Ghosts of the Past

by Nimbus Llewelyn

Sequel to Child of the Storm. Harry's life has changed a lot over the past year, what with the return of his father, Thor, murder attempts by everything from HYDRA assassins to Elder Gods keeping him on his toes and making a few new friends. But while Chthon and HYDRA are gone, all sorts of dark things have been stirred up, things thought long gone. And guess who they're after...

55. Chapter 55: Mirror Image

Morning readers, one and all! (It would have been evening, but the upload process was broken - I've managed a work-around, after a false start. Thank you to all for the heads up). Allow me to welcome you to 2020, the second decade of this mammoth series, and, uh… 10 years on fanfiction dot net. Wow. That was a shock. Good lord, how the time has flown – though it has been busy. This chapter went a bit quicker than the last couple, partly because I had most of it already written up, as I do most of this arc, so hopefully they'll follow the same trend.

I'm doing this arc a little differently – it's more of a mini-arc, really, a 'Monster of the Week' episode, albeit an impactful one. That means it should be shorter, with less in the way of direct fallout. It should also be lighter, as a rule, though like many Buffy episodes along this line, it has some real horror in it. Smallville episodes weren't shy of it either, come to that – one of the earliest episodes was like, 'ah, the villain's a parody of Spider-Man, how fun… and he has stalker tapes of Lana Lang, and just ate his mother. Well, that escalated quickly'.

There'll be an interesting dynamic between Harry and Clark, a big-brotherly one on Harry's part, since he feels Clark needs looking after (if only to avoid making the same mistakes he has). As for Clark, he'll find Harry fascinating, kind of cool, wise, and someone he looks up to and wants to impress… even if he is a bit intense. Sort of like a blend of Clark himself and Lex, really – though Harry is capable of much more inventive nastiness than this version of Lex is… at the moment.

Anyhow, a couple of notices to pass out:

First, as an epileptic myself, I cannot state this strongly enough – NEVER, EVER, DO WHAT HARRY TRIES TO DO WHEN A CERTAIN CHARACTER HAS A SEIZURE. Restraining someone who's having a seizure only ends up hurting both you and them. Rather, do your best to ensure that they're not in a position to hurt themselves, make sure that they're not swallowing their tongue (do not stick your fingers in their mouth. This is both unhygienic and stupid, as they will likely bite you), and call an ambulance. Harry does it because he has reasons beyond just trying to restrain the character (he wants a closer look at the cause), and because, as he admits himself, he knows very little about sophisticated medicine.

Second, if you have an account, please, PLEASE check your PM settings to make sure that you can, in fact, receive replies. There is little more annoying for me than someone posing a question in a review which I cannot reply to, especially if that review is in the back catalogue of previous chapters. CrywolfSeven, this means YOU.

As for those without accounts, I would be much obliged if you would get one, if only to review. You don't have to write stories of your own, and I do my very best to reply to every single review (or at least, those more comprehensive than variations on 'moar pls'). If you still do not wish to, that is your choice and I respect it – however, it will impact my ability to reply to you.

Third, the PM notifications system is down. Please check your inbox every now and then if you've sent in a review – it may well be I've replied and no notification went through.

Now, with that out the way, let us get down to business with that long-awaited meeting…

The two teenagers, once boys who could have passed for twins, now young men who looked more like brothers, stared at each other for several long moments.

"You're…" Clark began, peering at Harry.

"Harry Thorson," Harry said, sticking out a hand, which Clark automatically shook. As he did, a silver bracelet on Harry's wrist caught the moonlight. "And you, unless I am very much mistaken, are Clark Kent."

Clark paused. "How do you," he began, then stopped, remembering. "Of course. You figured it out. You figured me out."

Harry raised an eyebrow, and Clark saw the unspoken question.

"Jean-Paul told me," he said. "He told me that you were staying away because you thought I was safer and happier here. That I'd be better off without adding your problems to mine."

"That's a good summary," Harry agreed, and his tone turned dry. "For some reason, I tend to attract trouble. Can't imagine why." His expression sobered. "And the people around me tend to get caught up in it, either involved in their own right, or as leverage by my enemies. I felt you had enough to be going on with."

"I can handle myself," Clark said, and immediately felt a little foolish. The kind of bad guys that Smallville produced were dangerous enough: the mortality rate, and some of the bruises he'd got, attested to that. But even with little more than the news, Chloe's research (a lot of which was impossible to verify), and sometimes cryptic comments from Jean-Paul, Alison Carter, and Agent Coulson to draw upon, he was very aware that some of the things that Harry had dealt with were on an entirely different scale.

"That's the impression I got," Harry agreed. "Against a lot of things. That's why I didn't feel any immediate need to step in and help you, or ask someone to do it for me."

"Jean-Paul told me," Clark said quietly. "About you wanting to protect me. And the sort of things you wanted to protect me from. Not much, but I put a few things together. I think I can see why you kept me out of it, why you thought it was safer, why you felt that I wasn't ready." He looked up and met Harry's gaze, a touch of defiance in his tone and eyes. "But that wasn't your call. It wasn't his, either. It's mine."

Harry met his gaze for a long moment, then smiled a little. "You're right," he admitted. "I felt the same way, when I was in your shoes. Of course, with what happened to me, you could argue that that means that I shouldn't have been allowed to make that call – that you shouldn't either." He paused for a moment, and his next words were thoughtful. "But it's wrong – and unfair – to assume that you'll make the same mistakes I did." His thoughtful expression briefly flickered into a blinding smile. "For one thing, I somehow doubt you're anywhere near as hardheaded."

"So… you changed your mind?" Clark hazarded.

"No, actually this wasn't my idea at all," Harry said. "Until just now, I was pretty much in the 'keep it secret, keep it safe' camp." He paused. "Well, actually, I had other things on my mind, so I wasn't even thinking about you. No offence – I've had a lot on my mind recently, and as you are, I didn't feel I had any need to worry about you."

"Um. None taken."

"Thanks," Harry said, before looking around. The gesture was a little ostentatious, compounding Clark's suspicion that Harry had already observed everything of importance and was just doing this for the sake of appearances. "So, this is…"

"Part of the loft," Clark said. "Mom and dad let me use it, for when I've got friends round, and when I want to do things like astronomy." He nodded at the telescope, then when he looked back at where Harry had been, found that he was now inspecting the telescope with what seemed like professional interest, having crossed the gap in the time it had taken Clark to look back – and, crucially, do so in absolute silence. If he had needed a reminder that the other boy wasn't much more human than he was, he had it now.

"Very nice," he said, then glanced up. "I study Astronomy at school," he explained. "Not entirely sure why, if I'm honest. I mean, yes, alignments of stars, planets, etcetera, can be signs of important magical events, or even be used to support heavy-duty magic. And then there's 'cosmic magic' that Loki has been hinting about, plus the sort of ley-lines of creation, which, admittedly, I've seen. Maybe that's what it's getting at. But I still don't get how memorising constellations and, oh, the details of the surface of Europa, is remotely relevant…" He trailed off and glanced up again, staring at a stunned looking Clark. "Sorry. Rambling. Why do you study the stars, Clark?"

"Cosmic magic?" Clark asked, a little feebly.

Harry smirked. "Short answer: magic is everywhere in the universe, same way gravity is. It's the fifth fundamental force of the universe, in fact," he said. "Also, my life is a incredibly strange. As a result, I used to wear that expression a lot. Now, mostly, I've just learned to roll with it."

Clark was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, "I wanted to see if I could find out where I came from. And if I did that…" He trailed off.

Harry tilted his head, watching him for a long moment. "But you don't anymore?" he asked.

Clark didn't answer. Not in words. But, involuntarily, his eyes darted to the wrapped crystals. Harry followed his gaze.

"Ah. Now, you know," he said quietly. "Some of it, at least. And you're not sure if you're glad you do. You're not sure if you want to know more."

