Joe's Note: Not gonna lie, endlessly amused by the few people who come out each chapter to lob a review about how the story 'still sucks' or whatnot. If that's the case, not sure why they're still reading but hey, to each their own. A lot of people will judge an unfamiliar story by a combination of summary, word count, and review count and that last number inches up with each cowardly ball of hatred that someone tosses at me. On that note, guests who leave detailed reviews and want replies? I can't really do much when you don't give me any mechanism of contacting you. Sorry. Finally, kinda surprised at how many fans of Mass Effect don't understand why a human with nothing but precious metals to their name might face problems in a far corner of space. Then again, as Aethyta so succinctly put it, we do have a tendency to be anthropocentric bags of dicks…
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the Mass Effect universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

Digging an answer out of someone's mind with legilimency wasn't terribly arduous or time-consuming, at least if one knew what they were doing and their opponent's mind was unprotected. If the target had any real degree of skill with occlumency, that increased the difficulty - and time required - accordingly. Finding multiple answers, on the other hand, was a complete crapshoot. If the subject had a disorganized mind, it was often akin to trying to track down a specific number of needles in an exceedingly large stack of hay… or it could be as simple as plucking consecutive books off a shelf if the user had a highly organized mind. Interpreting any number of answers when one lacked the frame of reference? Damn near impossible, forcing a legilimens to dig even more deeply into their target's mind in search of information to bridge whatever gaps existed between their own knowledge and what they were finding.

While Harry was adept enough when it came to most types of magic - and quite skilled at a number of them - Luna was far and away the superior legilimens out of the two of them. That being said, he knew enough from both book learning and practical experience to not be alarmed as seconds turned to minutes and then to hours, the blonde eventually shifting from sitting across Calia's lap to straddling it without ever breaking eye contact or her spell. Three hours in, Krína reluctantly excused herself, citing an early shift at Afterlife the next morning. Four hours in, Harry found himself debating between paying a restaurant to deliver dinner and trying to make his way back to the portion of the market so he could buy groceries and cook a meal for them himself… only to be yanked rudely from his thoughts as the apartment's door slid open with no warning. Despite the fact that it put Luna in the line of fire, Harry's only cover was the couch and so he reluctantly dove behind it for protection as he drew the pistol Krína had given him and pointed it at… "Aria? And a guest."

Aria smirked and raised her hands in surrender as she stepped through the doorway, a younger-looking asari following behind her hesitantly. Eyes flicking over to where Luna was still perched on Calia's lap, the purple line that graced Aria's right brow inched upward. "When Krína told me that your fiancée's interrogation methods were 'bizarre', I was expecting something magical. Maybe turning her inside out while she was still alive, or turning one of her arms into a dangerous animal that kept attacking her, or… well, anything but this to be honest. What am I missing? I mean, they're not even talking."

"Considering you read Luna's mind while snogging her, you of all people should know that you don't need to ask questions to interrogate someone. Or at least ask them out loud." Harry slowly rose to his feet, holstering his pistol before circling around the couch and studying the mysterious second asari who had followed Aria into his apartment. Or rather, she was the third asari currently in his apartment; Aria was technically the second after Calia. "It's called legilimency; it's our technique for linking two minds together magically. Which to answer a question that I'm sure has been eating at you, is how Luna knew how to wiggle her way into your mind and navigate around while you two were melding. I'll let her explain it to you if you're really curious because she's forgotten more about it than I was ever taught."

After eyeing Luna speculatively for a few seconds, Aria nodded. "As annoying as she is, I might take you up on that offer, Potter. Knowledge is power in my business, and I have far more questions than answers right now when it comes to you two." Before she could continue, a winged and horned ball of fluff rocketed across the room, coming in for a landing on her left shoulder. Harry bit his lip to avoid laughing as Aria abruptly went very still, allowing Wednesday to chirp and sniff at her crests several times before circling around to settle on the asari's right shoulder. "Let's instead start with the question that just decided to use me as a perch. What the fuck is this monstrosity?"

Harry finally allowed himself a brief laugh as he took a seat in one of the chairs that faced the couch, allowing him to split his attention between where Luna was still perched atop Calia's lap and Aria, who was eyeing her passenger suspiciously. The snorkack turned her head a bit, meeting Aria's two eyes with four of her own before bumping her nose against the asari's gently. As Aria sputtered and rubbed at the tip of her nose, Harry decided to take pity on her. "Her name is Wednesday and she's a snorkack. Looking her up on the extranet would probably be a waste of time; snorkacks were considered a myth even by the wizarding world until Luna and my friend managed to capture a pair. Oh, and you might want to be nicer to Wednesday. She's scarily smart, and she's been known to bite people who offend her. Or pee on them."

