CHAPTER 3:

THE WIZARD, THE WITCH, THE PRINCE AND THE REBEL

The position Harry occupied within the Stadtfeld household was an unusual one. Given Kallen's frequent absences from Ashford Academy for reasons of 'sickness' (her cover for going out and sticking it sideways to the Britannians), Harry generally was considered to be her personal assistant, as well as a fellow student at Ashford. The cover story was that he was an orphan from a family that had fallen out of favour with the Emperor, not nobles, but rather, one of those middle class families that managed to gain some small influence, at the risk of losing it in the vicious game of thrones of the Britannian Empire.

Harry was generally sent to Ashford whenever Kallen couldn't make it (he was only recently brought on missions as Warlock, with Naoto deciding to trust him). It was already pretty widely known that Harry and Kallen were boyfriend and girlfriend. And Milly Ashford, the vivacious and somewhat perverted President of the Student Council, loved to make insinuations that Harry and Kallen were sleeping together.

To tell the truth, Harry and Kallen weren't actually far from that already. It helped that her brother Naoto had actually encouraged their relationship before his demise. Plus, Harry remembered jokes Sirius used to make about Potters and redheads. At the time, it was about Ginny and Lily, though at the time, Ginny was just Ron's starstruck little sister. Harry had to admit, while he had a thing for Cho, he realised, in hindsight, he had more of a thing for Hermione. Kallen reminded him of Hermione, that righteous fire, being stuck between two worlds. Hermione was sandwiched between the mundane and the magical, while Kallen was between the Japanese and the Britannian worlds. At least with her red hair and blue eyes, she could pass for Britannian (that was, Caucasian). She barely had any epicanthic folds around her eyes.

As he escorted Kallen, who had gone into her sickly, frail persona she adopted for school, he considered what happened to him. The Department of Mysteries. The battle for the prophecy orb. Seeing Ron getting attacked by those brains, Hermione going down from a curse. Sirius and Bellatrix facing off in front of a gateway with a Veil, only for Bellatrix to knock Sirius back with a curse. Harry managing to get between Sirius and the Veil in time, only to be knocked through himself. The last thing he heard on that Earth being Bellatrix's howl of triumph, and Sirius and Remus' screams of despair.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up with some fuckwit screaming at him in Japanese, holding a knife to his throat. Harry took issue to that, and blasted him away with magic. And said fuckwit, Tamaki, had never really improved his relationship with Harry, either. At best, Tamaki begrudgingly acknowledged his usefulness with magic. Of course, having someone who looked Britannian suddenly appear in a flash of light within the HQ of a rebel cell was disconcerting, and only Harry's obvious exhaustion and bemusement helped prevent a summary execution. Harry, however, was forced to flee, until he came across a group of Britannian soldiers brutalising some Japanese people. Pissed off, and not giving a shit about the Statute of Secrecy, he had used some spells to hang said soldiers by their trousers from a nearby streetlight, and made them look like clowns.

It was Naoto and Ohgi who had witnessed that, trying to catch him. And it was those two who, albeit warily, decided to give Harry the benefit of the doubt. It had taken a long time for him to get accepted by the others, including Kallen.

He had to admit, he and Kallen didn't get along at first. She didn't help with her disgust towards Britannians, and he didn't help by his contempt towards her xenophobia. It had all come to a head a month after he first arrived in Japan, when they had a blazing row where he compared her to the Death Eaters, and she, well, lost her temper. He was forced to use a Body Bind on her, and then looked at her with disdain, saying she was no better than the Britannians she hated, thinking herself superior to them.

He very nearly walked out on them there and then. It was Naoto who persuaded him to come back. And after he spoke with his sister, things got, well, better. Not immediately. It took time for the pair to apologise to each other. In fact, it was only after a particularly dicey operation, when Harry saved her life from a Britannian attacking her, that the two truly made up, and their relationship took a turn for the better. The two had saved each other's lives enough times during that period that, for a while, they facetiously kept up mental tallies of who saved who.

When Naoto died recently, Kallen had been inconsolable for a time. Harry helped her through it. It was at this point they realised that friendship had deepened into love. And Harry knew that, even if he could go home, he would only go there long enough to deal with Voldemort and make sure his friends were all right. The Japan of this world was his home now.

Some of the classes were boring propaganda, especially history. Though Harry had to admit, at least it was better than Binns droning on and on. He had been brought into Ashford on sufferance, on a scholarship arranged by Milly Ashford's grandfather. And while he had a lot of catching up to do on mundane subjects, Hermione's tutoring in Grimmauld Place helped.

