A/N - Hello everyone and welcome to the last chapter of Lightning, Part 1. This first part came out of me really quickly. I can't remember the last time I've written something long like this in such a short amount of time. The fact that I was able to publish the whole thing on schedule is nothing short of a miracle as I'm not usually a fast writer. None of my other long stories have been posted anywhere near this fast. The downside is that it took a lot out of me to pull this off and some recovery time is in order right now. I'm going to be taking a break for a while before any of Part 2 gets posted. I haven't written much of it yet and I want to have a lot of chapters written before I start posting it so that, like with this part, I can update it regularly. If you want to know when I finally start posting Part 2 then you should follow this story now. When Part 2 goes up I will add an extra announcement about it here which will be sent to anyone who is following this story. As for Part 3 I haven't planned much of it out yet beyond the general plot overview.

Thanks for all of the comments, favorites and follow for this story. It passed 100,000 views this past week.

In this chapter you'll finally learn who Harry will be paired with in Part 2.

Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling.

"Normal Speech"

"Telepathy"

36) INTERMISSION

AMERICAN SUPERHERO TEAM THE X-MEN DEFEND HOGWARTS FROM INVADERS

By Rita Skeeter

That was the headline and author which graced the top of the front page of the Daily Prophet the next morning. It was one of several articles about the invasion and stuck very strictly to the facts of what had happened. Other articles talked about who the X-Men were, who the Brotherhood were, exactly what mutants were, and so forth. There was even a short article on page 3 about Lightning's duel with Malfoy. Minister Fudge and Director Bones had released a joint statement of appreciation and thanks to the press as well as answering questions about the previous day while Dumbledore's statement at the end of the feast was printed in full. All in all a lot of positive press was generated for the X-Men that morning in the British Magical World. It was also an educational day for Magical Britain as most witches and wizards knew nothing about mutants.

In many ways the most eye opening piece was Rita Skeeter's interview with Cyclops. It was so unlike her usual muckraking innuendo and half-truth laced articles that it made everyone sit up and take notice. She stuck to the facts, kept her questions relevant to the event, and didn't try to turn the interview into a scandal piece. She was entirely professional about the whole thing, including the narrative at the beginning of the piece that explained how the interview was arranged.

Like all of you dear readers the article began I was shocked to hear about the attack on Hogwarts and very relieved to hear that it had been stopped. As I did not know who had stopped the attack I went to Hogwarts to find out. I was surprised to discover that 1) they were outsiders, 2) they have awesome powers of their own that they used very effectively to repel the invaders, but 3) they were not magical.

How is this possible you may ask? Some of you, especially those who have contact with the muggle world, have probably heard about the American superhero group the X-Men. They were the ones who came to Hogwarts' defense against the so-called "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" (for more information on the X-Men, the Brotherhood, and Mutants see the separate articles included in today's paper).

I was lucky enough to interview the team leader and oldest member, Cyclops. Initially I had wanted to interview their youngest member, Lightning, when I watched him badly beat the Malfoy heir in three straight duels after young Malfoy foolishly challenged him (See article on page 3 for details). Lightning refused to let me interview him mainly because he wasn't sure if he was allowed to speak to the press on his own due to his young age. However he also said that even though I might not be able to interview him didn't mean I shouldn't get an interview at all and he arranged for me to interview Cyclops instead. I must say that it's nice to meet someone who understands a journalist's need to speak to people. Thank you for that Lightning and for your help setting up this interview. Cyclops was quite willing to speak with me and here is some of what we talked about:

RS: "First of all, like many others today, I want to thank you for coming to Hogwarts' defense."

C: "You're more than welcome."

RS: "How is it that you knew to come here?"

C: "Headmaster Dumbledore is a very old friend of our mentor's and when Magneto came to Hogwarts the headmaster contacted our mentor and arranged for us to come here. I can't tell you who our mentor is for security reasons and I don't know the full story of how he and the headmaster first met but I do know that they've known each other for many years, since long before the rest of us came into the picture. Our mentor is a very powerful mutant himself. He's the one who founded our team and first taught us how to control our powers. It's our being mutants that enables us to see places like Hogwarts for what they really are. Mutants and magicals have a lot in common in that sense. Although we don't consider our powers magical others might and they would have good reason for thinking that."

