Darkness and a Fairy

Chapter9

"They dumped her in Azkaban!" Draco burst through the door. "Who is that?"

Mizuchi turned around and placed the weapon on a nearby table that appeared by itself. "That's a bit of overkill. It should be safe, as long as nobody tries to mind-rape her."

"...uhh..." Draco hesitated. "Just out of curiosity, what would happen?"

"Think of Hikari's armour as a special type of Golem," replied Mizuchi. "I checked your school doctor's files. She has a fractured arm, and it looks like she might have flat-lined a few times. That means her body is prioritising physical repairs, so her mental defences will be either lower than normal, or even down. If she passes out from shock, her armour will switch to autonomous-mode, and will defend its pilot with lethal force."

"Bellatrix,"whispered Draco. "She was killed shortly after Hikari arrived. The Dementors guarding the entrance give newcomers an 'Azkaban Welcome' which sometimes causes them to faint."

"I need to check something," said Mizuchi

++CryoDragonPrime: Harmony, ask the Doctor and Jack if either of them can remote-disable the battle-computer of a suit of techno-organic exo-armour.

++TimeWeaver1337: I'll ask.

++TimeWeaver1337: The Doctor's sonic device might be able to do it, if you have the shield frequencies.

++CryoDragonPrime: Have them meet me at that playing field.

"Kemuri, you're coming with me. Hikari needs rescuing."

()()()()()

A purple and blue three-headed dragon, and a white 'normal' dragon were flying at full speed over the ocean. Each had a person clinging to their backs.

"Doctor!" Jack tried to make his voice heard over the rushing wind. "I never thought we'd be flying to Azkaban Prison, on the backs of a pair of dragons!"

"I didn't think it was possible, either!" replied the Doctor.

"This is a first for myself as well," replied Mizuchi, turning one of her heads towards the Doctor. "You're my first ever passenger."

"The prison is up ahead," Kemuri warned. "Be ready!"

"Over there!" Jack pointed. "Does that look like a landing-strip to you?"

The dragons changed course, towards where Jack was pointing.

()()()()()

A heart-rending scream echoed throughout the graveyard.

Snape looked away from the body of the Death-Eater that broke the news of Bellatrix's death to Voldemort. Nagini was already slithering over towards the still-warm corpse.

"With all due respect my Lord," Snape quietly spoke. "Setting MacMillan on her, and then manipulating the Ministry into placing the girl in Azkaban was a mistake on our agents' parts. She is an unknown quantity."

"She's still only a fourteen year old girl," said a masked wizard.

"A fourteen year old who survived a direct hit from the Killing Curse," replied Snape.

"She what?" the masked wizard asked, confused.

"Potter might not be the person mentioned in the prophecy," Snape commented. "According to school records, O'Reilly was born on the 31st of July."

"Aren't you clutching at straws?" Pettigrew questioned. "A date of birth isn't sufficient cause to worry. After all, Longbottom was also born at the end of July."

Everyone, except Snape laughed.

"That may be," Snape replied. "However, Longbottom doesn't know battle-class Dark Magic, and O'Reilly matches a lot of the prophecy's criteria. Dumbledore seems to be particularly afraid of some aspects of her."

()()()()()

"Why did this have to become complicated?" asked Mizuchi, back in her 'human' form, using a doorway as cover.

Jack leaned against the cover of the opposite doorway. "You didn't tell me her armour had built-in machine-guns."

Bullets struck the place where he was previously standing.

"I didn't know," Mizuchi replied. "Also, you didn't tell me you were immortal."

"I need a few more seconds!" said the Doctor. "Keep that armour distracted!"

"I'm doing what I can," replied Mizuchi. "The armour switched to incendiary ammunition, when I tried to put up an ice barrier!"

"That guard should never have tried that sneak-attack," said Jack. "The armour now sees everyone as hostile, not just the inmates! This is why I hate fairies! There are never any good ones!"

The shields on the armour suddenly dropped, and the armour became inert. "Now!" shouted the Doctor.

Mizuchi Flash-stepped into range of the armour, and pulled the two emergency-release levers near its hatch. Jack then reached in, removed the neural-link hardware from Hikari, and pulled her unconscious body from the armour's cockpit.

"It's hard to believe that something so small can be so dangerous," the Doctor commented, scanning her with his sonic screwdriver. "What? This says she's a Timelord?"

"What?" Jack replied.

