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

53. Chapter 53

Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

AN: Just a heads up, another announcement at the end of the chapter, so make sure you all check that out.

Also, contest has been decided! The winner has been contacted and plans for the character have been made…

What, you thought I was actually gonna say who won? Pffft! That would give away a whole bunch of spoilers! Lol I will say that it was very close though. There was one person who was a very clear front runner for quite a while, the only reason they didn't win was because of a slight difference in one of their answers, the winning answer being exactly what I had planned as opposed to being very close to what I had planned. Megazord name and all that. : )

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

Chapter 53, or Not a Power Ranger?

Things had been going pretty well for Harry in the week following his breakdown after Jason's latest blow up.

Aside from his usual work and training schedules, Harry had been, now that he had what he felt was a respectable level of cash to his name, able to begin searching for a place to live on a more permanent basis. It was well past time to leave the Command Center Closet behind and with funds in hand, Harry was more than ready to make it happen.

The other Rangers and Tommy had all been eager to help, each of them investigating however they could, typically through their parents or school resources. Alpha and Zordon had, perhaps rather predictably, been the biggest help though, as they had been able to find a list of potential homes in the area.

The list did not raise Harry's spirits at all.

Once it had been established that the sum of his current holdings in non-Galleons wouldn't be able to cover even a tenth of the price of even the cheapest home on the list provided, the Rangers began helping him look into alternatives. The most obvious one was an apartment, which upon reviewing information provided by Zordon and Alpha, was much more palatable price wise, even if privacy was a bit more of a concern, as well as being able to disguise his comings and goings as the Magi Ranger.

Harry set that idea aside as a second choice.

In the search for further options, and somewhat disappointed in his current holdings after the recent revelations, Harry had once more set out on a gold selling venture a mere 3 days after his first. Again guided by Alpha and Zordon in his teleports, Harry managed to visit another set of pawn shops and duplicate his previous venture's success, selling around another $6,000 worth of Galleons.

When he returned it was once more to a Command Center occupied by more than just Alpha and Zordon, though it wasn't the entire team this time. Instead, Billy and Jason were there alone and spun a tale of Zedd's latest monster, the Octophantom, that had managed to capture Trini, Zack, and Kimberly in a magical jar similar to the one once wielded by Rita's Samurai Fan Man that Harry had had experience with. The main difference with this monster was that instead of the jar containing a pocket dimension that would destroy whatever was held inside it after a certain amount of time, this one drained Morphing Grid energy from those held within it until they were too weak to resist.

With Harry now back in Angel Grove the team was ready to strike back, Harry's readiness in no small part because of Trini's capture, and the three managed to take on the Octophantom and free the others. The method used was planned out by Billy, who had noticed that the monster seemed rather vain, having paused during their initial encounter to admire its own reflection.

Seeing as the monster was some unholy combination of an octopus and an elephant that was slapped on top of a humanoid body and then smacked with the mother of all ugly sticks, Harry didn't really see it, but they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that…

In any case, through the use of a shield constructed by Billy that had a large mirror hidden inside, Jason was able to distract the monster long enough for Harry and Billy to free the others who were randomly chained up on a cliff nearby. After that it was a simple matter to destroy the jar before it could be used again and then finish the monster off with the Thunder Megazord and Hedwig.

In the after battle review, when the entire confrontation had been evaluated and Harry had explained that he had been gone on another gold run, Jason had managed to surprise the Magi Ranger. The Red Ranger seemed like he was about to blow his top again, but had caught himself at the last moment. After a deep breath, Jason had asked Harry (ASKED! Not demanded! Progress!) that he not make such a trip again for some time as Zedd seemed to be taking advantage of his absence to attack the city each time.

Seeing the logic in the request, and really not wanting Jason to relapse again, Harry readily agreed.

Still, with this option to distract himself now off the table, he had in fact been planning several more of such trips throughout the rest of the week, Harry was left once more to his house hunt when the next day dawned. Quickly hitting the same roadblocks as before with his available funds not being enough to afford an actual house, and not having the proper credentials to get any kind of a bank loan without trying to do so in morph (because who would turn down one of the city's saviors if they asked for a loan?), Harry found himself once more succumbing to the droning of the excess Power in the Command Center and retreated to the Youth Center before his headache got worse.

