Keepers of the Worlds
Chapter One: Summer Snow Storm
Summary: To further his Uncle Vernon's career Harry is exiled to a summer camp where he knows no one and can't speak the language and finds that it is the best summer of his young life.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Digimon Adventure. Any dialogue you recognize was taken from Digimon Adventure SSN 1 ep. 1.
Author's Note: Hey guys, welcome to my brand spanking new Harry Potter/Digimon crossover fic! This story takes place the summer Harry turns eleven for HP and during the course of Digimon Adventure SSN 1 and I plan to have it go through all of the Digimon Adventure episodes for SSN 1 and maybe SSN 2, depending, as well as all of the HP books/Harry's years at school. So, yeah, another big project in a mound of big projects written by a flaky author. Updates will be sporadic, but after this chapter I expect all the chapters will be between 4000 and 6000 words minimum.
Hope you guys enjoy!
WARNING: There will be Slash (M/M) elements in later chapters, it will be pretty mild especially considering the age range of the characters but if this squicks you turn back now!
Harry was enjoying the warm summer sun lying on a large warm rock by the lake and avoiding the crowds of people playing sports, goofing off or just hanging out in the camp ground proper.
It wasn't that Harry didn't want to make friends, on the contrary, he really wanted someone to hang out with and talk to it was just that he didn't speak Japanese very well yet and since he was attending a summer camp in Japan nobody but the camp councillor and an older girl named Mimi with a scary love of pink spoke English. Harry wasn't looking to make friends with an adult even if the camp councillor looked like an alright bloke, adults spent too much time poking their noses where they weren't wanted and never just wanted to hang out. Mimi also seemed perfectly nice but she had a very large pack of giggling fashion obsessed flunkies with whom she hung out and Harry with his raggedy hand-me-downs and broken glasses decidedly did not fit in with that crowd.
Harry marvelled, not for the first time, at the strange turn his summer had taken that he was even having these thoughts.
It all started a few weeks previous when Harry's Uncle Vernon received the opportunity he had apparently been waiting for his entire career. His firm, Grunnings, made drills and landing an exclusive contract with a wealthy Japanese building company would mean a huge promotion and a raise for Uncle Vernon. So when his boss said that this would mean the family would have to spend a few months in Japan for negotiations Uncle Vernon had replied that this wasn't a problem despite the fact that it was, because of Harry.
Harry was the skeleton in the Dursleys' closet. Or rather, in the cupboard under the stairs. His mother had been Aunt Petunia's sister and she and his father had died in a car accident when Harry was small. He had been living with the Dursleys ever since.
Harry wasn't precisely sure why, but his relatives had always hated him. They treated him like he was beneath them. Like an ugly bug or some slime covered creepy crawlie. Rather than giving him one of the two extra bedrooms in their house on Privet Dr. Harry had been squeezed into the cupboard under the stairs and rather than buying him clothes of his own that fit, they saddled him with his cousin's ratty castoffs.
The only reason the neighbours even knew about his existence was because he had to attend school with their children and was sometimes visible doing yard work.
Aunt Petunia spread nasty rumours about him and his penchant for trouble and most of the neighbours after one highly biased diatribe over tea and scones agreed that such a strange ragamuffin of a child had to be bad news. They were all very sympathetic towards his aunt and what they called her tireless patience in the face of such a clearly bad seed.
Uncle Vernon's boss and coworkers had no clue that he had a nephew much less that the boy was living with him and Uncle Vernon was determined to keep it that way because, apparently, his presence lowered the tone of the Dursley family and could jeapordize their opportunities in life. Harry was starting to think that this odd fear of theirs was completely without merit but he didn't bother mentioning it since his thoughts and opinions were worth less than nothing in his relatives' minds.
Since they were unwilling to have Harry acknowledged and since they couldn't leave him with anyone in England for two full months the Dursleys were forced to take him along to Japan and arrange for him to disappear. Uncle Vernon had found what he deemed the perfect solution while browsing the internet for cheap accommodations for kids and pre-teens.
They had barely landed in Tokyo when Harry and his meagre luggage were hustled onto a bus full of children around his age and driven into the countryside for two months of organized fun at a sleep away summer camp.
