Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe
by Warringer
Chapter 2
The Great Hall of Hogwarts was buzzing with activity. Even through Earth had been invaded and taken over by sentient cats from outer space, Hogwarts tried to follow through with the maxim of 'Business as usual'. And as such classes were still held, through by now only those who had managed to get out of dodge were part of those teaching or being taught.
But by now the children that were taught weren't only magical. Many of the families of 'muggle worn' wizards and witches had been able to flee to Hogwarts and Hogsmade, just as well as families of the military and the governments.
Likewise the staff of Hogwarts had been expanded with a good number of the faculties of Oxford, Cambridge, Lakehurst and other places. Not all of them were teaching and using the ever changing and large rooms of the massive castle for their studies of alien technology and any way that could be used to excel the alien invaders from the planet.
Hermione looked over the expanded Great Hall as she sat down at one of the tables with her friends and comrades in arms. She nodded with a smile towards where Professor Hawking was directing his wheelchair through the maze of tables. It had been fortunate that he had been in Edinburgh during the invasion and 'Operation Atlantis' had included men like him to be evacuated to Hogwarts. Likewise it was good to know that he could at least speak sowhat normal again and could take part in conversations without having to relay on his laptop.
Next to her Ron Weasley was already digging into his meal and shook his head. It seemed that his appetite had grown since the invasion, but to herself she admitted that it was most likely due to the lack of food during the first winter after the invasion, where no one had much to eat, if at all. Even today food was rationed to preserve it for bad times. Or rather worse times.
"I heard that Doktor Andreyasn and Ron's father are close to finishing that paraport thing of theirs," Jack Crunser, the driver of her teams Warrior said after a moment.
"Teraport device," Hermione corrected more automatically than intentionally as she looked down at the nice Wiener Schnitzel in front of her, complete with chips. Gone where the days when the dinner was a feast in all but name. At least they were able to get what they wanted within reason, through it had the look and feel of cantina food.
Crunser rolled his eyes as he bit down on his hamburger and chewed.
"Whatever," he said between bites." Maybe you'd get under the armor during 'porting once we get it installed."
Hermione rolled her eyes. She was the best and fastest witch in their team when it came to enchanting portkeys. She could get one done in less then ten seconds, but she needed to stay outside of the Warrior to enchant it.
"I heard they need to tie a wizard into an electrical chair for it to work," Ron said and blinked, looking at Hermione." Whats and electrical chair?"
Hermione pushed a slice of her Schnitzel into her mouth and chewed slowly so that she didn't need to answer Ron.
"A chair that gives you a nicely curled haircut after it was turned on," Crunser noted with a grin.
"Oh?" Ron made and looked at Hermione." So thats how muggles do that with their hair."
Hermione snorted and the Schitzel nearly went down the wrong pipe. Coughing she kicked Crunsers shin and gave him a glare.
"Ow," the twenty two year old driver made and reached down to rub the offended shin." Hey, it's true, isn't it? Only side effect would be that you are very dead after using it."
Ron dropped his food back on the dish and stared at Crunser, which got the driver another glare from Hermione, while the others of the team snickered.
"Ron, don't take everything for face value."
Hermione had finally swallowed correctly and wanted to respond to the 'Teraport device', a sort of 'technomgaical' portkey, as a strangely loud female voice interrupted the dinner.
The suddenness of the voice and its volume, draw the glances of everyone present towards the staff table, where they could see Professor Sibyll Trelawney had risen up from her seat. Those sitting closer to the staff table could see that her eyes were glazed over, while she held a fork with a chicken drumstick on it into the air, waiving it around.
"The lost hero will return," she proclaimed in a singsong voice," Descending from the heavens in a green ark, advised by the Minbari not of the Minbari, the hiding dragon, the recent ancient and the wolven man of faith, he will free the lands from oppression. Handling the heretics of man, he will be proclaimed as ruler of man, denying it."
Lost Hero? Hermione mouthed as she stared at Ron who stared at her.
"Uniting men, he will stride among the stars, bringing peace and freedom through the sword. Long live the hero."
Ron and Hermione continued to look at each other while most stared at Sibyll, who now blinked and took down the hand with her fork and blushed a little.
"oops..."
"Harry," Ron and Hermione said at the same time before their look returned towards Sibyll.
The airlock to the slave compartment depressurized and Harry breathed in deep. It was now or never.
He glanced over to the others that were part of this try to break out. Six Doranians. From what he had seen, when he had seen them, they were incredible hand to hand fighters. No wonder most Doranians that owned one broke them completely to use as bodyguards, even going as far as implanting chips that removed any will from their slaves. A technological Imperio...
