Chapter 1: Mighty, Mighty Man – Roy Brown
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter and Fallout aren't mine. I make no claim to either. I write this just for fun.
A/N: I've done a little editing work to shift things around a bit and correct a few errors during the first iteration. I've also made sure that Harry POV scenes outnumbered all the others (point in fact, they already did, I just increased the disparity more in Harry's favor). In reference to those who believe that there isn't any real motivation (big bad villain) for Harry and company, I restructured it so that the story is slightly longer but put into fewer chapters, therefore not being so weird that the big bad hadn't reared their ugly heads yet as of Chapter 2. I also wanted to take a moment to describe the "nerf" of magic. Magic is just as powerful as it was before the Great War. Though it is separate from science, it does interact with and is affected by the physical universe. The Great War, didn't wound it or anything, it made it... turbulent. Destructive spells are augmented and those spells designed to create something from nothing is tainted by the environment.
POV: Harry Potter, somewhere in the Boston ruins
'That can stay here too if you like.'
The warmth of her lips on his was a fading memory, steadily retreating from his grasp. The fantasy dim and elusive like a sinuous mist wreathing his mind.
The scent of her seemed to remain, haunting in the bittersweet longing it conjured. His sweet Ginny. The cloying reminder of a more innocent time conjuring a measure of confusion with the fondness. He hadn't dreamt of Ginny for a long time…
He blinked against the rays of bright sunlight stabbing into his eyes and groped for his glasses. His fingers closed on the metal frames and pulled them on to clarify the image of Piper crouched over him, concern etched on her features.
"Is everything alright?" Harry asked, as he sat up and pulled his wand free from beneath his bedroll.
"I was going to ask you the same thing, "Piper replied, "you were tossing around so much you woke me up, and you kept saying Ginny. Who's Ginny?"
He tried to offer a comforting smile, "No one, it's fine. Really."
She wanted to press him on it, the reporter in her coming to the fore, but the friend in her won out and decided that if he wanted to open up to her, he would when he was ready.
Harry got up and checked the wards he had placed last night to let them both sleep without interruption. It had grown late by the time they had left the Combat Zone and an unseasonable fog had made visibility nearly zero. Instead of blundering about in the dark, Harry had decided that it was probably best to find an abandoned building and hole up for the night.
His conversation with Hermione that night was much less acerbic than their previous talk. He gave her a quick update on his journey and had asked her to keep an eye out for Tommy Lonegan whom he had invited to settle in Salem. It threatened to turn into another argument when he had told her that Cait had moved on, her immediate insistence that he come home met with his utter refusal.
Harry sighed, he hadn't gotten the chance to tell Hermione about going to Diamond City to get Piper's sister. He had hoped that by providing enough of a cover story up front would reduce any suspicions she had once they were face to face.
It was just as well, he thought. He, Nat and Piper could come up with a vague and good enough cover story to satisfy Hermione.
He blinked, "What?"
"I said, are you ready to go? Diamond City isn't far." Piper prodded.
"Right. Let's go."
Sadness clouded Harry's face as he knelt at the body of the young woman shoved into the detritus along the side of the road. The woman's clothing was torn and bloody and a curious weapon lay broken next to her.
"Minuteman" Piper offered, "They used to be far more numerous, 'protecting people at a moment's notice'. They had been in decline for years and the last of them were wiped out during the Quincy massacre."
"She died trying to help." He noted, indicating the bodies of a few other people nearby, farmers by the way they were dressed.
"There are so few of her type nowadays. I hoped Blue would be a ray of hope, but…"
"Blue? Oh, you mean Nora?"
"Yeah." Piper replied, her face falling ever so slightly.
Harry didn't push her, knowing how it felt to be let down by someone.
"Years ago there was a man who I thought was the very definition of jealousy, treachery and immorality. I thought that of him for years. It wasn't until after he died that I found out about everything he'd done. That he was, beyond any doubt, one of the bravest men I've ever known."
Piper was intrigued but stayed silent, waiting for him to go on.
"Look, I'm not saying that this Nora isn't bad or good. I'm just saying that the idea we have of people, even despite the evidence right in front of us, can sometimes be wrong. I'm not trying to defend her or anything, leaving you behind like she did, I'm just saying that despite everything that's happened, some people deserve a second chance."
"Wow, that's pretty hopeful of you. If even half the stories you told me are true, I'd expect the opposite. You are quite the optimist, Harry Potter."
He gave her a grin and shook his head, "Come on, let's go."
"Aw, did I make the all-powerful wizard blush?" Piper teased.
He rolled his eyes at her and walked off, slowly at first so she could catch up.
After a few moments, he held up a hand and quirked his head to the side, hearing the not-so distant rattle of gunfire.
"Figures, that's the way we have to go." Piper whined.
Harry looked at her quizzically, "How can you tell? The way noise bounces around these streets make it impossible for me to tell where the shots are coming from."
"Years of practice avoiding trouble?" Piper offered, her statement clearing meeting with disbelief from Harry as he fixed her with a doubtful expression.
"Well, ok, years of practice, looking for trouble."
"That I believe." Harry confirmed.
Looking around and seeing no good alternatives that didn't include moving far out of their way to avoid the firefight, he disillusioned the both of them and motioned for Piper to move as quickly but quietly as possible.
A few moments later, they found the source of the clamor. A small group of what Piper told him were Diamond City security were involved in a rather desperate shoot out with several super mutants."
"Great, super mutants." Piper muttered, "I had enough of these guys the last time I was out of the city."
"Yeah, I've had the displeasure already. Bad news."
"Unless you're another super mutant, and sometimes not even then, they kill you then eat you. Or eat you then kill you." Piper agreed.
They were safe for the moment, but the Diamond City security fellows were not in a good position. Their machine gun turret was a smoking ruin and at least two of them were slumped over, laying or sitting in pools of their own blood while their few remaining comrades huddled behind the scant plywood barriers and fired back with pipe rifles.
The super mutants were spaced out along 3 floors of a bombed out building, the jagged remnants of the brick front providing ample cover. They were better armed as well, with at least one of them firing some kind of machine gun at their hapless targets, laughing maniacally the whole time.
