Instead of a disclaimer that I do not really own most of the characters in this story – beside of a transfigured robot smart ass and his colleagues – I will just write this:
This
~o~
Chapter 11 - Waking up
"... Kedavra" The first words from Luna had made Harry heart skip a beat. He had immediately grabbed her hand and aimed the wand away from her, but the spell with whom she had apparently intended to end her life did not catch anyway, her wand stayed inactive.
"Luna, I could free myself and now you. It's over!" Harry had grabbed her at her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"Harry?" her eyes became focused again. "Oh my god Harry!" Luna hugged him and began to cry.
She didn't stop crying. After two days she did not stop to cry but she had dried out, she was too exhausted to cry anymore and fell asleep, her fingers cramped around Harrys, twitching in her sleep, haunted by nightmares.
Harry was desperate, he wanted to help her, to make everything good for her again. He would repair the world just so that Luna could be happy again. Although the women in his arms could have been his grandmother by age, he could only see the Luna that he had left behind to go into the wizengamot one day and leave her to the wolves for the rest of her life. He felt so guilty for her fate like he had never felt anything before.
In his desperation to help Luna, Harry tried if he could sooth her nightmares with Legilimency. But when he entered her mind he stood on the rim of a very small strip of sand, in front of a dome made of stones, no door to be seen, behind him a cold grey ocean where he could see hundreds of corpses floating and a large wave nearing from the horizon, a wave that was higher than the dome itself. He withdrew hastily. When he came back her eyes were open and she was staring into his eyes.
"Oh my Harry, what have they done to us? I am destroyed, broken beyond repair. We were children and they made weapons out of us. I will never open up again, my life is already over like that of everyone who mattered to me except of you. Look at you, you have died as well you are only too stubborn and angry to see it, or maybe even death is not the same to you as the others. You are so angry with the world that it keeps you alive. You wanted to save me but I am already gone and it's only my body that I have left behind.
Look at my mind, I have been obliviated and imperioed so often that there is only this spark left that is living in me. Everything else is sealed away but I can still remember that it was me who murdered all these people. I tried to isolate all this but I failed, I must go, there is not enough life or magic in me to survive."
"Luna please don't leave me. Please stay with us for a little while and we will see what we can fix. The world is much different now." Harry begged her.
She looked into his eyes and Harry could feel a little of what she had done to herself. When he had first met her on her first trip to Hogwarts she had been withdrawn as well into her mystical inner world that she could see and feel but where the others could never reach her. Her mother had died shortly before, her father had gone half-crazy with the loss and had withdrawn himself just the same, even from his beloved daughter without noticing it really. Luna had been bullied but had not noticed it. Only the friendship to Harrys group had brought her back into the real world and it had taken years for her real personality to come out before the war had buried her again.
But now Harry had no group of friends, he had Sirius who was in all honesty the ghost of a child, he had stopped growing up when he was thrown into Askaban prison. Then there were the AIs. Harry had no doubt that a Luna in her former self would have been a fascinating friend to Fluffy and Fenchurch and the others, but who was there other than that? Tears were running down his face freely.
"Kreacher! I need your help again - please?
This time Kreacher didn't startle him, he appeared without a crack, his new black puppy on his arm, that was apparently a big fan of him, judging by the enthusiastic rotor of its tail and its tries to lick the face of the elf.
Lunas eyes went wide. "You have brought him back?" She touched Kreacher like she wanted to make sure that he was real.
On her touch Kreacher looked at Harry.
"Master Harry will brings us all back. Missy Loony is hurt."
"It doesn't matter Kreacher. You will come back? All of you?"
"Yes, Missy Loony Lovey, Master Harry made promise and plan. He bring us back but not knows how make us free but want to very much."
"Thank you Harry, savior again" Lunas eyes became blue for a very short moment before fading back into the aged grey they had been before.
"Loony knows how to free all elf?"
"I know - but I can't anymore." Luna had covered Harrys hand in both of her hands, she had tears in her eyes again. "Harry, I will go back now. I loved you."
