Chapter 31
"So your solution to having your car shot at by," Hermione paused and stared straight at Harry. "Unnamed forces. Is to buy another one?" She shook her head.
"How come you didn't go for something like a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini, or a Porsche?" Ron seemed to relish saying the car names. Harry looked over at Hermione who visibly sighed.
"I said go and look at some car magazines, not the ones with the scantily clad women in them," she said towards her boyfriend.
"Why?" Harry asked curiously.
"Because he needs to know how to drive." Hermione after a pause.
"So you've got a car to go along with your licence? And you haven't told me?" Harry asked with a smile.
"Yes, Harry, I've got a car, though nothing like this, or any of your other cars," Hermione said with some exasperation.
"It's not as though I have a lot of cars Hermione," Harry said, the car in question was, as Hermione had surmised something he'd decided to buy because his Jag had a bit of energy weapon damage on it. The Lotus Exige he'd purchased wasn't any more practical than the Jag, but practicality wise that was what the Defender was for. The Exige was for driving fast with a lady friend in the seat beside him.
"What was that smile for Harry?" Hermione asked slightly suspiciously.
Harry spun around and stared at her. "What do you mean smile?"
"You smiled weirdly for a moment, I've never seen you smile like that before," Hermione asked curiously.
"Oh? You've never seen me smile Hermione?" Harry asked.
Hermione shrugged. "No, I mean, not like that, it was odd."
"Strange even," Ron dropped into the conversation, he'd been doing that a bit dropping into their conversation unexpectedly, or it was possibly just because he and Hermione got stuck into conversations and then just forgot that Ron was there too.
"That I can smile on occasion?" Harry said grumpily shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, only grumpy that they'd caught his 'private' smile.
Ron had walked away from them again and was once more walking around the car looking at it from different angles.
Hermione sidled up beside him. "To be honest," she said in a low voice. "I think the cars hold more appeal to him than any of the scantily clad women in the magazines."
Harry had to laugh at that. "Well his dad likes the practical stuff and there was that car me and him drove back in second year."
"Or what about that car the guy in that moving film, the one who drinks all the martinis?" Ron called over questioningly.
"Aston Martin," Harry said immediately to Ron's question.
Ron nodded. "Yeah, why not one of those mate, driving around all cool like."
Harry shook his head. "Ron, my work involves a secret organisation, doing secret, hidden from the public things, an Aston Martin would be a touch cliché."
"And you don't do cliché Harry, just the bachelor lifestyle with your expensive fast cars, classic cars and flying off into Merlin knows where." Hermione paused to take a break. "What happened to that other car of your that McLaren F1 that you got around in before you ended up with the E-Type?" Hermione asked changing pace.
"I'm touched you remembered Hermione," Harry smiled.
"You had a McLaren F1?!" Ron said with some awe.
"What car magazine did you buy?" Harry asked curiously.
"Several," Hermione cut in.
"It's still around I take it out fairly often," Harry said, although it had some issues if he was honest. "It's good for a run down to Cardiff."
"Is that where the person that makes you smile like that lives?" Ron asked as he walked back over with a knowing grin on his face.
Harry wondered if Jack matched that description, he did make him smile, but not in that way. He was sure that Jack would like to have a go with him.
Harry had told Jack more than once that his broom didn't swing that way, though Jack had mocked him about his "pesky 21st century attitudes".
"No. Come on, let's go inside, you didn't invite yourselves round here just to look at my cars," Harry said after a moment.
-/
"Have a seat while I put the kettle on," Harry said off handedly waving to his lounge room, he was fairly sure he'd cleared away anything secretive to his study and most of his weapons stayed out in the barns.
But still Hermione managed to find something 'interesting', mostly because he'd left them on his bookshelf, and still had his footrest of them.
"Harry, what in Merlin's name is : Harry Potter and the Trials of Wizardry?" Hermione exclaimed from the other room.
"Buggeration," Harry said to himself and looked out the window, hoping for a Drahvin spaceship to drop out of the sky. Hopefully that wouldn't actually happen, Judith was "at least months" away from a treaty with a rogue group of them. There was always their backup solution to that problem which had been brewing for a while. Unfortunately it wasn't the most friendly and involved a lot of shooting, explosions and death. Ioan knew the minority details of that plan, but didn't want to know anything more, probably wisely.
"Oh...that," Harry said casually as he walked in and tried to grab the book out of her hands, but she continued to hold an iron grip of it and instead just looked at him demanding an explanation.
-/
Hermione stared at his bookshelf and didn't seem to notice that Ron had put his feet up on the footrest that was also made of the books.
"So we're all in those books, this JK person has written?"
"They're products of an alternate universe where obviously magic is a fictional realm and those are just a product of the publishing industry," Harry said casually though he pretended he didn't see Ron's confused and amazed expression at his casual use of 'alternate universe'.
"And we're all in there mate? All our time at Hogwarts and everything?" Ron asked after a moment.
"A bastardised version of our time there," Harry replied. "There are some things that are different."
"Different how?" Hermione immediately asked.
"Well alt-Harry is a bit more..." Harry struggled for a moment. "He likes to 'put it about', plus I don't recall walking in on two Raveclaws girls 'experimenting' with kissing in the astronomy tower on my way to confront Snape about something." Ron made a noise.
Hermione snorted, but then paused. "Is it all like that?"
"No, the battles between Voldemort and me are a lot more timid than when I experienced them, there's no talk of massive blood loss, blunt force trauma...you know those sorts of things that leave you with more than a bit of a headache."
"And death?" Ron asked quietly.
"Plenty of that Ron, it is somewhat weird, creepy even reading another fictionalised version of our lives. I don't recommend you read it," Harry said finally, but then added. "But Hermione if you really want to, you can here, you're not borrowing them."
"Even though you've got them gaffer taped up into a footrest?" Hermione asked with a huff.
"Because" Harry countered. "I don't want these getting out into the general public, Merlin knows how many copies already made it out into the general population. According to Judith's associates it's very popular with medical students, kinda weird."
"And you're not going to go and seek out every one of the copies of these books?" Ron suddenly asked.
Harry laughed. "I'm not the secret police Ron. These were part of a job LPI had to look into. I'm not going to hunt down every instance of the book and destroy it." Harry looked curiously at Ron, it was an interesting question to be asked, somewhat weird coming from his friend. Maybe it was part of this new...his line of thought was cut off by Hermione.
"I'd like to find out about the adventures of this alternate Harry Potter, but I understand you not wanting to disseminate these stuff to the outside world."
Harry stared at Hermione and wondered if she realised that she couldn't have sounded more unconvincing in her attempt to change the subject unless she'd randomly announced 'I like sex' or something like that.
"Okay," Harry replied after more than a moment's pause. "So...?"
Hermione relaxed a little. "Well, Harry. You got your licence."
"I studied, did the time and got it yes. My driver's licence you mean or another licence?"
"Driver's yes," Hermione said and then looked at him. "What other licenses do you have?"
Harry shrugged. "This and that. Pilot's, the helicopter one is almost there I've got other ones here and there."
"You can't just have a driver's licence and ride a broom can you?" Hermione chided.
"You were asking for something Hermione," Ron reminded softly.
"Yes, well, I, well Ron was, well I..." Hermione started again.
"Hermione wants me to learn how to drive a car, a muggle car. Says it's useful," Ron said, cutting Hermione off.
"It is." Harry confirmed. "And fun." This statement resulted in a glare from Hermione.
"I wanted Ron to get some experience before we go for some regular lessons," Hermione explained.
"Okay," Harry said slowly.
"I," Hermione began and then corrected herself "we were wondering if you could take Ron out for a drive."
"I've got my old Defender which was..." Harry paused again and wondered how to phrase that his practically new first Defender had been badly damaged going up against Ginny's bat shit mad followers. It did teach himself, Ioan and Judith how to order a new vehicle rated for a war zone, EMP and various other things that would help it survive if they ever had to drive through a spell fight again.
"Damaged, it's got a lot of spell damage but it's drivable, we can take it down a few of the lanes between the fields," Harry offered and gestured with a thumb to said paddocks.
-/
Outside they walked along several of the barns, including a few new ones he'd had erected to hold various pieces of equipment and other such things.
Harry turned around when he realised that Ron and Hermione had stopped.
"What's that Harry?" Hermione was pointing to one of the half open doors, inside the barn was a Bentley Speed Six.
One of the 'benefits' of massacring a town full of Auton duplicates who were impersonating people from the 1960s was that he had a town full of stuff, including some fantastic examples of well maintained 1960s and earlier cars, various farm machinery and everything else.
He hadn't decided on what to do with the town's contents, cars and other things. He'd left Judith with the task working selling off a lot of the boring cars the town's Auton duplicate people had, though he had found the example that Hermione was ogling at a more prosperous Auton duplicate's house.
He had of course offered Judith and Ioan anything of the town. Ioan found it a little bit creepy plundering the town's riches.
They had obviously checked to make sure the cars or whatever we're duplicates or Autons in disguise or anything, but everything aside from the people was genuine.
The town though could remain as a useful bolt hole, just in case, so far no one had gone looking for it and the monitoring equipment they had in place would alert him should anyone get past the spells he and Ioan had laid into the roads entering the town.
"It's a Bentley, a Speed Six, and no Ron you can't drive that one," Harry said gesturing his wand at the doors and muttering a quick spell, they closed, almost laconically. "Come on, Not too far."
"What do you keep in all these sheds Harry mate?" Ron asked as he ran to catch up with him.
"All sorts of things, most of it secret and the other stuff you don't want to know." Like the body bags, hazardous materials bins, the hazardous materials suits and the various spell and potion ingredients Harry thought to himself.
"Nothing you can't tell us about," Ron joked.
"It's not as though you've got the severed heads of your enemies," Hermione said lightly.
"No, my enemies don't usually survive to get to the bottling stage," Harry said as he moved to open the end barn door. "Here we go, et voilà!" He said with flourish.
He'd not looked at it for a month or two, not since he'd been around the fields to check on the monitoring dishes that were hidden around the paddocks and fields that were part of his property.
The paint had peeled even more, some of it blotching like a festering wound. It was still mostly mechanically sound though.
"Oh," was all Hermione said.
"What's that along the sides?" Ron asked.
"Spell damage, bat blood, not sure what else," Harry answered as he unlocked the doors. "Jump in and I'll drive us round to where you can have a drive."
-/
Harry leaned back into his chair, the radio, rather than the TV was filling the room with some background sound. He felt like he needed a stiff drink, despite having had more than one following Ron's "driving". He remembered Ron being a relatively good driver back in their second year.
It was fortunate that the old Defender wasn't in brilliant condition when they'd started, after Ron had hit his fourth tree of the afternoon it certainly wasn't in any better condition.
Hermione had warned him, just before she'd joined Harry as a passenger with Ron that he had had a few lessons that hadn't gone well.
One that had involved Ron trying to use a supersensory charm, which had required Hermione to oblivate the instructor, hence why they'd come to him.
Then, the phone rang. Which meant one of only a handful of things.
Alien invasion. None were scheduled, or rather none that he was aware of.
Evil from the depths of history. None that had popped their icky little heads up, that was what the box of files that were sitting on the floor and his office were doing. As his past, the Doctor's present and his and the Doctor's futures grew closer and closer together, it was becoming time, more than ever not to just know what was coming, but what had come before, that was within and outside what the Doctor, Magister and the Doctor's companions had told him.
Plus there were a few things that had been scratching at the back of his mind that he'd intended to look into in the past, but not gotten around to. Like the Intrusion Countermeasures Group, one of the groups that provided funds to the League of Paranormal Investigations, at the behest of a "Doctor John Smith", but he'd been meaning to investigate their actions aside from what he'd read in The Shoreditch Incident by Hamlet Macbeth, his account did match what the Doctor had said of the events there, but some of it still warranted further investigation.
The phone was on its second ring as he contemplated what else it could be.
It could be Judith or Ioan ringing.
As the phone reached its third ring he decided to just get up and answer it.
The voice on the other end of the line was interesting, and sexy, and surprising.
"Potter."
"Daphne," Harry said surprised, after their last...encounter he'd given her his phone number, should she wish to call him instead of their letters. Which we're really letters, well they were, they were letters to him, she hadn't exactly told him where he could address letters to her.
"Potter," she exhaled and then said in a softer tone. "Harry."
