Hello all! Merry Christmas! I wasn't planning on releasing another chapter so soon, but since I had it pre-written I thought that I'd be nice. Please enjoy!
Chapter 2: Two Suns and a whole lot of Sand pt 1
Harry was, in all honesty, feeling a little overwhelmed. He was currently in a spaceship. A SPACESHIP! When the Lady Magic told him he was being sent somewhere else, he wasn't expecting an entirely new planet, let alone spaceships, laser guns, and killer robots. Of course, being almost immediately thrust into combat hadn't really given him time to adjust.
The ship he was currently flying on was also quite crowded, although Harry wasn't sure if this was the norm of space flight or just a quirk of this particular flight. That led Harry to his current position, sitting on the floor in a rather cramped storage compartment at the back of the ship, eyes closed, just trying to relax.
The door opened with a near silent tshh, revealing one of the women in orange and a little robot shaped vaguely like a rubbish bin. The robot wheeled in without hesitation, but the woman froze at the door when she spotted Harry; it wasn't until the little robot beeped in annoyance that the woman started moving again. She knelt down, pulled a rag out of one of the assorted boxes that took up most of the compartment, and started to clean the dirty robot.
Harry watched for a moment as she struggled to get the detritus out of the cracks of the droid before he decided to take pity and lend a hand. With a whistle to get her attention, he flicked his wand, causing the rag to float out of her grip and start cleaning the robot on its own. Of course, he could've cleaned the robot directly, but he didn't know how his magic would interact with its electronics.
Content the magic would suffice, and that the woman was too amazed to interfere, Harry closed his eyes again and lent back. A light tap on his foot caused him to open his eyes and look at the woman who clearly wanted to get his attention, although now he was looking closely, she seemed to be very young, definitely early-to-mid teens. The young woman raised a hand to her chest, "Padmé"
Harry smiled slightly. "Pad-may?"
She smiled and nodded before pointing at him and cocking her head slightly.
His smile widened, "Harry."
She scrunched her eyebrows in concentration. "Ar-re?" Harry laughed and repeated himself, putting extra emphasis on the 'H'. "A… ar… ha," she frowned and cleared her throat, "Har-re?"
Harry laughed again and nodded; it was close enough. 'Padmé pointed at his wand, which was still in his hand, and tilted her head again. Harry slowly offered the wand to her, handle first. "Wand," he said.
Softly, almost reverently, the girl took it from his grasp and began to scrutinise it closely. "Warned?" she asked.
"Wand," Harry repeated, "Wand."
"War… wand." She smiled again when he nodded and began to swish it in the same vague pattern he had used against the robots back on the planet. Much to his amusement, she managed to perform a near-perfect wand movement for the levitation charm.
With a snap of his fingers, the wand shot back to hand, making her gasp, then a quick flick of his wrist caused a bouquet of orange tulips to sprout from the tip, which he handed to the surprised girl. She absently sniffed the flowers and seemed delighted that they had a rather pleasant smell. Some excited-sounding beeping drew their attention to the now clean droid. Harry summoned the dirtied rag to his hand before waving his wand and transfiguring it into a bluebird which began to fly around the cabin while chirping excitedly. Padmé physically jumped in surprise and the robot whistled in wonder; both watched the little bird fly for over a minute before it landed on Harry's outstretched finger and was swiftly turned back into a dirty rag, which Harry cast a quick cleaning charm on and handed back to the completely shocked young woman.
Before she could so much as close her mouth (which had fallen open in shock), the elder of the two men in brown robes from earlier appeared in the doorway and spoke to Padmé. Almost reluctantly, the girl stood and straightened her robe before nodding at him. "Har-re."
Harry smiled and returned the nod. "Pad-may." She smiled slightly as she left; the man observed him for a moment before following her, closing the door behind him. The robot nudged his foot and beeped at him, making Harry smile wirily before he shut his eyes again.
-HPatF- -HPatF- -HPatF-
The smell of death was rife in the air as Harry surveyed the battlefield outside Hogwarts. Smoke wafted from the smouldering piles where they were burning the bodies of their enemies and the sun's uncomfortably warm rays made the work of digging graves for their fallen comrades even more exhausting. Moans of pain echoed down from the open windows of the overcrowded hospital wing, further dampening the spirits of everyone who could hear them.
Harry couldn't help but shake his head. They should be celebrating; Voldemort was dead, his armies scattered, and his power broken, but the cost had been much too high, and nobody felt like banqueting after witnessing the bloodbath that was the final battle. According to early estimates, casualty rates were at least as high as 30%, and that number was set to rise as more bodies were discovered and identified.
