Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia or Harry Potter. This disclaimer is for this fic as a whole. (so I don't have to write this over and over)

Warnings: Violence, Gender Bending, language. (If I think of anything else I'll add them in later chapters)

Pairings: Lloyd/Sheena (anything else is currently undecided)

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Sheena and Colette were flying on Rheairds and were currently over the sea, well Sheena was on a Rheaird, Colette was just flying with her wings. Abruptly the air around them seemed to wrinkle like paper, straining in front of them before a hole appeared. It happened so fast they didn't have time to stop, flying right in. Darkness surrounded them for a moment before another hole appeared. Then they were above a town in the middle of the night.

Sheena stopped her Rheaird and was about to say something when Colette interrupted her, "Shh. Do you hear that? It sounds like a baby." Being Colette she flew towards the sound, so Sheena followed to keep her out of trouble.

A mere moment later they were above what looked like an empty plot in the middle of town. Colette looked confused, and Sheena couldn't blame her, she could hear the baby now, and it sounded like it was coming from directly below them. Then as though a section of the world was glass had had been broken, the empty plot began crumbling away, revealing a two story house with a large section of the second floor destroyed.

Both of them gasped at the though of a child within, and quickly landed in the front yard. Rushing up to the front door, they could see it had been blown off its hinges, and there was other damage surrounding it. Abruptly Maxwell appeared next to them, stopping them from entering, and said, "Though it feels a bit different than Mana, I can defiantly sense a considerable amount of magic in that front hall, and up on the second floor. The magic on the hall feels as though a battle took place, while upstairs merely feels like pure destruction with no resistance."

Sheena and Colette glanced at each other, then went inside cautiously. Immediately they saw someone collapsed in the hallway. Colette moved over to him and checked for a pulse, then a moment later looked art Sheena and shook her head in a clear negative. Sheena just sighed, then moved towards and up the stairs, Colette and Maxwell trailing behind.

The door closest to the stairs was wide open. Inside a woman was on the ground, a pile of cloths covered in ash with a strange stick laying on top a bit in front of her. Behind her was a crib, a wailing baby girl inside with a bleeding cut on her forehead. Sheena gasped and rushed to the baby, scooping her up she immediately started trying to sooth her.

While she was doing that Colette checked the woman, then signed and have Sheena another negative head shake, before saying, "Oh if only Raine had come with us. I think their deaths were recent enough that she could've used 'resurrection' on them. Are we talking the baby with us?"

Sheena nodded to her question. Then Maxwell hummed and said, "That pile of cloths used to be someone, most likely their attacker. I can tell from what I'm sensing from the two bodies, that they were the girls parents. Also I feel strong pools of magic nearby, if your taking the girl you should grab investigate them and grab anything useful. The first pools are on that shelf."

Abruptly Sheena said, "Rose. Her names Rose. This blanket says so. Come on Colette, we should hurry."

Colette and Maxwell nodded, and went over to the shelf. Maxwell identified the magical objects to be a set of stuffed animals and a box. When Colette tried to open the box it started expanding, so she quickly put it on the ground. After it was done growing she opened it. Much to her surprise the box was enormous on the inside, pulling a hum of curiosity from Maxwell and a startled gasp from Sheena, who'd walk over upon seeing the box expand.

Colette asked Maxwell, "Do you think you know how to make this box small again? If you do we won't need to be choosy about what we take, we can just put everything in here."

Maxwell frowned in thought for a moment, then nodded sharply and said, "If the magic I'm currently sensing from it, and what I sensed when it was expanding is any indication, you should be able to shrink the chest by putting your hand directly in the center of the lid while it's closed and pushing a small amount of mana into it. I also sense other magic signatures like this nearby, so there should be other chests like this in the house."

With that the two quickly located the other chests and stripped the house of anything that was either useful, magical, or would hold some sort of sentimental value. They also grabbed all the books in the house, in case they were useful, or a journal or something, and all three of those weird sticks from next to the bodies and on the cloths pile, as Maxwell said they were magical.

They were done quickly, so Sheena bundled Rose in the blanket with her name on it, and they left the house. Colette put her stack of boxes in the storage compartment on the Rheaird and climbed on, Sheena couldn't steer while holding the baby after all. It didn't take long to get back to, and go through the strange tear in the sky. Once on the other side Maxwell directed to where the tear ended before dismissing himself, and Colette began flying towards Mizuho, their original destination.

Upon arriving in Mizuho, Maxwell reappeared and Colette asked Sheena, "What are you going to do with Rose?"

Sheena just smiled at Rose and said, "Isn't it obvious? I'm going to raise her myself."