Harry had never been to camp before, the Dursleys wouldn't have sent him even if he'd been offered the chance, and neither had his cousin Dudley so he wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Camp, according to the things Harry heard eavesdropping on his classmates was meant to be fun and exciting.
Being alone in a strange place with strange people and being unable to communicate effectively was scary at first, but Harry knew how to deal with uncomfotable and scary situations. He had stayed quiet and unobtrusive and hadn't outwardly panicked and everything had gone as smoothly as it possibly could have.
Now after two weeks he was even beginning to enjoy himself. He had no chores, there were no Dursleys, he could eat as much food as he wanted at meals, although the only thing he really recognized was rice, and the days were filled with opportunities to lie in the sun and just relax. He was even beginning to understand most what people were talking about even if he couldn't speak much Japanese himself. It wasn't like he didn't try, either, he just didn't seem to be hearing the same sounds as everyone else so when he tried to immitate them it didn't work out so well.
Inspired by the Asian atmosphere Harry did what he did best, though not when Uncle Vernon was paying attention, and retreated into his imagination to entertain himself. He called his sunny sojourns by the lake meditation and pretended that he was a ninja-in-training which passed the time and was fun.
If the other campers though he was a little odd, well, it was better than being beat up and reviled, which was what happened at school with his cousin and his gang making sure no one wanted to be friends with him. His roommate, Izzy, was really cool too. The red head didn't complain when he practiced walking on his hands across the cabin floor or stood on one foot on the bed post, or stayed up late reading because he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.
Part of that was probably because Izzy was always so absorbed in whatever it was he was doing on his computer that he barely noticed these oddities, but whatever worked.
Harry was jolted out of his musings by a feather light brush of cold on his cheek. Surprised he opened his eyes to see that it had started to snow. Snow, in the middle of July! Big ponderous flakes drifted lazily from the sky that was quickly turning from blue to an ominous dark grey.
The wind picked up and everyone made a mad dash for the nearest cabins, abandoning sports equipment and leaving the mess and activity tents to be flattened by the sudden storm.
Cabin thirteen, the cabin he shared with Izzy and also the one closest to the lake, was packed with eight other people who were waiting for the summer blizzard to let up. The other kids were murmuring amongst each other as they gathered around the single window and watched the snow pile up.
Harry sat himself next to Izzy folding himself into a lotus position on the end of the other boy's bunk. Izzy, rather than ogling one of nature's stranger phenomena, was tapping at his keyboard rapidly and fiddling with his cell phone looking annoyed when he didn't get the desired response out of either one.
Izzy looked up when Harry sat down on the bed next to him.
"Oh, hey Harry."
Harry cocked his head at Izzy, and gestured to the laptop in clear question. Izzy pulled another annoyed face.
"It's still not working. This storm is making a mess of my infrared internet connection," he explained closing up his laptop and strapping it to his backpack.
Izzy never went anywhere without his backpack but as far as Harry knew the only thing that he carried in the thing were cables and other electronic devices, all of them far more sophisticated looking than some of the stuff his cousin had.
Harry pointed out the window to Izzy. The blizzard had stopped by this point and the other kids were filing out of the cabin eager to play in the two or three inches of snow that had settled on the ground and in the trees, coating the campground in a layer of twinkling white.
"Let's have a toboggan race!" cried one boy.
"I'm gonna build the biggest snowman!" the littlest boy exclaimed dashing outside.
An older kid Harry assumed was his brother by the family resemblance and the worried tone ran out after him.
"TK be careful!"
One of the two girls shivered in her yellow and white tank top.
"It's so cold, and I didn't bring a jacket."
Despite the cold she followed the others outside. The older boy with the glasses took one horrified look outside and began to step back further into the cabin.
"I was worried about catching a summer cold, but this, this is even worse," he moaned.
Mimi bounced up next to him shoving him outside, that girl was far stronger than she looked, before following herself.
"I should have packed my fluffy pink snow boots!"
Harry gestured pointedly outside again.
