Title: Harry Potter and Project Genesis

Author: Evil Guy

Rating: NC-17 (Due to Language, Violence, Adult Content, Nudity, and Sexual Situations)

Disclaimer: JK Rowling has Harry, and whoever else from the books show up in these plots. Gen13 and all associated characters and events were created by Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell, and the original comics/events this story covers distributed by Image Comics, though are now owned by DC Comics. I don't own either and I'm not making any money from all this, so don't bother suing me. Also, spoilers for parts from the unreleased Gen13 Animated movie, as well as parts of the original five-issue origin series of the original Gen13 comics.

Summary: HP/Gen13 Crossover. After defeating Voldemort and graduating Hogwarts, 18-year-old Harry suddenly finds himself with nothing to do. Then an IO agent comes knocking at his door with word about something his mothers parents were involved in. Having nothing better to do, and no longer wanting to be an Auror for a corrupt Ministry, Harry goes along, hoping to gain new insights and maybe pick up a few skills.

Note: The Prologue to this can be found in Chapter 71 of my "Evil Guy Fantasies". Not exactly necessary, but you might want to go check that out before getting too far into this.

HP-Gen13: Chapter One Basic Training

Harry was flown out that very night to America. Once he landed, he was taken, via no less than a dozen well-dressed combat-experienced men in sunglasses, suits, and ear-pieces, and placed inside a van with no windows. He cast a 'locator' spell on himself once they stopped, and was surprised to note that he had been taken to the middle of one of the many deserts scattered throughout the state of New Mexico in the United States of America. After a rather brief introductory class, he was taken to the 'inner workings' of this training base, which was mostly gun metal machine gray walls and cement floors just about everywhere, even in the bunks.

First day, he was assigned a number, which was printed on the front of the green jumpsuit they'd given him, and then put in a 'Combat Cell' or group with a few others. The others in the group was a tall, lanky blonde who reminded him a bit of Ron, named Bobby Lane, a mousy redhead who acted more like Hermione than any of the other redheads he'd known in his life, named Caitlin Fairchild, a short musclebound jock with brown hair and tattoos that never payed attention in class, named Edmund "Grunge" Chang, a 'punk' girl with a rather unique dye-job of purple hair with hot pink bangs that did her best to not follow the rules at all times, named Roxy Spaulding, and finally his designated partner in the group, a tall Native American young woman named Sarah Rainmaker.

The other four in the cell quickly formed their own little group, much like he had with Ron and Hermione back in Hogwarts. Sarah, from the first moment they met, couldn't stand him, and he had no idea why, so the two of them were just kind of off on their own for the time being. The most work they did that first day was try to remember the layout of the base and where they would have to go from day-to-day. Harry swore, the place was more convoluted than Hogwarts was at its most contrary, when the stairs never moved right and every trick and trap stair, door, wall, and hallway was on 'full'. Unfortunately the convolution came more from all the 'Restricted Areas' they weren't allowed access to rather than the fun stuff Hogwarts used to throw at him.

The second day... after it was over, Harry collapsed in his bunk and didn't wake up until the alarm went off signaling the start of the third day. After that, every day was much of the same, only varying by the specific types of tortures the young candidates were having to undergo.

Exercise was a big part of it, but studying and learning all sorts of things was another bigger part of it. They were also tested, daily, and fully. Harry had heard horror stories about how it used to be for some schools where the students were made to undergo full medical exams, already stripped down to their underwear as they waited their turn. Turns out these people heard those same stories and thought it was a good idea apparently. Bobby learned the first day he needed to switch to Boxers, and they all learned that Sarah didn't normally bother with underwear. At all.

At night, things also happened. Although only Harry was aware of this and that was because on his second full night here he'd erected rudimentary wards inside and outside of his room. Nothing advanced, just some early warning and visitor announcement wards. They all had visitations during the night, he discovered, but unfortunately he couldn't remember any of that because every night he was unconscious, dead to the world. At first he'd passed it off as exhaustion, but as he put up some more complex wards, and even put some in his team's rooms as well, he began to suspect otherwise.

A month passed by like this with nothing really changing. Save for the fact that the team dynamics slowly changed as time passed and the exercises got more intense and the tests more difficult. Caitlin was the first one to extend the proverbial olive branch to him and Sarah during one of their many daily exams in the infinite number of subjects they were studying. Sarah, as he had quickly realized was normal for her, rebuffed the effort and put up the metaphorical equivalent of a stone wall between her and Fairchild.

Harry, on the other hand, never one to ignore a genuine offer of friendship, accepted the help with a warm smile and offered his own in return. Turns out his initial comparison of Caitlin to Hermione had been closer to the truth than he'd first suspected. The girl was an out and out genius! Yet, as he soon discovered later that same day during the physical training portion, she needed as much help as she could get and then some.

