Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

WARNING: There be language in this chapter. Or at least more so than in the entire story so far. Ye have been warned.

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

Chapter 30, In Which Harry Takes a Bite Out of Crime and the Sledgehammer Falls…

Harry was waiting in a line.

It wasn't an especially novel situation, all told, but there hadn't been very many lines to wait in during his life after he left primary school, so he felt it worth noting.

"Next, please."

Harry stepped forward as the line moved.

The week and three days since the Samurai Fan Man had trapped Kimberly and Harry in his dimensional prison-jar had been rather interesting, although not in the normal Power Ranger based way. Indeed, this short stretch of time had brought about not a series of monster battles, but a few rather dramatic changes in the relationship status of three members of the Ranger team.

To start things off, the day after the Fan Man was beaten, Kimberly took the metaphorical bull by the horns and asked Tommy on a date. The typically shy teen had been taken aback at first, but had agreed all the same and later confessed that he had been trying to work up the courage to ask her out for some time. Kimberly had apparently later told Tommy of her conversation with Harry while they were trapped because the Green Ranger had spoken at length with the wizard during their next practice session. Tommy had expressed his thanks for helping get the relationship going, unintended though it may have technically been, and then proceeded to utterly annihilate him in a spar in a subtle form of revenge for any perceived embarrassment that Harry may have caused him.

Harry was very tight lipped about the conversation he had had with Kimberly, refusing to share details with Tommy even though he knew that there hadn't been much said about the Green Ranger specifically. He somehow felt that letting him know that most of his comments had been geared toward teasing Kimberly wouldn't have gone over much better anyway.

"Next, please."

Harry stepped forward.

The second relationship that started was one between Zack and his long time crush: Angela Griggs. This particular relationship had been a long time coming, arguably longer than Kimberly and Tommy's. Zack had apparently been attempting to woo Angela for years, often with little to no success, but his persistence finally paid off and the girl had agreed to go on a date with him. It must have gone well, though Zack was telling no tales, because the couple were frequently seen together in the Youth Center and around town.

Angela was a woman who volunteered to help with children a lot, babysitting and the like, so Zack often found himself drafted into the role alongside her, but he didn't find this to be any real trouble. With his quick wit and impressive dance moves, not to mention his Hip-Hop Kido, Zack was able to entertain most children on his own, and when you tied that in with Angela's attitude and experience, they made a good team.

Unlike Kimberly and Tommy, however, Zack wasn't dating "within the team," so to speak, and Harry was a bit concerned as to whether or not the relationship would last under the pressure of Rita's attacks and Zack's responsibilities as a Power Ranger. It was a rather depressing thought in truth, so he chose not to dwell on it too much.

"Next, please."

Another step forward.

Still on the topic of Ranger relationships, a discussion with Zack on his own newfound and long anticipated status change with Angela had brought up the topic of Billy and his maybe-girlfriend Marge. Harry had heard absolutely nothing about the girl since the whole Madame Woe debacle and so had ended up bringing her up with the Blue Ranger when next the group met for casual conversation.

As it turned out, Billy and Marge "Regularly coordinate our daily schedules so that we can rendezvous and discuss the relevancy of various scientific theories and postulate on improving said theories through experimentation." Harry translated that (with some help from Trini of course) to mean that the two regularly met up to discuss things way over Harry's head, but weren't necessarily dating as such. But then again, what did he know about what a pair of socially awkward intellectuals would do on dates?

"Next, please."

Step.

For Harry's part, when he wasn't involved in discussions about the love lives of his fellow Rangers, his schedule was largely unchanged. He still spent mornings training with Zordon in using Grid Magic and most afternoons with Tommy in Karate. He still worked at the Youth Center and practiced several minor close-up magic tricks in his down time and showered his familiar with affection and bacon (even though she didn't necessarily have to eat anymore, Hedwig loved her bacon).

The biggest deviation from his schedule was a group training session put together by Tommy and Jason where all the Rangers met up on the Sunday after their most recent battle and sparred with each other. Jason had explained it away as a way to make sure everyone was staying up to scratch, purely as a precautionary measure of course, but Harry felt that it was more geared toward him and his own progress in the martial arts under Tommy's tutelage.

After losing spectacularly to Jason, Tommy, Zack, and Trini, having only slightly less trouble before being beaten by Kimberly, and lasting nearly three minutes in a spar against Billy, Harry was pronounced to be well on his way in his education. Jason then made several comments on how Tommy was definitely better as Harry's teacher since he was able to focus solely on Harry, a fact that had clearly had positive results based on his observations. Harry politely neglected to comment on how Jason had been focused on Harry as well, just not for the best of reasons.

Harry had just wanted to get out of the public park and away from the small crowd they had gathered so he could cast some healing charms to get rid of his new bruise collection.

Aside from that, Kimberly had spent a bit more time talking with him since their shared ordeal. All in all he was rather confused by it. Not that he at all regretted forming a closer friendship with another of his teammates, but he found himself constantly thrown off by the significant looks she would shoot him, especially when all the Rangers were gathered together. He figured she was trying to tell him something, but as he was only a male and singularly untalented with Legilimency, he found himself unable to figure out what it was.

"Next, please."

Step.

The final, and arguably most inconsequential, difference since the Fan Man's defeat was that Ernie had started paying him in weekly checks as opposed to cash. The man had claimed that it was for tax record purposes, which Harry understood in theory, but it brought about an entirely new issue for him: Harry had no idea how to go about cashing the checks.

