Joe's Note: It's been twenty-one chapters and over seventy thousand words, but without further ado? It's finally time to enter 2183 and the events of the original Mass Effect game. Which coincidentally means that I made it further up the timeline than Leonineus did in Lightning among the Stars. How about that? Guess you really get places when you're not trying to see how many dozen women you can stick Harry's dick. I'm not going to lie, figuring out how to proceed into the events of the games proper created some interesting problems for me, mostly because I didn't want my Harry to fall into the two existing fanfiction camps for Harry Potter/Mass Effect crossovers. Well, there's actually three but mine isn't literally replacing Shepard so one wasn't relevant to my deliberations. But among the remaining stories, Harry seems to either completely invalidate the need for Shepard's existence by the nature of his abilities and proficiency… or devolve into the galaxy's biggest troll. Neither of those really appealed to me, mostly because the latter is just annoying while the former is just a 'Harry Shepard' story with an extra set piece to highlight how badass Harry really is. Hopefully I'll do a good job striking the balance I want for this story… but then again, what are the odds that I'll manage to do something that pretty much nobody has done so far in the last ten years?
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.

"Matriarch! The sensor grid is reporting gravimetric distortions consistent with Reaper vessels. Displacement conforms to Prothean records of their dreadnought-weight vessels."

Breezing into the command center, Luciana lowered the hood on her cloak before reaching up to run her fingers along her crests. While her nature - and that of her fellow Mánteis - remained a closely-guarded secret from the population at large, she had far fewer secrets from her advisors and their aides. After all, she could hardly expect her subordinates to place their trust in her if she was unwilling to extend them that same courtesy. "So after all these centuries, the Vanguard is finally making a move. I was starting to wonder if it had been destroyed. Where is it?"

Fingers flying over the haptic controls, the matron in command of the current shift brought up a rotating hologram of the galaxy before zooming in rapidly, refining the view several times before coming to rest on a world none too dissimilar to Óasi or Thessia. "By the reckoning of the humans whose system we're supplementing our own sensor network with… Exodus Cluster, Utopia System, second planet. Eden Prime. A garden world and one of the oldest Systems Alliance colonies."

Luciana frowned as she stared up at the slowly spinning planet in front of her; she was quite familiar with it due to the knowledge that had been passed from Mántis to Mántis ever since they'd been taken from the first generation's prothean aithntars. Was it merely a coincidence that the vanguard striking at a planet that had also been a major Prothean enclave, and the potential home of Avatar Javik and his Victory Project if that particular task force had managed to pull off its mission? Or had the Citadel-backed excavation uncovered something more important than a beacon that had in turn drawn the Reaper's attention?

The former actually seemed more likely than the latter, the more Luciana thought about it; none of the agents that she'd inserted onto the planet had managed to find a trace of Javik's base despite knowing roughly where to look for it. But on the other hand? Despite all the resources at her disposal, even Luciana had been caught off-guard by the revelation that the Systems Alliance had uncovered a beacon on the planet. Against all odds, they were actually managing decent operational security for once; for all she knew, they'd uncovered an entrance to the Victory Project that wasn't in the information that she was privy to and there were protheans walking around again for the first time since her ancestor's death. She'd find out what they'd discovered soon enough, though. "Do we have any assets within reach of the system or would we need to dispatch something directly from Óasi?"

It took the matron a few seconds to find the answer to that question, and what she found made her look up from her display with an uncertain expression on her face. "…the Fedelma is approaching Eden Prime as we speak, Matriarch. According to the flight plan that they filed, Mister Potter and Miss Lovegood felt that it would be safer for them to visit a human colony world in search of more of their kind than it would be for them to venture to Earth itself. They should be arriving in… approximately two hours. Shortly after the nearest Systems Alliance naval vessel."

"Message them immediately, forward all relevant information to them, and instruct them to maintain course." Her response was immediate; Luciana didn't even have to think before giving the order. Not only had her commanders been itching for a chance to see how one of their ships might fare against a Reaper so they could gather valuable data for when the harvest began in earnest, but the time of their separation from the galaxy at large was coming to an end. Who better to… well, frankly anyone would make a better representative than Luna Lovegood for their return to the galactic stage but beggars couldn't be choosers in this particular situation. Hopefully Harry would be able to rein in his wife's more obnoxious habits. "Tell Captain Allura to hold nothing back in defense of the colony and any relevant Prothean relics that have been uncovered. For better or worse, this battle is going to be our coming out party and I want people to remember it for centuries to come."

'This mission just got a lot more complicated.'