Clark narrowed his eyes. "Jean-Paul told me what you can do," he said dangerously. "Stay out of my head."

"I'm not in your head," Harry replied. "I've read this script before. I wanted to know why I was different, when I was younger: why everyone called me a freak, why all sorts of strange things happened around me… I was ecstatic, at first, to find out the truth. Or at least, part of it. A small part. Even when I kept on finding out more – that I was part Asgardian, for instance. Now, there was a reason for it all, I knew that I was a part of something." He sighed. "But as I started to find out, not all of that 'something' – or somethings, plural – was good."

"Your," Clark began, before stopping.

"My uncle," Harry said, nodding. "He was part of it. But he wasn't all of it." He took a deep breath. "The world I found myself in was a lot more complicated than I realised. Brighter, in many places, but darker in others. And nothing was simple." He looked Clark in the eye. "You're probably thinking that I'm making knowing the truth sound less and less appealing. And no, I'm still not reading your mind. In fact, right now, I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"Why not?" Clark asked.

Harry bared his right wrist with a sour expression, revealing the silver bracelet. "Like I said: coming here wasn't my idea," he said. "This little thing inhibits my psychic abilities, limiting them to my body – I can use them to make myself stronger, faster, tougher, etcetera, but nothing from a distance. I might be able to read your mind if I was touching you, but certainly not from over here." He sighed. "It was also what brought me here. And it was clapped on my wrist by my eternally manipulative teacher, Doctor Strange. I see you recognise the name."

Clark had nodded. "Jean-Paul told me about him," he said.

Harry nodded. "Well, he made it to bring me here…" He glanced up at the sky, and frowned. "Now," he finished. "Which is either back in time by a few hours, or forward in time by a few more."

Clark's eyes widened. "Time travel?" he whispered.

"Time travel," Harry said quietly. "It's Strange's speciality – he uses it, and his ability to see the future, to manipulate time, and people, however he likes."

Clark felt ready to ask any number of questions, a lot of them pertaining to his origins, and what had happened to his people, and perhaps, just perhaps if it could have been/could still be prevented. Harry seemed to recognise this, and raised a hand.

"I know," he said. "I've had those sorts of questions for him before, and from what I can tell, you've got better reason than anyone to demand some honest answers from him – and believe me, I've had reason. But I can't give you those answers, Clark."

Clark deflated a little. "I suppose you can't," he said.

"Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault," Clark said, then glanced again at the crystals. "I might not like the answers, anyway."

"Clark."

Clark looked up, and met Harry's very serious gaze.

"Ignorance is only bliss in the short term, Clark," he said. "In my experience, the ghosts of the past have a habit of coming back to haunt you. Take it from someone who knows – good or bad, it's better to find out what it is. Whether you embrace it, or just come to terms with it, it's better than spending your life wondering." He looked down at the wrapped crystals. "The truth can hurt, Clark. But it's better for you in the long run."

Clark looked down at the crystals. "You're making it sound like I have to find out," he said angrily. "But what if I don't want to? What if I just want to make a life, my life, an ordinary, human life? A life here, on Earth, in Smallville, doing ordinary, human things?"

"Then I, personally, would respect that," Harry said, shrugging. "Jean-Paul prefers to keep to a relatively ordinary life. He'll fight, if it comes to it, but he won't seek out trouble. One of my cousins on the human side of the family, Jean, is the same. And I don't think any less of them for that." He looked thoughtful. "You know, most of the time, I think I'd prefer a relatively ordinary life. Well. Ordinary in the sense that I wouldn't have to fight for my life on a regular basis, anyway. Other times, I find myself enjoying it a bit."

He settled down onto one of the sofas, crossed his legs and regarded Clark.

"From what I hear, so do you. In fact, you spend a lot of time running around fighting bad people with superpowers. That's a good thing, but it's not exactly what I would call ordinary. Not even by the standards of people with superpowers, and believe me, I know."

Clark turned away sharply.

"Part of you wants a peaceful life," Harry continued. "Part of you just can't stop fighting the good fight, because you just can't stay away." He sighed. "You're probably getting tired of hearing this, because I'm getting tired of saying it, but believe me. I know."

Clark couldn't restrain a snort.

"Yeah, I'd probably feel that way too," Harry said somberly, standing up. "But I know how it feels: caught between choices, caught between worlds and responsibilities. You feel like you're being torn apart inside, with loyalties on both sides, and you can't bear to choose one because you feel like you're turning your back on the other. You have it even worse: you can hardly even bear to look at one, because you're terrified it'll drag you away from everything you are, and everyone you love, right here and now. You rationalise it, you bury it, you put a mask on that says you're okay, and you hope everyone believes it. On good days, you almost believe it yourself. But you know better. The fear and the uncertainty, the feeling that you're lying to everyone every single day, that you're betraying them with every breath… it doesn't go away. It just stays there and hurts. Hurts and hurts and hurts, sometimes so badly that you just want to curl up and cry, hoping against hope that it'll just stop."

Clark half-turned, to see Harry just on the edge of his reach – close enough to be a comfort, perhaps, but not so close as to be invasive if his presence was unwanted.

"Jean-Paul didn't do this," he said eventually.

"He told you to ignore it?" Harry asked, before frowning. "No… trying to pretend part of who you are isn't there? That's not Jean-Paul." He looked up and smiled wryly. "Let me guess. He refused to encourage you one way or another. He said it was up to you."

"He told me he didn't want to play devil's advocate, actually," Clark muttered, before flushing a little. "I think he thought that I was just looking for a fight over it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Was he wrong?"

Clark's flush deepened, providing its own answer.

"Ah," Harry said. "I'm not surprised – at Jean-Paul's response, I mean. In a lot of ways, he's very, very… practical. And he's used to doing things on his own. He probably thought that it was an emotional journey you should go on by yourself, that sort of thing." His expression softened. "I don't."

"You think I can't?" Clark asked, a little bitterly. "That I can't make it by myself?"

"I think you don't have to," Harry said gently. "It took me a long time to figure that out." He grinned briefly, teeth flashing in the moonlight. "Jean-Paul may not have mentioned that I'm a bit stubborn sometimes."

"Oh, he mentioned it," Clark said, a small smile creeping across his face, before looking down, once more, at the crystals. "You're saying that there's no real choice. Not really. I have to activate those crystals. But if I do…"

Harry stayed silent, letting it draw out the words that had so far remained unspoken.

"If I do," Clark began again, before taking a deep breath. "If I do… it'll change me." He looked up at Harry, blue eyes miserable and uncertain. "I don't want to change. I want to stay me."

Harry reached out and took him by the shoulder. "Want me to let you in on a secret, Clark?" he said. "Everyone changes. Everyone, all the time. Every time we learn something new, or make a new memory, we change. The person you are today is just a little bit different to the person you were yesterday. After all, the person you were yesterday, or even half an hour ago, hadn't met me, which I think we can both agree is a pretty big change. And let's turn it back a bit, to before Red Sky Day. The person you were then hadn't met Jean-Paul or seen the world almost end. Both of those are enormous changes. All the things you've seen and done since… you're a changed man, Clark Kent. Whatever knowledge is on those things over there, exploring it will change you. But you'll still be Clark Kent at the end of it."

Clark said nothing, instead reaching down and picking up the crystals, feeling their polished edges through Alison Carter's handkerchief, for the first time seriously considering activating them. Then, after thinking about it for a little longer, he slipped them into his pocket.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I… I'm not sure if I'm ready. Not yet. But…" He trailed off, not sure of how to explain what he felt. As it was, though, it was not needed: Harry just met his expression, and nodded.

"It's a big decision," he said. "Probably one best taken when whatever is up is resolved."

"Whatever is up?" Clark repeated, puzzled.

"I was sent here for a reason," Harry said. "Giving you some advice, the benefit of my experience, is probably part of it. But Strange never, ever, does anything for just one reason." He smiled a lopsided smile. "So tell me, Clark. Any monsters in the neighbourhood?"

