Stick, Stone and a useless Tome
"I think I will not show up in the three broomsticks for a while." Harry said when he placed the thick book on Hermiones desk, his other hand still holding his head.
"I think I will not visit the magic botanical garden of Aberdeen anymore for ever." said Luna when she placed the broken Elder Wand on Hermiones desk.
Harry and Hermione were staring at Luna in utter disbelief.
"By Merlin, it is the real thing! I can hear it singing from here, although it is broken." Harry stared at the third deathly hallow, that he had casually broken and thrown away after it had caused so much sorrow and death in his first real battle. He had to sit down.
"Happy birthday Harry." Luna hugged Harry and sat on his lap. She whispered into his ear, "and I have a new core for it." She held a long white hair that seemed to be alive and shimmered with very strong magic, sometimes vanishing from sight. When it faded back into visibility she casted a Petrificus Totalus spell on it. The hair stopped moving and stood petrified in a perfect straight line of about a meter length.
"Harry, could you please take out the old core and hold it to this hair?" Harry followed without thinking. The two torn threads from Deaths cloak wound themselves around the unknown hair that Luna was holding. Luna picked one of her own hairs as well and she spelled the hairs to the same length and fused them to each other.
"Harry please hold the lower half of the Wand and let your magic flow through it to grip the new core and insert it into it."
As soon as Harry took hold of the broken lower half of the Elder Wand he could feel his magic flooding into the wood completely unhindered and it took him a lot of self control to not melt down his surroundings with a burst of uncontrolled magic. He could barely direct his magic to grab the new core in Lunas hand and integrate it into the bottom of the Elder Wand. He magically levitated the other half of it on top of the core and let it gently slide down. He felt the magic focus of the wand reform, but it was still taking a lot of effort to prevent it from blasting out like a whole bundle of howitzers.
Luna wrapped her hands around the wand and only Harry could hear her whispering "By the oath I gave I hereby pledge it to be fulfilled and reunite what was torn apart." Harrys vision vanished and he could suddenly see in Mage Sight™. While the world faded into black he could see magic itself as glowing threads of light. He could see that there was another glowing figure standing next to Luna. The figure picked two of the threads of magic that were emanating from Harry and Luna out of the air. It tied them together and then fixed them around its neck like a bright collar. The figure touched the Elder Wand and control flooded back into it. Harry could see that it became alive again and in his mage sight he could see that death and life now were at an equilibrium in the core of the former death stick. The four hairs that he could mage-see through the wood of the wand reminded him of colored snakes winding around each other, black, green, white and yellow. With that last glimpse the mage sight vanished.
Luna whispered into Harrys ears. "Harry, I gave you all the protection possible, you are the master of death again and a tool of Fate as well now and when the world is on the brink of destruction, it will be you who can bring it around again. And I can be with you as long as you like because I made you master of my fate as well. I have made a deal with Fate - she may be a bitch but she will keep her promise in the end."
Harry held Luna pressed to him as firm as he dared. "I will always be there for you Luna Lovegood Potter, my life is yours just like my love belongs to you."
"Did I mention already that my animagus form is a hare?" Luna asked Harry, now that she could concentrate on the more worldly implications of practically being married to the man of her dreams for a very very long time if not forever.
"Did I mention already that I mastered my third animagus form and it is a rabbit?" Harrys eyebrows were impersonating the suggestive mating dance of two caterpillars - however unfitting the metaphor might seem.
"Stop It Right There!" Hermiones voice interrupted whatever perverse tension had been building up between Harry and Luna.
"Believe it or not I am running out of places where I would not stumble upon my former self with all the short time turner trips of today. Can we please please please focus on the problem at hand?
"Problem?" Harrys voice had a dreamy note to it.
"Yes Harry. Hermione has a petrified boyfriend and is convinced that repairing the Veil will grant her access to a alien civilisation that has solved the problem of immortality by technical means, or alternatively by infecting him with an intelligent alien parasite that will convert him into a mindless youthfull fuckpuppet for her." Harry could hear Hermiones head hitting her desk in exasperation.
It took Harry a while to process all of this but then he got up with a determined spring in his demeanour.
"Well now that you asked so nicely for it, would you two please stand back? I always wanted to try out Lord Byrons enhanced amplifier, which I discovered in a library that had 'lost' its owner. Hemhem. And with my shiny old-new magic super-club, thank you Luna, I am convinced that I can produce some astonishing results or fire us back into the medieval age, lets see." Harry rolled his shoulders and streched his neck like a dueller getting into position. Both Luna and Hermione knew that Harry had collected the magic libraries of all the dark lords he had 'encountered' in the past 10 years and they both knew his talent was more on the not so delicate end of subtle to say it politely. They hurried away from him and the Veil and casted the strongest protection shield around them they knew, just in case.
