Chapter I
"Outpost Zeta is under assault!"
Fleur Delacour's rosewood wand slipped out of her sleeve into her trembling palm, and she swore fluently in French as she sounded the ready room's klaxon. "By which one?"
"The one who- it's-" 'Of all the times for Longbottom's damn stutter! "Death Eaters!" he finally gasped, hastily wiping blood out of his eyes from a vicious looking cut to the side of his head.
"Is Smith able to retreat? Has the ritual already commenced?"
"It was underway when they struck!"
She cursed again. Was there a spy in their ranks? The timing couldn't be worse; with their strongest warrior engaged in the last-ditch effort to stem the tide of defeat, the only significant resistance to the darkness engulfing Magical Britain was at its most vulnerable.
A quick glance around her showed a dozen wizards and witches at the ready, alert with their wands drawn. Fleur held out the portkey, suppressing a sigh of irritation when Longbottom shouldered his way between her and Aimee to press a finger to the elongated shoelace. "Active!"
At her command, the portkey activated, dropping them into absolute chaos. At least thirty Death Eaters were swarming the wreckage of what was their most heavily fortified operations base. Half that many of her comrades were dead or incapacitated, and without hesitation Fleur and her response team joined those few still in combat.
Through the haze of wards more formidable than any outside of their sanctuary, she could barely make out their leader's form, motionless beyond an occasional swipe of his wand. She could feel the magic rolling off of him, the potency of the energies unleashed washing over everyone present.
On the other side of the elevated dais, showing no interest whatsoever in the ferocious battle taking place below, Lord Voldemort floated in mid-air, arms crossed in a bored, impatient posture.
"CRUCIO!" Fleur instinctively dodged to her left, dragged out of her observations by the mad screech of Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort's chief lieutenant.
'Not now!' She didn't have time to deal with this psychotic bitch! "Aimee!" she called out, rattling off a series of bone-breaker hexes that spattered against Lestrange's shield. "Stay tight with the others. When the ritual is complete, we must push through to keep him off of Smith!"
Stabbing her wand forward to cast a piercing hex, Aimee shot her a brief glance. "You can't be serious! He'll kill us all!"
Lestrange leapt aside as Fleur's Reductor sent a cloud of earth spraying into the air, the dust and rubble coiling together to form an earthen spear that impaled a different masked Death Eater in the back. "We are expendable!" she shouted to her comrade. "He is not!"
Despite her words, Fleur felt a shiver of terror ripple through her body at the thought of Lord Voldeort's crimson glare focused on her. He was scarcely human at this point, an unrelenting force of malevolent black magic. But even if it meant her own destruction, and that of everyone she came with, there was no other option.
Smith could not be taken.
Lestrange was back on her feet, her counterattack almost overwhelming. Fleur dodged, shielded, conjured, and deflected to the best of her ability, weighing the intervals of the magic pulsing from the center of the dais where the ritual was nearly at an end.
Almost there…. Almost…
Downy feathers burst forth from beneath her blouse, and Fleur threw her shoulder forward just as the magical shockwave exploded from the dais. Lestrange was once again sent flying, but Fleur's perfectly timed maneuvre allowed her to blunt the edge of the outpouring energy, keeping her upright and allowing her to charge unhindered up the stairs.
The ritual was a success, but Fleur didn't bother paying any attention to the young man who appeared out of thin air. Smith was on his knees, physically and magically exhausted from the effort of powering a tear between dimensions.
This was a disaster!
Voldemort, arms still crossed, floated closer. "I must commend you on your elusiveness," he said, the mildness in his voice belying the raw menace he posed. "Such an unusual form did an effective job disguising you, but a ritual like this might as well function as an announcing charm to all of us. Tiresome though it may be, I appreciate your perseverance: it delivered you right into my hands."
"Where am I? What's going on?" Harry asked, but neither Smith nor Voldemort paid him any mind.
"He is the Chosen One," Smith said, weakness making his voice hollow. "The one prophesied to-"
"Yes, yes," Voldemort waved his free hand. "The prophecy neither of us know in full. You should be ashamed of such desperation, it's hardly becoming for-"
Fleur had nearly reached them, just a bit more-
"What happened? Who are you people?" Harry asked, and Fleur cursed his idiocy. He hadn't even drawn his wand, just stood, wide-eyed and confused. He was clad in a white linen robe, but not one in the usual wizarding style. Slung under one arm was a massive book, as thick as one of Fleur's legs, bound in a vivid purple leather.
