After jumping into the portal, the first thing that Atlas felt was the absence of pain. He had spent over two weeks feeling like someone was rubbing his skin with a grater, so not feeling this pain felt like he had entered heaven.

The next thing he noticed was that he was surrounded by a warm darkness.

The rhythmic heartbeat made him realize that he was once again in a woman's belly as an unborn child. He didn't know how much time passed as he lay there in silence. He asked himself if Hermione was already in the same position. He thought about how his new parents might be. From a practical point of view, rich parents who spent almost no time with their children were the best he could get, but just remembering his previous parents made him aware that no matter how rich or poor they had been, it was nicer to have a loving family. Even though he didn't know yet how he should treat or interact with his new parents. Would he even be able to build up a relationship like his past ones? In his second life, he had pretended for quite a long time until he really accepted them as his new parents, and he doubted it would be any better now.

With these questions in mind, Atlas felt a small push. The familiar rhythmic beating of his mother's heart quickened, and he knew that his birth was imminent. Unlike his previous experience, an invisible, gentle force seemed to guide him in the right direction. He didn't resist and tried once again to make the process as painless and quick as possible. As soon as he could see the blinding light, he was grabbed by two light-skinned small hands. The kaleidoscope of colors was slowly transforming into the blurry figure of a young, thin woman in something that looked like some kind of tribal clothing.

"It's a boy, Su. A boy. You are a mother, Su." Said the woman, her excitement audible to Atlas' still sensible ears.

Atlas' vision got better by the second, and he realized that he was in a run-down wooden shack. He was also sure that he didn't know the woman who was holding him, but he recognized the "style" of her clothes. He was in the foggy swamp water tribe. At least if he judged the great leaf on the woman who was holding him correctly.

"Give him to me, Thi. I want to see him." Said his mother in a weak voice and Thi carefully placed Atlas into his mother's arms.

"My little Atlas. He has Bo's eyes. He has Bo's beautiful green eyes." Said Su and her voice broke down into soft cries.

Atlas could see a young woman. Barely 18 or 19-year-old brown-haired girl, covered in sweat and tears. She looked exhausted and tired from his birth, but despite everything, she looked happy.

Atlas didn't know how he should feel about his current situation. The foggy Swamp tribe was not known for its resourcefulness. The lived more or less isolated in the swamp, survived by eating insects, and had catgators as pets. There was probably no place in the world of Avatar that was less civilized than it. The place was so useless that even the fire nation only rarely attacked them. The only good thing about the tribe was that he would be able to learn plant bending quite easily. Well, the other advantage was that Toph would be born in a place near the swamp, but her birth was still eight to nine years away, and she would still need to grow up to become a potential ally.

But Maybe his dislike for the place stemmed from his frustration at having spent so much time optimizing how this life should go that being born into a place had rendered most of his plans unviable, as only a small portion of the swamp was shown in the series.

He sighed and looked at his new mother. The woman was a stranger to him but would treat him like her own child. Well, he was her child, but Atlas still felt some distance toward her. She was even younger than he was in his first life, so accepting her as his mother would be difficult. Even more so, because the Foggy Swamp people and their uncivilized way of life were something Atlas would need to adapt to. But Atlas would at least try to not give her any difficulties.

Culturally, this place was probably the one he would have liked to not visit at all. And now he would need to live there for years. Or at least until he had mastered their bending. He would need to leave the swamp to build up an information network and, ideally, find Hermione and the Hero.

After Thi had given his mother some medicine to recover from the birth, his mother quickly fell asleep.

It made it painfully obvious to Atlas that the major problem he would have in the following months would be boredom. Knowing that Korra was able to bend water, fire, and earth when she was barely four years old, he hoped that he would be able to learn water bending as soon as he could walk.

Getting Water bending was a good and a bad thing at the same time. Water bending or blood- and ice bending were incredibly lethal to anyone that dared to come close enough, but at the same time, it had one glaring weakness. Its strength heavily depended on the moon and the moonspirits. While a full moon would strengthen the bending, a new moon would severely weaken it. This would complicate planning for future battles. But while that was manageable, the major problem was that if someone killed the moonspirits who were swimming in an oasis that was hidden in the northern water tribe, everyone would lose their ability to waterbend. As there was a general in the fire nation who wanted to do exactly that, it was quite a real danger and not just a minor possibility.

It naturally might be worth it to eradicate waterbending if the hero turned out to be a waterbender as well, but he didn't know how likely that was.

The problem was what he could do until he was able to train his bending. Maybe he could train his body to a limited degree, as Adam had reprimanded him, saying that he had neglected his physique in the Harry Potter world and that he shouldn't only focus on bending in this. The possibility of losing his bending also increased the need for it, but how much physical training could a child reasonably do? Some stretches or trying to lift his head on his own would be the only things that might work in his current situation. The only other remotely useful exercise he could do was train his occlumency.

