HP: Mage of Steel
Chapter One
- The Ring -

A/N: Don't own squat, 'cept the plot.

Smallville/Harry Potter Crossover

Due to this crossing, the initial meteor shower that brought Clark to Smallville has been backdated to 31 July 1980. Everything else will be similarly affected in Smallville.

Bookcover is subject to change, as I still have no idea who to pair Harry with. Half tempted to make it Chloe just to piss Clark off. LOL

"Speaking"
Thinking
'Mind Speech'
{Foreign Language}

Earth Space: July 31, 1980

A cloud of dust and rock approached the planet. As it passed close to the moon, the heavier rocks were pulled away by gravity to impact it in a cluster of new craters, mostly on the far side from the Earth. Three small spaceships were hidden amongst the dust and rocks. Of the three, two were identical while the third was half again as large. The larger was about two minutes behind the first two.

As they moved past the moon, one of the identical pair changed vectors and veered to the right, while the other two stayed the course with the cloud of dust and rock. The ones with the cloud headed towards the centre of North America, while the other targeted a small island off the coast of Europe.

In mid afternoon, the cloud and the first ship made planetfall at Smallville, Kansas. The largest of the three was missed in the disaster and impacted below a river dam close by. The smaller of the two crashed in a field, near a panicking couple that were dodging debris in their truck.

Crossing the terminator into night, the third fireball was actively observed by three people on the ground in a magically unpolottable area close to Godric's Hollow.

The woman turned to one of the males. "How did you know, James?"

"It was predicted in the Potter Grimoire, Lily," James replied quietly. "I didn't honestly believe in Veritas until now. If it's right, you and I are about to become parents."

They winced as the fireball impacted, and Sirius turned to his best friends. "Questions later. We better get down there, before the DMLE or Death Eaters show up."

With that, the three twisted in place and apparated to the crash site with a triple crack of sound.

Gringotts 1991

"'arry Po'er would like to make a withdrawal," the huge and hairy Hagrid stated with a large smile on his bushy face.

The head teller, a goblin of somewhat smarmy appearance, perked up slightly before leaning forward to look down. He was concerned to see the child, as he didn't look all that fit inside those disgusting rags he was wearing. Still, the corner of his mouth twitched when the boy gave a slight wave at him. "And does Mr. Potter have his key?"

Hagrid's eyes popped as he began searching his pockets. "Oh! Got it 'round 'ere summere." After a few seconds, his face lit up. "Ah! 'ere's the lil devil!" he held the golden key up with a grin.

The goblin's eyes narrowed. The key was supposed to be on the boy's person, not the half giant's. His left hand slid to the side to tap a runed alert stone. "Very well. Please hand the key to the lad," he said rather sternly with a glare.

"Sorry," Hagrid mumbled as he held the key out to Harry. "'ere ya go, 'arry."

Harry took the golden key, and noticed two of the goblins that were wearing armor – guards he supposed – stepping around Hagrid. "Everything okay?" he meekly asked.

"You're not in trouble, Mr. Potter," the head teller stated. "However, it is disturbing that you did not have your key before now. Tell me, have you ever seen it before?"

Harry looked up at Hagrid, then to the head teller and shook his head.

"Dumbledore gave it to me so I could bring 'arry 'ere," Hagrid said, a bit confused.

The head teller's glare intensified. "Be that as it may, Mr. Hagrid, the fact remains that the Scion of the House of Potter should be the only one to hold the key." He looked to the two guards that were a good head taller than the boy. "Do your duty."

The guards saluted with fists on their chests, then held heir halberds up to separate the pair. "Oi!" Hagrid protested, "Hol' on, now!"

"Go with the guards, Mr. Hagrid," the head teller ordered. "They will escort you to a conference room, while we tend to Mr. Potter."

"Dumbledore said to stay wid 'arry!" Hagrid spoke up louder, even though he went where the rather pointy sticks told him to go.

"Hagrid?" Harry spoke up. This day couldn't get any stranger, and he was starting to get rightly spooked over the matter.

Seeing the fright on Harry's face, Hagrid tried to stay positive. "Jus' do wha' they say, 'arry. Be respec'ful." He looked at the head teller. "You're no' gonna 'urt 'im, are ya?"

"No, sir," the head teller stated. "However, this is a discrepancy that must be investigated. That is all."

Harry flinched when a goblin in a business suit touched him on the arm. He hadn't seen this one sneak up on him, and that was really saying something.