"Look out!" she cried, shoving Harry aside as a petrification curse lanced out of Voldemort's bone-white wand. "Everbero!"
Her bludgeoning hex was batted away as though it were a tickling jinx. Fleur threw up a hasty Protego in front of Smith and almost lost hold of her wand when Voldemort's next curse slammed into it. The strength of his spell sent a tremor running up her arm like an impact of a lorry against her defensive charm.
"It's really you-" Harry spoke, but Fleur once more pushed him down, narrowly avoiding another hex.
"Stay down, idiot!"
The others were ascending the stairs by now, fighting a rearguard action against the Death Eaters as they did. Fleur could feel the weight of a disapparition jinx, and suspected anti-portkey wards were also in place. "Aimee! Bring down the wards! I'll buy you time!"
Fleur readied her wand to cast another spell at their floating adversary, but was interrupted before she could. Harry, the blithering fool, was kneeling before her, prostrating himself while muttering nonsense!
"O Queen of the Heavens, I am not worthy to gaze upon you, Mother of the Sky and-"
"Shut UP!" she shouted, kicking at him and conjuring a floating block of sandstone in front of Smith to intercept another curse from Voldemort.
The Dark Lord tapped his wand against his hand, glowing red eyes locking onto her. "I'm growing irritated, half-breed. You cannot stop me from taking them. I-"
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort accelerated into the sky as Smith abruptly fired a jet of green at him. "We've got to get out of here!"
'No shit!' she almost snarled, but somehow found the restraint to swallow that reply. "Do you know how to fight?" she asked instead to the new arrival, who was very obviously averting his eyes to the ground.
"Is that your command, my goddess?"
"Yes, I-" Voldemort suddenly dove from a cloud, wand outstretched and spitting curses. She swore, casting the strongest solid shield she could.
So focused on the threat from above, she was totally unprepared for an attack from behind. Bellatrix's Cruciatus slammed into her, dropping her to the floor of the dais. The pain was brutally incapacitating, so agonising Fleur wasn't even aware she was screaming until her breath ran out. She had to get up, had to keep the Dark Lord from absconding with Harry and Smith…
Was that- was someone singing?
"Wysgrnm h'lnm hqdšm 't mmlk 'dr 'š mšl bnm!"
Harry watched the crimson electricity crackle over Astarte's prone form, stunned at the audacity of these heretics. How dare they attack his goddess, in front of him, no less?
A true priest of Astarte did not wage war. They did not give into negative emotion, express anger or hatred. It was their sacred duty to live a life of sacrifice, of nobility and honour, to nurture and uplift the best of humanity.
But Harry wasn't a priest, not yet.
The thick book he held snapped open, pages turning on their own. Harry didn't need to read the text, his lips knew their shape and form intrinsically, the words inscribed in his heart mirroring those written on the page.
"And the gods shall lock them up, together with whatever powerful king may be ruling them at this moment!"
As his tongue spoke the words of praise, the text on the page was highlighted in flame. The man, whom Astarte waged a furious effort to defend, lowered his weapon, the holy light shining from Harry catching his attention, but Harry paid him no mind.
No, his focus was solely directed towards those whose blasphemy left his goddess writhing in pain.
Chains, forged of Damascus steel, erupted out of the soil, coiling around the black-robed heretics. Their cries of surprise quickly turned to choked gurgles as the links tightened around their necks, coiling and squeezing around their bodies. The blasphemer who dared to strike Astarte was run through by a half-dozen shackles, then ripped apart as they drew taut.
The one in the air, floating above them like a demon risen from the underworld, eluded the restraints that pursued him, utilising his thin wooden weapon to evade the divine justice he so richly deserved. Now Harry was the one surprised - he'd never witnessed anyone escape the effects of a miracle. He spared a glance towards his goddess, who was only now rising off the floor of this wooden structure.
Was his faith not sufficient? Was that the reason her enemy still lived?
Astarte's followers were gathering their wounded and disappearing in ones and twos. The man who was alone by the altar where he appeared reached out and grasped Harry's elbow. A second later he felt the most horrifying sensation, like his whole being was compressed into a tube and spat out in a different location.
"What- what in the name of the Triad-?" Harry gasped, hunched over and battling nausea.
