A/N: Chap 13 review responses are in my forums as normal. As for this chapter-pay attention the the dates at the beginning of each section. This chapter covers a quite a bit of time. For instance, the last chapter was in January 2011.
Chapter Fourteen: Hostile Counsel
April 15th, 2011
"This is going to suck," Harry predicted glumly.
"It was your idea. And it was a good idea, Harry."
"But it's still going to suck."
Harry stood looking at the ceiling as Hermione adjusted his formal uniform half-jacket. "There, we even got your hair under control."
"What will you be doing today?"
Her eyes twinkled, just like Dumbledore's used to. "We're playing with ways to make brooms space worthy."
"I hate you."
She kissed him. "Liar. Go lead, Harry. It's what you do best."
With one scorching look over her shoulder that promised him some fun that night, Harry took a deep breath and followed her out of the cabin.
Each deck of the ship's core had a single hall bisecting its length, lined with doors to expanded cabins or suites. This particular area was designated as crew quarters. Harry's cabin, for instance, had three small closets that could easily be expanded to bedrooms if their talk about having a baby went forward.
The hall was almost as wide as the cobble-stone streets of Diagon Alley in order to let people pass unhindered. Even so, it was crowded with various crew members going on about their business. They overloaded the crew to allow for three separate duty shifts with a corps of reservists to step in where needed. While it helped prevent burnout and gave a lot of people something to do, it made it crowded sometimes during shift changes.
Every one of them nodded respectfully to him as he walked by, and he returned their nods and tried to remember their names. If this were a true military ship, he knew they would be saluting. However, he did not want this to be a military ship. He needed a hierarchy for command purposes, but he enjoyed the slight informalities operating outside strict military parameters allowed.
Captain White, he knew, was more strict, while Captain Goldstein was as relaxed about protocols as Harry was. Patterson herself could be as strict or as casual as the occasion called for, which he appreciated.
Finally, he reached the conference room. Two of his aurors stood outside in the ship's uniforms. The only homage to their past roles was that their half-jackets were auror red rather than blue or black.
Harry nodded to both men, remembering them from his time in the DMLE, and finally stepped into the room.
Malcolm White rose to his impressive height abruptly, ending all conversations in the room. Goldstein and Patterson both rose as well, leaving the nine civilians in the room little choice but to rise as well.
"Good morning," Harry said with a forced smile. "And thank you for coming today. Bill, it's good to see you. Likewise, Madam Thrope. Please, have a seat."
The captains waited until the civilians were seated before sitting themselves. Harry looked around the table at the name placards and the placement of the captains to the newly elected Admiralty Advisory Council. Each captain sat by their ship's representatives, rather than clumping together.
"I've met some of you, but not all. So I'd appreciate introductions. Bill, could you start?"
Bill Weasley had been elected as one of the representatives for the Avalon habitat. The Weasley family was well known both as a light wizarding family and as allies of Harry Potter. But even among the Weasleys, Bill shone as a natural leader. His co-councilor was a heavy-set woman in her mid-thirties with skin the color of crude oil and startling purple eyes.
"Argenta Thrope," she said in a full-throated voice when Bill finished. Harry remembered her as being a strong-willed opponent of Ministry abuses—which unfortunately put her opposite Harry on more than one occasion because of his role as DMLE director. She had a sizable following resulting from her efforts.
The Broceliande representatives consisted of Fleur's first cousin Maurice Delacour, who before the end was being groomed by her father as a potential political leader, and William Stennis, a rough, scarred former auror from Canada who at 58 was also the oldest surviving wizard in the fleet.
The Columbia representatives consisted of a slight woman with prematurely graying red hair named Madeline Hooper who had suffered damage to her magic from the radiation, but was elected anyway due to a past political career, and Howard Crenshaw, a handsome young Texan with a head full of blonde hair and a grating accent.
The Franklin representatives consisted of a former attorney named Donald Lauer, and a former Salem's Regent named Carolyn Huffington.
The captains each introduced themselves, leaving finally Harry, who nodded and gave his name. He then stood and with his wand summoned a scroll from the back of the room. He made several copies and levitated a copy to each of the new councilors.
"This is the charter of the North Atlantic Magical Protection Organization, the authority by which this fleet operates and I and these captains command. I want you all to read over this document so that if any questions come up regarding the legality of the admiralty, you can respond accordingly."
The council spent the next few minutes in silent reading, while Harry himself tried to guess who would argue most about it. He knew Thrope would, just because she was the type of person who always fought authority, regardless of the circumstances. But of the others, Harry found himself slightly suspicious of the Texan.
It was probably the accent.