Harry scanned the building, noting that though it looked strong, it had taken a beating over the decades since the war. He wasn't an architect by any means, but he was pretty sure that the ruin was held up by little more than a single fairly intact brick wall.
He motioned Piper to follow him into an adjacent building, the thick layer of dust giving them the relief that this building at least wasn't occupied by something nasty.
He whispered to Piper, though it was hardly necessary over the riot of sound just outside, "I'm going to try something. Stay here and stay down."
"Now wait just a second!" Piper protested.
"Shhh!" he hissed, his glare silencing her for the moment.
"You might want to get ready to run." Potter warned, pointing at the door leading back out into the street close to the barrier the DSC was manning. "This is going to be loud."
Before she could question just what could be louder than half a dozen super mutants shooting and shouting a few yards away, he had already left to go back into the street.
She peeked out to see him flourish his wand.
"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
Harry was engulfed by a massive cloud of red and brown dust as the wall exploded, the building groaning in protest. He was overcome by a coughing fit and Piper felt her heart stop as the super mutants all stopped shooting at the guards to regard the young man standing in the middle of the street coughing his lungs out.
Piper's eyes widened as one of the mutants raised his weapon to fire down at the helpless wizard when an ear shattering crack split the air. A vibration started gently but rose quickly in a crescendo, the super mutants fighting to keep their footing as they glanced around confused. The vibration reached its apex when the entire building fell forward, Piper darting out to grab a struggling Harry and pulled him in a run just ahead of the collapsing building. Tons of brick and metal buried the roaring super mutants as they tumbled through the air.
When the dust finally settled, a single mutant struggled to free his legs from the wreckage, howling in rage and pain as the DCS recovered from the shock of the building falling over to pepper the lone survivor with their rifles.
"Man, we are lucky you two came along! What was that you did anyway?"
Harry was in no position to answer, as he was busily rinsing his mouth of brick dust and coughing out miserably.
"Um, my friend here is a real hand with explosives."
"I'll say! However your friend here did it, we are grateful!"
They took some time to make sure that the security guards were ok, the two wounded men helped with the judicious use of stimpacks and let Harry recover from his brush with death.
"Thanks, for… you know."
Piper smirked, "Hey, that's what friends are for, right?"
"Right." He affirmed, returning her smile with one of his own.
"So, explosives expert eh?"
"I figured it was easier for them to accept than, 'he's a wizard and he used his magic wand to blow up the wall."
Harry chuckled, "Its fine. In the past, it was illegal for us wizards to use magic in front of Muggles."
"A muggle? What's a muggle?"
"You're a muggle"
"Oh yeah? Well, you smell funny." Piper retorted.
Harry had to physically keep hold of the guffaw that threatened to erupt from his mouth. His efforts were somewhat successful as only choking chortles escaped between his fingers. Piper laughed, her amusement having a musical quality to it.
"Muggle is just a word that means, non-magical folk. It's not an insult. Well, mostly."
"What's that mean? Mostly?"
"Magic ability is usually passed down from parent to child. There are some rare examples of non-magical families having a magical child though, Hermione being a prime example. However, there were some prominent families back then that thought that the use of magic should be reserved to the 'pureblood', or those with only fully magical ancestry. They considered muggles and those wizards and witches born to one or more muggle parents as beneath them. Thankfully, I don't think many of them survived the war." Harry thought back to Jeremiah's journal, wondering if he was still around and of that man's nasty opinion on the matter.
With the way now clear, they made it to the gates of Diamond City, the massive green doors yawning open as caravans moved in and out.
"Oh good, I won't have to connive my way back in again."
"I thought you lived here?" Harry questioned.
"I do, but the mayor and I aren't on the best of terms. I have a tendency to print the truth and he has the tendency to be a corrupt politician."
Harry could only shrug, straightening his glasses as the shadow of the gate fell over them as they walked in. He felt eyes on him, and looked around curiously. A bald man with sunglasses and in the uniform of the DCS looked away hurriedly, the glow from his cigarette briefly illuminating his face.
Harry thought no more of it as Piper led up a stairway and he got his first look at the great green jewel of the Commonwealth.
He was fairly certain that he hid his disappointment pretty well, the somewhat ramshackle appearance showcasing just what passed as 'the biggest and best' in the Commonwealth.
Piper had broken into a jog to the first shack where a young girl stood on a box, calling out to passerby to get the latest news. She saw Piper and jumped off the box, running to meet her.
"Piper!" She yelled, jumping into Piper's arms into a warm hug.
"Nat, this is my friend Harry." Piper announced, after setting her boisterous sister down.
"Hello." Harry grinned, holding out his hand.
Nat grasped his hand firmly for a pre-teen and gave it two vigorous shakes.
"Hey, kiddo, how are the paper sales?" Piper asked while cocking her head to the side, a gesture that Harry found oddly familiar.
"Well, the presses are getting overloaded. That motor is going to go soon if we don't replace it."
"I could maybe take a look at it, "Harry interjected, "if you don't mind."
"I didn't take you for a mechanic, though I'd be grateful for anything you could do. Though I wouldn't really be able to pay you or anything."
Harry scoffed good-naturedly, "No, no. You don't have to pay me anything. I just like newspapers."
"Is that right?" Nat asked rhetorically, "You get the press fixed and you get a free late edition 'Who's really in control of Diamond City?'" She gestured emphatically, the papers tucked under her arm nearly tumbling onto the ground.
"One of my favorite things to do was listen to the trains and read the paper, once upon a time." Harry recalled wistfully.
"Trains? Are you touched or something?" Nat retorted.
"Natalie Wright!" Piper shouted, scandalized.
"It's alright." Harry laughed.
Nat eyed Piper sidelong and abruptly changed the subject, "So what are you doing in Diamond City, anyway?"
He looked at Piper for a moment, noting her eyes darting towards the Publick Occurrence building to indicate a more private venue.
Piper led the way with Harry and Nat following her inside, as they walked in through the doorway Harry started to explain, "I'm looking for someone, a young lady named Cait."