OoOoO

As it turned out, there were none. Or at least, none that had the decency to be obvious, not to Clark's eye or, as it happened, to those of his parents – who, it had to be said, were dealing remarkably with the sudden appearance of yet another strange, superpowered teenager, even though this one did bear a startling resemblance to their own son.

"You're certain that something bad is about to happen, your highness?" Jonathan asked.

"Harry, please, Mr Kent," Harry said. "And I'm not certain. But I am pretty sure." He tapped the bracelet on his wrist. "Doctor Strange, my teacher, sent me here to deal with this. And yes, he knows who and what Clark is. He's, well – "

"We've heard about him," Martha said. "From Agent Coulson. He tends to know everything, apparently."

Harry nodded. "He's a time traveller and a very gifted seer, among many, many other things, one of which is sometimes a complete wan –"

He stopped suddenly, as if remembering his company, and coughed, looking embarassed. "Well. He quite literally threw me into this, and in the process, he also restricted my psychic powers. They're touch based for the time being, probably to prevent me from just waiting for the next attempt on Clark, tracking it back, and knocking out whoever's behind it, all in about five seconds flat. Or just scanning the town."

"Hang on, your teacher is using this as a test?" Clark asked in disbelief.

"Almost certainly," Harry said. "Though, like I said earlier, I'm willing to bet that he has at least three more reasons for doing this. He usually does." He smiled wryly at the Kent family's expressions. "Like I said: at times, he can be a complete thing-I-will-not-mention-because-I-get-the-feeling-you-don't-like-swearing."

Martha concealed a smile, before sharing a serious look with her husband. "Is Clark in danger?" she asked, thinking as she asked on the incongruity of asking such a question of a young man hardly any older than her son, their resemblance even more striking and uncanny.

Harry, for his part, sat back with an expression of professional thoughtfulness on his face. "I don't know," he said eventually. "Whatever it is, Strange clearly thinks that either I can handle it without my psychic powers, or Clark and I can handle it together. That still leaves a lot of room for something – or someone – to be dangerous. Especially as it's not clear what it is." He leaned forward. "Is there anything, anything at all, you've noticed that's out of place? Something odd, unusual, so minor that you'd normally ignore it completely –"

Harry stopped and stared hard at Clark, who had just let out a rather forceful sneeze.

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"I thought your voice sounded a little thick earlier," Harry said. "I attributed it to…" He glanced at Martha and Jonathan, then said, "nothing in particular. It didn't stand out enough for me to really notice."

"It's just a cold," Clark said, bewildered.

"You think it's something more?" Jonathan asked sharply.

"Hmm." Harry's tone was non-committal, but his expression was intent, seeming to study every inch of Clark's face and bearing.

"We thought it might be mild flu, what with how it's been sticking around," Martha added, now sounding worried.

"Mom, dad, I'm fine," Clark said insistently. He met Harry's gaze. "I'm fine," he repeated, words punctuated by a jaw-cracking yawn.

The look he received was decidedly sceptical.

"Either way, it's well past time for bed, Clark," Martha said. "Even if it is just a cold, you could do with some rest."

Clark let out a half-hearted grumble, but acquiesced, heading up the stairs with reasonable alacrity. As he did, Martha turned to Harry.

"If you want, we can make something on the sofa for you, Harry," she said.

"Thank you, Mrs Kent," Harry said. "But I think I should stay up tonight. Something doesn't quite sit right about this cold – or flu – of Clark's."

"How do you mean?" Jonathan asked, frowning.

"Has Clark ever had a cold – or a flu – before?" Harry asked.

The Kent parents traded an uneasy look. "Not so far as we can remember," Martha said. "You think that's significant?"

"I do," Harry said, frown deepening. "See, Clark's physically well beyond human, all the way around. Once I found out about him, I did a bit of research. It wasn't hard – I already had a pretty good idea where he came from." At Martha and Jonathan's expressions, he smiled wryly. "You've noticed the resemblance, I'm guessing? So did I. And long before I knew about Clark, a little over a year ago, my grandmother told me about who dad and I resemble – me normally, dad when he's… in the form he had when I was born is the best way I can put it. Well, not the best, but the quickest. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, one of Clark's ancestors was fostered in Asgard, alongside my grandfather and his brothers. In the process, there were a lot of medical notes… notes which included all the various superpowers he ended up with under a 'yellow' sun, and exactly how they developed."

"And a… super-immune system is one of those powers?" Jonathan guessed.

Harry nodded. "Enhanced physique equals enhanced healing and an incredibly strong immune system," he said. "That should mean no illnesses, at all. Trust me, I live with Captain America, the man who probably only survived to twenty by being too stubborn to die." He paused, snorted, muttered something about how it was 'probably hereditary', then added, "Anyway, the super-soldier process cured him of everything. As far as I know, he hasn't been ill, from a disease, since. For my part, as I've started taking after dad, I've noticed that I've been avoiding colds too." He sat back, rubbing his jaw. "Which makes it really, really suspicious that Clark's got one now."

Martha raised an eyebrow. "You think that your teacher sent you here to cure Clark's cold?" she asked sceptically.

Harry smiled wryly. "Somehow, I doubt it," he said. "If he just wanted Clark cured, he'd have done it himself, and you'd never even have known he was there. And sending me to cure Clark? Too simple. Doctor Strange never does anything for just one reason, let alone anything that obvious. In any case, healing magic is way out of my area of expertise."

"Out of your area of expertise?" Jonathan echoed, eyebrow raised.

"I know next to nothing about it," Harry said frankly. "Cuts, bruises, broken bones… I can heal those, picked up a spell or two, here and there. It's not hard – as injuries go, they're pretty simple. But real healing magic, the serious stuff, is an entirely different story. It's complex, it's delicate, and some of the most difficult there is. You're meddling with the very forces of life itself, the powers of creation, and that is not something you do lightly. Especially not with magic. Magic is alive, and while I'm not sure if I'd say it has a mind of its own…" He trailed off. "It can be slippery," he said eventually. "And there's more of chaos about it than most practitioners generally want to admit."

He met the Kents' gazes with a serious expression.

"That means that when you're using magic, you have to be careful, to make sure you don't slip," he said. "With a relatively simple spell, you can usually get away with it, but even then. That was one of my very first lessons when I started using it: be careful."

He took a deep breath. "That particularly applies to healing. When you're mucking around with someone's immune system, or their insides in general, you really have to know what you're doing," he said. "I don't. The healing magic I do know is mostly just encouraging the body to do what it normally would, but giving it the power to do it faster, plus resetting the odd bone here and there. As for bone-setting, I prefer to use my telekinesis, since psychic energy doesn't have a mind of their own. And even with that..."

He trailed off again. "I've used my powers, any of them, to try any kind of sophisticated healing once. It was with my psychic powers, on someone who gave their full and informed consent." He paused. "Or at least, as informed as I was, which wasn't anywhere near as informed as either of us should have been." He shook his head. "That lack of information turned something relatively simple into a spectacular mess. Oh, neither of us got hurt, strictly speaking, and the side-effects were actually pretty positive. But it could very easily have been much, much worse. Clark's problem is almost certainly much more complex. I doubt if I could fix it, and frankly..."

"The Law of Unintended Consequences," Martha said quietly. "You're saying that you wouldn't even want to risk trying something because it have unanticipated side-effects."

Harry nodded. "That more or less sums it up," he said.

"It would have been a little quicker if you'd put it like that," Jonathan said, a hint of wry amusement in his voice.

Harry's lips quirked into a similarly wry smile. "I've been told – usually by my girlfriend – that I'm a little overdramatic sometimes," he admitted. "But there was a reason for telling you that. I wanted you to know how serious this could be… and that I'm not dismissing the option lightly. If I thought I could cast a spell and cure Clark, even if it is just some kind of ordinary cold that's somehow got past his immune system, then I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"Thank you," Martha said, after a moment, echoed by her husband. "Do you have any idea what it might be?" she added. "You don't seem to think it's natural."

