** I don't really have time to edit this. There are some minor things like tense slips and grammar issues but I wanted to get this out ASAP because I know some people have been waiting patiently for it. Sorry it's a little rough but I just don't have the time to fix it all.
Again I'm sorry for the wait I hope you enjoy the chapter. **
Chapter 53: What They Built in a Year
The first few weeks after the time bubble went up didn't feel like much progress was being made.
They did however feel like Atlantis was adjusting. Us as well.
People moved carefully, even when there wasn't a need to be cautious. Conversations stayed short, and factual. Everyone focused on there own tasks of settling in and setting up the building blocks of our new society.
It felt like we were all still in awe of what we had just done. It being the first time anyone has ever attempted a massive spell array like the one we had just erected.
Sure, we had time turners that allowed us to go a short distance back in time. But this was different, this was massive and untested.
It felt like we were all on edge waiting for it to fail. Yet we all knew that it wouldn't, even if we had our doubts at times.
Neville, bless his plant loving heart, was the first one to break that tension.
Hyacinth found him waist-deep in soil. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hands coated in dark, damp earth as he argued with Professor Sprout like his life depended on it.
"It's not that it won't grow," Neville said, frustration edging his voice. "It's that it's growing wrong."
"There is no wrong," Pomona shot back, hands on her hips, eyes sharp. "There is adaptation. This environment is not Hogwarts, Mr. Longbottom."
"That's my point," he said, dragging a hand through his hair and leaving a streak of dirt behind. "We can't just treat it like it is."
Hyacinth didn't interrupt.
She leaned against the entry arch of the newly formed greenhouse structure and watched.
Between them, rows of experimental beds stretched outward, some thriving, some struggling, some doing something entirely unfamiliar. There were leaves with a faint sheen to them, stems that seemed to shift direction depending on the light.
Or maybe the magic.
"Then what would you suggest?" Pomona asked, quieter now, not quite as dismissive as she had been before.
Neville exhaled, shoulders dropping just a fraction. "Professor I think we should stop trying to control it so much."
That earned him a look.
"Not completely," he added quickly. "Just... less, I don't know. Maybe, we try and let it show us what works for it here instead of forcing it to behave like it did before."
There was a short pause.
Then, Professor Sprout nodded slowly and said, "Alright Mr. Longbottom, we will try it your way. But I want you to had me notes on all the changes you make to it's care regimen, and the changes you observe. I'm quite busy at the moment so I will have to leave this issue in your hands."
Hyacinth pushed off the arch after watching the two shift from just student and teacher to two people who want all the plants we brought with us to thrive in their new environment.
Newt's work was a lot harder, and it caused him to be almost impossible to pin down. He was bouncing around like a spinning top, from habitat to habitat.
Hyacinth had managed to find him and follow him once, out past the edge of the main structures, into a section of the bubble that hadn't been fully developed yet. The ground there was uneven, the remnants of that part of the city's collapse still visible in fractured stone and half-buried pathways.
Newt crouched near the ground as if checking the soil, his case open beside him.
"You're releasing them already?" Hyacinth asked.
He nodded before he waved his wand and the ground around them began to change. The fallen debris was swept away, and on the ground new plant life grew. Then things and plant started to fly out of his case and land neatly on the newly transformed ground.
"They won't thrive if they stay contained too long," he said, gently while he remained focused on his task. "Atlantis needs to get used to and learn about them just as much as they need to learn about her."
That's when he reached into his opened case and pulled out a small bowtruckle.
It looked scared but when it saw the new tree that Newt had just pulled out of the case it became happy.
It moved quickly, darting up the tree bushing against a few leaves as it went. Then around twenty more of them shot out of the case and were gone in seconds.
Hyacinth stepped closer, watching the leaves settle with a gentile rustling sound.
"And if this doesn't work the way we want it to?" she asked.
Newt closed the case slowly. "Then we adjust things until everyone is settled."
She nodded because what else could she do. She could only help things so far, before she had to let nature find it's new balance.
The water enclosure for the merfolk began to take shape right before there eyes as the time ticked by.
The water that had once been cloudy, and unsettled from the construction of the underwater habitat, began to clear. Slowly, then all at once, until visibility was restored.
Hyacinth stood at one of the observation points weeks later, watching as the first structured plant beds take hold beneath the surface of the water.
They weren't impressive yet, but it was a start.
She was excited when she saw the thin lines of green anchored into carefully prepared sections of the seabed. The seabed around Atlantis wasn't fully alive yet but this was a great start.
Later as time moved on, those same beds were unrecognizable.
Color spread outward, no longer confined to neat rows. Corals formed natural barriers and structures, growing into shapes that hadn't been designed so much as encouraged to grow into the shapes the merfolk needed for their own homes.
Soft light pulsed through sections of the water, as bioluminescent strands wove there way through the environment like a second current.
It was a sort of functional decoration. They were beautiful and allowed the deep sea to be visible even in the darkest of nights.
The greenhouses followed suit quickly after the initial seeds for the undersea habitat were laid.
What began as controlled experimentation shifted into something closer to production.
