Disclaimer: I own nothing; Harry Potter and the elements of his universe all belong to J.K.Rowling. Firefly/Serenity and the elements of its universe all belong to Joss Whedon. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – Evolutionary Harry

"Harry," Mal ordered. "Set a course for Changtown. We'll figure out the details once we're in com range later."

Harry nodded and went to the bridge to take off while River delighted in preparing snacks.

Simon went to put his new hat into his bunk area. He decided it would look best stuffed in the back of a drawer, preferably behind some old socks thus decreasing the likelihood of Kaylee cooing over it and using her womanly wiles to make him wear the goofy thing.

When Harry returned after setting the autopilot once they were deep enough into the black, he saw River, Zoe, Inara, Mal, Kaylee, and Simon all waiting patiently and quietly looking up at him. "Jayne still not back yet?"

River explained. "I heard him writing out loud. So it could take him a little while."

Harry nodded his head, feeling the pompom on his hat bob back and forth.

"Must you wear that hat?" Simon asked closing his eyes in frustration.

Harry shook his head flipping the ear flaps back and forth. "I suppose I don't have to."

"Because I can't take you seriously with that hat and all the voodoo mumbo-jumbo you're going to be trying to sell us on." Simon explained. "It's one or the other." He paused again and clarified, "If that many."

Harry felt like being nice and took his hat off. "How'd Courtney come to the conclusion I was Jesus?"

"I'm putting my money on the whole healing her miraculously bit," Mal replied wryly.

River shook her head. "She did feel the healing power as she called it, but she also caught a glimpse of jagged scars on your forehead. She was confident they were from the Crown of Thorns."

"Really," Harry mused.

"I saw them too," River added accusingly.

Harry made a thoughtful noise to himself.

"And then there's the whole, on the third day you rose again," Kaylee added with a smile.

Zoe rolled her eyes. "More than anything it was the apostle Jayne didn't want to let his Mom down."

Harry nodded. "Perfectly understandable."

Shortly thereafter, Jayne finally returned and blurted out, "So Harry… what the rut are you?"

Harry chuckled and waved towards the empty chair. "Have a seat. Before we jump into the question and answer section of this inquisition, I need to give you all a bit of a history lesson."

Harry pulled out his lovely communicator and wiggled the device before setting it on the table in front of him. "Frank here knows most of this, so he may be able to help us out on some bits."

"I don't know any of this," Mr. Universe's voice called out. "Harry's explained plenty, but for the most part it's completely irrational and illogical."

"Yeah, that too," Harry agreed before clapping with a smile. "Okay, first things first. Is there anyone with doubts that magic is real? Or skeptical of the things you've already seen me do?"

"Doubts magic's real? I don't know…" Mal answered. "Skeptical of you? Yes."

Harry smiled, "Fair enough." Harry reached into his once again disillusioned homemade holster and withdrew his wand. Hoping to impress them, while sticking to his silent casting, Harry snapped his wand at each of them individually in rapid succession.

Zoe tried to duck the incoming jet of light but was unable to. Her upper lip sprouted into a large bushy moustache. "Aiee!"

The Captain began giggling uncontrollably.

Inara could only look down in shock as her skin was glowing bright blue. "What in the…"

Simon was yelping soundlessly, while his girlfriend was watching the impossibly colored butterflies flittering around her. "Wow…"

River's eyes widened and narrowed as she just sat there frowning. She was completely ignoring Jayne's calls of "Wheee!" while he hovered in the air.

Harry smiled as he slowly floated a joyously clapping Jayne over the heads of the others. "What you've just seen are some of the most basic simple and harmless charms, many of which the average wizard or witch should learn in their first couple of years of schooling."

"Zoe," Harry announced, pointing to the woman tugging on her own upper lip, "was lucky enough to get a simple conjured moustache. The Captain was hit with what's called a tickling charm. Inara's skin color will return on its own within an hour if left uncountered. Simon has been hit with a silencing charm, something I'm very grateful for by the way. None of the rest of you can see them, but Kaylee's been watching some illusionary butterflies, that she will assure you are quite pretty and colorful."

Kaylee was nodding happily.

"Levitating an object was in fact the first thing I learned in Charms class, though it is highly dangerous to use on a person, unless properly modified, which I have for Jayne. And River…" Harry smiled at her. "Aren't you going to share with the group?"

She just kept frowning at Harry. Harry rolled his eyes at her and twisted his wand sharply, spinning her chair with her in it to face away from the others. It was only then that they all got a look at River's happily wagging black furry new tail. At being put on display it quickly shunned the attention and curled under her chair.