That revelation made Aria's eyes go wide and then a blue energy field rippled into existence around her body… and Wednesday. The snorkack let out an indignant squawk and shifted from side to side a few times before unfurling her left wing, slapping Aria upside the head with it to express her displeasure. After spending a few more seconds observing the way her barrier formed a bubble around Wednesday - and earning two more whacks from the snorkack's wing - Aria relaxed and the energy dissipated almost as quickly as it had appeared. "There are some old Thessian tales about asari with higher than average eezo concentrations in their bodies who could do bizarre and fantastical things with their biotics. Things that seemed almost… supernatural. If your 'magical' pet can manipulate mass effect fields like a Thessian animal, I wonder if that means-"

"I thought the Sol system was barren when it came to eezo?" While it may have been intended to be a rhetorical question, it was enough to both cut Aria off and draw Harry's attention to the younger asari who had accompanied her. Said asari blushed faintly at the scrutiny before gathering herself and straightening up. "I'm right, aren't I? Isn't that why the Systems Alliance bought so much of it from us immediately after the Relay 314 Incident? They didn't have any of their own and hadn't discovered the deposits in their colonies' systems yet?"

Even though the questions were presumably directed at Aria, the fact that the asari was looking his way made Harry feel the urge to answer… or rather non-answer. "I haven't the foggiest. Probably because I have no idea what eezo is. Maybe you can fill me in while Aria grills Luna about legilimency, Miss..?"

"You don't know who I am?"

"If I did, would I be asking?"

"I… no. Of course not. I just assumed that since you live on this block, you… my name is Liselle. Liselle T'Loak. Aria is my aithntar." While the back and forth between Krína and Calia had allowed Harry to intuit that the term had something to do with asari reproduction and parentage, hearing Liselle name Aria as hers blew most of his theories about the meaning of the word out of the water. His bafflement must have shown on his face, because Liselle opted to take a moment and fill in that hole in his knowledge. "Oh, you actually heard that? Most humans have omni-tools with translators programmed to substitute in 'father'. An aithntar is the parent who doesn't carry the child in an asari relationship. Another asari, a male alien, a female alien, whatever. It's a term that goes all the way back to before asari left Thessia; they decided they needed something to call the non-mother asari when you could have two asari who were sisters and shared both parents but had different mothers."

To a normal human, that might have seemed completely unnatural and mystifying. Mind-blowing. Freakish, even, if they were a Dursley. Fortunately for Harry, the time he'd spent in the wizarding world allowed him to easily comprehend it by framing it in familiar terms: veela. Or better yet, he realized, banshees. After all, Fleur and Gabrielle were quarter-veela while their mother was a half-veela. Banshees, on the other hand, maintained purebloodedness through reproduction. Every child a banshee had was a daughter, who was always a pure banshee herself. When a banshee had a child, it was always a daughter who was always a banshee. The only difference between banshees and asari, then, was that the asari had figured out a way of breeding with each other - and other women - in addition to mating with men.

Aria let out a groan, drawing Harry's attention away from Liselle and back to the pirate queen. "And she wonders why I don't involve her with any of my more sensitive operations. Two hundred years old and she still doesn't grasp the concept of 'need to know'. You'd better hope I decide you're worth keeping around, Potter, because that little tidbit of information?" Pausing, Aria gestured from herself to Liselle and back before snapping her fingers, creating a bright burst of blue light. "I've killed better men than you to protect it."

"I've yet to meet a better man than Harry." Breaking the connection between herself and Calia, Luna rolled her shoulders and then cracked her neck before spinning around on Calia's lap, letting her legs drop to rest on either side of the slender asari's as she faced them. "Then again, that didn't take much where and when we came from. Most of the boys I knew called me cruel names and stole my belongings and out of the few who didn't, Harry's the only one who doesn't cry like a little bitch when I want to go four or five rounds in one night."

Harry found himself blushing at both another example of Luna's chronic oversharing and the frankly appraising looks that both Aria and Liselle shot his way. Then 'father' and daughter seemed to realize what they were doing, the mutual appraisal turned to disgust, and Liselle found a point off in the far corner of the room to inspect as Aria cleared her throat. "First 'fuck starting' and now I've got the mental image of you and Potter bouncing around inside my head. You're just the gift that keeps on giving, aren't you, Lovegood?"

Interlocking her fingers at the small of her back, Luna grinned coquettishly before arching her back so her chest was thrust out in Aria's direction. "And giving and giving, as long as you treat me nicely." When Aria failed to look impressed with the display, Luna's grin turned into a pout for a fraction of a second and then she was spreading her arms wide as she flopped back down onto Calia's lap. "That's okay. Calia's probably better in bed than you anyway. After all, according to her memories, being half-salarian means that she needs less sleep and has more energy than someone like you…"

"Hey now, leave me out of-"

"I'll have you know that I was making other asari scream my name back when your species was still…" Aria trailed off, staring at Luna oddly. "Wait, why am I arguing with you? If you think she's a better fuck than me, you'll stop trying to get into my panties."

"I'm just going to put this out there… you didn't strike me as the type to wear panties."

"I don't. It's a figure of speech."

"Good to know." Twirling her wand between her fingers, Luna gave the tip a lick before winking at Aria. "And if you can't figure out fuck starting, you could always meld with me again so I can show you… or I could get Harry to help me demonstrate it?"

Groaning, Aria lowered herself into the other armchair that faced the couch before shooting a despairing look over Harry. "Is she always like this?"

