*Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and ideas….and the plot bunnies in the corner. Harry Potter and Legion's characters, places, and anything else are not mine; I make no money from writing this. Please don't sue, I'm a poor college student that has no life and way too many video games.*
"The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly." - G.K. Chesterton
Chapter Two
Paradise Falls, Arizona
December 23rd, 2010
9:51 a.m.
The condensation built up around the glass of ice water, the heat slowly melting it. A drop collected, sliding down the side of the glass, pulling more water to it as it continued its journey. It came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the cup where a ring of water was already forming.
Harry lifted his finger, tracing the path the droplet had taken, feeling the cold sink into his skin. He stared at the wet patch for a moment before he wiped his hand off and continued to push the eggs around on his plate, trying to convince himself to eat more. It was a losing battle.
Eight years…eight years he had been here, in this other Earth. Waking up wandless in an abandoned building after he had stepped out of the Veil was not what he was expecting. Honestly, he hadn't expected to wake up at all. With an absent wave of his hand, quick tempus and location charm later, the confusion began to set in.
The spell revealed that it was only a few hours after his unwilling jaunt through the arch. It also showed that he hadn't moved…not an inch. He was in the Department of Mysteries, in the room of Death. Except he wasn't. Harry was in a warehouse stocked full of muggle boxes bigger than he was. Needless to say, he left quickly.
Two years later, after searching everywhere, revealed no Hogwarts, no Hogsmeade, no Diagon Alley…no Wizarding World. There was nothing, it was just gone. All of it…well, not quite.
A week after awaking in the strange world Harry noticed something odd. He had an extra tattoo he couldn't recall acquiring. The Hungarian Horntail was the only tattoo he had decided to get. It was a spur of the moment thing when he was sixteen.
A jaunt into a poorly lit parlor in Knockturn Alley and twenty Galleons later, he had a beautiful recreation of the dragon he had out flown in the Triwizard Tournament. The tattoo seemed to even have the same personality as well. It could usually be found in its favored place on his shoulder blade, occasionally moving to his lower back or side, and sometimes if it was feeling coy: his deltoid. But he never recalled getting a tattoo on the inside of his wrist.
It took Harry several days to remember where he had seen the symbol before, a circle bisected by a straight line, surrounded by a triangle. It was the mark of the Deathly Hallows…and it was branded on his wrist.
Harry had gazed at his wrist for hours, confused and annoyed, before he put it in the back of his mind, forgetting it entirely within several months. He had far more important things to figure out anyways, like money, food, shelter. The once Boy-Who-Lived had been dropped penniless, wandless, and clueless into this new place. He needed a plan.
First, he had tried searching for the Ministry, hoping that they could help him. When that turned up nothing, he tried for Diagon Alley. A month later and Harry was forced to move on as the Leaky Cauldron was nowhere to be found. His last stop had been Hogwarts. The journey and search lasted for nearly a year, before he admitted defeat. It was gone, all of it, like it never was at all.
The only reminder of what had been was his magic, still teeming beneath his skin. Harry had only done the simplest of magic without a wand, unfamiliar with it when casting wandless. The magic though had responded immediately and playfully. The first time he had cast magic in this other Earth, he had felt a curious feeling directed to him. It wasn't until he had attempted a complicated warding that it became obvious. It was the magic of the other.
It probed at him, curious, childlike, and inquisitive. Two years in this other Earth and he got his first taste of its magic. It poked and prodded, pulling uncomfortably as it tried to dissect him like some alien creature…but for all intents and purposes he was. Harry allowed the examination tolerantly until it became painful and the magic of his Earth, the same but not quite, lashed out, shoving the other away like a persistent puppy.
The other retreated, confused and chastised, and for days Harry felt guilty. Finally he gave in, finding a quiet place to meditate; he reached out to the other. It took a while, but he was able to coax it out from where it had been hiding. He accepted it back, and properly reprimanded, it didn't try to yank, pull, and tear at him again.
It took months for the other to finally consent to his presence. After that it became like a tenacious child, full of questions. For a being that had no known language, it figured out how to communicate well enough, mostly through pictures and images that were pulled from his mind. It wanted to know about everything: his Earth, its creatures, its people. The other was fascinated by the great flying reptiles that breathed fire and the humans that could change things with their will alone.