If anyone actually gave out an award for Understatement of the Year, Ismene was reasonably certain that Anderson would be a shoe-in for it with that statement. What had sounded like a simple - albeit sensitive - mission to retrieve a working Prothean beacon from Eden Prime had turned out to actually be an evaluation for whether or not she was suitable to be a Spectre, or at least the first step in such an evaluation. But as the old saying went, no plan survived contact with the enemy… and in this case, the enemy was a previously unknown power invading the planet with an atmosphere-capable dreadnought for support.

Upon their arrival at Eden Prime, Ismene had been dismayed to discover that Nihlus had convinced Anderson that he 'moved faster on his own', and run off on his own in direct contravention of Systems Alliance Marine combat SOP. And then only a few minutes after her fireteam was inserted, Jenkins had opted to leap before looking and gone down so quickly that even her magic could do nothing to save him. Assuming, of course, that she was allowed to use it openly around muggles; she still wasn't entirely clear on what constituted a justified breach of the Interstellar Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. So far, the only bright spot in her day had been recovering one Ashley Williams from Unit 212 of the 2nd Frontier Division. Not only was the native guide useful, but Ismene knew a little something about being judged for the actions of one's ancestors and the thirst to prove one's worth that came with it. Although as soon as they got off this damn planet, she was going to take the younger woman shopping for some proper armor. Williams's Sirta Foundation Phoenix armor was worthless, disposable trash and an eyesore to boot.

But while Williams had been able to put a name to the… not really a face, more like the flashlight of the most numerous of their enemies? The strange cybernetic Inferi they'd stumbled over up the hill from the dig site had caught the gunnery chief by surprise just as much as Ismene and Alenko. Given that Williams had apparently recognized one of the reanimated corpses, or rather recognized the scraps of armor still clinging to it after it'd been put back down by the trio? While Williams and Alenko had settled on the term 'husks' for the creatures, Ismene was pretty damn sure that her label of 'cybernetic Inferi' wasn't too far off from the truth.

As they crested the hill that looked out over the spaceport and its support facilities, Ismene bit back a gasp at the sight of the massive dreadnought from Williams's distress call hovering over the landing pad. Forget how the hell had she not seen it before now… but if that monstrosity was still present, then how the hell had the Normandy made planetfall without being blown out of the sky? Given its size, it couldn't have possibly missed the frigate's approach to the city; it probably had a line of sight clear to the ocean. Tendrils of red lightning crawled over its form as it slowly lifted off, defying pretty much everything that she knew about starship construction and operation in the process.

Compared to the two kilometer monstrosity making a mockery of physics in front of her, the purple cruiser trimmed in white and gold that came roaring past overhead wasn't terribly noteworthy from Ismene's perspective… right up until it opened fire with some sort of green directed energy weapon. Blast after blast of energy lanced out of the bow as the cruiser made its approach, repeatedly scorching thin grooves along the black ship's hull but failing to do any serious damage. Gracefully looping around its opponent's stern as the cuttlefish-shaped craft continued to climb, the cruiser did a barrel roll as it passed back over Ismene and her team… and then a pair of earsplitting cracks heralded the arrival of two clumps of figures a few yards away.

Ismene stared at them, dumbfounded. Disregarding the fact that they'd just violated the Statute of Secrecy by apparating in front of Alenko and Williams… they'd apparated down to the ground out of a moving starship. Not only was that something that her people believed to be far too complex to pull off, but a closer look showed that there were only two humans in the group and therefore each had pulled off a side-along while already doing the impossible. A six asari side-along, in one's case.

The wizard… wait, no, she was definitely a witch based on the shape of her armor. The witch with only one passenger recovered from her incredible feat first and pulled away from her companion as she drew her wand with a flourish. After sparing a moment to glance in Ismene's direction - a glance that she followed up with a wink - she turned her attention to the sextet of asari clustered around a dark-haired man who had dropped to one knee. "Alright, Harry?"

"I think so, Luna." The man who had dropped to one knee upon arrival raised his head and Ismene sucked in a breath; she'd seen enough pictures of her great-great-grandfather to know that she was dealing with the legendary Harry Potter rather than just a fellow magical who happened to share the man's name. After two years of fruitless searching on her part, he'd gone and turned up in the middle of a war zone. That… wasn't really that surprising, Ismene conceded, given what Daphne and WITCH had told her about the man. "I'm all here. Unless one of the ladies is missing a buttock or something, I think we can call that experiment a rousing success."

