Magi Ranger

by Tenstar12

Betrayed by the world he had given his all to save, Harry finds himself cast into the void. With some help Harry ends up in another dimension, but in classic Harry Potter fashion gets himself into trouble almost immediately. Can he make his way in this strange world he finds himself in where giant monster attacks are a daily occurrence and hardly anything is familiar? AU Harry, MOD

46. Chapter 46

Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

AN: Shout out to dkrosich for being the 1000th person to favorite Magi Ranger! Woo!

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

Chapter 46, or Gardening with Lord Zedd

In the weeks following Elder's appearance in Angel Grove and Harry's ultimate reclamation of the Elder Wand, Angel Grove experienced a period of nearly unheard of peace.

Much like when Rita had held back her assaults before making her big play with Cyclopsis, Harry was on edge by the end of the first week without a monster showing up. The biggest difference between this time and last time however, was that the other Rangers were right there with him.

And it wasn't just the stress of waiting for Lord Zedd's next move that was bothering the Magi Ranger, oh no, there were added stresses coming in from all sides.

First off came his magic lessons. It didn't take more than a single night's sleep before the Elder Wand was fully integrated by the Grid into Harry's Morph and Power, and the results were immediate. Nearly all of his hard earned control of his Grid Magic had been reduced to nothing. The upside was that this loss of control was caused by an equal and opposite gain in Power overall. The addition of a highly powerful magical focus had caused his Grid Power reserves to almost instantly double, which left his previous level of skill woefully inadequate to direct it properly.

In Morph, this increase in Power had resulted in a general increase in the strength of his strikes as well as how well his suit protected him and his enhanced martial arts skills, as revealed in a practice session a few days after Elder's defeat. This was certainly a welcome change to Harry as, with the aforementioned loss of control, he would be severely limited in what kinds of Grid Magic he could fling around in combat. He couldn't even pull off any of his Grid powered Wizarding spells at the moment.

This made regaining that control a very high priority for the Magi Ranger, a sentiment Zordon shared if the enforced return to basic meditation and control exercises were anything to go by. And although he knew it was necessary, Harry couldn't help but be irritated at revisiting the exercises and drills he had thought were left behind months ago.

And the Elder Wand's return hadn't left Harry's regular magic alone either, although this was a much more welcome change. With the wand merged with his Power, and Harry being suffused with that Power, he essentially had an extra focus built in, which made wandless magic much easier for him to cast. He still had to deal with the side effects of casting spells without an intermediary of some kind, but it required much less focus to cast and maintain any of the spells in his wandless repertoire. Learning that, however, had taken a week and a half of practice sessions that left the dimensionally displaced wizard bruised and worn out, again adding to his stress.

The third source was actually Harry's own doing. He had decided to set aside an hour each night before going to sleep for working on disenchanting his galleons. He had been working on them before, true, especially with his coin/wand providing him with an easier task overall, but with the Elder Wand regained, that task was made much easier still, increasing Harry's previous output of disenchanted lumps of gold two or three times over, and netting him a gold value of over a grand every night.

With the Wand recovered, Harry was determined to get himself out of the Command Center as his next goal, and that meant money, but the added strain of taking on yet another project on top of everything else was weighing on him.

Outside the Command Center and his magical studies, his more mundane magics were causing their own sort of grief for the Magi Ranger. Aside from his never ending quest to find out where exactly Harry was living, Ernie had more recently begun floating the idea of a magic show at the Youth Center. Such an event, Ernie had said, would not only bring in business for the Youth Center, but also raise a bit of extra cash for Harry himself. Not to mention the free advertising it would give the teen that would then lead to further shows and further profit, which was Harry's ultimate goal.

The problem there was that Harry had taken basically no time to practice his stage magic since being kidnapped by Rita nearly two months previously. But, in order to both get Ernie to ease off of him about something at least, Harry had mentioned that he was still practicing and preparing stuff, and so wasn't quite ready to put on a larger show just yet. After that, Ernie had taken to asking him about it nearly every time Harry came to the Youth Center, whether he was working on it or not, if he had heard of such-and-such magic trick, what he thought about doing this or that for his routine, and so Harry had started carrying around a few small magic props so he could actually practice his close up magic tricks during slow times. That still meant that he had to work on putting together a bigger routine, because Ernie had taken his admission to still be putting things together as an agreement to performing at the Youth Center, and had already begun preparing for it. All that was left was for a date to be set, one which Harry was eager to delay as long as possible.

To further his extra-magical frustrations, we have Bulk and Skull. True, the bullies were nuisances at their worst, bumbling idiots that provided a sort of comic relief effect most of the time, but lately they had caught Harry's attention. After their appearance in the Youth Center before the Rangers left to fight Elder, the bullies had been looking rather out of sorts each time the Magi Ranger had seen them. And it wasn't just that they looked upset or something subtle like that, each and every time he had seen them, they looked like they had had a run in with someone who had kicked their butts. It was never too terribly bad, scuffed or dirty and sometimes torn clothing coupled with a bruise or two and the occasional limp, but someone or something was messing with the two, and the Magi Ranger couldn't help but be concerned. Despite all they had done in the past, insulting and attempting to bully Harry himself as well as trying to take credit for things they didn't do and their latest laughable goal: to unmask the Power Rangers which effectively set them firmly at odds with the empowered teens, Harry felt sorry for them and his saving people thing had him chomping at the bit to find out what was going on.

If only he had the time…

And then we have Tommy. The former Ranger and current friend and sensei to the Magi Ranger had problems of his own that he had confessed to Harry. He was, of course, more than happy to listen to the teen's concerns, he just wished it was over something that he had more experience with.

Apparently Kimberly had been rather distant lately, and Tommy was worried.

