DISCLAIMER: IF I OWNED THESE, MASS EFFECT 3 WOULD HAVE A BETTER ENDING, AND HARRY WOULD NOT BE PAIRED WITH GINNY

Hey guys! I am just going to clarify something I have been getting some questions about before I dive into the chapter. People keep asking where in the Mass Effect storyline this is, so here is the dates:

2154 - Birth of Shepherd

2157 - The First Contact War

2163 - Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Luna Lovegood arrive in Omega (all aged around 23 (Luna) or 24 (Harry and Hermione))

(This makes Shepherd 9 years old. The events of the first Mass Effect game are set in 2183 (HP+HG will be 44, LL will be 43, and Shep will be 29. REMEMBER HG, LL, and HP don't age)

Now that that is cleared up... ON TO THE STORY!

Harry scowled as he sat there reading over the list of illegal goods they had compiled from the warehouses they'd raided. Aria sat across the room, teaching Hermione how to use an omni-tool, and in the process, transferring the contents of Kyril's bank accounts to an account for Hermione and Harry. She had decided to not take any of the profits this time as an act of good faith, but as she would tell the pair later, she expected her cut of the profit after anything on HER station.

Once the trio finished, they retired for the night, Hermione and Aria falling into a deep slumber, while Harry descended deep into his mind.

IN HARRY'S MIND

Harry walked towards the path leading up to his castle on the mountain, but stopped when he felt a strong magical presence behind him. He spun on his heel, building up energy in his palms as he prepared to defend himself, if necessary. He came face to face with a greyish-white fog. Backing up, he felt the cloak of invisibility fall around his shoulders, as the elder wand slid into his hand. He looked at his hand in surprise, and caught a glint of gold on his finger. Turning his hand, he saw that the resurrection stone was set into a golden band on his right ring finger. Looking back towards the fog, Harry was it condensing and swirling together, lightning arcing around in it the closer it got to the center.

(If you have ever seen the movie, 'Clash of the Titans' (2010), I visualized this like how Hades appeared in the throne room and revealed how he planned to release the Kraken)

A dark figure appeared in the smoke, robes trailing behind him as he slowly approached. Harry could not discern a visible gender, nor any significant facial features. Harry backed up, retreating up the path to his castle as he caused gates made of pure magical energy to form between the figure and himself. Still backing up, Harry gasped when he saw the figure pass through the gates as though they were not there. With a crack, Harry appeared on the walls of his castle, intent on seeing if the figure would get past his defenses.

There was no sign of the man on the slopes of the mountain, almost as if he had just vanished. There was a rustle of cloth behind Harry, as Harry spun on his heel to gaze upon the figure once more. Harry, beginning to panic, tried to force the figure back to the bottom of the mountain. Harry felt himself begin to heat up, as he channeled all the magical energy he could into relocating the foreign presence. WIth a final push, Harry forced all of his remaining power into the task, and felt himself begin to succeed, but then the figure re-asserted themselves with a massive rush of power that overwhelmed Harry.

As a last ditch effort, Harry forcibly ejected himself from his mindscape, running from the power of the figure who could best him in a place where he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. As he left his mindscape, Harry was left with a few parting words, that both mystified, and scared him, although he wasn't quite sure why.

'Soon, I will...'

OUTSIDE HARRY'S MIND

Harry woke up in a cold sweat, taking large gasps as he felt the rush of adrenaline in his limbs. Getting out of bed, Harry went to the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face. He looked in the mirror, but instead of seeing himself, he saw a shadowy figure wreathed in smoke. Harry backpedaled, falling backwards and cracking his head against the side of the cabinet. As he began to black out, Harry saw the figure approach him, stepping out of the mirror. It got closer, but just as he was about to grab Harry's throat, black tendrils flowed from the hand toward Harry. The last thing Harry heard before he blacked out was said in a raspy voice, and Harry had to strain to hear it.

'..escape, and I shall...'

OUTSIDE OF THE DREAM

Harry woke up screaming, clawing his way out of bed. Harry looked towards the bathroom warily, before cautiously approaching the mirror. When he saw his reflection, he sighed in relief, and let himself slump against the doorframe. He walked back into his bedroom, and after laying there for a few moments, concluded that he would be getting no more sleep. Making his way into the living room of his apartment, he sat down on his couch and turned on the television. he was about to put on a movie, when a noise from the screen caught his attention.

Glancing back at the screen, Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. There was a figure wreathed in smoke facing him on the screen. He jumped back, nearly falling over the couch in his effort to get away from the figure. This time the room was getting hot, as the figure rose out of the screen and approached Harry. he held a hand out, and before Harry could react, blew him back into the wall hard enough that Harry felt as though he had cracked his spine. Thick black tendrils of energy shot off of the figure and held Harry in the air as a black blade that glowed in the center with a orange fire formed in the right hand of the figure. He thrust it into Harry's stomach, and as he felt himself expire, Harry heard the figure speak, his voice raspy and harsh. The figure's eyes were now visible, one being blood red and the other a sickly orange.

'...have my Revenge!'

Harry felt the figure pull the sword out of his gut, and the last thing he saw was a blur of orange before he felt a sharp pain in his throat, and then everything went black.

THE REAL WORLD?

Harry shot up in bed, waking Hermione and Aria in the process. Hermione, recognixing the afteraffects of an induced nightmare after their horcrux hunt, cast a subtle charm that would slowly calm him down. Aria, on the other hand, was just sort of sitting there while trying to comprehend what was going on.

"Harry? What was it" Hermione asked softly, while gently hugging him from behind.

Harry stayed quiet for a second, still a bit shellshocked.

"I-I'm just not sure." he said, stumbling a bit at first.

Harry sent his memories of what happened over their mind-scape link to Hermione and Aria, while watching their reactions.

Aria adopted a curious look tempered with a bit of fear for what could of scared Harry fucking Potter. Hermione got that look that she did whenever she had a mystery to solve, and immediately began to start looking through the extranet on her omni-tool for any sort of reference to anything like the figure that Harry had encountered. Aria was looking as well, while Harry began to look through his books on magical creatures, as well as his personal memoirs that he wrote as a favor to McGonagall so they could have a record of what happened during the horcrux hunt. Hopefully one of them could figure out just who, or what, the figure was.

I KNOW THIS CHAPTER WAS EXTRA SHORT, BUT I AM REALLY BUSY WITH REAL LIFE AT THE MOMENT (PROJECTS WITH E-NABLE, BSA, VSA, CSA, WORK, MY EDUCATION, AND FAMILY STUFF. I AM TRYING TO POST AS OFTEN AS I CAN, BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE THE AUTHOR THAT PUTS QUANTITY OVER QUALITY IN THEIR WRITING. ANYWAY...

I AM CURIOUS WHAT YOU GUYS WILL THINK OF THE FIGURE. WHOEVER CAN GUESS THE CLOSEST GUESS TO WHO/WHAT IT IS GETS A SHOUTOUT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER.

PEACE OUT!

Read !

and !

Review !