"Peace, young one," the goblin said with a hand up. "My name is Goldturn. I run the Potter accounts. If you will step this way, we can go to my office."

"Don't hurt him," Harry whispered. "He's my first friend. It's prob'ly my fault."

Goldturn looked to the head teller and shared a look of dread, before turning back to Harry. "Not to worry, Mr. Potter. Please come with me." The boy was far too meek, and had the demeanour of a slave, for Ragnok's sake.

Leading the boy with a hand on his back, Goldturn walked him to the side door and down a corridor. Two other guards were behind them and followed to the goblin's office, where they took up posts on either side of the door. Inside, Goldturn lead Harry to a chair that was in front of the desk. "Please have a seat, Mr. Potter."

Doing as he was bade, Harry sat and drew into himself. He had no idea what was wrong, but had the feeling that it wasn't good. From under his brow, he watched Goldturn go around the desk to take his own seat. The office itself seemed to be hewn from solid rock. Torchlight flickered from the walls, which made the place gloomy and a bit frightening for the eleven year old.

Goldturn truly did not like what he was seeing. This was the Scion of a Noble and Most Ancient House, and he was dressed in rags. He was supposed to be proud, yet was acting like he was about to be whipped. The scar was on his forehead, but something more concrete was needed if he was to take the next step.

Deciding to treat the boy like a skittish colt, Goldturn spoke softly to the lad. "Are you familiar with the word 'identification'?"

Harry thought about that. "Driver's license?" he guessed.

Muggle term, Goldturn thought with alarm. "Yes, that's right," he nodded. "Do you know about magic?"

Harry gave a half shrug. "Found out about it last night. Uncle says there's no such thing, though."

Closing his eyes briefly, Goldturn swore an oath to himself to skin the perpetrator of this absolute TRAVESTY! Taking a quick breath and forcing his face to remain neutral, he nodded again. "Very well." Reaching to the side, he slid a red coloured stone that was set into a piece of polished wood forward, to the edge of the desk.

"This stone acts as an identifier. When a person's hand is laid upon it, it will read the magical signature of the person and their name will appear above their hand. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, but looked confused. "I think so."

"If you would place your hand on the stone, we can verify who you are," Goldturn said. "It will sting slightly, but very briefly. Please do so now."

"Okay," Harry said and reached forward. Goldturn was not that surprised that the boy didn't even twitch when he placed his hand on the stone. Infuriated yes, but not surprised. The fact that the stone's magic felt like a knife slice did nothing to the boy spoke to his pain tolerance. That he didn't react… well, nothing good could be said about it.

There was a seconds pause, before two names appeared over Harry's hand.

/ - - / - - \ - - \

Xal-El
Harold James Potter

\ - - \ - - / - - /

"Harold James?" Harry whispered. "My name's Harold James?" The words above his name had to be in goblin or something.

Goldturn saw the names and thought, It's him, then inhaled sharply when the boy spoke. "You didn't know your first name was Harold?"

"No sir," Harry said with a shake of the head. "Didn't know my name was Harry Potter till I went to Primary School. Harold sounds nice. James is my middle name, then?"

"Yes it is," Goldturn said, quite exasperated now. "Forgive me, Mr. Potter, but where do you live?"

"Number Four, Privit Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey," Harry said with a furrowed brow.

"And whom do you live with?" Goldturn pressed.

Harry frowned and looked at his knees. "With my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon," he said a bit sullenly.

"They don't treat you well, do they?" Goldturn said at almost a whisper. The sudden large eyes Harry had when he looked up was the first time their eyes met. And, he had all the appearance of a cornered animal now. "You don't have to answer that, Mr. Potter. Your reaction to the question is enough."

"Please don't say anything," Harry pleaded under his breath.

Inhaling deeply, Goldturn held his hand up in placation. "I can assure you, Mr. Potter, you will not have to reside there ever again."

The look of hope on Harry's face was painful to watch, as was hearing the rather quiet, "Really?"

"You were never supposed to live with them in the first place, Mr. Potter," Goldturn said with conviction. "In fact, your late parents Will explicitly forbade it."

Harry simply sat there with his mouth agape, looking like a blinking dead fish. Eventually, he said, "Then… why?"

"One of a number of things that we will investigate," Goldturn said. "Someone went against your late parent's wishes. This will be rectified. As it stands, we need to have you examined by our healers – what you would call doctors – to assess your health and well being. Are you all right with that?"

