Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Power Rangers.

Chapter 3, In Which Things Start to Happen

Harry groaned as he stood and stretched from his kneeling position off to one side of the Command Center. With Zordon's permission, a quick bit of teleportation courtesy of Alpha, and some wandless Transfiguration, Harry had turned a small pile of stones from the mountains outside into a richly colored wooden door and frame that he then stuck to the wall with a wandless sticking charm. After unsticking a few of his fingers, Harry had then spent the next while inscribing various runes all over the frame. A task that he had just finished, much to his satisfaction.

"What precisely is it that you are attempting, young Harry?" Zordon asked, confusion and curiosity dancing in his eyes as Harry had refused to explain his actions thus far, preferring to surprise the kindly wizard.

"That would be telling, Zordon," Harry smiled. "Besides, I'm still not completely sure this will work yet. While the theory is sound and the instructions are all up here," he tapped the side of his head for emphasis, "I've never actually had cause to try this before. Much less without a wand to help focus the energies and carve the runes as I was taught."

"Well," Alpha interrupted, shuffling closer with a strange device in hand. "The energy readings for that particular section of the wall have certainly shifted since you stood. In fact, the readings indicate there is some kind of additional space there now!"

"Most interesting, Alpha," Zordon commented before turning back to Harry. "I assume this was your intention all along?"

Harry, somewhat reassured by Alpha's analysis, nodded. "Yes, Zordon, it was. The runes I inscribed into the doorframe serve a few simple purposes. Firstly, they have expanded the small space between the door and the wall so that there should now be a moderately sized room there. The runes also put up a kind of cloaking field, we call it a Notice-Me-Not ward back home, which will prevent those who do not know about the door already from realizing that it's there without outside prompting. Finally, the runes increase the durability of the frame as a whole, preventing any unexpected damage that may cause the entire ward scheme to collapse which would be rather disastrous for anyone and anything in the room during said collapse."

"I see," Zordon nodded, an action that still befuddled Harry. "So you plan on staying in this room you have created during your time here? I must say that this will most likely be more suitable than anything else we can provide you with. Though I feel I must ask why you have chosen to hide it. There are none who can come in here other than the three of us and the Rangers."

"Precisely," Harry nodded, a somewhat grim look on his face. "While I appreciate all you are doing for me Zordon, I don't know or trust your Rangers yet. And with the way Red was acting towards me, I think I am more than justified in taking a few precautions. Just in case of course."

The floating head let out a sigh. "I suppose I can understand your caution, though I hope that in time you will come to trust and understand them."

Harry shuffled his feet a bit. "Perhaps eventually Zordon, but not for a while. I did just come out of a magical war and being wrongfully imprisoned by the very people I fought to save after all. Events like that tend to bring about a surprising amount of paranoia." Being trained by Mad Eye Moody had that effect on people too, but the reference wouldn't make any sense to Zordon so Harry didn't mention it.

"I thank you for your consideration Harry." Zordon smiled before nodding toward Harry's door. "So, should we look upon the fruits of your labor? Alpha's analysis indicates that it worked, but I would still like to see it for myself."

With a smile, Harry turned back to his project and placed one hand on the doorknob. "Sure, let's see how I did then." Without further delay, Harry opened the door to reveal an area around ten feet by ten feet with walls, floor, and ceiling of the same black as the walls in the main part of the Command Center.

"Brilliant," Harry smiled again. "Now all I'll have to do is transfigure a few more things, probably a bed and a table… and perhaps a trunk or a dresser, and I'll be all set."

"Indeed," Zordon agreed. "That is certainly impressive for eighteen hours of work. It's like nothing I've ever seen done before. Truly your magic is a thing of wonder, Harry."

Harry had stopped listening shortly after Zordon started speaking. "Hang on a second," Harry turned back from what would become his room in the Command Center. "Did you say eighteen hours? I've been working on this for eighteen hours?" Harry's stomach chose that moment to let out a loud protest at its empty state accompanied by a jolt of pain that brought the wizard's hands across his abdomen. "Oh dear Merlin… I can't believe it just hit me how hungry I am…"

Zordon looked slightly taken aback, "My apologies Harry. I had not considered your need to eat and believed you were aware of the time that had passed."

Harry shook his head, standing straight again once the initial pain had faded. "It's not really your fault. I suppose I just got carried away in my work and lost track of time… What time is it anyway? And I suppose I should ask the date as well."