Despite Harry having been given the day off, Ernie was more than happy to see him and had pulled Harry back into his office. As it turned out, the other Rangers hadn't been quite low key enough in their house hunting information search and Ernie had caught on to what they were doing. Upon confronting Harry, some quick thinking on the wizard's part had Ernie thinking that he had been staying with an acquaintance, but the situation was becoming less and less ideal as time passed, so he was looking for a place of his own now. Ernie accepted the story, basically filling in the details for Harry himself as he surmised that his general dissatisfaction with the arrangement was the reason Harry had never been specific about his home thus far.

Sure, let's go with that.

In an attempt to change the subject away from his living situation, Harry brought up Ernie's conduct when the five punks had been causing trouble over the weekend, specifically when the Youth Center had gotten security cameras and why Harry hadn't noticed them before. After all, such things were somewhat bulky and rather hard to disguise from what the Magi Ranger knew. Ernie had just laughed and explained to Harry that he had only recently had them installed in an attempt to help him with evidence of anyone trying to cause trouble in the Youth Center, particularly Bulk and Skull. He also mentioned that he was considering using the footage of the various competitions and classes that were held in the Youth Center for extra revenue in the form of videos of the events and advertising.

When Harry brought up the issue of the quality of such videos, Ernie had chuckled again and mentioned that the cameras were actually very high quality and surprisingly compact, which is why he hadn't noticed them. In fact, Ernie named Billy as the one who had designed and helped install the cameras at Ernie's request.

This settled Harry a bit, but also irked him for other reasons. On one hand, the Rangers probably wouldn't have to worry about their morphing and teleporting being caught if Billy was the one responsible for the installation of the cameras. The genius might not have the best social skills, but he wasn't absent minded enough to unintentionally out the Rangers though his own work. At the same time, he was somewhat annoyed that Billy hadn't mentioned this to any of the Rangers (as far as he knew) or at least to Harry specifically since he worked there. Then again, he might have expected that Ernie would tell Harry himself…

After a bit of mental debate, Harry decided to look into a bit of low key, Marauder style pranking revenge on the Blue Ranger and leave it at that.

After agreeing to show Harry where the cameras were during his next shift, Ernie then promised to send out his own feelers to aid in Harry's search for his own living space. Afterwards, Harry and his employer stepped back into the main room of the Youth Center just in time to see Tommy and the Core Rangers do the same from the main entryway having just got out of school. Leaving Ernie's side, Harry greeted the others warmly, Trini more so for obvious reasons, and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with them as they hung out, worked out/sparred, and did their homework.

By the end of the afternoon, Harry found that none of the others had had any luck in their attempts to aid Harry's search. Their parents had been largely unable to help, none of them having seriously looked into the housing market recently, and there wasn't anything they could find using school resources that Alpha and Zordon hadn't already reported.

All the same, despite the lack of anything useful to aid in his hunt for a home, the day ended well enough that Harry wasn't feeling too bad by the time he fell asleep that night.

The next day, however, Ernie dropped a bombshell on him.

Ernie had done his own thinking and figured that the biggest thing stopping Harry was his lack of funds. And, of course, Ernie had just the idea for fixing a good bit of that problem, or at least taking a step in the right direction.

And so it was that Harry found himself convinced/bullied into finally performing a magic show at the Youth Center that weekend. He had been more than slightly hoping that Ernie had forgotten about the idea, but it appeared that that hope had been in vain. For the rest of the week, Harry, with some amused help from Trini, and Tommy had thrown himself back into his studies of the stage magic tricks that he had barely touched or really even thought about since his encounter with the Twin Man.

After a bit under three days of near panic at what his kind hearted employer had gotten him into alongside frantic practice, preparation, improvisation, and no small amount of his own brand of magic, Harry was about as ready as he could be for his first real stage magic show.

-MR-

"Hello fellow magicians, and welcome to the world of AMCE magic, you're professional mail-order magic company, one hundred percent genuine."

"One hundred percent," Harry said with a somewhat goofy smile on his face that brought a few chuckles from the crowd before him.

So far, his show had been a hit. With all the planning and preparation he had frantically put into it, seeing things going so well so far was quite the relief.

"This lesson is the Mystery of the Vanishing Bandana."