It wasn't as though the two didn't do anything together. In fact, they tried to go on dates at least once a week and saw each other daily at school and the Youth Center. By all accounts, both Tommy's reports and Harry's own observations, Kimberly was as crazy over Tommy as she had been when she had first seen the new kid at the Karate tournament so many months ago. The problem was that, according to Tommy, the moment they separated, Kimberly seemed to almost forget that Tommy existed.

A few times in the last few weeks, Tommy had reported setting up a time and place for them to meet, only to find out that she was with the other Rangers instead when the scheduled time came. She had been completely embarrassed and overly apologetic when confronted on the topic, setting off with Tommy to keep their date immediately and cursing herself for her forgetfulness, but the fact that it kept happening couldn't be ignored. There were times that he would wait for a promised phone call after school, only to have to call her himself nearly an hour later and have her give similar reasons for her not calling: she "had completely spaced" and forgotten about her promise to call him.

And of the other Rangers, only Harry seemed to see any of this as a problem.

That specifically had really caught Harry's curiosity seeing as the teens all counted Tommy as a friend, a close one in fact because of his status as a former Ranger, and brushing off Kimberly's actions as nothing abnormal was very much out of character for them. Harry had actually been concerned enough at one point to subtly check them for spells of some kind, but they were completely free of foreign magics or Power. In fact, they were all so suffused with excess Grid Power from their Thunder Zord upgrade that he very much doubted that any other spells would stick to them for more than a day or so before being overwhelmed and breaking down on their own.

So he was left with another mystery, one that Tommy was beginning to get paranoid over. He had reluctantly shared his thoughts that Kimberly might have found another boyfriend. That she was cheating on him and only putting up an act when they were together. Harry had rejected that idea based on his observations of the other Rangers. If that were true, then they would all have to be in on it as well for them to not see the same problems that Tommy and Harry were. And for them all to go along with something like that was so far out of character for them, not to mention Kimberly herself, as to be completely ridiculous.

The Magi Ranger's words did little to comfort Tommy though. For all his strength, he was just as insecure as every other teen in the world, perhaps more so with his own personal demons being what they were. All Harry could really offer was his promise to help the former Ranger figure it out.

He just hoped that it would be enough.

And speaking of relationships, Trini had been almost the only source of light in Harry's stressed out life of late. He had nearly thought himself done for when, after school one Monday afternoon, two weeks after Elder's defeat, Harry had seen his girlfriend come into the Youth Center during his work shift with a neutral look on her face. He had felt his worry grow when her expression remained unchanged as she walked up to the counter opposite him and looked him in the eye.

And then asked if he had planned anything for Valentine's Day.

Harry had frozen, mentally counting the days with the help of his Occlumency only to realize that it was, in fact, February 14th and he had been so busy with everything else in his life as of late that he had completely forgotten about the couples holiday.

It was just as he was starting to sputter and stammer in a fruitless attempt to cover his blunder that Trini's face cracked into a smile and she silenced him with a single finger over his lips. The Yellow Ranger knew well the kinds of stresses he had been under as she was privy to the hidden, magical/Power Ranger half of his life as well as his more public dealings around the Youth Center. She had a feeling that he had lost track of the days and proceeded to basically kidnap him away from his job, though with Ernie's permission and support because of course she planned for that, and they spent the rest of the day together just relaxing. Neither of them being the overly demonstrative type, it was rather low key as far as Valentines dates went. There was no fancy dinner, merely a picnic that Trini had prepared herself, and although they did watch the sun set together, it was more because they happened to have a fairly good view of the daily event from their seats in the park than by any real intention to do so. But for Harry, it was about as perfect as could be, giving him a welcome relief from the crazy business of his life as of late. Not to mention providing yet another wonderful memory with Trini.

It had been a welcome relief to Harry, and one that he was sorely missing now only five days later as he met up with Tommy for karate practice on Saturday morning.

As was typical for him these days, Harry had started his morning off with some meditation and control exercises after a small breakfast, planning on eating a more substantial meal at the Youth Center before starting on his work shift. Upon arriving at the park with the soft pop of skilled apparition, Harry made his way to the same area that he and Tommy normally met at and set his purple duffel bag down.

It wasn't more than a few minutes later that Tommy himself arrived, though based on the look on his face, Harry could tell that he had been stood up by Kimberly again. Tommy had been very hopeful seeing as Kimberly, in an attempt to make up for all her recent lapses of memory, had actually made the arrangements for the two to go on a date the night before. Whatever was going on, the possibilities were quickly shifting away from unusual absentmindedness and into the realm of mean spirited.

Definitely not like Kimberly by any account.

Harry offered a tentative wave to Tommy which the former Ranger returned unenthusiastically. "Again?" Harry asked, wincing slightly when Tommy just sighed and nodded.

A moment later, Tommy spoke. "I just… I don't know what to do, Harry. I really do like Kim, but the way things have been going lately… When we're together, we get along like always, but it's the getting together that has become the problem."

"So…" Harry started slowly. "Did you end up calling her and reminding her again, or…?"

Tommy shook his head. "No… not this time, man… I just… I just couldn't…"

Harry had no idea how to respond to that beyond a hand on Tommy shoulder in a silent offer of support.

Finally, Tommy shook himself slightly and forced a smile onto his face. "But let's not worry about that right now. We're here to help you get used to your extra strength, so let's get to practicing." Although reluctant to change the subject since he knew that his friend was hurting over this entire situation, Harry was simultaneously grateful to move past the awkward atmosphere.

The next thirty minutes or so were spent with the two martial artists running through various kata before starting in on some sparring. Unlike when they had first started training together, Harry was now able to hold his own for several minutes at a time before Tommy's experience and greater skill overwhelmed him. This was partially due to his increased physical abilities since regaining the Elder Wand, but a lot of it was because Harry really was getting to be rather good with martial arts.

