Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

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

Chapter 9, In Which Harry Shows What He's Made Of and Mysteries Abound

The mountains near Angel Grove were rather isolated all things considered. While not quite as mountainous as one would imagine, being more long sloping rocky hills and valleys with a few moderately high peaks here and there, it was largely inaccessible to all but the most devoted hikers or rock climbers. This was rather good as it was where Zordon had chosen to hide the Command Center. It also provided a decent staging area or battleground where Rita's various monsters could fight with the Power Rangers and their Zords without either side having to worry about buildings and the like getting in the way.

It was in one of these valleys that Rita had chosen for her trap.

The putties were sent in with Goldar who was immediately grown to giant size before he hid himself as best he could. When the Rangers arrived, already in morph, they began laying into the putties with ease. They clay soldiers were not much of a challenge to those empowered by the Morphing Grid, but they were decent shock troops and good for grunt work so they were used frequently.

Once the putties had been defeated, Goldar revealed himself and the Rangers called upon the Megazord to do battle against their already giant-sized foe. After a few short exchanges, Goldar vanished and Rita's trap was sprung.

The Green Ranger ambushed the Power Rangers. Using his Power Coin, he was able to gain access to their Megazord and not only kick them out of it, but deal a decent amount of damage before being forced to bail out himself. Once back on the ground, Green showed off his superior combat prowess, amplified by Rita's magic, to almost nonchalantly defeat each of the Rangers one by one.

Billy, Trini, Zack, and Kimberly were practically blown aside for all the difficulty that Green had when fighting them. It wasn't until Jason stepped up and challenged him to one on one combat in order for the others to have a chance to recover that there was any credible resistance.

The Red and Green Rangers fought fiercely, exchanging blows back and forth as the advantage in the battle changed sides frequently. After a few minutes of ducking under kicks, blocking or diverting punches, and occasional grapples, the other Rangers had mostly recovered, but were afraid to try and attack the somewhat distracted Green for fear of hitting Jason.

"Man, look at those two go!" Zack commented.

"Yeah, I've never seen Jason fight so hard against anyone." Billy nodded.

"Well," Trini started slowly, somewhat lost in though. "Harry told us that this guy is the one who trashed the Command Center, right?"

"That's right!" Kimberly responded, her eyes widening under her helmet. "So that means this guy is the one who got rid of Zordon!"

Trini nodded. "Exactly. I know that I'd fight harder knowing what he did to Zordon and Alpha. That's probably what's driving Jason right now."

Their conversation was interrupted as Green broke through Jason's guard and landed a fierce series of blows to his torso. Green followed it up with a kick that launched him through the air, hitting the ground and rolling to a stop a few feet from the rest of his team.

"And now, you're finished!" Green shouted before he brought his hands together by his shoulder in a cupping motion. The visor on his helmet flashed with a fierce, electric green light as a similar light appeared to gather in his cupped hands. With a flourish, Green brought his hands together in front of his chest, forming a glowing orb of energy with arcs of green electricity around it. Then, with a final cry of exertion, the evil Ranger thrust his hands forward, sending the pulsing projectile toward the Ranger team.

The resulting explosion was massive and damaging by all accounts, with arcs of fire shooting in all directions from the point of impact. Green began letting out a dark laugh at his apparent victory, but it trailed off when he didn't hear the expected cries of anguish or pain.

Slowly, the smoke cleared to show the Power Rangers cautiously standing from the cringed stances they had taken in preparation for the attack. Then, as the air cleared further, everyone's attention was caught by a plain, silver colored shield, a few feet in width across the top and with the sides sloping to a point three feet down. The object appeared metal as it floated seemingly without support just in front of Jason, having apparently blocked Green's magical attack.

"Sorry about that," a voice rang out across the otherwise unoccupied valley they had been fighting in. The collective Rangers, both good and evil, whipped their heads toward the noise, catching sight of Harry as he nonchalantly walked towards them. "I can usually make them more interesting to look at. The thing is though, embossing an emblem or what have you on the surface requires more concentration and I didn't have time to do much more than cast."

Harry stopped a short distance in front of Jason as his conjured shield floated around him before settling a few feet away from his left side. He let his eyes scan the Rangers before turning toward their opponent as he let a smirk stretch across his face. "Hey there green bean, ready for round two?"