Still, learning about the history of this world was interesting to a degree, once you stripped away the propaganda. The Holy Britannian Empire was born when the Celtic tribes elected a king, Alvin I, to repulse the forces of Julius Caesar. History did have many similarities, but also many differences. For example, in this world, Elizabeth I had a son, Henry IX, though the father was not known. The American Revolution never succeeded because George Washington was betrayed by Benjamin Franklin. The seat of the Britannian Empire was forced to relocate to what was the USA back home because of Napoleon managing to invade the British Isles (Nelson being assassinated before he could fight off the French leader).

As the lesson progressed, they were observing Lelouch. Harry and Kallen, along with Ohgi, had debated with themselves how to approach Lelouch. Lelouch, after all, knew only their codenames, though Kallen couldn't be sure that he didn't see her face, as she had dismounted her Glasgow while getting the energy filler replaced.

Harry decided that they would wait for Lelouch to make the first move. If he tried something stupid like blackmailing them, then Harry and Kallen would deal with him. They'd agreed that if Lelouch had used that Geass thing on them, hopefully, one of them would be free to try and snap the other out of it.

During lunch, as the pair of them ate on the roof, Lelouch did indeed make the first move, joining them there, sitting down next to them. They tensed up, ready for a fight, but Lelouch merely calmly ate his lunch. Then, he finally dropped the bombshell. "Warlock and Tsunade, I presume?"

Kallen tensed, ready to attack, while Harry got ready to get his wand out. "K-1, I presume?" Harry asked.

Lelouch turned to them, before nodding. "You had the advantage on me, Harry Potter, knowing my name. However, I recognised Kallen's voice, and I saw her briefly when she was replacing the energy filler for her Glasgow. It took me until I came to class to put two and two together, admittedly. She's a good actress, and good at making herself inconspicuous. You, however, I have been studying for a long time, or rather, your alter ego. When I first heard of Warlock, I found myself curious. I'm not the only one dedicated to studying Warlock, true, but I'm perhaps the only one here who made the connection. It was mostly supposition based on body language and speech patterns. That, and the fact that Warlock only appeared shortly after you enrolled. Circumstantial evidence, admittedly, but made stronger by Kallen's presence in Shinjuku. Incidentally, Harry, thank you for saving Suzaku. He's an old friend of mine."

"…Even though he's working with the Britannian Military now? Not to mention he was piloting that damned Knightmare Frame?"

"Was he? Clovis must've been desperate to allow even an Honorary Britannian to pilot an experimental Knightmare," Lelouch mused. "Numbers from any Area are not well thought of by Britannians in general, as you doubtless know." He scoffed quietly. "Numbers…what a bad joke of an appellation. I still call you Japanese, not Elevens or Numbers."

"Good," Kallen said, glaring at Lelouch.

"Where's CC?" Harry asked.

"Safe, in my rooms. If you want to meet her, we'll do so discreetly. So…you know who I really am. Why did you research me?"

Harry and Kallen looked at each other, before Kallen said, "It was something Harry brought up when we were being taught about history, particularly recent history. He saw the connection between your alias and your mother's maiden name. I'm surprised it's held up until now."

"That's because we were declared dead, and the Ashford family have spent time and effort trying to ensure our anonymity. And make no mistake, either of you. While I will tolerate threats to my own person, I will never tolerate them to Nunnally. Threaten her at your peril."

Harry recoiled at Lelouch's vehemence, but glared back. "And Kallen, along with her friends, are not your chess pieces, K-1. And neither am I. I will not be moved around a board blindly on your say-so, and Kallen wouldn't either. And if you use that Geass or whatever the hell it is on either of us…"

Lelouch held his hands up. "Very well. I will use it if there's a threat to my person or Nunnally's, make no mistake. How many in your group knows about it?"

"Sensei and Jiraiya," Harry said. "They also know your true identity. We haven't told the others, though. Some of them are idiotic enough to try and kidnap you and hold you to ransom."

"A spectacularly bad idea," Lelouch scoffed. "My father disowned my sister and myself after my mother's death. I demanded to know why there had been no progress in finding her killer, and he rebuked me. I renounced the throne, and, well, he sent Nunnally and I to Japan as political hostages…knowing full well that he would invade before long. We were sent there to die. But before the invasion, many Japanese treated the pair of us far better than many at court would have. Especially Nunnally. Blind, crippled, gentle…she would have been, at best, an object of pity and contempt, and at worst, killed to support the Social Darwinism my father and his cronies espouse. No, my father would just tell you to do your worst, and then retaliate once we were dead…or just retaliate anyway, and to hell with collateral damage. I helped yesterday because I couldn't stand to see innocent people being slaughtered."

Harry and Kallen winced at the reminder. While many of the inhabitants of Shinjuku managed to make it to safety before Clovis demanded a ceasefire, dozens were dead, unable or unwilling to leave before the Britannians launched their purge. Ohgi had taken it particularly hard. Their cell had made a concerted effort to avoid civilians getting caught up in their operations, even Britannian civilians, and yet, yesterday happened.

"So, what now?" Kallen asked.