The next glance went towards von Bismark, the grandchild of the famous Otto von Bismark. Harry didn't know what to think of the man. He had never seen him fight and the man was nobility. For a moment the fact that he belonged to a Preussian family entered his mind, as well as that Preussia used to be a militaristic nation. He would have to wait and see what von Bismark would do.
And than there was McPherson. Other than von Bismark, Harry knew her to be military. Well at least she used to be military before the Doranians took over her ship and made her a slave. And it was more than thirty years ago.
The airlock hissed and slowly opened, revealing a Doranian with a shock stick behind it. Time for action.
With a wordless scream he saw how von Bismark launched himself at the Doranian as the airlock opened fully to show two other cats. One of the Shin'bi was jumping at the second cat, leaving the third to the rest of the group. But only two people could fit through the airlock.
Harry reacted on an old instinct, nearly forgotten in the three years of slavery, as he saw the third Doranian reaching for the remote that would turn on their shock collars. His right hand shot up as if he was holding a wand. The heavily scarred fist pointed at the head of the Doranian as he yelled a curse he thought he would never again use.
"Reducto!"
That something happened at all was a great surprise to Harry. He had never been very good at wandless magic and the ball of energy heading towards the head of the Doranian and turning it into a spray of blood, bones and gray matter was not something he had expected.
By now von Bismark had broken his Doranians hand and grabbed his shock stick to ram it between his legs, while the Shin'bi had turned her Doranians face into a warzone.
Harry still stood there, staring at the headless corpse of the Doranian, his arm still stretched out, pointing at where the Doranians head was still raining some blue-green blood on the corridor.
"Mahoutsukai," one of the other Shin'bi said out loud as he in turn looked at Harry.
"What the hell was that?" came from McPherson.
Harry swallowed and slowly lowered his arm. Von Bismarks head had turned towards him and than shook his head.
"We can worry about that later. First we need to take care of the other slavers."
Harry looked back at the Shin'bi who had spoken. He had learned enough Intercosmo to understand the dragonoid.
"He can't be a mahoutsukai," another of the Shin'bi said, low but audible to Harry." He's not Shin'bi."
The first one looked at the other and shook his head.
"He is without a doubt."
"Uhm, hello?" McPherson said after a while as she walked out of the slave compartment after Von Bismark and the Shin'bi female." We need to get going..."
"Right," Harry rapidly added," First taking over the ship, than worrying."
It appeared that there were not many who had gotten the short debate between the two Shin'bi and Harry was a little concerned about the lack of reaction to his magic from the humanoid dragons. Von Bismark had been bus with the Doranian to notice very much, while McPherson had reacted like any muggle should react around magic.
There was another double of screams coming from further down a corridor followed by sounds of flesh and metal pounding into flesh. He could even hear one or two breaking bones.
"We found the bridge!" von Bismark called out towards them as the other Shin'bi moved towards the other end of the corridor.
The shuttle wasn't very large and from what Harry had seen on others he didn't think that they had to deal with more than five Doranians, all who have been taken care of. He stepped over the broken bodies of the last two cats, one of them having a broken neck, while the other twitched slightly, while his head was still smoking slightly from signed fur and what was left of his skin.
Harry absentmindedly noted that the burnt skin smelled a little like bacon.
"Your turn, Elenor," von Bismark said after the woman had entered the bridge.
She nodded and looked at the controls of the shuttle. Von Bismark on the other hand was looking straight at Harry, just as his Shin'bi companion, Haruka did.
"Okay, how did you turn that head into fine mist?"
"Mahou," the voice of the Shin'bi from earlier said from behind him.
Von Bismark's look went towards him for a moment and furrowed his eyebrows.
"Magic?"
So that was it what that word meant, Harry noted for a moment. He might as well tell them about being a wizard. If he was still able to do magic, he needed to retrain himself. One never knew if it could come in handy anytime soon. Besides the Ministry could hardly send him to Azkaban now, could it?
"You can't expect me to..."
Harry interrupted von Bismark.
"He is right," he said after drawing in a deep breath." I'm a wizard."
Von Bismarks eyes turned back to Harry, while his facial expression turned to confusion.
"What?"
"I can do magic. Through not the 'pulling a rabbit out of a hat' kind. More like the 'turn someone into a frog' kind."
"Why didn't you use it earlier."
Harry's face turned slightly red and his hand moved to scratch the back of his head.
"I didn't believe I could use it after my wand got destroyed by..."
"Uh oh..."
This pair of words brought Harry's explanation to a grinding halt as every eyes focussed on McPherson. The old pilot had her eyes glued on the large cockpit window and the massive light gray shape that hung in front of it.
"The Maru," she noted and swallowed." But I think the Holly Roger is kind of new..."
"Bloody Hell..."
