Joe's Note: Given that there's a two year gap between when Harry and Luna arrive in the future, and when the events of Mass Effect takes place? I thought it would strain credulity to suggest that absolutely nothing of interest happened to either of them in that time, but I also had no intention of covering that period in exacting detail, either. Accordingly, these chapters are littered with references to the passage of time as we make our way across that gap toward 2183. If you're curious, we should hit Eden Prime during Sovereign's visit in Chapter 21 at the latest, possibly Chapter 20. This chapter ends with a direct reference to what's coming in between; I'm just not entirely sure whether I can squeeze things into two chapters or if I'll need three to handle things to my satisfaction.
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, David, Alonsis2, MJ, Christopher, Daniel, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Janne, DireSquirrel, Joseph, Jason, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Crusifikz70, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Timothy, Leigh, Chris, George, Koby, Dimitria, William, Stephane, Ken, Warren, Paul, Pat, Joel, Warren, 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.

"I don't want to be Adikia'Devir vas Marauder."

Looking up from the datapad in front of him, Harry raised an eyebrow curiously. And why he was still trying to learn the asari language after making absolutely no headway in the preceding months, he had no idea. Stubbornness, perhaps? Because his inability to grasp concepts that asari children managed to easily certainly wasn't impressing anyone. "I'm… sorry? Is that your way of saying you want to be transferred to another ship? Because I'm not entirely sure, but I think Allura is the one who-"

Adikia held up her hands to interrupt him, momentarily causing Harry's attention to dip down to the tridactyl hands that continued to fascinate him. Her voice quickly drew his gaze back to her face, though, and her thoroughly exasperated expression. "It's not that I have a problem serving with you. It's that I have a problem serving on a ship named the Marauder. Historically, every single storm cruiser has been named-"

"After famous asari priestesses."

"Oh. So you do know and you just don't care. That makes it even worse." Adikia threw herself down into the chair opposite Harry before leaning forward to rest her chin in her hands, eyes paradoxically managing to glow even brighter as she narrowed them at him. "I don't know about how the Systems Alliance Navy works, don't really care to be honest. But our ships serve for decades, some for a century or more. And we don't rechristen our ships, so the Marauder will still be the Marauder long after you've gotten bored with it." As Harry continued to stare at her uncomprehendingly, she groaned and rolled her eyes. "I understand that you probably don't know much about Sylléktries or even Thessian asari for that matter, but couldn't you have at least asked the matriarchs to name it after a famous Earth priestess? Wait. Do your kind even have priestesses?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply, only to be brought up short as he realized that… he didn't rightly know. Mostly because he knew little to nothing about any form of human religion, be it muggle or magical. He vaguely remembered hearing two of his muggleborn coworkers debating the Church of England's decision to allow women to serve as bishops right before he'd leapt forward in time, but that didn't seem terribly relevant to the discussion at hand since he neither knew the name of a female Anglican bishop nor did he think any of them would be considered 'famous'. "I'm not entirely sure. My upbringing and education were… well, a bit suspect to be polite. But even if there are, Marauder is a name that has meaning to-"

Lunging forward, Adikia clapped her odd hand over his mouth, silencing Harry as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Absolutely nobody other than you and maybe Luna. None of the two hundred and seventy-four other Sylléktries who are going to be serving aboard it. No other Sylléktries, period. So do some research. Find a better name for the ship. And then tell Matriarch Luciana that you've changed your mind."

"Or what?" Harry waited for her to remove her hand from his mouth before leaning forward, setting the datapad on the mess hall table so he could rest his own elbows on the table and mimic her pose. "That sounds like the front half of an ultimatum, Adikia. What's the rest? Rename the ship… or what?"

Adikia appeared to consider that for a few seconds before grinning smugly as she leaned a little closer. "Why am I here, Harry? I've never served on a cruiser before, I wasn't being considered for promotion to one, and being personally reprimanded by Matriarch Luciana shouldn't have done my career any favors. And yet here I am because you personally requested me for the post. Why?"