"This scroll gives you absolute power," Thrope all but growled, dropping it loudly against the wooden conference table. "The definition of plenipotentiary power for this document reads like a definition of a dictatorship. So why are we even here?"
Before Harry could answer, Bill Weasley cleared his throat. "Madam Thrope, you've been dealing with Harry for years now. When has he ever acted the part of a dictator?"
"The entire Shindle case was rammed down our throats!" she countered. "Guilty because The Great Harry Potter said he was guilty, without the public ever getting to see any shred of evidence!"
"Did you really want to see what he did to those little girls?" Harry asked pointedly.
Thrope turned and glared. "I wanted proof that he actually did it!"
"You mean aside from his veritaserum confession and the memories he provided?"
"Under duress!"
Harry shook his head. "Madame Thrope, by extracting those memories I saved the lives of five other children Mr. Shindle had abducted. I did not find him guilty, a closed judiciary committee of the Wizengamot did, and the case was closed because his crimes were literally unspeakable. We did not show you evidence because, to be blunt, you were a civic activist and not his legal council nor a member of the Wizengamot."
He sighed and looked at the other members. "However, I'm glad you were elected, because I do not want the advisory council to become a rubber stamp."
He touched the scroll pointedly. "This document puts me in command, and by my command and the appointments of their nations, the other captains as well. However, there are over eighty thousand civilians in the fleet, and hopefully more to come in the form of future generations, and it is only right that they have some self-determination over their own lives. You are their voices. But more than that, I would like this council to also serve as a legislative body."
Mrs. Hooper cleared her throat. "And will you have a separate judiciary? A separate constabulary?"
"No," Harry said. "And here's why. I do not want a situation to ever arise where a civilian police or military force finds itself in opposition to the ship's crew. No matter how well meaning the intent might be behind forming a judiciary or police force, at some point or another, for whatever reasons you want to imagine, the possibility exists. And given that there are only a few feet of titanium and brine water between us and death, any such conflict could easily escalate to a lethal situation."
"You only want your people to have real power," Thrope accused.
"Madame Thrope, are you truly concerned about the power distribution, or are you simply arguing for the sake of arguing?"
Carolyn Huffington's voice was soft, cultured, and piercing. The former regent and mother of five met Thrope's angry glare head on. "This document was signed by the magical heads of states for four countries. Secretary Courtier gave his life so that we could escape, and said on the very day of his death that he had full faith in Admiral Potter. It's one thing to argue with legitimate abuse of power, it's quite another to pick a fight for the sake of fighting."
"Don't you dare lecture me you…"
"Enough," Captain White said, slamming his hand on the table. He looked right at Argenta Thrope with a hard glare. "The council is what it is. Your roles are what they are. Either take the job, or shut up and get the hell out! No one is making you sit there!"
"If we ever return to Earth, or find another world to colonize, my authority ends the moment people leave these ships," Harry said in the silence that followed the large captain's outburst. "I am not a dictator. I am the commander of three ships carrying the sum total of over ten thousand years of history and the last vestiges of our culture. And I will do whatever I have to do in order to protect the people on these ships. Everything in this treaty is designed to empower me and my captains to serve and protect you, even if it means from yourself. And that will not change."
"Questions of authority aside, what exactly do you want this council to do, Admiral Potter?" the American lawyer, Lauer, asked.
Harry took a breath. "I would like this council to draft a criminal code for all three ships, including potential penalties. We've already had some fights break out, and some cases of domestic abuse. I and the captains have dealt with these cases as we can, but in cases of civilian misconduct I think everyone would rest easier if they had a clear set of laws to follow, with clear punishments to ensure consistency between myself and the other captains."
"And the parameters of these laws?" Hugginton asked.
"That they cannot allow any activity that would threaten the security of the ship itself, or encourage such behavior. That any punishments be appropriate to the crimes, with harsher consequences for repeat offenders, and that capital punishment be reserved for those actions that directly threaten the safety of the ship and whose perpetrators represent a continued risk to the ship. And that the idea of avoiding self-incrimination be tossed. With legillimancy and veritaserum the idea of holding one's silence is ridiculous."
Lauer raised a slim brow in surprise. "You are British, Mr. Potter. I'm surprised to hear you mention capital punishments."
"We can't be a police state," Captain Goldstein said for Harry. "We don't have the resources for prisons. If we have someone who's unstable enough to attempt to damage one of our ships, and who can't be treated for their issues, then we need the option of permanently removing them from the ships. In circumstances such as ours, insanity can't be a defense. A genuinely insane person represents a threat to our very survival."
Harry couldn't have said it better himself.