RS: "What do you mean?"

C: "It might help if I tell you what I told Minister Fudge and Director Bones during dinner. Imagine you can only do one spell, or two if you're lucky, but you can do it so well that you can use it far beyond what the normal wizards can do with it. That should give you some idea of what a mutant power can be like. Take a common spell that all magicals know. The minister mentioned a spell that lets you levitate objects –"

RS: "Wingardium Leviosa?"

C: "That's the one. You can use that spell to move objects without touching them. Consider how similar that is to telekinesis which my teammates Lightning and Marvel Girl both possess. But they can use their power for much more than just moving objects from place to place. However that's the base from which it all starts."

RS: "I think I know what you mean. We have people in our society who specialize in specific parts of their fields and become experts in them."

C: "Yes, except that we mutants don't get to choose what talent we're going to specialize in. Nature decides that for us. We just do the best we can with what we get."

RS: "Could a witch or wizard also be a mutant?"

C: "Yes. In fact our mentor knows someone like that. He also believes that it's very likely that there will be more magical mutants in the future."

RS: "I look forward to that."

C: "I'm glad to hear it because there are quite a few people who don't like mutants because they're afraid of us and our powers."

RS: "That sounds an awful lot like how muggles often view magicals and a big reason why we have the Statute of Secrecy to hide us."

C: "It's very similar. Mutants are people just like anyone else. Some of us are good and some are bad. It's just like you have good wizards and bad wizards. Same goes for any race of people I think. Our mentor founded the X-Men specifically to defend humanity against other mutants who would use their powers to harm others. That's our mission. We'll go wherever we're needed in order to protect people. Today it was here. If Magneto tries to attack Hogwarts again we'll come back to stop him."

RS; "Why did he try to seize Hogwarts?"

C: "We can't say for certain but we believe, and Headmaster Dumbledore agrees with us, that Magneto views both mutants and magicals as being similar in that we all have extra powers normal humans don't have. In his eyes that makes us superior to other people. It's possible he wanted to recruit magicals to his cause. If that's the case he chose the wrong way to do it."

RS: "Indeed he did. But why did he attack Hogwarts? Why not an American school?"

C: "That's a very good question. We think it's because the American schools have closer ties with the non-magical world. Our mentor thinks that the European magical world has cut itself off from the rest of the world far too much while in America the magicals know what goes on in the non-magical world more than they do here. Ilvermorny, for instance, or Salem, they would have been better prepared to deal with people like Magneto because they would have known immediately who they were facing and if they couldn't deal with him themselves they would have been able to contact the Avengers at least. Magneto also seemed to know that so he attacked here instead. If the headmaster hadn't been friends with our mentor we wouldn't have known to come here. Magneto might well have succeeded in taking the school. He certainly was very surprised to see us when we showed up."

RS: "I see. If that's true it certainly gives Britain something to think about. Thank you Cyclops."

C: "You're welcome."

That morning at breakfast almost every single person in the Great Hall, student and staff alike, was reading the Daily Prophet articles about the Hogwarts attack from the previous day. Since they had all witnessed the fighting themselves they all were able to tell just how accurate Ms. Skeeter's articles were. Given her penchant for scandal and slander it surprised almost everyone that she didn't embellish or distort anything. For once her writing was completely truthful and even complimentary toward her subject.

The positive reaction to her articles that she got over the next days made Ms. Skeeter start to re-evaluate how she did her job. She got more compliments over her coverage of the battle at Hogwarts than for anything else she'd written in a long time. Perhaps she had been doing things wrong. Perhaps it was time for a change in how she wrote the news.

What attracted the most attention were the pictures. There were several that had been taken by a professional photographer before and during the feast but he hadn't arrived until after the battle was over. The only person who had taken pictures of the fighting itself was Colin Creevey and he was over the moon because the Daily Prophet had snapped up his pictures and put some of them right on the front page. The four pictures that got the most attention were of Dumbledore battling Magneto, Lightning blasting Magneto back with lightning bolts, Beast punching Toad and sending him flying, and Professor Flitwick dueling two opponents at once. This last picture would lead directly to Professor Flitwick being invited to teach a summer course on dueling multiple opponents at the International Dueling Academy in Berlin starting that very summer.