And then she appeared next to him, and with difficulty he tore his gaze away from her. To be in the actual presence of a divine being; Harry knew he wasn't worthy, but try as he might, he couldn't get her image from his mind.
She was the most beautiful being he'd ever seen. The most talented sculptors in the world all working in concert would fail to capture even a fraction of her flawless femininity. Any lingering discomfort he felt vanished amidst the absolute awe she inspired.
"Are you alright?" Even her voice was like the sweetest ambrosia, honeyed and elegant, with a sophisticated accent.
"I'm fine," the other man replied, "Just need some rest and I'll recover. Are you Harry Potter?"
"I am." Harry dragged his gaze from the ground, eyeing the man's strange attire. He didn't look any older than Harry himself, and those didn't look like proper vestment for the presence of a deity! "Are you her chief attendant?"
"He is the one who brought you here. He is our leader."
"Leader…?" That merited a closer look, but it was apparent this man was just that - a man, ordinary and lacking the magnetism and the- the… radiance Astarte possessed. "That's impossible."
"My name is Zacharias Smith. Do you recognise me?"
"No. Should I? Where am I?"
"But you recognise me," Astarte said flatly, and Harry felt his blood sing in his veins when being addressed by her.
"How could I not?" he murmured. "I've spent my entire life dedicated to your worship."
Fleur blinked, glancing at Smith to see him just as speechless. 'What?' His reaction to her seemed bizarre enough when she thought it was nothing more than an over-the-top susceptibility to her allure. But worship?
Smith recovered first. "Could you explain that?"
"I am a cleric of Astarte, and have been studying to join the priesthood since I was a child."
"Astarte…" Smith repeated slowly, and Fleur could see his mind whirling, trying to process this information. "What of your family? Your parents, they were James and Lily Potter?"
"They are, yes. How do you know so much about me?" Harry's suspicion disappeared in an instant, and he bowed to her. "Forgive me, it is not my place to question my goddess!"
'I'm not a-"
"We've been very poor hosts, my apologies. Please, follow me and someone will provide you with refreshments. Without your intervention, after all, we'd have lost far more than we did." Smith escorted him to the door of their conference room, summoning Macmillan to attend to their guest. When the door closed behind him, he turned to Fleur. "What do you make of this Potter's magic?"
"Was that what the singing was? I would hardly know, given I was being held under the Cruciatus at that moment." Smith nodded, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "I am fine, by the way, thank you for asking."
Her sarcasm hardly garnered a reaction. "If you weren't, I'm sure you're capable of seeking help on your own," he said. "And yes, he was… chanting, rather than incanting. Without a wand, by the way, reading out of his- his spellbook, I assume. Lower your occlumency shields, I'll show you what happened."
"Lower yours, and I'll view it myself."
They stared at each other for several seconds, before Smith shrugged. "Anyway, chains grew out of the ground, targeting only the Death Eaters. Lestrange was killed, and his attack was enough to even give Voldemort pause. The delay allowed us to escape."
"He killed Bellatrix? Just like that?" She wouldn't be missed. Fleur pondered this development, wishing she'd been more cognisant of his spellcasting. "We've always hoped a dimensional traveller might fulfill the prophecy."
"It remains to be seen whether he's capable. We'll need to learn more about his abilities and from whence he's come."
"And what about this 'goddess' business?"
"Obviously, he's mistaken you for someone else," Smith said matter-of-factly. "I see no reason to disabuse him of such a notion, not when it's such an obvious token of his loyalty."
"Who - or what - is Astarte? Don't bother denying you know something."
Smith smiled, shaking his head at her accusation. "Why would I? I'll require your help to guarantee his cooperation. Astarte is the name of an ancient goddess, worshipped by the Phoenicians. Of what she was the goddess of, I cannot say, but I suspect young Harry will be more than willing to tell us."
"How do you know this?"
"A book Borgin imported from the mid-east made mention of a cult of her belief. I am rather well-read, you know."
How could she forget, when he never failed to lord his intelligence over everyone around him? "And with that singular mention, I am supposed to assume the personality of this mythological woman?"
"Hardly," Smith scoffed. "Goddesses are perfect beings. No matter how much of your ability you pump out, no one would mistake you for infallible."
"Enculer," she spat, tired of his condescension.
"A fine illustration of my point, Miss Delacour," he said with a brisk nod. "No, better to claim you're a… a descendant of some sort. Most religions have myths about gods taking human form. He'll believe it."
