A Third Path to the Future

by Vimesenthusiast

Rescued from the Negative Zone by the Fantastic Four, Harry Potter discovers he is a mutant and decides to take up the cause of equality between mutants and humans (among other causes). How will a dimensionally displaced Harry Potter, one who is extremely intelligent, proactive and not afraid to get his hands dirty effect the marvel universe? Pairings: Harry/Jean/Ororo/others pos.

11. We're Going to do This the Easy Way

I don't own Harry Potter or Marvel. If you believe otherwise, I'm flattered but insist you seek professional help.

Some Reviews I'd like to mention:

I'd like to thank kathryn518, for the work she is putting into proofreading this work. We've only done this chapter and chapter two so far, but I can already see the difference her help makes.

I'd like to give a shout out to Byakugan789, who's written some great chapter reviews for this story, and who pointed out a few mistakes I made that were bigger than my normal word choice/grammar issues. Specifically the fact that in the last chapter I said harry enlarged several rooms on the asteroid 15 times. I meant to say15000 times. He also mentioned a problem I thought I had gone back and corrected, using the word summer instead of spring for the timeframe of the chapter dealing with the Juggernaut. He also gave me some other interesting ideas, one of which I will be using in this chapter.

Mandalore Requiem: Unfortunately I am not going to even try to bring or mention all the minor heroes that exist in Marvel. Some of them just won't appear at all, others won't be mentioned because Harry and his crew will be dealing with exterior/world level threats and the whole mutant 'question'. I already have a person in mind for a trainer for Harry's crew when he isn't around, who you'll see/meet in a few chapters.

starwarsjunkie8786756: Harry may seem overpowered now, but the fight against Magneto shows he isn't all powerful, and I agree about your point about Marvel. Retconning pisses me off! And trust me, when I kill people off, baring a certain white skinned asshole's minions, they will by god stay dead, hero or villain.

TJG: Harry won't be creating an AI, he has no real need of it and his programming skills are nothing to write home about. Nor is he going to advocate some kind of rule of Law and only Law or a rule of the enlightened over many, but any further speculation of what he might be up to is well into the future. At present he is building his power base slowly now, but it will become a torrent soon enough. Also, what comics mention Stark providing SHIELD with things? I have a lot of the old Iron man comics (from before Pepper and his bodyguard quit and went off to get married) and they never mention that. See above opinion on retconning.

Gatemaster: NO it won't be like that, though I can understand your concern. Harry and his group (not comprised solely of girls) will be handling things outside of America and in space, the X-men will still need to deal with things at home unless they spill over into the world stage. At this point only Ororo has stated she will be leaving with Harry. I won't lie that Jean will be going with them, but the others will stay. Just because Harry leaves doesn't mean he won't keep in contact with the X-men. The fleshing out thing has been deliberate, simply because I can't rewrite everything in the Marvel universe, and they are the main characters. Rogue will not be added to the harem, sorry.

Dogsby: Doesn't Alicia get powers later on? I saw a picture of her flying in space and other things. I'm just more concerned with the idea of their relationship being based on real love or on the appearance of said and a deep seated need in Ben to find someone who accepts him. But if you're worrying about her getting with Johnny Storm, that is not going to happen ever. Johnny might get back with Crystal or not, we'll see how it goes, but him and Alicia, or even him and (AFTER A FRACKING RETCON) a Skrull infiltrator will not occur.

Narsil: thanks for the great review as always. I don't think that deal with Doom would be very practical, after all while he follows any agreements to the letter, he does also look for ways out of them if he can benefit, and he has a mad on for Reed. Something like keeping the violence just to the FF and not involve innocent bystanders might work, but we'll see. Harry wants to solidify his power base before making overtures to Doom. With someone like that making a deal from anything but an equal position of strength is a recipe for a later butt-fucking.

Fox Boss: When Harry absorbs magic from different sources it simply adds to his power most of the time, but the magic does sort of give hints as to what it should be used for – check the chapters dealing with the Juggernaut for a better explanation. Basically he can somehow reroute the magical power he drained to a task it is most suited for – in that case greatly reinforcing his Magia Erebea spell. He can already take a tank round to the chest and walk away. Not without a fair bit of cursing of course, but his crysis suit will be reinforced in this chapter.

Cjcold: Hope you don't mind but I took one of your ideas and used it in this chapter, it just made a lot of sense, hope you like that scene. Lance will be getting a bit more screen time in this chapter, hope you like it, and Yes, Xavier was vague. He is a very private individual, and there are aspects to what happened between him, Eric and Gabrielle Haller that he doesn't want to share with anyone, but portions of it will come back to bite everyone in the ass later. Storm and Harry won't go farther than that on or off screen for a while, but their feelings for one another (and for Jean and much slower for Emma) will continue to escalate. Doom is not a nice guy, but as Harry was able to see (and read about in the FF's files) he isn't irredeemably evil or sadistic. He is incredibly ambitious, and lacks any sort of automatic empathy for his fellow man, but he wouldn't go out of his way to torture someone, or even kill someone just because he could and his personal word is good to the letter of any agreement. Is he going to be a good guy, no, but he may be someone harry can respect and possibly work with in the future on specific projects. Magical jewelry crafting…. Hmmmm… At any rate thanks for the incredible review!

Plums: I responded to your review already so I will leave you with a major thank you for the great review and your help.

AnFan-N-more: I feel your pain on the retconing. There will be as little of that here as possible I assure you. I haven't read any comics at all since I saw that Civil War crap being advertised. Yeah, that won't happen here either.

KrisB-7184: thanks for the great review: I do know about the whole magic stops aging thing, and will mention it in later (much later) chapters. He is incredibly powerful, but he's not the most powerful out there, not yet. He'll get there eventually, but I want him to build up his power in as normal a way as possible. I might fix up Johnny and Crystal's relationship, she certainly won't be with Quicksilver this time around. We'll see. I'm not certain if I am remembering her character that well to actually use just yet. Harry and doom will talk, but not for about… six more chapters give or take? Harry will be fully situated, a world name and power, with his own team and have a few missions under their belt before that. Melody is about fourteen oscillating wildly between thirty and ten in mental acuity. Her powers really do a number on her. Wanda will be the apprentice of Strange. Enough said. And if it's Hogwarts you want….

In other news I have decided on a course forward with Fury that I will be showing in this chapter. Yes he will still put the Avengers together, but they will never reach the level of popularity/power that they did in the comic despite some new members. The FF and 'other teams' will already have made a splash and will be taking center stage. I have also decided against placing Amara in the harem.

I will reiterate that some things have happened far more quickly in this Marvel universe than in the real world. Communism fell roughly five years after the end of the Korean War.

I have decided that Amara will not be in the harem. Her place may be taken by Gamora, because frankly her adopted father's reaction will be amusing as hell and she has some interesting powers. Not certain how she'll get involved just yet of course. If you have an alien girl you think might fit better PM me and argue your point. OH, but no more mutants and unless you have a real good idea, no regular humans either, sorry.

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Chapter 11 We're Going to do This the Easy Way

"Damn you Potter, you will pay for this!" Magneto winced angrily as he sat down in his command chair in the control room of his current base of operations, rubbing at the metal that had replaced a chunk of his thigh. He scowled angrily at the memory of his defeat at that young wizard's hands, and then scowled even harder when he once more failed to remember where that defeat had occurred. He had tried every mental trick he could think of and nothing he did worked to get rid of the strange fog that blocked his memories of the place. He couldn't even remember anything about its location let alone what it looked like.

All that remained was the memories of the battle there, and the wounds he had sustained to his body as well as his ego. Magneto had long thought his mastery of electromagnetism had given him an almost insurmountable advantage, only to run into someone who could combat and bypass it. Not easily, the battle had been touch and go for both of them, but Potter could combat Magneto on an even footing and had beaten him in the end. It was true that the injuries Magneto had sustained weren't life threatening, but they and his own waning strength had forced him to retreat.

He had dodged just enough of the attack that had slammed into his chest to get out of that fight with nothing more than his skin shaved off and several cracked ribs. The ribs would heal in time, and a skin graft would eventually help the injury as well. The attack that struck his thigh however had obliterated a chunk of his flesh and a bit of bone. It was only luck that it had missed any of his major veins, but as it was, he had been forced to replace the missing chunk of flesh with metal and the grafting process there was slow and painstaking. The fact he had spent the last week doped up on painkillers (even with his mental control and abilities there was little he could do to stop the pain of missing so much of his thigh) was just icing on the cake of his irritation.

Luckily he had sent out orders before allowing his medical robots to put him under for the initial operation. First, he had sent one of his senior followers, Mastermind, to gather in the New York chapter of the Brotherhood of mutants. Jason Wyngarde located and lead away Quicksilver, Blob and Toad easily enough, but his attempts to find Avalanche had failed. He and Quicksilver had returned to New York with the X-men in their jet but Pietro had quickly made his escape. Lance had apparently stayed with the X-men and Mastermind had not wanted to stay around near Xavier to look for him. Some would call that cowardice, but Eric called it prudent. Despite Mastermind's abilities in illusion and memory manipulation he was no match for a telepath of Xavier's caliber, especially if that telepath was on his guard. And after the debacle Charles would almost certainly be on his guard.

The loss or apparent defection of Avalanche was worrisome, but despite their defeat at the hands of their X-men counterparts Blob and the other two were valuable pawns. Thus when he had finally been cognizant enough to read Magneto was happy to see a report from Jason that he had gotten them out of the country.

The fact one of his other followers, the assassin Fatale, had failed in her mission was much more worrisome. Pyro missing was a problem but as a senior follower of his, Candra was too valuable to lose. Of course neither she nor Pyro knew anything about his organization outside their own cell, but Candra was important for more than just her powers. The fact she had lost against Storm notwithstanding, she was also one of his best trainers, and her New Orleans branch, even without the presence of Candra and Pyro, were among his most dangerous and enthusiastic followers.

The fact she had apparently been snatched by a third party was disturbing as well. He only knew that because one of his spies in the American government had just been assigned to the new, and worryingly competent spy agency labeled SHIELD. the spy had passed on rumors that one of their teams had been taken out transporting Candra to one of their facilities. Magneto had sent another agent to the site of the attack, and that agent had actually been able to discern through his power of viewing the past of a specific place, more than SHIELD knew at this point. The American government having access to Candra's power was bad enough, but a third party absconding with one of his followers was something he would not allow to go unchallenged.

To that end, he spent a moment thinking of what to say before sending out a message to all his senior supporters. These were not trainers or anyone associated with the Brotherhood chapters. His senior agents were men and women he trusted to act on his plans alone and to do their best to further the cause of mutantkind without his looking over their shoulder. They were the multitool in his box, spies, saboteurs, revolutionists, they were all of these. At one point Mystique was such an agent, but she had been too good a trainer to continue to use in that capacity, and given her recent disappearance Eric was thankful for that. It meant she was out of the loop by a little under a year, and did not know enough about his plans to severely hurt him.

The system he used to contact them was a simple system. It translated what he was saying into a written code that they would be able to read and decode at their leisure, since each of his senior followers had a set local time they would check for such messages. The words would appear on computerized watches he had created himself, that none but the person he had given them to could use, matched to their own electromagnetic field. Not incredible, technologically speaking, when compared to what the likes of Doom, Stark, and Richards could come up with, he thought sardonically, but more secure than anything they've come up with so far.

After a moment he flicked a switch on his armrest then began to speak, several microphones hidden in the chair catching his voice easily. "After receiving certain information passed on to her, trainer Candra hunted down and was subsequently defeated by the mutant Storm, one of those foolish enough to follow Charles Xavier's dream of coexistence. When agents were sent to retrieve her from federal prison they found she had already been snatched by a third party. This cannot be borne, and I want you all on the lookout for them, they apparently have a uniform of dark blue and purple with white blank masks. If any of you spot something matching that description you are to get in touch with me immediately, regardless of long term projects. I am Magneto, I have spoken."

With that done, he sent out a similar message to his spies in America, though that was via a drop system, which was just as secure but had nothing that could lead his spies back to him. Those spies after all were not mutants for the most part, and were loyal to the almighty dollar rather than his cause.

Next he opened up another communication to two specific agents one after another. "Fatale, your report about Candra being abducted was well done, you did all you could for her for now, and that mission is now a bust. Head to Boston and meet up with X-23 at the safehouse there, the name its under is number sixty-two on the tertiary list and await further orders."

That done he changed to another line. "X-23, abort your present mission, your job so far has been exemplary, but I need you elsewhere. Head to Boston Massachusetts and meet with agent Fatale, the safehouse is under the sixty-second name on the tertiary list." Normally his agents would also need to be told what call sign to use, but Fatale and X-23 had worked together before.

With that communication on its way, Magneto leaned back, rubbing his thigh again. With the New York chapter of the Brotherhood gone I've lost a counterbalancing force to Charles' X-Men, but that doesn't matter. Without the brotherhood nearby, Charles will start to use his X-Men in wider areas, and that may give the two of them an opening to do…something. The most important thing about opportunity is to have resources available to take advantage of it. Both of them have natural mental defenses, and Fatale is a most excellent spy, she'll be able to blend in easily.

He snorted suddenly. "X-23 on the other hand hah!" X-23 had once been a vat grown mutant, the answer to the Weapon X program's need to figure out how to make their mind control perfect. Magneto had learned of the project and freed her, after all artificial or not she was still a mutant and she had talents he could use. She was one of his most loyal agents, but she was about as subtle as a hammer.

The task she had just been doing, shutting down a drug cartel in Mexico that had recently begun to target mutants to turn them into mindless drug-addicted enforcers had been nearing its conclusion simply because she had killed all of the cartel's senior members and everyone involved with that scheme. "X-23 will provide the muscle if necessary, she and Fatale work well together, and she will willingly follow Fatale's orders, making them a perfect pair for that task."

Eric gazed out the window that comprised one side of his control room out into the strange and wondrous prehistoric forest of what the natives called the Savage Land as he continued to plan. The loss of the gem can be borne, it was merely the easiest way to gain followers, not the only way. If not for Potter I would have also succeeded in removing Charles' precious X-Men, which was the main thrust of that scheme, either wining them over or marginalizing them. Grey's powers were far greater than I had been led to believe, but in the long term that is all the better. She will soon see the world as it truly is, without the rose tinted glasses Xavier has forced them all to wear, and when that happens, she and the others will join me.

He smiled faintly seeing a Brontosaurus in the distance. Until then, I should consolidate my position here. The gem and understanding its nature took up much of my time, but the resources in this land, both in material and in people, are too fascinating to ignore any longer.

With that idea in mind Magneto sent out orders to the rest of the New Orleans chapter via one of his most powerful followers and ordering them to be brought here as well as the Brazilian chapter of the brotherhood, giving its handler orders to bring his chapter here to the Savage land. It would take a while for them to arrive, they all couldn't move as fast as Exodus of course. But once they got here, they and the trio with Mastermind would give him enough numbers to start expanding his territory and dealing with the other odd powers here.

He shifted in his seat and winced again, looking down at his half-metal thigh. Good things come to those who wait Potter, I can wait for my revenge on you, until then there are other things more important to concentrate on.

OOOOOOO

Sunday morning found Jean waking up to a very odd position, wincing as the noise of the guys below them came up through the floor to make her head ring. Her legs were tangled up both in her covers and in Emma, who had somehow moved down from sharing the pillows with her to using her covers as a pillow, her arms around Jean's waist like one of those full body pillows. Emma was looking up at her now, her a smile on her face despite her eyes being narrowed in pain from the hangover Jean knew the other girl was also feeling.

Luckily my telepathic powers need me to consciously concentrate on them, but even so, hangovers for telepaths are very strange things, Jean reflected through the haze of her own, sending her projection into her mind to check on her defenses. Her defenses were still in place, but the belsham-trees were moving a little drunkenly, their tentacles waving slowly without direction, tangling up with one another. She could feel her power sort of pulsing out, hanging in the air of her room like a fog, and she could feel Emma's doing much the same, though not as much, her control better than Jean's. Or possibly her defense keeps her power from going out of control. After all a diamond isn't alive, so wouldn't be effected like my belsham trees.

According to the books she had read on occlumency the downsides of having created a living defense was that it responded in the way your imagination worked, which even with occlumency could surprise you, thought it could. This lead to the downside she was seeing now. However a living defense was much more reactionary and could also be an offensive weapon without their creator's direction. A diamond couldn't of course, and could be shattered with enough power.

Emma on the other hand barely felt Jean's power hovering about her, and had a wicked grin on her face despite her throbbing head as she looked up at the redhead. "Do you know your snore?"

Jean's eyes narrowed. "That is information you should keep to yourself unless you wish to learn how to fly the hard way. Besides, it was probably just because I was drunk last night." Jean wasn't certain if that made any sense, but it seemed like a good excuse to her.

"Oh don't worry," Emma replied, pushing herself up on her elbows. Her blond hair fell forward for a moment covering her eyes but it wasn't long enough to block the view she was, possibly inadvertently, showing the redhead of her cleavage. Jean tried to ignore that, and the strange amount of interest she had in that hidden valley.

"I wouldn't dream of sharing that information with anyone. Unless you irritate me course." Emma grinned wickedly.

Jean growled a little and as she untangled her legs from around Emma made a point of kicking her just slightly. The other girl fell off the bed with a brief gasp of surprise, but she popped up quickly, not bothering to right her shirt, which was now bunched up enough to show her silk, almost see through panties.

"Hmmf, a most violent response to my gentle tease." Emma smirked suddenly, reaching out with lightning reflexes to grab Jean's foot. "That reminds me of something Ororo mentioned last night, is it true you're ticklish?"

"EEEP!" Jean squeaked, sending a stab of pain through both their heads, but her instincts kept her moving trying to twist away, but she couldn't escape Emma's questing fingers. Laughing hysterically she twisted, reaching up and pulling Emma back down, flipping so that she was on top of the other girl, her own fingers reaching for the blonde's side.

After only a minute however, they both collapsed, the noise and movement aggravating their hangovers. "Why in the world do people think drinking is fun of they have to pay for it like this?" Jean grumbled, pushing Emma off her and trying to sit up, holding her head in one hand and wincing.

"They drink to forget, and seem to think the price well worth it." Emma said, her voice unexpectedly shifting from playful to cold and harsh. "The trick, I understand, is to never be sober enough to feel it." It certainly seems to work that way for my brother, she thought bitterly. The only family member she'd care to claim, and he was determined to drink and drug himself into an early grave thanks to their father's contempt of him.

Jean nodded, not asking what was behind her new friend's sudden change of behavior. She frowned suddenly, leaning back against the wall by her bed, staring at Emma.

Emma felt the redhead gaze on her and she looked up from searching around for her skirt. "What?"

"How did we click so easily?" Jean asked bluntly. "I doubt that kind of thing is normal for you, and I know it isn't normal for me." Not even these days since my mental block was removed. "I know it isn't, you know, a telepathic trick or anything on either of our parts, but I'm just wondering why."

Emma frowned a little, but nodded at the same time. "I see your point, and you're right it's not normal for me to be this friendly with anyone, let alone someone I just met." She reached down and pulled on her skirt, tossed aside as the two girls got ready for bed to give her some time to think before replying. "For my part at least, I think it is because you don't have anything physical to gain from being friends with you and vice versa. There are no business deals you could help me with, you're not important socially, there's no real monetary or societal upshot to your friendship for me. I, I also think that meeting another telepath near my own age, meeting someone like me, has been fun."

Jean nodded. "I guess that goes for me too. I mean I have Ororo as a friend…" They both grinned at one another remembering how the black woman acted last night. The drinking hadn't stopped when they got back to the mansion.

Ororo had supplied them with a few bottles of various liquors that Jean could see now spread out around her room. The Weather goddess had drunk a bit more than was really good for her, and become rather tipsy during a conversation about why there were so many fantasies about alien women in games and movies. Ororo had suddenly decided she was a Twi'lek dancer, and had tried to do a dance. But in the end was barely able to stand, let alone move to the music which had been a piece of classic instrumental music chosen by an equally drunk Emma. In fact both younger girls were wondering where the African woman was right now, as she had been asleep on the floor before the two of them crawled into Jean's bed.

The older woman had enjoyed her time with the younger girls. Having a sleepover and talking about nonsensical things like normal teenage girls was something she had never had the opportunity to do before, especially getting drunk, which was something that had put a cramp on her life at college. Obviously she couldn't have attempted it before Harry had created the amulet to severe her emotions from the local weather. Even before Xavier had found her she feared what a loss of control would do, despite not knowing where her powers came from. With Emma and Jean, she felt comfortable enough to try it, and had enjoyed herself a lot.

Jean continued, "And she's sympathetic but she doesn't really understand how strange and irritating it can be to have someone else thoughts in your head all of a sudden."

Emma nodded. They had shared stories about how their powers developed as well as some of their mishaps last night during breaks from dancing. Luckily neither telepath had felt the effect of the alcohol until much later.

Neither would admit to it, but by the time they had fallen asleep they were almost as drunk as Ororo, and this had an effect on their powers while they were sleeping. Emma had to repair her diamond wall when she woke up, and Jean's belsham-trees had failed a little in the night. This allowed their powers out to mix oddly with one another and their dreams had been very erotic, dominated by images of one another, Ororo and emerald eyes though neither remembered them consciously.

"So, friends?" Emma asked, feeling strangely vulnerable.

Jean nodded, and held out her hand. "Friends."

Emma shook her hand and suddenly smirked. "And now that that's out of the way, you must do something with your wardrobe! You have a sexy body, but your clothing is so last century, you only have a few outfits that I'd be caught dead in!"

Jean rolled her eyes, standing up and, after a moment of vertigo that nearly made her throw up moving to grab a pair of loose jeans and a button down shirt. "Your opinion on my fashion sense has been taken aboard, and will be thrown over the side as soon as we leave shore." Emma chuckled getting the Pratchett reference. "Come on oh fashion maven, let's go see if I can rustle us up some food before you leave."