"You're in bad luck. No one tries to find missing people in Diamond City. Missing people means the Institute's involved." Nat replied sagely.
"The Institute?" Harry asked.
"You ain't heard of the Institute, mister? They snatch people up in the night and no one hears from them again."
"We've printed stories on it. The Institute, Myth or Menace? One of my finer editorials, if I say so myself." Piper added.
Nat chuckled, "You're a real lost lamb in the wolf's den, mister."
Harry looked at them both, wondering if maybe they were having him on. Shaking his head slightly, he steered the conversation back a bit as they settled in the office/workspace the two apparently also lived in.
"No, the one I'm looking for went off with the…"
"The Vault Dweller, Nora." Piper helpfully provided.
"Right, the Vault Dweller. I need to find her companion."
"The Valentine Detective Agency is the same place Blue… Nora was directed to. But I don't know what came of it, she went to his office and never mentioned it again when the two of us left to head north."
Piper paused, as if to collect herself from a crisis of emotion, "One of the last minutemen… well, I guess literally THE last minuteman, Preston Garvey had asked for her help in checking out a farm to the north. Tenpines I think it was called. We met with them and found out that they were under threat from some raiders. Blue and I actually went to handle 'em, a group using the old Corvega factory as a hideout."
"What happened there?" Harry prodded gently.
"She attacked. I remember her face, Potter, it was like she was possessed. Gone was the mother desperate to find her child. No, here was a whirlwind of chaos that enjoyed the din and clamor of the fight. She killed a dozen of them, at least. But I suppose once she had had her fun, she moved on. Never bothering to go back to Tenpines to tell them anything. Not even sure if we got them all. Hell, for all I know, the raiders figured out who had pointed them out to the crazy vault dweller. "Piper emphasized her words with her hands waving in the air at the term, 'crazy.'
"For all I know, those settlers are dead. We just up and left! I tried to talk her into going back, maybe checking in with her friend Preston at least. But she had other plans. Left me in the dust."
Harry took her hand, Piper startling out of her immersive story telling before breathing out a sigh and smiling at him in appreciation.
"That's neither here nor there. Nat, pack your stuff! We're going to Salem! After we talk to Nick of course."
"Salem! Why would we leave Diamond City?!" Nat was incredulous, caught completely off-guard by the unusual announcement.
"I can't just leave you here while I'm out there, getting my butt into trouble. I almost didn't make it back last time, and where would that leave you?"
"You decide this now? How many times have you left me behind for one of your stories? I've been fine everytime! And so have you! You come back with the scoop and together we bring the word to the people! I'm NOT going!"
Nat practically screamed that last, defiantly stomping up the rickety stairs to the loft and from the sound of it, was busily redecorating the space with vigor.
"She's right, Potter. I'm a big hypocrite." Piper lamented softly.
"Don't think like that. You're doing the right thing. Important thing is, that she's safe and there's plenty of people there that will look after her. Hermione especially. Besides, there's no reason you can't take all this with you. It'd be nice to have a local paper."
Piper seemed reticent, worry gnawing at her lower lip as she considered his words.
Harry took the opportunity to call gently after Nat, who after several moments consented to come down, albeit with a sullen expression painted clearly on her face.
He graced her a simple smile before pointing his wand at the stubborn printing press, "Machina Reparo."
His wand became lit with a cerulean glow, the soft light brightening the room as Harry moved it in a small circle towards the printing press. The machinery groaned as if in protest as screws and bolts pulled themselves free while the parts they held shivered and straightened. The hardware reseated themselves and the press gave one mighty lurch, a billowing cloud of accumulated dust coughing forth from it before it settled down.
The three of them coughed out the dust, the two women looking at the gleaming printing press with awe as Harry looked on with proud satisfaction.
"How… who did you do that?!" Nat exclaimed, finally finding her voice.
Harry merely shrugged, "I'm a wizard."
"A wizard?!" Nat's face screwed up incredulously. She took to looking at the printing press and at Harry in turn several times, her shock not diminished in the slightest.
"You can do magic?!" She breathed.
"That's right. A rare thing, some people are born with the ability to do magic."
"That's… incredible!"
"Salem is a settlement built by wizards and witches. There are several others there now."
"Could I learn how to do magic?"
Harry shook his head sadly, "I'm afraid not. Like I said, it's a rare thing. You have to be born with the ability."
Nat's face was crestfallen, but brightened quickly enough, "But I can still go to Salem? See all kinds of magic from these others you were talking about?"
"Absolutely. Just because you can't do magic yourself doesn't mean you can't benefit from it. Maybe one of these days, I'll take you flying on a broom."
"FLY?! On a BROOM!?" Nat squealed, nearly clapping her hands in excitement. She chattered on as she ran up the stairs, the occasional question flying down to bombard poor Harry and the girl packed.
"I don't know what to take and what to leave!" She wailed.
"I have a solution for that too." Harry called up with a grin.
A few minutes later, Piper was leading Harry to the Valentine Detective Agency, leaving an enthralled Nat to finish packing their old home now that everything was shrunk down as if it belonged in a doll house.
Harry was still smiling as Piper ushered him into the Agency, the glow from the neon heart coloring them both in a ruddy pink shade.
Inside, a young women with brown hair tucked up into a bun was pacing nervously, muttering to herself as she idly picked up errant files before setting them down again in another seemingly random place. It took several moments before she even noticed anyone was there.
She looked up suddenly and seeing Harry first, snapped, "Another stray coming in from the rain. 'Fraid you're too late. Office is closed."
She looked on the verge of tears and almost went back to her nervous pacing before noticing that Piper was there too.
"Oh Piper, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you too, mister."
"Ellie, what's wrong? Where's Nick?" Piper asked, almost reaching for a notepad.
"Nick's disappeared, and I can't keep a detective agency open without a detective. I had to send away that Vault dweller too."
Piper tensed at the mention of Nora, Harry comforting the agitated reporter with a calming hand on her shoulder.
"Nicky's missing? What has he gotten himself into this time?" Piper asked, getting back on track.
Ellie's eyes were downcast in worry as she answered, "Nick was working a case. Skinny Malone's gang had kidnapped a young woman, and he tracked them down to their hideout in Park Street Station."