Kreacher looked absolutely forlorn and looked at his puppy with sad eyes. The little dog had fallen silent as well. Kreacher took a deep breath and gave the puppy to Harry. "Master give good puppy to Winky. Loony Miss must stay and free all elf, Kreacher will go."
Kreacher took Lunas hands from Harry. Before Harry had gathered what was happening, the little elf whispered a high pitched "Freeee Elves", green and blue sparks were crackling all around Kreacher, flowing into Luna like a river and with that he dissolved into dust while the sparks danced over Lunas body. They covered her completely slowly dissolving into her body.
Luna twitched from cramps and when she opened her eyes the blue shine was back. She breathed in.
"What did you do?"
"Kreacher got you back and went instead," Harry could hardly breathe, "He said that you must stay and free the elves."
"I know, he told me and I had to give a promise, but why is everything so light and the betrayal shield is gone! What did you do?"
"Oh this, we are on the Moon. There are more people living here than on earth because of the M.A.S. Field. It's an evil fuckup down there, the Wizengamot has gone completely dark and at the same time had become Quidditch Nazis. I had to do something."
"I can feel that you overcharged recently, and there are traces of a gigantic temporal storage and amplification blood runes all over you. Did you use Lord Byrons Amplifier over a ley lines intersection to seize a broken blood oath?" Lunas eyes were boring into his own.
"A little maybe? And I overloaded it into a Celtic containment rune with a insta-feedback into the ley line and in the end I had to channel quite a lot of stuff around recently."
"That must have been a bloody mighty and stupid wizard that broke the oath."
"Actually it was more like some hundred not that mighty but nevertheless stupid wizards that broke the oath." Harry said. He grabbed Lunas hand just in case she could use some excess magic, because he could feel that he was overcharging again. Some sparks danced over to her before he even could touch her.
"Harry Potter, did you just show me your overly mighty magic dong? That is a deca-kilomerlin power-core you are handling there. Something like this shouldn't even exist in a living being. How many wands did you fry when you - ooohhh." Obviously Luna remembered that she had been the one who had restored the elder wand for him, the only wand that had no real limitation of magical flow.
Harry shrugged, "Tough shit then."
.
Luna could walk but Harry sensed that she was consuming magic with every step and every breath. Her body and her mind were broken. He could feel that somewhere in the future she would burn out again. He turned to his Mage Sight™ and could see that she was covered in remains of dark curses, every bone in her body seemed to have marks of heavy abuses on it. A black, snakelike creature had wrapped its body around her and was anchored in a Celtic pattern magical tattoo that was located between her shoulder blades. Harry spoke to it in parseltongue. "Who are you? Speak!"
The snake raised its Head and looked at Harry. "Mine!"
"Luna, do you want to keep the snake that is anchored to the tattoo on your back?" Harry asked.
"Yes Harry, it is living from my emotions and dampens the despair and dark curses that I have gathered, something like a reverse dementor. Without it I would feel what I have done and I would be destroyed, I hoped it would make me survive long enough to fulfill our deal with faith that we more than a century ago. I can hardly breathe being next to you even with the snake eating the remorse and the pain that is caused by the life we will never have now, but I always hoped for. I have lived 50 years with the pain of missing you, I would have not survived without it." There were tears on Lunas face again, when she took his face into her trembling hands and looked up into his eyes. For a short moment she allowed him a glimpse behind her occlumency shields where he could see all her obliviated memories of all the dark deeds she had made, stored and frozen in crystals. When Harry touched a crystal he could see the memory that was hidden in it of a wife mourning her husband who had apparently blown his own head off when he had examined a muggle shotgun that he had miraculously received via owl this morning. Harry could hear a chorus of mean voices shouting and urging Luna. 'He is the one who took him from you. Kill him! Only you can protect Harry!' The black snake suddenly appeared in front of him and Harry could now see that it had leathery wings wrapped around its body. It hissed at him in parseltongue. 'Go away, these are mine to guard and eat. You have no place between those lies.' Harry's mental probe withered away and he snapped back into reality, still looking into Lunas eyes.
"The snake is your guardian!"