"River's tail is a bit more complicated than Zoe's lip ferret," Harry explained. "Because unless I change it back, then it's probably permanent."

Harry lowered Jayne down to his seat, vanished Zoe's moustache, canceled the tickling charm on the Captain, dispelled the butterflies, and countered Inara's skin tone. "Now when I speak of magic, are you willing to simply accept what I'm saying as at least possible truth rather than dismissing it outright?"

Simon was turning red and pointing to himself.

Harry wiggled his wand and tried to look innocent. "Oops. I must have forgotten to remove your silencing charm. Honest mistake."

The first sound out of Simon's mouth was an angry growl.

"Ahem," River cleared her throat loudly.

Harry pouted. "You don't want to keep your tail? I think it's cute."

"Me too," Kaylee assured her.

River's harsh face gave way to a slight blush and explained, "That's wonderful. But I'm simply not used to feeling butt muscles working that way and in that particular location. If it's all the same to you, I would rather not get accustomed to it."

"Very well," Harry reluctantly transfigured her tailbone back to normal. "Alright then, so magic is real and a lot more than just parlor tricks with cards, doves, and rabbits in hats. You need to realize that the magical world has stayed hidden from the muggle world ever since about the tenth century. Before then muggles and wizards-"

"Hang on, Harry," the disembodied voice of the communicator called out. "First, you all should realize that non-magical people are called muggles," Mr. Universe said distastefully. "That's what all of you are: muggles in your muggle world. Doesn't that make you feel all fuzzy, cuddly, and completely insignificant, you muggling muggly muggles?"

"Right, muggling muggly muggles," Harry corrected himself with a slight roll of his eyes. "Forgot about that. And sorry, no, I didn't make up these words, so please don't take offense. As I was saying, around the tenth century, the existence of magic was hidden from non-magical people and the entire society became something of a secret. This was also the time when the first real school for magic was created, as opposed to the longstanding tradition of apprenticeships." Harry grinned and explained, "As River may have guessed, the first and finest school of magic in all of Europe and arguably the planet Earth was called Hogwarts."

"That book of yours?" Jayne asked in remembrance.

Harry nodded. "Yes, it's a written account of history for both the castle which was the school grounds, as well as the school itself. That book carries muggle aversion charms, and that was why if you found yourself trying to look at it, or read it, your attention was then diverted and you forgot about it."

"I wondered what that was," River admitted.

"Yeah," Harry said. "You fought the effects of the charm and were able to read the title. That was… surprising."

"Why's that?" Simon asked.

Harry shrugged. "Because the charm was designed to keep non-magical people from reading the book or title, and it seemed to work on the rest of you."

"So I'm sort of magical?" River asked for clarification.

"Sort of? Sure, that's about as certain as I am, sort of," Harry agreed. "Anyways, the gist of this is that magic has been around since before the written word. Ancient Egyptian temples had all sorts of magical enchantments, traps, wards, and protections on them. This isn't some freak occurrence with just me, but a very real thing that's been around as long as there have been non-magical people."

"So there's a lot of wizards out there?" Mal asked. "More people… like you?"

"Hang on a second," Harry said. "You're getting ahead of me here. Anyways magic, just like any other sufficiently advanced technology, tool, or power, can be extremely violent and dangerous. There has been a long line of evil wizards harming magical and non-magical people, just the same as there has been a long line of wizards willing to stand up to them and stop them. The difference being, in the non-magical world, the strongest man and the weakest man are not as vastly different in physical capabilities. But in the magical world the strongest men have a power and control that the weaker could never hope to match, not even with numbers or tools."

Harry saw he had their attention and asked, "Tell me, are any of you familiar with Earth's history and World War II? The Nazi leader Adolf Hitler?" After receiving a few nods of recognition, Harry continued. "On a side note, he achieved a lot of his power thanks to the help of an evil wizard of the time. But the point I'm trying to make is that he led a vast army across Europe, terrorizing millions. In the non-magical world, you need influence, political might, and an army to accomplish anything like that. In the magical world, it is much easier, and much more dangerous, as the strongest of wizards could annihilate armies on their own sometimes. I'm referring to massacres from a singular, focused person, without restraint, and only their own conscience to answer to."

"Are you trying to make us feel better about magic?" Inara asked as her brow kept furrowing in worry.