Harry relaxed into his chair, turning down the radio as he did so. "I thought you said that-"
He was cut off. "I also said I'd think about it. It is rather quaint, this muggle telephone."
"I find it far more convenient than sticking my head into a fire whenever I want to have a real time conversation with someone," Harry said with a smile.
"I will admit, Harry, that there is something physical about this form of communication, much like your conveyances, they are very much unlike" she paused for a moment, thinking. "What I usually use to communicate."
"Oh?" Harry asked.
"There a presumed level of familiarity in a conversation by fire."
Harry guessed there would be, he'd only ever seen it happen a few times, and the most memorable brought back memories of Sirius and Hogwarts, neither of which he'd really thought about a lot over the past few years. Except Cedric of course. Though that was more about Cedric than the place.
"I think we're plenty familiar Daphne to be able to speak on the phone. How are you, by the way using the phone, I didn't think you had a phone connection," Harry asked.
He heard Daphne sniff. "Hardly likely Potter, my home would not have such a muggle device. While certain members of society may entertain muggle devices, my home does not have such things."
"Of course not, hence I did not presume Daphne," Harry continued.
"Though you gave me your telephone number, just in case."
Harry smiled. "Just in case you wanted."
"An invitation Harry," she challenged.
Harry wanted to shrug his shoulders and realised he wasn't sitting opposite Daphne, despite feeling like he was, having a conversation with her.
"If you like. So where if I might enquire Daphne did you find a phone to use?"
"There is a phone box some ways from my home. Suitably enlarged of course I've found it rather comfortable."
"A phone box that's larger within than without," Harry said smirking to himself.
"If you like Harry."
"You know you're sexy when you're coy Daphne," he smiled.
"Perhaps that's why this telephone is more intimate. When you can say things like that."
"You can't into the fire and floo network?" He asked curiously, he'd never really thought about the complicated mechanics of how fires and the floo network, and how the communications and sociological elements of communicating in that way functioned. He wondered if anyone in the wizarding world had studied the sociological elements like that. Then he remembered that the wizarding world didn't have studies like that at all.
"I sometimes forget that you weren't raised in a proper wizarding household," she said with something approaching whimsy.
"Nor do I live in what I imagine would be a proper wizarding household either Daphne," Harry countered.
"Of course, I haven't seen your house."
"And I haven't seen yours," he countered.
Daphne chuckled. "If we were conversing over the floo I would be able to rectify that very easily."
Then Harry said something he didn't think he was going to say, in the back of his mind he fancied that Judith and probable Hermione (though not as crassly) would say he was thinking with his dick. "Perhaps you'd like to come over here?"
There was some length of silence.
"Mr Potter," her voice was one of surprise. "are you sure, wouldn't that destroy some of your mystery?"
"I'm willing to if you'd like to," Harry continued.
"Very well Mr Potter, if you wish to invite me to your abode, I shall accept."
"Have you pen?" Harry paused and remembered who he was speaking to. "I mean a quill?"
-/
Harry stood out on the road that went past his driveway with a torch, even he didn't apparrate into his house, there was a lot of alien technology and other stuff around the place that made apparition difficult if not dangerous.
Then into the torchlight a woman apparated with all the grace and stature of lady walking an estate, or something, she was always very graceful, and made apparition look like something without effort or even thought, though she was somewhat surprised to find herself on a road and not within a house, grounds or something else.
"My house is just down here," Harry gestured with his torch.
-/
Daphne looked around her as she apparated, there was obviously some disorientation in apparating via map coordinates, rather than to a place known.
It was interesting that Harry Potter knew she was capable of it, while the skill was something all wizards and witches should know it was something that many were not fully practiced, it was an as much an art as a skill. Like riding into the hunt, ready for both a dragon or a peacock to come running out of the scrub.
It did not surprise her that the coordinates that lead to her apparition point were not his house.
Instead she found her feet firmly planted on a muggle bitumen road, with Potter... Harry, holding a muggle portable lighting device.
Which meant, obviously, like his conveyance he lived a far more muggle life than many of the witches and wizards with whom she and her family associated with, while it was true some found themselves enjoying living within muggle society, they generally maintained a magically based lifestyle beyond the doors of their accommodation.
"My house is just down here," Harry gestured.
She nodded, Harry smiled. He did, she thought to herself have a nice smile, and an interesting one, there were so very many minor scars on his face, from the battles fought, and continued to fight, she had realised very early on that he continued to do so. Though the scars on his face were extremely minor and small, one had to be close, intimately close to have knowledge of them.
As she had.
Harry's house was a farm estate, as he led the way the lights around the buildings switched on, illuminating the courtyard area in a warm yellow glow. If Daphne had been in any of her other associates' abodes should would simply have thought, or rather not even considered who illuminated the area, it would simply be house elves or in some rare cases some wizarding families employed witches and wizards in lieu of house elves, she had only heard of this from her father and mother. It was a costly process, but some families did not trust, even house elves who were bound to the family.
However Harry Potter wasn't a regular wizard, Daphne doubted Harry was even a regular person by muggle standards.
There was no sign of his conveyances that she had ridden in and seen from previous encounters with him, she assumed they were within some of the structures.
Harry held the door open for her and gestured her in.
Inside it was also simple, there seemed nothing grand about his accommodation, though, Daphne had not really expected Harry to follow as such.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" He asked as he walked through the house, allowing her to take in the rooms.
Some of the doors had obviously been closed prior to her arrival, the scuff marks on the floor and carpets indicated that they were well transversed areas of the house, where Harry passed through without impedance. Those doors, shut, she would respect, being within, invited into one's house meant a certain level of respect for privacy or secrecy was expected from the guest.
"Yes, that'd be lovely," she called to him as she followed him into his kitchen.
While tea was mostly enjoyable all of the time it wasn't what she felt like at this moment, and there was a room she was curious to see.
-/
Harry had not expected Daphne to walk in and kiss him, maybe he should ask her if she wanted tea more often...
-/
Daphne woke up and for a moment tense, wondering where she was, looking around the somewhat familiar room she remembered her night of intimacy with Harry Potter.
The previous night she had made no secret of the curiosity that she had as she allowed her fingers to play across his body, the scars and injuries past apparent. There were spells, specialists beyond those in St Mungos who could treat such things, wiping the slate clean of such things that some in society found vulgar.
Not her though.
Looking to her side, she saw that the man in question had risen, looking to her other side she saw a note resting on the bedside table, where her wand was also residing. Picking up the paper, and it was paper rather than parchment, and it was quite rough paper at that, the line across the top indicated it had been bound, very lightly against something else, the slight curve of the paper meant it had been ripped away, why someone would need a stack of papers like this was not immediately apparent to her.
-/
Harry looked up as he saw Daphne walk into his kitchen, a scenario, a few years ago he would never have believed would happen. Though a few years ago he wouldn't have thought he'd nearly have killed Ginny.
A few years can do a lot to a man.
"If I ask you if you'd like some tea with your breakfast you're not going to grab me and shag me for all it's worth, again are you?" He asked with a grin.
Daphne smiled at him with a cool glance. "That Harry was a...momentary whim. You need not associate tea with sex, it would be most unbecoming in your modern life," she paused. "But I will have a cup of tea."
"Unless you'd like coffee, I have that also."
She wriggled her nose. "No thank you Harry, coffee is...not something I enjoy," she said looking around the room. "You live a muggle lifestyle."
It was a statement, rather than a question.
"Is living a wizarding lifestyle so good?" He asked, switching on the kettle. "Sticking your head in a fire versus a phone?" He nodded towards the phone on the wall.
Daphne starred hard at him. "A point to you then Harry."
"I sense a but coming," Harry said as he prepared the tea.
"No, Harry, I need not argue one living standard from another. You have chosen how you reside and are comfortable in it, even if you don't receive owls."
Harry shrugged. "In my business I don't need to contact a lot of people, when I do, there is a business that provides me with a service."
"Which allows you to remain anonymous," she observed.
"Amongst other things, but yes." Harry acknowledged.
Daphne smiled at him. "I know where you live now Harry."
"You know where my bedroom is also Daphne, should I be worried?"
"That I might apparate in?" She asked playfully.
Harry looked at her calmly. "Just don't, not into the house, not into the courtyard." He said seriously. "The road, my friends and even I do so."
"You have wards up?" She asked.
Harry sighed. "Things are difficult relating to certain things like apparition around here, it's...complicated."
"And dangerous?" She asked.
"My life's dangerous and complicated Daphne," Harry said, and then the doorbell rang.
"Sorry, I'll just go and see who that is at this time of the morning," Harry said.
"I should like to find out what makes your life so dangerous and complicated Harry Potter," Daphne said quietly to herself, allowing a small smile.
Harry opened the door, his wand tucked into a pocket. There was a man, a courier standing at his door.
He offered him a package with his mail forwarding company's stamps on it.
After signing for it he closed the door and pondered for a moment.
Most, actually practically all his post, wizarding based arrived in the regular daily post. He did have one of the highest priced deals with the company which meant if he received something urgent, owl wise it was forwarded on at the fastest speed in the muggle equivalent.
"Who's sending me expensive post?" He pondered to himself as he tore open the box package the letter was sent in.
Inside was a slightly larger than normal wizarding envelope. The hand writing looked familiar.
Hi Harry,
Long time, no messages. We fight a war and then you disappear.
I've been working with Professor Sprout at Hogwarts and a few weeks ago something was delivered from the Ministry, from a research expedition, they sent it to Hogwarts because we've got the best facilities, and Professor Sprout's seen it all.
Professor Sprout's off delivering all the Mandrake, we've had so many and since second year she planted more 'just in case' now we're growing them and supply to other places, so she left me with this "perplexing plant".
"So how'd you get my number then?" Harry wondered aloud to himself leaning against a wall.
Looking at the plant and the original environment it was found in I did some reading, a man wrote a paper, years ago about something similar Ioan Hrycek was the man's name, discredited by the ministry. But I looked further, supposedly he's working for you.
Harry, I'm not sure what you're up to, but if you can help, then I think I need it.
Your friend,
Neville Longbottom
Harry shook the envelope and grabbed the photos that fell out. Typically of wizarding photos they were black and white and a little bit on the grainy side.
They showed a large spherical seed pod, with some tendrils of vines around it.
He'd never seen anything like it before, but obviously Ioan had and looking at it he was sure he'd heard something like this described to him before.
Which wasn't narrowing it down much.
-/
Daphne looked up as Harry walked back into the kitchen, a look of concentration across his features.
"Was it something amiss?"
"Oh...yes," he said eventually.
"Something you need to address immediately," she stated rising from the chair.
Harry smiled warmly and drew her into an embrace, savouring her body as they kissed. "Something that can wait a moment."
She broke off the kiss and smiled wickedly at him. "Perhaps you will enlighten me as to what issues are at stake," she paused and then added. "Some day."
"Some day," Harry answered casually. "Maybe some day you'll tell me what you get up to, unless it's all hunting, managing the estate and..."
She glared at him. "If that is all you think of me Harry Potter you have a feeble imagination for someone of my capabilities."
"Well, aside from sex and a bit of mysterious small talk we're a bit light on details for us both Daphne," Harry countered, though Daphne seemed somewhat surprised by his blatant use of the word 'sex'. Maybe Harry thought he should have used shag instead.
"Not merely sex Harry Potter. We're intimate as well," she said with a smirk. "If you'll walk me to the road then Harry."
"You don't need to collect your things?" The look he received from that question indicated she must have picked up everything and had been ready to leave when she came to breakfast. Or maybe it was just a playful look. Sometimes it was hard to tell, sometimes she just looked sexy.
"Are you certain of the issues of apparition here?" Daphne asked as they walked outside. "Is it not just some elaborate wards you learnt during your years of mischief and war?"
Harry shrugged. "Feel free to check for yourself Daphne."
Daphne removed her wand, twisting it around in her fingers and drew a long arc around, intoning something as she did so.
She finished and looked around her and then back to Harry.
"I see. Have you had any problems in the past?" She asked seriously.
"No, not as yet," Harry answered.
She looked at him seriously. "You may need a bucket for the remains, should it happen in the future."
"I've been there, bought the mug and killed the t-shirt wearing idiot," Harry said without thinking.
Daphne gave him a strange look but didn't say anything.
They walked up to the road in casual silence.
"So, Daphne, should I expect a call from you again at some point?" Harry asked.
"You could contact me Harry, I am not as far removed from wizarding society as you are."