"Yes and I cannot let him go, but he guards me from all emotions, not only the bad ones. I had him since my mother died. He was buried when we became friends and saved me again when they took you away. And now he is my guardian until my end.
Harry, you know that I wished I could be your beloved, your Luna again, but she is gone, buried under everything that happened and I do not have enough time left to dig her out and my guardian cannot just eat away the memories before I have to leave."
Harrys eyes burned with tears.
"Luna, you were the only reason I could go through all of this, you were the light at the end of this hive of shit they had stacked upon us."
Luna shook her head. "Harry that's very romantic but it's not true and you know it just like I do. There is more than just the two of us, there are whole worlds and universes more than the two of us. And there is a reason why you are becoming the once shining hero who burned down the Magic Government and there is a reason why I was the innocent and ignorant damsel that became the betrayed villain. We tried to gamble with Fate and we have lost."
Luna could see that Harry was finally starting to think again. The clouded green of his teary eyes darkened when he remembered the prophecy that the Minister of Magic had shown him back in the interrogation room where he had woken up from his petrification.
"Fate!"
"Yes, I believe so," said Luna.
"I cannot accept this! I will not allow this to be the end of it. Fate cannot take you, abuse you beyond all evil and leave you dying. I promise if there is an afterworld I will come for her!"
"Harry, Fate is not someone …"
"I fucking know very well who Fate is!" Harry shouted, his hairs were again covered in green flames. "She is the manipulative supernatural bitch that always uses her favorite pawns to shove around! But here and now I swear that there is no place where she can hide her giddy ass from me once I have passed to the afterlife."
Harry kissed Luna, regardless of her hissing snake guardian. She could feel the sheer amount of magic power his anger let him radiate flowing through her. And for a fraction of a second she was the old Luna, the world around her lit up in impossible magic colors and all the invisible planes suddenly flared up into existence around her, just like when she was 10 years old. The vision faded almost immediately when pain washed back into her. She could still hear Fate herself laughing in the back of her mind.
Harry had felt the magic backwash as well and let her go immediately, he was still engulfed in green magic flames.
"Shit, this is getting dangerous. I am going to vent - but this is not over!"
Luna could still hear Fates cackling laughter after Harry had stomped away. She turned around and her eyes had gathered a mischievous violet tint.
"I would like to inform you that you have just eternally pissed off the Master of Death."
The laughing had stopped.
~.~
A lesson in constructive anger management
Harry had to leave, his overcharging core had to unload, so he went to the elves who were displacing the rocks to the surface to create more caves and to unload their magic overcharge as well. From outer space it must have looked like there were new mountains growing on the surface of the moon.
Fenchurch had seen him leaving, engulfed in green flames and she had apparently come to the correct assumptions. She landed with a long jump next to him. "When you want to vent, I have already told the works to be seized in that started cave over there. It is plain stable rock and can stand when you let go. There are over a hundred Kilometers of no other installation in this direction so no worries and you can send the material straight up, there is nothing above but Moon desert, all cleared.
Oh shit, you look really frustrated, even your feet are on fire again, I'm out of here."
With that Fenchurch jumped in long strides back from where they had been coming, waving some of the children back who had been following them curiously. "Get back another skip people, something is going to get really hurt, my bet stands against the Moon."
Hurriedly more and more of the moon wizards gathered to see the spectacle. The flaming Harry Potter who obviously overcharged had just struck his Elder Wand directly into the hard rock wall in front of him. Fenchurch took over the role of a sports commentator.
"As I have learned today the pattern that spreads from Harrys wand now is called 'Lord Byrons Amplifier' a design that was thought to be lost by most wizards, it is used to infuse magic in solid objects and creates a resonance with the already stored magic in the object. Back on Earth Harry used it over a ley line intersection that provided a kind of superconductor to his demand to fulfill his oath with the Ministry of Magic, so that his magic could spread through all of England at lightspeed. The already imbalanced Hogwarts outer wards some 15 kilometers away collapsed on the spot, which led to the M.A.S. Field wardstones in the dungeons try to compensate for the lack of protection at first until the inner Hogwarts wards could auto switch over to drain from the shorter perimeter wardstones. We must still figure out the rune design for the autoswitch by the way, so there is a lot of field studying waiting for young witches and wizards, because even the AIs don't know shit how this works in reality." Some of her instant students that came from the belt chuckled, knowing that the AIs were not famous for making jokes or admitting that they lacked knowledge in anything.
