Harry sat up with a groan as he tried to recall what happened to him. He remembered a fight with his ex-friends and how they both chose to abandon their search. Then he saw this doe Patronus and followed it, probably hoping that it was a good sign. But he barely took a few steps after it, when the ground underneath him gave away and he fell. Afterwards, the teen had no idea about how long was he falling, the only things he noticed was the darkness around him and that he was falling through some sort of a stone tunnel.
Then everything came to a sudden end and he hit the ground, hard.
He looked around, but couldn´t see a thing because of how dark it was. With a sigh, the young wizard slid his wand from its holster and cast a silent Lumos. Once his eyes adjusted to the sudden light, he got up, groaning at how much his body ached, and looked around once more. What his little light spell reached revealed a space that would fit a giant the size of his friend Hagrid, with a stone floor that was here and there covered in cracks. He was in some sort of underground caver. He gazed over his shoulder. Behind him was the tunnel, down which he fell, that lead back to the surface. But using it to return back up was impossible, the angle was too precipitous to allow him to climb up and he didn´t have his broom on hand. He turned his head back. Before him, the underground cave continued forth into the unknown, well outside the reach of his spell.
There was little doubt about what was his only opinion in this situation.
"Why do these things always happen to me?" Harry asked himself, as he started walking further into the cavern. "If any of my ancestors weren´t hit with that ancient Chinese curse ´May you have an interesting life, I will eat my wand."
At times like this, he regretted not learning the Animagus transformation. With any luck, he might have got some bird as his animal form. But that meant nothing now. As his legs carried him forth, he couldn´t help but let his mind wander. He thought about the war and about what must be done to stop it. He also thought about Dumbledore, who told him what was needed to do, and had to keep himself from cursing, both this situation and the said man.
Because really?
If that man knew the method, then why in the name of magic didn´t he do something about it sooner? How many lives could have been spared? How many people could have been spared the pain and grieve they felt now? Had that man acted sooner, things might have been different… the whole conflict might even be avoided, if necessary. Harry might have respected the man, but the childish idealization was crushed by the cold reality of war. The teen was forced to realize that the man´s means to lead a war were ill-fitted to what they needed to fight. They needed to fight fire with fire, to return the enemy´s lethal attacks with other lethal attacks and not non-lethal, like until now. That strategy was liable to get them all killed.
But how could he convince the others?
Thinking about others caused him to scowl, as he remembered his friends and the argument they had. The argument caused them to split apart, with Ron and Hermione going home and abandoning him. He could understand that they were tired of all of the danger and being on the run. Hell, he was tired, but he knew he was tied by a responsibility of ending the war, so he wasn´t allowed to relax until that happened. Besides after all their adventures and over six years of friendship, to turn on him like that! From Ron, it was somewhat expectable, after the fourth year. But Hermione? That hurt, a lot.
Deep in thought, the raven didn´t pay much attention to his surroundings. Because of this, he wasn´t aware of the odd protrusion growing from the floor, until his feet tripped on it, losing his balance.
"Damn it!" the wizard cursed as he hit the ground. "First the fall through the tunnel and now this? What is it? Pick on Harry day?!" He stood up, picked up his fallen glasses. Then he re-cast his spell and pointed his want at what tripped him.
What he saw caused him to blink in surprise.
From the ground rose a strange metallic object. It was slightly bent and looked old and dirty, but in the light of his spell, its metallic surface shone clear. Moving his wand he discovered another four, similar sculptures, each in a different length and each emerging through the stone-hard ground. Curiosity getting the better of him, he slowly walked towards the tallest one and cautiously touched it with his free hand.
The second his fingers made contact with the cold surface, sparks of magic flew from his flesh and entered the object. He quickly withdrew his hand and took a few steps back, only to froze when an unknown voice spoke.
"Who is here?"
It was a deep, rich voice, that carried something indescribable, which spoke of its owner not being human in nature. And also… carried faint traces of pain. That did not sit well with Harry. So as slowly as he could, to not appear hostile, he started looking for the voice´s owner. At first, he saw nothing but darkness. Then two red lights caught his attention. He turned his wand here and recoiled back in shocked surprise.
The sight of what greeted him was a giant. A giant whose body was made of a metal similar to the objects he examined before. Or at least what he could see was like that, which consisted of a head, neck and a portion of his chest. The rest was buried under a mass of rocks and earth. What view he had shown a face similar to that of a human-like face with burning red eyes. Said eyes watched him with a mixture of curiosity and somehow concealed pain.
"Who are you?" the unknown being asked quietly, breaking the teen from his trance.
"I-I´m Harry. Harry Potter. And you?" he asked, green eyes scanning the being… robot for injuries. He could tell that the giant took a beating, with how to bend and broken parts. But he could not tell the full extent of the damage, since the rest was buried.
"My designation is Galvatron. May I inquire what are you doing here, Harry?"