"…How about dinner?"

Kallen occasionally had dinner at the Ashford Academy when she didn't want to deal with either her biological mother (whom she had mixed feelings about), or her stepmother (who was a bitch, plain and simple). They accepted Lelouch's invitation warily, making sure to send a message to Ohgi to let him know what was happening.

They had met Nunnally before in passing, the petite girl with the light brown hair and perpetually closed eyes, confined to a wheelchair. For all Kallen's understandable antipathy towards the Britannians, even she couldn't help but like Nunnally, and Harry shared that. With them was CC, who called herself Cecilia (Lelouch had complained that, the moment he brought her back, she nicked his credit card and began ordering pizzas). There was also a Japanese maid, Sayoko, though Harry and Kallen were wary. There was something watchful about the Japanese maid.

After dinner, after some small talk was made, the four who had been in Shinjuku made their way to Lelouch's bedroom, CC chewing idly on a pizza. "So, why bring us here?" Harry asked.

"To talk in a less exposed area," Lelouch said. "I sweep for bugs daily. Milly Ashford has a bad habit of sneaking cameras and microphones, hoping to catch someone in the process of doing something salacious." He sighed. "She's a good friend, but she's also something of a pervert. I've heard she'll be bringing you into the Student Council, Kallen, as she knows of your so-called weakness, and as every student must attend at least one club, she wanted to spare you being in a sports club. She knows about this meeting, but thinks it's about bringing you into the Student Council."

"So, how did you manage to get Clovis to agree to the ceasefire?" Kallen said, folding her arms. "Your Geass?"

"No. I held him at gunpoint. I used the Geass for a more personal matter." The exiled prince fixed them with his gaze. "I thought he may have had information regarding my mother's death, as I believe it may have been one of the Royal Family, perhaps someone with links to my father. The Emperor seemed unconcerned with the death of a woman who had been one of his favourite consorts. Clovis knew little, but he claimed two of my other siblings may have knowledge."

Harry frowned. From what he knew of the positions of the Royal Family, he could hazard a guess. "Schneizel and Cornelia, at a guess. Schneizel already had a lot of authority back then, and Cornelia also did security for your family."

Lelouch nodded. "Correct. Clovis claimed that Schneizel took possession of the body, and Cornelia investigated the death until she was told to stop. I doubt that Cornelia was responsible: for all her ruthlessness, she loved my mother, not to mention myself and Nunnally."

"…You killed Clovis afterwards," Kallen said. It was not a question.

But to their surprise, Lelouch laughed bleakly. "I didn't. While I wished to, CC had a better claim. Harry witnessed her ability to heal from a fatal wound."

The green-haired girl nodded. "I am immortal, for want of a better term. Even if you were able to vaporise me, I would regenerate from subatomic particles. Clovis wanted the secret of immortality from me, in a desire to gain it himself and thus sit upon the throne forever." Her golden eyes met Harry and Kallen's own. "I have died many times during my existence, and had thought I had experienced all the horrors life could inflict on myself and others. I have been burned alive at the stake, tortured by the Inquisition, been shot, stabbed, torn apart, crushed, and drowned. But what Clovis inflicted on me over the past few years was absolute hell."

"Sounds like he'd get along well with Voldemort," Harry muttered.

"Flight of Death?" Lelouch asked.

"Never mind. So, you killed him, CC?" Harry asked. When the green-haired girl nodded, Harry exhaled. "Crap. I mean, it's good that he's dead, but there's a problem now that he is."

"Who'll take his place," Kallen concluded.

"For the time being, it will probably be one of the Purists," Lelouch said. "Probably Margrave Gottwald. The problem is, he'll need a scapegoat to blame for Clovis' death…"

"Leaving that aside, Lelouch…remember when you left Villetta Nu with me? I questioned her, and I stumbled across something interesting. The reason he joined the Purists was partly because he thought the Japanese responsible for you and Nunnally's deaths," Harry said. "I then asked her what he would do if he found out you were still alive. He apparently, according to her, would swear immediate loyalty to you, and she would join."

"Would he, now?" Lelouch mused. "In any case, Gottwald would only be an interim Viceroy. In all likelihood, they would eventually send Cornelia, though she would have to expedite her assignment to the Middle East. And unlike Clovis, she is no fool." He steepled his fingers, before looking up. "I was planning on doing this alone, but our mutual knowledge of our secrets puts the three of us in a delicate position. I could potentially use the Geass to put you under my control, or else erase your memories of this. But…your group has potential as allies. I would rather not start an alliance by doing so unless I had to."

"To do what, to take your father's throne for yourself?" Kallen remarked acidly.