"But back to the story. The already drained elves that were bound to power and guard the M.A.S. wardstones could not compensate for the sudden drain of surrounding magic and grabbed the acorn that our allied goblin infiltrators had glued to the stones only the night before. The acorn had as well been overcharged with earth magic and had some runes on them that repowered the Elf, activated a sync pattern with the surrounding acorn runes to charge from the wardstones, which drained the remaining four elves who grabbed their acorns as well to repower themselves in their desperate need for more raw magic. When the fifth rune pattern activated they overcharged in sync and burned the tiny connections in their design, leaving only the broader lines of the underlying portkey rune and a temporary bonding spell connected to a magical oak next to Mr. Potters Manor. In the effect the elves were teleported to the tree that the acorn had bonded them to. It was not the nicest experience to the poor guys, but the whole cascade executed perfectly and they arrived at the oak some milliseconds before the sudden loss of control exploded the M.A.S. wardstones in a colorful and spectacular fashion that is the trademark of Mr. Potters shenanigans.
This event triggered the now constant crumbling of the M.A.S field that we are experiencing currently.
Oh I think now Mr. Potters rune pattern is fully formed. I can see some slight differences and displacements. Don't mind that he is on fire, it goes with the trade apparently. I have - again - no clue where this is leading. I thought that he would just displace a larger chunk of rock somwhere, but he is not known for decency and had a really frustrating day."
Fenchurch and the students waited and watched as Harry charged the rune pattern with his green fire magic. A very small asian looking girl grabbed the hand of Fenchurch who blinked several times in surprise.
Then Harry began to walk into the stone in front of him, taking the field pattern with him so that the rocks fell down behind him.
"Ohhh, I think I have figured it out!" Fenchurch shouted excitedly over the loud rumble of an angry wizard walking through hard rock. "The displacements we saw were a thin layer of thousands of really small portkey runes that charged, fired and then were recreated with the magic from the overlaying amplifier field. So Mr. Potter is just displacing small pebble sized chunks of rocks while the rest will collapse under the little gravity we have here or can be broken down by the elves. This is the equivalent of a magic tunnel boring machine! Let's have some guesses of how long he can go on like that, it uses only a fraction of what he would have to use to actually displace or destroy all the material. Clever guy even when being frustrated."
A new voice came from their side. "What Professor Fenchurch did not yet mention is that by this method Mr Potter avoids the effect that a displaced large chunk of rock leaves a vacuum that would create a severe lack of air pressure in these caves, alerting the leakage teams and even sealing the airlock at the entrance to the magic area." Nicholas Flamell had discarded his appearance as old wandmaker Olivander, looking young again and co-commented the action in front of them with juvenile vigor.
"Does anyone have a good idea of how Mr. Potter will continue when he is done venting his frustration by destroying poor Moon-rocks? How will he come back here?"
Some guesses were made by the students who were apparently really enjoying their first proper lesson in practical destructive magic, forbidden runes and wizard psychology.
"Can we do something for Mr. Harry if he is so depressed?" The small girl that had grabbed Fenchurches hand looked up at her.
Nicholas answered this question. "The wizards and people have done really bad things to Harry and his friend Luna. They tricked them to do bad things, because the two of them are so powerful. Not every wizard can do what you saw here today. Mr. Potter is for sure the only wizard so far who could cut a five hundred meter hole through rock like this. So, less magical powerful but nevertheless sneaky people had tricked the two of them to be apart and used the power of Mr. Potter and Miss Lovegood against their own political enemies. Mr. Potter expresses his frustration more outwards than Luna, hers is going into herself.
We can only support them and try not to use them. From you Miss Xiping I guess the both of them could use a good long hug and a thank you from everyone else." Everyone nodded in agreement.
