Years Later
If one would go to the Prior Observatory about four years ago they would find an empty and abandoned construction of Sotha Sil, and while the building would contain light it most certainly would be lifeless. If someone would go less than four years ago they would be confused by the laughter of a child that would emanate from the building, and one would smile knowing it was the laughter of young Sotha Hari. To say that Sotha Hari had a happy childhood would give you two answers if one were to ask the Clockwork Prince, a name he accepted but wasn't keen on, he would answer both yes and no and if one were to ask him why he said this Hari, as he prefered to be called, would say he was unhappy for six years of his life while being happy until he was almost one and a half years old. The prince would continue by saying he was happy after the age of seven.
It was also a known fact that everyone in the Clockwork City loved their prince, even the Blackfeather Court enjoyed his company as Sotha Hari would speak to all of the people in Clockwork City. So when he was nine and his experiment involving a Kagouti Fabricant exploded, Clockwork City was silent. The experiment in question was testing to see how much electricity a Kagouti Fabricant could hold so they could act as generators to help power the city, Hari had found a deactivated Kagouti and used it for the experiment, what he didn't know was the surge protectors in the fabricant were damaged beyond repair, the electricity combined with the shattered surge protectors and unstable core caused the Kagouti to explode. Luckily for Hari his face wasn't damaged in the explosion, but he lost his forearms and his lower legs and was impaled by several pieces of shrapnel. Hari was outfitted with a mechanical chest plate and a pair of clockwork arms and legs, it was at this point that Hari truly accepted the Clockwork Prince monokir. Which leads us to today, but not in the city of wonders, we start in a castle unseen to many except a select few.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Severus Snape was an individual described as cold, callous, and just plain unpleasant to be around, the potion master and former spy knew this and capitalized on it. As for the reason he was with Minerva it was a simple one, today was the day that all Hogwarts letters would be sent out to the young Witches and Wizards around Magical Britain, even Severus would always feel some excitement at the thought of new Slytherin students though he kept it hidden. However he was here for a different reason today, four years ago Harry Potter's name had vanished from the book of names to be replaced by the most curious name Severus had ever seen, Sotha Hari, it confused Severus as to the origin of the name because it wasn't related to any culture that he knew of. This was one of the reasons why he was standing over Minerva's shoulder, to see the full address of the letter, that and because Minerva would be unable to grab the letter while she was addressing the other's as was the nature of the spells on the naming quill, eventually he saw her begin to write the name, following along with the quill Severus grabbed the letter when she was done and had passed it to the right before walking towards the Headmaster's office.
"Liquorice wands." Albus needed to think of different passwords, or maybe expand to Muggle candies. Stepping inside Severus rode the stairwell to the top into the Headmaster's office.
"Severus my boy, is it here?" The headmaster stood up causing Severus to cringe at the gold and polka dotted robes he was wearing.
"It is." Severus handed the letter over and Albus looked at it before frowning and tilting his head.
"Clockwork City? The blue cot in the upper laboratory of the Prior Observatory?" The door opened as Minerva raced in as fast as she could
"Where is he?" Albus handed the letter over causing Minerva to frown, "I'm guessing that we're back to square one?" Severus nodded while Albus smiled.
"Not entirely my dear. All I needed was his address and we can do the rest." The headmaster walked over to one of his cabinets and pulled out a metal disc inscribed with multiple runes, taking the letter Albus inscribed several other runes onto the disc before handing it out to his colleagues. "Now then, this disc when inscribed with the address of any location, even one we haven't heard of, will bring is to the location. Once there we can find Mister Potter and bring him home."
"So it's a portkey." Albus frowned at Severus's simple response to his latest project.
"Sort of, think of it as a modified portkey."
"Does it work?" Minerva asked as she looked at the disk.
"It should, probably, maybe, who knows." The other's frowned as Albus put the tip of his wand on the disc and his colleagues reluctantly followed suite. "Clockwork City!" Albus shouted as the three vanished.