Despite logically knowing that laughing at the person who could have them killed and dumped into space - or killed by being dumped into space - was a terrible idea, Harry couldn't manage to keep from chuckling at Aria's expression. "No. Sometimes she's randy."

"By the goddess. How are you not dead from dehydration yet?" Aria shook her head in disbelief before reluctantly turning her attention back to Luna. "Since I don't like wasting my incredibly valuable time, let's get back to the reason I came down here. Tell me what you've found out about the Sylléktries, Lovegood, and then I'll fill in the gaps."

Before Luna could open her mouth to answer, though, Harry thought back to Krína's reaction to Calia's affiliation and furrowed his brow. "You know about the Sylléktries? Krína made it sound like they were some sort of asari boogeyman… or maybe a ghost story would be a better description."

Aria shot a look his way that reminded Harry distinctly of when he or Ron said something incredibly stupid around Hermione, and then the purple-skinned asari jerked her head in Liselle's direction. "Considering her mother is one, I'd like to think I know a few things about them, yeah." Pausing, Aria looked pensive for a moment and then the corner of her mouth quirked upward. "I almost said she was the result of me fucking one, but I'm still not sure who was fucking who out of me and Pelesa. Turian Sylléktria, everything was about the fight. Half the time, I didn't know if we were brawling or fucking until I felt the meld kick in. Thankfully Liselle doesn't take after her mother, or I'd have a few bruised bartenders from what I hear."

Even as Liselle sputtered in embarrassment, her skin again flushing a darker shade of blue, Harry found himself eyeing the younger asari speculatively. Now that Aria mentioned it, he could see hints of Gavorn's people in her. Her crests were slightly more rigid and splayed than Aria and Krína's, and she was… gangly was a polite way to put it, Harry decided. The revelation had him mentally reexamining every asari he'd so much as seen in passing; he'd written Liselle's differences off to genetic diversity but if she was the result of outside DNA, how many other Sylléktries had he passed here on Omega without even knowing? "Right then, so I guess that establishes your bona fides when it comes to them, but-"

"They're eugenicists like Voldemort, except their definition of superior is… well, impure blood by most peoples' standards. Oh, and their plans tend to involve flattery, bribery, and copious amounts of shagging. Which I think we can all agree is much better than torture, rape, and murder." That brought Harry up short, mostly because 'Voldemort' and 'shagging' were two words that he'd never expected to hear in the same conversation. Also, was it 'copious amounts' by a normal person's standards? Or - more worryingly - by Luna's? Rising to her feet, the blonde circled around behind couch and then leaned down, hugging Calia from behind and resting her chin in the divide between the asari's two bundles of crests again. "They've also got a bit of the Order of the Phoenix to them. To make a twenty-nine hundred year long story exceedingly short? Thessia is home to a beacon left behind by the Protheans; I'm not entirely sure who they are but they're evidently important, powerful, and dead. That beacon is the reason the asari are so powerful: they've never needed to invent and innovate like the other species, they're handed the knowledge they need by the beacon."

A loud snort interrupted Luna, Aria lazily turning her head to look over at Harry as she gestured to Luna. "Just so you know, Lovegood is starting to dip into state secrets there. If the Republics find out you know about what they're hiding in the Temple of Athame, they will kill you."

"They can try. Nobody hurts Harry… except me. And that's only after we've set a safeword." Luna scowled at the thought, the tip of her wand glowing an angry red as she twirled it between her fingers again. Then she reined in her magic and the building energy dissipated, the blonde tucking her wand up behind her ear for safekeeping. "Anyway… one of the first things the asari found inside the beacon was a warning about beings called 'Reapers', who sweep the galaxy clean of life every fifty thousand years. One faction of the asari realized that if the Protheans were wiped out by these Reapers, the asari wouldn't stand a chance against them if all they did was copy the Protheans' technology. After all, if the Protheans had been capable of defeating the Reapers, they'd still be around today. So when twenty-seven other matriarchs set out into space their followers, Matriarch Atalania gathered up those loyal to her and left Thessia to find a new home. Somewhere they could prepare for what was coming. Nearly three millennia later, they've become a power that spans several worlds and two systems, have their own order of justicars, four small but distinct fleets, and-"

Even as he nodded in all the right places to nudge her onward, Harry found himself waiting and waiting for an answer that failed to materialize. And so finally he found himself interrupting her in an attempt to steer the conversation toward where he needed it to be. "Where does the eugenics fit into this? For that matter, where do we?"

Luna huffed and rolled her eyes at the question. "Isn't it obvious, Harry? In the eugenics. To make sure their people are as ready as they can be for the coming war, the Sylléktries are seeking out the best of every race. The strongest, the smartest, the most talented biotics… anyone and everyone special. Then they breed them into their population to create stronger soldiers, smarter scientists, et cetera and so forth."

Despite what Snape claimed, Harry was not in fact an idiot. Even he was capable of taking that information and coming to the logical conclusion. "So their plans that involve flattery and bribery and shagging. I'm guessing that it's flattery and bribery which then in turn lead to shagging… that's not shagging for the sake of shagging. They'll be, err, melding. With us. So they can make little magical asari for when their enemy finally comes."