"No," Harry said. "I don't." He drummed his fingers for a moment. "Like I said, medical magic isn't my speciality. Complex and delicate stuff in general, isn't, actually. Illusions, yes, senses, yes, but I've had a lot of training in both and they cross over with my psychic stuff. Rather, it's energy manipulation. I can sense all sorts of different kinds, and, well, manipulate them. As a result, I do the basics very, very well. Combine that with a gift for pyromancy, a lot of creativity, a dash of pragmatism, and some hard-earned lessons…" He smiled the cocky, lopsided smile of a typical fighter pilot, one that almost concealed the hardened edge of experience in his eyes. "Then if I say so myself, when it comes to combat magic, I can dance with the finest in the world. Because that is my speciality."

Then, the smile fell away, replaced by a pensive frown. "And I think that's why I'm here," he said. "There's something unnatural about this cold, flu, whatever it is. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever this is, it goes back quite a long way."

"How do you mean?"

Harry was about to answer, when he cocked his head sharply, before exploding into motion, surging up the stairs in little more than a blur. A half-instant after he started moving, the Kents caught a faint sound – a tinkle of breaking glass, followed by the wheezing choke of someone struggling to breathe. As they would later realise, by the time they heard it, they were both already halfway up the stairs and still accelerating.

What they found was a scene out of nightmares. Clark, in shirt and underwear, eyes open but wide and unseeing, was seizing, limbs flailing and twitching in mid-air, whirling in place as if spinning underwater water, crying out in wordless fear. Harry, mouth bloody from a stray blow and set in a grimace of determination, was trying to restrain Clark, thighs clamping Clark's arms to his sides like a vice and hands wrapped around Clark's head, trying to get a grip. As the Kents barrelled in, Harry's eyes widened at something only he could see, his grip temporarily loosening, and Clark flung him off. The teenage demigod flew in a flat trajectory through the inside wall, the hall, the room after that, and out the other side with a hideous, continuous roar of impact and exploding wood.

Clark, apparently unaware of this and not reassured by it, continued to writhe and twist in mid-air, with whatever Harry had done to make him float keeping him that way, lashing out in frustration and fear, almost as if he was struggling he couldn't see. And though he was already larger than many grown men, to his parents, he seemed like little more than frightened child.

"Clark!" Martha called out. "Clark, calm down, it's okay!"

"We're here, son," Jonathan said, pitching his voice to carry.

For a moment, this seemed to get through to Clark, his airborne struggles ceasing, and Martha prepared to go and comfort him, calm him, as she had through many of his childhood nightmares. Jonathan, for his part, was about to take the stairs as fast as he could and try to find their violently ejected house guest, who would hopefully be both okay and understanding of the situation.

But this was just a false hope, a moment's lull, as Clark's torment resumed and one of his arms lashed out in a flailing blur, almost taking Martha's head off. Jonathan, for his part, instantly yanked Martha back out of reach, and as he did, glimpsed something through the hole that Harry's passage had left – a tall, dark figure figure with eyes that burned like golden suns, and something thin and pointed in his right hand.

"No, don't," he began in a panic, but before he could get any further, the figure bent in a low crouch and surged forward, barely visible to the naked eye, whipping around them in a rough circle. Almost instaneously, Clark relaxed, eyes flickering as he dropped out of the air, straight into the arms of the figure that, in the reflections of the glow from his eyes, Jonathan now realised was Harry.

Handling Clark with remarkable tenderness, he leaned over for a moment to drop the thin object – which in the dim glow, Jonathan vaguely recognised as a board marker – on the bedside table, before laying Clark down on his bed and muttering a phrase in what sounded like Latin.

"Lumos solem."

A small glowing globe, radiating the warm, buttery-gold light of a late summer evening, popped into existence above Clark's bed. As it did, Harry rested his hand on Clark's brow and began to murmur more words, a repeated refrain in that strange not-quite Latin tongue.

"Dorme. Dorme, Dorme, Morpheus. Dorme. Dorme, Dorme, Morpheus. Dorme. Dorme, Dorme, Morpheus."

The words rolled through the room, joined by a very light, thin silvery mist the psychic equivalent of a fluffy blanket and a warm mug of cocoa after a long day, drawing stifled yawns from both Kent parents, who watched in mingled fear for their son and wonder at they were witnessing. To their relief, though, the lines of tension on Clark's face smoothed away as the chant rolled over him, muscles relaxing, body untensing and falling back into true sleep with a relieved sigh. After this, around the dozenth repetition, Harry sat back, the chant apparently finished, and closed his glowing eyes with an effort, bowing his head.

"Is he…" Martha began.

"He'll be fine now," Harry said in a curt monotone, without looking up. "I surprised them. They won't try it again. Not tonight. Still…"

He opened his eyes, eyes that were green once more, but – and it could have been a trick of the sunlit globe hovering over Clark's bed – still carried a smouldering hint of that golden glow. For a long moment, he stared at Clark, then down at his own hands, as if debating with himself, being grimacing and standing up. His movements, the Kents noticed, had a strange, flowing grace about them that wasn't quite human, and seemed only barely controlled. In fact, 'barely controlled' seemed to describe much of his demeanour right now, his entire posture thrumming like a guitar string. "Someone should stay with him. Just in case they try again, and manage to get through. One or both of you, I don't care which. But if either of you wants or needs something from outside of this circle –" He gestured at the pen-marked rough circle on the floor. "You'd best say it now."

Martha and Jonathan shared a look, and noticing it, Harry added, "I can break it and fix it again, as many times as necessary. It's just that I'm going through now." His gaze settled on Clark. "He really should have someone with him. For security reasons if nothing else." His expression and tone softened, touched with regret as he took in the devastation around him. "And to explain things, when he wakes up."

"I'll go," Martha said. When Jonathan raised an eyebrow, she met his gaze firmly, and he conceded the point with a minute nod.

True to his word, Harry broke the circle by crossing it, waited until she crossed it, then fixed it in a matter of moments with a flare of silver light. She half-suspected that the light wasn't actually necessary to the process, like revving an engine, but didn't ask. Instead, she watched the boy who looked so much, and at the same time, so little, like her son, as he surveyed the damage his unexpected exit from the house had done.

"We'll manage," she said, just in case he felt guilty. "I'll get some sheets, block up the holes – oh."

Harry had just flicked a wrist at the hole, almost impatiently, muttering another strange word – "Reparo" – and before her very eyes, it began to pull itself back together. Throwing an astonished look over her shoulder at her husband, who, looking just as baffled, just shrugged as if to say, 'let's just go with it'. Martha, for her part, felt this was a wise attitude, then hurried after the uncanny teenager, who headed down the stairs and out of the house, moving in the kind of carefully controlled fashion she recognised from Clark when he was particularly afraid of breaking something, possibly by breathing too hard.

As soon as he was out the door and away from all potential breakables, he lengthened his stride, heading out towards the wood-pile, where there was a significant amount of uncut wood. Clark had been going to do it, before his illness had steadily decreased his work rate. Well, 'illness' – as Harry had implied, it was nothing of the kind. Or at least, not a natural one. Whatever the cause, now, there was something of a backlog, one that would take even Clark a few minutes.

As it was, Harry whipped his shirt off, balling it up and throwing it to one side, before wrenching the buried axe from the ground without breaking step, sweeping a hand along its edge, and setting a lump of wood on the tree stump. He stared at it for a moment, pale skin gleaming in the moonlight. Remarkably, there was hardly any sign of bruising and scatching from where Clark had hurled him through the house and out the other side; just a few cuts and faded bruises that seemed to be fading before her eyes.