Piper glanced at Harry, a question in her eyes. At his nod, she turned back to Ellie, "Hey, don't worry. Harry and I will find him. You have my word. Do you have any more info?"
"There's an old Vault down there they use as a base. I told Nick he was walking into a trap, but he just smiled and walked out the door like he always does."
Harry straightened his armor and hefted his gun, though to this point, Piper had never seen him shoot it. He fixed Ellie Perkins with a serious look and said simply, "I'll find him."
"Thank you." Ellie said gratefully.
As they left the Agency, Harry turned to Piper, "Do you know about this tosser, Skinny Malone?"
"I don't know much about him, but he's from Goodneighbor… another settlement nearby. That means he's in the well-pressed suits and machine guns school of thuggery."
After a brief stop to check in on Nat and let her know what was going on, the duo walked out of the gates to find their missing Valentine.
His back screamed at him from being hunched over for so long, as the pair half crawled their way as quietly as they could through Park Street Station. The old subway was full of patrolling Triggermen as Piper called them, looking like they stepped right out of a 1930's American Gangster film. He tried watching one once, but Dudley had used his bulk to knock Harry from the sofa and claimed the telly for himself.
Thankfully, a simple disillusionment over the pair of them hid them well enough from the Triggermen. Their luck seemed to hold as they approached the massive cog wheeled vault door to find it wide open and the immediate area within to be empty.
"Looks like that's the only way in." Harry murmured, crouching at the edge of a hole.
"Not for you two mooks." A harsh voice rasped.
Harry closed his eyes and cursed under his breath. He glanced up and found that their disillusionment charms had worn off without him noticing and that there was a very angry looking man glaring down at them. He looked as though all the skin had been burned off, leaving horrific scarring over his entire body. That was of less concern though than the submachine gun he had levelled at them.
"Stupify!" He shouted, brandishing his wand with a speed that took both his target and Piper by surprise. A red flash of light splashed against the Triggerman and actually threw him back to land in a crash into a shelf stacked with building materials.
Harry winced at the noise and gestured for Piper to follow him, tugging on her sleeve when she didn't immediately respond, her attention still on the knocked out triggerman.
"Are you ready for this?" He asked Piper.
"As ready as I'll ever be, Potter!"
Gripping her hand tightly, he pulled her along with him as they jumped down into the bowels of Vault 114.
POV: Neville Longbottom, somewhere in the North Commonwealth
The clean wind felt nice as it tousled his dark hair, the sky warm and clear after the brief but disconcerting radiation storm that had blown in from the west. The rickety old broom he flew wasn't very fast but that suited Neville just fine, as he was never much for flying anyway.
Rebuilding Salem was hard but satisfying work, his gardens coming along nicely despite the problems he continued to have with the soil. There was a measure of frustration with working on the completely new ecology, but it was tempered and made bearable by the wonders of discovery that came to him on a regular basis. Even so, it was nice to get out once in a while, especially given the opportunity to find new plants to supplement the small number he had cultivated in the town.
He had a strong desire to supplement the hardy yet disgusting tato plants, the strange hybrid of tomato and potato somehow making the resilient plant's fruit less than appetizing. Carrots had survived largely unchanged, growing only larger and more yellow than orange. Many of the herbs he was used to seeing hadn't survived the apocalypse, but he was eager to test out the properties of some unknown plants he had found, in particular a leafy flowering bush that some of the new settlers had called 'hubflower'.
He flew low and skirted a massive radar dish, a quick scan showing movement that he was loathe to investigate. He flew over a scrapyard without a second look and spotted a small lake, a smile lighting up his face at the prospect of discovering plants growing along the shores of the modest body of water.
Mud squelched around his shoes as he crept along the shoreline, a slight green glow beckoning him to a small outcropping of glowing mushrooms. Excitedly, he pulled the leather satchel he had brought to collect samples and began harvesting the interesting fungi, his thick leather gloves protecting him from any unforeseen dangers from handling the mysterious sample. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and held his glass vial up to the sun, the phosphorescent glow evident even in the midday sunlight.
A clacking sound made him whirl in place, his wand whipping out from his belt and his breath coming out in uneven rasps as he surveyed the area. He stepped back and felt a vibration near his foot. Looking down, his heart stopped as he realized that he had stumbled onto a mound of large ovoid eggs. Recognizing them as the same they had found in Salem, his eyes darted up and around, scanning for the inevitable mirelurk presence.
He was not disappointed as the armored shell of one of the beasts came into view, water streaming from its carapace as it lumbered onto the shore from the lake. Its jet black orbs were fixed on him, its mandibles twitching in agitation as it noted him standing amongst its eggs.
Neville backed up, his wand raised in warning as he carefully stepped over the egg mound. He winced as one of the speckled eggs began vibrating in eager anticipation. He back up more quickly, careful to not get tripped up on exposed roots and keeping an eye on the angry mirelurk.
The egg shattered with violence, its shell flying about like shrapnel as the tiny hatchling erupted from within and leapt straight for him. On instinct, Neville lashed with his wand, the angry red glare blasting the tiny creature away in a high pitched screech of pain. The mirelurk rushed forward angrily, two more shells breaking the surface of the lake as it was joined by more of its fellows.
A slight edge of panic gripped Neville in that moment, and he thrust his wand forward and cast the first curse to come to mind, 'Confringo!'
A fiery bead leapt from his want and struck the mirelurk as it scuttled forward. The resultant blast knocked it back into the water with a profound hiss of pain and anger as the creature rolled about on its shell to right itself. Its companions joined it, their awkward jostling actually impeding the fallen mirelurks attempts. Neville felt a stab of pain in his ankle and looking down, saw a tiny hatchling pinching at his legs. Furious, he kicked it towards its grown cousins.
"Baubillious!" A stream of white lightning burst from his wand and struck the water near the trio of mirelurks. The potent electrical charge forked and branched, engulfing the three creatures and their hapless offspring in crackling bolts of arcing fury.