"We would also like your opinions regarding private use of house elves," Harry said. "Early on, we had family elves stealing food supplies for the whole ship. We warded the supplies off, but the fact that some families have elves in a situation such as ours is…well, it's a bother. I would appreciate your opinions on the matter. Finally, while we can't afford a criminal judiciary, I do think a civil judiciary would be appropriate for mediation and conflict resolution."
And so it went, for the next four hours. Finally, with their assignments made, Harry dismissed the council, sent the captains back to their respective shifts, and stumbled to his cabin in a desperate need to deflate.
Once he stepped inside and locked the door, he found Hermione in their bed, as naked as the day she was born, reading engineering reports. "My God, you're so beautiful," Harry whispered.
"Am I?' she said archly. She smiled but didn't look up from the report she was reading.
"Yes, yes you are." He spent the next hour showing her just how beautiful he thought she was.
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
Inertia was a powerful thing. With all three ships finally together—with food and shelter available and the risk of radiation a thing of the past—no one, not even Harry, seemed to be in a hurry to make any decisions.
As days turned into weeks, Harry and the rest turned their eyes toward a variety of tasks that let them avoid having to decide where to go. They organized and held the elections for the Admiralty Advisory Council. They tested their new guns and even took short flights around the solar system to either look at other planets or just to test their astronavigation and drive systems.
But at the end of the day, they always returned to Earth.
Much of the inertia was born from exhaustion. In the final months of their stay on Earth, Hogwarts Valley lost four to five people every single day, despite the potions, lead shelters and demron robes. He knew from speaking with the American captains that things were not any better overseas. The survivors of the wizarding world were shell-shocked, much like refugees from war-torn countries. Every person had lost a close friend or loved one, and the losses left the survivors caught up in a wake of melancholic lassitude. They experienced their first suicide within the first week of their escape.
Each of the captains placed large mirrors within the habitats that displayed their surroundings much like drive-in movie theatres. Their trips back to Jupiter or Saturn resulted in huge crowds sitting in the grassy shores by the lake to watch the alien worlds as if they were movies.
But when they returned to Earth, every night cycle on the ship, people would gather and stare hungrily at the earth they circled in a high orbit under disillusionment. Harry was absolutely certain that, under notice-me-not and privacy charges, several children were conceived on the lawn staring up at the Earth.
It was entirely possible that Harry's and Hermione's first child was conceived there. If so, they were in good company.
Harry came back to the cabin on June 30th after a record 12 hour public hearing on the proposed criminal code. The entire way back he'd considered whether or not it was a mistake to hold a public referendum on the laws the Council had drafted. He then asked himself if Argenta Thrope would have just leaked the laws in an effort to force his hand regardless. The woman seemed to have a personal grudge against Harry and the entire admiralty, and enough followers to make things dicey if they ever tried to remove her from the council.
He got back home to the smell of pot roast and potatoes and knew something big must have happened. The still fragile economy of the ship was based mainly on a food credit system Padma had created. Within this system, the stored beef they had was as expensive as gold had been on Earth.
The small kitchen their cabin had was itself a luxury of rank, since most of the crew had to eat in one of the two galleys in the ship's core. The civilians had shared cafeterias in the habitat areas—again to ensure an even distribution of food. Even Padma admitted it was a temporary solution to the problem of currency, but for the past month it had helped iron out some of the problems of some areas having too little food, while others had too much.
"Hermione, what's going on?"
She emerged from the bedroom in a beautiful, slimming red dress that she filled to the seams and more. Her whole face glowed as she rushed forward and took his hands.
"I felt like doing something special," she gushed as she led him inside. She closed and warded their door with a few adept flicks of her wand before she led him to the table with a small pot roast waiting for him surrounded by vegetables with a thick brown sauce. A bottle of red wine chilled in a silver bucket, while candles lit the darkened room.
"Did I forget our anniversary?" Harry asked suspiciously. "Birthday?"
"Shush," she said with a smile as she helped him out of his half-jacket. "Sit and eat. I have a nice pudding for afters."
However suspicious he might have been, Harry wasn't about to turn down the first bit of beef he'd had in over five months. So, he sat with his wife and ate until his stomach ached, and had a few more bites beside because it was just so good. And when they were done with dinner and a plate of delicious pudding, she stood and led him not to their bedroom, but one of the three closets.
Only, as Harry stepped in, it wasn't a closet any more. The space had been expanded to a sizable bedroom, with a standalone wardrobe, a modern wooden crib/toddler bed and a luxurious-looking glide rocker. The walls were painted a gentle, soothing mauve color.
"What…?" Harry looked down at his wife's glowing face, mouth agape. "But…but…you said…but…"
"We're having a baby, Harry."
Harry stopped trying to put words to what he was feeling, because he realized there were no words. Instead, he kissed her and held her tight, and tried to control the raging fear that suddenly blossomed in his chest.
