CHAPTER 1:

VISITATION/SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT AND NEVER BROUGHT TO MIND?(1)

A broken man was on his knees, clutching the mangled stump which was all that remained of his hand. Dark-haired, with a beard that made him look vaguely like a sexual pervert, and with tinted glasses now askew. His face, once so hard and assured, was now filled with sorrow and anger. His blood pooled on the floor beneath him.

Behold, Gendo Ikari. The Man who sold the World. The Man who would be God.

He was far from the only one in this world, and their plans, like his own, had been thwarted. Thwarted by that slut of a doll, and that damnable interloper. Now, the massive crucifix-like structure was empty, devoid of the massive entity once hanging on it. The Rapture had occurred, but he hadn't been taken to his just reward like he should have been. He hadn't been reunited with his wife. Well, he had, but for all of a few minutes, all of which was spent with her coldly haranguing him. How dare she? After all he did, for her?

The one consolation he had was that if his plans had been thwarted, so had SEELE's. It was a pyrrhic victory at best, a bitter consolation. But it was all that he had.

The sounds of bootsteps. "Don't move!" Soon, he was surrounded on all sides by uniformed soldiers. JSSDF. SEELE's lapdogs. Their pawns. He was surprised they had got here so soon.

One of them spoke on his radio. "We've found Ikari. The older one, yes. No, he's the only one left. Even the ones we killed before everything went weird are gone. No sign of the EVA Units either, save for the armour and paraphernalia." The man, in a helmet and armour, looked at the crucifix. "No sign of the Angel they had here either. Whatever happened, it's gone now. Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Good riddance. Do we bring him in, or do our orders stand?" After a pause, the man nodded. "Yes, sir. Over and out." He then raised his gun to Gendo Ikari's head. "Any last words, you genocidal son of a bitch?"

Gendo finally looked up into the man's goggles, before he said, "Damn you to Hell, Harry Potter."

The next thing that went through many of the soldiers' minds were, Who the fuck is Harry Potter? A few knew the name from the files of key NERV personnel to target for assassination, but nothing else.

The next thing that went through Gendo Ikari's mind was a bullet. And not a single fuck was given.


In his sanctuary, Keel Lorenz raged bitterly. Immortality and godhood had been within his grasp. And now, it had been snatched away. He knew who was the responsible party. Ikari had been treacherous, true, but Keel was willing to believe the import of Ikari's last words.

Harry Potter. An interloper. A spanner in the works. The stone thrown into the calm pond of the Scenario that ensured that Instrumentality couldn't be achieved. Adam was gone. Lilith was gone. The Evangelion Units were gone. Anything he could use to achieve godhood was gone.

He screamed and raged until he was caught in a paroxysm of coughing. Despite his best efforts, the Reaper was closing in, little by little. And there was nothing he could do about it.


Only two people in what remained of Tokyo-3 knew what had happened. And that was because they had received an offer to depart with most of NERV. The JSSDF and SEELE left them alone in the mistaken belief that they knew nothing of any import.

In truth, Toji Suzuhara and Hikari Horaki knew many things of import. But they kept quiet. They were content knowing that they were safe in a world freed from the scourge of the Angels. They were content knowing they could live a happy life with each other. And they were content knowing that their friends were, hopefully, safer than they were here.

Safe being a relative term, of course, given where they ended up...


Against the night sky, the ramparts and towers of the distant castle looked imposing, even sinister. The shadows, however, were temporarily chased away by a light the hue of moonlight, but far more bright.

The source of this light was no moon. In fact, the source of the light, currently standing within a large sports field (that said light source nonetheless dominated), was truly bizarre. It was the gigantic, pale figure of a teenaged girl, completely naked, and seeming to glow from within with an ethereal light, bizarre wings of energy sprouting from its back. This bizarre visitation, almost as soon as it appeared, began to diminish, its form shrinking until its size was comparable to the hundreds of people who, until that point, were like ants at its feet. Then, the glow faded, and so too did the wings. What was left was a pale, naked teenage girl with short, shaggy blue hair.