While Ismene had assumed that Harry's blonde companion was in fact Luna Lovegood, the verification of her suspicions certainly didn't hurt. "You can check them all for missing buttocks after the mission. Just make sure you invite Kia down to watch; the voyeur is strong in that one, and she gets even more turned on when it's you with an asari." As Harry's jaw worked soundlessly, Ismene found herself unable to keep her face from screwing up in disgust. That was far, far more than she needed to know about the sex life of someone that she was - even distantly - related to. Although if she remembered things right, hadn't Luna and Harry been engaged when they disappeared? Whatever happened to that? Adding to Ismene's confusion, Luna whirled around and darted in to press a kiss to the lips of the asari that she'd side-alonged down, who was easily the strangest-looking asari that Ismene had ever laid eyes on. Come to think of it, none of Harry and Luna's companions looked quite like any asari that Ismene had seen before either in person or on the extranet, and- "First one to kill an enemy gets Harry after Hale's done tonight."

"Why must you use me as a-"

"Sorry not sorry!" Slipping past the asari that she'd kissed, Luna hurled a Blasting Hex down the hill toward a group of husks, sending the reanimated corpses flying in all directions. Before they'd even hit the ground, she was launching into a teal-hued biotic charge to close the distance, coming out of it with a gleeful laugh as she whipped her wand in an arc and tore apart the nearest husk with a whip of purple fire. "I win!"

For some reason, despite all of the unbelievable things she'd witnessed that day - an atmosphere-capable dreadnought, cybernetic Inferi, an asari cruiser with energy weapons, people apparating out of a moving starship, the return of her long-lost great-great-grandfather and his fiancée - that was what brought Ismene's brain grinding to a halt. Luna Lovegood… was a biotic? Despite the fact that she'd disappeared from Earth before the discovery of eezo much less the birth of the first human biotic? And the fact that every study into the subject had determined it was impossible for someone to be born both a biotic and a magical? "What the bloody fuck?"

"What the bloody fuck?"

Harry let out a rueful chuckle as he climbed to his feet, absently marveling at the fact that his first contact with the Systems Alliance included a soldier who shared Daphne's distinctive rolling Suffolk accent. Their presence was proof that the Sylléktries would need to learn to look before they leapt when performing that particular deployment technique in the future; he'd handle obliviating the trio of muggles once the current crisis had been resolved. And maybe while he was doing that, he'd charm the one woman's armor into something a little less… unsightly… and modify her memory so she believed it'd always looked that way. Even the purple and gold armor that the Sylléktries had forged for him was less of an eyesore than that pink and white monstrosity.

Waving off looks of concern from his companions, he met Deianeira's eyes before shooting a pointed look in Epipsychidion's direction as his paramour went loping down the hill in pursuit of Luna. "I'm fine. Honest. A bit winded, but that'll pass in a few minutes. Besides, the whole reason I apparated you lot down here was to provide support for Epee and Luna. If you stand around while they kill everything, then what was the point of me exerting myself like that?"

Reaching behind her back, Deianeira retrieved her Spear of Athame assault rifle and shrugged as it expanded to full size. "Yes, and Luna explicitly told us that we're supposed to protect you until your magic recovers. A lot of people think I'm crazy for taking my lead from a girl who's more than half a millennia my junior. I say… the fact that I'm six hundred and twenty-three years old means that I've been around long enough to know why following Luna is a very good idea."

Philaenisa let out a derisive snort as she drew the comparatively diminutive Acolyte pistol that she preferred and checked it over. "No, you follow Luna because you like the view from back there. Thing is, everyone knows that Harry is the arbiter of who's allowed into their bedroom and who gets rejected at the door. You should be trying to curry his favor, not hers."

"Really? You think Luna's got a nice ass? I'm more of a breast girl so I'm not much of a judge…"

"Well, it's definitely better than yours… not that it takes much."

Harry reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he let out an aggrieved sigh. For reasons that he still didn't - and probably never would - understand, he and Luna seemed to bring out the maiden in almost every Sylléktria they encountered. "Nisa, we both know that Neira is happily bonded and one of the few people on the ship who's thankfully not after me. Stop baiting her. Neira, act your damn age and stop letting her bait you." As the two asari exchanged sheepish looks, Harry sighed again in exasperation before pointing in Epipsychidion's direction. "Now if you'd be so kind as to go deal with those weird cybernetic Inferi for me, they can't possibly kill me if you kill them first."

The six marines who'd accompanied him to the surface exchanged uncertain looks until Thalestris took a step toward him, bringing one hand up to rest on his shoulder as she made a shooing motion with the other. Deianeira nodded in acknowledgement before grinning wickedly. "This is supposed to be our coming out party, ladies. Let's make it memorable." She took a few steps toward the battle before pulling the trigger on her assault rifle's underslung grenade launcher, sending a warp bomb hurtling down the hill into a cluster of husks that had been circling around in an attempt to flank Luna and Epipsychidion. And wasn't that fascinating? They were capable of displaying tactics. Harry mentally upgraded them from some sort of cybernetic Inferi to… drones, perhaps? They weren't the fastest or smartest, but they were definitely displaying more intelligence than Inferi would. "Last one into the fray cleans the entire unit's armor tonight!"