Harry shook his head. "I'm not meaning to scare you. I'm just trying to explain it so that when I say there was a dark wizard reigning terror, you're not simply thinking about a serial killer with a few dozen targets, but thinking more along the lines of a large-scale cultural genocide."

"The bad man who murdered your parents when you were fifteen months old," River recalled out loud.

Harry nodded with a sad smile.

"What?" Jayne said looking over at River, immediately thinking of his own Mom's brush with death.

"That was why I had to live with my aunt and uncle," Harry explained. "They were non-magical, even though my mum was a muggle-born – that's a magical person born from non-magical parents – and so my aunt and uncle took out their fear of magic on me. Not the best childhood, though I know of many much worse.

"Anyways, the point I'm trying to get to is that an especially nasty wizard rose to power and killed both of my parents," Harry continued. "When I was old enough I began to learn magic, and discovered all about the magical world. The short and easiest answer is that there are no limits to what magic is capable of. And for every horror story I mention there are thousands upon thousands of good wizards helping others and doing all they can to stop the evil wizards."

"So now you're trying to hunt down your parents' killer?" Kaylee asked with watery eyes.

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "No, not in the slightest."

"You really did kill fifty men the day your wife was kidnapped, didn't you?" Zoe asked, thinking back to her whiskey enhanced conversation.

"Fifty?" Jayne repeated with an impressed nod.

"Wife?" River asked in shock.

Harry nodded. "Yes and yes, but we're nearing the interesting part of the story."

"We're not there yet?" Inara asked unsure how much more she could be expected to believe.

Mr. Universe's knowing chuckles could be heard clearly.

"You haven't said where you grew up," Simon stated suspiciously. "Or what planet or planets these things happen on."

"Exactly," Harry agreed tapping his nose and pointing at Simon. "Because my parents were murdered on Halloween… 1981." If silence was Harry's goal, that line accomplished it brusquely.

"Excuse me?" Mal softly asked.

Harry nodded. "I lived my entire life on Earth up until two years ago when I was awoken from my magical slumber. Let me tell you, I didn't expect I'd be napping for four centuries and I certainly didn't expect so much to change in that time."

"You're five hunnert some odd years old?" Jayne asked in disbelief.

"No, not at all," Harry explained. "Not even wizards live that long… well unless they have Elixir of Life but…never mind. No, I was outside of time and existing only in a small space for over 386 years."

River's eyes widened.

Simon shook his head in disbelief running the numbers in his head, "Hang on…"

"You're 154 years old?" River asked beating her brother to the punch.

Harry nodded.

Jayne jerked his head up. "And that's better?"

Harry shrugged. "Because of the magic in wizards and witches, we frequently have life spans far greater than muggles. Not too many live to be 200, but I've met a couple."

"154?" Inara asked in disbelief.

Harry nodded.

"You really were married 115 years!" Zoe shouted.

Harry grinned. "Yup and it still wasn't enough."

"Wait," Mal said thinking about these revelations. "If you're not trying to hunt down your parents' killer, what are you always looking for?"

"Answers," Harry said with a sigh. "Like I said, two years ago I woke up in essentially the future from my perspective. And I've not found a single witch, wizard, or hint towards where one might be. Nor even confirmation they still exist. As far as I can tell, I am the last wizard in the 'verse and I've got no idea why." Harry finished exasperatedly.

"That's horrible," Kaylee sympathized.

"How many wizards were there last time you looked?" Jayne asked.

Harry thought about it tapping his chin. "I know just in England, there were roughly a million, and the Quidditch World Cup routinely pulled in a hundred thousand world-wide, so probably at least fifteen million, maybe more."

"A society of millions right under our noses?" Simon asked in disbelief.

"Quit what cup?" Jayne asked.

"Quidditch World Cup," Harry corrected. "Quidditch is the premiere wizarding sport. Very popular, fun, and dangerous. I've got a book on it if you want."

"Yes but we can't read it, can we?" Inara pointed out.

Harry waved her off. "That's just magic. I can spell the few books I do have so they're normal enough for you to read."

"So your freakishness isn't contagious?" River asked.

Harry shook his head. "Might be nice if it was. Then again, it's supposedly genetic so…"

"So what are we looking for?" Zoe asked. "Or what have you found so far?"

Harry grinned at her choice of words. "We? Does that mean you're going to help me?"

"Of course we are!" Jayne insisted and turned to the Captain. "Right Mal?"

Mal seemed a bit reticent but grudgingly admitted. "Well now that we know, it ain't like our eyes won't be open. I'm not ready to jump headfirst into some crusade, but jobs take us all across the 'verse."