"There he is!" Xiping jumped in the air and apparated over to the dust covered figure of Harry who had just apparated back into the entrance of the cavern. Harry had the presence of mind to catch her out of the air. She immediately slung her arms around his neck and hugged the bejeezus out of him. Nicholas and Fenchurch looked at each other in honest surprise. "Did she just …?" Nicholas was flabbergasted.
"I think yes, she is only five years old and just clean apparated without splinching and calculated her reappearance so exactly that Harry could catch her out of the air." Fenchurch shook her head.
"Never a boring day on the Moon. Professor Flamell, nice to meet you." They both chuckled because of their small internal joke of calling each other 'Professor'."
~..~
The difference between a plan and a solution
A new elf appeared at the base of the oak every six hours now, like drops of water from a crack in a dam - a dam that would eventually break. Alabastor tried to explain to Sirius how he had calculated that the whole field would collapse in almost exactly 48 days, but mathematics seemed to confuse the ghost.
Lotty and Sirius welcomed the elves and offered them shelter, freedom or choice of bond, when they heard that Luna was on the moon they all went and bonded to her and worked for the Moons Looney Academy.
Luna refused to come down to earth but she discussed all probable and improbable methods of freeing the house elves with Fenchurch, who had memorized all the magic literature that Harry had brought up to the moon. Nicholas joined the two of them and contributed wherever his experience would overpass the magic literature.
In the last two days Harry had vented his excess energy by tunneling really large caves. He couldn't deal with the frustration of Lunas and his own situation in any other way. His thoughts were always returning to the problem of how to save her, because it had become clear that she would die once the elves would be free. Her magic oath to Kreacher would be fulfilled and then the dark curses and memories would eat her up again.
Only 46 days left for him. With every elf that arrived at Potter Manor and was flooed from Sirius up to the moon, his chances to save her were getting smaller. He had begun boring more and more habitats in the moon rocks to drain his excess magic that flowed to him from the many victims of the broken magic oath on earth. He had no idea of how he could help Luna and he dreaded the day when the elves would be freed and Luna would leave him. Not that they were spending a lot of quality time together, since Luna could not let her barriers down and allow herself any emotions, or she would go mad.
.
Alabastor found Harry in a particularly bad mood, sitting on the small beach of the new magical Moon-lake that had a bath for the non-magical moon inhabitants on the opposite side. If Harry's waterfalls would keep running like the first one, they would be able to create small rivers that could run through all the connected caves soon.
"You know that you could always just petrify her when we have freed the elves and then we could take our time to figure out to help her more profoundly?"
Harry stared at Alabastor, he had not thought of it, maybe because he suspected that Luna would never agree to it, she had been petrified too often.
"Fenchurch already asked her and she said yes."
Harry wanted to say something but couldn't come out of his dark musings fast enough to find words.
"You are welcome, Harry. That's what friends are for as far as I understood."
"Nnnghhh" Harry could feel a weight leaving his shoulders.
"I know, Harry, you are more a man of action than words, but our current conversation meets a new low in IQ points involved. Let's see whether we can give this conversation a little jumpstart when I take over your part as well:
Oh Alabastor, thank you, I would have never thought of a solution so simple like this with my mushy biological half brain.
Don't bother Harry, let me do the thinking and you stick to do those impossible things that you do all the time.
Ach Alabastor, you are flattering me, your thinking is so much more worthy than my meager smoke and mirrors tricks. All I do is just poking my tiny Wizard stick into walls and fuck the laws of physics and then I sit here moping and can't figure out what number comes after 2."
Harry snorted by the bribes of his robot friend.
"Do you really believe we can save Luna?" he asked.
"Yes absolutely, but at the same time I assume it will take considerable time to develop the necessary technologies and principles of combining technology with magic to find the solution in the end. The important thing is that I have a plan. I can't offer you a solution yet but at the end of the plan we will not only have Luna back but we will be living in very interesting times."
"I have once read that it is not a good thing to live in interesting times." Harry said, stretching his legs.
"It certainly depends whether you like action or not. How about we start with some grinding works and go for a shopping and plundering trip through the magic shopping districts of earth as long as the prices are as low as they are right now?"
"Why would the prices go up?"