Harry reached for the shovel that was stuck into the ground beside him so he could go and help the gravediggers but paused when he noticed Fawkes had appeared and perched on the handle.
"Hairy!" The phoenix squawked.
Harry jumped back in alarm. Did Fawkes just call me hairy?
"Hair-reee!" Fawkes shouted again, louder.
Why does Fawkes have a woman's voice?
"Har-re!"
Harry jolted awake to find Padmé, now dressed in comparatively normal clothes, leaning over him. "Pad-may? What is it?"
Padmé gestured for him to stand up and follow her, so Harry put the book he had fallen asleep reading back into the trunk, re-shrunk it, clipped it back onto his belt, and put his cloak (which he had been using as a pillow) back on. Padmé, after she shook off her shock at even more magic, guided him through the ship, passed the couple dozen passengers who watched Harry warily, to what was quite clearly a throne room. Sitting on the throne itself was the woman in the black dress; the elder man in brown robes and the dark-skinned man in leather stood before her. Padmé walked up to the woman and offered a curtsy before gesturing to Harry and beginning to speak; of course, the only word Harry understood was his own name. The woman's gaze flicked over to Harry, so he nodded his head in respect.
A debate seemed to ensue between the two men, which was interrupted when Padmé interjected, "Har-re. Wand!" Harry arched an eyebrow in question and smiled when she handed him the rag from earlier. He drew his wand and flicked it at the scrap of cloth, once again turning it into a bluebird. The small bird flew out of his hand and sang as it flew laps around the room before once again settling on Harry's outstretched finger and turning back into a rag.
That seemed to settle the debate, and before Harry knew it, he was led off the ship along with Padmé, the man in brown robes, and the rubbish-bin-shaped robot. From what Harry could see of their current location, they seemed to have landed in this planet's equivalent of the Sahara; sand dunes stretched as far as the eye could see and two suns (TWO SUNS!) made sure the temperature never dipped below scorching.
The wave of heat that hit Harry as he stepped out of the ship was very uncomfortable for someone used to Scotland's climate, so he didn't hesitate to raise the hood of his cloak, use a colour-changing charm to turn it white, and layer a couple cooling charms over it. That done he followed his travelling companions as they set off into the desert.
-HPatF- -HPatF- -HPatF-
To say Harry was overwhelmed was, to put it bluntly, stupendously understating matters. He had been expecting to meet aliens eventually (they came with the territory of spaceships after all), but actually walking into a town full of them was a different matter. In many ways, Harry felt as if he was once again taking his first tentative steps into Diagon Alley.
Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be something else odd to see: a floating car here, a new alien there, and the occasional spaceship flying overhead. At one point they stopped in the street to let a three-meter tall, vaguely camel-shaped creature that had obviously escaped its rider pass; it was only after they had set off again that Harry realised what he had thought was a simple steed could well have been a sentient individual, and what he had taken for a saddle a backpack.
Harry didn't let any of his childish wonder show on his face though; even he, naive to the ways of this world as he was, could tell this wasn't exactly a nice place to be. The rundown feel of the place, grimaces (or what looked like them) on passer-by's faces, and the general abundance of weapons made it quite clear this wasn't an ideal holiday destination. Thankfully three humans and a robot didn't draw too much attention. Only the fact that their clothes were of unusually high quality seemed to warrant any notice, and even then, only barely; travellers were common enough in these parts, it seemed. He was very glad he had his wand in its holster and the Sword of Gryffindor on his hip.
They had already spent an hour searching through what could charitably be called spare parts dealers; most would call them junk shops. They were about to enter their third 'establishment' of the morning when Harry froze mid-stride and turned around sharply. Something out there was calling to him, or more precisely Force was telling him to go somewhere. He turned back to his travelling companions only to find the man in brown robes looking at him intently while Padmé alternated between the both of them, confusion on her face. The man gave him a deliberate nod and gestured in the direction Force had indicated before turning back to the shop he was about to enter. Padmé protested when she realised Harry was about to leave them, but the man silenced her with a calm remark; she didn't look happy about it, but she didn't protest again.
Absently noting that it seemed he wasn't the only one who had a connection to Force, Harry drew his wand and cast a quick point-me spell. Thank Merlin for intent-based magic!