Emma nodded, but this turned out to be unnecessary. The moment they opened the door they found a tray with several covered plate and two glasses of orange juice waiting for them. "Now who would have made this up for us?"

"Harry or Ororo," Jean replied, smiling softly as she reached down to grab the tray. She put the tray on her dresser, allowing Emma to uncover some of the plates as Jean went around cleaning up her room. "The two of them are the only real cooks around here. Well, I can cook too, but I'm so busy most days I never have the time."

Emma smirked even more, licking some sauce from a delectable turkey sandwich. "So, Harry and Ororo hmm… I wonder if Ororo was speaking of more than dancing when she said I'd have to wait my turn when she made Harry dance with you."

Jean shrugged, not wanting to answer that question and changed the subject, ignoring the war going on between her own desires and hopes and the rest of her mind.

OOOOOOO

At the same time that the two younger girls were waking up with their hangovers Harry and Ororo were spending some time in the arboretum, the weather goddess having proven to be one of those truly gifted people who simply did not suffer from hangovers.

Ororo had woken up at around three in the morning to head to the bathroom, still a little tipsy and out of it, then had gone in search of Harry wearing absolutely nothing through the halls, desiring to drag her boyfriend to bed and find if he was as good at making love as he was at foreplay.

She had interrupted Harry's work with the Harrytanium, and after spending ten minutes sniggering (something she would never do sober) at his utter lack of naming sense had tried to coax him back to her room. Instead Harry had kissed her lightly, summoned a bed, and tucked her in like a child simply kissing her lightly every time she tried to grab at him or get out of bed until she fell asleep. His reason was that he didn't want to take advantage of a drunk woman, and didn't want their first time together, and his first time going all the way with a girl period, to be while either one of them was drunk.

She had woken up like that and known her boyfriend hadn't pushed things in her inebriated state, falling even more for him because of it.

Now the two were cuddled up in the love seat wearing their normal attire for their morning time, though only after an intense make-out session, neither willing to take it farther when they could be interrupted. Well, Harry probably would be, but he followed Ororo's lead in this.

Ororo was curled up with a magazine detailing world news, while Harry was working on his laptop with Hedwig perched on the back of the seat, looking down at the screen with him.

An interrogative preck from the snowy owl interrupted the comfortable silence of the arboretum, and Ororo looked up, raising her head off Harry's shoulder to look up at Harry and his familiar. "No, I'm not going to use your name Hedwig, too distinctive." This was answered by another preck from the snowy owl and Harry's lips twitched. "Alright, Anastasia Ambrosius is a good one, I'll use that one. Now how rich should the young?" His tone made that word a question and Hedwig nodded her fierce head firmly. "Young lady who's just inherited some money from her dear old grandpa, and decided to buy stock in her crush's company on the off-chance she might be able to meet him sometime down the line. Now how much money should she have access to?"

Ororo laughed, reaching up and kissing the underside of Harry's jaw before leaning back against his shoulder. "You are so owl-pecked my Harry, though perhaps it is a good idea to leave coming up with names to Hedwig. Harrytanium, honestly, and you still haven't chosen a new name for your asteroid."

"Hmmf, rub it in why don't you?" Harry groused playfully then leaned down to kiss her on the lips when she opened her mouth to reply. The two continued to kiss for a time under Hedwig's amused gaze before pulling back, smiling at one another. "So anything interesting in the world abroad?"

Ororo held up her magazine slightly. "A few things, some trouble seems to be brewing in Egypt for example, and there is a new terrorist organization that has appeared recently, they seem to be operating only in Japan at present, but their crimes are most disturbing in their gruesomeness. Something seems to be occurring in Africa as well, a new nation is making itself known in the deep interior of Africa near Lake Turkana. It apparently has asked for representation on the UN and may be the source of a new metal named vibranium. The name of the country is Wakanda." She frowned slightly wondering why the name seemed a little familiar to her. But then again that wasn't odd, after all she had lived near there so she might well have met someone from this heretofore mysterious nation.

Harry nodded, having heard of vibranium before. The metal's properties interested him, but he already had Harrytanium to work with and from what he had read the toughness of the red metal was much higher than even adamantium. He was looking forward to seeing how his first attempt at recreating it did later.

That little project had taken up all of last night, but he had been able to conjure some more once he understood his properties. While he didn't want to continue to go that route, his analysis of it, using both magical and high tech means, had shown him the different base metals and other ingredients that went into it. The good news was that barring one type of metal that was almost more crystalline then metal on the atomic level he could buy the other ingredients in bulk without arousing any interest in his business. The conjured chunk of red metal had already passed every test he could put on it, though he still wanted Rogue and Scott to do some tests on it.

The two of them continued to converse quietly about the news until Emma and Jean came in. Jean blushed a bit at their state of dress then very deliberately concentrated on their faces, not at all noticing that Ororo's large breasts were on display mushed into Harry's shirtless side, which showed off his own incredibly fit body. Yes indeed, Jean was getting awfully good at lying to herself about these things…

Emma hadn't heard about Ororo's choice of morning attire or lack of nudity taboo, and so at first thought they had interrupted something, but after a second spent studying their body language realized that they were simply sitting there as if nothing was wrong and stopped blushing and staring through wide eyes.

Harry was smirking at them slightly, enjoying Emma's reaction.

Emma swiftly turned the tables on him however, raking her eyes down his body and his lady's, though mainly concentrating on Harry since he reacted by flinching a little under her appraising gaze. This didn't last long however since she had to bring a hand up to cover her eyes from the sunlight streaming into the garden.

Ororo took her looking in stride, seemingly amused by her reaction and teasing of Harry. She chuckled lightly, smiling at the two wincing young ladies who looked a little irritable at the sunlight streaming into the arboretum. "Hello girls," she chirped, smirking internally when the two sent her looks of pure hatred at her cheerful tone. "How are you two doing this lovely morning?"

"Let me get this straight," Emma said, scowling and holding her head, all ideas of asking about their nudity or teasing Harry forgotten. "Not only are you a morning person, but you are also immune to hangovers?"

"Why yes, that certainly does seem to be the case. Why? Is there a problem?" Ororo's lips widened into a grin as there glares hardened noticeably.

"GRRRR," Jean growled playfully, then her eyebrows shot up in surprise when a bottle made of clay strangely moved from the table to hover in front of her.

She looked up at Harry quizzically and he smiled a little. "Hangover cure. A rather easy potion actually." He frowned for a second, he had yet to figure out if non-magicals could brew potions using magical ingredients, but it was something to check out in the future. Swiftly however his smile came back as he looked at the two girls.

Jean grabbed at the container quickly, opened it and sipped, making a face at the taste before handing it over to Emma in turn.

Emma took a sip then spotted Harry's computer screen, and she raised an eyebrow. "Buying stock Mr. Potter? For what?"

"Stark Enterprises actually," Harry smirked as he went back to work. "It's going for a song, I swear, a mere hundred thousand per percent, its astonishing, a mega corporation like that, really bad." It had cut into his ready cash quite a bit, but he was confident he would be able to make it up later.

"That would be because Tony Stark has said his company won't make or sell any more weapons." Emma said dryly. "The man is a bit of a moron if he expected otherwise, Stark Industries doesn't do anything else."

"Perhaps not right now," Harry rejoined, "But from all reports Tony Stark is a robotics genius, I have no doubt he'll be able to turn it around if he is even half as intelligent as he's supposed to be. Heck I can think of dozens of technological devices I'd like to try and design if I had the means to manufacture them. Computer tech for example could be expanded and upgraded exponentially in the private sector. And now that I control thirty-eight percent of the stock, I will be making a killing when Stark finishes the switch to consumer goods."

Emma blinked at that, feeling a strange jolt at the words go through her. Maybe it was her upbringing talking but if there was one thing that Emma knew was a turn on for her it was power, mental and physical as well as intelligence. And Harry's reasoned argument and actions showed he had those three in spades. "Hmm I hadn't thought about that, and I doubt many people have, I wonder if I can buy some?"

"Not on the open market," Harry replied quickly, "I grabbed up as much as I could, but most of the rest was already off the market. It took some digging, but I've found twenty percent was sold from various people to a man named Obadiah Stane. The rest I picked up entirely."

Emma blinked again and moved behind the loveseat, leaning over to get a better view, one hand rising to scratch Hedwig's plumage as she read the screen. Harry gulped a little feeling her firm breasts press into his unoccupied shoulder, her blond hair rustling against the skin of his neck and shoulder.

Jean sat down in a chair at the table, using her power to reheat the pot of tea there while nibbling on a bit of cookie and trying to follow the conversation.

"Obadiah Stane is the vice president of Stark Industries, what in the world would he need more stock for, and to open himself up for a charge of insider trading? Stark and other major companies like that are watched closely for that kind of thing. In fact this should have been caught already."

"You think we should blow the whistle on it or something then?" Harry asked, turning to look at her and inadvertently inhaling the scent of her shampoo, a subtle scent of lilac and vanilla.

Emma shook her head. "No, Stane is known as one of Stark's most trusted confidantes, if he's doing this there must be something in the works, so we'd be better off just letting it go. Besides, since this wasn't caught already, there's no telling if blowing the whistle would work." Harry had dug up a bit, but there was no way he, a private citizen, could find this when the government's watchdogs couldn't. This meant the government was either in on it, which was not out of the question given Stark was almost the sole supplier for high-tech weapons to America's armed forces, or Stark or Stane had bought the agents assigned to watch for this kind of thing happening around Stark industries.

Harry nodded as Emma moved around the loveseat again. "I was thinking of actually giving you some of these stocks." That stopped Emma in her tracks and she turned from reaching for a cookie on the table to look at him, one eyebrow raised in the Frost equivalent of gaping in astonishment. "Honestly I'm just doing this because they were so bloody cheap due to the panicked response to his announcement, but I won't be able to keep an eye on the market, I'll be far too busy. And if I do transfer some these stocks to you it'll give you something to show for this trip."

Emma smiled faintly, pleased at this show of friendship and trust. Nor would her father of sister attempt to take control of it from her. Her father wouldn't because he wouldn't care about it that much, and the man he had assigned to watch her stocks didn't like her sister at all, thus blocking Adrienne. She motioned him to hand over the laptop and after a moment she had opened up another window that held her stock portfolio.

With that done she handed it back, and Harry transferred the stocks from three made up names to hers, leaving Harry with 24 percent of the company's stock distributed unevenly under two names, Anastasia Ambrosius and George Fredrick Weatherby. Both names had been thought up by Hedwig, and Harry felt that the twins would have gotten a kick out of his use of that particular name. "And done."

"Thank you Harry, both for this and for your magical aid. Emma smile widened slightly, and she leaned over, giving Harry a glimpse down her shirt as her tone turned sultry. "How can I ever repay you?"

She made to lean down into his personal space but was suddenly yanked backward by a telekinetic grip on the back of her shirt. "Can you not act like a slut for a few minutes, or is that too much to ask?" Jean groused, as she pulled Emma to sit in the free chair at the table.

Emma laughed. "Hah, I just know what I like and am willing to go after it, you can't tell me the thought hasn't occurred to you?"

Harry reddened at that as did Jean, but Ororo merely chuckled throatily, then reached up to drag him down into a slow, languid kiss. After a moment she released him and smiled at the other two saying simply, "Mine."

"Yes but last night you said, and I quote, 'As for signing up, your turn will come'." Emma grinned wickedly. "I've been hoping you weren't just talking about dancing."

Jean flushed further, both at her words and the hope it had blossomed in her, giving her crush more fuel, and at the memory of dancing with Harry last night.

Ororo laughed again. "Perhaps in the future, not just yet."

She had realized this morning that she had fallen in love with Harry, the kind of love where she could easily see the two of them living the rest of their lives together, and wanted to see it happen. But that didn't mean she was blind to the attraction and growing emotional attachment between the two younger women and Harry, or Jean and Ororo herself. The redhead had become by far her best friend, and she had caught herself looking at the redhead with more than friendly interest and approval a few times. But she wasn't going to let anyone join Harry and her for a short term fling or something like that. She needed to know that what the girls and Harry and her felt for one another was genuine, not just a passing fancy.

Jean looked away, knowing that Ororo was merely teasing, she wasn't really serious about that, was she?

Harry gulped, his blush disappearing as all his blood rushed south and he very carefully used his computer to cover his reaction to Ororo's kiss and to her follow up pronouncement. "Umm, anyway, how late are you staying here Emma?"

Emma chuckled at Harry's apparent distress, amused that his self-control had finally developed a crack. "Oh I imagine that I can leave sometime after lunch and get back home without arousing too much interest."

Harry nodded and decided to get the hell out of dodge, feeling very much outnumbered at present despite the fact Red hadn't joined in the teasing much. He shut down his laptop and with a wave of his hand his clothes suddenly appeared over his boxers and naked chest. "Well ladies, I will bid you ado, I have a meeting with Scott and Rogue for some experiments. Till later luv, Red, White," and with that he walked off, smirking at Emma's irritated face at her new nickname, followed by his lady's chuckles as he walked out of the door.

The ladies spent the rest of the morning talking. Not about boys fashion or gossip as was normal, but about world politics, the state of America as it was today, and other things, having covered less serious topics during their sleepover last night.

The trio hung out together in this fashion until Emma left, only stopping to allow Ororo to go and change then join the girls in the sitting room. The boys made brief appearances, but the three women were at that point talking about global trends in marketing, with Emma controlling the floor for a moment, and they all beat a hasty retreat. Scott paused for just a moment to look Emma over then switched to staring at Jean, but the redhead never noticed and he left swiftly.

Charles made an appearance to try and talk Emma into at least staying in contact if she couldn't join the school, and Emma hesitated before declining just as firmly as she had the day before. Charles sighed and left the girls to their own devices.

Alas it was soon time for Emma to leave and Jean walked her to her car in the garage while Ororo left to make lunch for everyone. Emma stopped, leaning against her car and looking at Jean for a moment. "This has been a lot of fun Jean, and in the interest of friendship I need to tell you something."

Jean nodded. "It's been a lot of fun on my end too. I'll e-mail you to tell you what happens with Duncan tomorrow. And if you ever do decide to just run, well, I'll save a space for you next to me somewhere." Emma hadn't shared much, just enough to tell Jean that she had an unhappy home life, but that was enough to make the redhead want to help her new friend. Jean also had very good instincts, and somehow knew that Emma was involved in something dangerous, maybe not X-men style dangerous, but something.

Emma smiled at the sentiment, but her voice was serious when she replied. "I'll remember you said that if I do decide to just run off. But right now, I wanted to tell you about something I've been feeling since I got here." She paused thinking of how to put it then went on. "Since I arrived here, my mental defenses have felt a constant, low key pressure."

Jean frowned. "My own defenses haven't reported anything like that, though maybe they wouldn't, I don't know. Can you tell me anything more?"

"I don't know what its purpose was, all I know is that it was coming from the old bald man, the professor. It strengthened quite a bit in his presence."

Jean's eyes widened in shock. "But, but that makes no sense, his telepathy is even more tightly controlled than yours!"

Emma shrugged. "Maybe he doesn't know that he's doing it. All I know is that for a minute, even knowing that it would be dangerous for me and for all of you I wanted to say yes when he wanted me to keep in contact with you all."

"Some kind of, of low key 'trust me' field?" Jean frowned. "That would explain some things, but i can't picture him doing it on purpose."

"I don't know, all I can tell you is what I felt." Emma shrugged, then turned and unlocked her white Ferrari 458.

She paused, and turned back, but before she could speak Jean pulled her into a hug. "Be safe Emma, I don't want to read about you in the obituary, okay?"

Emma stiffened for just a second, then her own arms went around her friend and the two stood there for a moment, their bodies pressed against one another. Both had the sudden urge to turn and kiss the other, but both decided to pull back from that, and Emma reluctantly stepped out of the hug and got into her car. "I'll try Jean, that's the best I can tell you. I'll also try to respond to your e-mails when I can, but don't expect much real information."

Jean nodded and without another word Emma started up her car, leaving behind a very thoughtful redhead, who had yet another reason to distrust the man who she had looked at as both a role model and a leader as little as three months ago.

OOOOOOO

Harry did in fact meet up with Scott and Rogue moments after he left. Rogue was looking good, still a little Goth but she seemed to be slowly moving away from that style now that she could freely touch people as long as she was wearing the runic array he had created for her.

Scott had taken his demotion last week far better than Harry had feared he might. He took part in the team exercises and seemed to have no trouble taking orders from anyone, though it was obvious the changes in Jean still bothered him at times when she was taking her turn as team leader. Still he had been spending more time just hanging out with the teams and had patched things up with Spyke, Kurt and Kitty by taking every prank they threw his way with a smile on his face. He now displayed a sense of empathy that had been sorely lacking in him before, and seemed willing to listen to other's opinions, though of course they would have to wait and see if that continued if he became team leader again. He also was listening to Harry, absorbing everything he said not just about tactics and strategy but leadership and other intangibles.

Rogue went first, punching, kicking, and trying to bend or mangle the piece of 6' by 6' by 1' slab of red metal. She failed miserably and smiled to herself knowing her armor was made of the same metal.

Scott went next, the beam thin and concentrated as he could make it. He slowly ramped up the power of his eye-beams to full power then holding it there continuously as long as he could. Fifty minutes after he hit maximum power the red beam of power cut out and he went to one knee, gasping. "Th-that's it for me sir, how'd it do?"

Harry laughed slapping him on the shoulder, then gently giving him a hand up. "No problem boyo, your endurance is getting better all the time. When I first arrived you couldn't have held that beam half as long." Indeed all the teens had built up their physical endurance and the endurance needed to use their powers several times over from when he had first arrived here. "As for how the test went, see for yourself."

On a stone plinth in the center of the Danger room the slab of Harrytanium sat, not even scorched. Rogue whistled. "That stuff is really incredible. Ah well, unless you still need me Mistah Potter, Ahm off tah find Kitty. Wolverine's jeep is out of thah shop and ah want tah borrow it before he knows its ready to be picked up." She walked off, making a point of swishing her hips, delighting in the fact her growth spurt had actually given her some.

Scott stared after her, his mouth agape for a moment and his face obviously blushing under his visor before a chuckle from Harry broke him out of his momentary brain freeze. "Um, I, I'm going to go too sir, unless you need me for something else?"

"No Scott, I think we can conclude that my conjured metal is the same as the original. Now I need to figure out a way to work with it and create it without constantly conjuring." Despite his power, conjuring that chunk of metal had taken a noticeable bite out of his reserves last night. He was pretty certain he could conjure enough to make a full suit, but it would put him on his back for the rest of the day. "Now it's back to work. I'll see you after dinner for the normal discussion okay?"

"Yes sir," Scott replied.

Harry had instigated a round table discussion after dinner on how the team exercise went that day because Ororo had taken over training the X-men in team exercises since the Magneto incident, while Logan was still in charge of single exercises and general psychical endurance. These discussions gave Harry and Charles some insight on how the group was doing and where to improve things.

The teens had all taken turns by this point at the leadership role and Ororo and Harry had not been surprised that Jean was the one to step up the most. While she had a bit of a temper issue it wasn't much, and she was easily the best leader among the X-men bar Scott. None of the others were willing to really put in the work to be a good leader, to learn and to read about modern weapons and small unit maneuvers and to try and understand tactics.

Case in point, he hadn't made the after dinner discussions mandatory and only Scott and Jean kept on showing up every day to talk with him and the other teachers. The others would show up if he reminded them after they led the training run, but they didn't contribute as much as Scott or Jean.

Kurt had charisma but no work ethic, Rogue wasn't able to plan like a leader (she just couldn't plan ahead at all) and didn't seem comfortable giving orders.

Evan had the drive, but none of the intuitive understanding necessary, and once assigned the leadership role he became a little arrogant and unwilling to listen to the suggestions of his friends much like Scott was at first. Afterwards he was mostly apologetic about it, but that didn't mean much if he couldn't stop it from happening.

Kitty was much like Rogue, much happier in the background and almost unable to give orders except in the direst of circumstances. When she did they were usually correct, but she wasn't willing to put in the work either, not that Ororo and the others had tried very hard to get her to do so. She was far more valuable to the team in her natural position as researcher and sometime spy/infiltrator to give her more duties.

Jean on the other hand was charismatic, forceful and more than willing to shoulder any work they gave her. She was developing into a excellent and imaginative engineer already, simply absorbing any books on the subject she could get her hands on at an incredible rate. Her powers continued to become stronger and more versatile as she worked with them and this work ethic carried over to her turns as team leader.

The problem with her was she and Rogue simply could not get along, and Scott's problems with her new attitude often got in the way. He was able to take orders well enough from the others, showing again his growth and maturity, but taking orders from Jean seemed to bother him. Rogue seemed to just not like Jean for some reason, though it could just be two beautiful girls in one very small ring. As her walking out of the Danger Room showed just now Rogue had recently begun a growth spurt into what would become a truly magnificent womanhood, whereas Jean was well along the same road. Kitty still had the coltish appearance of a teen in comparison, but didn't seem to care either.

Harry shook his head as he watched Scott leave. Charles had been right if for the wrong reasons when he wanted to keep Scott as team leader, but his demotion seemed to have given him the impetus to take his role to the next level. He'd wait a few more weeks (if he was still here, Harry honestly had no idea how long his plans would take to get to the point where he was ready to move out) before suggesting his punishment was over, but to his mind and Logan's there was no doubt Scott would be back as team leader soon enough.

He sighed and shook his head. "Back to work." With that he grabbed the now cool metal and headed back up to his lab, where he put a sign on the door telling everyone to keep out before starting his work.

Emma left later that day, but no one saw Harry until dinner time, and he still hadn't figured out how to really work with the metal in question. He had tried to heat it enough to be worked with and failed miserably. The only things he hadn't tried was Fiendfyre and Blackfyre. The idea that Fiendfyre would work was tempting but how to actually contain it, that was the question. Not even he could contain Fiendfyre enough to just heat a piece of metal in a crucible or whatever. Blackfyre was another idea, but again he needed to figure out how to contain it. Not only that but to keep the fire going hot while he worked with the metal.