Clockwork Crossroads Wayshrine
Normally the crossroads wayshrine would be calm and quiet, this was something that the Knave of Rooks noticed when he would fly over the area during his patrol like he was now. The Blackfeather Court had established their presence within the city and with the help of Hari, gained a purpose. In exchange for living in the city the Duke would lend out several of his men to help with patrols outside the city. Originally the Duke was displeased that his men were being used in such a fashion until Hari added in that the Court could collect and keep any shiny's they found on their patrols. The crows of the court were begging to be allowed to patrol after that, it was through this that Hari was named a friend of the Blackfeather Court, the Duke also ordering his soldiers to keep an eye on Hari and assist him. Currently the Knave was flying up from the southern fields of Clockwork City, making sure to fly over the memorial Sotha Sil had built. CRACK! The Knave looked over to see three Bretons over by the wayshrine, the Knave flew over to investigate landing on top of the wayshrine and began to listen.
"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore!" This was shouted by a stern looking woman that strangely smelled like, the Knave's eyes widened, a cat! Perhaps she was part Khajiit but still, he would have to watch out for her.
"Calm down Minerva, it's clear we entered Clockwork City." This was said by the eldest of the group with shiny glasses, The Knave thought it would be good to bring those back to the Duke, but the man stank of death and the stench was concentrated to the stick in his hand.
"Oh yes because this clearly looks like a city Albus, look around this is plains of…" The younger man with the crooked nose who smelt of snakes, bats, and dungeons bent and took a handful of soil in his hand as he looked at it. "Metal?"
"What do you mean Severus?" The cat woman replied to the bat man he turned to her and handed out the soil, the cat woman took it and was shocked, she quickly walked over to a nearby rock and rapped on it only for a metal thunk to be heard, the death man walked over to a nearby tree and rubbed his hand along the trunk.
"How curious, it's completely made of metal." Was all he stated.
"So we need to find Harry and quickly." The Knave froze up when he heard that, they were looking for Hari? Who were these people? The Knave was determined to find out.
"Halt intruders!" The Knave called out as the three began looking around for the speaker. "How have you arrived in Clockwork City?" Death man was the first to recover as he cleared his throat.
"My dear fellow we are in dire need of aid, perhaps you could come out and help us, I swear we mean you no harm."
"And why should I believe you? You three featherless have entered the city smelling of cats and dungeon bats and death, and now you are hunting someone under the protection of the Blackfeather Court! You will never lay one finger on him!" The cat was looking around and saw him perched upon the wayshrine.
"Albus look." The cat pointed to the Knave as he ruffled his feathers, the crow looking upon them with disdain.
"This has to be a joke, Minerva you can't seriously believe that a crow is protecting Potter." Severus replied, The Knave's eyes widened as he heard that, very few people knew the birth name of Sotha Hari, the Knave and the Duke were two of these individuals that could call Sotha Hari by his birth name. And these Bretons knew his name.
"YOU DARE!" The Knave shouted causing the three to jump after watching him speak. "You do not bear the privilege of calling Sotha Hari by his birth name! Only friends and family can use it and only in private settings!" To the Knave, he couldn't allow this to stand. "For your misuse, you are to stand trial before the Duke of Crows! May he show mercy to you. Now walk!"
"Do you seriously expect us to go to a trial run by crows?" Severus smirked. Only to watch as the Knave's eyes glowed purple.
"WALK!" Albus grabbed Severus and Minerva's arms as the Knave led them to a massive citadel on a plateau. "The Brass Fortress awaits!" He yelled, unaware as a single Skeevatron had recorded the message and began wheeling towards it's master.
The Brass Fortress
"Duke we have an agreement, I was told you would keep to that agreement." Lucianna calmly told the crow in front of her
"The shiny skin was rude! His insults could not be tolerated." The Duke of Crows glared at Itheriil Faethius, an Altmer that had earlier made a series of insults against the parentage of Sotha Hari, people immediately moved away from him afterwards, as a result of these insults he was now covered head to toe in droppings from the Blackfeather Court, his jewelry was plucked from his neck and fingers through methods that even Lucianna wasn't sure of.
"Those vermin must be extinguished. They are a stain on Clockwork City, why how a simple Dunmer god allows Daedra in his city is confusing." Lucianna put her head in her palm and began mentally counting from ten to zero. "And on top of that you have that brat who is just as arrogant as the tin mer is." Lucianna stopped counting as she looked to Itheriil in disbelief, she also noticed that many of the apostles that heard this were reaching towards their weapons.
"Take Itheriil to cell block four." The Altmer raged as he was grabbed and brought towards the Basilica. "Have him put in protective custody, and get in contact with his sponsor"
"Yes Proctor." A nearby Apostle said as he followed the raging Altmer. Lucianna then turned back to the Duke.