"That depends on your perspective Daphne, while I might shun certain trappings of wizarding life others, I am very much a part of others."
"Part of your fascinating lifestyle Harry?" She asked as she stepped closer and kissed him.
"Yes, and what of you Daphne, am I to remain ignorant of your life?" Harry asked.
"Perhaps." She smirked at him. "Or perhaps not Harry, I do find myself..." She started and then caught herself and stared and held his gaze for several moments. "Quite fascinated."
And then she disapparated.
Harry stared at the space she'd occupied for a moment or three. "Interesting." He shook his head smiling to himself.
-/
"Ioan."
"Harry, you're up early, I thought there weren't going to be any emergencies until early next year."
"Just because I told you when they're going to make an appearance doesn't mean there's not danger in the world."
"Your tone of voice suggests otherwise." Harry wanted the glare at the phone but knew it'd do nothing to help, except make him feel better.
"We've got a potential situation."
"Oh."
"I remember reading an article that had excepts from something you wrote."
"Back in my bloody minded days where I wasn't shunned you mean?" The distaste was thick in Ioan's voice for that period of his life, or more to the point wizarding society, the Ministry in particular.
"Yes, there was something about a large seed pod, alien."
"Hmmm," was all he said.
"I can't find the article, but I was hoping you had your notes."
"I can look, what're you up to?"
"Going and looking for more information from a friend." Harry said as he gave up looking around his desk.
"Fine, I'll call you back later. Where is this problem?"
"Hogwarts," Harry said and cringed as Ioan let out a string of expletives.
-/
K9 looked up, or that was what the Mistress called it when he activated his sensors.
The phone was ringing.
Mistress had "popped out" to buy more lactic fluid from bovines and rendered endosperm and bran based consumable "bread and milk, the essentials K9." The Mistress has said.
K9's sensor activation was the direct result of the wired communication device the 'telephone' activating.
At this time of day it there was a 40 percent change that it was someone unknown to the Mistress, a 33.3 percent chance that it was someone who had a connection to the Mistress, of the remaining 26.7 percent, half were likely to have knowledge of the messaging system in place, and 50 percent of that were likely to leave a message. Of the other 50 percent 25 percent would attempt to get the Mistress's attention.
K9 activated his motor units and moved towards the messaging system as the phone stopped ringing.
"Sarah, are you there, it's Harry, Potter?"
K9 identified the voice as Harry Potter, an individual the Mistress termed as a friend of the Mistress, he had an association with the Doctor Master, and had encountered the previous unit to himself.
"I need to talk to you about something." There was a pause, but K9 could detect the phone line was still open. "K9 if you're sitting there listening to this don't just delete this message. And please tell Sarah I'm coming alright?"
Then the call ended.
-/
Harry turned the key and grinned as the Lotus Exige roared with life. It wasn't as powerful as his other cars, but it was smaller and easier to drive around than the McLaren and less expensive to fix up than the Jag.
Just in case there was any issue there was a small amount of weaponry in the boot.
Sarah looked up from her shopping bags as K9 twitched, his sensors twitching back and forth.
"K9?"
"Composite constructed motor vehicle has decelerated outside of the abode Mistress."
"A car's pulled up outside you mean K9?" She asked, sometimes she wanted to kick him for being obtuse, other times she had to stop herself from scratching the angular dog-shaped computer behind the ears.
"Suggestion Mistress, it may be Harry Potter," he announced suddenly.
"And what makes you think that?"
There was a longer than normal pause from him.
"K9?" Sarah walked around in front of the robot dog.
"He communicated and left a message while you were purchasing bovine lactic fluid."
Sarah looked down at the dog-computer. "And let me guess you were just about to tell me?" K9 had taken a dislike, if it were possible to Harry, though she couldn't fathom why.
Then the door bell rang.
-/
"How many speed limits did you break on your way up here young man?" She asked as she welcomed Harry into her house.
Harry grinned. "None that they'd be able to track back to me, if anything it's just a blur or a puzzling smudge," Harry said and then caught Sarah's look at him. "All in the name of keeping the planet and all its people safe."
"And nothing about you driving fast in another car I see Harry, you're worse than the Doctor."
"Only sometimes," Harry admitted.
"Tea?" She asked walking into the kitchen. "I trust this isn't a social call?" She asked as she put on the kettle, she heard K9's motors as he joined them in the kitchen.
"Hello K9," Harry said in a dark tone.
"Harry Potter," he/it acknowledged.
"Did you hear my message I left for Sarah?" He asked coolly.
"A message was received from your telephonic system." Harry wanted to kick the dog-computer.
Sarah just laughed. "K9, I told you to call me if anything important came up."
"Yes Mistress." Harry got the distinct impression he wasn't 'important' in K9's view. Then the robot seemed to pause. "Mistress was returning shortly."
"And you thought you'd save calling me, I know how you hate interfacing with the phone system," she said sappily to the dog-computer, it just made Harry want to kick it some more.
"Your predecessor was much nicer you know," Harry commented idly.
Sarah seemed surprised by his comment, K9 let out a noise that Harry couldn't really identify.
"I sometimes forget you've known him for a long time," Sarah said looking out into her front room.
"You travelled with him for a long time Sarah, that's something I've never done."
"Oh, but Harry, you've got to know him..." She smiled. "I thought I knew him at times, then he changed."
"He does that," Harry said with a sigh. "But you travelled for a long time after that."
"Yes and he never could get the landings right," she said shaking her head with a smile as she walked back into the kitchen.
"He does like to turn up when there's trouble, or maybe it's the TARDIS that likes trouble. Maybe it's the people around him that cause the trouble and he just happens to turn up. I suggested that to the Brigadier the other day, he had a cracking laugh at the suggestion."
Sarah looked had stopped making the tea and was staring at him. "Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, that Brigadier?" Harry nodded. "You've never mentioned you knew him, he's never mentioned you."
Harry shifted from foot to foot. "I...well...I met him after I re-met you, after our first meeting, but, I met him before you met him. It's a little complicated."
"You've time travelled. That's how," Sarah surmised instantly.
Harry laughed. "I'm glad you get it, talking time travel related meetings is complicated with people who don't get it."
"I don't think I'll ever 'get it' Harry. So you met the Doctor in the 70s after he met you for the first time," She stated as she added milk to the cups.
"Before."
"What?" She looked at him.
"I met the Doctor before he met me, though after he met me for the first and second times, but before he met me as he was in the 70s with UNIT."
"You're right Harry, it is confusing," she exhaled. "And I thought it was confusing after all that Game of Rassilon bluff."
"Though I'm sure it must have been nice to see him again," Harry said softly.
Sarah's face lit up with a smile. "It was Harry, to see him, older, but...him. Before he changed."
"Yes. Change," Harry said, and hoped Sarah wouldn't ask why he was in the 70s.
Which is what she did ask and she handed him a mug of tea and gestured towards the front room.
Harry relaxed into the chair and took a sip of the tea.
"That..." Harry started and found he wasn't sure if he wanted Sarah to know what he'd been up to. Their friendship was different to his other friends. Though a far more adult relationship, he still felt like she was the far more mature person in their friendship, though despite that she was still very young and full of life, like she could continue to run down corridors for the next 50 years and outrun the best of them.
Though she also had a policy of 'no guns', something she acknowledged that he didn't follow, couldn't follow, guns or other deadly weapons. But while they sometimes dealt with similar things, they were parts of very different worlds.
"Is a long story?" Sarah offered with a soft smile.
"A very long, complicated and messy story," he admitted.
Sarah nodded simply. "Another time then Harry. So, you didn't rush all the way up from Porthcurno to come and chat about old times with the Doctor."
"And confusing temporal situations," Harry joked.
"Precisely Harry, so come on."
Harry leaned forward to place his tea somewhere steady. "A while ago we were comparing stories."
"Yes," she asked levelly, unsure where Harry was going.
"You mentioned something about a seed pod a bit bigger than a cricket ball and something about it turning into a plant."
A look of panic spread across Sarah's face. "A Krynoid, you don't mean to say one of those has turned up?"
Harry shrugged, he wasn't sure and said so. "It sounds like one may have turned up, but I wanted to find out more information, as it sounded familiar."
"And something the Doctor never mentioned," Sarah added.
"The Doctor doesn't tell me everything, as I'm frequently telling people," Harry added slightly gruffly.
Sarah smiled at him. "I didn't mean it like that Harry, it's just, he was very 'I'm a Time Lord, you can't understand the implications' sort of thing sometimes with me."
"Almost every time I met him he had changed, though," Harry paused thinking back. "It never seemed as weird as it should have been." Harry smiled, in his childhood it was all much simpler than now where he had to worry about the web of time and its implications when he was in the past and now soon bumping into the Doctor who was yet to meet him coming into his own present. "So this Krynoid?"
-/
Harry waved to Sarah goodbye as he walked down the path.
Hazmat suits would be a definite go when they got to Hogwarts, lasers though, had come some way since the 80s weren't exactly any more portable and it had likely been alien tech that UNIT had been mucking around with, especially with the Doctor absent from UNIT for a lot of that time.
Pulling out his phone he dialled Judith's number.
"Yes, Harry, what do you want? I am busy."
"How is that going by the way?" He asked.
"The town is large Harry, but I'm working through the car portion of it, we'll have a hefty sum of money from this. Not to mention the buildings, furniture, we could well retire on all of this."
"Is that what you'd like?" Harry asked curiously.
"Shit no Harry, how boring would life be, no one shooting at me, no penis substitute wood waving wankers to mock," she joked.
"Good. I need you to look into a few things."
"What sort of things?" She asked with some skepticism.
"Things that go boom and bang," Harry replied.
"Oh, good. I thought you usually sort that out."
"I want this sorted ASAP and I've got a few other things to sort out today," he admitted.
"How many?"
"They need to be high powered, explosives and bazookas, RPGs use your imagination."
"And what's our target?"
"Either something as large as a manor house or as small as a man though we'll need firepower either way. To fit into the back of the Defender or maybe into our magic bags as well."
"Where in buggery is this?"
"Hogwarts," Harry said simply.
"I finally get to see where all the teenagers spend their days waving, polishing, rubbing and generally jabbing their wands." She said with a snicker.
Harry shook his head. "Yes," was all he said in reply. "Cash wise you know where to get it from if you need it, or LPI will reimburse you."
"Of course you will Harry, I know you're good for that. You've got me selling a village full of cars."
"Classic mint condition alien maintained cars," Harry reminded her.
"Yes, I won't forget that part of the spiel when I get rid of them. Goodbye Harry. See you tomorrow."
-/
The World Ecology Bureau did not have a glamorous office like the UN, or even a secret public building like UNIT. It was in a set of office buildings that it looked like it hadn't moved from since the 80s, instead it seemed to have just bought up more and more of the offices around it as it expanded.
For one of only a handful of times he'd actually needed to use his 'official' identification as LPI. Not that it actually said what LPI stood for, though the League of Paranormal Investigations was registered and had the same clearance levels as things like UNIT and Torchwood, though he went places neither of those two went and dealt with things they weren't equipped for.
Though what he'd got was something both organisations probably did deal with; and that was paperwork, something to sign and then the files he'd requested.
There were two reports; one for concerning operations at the Antarctica base and then one for the events at Chase Mansion.
In the two incidents two men had been 'infected', Charles Winlett who had been killed at Antarctica and Arnold Keeler.
Harrison Chase might have been totally mad, but at least he'd documented everything, and the World Ecology Bureau had recovered the film following the incident. Which meant in grim detail was the transformation from man to plant.
It was a terrifying yet fascinating transformation the pictures showed and it showed the true scale of the thing beyond what Sarah described.
Harry just hoped he wouldn't have to deal with a full sized thing.
But just in case. "Judith."
"Harry, you sound worried."
"I am," he paused. "make sure you grab a few 'just in case' weapons."
"In case shit hits the fan and we get a whole lot of brown rain?"
"Quite," he said.
"Fine I'll see what I can do and you want this as quick as possible?"
"Yes, I'm off to send a letter now and then hopefully we'll be off in a day or so."
Judith sighed. "Fine then, I'll work something out. Maybe you can call in an air strike."
"I'm not sure how the Headmistress would react to that. Hogwarts is unplottable."
"Those flyboys love a challenge and love blowing stuff up."
"We'll save it for an extreme last resort, I don't want to have to call in favours with the RAF."
"No you'd prefer to do it yourself." Harry didn't want to admit to Judith that she was right so stayed silent.
