Disclaimer: I don't own either universe. Just getting my passport stamped.
CHAPTER 6: MOTIVATION TO SURVIVE
PARIS, FRANCE
RUE DE MAGIE
PRIVATE DRESSING ROOM
Harry sat in his chair and waited for Fleur, wondering what she had in mind. He was enjoying what she had chosen for him as clothes and let his mind wander as he considered what else he would need for clothes for. Not to mention what kind of clothes he would need.
While he didn't intend to return to Wizarding Britain anytime soon, he realized he might need those robes if he was to interact with other communities that were in the world.
As he thought this through, Fleur's voice cut through his thoughts.
"Harry, I brought you here because I wanted to get your attention. There is something I want from you." Fleur admitted.
"I knew it! What do you want from me?!" he demanded as waited.
"Nothing that you wouldn't give me." Fleur was quick to interject before he could lose his temper, "When we met, you weren't even affected by my allure. But that isn't the only reason. There's also the debt I owe you. It's a life debt. Between those two things, I knew that you were special. That's why I wanted to get to know you better."
"Why? What are you hoping for?" Harry finally asked.
"To find someone who wants to get to know me as a person." she admitted, her hope carried in her voice.
Her tone carried through more than her words and he realized what she had faced as she was a contestant in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. That's when he realized what she was really saying to him. She wanted to be seen as a woman, not a creature. That was something that he could really understand because his whole life, he wanted to be seen as just a person. Not the Boy-who-lived, but as just a boy.
"I think I understand what you mean." he said, letting the truth show in his own tone.
In response to his words and his tone, Fleur smiled to herself as she stepped out of the dressing room in a swimsuit that left little to the imagination. Harry was flabbergasted by what he was seeing. But that didn't stop him from saying what ran through his mind.
"You look bloody brilliant! But that doesn't mean much if anything to me." he said as he couldn't take his eyes off of her, enchanted by her physical beauty as well as what he had come to know about her from the past and what he saw now.
"Thank you." she said as she read the truth in his eyes. "That's what I've been waiting for all of my life."
There wasn't any need for anything else to be said now that Harry had passed her personal test. So she stepped back into the dressing room and tried on a nice, simple dress. She figured that if he could handle seeing her in a bathing suit and not lose his mind, then he was more than capable of treating her as an equal. She looked over her choices and made a decision on the last three dresses that she wanted. him to a hospital.
She paid for her purchases and he paid for his own before they left the store, with the packages shrunk and in their pockets. They were talking about what to do next when a voice froze them in their tracks for a minute.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER! BY ORDER OF THE BRITISH MINISTER OF MAGIC, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO APPEAR IN THE WIZENGAMOT FOR TREASON AGAINST THE BRITISH WIZARDING WORLD!" a voice that Harry recognized from his past shouted out.
"No matter what, stay close to me." Harry warned her.
"Harry, who is that man?" she asked in a low voice.
"That's Fudge's personal body-guard and my personal torturer for the last year and change. He made my time in Azkaban worse than it had to be." he told her, then turned his attention to his personal devil. "Well, Auror Dawlish, what brings you to France? After all, you dpon't have any jurisdiction here."
"We have jurisditcion over all British Wizarding Subjects. That includes you! You will return with us to Britain to answer charges from the Ministry and you will return your vaults back to the control of the Ministry." Dawlish demanded as six other men appeared, circling them with their wands drawn.
"I don't think so. You see, Mr. Potter's guardian is french and he has taken residence here acording to the I.C.W. so you have no jurisdiction over him whatsoever." Fleur said as she stepped forward a step to make it clear where she stood.
"Be silent, creature! Don't presume to lecture your superiors!" Dawlish said as his wand appeared in his hand.
Harry reached out and pulled Fleur closer as he touched a rune cluster on his chair that erected a shield around the two of them as Dawlish looked at the men around them.
"You have your orders! APPREHEND THEM!" Dawlish finished with a shout as he drew his own wand.
That's when the spells started to fly. But Harry was far from helpless as the others tried to carry out their orders from Dawlish.
He began casting his own spells wandlessly, matching their fury with his own new-found ruthlessness.