Only a few people in the Great Hall didn't enjoy reading the articles about the previous day's battle. Chief among them was Draco Malfoy who was still smarting from the drubbing he'd taken from Lightning the previous day and the humiliation of it all happening in front of the school, the minister, the school governors, the press, and, worst of all, his own father.

The things that really made Malfoy grit his teeth in anger were an article about the duels and a picture of him facing off against Lightning that was taken by the Prophet photographer which both appeared on page 3. The article made him look like a complete idiot as it recounted for the readers just how the duels had gone. The photo was of the first duel and was taken right at the moment when Lightning disarmed Malfoy with his telekinesis. Malfoy seethed at the photo as he had to watch, over and over, as his wand was yanked out of his hand and flew across to where Lightning caught it. Even worse everyone else in the school had either seen the picture already or was looking at it now. Almost all of them were grinning or laughing. Quite a few students were smirking at him, including some from other houses that he had always looked down on as being inferior to himself.

"Tell me Malfoy" a voice from across the table grabbed his attention and made him look up from the paper. It was Tracy Davis.

"What?" he said.

"What's it like to lose to a muggle?" Davis asked him. This caused all of the other Slytherins sitting nearby to turn and look at Malfoy.

"Are you sure the X-Men are muggles?" asked Blaise Zabini before Malfoy could say anything, "I've never seen any muggle with powers like they have."

"They say they're not magical in nature" said Davis, "what else should we call them?"

"Good point" said Zabini who turned to Malfoy, "so what's it like to lose to a muggle?"

"I didn't lose" snapped Malfoy and sent a vicious look around the table as if daring anyone to disagree with him.

"We saw you" said Davis, "we all saw the whole thing."

"I let Lightning win" snarled Malfoy, "do you really think some stupid muggle with some foolish little power could beat someone like me? I was just playing with him, letting him think he was winning, but if we'd had one more duel I'd have beaten him so badly he'd be begging to be my servant. So don't let anyone say one of those filthy so-called mutants could have beaten me. If they do I'll put them straight so fast they won't know what hit them!"

Just about everyone around Malfoy was looking at him like he'd grown a second head, and not just at the Slytherin table. Malfoy's voice had carried across the Great Hall so that almost everyone heard him and the students at the other tables were staring at him in disbelief. In the past Malfoy had been able to cow people into silence with his bluster, sneering, and threats of his father. This time, however, it wasn't working and several people were already preparing to tell him off. Daphne Greengrass got there first.

"Stop it Malfoy" Greengrass said, "just stop it." There was silence in the Great Hall as everyone stared at Daphne in amazement. Malfoy turned on her in anger.

"You dare – " he began but she cut off.

"Yes I dare" she said as her voice got louder and louder the longer she talked until she was full on yelling at Malfoy, "you're in no position to be putting down any of the X-Men, especially not Lightning. When you faced him you lost so badly no one will ever forget it. You were outclassed before the duel even started and people will be throwing it in your face for a long time to come. Your own father recognized that you lost and expressed disappointment at your behavior. Face it Malfoy, Lightning is so far above you that you can't even see his shadow from where you are. In that last duel you threw spell after spell at him and you didn't hit him even once. He just stood there and let you fire spells until you were tired out and you could do nothing against his shield. In fact you had to avoid your own spells because his shield bounced them back at you. When he finally struck at you – just once each time I might add – he had you disarmed in less than 10 seconds! You have nothing to boast about. So for once in your spoiled, bratty, delusional little life sit down and be quiet!"

The silence was so total you could have heard a feather drop. Then, after a moment, a seventh year student at the Ravenclaw table began to clap. The rest of the table quickly joined in and from there the applause spread outward to all of the other student tables. Even most of the Slytherins were applauding. Daphne blushed as she looked around and realized just how much attention she'd drawn.

"Well spoken Miss Greengrass" said Professor Flitwick, "25 points to Slytherin for brutal honesty."