Zoe nodded, "That's why you kept moving around and switching crews with Monty and Fanty and Mingo."

Harry agreed. "Yup. And as for what I've found, the answer is not much." Harry grinned. "Although I do have one thing here you might appreciate, and should make more sense now." Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch. He tossed it to River.

River opened it and looked in. "Ham cubes?" A curious eyebrow rose. "Are these magical ham cubes?"

Harry pointed and encouraged her. "Go ahead, empty it onto the table."

She turned it over and shook out more ham cubes than could have possibly fit into it. She turned it back and looked again. "It's at the same level?"

"Yup," Harry explained. "Those aren't conjured food either. That's real sustenance. A never-ending pouch of ham cubes. I used to have a never-ending pouch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that was before I went to sleep."

"What's the difference with conjured food?" Simon asked.

Harry grinned widely and explained, "Conjured food is just a piece of magic. You can make it look, smell, taste, and act just like real food, but it's temporary. It will sate your appetite for the moment, but it doesn't help your body any. Eventually the elements in it, or the sustenance sitting in your belly, will just disappear and evaporate back into the nothingness it came from, usually after about an hour. For example, the doughnuts I picked up in space were conjured."

"Hold on a second," Inara said with wide eyes and her arms out stopping all conversation. "Are you telling me you can create all the foods we could ever want to eat, make them delicious, satisfying, and we'd never gain a pound?"

"If you factor in the effort it takes to chew, swallow, and digest, you're actually burning extra calories and losing weight," Harry added with a smirk.

"Wu de ma!" Kaylee exhaled in awe. "You're the next step in evolution!"

Harry just chuckled both from the looks of amazement and Simon's jealous frown. "Conjuring is a pretty simple form of magic," Harry said and pointed to the ham cubes. "But a never-ending source of the real stuff can be priceless. Especially since you can make it magically taste like something other ham."

Mal shook his head with a grin. "I thought you were just gorram weird with all your ham cubes."

"He is!" Simon insisted.

"You guys want to see the few other magical things I've managed to locate?"

"Yeah!" Kaylee agreed immediately.

"Harry?" Zoe asked as Harry turned to go to his bunk. "Doughnuts?"

"Oooh! Strawberries!" Kaylee squealed.

Harry rolled his eyes and vanished the smelly pile of ham cubes first. He focused for a moment, concentrating and snapped his wand down creating the exact same pink box of pastries he had shared with them the first time. With a twist of his wand, Harry transfigured the salt shaker on the table into a small bowl. He then thought back to the appearance, texture, and flavor, before filling the bowl to the brim with luscious, firm strawberries. "I'm not sure if I got the flavor right. I know the jam better than the fruit."

Harry walked halfway to the door and stopped himself. "Merlin, I can forget the obvious." He stopped and turned around watching as they all dug into the magical creations.

Mal looked up at Harry and asked, "Merlin?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I'm too used to hiding my magic."

"Aren't you going to get your other magical stuff?"

"Yup," Harry agreed. "I just forget sometimes that I'm a wizard." Just then Harry stuck his hand out and caught his rucksack that was flying at him from down the hall.

"What was that?" Mal asked.

Harry explained. "I just summoned my rucksack to myself, seeing as I don't have to hide my ability to do magic. I forgot I could do that and got up thinking I needed to walk back to my bunk."

"You did float Zoe to her room!" Jayne exclaimed jumping up. "I wasn't hallucinating!"

Harry's eyes twinkled as he held a small smile.

"You banged her head pretty hard along the way," Jayne remembered.

Zoe snapped a glare up at Harry, who had lost his smile rather quickly. The bit of doughnut jelly on the side of her face wasn't helping Harry any.

"Oh what are you angry about?" Jayne scolded her. "You didn't even know he slammed you into the wall before I told you."

"Slammed?" Zoe repeated with a dangerous tone.

"Jayne makes a good point," Harry assured her. "If you didn't feel it in the morning, no harm, no foul. Right?"

Zoe pondered a snappy comeback but didn't get a chance as Harry rushed to redirect the conversation. "Okay folks," Harry explained. "Here's what I've come up with so far: the two wands I keep with me are the ones best suited for me."

"Are wands different?" Inara asked.

Harry nodded. "Every wand is unique. There's a whole spectrum of types of wood used, and materials for the core. Some use phoenix feathers, others dragon heartstrings, unicorn hairs, there's all sorts of materials that can function as magical foci."