Though Tommy's own distracted state, despite the brave face he tried to put up, probably helped too.

Finally, after their typical hour of practice concluded with a few stretches to cool down and some magic from Harry to remove the sweat and dirt from their exertions, Tommy and Harry set off for the Youth Center. As they made their way out of the park, Tommy explained to Harry that he and the rest of the Rangers, as some of the more well-known students in the school, had each been convinced by Principal Caplan to create and run a short term club. Each of these clubs would only run for a week or so under their leadership, relying on one of the other members deciding to continue it beyond that. It was an attempt to help promote socialization between the students and create new friendships across the different age groups and school levels.

Or something like that anyway.

The sign up day for these clubs was that very day and was taking place, like most other extracurricular activities from Angel Grove High, at the Angel Grove Youth Center. This struck Harry as being somewhat odd since he was more than sure the school should have the necessary facilities for most if not all the school events that happened at the Youth Center. He was sure Ernie didn't mind the extra activity at the Youth Center, not to mention the extra revenue, but it didn't quite make sense to Harry overall.

I mean, what kind of high school doesn't have a gymnasium when they're the size of Angel Grove High?

In any case, when the two Rangers arrived at the Youth Center, much faster than they might have otherwise since Tommy, after noting that they were running behind, assented to a little side-along apparition from Harry, they walked right into a fairly heavy crowd. Exchanging a quick glance, Harry and Tommy split up, Harry heading to the food counter where he quickly donned his work apron and started taking food orders while Tommy made his way over to Jason's karate club booth, having agreed to help the Red Ranger run it.

For the next few hours Harry was almost too busy to think. On one hand, it worked wonders for his stress levels as he was too busy to dwell on all his assorted problems and obligations and focus strictly on his work. On the other hand, he was beginning to feel stretched as he went back and forth from the counter to the cooktop, taking new orders while preparing others, juggling easily a dozen different people's food orders at any given time while Ernie frantically prepared mixed fruit drinks and smoothies.

By the time the crowd had died down, Harry was more than ready for a break. It was with a wordless nod of thanks that Harry accepted a fruit smoothie from Ernie as the two slumped against the counter. As the Magi Ranger sipped on his surprisingly good smoothie blended from who knows how many random fruits, he let his eyes wander over the lower portion of the Youth Center, where all the club booths had been set up.

As previously noted, Jason, assisted by Tommy, had set up a karate club booth. The choice seemed obvious for Jason, but with his existing Karate classes, the Red Ranger had requested Tommy's help in running this extra club for the required week. While Tommy had his own students as well, they numbered a mere half dozen or so, including Harry, and so left the former Green Ranger with more time to help with the club than Jason.

Billy had, equally predictably, set up a science club, while Zack made another attempt at teaching his Hip Hop Kido to others. His first attempt at classes, when he and Harry had ended up running into Rita's spider monster, had garnered him a few students, but he was ever eager for more. If asked for his best guess, Harry figured Zack would end up folding any remaining members of this club into his regular classes for his original students after the week was up.

It was the girls that had surprised Harry the most though. Knowing of his girlfriend's tendencies toward protecting the environment and other, similar endeavors, Harry had more than expected something closer to those lines for Trini's temporary club. But she had instead started up a group for those who liked to play volleyball, a sport that she had never mentioned specifically in the past as something she liked to do. It could be possible that she just picked something at random and ran with it, but it still struck Harry as odd.

Kimberly's choice, while somewhat less surprising in nature, was actually rather surprising in its results. The Pink Ranger had chosen to set up a gardening club, presumably to create a garden of some kind somewhere, though Harry hadn't really heard much of anything about it during the last few hours. And this wasn't strictly because he was too busy. All too often, the various patrons of the snack bar would come to the counter discussing the various clubs on offer in the Youth Center that day while waiting on their orders, which was how Harry had initially heard about all of his friends' clubs. Heck, he had even heard about Bulk and Skull's "Unsolved Mysteries Club," which was undoubtedly tied to an attempt of theirs to discover the identity of the Power Rangers.

But he had heard literally nothing about Kimberly's "Gardening club."

He really hadn't even seen proof that Kimberly was even hosting a club until the crowd died down enough for him to see her standing behind a booth with several potted plants on it. A booth that, from what he could tell and based on the upset look on Kimberly's face, had gotten precisely nobody to sign up.

As a counterpoint, it seemed that everyone who didn't go to Kimberly's booth, went to Trini's as all accounts put the volleyball club as the most popular of the day. Harry knew next to nothing about the game, but apparently it was rather popular in Angel Grove.

Who knew?

And then, Harry felt it.

Just the slightest pulse of magic, of Power, coming from within the Youth Center.

Now, as the only known Grid Magic user on Earth that could move around freely, feeling a pulse of Power like that would certainly attract Harry's attention, even if it was barely enough to be felt, but Harry's attention was quickly drawn away by a new spectacle, that of Kimberly tearing into Trini verbally.

"Great job, Trini!" The Pink Ranger nearly snarled. "Thanks for stealing all of the people for your stupid club. Nobody even tried to sign up for mine!" Trini's reply, delivered in her typical calm voice was inaudible to Harry from where he stood, but Kimberly's following scoff showed she at least was less than impressed with it.

By this point, Billy and Zack, the two closest to the girls' booths, had made their way over to try and intervene in Kimberly's jealous spat. Harry, after a quick glance to and nod from Ernie, removed his apron and headed that way too. Whatever was going on, Harry felt it was his duty to support his girlfriend at the very least, especially if Kimberly was only having an extremely out of character moment of unreasonable jealousy and letting it out on Trini.

Out of character…

Shaking his head and setting that line of thought aside for the moment, Harry found himself reaching the group just in time to hear Kimberly rejecting some offer from Trini, stating that she could, "do it by myself, thank you very much, so just buzz off!" before stomping away.