-HPatF- -HPatF- -HPatF-
Harry scrunched his eyebrows in confusion as his spell once again confirmed he was in the right place. After two hours of puzzling through the god-forsaken back alleys of this blasted sand-city, and fighting off three separate mugging attempts, he had finally reached his destination. Unfortunately, that destination turned out to be another random alley that was indistinguishable from the others; both Force and his spell were clear though, he was in the right place.
Seeing nothing better to do, Harry sat in the doorway of a decrepit building, pulled his invisibility cloak from where it was concealed on his back, and draped it over himself. Minutes began to tick by as nothing happened, but he remained alert with wand in hand.
After he had been sitting there for so long that the two suns had moved and cast the alleyway into shadow, laboured breathing and heavy footfall alerted Harry to someone's approach. At one end of the alley, an alien appeared; with sapphire-blue skin, two tentacles sticking out the back of her bald head, and half-lemon-shaped lumps for ears, she certainly stood out, even in the plain grey robe she wore.
Without pause, the alien turned down the alley Harry was sitting in and continued running, only to skid to a halt as a floating bike shot across the opening and blocked her exit. A single figure encased from head-to-toe in armour dismounted and readied himself to fight. The alien woman, who appeared no older than seventeen, turned to flee, only to halt again when two reptilian figures and a rather hairy alien appeared at the other end of the alley panting for breath; seeing they had her trapped seemed to give the trio a second wind.
Still breathing heavily and visibly exhausted, the blue alien didn't hesitate in drawing her weapon, a green laser-sword. Harry was surprised; he had seen the two men in brown robes wielding such weapons, but from what he had gathered they seemed rather uncommon and looked rather expensive.
The two reptilians pulled out metal nets while the hairy one fished a thick metal collar from a bag on his hip and held it open in one hand while he drew a laser-gun with the other; they began taunting and laughing as they edged closer. The figure in armour also started to advance as the blue woman began to look increasingly nervous. Seeing a nozzle of some sort appear out of the arm of the armoured figure spurred Harry to action; whatever that did couldn't be good.
Moving quickly, Harry stood and fired two overpowered cutting curses at the exposed necks of the reptilians, beheading them both; now wasn't the time to risk a stunning spell possibly having no effect. Then, before his invisibility cloak had completely fallen from his shoulders, he spun to face the armoured figure just in time to raise a shield against the wall of flame being sent towards him; thankfully he remembered to extend the shield to protect the alien lady from the fire.
The sound of the hairy alien's laser-gun and the blue alien's laser-sword echoed behind Harry as he held the shield. The moment the flames died down Harry shot a banishing charm at the figure, sending him flying down the alley and into a wall with a heavy thud. Seeing that the armoured attacker was apparently unconscious, and applying a stunner to be sure, he turned to check on the woman only to find her watching him with her laser-sword dangerously close to his neck; behind her, the hairy alien lay missing both his arm and his head.
The woman said something harshly, probably demanding he identify himself. Harry shrugged, "I'm sorry, but I can't understand a word you're saying." Without waiting for her reply, he backed away and went to check on the figure he had stunned; the alien watched him warily but didn't move to stop him. He was relieved to find a human woman when he removed the helmet and, after taking a moment to steady himself, cast a rennervate followed immediately by a legilimency probe.
Harry had to bite his tongue to stop himself from beheading the woman; the things he had seen in her mind were, in short, horrific. Instead, he re-stunned her and took her laser-gun before using a simple accio to gather all of the golden coins both the dead aliens and the stunned woman had on them into the extended bag on his hip. Then he turned his attention to the blue alien, who was watching him wide-eyed while she kept her laser-sword at the ready.
Harry held up his hands in a placating gesture while he thought over what he had gathered about the blue girl before him. If he understood what he had seen in the mind of the armoured woman, the blue alien was either the apprentice or adopted daughter of a human man that had been captured by the woman's boss… who appeared to be a giant slug. Said giant slug ran a gang or crime syndicate of some sort and was greatly feared. Why that was Harry couldn't imagine; surely it would be easy for some high-level enforcer to kill the creature and take over its operations?
Pulling himself out of that mental rabbit hole, Harry re-focused on the alien in front of him and considered her for a moment. An awkward silence hung in the air as both parties stared at each other in silence, considering their options, until Harry let out a sigh. Moving in an almost resigned manner, Harry mounted the floating bike and gestured to the blue girl to join him. She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it abruptly and, after her own heavy sigh, climbed onto the bike behind him.
After some fiddling, Harry was able to get the bike and set off. Thankfully, the armoured woman had been to the slug's main lair many times, so he knew where he was going… roughly.
AN:
There we have it, chapter 2. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Once again, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!