"What?" Simon snapped. "Dragons? Unicorns? This fei hua isn't real."

Harry rolled his eyes. "And I'm sure a week ago, you'd say the same about magic."

That shut Simon up momentarily.

"Besides," Harry agreed. "As far as I know, they may have all been wiped out by the atmospheric collapse back on Earth. But many of the legends and myths you've heard stories about are based on truths."

"It's simply not possible that you could hide a society of millions and magical creatures as recently as the twentieth century," Simon argued looking at his sister for help.

Harry shrugged, "I know they were still around up until the Exodus for Existence."

"The what?" Jayne asked.

"Exodus for Existence," Harry explained. "It was apparently the name of the campaign among wizards to abandon the planet. There were some transport ships made exclusively for the magical world, though from what I can tell a lot of magical folk rode intermixed with muggles."

"Wouldn't someone have noticed the people swinging their twigs around conjuring stuff though?"

"According to what I read," Harry replied. "There was a contingent of aurors, those are magical police basically, on every intermixed ship. And they were charged with maintaining the Statute of Secrecy."

"What does that mean?" Mal asked wary of the implications.

"What Harry's trying to say," Mr. Universe translated, "is that any slip-ups where magic is noticed, and they'll wipe your memories ensuring you forget anything out of the ordinary."

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air until Harry shrugged. "Obliviation, or memory charms, is how any time word of the magical world gets out to muggles, they can erase the evidence from people's minds. It's why there's never any confirmed sightings of magical creatures or people doing seemingly impossible things. All the nation's leaders were aware of the magical world and the two governments, muggle and magical, would work together to a degree. When a new muggle president is elected or prime minister comes into power, the previous one would then either be obliviated, or magically bound to secrecy. It's just the way they did it in my time."

"But not anymore," River said.

Harry turned to her and shrugged. "There aren't even nations anymore. We've got one ruling body for the whole verse, and it's still pretty young. And I've not found any sign that wizards were even known about, or hunted down to extinction. Whatever killed them all, or wherever they may have been banished to, or went of their own free will… I've found nothing."

"So you telling us about magic would be a violation of this Statute of Secrecy and they could be coming to wipe our brains right now?" Simon asked skeptically.

Harry chuckled. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd love it if that were true. I've been keeping it a secret for my own purposes, not for any misguided belief that I should follow old laws that no one exists to enforce."

"Have you wiped my brain?" River narrowed her eyes and asked.

Harry raised his hands in deference and didn't have to answer when Mr. Universe did it for him. "Harry hasn't messed with anyone's head on this crew. But he has fiddled with memories of many others. That's how he keeps silencing my discovery when techs at the Alliance locate signs of me on their systems. It's also how Dick Johnson, the graveyard foreman from your last job knew what to report. And you can trust me, because he can't obliviate a digital sentience."

"I wouldn't mess with anyone's head unless it became necessary," Harry explained. "And you're right. This sort of power could be horribly abused and misused. But as Courtney and Jayne would both argue it can be used to do wonderful things as well." Harry saw the beginnings of fear creeping into their eyes and sighed knowing only time would ease their minds.

"Look," Harry argued. "I've been with you guys for a while, and now you're beginning to get an idea of the things I am capable of. I've only been doing my best to help you and if nothing else, River's been making a lot of progress. If you're not comfortable with me here, I'll help her to the point where she can be the pilot you wanted her to be, and I'll leave you guys alone. I'm pretty used to being looked at with fear, but that doesn't mean I like it. So I'm trying to allay your fears here. Ask me anything. I won't take offense."

Uncertain looks were traded among all the members of the crew, other than River who was just staring right at Harry.

Finally Mal broke the tense silence and asked, "So what can you do? What sorts of things do wizards treat as second nature that you have to hide?"

Harry grinned, hoping this would be a more friendly direction. "I'm of the opinion that magic is limitless, it's only the people that have limits. Conjuring can be used for all sorts of purposes. Transfiguration is where you turn one thing into another. There are spells, charms, curses, jinxes, and hexes for all sorts of different purposes. But there's an awful lot of offensive and defensive magic for battles, duels, warding, protection, and more." Harry was smiling and saw some honest curiosity, not just fear, reflected in the others' eyes.

"Those are all just the usual wand-based magics though," Harry explained. "Many of those things are possible without a wand, just more difficult to accomplish. But there's all kinds of other fields of magic. Like potions, for example, is where you combine magical ingredients and elements to create all sorts of effects. And then there are innate talents too. Probably one of those you'll find most interesting is called Legilimency."