After taking a few seconds to consider his options, Harry decided to go with simple blunt honesty. It hadn't failed him yet when it came to the women in his life… well, save for that one time when telling Daphne the truth about how an outfit made her look had gotten him hexed and then exiled to the couch for a week. In his defense, though, he'd meant that the dress made her arse look big in a good way. "Because I still need to find a bondmate to make good on the deal I signed with the matriarchy. After spending a bit of time with you on Óasi when we first arrived, I thought there was a chance that you might turn out to be the right asari for me. So I had Luciana assign you to the Marauder to see what happened once we got to know each other better."

Obviously not expecting him to be so forthright, Adikia was caught off-guard and stared at him with wide eyes for a few seconds before blushing a darker shade of purple. "I… what? Are you serious?"

"No, I'm Harry. Sirius was my godfather."

"How many times am I going to have to tell you that whatever makes that quip funny gets lost in translation?" Adikia shook her head before settling her chin back in her hands, still blushing faintly as she tilted her head to the side curiously. "To be honest, I was expecting you to say something like 'I ran across that paper you published on multi-stage flash-stepping and I have no idea what it means but it sounds cool so I asked for you' or something like that. Really, though? That's the reason? Between Epipsychidion and what's been going on between you and Thalestris, I figured that-"

Harry cut her off with a rueful chuckle, shifting to rest his chin on only one hand as he used the other to reach up and rub the back of his neck. "In my defense? It's been the better part of six months since we arrived here at the shipyard, and nine months since we first met on Omega. In that time, I can count the number of discussions we've had about something other than ship's business on one hand. Including this one. So while I'm still interested… you're still brilliant, still beautiful, still fascinating… things weren't really going anywhere and so I started looking at other options."

Silence descended as Adikia stared at him thoughtfully, drumming her fingers against her jaw. Without warning, she leaned even closer to Harry, closing the distance between them until he could feel the soft puffs of her breath against his skin. "So you want me close by for personal reasons. Reasons I'm not necessarily opposed to, to be honest. You're cute enough; you'd probably grow on me if I gave you the chance. But I'm not going to be Adikia'Devir vas Marauder. So if you want that chance… any hope of a chance? You'll pick a new name."

"Psst. Harry. I suggest you agree to what she wants." Harry gave a start at the unexpected voice, looking back over his shoulder to find Allura. In the narrow gap between him and the wall that he'd put his back to. Hanging upside down from one of the exposed pipes that ran along the ceiling as she munched on something that vaguely resembled a bright pink apple. Her dossier claimed that she was descended from a pair of asari, who were in turn pureblooded… but her diminutive size and unnerving ability to scuttle around the ship like a spider using the still-exposed piping made him wonder. "What? She's a great engineer, I'd hate to lose her. Besides, you think I want to be the captain of the Marauder any more than she wants to be 'vas Marauder'? It's a terrible name for an asari ship, and you should feel ashamed for trying to stick us with it."

Opening his mouth, Harry quickly thought better of responding to Allura, instead returning his attention to a thoroughly amused-looking Adikia before jerking a thumb back over his shoulder. "…how long has she been there?"

"Since I walked in here. I assumed you knew she was there."

Bloody hell. Harry was always the first to admit that his situational awareness could use a little work, but he hadn't thought it was that bad. Shooting another glance back at Allura as she continued to munch on her snack, he shook his head. So evidently it wasn't just Adikia who had a problem with his choice of name for the storm cruiser. One person - even a pretty person that he was somewhat interested in - was easy enough to brush off. Two wasn't much harder. But if Allura and Adikia were right in that none of the crew would be happy about the name? Then as noble as he thought memorializing his father and friends might be, given that it was a vessel that would be home to an entire community that would outnumber his family sixty-eight to one… it was more than a little selfish of him to keep insisting on calling their ship the Marauder.