"It is currently slightly after noon on Saturday, August the fourteenth in the year 1993."

Harry's eyes widened. Not only had he traveled to a different dimension, but apparently he had traveled back in time nearly five years. As Harry calmed himself he realized that that didn't really matter though. With the way things were looking, magic as he knew it didn't exist in this dimension. So there was fairly little possibility that his time travel would mean much of anything substantial besides shock value. He supposed he must look fairly grown for someone who shouldn't be older than thirteen.

Harry's musing was once again interrupted by his stomach. "Well, I appreciate the information Zordon, but I don't suppose I could trouble you or Alpha for a sandwich or something could I?"

-MR-

As it turned out, there was absolutely nothing edible in the Command Center. What with Alpha being a robot and Zordon being a trans-dimensional being caught in a time warp and therefore beyond the need for physical sustenance, and that was besides the fact that he wasn't physically in the Command Center to being with, there had never been a need to keep food around. Even after the current crop of Power Rangers had been brought into service the team hadn't spent any significant amount of time there and so there hadn't been cause for a trip to the grocery.

In the end they had decided that the only two options available were to contact the Rangers and ask one of them to bring something or for Harry to get something himself. Since Harry didn't exactly know or trust the Rangers as of yet, not to mention the sheer level of awkwardness involved in the situation, off it was to Angel Grove, California.

So it was that Harry found himself materializing in a flash of light in a somewhat secluded copse of trees in the middle of Angel Grove Park. The first thing Harry did was transfigure his outer robe into something slightly more muggle, in this case a dark colored lightweight jacket to wear over his t-shirt, before stepping out of the trees, tucking the Cloak of Invisibility into a pocket as he did.

Almost immediately Harry's eyes and ears were assaulted by the overbearing colors and sounds of the carnival that was set up in a large open area in the heart of the park. He couldn't help but smile at the sights and sounds of the rides and games accompanied by the smiles and laughter of the citizens of Angel Grove enjoying their weekend outing.

Once more, Harry's stomach let him know of its unhappiness. "Alright, alright," Harry murmured. "Let's see about getting something to eat. Though I doubt carnival food is the healthiest thing around, it will certainly do for now. And it can't possibly be worse than the prison rations I was getting before my trip through the Veil… But how to go about it…"

With a moment of focus, Harry cast a wandless summoning charm specifically aiming to gather loose and lost change and money from around the park, only realizing his minor mistake when he was pelted with numerous small metal coins mere moments later. Once the barrage ended, Harry looked at the ground around him and picked up the few paper bills that were there, struggling to remember what little he had learned about American money in his lifetime, before setting off with just over fifteen dollars in cash and on a mission for food.

A short while later, with a hotdog in his belly and sipping on a soda, Harry found himself wandering the carnival and enjoying the sights. From what he had been able to gather, the entire thing had been set up practically overnight and everything from admission to the rides and various performances from the numerous clowns was free. Everything that is, except for the food. Somehow Harry felt that he had gotten cheated when he spent nearly all his money on a single hotdog and his drink.

As he walked past a merry-go-round, his internal musings on the insanity of carnival food were interrupted by a female voice. "Sylvia!" Harry's head turned to his right in time to see a teenage girl with Asian features, medium length dark hair, and dressed in a yellow shirt with a tan vest and shorts jog past while looking around frantically. "Sylvia, where are you?!"

Harry immediately felt the resurgence of what Hermione had always called his "saving people thing" and made his way over to the distressed girl. "Excuse me, miss" he said, smiling slightly when she whipped her head around to face him, her eyes widening slightly when she caught sight of him. "Is everything alright, miss?"

Whatever had caught the girl off guard was quickly overcome with a small shake of her head. "I'm looking for my younger cousin. She wandered off with one of the clowns. I think his name was Pineapple, and I can't find either of them anywhere!"

"Well, that's no good…" Harry mused before finishing his drink and tossing the empty cup in a nearby trash can. "What does she look like, maybe I can help find her."

After only a moment of hesitation, the girl gave a quick description of her cousin, as well as the clown she had been with, and the two set off in opposite directions with the intention of meeting back at the merry-go-round in fifteen minutes to regroup.

After ten minutes of searching with no sign of the girl or the specific clown, Harry could feel his unease growing. The entire situation was setting off his keenly honed sense of danger. The unexpected arrival of the carnival. The fact that nearly everything was free but nobody knew who was funding it. The overabundance of clowns. Especially the clowns. Throw in a missing child and something wasn't quite adding up.