Neville strained to hear past the ringing in his ears and blinked his eyes against the spots that impeded his vision. His nose, however, worked perfectly fine, the scent of ozone and roast crab assaulting his senses and actually making him feel quite hungry. He curled his lips in distaste at the state of the mirelurks, their shells having been blasted clear off their bodies, steam rising from their cooked flesh.
Not wishing to tempt fate further, Neville secured his sample and got back on his broom, sweeping up and over the island to the northwest. Landing on the northern shore, where the lake narrowed into a shallow stream, he spotted another interesting plant.
It was a reddish orange broad petal flower growing partially in the water. Its petals were thick with water and had a sickly sweet smell to them. He gathered up several samples and was examining one when the echo of gunfire reached him.
Dropping his prize, he ran up a gentle hill toward the center of the island and found himself looking at the backs of several demolished houses. Most were ruined beyond use but several, he noted curiously, appeared to be lived in, rough patches covering the worst of the damage.
The gunfire renewed and increased in both tempo and volume. The random chorus of pops accompanied by panicked shouting and wild cries. He peeked around the house and saw a blur as an armored figure dashed by, its crude pistol barking.
He disillusioned himself and crept further around the house, his wand ready to shield himself should any shots come his way.
He gasped at the battle taking place on the street between the rows of partially restored houses. Along one side, unarmored people including one wearing vintage clothing were fighting back desperately against a half dozen filthy men and women wearing scrap metal armor.
He took a chance and a side, levelling his wand at the backs of the 'invading' raiders.
"Stupify!"
The red bolt of energy slammed into the back of the nearest raider, a spiky haired woman whose double barreled shotgun flew up into the air as she fell forward.
"Stupfiy!" An impressively fat man, whose improvised armor strained to contain his bulk, slammed face first into one of the houses and slid down in an unconscious heap.
"Stupify!" A gangly youth, whose expression of shock was almost comical, flew backward over a wooden barricade the settlers had erected.
He stopped himself before stunning another, his target shimmering with intense luminescence before cascading in a rain of glowing ash.
Silence reigned as he fought to regain his breath, just now realizing that he had been holding his breath the entire time.
A dark skinned man, the one in the vintage clothing, cautiously approached. Neville straightened his coat and flashed a crooked grin the man's way, attempting to put him at ease.
"Man, are we lucky you came along. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen." The dark skinned man said, by way of introduction.
"Neville Longbottom, um… herbologist out of Salem."
"Salem huh? Haven't heard of any settlement up that way."
"We're pretty new."
"I can't seem to place your accent…"
"Oh, I'm originally from England."
"Across the Atlantic?! How did you get all the way over here?"
Neville paused, unsure of just how much he should reveal, "Travelled by boat. It was long and hard, but we heard there were survivors here. There's nothing left for us in Britain."
Preston gave him a sympathetic look, "Sorry. I know how that feels."
The others eventually came out from their cover in the wake of their conversation, glancing at Neville in equal measure of awe and suspicion. Preston stopped a hangdog looking Asian fellow and whispered to him for a moment, gesturing to the dead and stunned raiders.
"That's Jun Long," Preston answered Neville's questioning gaze, "and that's his wife Marcy." Indicating the angry looking Hispanic woman.
"Mama Murphy and Sturges," He gestured, pointing out the last two members of the group, "the last survivors of Quincy."
"Quincy?"
"Settlement to the south, wiped out by a mercenary group called the Gunners. It's where the Minutemen effectively died." Preston lamented sadly.
Neville awkwardly patted Preston on the shoulder, but the look on the man's face showed that he appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
"So who were the Minutemen?"
Preston puffed himself up, like a military recruiter ready to deliver an impassioned speech to a group of hopefuls.
"Defend the people at a moment's notice. That was the idea. We were founded over a hundred years ago by a group of communities to protect themselves from the numerous threats in the Commonwealth. It really took off in 2180, when a group of Minutemen successfully defended Diamond City from a Super Mutant attack."
"But you said that the Minutemen died at Quincy? How? If it was spread out…" Neville was confused, how could an organization spread out over several towns and villages be wiped out in a single incident?
"It started before then, when we lost the Castle. It was our main base of operations and we were forced to abandon it in 2240. Soon after General Becker, our last leader, died and the different groups of Minutemen didn't agree on who should take his place."
By this time, Preston had escorted an interested Neville to a house that had been built up slightly more than the rest, with a hodgepodge of chairs spread out under the carport next to workstations and crates. They sat as Preston continued his history lesson.
"Without the Castle and radio tower that could reach every corner of the Commonwealth, and the lack of a real leader, the Minutemen began falling apart. I was with Colonel Hollis' group. We were the only one to respond when Quincy asked for help. At first, it went well. The Gunners had already started their attack when we arrived. We hit them from the rear and managed to drive them off. Colonel Hollis moved us into the town and then sent out the request for reinforcement from other groups. None of them came."
Preston paused here, hanging his head and took off his hat to let it hang from his fingers as he muttered his way through the rest of the story.
Neville had to strain to hear him, "Clint betrayed us. He defected to the Gunners and showed them how to attack the town. They came at us from the ruins of the highway which overlooked us. It really was a massacre. Twenty of us made it out, a handful of Minutemen and Quincy survivors."
"They caught up to us at Jamaica Plain where we lost more people. We broke out and tried to make for Lexington. But the ghouls there…"
Preston took a deep breath, "Only eight came out of there alive. We went to Concord next, figured we could start over. The place looked quiet. Should've known better. A group of raiders killed three more, the five of us are all that are left now."
He looked up at the settlers, watching them work around the neighborhood. Jun carefully ending the unconscious raider's lives with a quick nick of his switchblade, before stripping the men and women of anything of value and dragging them off to parts unknown.
Neville swallowed in distaste, almost saying something about the murder of the men and woman he had stunned, but thought better of it at the look on Preston's face.
"What happened at Concord?" Neville pressed, anxious to get the image of Jun's knife flashing red from his mind.
"We held up in the Museum of Freedom… ironic eh? I thought we were finished. Then, from out of nowhere, a woman in a Vault suit shows up, helps me take out the raiders storming the front. I yelled down at her, this angel, begged her to help. I had never begged anyone in my life."