It took Harry a while to discover how to answer in a way that the other could understand. But he eventually figured it out by projecting feelings, emotions, images, and focusing on intent.
After a while it became easy to understand the other and it was constantly prodding at the edge of his consciousness, stroking along his magical core, as if to check to make sure he was still there. When he had his first success in communication Harry had asked about Sirius, his dogfather…but the other hadn't understood. From the impressions he had gotten, the other had never encountered a being like him, which meant that if Sirius had been transported through dimensions like Harry had, then it definitely wasn't this one.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. The other was the reason why he was here, in the middle of the desert in the pressing heat. He had been sleeping peacefully last night in a small motel room in Rio de Janeiro, when the other had woken him abruptly in a panic.
Harry hadn't been able to understand what was happening, but he was able to work out that the other was scared. Something terrible was about to happen because He was angry. Harry had no idea who He was, but he had gotten up and started packing immediately.
After he had gotten into his beat up little pickup truck, the other pulled at him so hard it left him breathless. Taking the hint, he forced a massive disapparition, transporting his vehicle and all, to somewhere outside Glendale, Arizona. Following the insistent feeling of the other, he drove north for seven hours before the feeling stopped and he found himself parked outside a petrol station that dueled as a diner. Something big was about to happen, and Harry wasn't certain if he wanted to be there, but the other projected importance upon him. So, he had decided to stay to see what happened.
Harry was pulled from abruptly from his thoughts as a loud banging made him jump, turning to look at the older man thumping the side of the old television to make the picture work. It didn't work as planned; instead the screen became even fuzzier.
"Lord as my witness, Bob," the cook, a one-handed war veteran, turned to the owner of the diner with a soft smile his face as he watched the man flip his lighter on and off in an unconscious habit. "One of these days that thing's gonna hit you back."
Bob didn't face the older man, choosing to whack at the TV again. "Whaddya talkin' 'bout, Percy? We got a special relationship here."
"Yeah, they got names for that kind a relationship."
Harry chuckled softly to himself as he turned back to his now warm water. He reached for it, grabbing the glass and bringing it to his lips. Seconds before the action was completed, he felt a chill race down his arm and smiled in satisfaction as ice cold water met his parched throat. Out of all the things that had happened to him, this was the one he liked the most, the ability to perform magic without a wand.
When he had defeated Voldemort and became master of all the Deathly Hallows, Harry hadn't wanted that kind of power or responsibility. Instead he had left the stone of resurrection lost in the forest, the wand snapped and thrown in the river, and the invisibility cloak tucked safely away at the bottom of the trunk. It was truly a shame that the Deathly Hallows didn't seem to care. Apparently you couldn't stop being their master, even if you wanted to.
From what he was able to discover from his shoddy memories and his core, the Hallows were inside him. He couldn't make them manifest, probably their way of keeping him from 'misplacing' them again, but that didn't seem to matter. With a snap of his fingers he could make himself invisible, with a wave of his hand he could perform magic of the caliber he hadn't even known he could do before, and with just a thought, he could bring someone back from the precipice of death.
"You want anything else, kid?" The cook asked him, southern drawl rolling off his accent.
Harry frowned only slightly as he shook his head in a negative. And there was the other shoe. The one thing he hated most. Harry was officially thirty as of late July, thirty years old and he still looked like a teenager. Back in his Earth, he had noticed in passing that everyone was aging, and he still looked rather young, but he hadn't put any thought into it. Now, eight years later, he looked not a day older than when he had unknowingly brought all the Hallows together for the first time.
He looked seventeen…and that just pissed him off.
"Audrey, honey?" An older white man, probably only a few years older than Harry himself, shouted from across the diner. "Your mother was wondering if you got dressed this morning with the specific intention of showing your ass off to the entire world?"
Silence rang loudly around the room and Harry noticed that it wasn't only his attention that was pulled to the young woman, probably only sixteen, swaying seductively in front of the jukebox. She was wearing a laced corset tank top that stopped just under her belly button and a mini skirt so short that Harry was sure that if she bent over any more, he would see her underwear.
