Disclaimer: I do not own either the Harry Potter books or movies or the Babylon 5 television series. All rights belong to their respective parties, and I am making no money from using these characters or other aspects of the fictional universes.
Author's Note: This was a story I wrote more than three years ago, in between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. I had also recently obtained the complete DVD collection of Babylon 5, so it was kind of in my head. I thought it would be interesting to combine their two worlds and see what would happen. It's obviously AU for Harry Potter, a sort of alternate beginning to the sixth year. I've tried to keep it very canon for B-5, just slipping new scenes in between what's already there. It takes place during Episode 18 of Season 3 (Walkabout). I shift scenes and points of view frequently to keep a sort of television feel to it.
Harry Potter and the Shadow War
Chapter 1 - Transported
Harry Potter was sitting with his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron and Ginny Weasley, in the library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry one autumn afternoon. They had only been back to school a few weeks, but Hermione insisted that they needed to get into good study habits early.
"Our O.W.L.s may be over, but we still have a lot of work to do, and the N.E.W.T.s will be here before you know it."
Harry and Ron looked at each other and groaned simultaneously.
"But, Hermione," Ron said pleadingly, "those are nearly two years away!"
"Besides," continued Hermione, as though he had not spoken, "the least we can do is help Ginny with her O.W.L. preparations."
Harry couldn't really argue with that. He reflected that it would have been nice to have someone on hand who'd already been through the O.W.L.s willing to tell them what to expect and what to focus on. He and Ron returned to working on their Potions essays. Suddenly, Hermione and Ginny reached for the same book – and disappeared, along with the book. Ron and Harry looked up quickly to the empty seats across from them, and then at each other.
"That must have been a Portkey!" Harry exclaimed. Then he began randomly touching other books on the table. "That was probably meant for me," he muttered.
"Not everything is about you, you know," Ron stated irritably.
"No, just the bad stuff," Harry retorted, though he wasn't really angry with Ron. He knew that Ron was just worried about the girls, like he was.
"Wait," Ron said after a pause, "Let's think about this logically."
"You sound like Hermione," Harry said, though he stopped his frantic search for another Portkey.
"Maybe," replied Ron, uncharacteristically not taking offense, "but I'm also a strategist, remember? Anyway, let's suppose that someone did want you to make use of a Portkey in this room. They couldn't be sure that you'd touch a specific book at the appropriate time."
"Right," Harry answered. "So?"
"So, to increase the chance that they would get you, probably every book on this table is sort of cycling. After all, a Portkey only works at a specific, pre-set time. Each book here must have a series of possible activation times, spaced a certain distance apart, and somehow set so that they won't complete their function until someone touches it."
"That makes sense," Harry agreed. "If that is the case, what do you suggest?"
"I think that our best chance of finding Hermione and Ginny would be simply to choose one book to touch and wait until its next turn on the cycle came. And I think we should take the same book, just in case they don't all go to the same place."
"Wow," said Harry. "That was really good."
"Thank you," Ron replied, trying to look modest.
"But why wouldn't they all go to the same place, if they were all designed to get me there?" Harry continued.
"I have no doubt that they will go to roughly the same location," Ron answered. "But, just in case someone were to follow you before the person who set this up could deactivate the remaining Portkeys, they wouldn't want to make it too easy to find you. So, my guess is that each one takes you to a slightly different point. Would you care to choose a book?"
"Okay," Harry said. He pointed to a text on counterjinxes. As long as they had a choice, they might as well choose something that might be useful. He and Ron each put a hand on the book and waited. After a minute or so of silence, Harry realized something odd.
"I still have one question," he said. "How did anyone know that I would be in the library right now with these books?"
Before Ron could answer, however, Harry felt the familiar pulling behind his navel, and the library dissolved before his eyes.
When the world felt solid again, Harry opened his eyes. He and Ron found themselves in a sterile, spartan corridor that seemed to be made mostly of metal. There were doors at intervals along the walls. At least, Harry assumed that they were doors, though they had no visible hinges or handles. A large number 5 was affixed to the walls on either side of them, between light fixtures.
It seemed that Ron had managed to bring his book bag with him, so Harry handed him the book/Portkey, and Ron put it away. They were still trying to get their bearings when a blond man in a green uniform with a black vest over it came around a corner and spotted them. His outfit vaguely reminded Harry of body armor he'd seen Muggle police wear. The man stopped short when he saw them. Then he pushed at a device affixed to his right hand.
"Allan to Garibaldi," he said into the device, keeping his eyes on Harry and Ron. Harry looked at Ron, wondering if they should try to run, but Ron just shrugged. Harry was more curious than anything else, so he decided to wait and see what happened next before taking any action.
"Go," said the device.
"Chief, I've got two kids here that look like they fell out of the same looking glass as the two we found in Brown Sector a few minutes ago," the man said.
"Where are they?" asked the voice from the other end.
"Blue 19. One of them looks like he might be related to the redhead."
"Bring them up," said the voice, after a pause.
"Would you mind coming with me?" the man asked them politely. Since it sounded like they would be rejoining Hermione and Ginny, Harry and Ron had no objections.
"Captain," said Commander Susan Ivanova, working her usual shift at Command & Control (C&C to the staff). "Garibaldi's calling you from his office."
"Put him through," replied Captain John Sheridan, commanding officer of the Babylon 5 space station. Security Chief Michael Garibaldi's face appeared on a small screen in the wall.
"Captain," began Garibaldi, a slight question in his voice, "I've got something down here I think you should see."
"What is it?"
"There are four kids here, apparently unsupervised, and dressed very strangely."
"Human?"
"As far as I can tell. But captain, here's the weird part: they don't seem to know how they got here."
"Where did they come from?" Sheridan asked, seeming to become curious.
"They say Earth. Great Britain, specifically."
"We're certainly not getting traffic from there these days. And they have no recollection of getting on a shuttle?"
"Not only that, but at least one of them didn't seem to know what a shuttle was!" Garibaldi answered disbelievingly.
The captain paused as though making a decision.
"All right," he said finally. "Ivanova, can you handle this? I'd do it myself, but I'm meeting with Ambassador Delenn in a few minutes. We have some…preparations to make."
Susan understood what he meant. Ambassador Kosh's replacement from the Vorlon homeworld was scheduled to arrive soon. They couldn't say any more with others nearby (or on an open channel, for that matter) because it wasn't general knowledge that Kosh had been murdered. The Vorlons wanted to keep that secret, and everyone was to address the new ambassador as though he were Kosh.
"Yes, sir, I can manage," Susan replied.
"Good. I want you two to get as much initial information you can. I also want them to have a basic physical. If they didn't go through the usual decontamination procedures, I don't want to take the chance that they've brought something on board with them. Give me a full briefing in the conference room at 1800. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Susan turned to Garibaldi on the screen. "I'll be down in a few minutes."
"Garibaldi out," he replied with a nod, and his face disappeared.
--
Author's Note: So, there's the beginning. Some of you may wonder why I chose to put this on the B-5 part of the site rather than the Harry Potter part, since it could have gone either way but is centered around the HP characters. For one thing, HP has tons already, and I thought B-5 needed more love. Besides, I already posted the story on an exclusively HP site, so it seemed time to get a potentially new set of readers. Since the whole thing is written already, I should be posting pretty regularly, just allowing time for some reviews on each chapter.