Disclaimer: Year 4 grew way out of control, to be completely honest. I did not expect to go on that long. To counter that, I'm going to try rushing through Year 5, which means it will only take 72 chapters to get through it. I hope. The science is still out on that, and this is already not a very scientific process (not to be confused with The Scientific Process). Also, don't own it.

Also, to the anonymous reviewer who commented that all zerg strains are composed of only one species with extensive modifications: Just, no. No, they aren't. Even in the Heart of the Swarm campaign, different species were mixed into existing strains, and that cannot have been the first time. In fact, I know it isn't. I advise you look up Project Blackstone, and look at entry #7: Overlord Dissection. It can be found on the official Starcraft site.

(Transition joke. Yes, that's it.)

Funny comment about unoriginal jokes and lack of humor. ~f

Catalyst

Luna felt odd returning to the Ravenclaw dormitory after everything that had happened. After all the changes she'd undergone and all the time spent with Abathur and the Swarm, she was right back here, back among the ignorant, xenophobic humans. She'd almost hoped she wouldn't have to come back here. It was a stupid hope, she knew that. Daddy would have made her, and Abathur wasn't going to let her explain the zerg to him. Abathur wanted her to learn more, so here she was.

As she entered the Ravenclaw dorm, she answered the door's riddle absentmindedly. The riddles it gave had been fascinating at first, but now they all felt drab and dull. Maybe she could give it some riddles from the Quibbler to spice things up.

Her passage through the common area was uneventful. The walls of books might have been appealing to Luna once upon a time, but not with the reading material Abathur gave her. When you could find millions of pages inside a single cell, "Something to Leaf Through: The Basics of Herbology" didn't really cut it. Why bother looking up how a plant grows, when you can just get the information straight from the source?

Her disillusionment continued into the actual dorm room. The room was dominated by a row of beds adorned with blue and bronze, and infested head to toe with wrackspurts and nargles. Luna leaned closer to inspect some of them. Close up, they looked so...pathetic. How were humans weak enough to be infected with these specks?

Eventually, Luna decided that enough was enough. She could marvel at the failures of humans for a long time, but she had appearances to keep.She walked towards the bed, and changed into her pajamas, before throwing herself down. She had a long night of pretending to sleep to get to.

"Petrificus Totalus."

The incantation came just as Luna had laid herself down. In an instant, her limbs locked together, and her entire body went numb. All she could do was look around in a panic, trying to figure out what was going on.

A small, dark figure slowly entered her vision and Luna realized what was happening. Priscilla Smitty had been the leader of the gang of Ravenclaw girls who bullied Luna for the whole time they'd been at Hogwarts. It seemed they had decided to get an early start on the torment this year. Priscilla moved closer, and seated herself on the side of Luna's bed.

"Hello Loony," she began mockingly. "Hope you don't mind if the naggles take a few of your things again." Luna could hear her trunk being opened, as well as the giggles of a few other girls and the rustling of clothing. "And if you do mind, I'm sure your snorecats will get them for you." The giggles in the background got louder, growing into full blown laughter. "It's not like anyone else will."

That snapped Luna out of her daze. Almost immediately, her confusion morphed to rage. Visions swam through her head, of breaking out of this spell, placing her hands on Priscillas neck, squeezing and squeezing until her heart stopped beating, then moving on to the next one, unleashing her other arms, and pushing the sharp ends through all of their chests at once, letting the blood spill out onto the floor. But she couldn't do any of that. Her body was still numb, still not responding to anything she wanted to do. Even when she tried to reach out with her psionics, the welcoming power refused to answer her call. All she could do while the humans continued to steal her things was lay there, glare, and hate.

"You know, when the Evolution Master sent you in here, he expected a bit more time before you experienced any emotional anomalies," the thoughts sprung into her head unbidden Congratulations on your alacrity."

"Thenabar!" Luna projected. "I need your help! They cursed me, and I can't move!"

"Yes, I can see them. You would be surprised how shallow their emotions are. Well, maybe you wouldn't be, but others might."

"Come on, I need your help! Do you know how I can get out?"