And so he offered it, although given his own physical conditioning, he couldn't offer much. When it came right down to it, he and Caitlin were pretty much identical physical specimens, IE too skinny/short for their ages and not very active exercisers. Turns out that was the perfect way he could help, as they were usually neck and neck in every one of the daily exercises, so they could in turn egg each other on and offer support when they saw the other faltering.

Speaking of the physical training, for their group it seemed that Bobby, Grunge and Sarah were all the best, while he and Caitlin were the worst, with Roxy somewhere in the middle between the two extremes. Back to the other end of the spectrum, despite how he felt he was struggling, when the results came in at the start of each day, he was always right behind Caitlin in testing scores. It surprised him as much as the others.

In the middle of their third week, something else changed within the group. Sarah had started to fall behind in the testing scores. Before then, she'd been right behind Harry in the scoreboard results, some days switching with Bobby for third place. That day, she was below Roxy in her scores, which was still far from last, it didn't say much that in the group only Grunge was doing worse than her.

And so, taking a bite of humble pie, when the teams were given time to self-study before being tested on the material, Sarah approached them and just stood there for a good thirty seconds or more. Finally, Bobby snorted and pulled her down into the seat next to him, "Get over yourself, Princess. It's all about the team, or haven't you been paying attention?"

Harry added, "Sarah?" She'd looked at him, and he smiled, "Thanks. Now, about this right here..."

After that, they were a solid and cohesive unit. Caitlin and Harry were determined as the brains, but Harry's decisiveness at times made everybody defer to his decisions most of the time. Sometimes Caitlin, or Kat as they often referred to her in conversation, argued and pointed out flaws in his decisions. Rather than argue back for the sake of arguing, (like there wasn't enough of that in his life with Ron and Hermione), he genuinely listened, or tried to, and made sure that they each understood the others point of view, before finally just going with what he thought was best at the time, which sometimes was Caitlin's idea over his, but more often was just his idea in the first place.

As time passed, this became more and more obvious and entirely without intention on anyone's part, a command structure had been formed within the group. Although it was entirely a toss-up as to who was in charge overall as he and Caitlin seemed to keep switching on that. After another half a month, it was clear from all the displayed scoreboards that their team was the best out of pretty much the whole facility. They were becoming the team to beat, although nobody could really say what, if anything, they were really competing over in the first place. Nevertheless in the classrooms and the training yards, it was becoming quite clear that everything was being geared up as time progressed, that a change was fast approaching.

As Harry sat with his group in the dining hall, he began to suspect that change might be coming sooner than any of them expected. Especially when they were joined by a new face at breakfast.

He was older, about as old as any of his Professors back at Hogwarts, though the scars across his face and hands made him look even older than that. Harry noticed him as soon as he got in line for breakfast. The rest of the recruits seemed to be avoiding him as the table he sat at was completely devoid of occupants.

Looking down at his breakfast, he grimaced. He couldn't be sure of what, but the food lately had an odd aftertaste that he couldn't identify. What he did know was that it left him feeling sick for the rest of the morning and there wasn't much he could do about it. Madam Pomphrey the nursing staff was not.

Caitlin, just three places ahead of him in line, took her tray and from the look of it was off the same opinion as he was regarding the food. Suddenly, she stumbled and would have dropped the tray if the scarred man hadn't moved quickly and caught her, holding the tray until she had it stable.

"Here, let me help you with that," he said as he walked with her back to his table. Harry gestured to the others and they all quickly caught on, following along behind Caitlin and the scarred man.

"Thanks," Caitlin said as she was helped to a seat at the empty table. "Must be a flu bug."

"There you go," he said, going around to sit down beside her. "Caitlin Fairchild, right? My name is Colonel John Lynch. I knew your father, Caitlin. Good man."

"My father?" the redhead's eyes went wide. "How?"

"We served together," the scarred man answered. "He was a brave man. I hear you're quite the scholar. Your father would be quite proud to see you following in his footsteps. It is not easy to get into a program like this one. Only a lucky few make it. Are they treating you well?"

"Oh yes," Caitlin replied enthusiastically. "I'm fine. The classes are a piece of cake and I'm getting the hang of martial arts." She struck a brief pose showing off her biceps like she was a classic strongman.

"I'll say," Roxy grumbled, already digging into her gruel for the day. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. Please, don't mind me."

"I'm sorry," Caitlin apologized. "These are my friends, Grunge, Roxy, Bobby, Sarah, and Harry."

"You gonna eat that, Fairchild?" Grunge asked pointing, about to make a grab, but was slapped away.

"Don't mind Grunge, he's still being house-trained," Bobby apologized for the shorter musclehead.