"Then too," he said, looking over at Hedwig, who was watching him with what looked like amusement on her feathered face. "I had hoped to figure out a way to make a business that would rely on Harrytanium as part of its main building block, the idea of selling crysis suits based off this is just... Heh, especially since I've developed the spells to change the metal back to its constituent parts." He gestured to his work table, where he had taken apart the conjure chunk of Harrytanium into the different metals that went into its creation.

The strange crystalline metal was deep maroon in color, and Harry was almost positive that it was the reason for the metals strange durability to heat, and possibly to force and to his conjuring or trying to shape the metal via magic, though he was certain it was a combination of it and the metal he could possibly call durasteel, like the metal for spaceships in Star Wars.

"How can I get heat at that level? If sustained laser fire can't do it, then those two spells are the only thing that might do it. Unless… unless I can mix science and magic somehow…"

That night Harry again pulled an all-nighter, and was eventually able to figure out a way. He had been right in a way, the maroon colored metal really was the issue but he could conjure enough of it to work with and add to the terrestrial metals. The more he did, the more certain he was that it would be almost impossible for someone else to recreate via technological means. It was almost as if it was somehow a bit of magic itself given a solid form. Still he had been able to work with it.

First he went up to Asteroid M, taking Melody some leftovers and spending a few hours with her before her bedtime, then went to work. Then he added some more defensive and strengthening wards, not feeling any of the strain he had felt the day before after enlarging many of the rooms to the maximum level he could. That made sense now that he thought of it, after all what the long term and powerful enlarging charms did was create a pocket dimension that just happened to have an entrance into your dimension at the point of overlap. So when he had enlarged several of the rooms by 15,000 times, he was actually creating pocket dimensions of that size.

Next he set up one of the asteroid's lab rooms to make it as heat resistant as science and magic could make it, adding even more wards to the hearthstone. Then he segmented the room, creating a series of smaller rooms with a conveyor belt between them. In the first several segments he used various technological means to heat the metal on the conveyor belt, and in the last room he got creative in a way that would set every wizard back hom, both his friends and not, to screaming at him. He figured out how to use a runic array to create Fiendfyre in an enclosed space.

The runic array needed to do it took him the rest of the night and well into the next day to get right, but in the end a large square furnace was created at the end of the line. This segment of the room was separate from the rest, and the other more normal metals would be fed into this room to join the already molten maroon metal which Harry was tempted to call Fantasium, because by all the laws of molecules and science it simply could not exist.

By the time he went back to the mansion he had enough Harrytanium, and in the shape and size he wanted it to be, that he could recreate his crysis suit with the metal added to it. He was also almost as magically exhausted as he had been when he powered the hearth stone, and he collapsed into bed after a bleary-eyed greeting sent Ororo's way.

OOOOOOO

Lance sighed as he walked into the school on Monday morning, wondering when the hell school had become a haven for him. He hadn't been a stranger to being on the run, he'd run away from home a few times when he was younger, and Mystique made damn certain all her students knew how to evade the authorities. But whoever the hell was after him now was better at this than anyone else that had tried to track him. Worse was his suspicion that there was more than one group after him.

Lance hadn't returned to the Brotherhood's dorms after coming back to New York with the X-men. He knew that after the fights that had gone on (and seeing the amount of damage Pyro and Jean had done to the park near the mansion) he knew the authorities would be looking for them, and he didn't particularly want the rest of the Brotherhood to find him either. Magneto had proven he wasn't very trustworthy, and Lance didn't want any part of his almost Nazi agenda.

Instead he had made his way via public transportation to his mom's place and then disappeared into the New York sprawl for the weekend before showing up for school on Monday, more to see Kitty than anything else, though he also wanted to see if anything had happened with Fred and the others. He wasn't exactly friends with them, least of all Pietro, but he had been team leader, and they were sort of his responsibility. Especially since, you know, he had egged them into the worst matchups possible. It hadn't come as a shock to him that the trio were gone, though whoever had grabbed them hadn't left him any indication they had tried to find him.

After Monday at school the feeling of being watched had started, and he went to ground again. He found new uses for his earthquake power, opening up tiny caves in the earth where he could hide out in the woods when his instincts told him to disappear entirely. Starting Wednesday Kitty had actually begun to help him by smuggling food to him, though she did also press him to reconsider joining the X-men. Lance still wasn't ready to start drinking the 'hero' Kool-Aid though.

Kitty had seen a lot of guys in suits around school and in town, and she had also passed on that Charles had felt something, someone with mental powers moving around on Sunday. That had been more than enough to convince Lance he wasn't just feeling jittery. The problem was that suits meant Fed's, and they didn't normally ransack and set deadly booby traps for their quarry, they tended to want you alive.

After a full week of living on the road and in the forests, Lance had snuck back to the Brotherhood dorm to grab a change of clothing. When he tried to leave however someone tried to shoot him with some kind of electrical gun out of nowhere! He had dodged back inside, and then used his power to collapse the house behind him as he ran out the back door. He had been attacked by someone else there too, some asshole in a dark blue spandex outfit with purple highlights and a white mask. The dude had shot at him, but Lance had dodged the electrical bolt and slammed a piece of pipe upside his head. The man had flinched aside, but to Lance's surprise had kept on his feet and shot at him again when Lance ducked out onto the road.

He had seen a black van pull up as he ran way, but hadn't spent any time waiting around to see what was happening, and after that had used his power to break a way into the sewers, which he used to get away.

It had not been an easy time for him, so he could be excused for sleeping through most of his classes. Why the school was safe he didn't know or care really, he was just going to take advantage of it.

Today Lance was woken up from his American history class (a snooze worthy class if ever there was one in his opinion) by a gentle touch on his shoulder. He started up, his power activating and causing the whole building to rumble for a moment then he saw it was Kitty and he got control of himself. "Hey Kitty, is it lunch time already?"

Kitty looked down at her boyfriend frowning a little. While they weren't anything serious, nowhere near Teach and Storm, but that didn't mean she didn't care for him, and she didn't like seeing him so tired like this. "Are you sure you don't want to move in with us at the mansion? We haven't been bothered yet."

Lance scowled a little. "That's because you have a damn mind reader and a wizard living with you, they tend to diffuse any attention sent your way. Besides, it's not just what might have happened," He grimaced, "wherever the hell we fought that asshole with the bucket helmet. I think the government might have a good idea who he is, and that the Brotherhood answered to him." He wanted to mention the other group that was after him, but he didn't want Kitty and the other do-gooders to try and butt in on his business like that. This just went to show that despite the gains he had made in maturity, he was still a teenager in many ways and didn't want his girlfriend trying to save him.

Kitty frowned but let the matter drop for now. The two spent lunch together, ignoring the odd looks thrown their way. Not that many people had any attention to spare for the preppy Kitty and the grungy Lance going out. Not with the big news on campus, that the power couple of Duncan and Jean had split up. The news depended on which rumor you heard of course, which ranged from Jean finding Duncan shacked up with another cheerleader and threatening to geld him, to Duncan catching Jean going out with one of the teachers from the Institute, and him dumping her. The gender of that teacher was left to the imagination of the listener strangely enough.

Lance looked over the table at Kitty. "Is that true?"

Kitty nodded. "Yep. Jean went out with a new friend, I didn't meet her that long, and they found Duncan at Margaritaville with another girl playing tonsil hockey. Jean kicked him to the curve right away."

Lance grinned as the group next to them shared the rumor that Jean had been hooking up with 'that hot black woman' from the institute. "And where did Potter and Ms Munroe appear in all this?"

"They went along as chaperones." Kitty abruptly changed the subject. "Anyway, what are you doing after school?"

"The same thing I've been doing for a week now, getting the hell out of dodge. Sorry, I know that I haven't been a good boyfriend lately." Lance replied sadly.

"Don't worry about it, but you know maybe they just want to ask you some questions or something." Kitty replied, trying to be comforting.

Lance shook his head at Kitty's naïveté . "Trust me, the Feds never just want to ask questions. And with my record, no way am I going to talk to any cops, either the kind in a uniform or a suit."

Kitty shrugged and dropped the subject for now.

OOOOOOO

Harry continued his work on the asteroid Monday, needing to take a break from working with the metal. In one area he set up a lab for Reed, and in another room near the hanger bay he set up a incoming portkey destination, which he could tie into any portkeys he created to bypass the anti-apparition wards. Eventually once he or his allies figured out how it would be replaced by a teleporter, but right now if people came up it would have to be via his portkeys which would drop them off here. Of course the portkeys he created would only work for the people he gave them to, but he was paranoid to set up even more intent based wards here then with a shrug added them to the hearthstone, enlarging them to cover the entire asteroid.

After this he groaned but went back to work on the metal.

After that he walked the short distance to see Melody. Despite the fact her room had a TV that could pick up any channel in the world (the upshot of being in an asteroid was you could easily hack into every satellite around) Melody enjoyed simply spending time in the garden with the songbirds, who seemed to have adopted her as one of their own. It amused Harry to walk in and see her sitting at a tree stump or leaning against a tree with dozens of little birds perched every which way on her.

Now was no different and she was sitting there singing some children's song or other but she stopped and looked up at him. "Hello Mr. Harry, how are you? Your songs look much louder today, you were so tired yesterday."

"I'm fine Melody, good night's sleep fixed me right up. How about you, are you enjoying yourself up here?" Harry took Melody's hand and gently pulled her to her feet, escorting her to the dining table, which was set up right in the center of the jungle in a small clearing. "Now, I have pasta salad, homemade fish and chips, or homemade pizza."

Melody grinned. "Oh I love it here, so many songs, and all of them vibrant and happy. Um, I've never had fish and chips, let's try that." She sat down at one side of the small table while Harry pulled the food out of the same basket he had used in his picnic date with Ororo right after he had finished his flight array.

After he set the food out Harry pulled out some sodas and set them on the table, chuckling as Melody grabbed the grape soda as soon as he put it down. "Honestly if we let you you'd turn into a grape with all of that stuff you drink." Melody giggled at the idea, but did not relinquish her hold on the soda bottle. "Is there anything you want me to bring you, clothes I believe Ororo is handling this week at some point, she's busy giving the kids tests, but after that she'll go shopping for clothes for you but is there anything else you want?"

Melody blushed a little, her index pressing against one another in front of her face. "Um, could I have a teddy bear?"

Harry looked blank for a moment. "Um, sure I guess. Uh, would those be in regular toy stores or what?" Harry had never owned any toys, let alone a teddy bear, and Dudley had only been given one when he was a very young toddler, and had promptly ignored it. Harry had only seen it once before it was thrown in the garbage. He actually had no idea what was in a teddy bear, so couldn't just conjure it. Besides, it probably meant more if he had to go and buy it rather than just wave his hands.

Melody looked a little perplexed. "I think a regular toy store? Oooh, go to the one in New York with the giant piano thingy on the floor. I saw it in a movie once and it looked like fun."

"I'll look into it. My work on Harrytanium," he paused as his name for the metal made Melody giggle for a moment, "Is almost done, and I'll see about getting you a teddy bear and some other toys after I'm done with it. And seeing as you and everyone else thinks I'm pants at naming things, how about you think up a name for this asteroid."

Melody cocked her head to one side. "Um, how about High Note? Or Symphony or perhaps Babylon? Since you have the gardens and stuff." Harry gaped at her and she giggled. "You see, it's not so hard is it?"

Harry composed himself and shook his head. "I'll ask Ororo's opinion, but I think either High Note or Babylon would work. High Note sounds better, Babylon might have religious connotations, I'm not certain." Religion in the wizarding world was based more on ancestor worship than anything else, with Merlin being the preeminent god, and Morgana Le Fay being seen as the evil goddess (or at least she was seen that way by wizards, witches had a different view of course) and he had never really bought into it there, and the less said about the Dursleys and religion the better. "But thanks Melody that helps a lot."

Melody grinned brightly at the praise, and the meal continued on the same happy note.

OOOOOOO

While Harry was having a nice early dinner with Melody, school had let out back in Bayville. This joyous time found Lance and Evan walking through the school gate, arguing about whether snowboarding was cooler than skating. "Man I tell you, you can pull moves off in a snowboard that you just can't come close to with a board."

"That's because if you screw up with a snowboard you land in snow, the best you'll deal with is bruises. When you pull off mad moves on a skateboard, you're putting your life on the line, that's what makes it so thrilling."

Lance's rebuttal was interrupted by a man in a suit suddenly stepping out of the crowd and stopping in front of them. "Lance Alvers?"

Lance looked up and cursed at the official looking man. He was about to use his powers to rock the man off his feet so he could get away, but then stopped as Evan threw a friendly arm around his shoulders. Despite his differences with the Brotherhood and their beliefs, if it was a choice between seeing a sort of frenemy carted off by The Man, or standing by him, Evan knew what he'd choose. "Dude what did you do now? Musta been something for a Fed to come after you?"

"I am not a Fed, as you put it Mr. Daniels," the man a middle aged white male with close cropped hair wearing a good suit said. The use of his name made Evan stiffen in turn, and his hands dropped to his side, one hand hidden behind Lance's body.

The man seemed to not notice, simply reaching inside his pocket, a move that made both teens stiffen further but he simply pulled out a badge. "I work with the Strategic Hazard, International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division, or SHIELD. We just have some questions to ask you regarding the activity that occurred a week ago. If you could just get in the car, we could go someplace more private for our talk."

Lance frowned for a moment, looking around but before he could say anything another man got out of the car, his eyes like a hawk but with a friendly smirk on his face. Clint had read the file they had on Alvers, and recognized Lance as someone like himself, a hard scrapper who was unwilling to trust authority because it had failed him so often. "Easy kid, we just want ta talk. You don't have to go with us anywhere, we can talk in public just as easy as anywhere else."

Lance looked at the second man thoughtfully, easily recognizing this as a classic 'good cop, bad cop' situation, but he shrugged it off, realizing he couldn't get away, not without using his powers in full view of a lot of his classmates. He didn't know that Charles was willing and able to go into their minds and erase memories if he needed to of course. And he also didn't want to drag the X-kids into his problems. Of course this showed that despite his growing maturity he was still a teenager at heart. "Alright, there's a pizza joint about two blocks from here, let's talk there. You're buying of course. I'll see you later Daniels."

Clint grinned and led the way, while the other man got back into the car. Evan was left staring after Lance, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully before he turned and ran back to find the others before they left for home.

The others were easy to convince, their own curiosity and concern for their frenemy making all of them but Jean, who still had after school duties as a soccer player now that the soccer season had started, follow along with Evan to see what was going on. They grabbed a seat at an outdoor café across the way from the pizza place, easily able to see the window booth that Lance and his interlocutors sat at.

Inside the pizza joint Clint had introduced himself and ordered a large pizza for the two of them, then waited until the waiter had left with their order before starting. "Alright kid, you probably know what this is all about, so let's not beat around the bush okay? What you might not know is that Magneto, the one who was controlling those metal ball things, is a wanted international criminal, and associating with him in any way can get you sent to jail for twenty years no questions asked." He waited a few seconds to let that sink in before continuing. "Now I'm not going to ask you to sell out your friends or anything like that, but we need to know what happened."

That was unfortunately true. The punk they had captured, Pyro, didn't know anything, or at least nothing important to the matter at hand. They knew more about the Brotherhood now, but the separate chapters (or cells, depending on who you talked to) seemed to be different depending on who the trainer was. Pyro had led them to what amounted to a mutant terrorist cell in New Orleans, but by the time they got that out of him the rest of that chapter had disappeared. This teen and his crew seemed more like a juvie gang than anything, but he might still know more about the big picture than the heavily indoctrinated Pyro, who just kept on spouting quasi-religious BS about the coming rise of mutantkind at the interrogators.

Lance leaned back, glaring at the man but eventually nodded. "Alright, but you'll have to answer a few questions for me too." Clint nodded slowly at that. "First off, if I answer your questions what happens to me?"

Clint shrugged. "Nothing. We just want our questions answered." And hopefully a clue as to where Magneto is now and what the hell he's up to. The brass was majorly disturbed by the idea of someone with his dogma having developed a terrorist organization as decentralized and widespread the Brotherhood seemed to be, and any clue about their plans would be a major help.

Lance frowned thoughtfully, wondering what to tell the other man. He didn't want to fill them in on the X-men after all, but how much to tell was the question. "Alright, I guess I can fill you in on some stuff, though none of us in the, well I guess the local Brotherhood chapter, knew about the rest of them or even Magneto until Candra showed up with that Pyro punk. And we didn't have a clue that Magneto, that insane prick, was our real backer."

He stopped then as the pizza arrived, and the two took a moment to grab slices of the oily goodness and wait for the waiter to leave before going on. "We all stuck together because we believed what we were told, about mutants needing to gather together to defend themselves from prosecution." This time his frown was grim. The news of the last week and a bit was becoming more and more anti-mutant as the Friends of Humanity gained got more and more screen time in New York. Anti-mutant propaganda was on the rise everywhere, but it seemed to have just stepped up to a whole new level in America. "We were brought together by our trainer over the last year or so, we called her Mystique…"

"GAH!" Lance looked up as Clint seemed to choke on his bite of pizza. Clint waved his concern away and grabbed his glass of water, clearing his throat before staring over at Lance. "Mystique!? Normal height with blue skin and red hair when she's not using her power to look like someone else?" Lance nodded and Clint began to rub his face worriedly. Crap, a spy like her was in the United States and we never even heard about it?! I am so damn glad I'm not the one that's going to have to explain that!

SHIELD knew who Mystique was of course, but her power was almost tailor-made for a spy, and keeping tabs on her took an entire department and working with spy agencies worldwide, something that was always volatile at best. While she wasn't anywhere near as dangerous on a global scale as Magneto, her abilities and her training made her someone no-one wanted operating in their backyard. He had heard reports of the FF having designed some tech to detect shape-shifters, but it hadn't been made available to anyone else yet, and no one else had come up with anything that could discover someone like her.

Our last report on her was barely a month ago and put her in China cozying up to one of the crime lords there, how the hell has she been in America for this long without a single fucking sign of her? Even with her power there should have been some sign…

To be fair to SHIELD, keeping track of Mystique was difficult at the best of times and when she had the inadvertent help of one of the world's most powerful telepaths, that made it impossible. Mystique should have been spotted several times over the last year despite her caution, but all of those times was when she was in conflict with the X-men, and Charles routinely erased the memories of their clashes from the memory of anyone who saw them. He hadn't realized that this helped his enemy just as much.

Clint came back to the here and now and motioned Lance to continue. He did so, giving a lot of background as he knew it about the Brotherhood as well as what he had seen of Magneto, but downplaying the X-Men's abilities, simply saying they were another group of mutants brought together to be trained in their powers and self-defense. Clint let it go, seeing no point in forcing the issue. Besides they already had a handle on some of the X-Men's powers, and they had backing from some serious power players in the American government.

Instead he tried to draw Lance out on the one real unknown, Potter, while they continued to eat the pizza slowly. Despite his best efforts though Lance refused to be drawn on him and whatever powers he might possess. Clint wondered what the man had done to inspire such loyalty in someone who was at least nominally on the opposing side. Nor did Lance let any hint of his relationship with Kitty or Rogue and Kurt's with Mystique out. He wasn't willing to share those tidbits with anyone else.

Still it gave Clint a better picture of what had happened then they had, even with the rather obvious cover up about how they actually beat off Magneto. The fact he had been using, in Lance's words 'some occult mumbo jumbo' to power-up and brainwash the younger mutants was a major issue and was way more disturbing than any question about Potter.

Lance finished his story and put down his pizza, looking over at the older man. "And that's about all I know."

Clint nodded, wondering why the hell Lance hadn't given him any description about the setting for this fight against Magneto, but shrugged it off as unimportant, since he knew that the asteroid had been destroyed. "Alright kid, that was all I wanted to know. Now, what're your questions?"

"You know anything about a group whose troops dress in dark blue uniforms with purple gloves and white masks?" Lance asked immediately.

Clint shook his head, wondering where the hell that had come from. Since there had been no evidence or witnesses at all to the assault on the retrieval team that had taken Candra SHIELD had no idea about a group that had a uniform like that. "No clue kid, why?"

Lance paused for a moment, then shook his head. "No reason really." He really had no reason to trust Clint despite his personable nature, and he knew that secret agents kept files, so even if one agent was trustworthy, that didn't mean that everyone who had access to those files was.

Clint shook his head mentally at that but let the kid go with no further comment and stood up. "In that case kiddo, you're free to go. Stay out of trouble from now on kay? Your powers don't put you above the law."

Lance shrugged. "So long as the law protects us all equally I won't go out of my way to break it, that's the best you're going to get."

Clint barked a laugh and shook his head as he walked away. The kid has balls, that's for sure.

Lance set there for all of a minute before Kitty burst into the pizza parlor and made a beeline for him, followed swiftly by the rest of the X-kids. She slid into the booth across from her boyfriend, looking at him anxiously. "Like, what was that all about?"

Lance blinked then smiled a little, carefully hiding it. Despite his desire to be independent and not wanting to involve the X-teens with his problems, it was nice to know Kitty cared.

Before he could ask however Kurt asked "Und are you going to finish that pizza?" The others all looked at him askance. "Vhat?"

OOOOOOO

Clint got into the car and immediately called his boss on the video phone that was part of the backseat of the car, a new device that SHIELD was slowly getting out to its field operative, though personally Clint thought it was a needless expense. But Fury believed in looking his men in the eye, and was able to tell a lot about them and their inner thoughts that way. In front the other two agents assigned to help on this mission started the car and they were off.

After a moment the video of his boss popped up. "Well what have you got for me Hawkeye?"

Clint stared for a moment and then shook his head laughing lightly. "Sorry boss, still getting used to your new look."