Harry's words expressed the thoughts of just about everyone else in the tiny bridge of the shuttle.
Once upon a time, Alexander Mellings used to be normal kid, growing up in Leeds, United Kingdom, Earth. As he had his eleventh birthday, he found out that he was a wizard. And that he had been selected to go to one of the greatest Wizarding schools of Europe, Hogwarts.
Being eleven years old, and growing up in a place that rapidly went down when it came to employment during the seventies, his parents had been very fast to say yes to him going to that school, especially after he had turned his push doggy into a real doggy.
Time at Hogwarts had been great. One of the greatest times he could imagine. And the pranks he witnessed from the Marauders, who where his upperclassmen by three years, made it even greater. After his OWLs, life threw a cricket bat between his legs and he ended up in the Forbidden Forrest at the wrong time.
Full moon in combination with a Death Eater attack at another place had lead to Alexander being bitten by a were wolf. The were wolf let Alexander live and the Aurors being busy to deal with the Death Eaters had let him get away, changing Alexanders life again.
Now having been cursed to be a were wolf, he was forced to leave the school and the wizarding world was not known for allowing were wolfs to work for them. And with being a known were wolf, he had to reign himself in. So he moved back to his parents in Leeds.
After several years of getting used to be a were wolf and hiding it out in a reinforced cellar every full moon, Alexander managed to get a job in Nottingham, by a small company named 'Games Workshop', known for creating and selling role playing games and miniature wargames.
Here his knowledge of magic and magical creatures had led him to live a very productive corporate life and eventually he managed to secure a job as one of the lead designers when it came to the 'Warhammer' line of games. He even managed to work a part of his were wolf curse into the Space Wolf Space Marines.
With doing his job extremely well, no one really cared that he took a vacation every few weeks for three days.
Than in 1995 the Doranians appeared above Earth and battered the planet into submission with kinetical strikes. Alexander was caught and shipped off world as a slave with several hundred thousand others.
Eventually he ended up in the not very gentle care of a female Zatarian pirate, Ani Zalak. One year after the invasion Zalak's ship, the Kobajashi Maru, crossed a moons orbit and the radiation from the moon reacted with Alexanders curse.
It cost the lives of twenty other pirates before he was put down, several dozen plasma flash wounds closing.
After reverting back to human, Alexander was questioned by Zalak. Needless to say that he sung like a bird. Zalak ended up researching the were wolf curse and its possibilities.
After a few weeks she found a way to trigger the transformation and turn Alexander into a fully transformed were wolf without having to be close to a moon.
Creating a special collar, she was able to trap Alexander into the were wolf form nearly permanently, through she had more in mind for him. Being the daughter of the infamous Cycler Zalak, she knew his work to create a mindless berserker very well.
So, she stripped Alexander of any memory that she deemed to be related to his personality, leaving out factual memories like being able to drive a car, using a type writer or the various Warhammer Codexes of fictional work, leaving a nearly mindless, but highly intelligent predator.
From there she used her new 'pet' to infect five other human slaves she acquired through various means, likwise turning them into these mindless berserkers she liked to use to raid a ship, station or even small colonies.
Over time she even used cybernetic implants to make her 'pets' more effective. Cognitive implants that improves sight, smell, hearing and even a link between them to create a highly effective pack of predators.
She never knew that it would be her end one day.
Ani Zalak smirked to herself as she looked at the hull of the Doranian shuttle craft that slowly hovered into the great space between the main body and the engineering section of her ship.
Long ago her father had bought this ship of the Doranians as a birthday gift. Of course she had had to run it through a nearly complete overhaul, adding gravity, shields and a slipstream drive to the warship. That was all she had to add however, save for some smaller things, as the ship appeared to have been build by a race that knew how to hurt others. The weapons were extremely powerful and even without shields it could take much punishment.
And that it had an acceleration that put many ships of a comparable Quantum 2 tech level to shame was an added bonus. As was a completely new FTL drive that utilized another dimension to move from point A to point B. Not that she ever intended to sell it to anyone. It was just too perfect to drop on top of a target and raid it.
"Is it really necessary to use them?" she heard her first in command say as he glanced at the six wolf like predators that growled at him, ready to tear him apart at the order of their mistress.
Zalak chuckles dangerously.
"Its been some time since they had decent Doranian," she noted." We are only interested in the slaves. I heard they got Shin'bi aboard and those will get us a good price on Jurai."
Her second in command swallowed and his eyes once again were drawn to the six beasts. He would never get used to them. And once he had managed to get enough money out of this gig, he would settle down somewhere without any large predators.