As it was a Saturday, there were a large number of children and teenagers who had come to see the magic show, both with and without their parents. The Youth Center was absolutely packed because of Ernie's over the top advertising assisted by the Rangers. While Harry was panicking and practicing his tricks with Trini and Tommy, the others had been hanging banners, passing out flyers and generally spreading the word under Ernie's enthusiastic direction. With the Magi Ranger a confirmed part of Angel Grove society, the prospect of a magic show brought a lot of attention.

If they only knew…

"For this lesson, you will need two props…"

"Two props," Harry repeated, still smiling like a kid in a candy store and reminding more than one person of Skull with his parroting."

With a kiss for good luck from Trini and no small amount of Occlumency to help suppress his nerves, Harry had stepped out onto stage in his classic magician's outfit complete with a long sleeved coat over a white dress shirt with black pants and top hat (all of which were conjured and that he had had to intentionally avoid making purple… stupid Morphing Grid…) and started his show off slowly.

He did a card trick.

More specifically he brought a kid up on stage and had the child choose a card, show it to the audience, and then put it back on top of the deck. After that, with some clever shuffling, Harry was able to draw the card the child selected, much to the astonishment of said child.

His next trick… was another card trick.

And then another.

By the fourth card trick, he could see some of the teens getting bored and no small number of adults too. Ernie was looking a bit upset himself, probably fearing that he had pushed Harry into this too quickly.

But it was all according to plan.

When Harry announced a fifth card trick as his next one, Bulk and Skull made an expected interruption. Had he done something to ensure that the two would interfere? No. Did he really need to? No, they were just that predictable.

"Why don't you show us some real magic, Nerd!"

"Yeah, real magic!"

Harry frowned exaggeratedly before turning his gaze to where the other Rangers were standing off to one side of the crowd. "Trini, Luv, you like my card tricks, right?"

This entire part of the act had been Trini's idea and so he felt vindicated at the blush that lit up her face at Harry's pet name. Still, she recovered quickly enough to continue with her lines. "Well, Harry, they are getting a bit boring, and they're a bit hard to see from the back."

When other members of the crowd started mumbling agreement, mostly small kids as some of the adults had picked up that this was all part of the show, Harry sighed dramatically. "Fine…" With that, Harry spun to face Bulk again who, by this time, was standing on the stage himself and flexed the cards in his hands until they flew free toward Bulk. As he did so, Harry wandlessly conjured a few white doves amidst the airborne cards that buzzed past Bulk's head, to which the bully quickly ducked low with a cry of shock, before flying out of a window left open for just that purpose.

All the audience had seen was this seemingly disappointing magician turn playing cards into birds and use them to shock a known bully.

They ate it up and Harry was almost surprised at the applause. And that was only from his first real trick!

"First you will need a small square of dark fabric…"

Harry raised up a finger for a moment, still smiling widely, and reached into his back pocket to pull out a dark purple handkerchief that was about a foot square in size.

Once Bulk had left the stage, Harry got into his show properly, demonstrating small scale stage magic like the crowd had been hoping for. Tommy had initially suggested that he go for something a bit larger to better impress, but the fact that Ernie knew he was lacking in funds prevented the required props from being believable. Harry couldn't think of any way to get the man to believe that Harry was able to acquire such items on his assumedly meager funds and he didn't want to have to Obliviate him just because he wanted to impress a crowd. Instead, Harry performed more mundane magic tricks like magical linking rings, levitating orbs, and mirror boxes complete with conjured rabbits.

Of course, each of these tricks were augmented by small bits of wandless magic here and there, though none as blatant as the conjured doves from the beginning. Some of this was just for showmanship, confetti and the like, but some was because, no matter how much he practiced, he just needed a bit of help pulling these tricks off properly on only three real days of practice.

"… And a yellow bandana."

Harry flinched slightly, his face taking on a look of confusion before shrugging and reaching into the open top of his nearby 'magician's trunk' where he'd kept all his props so far. When he withdrew his hand, he was holding a banana, bringing another bout of laughter from the crowd.

After doing those three tricks, Harry had confessed to the crowd that he only had one more. Ernie had sprung this whole idea on him earlier in the week and so he hadn't had too much time to prepare after all. He said this with a teasing tone, which just set Ernie to laughing along with the crowd. He continued on to say that he would be willing to show some of the card tricks and simple magic to anyone interested after the show. For his final trick though, he was going to do something completely new. He had received a trick in the mail, you see, and it came with a cassette tape with instructions on it, so he was going to learn the trick as he did it right there with them.