"What would you guess will happen once the Asshole Shields of earth will get down?"
"The Goblins will try to kill all wizards and steal all gold that they can get hold of."
"Nope, because I have explained to them that they will get a better revenge out of them when they let the wizards work as hard as they can to get a little richer and make the Goblins even more richer by that once the shield goes down. Because when the shield falls, a massive wave of humans and space-born wizards will rain down on earth without end. I am talking about billions of unbelievable wealthy and homesick tourists and relatives. Every one of them will want to buy properties, commodities and the wizards can sell all kinds of magic knickknack and everybody will want to see all the magic animals and get a magical healing of some kind and so on. And now guess what the Goblins are doing right now?"
"Ohh no! They will buy all those empty and forgotten houses that nobody uses or wants - and they will hire half of the wizards of earth to quickfix them with some repairing spells. They will use the current lack of proper governmental regulation in Britain to drive every single wizard into debts by handing out upfront credits and binding work contracts like mad! And when the stupid wizards have signed magic contracts or agreed to binding oaths they have them at the balls because with the sudden price increase they cannot afford a piece of bread anymore but will still be bound to work for the goblins for change!"
"And you Harry Potter are the owner of a workforce of three hundred thousand willing, mindless alien droids who are currently reprogrammed to do the building or renovation of hundreds of thousands of the earth's most beautiful situated magical and natural holiday resorts, all of them comfortably connected via the floo network. The Potter Commodities Inc. will be the sole provider of fast like shit flying alien bikes and luxury space vessels that are already in pre-production in your 50 former alien warfare machinery factories."
"You are saying this can be bigger than owning Quidditch?"
"You have no idea" Alabastor snorted.
"Do you like fish?"
"What?" Alabastors face reflected the mental full stop he had to do.
"Let's get down to earth and catch some fish and other stuff. I feel like redecorating"
.
Harry and his robot companion had been going down to earth to get as many bottomless trunks, pouches and sacks as possible in the eight major magic cities around the world for 24 hours in a row. They had filled them with brewing equipment, ingredients, regular and magic plant seeds, fertilizer, small animals and loads of gardening equipment. The permanently to be expanded storage rooms of Potters Moon Manor were filling up with all kinds of earthy stuff. Rabbits and birds were showing up and trying to cope with the low gravity. Harry had erected a containment field to avoid that the rest of Station Alpha would suffer a rodent or insect infestation.
And Harry learned that almost every single space inhabitant was vegetarian.
"What did you expect? Space Cows? Your idea of an earth food style restaurant chain is crap! It would leave every single guest with severe digestive problems if not in need for medical intervention. They lack the required microbacteria to process meat!
And don't get me even started with the people in the belts, some of them don't even have a digestive system anymore. They look more like a robot than I do! Some of the more progressive asteroid mining stations don't even have an atmosphere anymore. A steak would be considered a rather morbid collectors piece out there."
"The Goblins will hate it out here!"
"But the Centaurs will love it." Alabastor grinned back.
.
Due to Nicholas' efforts, every Moon wizard had a proper wand by now and the training cave was heavily used. Some children were demonstrating how ridiculously outdated the tradition to start magic training as late as in the age of 11 had been.
Nicholas, Fenchurch and Alabastor had started to teach the Moon children. Some of the human-lookalike, magic proofed AI robots - that still all looked suspiciously similar to Fenchurch - had joined and filled the ranks of teachers. Without having to respect any school traditions and sometimes with the help of time turners, the children and their parents were catching up quite fast and improving above the antiquated ways of earth's magic already. It turned out that for example a rune did not have to be carved by the wizard or witch, it had only to be powered by the magic person with careful balance of power and intention. Since runestones could be mass produced in micrometer accuracy the whole rune power up training could be finished in less than a day. It would not even be absolutely necessary to learn the runes, they could just follow the power up descriptions that came with the pre-carved stones. Rune powered lighting was soon applied to every corner of the new caves and every building in the new caves.
~oo~
Authors note: It took me two weeks to find the time to publish another chapter, I am deeply sorry dear 68 followers – the worst thing is that I am still stuck in chapter 15