"Never been to a doctor before," Harry whispered. "All right."

The next several hours were exhausting for the boy. Four healers – three goblin, one human – documented everything about him, from his malnourished state to his numerous injuries that never healed completely.

Harry ended up having to drink several concoctions. Some still bubbled, others steamed, and most were quite rancid in various ways. The only one he liked tasted somewhat sweet and was told that it was like food, only more potent. That one made him ravenous, and they had him eat until he was properly full for the first time he could remember.

The human healer, a curse breaker specialist named Orin Teller, was called in to help facilitate the removal of several curses that were on the lad. It was with the first curse removed that Harry perked up and started asking questions. Apparently, that one was against his mind.

It took the combined magic of the four healers to remove the final curse. The others were somewhat painful to remove, and it was neat to see his hands glowing for those few minutes, but the last needed extra attention. They had to strap him down for that one, as well as completely immobilize his head.

At the height of their chanting, the most horrendous screeching could be heard. Harry wasn't able to see it, since his eyes were covered, but a trail of black smoke leached from his scar and was moved to a small block of petrified wood. It was at that point that Harry passed out from the pain.

"There he is," someone said.

Opening his eyes, Harry found that he was in a completely white room. It didn't hurt, even though it was so bright. Four people were sitting next to the bed he was lying on. A dark red headed woman and a raven haired man sat to his left, while a strawberry blonde woman and another raven haired man sat on his right.

The four adults wore robed clothing that he'd never seen before. The ones on his left wore long, light grey robes, while the robes on the ones on the right were as bright a white as the rest of the room. A strange silver number eight inside a diamond was on the fronts of the bright white robes.

He found that the women were holding his hands. The redhead had tears going down her cheeks, while the strawberry blonde just had a sad look on her face. The blonde looked to the redhead and nodded.

"Hello, Harry," the redhead said. "I'm your adoptive mother, Lily. It is so good to see you, baby."

A hand stroked his hair from the blonde, who said, "And I'm your birth mother, Lara."

The dark haired man on the left spoke next. "I'm your adoptive father, James."

"And I'm your birth father, Jor-El," the other man said in a deep baritone.

Lara got his attention with a squeeze of the hand. "Your story is long, Xal-El. While we have time here, we'll be able to inform you of things that need to be done when you wake. Can you listen and do these things for us, my son?"

Blinking tears out of his eyes, Harry simply nodded.

The questioning of Rubeus Hagrid was disturbing. The half giant idolized Albus Dumbledore, and anything said about the old wizard could be somewhat justified by the large man. While the half giant was intimidating in presence, it was discovered that he had the emotional temperament of a child – with the beliefs and defensive nature of the same.

Finding no fault with Hagrid, the inquisitors had a goblin mind mage alter the half giant's memories. The stone was given to him, and the memory of purchasing a snowy owl as a present for Harry was implanted, just has he was planning to do himself. After he was sent on his way, a runner was sent to pick up the owl.

Several hours after the final ritual was performed, Harry groaned and rolled over. The goblin healer on duty, a female by the name of Coraxe, checked on him and sent word to Goldturn.

"How are you feeling?" Coraxe asked him.

Harry grunted out a small sounding, "Sore. Thirsty."

He was sitting up and on his second glass of water when Goldturn arrived. He gave the goblin a weak smile and a nod. "Honourable Goblin, I humbly request to be taken to my mother's vault, number 2105."

After an exchange of pleasantries, and Harry gave assurances that he was feeling better, Harry had to stop once he was on his feet. "Uhm. Pardon me, Goldturn, but weren't you taller before?" Instead of looking up at him, he now had to look down and noticed that the top of the goblin's head only came up to his chin.

"The wonders of magic, Mr. Potter," Goldturn said with a grin. "Those nutritional potions you took, along with the small horde of food you ingested countered the ten years of not eating right. I dare say no one will recognize you."

All Harry could say to that was a puzzled, "Hunh."

As they exited the rather exciting cart, Harry did the second thing Lily told him. A look to Goldturn, he stated the request. "If you could send a copy of my parent's Will to Amelia Bones, I think she could help."

"I will see to it while you are in the vault, Mr. Potter," he replied. "Now, all you need to do is simply place your hand on the iron plate next to the door."

Harry felt a similar stinging on his hand when he pressed the plate with his palm. The sound of a series of clicks went through the tunnel, before the door split in the middle, sliding into the walls.

"Neat," Harry commented with a grin.