And so the silliness began.

"Pick up the bandana." Harry hefted the banana up in his hand, tucking the handkerchief into his coat pocket.

"Now fold the bandana in half." Harry blinked before looking over at the tape player, operated by Trini who had moved over to the edge of the stage after her part in the card trick routine. Trini just shrugged even as the woman's voice on the tape spoke again. "That's right, fold it in half." The audience just laughed as Harry, still with confusion on his face, folded the banana in half, breaking through the peel on one side as it went.

"Now, fold it one more time."

Harry looked back at Trini again. "What the…" Trini shrugged, struggling to hold in her own giggles now. With another shrug and a look of confused frustration on his face, Harry attempted to fold the banana again, really just mushing it around for all his effort, to much laughter from the audience.

"Take the folded bandana and hide it in your left hand." Still looking confused, Harry tossed the banana into his left hand with a smack.

"Remember to keep your hand in a natural position." Harry looked up at the crowd briefly before letting his hand basically go limp with the back of his hand facing them into what might have been the most unnatural position possible for someone trying to hide something in their hand. "This is called 'Palming.'"

Harry opened his mouth in an "Oh" of understanding while the crowd continued to chuckle.

"Now that you have mastered Palming…" Harry smiled wide, looking very proud of himself. "…we're ready to begin."

"Alright, here we go." Harry said eagerly.

"Open up the folded bandana." Harry made a face as he carefully took hold of the stem of the banana in one hand and used the other to unfold it gently, holding up the mutilated fruit for the crowd.

"Show the audience that it is a regular bandana by waving it up and down." Harry's face once more took on a confused look as he carefully moved the banana up and down, trying to keep any of the fruit from falling apart.

"If an audience member does not believe that it is a real bandana, allow them to wipe their face on it." Immediately, Harry turned toward Bulk and stepped to the edge of the stage, holding out the banana toward him while Bulk just recoiled, a look of disgust on his face. The rest of the crowd just laughed again.

"Now, pick up the square of fabric and gather the four corners together to form a little makeshift bag." Holding the banana in his teeth by the stem, Harry once more tugged the handkerchief free from his pocket and gathered the corners up before holding it in his right hand and taking the banana again in his left.

"Now, using your free hand, fold the bandana along the creases you made earlier…" Looked disgusted again, Harry flips the banana up with his left hand, doing the best he can to 'fold' it again, but really ending up mushing it up even more. More laughing.

"And drop it into the folds of the fabric makeshift bag." Nodding in understanding, Harry took great care to put the mushed up banana into the bag, smiling in satisfaction when done.

"From the outside of the makeshift bag, squeeze the bandana into a small, little ball." Making another face and shooting another glance to Trini, Harry squeezed the banana into a ball while the crowd laughs yet again, mixed in with a few 'eew's' from some of the kids.

"What the audience didn't see is that you never really put the bandana into the bag at all."

Harry's eyes went wide as his head shot up from inspecting the bag of banana-smush. "I didn't?"

"You had it hidden in your left hand the whole time."

Harry glanced at his very empty left hand as if it had betrayed him before turning his gaze to the tape player and then back to his hand, all while drawing more laughter. "I do?"

"Remember Palming?" Harry nodded, a look of dawning horror on his face while Bulk and Skull practically fell over from laughing at his apparent mistake.

"Remember to keep your hand held naturally." Immediately, Harry once more let his hand drop into the same natural/unnatural position as before.

"Now, make a magical gesture." Harry blinked for a moment. Then he glanced at the crowd, then back down at the bag, then at his empty hand. Finally, he brought his hands together into a praying position as he looked upward. "Oh please, God…" The crowd just laughed again.

"For the grand finish, fling open the bag and receive your well-deserved applause." Shifting his grip on the bag so he was holding it with both hands, Harry closed his eyes briefly and let out his breath slowly. Cringing, Harry flung open the handkerchief, revealing it to be not only empty but seemingly clean of any sign of the smushed banana. Harry's attitude immediately changed from dejection to smiling confidence as he flipped the handkerchief in his hands, showing both sides to be clean and banana/bandana free before tossing it into his trunk.