Fury barked a laugh. "You should see Duggan and the others from the old crew, they still look at me oddly all the time, at least you only had to forget a single year's worth of memories rather than forty plus." Nick Fury had originally been a white man with a weathered face and prematurely graying hair and an eye patch over an eye he had lost to shrapnel during the war. Now he was a slightly taller black man with no hair (that part had actually bothered him more than all the rest surprisingly), but the eye-patch remained the same.

His personality had been transferred into his new body when he had been captured by one of his old enemies (now dead) and had his mind replaced by one of the enemy's minions. It had backfired first because Fury had set up several passwords with his men, most notably his best friend/second in command Duggan, which no one else knew. Duggan had then tried to capture the double. The second thing that went wrong was when Fury had escaped from where he had been placed, breaking the mind control that should have kept him as a zombie, able to watch but not do anything. Unfortunately his old body had killed itself rather than be captured. The upshot of this adventure was instead of having his reputation ruined or SHIELD assets subverted, Nick had come out of it with his reputation enhanced and a new, somewhat younger body. Duggan's performance also gave him the ability to override the higher-ups on who should be his second in command.

Now he sobered quickly, after all it had been over a year now, and the joke had gotten old. "Report."

Clint did so quickly, and Nick leaned back, taking it all in and only asking for clarification a few times. One of the best and most overlooked aspects of any leader was the ability to listen, and Nick had it in spades. After Clint finished he asked, "And he didn't give you any information about Potter?"

"No sir. Honestly I'm not certain why, he could just be thinking with his dick, the rumors he's dating one of the gals from the institute seems spot on. I saw Ms. Pryde and a few of the others from the Institute watching us." He shook his head. Whatever Logan's involvement with them was, the kids didn't have the skills to be spies. Soldiers maybe, but not spies. "Or Potter's done something to earn his loyalty, I don't know what, but we still have no idea what Potter's powers are."

Fury scowled, he just knew Potter was a wizard of some sort, but what kind and how powerful eluded him, as did his agenda. But Potter was a mystery, not a problem, not yet. "Alright, good call on going for the soft sell. There was a report of some kind of altercation at the Brotherhood's dormitory yesterday. I want you to stay there for at least another week, see what you can find out. I'm also sending you one of our new experimental anti-mind control units, see if it'll allow you to spy on the institute, but if not, then forget about that aspect." Fury rubbed at his eye-patch in thought, "I'm going to have to find a consultant or something that we can go to for the occult shit, if that gem really does have mind control properties, then we need to find out if what happened to it, or if there are any more. But that's not your problem, just keep doing what you've been doing Hawkeye, well done."

Hawkeye nodded and cut the connection, and the car continued on it's way, not knowing that it too was being watched.

OOOOOOO

Jean was not a happy camper when she got home later that day. Her dumping Duncan was all over the school, and it seemed to be the only thing anyone was talking about! The school seemed to have split into three parts, the portion that believed Duncan's version of events, the portion who believed her and then the ones who wanted to take advantage of their change in status.

Immediately upon waking up (after having gotten drunk or so he thought) Duncan had begun to spread rumors about her. The lie that he had caught Jean cheating and not the other way around was just the beginning from there it had spiraled into her cheating with one of the teachers at the Institute with the gender changing from one rumor to another. The fact this was so close to some of her most hidden fantasies bothered her more than she liked to admit.

Another rumor had it that Duncan had sex with her and dumped her when he found out she wasn't a virgin like she claimed. This one had gone around the guys of the school and in particular the jocks, but her laughing amusement at the very idea had done what no amount of vitriolic self-defense would have, and punctured that rumor neatly. It didn't stop boys from asking her out, but her scathing contempt had put most of them off quickly enough. Well except for the closet masochists and the egoists and the dense, they still bothered her, and simply added to her irritation.

The portion that believed her version, including, funnily enough her friend Taryn despite her belief that Jean was stringing Scott along, was also having problems with her. They couldn't understand why she wasn't more upset, which she wasn't. Her blasé, uncaring attitude to Duncan and their breakup baffled them.

Taryn was of the opinion that this was because she had Scott waiting in the wings, but Jean had made a point of distancing herself further from him since Saturday, mostly because she didn't like the fact he was suddenly looking so hopeful. That ship had sailed long ago, and wasn't going to come back just because Scott wanted it to.

The fact of the matter was that Jean was looking toward the future. She was ready to leave high school and move on with her life, despite not really knowing where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do. The little high school world no longer interested her. In fact she was even considering quitting the soccer team. She had been on it initially because it had been expected of her and she liked the exercise. Now she knew she didn't need the exercise, and didn't care what people thought of her.

Despite this her belsham-trees had to work overtime throughout the day and she had felt trapped, everyone's stares and whispers getting to her slowly. She was twitchy, angry and irritated, and very much wanted to his something.

She came in just as the others were finishing up their team exercises for the day. Today was a short day. The kids had come home later than usual, though hadn't shared why (at Lance's behest) and Ororo was testing the boys on their Chinese that evening before dinner. Rogue had taken her test the day before with Kitty, who had tutored her, and Jean was a language ahead of the others studying Italian at the moment. Ororo had allowed her to slow down, since she was spending so much of her free time studying engineering, physics and mechanics. Ororo had in fact encouraged her studies, and in return Jean had agreed to help her teach the others if Ororo was busy with something else (in other words when she wanted some free time to spend with Harry).

Jean noticed Rogue looking a little irritated at how short the exercise had been and asked "I don't suppose you'd be up to a little one on one Rogue? I have some issues I want to work out."

Rogue looked over at Jean and grinned a little evilly. "You sure you can handle me Grey?"

"I can handle anything you can dish out." Jean replied confidently then looked over at the three boys who all had far away, slightly flushed looks on their faces. "Oh get your damn minds out of the gutter!"

All three looked sheepish and Rogue rolled her eyes. "Boys. Forget 'em." Jean nodded and the two girls went into the Danger Room, changing its programming into a simple plane of grass.

Above them Charles was about to tell them not to go through with this, fearing that the bad blood between them would be exacerbated, but Logan waved him off. "Let 'em go Chuck, maybe poundin' on one another will get whatever is between 'em out in the open where they can deal with it. I'll watch 'em to make certain they don't get too serious."

Charles frowned. He was never a proponent of communicating with your fists, as it were, but he realized it might work in this case. Still it wasn't something he wanted to watch, and he had paperwork he had been avoiding, so reluctantly nodded, and wheeled himself out of the Danger Room's control room.

Back down with Rogue and Jean the two had squared off in the center of the room. "Any rules? Ah'd only ask that it's ah physical only battle." Rogue asked.

"I'll agree to that and no crippling blows, and we probably should stay away from the face at all. It's only Monday after all, and we don't want the assholes at school to see us beaten up."

Rogue frowned a little at that restriction but saw the sense of it and agreed. "That makes sense ah suppose." The two stood silently measuring one another, but then suddenly the fight began, Rogue shooting forward as fast as she could, her fist smashing into the floor and creating a crater where Jean had stood a second ago.

Jean had taken to the air just as swiftly, and raised a hand smashing Rogue with a TK blast. But Rogue weighed a hell of a lot more than she looked with her red armor on, and she batted the blast aside almost contemptuously. In retaliation she ripped a chunk of the floor up and tossed it at the floating redhead.

Jean dodged to one side, but grabbed the chunk and hurled it back at Rogue, following it up with a subtle TK grab that took the girls feet out from under her, then following that up with a major TK blast that slammed her into the ground.

Rogue winced at that one, but got her feet under her and jumped into the air, her fist lashing out.

Jean saved herself by dodging to one side and grabbing the fist, adding enough momentum so that Rogue's jump continued and smashing her in the back with another TK blast.

This didn't seem to faze Rogue who turned in midair faster than Jean had thought she could move and clipped Jean in the side, sending her smashing back to Earth.

Jean winced at the blow to her side, but she had slowed and cushioned the blow as much as she could. So when Rogue followed up by trying to land on her, Jean dodged and then sent a TK blast at one of Rogue's legs, then as she stumbled upon landing smashed her in the side with an even more powerful TK blast. She had thought of just using her power to keep Rogue in the air, but decided that wouldn't be fair, and just continued to fight the way she had been.

The fight continued from there for about an hour. Rogue was tough, extremely durable and monstrously strong, but she was also one dimensional without use of her original mutant power which the rules of the match restrained her from using. Other than throwing chunks of debris at Jean, she didn't have any weapon to offset Jean's ability to fly, and she wasn't strong enough to break entirely through Jean's TK shield.

Jean in turn was constrained by her own 'no death or crippling blows' and Rogue's 'no telepathic attacks' rule. She could have created a flame in the air that engulfed Rogue entirely, she could have conjured TK grips of flame that could burn her arms, or simply overpower her with a regular TK blast and force Rogue to her knees that way. But as this a friendly match, well for a given value of friendly, she only used her power to counter everything Rogue tried rather than trying to actively take her out.

Eventually Rogue was close to collapse, and Jean had gotten rid of her irritation. She allowed her TK shield to fade and gently landed on the floor in front of Rogue. "I think that was just what the doctor ordered, thanks Rogue."

Rogue pushed her brown and white streaked hair out of her face, glaring a little at the other girl. Thankfully Jean was looking pretty sweaty and disheveled too, which made her feel better about the entire thing. "Yeah well, whatever."

The redhead looked across at the armored brunette and frowned, before reaching down and pulling her up to her feet, leading the way out of the Danger Room. Now that the battle was over she was beginning to feel eyes on her again, and was feeling uncomfortable. "What the hell's your problem with me anyway? It can't be my standoffish attitude anymore after all, so what is it?"

Rogue was too tired to protest or prevaricate so she replied honestly. "Ah don't like the fact you're the center of attention, yer like the princess of the Institute! Ah hate the fact you're so damn good lookin' and nice ah can't even dislike yah properly, and ah don't like the fact Scott makes googly-eyes at yah!"

Jean, instead of getting angry like Rogue thought she would, simply nodded. "I guess I can understand where you're coming from, so I'm just going to respond to your points one at a time alright? First." She said holding up one finger. I haven't done a damn thing to make Scott think I return his affections, not once have I done anything that could be seen as anything more than friendly. If he's still making googly-eyes at me, that's all on him not me. I'm not interested in him, period. At this point it's doubtful if I ever will be. A fact that I have made abundantly clear to him more than once"

At times actions you take have far reaching consequences, and at times many different actions can add together to form a avalanche, changing the landscape forever. Sometimes actions taken now can even effect what will be. This declaration was one such, and the ripples of it joined all the changes large and small that Harry's presence had created. It would take time, but eventually those ripples would rock the entire universe, past, present and future.

Jean held up another finger. "In terms of my good looks, why the hell should that matter to you?! You're two years younger than me, and you're already starting to change from a teenage girl to a woman, and let me tell you, you already have a lot of the cheerleaders looking at you jealously now that you're moving away from your Goth style. You don't have anything to fear in the looks department."

Rogue blushed slightly and looked away. Still the idea that the preppy, empty headed cheerleaders, who had nothing really but their looks going for them becoming jealous of her, that made her feel really good.

Jean went on, holding up a third finger. "As to your first point, I wouldn't worry if I were you. I'm not going to be here in a few months."

Rogue looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Jean paused, wondering where that statement had come from but she had realized the truth of the words as soon as she said them. "I mean I'm going to go to college, or something, I don't know yet. All I do know is I don't want my being an X-woman to be the main thing in my life. I want to make an impact to this world as Jean Grey, not just as Phoenix, and I can't do that here."

That much was true. While Ororo had been quietly certain she could do whatever it was she wanted to, Logan felt she should stay here (and the looks he sometimes sent her way made her skin crawl) because she was safe here, and Charles had been supportive but almost condescendingly so, deciding what courses she should take and when, as well as telling her that of course she would be going to a local college and staying at the institute. It had been his attitude that made her realize she really did have to leave to spread her wings.

"Besides, give yourself time. You're right I seem to be the center of attention here sometimes, but I'm no damn princess. I'm only the so-called queen here because I was here first. That'll pass, and you can step up to fill the void if you want to."

Rogue stood up straight, looking at the other girl thoughtfully. "Well I ain't gonna say Ah'm gonna shake yer hand and call ya a friend Grey, but that stuff makes me feel better about it. Ah'll try not tah argue or make things tough on yah the next time you're team leader, okay?"

Jean nodded. "Okay."

With that the two girls nodded to one another and left to head to the showers. Rogue went to the girls shower on the second floor. Jean went to the female teacher's shower, which Ororo had insisted she use, thinking of where she wanted her life to go from here and what she would have to do to get there.

OOOOOOO

Harry returned to the mansion just in time to join the teens and the other professors for dinner. As he was sitting down Xavier looked up and said blandly, "Harry there you are. I wanted to mention something to you. Apparently there was a breakout at the vault. The guards found both Wanda Maximoff and Melody missing from their cells this morning. I don't suppose you would know anything about their disappearance would you?"

"Why in the world would I know anything about that kind of thing professor?" Asked Harry with a butter would not melt in his mouth expression. Still, they are only just now figuring out that they're gone? He thought, scowling inside.

That told him more about the kind of treatment the girls had gotten at the Vault. I had thought better of captain Stone. even with the lack of furniture in their rooms I thought he would have his men check up on their guests/prisoner. Unless Steven did something that just wore off now, something to ask him at some point.

Charles nodded placidly at this lack of a straight answer and Storm giggled a little. Jean and the other teens looked at the adults wondering what was going on. Logan merely grunted, hoping almost wistfully that this would not in fact come back to bite them.

Later that night Jean knocked on the door to Harry's workroom. After he had replied in the affirmative she opened it and looked in. Harry turned to her smiling a little when he saw who it was. "Well Red, you've learned how to knock, I'll alert the press."

Jean flushed a little remembering the time she had walked in on him and Storm in the morning and found out about Ororo's morning habits. "Shut it Potter." She looked around and thankfully did not see Kitty in here. "Can I talk to for a bit?"

Harry turned from where he had been working on his computer to face her fully, noting her serious expression. After studying her face he nodded and waved a hand, conjuring up a soft leather chair about two feet away from his own. "Have a seat Red, this is gonna be one of those deep discussions isn't it?"

Jean's lips twitched a little as she said down. "Probably, as well as important, at least to me. She leaned back in the chair wondering where to begin. "I guess I came to ask you for your advice on…."

She paused suddenly looking over his shoulder at the schematic he had been tinkering with. "What are you working on?"

Harry looked over his shoulder seeing what she was looking at. "Oh, I'm trying to design a power source for my crisis suit that doesn't revolve around magic." He waved a hand airily. I know that a lot of people have issues with magic, either through religious reasons or just not believing in it. So I figured if I could figure out a way to do the same thing with scientific means as I do through magic that would work." Not to mention it would be a back up for me in case of extreme emergency. Harry thought.

Jean stood up, coming over to look over his shoulder at the screen. "You mean like some kind of energy absorption device, something that would drain a person's bio-energy to power the suit? I don't think that's a good idea honestly. After all, your suits may be worn by people who aren't able to take in enough food to power them through what they need them to do. And even if you just build a minimal suit, the number of toys you put on it would be limited to say the least."

"But why are you looking into something like this anyway? None of us have any problems with our suits being powered by magic, well, once Kitty finishes work on an array for them."

Harry looked at her thoughtfully as she moved back a little, wondering how much he should share with her. It wasn't that he felt she was untrustworthy or couldn't keep a secret, but whether or not she would understand what he was about, and would agree with it. After a moment he made a decision, after all Ororo had actually brought up several good points when he shared his long term plans with her, and given her interest in engineering and politics it wasn't a stretch that Jean would have some insight too. "Can I ask you to keep this to yourself for now? I've only really shared a lot of my long term plans with Ororo before this, and I'd like to keep them to myself for now. I think Charles would object on general principles."

Jean sat down again, looking back at him, her jade eyes locked on his emerald ones. This wasn't about trust, Jean knew she trusted Harry, hell it was only because of him her mind was her own. But if he really felt that Charles would object, promising to keep it to herself would be a fundamental shift in her allegiance, from Charles to Harry. After a moment however she realized that this was not real choice at all. She already had made it, or at least it was one she had been willing to make ever since he had helped her merge with the portion of the Phoenix that had been in her mind. "I promise Harry. I've been concerned recently with Charles and his leadership anyway. I still believe in his dream, but…" She shrugged.

Harry smiled warmly at her. "That just shows that you're starting to think for yourself Red." She flushed a little at his look and Harry leaned back, thinking how to begin.

After a moment of silence he began the same way he had with Ororo several weeks back. "While I agree with the idea of coexistence between mutantkind and homo-sapiens, I know that without some serious work it just won't happen. Charles is banking on the goodness of his fellow man and to use you X-Men as a shining example of what mutants can do to help and protect others. I think that's nice as far as it goes, but other than making a few speeches here and there he's too passive aggressive about it. I think that you need to force the bigots among the non-mutants to see what they really are, force people to realize that while some mutants might have frightening powers, most simply look different from other people, that hating them for that would be a throwback to the days of racism and bigotry!"

Jean unconsciously licked her lips, enthralled by Harry's forceful words and sheer presence, which filled the room now.

Harry didn't notice her look and he went on. "For the other end of the spectrum, mutants need to realize that they cannot allow their powers to define them or their place in the world! They cannot fall into the same trap that Magneto has, believing that the fact they have access to powers given to them by a quirk of genetics gives them more rights and privileges than other people! To battle that, I want to show the world that mutants are just people like them. But to be heard I need to be a public figure, someone of importance and wealth, someone who people need to listen to. To start with I will begin to sell goods that no one else has. Potions, like the kind I used on Kitty after Cain attacked us will be only the start. Suits like my crysis suit may be next. Think how many lives could be saved if policemen or infantrymen had access to something like that?"

Jean frowned at that. "Aren't you worried about them being used against you at some point? Or that someone else could figure out how to make them themselves?"

"The first is a concern," Harry admitted. "The second however, not at all. It takes a very high amount of magic and scientific knowledge to recreate the Harrytanium that's going to be part of my new design." In point of fact he had talked to Steven, and he had told him that he had never heard of a fire spell that came close to Fiendfyre, which was necessary to work with the metal in question. That didn't mean someone else couldn't come up with something, but it would also have to be a magical solution, because the magic was a part of what allowed the spell to melt the metal in question. "I'll sell them, not how to make them, and I will control the means of production."

Jean groaned. "Okay you really need to come up with a new name for that metal. How about something from fantasy books, like Orihalcum? I'd say use the name mithril but it isn't silver."

Harry looked at her blankly then nodded. "I suppose that could work."

Jean smirked. "Just remember, you don't have to be afraid to ask for help when naming things Harry." Harry scowled, but Jean went on pensively. "I understand the need for money, but the idea of selling something like that, well you might be asking for trouble down the line. I'd wait until you can build in some kind of security feature or something."

Harry leaned back, raising one eyebrow and becoming slightly more serious. "Ororo said much the same thing about waiting, though she looked at it from another perspective. She brought up the fact that I'm the only one at present who can create the metal, and I don't want to concentrate on it 24/7 to make enough to meet demand. Well, never let it be said I won't admit I was wrong about something, we'll table the whole selling the suit thing for now. But that leads me with a need for another moneymaking idea. Any ideas?"

"Several," Jean responded promptly. "A better idea would be to come up with an entirely different energy source. The world runs on coal and oil, both are finite resources and there is an almost rabid fear of nuclear power in most countries. Something like Stark Enterprises arc reactor, which he's never been able to actually recreate would be a major draw. I've read the reports on it and I think there are a few ways it could be miniaturized down to the size of a man if you have access to tougher metals and materials, which you do with your Orihalcum."

She went on quickly, going into a long engineering spiel that Harry, despite how intelligent he was and how good at engineering he was becoming, could barely follow. He shook his head, amused at how quickly she had gone from being a brilliant high school student to a brilliant engineer/high end scientist.

He didn't let his amusement get the better of him however, and he turned around and began to type in the notes as she talked. Within minutes the two of them began to actually work on a design for what she was thinking of. The final version wasn't exactly small, it was roughly about the size of two men pressed together, but there was a lot of room for improvement there, and the miniaturization of the reactor was only possible because of the unique properties of Harrytanium. Not even Adamantium was as heat/energy resistant yet at the same time conductive.

After they were done Harry looked over at her as she hovered about his shoulder staring at the design her upper teeth worrying her lower lips in what he suddenly realized was an extremely sexy manner, heightened even further by her general attitude and intelligence. He shook that thought off however, using the familiar refrain of I've got a girlfriend and I can't go around looking at other girls. That wouldn't be fair to Ororo or them. No matter how much Emma wanted me to look. He chuckled a little inside at the memory of Emma's flirtatious nature that final morning before she left, and he wondered idly what she would be like if she never had to wear her mask again.

Jean voice brought him back to the here and now. "That looks good for a start, there's still some room for improvement, but this would give off enough energy to power a city the size of New York if our calculations are correct." That part Harry had done himself while she was trying to shrink the original arc reactor design, happy that Stark had never patented it. She had an almost whimsical thought that maybe he had never thought of it because he didn't know how to duplicate it and felt that no one else would ever be able to, but shook it off.

Harry nodded. "It looks good to me. You know you're a pretty helpful person to have around Red."

Jean snorted, "thanks."

Harry grinned as she turned to go back to her chair. In an effort not to look at her rear he looked over at the clock and whistled a little. When Jean had come in it was around eight it night, now it was pushing 11:30. "We got a little sidetracked there. So what was your original issue?"

Jean blinked and looked up at the time too shaking her head before speaking. "I guess I wanted to ask your opinion about whether or not I should go to college, get a job, or continue being an X-woman." She frowned heavily. "My parents aren't going to pay for college unless they have a say in what classes I take and what major I go for as well as quit the X-men, and I'm not willing to go along with that idea. Xavier too," and here her frown turned into an angry scowl, angrier at Xavier than her parents, who were simply continuing a lifetime of trying to direct her life. "He seems to think that just because I am a telepathic automatically means I should go into some of the mind sciences like psychology or sociology or even politics, he doesn't seem to understand I don't want my powers to define me like that."

