AN: Still don't own Harry Potter or Mass Effect. Support their creators.

So this is a bit longer than my average update so I hope you like it. I will also be introducing some new magic this chapter and moving through a lot of content so hang on to your seat.

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CH 21

Carefully, Harry traced another sigil in the air in front of him, the double lined hagalaz. This rune completed the thirteenth line that Harry had been working on. It was a tricky piece of magic that Harry was attempting to accomplish, and Harry knew that this would have landed him his mastery in Runes and Arithmancy, if such things still mattered. Now, the only benefit of what he was attempting to do only mattered to him and his security. Harry took a moment to rest as his hand brought the last vertical line down on the symbol. The rune hung in the air before the entire line it was a part of suddenly brightened into a crimson glow. Sweat beaded on Harry's brow and a part of Harry's mind worried if he would have the strength to see this task through. The energy this was taking was taxing. Briefly, Harry considered stopping before he was too far in to stop this ritual. He shrugged it off and decided the gains outweighed the costs.

His hand moved down and to the left and Harry prepared to begin the next line. The other part of his mind started drifting off onto errant thoughts. Harry had been progressing a lot on his Occlumency lately and a side effect of this seemed to be his new found ability to process two different lines of thought at the same time. There was nothing terribly special about it. He was able to absorb the contents of a book and talk to Kaidan at the same time or field strip a gun while arguing with Wrex over the benefits of piercing ammo. Harry had been working to develop his mind more in large part due to his new companion: the Thorian. Harry was constantly on guard for any mental intrusion despite Dr. Chakwas's assurances that the Thorian did not possess any of the spores it used on the colonists. A mental invasion did not come, but Harry didn't let his guard down for even a minute around the thing. "Constant vigilance," a wise, albeit crazy, man once said.

The Thorian now sat next to him, staring at him and his actions intently. Harry felt mixed feelings about the Thorian's presence. First, it seemed disturbingly interested in him and often followed or watched him. It didn't help that the Commander tasked Harry with the responsibility of monitoring its behavior. So far it managed to follow all instructions given to it. Secondly, and most importantly, the Thorian had walked right passed the muggle repelling ward that Harry had placed around his "room" in the cargo hold. He wanted privacy while he worked on the sigil magic he was performing and cast the ward so as the crew would not bother him. The Thorian walked right through it without as much as a pause. Harry's mind attempted to decipher why this could be.

"Could she be magical?" Harry thought. "Wait, when did she become a she to you?"

Harry sat in the mess hall chowing down on some gruel that had the gall to call itself pot roast. He made a face as he bit into a flavorless carrot and covered in meat juices. He heard the synthesized giggle of Tali across from him and looked at her.

"It never ceases to amuse me how much you dislike your food, Harry." Tali said. Harry could swear he could see her glowing eyes smiling at him through her mask.

"I'm glad my torture is funny to you." Harry said petulantly.

"Come now, Harry, it isn't that bad." Liara said. She was sitting next to Tali and grinning at him with her blue lips.

"It is and you would know it if you grew up with real food." Harry replied.

The others at the table started to chuckle at him. With unspoken agreement, the ground team always ate at the same times while on the Normandy these days. Everyone had grown very close as of late, even Wrex (though he would deny it), and they all seemed to center around Shepard. She was somehow the glue that bound this rag tag group together, made them a team and, more importantly, friends. Shepard had convinced Wrex and Garrus to start talking despite the tension their races held and found they had a lot in common, mostly guns. Tali and Ashley had started talking more and Ashley was amazed at how little she really knew about the quarian people. Harry and Kaidan seemed to grow closer as friends and spent a lot of time in the cockpit with Joker playing old vids of television shows when not on duty. All of this was because Shepard would give a nudge in the right direction.

Harry reflected on the differences on how Shepard led than Dumbledore and realized that Shepard viewed each of them as individuals and equals whereas his former headmaster viewed others as pieces on a chessboard. It was a hard realization for Harry when he looked at the decisions his old mentor made regarding him and his life. Harry learned a lot about effective leaders in history in his military finishing, and Dumbledore honestly did not fit the bill. Shepard, however, embodied leadership. Harry in all honestly wondered if Shepard's ability to influence others was magical, but it was truly just her force of personality.

"Does anyone else smell that?" Kaidan said while wrinkling his nose.