As the crowd in general made a similar change from laughter to shock to applause, Bulk almost immediately sprung up to his feet. "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!"

Harry smiled at the audience before holding up a finger toward Bulk just as the recording spoke its final line. "And remember, a magician never tells his secrets."

With a smile and a bow, Harry closed his trunk just as a few bars of music played on the recording, signaling the end of the trick to more applause.

-MR-

Harry groaned as he wheeled his magician's trunk into his room in the Command Center and tossed his top hat onto his desk. The hours after his show ended had been a long stream of simple card tricks, amazed kids, and pulling free smoothie coupons out from behind said kids' ears. Ernie had given him said coupons before his show started and it was a simple matter to use his own magic to summon one to his hand whenever he needed. The fact that it amazed and excited the children every time he did it made his own exhausted state worth it.

He had honestly never really considered how much energy doing a magic show would take out of him, both physically and magically.

Still though, it hadn't been all bad. He had sort of rediscovered what excitement he had had for stage magic before the whole Twin Man thing. He didn't have a ton of time in his schedule at this point, but it might be fun to put together another, bigger show some time. After all, Trini had done quite well in her position as Magician's Assistant this time, and it had been a rather minor role all said and done. It might be even more fun if he got her up on stage with him for some larger scale tricks.

Shaking off the amusing thought, Harry flopped down into his chair, and struggled to decide whether he wanted to sit there for a while or just go to bed now. It was only around 6 o'clock, but he was already more than tired enough to sleep the night through.

Unfortunately, his decision making process was cut off by the sound of teleportation arriving in the main room. "Harry?" Jason's voice called out, catching Harry's interest even as he heaved himself back out of his seat.

"Yeah, Jason, what's up?" Harry asked, moving to stand in the doorway to his room as he did. Jason, he noticed, looked rather serious at the moment. Not quite super-angry level serious, but something was clearly on the Red Ranger's mind.

"Harry… how-" Jason's words were cut off when four more pillars of light came down from above, clearing to reveal the other four Rangers had teleported in.

Zack glanced around for a moment, taking in the stern looking Jason and the confused and tired Harry before stepping up to Jason's side and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Jason, it doesn't even matter man."

"I need to know, Zack. You all say that it doesn't, but… I just have to know."

Trini stepped around Jason and Zack and over to Harry's side as he moved fully out of his room to meet her. With a small, weary smile, she slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze.

Harry felt a bit of tension building in the back of his mind.

Zack continued to try and talk Jason down from whatever it was he was after. "Look, Jace, at the end of the day, why do you feel like you need to know? Are you sure this isn't whatever crazy influence the Power is having on you making you think these things?"

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, though it did give Harry some confirmation as to the direction of Jason's thoughts. Jason's face went red as his anger spiked. "I am not being completely controlled by this thing, Zack. I don't like Harry, we've known that from the beginning, but if he's really… I just…" Jason whirled around to face the Magi Ranger again, Trini still standing close to his side, facing her leader next to her boyfriend. "Harry, were you using magic during your show today? I mean real magic? Your kind of magic?"

Harry raised an eyebrow in confusion. Why would that matter at all? Not seeing any harm, Harry shrugged before nodding. "Well, yeah, a bit. I couldn't really get all those tricks down in so little time to perform them properly, so I had to use a few spells to cheat a bit. Why?"

Jason seemed to be grinding his teeth now. "How much magic were you using?"

Harry felt the tension in his mind increasing steadily. What was going on?

"Well, the card tricks were simple enough, though I did goof one of the shuffles on one and had to glamour the card I drew so it was the right one." Harry chuckled a bit when Trini jabbed him in the side good-naturedly before he continued. "Uh… The doves that I used to spook Bulk were conjured, obviously… I did the linking rings myself, but I had to use a few spells to help out with the rest of the act. And there were a few more spells in there for showmanship and whatnot."

"And that banana trick?" Jason nearly growled.

Harry snorted. "There was a hidden pocket in the handkerchief. I slipped the banana in there and flipped the thing around too fast for anyone to be able to notice it at the end before I tossed it into my trunk. That one was actually one of the easier tricks. Really more of a comedy routine than anything else…"

"And after that?"