"Silence is also an admission that I'm right Harry. Good bye."
-/
The mail forwarding company he used looked, from the outside like any other shop front of a courier company and if anyone walked in off the street, would presume it was a courier company and they even did that work.
Rather nicely he wasn't greeted with 'Mr Potter' or some such the man behind the counter waited for him to produce some identification and checked it before greeting him.
While it was nice to have a 'regular' pub to go to where familiarity was nice, you still needed some security with things like this.
He could have sent off a letter from home, but he wanted this send as fast as possible and to get a reply in return with speed.
One letter was to Neville telling him to touch nothing and not go near it.
The second was to Headmistress Professor Minerva McGonagall, informing her that this 'issue' was a League of Paranormal Investigations matter and that he wanted to bring his 'muggle vehicle'.
He just hoped that when Ioan said it was hardened against electrical interference and magic he meant it.
Though driving into Hogwarts was probably going to be pushing it. But he wanted all the equipment with them and it was the most convenient way to carry it around.
"Any replies to these I need them as fast as possible."
"Via non-magical means?" Harry nodded, while he wanted the replies he still didn't want any magical birds flying to his house.
-/ — \\—
"You're mad you know Harry, you want to drive to Hogwarts." Ioan had arrived early in the morning, he'd spent the previous night collecting his notes and research about what he now knew to be a Krynoid.
"You assured me that this" He thumped the side of the Defender, of which they currently had the bonnet, doors and tailgate open. "Was specced up to the ends, that it'd stand up to everything and beyond what the old one" Harry jabbed a thumb towards the barns where the old one resided. "was."
"Hogwarts," Ioan repeated.
"To the gates then, we'll walk from the gates."
"Why do you want to take it?" Ioan asked seriously as he connected some alligator clips to another part of the engine bay.
Harry leaned against the side. "Because..." He trailed off. "I want not to have to rely on anyone in the castle, we're our own operation." Then he turned and looked at Ioan. "And don't you think it'll piss everyone off if we drive through Hogsmeade in this? To go and sort out an alien man-eating plant?"
Ioan grinned. "Yeah, it would. Though we might have to push start it. That's the only part I'm not sure, of course there is getting Hogwarts isn't called unplottable for nothing and if there were any semblance of drivable roads to Hogwarts they'd probably be inundated with 4x4ers every weekend."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You've thought about this then?"
"Just a bit," Ioan said peering at the meters he was using to check various parts of the Land Rover's workings. "During that time when I was particularly angry with the Ministry I thought long and hard how to get back at them, to literally drive it into their heads," he said in a dark tone and then smiled at him. "Nothing beyond planning though."
Harry looked at him for a moment. "Hence why I trust you know what you're doing with all of this, that's not to say I don't."
"But you bow to my age and maturity," Ioan mocked.
"Well certainlyage Ioan." Harry chuckled.
Ioan punched him. "I needn't work on this, I do have several old brooms back at home, I could lash a few together and we could ride them into town."
Harry blinked. He and Ioan had had a game or two of 1 on 1 Quidditch on the odd occasion and Ioan had really preserved all those skills from 12 or so years ago.
"Maybe once we're there you can show all the little ickle wizards and witches how an expert flies," Harry challenged.
Ioan laughed a short laugh. "That part of my life is well and truly behind me Harry. A small bit of curiosity..."
"And a large amount of cultural superiority and paranoia. I know," Harry said.
"At least I didn't make the mistake of shagging someone insane enough to believe lock stock," he gave Harry a look.
Harry nodded. "I've done the two smoking on her and her former-followers enough."
"And do you think she'll ever be trouble again?" Ioan asked curiously.
As Harry was about to answer a slightly beaten up faded red Ford Transit van drove up.
"One of the 'spoils' from Ashfordly?" Ioan asked as it stopped beside them.
"I had to get the gear around somewhere, why not?" Judith answered as she got out. "It's a mean beast this. Still in good condition." She thumped the side.
"So I hope you've got some interesting things." Harry said as they walked around to the back of the vehicle.
"I'm sure you'll find a use for it if we don't need it." Judith said as she unlocked the back of the van.
"Please not a suitcase nuke," Ioan held up his hands.
"No, but I got a good load of Panzerfaust 3s, they're RPGs for those of you" she looked at Ioan. "Not in the know about these sorts of things."
"I feel so honoured amongst pyromaniacs," Ioan deadpanned.
"That's fire, this is explosive, surely there's a difference?" Harry questioned, then Judith shut the doors quickly.
"What's that for?" Harry looked at her.
"Post's arrived," she said.
Harry looked around. But didn't see anything, he crossed his arms and Judith just smiled and then a van came driving up the road and pulled into the courtyard.
Harry took and signed for the small package, allowing the man to leave before he opened it up.
There was only one letter inside and he knew the handwriting from several transfiguration assignments' marks and comments.
Dear Mr Potter,
I must say, such an official letter.
Though it seems you have followed your career choice we spoke of, several years ago with vigour. I had no knowledge of your League, though the Ministry is also very tightly lipped with regard to it as well, and as we know, leagues and orders only do work the Ministry does not like.
Harry chuckled to himself.
But I do not like to be told what is coming into my school, so any apparatus may be brought to the gates.
As far as moving your muggle apparatus to Hogwarts, there is a goods train that services Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, you must arrange for yourself a train wagon on which your apparatus must be securely tied for the journey. I have made arrangements that the train will wait at Hogsmeade for as long as it required in order to return you to your origin.
This is a most fascinating and troubling situation Mr Potter than Mr Longbottom should need to contact you. We are however in the process of isolating the plant.
Good day to you Mr Potter.
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall
The letter was signed, something his homework assignments never were.
-/ — \\—
Harry had his hands thrust into his pockets, it was a cool verging on cold autumnal day and the three of them were standing at an out of the way, at a location that could if one were being very positive be called a train station. Though at best 'rotting ruin' would be a better name for it, and it wasn't just some concealment charm that was making it seem like it, it really was just a rotting ruin.
The Defender was tied down and covered by a dark green tarp, so it was practically impossible to tell exactly what it was.
Then they heard the noise of a train approaching.
"That's not the Hogwarts Express," Ioan observed.
Harry nodded, it wasn't, it had a green body with black front.
It was pulling one passenger carriage and a few goods wagons, it slowed as the last of the wagons came level with siding on which the 'station' was. Harry walked quickly over as a man jumped out.
A few moments later he waved the others over.
-/
"So this is it, I get to see Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Judith said with relish looking between Ioan and Harry who were both looking out the window in thought. She kicked both of them, breaking the trance they were in.
"Sorry," the said together.
"This isn't a train ride I thought I'd make again," Ioan said.
"Nor me," Harry added. Looking to the corridor of the train and thinking back to all those fights, squabbles really with Malfoy and his goons. Buying chocolate frogs and those cards, meeting Ron and Hermione for the first time.
Judith then kicked him again.
"What was that for?" He growled.
"You looked like you were getting nostalgic, I thought you said we need to stay clear headed on this one and not get distracted."
Harry and Ioan frowned. "I didn't say that," Harry said after a moment's thought.
"Well I've said it for you," she said. "Considering what's happened at this school with your penis obsessed culture you shouldn't let yourself get caught up in nostalgia."
Harry snorted. "Yes, nostalgia for killer professors, giant snakes, revelations from the past, tournaments of terror, sadistic professors and general heartache."
Judith smiled. "Precisely what you thrive on Harry."
Ioan just shook his head. "I was thinking of Quidditch, my first kiss, sneaking into the kitchens, Slughorn and his slugclub." Then his voice turned a darker edge. "Then there's all the people who treated me like a leper, a crazy, deviant."
"Join the club," Harry muttered.
"Isn't this lovely, we're all remembering things." Judith smiled at both of them.
-/
The flat wagon was, along with the rest of the train parked along the platform. Judith had allowed both himself and Ioan a moment of nostalgia before they set about removing the tarp and the straps securing the Defender, now Harry was sat inside it, with Ioan beside him.
"So, moment of truth, are we about to drive into Hogsmeade or..."
"Or are you going to be pissed off that we have to push start it?" Ioan finished.
"You and Judith will be push starting it, I'm not the boss for nothing," Harry said with a grin and turned the key.
There was a quite sick noise of the engine failing to turn over and dials flickered for a moment.
Ioan made a noise.
"Above military spec," Harry said. Ioan jumped out and opened the bonnet, checking the fuses and removing several.
Then he gave Harry the thumbs up.
Harry turned the key again, and grinned, as he, and the rest of the surrounding area was rewarded by the sound of an engine turning over.
Harry let out a sign of relief and carefully drove off onto the station.
"See, nothing to worry about," Ioan said as he climbed in.
"Yes, nothing that your expression of extreme worry couldn't fix," Judith muttered as Harry drove slowly to the end of the platform where they'd opened a gate up in order to get out.
"Now onwards to Hogwarts," Harry said, a grin forming across his face.
-/
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall stood with Neville Longbottom at the gates to Hogwarts.
She had been informed that the goods train had arrived more than 10 minutes ago. She had informed Mr Longbottom that their 'guests' would be arriving soon. Despite the recent developments she wanted him here.
Why Potter wanted to bring a muggle contraption here, especially after the disaster in his second year she didn't know.
Although, this was not the young boy, or the younger man who had defeated Voldemort, he, like Mr Longbottom were young men, on with the lives.
In the distance she heard something that she had never heard here, in London yes, in the muggle countryside, but not here.
Somehow Harry Potter and this League of Paranormal Investigations had made a muggle vehicle function, under muggle powering mechanisms if the sound was anything to go by.
Then a dark coloured vehicle drove up and came to a halt outside the gates, and thankfully Potter, she presumed it was Potter driving the infernal thing, switched off the vehicle's propulsion, ceasing the awful noise.
Potter walked around to the open gates.
"Headmistress McGonagall," he greeted warmly.
"Mr Potter, it's good to see you," she said allowing a smile to him and raised an eyebrow. "Your associates."
"Judith and, you may know-" Harry began.
"Ioan Hrycek, young man," she said in a surprised tone.
"Harry doesn't think so," he said gruffly looking over at Harry. "Hello Professor," he said with a little more of a smile.
"Well, you know Mr Longbottom."
"Hi Harry," he said with a nervous smile.
"To my office I think, gentleman, lady," McGonagall said starting off for the castle.
"Sorry for the long time Neville, I had some issues amongst other things and I guess...time got the better of me." Harry said awkwardly. He'd meant to stay in contact with everyone after Hogwarts and yet...hadn't. A combination of Ginny, alien incursions and his stint in the 1970s had pretty much thrown him out a lot with many things.
"I heard, about Ginny and things," Neville said awkwardly.
"Ah...yeah." Was all Harry managed as the got to the doors to Hogwarts. Harry stopped for a moment.
Neville laughed. "I was like that too, it take getting used to Harry, being back here."
"Looking around corners, waiting for death and deadly danger to be around all corners." Harry said.
Neville noticed Harry's hand drifted to a thing strapped to his leg, as he looked he noticed the two others who were with Harry also had them. "This way," he said, the woman in particularly seemed quite uninterested with where she was.
-/
"Your friend's noticed the guns," Judith said quietly to Harry.
"I know. We did fight a war and a mad man together. That does tend to instil some things in you," he muttered back "so what do you think?"
"Now that I'm here in one of the most powerful wizarding institutions in wizarding Britain?" Every time she said 'wizarding' it was dripping in sarcasm.
"Less of the sarcasm Judith I think."
"OH&S would have a field day with those staircases," she commented as she jabbed a thumb upwards.
"OH&S concerns." Harry shook his head with a smile.
As they walked the stairs and finally got to the Headmistress's office Harry remembered something, Dumbledore's portrait. Not just that, but Dumbledore and his messed meeting in the past and what his portrait might want to say or...Harry didn't know.
It was something he would need to look into later.
The office was as it was, different and yet the same.
It made him somewhat sad as he saw Professor McGonagall sitting herself down into the Headmistress' chair. Even though Dumbledore's death was in the past and even though he had seen him alive and kicking in his own personal past and in the longer form more distant past, Harry still felt a pang of...sadness. The past, was the past, except when it was the present and the future, so says time travel.
Now here they all were seated before the Headmistress's desk and all he was lamenting was the absence of Fawkes and the missing pot of lemon drops.
Harry was dragged roughly back to the present by Judith kicking him in the shin.