"I'll let this go only because of what he said about Hari." The Duke nodded. "If you do hear anything like that please don't do that, caw at them, get them with one or two droppings but please don't unleash the wrath of the Court again."
"I understand Shiny Knight." The Duke nodded and prepared to take flight only to stop as he and Lucianna heard a noise.
"Move it whelps, keep moving." The Duke cocked his head as he flew over to Lucianna's shoulder, the Proctor began walking towards the noise. Only to see the Knave of Rooks ordering three Bretons through the gates as they were looking around in awe at the Brass Fortress, and at the different races in the city. "My Duke, Shiny Knight!" The Knave flew over to a nearby stand and took roost. "These three claim to be hunting Sotha Hari!"
"We claimed no such thing bird." The black haired man yelled to the Knave.
"They smell of cats, dungeon bats, and death!" The Knave yelled out.
"Ah, I smell the dungeon bats now." The Duke glared at the black haired man. "Also a woman who smells like cats? Are you part Khajiit by any chance? You do smell similar to one of the Cat People." Minerva's eyes widened at the Duke as she heard this. "And you." The Duke's eyes were boring into the old man. "He smells of death Shiny Knight, it's in his left sleeve." Lucianna stepped forward and pulled up the man's sleeve, her nose wrinkling at the colors of his robes, and pulled out a knobbed stick made of real, organic wood, and filled with raw magic. And not the good kind of magic either.
"What is this?" Lucianna held the stick up to the old man's face.
"Madam do please be careful with that." Albus was worried what the woman would do with the Elder Wand. "If you could please just point us in the right direction then we'll be on our way." Lucianna thought for a second before looking back at Albus.
"What are you looking for?"
"Not what Madam but who, as for who we are looking for, we are looking for Harry Potter." Lucianna froze, the Knave was right, these Bretons were looking for Hari. "He should be nearing eleven by now, he has black hair and green eyes along with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt." They described Hari perfectly.
"What do you want with Sotha Hari." Lucianna's voice took on a deadly tone as the Duke of Crows flew up to roost by the Knave of Rooks.
"You see, we keep hearing that name but who is Sotha Hari?" Albus asked.
"That would be me." The three Bretons turned to see an eleven year old wearing blue and white robes with a red sash tied around his waist with his hands folded in front of him and a smile on his face, emerald eyes were framed by a bronze crown that wrapped around his head and nearly molded to his cheeks, looking closely the three could see that the crown had glasses lenses around the eyes and a gold and red articulated frame around the top of the crown also visible was a head of messy black hair, but what caught their attention were the mechanical arms and legs, a metallic breastplate and the four metallic arms coming off his back. Severus had once encountered a Hufflepuff student in the hall reading a Spiderman comic and immediately saw the similarity to Harry's arms with that of the villain Doc Ock, the contents of these arms were interesting as well, one contained a metal rat that was squeaking as another arm stroked it, another contained a vial, and the last one contained a plaque of some sorts.
"Apostle Marius," Harry's arm with the vial stretched over to one of the soldiers. "Can you bring this to the group of adventurers that were hired to destroy The Imperfect?"
"Yes sir, they should still be in the city." the Apostle replied as he took the vial
"Excellent, tell them to be careful, it's the strongest acid I've ever created." The Apostle bowed before turning and walking away, being ever so careful with the vial. Hari then walked over to a nearby Argonian that was heading to the refuge.
"Sleeps- Among- Smoothskins." The Argonian turned to see his friend before giving a smile.
"What can I do for you old friend?" Like most Argonians, the speech was slow and drawn out with some reptilian hissing added in.
"I have the new recipes that Brengolin was asking about, I was hoping to deliver them to him myself," Hari looked at the Bretons. "But I get the feeling I'm going to be tied up the rest of the day." The Argonian nodded before taking the plaque from Hari's arm and heading towards the refuge. Hari sighed before looking back at the Bretons in front of him. "So, how do you know my name?"
"Everyone was saying it, Sotha Hari this, Sotha Hari that." Minerva began before Hari waved his hand as he retracted his metal arms, transfering the rat to his hands as he continued scratching it.