Goldturn nodded. "You should be in there for about three hours. As I understand it, you will most likely be sleeping through part of it, so there isn't a chance of boredom. If you are done before I get back, just open the door via the plate on the inside, then ring the bell for a cart and ask for me."

Harry turned and offered his hand. "Thank you, Goldturn."

The goblin took it with a grin on his face. "My pleasure, Mr. Potter."

Harry took note of the inner door plate as he entered the vault. There was close to five feet of tunnel, before the vault opened up. Roughly square, it was a fifteen by fifteen foot room.

On the leftmost wall, Harry saw two paintings over a long table full of items that he didn't understand. He recognized the paintings as James and Lily Potter, who appeared to be sleeping.

On the wall opposite him, there wasn't much except a single bed that was simply done up in red and gold.

It was on the far right that got Harry's attention, and the reality of what was happening came into a rather intense focus. Sitting there – well hovering, really – was a silver ship shaped like a point of a spear with a sphere in the middle of it.

"Wow," Harry whispered.

That word seemed to wake one of the portraits. "Harry? James, wake up! Harry's here!"

The boy's head whipped around to see a beaming smile from Lily's portrait, while James' was blinking rather sleepily. When he focused on the boy, his eyes popped wide. "HARRY! Merlin's beard, how old are you son?"

"Eleven," Harry said sheepishly.

James blinked owlishly behind his spectacles. "Bloody hell. It all went wrong, didn't it?"

"James, language," Lily chastised, then turned to Harry. "What have you been told, son?"

Fidgeting in the robes he was given in the infirmary, Harry looked back and forth between the two paintings. "I know that you are my adoptive parents. After the goblin healers removed some dark magic from… that night… you and my biological parents visited me in the white room. They called it 'the in between', whatever that means.

"They told me that Sirius is innocent of betraying you, that it was really Peter, and to send a copy of your Will to Amelia Bones. They didn't tell me who she was, though."

"She was the third person on the list of people in our Will that were to raise you, baby," Lily said. "So, Sirius is in prison, I take it?" Harry nodded, which made James scowl. "What happened to Alice Longbottom?"

"She and her husband are in something called a 'long term spell ward' in hospital," Harry misquoted.

"The Long Term Spell-Damage Ward in St. Mungos," James corrected. "Did they say anything else?"

Harry shook his head. "Just to come here. They did tell me a bit about my brother. Twins, they said. His eyes are blue, though."

James sighed. "Well, Lily, looks like you were right."

"I'm your wife, James. I'm always right," Lily said a bit haughtily, making Harry giggle. "I just wish I wasn't," she quietly said.

"Me too," James muttered.

"Well… Plan B it is, then," Lily said with a clap of her hands. "Harry, on the table, there's a blue coloured stone with an number eight on it. Come here and pick it up."

Doing as he was told, he found that the stone was shaped like the symbol on Jor-El and Lara's robes. Looking up, he saw Lily smile sadly with a nod.

"We were so hoping to have more time with you," she said. "Do you remember us at all?"

"Not really," Harry admitted. "I have a nightmare where a red headed woman, you I think, is screaming at a man in black. There's a green light where she falls, then there's a brighter green light and pain."

Both paintings were wide eyed. "How long," James started, then changed the question. "Do you know when that happened?"

"The goblins told me it happened on the Samhain of 1981," Harry said.

"Gods," Lily whispered, with her hands going to her mouth. James moved from his portrait to hers and held her from the side. "Fifteen months. We only had you fifteen months."

"I know," Harry said quietly.

James rubbed Lily's shoulders. "Son, take that stone and place it in the hole for it on the ship over there. It's on the right, close to the back of it."

Nodding, Harry turned and went to the ship. He had a weird sense of being there before, and to be perfectly honest, it intimidated him a bit. Feeling the ship with his fingertips, it was perfectly smooth and a touch warm. He found the indentation, and initially put the stone in backwards. Flipping it when he realized it didn't fit right, he put it back in with the eight showing.

There was a light blue glow around the edges of the diamond shape, before the room faded from around him. All he could see was the ship and white. Turning around, he saw Lara and smiled. He went to hug her, but she held her hand up, stopping him.

"I'm sorry, Xal-El, but I'm only an image." Seeing his face fall slightly, she smiled. "Looks like things went awry if you're here this soon."

"Everything went wrong," Harry said. "Saw you in the in between," he paused as she seemed to focus on that with an intense look, "and, well, she said that it's a Diamond Echo scenario."