Harry winced a bit as the tension in his head grew further still. Something was wrong here. Very wrong…

"I used a bit to give those smoothie coupons of Ernie's out, but that's it. What's this all about, Jason? Why does it matter if I used my magic during a magic act?"

Harry had intended it as a joke, but instead, he just set Jason off.

"What does it matter!?" Jason roared suddenly, surprising everyone in the Command Center. Even Alpha took a step back in surprise at the Ranger's outburst. "I can't believe you, Harry. I really can't. As if it wasn't bad enough that you've been destabilizing this team since you first arrived; that you've been using your magic to make money; and that you've been encouraging members of this team, of MY TEAM, to abandon the fight to focus on their social lives of all things! The world is in danger and you're not taking any of this seriously!"

"Excuse me?" Harry began, shaking his hand free from a shocked Trini's grip and stepping forward.

Jason just continued unabated. "No, you've managed to convince everyone else that these things were fine. That you've done nothing wrong. You managed to get everyone thinking that you can't do anything wrong, but you haven't convinced everyone. You haven't convinced me!"

The Red Ranger stepped up closer to Harry now, no longer yelling now, but still communicating his anger quite effectively through his tone. "You have all these gifts, your magic and the Power of the Morphing Grid and as a Ranger, and you're squandering them for your own gain. You've let the Power go to your head to the point that you think you can just use them for whatever you want! Ever since you showed up, it's been one thing after another and I have had it!"

Jason jabbed Harry's chest with a finger, but Harry still met the Ranger's eyes with a steady gaze. The tension was growing still, nearly as bad as the constant buzzing in the Command Center as far as distractions go.

"And now you're using magic for a stage show of all things. A performance. If you weren't ready, then you should have told Ernie that, not blustered ahead and cheated your way through with super human abilities! The Power isn't your own personal play toy and you have a responsibility to use all your gifts for good, but you don't!"

Jason was once more building up a big head of steam, his voice steadily rising to a shout again as he whirled away from Harry, striding angrily back toward the center of the room. "All your magic and all your Power and you openly admit to using them selfishly. You're wasting your power on trivialities! Nobody on this team can be that self-serving. You aren't a part of this team! You've never been a part of this team! And you are not a Power Ranger!"

Just like that, Harry felt a sort of snapping sensation in the back of his mind and the ever building pressure there vanished all at once. For some strange reason, Harry felt a distinct feeling of loss, but that thought was rapidly set aside when the Command Center's alarms stared going off.

"Ai-yai-yai-yai-yai!" Alpha yammered, shuffling to a computer console and working the controls as Billy rushed over to his side to join him. "Zordon, the computers indicate an intruder in the Command Center!"

"Alpha, try to pinpoint their location immediately!" Zordon ordered.

The words brought all of the Rangers back to focus, setting aside Jason's outburst to deal with after the current issue. "Spread out!" The Red Ranger shouted, each of the Rangers, even Harry, following his instructions as they all looked around warily.

"Oh no!" Alpha shrieked, working the controls even more frantically. "The intruder is here, in this room!"

This cranked the tension up another level, Harry drawing his wand from its holster, the tip lighting up as he did so. "Hey guys… Morphing Time?"

After only a moment's hesitation, Jason spoke. "Right, It's Morphin' Time!"

"MASTODON!" "PTERODACTYL!" "TRICERATOPS!" "SABER-TOOTH TIGER!" "TYRANNOSAURUS!" "MAGI RANGER, POWER UP!"

When the light of their morphing died down, Harry immediately summoned up the Magi Staff and waved it before him, casting detection spells everywhere but around the computer consoles so as to avoid shorting out the sensitive equipment. The spells returned nothing. "I don't detect anyone here that shouldn't be, Zordon."

Suddenly, the computer let out a beep, barely heard over the still sounding alarms. "Zordon, computer has a lock on the intruder."

Zordon nodded grimly. "Good, teleport them outside the Command Center at once, Alpha."

"Right away Zordon," Alpha replied promptly, still working the controls before him. "Teleporting… now!"

For a moment, nothing happened, then Harry's world went white.

-MR-

AN: So this is another chapter that I've had planned for a long time. I just hope this plotline doesn't flop as badly as the last purely original idea I used: the Harry-Gets-Kidnapped arc that is easily the worst I've written so far… *sigh* Oh well, nothing to do now but press on and hope for the best!