Almost instantly, a teenaged boy with messy black hair and green eyes was at her side, draping a jacket around her shoulders. Upon an amused cough from a young woman with brown hair, green eyes, and a very strong resemblance to the blue-haired girl, the boy accepted a long lab coat (far more covering), which the blue-haired girl took, shivering.

"It's cold," she said quietly.

The boy looked around, nodding his head in agreement. "We're in Scotland, and Third Impact hasn't happened yet. It might not even do so, if what we found out was correct. Tempus(2)," he said, waving a wand. Numbers appeared in the air, showing a time, and a date. "It's nearly the end of August," he said, scarcely believing it himself. The last time he had been here, it had been the 20th of June, 1994. Now here he was, a couple of months later. "Nearly autumn."

Nearby, a red-haired girl dressed in a skintight scarlet suit was shivering, an arm around her shoulder from a woman who appeared to be her mother. "Feels like winter," she remarked, a faint tinge of a German accent apparent in her voice. Along with some annoyance.

"That's still having some LCL on your body plus wind chill," her mother said. "Look at it this way, Asuka. You'll get to see snow, outside photos or an indoor skiing facility."

"I'll believe it when I see it," the thus-named Asuka retorted. "Oi, Merlin! Is this really the place you wanted to come back to?"

The green-eyed boy sarcastically dubbed Merlin fought to keep a scowl of annoyance from his face. "Yes, Asuka. This is Hogwarts. In fact, we're standing in the middle of the Quidditch Stadium. I think it's because this is where the Portkey was meant to go back to, but…well, there was a maze here." His face fell as he remembered what had happened in that maze…and when he had been captured by the enemy.

Another teenaged boy, who had been standing close to the brown-haired woman, was staring up at the towering stands in awe. "So this is a Quidditch Stadium?"

"Yeah. Not as big as a Geofront, Shinji, but even so…" The green-eyed boy looked at the blue-haired girl. "Rei, are you feeling better?"

"Yes," she said, in a quiet, gentle monotone. "That was certainly…an experience, Harry."

"You can say that again," a woman in her twenties, with hair that seemed to be dark purple, and dressed in a red, vaguely military-looking jacket, remarked. "Conspiracies, Third Impact, end of the world, JSSDF being used as SEELE's murderous catspaws, a lot of mind-fuckery…and a Giant Naked Rei. Oh, and we're currently in the grounds of a school for wizards and witches. Christ, I need a drink."

"You're not the only one, Misato," a blonde-haired woman said, reaching into her coat, and pulling out a cigarette. "I'll settle for nicotine."

"That will probably kill you, Ritsuko," remarked a man in his sixties, with a stern, academic look to him, though his eyebrow was raised in a wry manner.

"As the old cliché goes, Sub-Commander," Ritsuko retorted as she pulled out a lighter and lit up the cigarette, "life is a venereal disease that is invariably lethal. And considering I just recovered from both a bullet wound to the chest and being briefly turned into LCL, I think I deserve a cigarette."

"So, how long do we have to wait until someone comes from Hogwarts to meet us?" Misato asked.

As if in reply, a ball of flames appeared, and a strange, ethereal song emanated from the ball as two figures materialised from within. One was a magnificent bird, of noble bearing and fiery colours. The other was an old man, who seemed dressed like some pantomime version of Merlin, complete with long beard and purple robes. He was holding onto the bird, though he let go when he saw Harry, and gaped. As if he had seen a ghost. Which, Harry reflected, he pretty much had.

As the old man stared at Harry, Asuka said, with a snort of amusement, "Okay, I take it back Harry, this guy should be called Merlin!"

"Harry?" the old man asked, as if scarcely daring to believe it. Then, he whipped out a wand and pointed it at Harry, his eyes suddenly hard and flinty with suspicion. "Who did I send to help you in the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Fawkes and the Sorting Hat," Harry responded, rolling his eyes. "Are you Professor Dumbledore, or Mad-Eye Moody? By the way, you might want to lower that wand, because Misato is a crack shot."