"Uh…" Harry said uneasily, drawing the three confused Rangers' attention to him. "What did I miss? What just happened?"

Trini sighed before stepping up and wrapping her arms around Harry, a move he copied sensing that she needed the comfort of that hug. "Kimberly is upset that nobody signed up for her gardening club."

"Yeah, and I guess she feels that that's Trini's fault…" Zack trailed off, looking just as confused as he sounded. "For some reason…"

Harry blinked. "You know, she has been behaving very oddly lately… what with the whole forgetfulness thing…" When none of the other Rangers seemed to react to Harry's statement, he continued. "And I did feel a tiny pulse of Power just before she started in on Trini."

Billy perked up at that. "Do you suppose there is a connection? Could something have happened to Kimberly to make her act like that?"

Seeing the Blue and Black Rangers waiting for an answer, Harry shrugged, though not without difficulty as Trini had yet to release him. Not really something he was unhappy with, but it made certain gestures more awkward to perform. "It isn't necessarily impossible, but I don't really know enough to say for sure."

Trini shifted slightly at this, glancing up at him. "Maybe if you check out Kimberly's booth you can find out if the source of the Power was there."

Harry hummed in thought before nodding. "Or at the very least I can find out if it was there before. The level of Power I felt could just be a tiny spell triggering, in which case there wouldn't be much to find besides some residual energy."

With a plan in mind, the four Rangers walked to Kimberly's booth, a mere ten feet away. Truth be told, Harry only agreed to look because Trini had asked herself. He really didn't know enough about the many and varied manifestations of Power and their effects to make a good judgment call…

Harry nearly stumbled as he practically walked into an aura of Power, emanating from a cactus sitting on Kimberly's booth. "Bloody Hell…" the Magi Ranger took a step or two closer, unintentionally placing himself between the plant and the others. Whatever was going on with that plant, he was the best equipped to deal with it should something crazy happen, as they tended to do around Angel Grove…

"What is it, Harry?" Trini asked, tension in her voice at Harry's own reaction while the other two Rangers kept an eye out for anyone else close enough to hear their conversation.

"There is definitely something weird about this cactus…" Harry said, slowly reaching out and taking hold of the pot it was planted in, though he couldn't quite bring himself to pick it up. "Whatever it is, there is a lot of Power concentrated in its needles. My guess would be that Kimberly got stuck by one of them and triggered the spell's effect. That must have been what I was sensing at the counter."

Any further discussion was cut off when they once again heard Kimberly's voice echo across the Youth Center. This time, Tommy was the object of her ire. "You know what? I HATE flowers, and Trini is NOT my best friend!" Harry turned in time to see Kimberly shove her way past her boyfriend, throwing a pair of long stemmed flowers to the ground as she did so, and exiting the Youth Center.

As soon as Kimberly's shouted words registered in Harry's mind, he turned once more to Trini just in time to pull her into another comforting hug at the sight of tears building in her eyes. "Hey…" Harry spoke in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "Don't take anything she's said to heart, Trini. We know there's something wrong with Kimberly, some kind of spell on her. How about I take this cactus back to the Command Center and see if Zordon can't work out what's going on, eh?"

Trini sniffed lightly, her face buried into Harry's shirt, and nodded. "Yeah… you're right." Trini straightened up and took a moment to wipe a few tears from her cheeks. She was still a bit red eyed from her brief cry, but looked alright otherwise. "And I have to go meet the members of my volleyball club anyway. Can't leave them waiting when they were all so excited, right?"

Harry nodded before exchanging a brief glance with Billy and Zack. "I'll be in touch. Let Jason and Tommy know what's going on, yeah?"

Zack and Billy blinked, as if confused for a second, before nodding in return. "Alright, man," Zack said. "We'll take care of it, no worries."

"Affirmative," Billy continued. "You just concentrate on discovering the source of Kimberly's perplexing behavior."

Checking on Trini once more and getting reassurances that she would be alright, Harry picked up the probably-cursed cactus.

And yet, as he made his way back to Ernie to spin a tale of wanting to deliver the cactus to Kimberly in the hopes of finding some way to cheer her up in the hopes of his employer giving him the rest of the afternoon off, Harry couldn't help but think that maybe Kimberly wasn't the only one acting strangely…

-MR-

All said, Ernie was more than willing to let Harry go. He really should have expected it to be honest, Ernie had never had problems with Harry randomly running of in the past, even if that meant leaving Ernie alone to run the Youth Center. Honestly, Harry was really starting to wonder why Ernie even hired him in the first place. As far as he could tell, the man had no problems running things by himself as it was, despite his insistence to the contrary back when he had first been hired. The only real benefit having Harry around gave Ernie was more time to play with mixing up different smoothie flavors.

Harry put his thoughts aside as he reached his warded teleportation/apparition point in an alley behind the Youth Center. He could ponder on Ernie's strange ways another time, preferably when there wasn't so much crazy going on in his life that an enchanted plant actually qualified as his current highest priority.

Arriving in the Command Center in a pillar of purple light, Harry was almost immediately inundated with the sounds of the alarms going off. "Ai yai yai!" Alpha shouted as the alarms shut off. "Harry! Be careful! That plant carries a spell placed up on it by Lord Zedd! It is very dangerous!"

Harry carefully set the potted cactus atop one of the computer consoles before speaking. "I guess that answers that question then. I felt a burst of Power in the Youth Center right before Kimberly started imitating her punk potioned self. She went off on Trini and Tommy both and had us all worried."

"I can imagine so, Harry." Zordon responded. "The spell placed upon the cactus is one to magnify jealousy. I would guess that Kimberly's actions were based on her own jealousy over the success of Trini's club when compared to her own and then magnified several times over by Lord Zedd's spell."