When the fifteen minutes passed, Harry made his way back to the merry-go-round only to see no sign of the girl in yellow. Settling in to wait, Harry only felt his unease grow as he caught sight of a clown working his way through the crowd. Oh sure, he looked just like any other of the numerous clowns at this particular carnival, but something didn't quite feel right about any of them. Maybe it was the way they moved with slightly jerky steps and partially hunched over. Perhaps it was the way their faces always seemed to be in a perpetual frown. Whatever it was, these clowns were seriously setting Harry on edge, but the other carnival goers seemed none the wiser.

It wasn't much longer before Harry caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and caught sight of the girl he had been waiting for, but she was running toward the far side of the carnival and appeared to be carrying some kind of cardboard cutout. Curiosity filling him once more, Harry moved quickly to catch up, but not so close as to be easily noticed. Something was definitely wrong with this place.

The girl was heading straight for one of the rides, this one a giant spinning swing set, before changing course slightly and running up to a group of four people just getting off of it. One was a taller, muscular teen wearing a pair of red track pants and a red tank top. The next was a girl slightly shorter than the one in yellow wearing blue jeans and a striped pink shirt. Then there was an African American teen wearing black pants and a black and yellow striped shirt. Finally, there was a teen with glasses wearing blue coveralls over a blue and white striped shirt.

The girl in yellow brought the cutout to the four, who must have been friends of hers, and said something to them, apparently in distress, which caused them all to tense up. After a few moments of talking amongst themselves, the girl in yellow ran off with the cutout again and the other four moved over to where one of the carnival workers was announcing some of the upcoming attractions. Without a moment's hesitation, the teen in red took the megaphone the worker had been using and began his own announcement. "Attention everyone! Get out! Rita's attacking the park! It's a trap!"

If the actions of the teen wasn't enough to confuse Harry, the fact that every single person in the carnival immediately began running out of the park completely threw him for a loop. If someone had done this back home, they would have been laughed at and the people would have gone about their day. Most times it took live spellfire before the average Diagon alley shopper would even take notice of a confrontation going on.

As Harry watched, crouching slightly behind a horse on yet another merry-go-round to help avoid being noticed, the teen gave the worker his megaphone back, at which point the man joined the crowd running out of the park, before he and his three friends started waving and encouraging the other carnival patrons as they fled. This was yet another strange occurrence that nobody seemed to object to. Why weren't these four leaving too?

And then Harry heard the one in blue speak. "Bipedally ambulate to the nearest convenient outlet!"

Oh good grief. Why hadn't he figured it out sooner? The fact that there were five of them. They each wore their signature colors: Yellow, Red, Pink, Black, and Blue. They weren't joining the crowd in running from the danger they had just announced. When the one in blue spoke he used words big enough to cause Harry's brain to overload and have to reboot... Those five had to be the Power Rangers!

But how? They looked to be younger than Harry himself. What was Zordon playing at, bringing kids into his war? He really couldn't say much on the topic truthfully since Dumbledore had done much the same thing to Harry and his friends, but…

It was definitely something that he would have to bring up with him once he returned to the Command Center.

Before Harry realized it, the entire crowd, save for the four teens that Harry believed to be the Power Rangers, had left the park, making it more than obvious when the numerous clowns began to gather around them. Still too far away to hear what they were talking about, Harry could only watch as, in a flash of light, all but one of the clowns changed. Their once bright and colorful suits changed to a dark grey with a few black streaks across them and their faces and hands became disfigured and heavily wrinkled with their entire facial structure set in a deep scowl. Though the effect was truly ruined by the fact that several of them still wore the brightly colored ruffs they had had on in their clown disguises.

As Harry watched, the grey skinned figures closed in around the four teens before Blue was led away by the one clown that stayed looking like a normal clown, if a bit more creepy than the others had been. As the three remaining teens fought against the approaching creatures, Harry moved off toward where Blue had disappeared after the one remaining clown. He had a feeling that that one was the source of all the weirdness going on.

-MR-

"Now, if I were a creepy clown guy, where would I be?" Harry mused to himself. He had lost track of Blue and the clown fairly quickly, though that wasn't surprising since he was trying to stay hidden at the time which severely limited his mobility. At this point, he was simply wandering around back toward the center of the carnival, hoping to catch sight of something.