Both Charles and her parents seemed to have the same issue, they were willing to help her, but only if she became the person they wanted her to be. They both seemed to say 'you can get as far in life as you want as long as you follow our rules'. It's like being asked to run with only one leg. I want to run on both legs.

Harry shook his head. "Red if you want to take classes, or get an education in any way I'll help pay for it if you want, no strings attached except for keeping your grades up but I doubt you need to be told about that. You can do whatever you want, but bloody hell, don't think so small!"

He waved a hand at his computer. "Look what you just did! Why do you think you need to take classes? You could teach some of the engineering courses. I bet you could get hired as an intern someplace easy even without any real college courses, and if you need to have those credits that's easily solved. You could probably test out of them, or hack into a few systems and put your name in. Illegal as hell, but it would save you some time. Get some real life experience, get out and get to know people in the field and beyond the little world here. Hell, if my company was up and running now I'd hire you. Go as far as you can, shine as brightly as you want on your own terms! Don't let anyone else tell you differently or try to put limits on you!"

"You think I can do that?" said Jean looking down, embarrassed.

"I know you can," said Harry. "Your growth in the past few months has been amazing, your control of your powers is growing every day, and that mind of yours is a magnificent gift."

Jean looked up at him smiling a little shyly. "Thanks. You're amazing you know. Everyone else seems to see me as one thing or the other, as a little girl growing into a woman, or as a mere extension of my powers. Everyone who looks at me has their own demands, their own things they see and they ignore the rest. You just see me as me you don't care about my power or even my looks or anything, you just see me as a complete person."

"Of course," said Harry looking a little blank. "Why would I see anything different?"

Jean shook her head, her eyes a little wet. Harry would never understand, as he had never really cared about his whole boy-who-lived image except for how he could manipulate it to his advantage. But to Jean, who had lived her life with the expectations of others surrounding her almost since birth, being seen as her own person with no strings attached or bits cut off was phenomenal.

She shook her head and stood up. "Thanks Harry, I guess I needed to be told that."

Harry simply waved her off, as if it was no big deal and she chuckled wetly again before walking out the door. She paused at the doorway and then sighed a little sadly as she looked back into Harry's workroom. My crush isn't just a crush is it? I'm really falling in love with him aren't I?

The face of Ororo appeared in her mind for a moment, her smiling happily, the way they had danced together but she shook it off quickly. The two of them were together, and going for either one would wreck a relationship she could easily see as being one that would last the rest of their lives.

She never noticed Ororo standing in front of the doorway to her own room staring at Jean thoughtfully. Ororo had actually gone up to talk to Harry before heading to bed for the evening, and had been outside his door and overheard the entire conversation. Now she stared at Jean's retreating back before nodding. It would seem as if I need to have a talk with my young friend, as well as with Harry.

OOOOOOO

The next morning Harry woke up, went through his normal routine, made a brief stop in the kitchens and then joined Ororo in her Arboretum as usual. Harry found Ororo there already, moving about and watering her plants in her own fashion by conjuring up a small localized shower above both her and the plants in question. Hedwig was perched on a tree that had obviously already been watered, but for once Harry had no desire to look at his familiar, his eyes were glued to Ororo's body.

Ororo turned to him, smiling a little. She knew that this was one of those instances where Harry could not get past the fact that she was nude. He seemed to be fascinated by the movement of the water down her body. She waved her hand and the small storm cloud dissipated quickly. "Hello Harry, did you sleep well?"

Harry coughed a little, broken out of his reverie by that question, but it had some unfortunately brought to mind the fact that he had some rather erotic dreams last night. And for the first time since meeting her Ororo hadn't been the only star in them. "Er, I slept well, how about you?"

"Very well," said Ororo moving up to him and kissing him leisurely on the lips. His arms went around her, but she was pleased that he kept them in the safe zone on long her back rather than lower down. After a second she pulled back and grabbed his hand pulling him over to the loveseat.

Harry moved to the tea set and began to make the two of them some tea to go with the biscuits he had brought in as she sat down at one end of the love seat. While he worked on the tea she looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds then spoke up, her voice soft, whimsical yet at the same time somehow serious. "You remember how I told you how I spent my teenage years on the Serengeti plains?"

Harry nodded looking over at her quizzically wondering where she was going with this as well as the odd tone of voice.

"I was always fascinated with lions, with the pride, one male and multiple females with all of them contributing to the whole." Harry kept looking at her blankly, wondering where she was going with this.

"I love you, you know?" she said looking at him, a calm smile on her face. "It took me a while to really realize how much I had come to care for you, but I also have come to care about Jean." Harry flinched guiltily looking away and Ororo chuckled.

There was a long pause before Storm's voice continued."And I think she cares about you too."

"Ororo, luv," Harry said calmly setting the tea set down. "Where are you going with this?"

"I wish to say that I am not adverse to sharing Harry," she said reaching out and taking one of his hands, her smile noticeably wider than it had been, and rather crooked too. "I can see how you look at her sometimes, and I've seen her look at you as well. I waited so long to bring it up because I wanted to make certain that I knew what her feelings really were, but now I am, and I would like us to include her in our relationship. I think we three would be very, very good for one another."

Harry looked at her head cocked to one side. "I won't deny that this is, you know, the ultimate male fantasy or anything, because I'd be a liar if I did. Nor will I try to defend the fact that I've… developed feelings for Jean. But are you certain that you'd be happy with this? I mean, I love you too, and I don't want to screw that up." He shook his head. "You're the second person I've said that to, you know, I never even said it to my godfather."

"Hermione?" asked Ororo softly not letting go of his hand.

Harry nodded. "I wanted to wait to say it to you, mainly because I wanted to make certain what I felt for you not just lust or anything like that. And I do love you, there's something in you that even… that even Hermione at her best didn't possess, a willingness to challenge the world, to face any challenges on your own two feet. But you won't have to face anything alone any longer; I'll stand with you, whatever you do! You and Jean share that kind of mentality, it's part of what attracts me to both of you. If you really are happy with that idea… well, I won't push anything but if something happens I'll be happy."

Ororo smiled, nodded and very firmly grabbed him by his hair and pulled him into a kiss. The kiss lasted for several minutes, and when she let him go his emerald eyes were glassy. "Something will happen, I won't force anything either but as I said I think the three of us could be very happy together."

Harry nodded almost robotically still a little shell-shocked by her kiss and turned away to finish pouring the tea. She giggled at his reaction, always amused by the fact that her kisses could do that to him when her sitting here naked only made her him raise an eyebrow these days when she wasn't consciously aware of it or as Harry put it, naked rather than undressed.

Time enough later to think of for bringing in Emma, after all I'm not certain at all about her thoughts. Silly Harry she chuckled a little. How could we not have fallen for him after all that has happened, after we have seen the kind of man he is? Hah, he never even noticed that Kitty was also giving him looks at first. Harry turned to look at her having heard her chuckle and she shook her head. It wouldn't do to have Harry realize what a magnificent catch he was after all.

Later that day at breakfast with the kids Harry announced that he was going to go away for the day.

"Are you going anywhere where you would require some help?" asked Ororo looking at him calmly. "You know what happened the last time you went off on your own."

Harry shrugged. "Not to sound mysterious or anything but where I'm going you can't follow." She looked at him, one white eyebrow raised and he chuckled. "Its got non-magical repelling wards on it love, powerful ones."

Jean's eyebrows rose and she smiled happily at hearing the emphasis on that last word that wouldn't normally be there when Harry used the slang 'luv', quickly discerning that something had happened between her two friends, and stamping hard on the initial rush of jealousy that filled her at the idea. She was the only one who noticed however.

Harry went on, "It's just a sort of journey of self-discovery really. I won't tell you more until I figure out what's actually there to be found, I don't want to get your hopes up, or look like an idiot later. But hopefully I'll come back with some more resources at the very least."

"Why do I get the impression I really don't want you out of my sight today?" said Ororo looking at him. Jean chuckled from where she was sitting next to her friend, and the other teens followed suit.

Scott asked "Will you be back in time for tonight's team exercise sir?"

"I should, if not…" Harry paused and looked at the glasses wearing teen thoughtfully. "If not I think you should lead it Scott."

Scott looked up at him, clearly startled, and then around the others. Evan and Kurt both gave him thumbs up, while Rogue merely nodded and Kitty smiled. Jean looked a little thoughtful but after a moment she nodded too.

Xavier looked over at Harry, and Harry nodded firmly, which caused the older man to smile faintly and speak to the table. "Scott, I believe your probation is over. Speaking for myself I am extremely proud of the way you have handled your demotion, and the way that you have turned it into a learning experience."

"You've gotten a lot better at listening to others, you don't jump to conclusions any longer, you're more empathic, and you are personally much more flexible," said Harry ticking off points on his fingers. "Demoting you from leadership seems to have taught you all the aspects of leadership that you hadn't had before. And I don't have to tell you that your work ethic since I met you has been impeccable. All in favor of reinstating Scott as team lead raise your hands?"

All the teens raised their hands even Jean while Ororo merely smiled and nodded while Logan grunted and raised his drink. He'd been a little irritated lately, since he had seen some news from Canada that made him think Sabertooth had survived somehow. Harry had no idea what happened to the bastard, he sure as hell wasn't anywhere aboard his asteroid anymore, and had disappeared before Harry began his reconstruction project. The best either could come up with was there had been an escape craft somewhere and Creed had used it sometime during the final phase of Harry's fight with Magneto.

Scott blushed a little at this show of praise, but nodded firmly. "I won't let you down Sirs. He looked over at his team. "And I'll try not to backslide or anything, I'll do my best, not just as your leader, but as your friend, and, um someone who cares about you all." He blushed a little at that, and Kurt and Evan slapped him on the shoulder eager to get past the sappy moment.

"That's all anyone can ask," said Jean nodding. She looked over at Rogue who was looking back at her and Jean sent out a little feeler thought to the southern belle. Don't worry, I'm still planning to leave, regardless of how well he does or anything else. If you want him, go for him.

Rogue frowned for a moment then nodded, not responding mentally just looking away after that. Charles however had caught a bit of Jean's telepathic message and frowned, wondering what Jean was talking about and determined to ask her later.

Harry stood up grabbing a piece of bacon which he swiftly fed to Hedwig who was suddenly on his shoulder, appearing as if from nowhere. "And with that troops I'm off." He disappeared with a soft clap, and reappeared up in his asteroid to spend a few hours with Melody before getting down to business.

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Harry disappeared from the mansion a blind middle aged woman and a young lady who she had befriended near the start of her journey in Seattle were getting back on their bus after having their passports checked at the border between Canada and Washington. "There we go Iris," the young woman said, helping her friend into her seat. "No muss, no fuss right?" "Indeed Rachel," the older woman, named Iris for now, responded, "If only all government offices ran as smoothly as that."

The so-named Rachel smiled back. "I think that has more to do with my winning ways than anything else." She stood up again, joining a slightly obese man dressed in a hideous t-shirt who was exiting the bus. "I'll be right back, I just need to use the ladies room." Iris nodded and leaned her head back wearily, letting the noise of the slowly filling bus lull her for a moment.

The first the two watchers knew of their danger was when during a lull in the line of people entering and exiting the bathroom, a rather heavyset arm went around one of their necks. The arm began to drag the rather thin, almost emaciated woman back behind the ladies room from her position at its corner, where she had just seen the same woman enter the bathroom with her target. A quick wrench and the thin woman walked around the corner again, heading toward her partner.

Her partner was a man leaning against a parked truck in the parking lot, his eye locked on the tourist bus stopped in the light of the checkpoint.

The emaciated woman walked toward him and he looked at her for a moment then away, frowning a little. He waited until the woman was leaning against the truck beside him, reaching inside her purse for a pack of cigarettes, then spoke as she pulled one out and stuck it in her mouth. "What's up, you know we're not supposed to meet while the targets still around."

The woman didn't answer immediately, instead reaching inside her pocket for something, but instead of a lighter she pulled out something small and black, pressing it swiftly into his side. A brief jolt of electricity went through the man and he twitched, then leaned sideways against her shoulder.

The woman rolled her eyes as if amused by something her boyfriend/lover whispered into her ear, and with one hand behind him, led the way around behind the truck to the far side, where there was no one to see them. Once there she pulled a thin roll of wire out and bound his arms behind his back, then searched him from head to toe, coming up with a distinct lack of papers.

The man began to come to, but found himself staring at a knife directly between his eyes. "Now," the woman murmured, "You're going to tell me everything I want to know, starting with, who you work for, and why you were sent here?" The look in the thin woman's eyes changed just a bit, and the man gulped, then began to talk rapidly. It turned out to be a mixed bag of good and bad. He didn't know who he was working for, but he hadn't been sent here specifically, he was part of a large team assigned to watch the four border crossings between Washington and Canada. They hadn't known which to watch out for, but they had a description of one of their targets and used that.

After about thirty minutes questioning the thin woman put the knife away giving the man hope that she would let him go. This hope ended when she swiftly reached out with both hands and snapped his neck with far more strength than her body suggested she should have. After that she moved his body into the woods behind the truck a ways, and then left some little surprises on it for anyone who found him. Not nice, but it would further muddy the issue.

She then walked out from behind the truck, ostentatiously fixing her ruffle clothing and ignoring the various looks she was getting as she walked across the parking lot and into the ladies room. A moment later Rachel walked out and swiftly joined her friend Iris on the bus again.

"Yes indeed," Mystique muttered as she sat down next to Irene, already planning how to change her friend's appearance even further and disappear even more, "No muss, no fuss."

OOOOOOO

Rather than play skipping stone again Harry maneuvered the asteroid over England and then sent Hedwig down to scout out the area. As a familiar she was immune to all of the wards in the area around Hogwarts that were intended to keep wild animals away, and she had a very odd ability to find the outer edge of wards that he didn't quite understand, but that ability would allow her to find a place where he could apparate in and then walk towards the school.

It took her several hours to get there from her starting point in Switzerland, but she finally teleported back to him, and when she did she had a place to go. Surprisingly Harry recognized it, though it did look very different without the cobwebs and with sunlight streaming through the branches.

A moment later the two of them appeared in what had been the center of the acromantula's domain, right in front of the tree that the giant spider Aragog had made his home in. Harry looked around quickly, but didn't see any sign of anything dangerous, animal or human. "Nice spot Hedwig," he murmured, "I guess whatever happened to wizard-kind here happened well before Hagrid's time, I can't imagine a universe where he didn't have that odd sense of his about what was dangerous and what wasn't."

Hagrid had introduced him to Aragog and the giant spider's chosen successor during his third year since Harry had shown a distinct touch with animals in his course. Needless to say that had shattered whatever trust Harry had in his giant friend's common sense.

His familiar nibbled at his ear for a moment, her amusement coming clearly over their link. After a moment however she flew off, determined to search for something small and squeaky while her human did his human stuff.

"Well someone has her priorities straight," Harry chuckled, then oriented himself and moved towards the castle. Almost immediately he felt the outer anti-muggle ward wash over him, but as he wasn't a muggle it didn't affect him. Nor did the next three wards, since A, knew that the school was there, B, had a strong enough will to not turn away from the aversion ward, and C didn't have any dark artifacts on him for the third ward to recognize.

Harry broke out of the woods and onto the grounds around the Castle after about thirty minutes of walking later, and he took a moment to stare at it in wonder again. For some reason when he saw Hogwarts like this, with the lake to one side and the forest at his back he could only remember the good times in the castle, not the bad. Looked at objectively the bad had really rather overwhelmed the good, despite his friends and of course Hermione but because of them he'd had so many good moments in the Castle he couldn't bring himself to have negative thoughts about it. The people who had lived in it of course were another matter.

He briefly entertained the notion of going in and using the headmaster's quarters as a pranks workshop, but realized that would be rather childish. "Still fun though," he muttered to himself as he walked towards the doors of the Castle. As he got closer he felt the rest of the wards reaching out for him, and he stood still letting them wash over and get a feel for him. These were war wards, and he still hadn't quite gotten over his awe at them.

They weren't exactly subtle, nor were they anything horribly difficult to create, but they were so monstrously powerful and so numerous it was amazing. In terms of power and number they were far greater than his own work on High Note, even more then Dr. Strange's house in New York. Steven's wards were much more subtle and intricate, but didn't come close to the power of these. I guess that's the difference between being powered by one ley line, and three of the bloody things.

After a moment the feeling past and he started to move forward again. As Harry got closer to the front door however he paused suddenly right before reaching forward and looked around.

All of sudden he felt as if he was being watched, and he didn't like it at all. The good feelings from before had evaporated the moment he stepped over that last step. He looked down almost hopeful that he would find some kind of incredibly powerful aversion ward or something, but he didn't find anything like that. Despite not seeing a aversion Ward however, he was now that there was something in this Castle, something that was not at all friendly.

Harry stood back a moment and the feeling went away and after a moment he composed himself and summoned up his power, removing the limiters to his aura and ready power muttering under his breath to activate his crisis suit and Magia Erebea. With a flick of a wrist his right hand was now holding the sword of Gryffindor and the fingers in his other hand twitched, ready to cast a spell at a moment's notice.

With his free hand he reached forward and with a burst of magic pushed the doors open despite the fact that they were locked. He raced inside looking around but nothing was there to meet him, and he swiftly close the door behind him, some instinct telling him that leaving it open would be a very Bad Idea. As soon as it was closed he saw why his instincts had said that. There was a massive ward on the door, and it wasn't the kind that would keep people out, it was the kind to keep people in, specifically something DARK.

As he turned back to look around the entry hall of the Castle (not to be confused with the main hall of course), he suddenly felt a chill in the air. Harry frowned angrily, he'd felt this dozens of times before, until he had gained a bit of a reputation with the beings who created it. The first time it had happened to him he'd heard his mother crying at Voldemort in an attempt to save his life, 'screaming not Harry, not Harry'.

Now it was showing him the worst moment in his life. He had heard about the attack on Hermione moments after it had occurred, and demanded that his godfather take him over. He remembered arriving at Hermione's place and finding Dumbledore standing there in front of the brunt out wreckage of the Granger's home. The man had tried to bar his way, but Harry had simply thrown him to the side magically, astonishing the old man with his strength. Inside he found Hermione, her body stripped of clothing, a rictus of agony on her face. The remains of a gang rape had been on her and her mother, who lay beside her, her stomach no longer showing signs of her pregnancy, the fetus inside having been ripped out of her, killing her and the fetus both. Hermione's father lay beside them, and it had been only too easy for Harry to imagine that he had been forced to watch what had happened before Snape, Malfoy and the others killed him.

He shook off the memory as his memory-self began to scream, his magic flaring out wildly. Here and now his magic also flared but very purposefully. His green eyes flared with power, and he raised his offhand shouting "Expecto Praetorian!"

Hermione hadn't been the only one to come up with new and unusual spells, though Harry's particular genius had run into changing or modifying existing spells to get incredibly different effects, specifically combat related spells. An Incendio spell after all was easily blocked or completely negated by other simple charms, but if you narrowed the scope and heightened the heat of the flame (originally that had just been with a different kind of flick of the wrist, but later he could do it just by imagining the effect) it was far too hot to be stopped and would simply burn through anything but the strongest shield and would ignore cold spells.

So it was with the Patronus spell. Harry had thought that love and joy and happiness weren't the only good emotions, there was also a sense of duty, the need to defend others, the different kind of love than came with putting yourself in harm's way to protect others. So he came up with the Expecto Praetorian spell, an offensive magical spell that didn't just try to defend or drive off dementors, it actively searched for and killed them. The summoned spell took the form not of a stag as his normal Petronus did, but as a giant armored Knight complete with sword and shield. It didn't give off as powerful an aura of light as the regular spell, but it made up for it in other ways.

Needless to say this caused the creatures that had boiled out of every doorway and stairwell towards him the moment he entered the castle to pause for a second. They still came on after that which surprised him. It was as if the aura of his knight wasn't doing is much as he had expected, but when the knight swung his sword straight through the first one to enter its range the beings all gaped, or at least gave the impression that they gaped in shock as the being screamed and dissipated with a wail of terror.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere a certain being raised her head, shock and actual, amused joy in 'her' eyes as a soul that she had long since given up ever collecting was suddenly in her grasp. It was a worn, twisted evil thing, as it had been before it had been changed so that it was out of 'her' grasp. Now however it was here, it's un-life ended and her eyes flared blue as they looked beyond the here and now to the where. "Of course," she murmured calmly as always, yet amused and grateful at the same time. "The champion of life going about his duties."

With that Death sat down in a chair and leaned back, eager to watch the show, gleefully counting the souls that had thought themselves beyond her reach now in her power. So enthralled by the show was she that she didn't even notice when her suitor tried to get her attention again, which seemed, later on, to rather have pissed him off.

OOOOOOO

Back with Harry, the embattled wizard had used the moment of indecision in his attackers to charge forward, his own entire being lit up like the giant Knight next to him. He shouted orders as he charged. "Guard my back and my left flank!" And the two of them started to chop their way into the horde of dementors.

The sword of Gryffindor would normally not have been able to kill dementors. After all it was a merely physical weapon, and they were only marginally physical in nature. But Harry had developed the ability to gird himself with the same aura as a Petronus spell, added to an aura of flame. With that it was more than enough to kill them, and his own spells lashed out.

Lightning spells, light spells, fire spells, Earth spells and illusions to draw the dementors away, he used them all. The spells seemed to do the job better than in his old dimension surprisingly. In his old dimension only light, flame and the Expecto spells could hurt dementors, and the first two only if they were incredibly overpowered. Here a dementor struck by a lightning spell would collapse for a moment, but would quickly reform whereas if he killed it with his sword they would not.

That eerie wail of despair rose up all around him as his knight and he went to work, but the dementors kept coming in an unending wave of darkness, eager to rip his soul out and feast.