Malfoy just sat there in shock. He'd never been chewed out quite like that and he had no comeback, especially with the whole school applauding what Daphne said and her even getting points for it. As he sat there stunned a doubt crept into his mind. Usually when that happened he was quick to brush it away but this time, in his shocked state, he couldn't do that and the doubt took firm root in the recesses of his mind as he began to wonder for the first time in his life if maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.

Over at the Gryffindor table Ron leaned in close to whisper privately to Hermione.

"That was a good speech" he said, "do you think she would have called out Malfoy so forcefully if she knew who Lightning really was?" Hermione just shrugged.

That apparently was the very last straw for the faculty as far as Malfoy was concerned. After breakfast Professor Snape took him to the headmaster's office. A couple of hours later Malfoy was seen leaving the school. Word soon got around that he had been suspended for the rest of the year because of his behavior on the day of the attack.

"So does this mean he'll repeat third year?" asked Neville later when he was sitting with his year mates in the Gryffindor common room.

"Maybe" said Hermione, "he won't be here for the exams."

"His dad will probably just get him some tutors" said Ron, "they'll arrange for him to get tested separately and then he'll be back here with us for fourth year. At least we can enjoy the rest of this year without him."

"I wonder what Crabbe and Goyle will do without their leader" said Parvati.

"Maybe discover they have identities of their own?" said Hermione.

"That would be fascinating to see" said Dean, "one can always hope."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Neville spoke up.

"I wonder what Harry would have thought of all of this?" he asked. Hermione and Ron both stiffened and glanced at each other.

"Harry?" Seamus said with a laugh, "he probably would have been in it all the way up to his neck."

"You're right" said Dean, "this is the first year since we've been at Hogwarts where we've had a lot of excitement and Harry wasn't involved in it." Hermione stood up.

"I need to go to the library" she said.

"What else is new?" said Lavender.

"I'll go with you" said Ron as he also stood up. This drew a few stares.

"Since when do you willingly go to the library?" asked Parvati.

"I've been to the library loads of times" said Ron sounding a bit put out.

"By choice?" Parvati shot back.

"Yeah, make fun of the redhead" said Ron.

"Ignore them" Hermione said to Ron, "come on." She led him out of the Common Room while the others watched them go.

"He's got it bad for her" said Lavender with a smirk.

Outside of Gryffindor Tower both Hermione and Ron waited until they were well away from the portrait of the Fat Lady before they both started to laugh.

"Can you believe what they said about Harry?" Ron finally said.

"Yes" said Hermione as she regained control of herself, "'the first excitement we've had that he wasn't involved in.' Oh if they only knew."


Five hours later and five time zones to the west of Hogwarts Harry and his teammates were also reading copies of the Daily Prophet while they ate their own breakfasts at Xavier's school. Sirius had returned from Britain a short time ago and had brought copies of the paper with him for everyone to see.

"They actually got the facts right" said Warren as he read the main article.

"You're very lucky about that" said Sirius, "it's practically unheard of for Rita Skeeter to stick to the facts and be fair in what she writes. It's rather amazing that she did. I wonder why she didn't at least embellish it?"

"Why should she do that?" asked Bobby, "the facts alone are dramatic enough: 'Evil invaders attack school. Students all put in danger. Selfless heroes arrive and drive invaders away thereby saving the day.' What more could you want?"

"When you put it like that" said Jean with some sarcasm, "it couldn't possibly be improved upon. I sense Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay in the future."

"In that case I want Leonardo DiCaprio to play me" said Warren, "he was just nominated for an Oscar himself for that Gilbert Grape film so he's good enough. If not him then maybe Ethan Hawke."

"With your money you could afford both of them" said Scott.

"Who plays me in this movie?" asked Harry with some interest. Bobby looked at him and considered the question.

"Hmm" he said, "Macauley Culkin? No, he looks wrong. Maybe Elijah Wood?"

"The really important query" said Hank, "is not who portrays any of us on the silver screen but who portrays our esteemed Professor?" The six classmates all looked over at the professor for a moment.

"Patrick Stewart!" they all said at once then looked at each other in amazement before everyone laughed.

"Well" said Hank as they all calmed down, "it would appear that great minds really do think alike."