Thenabar was silent for a second. Luna could feel him probing across her body. That sounded dirty. No, she needed to focus, to get the humans and make them pay.

"Ah, so that's how that works. Crude, but effective,"Thenabar eventually concluded. "Shouldn't be difficult to overcome if you know how."

"Then how do I get out?"

"That depends largely on you. What are you planning on doing to the humans?" Thenabar asked, an accusatory tone carrying through the thought.

"Killing them, of course!" Luna thought in surprise. Wasn't that the obvious choice?

"Poor plan. That would bring far too much attention on you, and by extension, the Swarm. Completely unacceptable." Thenabar stated. "No, that's not an option."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Luna demanded, continuing to struggle against the curse in vain.

"You have a few options. First, do nothing, and just let this year be like the rest," Thenabar must have been able to sense her disbelief. "Right, didn't think so. Next, you could attempt to get the aid of a prefect or staff member, but the goal is to avoid attention. So that's less than viable. Talking with these humans is also unlikely to have any effect, from what I can see."

"Just tell me what would work already!" Luna could hardly take it, watching the humans walk around, handle her things, while she was helpless to do anything but watch. Every fiber was screaming at her to do something, and Thenabar still wasn't telling her how.

"Of course, Luna. Tell me, has Abathur taught you how to heal yet?"

"I...what? Yes?"

"Good. In that case, just don't kill them," Thenabar said "Also, the spell is mostly just blocking a couple nerves along your spine. Run your... magic... along your vertebrae, and the effect will be eliminated." The second Luna tried that, feeling came back to her limbs, and with it, all the anger of years of torment. With an exaggerated stretch, she lifted herself off the bed and turned to face Priscilla and the rest.

"How did you do that?" Priscilla asked with a frown, before pointing her wand towards Luna. "Petrificus Totalus." This time, Luna broke free of the curse within a second. Luna's wand shot into her hand, and before Priscilla could attempt to cast the Full Body-Bind curse again, Luna launched her own spell.

"Silencio," Priscilla went totally silent, her mouth moving and gaping like a fish out of water. Luna found the metaphor especially appropriate considering just how far the little human was out of her depth.

"You should silence the rest too."

"Thanks, Thenabar," She cast the silencing spell five more times before the rest could react, silencing the other humans just as efficiently, rendering them all but without magic. Luna savored the moment, reveling in the helplessness of the little bullies as they waved their sticks in a desperate attempt to call their magic. No cries of help would ever make it out, no one would hear their pain, and no one would come to help them. Perfect. She would start with Priscilla, then.

There was something disappointing about breaking a bone without hearing the visceral snap. Luna supposed that watching Priscilla's face contort with a silent scream was almost as good, but it still didn't feel quite as satisfying. Perhaps if she broke the other arm? Ah, that was better. It helped to watch the fearful faces of the other girls in the background, pinned against the wall with her telekinesis. She would get to each of them, sooner or later.

Priscilla seemed to be calming down, her screams subsiding into inaudible sobs. That wouldn't do. Luna wanted her to scream, to feel the pain fresh and new. She forced her magic into Priscilla, had it seep into her cells, and force them to heal over her wound. Mending, Abathur had called it. Priscilla's arm snapped back into place, right in time for Luna to break it all over again. And again, and again, for however many times she wanted to, for whatever part she wanted to shatter. Let the human reap what she sowed.

When morning came, none of her roommates would have anything physically wrong with them. Even if they told someone, no one would believe them, and she would impress just how much of a bad idea it was to tell. The Swarm would be safe, the humans would be terrified, and Luna could finally have a year without someone stealing her things.

(Transition)

"If they killed your friends, how would you ever forgive them?" Thenabar asked. "Why would you ever forgive them?" It was a stupid question. Thenabar could barely work the idiotic words out of his mouth. The answer, of course, was that you didn't. They had shown themselves to be a threat, so they would be eliminated. Anything else was sheer stupidity.