Harry paused for a moment before fixing his mentor with a narrow eyed gaze. "Why do I get the feeling that you already knew about this whole thing?"

Zordon looked slightly sheepish for a moment. "We detected an unknown source of Power in Angel Grove and narrowed it down to the Youth Center before it was triggered. Then we watched Kimberly's outburst on the Viewing Globe shortly before you arrived. I had had time to create a few theories already, I merely did not want to contact you or the other Rangers until we had more evidence. Evidence that you provided by bringing the source of the disturbance to the Command Center."

Harry nodded slowly. What Zordon said made sense, but why the look? Was there more to the story that the big head wasn't sharing?

Harry was prevented from further thoughts along that line by the return of the alarm klaxons. "Ai yai yai yai yai!" Alpha panicked again, apparently his default setting any time those alarms went off. "Zordon, Harry, the sensors are picking up a monster in Angel Grove!"

Without being directed, Harry turned to the Viewing Globe as it turned on, seeing the monster within its depths. This time, the monster was clearly plant based. Its legs seemed to be made up of twisted segments of roots and its arms were nothing but long, whip-like vines. Its body, however, was completely covered by several large pink and white flowers, each with a deeper pink colored stamen sticking out from them. The largest flower, near the top of what would be the front of the monster if the orientation of its limbs was anything to go by, had a single red eye in the center. Otherwise, the monster was completely without anything resembling a face.

"Initiating Deep-Grid Scan now, Zordon." Alpha said, once more pressing a seemingly random series of buttons. Whatever upgrades had been done to the computer and sensors since Zedd's arrival seemed to have worked wonders because it was only a few seconds before Alpha reported the results of the scan. "This monster is the Bloom of Doom. It is made from some of the flowers that Kimberly left in the Youth Center, specifically those given to her by Tommy before she stormed out. It seems that the monster is carrying a large quantity of potentially toxic pollen. If it releases it, it could spell disaster for anyone nearby!"

Harry blinked. So they got a name, what the monster came from, and a brief description of some of its capabilities. Heck, the Rangers had done more with less info on monsters in the past, sometimes not having anything more than a name. Having even this much about a new one was quite the pleasant surprise.

"Harry," Zordon said, drawing his apprentice's attention again. "Alpha and I will contact the other Rangers. You must morph to the city-side of the park right away and delay the Bloom of Doom until they arrive."

"Right, Zordon." Harry responded with a nod before he paused as a thought occurred to him. "But what about Kimberly? She still has that jealousy spell on her…"

"Unfortunately, there is little we can do about it at this moment. The type of spell Lord Zedd used is derived from a potion poured over the cactus. As such, and since it was not imbibed directly and in greater quantities, the spell should not last too long. We must hope that it does wear off before the fight becomes too dire."

Not quite liking the answer he got, but understanding that Zordon knew best in these situations, Harry nodded again. If the spell was caused by a potion, it could probably be fixed with some more of the singing squash juice they had used back when Billy and Kimberly had been punked shortly after Harry arrived in this dimension. But the fact of the matter was that the squash was rather hard to find, taking Zordon and Alpha more time to find last time around than they currently had, what with the monster in question rampaging already and arguably more dangerous to the civilians of Angel Grove than the Terror Toad had been.

Besides, with the excess Power Harry had noted in the other Rangers, the jealousy spell might even have worn off by the time Kimberly joined the fight.

With his concerns settled for the time being, or at least set to the side, Harry flicked his wrist, summoning his wand from its disillusioned holster and whipping it up into a dueling stance, once more going through the motions. "MAGI RANGER, POWER UP!"

-MR-

When the Magi Ranger appeared in a column of purple light in Angel Grove Park he found himself immediately surrounded by 8 Z-putties. "Well," Harry said, taking a fighting stance. "I can't say this has ever happened before. Usually you guys get called in to fight before we morph."

"I just felt like changing things up a little, Magi Ranger!" The voice that responded was higher pitched and sounded more female than anything else, but it also had a very high pitched echo accompanying it. It was a rather grating sound truth be told, and not one Harry wanted to hear too much.

Merlin, he hoped that this monster wasn't one of the more talkative ones.

Turning his head, Harry saw the Bloom of Doom standing outside the ring of putties, waving its tentacle arms around randomly as it chortled. "Now my putties," The monster squeaked again. "ATTACK!"

As one, the Z putties charged Harry, probably expecting him to fall rather easily to the numbers as might have been the case in the past. After all, the Magi Ranger had always been the weak link in hand-to-hand fighting against the monsters and putties in the past.

They just weren't expecting the boost in strength he got from the Elder Wand.

With a kiai, Harry quickstepped sideways before striking one putty in the chest with a side kick, impacting the "Z" and setting the construct to glowing and exploding right away. The other putties froze for a heartbeat, but it was enough for Harry to return to his ready stance and pick out his next target.

When the putties again resumed their charge, they were now close enough that Harry found himself penned in by several of them. In response, the Magi Ranger just leapt up into the air, flipping up and over the putties to land behind them and land another kick to the back of one that sent it tumbling into the rest of the group, knocking all but two of them down.

"Come on, guys," Harry taunted, gesturing for the two still standing to come at him. "How do you think you're going to beat me if you keep falling all over yourselves?"

Not showing any physical reaction to Harry's taunt, the two standing putties both leapt into the air toward him in a superman pose as if to land double-punches. Harry just stepped backward a few steps and watched as the putties landed face first on the ground. Shrugging, Harry hopped onto their backs, stomping down hard enough to press the "Z's" on their chest into the ground and trigger their destruction, stepping off of them just as they broke into pieces.