"Hey!" a voice shouted, and Harry turned quickly to find himself facing another clown, though not the one that Blue had been following. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey there mate." Harry responded, keeping himself prepared in case this clown ended up being like all the others in this cursed carnival. "I was just wondering where everyone went. I mean I stepped into the loo for one minute and now the place is empty."

The clown's eyes narrowed and he stepped toward Harry. "I think you need to get out of here kid, before something bad ends up happening to you."

Harry scowled slightly. "You know mate, if I didn't know any better I'd say that was a threat."

"You'd be right about that." the clown said before he was engulfed in a flash of light, revealing him to be yet another of the grey skinned beings that all the rest of the clowns had been. This time, Harry was close enough to hear the constant, high pitched mumbling noise it was making.

"What in the name of Merlin's ghost are you?" Harry asked, back-stepping a bit.

The figure only crouched down and continued to advance, his arms held up threateningly.

"Look mate," Harry said, still backing up as he brought his magic to the surface, prepared to cast if needed. "I don't want to have to hurt you, but I will if I must. Believe me, you don't want any of what I can do, so why don't you just go rejoin the rest of your buddies fighting those teens on the other side of the park, eh?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say as the creature perked his head up before his perma-scowl seemed to deepen and he lunged forward, grabbing Harry by the shoulders before he could react and hurling him through the air to crash into a trash barrel more than fifteen feet away.

"Oh you like jokes then, is that it?" Harry growled as he climbed back to his feet. "I suppose that makes sense, seeing as you were dressed as a clown and all. Well, why don't you try this on for size? Tarantallegra!" Harry pointed at the creature allowing the bolt of off-white magical energy to emerge from his fingertip and wash over his target, immediately showing its effect as the being's legs began jerking around uncontrollably causing it to fall over almost instantly.

"Well," Harry said as he clenched his hand to fight off his own rapidly flexing muscles, "it's good to see you guys are still vulnerable to my magic. That's something at least."

Just as Harry was about to leave the incapacitated former clown, he heard another shout from behind him. "Hey, are you alright?" Turning, Harry caught sight of Blue jogging up to him, unable to keep his eyes away from the form jerking on the ground beyond Harry. "What happened to that putty?"

"Putty?" Harry asked, confused, "You mean they grey skinned clown guy? They're called putties?"

"Of course." the boy answered, adjusting his glasses as he continued watching the writhing putty. "They're basically the front line troops for Rita Repulsa, the evil sorceress who has been attacking Angel Grove for a while now. I guess you're new to town then?"

Oh, Harry thought, so that's the game he wants to play. Out loud, Harry answered, "Something like that. I've certainly never seen anything like these guys before, that's for sure."

Blue looked slightly uncertain for a moment, glancing rapidly between the incapacitated putty and Harry. "So… do you know what caused the putty's current condition?"

Harry raised one eyebrow before crossing his arms. "I might… Do you want to explain why you and your friends didn't run with the rest of the crowd after you told everyone that this place was a trap? Or would you rather keep on pretending that neither of us knows who the other is?"

Blue seemed to slump slightly. "I should have known that you would have figured it out eventually. Though I hadn't believed that you would have ascertained our identities as quickly as you did."

Harry blinked for a moment, mentally working through the statement before responding, "Yeah, it wasn't too hard to figure out when all the oddities were put together, though if I hadn't already met you guys in costume I might not have guessed so easily. It was actually your… ah… unique speech patterns that really tipped me off. You have a… very developed vocabulary and it's rather memorable."

The teen in blue just blushed awkwardly before holding out his hand. "I suppose reintroductions are in order. My name is Billy Cranston, secretly the Blue Mighty Morphin Power Ranger."

Harry chuckled before taking Billy's hand and giving it a firm shake. "And I am Harry James Potter, Wizard from another dimension. And yes, I did use my magic on the putty over there. Honestly I was just glad it worked, I was more than a little afraid that my spells would be less than effective on them seeing as they are affiliated with another magic user."

Billy nodded, stroking his chin as he appeared deep in thought before he jumped. "OH NO! I have to get back to the others! I have to tell them about the clown I was following. It has some kind of powder that turns people into cardboard cutouts! I have to warn them!" And without another word, Billy took off running back toward where the other three had been left to fight off the putties.

With a sigh at Billy's impulsiveness, Harry took off after him, once more trying to stay unnoticed, but with a feeling deep in his gut that he was going to have to get involved in a rather large way fairly soon.

-MR—

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Tenstar12