"Not that name, I mean my birth name." when Hari was young he never understood why Sotha Sil changed his name, the Clockwork God was many things, but a people person was never one of them, eventually Seht told Hari he was trying to keep him hidden, that certain magics could be used to call him back to his birth realm, and his relatives. Hari was afraid of his relatives and what they would do to him, sure, but he was also afraid of what Seht would do to them when he would find them. The Clockwork God was a wrath beyond belief when he was pushed to it. The Bretons however had a look of realization as Hari walked up to them.
"Harry?" The eldest one asked. "What happened to you?" Hari frowned as he could tell they were using his birth name.
"Again with my birth name, how do you know it? Who are you?"
"We know it because we've known you since you were a baby." This came from the woman, Hari froze as the gears in his head began to turn.
"How much is true?" They looked confused. "We're my parents drunken layabouts? Did they die in a car crash? Was my mother a Scarlet Woman?"
"WHAT!" Severus yelled from the back as Hari looked to him. He found a link, he knew that this man knew of his past, of what happened before his parents deaths. The other two had paled quite considerably at his questions so it was possible they had answers as well. "WHO CALLED LILY A SCARLET WOMAN!"
"That was her name?" Severus looked down at Hari. "Her name was Lily." the younger man nodded as tears began to form around his eyes.
"Lies." Hari raised an eyebrow. "What you just said was all lies, Lily and…. Potter were most certainly not drunks, and they weren't layabouts either, your mother was the farthest thing from a Scarlet Woman, and a car crash. Those two wouldn't have allowed themselves to be killed in such a muggle fashion." Severus had a wild look in his eyes as he answered this and Hari stepped forward placing the metal rat on his shoulder and a hand on the man's cheek. This action caused Severus to calm himself as tears flowed free.
Hari had always known that they had lied to him, and while His Aunts and Uncles in the City weren't able to answer his questions about his parents it was good to finally have one.
"Calm yourself." Hari told the man as he visibly relaxed. "Thank you." Harry then turned to the man and woman. "As for your questions on what happened to me, one of my experiments exploded. The end result was myself losing my arms, lower legs, and shrapnel becoming embedded in my torso." Harry then stepped up to the old man. "Now you seem to know quite a bit about me," He extended his arms, using them to push himself off the ground so he was eye level. "But what I should be asking is who you are." The old man was frozen for a second before he regained his composure.
"My apologies, Harry…" Albus froze when he heard crows starting to caw. "I mean Sotha Hari," The cawing stopped. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, I'm the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the woman next to me is Professor Minerva Mcgonagall and the man is Professor Severus Snape." Albus pulled a letter out of his pocket. "As for why we're here, we are delivering this." Albus passed the letter to Harry as he took it it and unfolded it, reading it's contents before raising an eyebrow.
"Do you think I didn't know about magic?" Hari asked the three.
"In all fairness, it's obvious this city doesn't run on magic." Severus replied. Harry blinked at him before laughing and retracting his arms.
"Open your magical core up, let Aetherius run through you." Was all he said only for the group to hear a gasp from Minerva.
"This city, it's saturated with magic. I've never felt anything like this before." Harry smiled at the older woman.
"If your shocked by this, you should see Summerset or Artaeum, and keep in mind that Artaeum exists outside of time and space like Clockwork City does." Harry looked back over to Albus. "I'm curious as to what Hogwarts can teach me though, perhaps we can continue this elsewhere." Hari turned and began walking away. The other's following him. "Lucianna, Duke, Knave, aren't you three coming?"
"Let me get Varuni, we'll meet you at the Observatory." Lucianna said as she turned and began walking towards the Basilica.
"I will need to inform the court of my absence, then I will join you." The Duke stated as he took flight, returning to the Court.
"I'll join you." Knave gave the best grin he could before flying down to Hari's shoulder.
"Excellent. One moment though." Hari looked to the sky. "GRIMLOCK!" He yelled out as the massive Fabricant Daedric Titan flew in, landing in the plaza before looking at Hari. "Take these three home." Hari told the Titan, the Draconic fabricant looking at them as it crouched low, revealing three seats on its back. Hari looked over to the three and saw their eyes widened and mouths open. "This is Grimlock." Hari began as he pet the nose of the Titan. "He'll take you to my home." Hari then spread his arms before vanishing in a flash of light. The three professors looked at the seats and the Titan.
"Well," Severus began. "Who's first."