He was not, Martha noticed, quite as solidly built as Clark, who was very much the image of a farmboy with regular outdoor chores or a young football player who was still growing into his full size, with an occasionally puppyish look about him. Rather, he looked more like a gymnast or a swimmer, all lean muscle and balanced grace. What stood out in the moonlight, though, was not his muscles. It was the scars, serious scars, silvery-white reminders that this young man led a very dangerous life.

Even at a glance, she could see at least four; two on his chest and disquietingly close to his heart, both of which were definitely puncture wounds; a third in the shoulder, another puncture wound, this time from something rather larger, surrounded by a cluster of fading pink branches that looked almost like ferns; and a reddish scar on his forehead, half concealed by his fringe – a fringe including a thick white lock which, to Martha's eye, didn't look dyed, leading to the question of where that had come from – in the shape of a stylised lightning bolt.

And those, she thought with a tinge of unease, were just the ones that had lasted this long. How many had already faded away? More to the point, if these scars had lasted… just how bad had they been to begin with?

As she thought, Harry hefted the axe, and brought it down in a blur, splitting it effortlessly, before tossing it aside. Martha, correctly suspecting that he would continue in this vein for some time, made herself comfortable as Harry set to work with the rhythm of a metronome.

Eventually, after a pile of wood that reached up to his waist grew beside him, he stopped and let out an explosive sigh as he dropped the axe.

"Feel better?" Martha asked.

"A bit, Mrs Kent," Harry said, looking and sounding a lot more like an ordinary teenager than he had only a little earlier. "I'm sorry for being a little curt, earlier. This, what's happening to Clark… it pushes a few buttons for me." He shook his head. "I shouldn't have left him alone."

Martha frowned. "How do you mean?"

"I'm pretty certain I know what's happening to Clark," Harry said.

"You know what's causing it?"

Harry shook his head. "Not for sure. I recognise the effect, more or less, but not the cause," he said. "Previously, it's been either a psychic effect or directly through blood. This wasn't either. No, this felt like magic, dark magic, and done from miles away."

"Do you know how to stop it, then? Like earlier?" Martha asked.

Harry shook his head again. "That was a stopgap," he said. "Someone was using magic to get at Clark. I put up a magic circle, which essentially cut him off from any outside magical energy – sort of like a signal jammer. But circle magic has limitations, especially if this person is getting at Clark the way I think they might be. So the circle should work in the short-term. I think."

"You think?"

Harry nodded."I've got a lot of power, and a lot more experience than most with… life draining, I suppose," he said. "And whoever was behind it… we connected briefly, when I got a grip on Clark and trying to calm him down. When we did, I'm pretty sure that they sensed how strong I was. That and having the door shut in their face by a magic circle after… how long has Clark had this 'cold'?"

"About a month now."

"Well, after a month being able to act with impunity, they suddenly found themselves confronted with something very powerful and, frankly, very angry, which – as far as they knew – knew exactly what they were doing," Harry said. "For all they know, they've stirred up some kind of guardian angel." His expression turned wry. "Which wouldn't be too far off the truth." He shook his head. "Anyway, they've hit something unexpected, something that shut them out hard and fast, something which they fear is now onto them. That would make anyone stop and think. So my guess is that they won't try anything tonight, maybe not even tomorrow night. But I could still be wrong."

"It's still an informed guess," Martha noted. "A pretty well informed one."

Harry grimaced. "Yes and no," he said. "I recognise what's going on; life drains, energy drains, vampires… I've seen them before. But like I said, there's more than one way to do it, and this is one I'm not familiar with. What happens next depends entirely on what sort of person – or creature – we're dealing with. Who, or what, has the means, the motive, and the opportunity."

"The equation of a crime," Martha said, nodding.

"Exactly," Harry said. "That's the long term solution: I find the person behind this, and make them stop."

"How?" Martha asked, watching him carefully.

The young man who looked so much like her son met her gaze, and smiled a faint smile that was far too old was for his features, a smile that said he knew exactly what she was carefully not asking. "If you'll forgive me, that's not the question you should be asking, Mrs Kent," he said.

"Then what is?" she asked him, expression carefully controlled.

"How do I make them stay stopped?" Harry said. "If they're some magical monster, then that's pretty easy: I turn them into a very small pile of ash, or possibly goo, and then it's all over bar the after-party. If they're a human practitioner, a human who can use magic, then that's a bit more complicated."

"In what way?" Martha asked guardedly.

Harry met her gaze for a long moment, then, in a measured voice said, "I don't kill people, Mrs Kent. Not if I can possibly avoid it."

"I'm sorry, I just –" Martha began, ashamed, before stopping as she registered that last part. "'Not if I can possibly avoid it'?" she echoed.

There was a long silence. "Sometimes, there isn't another way," Harry said eventually, voice soft and sad. "Even with all the powers I've got. You see, sometimes, they aren't enough. Sometimes, they were half the problem. You see, there was something of a learning curve. A steep one. Especially once they started growing faster than I could keep up with. It didn't help that I wasn't willing to even touch some of them to begin with, either." He grimaced. "That nearly got several people, people I care about, killed."

There was another long silence as Harry gathered his thoughts.

"I've been in life or death fights since I was eleven," he said. "Some because people want to kill me, someone because they want to control me, some because I couldn't keep out of trouble if you paid." He smiled humourlessly. "Some because of all of the above." He shook his head. "Dad and the others, the Avengers, they've tried to keep me out of it where they can. But they have limits. And when I got into those fights… most of them, it was before I figured out how to take a third option. All I could do was get out alive." His hand drifted down to the silvery scars on his chest, over his heart. "Sometimes, I didn't even manage that." He shook his head. "Some fights, there wasn't a third option. And some of them…" He took a deep breath. "Well. It depends."

"On what?"

"On how you define 'people'," Harry said. "And how you define 'I' and 'me'."

Then he told her another tale, one that set Martha's head spinning all over again. This time, the tale was about Sinister's clones; Subject Zero, and the so-called 'Red Army', the last defiance of the Red Room before the wrathful vengeance of the Dark Phoenix. His wrath. His vengeance.

"I'm not sure if they were really alive," Harry said, voice flat and uninflected. "Copies, clones, nothing more than robots that happened to breathe." He paused. "And then there was… a vampire. Someone I'd known." This time, his tone sounded like someone trying to convince themselves of something, who mostly believed it, but wasn't quite sure. "But he was dead, dead and gone, and he'd probably been gone even before he'd become a vampire. Either way, I put him down for good."

He sighed. "But I wish I hadn't had to," he said softly.

"Of course you do," Martha said. Mind-boggling story or not, she'd heard tones like this before. "I've seen that same look on Clark's face. We've had more than a few superhumans gone bad in Smallville – apparently it's something to do with the meteor rocks. Clark's stood up to many of them, because until recently, he's the only one who could. He stops them and tries to save them… but he can't always. And he blames himself."

"He wasn't actually trying to kill them, though," Harry said quietly. "I know about what Clark's faced, and… I'm good at reading people. Even without my powers. Clark's not a killer. He doesn't have the mentality for it." His expression turned bitter. "I do."

"That's not what I meant," Martha said. "You might be able to do that. But I think I'm a pretty good judge of people too. Especially young people who've had to grow up far too fast." She smiled slightly. "The fact that you look a lot like my son helps." The smile faded. "My point is that even though you were a child, backed into a corner and fighting for your life against some very human monsters, often with little to no control of what was happening, acting clear cases of self-defence… it bothers you."

"I don't like killing," Harry said eventually. "And Red Army and vampires aside, whether you count them or not, I haven't killed anyone since," he said, and Martha noticed the emphasis on the pronoun. He smiled, brief and sour. "Let's just say that I haven't always been the one in charge of my body. So I'm not the one doing things… though in one or two cases, that's not for lack of trying." The smile faded. "And I've done other things. Things that are arguably worse than killing." He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "A few months ago, I effectively lobotomised five dark wizards. They were going to kill my friends, and I didn't have time, it was that or…" He trailed off. "I reacted."