By this point, the remaining five had regained their feet and were twitching and weaving as they tended to do, glancing at each other occasionally in what might have been fear or caution if Harry were better able to read the largely expressionless construct's faces. "So," Harry asked idly, retaking his fighting stance. "Who's next?"

"ME!" Kimberly's voice came from nowhere as she leapt onto the scene, blade blaster out and in blade mode. The Pink Ranger landed amongst the putties and lashed out with her blade, sending all five flying away from her accompanied by sparks. Two of the putties had turned to face her enough that the attacks had hit their "Z's" and so they disintegrated as they fell, leaving three more for the two Rangers to face.

Harry just shrugged. "Works for me." With that said, Harry charged in, engaging one of the recovering putties that had landed behind Kimberly when she finished her attack while Kimberly took on the two in front of her. With a quick series of blows, Harry had the putty reeling away from him. At that point, all it took was a high block to prevent a clumsy overhead strike to open up the putty enough for a quick power-punch to destroy it.

Idly dusting off his hands, Harry turned to see that Kimberly had dealt with her two opponents as well and the Bloom of Doom was standing where it had been originally, still merrily swinging its tentacles as it watched its minions be destroyed. Harry was then interrupted by a pink figure getting right up into his face and jabbing a finger into his chest. "What did you think you were doing, you purple freak?"

"Uh…" Harry said eloquently. "What?"

Kimberly let out a groan of frustration, pushing Harry back a step with both hands. "I didn't need your help, Potter, so why don't you just butt out and let a real Power Ranger handle this."

"Harry, Kim!" Trini's voice came from behind him, prompting Harry to turn and see the other four Rangers running up.

"Hey, hey," Zack said. "It looks like we're a little late for the party."

"Back off, Zack." Kimberly snapped. "I don't need your help either." From behind her back, Kimberly produced what looked distinctly like a… pink ribbon on a stick… alright… and proceeded to twirl it around, causing the ribbon to extend to great lengths before, with a flick of Kimberly's wrist, it shot toward the monster and wrapped it up. Then, with a short hum of satisfaction, Kimberly grabbed the ribbon in her free hand and a bolt of pink electricity raced down it, slamming into the monster and knocking it to the ground accompanied by the usual shower of sparks.

"Great job, Kim!" Jason said/shouted, stepping up and dramatically clenching one fist before him. "Now let's turn this plant into mulch!"

"Right!" the other three core Rangers said, each of them drawing out their blade blasters, converting them to blade mode, and following Jason in his charge toward the monster. Harry just shrugged, warily eyeing Kimberly who now appeared to be grumbling under her breath, and summoned up the Magi Staff.

Unlike before regaining the Elder Wand, the staff now had a faint wood grain pattern on it. It was in no way any less durable than before, still being made of whatever kind of metal it had originally been, but the swirling pattern that had once existed on the Elder Wand now showed itself in his primary weapon. A purely cosmetic effect, aside from the general Power boost and all, but one that Harry still found appealing.

With a grunt of effort, Harry leapt into the air, gathering up some of his internal Power as he did and focusing it into his staff. Just as he reached the peak of his jump, the four charging Rangers reached the tied up Bloom of Doom which had regained its feet after Kimberly's attack. With their own battle cries, each of the four Rangers lashed out with their Blade Blasters sending the monster staggering back and forth between each Ranger. Finally, when Trini took her attack, the monster twisted enough to make her attack strike the ribbon it was tangled in, slicing through it easily and freeing the monster.

Kimberly, the tension on her ribbon-weapon suddenly gone, stumbled back a few steps even as the monster swung its tentacle arms out, knocking the other four away. Harry just jabbed his staff forward in midair, releasing his gathered Power in a purple ball of destruction with a fierce kiai as he started to fall back to the ground.

The monster must have sensed Harry's attack at the last second as it dove to the side mere moments before Harry's incomplete finisher struck, engulfing the immediate area in an explosion that obscured the monster from sight.

Jason, Trini, Zack, and Billy quickly made their way back to Kimberly's side as Harry landed, the Red Ranger even giving Harry a nod as he approached. "Good job, Harry."

Harry nodded in reply, but before he could say anything he was cut off by Kimberly once more ripping into Trini. "Way to go, Trini! I had that flower freak until you set it free!"

"Hey," Zack said quickly, stepping up to Trini's side. "What does it matter, Kim? The monster is gone anyway."

This seemed to remind Kimberly of Harry's actions as she quickly rounded on him. "And I already told you I didn't need your help, you freaking Brit!"

Then the Rangers all heard the monster's squeaking laughter as the smoke began to clear. As it turns out, the monster had only managed to partially dodge Harry's attack, leaving its right tentacle/arm burned away into a foot long stub and it entire right side heavily singed. "If you think that that's enough to defeat me, Power Rangers, then you don't know who you're messing with! Why don't you try some of my pollen!"

The monster began shaking itself then, each of the flowers around its body releasing a red-orange cloud of particles that were then caught in an artificial wind that was most likely called up by the monster as well. Because of the wind, the pollen was swept toward the assembled Rangers before any of them could react and quickly coated them all.

"GAH!" Harry cried out as his entire body was immediately engulfed in a burning sensation. Not only that, but his eyes began watering as well, presumably because his suit was bearing the brunt of the pollen's effect, but not quite all of it as his eyes were still being irritated by the attack.

"What the heck is this stuff?" Jason shouted, flailing around along with the other Rangers, none of them able to work up the energy to try and get out of the cloud of pollen while dealing with the sensory overload at the same time.

"It must be some kind of incendiary pollen!" Billy reported back, falling to one knee as he did so.

The monster resumed its laughter, adding an auditory torture on top of the burning they were already feeling. "And now you know what kind of trouble you're really in, Power Rangers. You cannot defeat the Bloom of Doom."