"But she did it. She took out the raiders in the museum. Reached us just before the main raider group got into position. She implemented our plan to reactivate a suit of power armor and use the minigun off of a crashed vertibird and gave those raider's hell!"
Preston's eyes were alight with the memory, "It was quite the display. The noise of the battle must have disturbed it, I have never seen anything like it."
By now, Neville was fully entranced, "What? What was it?"
"Its roar shook the very ground, I felt it from the balcony, it ripped its way up through the street like a demon clawing its way up from the depths of hell. A deathclaw, had to have been nine, maybe ten feet tall. It swiped at a raider, cut the woman in half as if it was nothing. Then it went after the Vault dweller."
He took a deep breath, Neville leaning in eagerly to hear the rest of the story. It seemed unbelievable, except when compared to some of his own stories of the 2d Wizarding War, he realized.
"Even in a hundred pounds of steel armor, that deathclaw knocked her around like a ragdoll. I shot down at it in desperation but my laser musket didn't seem to do much to it. It took hundreds of rounds from the minigun before that thing finally fell, most of the armor plates had been torn off the frame of the power armor and she was a battered bloody mess. But she did it. She saved us."
"Must have been quite a lady." Neville commented.
"Won't argue with you there. I wished she had stayed here with us, but she had troubles of her own."
"How long have you been here?"
"Not long, couple of weeks. It's been quiet here, that group of raiders is the first trouble we've had since arriving. They got the drop on me, waited until I was on the opposite side by the old north bridge before crossing from the ridge to the north, they were in the middle of the settlement before I even knew they were there."
Neville could tell that Preston blamed himself, despite the fact the one man couldn't possibly defend the island by himself.
He would offer them a place at Salem, but hesitated when his mind ran through the logistics. They had already travelled so far. Despite being here for weeks, they were all underfed and tired. Taking the journey from here to Salem on foot was daunting to say the least. But surely there was something he could do for them?
By that afternoon, the six of them were sitting in beaten up old chairs swapping stories, though Marcy stayed mostly silent and sullen through the friendly exchange.
"You know, the soil here seems pretty good. Should be good for crops and herbs." Neville commented.
"That'd be great, if we had anything to plant." Sturges lamented, "We're just about out of food too. Water's good though, we got the purifier set up in the river down that a way."
"I'm more worried about our lack of proper defenses." Preston added.
"Yeah well, if we had good defenses, maybe YOU could take a break for once." Sturges remarked dryly, "I've been working on getting some turrets set up, but it's slow getting the parts I need."
"I fl…passed by a scrapyard on the way here." Neville interrupted, "It might have the parts you're missing."
"Hey, that'd be great! One problem down, a thousand to go." Despite the pessimism of the comment, Sturges spoke with an easy smile, nothing seemed to bother the self-proclaimed tinkerer for long.
Noting the sun slowly sinking on its journey west, Neville stood up, "I'm going to head back to Salem, but I'll come back with some help and the parts you need from that scrapyard. But before I go, could you come out to the street for a moment?"
The bewildered residents were probably more motivated by curiosity than anything else as they shambled out from under the carport to join him in front of the house they had taken up residence in.
"Reparo." He murmured.
Preston turned to him to ask him to repeat what he had just said when he paused, awestruck. Neville's eyes were closed in intense concentration but what really shut Preston up, was the glow coming from the rod he waved through the air.
He heard it, a sort of tinkling sound that slowly built up in both volume and tempo. If his jaw hadn't been attached, it would have fallen onto the street at the sight of the house… rebuilding itself, as if by… magic.
Neville let out a heavy sigh as he finished, the settlers in awestruck silence at the nearly pristine condition of the house, almost as if a window was granted to them to see the world as it was before the war. Almost, Neville was a little disconcerted to see that the repair wasn't as complete as he would have liked. But, he had to admit to himself, he wasn't the best at these kinds of charms and 200 plus years of decay would likely affect the outcome of any similar magic.
Despite Neville's misgivings, the settlers were awestruck. They alternated between looking at the rebuilt home and the man who had made it happen. Mama Murphy seemed to be the only one completely unsurprised, only standing there crookedly with a faraway look in her eyes.
"Man! I thought you were using some kind of stun rod on those raiders earlier, I didn't know it could do that too! Where can I get one of those?" Sturges exclaimed.
"How did you do that?!" Jun added.
Their questions came one atop the other, Neville barely able to distinguish who was asking what.
"Hey now, everyone hush!" Preston ordered, he turned to Neville with expectant eyes.
Neville took a deep breath, the longstanding law and tradition against revealing the wizarding world to muggles still giving him pause despite the lack of any Ministry to enforce it.
"I'm a wizard." He said simply, looking at the settlers for their reaction.
They looked at him in silence, then at each other.
The silence was broken by Sturges, "Well, whatever it is, I'm am sure glad to make your acquaintance!"
Neville found himself vigorously shaking hands with both Preston and Sturges, even Marcy withholding a scathing comment to ALMOST smile at him.
"In any case, you should be more comfortable now. Like I said, I'll be back with some friends to see about getting you lot fixed up better."
A little less than an hour later, he flew low over the northern part of the lake, his face seemingly permanently stuck in a grin as he recalled the wonder and joy the settler's had once they moved into the rebuilt home. Once Sturges hooked up his jury rigged generator to it, the house lit up with such a welcoming glow that Jun almost wept. Marcy punched him lightly on the shoulder, but the move was more to hide her own feelings than recriminate him for his. They marveled at the running water, working refrigerator and the cool dry air blowing in from the vent scattered through the house. He and Jun then ran water from the purifier into the house. By the time he finally extricated himself, they were drawing lots over who would get to use the working shower first.
With a satchel full of plant samples and new friends, Neville whistled happily to himself as he flew back to Salem.
POV: Harry Potter, Vault 114
Harry and Piper, still making their way through the vault under the disillusionment charm, paused at the bottom of a staircase, listening to Nick actually convincing the Triggerman who had been taunting him to bugger off. He took the stairs 3 at a time in his haste to find his 'boss' and plead his innocence. Harry glanced at Piper as he felt the wind from the man's rushed passage. Her outline shrugged and with a tap to her shoulder, they moved up the stairs to the sealed door holding their rescue.