They had no world to live on. Their child would not be a child of earth.
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
Hermione suffered from morning sickness. Although, as she pointed out acidly, it was not strictly related to morning. In point of fact she could be sick or nauseous at any point during any given day. Andromeda recommended she eat small snacks throughout the day, and avoid any trigger foods that set her off.
Still, it quickly burnished any romantic ideals of pregnancy Harry might have had. When Hermione felt bad, her humor quickly deteriorated, making not just his life, but the lives of all those around her, miserable.
"It's like she can't stand anyone to be happy if she can't be," Daniel Webber complained to Harry during one of their weekly staff meetings that Hermione had missed because of a medical exam.
"She just doesn't handle illness well," Harry assured the brow-beaten wizard. "She was the same way as a teenager."
A few seats down, where she was taking notes, Parvati snorted. "Tell me about it. Any time she caught a sniffle, all of us in the dorm suffered."
"Do you remember when she had that flu pox fourth year?" Padma asked her twin. "Merlin's beard, I swore Professor Vector was going to kick her out of class!"
"Still, she has been helpful in one area we were all concerned about," Doctor Barnes said.
"What's that?" Harry asked.
The older woman shrugged. "Pregnancy outside of Earth. While for Muggle women the effect is less pronounced, for witches our menstrual cycle is strongly influenced by the lunar calendar. There was a concern that leaving the Earth would impact reproductive cycles."
"Has it?" Harry asked, alarmed. "I mean, were Hermione and I an exception to the rule?"
"No," Barnes said. "We've had two hundred pregnancies reported since we left Earth. I'll grant that's a lower rate or pregnancies than we would have hoped for, but people are getting pregnant. What I would like to do is begin a long-term study on all witches to track menstruation."
"Do the medical staffs of the other ships agree?" Harry asked.
"It's a concern for everyone," Barnes said. She grinned. "Plus, I trained most of them. We just need your sign off."
"You have it, volunteers only, though. If anyone objects, for whatever reason, please leave them out."
Barnes shrugged. "Fair enough."
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
Lily Catherine Potter was born on February 3rd, 2012, at 3 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. She announced herself with a shrill, healthy cry and a spurt of urine on Andromeda Tonks, as if to say she was going to be pissing over the whole world as soon as she was able.
Harry wanted to say she was beautiful—instead she had a strange, cone-shaped head, a smashed red face that made her look like an angry tomato, and only a few odd strands of brown hair. She wasn't beautiful like the pictures of babies Harry had seen. And yet, holding her for the first time after the midwife finished cleaning her, Harry loved her with every iota of his being.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Hermione whispered a she took their daughter to her breast for the first time.
Harry's throat choked as he lied, "Yes." And then he realized he wasn't lying. As ugly a pug as the baby was, she was still absolutely beautiful because she was theirs. Looking down at his wife and child, Harry suddenly understood what beauty really meant.
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
On Saturday, April 21st, 2012, Harry, Hermione and their daughter went for a walk in Avalon. A gentle breeze blew across the footpaths between the apartment homes that housed most of their population. There were five such settlements spaced across the habitat dome between orchards of dwarf trees, or the clumps of normal-sized trees that helped regulate not just the oxygen content, but even the micro-weather patterns that the habitat experienced.
It was not unusual for clouds to form over the lake at the far end of the dome sixteen miles away and cycle toward the low end, shedding rain as the clouds ran out of sky. The cycle was so consistent, in fact, that the agricultural crews did not even have to provide irrigation for any of the food or recreational crops.
Which meant the best time to walk was in early evening, after the afternoon showers had exhausted themselves. A few wisps of clouds still streaked overhead across sunstones, which had been tinted to simulate gentle moonlight. The air felt cool without being cold, and as they walked Harry could only shake his head in wonder that he and his wife had played such a large role in completing this magical place.
Their walk as always took them away from the settlement toward the lake, where the large mirror showed them a view of the Earth. With the multitude of telescopes on the Invincible, it was easy for Patterson or whoever was on the bridge to zoom in on any given area of Earth.
The usual crowd was there, Harry saw, but noticed from their expressions that something was wrong. He quickly looked through the crowd until he saw a familiar face. "Neville!"
Neville and his very pregnant wife both turned at his voice. "Harry, have you seen this?"
He pointed to the mirror, and Harry followed his gaze. The mirror was focused on what looked like the west coast of California. Only once he focused, though, did he see why so many people were gasping and covering their faces in despair.
The entire coast of California was sliding into a boiling sea. Nor was the destruction limited to just California. It appeared as if Hawaii had exploded so violently the ash cloud looked like a scar on the face of the planet.
"Oh my God," Hermione whispered. "It's started. It's finally started."