Fleur used her wand to reinforce the shields as Harry started to cast every offensive spell he knew while they held off the mercenaries that Dawlish had hired to work for him. But when one of the spells broke through and struck him, subjecting Harry to a withering curse that was enough.
Without conscious direction, Harry's magic lashed out and smashed into their attackers to knock them unconscious, sometimes smashing them into the walls of the buildings around them.
Dawlish was the only one spared that fate as Harry's magic picked the man up and brought him closer while his portkeys and apparation were disabled.
"You fucked up, Dawlish! NOW, YOUR ASS IS MINE!" Harry snarled as Fleur worked to stop the withering curse that he'd been hit with.
"Harry, the aurors are here now. Please let them take him in." Fleur pleaded as she worked.
Before Harry could react one way or another, he started to feel faint and suddenly everything started to go black as he passed out.
Fleur continued working as he blacked out. Before the man that attacked them could get away, she stunned him and turned back to her spell-casting as she noticed her father arrive with the Aurors under his command.
While the Aurors gathered the seven men and searched them, Jean Luc approached them as she continued casting to try and halt the curse that Dawlish had hit him with.
"What happened, ma belle?" he asked his daughter while she worked.
Fleur gave him a abridged version of what happened as she went back to work.
"Fleur, we need to get him to a hospital." Jean Luc said gently while trying not to interfere with what she was doing.
"Commander, we have the prisoners ready for transport." the lead Auror reported to him.
"Very well. Put them in the secure holding cells. Nobody sees or talks to them until I have interviewed them myself! Am I clear?" Jean Luc demanded,
"Yes, sir. What of Mr. Potter and Ms. Delacour?" the auror asked.
"I am going to personally escort them to the hospital. Then I will contact Madam Bones in Britain and inform her of what happened." he explained as he created a portkey to the nearest hospital that would take the three of them.
BALMORAL CASTLE
ENGLAND NOON 12:00 PM
Samuel arrived at the castle and was led into the Queen's private study so he could make his report before he returned to the States to make contact with his old friend.
"Well, Samuel. How did your meeting go?" Her Majesty asked careful to keep her tone neutral.
"It went fairly well, Ma'am. Right now everybody is in a panic after they were all called to account and they didn't like the answers they received. But they are in a holding pattern." he explained quietly.
"Well done, Cousin Samuel. What of Minister Fudge and Lord Dumbledore?" she asked as she set her pen down in front of herself on the desk.
"It has been explained that they are to present themselves for your justice, Ma'am. They have no choice but to present themselves when called for. But I need to speak to Madam Bones before we call them to account. I need to know just how far this goes." he said as the Queen waved for him to take a seat.
"What do you mean how far this goes?" she asked, concerned.
"I have a feeling that there is more to this than what we have heard so far. While I don't really want to consider what all he may have gone through, I the whole story to deal with as much of the injustice as possible." Samuel told her.
"Samuel, is there more to this story than we have heard?" she asked in a tone that brooked no nonsense.
"That is something we must investigate in the mundane world as well as the magical, ma'am. For that, we need to invoke MI-6 to find those answers." Samuel offered to appease her sense of justice.
"Very well, Samuel. I will infrom our prime minister of the sitaution and allow him to over-see that branch of the investigation, while you over-see the other. Please contact us when you have more information." she requested and he nodded in agreement. "With your permission?"
"Of course, Samuel. Have a good trip." she allowed and he nodded as he rose and bowed to her.
Samuel walked out of the room and was escorted to the room that served as a portkey and apparation point within the castle.
With a touch to an amulet that was given to him by his old friend, he was gone in a swirl of colored light.
STARK TOWER
NEW YORK, N.Y. U.S.A.
6:45 PM
Sam re-appeared in his room in Stark Tower and made his way to the lab where he knew Tony was working on the special suit that Sam had asked him to design.
"Hey, Sam. What's going on?" Tony asked as he walked into the lab.
"Well, I've managed to work out the designs for the armor as well as the schematics for the circuits. The problem is that we don't have the right metals to work for the circuitry." Tony explained.