"Exactly," Misato said, having drawn her own pistol, and aiming it at the wand wielded by the old man. "Plus, we've just had a collective bad day. Seriously, the worst thing one should experience on New Year's Day is a hangover(3). Not the Apocalypse. So back off, Merlin."

Dumbledore looked over at Misato, before waving his wand at her once, sending the gun flying to his hand. As he put the wand, and the gun, into his robes, he said, as if discussing the weather, "I've also had to deal with belligerent soldiers during the Second World War. German soldiers, for the most part."

Misato gaped, staring at her hand, and then back at Dumbledore. Her mouth worked up and down for a moment, before she settled for saying, "Can I have that back, please?"

"I'll consider it, my dear lady," Dumbledore said with equanimity. "Now, Harry, my boy, seeing as you have established your bona fides, but have brought a significant number of Muggles here. While I am flexible when it comes to the Statute of Secrecy, it's not going to go down well with the Ministry. Especially with the ugly rumours being circulated by the Daily Prophet."

"Wait, what?" Harry demanded. Then, his eyes widened. "Cedric! I couldn't bring his body back. It's…"

"I know. Thankfully, you took it from the graveyard to…wherever you went next. But there are persistent rumours that you murdered Cedric. Thankfully, the rumours that you were abducted and held prisoner by one of Voldemort's followers are more prevalent, but your coming back alone will raise a number of questions." Dumbledore stepped forward, concern now apparent in his face. No longer was he the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Now he was the concerned guardian. "Harry…where have you been these past months? China? Japan?" he queried, noting that, with the exception of Harry, everyone else present seemed to have Asian features.

"Japan," Harry said. "Look, Professor…at the very least, we need to get these people inside. Especially Rei."

"Rei?" Dumbledore realised he meant the blue-haired girl with the blood-red eyes, shivering under a lab coat, and nothing else.

"Hey, what am I, chopped liver?!" Asuka snapped. "I'm in a wet plugsuit!"

"And you're pulling it off nicely," Harry retorted.

"I'll have the House Elves bring some tents out," Dumbledore said.

"Tents?" Asuka demanded incredulously as Dumbledore walked away. "He's going to have us sleep in tents?"

"If they're anything like the ones at the Quidditch World Cup…well, did you guys have Doctor Who in your world?"

The older man, the one called Sub-Commander, and whose actual name was Professor Kozou Fuyutsuki, nodded. "So…they're like a TARDIS?"

"And pretty luxurious too." Harry looked to the sky wistfully, before sighing. "…I'm home," he said quietly.

"Welcome home," Misato said, echoing words she had once said to Shinji what felt like an eternity ago, but really was only a matter of months.

Even so, it was home only to one of those present. For virtually everyone else, they had been uprooted from a home that had admittedly become hostile to their presence. And some knew very well that they had traded one war for another…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, here we go. The first chapter of this fic. Now, in case you're wondering why the characters, especially Shinji and Asuka, seem rather too upbeat for having lived through the events of The End of Evangelion, there's two reasons for that. One, Harry had a small but good influence on the events of Neon Genesis Evangelion, or at least everything from Leliel onwards (so the scene where Shinji commits that act of onanism over a comatose Asuka doesn't happen, not in that way). Secondly, and this will be explained later in greater depth, but when Rei brought them here (well, Rei/Lilith, or the Giant Naked Rei if you'd prefer), she effectively put them, albeit temporarily, through a brief form of Instrumentality. That had a combined effect of both giving them some understanding of one another, as well as soothing (but not healing) their most recent psychological wounds. That, and I'm a crappy writer, but whatever.

1. Like the TV series, I'm giving the chapters two titles. As to why I'm giving a verse from Auld Lang Syne, well, see the below annotation. Plus, it's Harry returning to old acquaintances.

2. I thought this was a canon spell, but it seems to be a fanon spell. I've decided to use it anyway. It gives time and date.

3. From what I've read, at least part of the events of The End of Evangelion take place on New Year's Day. Hence my choice of chapter title, which was taken from Auld Lang Syne.