A/N: Continuation of Chapters 54, 60 and 62.
Warnings: Harry/fem!Shep, Harry/Ashley Friendship, fem!Shep/Garrus friendship, implied Garrus/Tali, minor Harry Potter spoilers, DH & Epilogue Compliant, Alcohol Usage
"Hey, Potter!" exclaimed Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams as she neared the Silver Coast Casino bar.
"Blowing off steam LC?" Harry asked as he nursed his drink.
"Something like that," Williams replied. "So, is the future everything you thought it would be?"
"It's not something I really ever thought about, to be honest," Harry answered with a shrug, swirling his wine glass. "I was always too busy with the 'here and now' to give it much thought. Still don't, what about you?"
"Used to, not so much anymore," Ashley replied.
"What can I get for you?" asked the asari bartender.
"What are you having?" she asked Harry.
"Armali Sunberry Sangria," he answered. "Never been much for hard liquor."
Ashley smiled at Harry and turned to the bartender. "Batarian Ale." At Harry's surprised look, she shrugged and offered a smile. "They might be the bastards of the galaxy, but they've got good alcohol."
Harry nodded in acknowledgment.
"So, why don't you think of the future anymore?" Harry asked.
"You're kidding right?" Williams asked incredulously as she received her drink from the bartender.
Harry merely smirked before replying. "Humor me."
"The Reapers," Williams stated as if it should have been obvious. "It's hard to think of anything passed them. Any one of us, or even all of us, could die at any time. And if the Reapers themselves don't get us, they have all sorts of other things that could kill us, or worse, indoctrinate us."
Harry nodded taking a sip of his sangria.
"And even if we manage to beat them and survive, everything is going to be different," Ashley continued. "Different in ways we won't be able to comprehend until it's all over."
"Seven years." was all Harry said.
"What?" Lt. Cmdr. Williams asked.
"I felt that way for seven years," Harry clarified. "Before I was born, there was a wizard who, as a friend put it, 'went as bad as they could go'. Those who opposed him were either killed or enslaved and used to do his bidding. Those were dark times and people became so afraid that they were afraid to say this wizard's name."
"Who was he?" Ashley inquired.
"Voldemort," Harry replied. The name, for some unexplainable reason, sent a shiver down Ashley's spine. "Another wizard, who was said to be the only person that Voldemort ever feared, by the name of Albus Dumbledore received a prophecy-"
"A prophecy!?" Ashley exclaimed incredulously.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, a prophecy, are you going to let me finish or not?"
"Sorry," Ashley replied sheepishly.
"For what it's worth, I have never been completely convinced that Divination is a valid branch of magic, but I've seen and encountered too much to wholly discount it either," Harry admitted. "Anyways, Dumbledore received a prophecy that foretold the fall of the Dark Lord. Unfortunately, one of Voldemort's spies also managed to obtain a fraction of the prophecy and immediately reported it back to his master, much to his own regret later."
That caught Ashley by surprise. "What happened?"
"Voldemort immediately targeted two young couples, not too far out of school, that had been working to bring about his downfall," Harry replied.
"What made them stand out more than any of the others?" Ashley asked.
"They each had a newborn son born at the end of July," Harry answered.
Williams was horrified. "So he wasn't actually targeting the couples…"
"He was targeting their children." Harry finished her thought. "That he was going to be able to rid himself of four prominent members of a group that resisted his efforts to take over the Wizarding world was a bonus."
Ashley Williams was now in a bit of a quandary. It was obvious, but she felt as if she had to ask- the only thing is that she wasn't exactly sure how to ask, so she decided to be straight forward with her inquiry. "Were-"
"Yes." Harry interrupted, anticipating her question. "I was one of the prophecy children. To make a long story short, Voldemort managed to track down me and my parents the Halloween after my first birthday and murdered them."
"How did you survive?" Ashley asked.
"No one really knows," Harry said with a shrug. "But there was quite a bit of theorizing and guess work on the subject. Now, there are three spells that would earn a one way ticket to a life sentence in a Wizarding prison, often referred to as the Unforgivables- unforgivable because you have to cast them with clear intent to control, torture, or kill. After he killed my mother when she wouldn't get out of his way, he turned his wand on me and used the Killing Curse- only it didn't work as it should have. Instead of killing me, the curse rebounded and destroyed his body, leaving me with a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt."
He watched as Williams' eyes went involuntarily to his forehead, searching for evidence of a scar that wasn't there.
"That's one thing that differentiates me from, well, me," Harry informed her. "When Cerberus created me, they didn't recreate the scar." Harry chuckled mirthlessly. "It's kind of funny, when I think about it. That scar defined me for such a large portion of my life, that I hated it and would have done anything to be rid of it and now that it's gone…"
"You miss it." Ashley finished for him. Harry nodded in acknowledgment.
"Much like everything else from those days," Harry stated wistfully. "I found out when I was eleven that Voldemort wasn't as gone as everyone thought and from that moment on his shadow loomed over me and everything I did until I finally defeated him not long before my eighteenth birthday. I spent so much time during those years focusing on Voldemort that I didn't even know where to begin living my life after he was gone. If not for my friends, Ron and Hermione, I would never have even made it that far."
"What do you mean?" Ashley asked and for the first time, Harry hesitated.