"What about the armor itself?" Sam wanted to know.
"Well, thanks to an old friend we have a possible source for vibranium that would let us make the outer shell. The problem is that we can't use the same metal for the circuits because then we have to worry about the absorbtion and distrubution factors, distributing his magic through the armor without having to worry about the flow disrupting the function." Tony explained.
"So we need a noble metal that you don't find normally in the mundane world." Sam said as he considered what Tony was saying.
"That's about the size of it." Tony agreed.
"Alright. I think I know what we can use and I've got a supply that I can contribute. I assume we're talking about extruding the metal into ultra-fine threads?" Sam postulated.
"That's right. What is this metal that you think will work?" Tony asked.
"I'll explain when I bring it tomorrow. Right now, I need to check on Widow and talk to my friend. I'll see you tomorrow." Sam said as walked out of his lab and headed back to his rooms.
"Sure. I'll have thefinished designs ready. Then all we need are the measurements for the person the suit is for." Tony agreed as Sam walked out with a wave.
As Sam walked back to his room he considered what Tony had said and realized that this suit wasn't going to be cheap by any standards. But the thing about Tony Stark was that he had a big heart. When it was a kid in trouble, the man didn't care about cost. He just wanted to help.
His time in the desert had really changed him and he was determined to make amends after all of the things he'd done in the world.
Inside his room, he activated his portkey again and was whisked away in a swirl of golden light.
TEXAS U.S.A.
CAER DALBEN 7:30 PM
Samuel arrived in the middle of a valley, facing an old fashioned cabin that looked like something form the pioneer days of the Wild West. As he looked, he saw lights on in the living room area.
There were two shadows standing in front of the window, looking as if they were having a serious discussion about something.
Shaking his head, Samuel walked up to the front door and knocked with a heavy tap.
The door opened a few minutes later and he was face to face with one of his oldest friends.
"Hey, Aaron. How's it going?" Sam asked casually.
"Same old, Same old. You know how it is. Come on, man. Get in here out of the cold." the other man said as he stepped out of the door for Sam to enter.
"Thanks, old buddy. I really need to talk to you." Sam said as his tone took a serious tone of voice.
"What's up? You don't normally show up here unless you've..." Aaron started, then groaned as he got an idea of why Samuel stopped by, "NO! Not again. I've just gotten this one to start opening her mind." he growled as he pointed at Natasha.
"But you did. And there is someone that is really going to need your help worse than Natasha. He's been through the wringer and right now he doesn't trust very many people." Sam started to argue.
"And that's why it won't work. If he doesn't trust many people, then how am I supposed to help him?" Aaron demanded with his arms folded over his chest as he moved to stand in front of his fireplace.
"Would you at least hear me out before you say no?" Sam demanded.
"If I let you open your mouth, then you'll have me talked into this mess before I can blink. I don't need that. My routine has been disrupted enough before this. Don't try and add more to it." Aaron argued.
"Well what the hell are you even staying around for then? What's the point of all of this?" Sam demanded, getting a touch self-righteous.
"Because I wanted a place that was my own, where I could relax and live a normal life that promotes my pace of mind. Someplace that I don't have to worry about the problems of the outside world." Aaron said with a touch of trepidation.
"And yet you still let people come to you to heal their hearts and minds." Sam pointed out force-fully.
"At my discretion. No one else's." Aaron rejoined. "Why is this so important to you?"
"Personally, it's not. But he comes from the world we left behind and they're very much in a mess right now." Sam said.
"That sounds like a personal problem to me. I don't owe them a damn thing after the way they keep messing things up." Aaron argued.
"No. But the one thing you always said was that you never turned away an innocent in pain. This young wizard is truly an innocent who was placed in Azkaban by the british wizards to hide the truth from the rest of the world. He was tortured and broken physically until the truth was discovered. Then when he was released, he renounced the British Wizarding World. But that isn't the worst of it. He's been tortured so badly that his bones have almost all been broken and they haven't been vanished and re-grown yet. Even with that, he's been in Azkaban for fourteen months at worst with no way to maintain any kind of fitness level. I'm working with a friend to try and construct a way to help with that. But he needs a way to over-come the mental and emotional issues he has before we can introduce the other solution to the problem. I was hoping that you could try to help him with that while we finish our project." Samuel finally explained.
