencing Charm he could manage. Just on the baby. It worked perfectly, blessed silence filled the cabin, the baby fell asleep and the mother finally relaxed, other passengers also settled down."
Remus's expression grew troubled. "What none of us realized was that the magical interference from the charm had disrupted the aircraft's radio system. The pilots suddenly couldn't contact air traffic control for their landing. At first, they thought it was just equipment malfunction, tried switching to backup systems. But nothing worked."
"What happened?" Bryan asked.
"The plane started circling the airport. Then the captain came over the intercom, trying to keep his voice calm, but you could hear the stress. He announced they were experiencing 'technical difficulties' and would need to make an emergency landing without radio guidance."
Remus's voice grew quiet. "I still remember the silence that went through that cabin."
"And James figured out it was his spell?"
"It took him nearly twenty minutes of watching the crew frantically work on their radios before he put it together. By then, we were running low on fuel and the pilots were preparing for a manual landing with just visual cues from the control tower."
Remus shook his head, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. "James had to lift the Silencing Charm while surrounded by panicked Muggles, then somehow mask the fact that the radios suddenly worked again the moment the baby started crying."
"The timing must have been perfect," Bryan observed, trying to suppress a grin.
"Oh, it was spectacular," Remus said dryly. "The radios crackled back to life just as this poor baby let out the most ear-piercing wail you've ever heard. Half the passengers didn't know whether to be relieved about the communications or annoyed that the crying had started again. The mother was mortified, apologizing to everyone around her for her baby's 'terrible timing.'"
Remus's expression grew fond despite the seriousness of the memory. "James was white as a sheet for days afterward, he kept muttering about 'harmless charms' and 'unforeseen consequences.'
Sirius, naturally, found the whole thing hilarious once we were safely on the ground. He was teasing James constantly about this for months and said it was the most excitement he'd had since leaving school."
This was indeed an interesting bit of history, and Bryan chuckled.
The commercial flight from London to New York naturally carried mostly British passengers, their accents and conversations creating a familiar soundtrack that reminded Bryan and Remus of home even as they ventured into unknown territory.
However, scattered throughout the cabin had also been quite a few faces from other continents and nations.
Many of these passengers, like Bryan and Remus themselves, were visiting this magnificent city which, like London, bore the prestigious Muggle designation of "international metropolis" for the very first time in their lives.
Through the glass windows, they gazed out at the city center more than twenty kilometers away.
There stood more modern buildings than London possessed. As night fell, the densely packed high-rises had already begun to twinkle with scattered lights, and the breath of freedom swept across the wilderness toward them.
Airport security came to disperse the passengers lingering at the observation area, and Bryan and Remus moved along with the crowd.
"I think we should—" Remus began, pulling out a detailed guide map from the inner pocket of his windbreaker jacket.
His brow furrowed slightly in concentration and mild frustration as he attempted to decipher the paper's intricate passages, complex route markings, and dense collection of symbols and abbreviations that left him feeling somewhat perplexed and overwhelmed.
The map had been designed by someone who clearly understood the airport's layout perfectly, but for newcomers like themselves, it might as well have been written in an ancient magical language.
"The Magical Congress has an official office somewhere here in the airport," Remus explained, his finger tracing various potential routes on the confusing map. "According to the entry instructions they sent us, we must first obtain proper wand-carrying permits and official entry permits from their representatives before we're legally allowed to enter the country. But—"
Remus squinted, searching for the correct route among the jumble of signs.
"Oh, I think I've found a clue to the right direction." Remus said with a tone of triumph.
Rather than studying the map with Remus, Bryan let his gaze roam left and right. Suddenly, it fixed on something dozens of feet away, a directional sign hanging from the ceiling, meant to serve Muggles.
Perched on the metal sign was a brass owl. It was both observing the jostling Muggles below and preening its nonexistent feathers with its beak. Not a single Muggle passing beneath the brass owl noticed this incredible sight, clearly, they couldn't see it at all.
As they approached the owl with the crowd, the creature locked its gaze on them once they came within a certain distance. It nodded at the two men, then spread its wings and pointed them in a direction.
"The entry instructions they sent me through official channels made no mention of this," Remus stuffed the guide map into his pocket with some annoyance, following the brass owl's indication.
Since beginning to manage the workshop, Remus had needed to both supervise the workshop's production and, under goblin guidance, deal with wizards of status and position from various countries.
After numerous such encounters, he had gradually built up his confidence and become more willing to express himself. The psychological wounds inflicted by his werewolf identity were slowly healing.
Following the brass owl's clear directional indication, Bryan and Remus entered what appeared to be a completely inconspicuous passage, a narrow corridor that seemed to be nothing more than a maintenance area tucked away from the main flow of airport traffic.
The corridor itself was unremarkable in every way, with white painted walls on both sides that showed the inevitable signs of age and wear that came from years of use by airport maintenance staff.
Both walls were embedded with a series of silvery metal doors at regular intervals. However, these rooms all belonged to Muggles working various jobs at the airport. This was definitely not wizard territory, at least not obviously so.