They all watched as she turned to the man in the booth, a sardonic smile flitting across her glossed lips. "Yeah, that's 'cause I woke up hoping to get double teamed by a couple of meth head truckers in the bathroom of some desert shithole." Her face twisted into mocking exuberance. "It's a good thing we got stuck here."
Harry turned back to his drink, smothering a dark chuckle as Percy watched the exchange discreetly from behind the counter. The wizard could tell that the other man was highly amused.
Howard turned back to his wife, raising an eyebrow as he smirked at her. "I feel satisfied with that answer. I really do."
His wife put her coffee down and buried her face in her hands as she shook her head back and forth in denial. She sounded as if she was about to cry. "I'm being punished for something, I know it."
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Somewhere in Arizona
December 23rd, 2010
10:17 a.m.
Kyle Williams nodded his head absent mindedly to the bass thumping music that was playing out of his speakers. The road ahead continued for miles, the vast barren landscape seeming to have no end. Tapping his fingers on the wheel to the beat, he flicked his cigarette out the open window before he grabbed his phone.
"Shit," he mumbled, waving it around trying to find a signal. Frustrated, he threw it on the passenger seat before a passing sign caught his eye. It was old and weathered, but still legible. "Next service in fifty miles…" he opened the map that was in the glove box. "Fifty miles?"
Kyle draped it over his wheel, trying to find where he was before he gave up and pulled off into the gas station. He rolled to a stop a little away from the pumps and got out, looking around at the desolate landscape. It seemed to be a place that time had just forgotten, everything old and rusted, the style having stepped out of the sixties. There was a mechanic's bay attached to the diner, rusty car parts littering the ground, grease staining the sand below.
A payphone on the side of the building drew his attention and he wandered over. A heavily pregnant woman stood by it, wearing a worn uniform and smoking a cigarette. "Merry Christmas," he greeted, hands in his jacket pockets as he strolled closer.
The woman exhaled a stream of smoke as the cigarette left her lips. "What's so merry about it?" She took another drag.
"You know," Kyle began, halting a few paces away. "That shit ain't good for the baby."
She smiled at him sarcastically. "Guess I should think 'bout quittin' then."
He glanced around, bouncing on his heels awkwardly. "Before you quit, can I get one from you?"
"You can buy a whole pack inside," she turned to him, gesturing to the building she was leaning against.
Kyle shifted, smiling briefly at her. "How 'bout I get one from you and I give you two from the pack you're gonna sell me."
She considered him for a moment, smiling at him when he made a questioning noise in the back of his throat. Chuckling softly, Charlie reached into her pocket, pulling out the pack and fetching a cigarette for him. When she handed it to him, he pulled out his crumpled map. "You know what, I'm kinda lost. Am I right here?" He pointed and she leaned over his shoulder to get a better look.
Charlie chuckled at him, shaking her head. "Not even close."
"Sonuvabitch," he mumbled as Charlie resumed her position, leaning against the wall. He stuffed the map back into his pocket before he examined the payphone. "Well, there any phones here that work?"
"Bob'll probably let you use the diner phone if you ask him real nice…maybe pay him a little somthin'." She added; southern drawl thickening.
"I think I can handle that," Kyle said softly, watching as Charlie took another drag from her stick. "You got anything in there to eat? Pancakes or…"
"Yup, we got a buttermilk stack for three seventy-five. French toast for four dollars if you're into that. I personally like the pancakes though."
She wasn't quite flirting, but it was close. Before anything could come of it though, Jeep interrupted them. "You okay, Charlie?" He asked.
Charlie and Kyle turned to the other man, the pregnant woman quickly hiding the cigarette. They both knew she was caught but Jeep chose to ignore it. The younger man was covered in grease and dirt, carrying something, but they were too far away to tell what. "Yeah, I'm fine. This guy's just lost," she gestured to Kyle.
Jeep nodded at her, uncertain. He eyed Kyle for a moment before he shuffled along back into the mechanic's bay. After an awkward beat, Charlie brought the cigarette from behind her back and finished it. "Who was that?" Kyle asked, eyes shifting to the young woman.
Charlie just took a long drag.
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Paradise Falls, Arizona
December 23rd, 2010
10:32 a.m.