A few minutes and some confusing instructions later, Harry and Piper finally managed to get the terminal to open the pressurized door and get a good look at the detective.
Harry found himself unable to articulate, his wide eyes taking in the unique figure of Nick Valentine. The 'man', to use the term loosely, looked almost every inch the quintessential private dick. What he couldn't reconcile with what he knew of the muggle world, was that as far as he knew, muggles didn't have yellow glowing eyes or plastic 'skin' over a metal endoskeleton. He took off his glasses hurriedly, wiping them clean of dust before replacing them on his face, as if doing so would somehow change the scene he found himself in.
"Ah, my knights in shining armor. But the question is, why does he come all this way, risk life and limb, for an old private eye?"
He threw a wink Piper's way, somewhat amused by the common reaction at his appearance.
Harry finally found his voice, "What… are you?"
"Told you. I'm a detective. Look, I know the skin and metal parts ain't comforting, but it's not important right now."
"Right." Piper interjected, "Nick's good people, he really is. But what I want to know, is why were you locked up?"
"I've been cooped up in here for weeks. Turns out the runaway daughter I came here to find wasn't kidnapped. She's Skinny Malone's new flame, and she's got a mean streak." Nick replied.
Nick smiled at them, helping himself to a pack of Grey Tortoise cigarettes on the desk. He lit one and stuck the pack into his pocket, the cherry glow on his face lending his face an even more horrifying aspect.
Harry finally found his voice, "I need you to find someone, but it's complicated. I don't know exactly where they could be or how long they've been gone."
"Well I've done jobs with less. Somehow "nice and simple" never makes it onto the menu in my world. Anyway, you got troubles, and I'm glad to help. But now ain't the time. Let's blow this joint. Then we'll talk."
Harry nodded, more than willing to put the strangeness of the situation on permanent back burner. He trusted Piper's word and Nick seemed friendly enough. Given that the world he remembered was replete with creatures that would confound most muggles, he could at least give Mr. Valentine the benefit of the doubt.
The trio made their way back down to the 1st floor of the atrium, just as the sound of running feet presaged the arrival of several triggermen.
"So, how do you want to play this?" Nick asked, as the pressure doors opened and several gangsters appeared, their weapons at the ready.
Harry smirked crookedly at Nick and stood up, waving his wand in a circular motion in front of him to conjure a shield of force. The surprised Triggermen gaped at the brazen man before replying with their trademark solution to confusing situations, submachine gun fire.
The bullets whizzed and pinged as they struck his shield, making Harry wince despite the protection he enjoyed. Setting his gaze determinedly forward, he strode with purpose and blasted the men with red flashes of light, the bolts unerringly finding each of the gangsters and knocking them away with pained cries.
Nick was flabbergasted, fixing Piper with a questioning gaze as Harry continued to fill the corridors with his light show. She shrugged back at the inquisitive synth detective and got up to catch up with the impressive wizard.
BREAK
POV: George Weasley, Salem settlement
George was fascinated by the contraption he had found in one of the houses. It looked like a small yellow pony, a toy of some kind that in its prime, moved and interacted with children. He examined its mechanisms and marveled at the ingenuity of muggles, a fascination once shared with his father, Arthur. Though heavy, he managed to levitate it and brought it down to his workshop, an area he had set aside for his own use in one of the rebuilt homes where a multitude of interesting finds already littered every available shelf and work bench.
"Looks like a fairly intact Giddyup buttercup you got there."
"What?" George asked, his attention firmly on the horse-like toy.
A somewhat elderly gentleman smiled kindly at him from his seat on a park bench. The man was dressed in a well-fitted grey suit with a fedora perched atop his grey head. He was one of the newer settlers to join Salem, coming in a few days ago with his two grandchildren. George couldn't for the life of him remember his name.
"Walt." The man provided, standing up and giving George a firm handshake in greeting, "I was admiring your Giddyup Buttercup there."
"Giddyup Buttercup, eh?"
"Yep. Pre-war toy, pretty popular from the looks of it, what with all the bits of pieces of em scattered all around the 'wealth. Rare to find one intact like that though. I almost had enough pieces to put one together for my grand babies before we had to leave our old place."
"So you know mechanics and such?"
"My dad taught me what he knew. Had a few books on the subject that I read, came in handy running a scrapyard."
"Brilliant!" George exclaimed, "Then maybe you can help me out with a little project I had in mind."
"I'd be happy to help. Be good to pitch in and help out around here, with all the good your folks have done for me and mine."
Walt walked with George to his workshop, listening intently to George as he excitedly filled him in on his idea.
"So, tell me… what do you know about owls?"
BREAK
POV: Harry Potter, Vault 114
About a dozen stunned triggermen later, Harry and company found themselves behind a pressure door leading back to the main entrance to the vault. Nick bent to the task of bypassing the seal on the door, humming to himself as he worked on the controls.
"Okay, I got it, but I hear big fat footsteps on the other side. Once we step through this door, get ready for anything."
The pressure door slid open with a hiss, revealing a less than warm reception waiting for them on the other side. A well rounded fellow whose tuxedo strained to contain his bulk, who Harry surmised was the ironically named Skinny Malone, glared at them over his double barreled shotgun. He was flanked by two of his cronies and a dolled up lady whose beauty was marred by the sneer on her face and the bat she wielded.
"Nicky? What're you doin? You come into my house. Shoot up my guys. You have any idea how much this is gonna set me back." Malone protested.
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your two-timing dame, Skinny. You ought to tell her to write home more often." Nicky shot back.
The sneering woman compounded her apparent flaws with her high pitched and grating voice, "Awww… poor little Valentine. Ashamed you got beat up by a girl? I'll just run back home to daddy, shall I?"
Malone cut in with a glare at the synth, "Should've left it alone Nicky. This ain't the old neighborhood. In the vault, I'm king of the castle, you hear me?"
He continued his diatribe, "And I ain't letting some private dick shut us down now that I finally got a good thing goin?"