As the other masters assigned to his protection detail went charging down the hill alongside Deianeira, Harry shook his head in amusement. "It's like being surrounded by children. Tall, colorful, incredibly dangerous children." He spared the trio of muggles a glance to make sure that they weren't trying to leave before he could modify their memories, and then he raised his left arm and activated his omni-tool. "Fedelma Actual, this is Harry. We've secured the drop point, and the ladies have begun moving out to handle the geth and… I have no idea what these other things are. They look like cybernetically reanimated humans; remind me a bit of the Inferi that my people can make but they're definitely technological and smarter than Inferi. Ghastly-looking things, but nothing our weapons can't handle. Have you figured out if it's just the beacon or if the humans stumbled over something more interesting?"

"We're tracking a beacon about a klick north of your current position. Other than that? Nothing. Looks like the geth have gotten to the beacon already, though; it's intact and still operational, but surrounded by some nasty housewarming gifts." There was a brief pause as Allura spoke with one of her subordinates, her voice too low for Harry to make out clearly, and then she returned her attention to him. "There's no way for us to get a clean firing solution on the beacon; any shot we take, we risk cracking the casings on those bombs and spreading radioactive debris for miles." In the distance, the Fedelma dipped through the cloud cover into view for a seconds before ascending back out of sight. "Take your team in to neutralize the bombs; Hypatilia should be able to handle things easily. Once that's accomplished, we'll land a team to secure the beacon. Just please, no radioactive fowl in the middle of a human colony on a garden world."

Harry rolled his eyes even as he filed that bit of information away; he'd give the ladies a minute or maybe two to wrap up the drone situation before redirecting them onward toward their next objective. "For the record, it was Kia's idea to try inanimate-to-animate transfiguration on a disruptor torpedo. She was curious about the potential for weaponized wildlife, or so I was told. Luna merely indulged your chief engineer's curiosity."

That earned him a low, irritable grumble from the captain of the Fedelma. "Your girlfriend talked your wife into creating a creature that exposed three of my engineers to a gray and a half of radiation before imploding into some sort of ersatz singularity that proceeded to tear up a handful of deck plates and damage the power conduits beneath them." Harry winced; ah yes, he'd done his best to repress that side of things. Thankfully Kia and the others had recovered thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, but that still didn't make what they'd done a good idea. "In all seriousness, though, the geth left four nuclear bombs with yields capable of completely obliterating all human settlements on Eden Prime. You should probably get on that. Fedelma Actual out."

It was then that the trio of muggles finally recovered from their shock, or at least the familiarly Woodbridgian woman among them did. "Secure the beacon? Who do you think you are that you can just waltz in here and decide that you're taking our beacon? Because I'm here on the authority of both the Systems Alliance and the Council to-"

"If you'd really like an apocalyptic vision from the fall of the Prothean Empire shoved into your head, I can ask Matriarch Luciana if she'd oblige you." Harry looked the woman up and down slowly before shaking his head dismissively as he turned his attention back to where Luna, Epee, and the marines were tearing through a mixture of drones and newly arrived geth. "I'm sure that you had very specific orders regarding the beacon that you were supposed to follow, but they were terrible orders born of ignorance of the beacon's true nature. This is for the best, I assure you."

Much to Harry's surprise, the woman offered a derisive snort in response that - like her accent - reminded him far too much of his ex-wife. Making her way forward to stand at his left side, she crossed her arms over her chest as she eyed him unhappily. "My great-great-grandmother told me a lot of things about you, Potter, but she never mentioned that you were such a condescending prick. And to think that I was actually excited that I was finally getting to meet you."

Her… great-great-grandmother? While she couldn't have his undivided attention, Harry abruptly found himself devoting far more of it to the encounter than he had been before. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've been properly introduced. You are?"

"Ismene Shepard." The woman pulled off her helmet and Harry sucked in a breath as she shook out a mane of long black hair; while Ismene wasn't quite the spitting image of his ex-wife, the resemblance was far too close to be a coincidence. Suddenly, the overly familiar traits made sense. She wasn't just from the same area as Daphne, she was- "If you want, I can recite my entire lineage for you in proper pureblood fashion after the whole 'nuclear bomb' mess is dealt with, but for the sake of brevity? My great-grandmother was Eirene Greengrass, daughter of Daphne Greengrass… and Harry Potter."

"…what?"