When all was said and done, though? Recognizing that he'd made a poor decision didn't actually do anything to fix said mistake. The ship was still the Marauder, and Harry honestly had no idea what might be a better name for it. He didn't know the first thing about Earth's religious figures, much less asari ones. Then something occurred to him, and he eyed Adikia speculatively. She didn't seem upset with his interest… he needed a new name for the ship… "Maybe after your shift, we can grab a meal and then hit the extranet to see what we can find about priestesses from Earth?"

"Harry, we still have some of Fawkes's tears lying around, right?"

"Unless this is your roundabout way of telling me that you shattered the vial or something, yes. Why?"

"I… may or may not have accidentally given myself cancer." Luna offered a wan smile as Harry's head jerked up, those words managing to tear his attention away from the hologram that he was poring over. Apart from looking a bit pale and some redness around her eyes, she appeared normal enough. Then Harry realized how inane that thought was; of course she would, cancer was largely an internal problem. Thing was… cancer was a solely muggle affliction. How in Merlin's name had she- "Remember how I was working with the Science Council to see if I could transfigure or conjure element zero, and then we moved on to trying to use magic to create asari-style biotic systems inside a human form?" That sounded vaguely familiar, yes; much to Harry's consternation, Luna's grasp on muggle science had outstripped his remarkably quickly, leaving him entirely unable to comprehend many of the projects she was working on for the Collective. "Well, discovery requires experimentation and… today I discovered that I don't quite have the process mastered yet."

Harry reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath as he tried to calm himself. While he might not understand exactly what her experiments with the Council entailed, it didn't take a alchemist to comprehend what she was telling him. "…why would you do something like that, Luna?"

Tilting her head to one side, Luna graced him with an expression that had thankfully become far less common over the past year or so: her own version of the look that Hermione gave Ron whenever he said something spectacularly stupid or ill-mannered. "If I'm not confident enough in my work to test an idea on myself, then why would I test it on someone else?"

A good point to be sure, but one that Harry could quite easily counter. "Simple: because if you test it on someone else and it goes wrong, the way this evidently did? You're not compromised while you work on reversing things." Waving his hand over the haptic interface, he put the computer into standby before leaning back in his seat and staring up at Luna. "Not only did you spend seven years at Hogwarts getting lectured on why casting spells you haven't yet mastered on anyone - much less yourself - is a terrible idea, but I seem to remember Croaker tearing you a new one after you almost followed your mum's footsteps. So, with a bit more honesty this time… why did you do it, Luna?"

"Well who else was I going to use? You? There are exactly six humans in the entire Collective right now, and-"

"Bollocks. They literally sell humans on Omega. You could have hitched a ride aboard Pelesa's next trip to visit Aria, flirted with both of them a bit, harassed some dancers, and then bought a whole pile of them before coming back home. You wouldn't have even needed to keep them as slaves for your experiments; if you'd freed them all and then asked for a volunteer or three, they probably would have fallen over each other to sign up out of gratitude."

"How positively Slytherin of you, Harry."

"Well I'm sorry if I have a problem with my wife trying to kill herself! Gee, what a terrible human being that makes me!" Harry hopped to his feet, pacing back and forth in tight little circles before whirling back around to face Luna. Thrusting a finger in the direction of their quarters's third occupant, he waited for Luna to look to her right before following her gaze himself. Epipsychidion was lounging on the couch as she read one of the books they'd brought with them, the text propped upright by her swollen stomach. The corner of Harry's mouth quirked upward involuntarily in spite of his current mood; it was the copy of Hogwarts, A History that he'd stolen from Hermione's study while he and Luna were packing for their adventure. Had Hermione ever figured out what had happened to it? And if so… how many curses had Ron learned that night? Turning back to Luna, his expression hardened. "And you're not just my wife, you're also Epee's bondmate. Or did you forget about her in your excitement to try this experiment of yours? Her, and the daughter who's going to need her aithntar in two months?"