"Oh!" Izzy said, "No, the storm is still in the atmosphere, just because it stopped snowing doesn't mean that we aren't technically right in the middle of the storm. If I had internet access I could pull up satellite images of the storm cell and show you but—"
Then the first boy, the one wearing goggles on his head of brown hair that was almost as messy as Harry's own, called out to them.
"Hey! What's-your-name, Izzy! You guys have to see this!"
Harry was a bit relieved because when Izzy got going Harry really only understood every other word the redhead said but always felt too guilty to stop his techno-babble. Sharing a curious glance Harry and Izzy left the cabin to join the others standing on the snow covered outcropping overlooking the lake.
In the sky there was a snaking ribbon of blue, green silver and soft pink light cutting through the cloud cover. Harry gaped at the sky. He'd never seen anything like it.
"Wow, it's so beautiful, magical even!" Mimi said delightedly.
"Yes, but what is it?" said Izzy.
"Maybe an aurora?" suggested the girl in the toque and yellow tank top.
"You mean aurora borealis, the northern lights? That's impossible. You see that in Alaska, we're way too far south," Izzy replied.
"Tell that to the snow," the girl retorted.
"I really think we should get back inside before we all come down with pneumonia," said the boy with the glasses nervously.
"And miss this?" said the older of the two brothers rhetorically, "The sky is like…short circuiting."
"Hey!" the boy with the goggles suddenly exclaimed, "What's that?"
He pointed up into the sky past the lazily undulating aurora or whatever it was, and squinting Harry saw a spiral like a green pinwheel with a light forming at the centre. His jaw dropped even as he listened for Izzy to give an explanation.
Before the redhead could present any theories though the light suddenly split into eight separate glowing balls and sped towards them crashing into the snow at their feet with loud booming noises. Harry and the other kids shouted in alarm and the older brother wrapped the younger in a protective embrace as the ground shook and snow went flying.
"Everyone, are you alright?" asked the girl in the yellow tank top when the snow had settled back to earth.
"We're still here," said the brother.
"That was scary," Mimi declared clutching onto her pink cowboy hat for dear life.
"What was that?" demanded the nervous boy with the glasses.
Izzy crawled over to where the nearest ball of light had crashed.
"Meteors?" he suggested peering at the hole, it started to glow blue, a behavior decidedly not related to meteors, "Okay, so it's not meteors."
The others gasped as the things, whatever they were, floated up out of the holes in a ribbon of soft blue light. The boy with the goggles was the first one brave enough to reach out to try and grab the floating object. When nothing happened to him the others quickly followed suit, although the nervous boy took so long to work up the courage to do it that his, whatever it was, almost escaped.
Harry looked down at the small device in his hands. It was small enough to fit easily in the palm of his hand, vaguely square in shape and it had a black screen and a few small buttons set into the front as well as what looked like an antenna. The back had a small clip. Harry watched as the boy with the goggles clipped his onto his belt and quickly copied him.
Izzy was examining the device before him with naked fascination on his face as was the girl in the yellow tank top.
"What are these?" she asked.
The little whatchamacallits were making a soft very mechanical whistling noise.
"My guess is some sort of miniature remote digital apparatus," Izzy answered.
"What, no instructions?" joked the boy with the goggles.
Harry noticed that the screen of Izzy's device had gone from black to a glowing green and checking his own device he saw that it was doing the same.
"Oh no!" shrieked Mimi pointing with one hand while the other hand kept a firm grip on her precious hat.
"Forget the instructions! Surf's up!"
The group looked up from the strange electrical thingamabobs to see that the lake had become a sheer wall of water. They screamed as suddenly the world seemed to tilt and they began falling, tumbling sideways into what had been a lake and was now doing a fair impression of the Parting of the Red Sea.
Harry thought he heard Mimi's voice but as he tumbled through water and air and lights and color he became so confused he couldn't be sure if he'd actually heard her or if it was just something he'd imagined. Then he hit something solid and everything went black.
AN: Alrighty then folks, that was chapter one! Leave me a review to let me know how you liked it, I love hearing from you guys and am totally open to questions, comments, criticisms, rants, and suggestions about the plot. This should stick close to canon for the first few chapters but I'd like to diverge a bit and welcome all new ideas.
Until next time!
-thegenuineimitation