It was only then that he really started to understand Hermione's frustration about the separation between the Magical and Muggle Worlds. Harry, having been isolated by his relatives for so long and then by Hogwarts and the war afterwards, was seriously lacking in Muggle World survival skills that most everyone else he knew seemed to take for granted. It just so happened that checks, banks, and how to deal with the two together was on that list. Or at least banks not run by goblins…

Luckily enough, Ernie had recognized his confusion upon handing over his first "official paycheck" the previous Friday and had quickly gleaned the reasons behind it. So it was that the lovable owner/operator of the Angel Grove Youth Center took Harry to Angel Grove National Bank to help him set up his own Checking Account under the guise of helping his British-born employee navigate the hazards of American banking. This was a comment that brought many a chuckle from the good natured banking employees and several eye rolls from Harry.

After the first introduction to the system, Harry figured the process out (more or less) and so felt confident enough to make future trips on his own. The fact that Ernie wouldn't be coming along to make any more teasing jokes at the expense of him and his British heritage had absolutely nothing to do with it of course.

But as inconsequential as the origin of these events was, it was still the base reason why on Friday, December 3rd 1993, Harry James Potter found himself back the local branch of Angel Grove National Bank. Waiting in a line.

"Next, please"

Harry stepped up to the counter, finally getting the chance to deposit his latest paycheck.

He had been hoping to get in and out quickly, but for some reason there were only two tellers on duty that day. That would have been enough if one of them hadn't been kept occupied by tending to a constant stream of customers in the drive through lanes, which led to the long wait. Putting his frustration aside though, Harry smiled at the red haired woman behind the counter as he slid his debit card, endorsed paycheck, and filled out deposit slip across the counter.

"Just depositing today, hon?" the woman said with a smile.

"Yes, ma'am." Harry nodded, watching as she went about her job with efficiency born from repetition.

Then, as the woman passed back his card and a receipt, things went wrong.

"Ladies and Gentlemen…" A strangely muffled voice shouted out from behind him, from the direction of the main doors. "This is a robbery…"

Harry, spun in place, shock on his face even as he internally groaned. Leave it to the old Potter luck to get him into this kind of situation.

At a quick glance, there were six men (or so he assumed) standing just inside the doors to the bank. Each of them was wearing a ski mask and each of them was toting some kind of a weapon. One was hefting a sizable sledgehammer while another wielded a baseball bat and kept twitching his head this way and that as if nervous. Three of them were holding what looked like some kind of automatic rifle, though Harry knew far too little about guns to even guess as to what kind, and the last, the speaker, was holding a pistol in each hand.

The other customers in the bank, a good fifteen to twenty people counting Harry himself, seemed frozen in place. A few that Harry could see seemed so totally shocked that something like this was happening that they were completely beyond words for the moment. It seemed something so mundane as a bank robbery in Angel Grove threw its citizens off worse than a monster attack these days.

Before any of the customers could start to panic, the speaker quickly took control of the situation. "So here's how this is gonna work. My associates here are gonna direct you all to the walls of this fine establishment. Once there, you will hand over any and all valuables you have on your person, this includes any credit cards, watches, purses, wallets, jewelry, etcetera. Any refusal to do so will result in you being injured most grievously. Any attempts at being a hero will result in you being shot. Any questions? No? Good. Gentlemen, if you would?"

As one, two of the men with the automatic weapons stepped to either side of the glass doors, allowing them to play sentry as it were and also keeping them out of the line of sight from outside the bank. The third gunner flanked the speaker as he strolled idly around the lobby area of the bank as if on a pleasurable walk in the park. At the same time, the two without guns were directing the customers to either side of the lobby, shoving and cursing as they forced the still mostly shocked civilians into compliance.

Harry took all this in grimly as his mind began spinning. The bank was a solid brick building with blinds closed down over the windows. The only clear line of sight into the building was through the drive through windows in back and the doors in front. The thieves were careful to stay out of easy sight from the doors and the likelihood of someone figuring out what was going on from the drive through lane was relatively slim. The lobby itself was around thirty feet across with maybe twenty feet between the main doors and the tellers' counter. The only furniture was a table in the middle of the room where various bank forms were kept and a few chairs up against the walls.

Harry turned slightly to try and see what the two tellers were doing behind the counter, only to find the woman who had just finished helping him with his deposit holding a pistol of her own to the side of her coworkers head. Feeling his gaze upon her, the woman looked up and met his eyes with a smirk. "That's right, hon, no more help coming from this end."

Harry turned back around when he heard a snort from nearby and found the speaker standing mere feet from him. "That's right kid, we planned this whole thing out months ago. That's our girl on the inside who has done a wonderful job making sure things ran as smooth as possible for us. So why don't you just be a good little punk and move on over to the corner there."

The man gestured to the wall next to the counter and Harry backed away slowly, lifting his hands as the man pointed one of his pistols in his direction. When Harry felt his back hit the wall with the counter close to his left side, the man lowered his gun again and Harry let himself relax slightly.

It was about this time that the two thugs with the hammer and bat pulled out a garbage bag each and started shaking down the hostages for their valuables.