After that, he didn't say anything for a long time. Martha hadn't interrupted, either with commentary or platitudes. She recognised a confessional when she heard it, a need to unburden oneself of sins (both real and perceived) and cares, to work through problems out loud. She also wasn't entirely surprised that he was talking to her, a relative stranger – sometimes it was easier that way. When he finally spoke again, it was in a tired voice.

"It's part of why I've been staying away from Clark," he said. "I didn't want him to be in a position where he had to make those choices."

"That's… I appreciate it," Martha said, after several long moments when a panoply of horrors like those described to her, horrors enough for a lifetime of wars crammed into a scant few months, paraded before her eyes, with Clark in a starring role as the victim. "How did you figure it out, anyway?"

"Chance and a bit of deduction," Harry said, and smiled wryly. "I was trying to find Jean-Paul, and he was in Kansas at the time. I wondered what he was doing there, did a bit of digging, and a bit of guessing, and figured it out."

Martha nodded, frowning. "But if you can figure it out, so can others. Lex Luthor did. And so did whoever's behind what's happening to Clark."

Harry bobbed his head in acknowledgement. "It's possible," he admitted. "Though like I said, I got lucky, and technically speaking, so did Lex. Plus, he's one of the smartest people I've run across, and I've run across a few. It's something to think about, though. I mean, why else would they have targeted Clark in the first place? But I'm not sure if they did." He folded his arms. "See, there's a couple of differences between this person, whoever they are, and me and Lex. And the main difference is that Lex and I knew what we were looking for. So…"

"… how did whoever is behind this work it out?" Martha finished. "How did they know to look?"

"Or did they just stumble upon it?" Harry wondered aloud, descending back into thought.

Martha paused. "You never said, exactly," she said. "About what you would do if whoever was behind this was human."

"Probably given them to SHIELD," Harry said. "Though, if they've been doing some other kind of black magic, one that's broken the Laws of Magic, then I could just throw them to the White Council's complete lack of mercy and have done with it…"

"Excuse me? White Council? Laws of Magic?" Martha asked, confused.

Harry took a deep breath and set down the axe. "Okay, this'll take a bit of explaining."

And all Martha could do was sit and stare as a torrent of words rushed around her. Words about how there were entire communities of magical people living often in plain sight, and had been for centuries, even millennia. Words about how those communities were sub-divided into nations, but more prominently, into two separate kinds, almost – Wandless and Wanded – the former of which were led by the White Council; an ancient organisation with just Seven Laws, the Laws of Magic. And if you broke one of those Laws, just one and just once, even in total ignorance, then they would find you. And unless they thought you were worth salvaging, they would kill you.

"But with the possible exception of the Law against Enthralment, mind control, the Laws only apply to mortals, which means humans – magical or otherwise," Harry finished.

"Does that mean –" Martha began, worried, latching onto this point.

"That Clark would be seen as fair game?" Harry asked, and frowned. "Honestly, I don't know. What with Earth having dealt with aliens in the past, on several occasions, not just the Battle of New York, I suspect that there's an answer. But if there is, I don't know it."

"And whoever's doing this… even if those laws do apply to Clark, I don't think any of them have been broken," Martha said. "I mean, he's still…" She trailed off, looking back up at the house.

"Still alive," Harry said evenly, meeting her gaze, emerald eyes blazing. "And he's staying that way, Mrs Kent, I promise. Someone is draining energy, draining life, from Clark like milk through a straw, which is the sort of thing that I take extremely personally. Trust me: they are going to regret it."

"It happened to a friend of yours," Martha said, reading his expression. "That's where you've seen it before."

Harry nodded. "A couple, actually, in a couple of different ways," he said, and froze suddenly, before letting out a humourless laugh. "Oh, and it's happened to me too."

As he did, Martha found another troubled thought coming to the top of her mind. Jean-Paul had alluded to how awful Harry's life could get, directly to them, and indirectly to Clark, and Harry himself had revealed some more, both in what he'd said and in the scars that adorned his body. But how bad could things get for a young man, a boy, could forget something like that?

OoOoO

Clark Kent woke up to the sight of a miniature sun hanging approximately four feet above his bed. If he had been like Harry, he would either have merely raised an eyebrow, or immediately rolled out of bed into an instinctive defensive position. Since, unlike Harry, he was a relatively normal teenage boy, his reaction was to yelp and scramble backwards.

"Easy, Clark, easy!"

"Dad?" Clark asked, looking over at his father, whose presence in his room was in some ways even more surprising than that of a glowing ball of what looked – and felt – like sunlight. Even more surprising was how tired he looked; face unshaven, clothes rumpled, and with bags under his eyes, he looked like he'd had a long, hard night. This left Clark feeling rather guilty for not only feeling well-rested but, on consideration, positively brimming with energy. His father didn't seem to feel any resentment, however, instead smiling at him with a mixture of happiness and relief.

"Hey, son," he said. "It's all right."

Clark eyed him for a few moments. Then, he looked up at the ball of sunlight, down at the slightly rough black circle that encased most of his room, including the bed he was lying on, and finally at the rest of the room – which, per flickers of memory from the previous night, should not have been so intact.

"Dad," he began. "What happened last night?"

His father sighed a tired sigh. "It's a long story," he said. "I'll tell you as you get washed and dressed, if you feel up to it."

"I do," Clark said, and blinked. "Huh."

"Clark?"

"My throat, it doesn't feel dry the way it did yesterday," Clark said. "Actually, I feel great. Well, not great, great, but better than I have for a while." He looked up at the ball of sunlight, hesitantly reaching out to it. As he did, it flickered and began to fade, seeming to stretch fingertips of energy towards him, brushing against his skin like an affectionate cat pressing against his hands for attention. "Is that why?"

"It might be," Jonathan said. "Harry was pretty sparing with explanations by that point."

"Harry… Harry Thorson," Clark said, nodding slowly. "I remember. He came to visit. We chatted, in the loft, then he came in, you and mom sent me up to bed, and then…"

"You had some kind of fit," his father said. "Or something like a fit and a nightmare rolled into one."

Clark nodded again, frowning. "I… oh god, I threw Harry! He was trying to hold me still, but I threw him right… through… the wall?" He looked around, baffled. There was no structural damage in sight. In fact, there seemed to be no damage at all.

"You did," his father said. "Went through the entire house and out the other side, and didn't stop 'til he went through half a dozen trees in the woods. Don't worry, he was fine. Hell, he didn't even look bruised. By the time he came back in, he seemed to have figured out what was up – he drew that magic circle around the bed, created that little ball of sunshine, fixed the house with a wave of his hand, and lit out of here with your mother."

Clark swung his legs out of bed, making to stand up.

"Careful, Clark – oh," his father began, making to stop him and help him up.

As it happened, Clark could stand up just fine. In fact, he was floating, just a couple of inches off the floor. As they both stared at his feet, he dropped back to Earth with a small thump. In the background, the globe of sunshine flickered its last and died.

"I'll, uh, just go and wash up, shall I?" Clark said, voice betraying his confusion.

"Yeah, you go ahead," his father said, looking no less baffled.

Clark headed out of the room, grabbing his towel, before pausing and sticking his head back in. "Dad," he said. "Did Harry say exactly what was happening? To me?"

"Not exactly," his father said. "When he left, he didn't look to be in a talking mood." At his son's questioning look, he sighed. "I don't know, Clark. But I think he's seen something like this before."

"Good," Clark said.

"Good?"

"Then he can tell me what's going on."

OoOoO

Martha, who had been entertaining similar questions, didn't get a direct answer any more than Clark or Jonathan did. Instead, as the sun began to rise, Harry insisted on completing Clark's usual chores, before going inside, politely requesting use of their shower, and being granted it, along with use of a plaid shirt and jeans of Clark's that Martha more or less pressed upon him. He had then insisted on cooking breakfast. At this point, Martha had put her foot down, and the resultant compromise was that they would do it between them. As she noted, to her mild surprise (teenage boys not generally being known for cooking anything more complicated than toast), he was very good at it.