"Now, Mr Potter, I had, as your message instructed," She paused, peering over her glasses, as though to imply as the student, even in his former capacity shouldn't be instructing.
Harry relaxed for a moment but realised that McGonagall was pausing rather than just critiquing his wordage in his letter, which did not bode well for next few minutes.
"However after I had responded to your letter two agents of the Ministry arrived to inspect the seed pod."
"The bloody Ministry," Ioan muttered to himself earning another glare from McGonagall, Harry wondered if Ioan was censoring himself, in a situation like this they all were a little more liberal than 'bloody'. It was coming back to Hogwarts, sitting here before the Headmistress' desk that did it, made them all feel like students again.
Though, come to think about it, even when the Order had met, they all still had treaded Dumbledore like that, or maybe it was just Dumbledore's power and standing that made people act like that.
"The Ministry wished to inspect the seed pod," McGonagall repeated.
"I suppose you mentioned my organisation's involvement?" Harry asked curiously.
"They were aware your League would be involved," McGonagall said looking directly at him. Harry filed the wording of that response away for later as it implied several interesting and worrying things.
"Mr Longbottom showed them to the isolated glasshouse," she continued to explained.
"Greenhouse 8, it's a bit run down, but it's away from the others, and from the castle, Professor Sprout used to grow specialty potions ingredients there, but some got a bit volatile and hard to grow because of the spells used there," Neville explained.
"So there's a lot of magic been used there..." Judith said mostly to herself.
"Madam, there's magic present throughout this school," McGonagall stated annoyed.
"So, you took them to see the pod and...?" Harry prompted.
Neville paled quite a bit and looked over at McGonagall.
"And one of the Ministry officials informed me that his associate had been stung by a plant and promptly departed."
"You didn't stay with them in the greenhouse?" Harry asked.
"They ordered me out Harry!" Neville said distressed. "And with all the mould and moss the windows are really hard to see out of, I was going to get a broom from the Quidditch pitch to spy...I mean keep an eye on them. But you know me with brooms."
Harry had to commend Neville's forethought, even if it didn't carry through, but what was coming was even more worrying.
"I sent Poppy to tend to him. While she wished that he be moved from the greenhouse into the castle I bowed to Mr Longbottom's persuasion to keep the man outside of the castle."
Harry nodded over to Neville. "And a good job for listening to him."
"Poppy has been keeping an eye on the man however, it appears is undergoing some form of transformation," she said carefully.
A chill went down Harry's back as he recalled the photos from the World Ecology Bureau's file, of Harrison Chase's "experiment".
"Green, mottled, almost scales forming over 98% of the body," Judith said in a monotone.
"Yes, madam and Poppy said his body temperature has been rapidly dropping, lower than even a mereperson closer to even a vampire's temperature, yet the man was still conscious and requesting meat," the head mistress continued.
"Rare meat," Harry said in an equally worried monotone.
"How...?" McGonagall asked looking at the three of them. "As Poppy was worried, as was I about the man's life I conceded, there has been a house elf tending to his dietary needs."
"Idiot women," Harry said standing up. "Both of you. Come on, Neville, show me to the greenhouse. Let's hope the cycle hasn't hit yet."
Neville looked between the shocked McGonagall and Harry.
"Mr Potter I will not be spoken to..."
"Please, Professor, just show us the way," Harry said in a slightly, though not much, softer tone as he forced himself not to jump to conclusions of death.
At least not until he saw how buggered they were.
-/
"Should we bring the Defender around?" Judith asked as they followed the still very spry McGonagall down the stairs which had all lined up for them.
"I think the best place for it is out on the cobbles," Harry said.
"Why's that?" Neville asked as they quickly took the steps.
"You'll see." Harry said cryptically and hoped that Sarah and the World Ecology Bureau had embellished when they said the Krynoid exuded a 'psychic connection' with the plants around it. But knowing his luck it would be in the same field as the Nestene's psychic affinity for plastic.
Harry was rewarded with the latter as they quickly walked towards the greenhouses. Plants were moving, wriggling of their own accord, the grass suckered at their feet.
"Please tell me the suckering is how you wizards get off when you're rolling around in the grass."
"We like to save sucking for the broom cupboards," Ioan responded sarcastically, "or the alternate Harry does at least."
Harry had to hand it to them, keeping calm and all that.
"What?" Neville asked.
"Never mind," Harry muttered.
"It's all dark Mr Potter, Mr Longbottom?" The McGonagall gestured towards the green house.
All its windows were darkened out, though as Harry walked up to it the roof of the greenhouse was still clear.
"Wands out I think, and weapons too." Harry said quietly to Judith and Ioan. "AK and empty everything in," Harry said looking to Ioan who nodded.
-/
Minerva listened as Harry spoke quietly to his two associates. "AK and empty everything in." She presumed that 'AK' was some muggle term. As all three of them removed muggle guns from pouches on their thighs. Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek were holding both their wands and the muggle weapons in a stance that suggested they had done this several times before.
"Open the doors, carefully." Mr Potter's tone suggested an order as did his expression.
"Very well Mr Potter, but I must insist calm, this is my school and I will not have violence here, that is very much in the past."
"I don't think so Professor," Mr Longbottom replied in a worried tone to her side, he, also had his wand out, but was taking a far more defensive stand to her side than the aggressive stance that Mr Potter and his associates were adopting.
"Alohomora," she said as she indicated the doors. They sprang open revealing something...inhuman.
Then there was a roar of...she couldn't think, it was like a painful birth cry of a dragon or something else in pain.
"Oh fuc-" The rest of Mr Hrycek's words were cut off as a tentacle stretched outwards from the greenhouse, and impacted on a shield by Mr Longbottom in front of them both.
Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw that Neville had cast a shield to protect himself and the Professor.
"Oh buggering frak," he said. "As soon as we see something solid start firing."
"And you think we can contain it?" Judith said looking into the darkness of the greenhouse.
"Not a chance. I'm just being optimistic." Harry grinned wildly.
Then Judith started firing.
-/
Mr Longbottom had dropped the shield protecting them. "You alright Professor?"
"Thank you very much Mr Longbottom."
Then she started to hear the noise of muggle weapons' fire, a noise she had heard many more times than she cared to recall in her life. It was then joined by two other, separate sounds of fire.
She was about to cry out to Messers Hrycek and Potter when she heard the unmistakable cry of an unforgivable curse being said with determination and a degree of composure by Mr Potter and then Mr Hrycek. A pair of deadly green curses flew into the greenhouse, impacting on something.
Then the roar noise increased.
"Fall back!" Mr Potter shouted.
-/
Harry backed away quickly. Two killing curses hadn't even slowed down the man who was almost before their eyes turning into a full sized Krynoid.
"It's amazing how fast it's developing," Judith said as they ran away from it. "Faster than anything in the World Ecology's files." She continued as the Krynoid began to smash up the greenhouse.
"You're going to need to evacuate the greenhouses, get everyone back into their houses," Harry said quickly. "Now, Professor."
"Slytherin's practicing on the pitch Harry!" Neville said quickly.
"They can stay there as long as they don't get any stupid ideas."
"Leave that to the Gryffindors," Ioan commented with a smirk looking at Harry.
"Really, must you take this so casually!" McGonagall exclaimed.
Harry looked to her and then realised where they were. "Yes," he said simply as he re-holstered his gun. "I think high explosives time." Harry turned to Neville. "Keep an eye on it, if you know any good weed killer spells now's the time to break them out Neville." Harry said quickly and motioned for his associates to go.
"Harry" Neville asked looking at him. "What is that wizarding becoming?"
"He's not a wizard any more, it's more..." Harry shook his head trying to think. "A carnivorous plant with an appetite for meat." Neville flinched as something was broken inside the greenhouse. "We need to stop it before it can achieve seed dispersal." Neville paled, he knew what would happen if things that violent spread out.
Running was hard, the grass, the trees, everything was moving and thrashing around. The grass wasn't just sucking, it felt like it was really trying to latch into their boots and hold them down.
When they got back to the Defender the effects were less, but even there, the moss between the cobbles seemed to be moving, like little soft pockets of death.
"Two AKs and how many bullets?" Ioan shook his head. "Not the return I thought I'd have." He looked towards Hogwarts.
Harry shrugged. He hadn't really thought about it, that he'd left Hogwarts in fight and fire and upon his return it was again fight and fire, but of the alien variety made a sort of sense.
"Symmetry," Judith said out of the blue. Harry didn't even bother looking at her.
They had packed the Defender full of everything they might need, mostly in several expanding bags, all neatly ordered into plastic crates, now they were just throwing them into backpacks to haul back over to the greenhouses.
Some of them, those in cases they opened quickly to carry the weapons. As they shut the door again they looked like they were ready to liberate a large city as a band of freedom fighters...
"All we need now is silly uniforms," Judith said.
"Have you seen what we wore?" Harry gesture towards Hogwarts. "Been there and done that."
"I've still got my house patch somewhere," Ioan mused, ignoring the weeds trying to make their way into his boots.
"Musing on the past later, alien weed creature present," Judith reminded.
-/
Neville looked at the odd brick shaped things Harry and his friends were placing around the greenhouse, most the windows were broken by now, but the doors, which he'd double locked, and transfigured a brace across it to prevent it being opened had remained shut. He'd managed to have a quick look at one of them, the side facing the greenhouse said 'Face Toward Enemy'.
Harry seemed very competent and well, especially considering the rumours around him and Ginny and what she had been saying about...everything.
Not that he listened to rumours, but Ginny hadn't exactly been quiet about those things. Then she disappeared and hadn't been heard from.
He'd wanted to write to Ron but, it wasn't easy to bring up...stuff. Even stuff during Voldemort and...everything. It still felt raw, and yet dry, as though it was in the past and everyone had moved on.
The woman, Judith, she seemed older than Harry or his friend Ioan. She most certainly didn't seem to be a witch, or if she was she hadn't used her wand at all and Professor McGonagall didn't recognise her and she didn't know her name.
"Umm," Neville started.
"We're setting up explosives for when the Krynoid breaks out of the greenhouse. We think it'll slow it down."
"Oh..." Neville said, he hadn't meant to ask that question, he hadn't realised he had, he was still thinking about the question he was going to ask.
As another inhuman roar escaped from the greenhouse Neville found himself thinking back to the lunch he'd had last week in Hogsmeade, well he'd said he was having lunch in Hogsmeade, but the Professors at Hogwarts didn't need to know where he went after he left the castle.
"You should ask her out again. Or him again, you never know. But I think her, somewhere out in real world." The woman, Judith said with a sly smile.
Neville looked around, he was sure he hadn't been talking aloud, he'd been told he sometimes talked to his plants, but this was hardly a normal day.
"No, it's not a normal day Mr Longbottom," said Professor McGonagall behind him, "Not in the slightest. What's Mr Potter doing, what are all these expandable bags doing here?"
"Weapons, and explosives," Judith answered simply.
"Young lady? What are you doing? What do you mean?" The Professor looked down at the ground where Judith was tying together lengths of fine wire.
"In reverse order, weapons and explosives." Judith said and looked over as Harry swore, quite loudly.
"...ucking hell." Harry came running up, mud over one side of him.
"Problems?" Judith asked sweetly as Harry cast a cleansing spell, shucking some of the mud of himself.
"Tentacle caught me by surprise. We ready?" He asked.
"Just waiting for it to break free," Judith said and smiled Harry met hers with a grin.
Harry picked up one of the anti-tank weapons and slung it over his shoulder the others did the same. Then he drew his wand.
"Blasting curse I think." Harry said.
"Mr Potter!" Harry stopped and turned, he'd almost forgotten that Professor McGonagall was still here.
"Professor is everyone in their houses?"
"Yes, but I was just informed several house elves are missing." When Harry didn't react she looked at him harder.
Harry sighed. "If they were servicing that thing they've probably been eaten, I'm sorry."
The Professor turned a slighter shade of white. "And now you intend to destroy the greenhouse?"
"Better a controlled demolition than one by the krynoid."
"Crin-oi-d?" She looked at him.
"Blasting curse, Ioan, Neville, care to join in Professor?" Harry asked adopting a stance.
-/
Minerva McGonagall was about to reprimand Harry Potter as he attempted to adopt an attacking stance, despite the muggle equipment on his back when the roof of the greenhouse shattered. A feat on its own, even that, the oldest of the greenhouses had spell proof glass, it could only be removed by trained professionals, spells had to be cast to carefully remove the glass, and it couldn't simple be shattered like that.
