A/N - Welcome to the last chapter of Lightning, Part 2. It's been quite a journey and I'll be glad to take a sizable break now. I've barely started Part 3 and it's going to be a long while before any of it gets posted. As with the first two parts I want to have a lot of chapters written before I begin posting it so I can post regularly again, at least for a while. In other words don't expect Part 3 any time soon. If you want to know when I start posting Part 3 just follow this story and I'll post an announcement here which will be sent to anyone who is following this story. I hope you enjoy the wrap up to Part 2.
Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.
"It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" also doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the members of R.E.M.
45) SECOND INTERMISSION
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine
Long after returning from seeing R.E.M. perform at Madison Square Garden on the night of June 23rd Harry was still humming this song from their show. While it wasn't the end of the world right now it was the end – or almost the end – of the current adventures of the ending school year. The only thing left was the third task of the Triwizard Tournament and that would be happening tomorrow evening at Hogwarts.
Harry had been training for the task as hard as he had trained for anything these past days. The rest of the team had insisted he relax at least for one night and they had taken him into the city to see R.E.M.'s Monster tour. It had helped a good deal. Harry had relaxed, let go of any tension he'd been building in the last days, and got into the music. When he finally went to bed that night he slept better than he had all week.
Times had been crazy ever since Voldemort had tried to invade Hogwarts two weeks earlier. Every day since the X-Men received their Order of Merlins the Daily Prophet had a new story about Voldemort's trial. The list of things he admitted doing while under Veritaserum was long and getting longer all the time. There was no doubt that he was guilty as sin. The problem was his crimes were so numerous that the Wizengamot was stuck on just what to do with him. There were calls for his death from some but others countered that just executing him would be too quick and easy. He needed to suffer like he'd made so many others suffer but no one could come up with a punishment that everyone could agree on.
Eventually the decision was made to postpone Voldemort's sentencing until after all of the other Death Eaters had been tried. It was thought that his testimony might still be needed for some of the other trials as there were still many things that only he knew which might need to be brought out in the coming days. He went back to his isolated holding cell in the ministry and there he stayed under heavy guard all during the Death Eater trials except for those times when he was brought out to testify in the trials as they went on.
The trials would take all summer and would be almost the only thing people talked about while they continued. Almost all of the members of the inner circle who had survived the Battle of Hogwarts were sent through the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries. These included (but were not limited to) Lucius Malfoy, Walden Macnair, Albert Runcorn, Peter Pettigrew (both Sirius and Remus made sure to be present at his execution), Corban Yaxley, Antonin Dolohov, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Augustus Rookwood, and quite a few others. Many of the other Death Eaters were sent to Azkaban with sentences of varying lengths depending on their crimes.
Azkaban wasn't as horrible as it used to be because the dementors were not returned there. It was now quite clear that these creatures were unreliable. As they had defected once who was to say they wouldn't do so again if another dark lord came along and offered them the right incentive? No, they would need to be contained as best as could be done. The ones who were caught in Iceman's dome at Hogwarts were eventually taken to a deserted island off the northwestern coast of Scotland and imprisoned in a large underground stone chamber which was sealed up after they were all inside. They were left there and the island was placed under Notice Me Not spells and muggle repelling wards to keep anyone who wasn't authorized to be there from accidentally finding it.
A few days after the X-Men received their awards Harry read in the Prophet that Neville had gotten a medal for killing Bellatrix Lestrange just like Minister Fudge said that he might. He was awarded a Distinguished Magical Service Medal which. while not on the same level as an Order of Merlin, was still a prestigious award to get. Harry thought that Neville deserved the recognition.
And of course there was the third task. As Harry had predicted it was very much an anti-climax after the battle against Voldemort. The task was to traverse the hedge maze that had been grown on the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch. The Triwizard Cup was placed in the center of the maze and the object was to be the first champion to reach it. Along the way there were obstacles of all kinds. As the leader in points after the first two tasks Harry was the first to enter the maze and on his journey he encountered several different magical obstacles including a sphinx, a Devil's Snare (that flashed him back to first year), a troll (which also flashed him back to first year and which he dispatched by using Ron's method of levitating its club and dropping it on its head to knock it out), and several other obstacles of varying kinds and different levels of difficulty.