Lara closed her eyes and lowered her head. "That was the second possibility I saw. I am so sorry, my son."

Harry was distracted by a noise from the ship. Turning, he saw the back half open up and shape itself into a chair.

"I truly wanted you to have a childhood. Hopefully your brother will, though," Lara said, gaining his attention again. "Kal-El is with the Kent family in the United States. We will discuss him later."

Harry looked at the chair apprehensively. "Will it hurt? The rituals hurt like nothing else I felt before."

"No," Lara said with a shake of the head. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that. The chair will only give you what you should have had. Lessons in English and your native language of Kryptonian; Mathematics and the Sciences; Deportment of Earth Magical Formality; as well as the basis for the Kryptonian Theory of Sorcery."

Harry turned back to her. "The real you said that Kal-El can't use sorcery? Why not? She said we were twins."

"Fraternal twins," Lara corrected. Seeing that he didn't understand, she made to explain. "Biologically, you are the same as any other set of siblings, only that you were born together. With Identical Twins, you would have shared everything. Since you are Fraternal, you will have differences.

"Kal-El is like your father, with the potential to be a genius in the sciences and has his blue eyes. You, on the other hand, are like me and have my green, though they appear even darker since that blood adoption ritual. When I was alive, I could wield the quantum energies with but a thought. I used it in what Earth Magic would call being a Healer. I did assist your father with his work, but my true zeal was with healing. I was rather good at it too," she said with a grin.

"Now," she waved him towards the chair, "have a seat. I promise that it won't hurt. It will take a few hours though."

Harry looked around for the paintings of his adopted parents. Not seeing them, he looked to his mother with a worried half grin. Taking a deep breath, he moved to the back of the ship and sat down.

As soon as he was seated, he froze in place as Kryptonian words and symbols rotated in different directions around his head. Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias of information were fed into his brain. While English and Kryptonian were being implanted, he could see the crystal palaces of Krypton; the fields surrounding the House of El; the testing area where his grandmother taught his mother the esoterics of sorcery; and many other things, including native animals; the arrangement of the Houses and etcetera.

It was at this point that Harry realized what was lost. He equated it as being worse than the loss of the Library of Alexandria, which he just discovered in the 'download'. An entire culture was swept away.

As Deportment and the Culture of Magical Britain was being fed, he saw his father and mother doting on two infants. One of the babies had ice blue eyes, while the other had icy green. He assumed that one was him, even though his eyes were a deeper green now.

He didn't notice, but he was standing straighter as he went about the virtual house. Images of arguments between Jor-El and his uncle Zor-El seemed to be frequent.

To say that his family of birth was a bit out of sorts would be underestimating things a bit. The word 'Dysfunctional' came to mind.

There were mentions of a war and the loss of the city of Kandor, along with the madness that Major Zod went through in the aftermath of that. The following war was a feud between the Houses of Zod and El. Fortunately, it seemed that his House won. However, the devastation to the planet seemed to be absolute. Zod was banished to the Phantom Zone amidst the frequent tremors.

By the time his initial session was done, he saw his and his brother's ships leave the atmosphere. They weren't that far away when the planet detonated.

Coming around after it was over, James and Lily's portraits saw Harry lean forward to place his head in his hands. They were alarmed to hear him sobbing.

{So much was lost,} Harry mumbled in Kryptonian. {All of it due to jealousy and hate!} Standing, Harry began pacing the room angrily. Sparks of wild magic popped from his hands and his head as he went.

"Harry?" Lily said, a bit alarmed.

James was just as worried. "Son?"

Spinning, Harry's eyes glowed red with streaks of tears going down his face. "An entire planet!" he raged. "A culture going back millennia, all destroyed by a man that coveted his brother's wife! My Uncle! Damn Him to the Phantom Zone!" he shrieked.

"Son, calm down. You're magic is going wild," James said. "Calm down and tell us what happened."

Fists clenched, Harry looked to the floor and reigned in his emotions. Lily and James were quite impressed with how soon he was able to control himself. As he stood up and opened his eyes, they saw the demeanour of a young noble. He looked at Lily and smirked. With a shake of the head, his hair changed to match the blood red hair of his adoptive mother's, then fell limp.

"Wicked!" James exclaimed. "No one will recognize you now! Does that mean you're a metamorphmagus?"

Harry shook his head. "No. Just hair colour and length. Which will be a boon, as I won't be able to have my hair cut when I get older. Could change my eye and skin tone, but I'll just make it look like I haven't been indoors my whole life." That said, his pale skin darkened to match the tone of Lily's.