Harry gestured suddenly, and five more knights appeared. He was still getting used to his power up over the last few years, after all he had never had to use an Expecto spell in the negative zone, nothing there would have been affected by it, but now he was able to summon up five of them and keep powering them as easily as breathing.

He then backed up letting the other knights forward to be the front line forces while he shot out several more powerful spells. Drill of light didn't actually kill the dementors either, though it certainly was able to hurt them and weaken them severely. They seemed to collapse, and were easy meat for his knights who began to stalk forward. He gestured at one of them. "Hold that door over there!" he shouted over the wails and screeches pointing to the first doorway they had come to. From his memories that doorway would lead down to the dungeons, and dementors were still trying to pour out of it. Of course there were trying to pour out of everywhere, and he shook his head angrily. It appeared as if the entire castle was full of the damn things.

Harry turned suddenly hearing a heavy clang, and without thinking summoned up another score of knights when he saw the doors to the main hall open and even more dementors storming out.

With that many knights moving around he had a moment to step back and he noticed suddenly that these dementors looked different from the ones he had known. The ones back in his old dimension were basically formless hoods and cloaks, they didn't even really have hands, just formless black tendrils. Here these things very definitely had hands, dark shadow and smoke hands to be sure, but they seemed much more solid than the dementors in his dimension, and far larger individually too. He shrugged his curiosity off however after all they died the same that was all that mattered to him.

With his knights guarding his back he rushed over to the one he had ordered to guard at first doorway, and began to inscribe a ward there. He had to replace the knight the doorway twice before he finished, but after about twenty minutes he slapped his hand down on the array he had created and shouted "Activate!"

Suddenly a golden dome shot up covering the doorway, forcing the dementors on the other side back, shrieking in pain. He nodded at the knight standing above him to back away. "Go help your fellows at the next door. This ward would block any of the dementors from escaping, and he heard their wailings on the other side of the doorway.

Suddenly he felt a cold slimy hand on him but he swiftly turned bring up his blade underhand slicing the arm of the strangely more solid than usual dementor off before stabbing it in the chest with his still glowing sword. The thing tried to lean forward to give him its deadly kiss still, and he wrenched the blade out and swung it overhand cutting its head off and with that thing finally died. He looked around taking stock of the battle, and noticed that his number of knights had been reduced to twelve, and three more faded as he watched.

The dementors here were obviously much stronger than the ones in his own dimension above and beyond their physical differences, since his one praetorian had been able to standoff over a hundred dementors at one point, and they had fled the instant it had killed a few of them. These on the other hand came on almost desperately. "It's if they're starving." he murmured but he raised both hands this time, and summoned up another two dozen knights sending them forward. He then use the old Expecto Patronum spell and sent five stags forward as well, the feelings they gave off giving strength to his side and weakening his enemies.

Harry took a moment automatically to take stock of his magical core, and shook his head a look still a little bemused that he had so much power nowadays. This much casting would have burnt him out before he left his old dimension, now he barely noticed the strain of keeping so many knights going at once.

He sent another high-level lightning spell forward, which badly weakened the enemies around the next-door way over. "This one leads to the Hufflepuff dormitory as well as the kitchen and a few classrooms on the first floor, or at least it did in my old dimension. I wonder if everything is the same here, or just different enough to be weird." It should be mentioned at this point that Harry was voicing his thoughts aloud more to hear something other than the wailings coming from the dementors. He was not regressing back to the way he was in the Negative Zone, it was just the noise was getting to him and even his own voice was preferable.

It took some ten minutes for him to inscribe the same ward again on the floor before this hallway, but after that time another golden dome appeared blocking the doorway where it exited out into the hall. Of course this one wouldn't do as good a job at blocking new dementors coming forward, since unlike the one down to the Slytherin dormitories and the dungeons there were other entrances that they could use if they were went around. Still it would slow them down, and if he could force the battle to be more one dimensional it would serve him and his conjured troops well.

He glanced up then shook his head, and raised his hands again, summoning more knights to replace the seven he had lost since his last resupply. And I'm still not feeling the strain at all!

Harry moved to the staircase, which he knew would take him up to the second floor. He and his friends had come down from the Ravenclaw dormitory countless times using this very staircase, as had the morons from Gryffindor. "Well," he said smiling a smile that was all teeth while he slammed his hands down to his latest runic array. "I shouldn't call them all morons, can't let Ron and the other boys in my own year turn me against at all the others, and at least Lavender and Parvati were decent people, if not great conversationalists. Wasn't there someone else in their group? Hmm… oh will I can't remember."

He waved airily at the dementors who just slammed into the array on the other side, the first few of them so hard they actually dissipated momentarily and he grinned evilly. "I'm going to kill you all!" Harry said cheerfully, his sharks grin never leaving his face, "Each and every last one of you. I wanted to in my own old dimension, but most of you were smart enough to actually retreat back to Azkaban after a few of you died. And after Voldemort bit the bullet it wasn't worth the effort it would take to fight off the ministries forces to do it. Here though, heh, nothing's stopping me, and I'm going to make you all hurt before I end you."

He looked around again, and his knights had been able to force their way forward, completely blocking off the doorway of the main Hall, though they had taken severe losses. He summoned up twelve more, then raised his hand again and summoned twelve again. Now the thirty strong force milled about for a moment, only six of them able to stand side to side in the doorway but he motioned one to the side and took his place quickly. He took a moment to notice that the roof here had not been made to look like the sky outside, a sad thing in his opinion, and not just because it would have kept the dementors from coming out in so many numbers, but because it was honestly a nice day outside.

He grinned wildly at the oncoming horde of dementors all around and through the dining hall. "Time to let a little daylight in boys. Harry raised his empty hand and shouted "Ark Solarius!" and suddenly it was as if the bright day outside had flown in filling the hall with beams of warmth and light. The dementors fell back screaming in agony their hands of shadow reaching up to the cowls that covered their faces. Harry nodded, stabbing his sword through the nearest one, shouting. "Forward line abreast! Push them back!" The knights charged in, taking up positions in a line sideways across the great hall, forming an impenetrable barrier with the stags behind them. The forced the dementors back across the great hall step by step, their swords rising and falling in a terrible rhythm.

Harry was surprised to see only one long table in the center of the dining hall rather than the traditional four of his old dimension, but it certainly made it easier for his troops and he slammed it forward out of their way hitting the far wall, dissipating two dementors for a moment before they reformed.

He counted at least seven or eight-hundred dementors packed in the hall by this point, all of them scrabbling and clawing at one another to try and get at him. But the line of knights was resolute and Harry stepped back, taking his slightly more natural position as an artillery piece, shooting spells over the heads of his knights to land among the dementors. His spells didn't kill any of them, only light lines spells could and after he had developed the praetorian spell he hadn't bothered coming up with another offensive light space spell other than his aura one. However his spells did their work by weakening the dementor horde severely making it far easier for his knights to storm forward. Not one of them went down now, and they drove all the way across the great hall taking up position in front of the two small doorways there.

These led to other stairwells leading up to the second floor and further to the rest of the school. The one on his left eventually led all the way up to the Astronomy tower, while the one on the right led up to what had been the divination room.

Once he slapped more wards down on those two doorways he looked around nodding approvingly. "Alright," he said and then canceled out half of the knights and the stags, funneling the power he had been using to sustain him into the remaining half. He could just have easily kept them all going, but he had already cancelled them out before he realized he didn't have to. "Need to spend some time working out with my magic, get a grip on how strong I really am these days."

For now however he put that thought on the back burner to address the remaining knights around him. "Ahem, anyway, six of you stay here. The rest of you follow me." With that he marched back out to the main hall, and situated the knights in groups around the other entrances, then took two of them to the first doorway, leading down to the slithering dorms.

Here he paused for a moment struck by a sudden thought then reached down and summoned up to rock golems, then pushing the two summoned knights into them in a fashion, mixing the two spells. The result was slightly shorter knights made out of stone except for their swords and a faint aura of light just covering their rocklike skin. It would make them much slower, but they would be much more durable, which in the enclosed space of the hallway would be far more useful than speed. "At least I hope so, still worth an experiment huh gents?"

The two stone knights nodded as if they understood and Harry chuckled a bit. Hermione had always said that the amount of independence his summoned Patronus showed was unusual, but Harry had never taken her digs on his sanity personally.

"We're going to do this the easy way, clear this place out level by level, starting with the basement and the dungeons." Both of the rock knights both nodded, and he dissipated the ward blocking the doorway, blasting back the Dementors who had still been crowding around the other side of it.

The two rock knights strode forward, and he backed away letting them forge ahead work while he kept on firing spells between them weakening that Dementors.

His expectation of his new spell proved correct, they were much slower and he frowned after a moment. They could take more damage than the regular Praetorian spell alone would allow, but they weren't killing as many of the dementors as he had hoped. The shadow creatures were learning to dodge the glowing swords of white light, and the aura around the rest of their body wasn't strong enough to allow them to punch or use their shield to kill the things. "Ah well, in that case I suppose I have only one course of action. More Power!"

With a grin Harry slapped one hand on the back of one of the knights, and the aura of white light around it blossomed to cover him with armor four inches thick. He did the same thing to the second one, and the now reinvigorated Praetorian knights moved forward slowly but surely, crushing and driving the dementors before them.

Moments later he arrived at the stairwell leading down to the dungeons, out from which dozens of dementors tried to fight their way through his strengthened knights. It availed them naught since simply fed more power into his knights while they moved down the stairway.

Here Harry began to notice some changes in the architecture. In his old dimension there had been a sort of sliminess to everything in the dungeon, though whether or not that had been caused by the reputation of Slytherin house and the fact that most of them lived up to that reputation for the past few generations or something else they never figured out. Here it was actually clean, cold and clammy of course, but that could only be expected. There was dust everywhere (the dementors apparently didn't actually touch the ground so didn't move the dust) but there was no sign of habitation here, and that confirmed that whatever happened to wizard-kind in this universe had happened a long time ago. He also saw his first portrait at the bottom of the stairwell, but it was empty of any person there, and he wondered if the occupant had fled elsewhere or what.

They forged on, and Harry had to replace only one of his knights once when they were ambushed when they came to the first classroom and several larger than normal dementors came out of the classroom before he could order the knights to look out. That was a hairy time, with the dementors closing in from both in front of and to his side, their cold shadowy hands reaching for him, but Harry had summoned up a stag with one hand while using the sword as a medium to power flame and lightning spells, which pushed them back long enough for him to summon more of his Praetorians who cut into the horde of dementors with a will.

Harry himself killed the last one that had boiled out of the classroom, the things shadowy fingers scrapping his face and actually leaving several shallow cuts on his check. A quick Episkey however closed them and he nodded at the knights. "Push on ahead of me, I'll join you all soon." He concentrated for a brief moment and one of the knights suddenly found itself joined to a new stone golem, then powered up further. With a nod it moved to the front of the column, joining its fellow which had stood threw the entire fight, halting the tide of dementors and keeping it from becoming a flood before Harry could summon up more help.

With his back, or the front of the campaign depending on how you looked at it, secure Harry took a moment to look around the classroom. He looked around and despite the number of shelves, there was nothing else here. There were no desks, no seats, no cauldrons, no blackboard, nothing. "Actually, that makes sense doesn't it? Steven mentioned how potions were never that big a deal in this dimension, so that would be true even for wand wizards. And given a choice of a dungeon or a regular classroom obviously you would choose something that had actual windows." Despite this logic, Harry was getting a little worried here.

Moving to rejoin his advancing force of constructs Harry was again surprised when they came to the entrance to the Slytherin dormitory. In his old dimension that entrance wouldn't have been marked out by anything, instead it would have been hidden to look like another section of the wall. Here it had an actual doorway, and he shrugged and went inside following the remaining knights, which had been diminished down to four, with two of them being the stone reinforced ones. There were far fewer dementors now, most of them having come forward to die already but there were still some of them coming down the boys and girls side of the dormitory and he shrugged summoning more Praetorian knights up the girls side as he forged up the boys side with two more, leaving the two rock knights behind to guard the entrance just in case.

With every step he took however that uneasy feeling grew. Even when it was almost empty over Christmas break, Hogwarts gave off a feeling of having been lived in regardless of where you were within it. This section didn't give an impression of having been lived in at all, ever. While his knights forged their way along the long hallway leading off into the dormitories for the different years he looked inside each and didn't see anything. There was no furniture, nothing but an empty room. It was as if this place had been built, but people haven't gotten around to getting furniture or anything to finish it. The Slytherin common room behind him had the same issue, no chairs or tables, a giant fireplace but it didn't even look as if it had ever been used.

"What the hell happened here?" he muttered sending off a spell that weakened the last dementor in the hallway. One of his knights sliced into it swiftly, and he nodded. "Well done. Head back down and help your fellows in the girl's side." The two knights nodded and passed him and he surreptitiously pulsed some more power into the pair of them.

Once they were gone he took a moment to send out a few spells designed to find hidden entrances, passages and anything else that was hidden. All of them came back negative and he shook his head.

He had only been in the Slytherin dormitories a few times, mostly with Daphne and her lover Tracy, admittedly to help warn other Slytherins off Daphne's younger sister. But he had been in the boy's side with Blaise a few times and there had been several hidden entranceways. Some of them just connected one year's room to another, but one could only get them open by using parseltongue. The one he remembered most vividly led to a secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets via a moving ladder. He went over to the seventh your dorm room and entered then walked over to the wall that he remembered hid the entrance to that one, and spoke in parceltongue. "Speak to me, and open to a true heir of Slytherin."

Nothing happened. Harry tried a few more times, some other passwords that he remembered from other different entrances, even one that had been in English but that he now spoke in parseltongue, yet none of them worked. He finally gave up with a shrugged. "So this place is Hogwarts but not Hogwarts," he muttered while he made his way back along the corridor. "People didn't live here long enough to break it in, let alone to make hidden entrances and other things. But that doesn't answer the question of why the hell the dementors were trapped here."

Back in the sitting room he found three of his knights, and supposed the remainder must have been taken out when they were cleaning out the girl's side. The two stone golems stood where they had been at the entrance, unmoving. "No more enemies?" he asked.

The knights shook their heads and Harry nodded. "Continue to guard the entrance here I'll be back in a moment." The knights all nodded again and moved to the entrance to join their more durable fellows, and Harry went to the entrance to the girl's side, absently noting they didn't have an anti-male ward on them like in his dimension. Of course those could be bypassed if you were inventive and devious enough, but each dorm room had their own as well, and those could not be bypassed without collusion from the girls within.

Searching the girl side he found nothing yet again and he shook his head before doing the same search he had done on the boys side, and coming up with the same answer. "So Slytherin house as a whole was planned, but never truly existed here."

He shook his head one more time, then led his conjured troops back up to the entrance hall and then to the doorway that led off along this first level. He looked around at them, frowning and summoning more stone golems to merge with his Praetorian knights, nodding after he had six of them, ten regular Praetorians, and one Patronusstag. "Ok you lot, this one's going to be a bit more difficult, because it leaves off into the rest of the castle at two points, well if its like the Hogwarts we knew. It also has several classrooms along the way, so watch out for ambushes."

The light constructs all nodded and he reached down, cancelling the runic array.

Swiftly three of the regular Praetorian knights clambered forward, slicing into Dementors that had again bunched up on the other side. Once the press had been cleared slightly the remaining two knights fell back in a move that had him raise one eyebrow in surprise to allow two of the stone knight to take their place.

The dementors seemed to have learned their lesson however, and Harry's predication was proven a little too accurate. Only a few times did the shadowy creatures attack the front of his column, and even then it was only to pin his frontline in place. Most of them tried to attack from behind hiding themselves in the classrooms along the way. But Harry's troops were up to the task of clearing out the rooms one after another while he sent two of the stone knights and the stag ahead while he helped clear out the classrooms.

He had to conjure up more Praetorian knights several times, the enclosed space of the classroom and the numbers of the dementors taking a toll. The stone knights kept the corridor clear, their durability more than a match for the numbers of the dementors with their backs guarded by their less armored fellows.

In this manner they came to the first stairway, and he threw up another ward there for a moment then followed on to the next classroom. Eventually this section of the castle was cleared with two more runic arrays on the staircases leading up to the second floor.

Harry nodded grimly and looked at his troops, now down to three regular knights and his four stone knights after the last room was cleared. He conjured up another twenty knights with a wave of his hand. "Alright groups of twelve, two stone knight with ten regular Praetorians per stairway just in case." His troops nodded and split up as he directed while he summoned twelve more. "You lot head back to the dining hall, again I don't think there's trouble, but I want to make sure." The new group nodded and turned around and he summoned up two golems then two more Praetorians, mixing them together to create two more stone knights. "You two, come with me."

Now that he had time to look around Harry again noticed several differences. Where before the entrance to the kitchen would have been through a hidden doorway leading down a short and rather cramped stairwell behind a picture of fruit (there was some memory there about needing to tickle something, a peach maybe, but Harry couldn't remember it had been so long) but here it was just a doorway leading onto a regular stairway leading down.

"One of you in front, the other behind just in case," he ordered the two stone knights. With that the trio made their way down the stairs, but despite Harry's worries they met no resistance.

The kitchen they came out into looked much the same, though it appeared that the larder and the wine cellar were all interconnected rather than separate here. The sight of the empty hearth and the small table set in the center of the room brought back some fond memories of the times Harry had come down here with his friends. The first time had been with Hermione to talk to the house elves about their treatment when she was trying to see if they were slaves or not.

Luckily he had been able to talk her out of that, and it had been a remarkably good date spot for Hermione and later on when his friend set him up with girls to try and get him over her death. Luna in particular was fun, since she had somehow smuggled in some bear and fed it to the elves, then talked them into trying to do a conga line around the kitchen singing 'for he's a jolly good fellow' several times. He stood there for a moment smiling fondly at the happy memories for a few minutes then shook his head and moved on.

He moved down the hallway towards where the Hufflepuff entrance had been somewhat cleverly hidden behind a mountain of barrels. Here however again it was just a doorway, and the frowned thoughtfully then entered with his two stone knights on either side of him.

Here he found a major difference from the Hogwarts he knew to this one. After all, the Hufflepuff dormitories had been set up much the same as the others with boys one side and girls on the other. Here there were no doorways, and he frowned thoughtfully. It looked just like a little dead-end, with the now normal lack of furniture around, as if they had gotten this far in their construction and had stopped but that didn't make sense. The castle on the outside look the same, so the Hufflepuff dormitories had to be here or else the outer wall of the castle would've stopped halfway along the length of its eastern side.

Harry strode forward, and then felt a war active somewhere he, nut the feeling it gave off was unlike any he had ever felt before. "It, it almost feels like the way the entrance to the chamber of secrets felt but not quite…" On a whim he stood back and began to intone in parceltongue. "I who am wizard command you, reveal yourself to me!" He shook his head slightly and spoke normally. "I have no idea where that came from."

Despite his disgust at the egotistical nature of them the words seem to have struck something, and a shiver began in the air along the far wall. Harry backed up, signaling to his two stone knights to stand on either side of him just in case. For a moment nothing happened, then with a final flicker the far wall was suddenly not a wall but a doorway.

"Clever, using the sound of parseltongue to open it, or at least I hope so. I really would not like to think that wizards here were so full of themselves is to make those words the password wherever the hell they came to me." Harry opened the door signaling the knights to go in force and they did so, with him following on their heels.

Suddenly he stopped however gaping at what he had found. The boys dorm should have been up a flight of stairs taking you technically to the second floor, with the girls dorm directly below them, forming an outer portion of the rectangle that was the largest portion of the castle, enclosing a garden in its center. Here the dorms were gone, replaced by a two-story tall hallway filled end to end with tiny little houses jutting out every which way from the rock of the hallway. They stuck out at odd angles along the walls, they hung down from the ceiling, jutted out from the corners, even stood up along the floor, with a small path leading between them. None of them were the same, they were all painted in an incredibly garish mixture of colors, and the architecture differed hugely from one to another as well. The closest one looked normal, but the one sticking out of the wall looked like a tree house, while one hanging from the ceiling looked like a tiny replica of the castle.

"They almost look like," he muttered and then on a whim looked into one and shook his head in shock. Inside were several house elves, so close together they seemed to be sharing the same bed. Harry couldn't tell if they were boy or girl obviously, but he remembered suddenly that house elves were very communal creatures, so living this close together was probably the way they wanted to live. "If all of these houses house three house elves…" he looked around and counted then shook his head. "That's a lot of house elves."

He remembered suddenly that Hogwarts had run with about 200 house elves at a time, though there was barely enough work to go around during his time as a student there. Two generations before his however that would've seemed a bare minimum with the number of students at the time.

Harry looked around wondering why they were in stasis and how they had defended themselves against Dementors, which were among the rare beasts that house elf magic didn't work on. He noticed a small Rune on the nearest house and nodded to himself. "Stasis runes so that's why they're asleep but how do they protect themselves?"

He turned and looked around the doorway, finding his answer in a strangely intricate ward by the door, with normal Grecian runes worked around and in between strange squiggly marks, which looked a bit like hieroglyphs but not quite, almost snakelike…. "Parseltongue wards," he whispered in shock.

That runic language had been a myth in his home dimension, he'd never even found a book that more than mentioned that the possibility of them. Here however he found a powerful example of them and he marveled at the intricacy. For one thing it was part illusion, taping the ley lines for its power, but it didn't seem to be wasn't connected to the hearthstone of the giant castle. These were separate, but still able to feed off the ley lines. They also seemed to be more anti-dementor than anything else, reminding him strongly of the ward on the main door into the castle. Nothing with fell intent could pass them. They were the most comprehensive anti-Dark wards he had ever seen and he laughed at the irony of them using a language that most light wizards had thought was a sign of evil.