The others looked around until their eyes fell upon the Thorian asari sitting in the corner. She was eating a nutrient bar and watching the others intently. Harry suddenly realized that he had not seen his ward in anything other than the black commando suit that she had been picked up in. Eating and using the bathroom were skills that had needed to be explained to the Thorian and Harry realized that perhaps laundry and showering were something they needed to go over.

"Umm, Tori," Liara began. She had started calling it Tori a few days after picking up the Thorian's creation and spending time trying to get it to divulge secrets about the Protheans. So far it was not a successful venture as the creature, or "Tori" as Liara called it, did not seem to communicate much with anyone other than Harry.

"Tori, has anyone explained bathing to you at all?" Liara asked. The Thorian asari looked at her with a quizzical expression. Harry was surprised that no one else predicted this up until now. The Thorian was a plant-based creature and met all of its needs through the star that surrounded Feros along with other minerals derived from the earth it was on. Aside from having enslaved thralls tend to it in the past, the Thorian had no other needs. For that same ancient consciousness to have humanoid needs was foreign to it and Harry had spent a lot of time trying to explain things such as eating, the lavatory, and beds to it. It was an intelligent being with very little grounding in the day to day functioning of a humanoid being.

"I assumed as much," Liara said. "Come on, Tori. Let's show you how to get clean up. I have some spare clothes for you as well while we send yours to the washroom...or out the airlock."

Harry watched as Liara escorted the Thorian from the mess hall and presumably to the showers. The group continued to eat in silence for a moment with everyone staring at their food. There was a slight tension that hung in the air. Finally, Kaidan spoke up.

"So," Kaidan began. "Liara is going to show another asari how to take a shower… Yep, bet no one is interested in that at all."

The tension broke and everyone started laughing, even Garrus allowed himself a few chuckles at the moment. The laughing grew worse when Liara returned to the group soaked head to foot.

"This is not funny." She said indignantly, which only served to make Tali fall out of her chair and clutch her stomach.

"Fine," Liara said petulantly. "Next time she needs to be taught something, you can handle it." She stormed off towards her room and returned in dry clothes to a table where everyone was attempting to finish eating and contain their mirth, barely.

"By the Goddess," Liara swore. "That woman is a handful." She sat down to finish her now cold meal.

The group continued eating for a while and talked amongst themselves. Garrus and Tali were debating the quality of their various dextro-protein rations and Wrex explained to Kaidan how some krogan could learn to be biotic. Harry's attention was split between trying to listen to Ashley talk a bit about first assignment before Eden prime and tune in to what Shepard and Liara were discussing; something about the cipher that the Thorian had shared with Shepard. Suddenly, Harry caught movement in the corner of his eyes and nearly choked on his food. Liara apparently did not explain drying off and getting dressed to Tori as she was standing in the mess hall stark naked and dripping wet.

Noticing this, Liara jumped out of her seat and screeched "Tori!" before surging forward, grabbing her hand, and leading her off towards her room.

"Well," Harry thought. "She certainly is all asari."

Harry was starting to feel the first sign of exhaustion beginning to form as he was working to finish the last character of the forty seventh line on his sigil. This line incorporated ancient Hebrew runes as they were ideal for magic relating to the soul. He finished the symbol for lamedh with a slight flourish and lowered his arm. After shaking some feeling back into it he stopped a moment to admire his work so far. A veritable wall of red glowing runes hung in the air in front of him. Harry looked over to his companion and noticed Tori still had her green eyes on him. She did not seem to know what he was looking at and Harry knew she couldn't see what he was doing. Sigil magic was only visible to the caster during working. This was a result of the necessary processes that went into the magic. Harry was pushing out and extending his magical core to beyond his body. To a magical person, it would appear he was forcing out an aura of sorts, but non-magicals could not see such things. While his core was extended, his magic was bleeding out of his body faster than it could be replenished which contributed to Harry's exhaustion at the moment. This was a requirement for sigil magic, however. Harry was essentially writing runic configurations that were tied to his magical core or even his soul if some of the scholars were to be believed. This was more effective than merely tying the magic to an object and that was Harry's intention.