All during the task Harry had been tempted to use his mutants powers but had held back from doing so as he 1) didn't want to risk anyone catching on to his possible alter ego and 2) remembered that he was in a magical tournament and wanted to win it that way instead of using extra powers that the other champions didn't have.
In the end Harry did win the task. He was the first one to the cup and when he grabbed it and held it up above his head the hedge maze sank down into the ground and disappeared. The various creatures and obstacles in the maze then all vanished with loud pops, presumably being returned to wherever it was that they came from. The Quidditch pitch was now back to being a grassy field with Harry standing in the middle of it holding up the cup while the other three champions were in different places around the field.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Bagman, commentating as usual, "we have a winner of the 1994-95 Triwizard Tournament! Please give a warm round of applause to Harry Potter of the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!" The cheering from the crowd was long and loud, especially from the Hogwarts students who still considered him to be one of their own, and from the Ilvermorny students who were present for the task. Ilvermorny had ended its school year about a week earlier but many students had stayed late at the school so they could attend the third task. They would all go home a day later while the school got ready for its summer programs.
There was an award ceremony immediately after the task ended which Harry had to stay for. It wasn't anything special: there were speeches by the minister and Dumbledore followed by Harry receiving the a trophy and the prize money. That was followed by a press conference which, unfortunately, Harry could not skip. As he expected a lot of people asked him about Voldemort so before things could get out of hand Harry called for silence and issued a statement.
"Yes, I heard all about Voldemort's capture" he said ignoring the winces from many people in the crowd, "and I'm very happy that he's been captured. When I was a student here at Hogwarts it often seemed like people expected me and him to eventually fight each other and I was supposed to be the hero in that fight. Well I'm not quite 15. I still have three more years of schooling before I'm considered fully trained at the basic level. I'll need more training if I want to get a mastery. Does anyone really think that I would have stood a chance against Voldemort if I'd been here two weeks ago? I don't.
"I'm very glad that this time it was the professionals who took down Voldemort and his allies. That's what they're trained to do, right? I'm grateful to the Hogwarts staff, the aurors, the Sorcerer Supreme and his mentor, and the Avengers for everything they did fighting the Death Eaters and their allies and I'm especially grateful to the X-Men who were the ones who beat Voldemort himself. From now on, with Voldemort defeated, I hope to be able to live a normal life where I can be just Harry. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time."
Not much happened after that before Harry went back to the X-Mansion. While he was mingling with the crowd before leaving Harry saw Snape some distance away. As if sensing him Snape turned and saw Harry. The two of them looked at each other for a moment before Snape turned away. He made no move to approach Harry but at the same time he didn't do anything to antagonize him either. He didn't even sneer at him. Harry decided that was good enough. If Snape didn't want to talk with him that was fine. After his conversation with Snape back in April Harry felt it was up to Snape to make a move – or not. The ball was very much in Snape's court. Until and unless Snape approached him he wouldn't worry about it.
Harry did get to speak to his Hogwarts friends for a little bit before he left to go back to America. In addition to congratulating Harry on his win Hermione complimented him on his statement saying it was the right thing for him to say. Ron winked at him and murmured in a low voice "if they only knew." Neville just said that he'd see Harry soon.
The only other thing of note that happened before Harry left was that Remus approached him and told him that after Voldemort was captured the aurors had gotten out of him exactly how he'd cursed the DADA position. The curse had been placed on the DADA office itself rather than the classroom or the professor's quarters. Once the secret was known some curse breakers had come to Hogwarts and had removed the curse. Dumbledore immediately asked Remus to return as the permanent DADA professor the following year. Remus had accepted.
After congratulating Remus and confirming that his honorary uncle would return to the X-Mansion once Hogwarts was out for the summer Harry went back to America. It had been a long day and even though the return to the U.S. meant that Harry went from the late evening back to late afternoon / early evening he was very tired. After a final debriefing with Professor Xavier and the team Harry went to bed.
The next morning Harry took his portkey to Ilvermorny to say goodbye to Ororo who was about to leave to go back to Kenya. Her parents were coming to pick her up and they were expected to arrive at any minute.
"I'm going to miss you" the Kenya princess said, "it makes me sorry I'm not coming back next year. You'll have to write me a lot."