While the theft began in earnest, the insider behind the counter made her way out, shoving her former coworker before her at gunpoint and leaving the woman sobbing on the floor with some of the other hostages. "We've got a bit of a problem, boss. This bitch managed to hit the silent alarm before I got to her. We've got maybe ten minutes before the cops show."

The speaker snorted before nodding wrapping one of his arms around her waist as he spoke. "It's all in the plans, babe. We have enough hostages here to keep the cops off our backs long enough to ensure our getaway."

As the two with the bags worked their way down either side of the room and with the speakers comment still ringing in the air, one person, an older gentleman who had just been forced to hand over his watch, decided to comment. "You won't, you know. You won't get away with this. The Power Rangers will stop you."

This seemed to cast a strange tension over the room as the criminals all looked toward him. Finally, the speaker began chuckling as he slowly walked toward the man. "You think that your precious Power Rangers are going to show up to stop a bank robbery? What makes you think they would even stoop so low? Pah!" The man scoffed, waving one of his guns lazily through the air as he stalked ever closer. "Those do-gooders are too busy worrying about that space bitch that seems obsessed with your little city to even think of comparatively lesser dangers to law and order such as ourselves."

By this point, the speaker had reached the man who was glaring at him defiantly. "To be honest, I would be completely surprised if even one of those costumed freaks showed up here. That was the entire point behind our plan after all."

Turning away from the older man and with his machine gun toting shadow following closely, the speaker strolled casually back toward the center of the room and leaned on the table there. "We noticed some time ago that the stories had changed a bit coming out of Angel Grove. I mean, who didn't notice the sudden 'monster attacks' and the appearance of your costumed heroes to save the day, but what we noticed was the slacking off of the law enforcement and rescue services. This presented opportunity to our minds. Since the law was getting lazy, we decided to move in and help ourselves to the fruits of Rita's labor, as it were."

Harry cursed inwardly, but the man wasn't finished talking. "As it turns out, we weren't the only ones who noticed this trend, since that purple Ranger guy was quoted by one of your local news stations, chastising said services about their slacking off. Well, when we saw that report, we knew that meant that we had to make our move sooner rather than later…"

Harry cursed again, glaring at the seemingly unconcerned criminal's back even as he felt his saving people thing flaring up again. Here were a bunch of Angel Grove citizens in danger, and what's worse, it could be argued that they wouldn't have been in such danger if it hadn't been for his own comments on the day of the Peckster's attack.

Harry was shaken out of his self-recrimination when the sledgehammer toting bank robber blocked his view of the speaker. "Alright kid, hand over the stuff."

Harry just scowled as he fished his bank card out of his pocket and dropped it into the man's bag with a glare. He knew that he needed to do something, but the presence of so many people meant he couldn't morph in here and the presence of so many guns made him shy away from attracting attention to himself with any of his regular spellwork.

The man, however, wasn't satisfied with his contribution. "Come on now ya little fucker, I know you have to have more than that on you, so hand it over."

Harry met his eyes as he spoke. "Sorry to disappoint you, mate, but that's all I have."

"Oh yeah?" The main raised an eyebrow before dropping his bag and grabbing Harry's left arm and wrenching it up. "What about this watch then? Is this nothing?" Harry could only watch, hiding a grimace as his shoulder protested his forced movement, as the man stripped his communicator off his wrist and dropped it into the bag. "Now, seeing as you aren't being cooperative enough, I think I'm gonna have to be a bit more persuasive. Just remember, it's your own fault."

Before Harry could comment, the man released his arm and buried his fist into Harry's stomach, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him to his knees. Several people nearby cried out in panic and protest, but a few warnings from the other bank robbers kept them back.

"Not so snarky now, are you, ya little bastard," the man crowed, bending down and grabbing Harry by the collar of his shirt, lifting him upright and slamming him back against the wall. "Now hand over the rest of your valuables before I have to really hurt you."

Harry just glared, a look the man matched before setting his sledgehammer aside and punching him in the stomach once more with his now free hand. He then used his left hand to keep Harry up against the wall while he started patting down his pockets with his right, immediately pulling Harry's wallet (empty except for his Zordon-and-Alpha-created ID) from his front pocket and dropping it into his collection bag.

At this point, Harry had only one thought in his mind. He currently had a rather valuable looking coin in his back right pocket that this man would be only too happy to steal from him, almost definitely not even realizing what it was he was taking. Harry was momentarily stricken with the thought that he really needed to stop putting off making a charmed wand holster before it was brushed aside with a pure need to act and a brief rush of Power from the Grid.

Just as the man reached around to check his back pockets, Harry lashed out with his right foot, planting a kick between the man's legs with enough force to cause him to release Harry as he stumbled back a step. Quickly regaining his balance, Harry followed his attack up with a gut punch of his own, doubling the man over before catching him in the nose with his knee and knocking the bank robber to the ground with blood gushing from his face.

A click was Harry's only warning before a shot rang out and a lance of pain raced across the side of his right calf, dropping him to the floor once again.

Several of the other hostages screamed while the speaker merely leveled his gun at Harry once again. "I warned you, kid. You shouldn't have tried to play the hero, and killing one of you will only help in our negotiations with the cops, so…"

Knowing that he had only moments to act, Harry heaved himself up with his left leg, grabbing ahold of the countertop next to him as he rose and flipping up and over top of it to land hard in the teller's space behind it even as another shot flew past him, boring a hole in the brick wall of the building.