"You might want to block your ears Professor," Judith said quietly. The woman had some how managed to creep up and stand beside her while she had been thinking.
"Why in Merlin's name do they want to destroy the greenhouse?" McGonagall wondered aloud.
"In three, two, one." Harry said in a calm voice. "Confringo." Three spells of excessive force exploded out from the wands of the three wizards stood there, there was an almost pause as each threw up shields and then the blasting curses hit the whole greenhouse exploded with mighty fury.
"To stop the Krynoid from growing straight up and onto your castle. It's easier to fight near the ground." McGonagall realised the Judith woman was still talking. "And thank you for the shield." McGonagall looked down at the wand in her hand and smiled. That had been purely an instinctual reaction, she didn't even recall incanting the spell.
"Though you might still want to block your ears."
Through the smoke he could see the...the thing...the Krynoid, it looked...Neville couldn't figure out what.
It was as though the wizard, whom he knew this thing used to be had been taken over completely, a complete transformation.
Not like a werewolf or an animagus, this was...perverted somehow. The man's legs were more stumps.
"Like trees," he whispered mostly to himself. And the man's body seemed to be morphing, changing and growing before his eyes.
"Do you think this'll work?" Ioan shouted at Harry.
Harry shook his head. "But it'll give us some thinking time to break out the heavier artillary. Firing in three, two, one!" He shouted and squeezed the trigger.
Minerva McGonagall conjured a semi-solid transparent wall as she heard Harry Potter shout at the top of his lungs "Firing in three, two, one!" She quickly added a sound deadening charm to it. Then, as Mr Potter finished shouting she saw him squeeze something with his hand, how he managed to juggle all that equipment he was holding she didn't know, but he seemed very practiced at it.
Then the area around where the greenhouse used to be exploded, something hitting the thing.
She dropped the wall immediately after the explosions, and then the ground started to rumble.
Harry cringed as the Krynoid wobbled around and then seemed to force its 'feet' into the ground, then the whole ground rumbled and seemed to shift below their feet.
"Oh crap."
"I think you've pissed him off."
"Anti-tank rockets I think." Harry said swinging the weapon from his back. "Stand clear!" He shouted in a tone of voice he'd learnt from the Brigadier back in the 1970s.
Harry fired his weapon, it hit with a disconcerting lack of explosion or anything really.
-/ — \\—
Far away, from the castle on the edge of Hogwart's wards a man sat on a broom, covered in an invisibility cloak.
He allowed a moment to focus in with the omnioculars again. Potter was being more efficient than he had planned for. That the man had arrived in such a short amount of time was unexpected. He had thought the transformation would have been at a greater stage.
As long as the creature reached maturity was all that was required.
-/ — \\—
Ioan and Judith's weapons were slightly more effective, in annoying the Krynoid and blowing away chunks of it, but it also seemed to force another growth spurt and it continued to grow.
"Fall back," Harry shouted as the ground distorted as the Krynoid sent out waves of roots and tentacles along the ground.
As they backed away he reached into his jacket removing several grenades and pulled the pin and used his wand to propel them towards the Krynoid. They entered the folds of the creation and there were dull thuds of explosions along with a smell of burning mulch but it didn't seem to have any effect.
"Where's your defence professor anyway Professor?" Harry asked as they joined Professor McGonagall and Neville.
The Professor seemed thrown for a moment. "Some classes are taken into the Forest for 'hands on experience' Mr Potter, now that we thought there wasn't as much darkness in the world."
"Not as much," Harry said "but we approaching fuc-"
"Language Mr Potter!" The professor decried Harry raised an eyebrow and looked back to the Krynoid which seemed to be consolidating its position, that brief moment of sudden growth seemed to have thrown it off in its development cycle. "Up territory."
Judith was unpacking grenade launchers.
"I hope you've got a plan," Harry wondered to Judith.
"That smell of mulch and the growth spurt I think we can use it." Judith explained.
"Force it to keep adapting?" Harry mused.
"What about it being tapped into the ground, we're practically swimming in magic, at least that's what Dumbledore used to say when I was here," Ioan said as he also started to pull out weapons from his own bags.
"Umm...Harry..." Harry turned and realised Neville had been eavesdropping. Or at the very least listening in. The Doctor always liked to say there was a difference. Or maybe Ioan, Judith and himself had been talking in the face of danger, casually, while those not used to a giant alien weed creature looked on.
Maybe that was more plausible.
Harry really thought this should worry him more, the alien weed creature, rather than plausibility, which didn't seem to matter in reality sometimes.
"Neville, mate, yes?" Harry said with a slightly too eager reassuring smile, or it may have been the assault rifle that he was holding that made Neville stare at him a bit.
"Umm...that greenhouse, well, the one where that thing used to be, it's set away from the castle so there should be less magic, if we could move it further from the castle the less it would be..." Neville shook his head. "I was just thinking, if it's growing so much Harry, it needs fertiliser, food, or something, if it is a plant, very few plants, magical or otherwise can be sustained on just magic alone, even the soil isn't that rich."
"So we make it go after something more meaty." Ioan said as he took the offered grenade launcher from Judith.
"What does it eat Harry?" Neville asked, wondering if he had something in the other greenhouses.
"It's carnivorous and it's already eaten several house elves," Harry paused and then added. "Probably."
Neville paled and looked over at the Professor who was watching them converse with a worried expression on her face.
"So we tempt it with something tastier, Ioan" Judith looked up at Ioan and Harry recognised her expression it was either a brilliant idea she'd thought of or something incredibly disturbing.
As it turned out, it was both. "Those Quidditch players you like to go on about, they're all strapping young lads and ladies aren't they? They're nice fresh meat."
-/
Minerva McGonagall stared at Harry Potter for more than a second as he explained what he wanted her to request Rolanda to ask the Slytherin team to do. It was perverse, but if it saved the school, then the Slytherins would need to be the brave and courageous ones.
-/
Rolanda Hooch stared at the note that the Headmistress had sent through and looked back over to the Slytherin Quidditch team that she had been supervising with some of their more audacious practice moves.
This was an even more audacious, dangerous and, given the temperature they would need to cast more than one warming charm on themselves.
-/
"Are you sure this isn't just your excuse to get a bunch of wizards..." Harry trailed off as they shifted closer to the Krynoid.
"Please, Harry, I am older than both you and Ioan," Judith countered.
"Finally admitting your age," Ioan muttered. Judith shot him a look of death.
"But I'm not about to approach such young wizards under the age of consent. That would be wrong," something in her tone suggested something deeper and darker than Judith's expression revealed.
"Some of them are in their final year," Ioan mentioned offhandedly with a smirk.
"Well, we'll just have to see won't we," Judith smiled.
"It's like working with Jack," Harry despaired. This plan was not something he had expected to need to resort to. "But we will certainly see something," he said to himself. He looked back up towards the castle, he'd instructed Professor McGonagall and Neville to start flinging cooling and freezing charms at the Krynoid when the Slytherins started their 'dinner run' as he'd thought of it in his head. It was a better name than 'attraction run' which is what Judith had called it.
Whatever Harry thought, a moment later that was changed by the boldness that the Slytherins were showing as a pair of them flew towards the Krynoid in not much more than their underwear. They hovered for a moment, tempting the creature before a tentacle flung out, narrowly missing them and then they flew away.
Then another pair, and another, and then the Professor and Neville started to fire their spells.
For a minute or two Harry thought that it wasn't going to work and he'd gotten the whole of the Slytherin team naked for nothing.
A sentence he thought he'd never think, ever.
But slowly, tempted by the fresh meat presented to it the Krynoid up rooted itself and slowly shifted away from the freezing spells and shards ice that pierced it, transfigured by one of the most accomplished transfiguration professors.
Then himself and his associates began their new assault, targeting certain areas that Harry and Neville had identified as key areas the creature would attempt to regrow or mutate around. Further sapping its energy as it tried to adapt to its new surroundings, almost morphing and changing, like the shift between wizard and animagus form.
Harry swiped his wand down casting another Avada Kedavra at a gaping wound, the Krynoid shuddered visibly as the spell struck but it continued to move towards the Quidditch pitch where the almost naked Slytherin team continue their cycles of temptation.
-/
Minerva McGonagall took a hold of Neville Longbottom's shoulder as the creature moved away from their position and outside of any optimal striking distance. Mr Potter and his associates continued to attack with brutal efficiency.
"Professor?" Neville looked over at her. He had very well stepped into the position of temporary Herbology professor while Pomona was transporting the various excess plants they had in the Herbology department.
"Mr Potter and his associates seem very much more equipped to deal with this..." She trailed off, she wasn't sure what this was, despite what had been said to Mr Longbottom about this being a plant, this was far more something else. However, what she had found out about Mr Potter's League, she could scarcely believe he was tied into something so deviant as that, it was the realms of Trelawney and tea leaves to be believing in such fakery and designs created for muggles.
"I could help professor," Neville continued.
"I won't have one of my professors getting themselves killed fighting...that. Especially when there are people very capable-" She paused as she witnessed Harry Potter cast another killing curse at the creature. She had lost count of the amount of times that he had cast that particular curse since he had arrived on the grounds of Hogwarts today. She had thought that curse would never again be cast since the battle that they had participated in. But it was the ease with which he cast that curse and the way he and his associates wielded their muggle weapons, with such proficiency and ease.
She breathed in the cool air, hoping to clear her thoughts, but the scent of battle was on the air. "People who are very capable Mr Longbottom." She paused again as another pair of Slytherins made a darting, tempting run on the...the thing, the creature. Its size and presence was outside anything she could call even vaguely familiar, larger than a dragon and according to Longbottom and Mr Potter a plant. While herbology was by far not her specialty, something about it, something intrinsic about it, it seemed unnatural.
It felt as though it did not belong here, in their presence, not just because it was attack and a threat to her, her students and Hogwarts, there was something more.
"Harry thinks it's alien." Mr Longbottom, Neville, Minerva thought to herself. He was, at a young age very proficient and was well on his way to become a professor at Hogwarts. She would have to use his name, he, like Mr Potter had ceased being one of her students a few years ago.
"There's no such thing as aliens," she said almost immediately. "Did he say that to you?" She asked in a worried curious tone.
Neville shifted. "He implied it, but his friends-" Neville stopped as a large chunk of the Krynoid exploded to one side. But the creature continued to move towards the Quidditch pitch, but it was noticeably in distress, shaking, swaying as it did so.
Harry recoiled as a piece of the Krynoid exploded away. He and Ioan quickly threw up shield over the three of them as goop showered down.
The Krynoid visibly shook and shuddered as it attempted to adapt to its constant attack.
Though it continued to pursue its flying prey that tempted it, and only sent out tentacles to threaten them. Although, it was also moving faster towards the Quidditch pitch, having working out where the naked morsels of meat were coming from.
"You think you can get down there and lay the high explosives in its path?" Harry asked Ioan.
Ioan gauged the distance and nodded. "We'll use the last the artillery when you let off the explosives." Harry said. They were running somewhat low on their rocket propelled grenades. They were, today really earning the money the Ministry paid them, just in weaponry used.
Ioan took off along the seldom used path to the Quidditch pitch. It wasn't used because it was steeper, rockier, and because it was seldom walked far rougher, but back in his day they had used to get back to the castle after practicing, or to get the best seats for a game. He took this path because it took him past Madam Hooch's office, and there was a giant carnivorous alien plant blocking the way to the Quidditch pitch. He'd like to have thought he'd never think a sentence like that, but in some of his darker times, he did, on occasion wish that the things he knew to be true would rip some of the magical world asunder, just so the deluded idiots could see that he wasn't a mad blundering deviant.
Rolanda Hooch hovered with practiced ease, her wand out ready to deflect the creature's attack on the students. It seemed an insane strange proposition for the students to do, to lure the creature so that it could be attacked. But it was working, and it seemed that some of the things she'd taught them had actually sunken in.
The Gryffindors may think because of their past cup wins when the likes of Potter and the Weasley twins, Merlin remember Fred Weasley, that they had single stake in the Quidditch games.
The next pair flew back, sweat over their bodies from the vigorous flying needed to evade the creature's advances. "Very good Ms Higgs," she said as the pair flew past. Her older brother had also been a good Quidditch player, despite being deposed as Seeker by Draco Malfoy some years previous when he had attended Hogwarts. It seemed such a time ago, though so many lost one could never forget the costs.