That got a wry smile. "I've had practise," he said, before adding somewhat enigmatically, "at least now, I'm putting it to good use."

With breakfast on the go, he pulled a notebook and pen seemingly out of midair. It was full of closely written text, which was soon added to as he started scribbling notes. These notes were interspersed with detailed questions, some logical ('when did this start?'), others seemingly less so ('has Clark recently had a haircut? If so, where?').

Some of these questions were repeated when Clark, awake and looking rather better, descended the stairs, closely followed by his father, who was watching for the very first sign of wobbly legs. First, though, he stopped and stared at Harry, who in plaid shirt and jeans looked even more uncannily like him than before, and vice versa. Harry, for his part, stopped and stared back.

There was a long moment of silence, before Harry dryly said, "I know. It might be a shock to see it, but you really are nearly this devastatingly handsome. Nearly."

"Really? Because I wasn't aware that the hay-stack look was back in fashion," Clark said, nodding at Harry's hair, which even cut short, was still sticking up every which way, possibly as a result of having all the water removed from it by magic at once.

"It is now," Harry said, glib tone contrasting with his expression as his gaze ran over Clark, before his eyes suddenly shifted out of focus and his head tipped slightly, as if he was consulting senses beyond the usual five. After a few moments, he nodded. "You seem fine," he said.

"I feel fine," Clark said. "Not one hundred percent, but getting there."

"Until the next time whoever's behind this has a go at you and you're not in that circle," Jonathan said, frowning.

"Which leads us to what we need to figure out now," Harry said. "Finding whoever's doing this, and then figuring out what to do with them if they're mortal, which usually but not always means human. If they're some kind of magical monster, likely a vampire, then I'll destroy them, but..."

"You don't think they are," Martha said.

"There's something about this that says 'human' to me," Harry said. "I couldn't tell you what it is, but it feels human. In which case, imprisoning them wouldn't be too much of a problem – SHIELD can handle that, then probably hand them off to one of the local magical authorities for trial. Or, if they've broken one of the Laws of Magic, then the White Council can take them."

"Laws of Magic?" Jonathan and Clark asked in puzzled unison.

"It's a long story," Martha said wryly, getting a chuckle from Harry, before he turned to Jonathan and Clark.

"In short? They're the Ten Commandments of the magical world, starting with 'Thou shalt not kill'," he said. "Except there's seven, and the White Council handle law breakers. Permanently." He raised a hand. "It's not nice, or pretty, but I've seen dark magic and what it does to people at close quarters. And I think it's necessary. Black magic corrupts, enough that it generally doesn't take long for someone to go from 'best intentions' to 'Jack the Ripper'. That's not the issue, though, and it may not even apply."

"Why not?"

"Because what's being done to Clark isn't technically breaking any of the Laws, mainly because he's not dead," Harry said, and drummed his fingers thoughtfully. "So they'd only be relevant if they'd broken one of the Laws against someone else… unless whoever's behind this is keeping the drain manageable explicitly to avoid breaking the First Law." He waved it away. "The main problem, though, is what they'd know about Clark – at the very least, that he's got bucket-loads of raw power, power he has very little idea how to truly use."

Clark looked offended, and Harry noticed.

"From what I've seen, your fine control is excellent, Clark," he said. "In fact, it's incredible. I'm super-strong, but unless I'm consciously enhancing my strength, you're way beyond me. Despite that, I'm the one who sometimes squashes doorknobs and breaks glasses, not you. And while I can boost myself up to your level and beyond, when I do, I only touch things I wouldn't mind breaking. I can turn it off. You don't have that luxury. Yet, you've beaten a number of the bad guys, who're mostly no stronger than human, without killing them. Most were taken out with a super-fast blow to the back of the head, and pretty much all of them came to with concussions at worst."

"So?" Clark asked, puzzled.

"So the head is vulnerable," Harry said. "Even human-strength blows to the head can kill. With your strength, your speed, it goes from 'can' to 'will', and very messily unless you're extremely careful."

Clark, meanwhile, had gone a greenish tinged pale colour at the very thought. After a moment, he nodded, a nod that Harry mirrored.

"Control's not what I'm talking about, Clark," Harry said. "Your control is extraordinary, it really is. From what I can tell, it's on a par with my uncle and my father, who've had over a thousand years of practise."

"Then what are you talking about?" Clark half-demanded, frowning.

"Mainly, fighting skills," Harry said bluntly. "Because I'd be very surprised if you could even throw a decent punch. And going by some of the reading I've done, other abilities: strength, speed, durability, healing… they're just the beginning. There are others and you should have at least some of them by now."

"I do!" Clark burst out, offended. "I mean, I've got X-Ray Vision, and –" He stopped, embarrassment closing in on him, expecting Harry to burst out laughing. As it was, though, Harry only raised a mildly amused eyebrow.

"And?" he asked.

"And… well, I've woken up and I was floating above my bed," Clark said. "It's happened a couple of times now." His expression shadowed. "Last night, too."

Harry tipped his head thoughtfully. "Interesting," he said. "Still, there's more that you could and should be doing by now, abilities that should be popping up. And frankly, while you're strong already, you should be much stronger."

"How much stronger?" Clark asked.

Harry met his gaze. "As strong as I am. At least."

Clark's eyes widened. "What?"

"I told your parents last night that when it comes to magic, I specialise in two things," Harry said. "Combat and energy manipulation. I can sense raw power, and I got a good look at yours while you were being drained last night. I can't compare it to myself, exactly, and comparing amounts of energy, different kinds of energy, by magic isn't an exact science. But it gave me a rough estimate. If I combine that with your ancestor's medical records in Asgard – one of them was fostered there, alongside my grandfather, as it happens – it gives me a pretty clear picture."

Clark shook his head, still disbelieving. "I'm not that powerful, though, I can't be," he said.

"You should be," Harry said bluntly. "By my estimate, your current untapped energy reserves are at about the same level as my cousin Diana's. She's from the divine side of the family tree, and she proved at the Battle of London that she can hit harder than an orbital strike from a falling satellite. The medical notes confirmed that."

Clark didn't immediately reply. "How powerful 'should' I be, then?" he asked, a touch bitterly.

Harry met his gaze. "You should be able to move several times faster than sound and maintain it for hours on end, shrug off anything short of a nuke, and be capable of reducing mountains to rubble," he said. "You should also have better hearing than anything else on the planet, vision good enough that you won't need that telescope, incredibly fast healing abilities, something I can best sum up as 'heat vision', supersonic flight –"

"Stop," Clark said. "Just, please… stop."

"All right," Harry said gently. "Just tell me, Clark: have you ever gone all out?"

"Once," Clark said, after a moment. "Red Sky Day."

"Did you ever achieve anything like that?"

"No."

"And you haven't gone all out before or since."

Clark nodded.

Harry sighed. "I thought so," he said. "That means that the details got mixed up in all the very literal chaos. And you've generally been keeping a low profile. That's a problem, because to supernatural predators, that equals weak. Or at least, vulnerable. And to more than a few human ones too, come to that." He sighed again, rubbing his face with both hands. "There's a solution for that, too, but it's one I'd really rather avoid. And no, it's not just killing them, Mr Kent."

"I didn't say," Jonathan began, before grimacing at Harry's suddenly raised eyebrow as his face emerged from behind his hands. "But I was thinking it. And according to Jean-Paul, you're a mind-reader."

"Normally, yes," Harry said. "Right now, not so much, thanks to Strange. I am pretty good at reading people, though." He shook his head. "There are a few upsides to this, though. It confirms something that I'd already expected: whoever's doing this, Clark and I should be able to handle them between us."