Looking to the side a bit, he explained what had him so upset. "My uncle Zor-El was the younger of the two brothers. A scientist like my father, he was always jealous of the attention Jor-El received from their parents. As you know, if left long enough, jealousy can mutate into hatred."

Seeing their nods, he continued. "Anything my father received, Zor-El wanted for himself. While he did achieve many things on his own, his competitiveness with Jor-El was obsessive in nature. It got worse when Jor-El married my mother."

"Bad things can happen when a woman gets between two blokes," James commented. He was ribbed by Lily's elbow. "What? It's true! Look at what happened to Snivelous!"

"Snivelous?" Harry commented with an upturned brow.

Lily grumbled at James. "The overgrown boy here is referring to Severus Snape. I knew him before we went to Hogwarts. Don't worry about that now. You were saying?"

"Yes, quite right," Harry nodded. "Things got worse with the second civil war in less than fifty years. In a fit of pique, Zor-El supported the opposing leader, General Zod, in his bid for conquest. This wasn't discovered until it was too late for it to matter, though.

"The war destabilized the core of the planet. To put it in modern terms, they used something worse than Nuclear Weapons. And, several of them were tunnelling bombs that would bury themselves under several hundred metres of rock before they would detonate."

"What?" James asked, looking to Lily's wide eyes.

Lily blinked. "Think of a reductor curse that can obliterate London, then what would happen if several of them were to happen underneath it."

"Merlin's hairy buttocks," James muttered.

Turning, Harry went to the ship and pressed a switch on the chair. A blob of silver lifted from the armrest and hovered in front of him. The blob then formed a silver ring with the symbol of the House of El on the face of it.

Reaching up, Harry plucked the ring from the air and placed it on his index finger. A wave of his hand vanished the ship with a flash of light.

"Uh," James blurted. "Where'd it go?"

Harry looked over with a grin on his face. "Pocket space. Or, what you would call Wizarding Space. Instead of a trunk though, it's in the ring." He held his hand up for emphasis.

"Is Kryptonian Sorcery all that much different from Earth Magic?" Lily asked.

Harry paused and looked away, thinking. "More like a deeper version of what you would consider magic. Are you familiar with physics or Quantum Mechanics? String Theory?" he asked, turning to face her again.

"I studied physics, but not all that well," Lily said. "Was a bit more concerned with the war and hiding," she said a bit sheepishly.

"It's similar," Harry said. "Technically, there's no such thing as "magic", just a different definition of what magic actually is. In reality, with the right equipment you can measure the cause and effect."

"I KNEW IT!" Lily bounced in her canvas.

Chuckling, Harry shook his head. "Okay. Want to come with me? After everything is said and done, I can have you back at the Manor."

"Oh, yes please," James said with a grin, Lily nodding along with him. "It's so boring here."

"Put us up in the main sitting room, please," Lily said with a smile.

"Right then," Harry said. "See you soon." Another wave of his hand had the portraits and the collection of bits and bobs on the table flashed into the pocket space of the ring.

Turning, he went to a corner of the room and nodded. Hidden behind a fidelus charm stood a large crystal that had a uniform inside it. Mostly a deep blue, the main draw was the overlong coat or robe with red trim that looked to go to the ankles. It had a bit of a straight collar with a notch for a larynx. Looking to the back, Harry could see that it was crimson. That was odd.

The trousers were the same blue. The Battle Crest for the House of El – the one that looked like a letter S instead of a number 8 – was bisected where the coat-like robe came together in the front.

Deep crimson boots were below.

All in all, a rather fetching set of Kryptonian Battle Robes. Harry knew that while they had the appearance of dragonhide – even though it was far more durable – they were a composite material designed to better absorb solar radiation.

"See you later," Harry said with a devilish grin on his face.

Exiting the vault, he was greeted by Goldturn. "Did you find everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Potter?"

"Exceedingly so, Goldturn," Harry said with a nod. "Were you able to contact Amelia Bones?" he asked as they went to the cart.

"She's waiting for us in my office," Goldturn said as they sat in the cart. Looking over his shoulder at Harry, he had a wicked grin. "Suffice it to say, the lady is quite incensed over what has happened."

"Glad someone up there is," Harry muttered as Goldturn flipped the accelerator. He didn't even flinch or get tossed about as the cart sped up the tunnels.