"Um… you can say I got lost," admitted the teen with a sheepish look. "I was walking above when the ground underneath me gave out and I fell into this cave. I´m now trying to find a way out, only to discover you. Um, do you know about any way to get back to the surface?" he asked hopefully.
Galvatron observed him before he shook his head.
Seeing that Harry sighed. "I see. Well, since you know how I got here, can I ask the same from you? And what happened to you, since you look…" he trailed off trying to find the best way not to offend his companion.
"…like a piece of scrap?" finished the other dryly, effectively ruining the teen´s effort to be polite. Then it was his turn to sigh. "I got into a strong conflict with several other individuals. I crashed to earth and the impact buried me here. Have been here ever since."
"And how long has it… Sorry, it is probably rude of me to ask such things," apologized the wizard when he realized he was probably prying too much. "And sorry for the staring. It is just… this is the first time meeting somebody like you. I... I honestly have no idea how am I supposed to react."
"No harm is done. To me, it is the same, in regards to you."
"Yeah, but you are more polite about this than I," pointed out the teen.
"Oh trust me, if you were rude, I would have let you know. I´m not the type to tolerate such things," replied the robot, then he added: "And I accept your apology. To be honest, you are taking our encounter in better than most, upon this being the first time."
"Heh. Probably because I saw enough things in my life, to make me less inclined to freak out about the fact I´m having a conversation with a…" Harry paused mid-sentence before he looked at Galvatron. "Um, I´m sorry, but I don´t think I know what you are. I mean, what species you are."
Galvatron gave a small chuckle. "It is alright. To answer your question, I´m a Cybertronian and my race is, as you can see, made of metal. I´m also… not native to this planet…" by the end of his speech he started coughing and he had to stop talking to catch his breath.
"Are you alright?" asked the teen in concern.
"No… I´m afraid I´m not alright," replied his companion, once he got his breathing under control. "It appears my internal damage was worse than I thought. It is a miracle I am still functional."
"Is there something I could do to help?"
"Not useless you know a medic from my planet, then no." The robot shook his head.
The wizard sighed. "If you say so… Wait, you said your planet. Does that mean that you are an alien then?"
"Is it the local label for somebody like me?"
"Yes."
"In that chase – Yes, I am an alien," answered the bot.
"Wow."
Seeing the interested look of his companion, Galvatron smirked slightly. "Did I meet your expectations about aliens?"
"Nope. The most common idea about aliens is that they are short green beings with huge eyes and antennas growing from their heads." Here Harry paused before he added: "You look more impressive than that."
"If you think a beaten, half-dead mech is impressive," chuckled the mech again, only to start coughing again. But this time the coughing got so bad that the ground shook slightly with his body.
As he tried to stay on his legs, Harry asked again: "Are you sure there is nothing I can do to help? Or at least ease the pain?"
"No... there isn´t… Not useless you… have the knowledge to repair… one of my race… Or to end my misery… to kill me…" rasped out Galvatron in between coughs.
At the answer, Harry looked down, disappointed and a bit upset. Then his eyes landed on his wand and an idea occurred to him. There was a possibility, but it might be a bit risky, considering how magic was said to react with electronics. Better ask Galvatron about this, thought Harry and returned his gaze towards his companion. "What would you say, if I could do something to fix you?"
That got the other´s attention and caused him to look over his companion´s smaller form. "What would be that something? Have you perhaps experience with fixing Cybertronians?"
"No, but I know a technique that might heal the damage you took," said the teen carefully. "However, there is a catch – I´m not sure if the process won´t kill you. You see, that repairing technique… doesn´t exactly agree with electronics. And since you are a living robot, there is no guaranteed result of how it would take to you. It might heal you as I said, or it might cause your body to short circuit and kill you. So…"
The silence that followed the statement caused the teen to grow nervous.
"Alright."
Galvatron´s answer started Harry from his panic so much that he blurted out: "You agree?"
"You heard me."
"That was… fast. Aren´t you bothered by what I said?" the wizard couldn´t help but ask.
"Not really. As you said, there are two possibilities – either I live or die. If I live, then I will be happy. If I die, then it is nothing new to me. You see, with the wounds I took I´m going to offline either way… It doesn´t really matter to me if it is a slow and painful way, or if it is a quick and relatively painless one," answered the other honestly.
"Um… okay," the wizard slowly nodded. That was one way of looking at things. Considering the pain the other was in, there was no reason for Harry not to believe that the other wasn´t dying. And if Galvatron was aver of it, then he probably would want a quick death, if things didn´t work with the spell-like the wizard hoped.
The teen shook his head to clear his head, cancelled the light spell and pointed his wand at the other.
"Before you begin, may I ask what kind of technique will you use?" inquired Galvatron.
"Magic," said Harry with a small chuckle before he concentrated and cast the spell.
"Reparo!"