"There's no question about it" said Jean, "Patrick Stewart was born to play our mentor. They even look alike. Now that Star Trek is ending he'll have more time."

"I could see that" chuckled Professor Xavier, "and I could certainly do worse than him. But I think he's taller than I am."

"No one will be able to tell that" said Scott, "once he's in your wheelchair."

The conversation continued on as they all debated who would play each of them in a movie about the X-Men. They had fun throwing around names of different famous actors and actresses but other than Patrick Stewart as the professor the only other actor they could all agree on was Gary Oldman to play Sirius.

"He wouldn't do it" said Sirius, "he's a star and I'm only a supporting character in your movie."

"Those are often the best ones" said Harry, "don't put yourself down. I think you're plenty important."

"Thanks pup" said Sirius. Hedwig came flying into the kitchen right then and landed in front of Harry who greeted her and gave her some bacon which she happily ate.

"Who plays her?" asked Bobby. Hedwig turned and looked at Bobby as if he was crazy.

"Nobody plays Hedwig" said Harry as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Hedwig plays herself. Who could possibly do a better job?"

There was no training that day as the professor decided that the team deserved a day off. Once breakfast was over everyone went their separate ways.

Professor Xavier went to his office. Once he was seated behind his desk he focused his mind and sent it out across the Atlantic. As soon as he made contact with the person he was seeking he had to repel a reflexive defensive attack from that person.

"Relax" Xaver sent, "I mean you no harm."

"Who are you?" was the reply, "why are you attacking me?"

"I'm not attacking you" Xavier said, "I simply wish to talk to you Mr. Moody."

"And who might you be?"

"My name is Charles Xavier" said the professor, "I'm the founder and mentor of the X-Men and I've been informed that you want to meet me..."

Harry went up to his room and sat down on his bed with a book. He actually didn't read for very long before putting the book down, kicking off his shoes, lying on his bed and closing his eyes. That's where Bobby found him a little later when he poked his head into Harry's room.

"Yo Harry" said Bobby, "you awake?" Harry pushed himself up on his elbows in surprise. He hadn't heard Bobby come in and he was just beginning to doze a little when his friend pulled him back to reality.

"Huh?" he said, "yeah, yeah I'm awake."

"Thinking heavy thoughts or something?" asked Bobby with a small grin which Harry returned.

"Not really" said Harry, "although considering all that's happened can you believe it's only been ten months since we first met?"

"No kidding" said Bobby, "you used to be such a scrawny little shrimp."

"I know" said Harry sitting up fully and flexing an arm to show off a muscle, "now look at me."

"You're a big shrimp" said Bobby.

"Is that even possible?" asked Harry giving Bobby a weird look, "isn't that, what's it called – where's Hank when you need a big word – oh yes, an oxymoron?"

"Does it matter?"

"Probably not. Is there something you wanted?"

"Yeah" said Bobby, "do you want to fire up the Sega and play some Sonic? I finally got a copy of Sonic 3."

"Oh yeah" said Harry, "give me a minute to get my shoes back on and I'll be right down."

It was a very contented Harry who was soon walking down the stairs to the first floor of the X-Mansion. There were still plenty of things to prepare for in the future. Magneto would be back, all of the X-Men were in agreement on that, Voldemort was out there somewhere of course, and the Dursleys needed to be dealt with. Harry also hoped that he'd be able to see his friends over the summer. The finals of the Quidditch World Cup would be happening right around his birthday and he was considering attending. Not only had Ron offered to invite him but Sirius was also thinking about getting tickets. After that was over maybe Ron and Hermione could visit him here during August. All things considered, fights against supervillains notwithstanding, life was pretty good right now.

Perhaps Harry wouldn't have been quite so happy if he'd thoroughly read the Daily Prophet that day. Tucked away on one of the inner pages, completely overshadowed by the fight at Hogwarts as to be almost unnoticeable, was the news that Peter Pettigrew had escaped from Azkaban.

At the same time, in a remote corner of New York State, a man was working in a private workshop on his new project. It would take at least another year before that project would be ready but when it was he hoped to use it to protect humanity from what he perceived to be the growing threat of mutants.

His name was Bolivar Trask and he was calling his project the Sentinels.