Especially the last two weeks had shown him that his ability to save memories was still severely limited, not to mention that he hadn't really made any progress in his barriers. He wasn't really worried that his mental defences would be too weak for this world, as the only thing that might affect his mind were the Dai Li, the secret police force of the Earth Kingdom capital, with their brainwashing techniques, but he believed that they wouldn't even be able to break Hermione's barriers, not to mention his own.

He had also considered training legilimency but a quit test with Thi revealed that he wasn't able to sense and connect to other people with Legilimency like he could in the previous world. It probably was because Legilimency was not a pure mind art, as Snapes training with Harry had shown.

But before he delved into the training, he wanted to attempt to sense his chi or even use water bending. Like magic in Harry Potter, it wasn't really something one could feel if one wasn't trained or guided towards it. But as he knew how Guru Pathik had guided Aang towards sensing his chakra points and chi, he thought it was worth a try.

So instead of training his occlumency, Atlas attempted his first meditation session in this world.

An hour later, he had fallen asleep without being able to sense anything.

In his dream, he was in Hogwarts, and Snape had just tasked him with writing one thousand inches about "why he was a terrible human who killed his friends and family."

After some time imprisoned in his nightmare, his dreams became strangely lucid. He was aware that he was asleep, but at the same time, he felt strangely awake.

He had a strange feeling as if someone was directly in front of him and was inviting him to use legilimency on him, but the only person even remotely close to him was Snape, who felt hollow. He stood up from his stool and followed the feeling, ignoring the baffled Snape.

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He had barely taken a few steps when the scenery changed, and he found himself in a cozy small room. He was a baby again, but the people around him were different. A black-haired woman was crying while a middle-aged woman in a dark red robe was trying to console her.

While he tried to make sense of the situation, a strong feeling of loneliness, pity, sadness, and even anger came through the connection. Within seconds, these feelings were replaced by surprise, shock, and overwhelming happiness.

At this moment, he realized that he had somehow connected to Hermione. But before he could say or do something, the connection cut off, and he awoke. He had lost his focus for a moment due to his happiness, but he was confident in reconnecting to her.

It didn't take him long to figure out that it was due to her being his Horcrux, and if Voldemort could read Harry's mind and emotions and even control his dreams with barely a small shard of his soul, then he could do the same or more as long as Hermione had half of his soul in her.

He attempted to reconnect, but failed several times because he was still overwhelmed by the unexpected boon. It took him nearly an hour to calm down enough to connect to her again. They couldn't really speak with each other, but they could share their emotions and, to a lesser extent, their vision.

The second connection was only slightly longer than the first, but he was now certain Hermione was in the fire nation because he could see a small banner in the room she was in. He could tell his presence was greatly comforting Hermione, but he also sensed that something was bothering her. It didn't appear to be directed at him, but because they couldn't communicate, he couldn't ask about it.

He realized, after the connection was served due to his mental exhaustion, that this connection would significantly alter their plans. Knowing who and where they were and possibly even being able to communicate over large distances was an unexpected boon for them, and it would be a waste not to use it to their advantage. He didn't feel bad that all their plans could now be thrown out of the window because they had been able to adapt their whole childhood to their circumstances. But even more importantly, they could see and feel each other due to that connection. They would not be isolated for years and would be able to provide mutual support at any time. At least on an emotional level.

Just feeling Hermione's emotions when she didn't know they'd be able to connect showed him that she definitely needed it, and given that he doubted he'd be able to connect with anyone in this tribe, he probably needed the comfort as well.

The next day, he and Su left the wooden shack that was placed on wooden poles. From what Atlas could see as Su carried him around, he already knew life there would be hard. Even at the end of the world, in his previous life, he had lived better than he would live here.

A few people greeted his mother, and some even came over to see him. He was only able to recognize Huu, the waterbender who specialized in plantbending, as he was kind of unique because, not only didn't he wear the oversized leaf on his head, his hairstyle was also quite noteworthy. He wasn't sure about the others, as not only did they look quite similar, but they also looked like real people and not like the cartoonish art style Adam had shown them. Adam had commented on this change as an immortal's artistic freedom and that there were even stranger versions.

Atlas also noted that the village was far larger than he had expected. There were probably two to three hundred wooden shacks. His mother carried him to a small shack that was on the edge of the village. Atlas didn't know if the tribe had some kind of hierarchy or form of government that was responsible for it, but in most societies, the important people lived in the center of the community, which meant that his mother and his father probably weren't high-ranking people. Not that it would have been really useful to have high status in such a tribe, but it might have made things a little easier.