Harry swallowed as he heard the docking clamps of the large vessels gripping down on the hull of the shuttle and looked at von Bismark. By now von Bismark had been able to get hold on the single weapons locker on the entire shuttle and opened it, bringing three Doranian Plasma Rifles out into the open. Each had to be easily the size of a MaDeuce and Harry was willing to bet that it weightened as much. And von Bismark was handling it as if it was a normal rifle.
Von Bismark looked at Harry.
"Are you able to do that magic stuff again?" he wondered and Harry swallowed.
"I guess," he said after a moment.
"You can do some sort of shield?"
"Uhm..." Harry said and swallowed again." Yes..."
Von Bismark nodded and looked towards the docking airlock, where a plasma lance seemed to now eat itself through the material.
"You come with us than. Hikaru, Saryo, take the other rifles and follow us. McPherson, you remain here and try to get us away."
"Sure," the pilot said wryly." We'll just die when they get through the lock and we break away instead of being gunned down. Vacuum sucks..."
Harry cast a glare at her and breathed in as he followed von Bismark and the Shin'bi. There was little in the way to hide behind in the corridor that connected the bridge of the shuttle with the docking airlock and so von Bismark and the two Shin'bi crotched down, while the other four dragonoids prepared to launch themselves through the air and at the attackers.
On the airlock the circle of glowing white metal slowly closed and Harry breathed in deep. Slowly he pulled up his arm. Not knowing what he should do else, he opened his heavily scarred right hand, thanking god that the serve plasma burns had destroyed just about any pain nerves as one or two of the scars opened up and leaked blood.
"Pretago!" he yelled and again he was surprised to see how the familiar shield charm burst out from his hand, forming a translucent film through the corridor.
At the same moment, the airlock clanged into the corridor and Harry half expected Stormtroopers to bust through the opening, followed by Darth Vader.
He certainly didn't expect were wolfs.
"Oh bloody hell..."
The human mind is a wonderful thing. It can do many things even the most advanced computer can't do. It can delude itself, it can create imagination and whole secondary personalities.
This is what happened in the mind of the mindless were wolf once known as Alexander Mellings. Most of his memories were gone, as was his personality. But that didn't mean that his subconsciousness wasn't active. Trying to become independent again and less willing to spend time trapped as a were wolf, the subconsciousness of the man once known as Alexander Mellings looks for a way out. Just like the magic trapped and integrated into his body during the nearly two years of constantly being a were wolf.
He snarled as he was the first to jump through the still glowing circle of hot metal, willing and quite able to tear through just about any resistance on the other side, even heavy powered armor. His look swept through the room before getting locked onto the face of a single about eighteen year old young men in ratty clothing.
Memories that had not been removed sprung up in the nearly empty mind of the beast he was currently. The look of the young mans face, the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead, the green eyes and the outstretched hand, just as the translucent magical shield presented itself to the mind and his subconsciousness latched onto the memory, as it as the first real thought since the mind was nearly wiped clean two years ago.
The beast stopped and with it, so did its brethren. The beasts mind began to work, its subconsciousness desperately looking around to find anything that looked like a decent memory. And it discovered several memories that could, if properly adjusted, be used as memories to create a new personality. One that would be able to be free.
At the same time, the subconsciousness began to access the neural link to the other beasts. Normally used to better be able to coordinate their attacks, the link began to burst with activity as the subconsciousnesses of the beasts of all things exchanged informations and thoughts.
By now magic began to react to the newly created personality. Wrapping magic around itself and its brethren the beast changed its were wolf curse through sheer accumulated magic that now found a way to be used for something, anything.
Outside of the raging mind of the new personality, Harry Potter stared at the display in front of him, like just about everyone from either side, be it former slave or pirates.
Harry had seen Remus Lupin transform once, but this was something else. He could feel powerful magic being released and wrapped around the six were wolfs as they began to change to a more human form. But not in the way he was used to. None of the wolfs lost much of their height or muscle mass, while most of the fur retracted into the body, still leaving some fur out. Their faces changed to human, but the fangs and the yellow eyes of the wolven forms still remained.
"FOR THE EMPEROR!" the first of the group screamed out.
The massive hand of one of the part wolfs reached for the massive shock collar around his neck and ripped it off like it was made of thin paper, throwing it through the room.
"FOR RUSS AND THE WOLFEN TIME!" screamed another.
Five of the six turned their massive bodies around, while the first one stared at Harry. It was not an evil stare, it was more one of wonder and if he had just seen Jesus or something along those lines. Harry on the other hand felt strangely inadequate as he stared back at the massive, hairy and very naked man.
"For you, my Emperor," the man said and there was no mistake to be made who he addressed as he still looked at Harry.
Harry just repeated himself as the giant of a man turned around and the screaming of pain and dismemberment started on the pirates side of the airlock.
"Oh, bloody hell!"