Hrm.

[camwyn]

About to start work on a Harry Potter fanfic, based on the premise that Lucius Malfoy has an older half-brother named Lucious (he got disowned and Grandpa Malfoy wanted to strip him of the name entirely, but the Ministry couldn't make it happen due to magical reasons, so he recycled the name on his next son). Need to ask one quick bit of advice if anyone here can think of an answer, though: simplest way to get Draco across the Atlantic Ocean in a hurry? Quidditch Through The Ages says there's trans-Atlantic broom travel and that Apparition over long distances is dangerous, with only a few wizards trying it over trans-continental distances. Portkeys might work, but I'm not really sure about that, and I don't think magical animals of any size smaller than dragons would quite do unless there is something in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that I don't know about...

Any suggestions? Or should I just take this as an opportunity to have Draco land at the wizardly equivalent of an airport? I don't think the Floo Network is inter-continental, it doesn't feel like that kind of a deal.

Comments

[avram]

You could probably have fun with the broomport.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Of course the floo network is transatlantic. You just have to use commercial furnaces with big smokestacks.

[camwyn]

"Now landing at Newark International Broomport..."

Actually, no. Now that I think about it, I may well take up the broomport idea, but... In the 60's or 70's, there was a plan afoot to build a huge jetport in Morris County so that there would be easy access to lots of corporate headquarters in the region. The plan was defeated and the land in question made into Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. I'm going to put Uncle Lucious in with the other rich 'n snobby people of New Jersey, somewhere out in one of the counties where it is perfectly reasonable to have a dressage and tack store next door to the Jaguar dealership, and I'm going to put the broom port in Great Swamp. It's not like the Parks Department employees can sweep it all every day, after all - a few good Muggle-repelling charms will establish an area inside the park that Muggles aren't even aware of. Busiest at night, of course, since Muggles look up now and again - but even so, it's relatively easily hidden inside a place like the Swamp.

[camwyn]

Hee. I could see that, actually - unfortunately I can't quite picture Narcissa Malfoy being willing to visit the commercial furnace area to begin with. People there are so... common. And dirty. It's cheaper, true, but it's the equivalent of asking one of the Kennedys to take a Greyhound bus. Draco's gonna land at Great Swamp International Broomport, and Uncle Lucious can pick him up on a Granian horse. Most of the people in that part of the state have horses anyway.

[avram]

All those long lines at the wand-detector. Security is so much tighter with Valdemort on the loose.

[sdelmonte]

Has TransPolyU resumed work on the transoceanic catapult yet?

(And yes, I would suppose that there have been many Girl Genius/HP fanfic crossovers.)

[colubra.livejournal.com]

I think you could floo it: London <-> Hogwarts would be possible, given that Harry can talk via Floo to Sirius, in London.
So we go London to Dover to Calais und so weiter up through Europe into Scandinavia, jump to Iceland then to Greenland and to Canada seems workable distance-wise: given that floo communications between London and Hogwarts are possible...
Crossing the Channel may have some other train leaving platform 9&3/4, though.

Another thought just jumped my brain and seems to have a properly Rowling feel to it:
wizards up in the Artic Circle who are employed to keep a ring of floos lit so you could floo from Norway up to AC 1, across to AC 8, then back down a string of friendly hearths through Canada. One floo-attendant (and floo) per timezone because, well, you know how much closer together they are up there.
Not the most Narcissa mode of transport, true- but it would suffice more than adequately.