When they arrived in their new "home," a question was brewing inside Atlas. Where was his father? Even the other villagers had come and greeted him or his mother, so it was strange that he wasn't there. Was he hunting during the time his son was born? Was he already dead?

He didn't get an answer to this question for the rest of the day, when his mother took care of him and built him a bed out of sticks, vines, leaves, and a single piece of green fabric.

His mother seemed to be a simple but caring person. As she worked, she was humming some kind of "lullaby" while taking care of him. He felt bad for her, as he wouldn't be able to love her as a normal child would. It became clear to him that he couldn't bring himself to love her the same way he loved his previous parents, and this time he would probably not stay long enough till his faking turned into reality. He didn't want it to turn into a reality. It would feel like it would tarnish the memories he had of his previous parents. It would feel like he had replaced his parents yet again. Parents he would probably need to kill again, as Hermione's and his plans that involved making the hero the avatar were all dependent on the condition that the hero was either incredibly weak or dumb. Both things, Hero's weren't particularly known for. So even if he could convince himself to accept this woman as his mother, it would just make him feel the guilt and pain all over again.

As the day progressed Atlas had to overcome his first real challenge. Breastfeeding.

It was already bad the second time he had to do it, but doing it a third time, with a different mother at that, made it even weirder. It was even worse because Su was basically a stranger to him. He knew he would get used to it again, but the first time was always a little embarrassing, to say the least. It also didn't help that Su could be considered a pretty girl by swamp standards. On the contrary, it made him feel even weirder, and he reminded himself to always use occlumency when doing it, as he didn't want Hermione to see him do it, no matter how normal it was. And with his research on reproduction, he knew that mother milk was essential to building up his immune system, so he couldn't just reject it. Especially since the swamp would probably put his immune system through a lot of challenges.

As if to confirm his worst nightmares, his mother began to eat an insect that looked like a giant fly right after feeding him.

Seeing this Atlas thought that breastfeeding wasn't so bad after all.

At the evening, it knocked on the door, and Atlas could see his mother moving from his crib.

He quickly recognized the voice of Huu from the door, despite not seeing him.

"Su, I wanted to see if everything was alright? If you and your baby need something, you can come to me. I know it must be hard since Bo, Fern, and the others..."

"They have just captured them; they are alive, Huu! He wouldn't die!"

"I'm sorry, Su." Said Huu and hugged Atlas' mother as she started to cry. "Come to me if you need anything. You are kin, and we will take care of you until Bo returns."

Atlas didn't know how he should feel about his situation. Huu's voice made it obvious that his new father, Bo, was probably dead, and yet he felt nothing. Or at least not the way one should feel when their own father was attacked by a warmongering nation. It was as if a stranger had died, and yet not. It wasn't like he felt any real familiar bonds with him, even less than with his mother, as he hadn't even seen the man, but knowing that his father was dead was strange.

In every life so far, he has had a father who has taken care of him, loved him, and tried to teach him about life. Knowing that this was not the case now was weird and freeing at the same time. He was strangely glad that he wouldn't need to pretend to love two people, but he also saw the disadvantages that came with it. It meant that they were most likely poor, as a single mother in the swamp probably didn't have an easy life, and that he had also assumed that it would be his father who taught him how to survive in the swamp. He would also lose a possible supporter he could use if he wanted to mobilize the tribe to fight the hero. On the other hand, he would have an easier time finding time to secretly train, as he was sure that his mother couldn't watch him the whole day for the next few years.

When his still tear-swollen mother said goodbye to Huu and took him out of the crib, he became aware of what and how he had just thought about his father. It made him feel disgusted with himself. Was it the last two weeks where he spent rationalizing which advantages and disadvantages each situation would bring him, and he just hadn't snapped out of this train of thought, or was he slowly turning into a cold-hearted monster? He even asked himself if he was already beyond redemption, seeing good parts in his father's death.

In the next few days, Atlas spent most of his time training his occlumency. He couldn't do much more, as keeping up his connection with Hermione was quite difficult. He wasn't sure if it was because of the distance or if it was because of his lack of proficiency in legilimency. Hermione was also still unable to build a connection with him, as she was even worse in legilimency than him.

The times he was connected to Hermione, he realized that she was having similar problems as him. One time he connected with her, he saw how she was trying to use fire bending out of boredom. It naturally didn't work, but it ignited Atlas' competitive spirit.

He wanted to learn bending before Hermione and, ideally, help her afterwards. It was a matter of pride for him, as he was always a little ahead in terms of magic in their past life and he would prefer if it stayed that way. Not really because he didn't want Hermione to be better than him, but because he wanted to stay the reliable boyfriend she could turn to if she didn't understand something. Especially considering the situation they were in. But so far, he hadn't made any progress on that front, so he began to doubt that it was as simple as it looked in the series they had seen.