Harry lay on his back, panting as his injured leg screamed at him from the sudden exertion. He knew that he needed to do something; to get his coin out and shift it to his wand so he could try and fight back if nothing else, but the pain was too much just then.

"Now what good do you think that's gonna do you, kid?" the speaker taunted, his voice shifting as he, and presumably his shadow, walked closer to the counter. "After all, it's not like it's gonna take me long to get back there. But if you'd rather die behind the counter in order to spare these other fine people the sight of your brains being splattered out the back of your head, then I suppose I don't mind the trip…"

He knew he had to think fast, but there wasn't really a whole lot he could do right then, and without his communicator, he couldn't really even call for backup…

"Come out, come out, you little brat…" the speaker's voice was punctuated with the sound of the gate leading behind the tellers' counter swinging open.

Harry grimaced in pain as he settled on a plan, but gathered up his magic all the same before rolling across the ground and disapparated with an overly loud CRACK.

He reappeared, gasping in pain, on the roof of the bank building and immediately clapped his right hand over his wounded leg, casting a wandless numbing charm and ignoring the numbing in his fingers in exchange for the sweet relief from pain. The bullet had only grazed him, but the bloody furrow it carved in his leg still hurt like crazy.

Keeping his hand in place, Harry reached across his back with his left hand and, slowly but surely, fished his Power Coin out of his pocket. "Alright, assholes… So you think none of the Power Rangers are gonna show up, huh? Let's see what you think of this."

If anyone had been close enough, they would have heard a triumphant cry from atop the Angel Grove National Bank. "MAGI RANGER, POWER UP!"

-MR-

Within the bank building, the captive civilians were panicking. Many of them had heard the sharp crack and assumed that the brave young man who had tried to fight back against the criminals holding them was now dead. This was an idea that was brought into question when the speaker's voice came from behind the counter. "Where the hell did that little shit go?!"

Mere moments later, he came stomping out from behind the counter, glaring around the room. "Is he back out here?"

"No, boss," the sledgehammer wielding man replied, having mostly recovered from Harry's counterattack even as he was wiping blood from his face. "Or at least he didn't come back over the counter."

The angry gunman then spun to face the insider, one of his guns pointing at her in his anger. "Jenny, is there anywhere back there he could have gone?"

The woman shook her head in a panic. "N-no! At least, I don't think so… I made sure all the doors back there leading into the rest of the building were locked up before you showed up so nobody could escape that way, just like you asked."

"THEN WHERE THE HELL DID HE GO!" the man shouted, waving his weapons wildly. "We were supposed to avoid all this weird crap while we were here! Wha-"

The speaker's ranting was cut off by a soft pop that nobody heard, followed by an ear splitting crack that everyone did. When the criminals collectively turned toward the sound, they found that four of their captives were mysteriously gone.

"WHAT!" the speaker shouted before wheeling to face the man with the bat who had been closest to the vanished hostages. "Where did they go?!"

The twitchy criminal flinched beneath his ski mask. "I-I dunno Rocky… They were here just a second ago, and now… they're not…"

The speaker, Rocky apparently, just scowled jabbing the man in the chest with the barrel of one of his guns as he spoke. "I know that you moron, but where-"

Pop CRACK!

Rocky spun around to find that fully half of his hostages from the other side of the bank were now missing.

"Alright, that's it! Jenny, you keep an eye on that group, and Bones," he jabbed a gun toward the sledgehammer wielder, "you watch those ones. This crap ain't happening again! And Franky," he jabbed at the twitchy man again, "go get the money out from behind the counter." The twitchy man vanished behind the counter as quickly as possible.

One of the men by the door leaned toward the other and whispered. "I thought we wasn't using no names…"

His whisper hadn't been quiet enough though as it managed to attract Rocky's attention, causing him to wheel around and face his fellow bank robber. "And all that went right out the fuckin' window when this freaky shit started happening. All of our plans are crap now!" His eyes widened as he glanced out the glass doors and saw the familiar red and blue lights of the police force reflecting off of windows and cards across the street from the bank.

"And now the fucking cops are here and we're running out of bargaining chips!" he howled in fury, attracting the attention of the rest of the room as everyone tried to catch sight of the police, either in desperate denial or in fear.

Pop CRACK!

Rocky whirled around again only to find the group of hostages that were under the guard of Jenny were now missing. "You fucking bitch! Where did your hostages go?!"

Jenny turned back around herself only to go pale as she saw that her charges were indeed gone. "I… I…" she stuttered as Rocky stalked toward her, raising one arm as if to hit her with his gun only to be interrupted when Franky came out from behind the counter, his garbage bag now bulging with money in addition to the stolen valuables he had taken from the hostages.

"I got it all boss, should we hit the vault now?"

Rocky scowled, lowering his arm much to Jenny's relief. "We don't have time for that anymore. The cops are here and we're almost out of hostages." He paused for a moment as his eyes trailed over the last four cowering civilians. Finally, he stood straight. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do. Franky, you take the loot from Bones. Bones, you and Jenny don't take your eyes off of those hostages. We're gonna need them if we're gonna get outta here without metal bracelets."

Pop Pop

When the noises sounded from the opposite side of the room from the hostages, all the criminals in the room spun to face it, brandishing their guns, and so they were unprepared for the next series of noises.

Pop THUD CRACK!