Aaron considered what he was saying and tried to factor everything into his work. But he knew what all of his hard work with Natasha had brought down, That was all well and good but even with what Natasha had been through, it was no where close to what the boy had to have gone through.
That wasn't something that he really wanted to contemplate.
Merlin knew what the boy had actually been through but Aaron knew that meant he would have to go through a lot of work to help the boy get hiimself together. He knew the boy's mind would be twisted and damaged untilk they could work through it all. The only chance the boy had was if he had someone to help him make it through from his own world. If that was the case, he might have a chance to reach him and bring him through.
"So, are you going to help him?" Sam finally asked as he sat down on the couch.
"I'll tell you what. You tell me the truth about why you're asking me for this and I'l give you a solid answer." Aaron said sternly.
"Alright. I'll give you three reasons. First, Amelia Bones called and asked for my help. Second you're the best Healer I know to handle this situation and third, because he deserves it." Samuel said with a straight face.
Aaron turned and looked at Natasha, with a look of worry on his face as he considered what it could do to her own healing. Then he decided to just put the question to her frankly.
"I'll leave this one up to you, Nat. Because it may actually come to a point where I'm forced to ask you for help with the boy." Aaron said as he looked at her carefully.
She didn't even consider how it could affect her, she just looked him in the eye to give him her answer.
"I'll stay and help you with him. I know what it's like to be in a prison of somebody else's making. But if he has a romantic attachment to someone, bring them with him to help him make it through. She could help keep him anchored to the real world and himself. How will be up to them." Natasha said as she answered him without flinching.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Samuel said as he looked at them, resignation setting in.
"Alright, Sam. I'll help your friend and help you." Aaron said as he waved his hand in resigned acceptance.
"As soon as I can talk to Lady Bones, then I'll know when to bring him to you." Aaron told him.
"Alright. But at some point you may have to step forward and re-take what is yours." Sam warned.
"I'll deal with that if it comes up. But I'm not going to do a damn thing until it's necessary." Aaron said, jaw clenching and Sam realized that he was pushing his luck.
"Fine. You know I have a phone. Call next time." Aaron said as Sam stood up and pulled a strategic withdrawal before his old buddy decided to hex him.
Aaron watched him leave, then turned to stare out the window, watching as Sam portkeyed away.
Natasha came over and looked at him carefully before she took a seat on the arm of his chair, putting an arm around his shoulders.
"Why are you so reluctant to do this?" she asked.
"My family left that world a long time ago and I never wanted anything to do with it. Now they're trying to railroad somebody else into being what they want him to be. They don't have that right but if they come for him, then I'll have to step in and make them back off." Aaron said, huffing in exasperation.
"I'll try and help you when I can while I'm here." she promised and leaned down to kiss him on top of the head as she realized that the man who had been so self-less in helping her had demons of his own. Instead she accepted it and decided to go along with it.
NEW YORK, N.Y.
8:00 PM CENTRAL PARK
Sam sat on a bench and waited for a second to gather his thoughts before he made the call he needed to make. Instead of talking on the telephone, he decided the best thing to do would be to visit Amelia in the Ministry office to get the information he needed.
He created a portkey that would take him to England, right outside the ministry for magic so that he could make his way to see Amelia before he met with the Queen.
Activating the portkey, he vanished from the park.
LITTLE HANGLETON, ENGLAND,
RIDDLE MANOR 2:00 PM
Lord Voldemort sat in his throne room pondering the news he'd read in the Daily Prophet as he considered his next actions. Potter said he wouldn't return as long as his chosen people were left alone. So he decided to test the theory out for himself. With a touch of his finger to a Dark Mark, he called for two of his followers so that he could plan his next attack.
Author's Note: This is a little slow to help explain a few things. To my readers and reviewers PappyOldGuy, Niljfs, thanks for your support. For those of you from Texas, I was born in Cisco and lived in Cross Plains. To my friends nice to know some of you recognize me. Happy Thanksgiving.