Green let out another laugh. "You?" he taunted. "I already outmatched you in the Command Center, so what makes you think you can make any kind of a difference now?"

Harry held up us left hand, three fingers extended even as the silver shield floated upwards, following his arm's movement. "Three things, mate. First, I would hardly call our brief interaction in the Command Center a case of you outmatching me. If I'm not mistaken, you were the one who got kicked out and were unable to reenter." He lowered one of his fingers and continued. "Second, my fancy shield here did just stop your attack. And based on the amount of time and overelaborate gestures you put into it, it was supposed to be rather powerful." He lowered another finger. "And third, I have this now."

Without giving Green a change to comment, Harry whipped his right arm up, his new wand in hand, and sent a bright red bolt of magic at him. With an almost negligent move, Green stepped to one side, allowing the bolt to pass by him and explode on the valley wall some distance back. "You honestly think that a stick is going to help you beat me?"

Harry shook his head slowly, almost mockingly. "Not a stick, a wand. A focus for my magical power. You'll find I'm a bit more of a challenge when I'm not caught off guard and limited in spectrum."

"Well," Green took a fighting stance, his helmet faced firmly toward Harry. "We'll just have to see about that then, won't we?" Green shifted stance suddenly, allowing him to leap toward Harry with his arm drawn back for a punch, similar to his actions in the Command Center. This time though, especially with the greater distance between them, Harry had more time to react.

With an almost negligent wave of his wand, Harry sent out a banishing spell that caught Green in midair and immediately changed his trajectory. The evil Ranger went from an all-out aerial charge to a randomly flipping and flailing involuntary retreat, ultimately landing roughly several feet further back from where he had started.

Then, with his brow furrowed in concentration, Harry began advancing, his wand waving furiously as he did and spouting a veritable torrent of colored lights onto Green's position. Luckily for Green, he was able to flip to his feet quickly enough to avoid the first of the rapid-fire magical attacks, but his luck wouldn't last forever.

The first spell that hit was a leg-locker curse which was almost immediately dispelled by the Green Ranger's inherent magical protections from Rita, but the stumble that it caused allowed for far more spells to hit. Each spell that did so caused effects that lasted longer as the protections struggled to keep up under the onslaught. Harry had been using Spell Chaining, a wandwork technique where the caster used spells with wand movements that easily flowed from one to another, thus increasing casting speed, to cast spells that mostly hindered an opponent's movement. Now that Green was being affected, even only slightly, he knew that he could amp things up. It was a part of what he had been taught. If you're facing an opponent with superior maneuverability, then limit that before you waste magic trying to take them out.

His face grim, Harry began casting more damaging spells: cutters, blasting curses, piercing hexes, and the like. These spells were, as a general rule, slower to cast due to the higher magic requirements, but these same requirements made them much more powerful and difficult to block. A faster opponent could dodge them, but one that was hindered, as the Green Ranger was now, had no other recourse than to take them on the chin.

And so he did. The first cutting curse struck diagonally across the Ranger's golden chest piece, resulting in a fierce line of sparks that staggered him further. The follow-up piercing hex landed on his right shoulder and sent him spinning through the air with yet more sparks before he hit the ground hard. His new position caused the next few spells to fly over his prone form but Harry quickly adjusted his aim as he walked ever closer. He resolutely peppered the downed Ranger with spells, resulting in more sparks and several blackened marks on his suit.

He rounded off a final chain before lowering his wand slightly. "Have you had enough?" Harry panted lightly. Having a wand certainly helped his casting, but it was still slightly exhausting making all the necessary wand movements to make up for the silent casting. Especially as he was out of practice since the end of his war.

Harry caught sight of a flash of green light coming from the downed Ranger's visor. It was his only warning before the figure rolled over suddenly with another ball of green energy in his hands like the one Harry had initially blocked on his arrival. "Hardly!" Green shouted before thrusting his hands toward Harry, launching the green ball of destruction toward his foe.

Harry however merely brought his left arm up, the shield still floating by his side moving with it to intercept the ball at an angle and deflecting it into the cliff face. When the explosion had died down Harry nodded at the stiff form of the Green Ranger still lying on the ground, stunned into immobility. "Very well." Harry nodded before raising his wand again. "Bombarda Maxima!