Rocky spun back around in time to see Bones stumbling and falling to the ground just as his final hostages disappeared in the company of what looked like a figure dressed in purple.

-MR-

Harry was kinda having fun at this point.

He had managed to silently apparate back to his place behind the counter with a disillusionment charm in place and watched as the bank robbers flipped out over his disappearing act. While watching, he noticed a chance to get some of the hostages free and took it, sacrificing his complete silence while apparating for enough speed to get a group of four hostages outside the building before silently apparating back to his initial position.

He had to force down a few snickers, especially after he rescued the second group, five people this time, and Rocky freaked out even more.

When the police had shown up Harry was more than happy with their timely response to the silent alarm. He had managed to use that as a distraction to get another group of three out, clearing out the hostages from one side of the room.

When Rocky started to try and plan things out more, Harry had had to plan a bit himself, but it was relatively easy to relax his hold on his silence a bit more and draw their attention away from the remaining hostages. Then he had taken a great deal of satisfaction in knocking Bones away from the final four before apparating them all out of the bank.

He took a moment then to catch his breath, noting that the police and rescue services personnel were moving to escort the hostages to get checked out by some EMT's, before turning to face the bank again.

Before he could head back in to finish things, a police officer grabbed his arm. "Uh… thanks for the help Magi Ranger… uh… sir… Do you want us to take it from here?"

Harry smiled beneath his helmet before shaking his head. "Nah, I think I can handle this, officer. Thanks for the offer though. It's just a good thing I was in the area when this went down. It seems that they had an insider that was supposed to keep anyone from alerting you guys."

"Then who pressed the silent alarm?"

Harry shrugged. "The other teller managed to set it off before she got caught by the insider. I was told this by the first hostage I rescued. He got shot, in the leg I think, but I dropped him off elsewhere before returning for the others. I was in a bit of a hurry at first. I'll make sure to bring him back after these guys are dealt with."

With a final nod and a brief look of concern, the officer released Harry's arm and watched as he stalked toward the bank doors.

Harry was mildly amused to note that the robbers had locked the doors now and, from what he could see, appeared to have barricaded themselves behind the tellers' counter. Chuckling slightly, Harry waved his hand and magically unlocked the doors before strolling in as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Well, well," he drawled. "What do we have here? I understand you guys didn't think your little stunt in here wouldn't attract the attention of any of the Power Rangers, yes? It's a good thing I happened to wander by."

Rocky seemed to have lost his earlier desire to talk. "Waste this freak!" With that, the bank robbers opened fire, three pistols and three automatic rifles letting out gouts of flame and lead faster than most could react.

Most people were not Harry Potter and/or the Magi Ranger though.

Almost yawning, Harry conjured up a transparent shield of kinetic force with Grid Power, causing the bullets to come to a full stop in midair, deforming slightly as their own energy was negated and even bled off to reinforce Harry's shield, before dropping to the ground.

When the gunfire finally stopped, Harry stepped forward and scowled beneath his helmet. "You know… I REALLY don't like that word…" As the criminals scrambled to reload, fear and panic clear on their faces, Harry just waved his hand and cast a summoning charm. "None of that now." With the guns floating in the air before him, Harry slowly and obviously closed his fist and they each crumpled in midair under the influence of his kinetic magics until they were little but oddly shaped balls of metal.

Rocky and the others just looked shocked, but the leader quickly got over it and drew a knife from his belt. "I ain't getting taken in by some wanna be in tights!"

The man vaulted over the tellers' counter and covered the few steps between them in seconds. He brought his knife up and tried to stab Harry in the stomach, but telegraphed his move so badly that it was mere child's play for the Ranger to deflect the attack to the side.

Not one to be put off so easily, Rocky brought his blade back and tried again. "Don't care who you are or what you may think you can do." He grunted as Harry deflected yet another attack, but he continued doggedly. "I'm gonna kill your ass!"

By now the rest of his gang, minus Jenny who seemed paralyzed in fear, had scrambled to join their leader. Bones and Franky were still using their weapons of choice, but two of the other three had drawn knives of their own while the last one was bare-fisted.

Harry just shrugged and worked their presence into his defense. With Rocky and the three gunmen up so close, the other two were unable to bring their weapons into play without running the risk of hitting their comrades, and so Franky and Bones were staying back. This meant that Harry could focus on fewer targets and with Grid Power running through him it was an almost negligible task.

Unfortunately for Harry, he let his overconfidence run a bit too high again. This was proven when he felt a heavy impact on the back of his head, dropping him to the ground from the sheer force.

"HA! That'll show ya, you fucking asshole." Rocky taunted, panting. "Good work Bones."

"Thanks, boss."

Harry was inwardly cursing himself for letting down his guard. Just because nothing these common criminals did was able to actually hurt him (and he was more than a little glad that his suit and protected him from the blow from Bones's sledgehammer), that didn't mean he should take them any less seriously than one of Rita's monsters.

While the thugs taunted and jeered at him, Harry just scowled before attempting to climb back to his feet. "Oh no you don't!" Franky cackled, sweeping Harry's left arm out from under him with what would have been a bruising swing of his bat were he not in morph. "And stay down! Hey, boss, we've got a Power Ranger for a hostage now!"

Rocky laughed in response. "Yeah, I suppose we do."

"And you suppose wrong." Harry announced just before releasing a wave of kinetic energy from his body, serving to knock the six away from him and onto their backs while Jenny just screamed from behind the counter.