"You may choose to believe me or not, but people can change, Thenabar. Even if one did...betray your confidence like that, there is always the chance for them to regret, to redeem themselves. Everyone deserves a second chance, and they almost always prove themselves worthy of it," said Dumbledore. It was more or less the exact kind of answer Thenabar had come to expect from the old man. Flowery, sentimental, and full of so many uninformed opinions that Thenabar had to pretend to accept at face value. It would be so, so easy to pick his answer apart, tell him about the weaknesses of the human brain. But no. The Evolution Master had a part for him to play. The sheltered boy, the misled child. And Thenabar would play that part, regardless of his distaste for it. So instead of responding as he wished, Thenebar pretended to be curious.

"How can you be sure that they're worthy of forgiveness?"

For a moment, the elder human hesitated. A flash of blonde hair, blue eyes, and naked flesh flashed into the headmasters mind, before vanishing behind his shields. Another moment passed, before he began to speak. "In this, you will simply have to trust me. It is a thing that can only be experienced, even secondhand, if one must."

"Do you know anyone like that?" Another flash, this time of a young girl with long straight hair. Guilt, regret, love, quite the interesting mix of emotions. Just what was Dumbledore burying under those shields? Well, didn't matter too much. Thenabar already had her image along with what went with them. It was enough to use, if he had to.

"Nobody that you would know, unfortunately. But, by the time, you reach my age, you will almost certainly meet some for yourself."

"Assuming I get that old," Thenabar injected a bit of melancholy into his words, mixed with the slightest bit of fear. The primal emotions were always a potent cocktail of manipulation. Boggarts had learned that lesson a long time ago.

"I'm quite sure you will," Dumbledore said.

"You don't know that," This, Thenabar knew, had to be carefully timed. A little panic at the beginning, "I could get killed by another troll." A slight build up afterwards, not quite hysteria, but borderline. "Or another wizard could find me and try to get Abathur," and now the climax, the final, the part that would pull it all together. Thenabar changed his voice to a higher pitch "Or Abathur could just decide to-," Thenabar slammed his mouth shut, and made his eyes panicked.

"Do what, Thenabar?"

Thenabar ignored him, and continued in a quavering tone. "He...he wouldn't, right? He wouldn't do that to me. I'm not getting in his way. Abathur wouldn't kill me. He wouldn't." Thenabar kept his breaths shallow and rapid. He pushed beads of moisture to his skin, mimicking sweat. He tensed his limbs and fixed his posture into a rigid position, adding a slight wobble to make it appear as if he was struggling to stay upright. To an observer, Thenabar looked just as if he was having a panic attack.

Dumbledore took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. He approached Thenabar and kneeled down, putting his arm around the zerg's body. He waited patiently for Thenabar to cease his charade. The spy kept the act going for a few more minutes before calming down, letting Dumbledore get his attention. He looked at the headmaster with an expression of surprise.

"Rest assured, Thenabar. For as long as you remain within the halls of Hogwarts, I will do my best to protect you from Abathur, or whatever else may threaten you. You have my word."

"Re-really?" Dumbledore nodded in return. Stuttering was really absurdly effective at faking emotional fragility. But Thenabar wanted to show more than instability. What exactly did he want Dumbledore to see here? Doubt, certainly. But the old man also needed to see hope in the promise of safety, something that Dumbledore would no doubt use to further increase Thenebar's "growth." So Thenebar allowed doubt to cross his face, with a teasing undercurrent of hope running beneath. From the feeling of gratification emanating off the terran, the charade worked quite well.

Thenabar stayed in Dumbledore's grasp for a few more minutes, before pulling himself out from under it, and returning his attention to one of his textbooks. The headmaster took that as his signal to leave. Before he could make his way out of the room, Thenabar spoke up once more.

"I'm sorry about Professor Snape," Thenabar said.

Dumbledore turned around, his mind radiating pleased surprise. "Thank you, Thenabar. That means more than you know." With that, he took his final steps out of Thenabar's cell, leaving him alone to his thoughts and his books. Really, it was almost too easy sometimes. If his boggart relatives had any real intelligence, they would have come to dominate this planet centuries ago.

(Transition)

Abathur hadn't worked with runes quite as much as he had wished to. When he had first learned of them, he had been ecstatic. It was the method, at last to cracking the mysteries of psionics wide open!