Harry lifted his arm to start the next line. The longer he rested his body from the writing, the longer he had to extend his core and this was more tiring. Once he let his core collapse back inwards, the sigil magic would take hold and bind to him. If he did not finish this project in one go, it would at best not work or at worst have drastic consequences on his magic or body. Luckily Harry had time lately as he and the crew was en route to their next destination and it would take two more days to reach Noveria. The past few weeks have been spent handling a few other needs in the galaxy.

Harry found Kaidan sitting on the rails leading to the sleeping pods. Kaidan wore a dark expression and was staring at the floor. Harry approached his friend and sat on the rails next to him. Kaidan didn't acknowledge him and Harry allowed the silence to carry on for several minutes. Finally, Kaidan looked up and over to Harry.

"This galaxy is pretty messed up, isn't it?" Kaidan asked.

"Yeah," Harry said. "It is. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that it was horrible of them to kill that man, but at the same time, I understand why they did it."

The crew had just returned from a mission to rescue hostages aboard a passenger freighter. The freighter was carrying an Alliance senator on his way back to Earth after speaking on a colony. The ship was attacked and taken over by ex-alliance marines that were L2 biotics. L2 biotics, like Kaidan, experienced a lot of medical problems ranging from painful headaches to paralysis. Also like Kaidan, they were not willing subjects of the L2 implanting and were victims of a terrible crime against humanity for this. The senator in question had effectively killed a bill that would have issued reparations to the L2's or their families if they had died. His actions invoked the ire of some of the L2's and they now threatened his life because of his actions in the senate.

Harry, Shepard, and Kaidan infiltrated the ship and took down most of the L2's that had taken the ship. However, once they reached the bridge where the senator was held hostage, the leader of the L2's executed him before Shepard could intervene. The team took down the L2's after they opened fire onto them. All in all it was not a successful mission. Admiral Hackett assured Shepard that there was nothing that could be done if they weren't willing to talk, but Kaidan seemingly was affected the most.

"Kaidan," Harry began. "You know better than anyone else here what the L2's have to go through. It's OK to be angry at the senate for not helping you all out. However, would you kill someone over that?"

"No!" Kaidan exclaimed. "Of course not."

"Thought so. Kaidan, there's nothing wrong with understanding what their motivations are and not agree with their methods. Trust me, I know what it's like to be the victim of noble intentions."

"Yeah, you're right. They were desperate and horrible fools." Kaidan said.

"On the up side," Harry said. "I think I saw the Commander eyeing you while we were fighting."

"Shut up, Harry."

Another line completed using classic Futhark runes. Harry was really starting to feel the drain in his reserves. Each moment Harry spent felt like another eternity to the part of his mind that was present with his work. He spared a glance back towards Tori and was surprised to see a look of concern on her face. Or at least Harry thought it was concern. She met his eyes when he turned to check on her, but she remained silent. He turned back to his work.

"Line seventy eight" Harry said, and he started the next character.

"This salarian is a real scumbag." Harry thought.

They had made their way through the ship to find Dr. Saleon on a lead Garrus had picked up. Of course, Harry wouldn't have described it as a ship. The rooms inside of the freighter resembled more of a slaughterhouse than anything else. Harry had to hide behind his Occlumency shields in one particular room that held a woman's corpse lying on an operating table. Her chest had been split open and her ribs hastily removed and discarded onto the floor. The doctor had apparently been in the middle of a vivisection when they latched onto the ship and had already removed her heart and liver before they got here. Harry would have wretched at the sight if not for his barriers protecting his active consciousness.

Gripping his pistol tighter, Harry and Garrus checked the next room. Shepard and Wrex were sweeping the other side for the elusive butcher that had the nerve to call himself a doctor. Wrex was wearing his red and black ancestral armor that they had helped to recover a few days prior during a lull in their assignment. Saren had been laying low and Shepard was waiting for him to rear his head again. In the mean time, Wrex had approached Shepard about retrieving his ancient heirloom. They did so with no small amount of violence according to Ashley, who had accompanied Shepard and Wrex. At first Wrex was content to let the armor serve as a trophy and collect dust, but he then asked Harry if he could make it more serviceable. Liking the challenge and the thought that Wrex might owe him some more favors, Harry obliged. The armor now was reinforced with runes on the interior that made it as durable, if not more so, than most modern krogan armor. Harry offered to make it lighter, but Wrex declined saying that the added weight makes his head butts hurt more.