"I'm going to have to study this in detail later," he said to himself. "I want to know what the hell it means and what the hell the parseltongue parts do. It can't just be to deactivate the illusion portion, there's too many of them for that, they must be integral to the rest of the array somehow." He shook his head trying to figure out a runic language from this small of an example would probably be impossible, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Harry debated waking up the elves now but shook it off. Despite his desire to get a firsthand account of what happened here he knew there would be time enough for that later. After all they wouldn't be able to help him against the dementors and even trying would probably get a few of them killed. He well knew that if he was the only magical around they would all bond with him almost immediately and would be forced by that bond to help as they could. He wasn't going to have that on his conscience, and felt that they could sleep for a few more hours.

He rejoined his troops after that and moved to the farthest staircase up. He looked around summoned two more stags, allowing them to feed and empower the group of twelve knights further while he also threw bit more strength their way. He shook his head still not feeling anything close to an effort there and then cancelled the runic array. The knights slammed into the horde on the other side behind their shields, their swords up and questing and the group forged upwards, coming to the next level, and Harry made another runic array to block the rest of the stairwell leading up.

The next three levels formed what looked like the empty square of the castle's backend, and all of them were filled with classrooms was the site of the worst fighting so far, with dementors boiling out of every classroom to try and assault Harry and his conjured troops, but the aura of his stags weakened them as they came forward. Again he conjured up more troops and with his larger spells crashing in the enlarged cadre made their way doggedly forward, moving up only after clearing out a level, linking up with the groups from below when Harry brought the arrays down by the simple expedient of overpowering them.

On the fourth floor they found the first rooms that showed signs of actually being used. One room was obviously someone's personal runic laboratory; the set up was far too disorganized for it to be a classroom. The other one was just as easily seen as a private bachelor's pad of some kind, with a large queen-size bed and furniture done more in the manner of a whorehouse than a normal teacher's room. "Padfoot would approve," Harry chuckled, "But somehow I doubt Ororo would. Must remember to come back and change the décor if they're all like that." He shuddered at the idea that someone like McGonagall had lived in these quarters.

His humor vanished on the next floor, taking with it all the happiness he had been feeling destroying so many dementors because it was here Harry ran into the first few skeletons.

He paused as his knights forged onwards, cutting into the Dementors which even now filled the hallway, the stone knights still taking the lead with the others watching their back interspersed with other stone knights who would guard the doorway while the others cleared out the rooms as they came to them.

Two more Praetorians stood over Harry guarding him as he went to one knee examining the tiny skeleton. It had long since turned to dust, but the clothing was still here, just enough to tell that it might have been a child at some point. After so long gender was completely impossible to tell, of course. He looked around him and saw it was one of many, but this was the only child sized remains in sight. He counted three more skeletons in the hallway, and another in a doorway further down. "What the hell happened here?! This is looking less and less like a school, and more and more like a final refuge that didn't hold out!"

He shook his head. "Questions later, action now." Harry took a moment to pour more power into his conjured troops, then began to send out spell after spell, all his humor gone, replaced by grim determination to end this. Later he would realize that he really should have collapsed at some point with all the spells he was tossing around, but at the time he barely felt the strain, feeling only a little more drained then he had after fighting Magneto.

The classrooms on this level were much the same as they had been in his old dimension, unused and very dusty though they again didn't have the detritus of previous use as they had in his old dimension.

The sixth floor should have been where one corner of the hallway would lead up to the Gryffindor dormitories, hidden behind a painting. Here there was no painting, and the doorway stood open, with dementors coming out of it.

As his conjured troops forged onward Harry found signs of habitation everywhere and far more skeletons on the ground, counting at least forty adults skeletons scattered around the sixth floor, with ten more bunched in front of the entrance to the dormitory. With a heavy heart he moved through the doorway, wincing as he stepped on a bone that crunched underneath his shoe.

The dementors in here seemed a little stronger than the ones downstairs, and he growled angrily pouring more power into his knights. His own spells took on much more vindictive edge, and exploded among the dementor's ranks, slicing and dicing, freezing, burning, electrocuting and exploding. Again none of his spells could actually kill the dementors, but just forcing their bodies to go this corporeal for a minute helped his knights immensely. Soon the common area and both sides of the dormitory had been cleared.

Harry shook his head sadly, walking up the steps on the boy's side and looking into every dorm room. The first-year dorm on either side hadn't been set up as a regular dorm room, instead it had been set up for single residences, and he figured that they had been used by some of the adults that he had found downstairs.

In the dormitories of the second through seventh years however he found each room with six beds rather than the three or four beds that had been normal in his time. And each of them held the ancient eroded remains of a child. There was no sign of struggle in any of these rooms, and his hands clenched into fists, tears half forming in his eyes.

"I'm beginning to put together a picture," Harry said, unclenching his hands and rubbing his forehead, looking down at the bodies sadly. "And I don't like it at all. This place was a final refuge, and it was a trap too. Whoever trapped the dementors in here meant to do it, because they knew they couldn't keep them out for long? And then I guess they put their kids to sleep and fought to the last man."

He shivered suddenly, hoping that none of the kids hadn't known what was going to happen, hoping that their final memories while awake had been happy ones. He knew he would have been terrified knowing that he could one day fall asleep and die in his sleep, knowing of the terror that would come for him. "The question is why? Why the hell set up a final bastion like this if you had found wards that could trap your enemies?"

He shook his questions off for now, vowing silently to himself to come back and bury these bodies to give them as much peace as he could. Harry moved on and found the same setup on the girl's side and then went back out to the sixth floor hallway, his heart filled with rage. His praetorian guards took on a reddish hue as he renewed their powers, but he didn't care so long as their aura still worked to let them slaughter the dementors.

Farther along on the sixth floor he found the corner where the entrance to the Ravenclaw dormitory should have been, but instead he found a blank wall, and that hurt. Not only did it mean that in this dimension the Ravenclaw dormitories, a scene of many, many happy memories, didn't exist, it also meant that the only children here had been the ones in the Gryffindor dormitories. Even with five or six beds per year that meant that the children here hadn't even equaled the number of children in his own dimension in his generation.

"73 kids out of an entire magical population, that makes no sense! What the bloody fuck happened here?!" The pieces were piling up and the picture was getting uglier with every level he cleared out. They were dying he thought to himself, how long did this war go on against Dementors, how many of them died before they found a way to protect themselves?

He shook his head, and the 'killing', if you could call it that and Harry was actually torn on that point, continued. On the seventh floor, which would lead up in one portion to the headmaster's room and where the Room of Requirement was he paused. He summoned up 10 more Praetorians, bringing up his numbers to twenty four regular Praetorians and seven stone knights. "Clear this level and then two of you stand by the staircase leading up." He idly wondered if the gargoyle was still there, but then again he'd always wanted to destroy that stupid thing.

He however moved to the room of Requirement, which he knew was the only entrance to the hearthstone of the castle. You could change and control the wards from the headmaster's room, but the heart stone wasn't there, and you couldn't add more wards there. Luna and Padma had discovered that, though they hadn't used that knowledge to their advantage since by the time they learned about it the Death Eater Junior brigade had been pulled from the school, and Voldemort never attacked the castle directly.

Before this room had been hidden behind another painting, this one of dancing trolls rather than a fat woman or fruit, but again here it was hidden behind a door. This time it was very much a door, it had a inside and an outside and the door was there to make certain that everyone knew which was which. It had marlin spikes it, had dark painted oak it had a forbidding arch, and was it his imagination or did some of the spikes look as if they were wet with some kind of liquid? No one could look at that door and not realize that what was on the other side was Important with a capital I.

Harry grinned a little, losing some of his grim anger and he wondered if it was the same procedure despite this. Deciding to make sure he paced in front of the doorway three times saying, "I want to see the castle's hearthstone, I want to see the castle's Hearthstone, I want to see the castle's hearthstone."

After a moment he stopped feeling that the magic in the air had changed somehow. Harry nodded and reached out pulling the door open by the central knocker.

The other side of the room was a room made of black/white stone. Lines upon lines of warding arrays and runic symbols spiraled into where the hearthstone stood in the center, a pillar of varicolored rock reaching from the floor up to the ceiling. It seemed to pulse not only to his magical senses, but to his regular sight as well. With a frown he looked at it with his mage sight and after a moment nodded. "It's collapsing, the rock and the wars can't take the power of the lay lines for much longer. I'd estimate it had another 15 or so years before it collapsed, and with it all of the wards of this place." He shook his head, shivering at the idea of the dementors escaping out into the world. "Can't have that after all can we?" With that he moved forward, laying a gentle hand on it and began to shut down some of the wards.

Almost immediately he felt the stone subside a little, while he powered down the wards from a wartime footing, collapsed the anti-animal ward, then the anti-dark artifact ward, and then some specific creature wards. He left the un-plotable array up, as well as the anti-non-magical and anti-apparition wars, and the series of anti-demonic wards of course. After a moment he stepped back his work done for now, and he nodded. "Now, I would like to see a real time map of the castle please."

The room obliged, one wall rearranging itself into a map, and was that relief and welcome he felt in there? He smiled little and said out loud "hello to you too," and the feeling increased a little.

Harry laughed and moved over to the map. Hermione and he had a very large argument once about whether or not Hogwarts was alive. He had said that the castle was alive for a given value of the term, though she never believed him. Her point, that if it had been alive it certainly would pick someone better than the headmaster to be headmaster ,had been a telling point. But alive and sentient in a way that could think for itself were two very different things and it was Harry's argument eventually carried the day. This Hogwarts didn't feel anywhere near as alive and vibrant as the one he had attended for five years, but that was probably because it had never been a center of learning with the high number of kids and barely controlled magical auras to feed off of. But it was still alive in a way, and he wondered what would happen in the future once he made this place one of his bases of operations.

He looked over the map, and realized he had cleared out most of the areas shown on it, the only one remaining was the headmaster's room, and the staircases down to the dining area. He swiftly summoned six more Praetorians then merged them with an even number of stone golems and summoned two more stags to give them more power. "Head down to the staircases down to the stairs leading to the main hall on the second floor. Once there wait and I will take down the wards there. Kill any dementors you find."

The knights all nodded and trooped out with the stags following after. With a nod he left the room, and made his way up to the headmaster's room guarded by two of his stone knights. His forces had been hammered again, leaving him with only fourteen regular Praetorians patrolling the hallway. Still the only remaining dementors anywhere on the castle grounds were the ones stuck between his wars on the staircase between the main hall and the second floor, and his troops would wipe them out soon. He would still go back and check of course, but the battle was over, and it was time to get some answers.

Harry entered the staircase leading up and swiftly found himself entering the headmaster's office. He was startled to find that it was very much like it had been in his dimension with a few differences. There wasn't a place for any bird or avian to land anywhere, no perch for a phoenix. There were only a few books in one shelf, and far, far more knickknacks and only one portrait on the wall up above the desk, which was exactly the same he remembered in his old dimension.

What brought him to a shocked standstill however was the face in that poster. It was almost like looking at Albus Dumbledore again, but thankfully for Harry's sanity not quite. The man in the picture was younger, his beard wasn't nearly as long, and his hair was white streaked with gray and black. But his eyes had that same damn twinkle that Harry remembered, and his clothing looked much the same as well, so flamboyant they should be outlawed for decencies sake.

It was also alive, unlike the few portraits that Harry had passed, and before Harry could get over his shock it spoke. "I don't know who you are," said the man jovially "but if you were able to fight your way in here you must be a massively powerful wizard indeed, with more spells at your command than I ever heard of. What are those knights might I ask? Ah, but wear have my manners got to, I am Douglas Wilberforce Dumbledore, first and last headmaster of Hogwarts."

Harry scowled angrily but used a Scurgify spell on the plush chair, then gingerly tested it. Finding that the inside cushion had collapsed he sighed, waved one hand to set it on fire, then transfigured the desk into a leather chair complete with footstool. He sat down, put his feet up, and only then looked back up at the painting which he magically pulled off the wall above him and stuck on the wall nearer eye level. "First of all, turn off the bloody bollocking twinkly eyes. You're reminding me of someone I loathed, and you're about two seconds away from taking an Incendio to the chin."

Douglas Wilberforce, or DW to his friends (when he had them anyway, and that was a long, long time ago) blinked in surprise. "Really? That's surprising as it's a family spell, and I was the last of my line. Wherever did you meet someone who could use the…"

"One second, and I'm not from around here and that's all you're going to get." Harry intoned, and between two fingers of one of his hands a small flicker of flame appeared.

This time Douglas took the hint and canceled the Twinkle, which was in fact a subtle spell design to get people to lower their guard around the one using it. "I do apologize it just is very strange to actually talk to someone else at all. The other painting inhabitants have all faded over the years, the magic of their portraits dying. I am sorry if my continued use of the Twinkle offended you."

Harry flicked his fingers extinguishing the fire there. "That's alright old boy, now what the bloody fuck happened here?! Why the hell did you trap the dementors in here with you, and why the hell did you have kids here when you did it?!"

Douglas shuddered a little seeing the power the young man before him was giving off. "To learn that is a long tale, but tell me how in the world did you get in here, where are all the dementors? I would think they would be after your soul the moment you stepped through the door."

Harry's emerald eyes narrowed. "The dementors are all dead, or soon will be. You lot never heard of the Expecto Patronum spell? It drives off dementors and lethifolds and even vampires at times. I won't say it was easy but it was doable. Now answer my damn questions, or we'll have to see if some flame spells will loosen your tongue." The man's resemblance to him of too damn many names was bothering the hell out of Harry, scratching at a wound that Harry had never really gotten over.

Douglas seemed to collapse a little. "We, we never came up with anything like that. It was only the runic arrays of the genius Salazar Hufflepuff that allowed us to even trap the dementors in this castle. But wizard-kinds tale begins far before that final act." He sighed sadly. "For that we must go back to when wizards decided to separate themselves from the non-magicals and other magical communities."

"That happened sometime during the reign of Arthur right? I've been told Merlin was your leader then."

Douglas looked at him for a moment and his gloomy countenance actually broke for a moment and he chuckled. "Not exactly. You see my boy Merlin wasn't all he was cracked up to be. Oh, he was a magnificent sorcerer, and a battle wizard of renown, but he was also jealous, avaricious and a letch. While in war we looked to him to lead us, when the wars ended we were happy to distance ourselves from him. He was embroiled in a battle against his former lover/apprentice at the time, so had little attention to spare for us. No, we wished to be left alone, and so the wizards of the time, including my own ancestor, decided that we should remove ourselves. There was already talk about magic being a sign of demonic dealings, and we had no wish to involve ourselves with the religious fervor of the time. More we naturally looked down on those without magic, and felt they should be left to their own devices. They had involved us in their wars, and we wanted nothing more to do with them and their sanctimonious, holier than thou attitudes."

Harry's eyes narrowed again at that thought, but he waved a hand for the man/portrait to continue which he did. "We retreated into small enclaves all over England, after all, with apparition distance matters not at all. At first all seemed well. We created our servant class, the homunculi house elves, and wiped out the dragons and other beasts who preyed upon us and upon the non-magicals, and our wards were so strong that even if a non-magical village was within sight of our own community they would never see us. But eventually numbers began to tell."

"We had barely 10,000 members at first, and alas, we were as human as the other magicals. Within a decade of our hiding behind our wards there was a civil war when one enclave decided to conquer the others, which further cut into our numbers. Then the problems began. Every generation there were less and less children born with the magic inside them. And as it was law by that point to put to death any baby born without magic, or numbers dwindled further. There was another civil war in my great grandfather's time, which dwarfed the first one, about what to do to try and combat this downhill spiral. It matters not who won, in the end our numbers were lower than ever. The enclaves leaders came together in an attempt to try and find a solution and it was determined that there needed to be more movement between the enclaves. This school was started as a place for young people to meet and gather. It took forty years to agree to put it in place, and longer than that to actually build it."

Douglas sighed. "This was compounded by yet another civil war in my father's time. Several prominent leaders wanted to break down the wards. They felt that what we needed most was new blood to infuse all our enclaves, not just exchanging blood between our scattered communities."

He looked up. "You can understand why that idea terrified most of us, my boy. For even though we had magic, they bred like rats, they could simply overwhelm us if they wished, and most of us had no wish to involve ourselves in their affairs. And of course there was the fear that in bringing in non-magical blood, we would only deplete our own magic further. So there was another war, and our numbers cut down further. By the time the school was finished there were barely four thousand adult wizards in the world."

Now the man in the portrait actually shuddered, his eyes closed in remembered fear. "Our leaders met together to discuss a solution to our waning numbers. It was clear that the faction that wanted us to take down our wards, despite slowly losing the war, had actually won, since it was clear that it was the only solution with our numbers so low. Unfortunately at the meeting our debate was interrupted when IT appeared."

Harry leaned forward, eagerly. "It, what was this it?"

It was a being the likes we had never seen before. It stood taller than the tallest building, it was clad in armor from head to toe, fantastical armor of red and black bands. It seemed to have no face, only a tall helmet with what looked like pipes leading off it, and an inner light shining through the black portions of its helmet." Douglas recited. "I was barely forty years old at that time but I remember it like it was yesterday, not three hundred years ago. The thing, it gave off this aura like nothing any of us had felt, it was like looking into the face of a god. But this was not a kind or even a vengeful god, but an uncaring, an unfeeling one."

Harry stiffened, a memory from the worst day of his life in the negative Zone coming back to him. The armor was different, the one I ran into had green designs on a dark red background, but the feeling, the size and the inner light coming from its face, bloody hell, there's more of them! I fucking killed a planet to take that arse out, and I'm not certain it worked either! Just because the thing didn't come after me again doesn't mean I killed it.

Douglas hadn't noticed his audience's distress. He was in full flow now, and wouldn't have stopped his recitation if he had. "The thing said something, words we couldn't understand, something about an experiment and going with the alpha rather than the beta, and then suddenly it waved a hand and there were the last of the darklings, the ones who wished to take over the non-magical world. Its hands came together and suddenly they changed into the creatures of showed and darkness that we would come to call the dementors for the effect they had. I was one of only two to escape that day."

Harry leaned back, rubbing his face worriedly. So this thing told the wizards here they were a second experiment, then what was the first? Bloody hell, knowing my luck I'll probably find out eventually. When it attacks me most likely. "So the dementors attacked you, and none of you could figure out how to deal with them?"

"No," Douglas shook his head mournfully. "The things spread over the land, killing villages of non-magicals as well as wiping out our communities. One after another they all went silent, but we had learned that they were seeking us out on purpose you see. The dementors, when one of them takes in sufficient energy from the souls it devours, it can split itself, making more of them. But magical souls are the only souls with enough power to push them over the edge so to speak. Eventually the last groups retreated to the school, where the magical architect Salazar Hufflepuff, last scion of two ancient houses, had built so many wards. But there were so few of us, only forty or so adults, and seventy odd children of various ages. Hah, there were more house elves alive than there were people!" Harry's eyes again narrowed at the implied belief that house elves weren't people, but didn't interrupt. "And here we discovered a last parting gift from the giant being who inflected the dementors on us. For when we ran medical scans on the children we found they were all infertile.

Douglas's voice became hoarse, and he fought back tears. "It was then that Salazar was able to devise a ward to keep the dementors at bay, too late for us alas. We then held a conclave, us adults who remained, and decided to, at the last, at least seal our killers in with us. We could not allow them to go free, since the non-magicals had no defense against them. So Salazar created his ward, adding it to the matrix already in place on the hearthstone. About two weeks passed, then when we felt the dementors closing in, we all retreated into the castle, leaving the door open behind us. The children we put to bed. None of them knew what was happening, we made certain at least that their final moments were happy ones, then fed them a kind of poison, a painless death. Then we put the house elves in stasis. Their souls were like snacks to the dementors, and they had no defense in them. Better to die in their sleep, their magic peacefully drained out then to have their souls destroyed. It was decided I, who had been chosen as the school's first headmaster, should activate my portrait once the doors shot behind the dementors, locking them all in with us, as something to tell any who came after what happened, if any ever came. It took the dementors hours to file in, the entire first few stories were full of them, but we had retreated to the topmost three. I rushed up here to order the front doors to shut, activating the anti-dementor seal there, then raised the wards to a wartime footing, powering all of them via the ley lines beneath the school. I then activated my portrait, and that is the last of our sorry tale."

Harry closed his eyes, his hands clenching and unclenching as he thought about what was said. It told him a lot, but it also told him that these wizards were even worse than the ones in his birth dimension. Killing squibs like that had never been made into a law, custom in some families yes, but never a law. Nor had they been so arrogant as to cut off all ties with the rest of humanity. Oh, inbreeding was still an issue, but becoming less so when he left, mostly because he had helped wipe out the families most taken with the practice admittedly, but still.

What infuriated him the most however was the fact they never even attempted to save the children. So what if they were unable to have kids, they could still have escaped and lived long, possibly happy lives elsewhere. Certainly with the help of the number of house elves there were downstairs they could have. But instead someone had come up with this grand gesture, and everyone went along with it. This wasn't like Masada, where the defenders knew anyone taken alive would have lives marked by misery and cruelty as slaves. This was taking a perfectly good gesture, one that could have saved lives, and ruining it in Harry's opinion. Overall he felt that the wizards had created at least half their problems all by themselves before Mr. Red and powerful showed up.

But there's no point talking to a portrait about his living self's actions, and I have better things to do with my time. Indeed looking outside Harry noticed it was dark outside, which meant he had spent the entire day fighting his way through the castle. He stood up, baring glancing at the portrait. "I'll be back if I have any other questions. Right now I want to get some fresh air." He walked off, followed by his stone knights, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, leaving behind a quietly sniffling portrait of a man who had been unable to change his beliefs enough to stave off the destruction of his people, and who had, in the last not realized that their lives mattered more than a defiant gesture.

OOOOOOO

Clint grumbled a little as he came back to the house he and the other four SHIELD agents he was working with at present were using as their base of operations. He hated all this sneaky-spy stuff, give him the violent-spy stuff any day. After using his code key to enter the house he immediately got his wish, because the sharp retort of a rifle suddenly sounded.

Clint, or as he was better known to his friends, Hawkeye, ducked and rolled forward, pulling out a pistol and shooting even as he rolled. His accuracy with any kind of weapon served him well here, and his single return bullet slammed into the white facemask of the group at the top of the stairs who had been shooting at him.