"Voldemort was easily the greatest wizard of his generation and he'd forgotten more about magic that I could have ever hoped to learn by that point. And while I well above average in magical power, Voldemort's power dwarfed my own but a substantial margin," Harry answered. "Adding to that, my home life wasn't exactly pleasant." Ashley had a feeling that this was an understatement, but she didn't call him out on it. "I had pretty well convinced myself that I wasn't going to survive the war. It was only because of my friends that I was able to keep going. I was so afraid of what would happen to them if I died that I didn't- I couldn't, give up, even when I didn't even have a shred of hope left."
Harry sighed.
"I guess what I'm getting at, is that you can't let the Reapers be your sole focus in life," Harry told her. "If you do nothing but focus on how much greater they are than us, you lose all hope until there's nothing left and desperation is a poor substitute. It helps more than you think to believe in a 'happily ever after', no matter how unrealistic it is. If you completely give up on that, there's no telling what you'll be driven to do."
The haunted look in Harry's eyes shook Ashley to her core. She placed a hand on his shoulder.
Harry then smiled. "Sometimes, if you believe in it and want it enough, you can get that 'happily ever after'."
"Did you?" Ashley asked before she took a stout drink of her ale.
"Yeah. A beautiful wife and four of the best kids I could have hoped for," Harry told her with a nostalgic glint in his eye. "After Voldemort was dead, a lot of people half expected me to kind of fade into the background, or at the very least, that my days of chasing down dark wizards was over."
"But…"
"But despite it all, I got everything I ever wanted out of life and there was no way in hell I was going to let anything take that away from me," Harry replied with a fierce edge in his voice. "Ginny and Teddy saved me from myself that summer, so I became an Auror, a dark wizard hunter, so that I could better protect them and ensure that no one else had to lose their parents like Teddy and I had."
"I can see why the Illusive Man brought you back," the Lieutenant Commander commented.
The wizard looked at her strangely. "What do you mean?"
"When I really thought things through, it was fairly obvious why he would bring back the Commander," Ashley told him. "She is a natural leader. Not only can Shepard command troops, but she can inspire them so much that even when the odds aren't in her favor there isn't a single doubt in your head that she'd going to see things through to the end and come out on top and you're just like her."
"I'm just me, Ashley," Harry replied with a sigh.
"But that's just it, you're not," Williams insisted. "It doesn't matter if people are looking to you to be some sort of 'Chosen One' or 'Savior of Magic' or just a 'regular guy' who doesn't know when to give up; they all see the same thing."
"And what is that?" Harry inquired skeptically.
Undeterred by the Master of Death's skepticism, Ashley Williams pressed on. "A hero whose convictions are so ingrained into his very being that people just can't help but believe in him and all that he stands for, whether it's working towards the end of some dark wizard or ending the Reaper threat or something as simple as believing in 'Happily Ever Afters'. You make people believe and that inspires hope, hope that with people like you and Shepard on our side, there's no way we can lose."
"No pressure," Harry replied with a slight frown, when his communicator went off. Pressing the bud in his right ear, he responded. "Potter."
He then looked at Williams with a bewildered expression. "Shepard?" He then activated his omnitool and added the Lieutenant Commander to the call. "I've got Williams here with me, what's up?"
"You're not going to believe this…"
Harry let out a long suffering sigh. "How much?"
It was Ashley's turn to look at Harry with a bewildered expression.
"What?" Shepard asked in disbelief.
"I happen to know you were spending the day with Garrus on the Presidium, which means you or him dragged the other one into doing something crazy and since you're calling me, it means you got arrested and need me to post bail," Harry stated.
"You don't really think-" was all Ashley managed to say, before Commander Juliet Shepard interrupted her.
"Twenty thousand credits," Shepard replied. "A piece."
"Apparently being 'Savior of the Galaxy' doesn't mean as much as it used to," Harry quipped.
"Just what exactly were you two doing?" Lt. Cmdr. Williams asked incredulously.
"Just having a little friendly competition…" Shepard replied hesitantly.
"Oh, this should be good," Harry grinned.
"So are you going to come get us or not?" Shepard asked hotly.
"We're on our way," Harry responded. "But only on the condition you tell us the whole story when we get there.
"Fine," the Commander replied petulantly.
"I'm assuming I'll have to bail out your partner in crime too?" Harry asked. "Because I'm pretty sure Tali doesn't have twenty thousand credits lying around."
"If you could I'll owe you one," Shepard said with relief.
"More than one, I think," Harry replied. "See you in a bit, love."
And with that, the galaxy's only wizard and the second human Spectre cut the channel.
Turning to Williams, Harry asked with a smirk, "So… Do you think we should go and bail their asses out of jail now or finish our drinks and let them stew a bit? Either way, Jules isn't living this one down, ever."
"You know she's going to get you back for even suggesting that," Ashley said as she stared at her half empty glass for a moment, weighing their options. "I suppose a few more minutes couldn't hurt… But I'm blaming you if this comes back on us later."
"Noted," Harry replied then toasted. "To friends making stupid decisions."
"Cheers."
With that, the clinked their glasses together contemplating just exactly what Shepard and Vakarian were doing that their status as "Saviors of the Galaxy" couldn't keep them out of lock-up.