The supercharged Exploding Charm hit the downed Green Ranger and obscured him in a massive cloud of dust kicked up by the spell accompanied by a shower of sparks that showed his attack made contact. A flicker of magic made his eyes narrow before the Power Rangers ran up beside him apparently having finally overcome their shock at his arrival. Harry didn't notice them initially, he was too busy staring at his wand in confusion.

"Harry!" Trini spoke first, having run up next to him and placed a hand on his right shoulder as they watched the obscuring cloud of debris before them. "Are you alright? Did you get him?"

Harry looked up from his wand and smiled at the Yellow Ranger's concern. "Yeah, Trini. I'm alright, he never laid a hand on me."

"And I think the results speak for themselves…" Zack cut in before Harry could continue, gesturing to where Green had been. By this time the dust had settled enough to make out a crater at least six feet wide and a few feet deep. "You blew him away!"

"Was that really necessary though?" Jason asked, displeasure obvious in his voice. Harry turned to see that he, Billy, and Kimberly were standing a bit further back from the blast site. "Did you have to blow him up like that? I mean, it's not really what we do…"

Harry rolled his eyes as he dispelled his shield. "First off Jason, that's stupid. It is exactly what you guys do. In fact, either personally or through the Viewing Globe, I've witnessed you guys blow up at least five different monsters since I got here."

"Yeah but those were monsters!" Jason shouted, cutting him off. "This guy was a Ranger. He could have been one of us."

Harry's face softened slightly. "Look Jason, I appreciate what you're getting at here, but don't take it too far. It's entirely possible you could end up dooming everyone if you don't take a hard stand against the enemy. My side learned that the hard way in my war and I really don't want to have to face the authority following the exact same line of thought here. If someone is standing against you and threatens you and all that you care for, you take them down and you take them down hard. And as a matter of fact, I did give him a chance to surrender; he just didn't take it. Anyway, I didn't blow him up."

"Uh, Harry…" Kimberly said uneasily, gesturing back and forth between Harry and the still smoking crater behind him.

Billy nodded. "Yes, our own observations indicate otherwise."

Harry's brow furrowed. "Yes, I tried to blow him up, I won't deny that, but I felt a spell being cast just after mine hit. I got him good, but I'd bet my broomstick that Rita teleported him out before he took too much damage from the blast. And I almost had him too…"

Silence reigned for a moment as a breeze cut through the valley.

Then. "You'd bet your broomstick...?" Zack asked incredulously, fighting down laughter as he spoke.

Harry, distracted by his musings, shrugged. "Well I don't actually have it with me. It was probably confiscated by the Ministry when they took me into custody actually… But it's just a saying."

"Wait-wait-wait, you mean to tell me you actually kept a personal broomstick? Why?"

Harry turned toward him with a confused look. "For flying. I mean, we have spells for cleaning and such, so why else would I have one?"

"You flew on a broomstick? Isn't that a thing for witches?" Kimberly interjected, humor in her voice.

"Well sure, some did, but there were just as many wizards too," Harry nodded, oblivious to the helmeted glances the other Rangers exchanged. "I actually rather enjoyed flying. It was one of my favorite things to do back in school."

In an attempt to save Harry from any more potential embarrassment, whether the wizard realized it or not, Trini redirected everyone's attention. "Guys, we should be getting back to the Command Center. Alpha could probably use some help."

Shaking his head slightly, Jason voiced his agreement. "Good point, Trini. Let's get out of here guys." He raised his right wrist near his helmet and spoke into the communicator underneath. "Alpha, can you beam us back? We're all finished up here."

"Alright Rangers, teleporting now."

Moments later, the six vanished in five beams of colored light and a single pop of apparition.

-MR-

Once back in the Command Center, the Rangers, and Harry, watched their most recent battle on the viewing globe. After Alpha assured them that the Zords were all fine, Jason was most interested in observing the Green Ranger as he battled each of them. Examining his fighting style, he had claimed.

After the third time Jason watched the same piece of footage, Harry was more than happy to leave them to it.

He made his way over to his room and sighed at the damage done by the magical storm caused when his wand was completed. While his desk, chair, and trunk were only damaged on the surface, the entirety of the rest of his belongings, mostly consisting of his remaining wand components in all honesty, had been tossed around wildly.

"Woah," Kimberly's voice from the doorway made him jump slightly before he spun to face her. "Sorry, Harry. What happened here?"