"I can do better than that" said Harry, "Sirius gave me something that will allow us to communicate as often as we want without making Hedwig fly thousands of miles several times a month."
Harry took out a small package and handed it to Ororo.
"This is a communications mirror" he said to her, "it's one of a pair. I have the other one. If you ever want to speak to me just say my name while you're looking at it and my mirror will alert me to your call."
"That's brilliant" said Ororo opening up the package and looking at the mirror, "that will make it much easier to keep in touch. You're still my boyfriend Harry, don't you forget it."
"As if I would" said Harry with a smile, "you're unlike any other girl I've met and I'm not letting you go if I can help it."
"Good" said Ororo, "I talked to my parents a short time ago and we would like to invite you to come visit us in Kenya some time this summer around late July or early August. I hope you can come."
"Oh yeah, I'll come" said Harry, "you can count on it."
They would have kissed a full kiss at that point but Ororo's parents had just arrived and with them there Harry and Ororo confined themselves to just kissing each other's cheeks once before they parted. Harry greeted Ororo's parents, said goodbye to Ororo, and watched the three of them leave the school. Once they were gone Harry took his portkey back to the X-Mansion.
Later that day Professor Xavier summoned Harry to his office. After a few minutes of small talk the professor got to the point.
"So Harry" he said, "what do you want to do now?"
"What do you mean?" asked Harry. Xavier sat back in his chair as he looked at Harry.
"In the short term do you have plans now that Ilvermorny has broken for the summer?" the professor began.
"And in the long term?" Harry asked giving the professor an inquiring look.
"When you first came to me two years ago" said the professor "it was to help you get your mutant powers under control. A month later you joined the X-Men so you could learn how to fight and win when you finally had to face Tom Riddle again. With Riddle's defeat earlier this month that mission would seem to be complete. What do you want to do now? Do you want to stay here? Do you want to become a full time student at Ilvermorny? Or maybe return to Hogwarts at the end of the summer? It's up to you."
"I want to stay here" said Harry without any hesitation, "this is my home now. I don't want to leave. I like being an X-Man and I don't want to stop being one."
"You'll always be an X-Man" said the professor, "but that doesn't mean you always have to be an active X-Man."
"I know" said Harry, "I suppose when the time comes I'll probably go to university but that's still a few years away. In the meantime I can't go back to being what I was before my mutant powers woke up. Hogwarts doesn't have the mundane courses I need to continue on to university after I graduate. Ilvermorny does. "
"And your friends at Hogwarts?"
"We're still friends" said Harry, "that hasn't changed, but my teammates are my friends too. More than that you're all like family to me now. I feel that this is where I belong."
"I'm glad to hear it" said Xavier, "I'm happy you want to stay and I don't want you to leave either but I had to give you the option now that Riddle's been defeated."
"And hopefully stays defeated" muttered Harry.
"That too" said Xavier, "anyway, thank you for staying. I know that if you left Sirius would probably leave too."
"You're probably right" said Harry.
"So, Lightning" said Xavier with a smile, "do you have any special plans for the summer?" Harry smiled back at Xavier using his code name.
"Ororo invited me to visit her in Kenya some time in either late July or early August" he said, "other than that, not really although I might like to travel a bit and see some of my other homes, especially Potter Castle in Wales and maybe the New Zealand house where I first lived after being born. Beyond that I expect X-Men training will continue as usual. Just because Tom is gone doesn't mean someone else won't show up to replace him."
"Very true" said Xavier, "and the team wouldn't be the same without you."
"Also I want to help Neville when he comes for the summer" said Harry.
"I'm sure you will" said the professor, "he may not be the only one you can help."
"What do you mean?" asked Harry.
"I've detected more mutants" said Xavier, "whom I hope will be joining us during the summer to become new students. They may, or may not, start coming to the school before you leave for Kenya but I think at least a couple will be here when you get back."
"Oh" said Harry with great interest, "will they be joining the team?"
"No" said the professor, "none of them are old enough for that. They're more around your age, perhaps a little older or younger. You're the only underage person to be an X-Man now since Bobby turned 18. You're grandfathered in so to speak but any potential future X-Men will have to be 18 before they can considered for the team."
"Okay" said Harry, "I just hope that doesn't cause any friction between me and the new students."