She furrowed her eyebrows. "What makes you think that? And why is a bluff like this even necessary?"
"After everything we've been through, do you even need to ask?"
She didn't, and he was right. Dragging someone through a dimensional vortex to fight a war wasn't the best way to endear oneself to a stranger. And after everything else she'd agreed to, this deception hardly merited notice. Nonetheless, the lies and manipulation rankled her. One more compromise, a further slide down the moral scale from what was right and just.
Fleur was starting to wonder how much further she could fall.
"Macmillan!"
"Yes?"
"Where is Potter?" Fleur followed Smith out into the waiting area, seeing for herself their guest was gone. "How could you let him escape?"
Ernie rubbed the back of his neck in an abashed manner. "I offered him some water, you see, even some wine - figured he'd earned it, you know, given what Nev told me he did for us at Outpost Zeta. But he refused, demanded we take him to 'attend to the injured and infirm, the ill and the elderly.' Reckon he's a healer or somethin'?"
"Or something," Smith grumbled. "If that's what happened, why are you not with him?"
"Somebody had to stay and tell you where he went. The thing is, there were a bunch of us that were, ah, y'know, curious. A bit of a crowd came calling, most of us who made it out of Hogwarts. They escorted him to the Double-Dub." Seeing the way Smith's jaw clenched, Macmillan hastily continued, "You understand, don'tcha Zach? I mean, you knew the- the other Harry, too!"
"Of course," Smith answered smoothly, erasing any hostility and irritation from his expression. "Miss Delacour, shall we?"
As she followed him out of their makeshift headquarters, Fleur reflected on how Macmillan had unknowingly stumbled onto the exact right thing to worm his way out of any trouble. There were three people within their sanctuary aware of Smith's true identity, and that was counting both Smith and Fleur. Naturally, he wasn't eager to arouse any suspicions from people who knew Zacharias Smith in the past.
They approached the 'Double Dub', shorthand for their brothel-turned-clinic. It was the last formal medical institution still operating in Magical Britain to their knowledge, following the Siege of St. Mungo's that ended with the demolition of the hospital. Wandering Wizards - with numerous small rooms already equipped with beds, made for a ready substitute for the few surviving healers to set up shop in.
Even after several years, every wizard in the room looked her way when she entered, though their tolerance to her abilities kept them from gawking too obviously. It had been a strange adjustment upon her return to Britain, to go from maintaining a tight rein on her allure to steadily broadcasting it almost on reflex.
"Delacour, back for another round of treatment?" the witch manning the front desk asked.
"If I thought it would help, I might be," she replied. "I was told our new arrival is here."
"I about jumped through the ceiling when he strolled in," Natalie McDonald said. "Even with those strange clothes, he's the spitting image of our- what Harry used to look like."
Fleur managed to hold back a sarcastic reply - it was hardly surprising that Harry Potter looked like Harry Potter, after all - but Smith spoke up before she could say anything. "Can you take us to him?'
Natalie started, as though noticing him for the first time. "Yessir, right this way."
The young woman led them through the corridor, along the cracked and stained walls of the old and decrepit building. It turned out they hardly needed a guide; a crowd spilled out of one room into the hallway. The sound of this Harry's rhythmic, unusual language was clearly audible.
Terry Boot turned and glanced at their arrival, swiftly tapping the bystander in front of him and in a few moments, a path cleared for them to enter the room. There he was, the large tome held open in his hands, text glowing as he sang the words.
Dirk Cresswell, head of the Goblin Liaison Office when the Ministry still stood, lay shrouded in a soft light. Cresswell, blinded by a spray of conjured acid that ate away most of the flesh on his face, had been bedridden for more than six months. There were no enchanters skilled enough to craft prosthetic eyes left in Magical Britain, so Dirk was left sightless and disfigured, a permanent resident of the Double-Dub.
The song seemed to hit a refrain, and the text lit with a golden flame, consuming the entire page before the book slammed shut. A collective gasp came from the assembled witnesses, before Harry turned to her, eyes glued to the floor, greeting Fleur with a mumbled, "Your Radiance."
Behind him, Dirk Cresswell blinked, running his fingertips over his newly healed face, tears of joy streaming from his restored eyes.
"We didn't expect you to leave," Smith began. "There's much you don't yet understand, it's not safe for you to wander about freely."