"Pleased to meet'cha," Roxy put on her best face, telling all those that knew her she was trying to get something she wanted. "Ya gotta smoke on ya? I'm all out."

"Uh, as a matter of fact, I don't. They kill ya, you know?" Col. Lynch replied with a helpless shrug.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," Roxy said with a roll of the eyes.

"And don't mind Roxy," Harry said from the other side of the Colonel as he took the chair opposite Caitlin and across from Sarah. "She's a bit of a rule breaker. I've cut her off until she learns to say please."

The purple and pink haired girl stuck her tongue out at her teammate and blew a raspberry.

"You must be the mysterious Harry Potter," the scarred man looked the youth over. "Cut her off?"

Harry smirked knowingly and flicked his fingers once, a pristine cigarette appearing as though by magic. Which it actually was, as he just conjured the simple role of paper and tobacco from memory. He'd been working on his wandless and remote casting skills a lot recently. Surprisingly, the wandless was actually getting easier, though the results were often much weaker than when he used a wand, it was a useful skill nevertheless. Besides, with Roxy, the conjured cigarettes didn't have to last long at all.

"Gimme!" the girl lunged across the table, but was held back by both Sarah and Grunge.

"What's the magic word?" Harry teased her, already vanishing the conjured material.

"Damnit!" Roxy grumbled and finished her meal in depressed silence.

"Neat trick," Col. Lynch commented.

"Thanks," Harry shrugged, grimacing a bit as he tried to swallow his breakfast, "I practice."

"So, your grandfather was Jake Evans?" the older man asked as he took a sip of his coffee.

"So I've been told," Harry replied honestly, keeping a tight lid on his Occlumency shield, which he'd also been getting a lot of practice in ever since this whole thing started. Knew him too, did you?"

"After a fashion," Col. Lynch admitted freely. "He was my commanding officer at the time, and a real hardass. Loved to remind those of us in the trenches when we started to moan and complain how easy we had it and told us that his two daughters at home could do better."

Half the table laughed, Harry included. He decided to share a bit of his past with the team then, though this perfect stranger just happened to be there, he wanted to see what reaction he would get from this... Colonel.

"Yeah, well I never knew my parents actually. Was raised by my aunt and she loved to remind me just how worthless I could be growing up. I can honestly say that I know more about my father and his family than I do about the Evans, or the now long deceased Commander Jake Evans. Coming here was supposed to show me more about the side of the family I don't know. So far all I've learned is that apparently my mom was a military brat, and my aunt apparently got her cleaning fetish from it. Care to offer any other insights, Colonel Lynch?"

"..." the scarred man was silent, and just as it looked like he was about to speak, Helga, the teams... "nanny" for lack of a better term, showed up to hurry them off to class and inform them breakfast was now over. Although Harry certainly didn't miss the look she shot the Colonel before storming off.

"Well, it was really nice to meet you, Colonel Lynch," Caitlin extended her hand to the surprisingly nice scarred man.

"If you need anything at all, Caitlin," Col. Lynch replied as he gently shook her hand, "please contact" me. And you as well, Harry." The man turned and offered his hand to Harry, who took it after only a moments hesitation.

"Fairchild! Potter! Tardiness will not be tolerated!" Helga shouted from the hallway.

"Sorry, gotta go," Caitlin waved goodbye as she hurried to catch up with the others. Harry paused at the last second, glanced over his shoulder at Lynch, and only then did he move on with the others. Something about that guy... reminded him of Dumbledore.

That night, Harry decided enough was enough. He disabled the cameras and other surveillance devices in his room, and then pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and Disapparated to right outside the door to his room. He then turned around and made sure the door was locked from the outside. That is how they do the magic tricks these days after all, is it not?

Next, he started wandering the halls and worked at getting into all those restricted areas that made the place so convoluted. He only gave himself a few hours, as he knew it would raise alarms if he wasn't in his room when they typically came to 'check' on all the trainees every night. As it was, his second night out, he saw what was probably happening to all of them when he witnessed one of the other teams taken out in their bedclothes in big glass tubes and taken to a red room and hooked up to machines he couldn't even begin to say what. He just about left after that, but one thing stopped him.

Well, maybe two things. For starters, apparently they had already been doing this to him and the rest since day one and he had yet to notice any negative side-effects, and his magic wasn't affected in the slightest. The main reason though was his friends, the rest of the team. He couldn't leave without them and as it was they were just a bunch of in-training kids that had no advantage whatsoever against a base full of armed soldiers, so trying to escape without convincing them, and telling them anything in secret were out of the question. So he kept his mouth shut, but kept up his midnight excursions, trying to find out what was going on with this place.

END (1 OF 5)