Colette didn't reply, merely gave Sheena a knowing look. It was something that was almost never spoken aloud, but when Sheena failed to make a pact with Volt, he shocked her badly. Bad enough that it wounded her internally, leaving Sheena incapable of having children. Something that saddened both her and Lloyd, who she'd been engaged to for three months. While they'd been talking Colette had retrieved the stack of shrunken chests,

Maxwell cleared his throat and butted in, telling them, "You should have Raine purify that wound on her forehead at once. There's a foul magic in that cut. More specifically it seems that person who attacked her family delved into extremely dark magic. I can sense death magic in that cut, so I believe that person attempted to kill her after disposing of her parents, and the spell somehow backfired. He must have done incredibly foul magic, because it seems his soul wasn't stable. I can sense a piece of it clinging to that wound, so it must have broke off from the rest of their soul when the death magic hit them."

Sheena shot a panicked look at Maxwell and was about to say something when he cut her off, "Don't worry. It seems we're in luck, I can sense Raine, she seems to be in your house visiting Lloyd with Genis.

Quickly rushing to the house, Sheena pushed the sliding door open with her foot, rushed inside, and yelled, "Raine! I need help! Quickly!" As she was doing this saying this she gently set Rose on the bed and unwrapped the blanket.

The three inside the house had jerked at the sudden intrusion, and Raine rushed to Sheena's side as soon as her words registered. Looking at the baby she immediately scanned her with magic, gasping in horror at the results she got from the lightning bolt shaped cut.

Regaining her composer she shifted her grip on her staff, began gathering her mana in preparation for the spell, and demanded, "What happened to this poor girl?! I've «never felt mana as foul as what's in that cut! Nullify!"

With that black smoke began pouring out of the cut. It continued to emerge for a full minute before it was done. Then it hovered there a mass of foul black smoke, until a moment later it was destroyed with a sharp command of, "Photon! There that takes care of that."

Maxwell shook his head, "No. I still sense a darkness in the wound. A 'Purify' spell should do it, but I should warn you, I can sense that the little one isn't fully human. I can also sense a pool of mana in her, so she's probably capable of magic. In other words, she's probably part elf which is perfectly fine and all, but to get this particular bit of darkness out, you'll have to charge the purify with more mana than usual. It could 'Purify' the human blood from her, or at least ~some of her human blood. Then again it doesn't feel like elf blood, or at least not like the elves of this realm."

Raine and the others looked confused, and Genis asked, "What do you mean? Sure elves were found in both Tethe'alla and Sylverant, but elves are elves. Aren't they all the same?"

Maxwell shook his head before saying, "True the elves of Tethe'alla and Sylverant are the same, but that's primarily because they were the same world before being divided. She's from ~another world at together." Then looking to Sheena and Colette, he explained, "That phenomenon you experience when you ended up above her town was a rip in the very fabric of the worlds, and the rips acted like a portal." Looking back to Raine he continued his explanation, "What I'm sensing feels distantly familiar to the elves of this world, but very different. My best guess is that since the humans of that world are obviously physically similar and in fact feel almost the same to my senses, the elves probably have near identical physiology. However, they could be ~vastly different in how they gather mana and mold it. Or it could be the complete opposite, they could look entirely different and use mana the same. Even yet, it could be a bit of both, they could look and use mana in a vaguely similar fashion, but not quite be the same in any meaning of the word."

Genis and Raine both looked interested, and seemed like they were about to continue discussing it with Maxwell, but Sheena abruptly cut in, "It doesn't matter! You three can talk about it «after she's been healed! Right now she «needs help!"

The three looked a bit guilty at being distracted, but before Raine could gather the mana, Maxwell said, "Wait. Raine's 'Photon' isn't going to cut it, Sheena you should summon either Aska or Luna to contain and destroy it. The rest of you back up. This next bit is much darker then what Raine 'Nullified' earlier, and it's also semi-sentient. It could very well attempt to latch on to someone else once it's removed from young Rose."

Sheena nodded, then crossed her arms and said, "I call upon the light unto the Heavens. I summon thee. Come, Luna!"

Luna appeared and started to glance around before catching sight of Rose. Then she hissed and exclaimed, "Who would expose a little one to such foul magic?!"

Sheena quickly explained, "Someone who murdered both her parents shortly before and attempted to murder her. Listen Raine is going to 'Purify' it from her, but we need you to contain it as it's coming out and destroy it when she's done."

Luna got an uncharacteristically vicious look on her face and said, "Gladly! There is a difference between Dark or Shadow magic and Black magic. This is most defiantly black magic, if Shadow were here he'd be revolted at this magic."

After Luna gave her assent, Raine began gathering her mana, so she'd said the rest while waiting for Raine to finish gathering and molding her mana. Then Raine opened her eyes, looked at Luna, and asked, "Ready?" Receiving a nod, Raine said, "Purify!"