At the end of the corridor stood an elevator. Before the rust-stained doors sat a dust-covered maintenance sign, suggesting the elevator had been out of service for many years.
"We should—" Remus began hesitantly, his voice trailing off as he considered their options.
From a Muggle perspective, wizards all seemed somewhat neurotic, and Remus found himself wondering whether he should try pressing the elevator call button despite the obvious maintenance warnings, or if doing so would be foolish and potentially dangerous.
Before he could finish weighing the pros and cons of this decision and settle on a course of action, Bryan had already stepped forward and pressed the call button without any apparent hesitation or concern about the elevator's supposed non-functional status.
What puzzled Remus considerably was that after pressing the button, instead of waiting expectantly for the elevator doors to open as any normal person would do, Bryan immediately stepped back several paces and turned to face the white wall that stood beside them, as if expecting something to happen there rather than with the elevator itself.
Hum—
The silence that had lasted for several long seconds was suddenly broken by a sound that seemed to come from within the walls. The smooth, seemingly solid wall suddenly developed a straight crack that appeared to run from floor to ceiling that definitely hadn't been there moments before.
Then, the walls on both side of this mysterious crack began to recede, sliding smoothly back and revealing a metal compartment behind them. This hidden elevator car had no visible light source anywhere within its interior, yet somehow it was dazzlingly and evenly bright throughout.
The compartment looked exactly like a modern elevator car.
"How did you know that would happen?" Remus asked with surprise and genuine curiosity, his eyes wide with amazement at Bryan's apparent clairvoyance. "I was under the impression that you had never visited this city or this facility before either."
"Magic always leaves traces for those who know how to look for them," Bryan replied with a wink and a mysterious smile.
The magical elevator car itself was remarkably unremarkable in its interior design, containing no control buttons, no floor indicators, no emergency communications equipment, or any of the standard safety features that passengers would expect to find in a normal elevator.
The walls were smooth and featureless, and there were no obvious indicators of how the magical transportation system determined where passengers wanted to go or how it knew when to operate.
After the two stepped inside the mysterious elevator, the elevator doors were automatically sealed again by the wall sections sliding back into their original positions, restoring the corridor to its previous appearance of being nothing more than an ordinary maintenance area with an out-of-service elevator at the end.
With only a slight tremor that indicated the beginning of movement, the magical car began its descent into the depths beneath the airport.
Bryan estimated that the car descended at least one hundred and fifty feet below the airport's main floor level before it finally came to a gentle stop with a crisp, monotonous chime.
When the elevator doors slid open, they revealed a spacious, empty hall that was clearly designed for processing large numbers of people efficiently rather than for comfort or aesthetic appeal.
The hall contained very little in the way of furnishing or decoration just the bare essentials needed for its bureaucratic function.
The wall directly opposite the elevator doors held several closed rooms, each marked with simple numerical designations that gave no indication of their specific purposes.
To one side of this room-lined wall was a single information desk, staffed by what appeared to be the facility's only visible employee.
Only after exiting the magical elevator car and taking a few steps into the hall did Remus make the discovery that theirs was not the only transportation system serving this underground facility.
Behind them, what had appeared to be a simple wall from inside their elevator was actually a complex arrangement that held twelve separate elevator doors.
As they began walking toward the information desk, one of the other elevator doors opened, and a middle-aged wizard with Asian facial features entered the hall at almost exactly the same moment they had arrived.
This new arrival appeared to be traveling alone, and he was carrying a heavy black suitcase that looked both expensive and well-traveled.
Apart from Bryan, Remus, and this newly arrived wizard, the entire hall contained only one other person: an elderly wizard with curly, graying hair who was stationed behind the information desk and appeared to be the facility's main, if not only, staff member on duty.
The unremarkable Asian wizard, clearly exhausted from what had obviously been a long and tiring journey from wherever he had come, looked around the hall. He glanced at them with seeming casualness but actual wariness.
When his gaze swept over Remus's face, he showed no reaction, but when his eyes fixed on Bryan's face, he froze for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with recognition, clearly, he had identified Bryan.
Bryan smiled at the wizard and nodded in greeting.
As Bryan and Remus approached the information desk, the elderly wizard stationed behind it continued reading his copy of The New York Ghost, the American wizarding newspaper.
His attention seemed completely absorbed by whatever article he was currently reading, and he didn't bother to look up from the pages even as the two visitors drew near.
"Where are you from?" the old wizard asked in a bored, bureaucratic tone without lifting his eyes from the newspaper, clearly following a standard script that he had repeated countless thousands of times over his years of service in this position.
"London—"
Bryan replied, glancing at the front page of the newspaper in the old wizard's hands, his eyebrows twitching slightly.
"Second room on the left."
The old wizard said, turning past the front page to begin reading the news on the second page.
The Asian wizard by the elevators was still staring at Bryan Watson in amazement, as if uncertain whether he had mistaken the man's identity.
Bryan smiled at him gently once more, then led Remus toward the rooms on the opposite side of the hall.
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