Harry watched as the young teen, Audrey, played with her food idly, the fries on her plate a mush pile. Her parents argued from the booth a little away from their daughter, not as quiet as they thought they were being. "…every time we drive!"
"What!" Howard snapped; hands splayed on the table. "What do you want me to do?"
"Talk to him!" She grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer, squeezing a large dollop into her husband's palm angrily. "Things should have been ready two goddamn hours ago."
Howard rubbed the sanitizer between his hands, annoyed and frustrated. Harry thought that his wife was rather high maintenance and couldn't understand how he put up with her. No wonder their daughter rebelled. "It hasn't been two hours," the husband mumbled as the door chimed behind him.
The wizard turned on his stool, watching as Charlie returned from her break smelling like she had just smoked a fag. A rather tall black man entered behind her, looking very thuggish in his worn loose clothes and cap. Harry let his eyes linger on the other male, before he dismissed him as trivial. Man was all talk and no game.
Harry watched in amusement as Audrey's eyes lit up and she seemed to ooze sex at the man, smiling coquettishly. The thuggish man gazed at her before the glare of the older woman and her husband distracted him. Harry tried not to laugh at the look of horror the couple was trying to hide. It was like every parents worse nightmare.
"I hope Salem Lights are all right, 'cause that's all we got left," Charlie reached under the register, pulling a pack out and nearly slapping it on the counter.
The newcomer handed her the money quickly and she rang him up. "Charlie, where you've been?" Bob asked, walking behind Harry with a dirty towel on his shoulder and a pitcher of what was either some sort of red lemonade or punch. "It's not a resort; we've got orders stacking up."
Harry allowed his eyes to dart around, taking in the small diner, the three costumers aside from himself, and the small pathetic looking Christmas tree in the corner. Clearly the man just wanted to have a row with her. It was probably just his way of getting kicks.
Kyle opened the package, handing two cigarettes to Charlie; Harry saw that it did not go unnoticed by the owner of the diner. "You best not be smokin' again. Not in your condition."
"Bob," Charlie started; hand on her hip as Bob moved further into the kitchen. "You see where I'm at right now? Can my condition really get any worse?" Bob stopped wiping the counter to glance over his shoulder. "'Sides, you ain't one to talk," she added as an afterthought.
"What?" He turned to her, aggression in his voice but it seemed more put on than anything else. "I quit two years ago."
"Yeah?" Charlie questioned as Bob went into the back, behind the service counter and over to the sink. "So why you still carryin' that fancy lighter 'round then?"
"Gift from my ex-wife," he answered, hands on the counter between stacks of plates and bowls. "I'm sentimental…for when I want to remember how much I hate her guts."
"Hey, man, you got a phone I can use," Kyle asked still standing next to the cash register, a few seats away from Harry. The wizard took a drink of his water as Percy collected the remnants of his breakfast. He watched disinterested as Bob examined the man head to toe, clearly not impressed with what he saw. "My cell phone has no reception, and the phone booth outside is busted."
Before Bob could get the chance to answer, the older white male, Howard, approached and interrupted. "Excuse me; is there any news about when our car might be fixed? You said your boy would have us back on the road two hours ago. And I-I gotta say the rate we're goin, we'll be lucky to make it to Scottsdale by Christmas."
Bob sighed, turning to look at the floor as his jaw set in frustration.
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Alright…so, about Harry. The Deathly Hallows has made him the Master of Death, meaning: immortality and eternal youth. I did this because of Michael…he's an Angel…who doesn't age. Also, Harry will not be all powerful.
About the Hallows, I really have no idea why I made it so they wouldn't appear…it kinda just happened.
And about his dragon tattoo, that is canon. It is stated in one of the books, can't remember which one, Romilda Vane had asked Ginny if it was true that Harry had a Hippogriff tattooed across his chest. Ginny replied that it was a Hungarian Horntail because he considered it "much more macho." Having said that, I decided that it should reside on his back since that is manlier than a chest tattoo.
Also, about the tattoo, since it was a wizarding tattoo, I've decided to give it a personality. It is mean, cranky, and rather playful.
And on that note…Please review…pretty please.
-Theta