Harry activated another door and Garrus quickly turned into, sweeping his gun from left to right in case the doctor was hiding in it. The room was filled with crates that were labeled as organic matter and had cooling units attached. Harry's vision filled with red as he realized what was likely contained in them. Garrus moved forward into the room before suddenly focusing in on something behind one of the crates he was checking. He reached forward and yanked an older looking salarian to his feet and flung him against one of the crates.

"Stop, stop. Why are you doing this to me?" the salarian cried.

"Can it, Saleon." Garrus said. "You're not getting away this time."

"What are you talking about? My name is Dr. Ripken Heart." He looked at Harry suddenly. "Please, you must stop him. He's crazy."

Harry raised his pistol and sent a round into the salarian's leg.

"Aggh!" Saleon cried and fell to the ground clutching his thigh.

"Good one, Potter." Garrus said before raising his pistol to the salarian's head. "Now let's finish the job."

"No!" Harry cried. "He's not going anywhere now. I only shot him as I noticed him going for a holdout pistol."

"He deserves to die for what he's done." Garrus growled.

"Yes, he does, but that's not our call. Trust me, I'd love to blow him out an airlock right now, but that's not our choice to make."

"He's right, Garrus." Harry heard Shepard say from behind them. "We'll take him in. It will do the victims' families some good to see this sick freak brought to justice."

Garrus stood there for a long moment, gun still pointed at Saleon's face. Sighing to himself he took his pistol and hit the salarian across the head, knocking him out cold.

"Let's get out of here." Garrus said with resignation.

Harry's arm shook as he rounded off the hundredth line of his sigil piece. This one took more concentration as it required the use of ancient Sanskrit letters that Harry was not used to forming. He used these letters as they were better suited for binding time and space than many western languages, and it took Harry a lot of time and cross-referencing ancient texts he had pilfered from the ministry and codex information about the language.

His reserves were starting to run low and part of Harry's mind focused on the task filled with anxiety over finishing the remaining lines. Blessedly the work had moved far enough down that he could work on his knees, but the physical exhaustion was nothing compared to the magical drain he was feeling. Taking a breath and rubbing his aching shoulder, he looked over again at the asari that never left his side during the process. Harry wondered what showed on his face because she moved towards him when he met her gaze.

"The flesh is tired. It must stop this now." she said.

"It's Harry, and I have no choice but to continue now." Harry replied, his exhaustion coming through his voice.

The asari looked at him in silence as Harry raised his shaking arm and started the next line in the series. Harry started the next character when he noticed a glow out of the corner of his eye. The asari was radiating biotic energy and kneeling next to Harry. Before Harry could react, she placed a hand on his shoulder and Harry felt a surge of wild energy. He felt the exhaustion he experienced up to now disappear and Harry felt renewed strength in his core. He smiled his thanks to the asari, but her face remained placid. Harry turned and continued his project.

Harry lay in his secluded space working on some runic calculations. He was trying to figure out more uses for his magic to modify their equipment. Some charms did not react too well with the sensitive electronics and equipment that used mass effect fields were typically prone to overloading if Harry wasn't careful. Runes seemed to be more stable for containing the seeming wild energies of Harry's magic and so he had dedicated more time to studying them. Harry had spent some time inputting runes and their arithmantic attributes into his omni-tool to make his calculations simpler. Harry figured doing this extra work now would make his efforts simpler in the future and allowed for more complicated calculations.

Taking a break Harry started scrolling through the various programs that were on his omni-tool. He, of course, did not know what half of them did as Kasumi likely thought it funny to give him omni-tool upgrades he had no clue how to use. As he scrolled further, he noticed one file was flashing. Curious, Harry activated it. A ball of white light seemed to jump out of his omni-tool and hover in front of him. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a sphere with two rings rotating around it with an eye of sorts looking at him.

"Hello, Master." the ball of white light said in a nasally, synthesized voice.

"Uh, hello. What are you?" Harry asked cautiously.

"I am your personal VI assistant, Master. Mistress K said you needed all the help you can get." it said.

"Oh, of course she would." Harry groaned.

"Yes, Master. She made sure to mention that you had a tendency to set things on fire that otherwise shouldn't."

"So, what can you do?"

"My primary function is to catalogue and sort various pieces of information. Mistress K modified my programming to enable me to collect data packages from other pieces of software. I also have omni-based hardware that allows for limited interaction with physical objects, such as small repairs. I noticed from your omni-tool data that you are manually cataloging ancient script with mathematical equivalents. I could continue this task for you if you'd like, Master."