If I do have one big issue with this chapter though, it's how little time I had to work on it. I feel that it isn't nearly as good as I would have liked it, especially seeing as it's the first part of my big, largely original arc for Season 2. I've likened this arc to my Season 1 Green with Evil arc as it's going to be the epic non-conclusion arc of the Season! And this is the first chapter! And it's short! Heck, half of it was just rehashing an old magic trick! GAH! Don't like it. Not at all. Not even remotely satisfied… but as the next paragraph tells you, I don't have much choice at this point… dang it…

So, announcement. Long story short and without going into too much detail, the place I work at requires certifications to remain employed. I got on-the-job training and achieved a state level certification about 6 months ago and was quite happy with that. Now, my boss's boss has come in and said that we are all required to acquire National level certifications ASAP. What this means for me is that I have to study. Like, a lot. There are gonna be things on this national exam that weren't covered in heavy detail on the state one. Gonna suck. What this means for Magi Ranger though is that I might not have time to keep with my posting schedule. Imma try and keep the chapters coming, but don't be surprised if the next few are late, or if I miss a month. I'm playing it by ear, but my brain is gonna be rather shot with all the mind numbing information I have to absorb to pass this test along with all the other completely unrelated craziness in my life that has sprung up recently. This one is just the biggest at the moment. One of those things where certification exams require you to know about every aspect of the job, even if you don't have anything to do with it all, or even the capacity to do it at your particular place of employment. *sigh again*

In short, the next few chapters may be shorter or late, like this one was. I don't like it, but I can't lose my job or else I'll have much bigger problems to worry about than keeping a not-for-profit fanfiction updated every month…

Anyway, moving on!

The magic show is heavily based off of an old friend of mine that I had in high school. I might have mentioned him in a Season 1 AN that I have since deleted… He was a professional magician even then, doing birthday parties and even a few shows at our school. Great guy, super nice, huge nerd. Also a second degree black belt in Taekwondo. Awesome. Anyway, I saw a few of his shows, not to mention a lot of close up magic that he was constantly practicing, and drew on that information, as well as Google and YouTube research to create what I showed of Harry's routine.

Also, I don't own the particular order of the words of the voiceover for the Vanishing Bandana/Bannana trick. I typed them out while listening to the trick online mostly for nostalgia because this was one trick that stuck with me from my friend's show.

Just like with last chapter, I did a bit of research to find info on prices for Harry's house hunt. What I found showed that, in 1995, housing prices in California around L.A., which is what Angel Grove is theoretically based on, were in the realm of $150-$200 thousand. Yeah, the 6K that he came up with from selling gold last chapter just isn't gonna cut it. lol Apartment prices were cheaper, being between $300 and $400 per month, so much more easily handled. Then there is the whole "Angel Grove is constantly under attack by monsters" thing to consider, but with how cool everyone is with it in canon, along with my headcanon explanation about the Morphing Grid making everyone happy, I don't see that affecting things too much. Might stop outside people from moving there, but don't think it would change prices or anything. : )

The Octophantom was another throwaway monster here, though the method used to beat it was canon. Honestly, it was another of those Zyu 2 footage bits that undoubtedly made tons more sense in the original footage. For those who don't know, Zyu 2 was made to fit more into the Power Rangers view of the characters as opposed to Super Sentai Zyuranger wherein the Blue Ranger was, to put it delicately, stupid. Or at least not at Billy's level of genius. Anyway, Zyu 2 had Zyu Blue creating devices and gadgets and the like and bringing them into battle, which is why late Season 1 and early Season 2 Billy does these things. The fact that two of these items are mirrors, one a hand mirror and the other built into a shield, kinda makes me doubt the whole techno genius thing Saban was trying to promote. That or they liked making their monsters vain, as that was a weakness they had at least twice that I can think of, and not the two times that mirrors were used either.

I had a brief thought of starting another subplot of Harry's lack of a mundane education coming to light while the other Rangers did their homework. This would result in Trini and Billy trying to teach him what they could that he had missed out on because of Hogwarts and the Wizarding War. Ultimately though, I decided not to. T'would add too much more extra unnecessary stuff to the upcoming plotline.

Anyway, hope you all liked the chapter, sorry it's so short. Hopefully I'll be able to stick with my schedule over the next few months, but I apologize if I can't.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to review,

Tenstar12