Harry climbed once more to his feet, noting that his opponents had as well, and shook his head. "I really only have myself to blame for this. I shouldn't have been playing with you bloody wankers. But, fun time is over now. Oh well. Stupify!" Harry pointed toward Bones as he cast, releasing the red bolt of a stunning spell along with a few sparks as his suit protected him from the wandless backlash.

As expected, Bones collapsed bonelessly when the spell hit, which sent Rocky into another rage. "Get that freak!"

As the now five criminals prepared to charge, Harry just growled and thrust his hands out to either side. "I already told you, I do NOT like that word! INCARCEROUS!" From the palms of his hands, a surge of conjured ropes erupted, twining about each other as they wound their way through the air and toward the now backpedaling thugs.

In mere moments, Rocky and his gang, including the unconscious Bones, were trussed up like pigs and floating merrily through the air, attached to a rope that Harry held in one gloved hand. Smirking at them from behind his helmet, Harry idly strolled over toward the counter before leaning over to catch sight of the still cowering Jenny. "So, are you gonna come along peacefully, or would you rather make things difficult?"

-MR-

When the Magi Ranger emerged from the bank with six would-be bank robbers tied up and floating behind him with the seventh trailing at the end with her hands bound, a cheer erupted from the watching crowd of civilians.

Harry just waved his free hand idly, jerking the rope with his other and bringing forth a bevy of complaints from his captives as they bobbed through the air in response. When a pair of officers approached him, Harry passed the rope over to the nearest one. "The spell on the rope will last about thirty minutes before they'll drop, so I would recommend cuffing them before then."

The officer just looked stunned for a second before a look of childish glee overtook his face as he tugged on the rope and led the criminals through the air and towards the barricade of police cars and his fellow officers so they could be processed. In the meantime, the other policeman was just staring at him in confusion. "I have to ask, if you don't mind, sir, but how did you know what was going on?"

The man spoke with a rather strong Irish accent, a fact that Harry found mildly amusing, but knew he would have to suppress that as the question, and indeed the entire situation, wasn't really conductive to levity. "Just like I told the idiots who decided to try and rob the bank today," Harry said with a shrug. "I just happened to be in the area. I heard the first pair of gunshots and popped in there to rescue the victim before getting the other hostages out." He shrugged again. "It was all a coincidence really, but I'm glad I was able to help. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go and get said gunshot victim and send him back here. I have a few other things I need to take care of so…"

The officer blinked twice in quick succession before snapping to attention and saluting him. "Of course. With everything you and the other Rangers do for us, I think we can take care of the rest of things here today. Thanks you, sir, for everything you've done today and everything you have done and will do in the future. We all appreciate what you Rangers do for us."

Harry was feeling more than a bit embarrassed at this point, but managed to do his best to mimic the officer's salute. "Happy to be of assistance, officer." And with that he spun in place and apparated back to the roof of the bank and out of sight where he immediately slumped in relief.

"Damn…" Harry sighed. "That wasn't fun. Why is it that I have an easier time with fighting against people than dealing with the public?"

Shaking his head at his own rhetorical question, Harry demorphed and immediately fell to the ground as his injured leg made itself known once again now that the power of his suit wasn't helping to support him. "Ah bloody hell…" Harry looked at his right calf, finding the bottom half of his right pants leg soaked in blood that also managed to run down into his shoe. "That's gonna make things fun… Let's see here…" With a bit of focus, Harry renewed the numbing charm and cast a few minor healing charms to slow the bleeding. As much as he would like to fix himself up right away, he knew that he needed to make an appearance as himself and it might not make much sense to the emergency workers for him to be completely unharmed when he had so much blood on his clothes. There were just some questions he didn't feel like dealing with at the moment.

With a sigh, Harry apparated once more, reappearing with a loud crack close to where he had been standing earlier and found himself almost immediately caught by the surprised Irish Policeman as his leg gave out. "Hey there now. I got ya, son."

Harry forced a smile through his irritation at the weakness in his injured leg, offering his thanks as the officer helped him limp his way over to the EMTs.

-MR-

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT!"

Oddly enough, Jason was unhappy. And there was a great deal of disbelief inherent in that statement because Harry had honestly hoped that, seeing as he had used his Powers to help save a bunch of innocents from a group of individuals who had no issue whatsoever with shooting someone. He figured that acting as a hero, even if it wasn't against Rita's forces, would be perfectly acceptable to the stern leader of the Mighty Morphin Rangers.

Though if he was honest, Harry was quite surprised that Jason had managed to keep his anger in check until he had finished his story.

Keeping his thoughts to himself even as Hedwig nuzzled his face reassuringly from her perch on his shoulder, Harry just sighed. "I morphed to apprehend a group of gun toting bank robbers and then had to use some wandless magic to recover my stolen property, including a few Confundus charms to make the emergency workers let me go without a completely unnecessary trip to the hospital. Why is this a problem?"

They were currently in the Command Center, the other six Rangers having only just teleported in a few minutes before. Only really long enough for Harry to give a very general overview of his most recent adventure. Apparently though, Jason had heard about it on the news at the Youth Center (something that didn't surprise Harry at all since Ernie always gathered everyone's attention when there was a report about the Power Rangers on the little television he kept at the counter), and had had time to form his own opinions about what Harry had done.