Darla had to add her 2 cents, "I told you we should've just killed him, but then you had to go all sentimental! All that stupid crap about the "old times".
Skunny Malone turned to Darla with a pleading look, "Darla, I'm handling this! Skinny Malone's always got things under control."
"Oh yeah, then what's this boy and this reporter doing here huh? Valentine must have brought them here to rub us all out!"
This was edging far too uncomfortably into a campy black and white film for Harry's taste, with the gangster slang being thrown about by all these tossers.
He sighed heavily and flourished his wand more out of frustration than any measure of malice. Before the astounding looks of the Triggermen, bolts of red energy flew out from his wand and swirled around him for a moment before darting out to strike each of them dead center in their chests.
Darla shrieked as the men all around her fell in nerveless heaps. Her eyes darted around at each of the men and her bat falling from numb fingers to clatter onto the metal floor.
"Petrificus Totalus."
Darla didn't have time to ponder the phrase before a wave of energy slammed into her and locked her body into rigidity. She teetered for a moment and began to fall backward, Harry darting forward to keep her from smacking into the floor.
"A little help here?" Harry grunted, as he wrestled with the young woman's dead weight.
"I'm not even going to ask." Nicky stated, as he took the rigid woman from Harry and hefted her easily over his shoulder. Piper stifled a giggle at the sight, Darla's body looking like a stiff length of wood on Nick's shoulder. She cleared her throat and re-arranged the woman's dress so that less of her unmentionables was visible. With a chortle of amusement, Nick led them out of the Vault, stepping around the prone mountain of flesh called Skinny Malone.
BREAK
POV: None, Somewhere to the west of the Glowing Sea
A missile came screaming in, blasting the wall into fragments and hurtling the body of the raider bloodily into the air. With a long suffering groan, the rest of the building collapsed, scattering the other raiders that had sought cover there, save the two that were crushed beneath tons of rock and dust. The Gunners who had been hired to clear this township northwest of Glowing Sea shouted in triumph as their quarry scurried from their ruined den. Laser fire stitched the battlefield, the coppery tang of blood and hot metal thick in the air.
Thick clouds of smoke rose from the other side of the street, as the other squad of Gunners filled the air with fyceline stink and purifying flame. The flamer wielding Lieutenant grinned, his white teeth shining against the soot blackened skin of his face. Another raider, a woman in scavenged metal armor, shrieked as her flesh bubbled and blackened beneath the hosing fire.
Little did the embattled raiders know, that deep beneath them, the shockwave of the collapsing building reverberated through a series of caverns that time had long forgotten. In one cavern in particular, the shockwave manifested as a minute tremble, a momentary tremor in the bedrock that sent a handful of pebbles clattering down onto the cavern floor.
They skipped and bounced against ancient runes, their passage scratching the once impervious barrier. The magic that had held their charge against the ravages of time fell without fanfare, the crouching woman bound in their center taking her first free breath in almost 3 centuries. She trembled with the renewed sensation of life flowing through her veins, her heart thudding in her chest as if laboring to move blood unaccustomed to verve. With an expression of pure will, light blossomed in the cavernous space and dispelled the darkness surrounding the woman.
Her dress was old, a style not seen since the Victorian era, but unlike their contemporaries of that prudish age, did little to lend her womanly body any sense of modesty. Raven hair framed a delicate face unmarred by time or worry, porcelain skin seeming to glow in the light of her luminous power.
She gasped as the memory of her past life slammed into her with shocking realization. The Magical Congress had discovered her, hiding in plain sight among them. The wizarding world had thought her long dead and was quite concerned that the alleged dark witch was in fact, alive. So they had trapped her down here, imprisoned for all time.
Despite their intentions, Morgan Le Fay was free once again.
POV: Harry Potter, Valentine Detective Agency, Diamond City
"So tell me, what can this old private dick do for you?" Nick asked, as he settled in his chair, the cherry glow from his cigarette casting his face in an ominous glow.
"I'm looking for someone. A young woman named Cait who was last seen in the company of a vault dweller named Nora."
"A vault dweller came in to see you, but left when I told her that we were closed on account of you being missing." Ellie Perkins added.
"Ah, some dame roaming the wasteland eh? I don't suppose you have more to go on than that?"
"I wish I could tell you more. But I've never actually seen the one I am looking for." Harry said, apologetically.
"What, she owe you money or something?"
"Nothing like that. She's like me. Magical. I want to find her to help her and bring her to where she can be with her own kind, to learn what it means to be a witch."
Nick raised an eyebrow, or would, if he had eyebrows. His chair creaked alarmingly as he got up and began rummaging through piles of paperwork, muttering to himself while Ellie tried to guide his search.
"Ah ha. Here we are." He stated triumphantly. He slapped a rather bare looking manilla folder onto the desk. Harry reached forward and opened it, seeing a photo of a young red head, her hair a short tangled mess atop a mischievous face. Despite the hard edge to her eyes, there was a certain vulnerability to the crooked grin which split her face.
"There's not much here. Says here she was last at the Combat Zone… we've already been there." Harry muttered, somewhat despondently.
"Yeah, but at least I now have a face to go with the name. It gives me a place to start at least. I'll start asking around my regular informants, see what I can stir up. How can I contact you when I have something?"
"I'll check back in with you, say in a couple of weeks?"
"That should give me plenty of time. May have to hike out to Bunker Hill, the traders there see a lot in their travels, could be they spotted our lost lamb."
They shook on it, and Harry followed Piper out of the Valentine Detective Agency. The sun was just cresting over the horizon to the east, providing a stark reminder that they had spent the entire night on their adventure. A point that was punctuated by Piper's profound and jaw cracking yawn.
Harry smirked at the reporter, his jaw tightening as he resisted the urge to yawn himself.
"Come on, Potter. I got a comfy couch at the Publick that has your name on it. We can leave tonight after we've rested."
"Yeah, we've got a long way to travel. Some sleep would be brilliant."
Harry found himself deep in the arms of Morpheus within moments of his head hitting the pillow. A darkness fluttered at the edge of his awareness, like a nightmare without proper context. He slept, tossing and turning under the blanket of an intangible dread. As if something horrible was about to befall them.