"What makes you think that?" Jonathan asked sharply.

Harry began ticking reasons off on his fingers. "First, if they were and they were a genuine threat, which someone with this kind of connection to Clark would be, they'd be dead. Strange thinks Clark is important and he doesn't like taking gambles. In any case, he's protective of children – which he would see Clark as. More to the point, he's not particularly merciful."

He raised another finger. "Second, after a bit of thinking, I'm almost certain I know how they're doing this: thaumaturgy, sympathetic magic. Now, I'm not exactly an expert: it's wandless magic, and most of what I know there is elemental manipulation; fire, earth, water, air… that sort of thing. And even then, I've got a lot to learn. So, not an expert."

He sat back. "That being said, I do know the basics: it's the old idea that if you get someone's blood, hair, or something else, you can use it to form a connection to them. Blood is by far the strongest. You can use it for relatively harmless things, like tracking: I know an expert, he's a PI and he uses it to find lost things, pets, and people."

"Tracking's dangerous enough," Jonathan pointed out.

Harry tipped his head in acknowledgement. "True," he agreed. "Though that's about what you do with the information once you have it – you can get the same sort of information, and more, by hacking. It's also got other uses, though, ones that are much more… intrinsically dangerous, shall we say."

"Like what?"

"Think voodoo dolls."

Clark winced.

"But it's not doing that," Harry continued. "Any of that. All it's doing is siphoning off some energy, making Clark a bit more tired, and vulnerable to colds. If someone wanted to kill him, this would be just about the least efficient method of doing it."

He shook his head. "No, whoever this is, I think that they won't want to do too much damage. Why? Because they don't want to risk jeopardising their supply. Or drawing the wrong kind of attention. Like the White Council's." He smiled, this one sharper. "Or mine." The smile faded. "Or something bigger, and badder, that might also like to take a bite out of Clark."

He stood up and began to pace. "The profile I've got so far is that whoever this is, they probably stumbled on Clark's secret by accident. And now they're leeching power off him, in ways pretty much designed to avoid notice as much as possible. That suggests they're small-time – hungry for power, yes, but scared of someone higher up the food-chain taking notice and stepping in. They probably either know him relatively well, or they're in a position where being close to him, close enough to get a sample, would go unremarked."

"Like a hairdresser," Martha said, nodding.

"Right," Harry said. "They're probably not a fellow student, either, though I wouldn't rule out their working at the school." He shook his head. "Whoever's doing this is being careful, which suggests that they know the risks. They've probably got a job that starts relatively early because the drains consistently take place at night, either later in the evening or in the early hours of the morning, though that could just be because they want Clark to be asleep and for no one to notice." He eyed Clark. "Going by what you've said of what happened last night, this is the first time it's happened when Clark was at least half-awake. He instinctively reacted, hence the fit."

Clark shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry, again, about hitting you, by the way," he said.

Harry waved it away. "No harm done," he said. "Besides, you weren't exactly in control of yourself."

He eyed Clark. "It can't be blood, since by all accounts Clark doesn't bleed easily or often. Besides, while blood is the best conduit, it becomes very useless, very quickly. It congeals and dries, and even if it's being preserved, there probably wouldn't be enough for all these drains. Spit has the same problem, as do other body fluids. I've heard a good photo can be used too, but that seems unlikely for the amount of power that's being extracted. So, it's probably hair – durable, long lasting, and relatively easy to get hold of."

"Are you really sure it's magic, though?" Clark asked. "I mean, there's other kinds of weird abilities out there, and a lot of people with weird abilities end up in Smallville. Chloe, a friend of mine, thinks it has something to do with the meteor rocks, and so does Lex."

"Meteor rocks?" Harry asked, eyebrow raised, and eyed Martha. "The same ones you mentioned, Mrs Kent?"

"The same," Martha confirmed.

"They landed in the meteor shower, when Clark came to us," Jonathan put in. "They glow, bright green. SHIELD tried to clean them up, but they didn't get all of them."

"They have an effect on me," Clark added. "A bad one. It feels like the blood's boiling in my veins."

"That theory might just be right," Harry murmured. "Especially if Lex thinks there's something to it." He shook his head. "It's a good thought, Clark, and I've seen psychic powers used to achieve the same effect. But this is magic, dark magic. There's a certain feel to it, even a taste or a smell, which I could feel on you as you were being drained. It's very distinctive."

Clark frowned, but nodded reluctantly.

Harry, meanwhile, rubbed his jaw. "That doesn't mean they're unrelated, though," he said. "I've done a bit of research into Smallville, ever since I figured out about you. This place has a lot of weird things going on and I'd be very surprised if none of them were magical. Enough that if I were someone looking for power, looking for somewhere new, this might not be a bad place to start." He smiled. "And it also means that anyone who's been doing in-depth research on the weirdness around here is likely to have picked up on the explicitly magical side of things in town, even if they didn't recognise it for what it was."

"Chloe," Clark said, getting up. "I'll call her. Let her know that –"

"Let her know what?" Jonathan asked. "Clark, this is not like the others you've faced. This person is only targeting you, there's no way you can let on about this without telling her your secret."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Tell her that I'm in town," Harry said suddenly. "I'm a friend of Lex's. You can say that I was dropping by to visit him, you dropped in as well, and I sensed something off about you – that you were being drained by dark magic – and wanted to know who's who in the weird around town. That way, you can play ignorant. If she asks why you're targeted, I can just pass it off as opportunistic – maybe that whoever's behind this mistook you for a superhuman, owing to how many times you've survived run-ins with them."

Clark grinned. "Brilliant," he said, then vanished in a blur.

"Clark!" Jonathan yelled, but it was too late.

"Does he often do that?" Harry asked, rescuing his notepad, which had got caught up in the gust of wind Clark left behind.

"Constantly," Martha said, with a slightly martyred sigh.

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting," he said. "Not as fast as Jean-Paul, or even dad, if he really pushes. But, you know, still fast." He pocketed his notebook, and started rummaging around for his phone. "I'd better call Lex and fill him in," he explained. "Before Clark talks to his friend."

"Wait," Jonathan said. "Harry. Clark's got himself into a few messes recently, a few mysteries, usually with Chloe Sullivan. A few of those have been fights, with superhumans, people who could – and would – actually hurt him."

"But this is different. He knew who and what they were before they knew the same about him," Martha put in. "Whoever this is, they know who Clark is, and they can hurt him. They're already hurting him, and like you said, they could do a lot worse. And we don't know who they are."

Harry was silent for a long moment. "You're asking me if I can protect him," he said eventually.

The Kents' silence was answer enough.

"Honest answer? I don't know," Harry said. "But I can't stop them and look for them at the same time. If I'm near Clark, I've got a better chance of protecting him." He looked both of them in the eye. "I can't tell you that I can protect him, not for sure. But I can tell you that I'm going to damn well try."

The Kents shared a look, then both of them nodded.

"Thank you," Martha said.

"You need a lift?" Jonathan asked, getting up as Harry headed to the door. "Clark having left without you and all."

Harry smiled, and this smile was not grim, thin, or even wry. Instead, it was a dazzling smile that, for just a moment, made all the scars and cynicism just melt away, leaving a mischievous teenage boy.

"Thanks for the offer, Mr Kent," he said, stepping back out the door. "But I can manage just fine."

And with that, he took off, shooting straight up into the air.

"Well, him and Clark definitely have one thing in common," Jonathan said, shading his eyes as he looked up.

"What would that be, Jonathan?"

"They both really like having the last word…"

And that is where this particular chapter ends. Like I said, I'm structuring it like a monster of the week Smallville episode (or, indeed, Buffy, Doctor Who, Angel, Torchwood, Stargate: SG1, or any other show in that vein). This bit was about the first 1/3rd – and hopefully, it will be done in 3 chapters. I make no guarantees, but that's how it should work out. 'til then, goodnight!