"I can't believe you morphed against a bunch of regular people!" Jason continued with a glare, dismissing Harry's question. "Those powers are meant to be used against Rita and her forces only! You can't just do things like that!"

Harry felt his temper building now in response to the utter ridiculousness Jason was spouting. "And why the hell not? The guy freaking shot me in the leg and you expected me to just apparate out and leave the other hostages there to fend for themselves? Do you honestly think you would have done anything different?"

Jason paused at this, clearly unable to refute Harry's statement, before he blinked and renewed his rant on a new angle. "It doesn't matter, because you've broken your oath!"

Harry just slumped and rolled his eyes. "Oh, have I?" he drawled as he lifted a hand, a single finger extended. "Lumos." The tip of his finger lit. "Nox." The light went out and he lowered his hand before shrugging. "No, it seems as though I didn't, otherwise I would have already lost my magic."

Jason just looked stumped. "But you escalated a battle and used your Powers against a normal person. That has to be against the oath, isn't it Zordon?" His face took on a look of utter confusion as he and the other Rangers turned to face their mentor.

Zordon hummed in thought for a second. "I do not believe that Harry's actions were outside of even the oath I asked for from you, Jason. But you must remember that Harry swore a different oath himself. As I recall, Harry swore to never use his Power for evil, but cautioned that he would not stand aside and let evil happen if he could stop it."

Jason looked shocked. Apparently the thought that he would have been able to take similar actions to Harry's, and indeed might have been expected to in this case, hadn't really occurred to him. Zordon continued. "While I do not necessarily condone using your Power to search out any and all sources of criminal activity you possibly can, I also cannot agree with simply standing aside and letting such actions happen with your knowledge."

"But Zordon," Billy piped up. "Didn't you tell us that most people in Angel Grove would be affected by the Morphing Grid to prevent extreme violence such as that exhibited by the bank robbers today."

Zordon bobbed his disembodied head in a nod. "That is correct, Billy. But the individuals in question admitted to Harry that they were not from Angel Grove. In this case, they were outside the influence of the Grid's positive energies while they planned their actions, though the extreme and irregular reactions of the leader could well be attributed to the Grid. As I said, Bulk and Skull's bumbling nature is most likely because of the Grid's influence on them, so a similar process could have started on these criminals from another city."

Jason seemed to regain cognitive thought and opened his mouth once again. "But Harry's actions put our secret identities at risk. His being there during the robbery means someone could connect him with the Magi Ranger and then the other Rangers with us, despite any protection granted by the Morphing Grid!"

Zordon shook his head. "The Grid will keep anyone from connecting the magical effects to Harry himself. Any confusion will be attributed to the Magi Ranger alone. This is one way the Grid helps to protect your anonymity with the public. By preventing the association of any supernatural effects with your public identities."

"And it's not like I was there just to break up the robbery, Jason." Harry calmly interjected running his fingers through Hedwig's feathers to help calm himself. "It's like I told the bobbies, it was a coincidence that I was there to stop it all in the first place. I won't say that I wouldn't do it again given the opportunity, but I didn't go looking for them."

Jason shook his head angrily and scowled, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Zack put a calming and on his shoulder. "Jase… just let it go man. Like he said, any of us would have done the same thing…"

"Yeah," Kimberly piped up. "And Zordon said that he wasn't gonna hold it against Harry anyway."

Billy nodded as well. "And it is clear that he hasn't violated the terms of his own oath to Zordon."

Tommy stepped up to Jason's other side and added his own two bits. "And nobody saw anything that would lead to discovering his identity, so as far as I can see, we're all covered."

Trini, a grim look on her face, walked past Jason and over to Harry. "And aside from all that, he got hurt while saving all those people. That should at least grant him some sympathy and leeway here. Pull up your pant leg, Harry. I wanna take a look at where you were shot."

Despite Harry's protests, Trini managed to force him to sit on the back of one of the computer banks before pulling up his bloody pant leg to take a look at his injury. The EMTs had wrapped his leg in gauze and bandages to help staunch the bleeding before taking him to the hospital, but Harry's magic had caused them to release him at that point. He just hadn't had a chance to heal himself up yet.

Trini was picking at the bandages, probably trying to find a loose end so she could unwind it and take a look at his actual injury when Jason snapped out of his stupor. His emotions were already running high from his own outrage at Harry's actions that were so far beyond what the Power Rangers were supposed to do and it was only made worse by the fact that everyone else saw absolutely no problem with it. And now seeing Trini all but abandon her longtime friend to fuss over the new guy, he just snapped.

"Of course you're only worried about Harry, Trini. Why be worried about what kind of an impact that his actions could have on all of us when he's hurt. The only reason you're even supporting him is because you have a crush on him!"

Harry blinked as he whipped his head up from watching Trini's actions to Jason's outraged face. Then he swept his eyes over the rest of the group, taking in Zack and Tommy's slight scowl toward Jason, Billy's look of confusion, and Kimberly's outright pissed off expression. Then he turned to Trini who was frozen in place, staring blankly ahead with her face lit up in the most extreme blush the Magi Ranger had ever seen.

Almost all at once, Harry felt like he had just been bashed in the head by Bones's sledgehammer again. The looks he had seen Trini give him on occasion and how she always seemed extra happy whenever Harry helped her with anything. Kimberly's questions as to his love life while they were in the Fan Man's jar now took on a whole new light, as well as the significant looks he had been unable to figure out since then.