Despite Fleur being closer and partially in the way, Harry carefully looked around her to meet Smith's gaze. "I only wanted to spread the glory of her name, to-"
"Look at me," she ordered, beyond tired of the way he averted his gaze. When he still resisted, she boosted the steady output of her allure to a level strong enough to leave half the men in the corridor groaning with desire, with even Smith pulling uncomfortably at his collar. "Look at me."
A flush bloomed on Harry's cheeks, his fingers twitched, and a tremor ran through his frame, but he stubbornly refused to meet her eyes. "I am but your humble servant, I am unworthy-"
"I think that's quite enough, my dear," Smith said, the strain in his voice failing to disguise his obvious irritation. "Harry, if you don't mind, we'll adjourn to headquarters."
They walked back to the building he was… teleported to following the battle with those masked heretics. Everything here was strange, seemingly familiar but different in subtle ways. The ubiquity of spoken English made it likely he stood in Britannia, but it was nothing like the land of his birth. Though it had been well over a decade since he set foot on these isles, surely it could not have changed so much!
What of his family? His sister?
Harry took a deep breath, forcing the anxious thoughts from his mind. Such questions were beneath him, undeserving of consideration when he stood so close to Astarte herself.
His heart sped up at the memory of her flawless features, her hair a pure golden hue, eyes the colour of a clear summer sky. It wasn't her beauty, though, that convinced him of her identity; no, it was the aura of her power, exuding from her to form a halo of sanctity.
Astarte was the goddess of love and war. She called him to her side in the midst of battle, carrying the fight against tremendous odds with simultaneous grace and fury. And then, in that filthy and crumbling clinic, Harry witnessed the power of her love, so potent it felt he could hardly breathe.
"Please, take a seat." Harry glanced around, realising they'd arrived in the same room her retainer brought him to before. "Before we explain how you ended up here with us, I was hoping you might be willing to tell us about your magic. It's unlike anything we've ever encountered."
He made a conscious effort to control his outrage. His faith, the miraculous power of the Triad, lumped in with parlour tricks and charlatan magicians? Blasphemy! "There is nothing magical about what I do. I am a priest, I merely express the will of the gods."
"Do you have a wand?"
"A what?"
"Like this." Smith reached into his sleeve, withdrawing the slim wooden stick he and the others wielded during the battle. He twirled the wand in a precise fashion, and a jeweled silver chalice appeared out of the ether in front of them. "A magic wand."
"Incredible," Harry breathed, reaching out to run his fingers over the cup. "I've never seen a miracle performed in such an immediate manner!"
"You mean there is no one who uses wands where you are from? No one at all?" That question came from Astarte.
"No."
"But- wands have been in regular use since the Roman empire!"
"Rome?" Harry caught himself before he could ask anything else. It wasn't his place to question her.
"You're surprised," Smith observed.
"Well, yes. These… wands; you say they are a Roman invention? How did you learn about them?"
An odd light shone in Smith's eyes, his curiosity no longer seeming benign. "In ancient times, Roman wand-wielders conquered nearly all of Europe and Asia Minor. Today, it is how the majority of wizards around the world focus their abilities."
"I don't understand," Harry eventually said, casting confused looks between Smith's stick and the silver chalice. "Rome was destroyed in the Second Carthaginian Conquest. The city was burned, and the nonbelievers purged from the Latin lands. There never was any Roman empire."
A/N: I'm relying heavily on "The Phoenician-Punic Dictionary" by Charles R. Krahmalkov for translations/language. Yes, that's actual Phoenician :P
This story's going to be an odd one, but I'm really excited for it. It's heavily AU, and as you've guessed by now, the Harry-from-another-dimension is even more AU.
There'll be a few scenes here and there that flesh out Harry's world, and I'll also fill in what happened in 'this' world to have changed things so much.
I know, this makes story number... 16(?) for me. I'm running about a 25% completion rate. Not to worry, I've got about 1/4 of the next chap of Witch Seeking Wizard done, and I'm still planning to finish that fic in the next few weeks. I just wanted to push this story out because well, it's unique, and creative.
If I had to compare it to another of my stories, it would probably be along the lines of The Lost Continent. I know most of you want me to get back to A Malignant Ruse, but that fic is just so... unoriginal. There's a 1,000 fics that are basically identical to AMR. I'll finish it, don't worry, but while you're waiting, hopefully you'll find this one entertaining as well!
Stay safe, healthy, and happy! ~Frickles