Harry grabbed both of his wands, his phoenix feather wand pointed downwards where the complicated rune pattern of what he had called Lord Byrons enhanced amplifier began to expand itself in concentric, glowing circles. One could feel the magic from the ley lines under the Veil charging up until the air had an oily, metallic taste. Then he pointed the Elder Wand towards the stairs of the Veil. "RESTAURATIO!"
Luna and Hermione witnessed how the supercharged rune magic slammed back into Harrys phoenix wand and a bright spell, thick as a mans leg rushed from the Elder Wand into the socket of the Veil. The light was too bright to leave the eyes open and the crashing sound that came from the Veil made Hermione believe that Harry had screwed it now completely. It took a while until they could see again but with red blotches dancing in front of their eyes.
"Harry, can we agree to just not do something like Lord Byrons Enhanced Amplifier again?" Luna groaned.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I THINK I HAVE RUPTURED MY EARDRUMS, AND I THINK I AM BLIND!" Harry shouted to them. The front of whatever he had been wearing had been burned away, his hairs were smoking and he had the skin color of a typical english tourist after a week on a spanish nudist beach when finally sober enough to go to see a doctor. Hermione and Luna were already busy in applying healing charms on him and Hermione conjured a very light bathrobe for him to wear. Luna couldn't resist to shorten it until Harrys bum was showing.
"Bleargh, I hate healing potions." Harry stopped when he caught a first sight of what formerly had been the Veil of death. Instead of what they had believed to be made of heavily weathered stone, stood a shiny, new metallic ring with glowing control lights and an entryway made out of a strange metal. The mystic, milky energy pane that had given the Veil its name was gone and one could see through to the other side of Hermiones laboratory to the strange ramp that had been the former stone foundation of the whole Veil.
Luna was the first to throw one of her conjured animals of menace through the ring. The red eyed, sharp toothed guinea pig passed the circle pane without hindrance but loads of angry noises, only when she conjured it back it vanished in mid air, leaving only a cut off angry shreek hanging in the room.
The three rounded the ring, carefully avoiding to touch anything too close to the inner pane. On the other side of the ring the Veil was visible again, but it looked more like a fancy swimming pool with rippling lights playing on its surface giving it an almost artificial look like a special effect in an old science fiction movie.
They were discussing what to do now when suddenly Lunas conjured guinea pig rolled out of the Veil. Someone had used cable ties to fixate its legs and a small adhesive tape held its mouth shut. A note on a small piece of paper was attached to it that read "Hahaha, superfunny! Stay back, we're coming through." There was a little blood on the paper.
"Ahem, I would say that this is an unexpected development." Harry scratched his still smoking hairs. "Luna and Hermione would you mind staying under the invisibility cloak until we have a little more information about what is going on and who is coming through?" Harry vanished the conjured evil guinea pig, leaving him with the paper in the hand standing in front of the Veil. Shortly after Hermione and Luna had become invisible a man in an military uniform stuck his head out of the Veil. "Carter that was - oh shit!" he had obviously spotted Harry who stood in front of the Veil in his way too short bathrobe. The man stepped through, he was heavily armed and two other men followed him, both in military attire but only one of them carrying another weapon or at least a mean looking stave.
"Hello there! My name is Commander Jack O'Neil from Earth and who might you be and why are you throwing fierce guinea pigs at us? And where is the little rascal, it is scaring my men." The other armed soldier raised a finger that had a small band aid with smiley faces on it.
"Oh, I am Harry Potter from Omicron Persey Eight, and we have called you to replace our men that are too weak reproduce. You will be sex slaves to the many voluptuous women of this planet until you will perish of sexual exhaustion at grand age and wealth!"
"Hahaha!" O'Neil turned back to his armed comrade. "That seals it. I give this a full 10 on the weirdness scale, Teal'c you won! I knew it that this would be a full Star Trek flashback when I saw this guy standing there in a Mini skirt moonshining us and his willy dangling out!" The soldier grinned and gave Harry the thumbs up.
"Ok, lets cut the crap short. I am absolutely not convinced that this is not Earth, you Sir have a british accent and a bad taste in clothing so we must be in London or in Berlin, but I would bet all my money on England. How the hell did you kickstart a Stargate without a control terminal additionally you have a bidirectional one and where did you get it from? And don't believe I forgot my question about the guinea pig." The big guy raised his injured finger again to emphasize the importance of the question.
Hermione appeared from under the invisibility cloak. "I am sorry for the strange welcome Mr. Commander O'Neil, but you must see that we did not expect what happened here. We activated the 'Stargate' by accident. How about we let Harry change into something more suitable and I will serve butter scones and coffee. My name is Hermione Granger and yes, we are in central London."