Lelouch scoffed. "Only if it served my purpose, and I despise and detest that poisonous seat. I intend to destroy Britannia, or rather, the Britannia my father leads. I intend to carve out the cancer at its core. I want…" His features softened. "I want to create a peaceful world for Nunnally. I would gladly become a demon from the very depths of Hell if it meant a happy life for her. Kallen, Harry, don't misunderstand me. I may view combat as a chess game, but I refuse to dispassionately sacrifice those fighting for me. And I will fight alongside you, leading from the front than from behind."

"…Because those who kill must be prepared to be killed?" Harry asked, paraphrasing Lelouch's words yesterday.

Lelouch nodded. "What your group has is Warlock and Tsunade, someone with strange abilities, and one of the best Knightmare Frame Devicers I have ever witnessed. What I have to offer are the funds I have already amassed for my own plans, the power of Geass, intimate knowledge of how our enemy thinks, and how to counter that. I know it is much to ask, but I want your help. Obviously, I cannot expect an answer now, as neither of you lead that group. But I want you to consider it and discuss it."

Harry and Kallen exchanged looks once more, before they turned to Lelouch. "We'll hear you out, Lelouch. Just remember, we're not here to get you your throne," Kallen said. "We're here to take Japan back from your father and his lackeys."

"I understand. Then let's talk further before you have to leave…"

CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATIONS:

So, Harry, Kallen, and Lelouch have met properly and are preparing an alliance. Now, if you're thinking Lelouch is being OOC, consider that circumstances are somewhat different. Harry and Kallen know his lineage and Nunnally's, and Harry knows about the Geass. Therefore, Lelouch is trying a less dramatic approach to recruiting them to his cause. We'll still go through certain stations of canon (Suzaku's scapegoating, Zero's initial meeting and his public debut, etc), but there'll be changes.

I've actually based this version of Lelouch somewhat on that from SeerKing's Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion. He's a little more savvy and just a hair less arrogant. Not that much, but the fact that Warlock knew his identity and he got his Geass sooner helped shape things a little. He took a risk revealing his knowledge to Harry and Kallen, but a calculated one, given that they already knew who he was.

Kallen is also a little OOC, but keep in mind, Harry, as a friend, has been a stabilising influence on her. She's not quite as anti-Britannian (or at least anti-all Britannians: her ire is more focussed on the nobility than all Britannians) as she is in canon. Harry has also helped Ohgi's cell actually be a little smarter…though with Tamaki, there's only so much polishing you can do of a turd.

Now, this is the last chapter of the initial batch when this story is first published, though more are to come. But I want to ask a question. I have a few ideas for potential Code Geass crossover stories with the Potterverse, and I want your opinions as to which one I should do. Of course, whether I do said stories or not is up to me, but I'm curious as to what you guys want. I had considered including a CC pairing with Harry/Kallen while this was in The Cauldron, but while some people liked it, others did not, and gave good reasons, so I'm abandoning that idea. So, here are the ideas I am mulling around…

1. Answering my own 'Kallen Potter' challenge. Basically, a female Harry is Kallen challenge. She ended up, thanks to her magic, in the Code Geass-verse at a young age, and thus has magic. If I do do this, then it will be not unlike my RWBY crossover Under the Light of the Shattered Moon, my Red vs Blue story Freelancer, Medic, Mage, or my Fate/Stay Night story Hadrian Kotomine, where the Potterverse stuff is in the past. Kallen Potter/Lelouch pairing.

2. A Master of Death Harry ends up in the Code Geass universe and ends up causing chaos. Eventual Harry/CC pairing. This will be a more humorous fic, if not an outright crackfic, in the mould of my own Final Fantasy XII crossover Nitimur in Vetitum, as well as ManMadeofLasers' Mass Effect crossover Getting Too Old for This.

3. A sort of mirror version of this story, but instead of pairing Harry with Kallen, I'm pairing him with Euphemia. Because, let's face it, while Euphie and Suzaku's relationship was kind of sweet, it was probably going to end with Suzaku getting killed out of a combination of his stupidity and his death wish, and Euphie getting heartbroken if it weren't for the Euphienator incident (Suzaku's death coming, potentially, through Cornelia getting overprotective). I'd probably base it on one of two challenges by whitetigerwolf, ones I've used in the past: either the 'Animagus Lover' challenge, or else the 'Drunk Recruit' challenge (the latter having Cornelia discover a hungover Harry in Euphemia's quarters, and basically conscripting him, with the threat of summary execution if he disobeys). Harry will basically be her bodyguard, personal investigator and, albeit secretly, lover.

I'm also giving some small consideration to answering my 'Zero of Ainz Ooal Gown' challenge, which is basically an Overlord crossover, but done like my Potterverse crossover Yield to the Darkness, with the Overlord elements integrated into the Code Geass universe.

So, thoughts? Like I said, your opinions and wants won't guarantee any of the above stories being written, which is more subject to the vagaries of my muse, but I'd like to hear feedback on which of the ideas you guys like more.

No numbered annotations this time.