Her voice attracted the attention of the other Rangers and they gathered at the doorway as Harry explained. "When I finished my wand I had to charge it magically to attune it properly and reseal the shell halves. There was a rather… extreme effect when I did so."

From the main room of the Command Center, Alpha let out a noise that sounded suspiciously similar to a snort. "Extreme is right. Ai yai yai…"

Harry merely rolled his eyes. "Yes, well anyway, the damage in here was caused by this effect, a sort of magical storm centered on the wand and myself."

"Were you expecting this phenomenon?" Billy asked, one eyebrow quirking up.

"I knew it was a possibility, but I didn't think it would be this bad." Harry pulled out his wand and examined it closely. "I knew that using so many core components could cause trouble, but…" Harry's eyes narrowed for a moment as looked over the wand, running his hands over the surface slowly.

"What are you doing now?" Kimberly asked.

Harry seemed to ignore her for several seconds, carefully checking each inch of the wand before he answered. "I had a thought. During the battle against Green, such as it was, the wand seemed a bit… off to me. That could just be attributed to it being new, but the magic didn't quite flow the same between one spell and the next. I'm just afraid…"

When he didn't finish his thought after several more moments, Jason spoke up. "Afraid of what?"

Harry didn't answer him directly. "Lumos," He intoned instead, watching with narrowed eyes as the tip of the wand lit up. After several seconds holding the spell, he spoke again. "Nox," the light went out.

He repeated this several more times, each time the light level was different than the first, sometimes brighter, and sometimes dimmer. At one point the light made them all look away for a moment due to its intensity and the next casting was only the barest mote of light dancing on the tip of the point. Finally, after he cancelled the light one last time, Harry slumped and let out a sigh. "Bollocks…"

The Rangers just stared at him in silence before Zack caved. "What is it?"

Harry's head snapped up, almost as if he was surprised they were still there, eagerly watching him. In truth, Harry had lost himself in his examination, hoping and praying that his suspicions wouldn't be proven true. After looking each of them in the eyes, Harry sighed. "The wand is unstable. You all know I had to use multiple different core components to balance the magical energies and to get a decent level of magical conductivity in the wand. It wouldn't work as a magical focus otherwise. I told you that my biggest concern was that the wand wouldn't work right in the first place, but in all honesty that was the most likely problem for me to have. What happened here is that the core components aren't mingling well so the magic doesn't come out properly. It's one of the more unusual problems for a wand to have but it is the main reason more wands in my old world weren't made with multiple cores."

"So, what, it works, but not like it should?" Kimberly asked, her face screwed up in confusion.

"Of course it works!" Zack interjected, his earlier exuberance showing again. "You saw what he did to the Green Ranger earlier. Even if he got away in the end, the thing still works well enough to get the job done. Right?"

"Yes and no." Harry sighed again before sitting in his battered chair and placing his wand on the desk, eyeing it with an unreadable look on his face. "It'll still work properly within reason, but there are more than a few potential issues with using an unstable wand. It could sputter out at the wrong time, like when the light on the tip was barely there. It could overpower the heck out of the spell, like when the light nearly blinded us and, if I'm honest, when I used the exploding charm on Green earlier."

"So you didn't mean to nearly blow him up?" Jason interrupted, disbelief on his face.

Harry gave Jason a blank look. "No, Jason, as I said earlier I most definitely meant to blow him up, I just wasn't expecting to nearly blow him up so well."

Jason's scowl deepened slightly but he didn't say anything else, allowing Harry to continue. "There have been any number of results from an unstable wand in my world, but I had hoped that using my blood in the core would not only help attune it to me, but to also prevent most of these issues."

"I guess that didn't work out then?" Kimberly suggested.

"Not really, no…" Harry shook his head, once more eyeing the wand.

"Is there any way you can fix it?" Trini asked.

Harry shook his head again. "No, once a wand is sealed up, any significant damage to it can cause any and all spells to backfire. I had a… friend back in school, Ron Weasley. His wand broke in our second year and he figured he'd be alright if he just taped it back together. The core, a unicorn tail hair, was still intact, but he had issues with that wand all year long. Sometimes the spells would fizzle out entirely, though that could have just been Ron now that I think about it… But in one case, the spell he cast actually came out of the handle end instead of the point. It hit him in the stomach and he spent the next few hours belching up slugs every few seconds. Not fun."