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Luna nodded before crossing her arms over her chest defensively, her eyes bouncing back and forth between her husband and her bondmate. "Of course I didn't forget about you. Or her. Or my relationship with either of you. Or my daughter, for that matter. Selene is the reason that I did this." What? Presumably that was a sign that Luna and Epipsychidion had finally settled on a name for their firstborn, but also… what? "She's going to be the first biotic witch, Harry. Anywhere. Ever. Yes, I can teach her magic and Epee can teach her how to use her biotics, but there's so much we're not going to know. Are they going to interact oddly? Can they be combined somehow? We have absolutely no idea… yet."

Suddenly, the pieces started coming together in Harry's mind and the anger drained out of him as he let out a resigned sigh. It all made sense now: a healthy dose of transference mixed with genuine parental concern. "And so you decided that if you could figure out how to turn yourself into a biotic, then maybe Selene wouldn't have to face those challenges alone."

Luna nodded before letting out a derisive snort and gesturing off vaguely to her left. "That's the reason I signed up for the entire project. Did you really think that I cared one whit about being able to make muggles into biotics? I don't even understand why the Sylléktries are interested in such a thing; every Sylléktria is naturally a biotic to some degree, and the few humans among them are too valuable to turn into soldiers. I did it so that Selene wouldn't have to exist as some sort of oddity that nobody would truly be able to understand."

"Because you'd be that same oddity with her." Reaching out, Harry wrapped his arms around Luna's waist. When she put it like that… it was still a terrible, ill-conceived decision on her part, but at least he could understand why she'd made it. Given her own experiences growing up, Luna in particular understood what it was like to exist outside of cultural norms, and that was before taking into account that even Óasi's more genetically diverse asari were far more homogenous than human beings. At least until the still-theoretical Dahlia Potter became a lot less theoretical, Luna and Epipsychidion's daughter was going to literally be one of a kind and after her own tumultuous upbringing, Luna just wanted what was best for Selene. With that said? "You still could have tested it on someone else first. Perfected the process, then used it on yourself for Selene's sake. It was - and remains - a terrible idea."

"Yes, well, you know what they say: if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."

"…who says that? I have literally never heard anyone say that. Ever."

"She got it from a twenty-first century children's show that we've been watching on the extranet. This one assumed it was a familiar human saying while Luna guessed it must be a muggle aphorism because she didn't recognize it. Evidently we were both wrong." Both humans gave a start as Epipsychidion glanced up from her book, her crest flickering with pulses of yellowish-green light as she gave them an exasperated look. For a species without visible ears, asari had surprisingly keen hearing. "In regards to the argument that this one would have really appreciated you two having elsewhere for the sake of her stress level? Luna, it was a terrible idea and Harry has a right to be mad at you for risking yourself. As does this one, for that matter. At the same time, Harry, you've known Luna far longer than this one has and even she knows that once Luna sets her mind to something, she won't stop until she's achieved her goal. Crumple-horned snorkacks, for instance. Arguing with her is entirely counterproductive; we should simply support her in her endeavors so that she can see them through with a minimum of complications."

While the Switching Spell most definitely wasn't intended to be utilized for what was essentially ad hoc apparition, Daphne's tendency to cling to him in her sleep had forced Harry to get remarkably proficient with that use of the spell. Accordingly, he didn't even hesitate before using it to swap his body with the pillow that Epipsychidion had been reclining against, leaving her leaning back against him instead. "So we should help her do stupid things because she'd do stupid things no matter what? That sounds like a terrible idea."

Epipsychidion leaned her head back against his shoulder and stared up at him as she arched a brow. "This one is quite aware that a policy of appeasement is a terrible idea in general, yes, but has decided that every so often the path of least resistance has merit. Namely, when this one is suffering from fatigue, leg cramps, frequent urination but also constipation, insomnia, and her weight has increased by nearly a sixth."

In other words, Epipsychidion considered her pregnancy to be a greater concern at the moment than her bondmate's habit of making questionable decisions, and so Harry was on his own if he wanted to rein Luna in. Considering his dubious track record on that front back before he'd had someone else to help… "I suppose I should go get the phoenix tears. And some headache-relieving potion."

"Also two flame-tree fruits, a knife, and some of that 'salsa' mixture to dip the slices in. This one is craving them."

…eww.