"Sure, if you could do that. I have some books to let you use for the math. Wait. Are you going to report this information to, uh, Mistress K?"

"No, Master. I am strictly programmed to follow only your commands. Mistress K said that she has no desire to snoop around your underwear drawer."

"Good. I guess you can get to work. What do I call you?"

"I have not been given a designation, Master. Would you like to assign one now?"

"Sure. I think I'll call you Dobby."

"Almost there."

Harry was so close that he could feel the sigil magic starting to take effect. He had finished the one hundred and fortieth line in the sequence. He felt his companion's energy start to wane along with his, but he felt confident that they could finish. The Thorian, Tori, was looking at the letters hanging in the air now too. Once she started to feed Harry her energy she could see the long sequence as well. For a creature as ancient as her mind was, she stared with wide-eyed wonder at the crimson letters floating before them.

"Flesh, what are you doing?" she asked.

"You'll see, eventually. Be patient." Harry said and raised his arm to start another line.

The base was heavily fortified against assault by its design. Tali knelt before the door panel leading into the base and was attempting to hotwire the door into opening. Harry was on edge, but he was able to contain himself with his mental barriers. This was the third base on the rock that they had assaulted in search of Admiral Kahoku. They received a message that Cerberus was after him when he had stumbled upon some sensitive information regarding the terrorist organization. Shepard had spent the past week tracking down the admiral and it led them to this planet. The bases went into lockdown, but Shepard and her team had broken through their defenses so far. This was the last base and likely where the admiral was being held prisoner.

Harry heard the hiss of the door's seals opening and knew that Tali was once again successful. He readied himself and the door slid open. Inside was quiet, eerily so. There was a large number of crates stacked all around them entrance, likely to slow down the team. Harry and Shepard walked out front and around the crates. There was a large open space in the middle and three of the green, plant-like men the Thorian had used on Feros were surrounded by bodies. They turned their heads toward Shepard and the team, but made no movement to attack them. The bodies that littered the ground were wearing Cerberus uniforms and were either ripped open or burned with some sort of acid. Shepard walked toward a console towards the center of the room and activated it. A force field activated and contained the monsters and their grizzly work.

Satisfied that they were secure, the three of them moved further in the base. In the back they found the admiral with a bullet wound to the back of the head. Shepard swore loudly and kicked a nearby computer.

"Dammit!" she screamed. She fumed for a long moment before looking up at Harry and Tali.

"See what you can find. I'm going to signal the Normandy for pick up and request an Alliance dust off crew for this base." She said.

Harry and Tali went to work looking through the various pieces of equipment nearby. Harry walked up to a console and activated his omni-tool.

"Dobby." Harry said.

"Yes, Master. I've just finished cataloging our last series of texts. How can I help you?"

"I need you to mine this network for any relevant data."

"Yes, Master. One moment."

The floating orb seemed to freeze in place as it worked through the console's information. The little virtual intelligence had proven extremely useful. It not only kept his omni-tool extremely secure, but Harry had him recording the magical texts into digital format. This made it much easier for Harry to inventory his personal library, even if it made Dobby ask many questions such as "what is the relevance of the pronunciation of leviosa".

"Master," Dobby said, unfreezing and bouncing in the air again. "I have found something of importance I think you need to see."

Harry opened his omni-tool screen and looked at the file Dobby had opened for him and read its contents. What he saw made his blood run cold.

Alliance Black Label File- Harry Potter

This was it. This was the last line and the one that bound everything to him. This rune was the most important as it acted as the key to activate. It required a rune that held significance to the caster and would be used to enable the sigil's magic to work. Harry did not need to think long before settling on his rune. Making a sharp, jagged line, Harry formed the lightning bolt shaped Sowilo rune in the air. The entire runic array started to glow brighter and brighter. Harry heard Tori gasp next to him. It was an impressive piece of work in front of him. It was composed of thirteen squares made of thirteen lines comprised of thirteen characters. The light started to glow so bright that the red runes appeared white. Suddenly the runes seemed to slam together into a large red lightning bolt. The bolt stood for a brief moment in the air before glowing white as well and then splitting apart. An opening stood in the space his sigil magic was moments before. Wearily, Harry stood up along with Tori and he stepped through.