Hyacinth walked through one month later and had to stop halfway in.
House-elves moved through the space with practiced efficiency, adjusting irrigation, harvesting, and then replanting. Their movements were coordinated and they moved like a agricultural machine. They were no longer tentative or scared, they were sure of their rolls here on Atlantis.
Neville stood near one of the central rows, holding something in his hands like he wasn't entirely sure it was real.
"Can you believe it?" he said when he noticed her.
"Yeah, Nev I can. We are building our home from the ground up." Hyacinth replied.
He laughed under his breath, shaking his head. "We've got entire ecosystems rebuilding outside, and I'm standing here staring at this tomato like it's a miracle."
She stepped closer, glancing at the rows behind him. "It is a miracle. It's a miracle that will keep us fed and healthy."
After that the first proper meal of just Atlantis grown crops came about.
It wasn't some grand celebration it was just everyone coming together to cook what they had grown with there own two hands.
Hyacinth found herself sitting at a long table, surrounded by people who looked just as surprised as she felt.
The food was simple but it was fresh and tasty.
Though not everything went smoothly.
A creature got loose three months after the bubble went up.
It wasn't a dangerous creature, but it was fast and clever enough to cause problems if left unchecked.
Hyacinth caught sight of it darting through one of the partially restored corridors, a flash of movement that shouldn't have been there.
By the time she reached the open section near the habitat boundary, Newt was already there.
Luna stood beside him, watching the space with an expression that suggested she saw more than anyone else in the room.
"It's going to double back," she said softly.
Newt nodded once, adjusting his position.
He managed to capture the stray niffler before he made off with some of our shinier wires or crystal conduits.
Hyacinth leaned against the wall afterward, arms crossed.
"Nice catch," she said.
Luna tilted her head. "It was. I'm just glad we could catch the little trouble maker before anything bad happened."
The city itself came back back to life piece by piece.
Water drained from the collapsed areas where the shields had failed over the years.
Power systems flickered back to life after years of being submerged.
Sections that had been inaccessible opened again, revealing architecture that had been buried for centuries.
It was fulfilling seeing the city slowly make her way back from the brink of destruction.
Time stretched further.
Months turned into years and the time started to feel less like we barrowed it and we were simply just living through it.
Progress stopped feeling like milestones and started feeling like we were growing and gaining our own momentum.
When the one year on Earth mark came, no one announced it. Because everyone was to busy with their own tasks to bother. It had been ten years for us and we had grown accustomed to our new life under the sea.
Hyacinth however did go to stand at the edge of the secondary bubble again, in nearly the same place she had been at the start.
It was her little ritual.
She would go to the place where she stood when the bubble was activated and stand there for a few minutes. She liked to reflect on all the changes that happened over the course of the year.
The merfolk arrived two days later in special environment pods that the goblins had made for them.
They were taken to the edge of the city boundary just before the shields edge. They could see the water city that had been nurtured for the last ten years in preparation for their arrival.
Hyacinth stood with the others at the boundary, watching as the merfolk took their first steps into their new home.
They crossed into the bubble with measured, deliberate movement, eyes scanning everything at once.
They took a long look around evaluating things for themselves.
They took in the structures. The plant life, the waters clarity and the absence of decay.
One of them moved forward slightly, pausing near the first of the established beds.
Reaching out they touched the plant life lightly.
Then, slowly, something akin to relief settled onto his face.
It passed through the the rest of them like a current.
It was subtle, but undeniable.
They spoke among themselves, their voices low.
Then they began to move deeper into the ocean.
They were finally there in the oceans of Atlantis away from the pollutants that filled Earths oceans.
As inhabitants of the waters of Atlantis they were free to rule it's waters as equals with the Magical Atlantean's.
After the Merfolk arrived the waters changed again. This time it happened even faster than before.
The merfolk didn't necessarily rebuild everything.
They did however reshape things.
What had once been a structured underwater village became a fluid, living city that integrated itself into the environment in ways that surface dwellers never would have considered.
Some of the younger Centaurs came shortly after the Merfolk settled in.
A few chose to settle at the edges of Atlantis, near the creature preserves, where they could keep an eye on the unicorns and some of the smaller magical creatures.
Others moved to the surface to settle down on the surface.
The goal was to establish a space of their own where they could see the stars.
Hyacinth stood at the observation point weeks later, looking out over the now fully active secondary bubble.
She could hear everyone's voices layered over one another.
All of the different languages.
The different rhythms that each person made as they went through their day.
There was movement everywhere.
Water and land working together without friction.
Behind her, Sirius stepped up beside her, with his hands in his pockets.
"Well," he said after a moment, "that's cool."
She exhaled slowly.
"Yeah," she said.
He glanced at her. "You going to say something profound about it? Or do you want me to do it?"
Hyacinth shook her head with a small smile at the corner of her lips.
There wasn't anything to say.
Nothing could come close to describing how she was feeling at that moment.
She looked back out at it.
Sirius hugged her while she looked out over the city that was changing them as well as itself.
They were becoming their own civilization.