"For heaven's sake, woman! You cannot appear out of thin air and expect me to not ask questions. Where did you - No, let me rephrase that, how did you do that? And yes butter scones and coffee sounds lovely. I would even trade the guinea pig riddle for an answer to my last question." O'Neil grinned a boyish grin.
Luna appeared as well. "I think I would like to take part in that chat as well. I'll get Harry and the coffee."
"Dr. Jackson, please watch that spot over there closely, it produces stunning beauties out of thin air. If you find the secret I want one in my office." Dr. Jackson just rolled with his eyes and addressed Hermione.
"I would like to add another question, how can you 'accidentally' kickstart a device that uses the energy of two nuclear reactors to power up? Or do you have a Naquadah reactor?"
"Hermione, I can guarantee that you throw the best parties ever. I've not had this much fun since Harry leveled the Nundu Pit in Shangri La." Luna had brought coffee, cookies and a clothed Harry with her.
Inevitably the questions started again.
"You have been to Shangri La?" asked Dr. Jackson.
"What's a Nundu?" asked Commander O'Neil.
"I thought you said that you left the place unharmed, Harry?" asked Hermione.
"Would it be presumptuous if I asked if you have Tea as well?" was the first thing the large soldier with the band aid said.
"Yes. A vicious and deadly beast. I said almost. And yes, would you like milk or sugar with it? This is my life mate Luna Lovegood. Are you from America?" Harry seemed to enjoy this exchange way too much.
"No sugar, just a drop, nice to meet you Miss Lovegood and no, I am a Jaffa from the planet Chulak, my name is Teal'c, nice to meet you Miss Hermione and Mr. Potter." Teal'c answered.
"YES! I new it!" Hermione fist pumped the air.
"What?" O'Neil was the first one to give up following their silly game of answering all questions in a row.
"Spoilsport!" Dr. Jackson said disappointed. "This was an almost 100% efficient exchange of vital information until you broke the chain."
"So you must be the scientist, this is your Commander and this is the nice but efficient brute? Would you mind sitting next to me Dr. Jackson?" Hermione conjured a comfy looking couch and a table where Luna put the cookies and the Coffee. "I am the scientist, Luna is the crazy but genius sidekick and Harry is our good looking brute." Luna, who had already began to drink her coffee spluttered in her cup.
-...-
A phone call, some non disclosure agreements and even more butter scones later they came to the inevitable demonstration phase.
"So if magic is real, can you please give us a demonstration? And I mean the real stuff, not mind reading, neither advanced beaming technology nor alien creatures or anything that a high powered, super focused energy device could muster? I must warn you, I have a scientist and I will use him." Commander O'Neil was obviously a man who trusted his senses and Dr. Jackson.
The three wizards went silent. "That's a tricky one then I guess." Harry said.
"Oh come on, I am disappointed in both of you." Luna berated her two friends. She got up, grabbed Commander O'Neil and slung a Time turner around both of their necks. She waited in this position until both of them appeared through the Veil, both had a popsicle from Fortescues Ice Cream Parlour in their hands. O'Neil gave himself a thumbs up. "Whatever she tells you, don't try the greyisch brown ones!" Luna took that moment to give their time turner a twist, leaving the rest of them in a thoughtful silence for a moment.
"Now, since that is settled I guess we could visit one of your alien places?" We have a very dear friend who is currently almost dead who could use a visit to a healing sarkophage like the one you mentioned that Apophis was using. His name is Sherlock Holmes." The time turner journey returned Luna continued.
"Now I know that you are bulshitting us!" Dr. Jackson called out. "Everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes is a made up character by the Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! He was the hero of an old book series and lately he was featured in a contemporary TV series. The guy who plays him is called Cucumberpatch something."
"That's him, playing an actor who is maniacally obsessed with playing Sherlock Holmes in a mediocre TV Series. It was a disguise necessary to distract his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty. He stopped acting when Harry Potter and John Watson obliterated Moriarty one day." Hermione explained.
"Why does he get a TV Series and me not?" Harry asked in mocked consternation.
The three guests from the stargate went very silent.
"Well Harry, you see, there are books and films about you in the mundane world, they are even quite famous, I guess the publishing number of your books come only second to the bible …" Dr Jackson was answering hesitantly, like if he was not sure of what would happen next.
"WHAT!" Harry cried out. "I sued the hell out of all these Harry Hero Children's Books! It took me almost a year to vanish all of them!"
"Weeell, maybe you should have done that in the 'mundane' world as well?" Commander O'Neil was enjoying all of this way too much since he had learned the the wizards were calling non-magic people 'Squibs' or 'Muggles'.
They were interrupted by another man who stepped through the Veil.