She held up her hand and grabbed one of her students as they went to fly past, gesturing with her wand at the other as the creature shifted a portion of it exploded again, no doubt the efforts of Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek, but the Headmistress the message she had received, avoid at all costs the creature's touch.
The further attack did not seem to slow the creature.
"Professor?" They asked looking back, their faces, still with sweat, while she had charmed their brooms with warming charms, she knew their faces were sweaty from concentration. She made a note to give a considerable amount of points to Slytherin for their bravery, something they would likely disapprove of. "Keep your distance from it, but keep going." She gestured. Looking around, out of the corner of her eye she saw someone, not in Hogwarts uniform, at least she thought she did.
Ioan smiled, no, he grinned as he kicked off from the ground. Madam Hooch always kept a couple of specialist brooms in her office, 'just in case' she'd always said. Ioan wondered if giant alien weed creature qualified.
He resisted the urge to cry out as he embraced for a moment the joy of being on the outskirts of the Quidditch pitch, it all seemed so small now, small and petty, not the pitch, but the wizarding world, its government, and now, here it was, threatened by something they swore didn't exist.
He pushed the broom back down, faster and faster, towards the base of the Krynoid, then he pulled up, and brought himself into a gentle hover, edging away from the Krynoid.
He exhaled softly, it was surprising how fast the creature was moving, down here on the ground it was shifting along on whatever it was using to move. He pushed away a bit further and started to plant the high explosives and their triggers. They were relatively sure they would work, certainly theoretically they would work in the magical environment, they were somewhat complicated, but there was a lot less magical energy down hear the Quidditch pitch than near the castle. Madam Hooch insisted on it, he recalled, some spells could interfere with a rider's performance, though he did briefly wonder what setting off several kilos of high explosives here was going to do to a rider's ability.
But that was something they could worry over if they won themselves another day.
Or if not, then everyone would be eaten by the Krynoid, the wizarding world would find out about aliens, and shortly after that the human race would be consumed by the Krynoid's offspring, Ioan thought to himself wryly.
Having set the explosives he kicked off, pausing to wave to Madam Hooch and narrowly avoid the Krynoid's clutches.
"Set Harry," Ioan said leaping off the broom and running towards them in a practiced move.
"Should I cry fire in the hole?" Harry wondered.
"Would anyone understand if you did?" Judith asked as she fired off the last of their grenades at the now gaping wound on the side of the creature.
"Go and warn Hooch, I don't want any of the Slytherins near." Harry paused and looked at his watch and then down to the pitch. "Do you think you can get over there in 1 minute, the Krynoid should be positioned-" Ioan was already on the broom and kicking off.
Harry sighed and for a moment wish he was in Ioan's position, instead, he had to be the responsible one.
"Responsible for the giant alien weed Harry. You can go and fly around with the semi-naked Quidditch players later." Judith chuckled to herself.
Harry just grabbed the nearest weapon and fired several more shots, if they did any damage he wasn't sure. They were getting towards the bottom of the bag, so to speak with regard to the weapons they'd brought and even he had thought it was a bit of an overkill with the amount of weapons they'd brought.
"I know you've got your eye on a few of the older players Judith. I happen know the way to the Slytherin common room if you'd like an introduction," he said casually.
"Please, Harry." Harry raised an eyebrow at her serious tone. "Their dorm rooms, I do want some privacy, though, an audience is a bit of fun too."
Harry looked down at his watch. "Fire in the hole," he muttered to himself and squeezed the trigger. Its little red light lit up to show it had transmitted and then there was a rather large explosion.
Minerva McGonagall felt the ground shake and the air move as the creature exploded, the explosion ripped the earth beneath it, and tore the creature apart. She felt Neville's hand on her should steadying her against the blast wave.
"Thank you Mr Longbottom," she said as she tried to steady her voice. There wasn't, from their vantage point much they could see left of the creature.
"Harry doesn't do things by halves," he said in a tone of awe.
-/
The man cursed to himself, Potter was even more creative than he had initially believed. He quickly wound the omnioculars backwards to find what he was looking for.
While the creature had been developing and growing, one particular portion had developed faster, satisfied he would find it he wrapped the invisibility cloak around himself tighter and gripped the broom, shooting at speeds faster than the average Quidditch player towards Hogwarts' own pitch.
-/
Ioan grinned and chuckled to himself, he always said he'd blow a hole in wizards' understanding of life and its place in the universe.
There was now bits of that life and a sizeable hole in front of the Quidditch pitch.
"You're riding my broom Mr Hrycek."
"That's alright, we only saved your necks Rolanda," Ioan said casually.
"I believe we enabled you Mr Hrycek and your associates to perform what you just did."
Ioan noticed out of his peripheral vision some of the Syltherin house team slowly floating towards the...remains of the Krynoid.
"I wouldn't-" He started.
"What?" One of them shouted.
"Go near it, it could still be dangerous," Ioan said darkly. Most of the alien stuff they'd dealt with in the past few years was dangerous after it was 'dead' some of the things wouldn't stay dead. But Harry and the information he had gathered, especially from the World Ecology Bureau suggested they treat the remains with as much caution as any live pods, like a biological agent which meant they'd need to break out the uncomfortable hazardous material suits. Even a bubble head charm wouldn't afford as good a protection as the uncomfortable, brightly coloured suits could.
"How dangerous?" One of the younger Slytherin's asked behind him. Ioan pushed himself around with the slightest gesture with his wrist, the broom turning on its own axis to face them.
"More dangerous than anything on Earth."
-/ — \\—
Harry dug the poles out of one of the remaining magically expanded bags, he had praised Hermione many times for her creation of hers when they were following the path of the horcruxes. But it was that idea that had lead to him creating these, the bags were one of the most useful items he had. He stabbed another one of the poles into the ground. Judith was behind him with a huge role of yellow tape that said "CAUTION" in black against a yellow background. He'd actually accidentally brought the bag in question, it had been with the hazardous materials bags when he'd been packing everything. He'd actually only ended up with the tape because it had been particularly cheap when he'd been buying the hazmat suits.
His organisation wasn't exactly the 'put up tape to alert people of the dangers', at least most of the things up until now had required more hypnotising, and careful investigation, or explosives, rather than tape.
"You think they'll think that the tape is for caution, rather than what's beyond?" Judith commented cynically.
Harry turned around trying to think through Judith's thought process. "Because it's plastic you mean?"
Judith smiled at him. "Precisely."
Harry shrugged, he didn't really care to think along the thought processes of the wizards here. He more hoped they'd get done fencing off the area, with enough tape and poles to tie it off on. The explosion had flung it across a large amount of space and they needed to collect it all before anyone curious wanted to investigate further.
Information on cleanup and disposal had come more from the World Ecology Bureau than from Sarah. One had been blown up in Antarctica, later surveys had found it had been incinerated in the blast, but the whole site was still a 'zone of contamination' that UNIT had helped clear up. The second one with Harrison Chase had also been destroyed and cleared up by the World Ecology Bureau and UNIT they'd incinerated everything, and then incinerated the filters that had filtered the incineration and then whatever was left had been sealed away.
He intended to do the same, and he definitely wanted to stop McGonagall or any of the other Professors vanishing it away or performing some other spell to rid them of remains.
As Harry and Judith walked mostly silently around the disaster zone they'd passed near the Quidditch pitch.
"Eyes forward Judith, you shouldn't be spying on the Slytherins."
"They've got their clothes back on now Harry," she chided.
"Yes, spoil your fun spying on the underage witches and wizards, many levels of wrong." Harry commented back as he waved to Ioan who seemed to be trying to make sure Hooch and her students kept their distance.
As they walked back up the hill towards the where they started Harry took in the beauty of Hogwarts, ignoring the stench of the Krynoid and the bits that had stuck in the bushes and everywhere. Then looking around he saw Professor McGonagall's face as she walked closer towards, it was as though she could really smell the Krynoid's still burning corpse. Or maybe she just didn't like the particular colour of the CAUTION tape.
"What is this Mr Potter?" She fingered the tape.
"See, told you."
Harry wondered if it was a coping mechanism his old transfiguration professor was using, focusing in on one particular foreign object, rather than the huge remains of the alien weed creature.
If it was, then denying reality was taking on a whole new meaning.
"It's a plastic tape barrier, it's got CAUTION written on it Professor," Harry said, keeping his tone calm. Neville was beside the Professor looking from Harry as he was talking to the smouldering Krynoid behind.
"And what is it doing on my school grounds?" She asked, still focusing on the tape and Harry.
Harry really couldn't read the Professor, she didn't appear to be in shock, well, no more shock than she had from anything so far. So instead he looked to Neville, who shrugged a little bit.
"That's to stop anyone from coming into contact with the Krynoid." The professor twitched, very so slightly at its name. "It could be very dangerous."
"How dangerous Mr Potter?" she challenged again.
"Of unearthly danger." He resisted the urge to say 'literally'.
"In that state the creature stillposses a threat to the school?" She asked astounded.
Harry relaxed slightly, so the professor did acknowledge the existence of the Krynoid. At least he didn't have to deal with 'reality denial', Harry pondered for a moment where he'd learnt the term, very likely Ioan had used it in one of his essays.
"Yes." He answered simply. "Until myself and my associates have dealt with it I don't want anyone out here." He said adopting a more official tone. "Madam Pomfrey should do a full body check of the Slytherin team, if they've had even the slightest contact inform me." He looked at the Professor calmly. She nodded a short nod.
"You should keep all your students inside the castle," Judith added. "The less they see of this the fewer questions you'll have to answer."
"Very well Ms..." It seemed to annoy the Professor that she didn't know Judith's full name.
Harry could feel Judith smiling behind him.
She turned to leave but stopped. "Could this not be sorted out more promptly Mr Potter" She paused looking to Judith and then back to him. "I am sure you are aware there are several spells to clean up after such incidents so that there are no muggle witnesses, states can be returned to their previous forms." It was unsaid that McGonagall wanted or could do so.
Harry shook his head and wondered if he should mention that the Krynoid was alien. "That thing is beyond..." Harry trailed as he thought better of it, the small twitch around the eyes of his old Professor.
Judith though didn't see or didn't care. "Earth," she finished for him.
"Earth," McGonagall repeated with doubt.
"Using magic before we have most of it away, especially considering its birth from a wizard, the interaction of magic could be disastrous, even in death, we know a wizard's body still contains power, with that any magical meddling could result in the most dangerous consequences." Harry rattled out, he was sure he was channeling the Doctor as he gave that explanation.
"Very well Mr Potter, I shall issue an announcement preventing anyone from exiting the castle and continue to keep the curtains drawn across all windows that face the grounds." With that she turned and walked back up to the castle.
"Harry, do you think I can-" Neville started as McGonagall was out of earshot.
"No," Harry said immediately.
Neville blinked. "No?"
"You were going to ask to get a sample of the Krynoid to study," Harry answered.
"Yes." Neville nodded. "Why not, now that it's dead?" Neville asked innocently.
Harry wondered how Neville could have returned to being so innocent, after the battles they'd fought.
Or maybe he'd just become even more cynical, maybe it was all the people he'd- Judith punched him, lightly, on the shoulder.
"You were over thinking Harry, go and get the hazmat stuff, I'll do the talking," She said soft, though firmly.
"Yes sir." Harry mock saluted.
-/ — \\—
It took them several hours to hack up the remains of the Krynoid, and shovel it into the bright orange hazardous material barrels.
All the time inside the loathsome suits. Even with the fans and cooling charms within it was still not the most pleasant experience.
Though between them and becoming a Krynoid Harry chose them as did his colleagues.
Though now, they were down to the last part and they had a second use for their flame throwers, which he wasn't sure they'd need to use again after Ashfordly.
They had scoured the area around where the Krynoid had been destroyed, with it all removed, but he just wanted to 'scorch the earth' of any remains. Just in case.
-/
It did though present a disturbing image for Headmistress McGonagall to come across when she ventured outside in the early hours of the afternoon.
The area around the greenhouses damaged by explosions, shot through with bullets, the earth ripped and furrowed by roots, and the soil, grass and trees smouldering under assault by flamethrower.
"Everything should recover soon, so says Longbottom," said the woman, Judith behind her, Minerva tried not to be any more startled than the scene presented before her. The woman seemed able to sneak up on people, without making any method of detection.