The Rangers all looked a bit green at the thought save Trini, who was giggling slightly. "He tried to tape it back together?"

Harry rolled his eyes, chuckling slightly. "In his defense, we were only twelve and he was never the smartest player on the pitch.

-MR-

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent with Alpha, Harry, and the Rangers doing what they could to clean up the Command Center. For Alpha, Billy, and, to a lesser extent, Trini, that meant repairing and replacing damaged computer components. For Zack, Kimberly, and Jason, it meant gathering rubble and the components discarded by the repair team and disposing of them. For Harry, it meant either helping the disposal team or using his magic to repair solid panels or any parts of the computers that weren't directly involved in some kind of electronic process as his magic would make them all but useless for that purpose.

The entire time Harry was very much aware of Jason's frustration that only grew as they catalogued the total damage done. Billy and Alpha both said that they were lucky Harry had shown up when he did or else things would have been immeasurably worse. As it was, they were lucky that the delicate communications systems hadn't been disabled during Green's rampage.

But the Red Ranger seemed especially annoyed with the Green. On top of all the damage in the Command Center, he had failed to defeat him in one-on-one battle. One could even argue that he had been made a fool of when Green kicked them out of the Megazord. Harry didn't feel these thoughts would help settle the teen's mind though. He was angry and, for quite possibly the first time, he and the other Rangers had been handed a rather solid defeat. If it wasn't for Harry, it would have been worse, but Jason was still blaming himself enough to make up for that.

Aside from general angst and sadness from all concerned, there was little real difficulty in their activities apart from Alpha's systems, still damaged by the computer virus Green had given him, shutting down again. Though even that issue was remedied by Billy after twenty or so minutes.

By the time the Rangers climbed back into the Rad Bug to fly home, the circle of consoles looked much better than before, even if they still weren't fully repaired. Alpha and Billy had managed to get one of the secondary generators running again so they weren't operating on fumes of power anymore, a condition Harry hadn't even been aware of himself, and the robot was taking the time while his main help was gone to start a search for Zordon. It was a process that would probably take a lot of time. Time the Rangers and Harry felt they didn't really have to spare.

-MR-

The next morning, Tuesday, the Rangers flew in with the Rad Bug one short. Kimberly had decided to go to school that day even though the others were taking advantage of the computers working well enough to cover their absence the same way Zordon usually did.

Harry was rather confused at the concept of a computer being able to direct and control magical energies to mask the fact that the four Rangers weren't at school, but he didn't waste too much time on it.

It was back to the same grind as the day before, only this time there was less for Harry, Zack, and Jason to do seeing as they had moved all the obvious junk the day before. Shortly after Noon, Jason decided to head back to Angel Grove. It was a bit early to go and pick up Kimberly, but he told them all he had a few things to take care of. Zack went along with him, citing a similar reason, which left just Trini and Billy with Harry and Alpha.

With little else to do and very little he could help the others with, Harry ended up doing what he could to repair the damage done in his room. As it turned out though, the damage caused by the magical storm from his wand was somehow resistant to being magically repaired. He could do it, but it took quite a bit of time and effort just to restore a relatively small area. Not having anything better to do and grumbling about magical damage and magical backlash, Harry spent the next few hours restoring his furniture.

-MR-

It was around four in the afternoon when the Rad Bug once more arrived in the Command Center, once again carrying one less than it should have been.

"Where's Jason?" Trini was quick to ask, attracting Harry's attention and bringing him out of his room.

"No clue," Zack answered as he and Kimberly approached the others. "After we finished working out earlier he told me he had a few things to take care of by himself and never showed up again."

Kimberly nodded. "Yeah, we waited for him as long as we could, but we figured you guys needed help here more."

Harry's eyes narrowed as a short shiver went up his spine. Billy and Trini shared a weary look before the Yellow Ranger spoke. "Well, I suppose he will call us on the communicator if he needs us."

"Yeah, that's what we figured," Zack said with a smile. "Plus, if he really gets in trouble he just needs to morph and we can teleport him outta there if he can't deal with the problem himself."

That seemed to settle the other Rangers, but Harry had a feeling that there was more happening than they thought. He just hoped they figured out what before it was too late.

-MR-

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Tenstar12