"Damn it!" Kimberly raged, dropping to her own knees. "I can't get this stuff off! This is all your fault, Trini!"

Something in Harry snapped at the same time as he was hit with a burst of inspiration. With a grunt, Harry released a pulse of Kinetic energy, cleaning his suit of all the pollen and making the burning sensation fade immediately. Not only that, but it also managed to push the entire cloud up and away from him and those nearest to him at the same time. In this case, that meant Kimberly and Billy. Acting quickly, Harry rounded on Kimberly and put a hand on her helmeted head. "I am really getting sick of this stupid potion's effect on your attitude!" With some tight focus, mindful of his general lack of control at the moment, Harry pushed a careful tendril of Power into Kimberly, teasing up the extra Power within her and directing it toward the spell Zedd had placed onto her.

All he really needed to do was get it going, because once her own Power found the foreign magic, the entirety of it surged up and smashed into the jealousy amplification spell, completely breaking down what was left of it and returning Kimberly to her normal mindset. This done, Harry waved his staff, releasing pure Wizarding magic this time, and summoned up a gust of wind to blow the rest of the pollen off of and away from the other Rangers. Between the Rangers and the monster, the two winds met, creating a miniature tornado of pollen and magic that distorted each side's view of the other.

The Bloom of Doom laughed again. "You may have saved your friends from my poisonous pollen for the moment, Magi Ranger, but can you keep it up? As soon as your wind dies down, my pollen will incapacitate you again and I will destroy each of you at my leisure!"

On Harry's part, he knew that he could probably keep up such a minor wind spell for several hours, more than enough time for the Rangers to either move out of the way, teleport away, or find some other angle of attack. But based on the upsurge of Power he was sensing now, he didn't think he'd need to wait that long.

"POWER AXE!" "POWER BOW!" "POWER DAGGERS!" "POWER LANCE!" "POWER SWORD!"

As one, the five Rangers gathered beneath their assembled weapon and caught it as it dropped from the sky. "POWER BLASTER, FIRE!"

From the multiple barrels of the Power Blaster, several lances of color shot forth, swirling together to become one homogenous beam of destruction that then shot through the twister of pollen and struck the Bloom of Doom before it could even attempt to dodge. The ensuing explosion was several times larger than the one Harry had caused, but it was only when the monster's wind pushing its pollen around died down that Harry felt it was safe to end his own spell. That the pollen then began vanishing was enough sign for him that the monster had been destroyed by the Ranger's blast.

Yet another battle won.

-MR-

Back at the Command Center, Harry and the Rangers had just finished their post battle debriefing. It was a thankfully short one this time since the battle itself had been comparably short. This was especially good since Harry had a few pointed questions for Zordon.

"Well done once again, Power Rangers." Zordon congratulated the team. "And a special congratulations to you, Harry. Not only have you demonstrated how your enhanced Powers allow you to fight against the Z putties much more effectively, but it was because of your quick thinking that the spell on Kimberly was broken as soon as it was, allowing her to once again work together with the others. Without that, the battle may have drawn on much longer."

"Yeah, and I really can't thank you enough for that," Kimberly said, relief in her voice. "Looking back, I can't believe I said so much of what I did." She turned to Trini now, her face growing sad. "Trini, can you ever forgive me for everything I said? For being such a brat?"

Trini's wide smile put paid all of Kimberly's worries as she gave her friend a hug. "Don't even worry about it Kim. I know it was just Zedd's spell talking. Our friendship is rock solid."

Harry waited for the two girls to separate before speaking. "You do know that she isn't the only one you need to apologize to though, right?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Zack and Billy giving him a rather surprised look. It wasn't until Kimberly spoke next that he realized what they must have thought. "Oh, Harry! Of course I'm sorry for what I said to you too!"

The slightly offended tone that Kimberly used more than clued Harry in on what the other Rangers thought. Even Trini had a slight frown on her face. Harry just shook his head, waving Kimberly's words off. "Kimberly, I wasn't talking about me." Harry ignored the others' sheepish and apologetic looks and continued. "By the time you rounded on me, I already knew about the potion, so I wouldn't hold it against you anyway. But Trini and I weren't the only ones you shouted at…"

Kimberly took on a thoughtful look for several seconds, but seemed unable to think of anyone. Harry's eyes narrowed slightly before he spoke. "Your boyfriend…?"

Kimberly's eyes shot wide. "OH MY GOSH, TOMMY! Zordon, guys, I… I have to go, like right now!" Without any further hesitation, Kimberly activated her communicator and teleported out of the Command Center in a column of pink light.

Harry just shook his head, his face more than displaying his concern. "Now come on guys, you can't tell me that that wasn't weird. She didn't even think of Tommy until I prompted her."

When none of the other Rangers responded, Harry felt his worries grow even further. "Guys, is there something going on here that I don't know about? That Tommy doesn't know about." The others just looked confused at Harry's question, but still didn't respond.

Zordon's voice was the next to break the silence. "Whatever might be going on with Kimberly can be solved another time, Rangers. I suggest you all return to your civilian lives and take some time to rest. There is no telling when Lord Zedd might strike again."

With various mumbled confirmations, the four remaining core Rangers prepared to teleport back. It wasn't until Trini noticed that Harry wasn't doing the same that she spoke. "Are you coming, Harry?"

Harry shook his head briefly. "Not just yet. I have a few things to take care of here still. I'll catch up to you at the Youth Center, alright?"

Trini smiled at him and nodded before the four teleported away in their signature colors.

Harry immediately spun around to face Zordon. "Alright, Zordon, spill it. What's going on here?"

The floating head actually looked rather troubled. "I… I cannot say for certain just yet, Harry… One possibility is that Lord Zedd's spell was more subtle and longer lasting than we had thought. That this attempt to destabilize the team started weeks ago and the jealousy spell only triggered an effect that had been lingering within her for some time. One that still lingers on in her even now."