"I will explain everything to them" said Xavier, "besides they'd have to train a lot to reach the level of skill that would allow them to be considered for the team."
"I hadn't thought of that" said Harry, "but it's certainly true. Thanks for explaining all of this to me professor. I look forward to meeting the new students."
"I'm glad to hear it" said Xavier who let Harry go after that.
Harry went back to his room and spent some time thinking over everything that had happened during the past year. It had been eventful to say the least what with the Triwizard Tournament and Voldemort's plans, his various adventures with the X-Men, and his first romantic relationship. He hoped now that Voldemort was defeated that the coming summer and year would be a little quieter.
Harry gave a cynical chuckle. Who was he kidding? A quiet year? Him? His luck had never been that good. He just hoped that he'd be able to face whatever the future had in store for him.
Elsewhere in the state Bolivar Trask was working hard on his Sentinels project. He was just about finished with it. After a few last touches he would be ready to put it into operation. The first part would be quiet. He would be putting all of the pieces in place for when he went public with his project. When he finally activated everything it would be too late for anyone to stop it. The last part would take a few more months as he made the final arrangements. The targeted time for activation was roughly some time in the middle of the coming Autumn.
Out in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles east of Japan the green reptilian head of the giant mutant that Xavier had been detecting off and on for most of the past year broke the surface and looked around. The mutant was not in any way, shape, or form human. Instead it looked like a carnivorous dinosaur, albeit one several hundred feet tall and very powerful.
His name was Godzilla and he was one of the secret guardians of the world who only show themselves in times of extreme peril. It had been centuries since the last time he or any of his fellows had been seen by humanity. Most of the time he slept because he wasn't needed but now something had woken him up. A sense of wrongness that was coming to the world though he didn't know what it was yet. Even so he knew that he would be needed fairly soon. He submerged again and began swimming west towards Japan and the east coast of Asia. This was his part of the world. He would protect it from what was coming – and Heaven help anyone who got in his way.
THE END of Lightning, Part 2: An Eventful Fourth Year
POSTSCRIPT: That's the end of Part 2 of Lightning. Part 3 is tentatively titled "Rise of the Sentinels" and will (very) loosely cover X-Men 14-16 which was the first ever appearance of the Sentinels.
A couple of things before I head off to the intermission. First, you may have noticed that I didn't spell out Voldemort's final fate. That's because I'm working on using him in Part 3 but he won't be the main antagonist. If I'm able to do what I want Voldemort's going to learn a very important lesson about how yes, there really are worse things than death out there. If I can't pull this off or I feel it's not working I'll just dispatch him early in Part 3 and he won't appear again. We'll see. Truth to tell back when I first started writing this story it was going to be 2 parts and it would have ended with Voldemort's defeat. Along the way the Sentinels demanded to be added to the story and that meant a third part so the story will be continuing on for another installment in the future.
The other thing is that strict Marvel chronology is going out the window in Part 3. I don't remember who it was who said it but one of you reviewers mentioned that a lot of the newer X-Men are alive when the original team is around even if they're still just kids and not ready to be on the team. On thinking that over I decided that there's an opportunity to use some of them. Xavier mentioned in this chapter that he's detected some more mutants and hopes to bring them to the school. He's going to do it. None of them will be on the team since they're too young and they probably won't play large roles but they'll be around. Harry will remain the only student under 18 who is an active X-Man. This is something the newcomers will probably be envious of. The best parallel that I can think of off hand is in chapter 6 of RJStephenson's excellent X-Men / Harry Potter crossover story eXtra power twin where the younger students at Xavier's school train in the Danger Room once a month and consider it preparation for when they join the X-Men - which all of them, including Harry, want to do as they all look up to the X-Men very much.
I haven't made final decisions on whom I'm going to use. So far I'm leaning toward Colossus, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Rogue though there's probably room for a few more if there are any preferences. I also have Wolverine slated to appear and he'll have a decent role in the story.
NEXT WEEK: I have a bonus chapter ready. I have a few out takes of earlier versions of certain scenes in Part 2 that got rewritten but I thought people might like to see what they were like before they got changed or removed. One of them is one of the first pieces ever written for this story back when I first started it.
And that's all. Thanks for sticking with Part 2 to the end. As usual please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. As always stay safe and well.