"Two hearts, and everything. She's just one twelfth normal size."

"Oh, right. We're from a different cluster of parallel time-lines," said Mizuchi. "Surprise!"

The Doctor scanned her too. "Really?! You're one too?"

"Yes, I am," Mizuchi replied.

"If there's more than one of you, the Time War didn't happen in your history," Jack commented.

"We nearly had a war," murmured Hikari, as she started waking up. "One of Gallifrey's ruling factions resurrected the war criminal Rasillon, 'to make Gallifrey great again'. Fortunately, our Dalek, and Thal ambassadors helped to foil their attempted coup."

"Hold on," said the Doctor. "The Daleks honoured Romana's treaty in your time-line?"

"From what I understand, Rasillon broke your treaty first," Mizuchi replied. "If the genetic damage Davros did to 'our' Daleks hadn't been reversed by the Supreme Dalek, centuries ago, the results might have been different. By the way, some of Mother's cousins are part Dalek."

()()()()()

Back at the Hogwarts Infirmary, there were plenty of questions being directed at Mizuchi, Jack, and the Doctor.

"Let me get this straight," said Professor McGonagall. "There are several different versions of earth, clustered together like grapes in a vineyard?"

"It's a 'close enough' description," replied Mizuchi. "With the right spells or equipment, you can travel to different worlds in your cluster. However, it still has some risks. You can also, with some effort and a lot of risk, you can 'jump' to a different cluster."

"How come you knew about Azkaban, but Hikari didn't?" Harriet asked.

"When Harmony and myself first jumped across to this cluster, we overshot a little."

Flashback

Mizuchi stepped out of the TARDIS, and saw they were inside some sort of walk-in supplies cupboard. She carefully peaked out of the doorway, to see what looked like an old 19th century classroom.

How far did we overshoot? Mizuchi thought.

She quietly walked into the classroom, and noticed the students all had wands, and were attempting some sort of Object Transformation spells. Then she noticed the teacher was lecturing a red-haired boy, who had some sort of rat-goblet hybrid in front of him. She could see why the spell malfunctioned. The teacher probably hasn't noticed. Mizuchi walked over, and picked up the furry object.

"Excuse me, young lady!" the teacher chided. "Who gave you permission to handle another student's property?"

"I know why his spell didn't work," replied Mizuchi. "The object already had a Transformation spell on it. Both spells are interfering with each other." Rainbow-coloured runes orbited her hands. "I'll just undo both spells."

The object in her hands became a man. The teacher was shocked "Peter Pettigrew! Dear gods! Sirius Black was innocent! Miss Granger, go fetch Professor Dumbledore. Miss Greengrass, go and find Professor Snape."

"Interesting tattoo," Mizuchi said. "It has the same resonance as that scar on that boy's head." She pointed towards the boy with glasses, next to the redhead. "As for you, ratboy, quit trying to transform back."

End flashback.

"The Ministry had to release Black, and give a very public apology," Mizuchi commented. "They hadn't even given him a trial, before dumping him in there."

"How far back in time did you come?" Hikari asked quietly. "You should only be about seven or eight. You're all grown up."

"I'm sixteen," Mizuchi replied. "We've been living in Japan since I was ten. Mother decided to move us closer to Mum's relatives. Oops!"

"Don't give away too many spoilers," Hikari laughed. "Erika finally confessed."

"Hikari, we tried to figure out what that egg was while you were away," said Daphne. "All we get is an ear-splitting shriek when we open it."

"let me have a look," said Mizuchi. "Hikari needs to rest up. Jack! Quit flirting with the nurse! The Doctor has wandered off somewhere."

()()()()()

Mizuchi opened the egg, and winced slightly at the noise. She muttered something in Uruk-hai, then turned to the others. "The task is a timed fetch-quest under the lake."

"How did you get that?" Harriet asked. "I only just found out from Cedric. He just found out last night, when the egg fell in the bathtub."

"I have a gift for languages." Mizuchi replied. "My main job at ICEP is giving remedial Japanese lessons to cultural exchange candidates." She looked closer at Harriet. "That's a nasty curse. Soul-fragment, right?"

"Yes," she replied.

"I can remove it, if you want. I did it for the 'Harry' kid, in the other timeline. Don't let Hikari try, though. She's good at removing curses from inanimate objects. Scarily good, but she'll probably kill you in the process. She's got too much Dark Magic running through her."