Harry hummed in thought, using his Occlumency enhanced mind to run through everything he knew about mind and personality altering magics, both Grid powered (relatively little) and Wizarding (only slighty more). Finally, he gave off a reluctant nod. "I'll admit that those kinds of spells aren't my strongest suit, but I suppose it could be possible, I just don't know that that would be it. When I triggered Kim's inherent Power to flush out the jealousy spell, there wasn't anything else in there. And with all the Power that the others have in them already, any kind of spell wouldn't stick to them for very long. Not without constant reapplication anyway, and I'm sure we would have noticed something like that. Besides all that, I've checked all five of the others for spells like that recently and turned up nothing."

Zordon gave his own nod before closing his eyes. "You might be correct on that, Harry. I… I must admit that I had heard of your concerns before now… Some of the other Rangers had become worried that there may be a spell of some kind on you…" Harry just scoffed internally. He was sure that "some" was only one and that one was Jason. "… Or that you were jumping at shadows without any clear sign of movement from Lord Zedd. But knowing of the love between Kimberly and Tommy and seeing Kimberly's actions just now for myself, I cannot help but agree with you."

"Ai yai yai… Poor Kimberly and Tommy…" Alpha said, his voice as sad as Harry had ever heard. "What could be wrong?"

Zordon shook his head slowly. "While I still feel that this must be something Zedd has done, there are relatively few ways that such an effect could be caused without us detecting it, as you suggested, Harry. I shall endeavor to investigate other possibilities. In the meantime, I ask that you watch over the others for any other signs of them acting out of character. We must discover the source of this problem before it destroys the Power Rangers from the inside."

Harry just nodded as he prepared to teleport out of the Command Center. Whatever was going on, somehow Harry got the feeling that Zedd wasn't the true source. He certainly wouldn't object to Zordon checking on his other theories for how Zedd could have been behind it. But what if he really wasn't. In that case, the next question was obvious: if not Zedd, then what?

Or who…

-MR-

AN: A lot of you were so sure that Kimberly's dismissing of Tommy before the Elder fight was just early signs of what led to the dear john letter that annoyed so many of us back in the 90's. Well, all I have to say is "not quite." This is one of those many plot points I have introduced in the last few chapters that are going to be themes for at least a portion of the Season 2 stuff. As I think I said before, I'm trying to go a bit more complex with my writing this time around. Call it an experiment if you will. Hope you all like it. : )

So this one fought me a bit. Probably had something to do with me getting sick while writing it, so sick I actually had to call in to work, which I absolutely hate doing, so that's a thing too…

The episode I based this one off of, The Bloom of Doom, had the Rangers each forming their own clubs for people to join. It also featured Principal Caplan stating that many people were in the auditorium instead of at the Youth Center. It turns out this was Caplan's fault as revealed at the end of the episode, and was also why nobody signed up at Kimberly's booth as they were all in the auditorium, but it got me thinking. Is the Youth Center not its own building? I mean, we know it is from canon since we see scenes of the Youth Center as being separate from the school, aerial footage and all that, but Caplan seemed to be implying that either the YC set was not separate, or they were using it as a part of the school for this episode. Which, while stupid, also makes sense just because we're talking about Season 2, and lots of stupid stuff happens in Season 2. XP

I know that on the wiki and maybe even in episode, it is implied that the Bloom of Doom was created from the cactus that Zedd swapped out for his enchanted one, but I feel that the "flowers" that Ernie gave Tommy to try and cheer Kimberly up with (which were totally not anything resembling plastic by the way) look much closer to the monster. It's one of those details that I feel was probably added in by the writers that got overlooked in the final production. The flowers Ernie gave Tommy looked way too fake, and their existence was way too convenient for it to be otherwise. They just went with Zedd making the monster from the cactus instead of taking up screen time to show the fate of those flowers after Kimberly left the Youth Center. Instead, I had Kim leave them behind. From there, Zedd zapped them and instantly transported the monster away. So mote it be. : )

So this episode was also another one of those where Ranger X gets caught in spacial warp/pocket dimension/whatever by the monster, but in this case, Billy theorized that Trini could break through the dimension and free Kimberly by "throwing her daggers at a 90 degree angle." …Yeah… I really didn't know how to use that, so I didn't. It was a little too ridiculous/stupid even for me. : )

The "pink ribbon on a stick" is actually canon. It was a "special weapon" that Zordon and Alpha sent to Kimberly to help her defeat the Bloom of Doom. Of course, the entire battle after morphing was rather disjointed and somewhat difficult to follow. At one point, they were all in the park, then Kimberly and Trini were in a more urban area, the others nowhere to be seen. Then everyone but Kim were in the Command Center while she was trapped in the earlier mentioned pocket dimension place… yeah, sometimes I get the feeling that Power Rangers (especially Season 2) would be easier to follow if I didn't overanalyze everything about it, but I just can't help myself.

Also, the wiki indicates that Zordon and Alpha call Kimberly first, even though it actually shows her being called last and all the Rangers actually arrive at the same time… meh.

I watched the episode in question here to get more inspiration and direction, specifically for Kimberly's "jealous" lines. But it when it came time for the monster battle, I almost wrote Green Ranger Tommy into it, since he was still a Ranger in canon when the Bloom of Doom arrived. Barely caught that one. lol

So I hope you like this once again longer chapter. I was actually surprised when I saw how long it came out to be. Certainly not complaining though. Don't want my muse to quit outright. I do apologize for it being a bit late though. I usually post in the morning (my time) and this one didn't get posted until nearly 12 hours later than I normally would have. I'm very sorry about that one…

Anyway, thanks for reading and don't forget to review,

Tenstar12