Excitement had quickly turned to frustration as the limitations of the art made themselves known in the most obnoxious ways possible. Putting two runes together was just as likely to cause them to explode as it was to perform any useful function. It was unintuitive at every point, oftentimes to the point of absurdity. Abathur had once blown his arm off dozens of times in a row trying to create just one rune sequence. What use he had gotten out of runes had almost exclusively been in a support role, utilized pre-made sequences with minor modifications. The second he had the opportunity to work with true essence once more, he had all but abandoned runes.

That was no longer an option.

Abathur's brood couldn't grow enough overlords, not with the biomass they had. Even with his dragons and acromantula hunting as much as they could, they couldn't bring in enough, not without attracting much more attention than he was comfortable with. So, what few overlords they could create had to be enhanced, focused, their psionic signal concentrated and amplified. That meant using runes. The evolution master already knew he didn't have the skills to make a sequence like that, and trial and error was just as likely to cost him all his overlords as it was to actually work. So, he needed something else to do it for him.

Abathur had the experiment study as much of runes as he possibly could within the confines of its cell. The rules, the theory, the symbols; every last scrap of knowledge he could get his hands on. The most fundamental rules of runes became known to the Swarm. Abathur could not work with those rules. They were too foreign, too alien. But it would be child's play to make something that could.

Physically, the weavers almost identical to acromantulas. They possessed the same massive suspended body, the same eight hairy legs, the same flexible mandibles. The difference was in their mind. The rules of runes had been embedded within their psyche, their neurons wired until they thought of, in, and with runes. The mystic symbols came as instinctually to them as breathing. Their abdomens swelled with the Hive, thousands of smaller beings scurrying to move the tiny strands exactly where their host desired. Their fangs were covered with the webbing used to form their schemes. All across the clearing, they wove their web, shaping it with dozens of mandibles. Where the webbing touched the creep, the creep grew over it, feeding the runes with raw power. Abathur had hoped he could get the creep itself to hold the runes, but, unfortunately, the weavers themselves took priority.

Still, Abathur's investment was quickly starting to pay off. Already a faint nimbus of power grew from the weavers' webs, narrowing as it drew higher. Abathur pressed against the wards with his own power. He was pleased to see the ward absorb his probe, before funneling the power towards the center, ready to release it at his command. Abathur left it. On its own, that little smidgen of power would accomplish nothing. His own failed attempts had already shown that. But with Luna's power added to his own, and the Overlords to carry it further, Abathur may once again be able to reach the full Swarm.

Creep tumor: Imagine a tumor, but more creepy. Also, it literally creeps around your body, spreading cancer around like the metastasizing little bitch that it is. They're not pleasant, but fortunately I also just made them up. Sort of...

Creep Tumor: Creep is essential to the Swarm. It provides nutrition for their structures and creatures. It grants them a massive movement advantage in their own territory. It allows the Swarm absolute perception of all that is within their reach. As such, it should come as no surprise that the Swarm has become increasingly adept at spreading it as far and as wide as possible. Their preferred methods for this are hatcheries and creep tumors, but creep tumors far more common. Laid by queens, creep tumors implant themselves into already laid creep, germinating for a moment, before disappearing beneath the purple carpet. From there, they extend the creep and monitor the area around them carefully, increasing the Swarm's awareness of their surroundings. Each creep tumor possesses the ability to reproduce exactly once, sending a tendril out to birth a new tumor, which in turn can birth another. Given time, its possible for a single creep tumor to cover an entire planet, although given the ease with which queens can lay new ones, this is rarely, if ever, necessary. Tumors, much like their namesake, spread virulently across planetary bodies, quickly becoming nearly impossible to stop. For every creep tumor destroyed, a dozen more are have already been spread, making stopping their spread completely a pipe dream. And to make matters worse, the tumors themselves are nearly impossible to detect, making their progress that much more difficult to curtail. And once the creep has spread, the Swarm is soon to follow.

A/N: In less Zerg related news, I'm now completely done with school until August. Hopefully, that will leave me a little more time for writing.