Trini liked him. Trini LIKED him. And Harry had absolutely no idea how to react.

Luckily enough, Trini acted instead.

Standing slowly, Trini turned away from Harry and walked over to Jason. Without saying a word she drew back and slapped him across the face before teleporting out in a column of yellow light.

For several seconds, nobody moved. Even the constantly flashing lights and beeping computer terminals of the Command Center seemed frozen and silent in the wake of Jason's angry revelation and Trini's reaction.

Jason himself seemed to realize immediately that he had gone too far, and Trini's smack only reinforced that. He just slumped in on himself, sliding down the side of a computer console to sit on the ground, his head in his hands.

Kimberly stepped up next to him and nudged him with her foot until he looked up. "Unless you feel like there are any more private matters that you want to tell the class, I'm gonna go check on Trini." When Jason shook his head, his sorrow written all over his apologetic face, Kimberly turned to Harry. "Hey, give me a bit and I'll call you on the communicator to come and talk to her yourself, alright?"

When Harry merely nodded dumbly, still not quite processing everything, Kimberly nodded back and teleported out herself to start searching for her longtime friend.

Finally, after a few more minutes of silence from all and sundry, Harry found his voice. "Trini… likes me? She has a crush… on ME?"

Zack started chuckling, the sound cutting through the air and relieving the majority of the tension like a hot knife through butter. "Yes, Harry, she likes you. I can't believe you didn't see it yourself, man. I mean, you picked up on Kimberly liking Tommy easily enough, so I figured…" he shrugged. "Then again, it was pretty obvious with the way Kim was acting and Trini was a bit more… circumspect."

Tommy chuckled this time, ignoring the fact that he had been as oblivious to Kimberly's attraction to him as Harry had been to Trini's. "That's a pretty big word for you there, Zack. You been studying with Billy?"

When the laughter from the joke had run its course, even Billy getting in a bit of laughter despite still being rather bewildered by the entire situation, Jason finally spoke again. "I'm sorry everybody… I just… I saw the headline on the news at the Youth Center, but all I really saw was 'Magi Ranger' and 'Harry Potter' in the same place and jumped to conclusions about you blowing the secret. The rest just escalated from there."

When nobody responded, Harry decided to step up. "I don't think you really need to apologize to anyone currently here, Jason, but I doubt Trini will be up to speaking to you for a little while."

Jason glanced up at him, a teasing glint in his eye. "Yeah, I should probably let you talk to her first though, shouldn't I?"

Harry just groaned while the other male Rangers laughed at his expense. All may not have been forgiven, but things were at least set aside for now.

-So are you and Pretty-Yellow finally going to stop dancing around each other and begin preparations for a mating flight, Harry/Wizard?-

Harry was too busy choking on his own spit to explain his reaction to any of the other Rangers.

-MR-

When Kimberly's call finally came, Harry teleported to a remote corner of Angel Grove Park to find Trini sitting alone on a park bench. With nobody else visible in the area, Harry found himself walking over to her, his leg newly healed, and sitting next to her as calmly as he could.

After a few minutes of silence, Harry cleared his throat nervously. "So…"

Trini sighed. "So…"

A few seconds later, they both broke into nervous laughter.

"Why is this so hard to do?" Trini asked.

Harry shrugged, shooting her a smile. "You've got me. I've never really been in this situation myself."

Trini's own smile drooped a bit, but rebounded quickly. "You'd think that after Jason spilled the beans like he did it would just be a quick 'yes' or 'no' thing, wouldn't you?" She trailed off for a moment before shaking her head. "But Kim explained some of what you told her about your relationship history or lack thereof, so I know I really can't expect things to be that easy."

Harry sighed before turning to face her. "I really don't know what to say here, Trini. It's not that I don't like you or don't find you attractive, I do, but it's like I told Kimberly, I don't see what I have to offer anyone…"

Trini held up a hand to cut him off and took a deep breath, fortifying herself. "When I look at you, I see a friend. I see a guy who was willing to put his life on the line to help us in our fight when he really didn't have to. The fact that Rita has something of yours means nothing in this case. I see a comrade in arms that I would trust with my life and an ally that I know I can always count on. I also see the shy person beneath that battle hardened exterior. I see a nice guy who is not at all unattractive who I would like to see if I can get to know better. To see if we could have a relationship together… I know you feel like there's a lot in the way of having a relationship like this, but all I'm asking is that you give it a chance."

Harry stared at her blankly before closing his eyes and nodding firmly, mostly to himself if he was honest. "Alright… I suppose we should just give this a shot then? Take a chance and see how things progress?"

Trini's answering smile lit up her face in happiness. "Yeah, we can see how it goes."

Moving just a bit awkwardly, Harry lifted his right arm before draping it over her shoulder and pulling her into a hug that she quickly returned. Suddenly a thought occurred to him and he chuckled into her shoulder. "For what it's worth, Hedwig approves."

Trini snorted before pulling out of their hug with a blush on her face only to snuggle back in under his arm while he held himself somewhat stiffly. "Well," she finally answered. "That's practically familial approval right there. And I would hate to see what she would have done if she hadn't approved…"

The two were silent after that. Lost in their own thoughts as they stared into the distance, his arm over her shoulder and her leaning into him.

-MR-

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