And in the office of the headmistress of Uagadou, the premiere magic school in Africa, the headmistress was speaking to a student approaching the end of her third year.

"It's all arranged?" she asked the girl, a young black girl with white hair.

"Yes" was the reply, "I received final confirmation this morning."

"We'll miss you next year" said the headmistress, "but if you must take an exchange year fourth year is the best one. OWL year and beyond is not good for that unless you intend to stay at Ilvermorny for the rest of your schooling."

"That is not my plan, but I was born in New York City and, even though we left when I was a baby and I have no memory of those days, I feel I should at least spend some time in the land of my birth."

"I agree" said the headmistress, "I'm sure you'll have a good time there."

"I will" said the girl, "thank you for all of your help headmistress."

"You're most welcome Ororo."

THE END of Lightning, Part 1


POST SCRIPT: That's the end of the first part of this story. I don't know how long it will be until Part 2 is ready for posting.

So it is now revealed that in Part 2 of this story Harry will be paired with Storm – or rather the future Storm. A few of you suggested that and thinking it over it I liked it. Her mutant powers haven't woken up yet. In X-Men 160 an alternate reality Storm stated that sorcery was the other half of her heritage which she turned to when her control of the weather began to wane as she got older. It made sense to me that she would be the second magical mutant to appear in this tale. She won't be the last. She won't be joining the X-Men at this time though as it's much too soon for that. Right now she's just an exchange student from Uagadou spending her fourth year at Ilvermorny where she will meet and get to know Harry. Her weather powers may – or may not – wake up while she's at Ilvermorny. I haven't made a final decision about that yet. (And what do you know? In my introduction to chapter 1 I said that later X-Men, of whom Storm is one, would not be appearing in this story. It looks like in her case I was wrong.)

Lastly I also want to address something that has reared its head in the comments upon occasion where readers have asked me why I don't use this character or that one, or have told me about retcons regarding some characters that would contradict stuff in my story. It probably would have been a good idea to say this at the beginning of the story but I didn't think of it. I've only told this to member JustAnotherFan217 during our correspondence but it's not a secret and it will explain why I wrote this story in this way.

I grew up during what is now known as the "Bronze Age of Comics," i.e. the 70s and early 80s. Like many others I first got into the X-Men through the original "Dark Phoenix Saga" from 1979-1980. In those days the Marvel Universe was simpler than it is now. As long time X-Men fans will know at that time there was "Old" X-Men, the original group from 1963-1970 which was comprised of issues 1 to 66, and "New" X-Men which started in 1975 with Giant Size #1 and picked up in the main series with issue #94 (67 to 93 were reprints of older issues). I wanted to collect all the available issues which, at the time, was still less than 200. It was a lot easier back then to pick up first run copies of the Silver Age issues from the 60s than it is now. There was only one team in one book when I started collecting. There was no X-Factor, no Excalibur, Generation X, X-Force, or any of the many other teams that came to be later on. I stopped collecting in 1986 after issue #200 ("The Trial of Magneto", which was also around the time X-Factor first came out) mainly because I was about to leave for college. When I left college the Marvel Universe had expanded so much I wasn't able to keep track of who was who, where they were, what team they were on, etc. so I never really got back into things.

I wanted to write a story that takes place in the X-Men world that I knew from when I was growing up. I know it's not a very commonly used setting. I haven't found any other "Silver Age" stories yet where Harry worked with the original team so that's how this story came about. If you know of any others please let me know as I would be interested in reading them. I doubt that I'd be able to write a present day X-Men story without A LOT of research first, probably having to read thousands of comics that have come out since I stopped collecting, whereas I know Silver Age and Bronze Age X-Men pretty well. The original X-Men weren't that popular amongst my friends. I was the only one who went after those early issues. I never did get all of them but I got about 45 or so from the first 66, including #1 which usually went for about $60.00 at the time (good luck getting a copy at that price now!).

That's all from this end. As the last paragraphs of Part 1 made clear, there are several issues that Harry will have to deal with in the later parts of the story, Will he be able to do so successfully? You'll just have to come back and read Parts 2 and 3 when they get posted.

As always, please take a moment now to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. Thank you for reading and stay safe and well.

Cheers!