With that Rose was engulfed in pure white magic, and more black smoke began pouring out, only to immediately bee caught in a cage of light by Luna. The process continued for three full minutes, during which everyone was deathly silent out of both worry for the baby, and because they didn't want to interrupt either Raine or Luna's concentration during such a delicate procedure.

When the all the black magic had been removed Luna destroyed it. A moment later the light around Rose cleared, revealing she had in fact changed slightly. Before she'd had regular ears with mostly black hair, though her bangs were red. Now though her ears were pointed, though they didn't point towards the back if her head like the elves of Sylverant and Tethe'alla. Instead her ears were above her shoulders, pointing outwards towards her sides. Her hair had remained mostly the same, but now there were silver streaks through the black part of her hair. A quick 'Heal' from Raine healed the lightning bolt shaped cut on her forehead, though strangely it scarred over instead of disappearing, then Sheena picked her up.

Lloyd moved over and looked at Rose -who was now looking at everything and everyone with that wide eyed wonder that children are prone to- over Sheena's shoulder, before saying, "She's rather cute." He reached around Sheena and rubbed Rose's cheek. When she grabbed his fore and middle fingers, and started smiling and giggling, he smiled and said, "Well isn't she just precious?"

Sheena smiled at him, then said, "I'm glad you like her. Considering I was planning on raising her, it'd be a problem if my fiancé didn't like my newly adopted daughter."

There were exclamations of surprise from Raine and Genis. Lloyd just looked at her wide eyed for a moment, then smiled and said easily, "Being your fiancé, doesn't that make her ~our adopted daughter?" Then he frowned and asked, "What about her parents? And if that's not an issue for whatever reason, what's her full name? I can see her blanket says Rose, but what about her last and middle names?'

Sheena sighed a bit sadly, "As Maxwell explained earlier, Colette and I accidentally traveled through a rip in the world. A few moments after arriving in Rose's world we heard her wailing. When we went to investigate we found ourselves above what first appeared to be an empty plot of land. However that wasn't the case, there was some sort of illusion over the house, which collapsed not long after we arrived. The house was in bad shape, it was two stories and the second floor looked like part of it had been blown up, and then collapsed inward. After landing Maxwell appeared and said that he could sense a magical fight had occurred in the hallway/front door area, but that the second floor felt like no one had resisted, resulting in pure destruction. When we entered the main hallway the little ones father was on the ground. Colette confined he was dead, but if the destruction to the doorway area was any indication, he put up one hell of a fight trying to protect Rose and her mother before he was killed by their attacker. When we went upstairs we found Rose's mother dead in front of her crib, and it appeared as though she'd attempted to protect Rose by bodily putting herself between Rose and their. Near Rose's mother, Maxwell identified what used to be a person more specifically the person who killed Rose's parents and tried to kill Rose, though all that was left was a pile of cloths, some ash, and a weird stick that Maxwell said was magical."

Before she could continue Maxwell, who was still there, interrupted, "The little once has what seems to be protection magic lingering on her, though it's tinged with sacrificial magic, and the magical signature matches what I sensed from her mother. So I believe her mother cast some sort of protection spell that was powered by her willing sacrifice for her daughter, hence why she didn't resist. That magic seems to be why the foul magic was in that mark on her forehead, it's the source of that protection magic, which was most likely containing it there. Part of that foul magic that was in the little ones cut was death magic, so I believe their attacker tried to kill Rose, and her mother's protection magic causing the spell to rebound with explosive force. Not only killing her would be murderer, but also blowing up a portion of the house."

There was heavy silence for a few moments, as everyone processed this, then Colette decided to try and distract everyone by saying, "Oh ya! Maxwell also sensed these!" At that she gestured towards the shrunken chests, which she'd set down on a table at some point, then continued, "Genis, Raine, come look! It's unlike any magic I've ever seen!"

Genis and Raine walked over, clearly curious. So Colette grabbed the top box from the stack and set it on the ground, then making it expand as she'd accidentally done when they found Rose, she opened it. It wasn't the chest she found in Rose's room, this one seemed much bigger, in fact from what she could see, this chest contained an entire library. A multi story library with a ladder extending to the bottom floor. Colette shouted in excitement, "Sheena! This one's even bigger!"

After peering inside, Raine let out a gasp then said, "Oh my! How delightful!"

Genis on the other hand exclaimed, "What?! How?!"

Sheena's eyebrows shot up, and Lloyd's jaw dropped. Then Raine quickly looked to Sheena and Lloyd, saying, "Since it belongs to your daughter it's your decision, however Genis and I would very much like to go down there, if it's alright with you two?"

Though phrased it like a question, Sheena and Lloyd both knew it was more of a demand, and that there would be hell to pay if they denied the sage siblings. They wisely nodded their assent. The look of glee on Genis and Raine's faces made everyone else extremely nervous. Even Maxwell, who quickly disappeared, not wanting to be around when the siblings went book crazy.