"Oh really young lady?" Minerva arched an eyebrow, despite the age difference between this woman and Mr Potter she was still young compared to herself. At least she was mostly sure this woman; Judith was younger than her, though older than Mr Potter but there was something to her, she seemed to behave around Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek in a similar manner.
"It's necessary," Judith said as she walked back down towards where two smaller figures, both in different, though still clearly protective coveralls and large face masks. Minerva had thought to ask why a bubblehead charm, something Messers Potter and Hrycek would know and could cast with little difficulty.
But instead they were wearing the large cumbersome muggle masks that covered their face and eyes.
Mr Potter came trudging up to greet her several moments later.
"Mr Potter?" She asked, her displeasure implicit in her tone.
"It was necessary Professor," he said sadly.
"Your associate informed me as such. I thought I should inform you, Madam Pomfrey, despite what you think of her," she paused eyeing him. He stared her in the eye and matched her gaze and held it, it was almost as if Harry Potter were challenging her, or forcing her to continue to stare, it was nothing like the gaze of something like Albus, Harry Potter's gaze was almost mesmerising. She shook her head quickly and looked away. "She has conducted extensive inspections of the whole Slytherin team and found no evidence of infection or indeed any contact with the creature."
Potter visibly relaxed upon hearing this information.
"Was there something else Professor?" He asked, she realised she had been staring, watching Mr Hrycek and Judith continue to scorch small bits of land.
"I have been informed the train that brought you here will depart tomorrow morning, it is too late to depart tonight. I have had some guest rooms prepared to limit your contact with the students."
"So a return to Hogwarts," he said amusement in his voice, though she couldn't tell what particularly amused him. He had changed, she reflected as she walked back up to the castle, casting a gaze back as he rejoined his associates. He was no longer the young teenager who had studied and fought for his life, nor the young man who defeated Voldemort. He was something different, changed by life more so than she'd imagined.
-/ — \\—
"You two are behaving like you're on one of those house make over shows," Judith said from where she was lounging by the fire, a glass of wine in her hand. The rooms they had been given were down a small corridor just off the entrance to the castle, there were three individual rooms and a small lounge area where they all were.
"What?" Harry and Ioan asked.
"Walking around, rubbing the stone, tugging on the curtains," Judith chuckled to herself. "Or maybe that's what you'll be doing in your rooms."
"It must be very good wine," Ioan observed in an amused tone.
Harry poured himself a glass. It was. "Rather nice, mellow, warm, rather memorable."
"Like your schooling?" Judith fancied.
"Nothing like," Harry said as he finished his glass and poured himself another from the carafe.
There was one thing he had asked of the Headmistress, which Harry looked at his watch he'd attend to when the school sat for dinner.
Walking the steps of the Headmistress' office and the halls and stairways that lead to it, Harry...felt old. It made him think back to when he was young, younger. The terrors, the fun, the fear and the danger, the friends made and...those lost.
Then, without really thinking about it he was in the Headmistress' office, and the painting he had come to see was set up on an easle at eye height.
"Hello Albus," Harry said, using the man's name, something he'd not really done when he had been alive.
"Harry, my boy. My, haven't you changed," chuckled the painting of the old headmaster.
Harry didn't bother waiting, engaging in small talk. He just asked. "So, did you know it was me?"
The painting of his old headmaster leaned forward, his eyes twinkling, Harry fancied the painting was about to offer him a lemon drop.
"When?" He asked.
"In the '70s, Gideon and Fabian, the kidnapping. A man met you on Foula."
Realisation swept across the old man, the painting of the old man, Harry corrected himself.
"No," he chuckled. "Though now Harry, it makes so much more sense. I put it down to one of the peculiarities of life," he chuckled again. "So fitting I should have that answered after my time."
"Yes, time," Harry said looking around. He wasn't sure what he thought he was going to get out of talking to the painting of Dumbledore. Of course, the painting, of Dumbledore, of Albus, could be lying.
"I had thought you were myself, with a particularly effective disguise, such intense eyes you have my boy," he postulated.
"Yourself, travelled back?" Harry wondered.
"Via a time turner of some such, but as the hours and days passed I realised it could be no mere magical method of time travel, no time turner can go beyond that."
Harry nodded, filing that piece of information away for another day.
"And then, events occurred and got in the way, you were fortunate to be there, to stop us making a disastrous mistake," the painting admitted.
"Indeed," Harry said.
"It must have taken much courage not to see your parents, or those individuals who would become your parents when you were there."
Harry turned away from the painting, instead looking around at the other books, the other paintings in the room, they all seemed to be asleep or from their frames.
"They are part of the web of time, part of my personal past. Meeting you was...unavoidable, but necessary to avoid even more changes to the time stream," Harry paused. "Meeting my parents, even being in the same location could have had disastrous effects on causality and history," he paused again, remembered Ginny's intentions to do just that, and how he'd dealt with her followers, how he'd wanted to permanently deal with her. "I wasn't going to even chance that," he finished, thinking of Gideon and Fabian Prewett. They had been his friends there, they'd drunk together, had fun together, talked become friends, he had a small amount of photos, in fact all they'd taken with himself and those two in the frame. They were certainly not something he wanted ending up in Molly Weasley's photo collection. Especially the conversation that would inevitably follow 'if he knew what would happen, why didn't he save them?'. Harry very much doubted she would accept 'everything has its time and everything dies' explanation, nor the justification that it was part of history, nor the guilt that he could use as argument against her; such as saving his own parents in this imagined conversation.
"A very wise view point Harry."
"A great man taught me."
"The man who helped you after the Triwizard Tournament?" Albus said, mostly to himself.
"The same" Harry smiled. "And yet different." He exhaled. "Thank you for seeing me again Albus."
"Any time my dear boy, any time."
-/
Harry was somewhat tempted to wander the corridors of Hogwarts, to lose himself in the memories of the past. Maybe to find the third floor corridor, perhaps visit the Room of Requirement, or just walk the corridors.
But as he mused to himself, he realised he didn't want to.
There wasn't any going back. Hogwarts was the same, yet different, and he, he was most certainly different, changed by time, by experience.
You couldn't go back, even with time travel, the past, your personal past, was the past.
-/
"You couldn't do it could you?" Ioan asked as they were sitting around the fire after a delicious Hogwarts meal, it was, just like being back as a student, and yet, not.
"No. I felt like it, but, it's not the same."
"Face it Harry, we're old," Ioan chuckled.
"Older," Harry corrected. "This really is rather fine cognac," he said swirling it around in his glass. They had been provided with a considerable drinks trolley following dinner and tea and coffee.
"Of course you're older Harry, you're lounging in a chair and commenting on how you enjoy fine cognac," Judith said as she sipped her mead, which she also attested was very good. It was a drink that still filled him with some memories of dread.
"You expected I would be out having it off with one of the professors?" Harry teased.
Judith shook her head. "Of course not, not with you sleeping with the mystery woman who's become a lot more than a one nighter, or even an occasional fling."
Harry tried to shrug nonchalantly, but as he was lounging and slightly drunk it didn't really carry very well.
"I thought you might want to find the Slytherins, go and thank them personally," Harry smirked and then added. "I could draw you a map of where to go."
"You've been to the Slytherin common room?" Ioan questioned amazed.
"I've been all sorts of places, some more surprising than others. Mostly on that occasion I just watched Draco Malfoy lie around a bit and talk."
Judith chuckled to herself. "So many things to say."
Harry just glared. "I'll leave fantasies of the pasty git and myself to your perverted imagination, I don't want to think about it, the last thing I want to do is vomit all this cognac into the nearest toilet."
-/ — \\—
Harry stood with his hands in front of a metal basket that held a fire hovering above the pitch, it was cool verging on cold outside. It was early in the morning, but they had to leave in about 2 hours. They'd already risen and packed everything away. Ioan and Judith were doing a final walk around the area, which interestingly had been cleared overnight, the grass was still very new, but there were hardly any signs of the battle that had occurred the previous day.
But there were some people who wanted answers. McGonagall had decided not to tell the main student body, the teachers or anyone what had occurred yesterday. Neville had told him she had just said there had been an 'dangerous incident in the greenhouses' and that everything would be back to normal in a few days.
However a small group of people had wanted, no, demanded an explanation. Which was why he was out here, on the Quidditch pitch waiting for a certain team to arrive, the team that had helped, in fact greatly assisted yesterday.
Soon they trudged down the hill and saw him standing, waiting for them.
"It's you," one of them said, staring at him.
"Yes, I'm sure I need no introduction," he said, but said his name anyway.
"You were the one with the muggle weapons, fighting the creature," said another, a girl, young woman.
"It's called a Krynoid, and what I'm going to tell you may shock you, you might call me a deviant, a mad man, insane even. But you've seen it, and you know it's not just some wizarding creation, no matter what McGonagall said, that was a real, living, alien."
The various members of the Slytherin Quidditch team exchanged looks and looked back to Harry.
"How did it become that?" One of them asked.
Harry nodded, mostly to himself, gesturing the benches that had been set up around the fire and began to explain just how the Krynoid came to be as well as warning them, that everything was changing and that they might not be able to ignore it any longer.
-/
McGonagall and Neville met him at the entrance of the castle.
"How'd it go?" Neville asked.
"They didn't try to kill me, as far as meetings go that's always a plus," Harry said.
Neville looked at him trying to work out if he was being serious.
"So will this be the only interruption within my school Mr Potter?"
"I can't make promises Headmistress," Harry said as they walked down the path. "As a friend of mine likes to say the 21st century is when everything changes."
"An astute observation Mr Potter, something I have heard before," McGonagall paused. Harry looked at her as she smiled. "Though that was some time ago."
They continued down the path in relative silence.
"Everything packed?" He asked.
"Even the bag of shell casings someone thought to pickup for us," Judith patted the side of the Defender.
"You'll write occasionally Harry? We should keep in contact," Neville asked.
"Yes, of course, I will, yes," Harry said quickly. "I didn't mean to not, you know, being at school, then wars and then leaving and..." Then my ex-girlfriend starts calls me a deviant and mad bastard, tried to kill me, she escapes travels through time, I go and have to stop her... Harry just smiled, instead of saying all of that. "Some complicated stuff got in the way."
"And anything of an unearthly nature I'll be sure to contact you first," Neville joked, though McGonagall bristled at the mention of 'unearthly'.
Harry offered his hand to Neville who grabbed it firmly shaking it.
"Minerva McGonagall, it's been a pleasure," Harry said as he mock saluted to the Headmistress.
"Mr Potter, now, if you could get that monstrosity of a muggle vehicle out of here, perhaps, Mr Longbottom we can get back to work and you can explain to Pomona how we have lost a greenhouse."
"Yes Minerva," Neville said. McGonagall looked down at him. "I mean Professor." He said quickly.
"If you're to work here Mr...Neville then we should use each other's names, do you not think?"
Neville nodded with a smile.
Harry got into the driver's side. "You sure this is going to start."
"We're on a slope, if it doesn't we should be able to roll start it," Ioan said.
"I like the should in that sentence," Harry muttered.
Turning the key the engine made another sick noise, and then turned over, very roughly. Releasing the handbrake he eased the Defender forward and allowed them to roll down the hill as they gained momentum the engine took on a much better noise.
"Ioan, you're brilliant," Harry said as he did a U-turn back towards the station.
-/
A/N:
This is quite possibly my longest chapter yet, and there wasn't really anywhere that was a good cut point to cut this into two chapters.
I've had this idea sitting around for a while; Krynoid at Hogwarts, and this (timing wise) is the last place I could place it.
It's in the latter part of 2004, it needs to be here to begin the introduction of various alien concepts to the wizarding world.
I don't like to create characters if they're just going to stand there and be a little bit ineffectual, which is why the Defence professor doesn't turn up, is even mentioned or even suggested at a gender.
I also really didn't want to write any 'here's Harry, back at Hogwarts' scenes between Harry and whichever professors, which is part of the reason why McGonagall is the only Professor during all this who's around. Of course it also allows me to write stuff from McGonagall's point of view, which is always interesting.
I suppose I should address the 'technology doesn't work in Hogwarts' thing, as, Harry drives up to Hogwarts, I've got them using radio transmitters and other stuff like that. It's never really defined what is meant by "technology", I've basically just read it as someone testes something within Hogwarts and it didn't work (I like to imagine it was post-WWII) but since then technology has moved on. With the right preparations and considerations there's work arounds.
Thanks for reading.