The man went down, but Clint was dismayed to see that his team were also down, blood leaking out from under their bodies, their killers turning to bring up their guns to bear on him, he dove for the door to the bathroom, using it as cover and returning fire. His shots hit the large bruiser who had been standing in the center of his attackers dead center, but the man shrugged them off like it was nothing and charged.

Hawkeye jumped backward, rolling and diving gunfire from behind even as the giant man crushed the doorway that had been defending him. Clint rolled to the side, swiftly opening the door to the basement and diving down the stairs.

Once down he swiftly divested himself of his suit and grabbed at his back, where a collapsed bow had been hidden with a small bundle of arrows. A flick of his wrist and it snapped into position, and he grabbed one of the arrows fitting it to his string before turning up to face the stairway down.

The giant led the way down, and it took three arrows to the head, one hitting right on top of the other, to kill him. The man went down, blood and robotic fluids leaking from under his mask. But by that point another seven purple and red spandex clad troops had made their way down and taken cover around the basement, firing back at Hawkeye and forcing him back into cover. He could hear even more of them still moving around upstairs and he cursed. "What the hell have I gotten myself into here?"

A distinct rumble answered him and he frowned, then turned when he heard the rumble of stone and mortar moving. Behind him a hole in the wall cracked and crumbled into existence, and Lance looked at him. "A bow and arrow, you any good with that?" He gestured, and suddenly the ground of the basement bucked and rolled, cracking in places while coming up to give Clint and Lance more cover in others.

"Yeah I'm good with it kid, what the hell are you doing here anyway?"

"These guys've been following me ever since I got back into town, well except at the school for some reason." Charles routinely kept an eye out for his students at school, and any groups approaching it with ill intent would find themselves suddenly turned around, their minds momentarily blanked out. Such was Charles' telepathic power that any kind of defense was useless against it. "I noticed the same truck I saw yesterday following a car that looked like yours, and then saw you walk into this house."

Shots began to come their way once more and he scowled. "You got anywhere else we can go? I've got no idea what they want with me, but they obviously want you dead."

Clint frowned, shooting one of the men almost absent mindedly, but another one of the giants, who Clint now recognized as some kind of robot or cyborg, charged. Before he could do anything however Lance darted forward, hands clenched into fists. A wave of something shot out form his fists, impacting the ground underneath the giant, and it became almost liquid, dragging him down before hardening again, almost cutting him in half. "Not bad kid," Clint stated, shooting down two more of their attackers. "And yeah, I've got an idea of where we can go, but we need to shake these fuckers off first."

Lance grinned. "Funny you should use the word shake, they don't call me Avalanche for nothing!" he kneeled down, slapping his hands onto the ground in front of him, and suddenly the ground and the walls began to shake and rumble again. "Get in the tunnel, I'll be right behind you!"

Clint knew not to argue and fell back into the tunnel Lance had made, taking up a position where he could cover the kid as he worked. An instant later Lance joined him, and over his shoulder Clint could see the entire basement starting to come apart and sink.

The teen pushed the older man along, the tunnel filling in behind them until the two of them appeared in the backyard of a house a few buildings over from the former SHIELD safehouse. Clint led the way out onto the street, jumping over the fence as Lance had earlier, then paused and shook his head at the sight of the former safehouse. The entire thing had collapsed inward, as if the ground underneath had become a sinkhole, trapping those inside underneath its rubble. "So, you think we got them off our backs?"

Clint laughed. "You don't do anything by half do you kiddo? Yeah I think you can say that, now let's get outta here."

Clint led the way again, heading for a drop point where he could contact his superiors, Lance tagging along behind him, knowing now that the group after him wasn't with the government, and more trusting of Clint now. "By the way, are you guys hiring?"

Clint smiled laughed again. "Come see me when you graduate from high school punk." Lance shrugged, that would have to do for now, and the two of them continued on their way through the night ignoring the sounds of the sirens coming closer.

OOOOOOO

Harry's anger left him the moment he was away from the man who reminded him so much of the master manipulator, leaving him only with the grief, the bone deep sorrow at the loss of so many lives to the stupidity of wizards.

"Damn it, what is it about being born with magic that removes the common sense?!" He leaned back against the wall of the hallway outside the circular staircase leading up to the headmaster's room, not even noticing as the two stone knights that had accompanied him up moved past him, still looking out for enemies.

Harry didn't notice, his eyes slowly filling with tears. "All those lives lost because wizards felt they were so much better than everyone else, despite all evidence to the contrary. Those kids, killed because someone wanted to make a bollocking grand gesture!"

He felt a sudden weight on one shoulder, a downy head butting into his own gently, and he looked up to see Hedwig leaning in eye to eye, her hunters gaze somehow softened in concern. "You always know when I need help don't you, Hedwig?"

The owl precked softly, nipping at his ear as if to say 'of course I do you silly boy' and Harry chuckled wetly then shook himself. There were still lives here he could help, and he pushed himself off the wall purposefully. Grief could come later.

Hedwig left his shoulder, never liking being on her human when he was moving around like that. Oh she liked it when he had a forearm, but his shoulders moved a little too much, especially down stairs. So one stone knight suddenly had an owl on its head as it followed its creator down the hallway and then down the stairs. Harry moved down the last flight of stairs cleared by his conjured troops, finding they had again taken casualties, but nodded. "I want half of you to head back to the Room of Requirement and await further orders. The other half is to split again, half to come with me, the other half to split again and head to the main entrance and the back door leading out onto the grounds behind the castle."

He had seen the runic array on that door, and knew there wouldn't be any dementors out on the grounds anywhere. In fact he thought his troops had already destroyed all of them, but he wasn't about to become overconfident. He summoned up seven more Praetorian knights, pushing them into an equal number of stone golems. "You seven, I want you to head up to the girls bathroom on the second floor. Head in and see if there is anything there. I'll join you after I'm done waking up the house elves."

The ten new stone knights nodded, and the entire force, now again about forty-eight strong, broke up and moved away on their various duties, with five following him, one stone knight and four regular Praetorians. Harry moved through the main hall and down the corridor on the other side of the entrance hall, finally coming to the entrance to the house elves area, smiling faintly. The fact this Salazar Hufflepuff had created a ward to defend and protect the elves powered by the ley lines rather than their own magic gave him a slightly better opinion of the man, despite his having gone along with the 'grand gesture' scheme.

He ordered the knights to wait here, and then entered the house elves' hallway. Once inside Harry looked around then nodded. "As new lord of the castle, I ask the stasis wards in this hall be taken down." He wasn't actually certain he could do this, but he had noticed the stasis wards on the hearthstone, and it made sense they too would be coupled to the main arrays of the castle. And since he was the only living wizard in the castle and had interacted with the hearthstone, he felt it likely he could give orders like that.

After a moment he was proven incorrect and he sighed. "Oh well, back up to the hearthstone boys." He took the trip quickly, stopping only to confirm that there was indeed no sign of a chamber of secrets, once more showing that the castle hadn't been lived in long enough to develop any little (and not so little) secrets he had been used to in his old dimension. This one however he was glad to see wasn't there, and he ordered the seven stone knights to spilt up and join the defenders at the two entrances.

Harry gathered up the group outside the hearthstones room and they all trooped inside. He moved over to lay a hand on the hearthstone itself then asked. "I would like the map to show any remaining dementors, if there are any." The map remained unchanging and he nodded. "I would like the map to show any more dangers to myself in the castle."

Again the map remained unchanging, and Harry felt the hearthstone almost warm under his hand, welcome and anticipating. That proves it, you can only imbue something with magic for so long before it starts to fundamentally change. Heh, fun. Harry grinned and then intoned the next bit in a loud voice. "Then as last living wizard and as both vanquisher of the dementors and new defender of the castle of Hogwarts I ask that I become its headmaster."

For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly the runic arrays everywhere in the room glowed with a brilliant orange and purple light, as images and power filled Harry's mind. He had to fight his mutant power for a moment, as it wanted to drain the magic trying to fill him, but it was easy enough, and the feeling faded swiftly as a deep booming bell tolled throughout the castle. Then it was over, and Harry shook his head woozily. "Okay, that was a trip. Now, I would like the stasis wards in the house elves section of the castle taken town please. Then lock down and bar entry to the headmaster's room. I'll deal with that portrait later, possibly when I have need of kindling."

The hearthstone seemed to thrum under his hands, almost purring like a giant cat, and Harry suddenly knew that his orders had been obeyed. "While we're waiting…" He flicked his free hand, and suddenly all of the Praetorian knights were gone, the power he had been sending them cut off. The stone knights however remained and he began to wordlessly send them elsewhere in the castle tying their power into the wards of protection and defense inside the castle itself. A moment later it was done, and the stone knights trooped out to take up their new positions.

As they were trooping out the door hundreds of pops rent the air, and Harry looked up to see what looked like over two hundred or so house elves had suddenly popped into the room, filling it from end to end. Their faces were ecstatic and almost all of them were bouncing up and down in eagerness and joy. The moment they appeared their voices began to clamor over one another. 'Bes you our new master?', 'bes you the lord?', 'oh so much work to do', and other such shouts assaulted Harry's ears, and he held up a hand. "Quiet down guys, I can't hear whatever the heck you are saying!"

The elves quieted, then one of them, the oldest with pale white skin, long droopy ears and a small stick he used as a cane, moved forward. "Please sir, I's be Dilly, the oldest here. Be's you the new master? Can we's bond to you now?" The last question made the others shout agreement, but Dilly turned and glared the others into silence.

"Dilly," Harry spoke slowly, "Do you know what happened here?"

Dilly's ears drooped further touching the ground, and the other's looked down in sorrow which was enough for Harry who nodded. "Then yes Dilly I am the new master of the castle. I came from another… well another dimension if you can understand that. I was astonished to find Hogwarts here as well. I cleared out the dementors, they're all dead now." That brought a rousing cheer from the elves, though many still looked misty-eyed. "I have plans for he castle, and I'd love to have your help, but why do you say you want to bond to me? Aren't you being fed by the magic of the castle?" He resolved to ask Dilly about his take on events later, right now it was too raw in him to want to go over it again, Harry couldn't imagine what it must be like for the elves.

Dilly nodded gravely, his face screwed up in thought for a moment as he thought about how to explain the nature of the bond. "Yes master we's be fed by the castle, but it be's like gruel for humans. Not tasty, yucky, we's can live on it, but it not be nice. When the castle full of children, they's magic bes added in, making it more like good strong soup or even full meal, buts not now."

Harry sat down, leaning against the hearthstone for a moment, the welcome warmth of it flailing him as he came down to eye level with the house elves. "Well Dilly, I don't have a problem bonding with you all, in fact it would help me out a lot, but I have some ground rules that you all will have to obey. I'll say them now, and if any of you disagree, I'll try to find a way to make the castle's magic more, um tasty I guess, for you all. Okay?"

Two hundred small house elf heads nodded wildly as one and he chuckled before going on. "First, I'm not going to be your master, I hate being addressed like that by anyone, I can be your friend, but when you bond to me, you become part of my family, not a mere servant. So any of you I bond with should call me Harry, or if you can't manage that Mr. Potter." Elf eyes teared up at the generosity of the master, even while a few uttered that it was against all decorie (decorum), but Harry wasn't finished. "Second, there will be no self-punishments. I don't know how it was before, but all of you regardless of if you bond with me or stay bonded to the castle, you're no longer allowed to punish yourselves. If you think you've done something wrong, I want you to tell me, and if there is punishment it will be light. Understood?"

The tears were flowing more freely now, and practically every elf there thought their new master was the nicest master that had ever been. "Third, I know that house elves pride themselves on doing their jobs unseen, and at times I will want that to be the case, but for the most part I want to see you as you're going about your work. That way no one will be able to forget the good you're doing. And fourth, none of you are to work yourselves into exhaustion no matter what. I know there's a lot to be done just around here, but we'll work on it slowly, I don't want anyone working themselves too hard. And fifth, if anything attacks you, you are allowed to defend yourselves to the best of your ability."

Now the elves were jumping up and down, the ones in the back trying to press in to get closer to their new master. "Now, knowing those rules, do you all still want to bond with me?" Harry suddenly found himself under elfy-pile, and laughed at their exuberance.

Dilly soon got control of the group and two by two the elves came forward, and Harry laid his hands on their little hands and said the words "I bind you to me as family and friend" over and over, eliciting tears of happiness and gratitude in all of them.

The elves for their part were now looking at one another in wonder, standing tall, feeling stronger and livelier than they ever had before, even the ones who had been bonded to other masters before. Their new master's power filled them, making them more powerful than anything they had ever imagined was possible. One adventuresome youngster popped out to a nearby room and clicked his fingers. The dust everywhere and the cobwebs all disappeared and he gaped in shock. Normally hat would have taken several minutes, now it barely took a few seconds.

He popped back to find that Harry had finished bonding the last of the house elves and was now giving them their first orders. "Alright, I'm going to give you all some orders now, but wait until I'm done before haring off. First I know house elves need to eat food too, so I want fifty of you to head to the forest and looked for wild plants, onions, edible mushrooms, carrots, whatever, another fifty to head to the lake and see if you can figure out a way to get some fish out. Ten of you head down to the kitchen and clean it up, see if there are enough utensils and other things to use. Who here knows how to write?" About twenty hands went up including Dilly's, and he nodded. "Alright, I want you to go through the castle and mark down the number of rooms, the amount of furniture that's decayed and other things. Do you know how to measure things?"

Dilly nodded. "Yes Master Harry, we's does. Our magic lets us do it easy. What you be's wanting it for?"

Harry ignored the master there, realizing they needed that stability right now, and conjured up twenty notepads complete with pencils. "I want you to mark down how many yards of rugs we'd need for the first floor and the hallways, as well as how many square feet of walls we have for hangings, pictures and other things." Dilly nodded resolutely. That would take some time, but they could do it.

There was a pause as a thought occurred to Harry. "Also mark down your own areas, those little houses of yours are awesome, and I want to know if you all want anything to make them better." The house elves grinned at one another, happy with that thought.

Harry's next words sobered them up however. "The rest of you I want to split into three. One group is to begin cleaning the castle, start from the first floor and work your way up. I… I want the second group to head outside and begin to dig some graves for the children who died here. The grown up wizards," he nearly spat the word, "Their skeletons can be tossed in the lake. The last group is to prepare the bodies for burial." The house elves all nodded somberly and they began to pop out to their various duties.

Two of them however only disappeared from view, keeping an eye on their master to see if he thought up anything else he wanted them to do. They watched as Harry leaned back against the headstone, tears beginning to fall silently from his face. One of them looked at the other and they both popped out to the hallway outside. "The master be's hurt in the heart. He bes sad and weepy about what happened to the former masters."

Both elves ears drooped in response to that. None of the elves had gone along willingly with the idea of being sealed willing when Master Hufflepuff had sealed them away, but they had no defense against dementors, and unlike humans for whom the process was terrifying but painless, to them having their soul sucked out was an extremely painful way to die.

"What's we do to help him?" The male asked then gasped, looking over his mate's shoulder. "EEEP!"

The female, who was named Tilly and was Dilly's daughter, turned and gasped. One the stone knight standing at parade rest outside the door to the classroom they had appeared outside of was a snowy owl. Both elves froze as that hunter's gaze swept over them. Even knowing they were too big for the owl to make a meal of they still felt the impact of that predatory stare. Then Tilly gasped, and relaxed. "Her owliness be's the masters familiar, his magic be all over her."

The owl nodded and stared at her, and an image popped into Tilly's head of a tall, regal looking black woman with white hair. It took a moment for her to understand, but she at last got what the owl was trying to do. "You's think this woman be's able to help the master?" Another woman was shown, this time with fiery red hair and eyes the color of jade, as well as a dining table and the concept of distance. "You's want one of us to goes get one of these mistresses?"

The olw nodded regally, and Tilly face firmed with decision. "I's will go." The owl sent another image, this time of a huge ocean, and the elf girl shrugged. "Normally it bes too far to pop, but the masters power be's giving me the strength." The owl nodded again, and the elf popped away.

OOOOOOO

Ororo sat next to her redheaded friend at the breakfast table scowling. Harry hadn't come home last night, and she just knew her emerald eyed lover had gotten into some kind of trouble.

Jean frowned worriedly looking at her and wondering where Harry was, and if she could get away with smacking him upside the head for worrying Ororo like this. And yourself too, can't forget that, a portion of her mind mentioned, its not just a crush and you know it. Jean resolutely ignored the voice coming from the portion of her tower she had set aside for emotions, not wanting to think about that just now when her friend was so distressed already.

The others at the table were subdued, knowing Mr. Potter hadn't returned, but not really worried about him just yet, it was more the pouting frown on Ororo's face that kept them quiet.

That quiet was disturbed by a sudden pop from behind Ororo and Logan, who had been sitting on her other side turned swiftly, his claws popping out ready to lunge, but he stopped at the little creature standing there looking a little worried. All the others looked over the table at the thing, their eyes wide. It had huge pointy floppy ears was wearing what looked like a gray toga, and had huge, bulging round eyes that dominated a narrow face.

The being ignored the stares it was getting looking up at Ororo. "Be's you master Harry's mistress Orry?"

Ororo blinked, then blinked again, shooting a glare over at Kurt who was chuckling at the way the little being mangled her name. "I suppose you could say that, but I prefer simply Miss Ororo to mistress. Why, what has happened, and who are you?"

"I's be Tilly miss," the elf bobbed a little curtsy, then answered the rest of the regal woman's questions. "The master be's…not fine, he be sore in the heart and head. Her owliness told me to come and get you and mistress Flamehair to help."

Jean's eyes widened and her eyebrow's weren't the only ones that shot up at her being included in that. She ignored the other's surprise, though she did note Ororo's little smile, showing no surprise or concern at her being named as someone to help Harry when he was feeling down. "Er, my name's Jean, actually, and since it's a school day, I can't come with you I'm afraid. I'm certain Ororo can handle it."

Ororo nodded decisively. "Indeed, though I have to wonder what happened. Now, how are we getting to him?"

"You's just need to take my hand miss." Tilly stated, happy that both the master's ladies seemed as nice as he was.

Ororo nodded before looking at the others. She could see the concern and wariness building up in Charles and Logan's face, but she somehow knew this wasn't a trick of anything. Harry needed her help, and she would be there for him, as he had helped her before. "I'll see you all later I suppose, and Harry and I will tell you what happened when we get back." Before either of her fellow teachers could say anything she reached out and took the little beings hand, and with a pop disappeared, leaving behind some very worried people. Strangely only Jean wasn't concerned, and turned back to her meal with a clearer head than before, certain that Storm would be able to help Harry with whatever it was.

Ororo suddenly found herself in a stone hallway, the air a little cold around her, but not unpleasantly so. The little creature that brought her here gestured at the rather forbidding doorway a few feet in front of her. "The master be's in there miss Orry."

Ororo nodded and moved to the doorway. Inside the enclosed room she could indeed see Harry, leaning back against a pillar of stone that seemed to be thrumming somehow, it and all the walls she could see covered with what she recognize as runes like those Harry used so often. She stepped forward a little warily, her claustrophobia acting up but thankfully the room was large enough to let her keep control. She went to one knee next to her lover and gently drew him into a hug.

Harry stiffened for a moment as he felt arms go around him, and then calmed down as his sense told him who it was, the smell of his lady, the feel of her skin against his neck, the color of her hair. He didn't question why or even how she had appeared like this, he simply turned into her embrace and with a sob broke down utterly at last.

Ororo shook her head slightly in sadness. Harry cared, truly and deeply cared for people, not just those he knew, but those he hadn't met. Here he never even had a chance to save his fellow wizards and it had hit home hard. And he had a soft spot for kids, which made this all the more tragic to him. The worst part was that Ororo could find no words to comfort him, nothing that wouldn't mean speaking ill of the dead or sound trite or rehearsed. All she could do was hold him, giving him what comfort her touch and presence gave, and she did so willingly, smiling faintly at seeing the even someone as powerful as Harry needed a shoulder to cry on.

She continued to hold him as the story of what he had found here came out, causing tears to spring to her own eyes at the senseless, meaningless deaths the children here had suffered, once more coming to realize that above and beyond the power he wielded, the mind he had or the dreams he had decided to pursue, it was the soul of the man, that caring, gentle, protective soul, that made her fall in love with Harry.

After about ten minutes Harry's sobs subsided, and Harry began to recover himself. He pulled back, giving Ororo a kiss on neck and then the lips as he did so. "Thanks love, I really needed to get that out. But how did you even get here?"

"I was brought hear by a little creature who called herself Tilly. Would you care to explain what she is, and why she cannot seem to pronounce my name correctly?" The language teacher arced an eyebrow at her lover, and Harry began to laugh. It was a somewhat manic, brittle laugh, but nonetheless it was a laugh, and Ororo was happy to hear it. Harry stood, up as he began to explain what house elves were, and escorted her out of the room. After that he began to show her around what would soon become their new home.

End chapter

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Hope someone spotted my homage to several sci-fi books in this chapter. They're small I know but consider it a challenge.

I wanted to show the fate of the wizards as both something they had inflicted on themselves because of their arrogance, and as punishment from on high so to speak. Before anyone asks, yes Harry fought a celestial, no he didn't kill it, he destroyed its corporeal form for a time. No mean feat, but he had to fry a whole planet to do it. On that note, can anyone remember any mutants or super-humans other than Franklin Richards or Thor and the Sky fathers fighting a Celestial?

I also intended to show Emma Frosts introduction to the Hellfire club, but after writing that section I felt I hadn't done it justice, and I really wanted it happening at the same time Harry was at Hogwarts, and I couldn't find a good place to halt the action except where I did for Lance's little adventure. I like the idea of Clint becoming his mentor, what do you all think? Emma will take center stage for a large bit of the next chapter as recompense. Strike like a Slytherin indeed.

As always read and review.