Simon and River both stiffened at that word.

Harry nodded. "Legilimency is a mind art where you can pick up on the sort of brainwaves, mental images, and thoughts of others. As you may have surmised, I'm pretty sure reading, and what River does, is just a wild uncontrolled talent in Legilimency. Another mind art, on the opposite side of that spectrum is Occlumency," Harry grinned. "Occlumency is the organization of your own mind, and it's also the defense to protect from Legilimency. I'm sure you remember how warmly Miss Tam reacted to my initial presence, and that was because her wild Legilimency could not pass my Occlumens shield. What I've been doing is trying to find a way to relate these same ideas and concepts, but without the strength of magic backing up these arts. The principles so far, have been working quite well."

River could feel everyone looking at her and started feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Another branch of magic that I'm uncertain but I think River may have a slight gift for is that of divination." Harry continued. "Divination, at least on Earth, was sometimes based on celestial events and reading the stars. Centaurs are especially noted for their ability to interpret the stars. Of course all of this comes from a perspective that we were on the only planet we'd ever inhabit, so I couldn't even guess how divination would be effected or altered. There are branches of divination not based on the stars, but based on the inner eye. Often, consulting the supposed inner eye and you can get feelings or instincts that go beyond the present time and can interpret future events. Occasionally Seers become channels for prophecies, often assumed to have come from destiny or fate."

Harry saw the looks on their faces and nodded. "Yeah, I don't have a whole lot of faith in divination either, but there have been some genuine Seers and plenty of prophecies throughout time."

"So there's people that can see the future? For real?" Jayne asked.

Harry shrugged. "Most of the true Seers go crazy and die pretty young, so it's not exactly one of the most pleasant gifts." Harry explained, trying to remember what other forms of magic there are. "Oh! I just thought of some of the more pointless innate magical talents, and those are magical languages. For example, I happen to be a parselmouth, and the language I can speak and understand is called parseltongue."

"What does that mean?" Kaylee asked. "A magical language."

Harry grinned and admitted. "It means I can talk to snakes. And understand what they say."

"Snakes… talk?" Zoe asked uncertainly.

Harry chuckled. "After everything I've said the idea that snakes can communicate with each other is what you doubt?" Harry aimed his wand on the table in front of him and cast, "Serpensortia."

A four-foot common looking brown snake erupted from the tip of Harry's wand and plopped itself onto the table in front of him. Harry looked down at the magical creation and hissed in parseltongue, "Hello."

"Greetings," the snake hissed back.

Harry saw the looks of amazement and slight fear again. He turned back to the snake and hissed, "I was just demonstrating to my friends what parseltongue sounds like."

The snake turned its head and looked at the other crew members. "I believe you have succeeded."

Harry grinned and looked at the crew. "It all just sounds like a bunch of hissing to you, but if you're curious I said 'Hello.' He replied, 'Greetings.' I then told him 'I was demonstrating to my friends what parseltongue sounds like,' and he believes that I've succeeded." Harry waved his wand banishing the snake. Harry explained, "It's a good trick for freaking people out, especially wizards, considering the stigma most parselmouths have. A fair amount of parselmouths have been the evil murdering dark kind, not all of them, but enough to make every parselmouth suspicious by default."

"That's ruttin' freaky," Jayne finally said when it seemed no one else was going to speak up.

"Do snakes have much to say?" River asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. "Mundane ones aren't too bright. The bigger the snake, the bigger its brain. Magical snakes are… well they're a bit rude and arrogant, but they can be much more dangerous."

"As Harry has once more glossed over," Mr. Universe jumped in. "Mundane is basically the same word as muggle, but when referring to animals and creatures as opposed to people. A bit more respectful if you ask me."

"Right," Harry nodded.

"What's a magical snake?" Inara asked intrigued.

Harry shrugged. "There's all sorts of magical snakes. One of the scariest I've had the pleasure of dealing with is the basilisk. I got to meet and kill one of those when I was twelve."

"A basilisk?" River asked, thinking about what she knew of the mythological beast. "Isn't that more like a lizard?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope. Maybe according to some legends, but the actual creature is a serpent. No arms, no legs. Tricky part with them is their venom is extremely toxic, but that's usually not even an issue, because its stare can kill you. Even refracted, its stare will at least petrify you. And for example the one I got to play with when I was twelve was several centuries old and probably sixty feet long. So getting eaten was a bigger worry than a poisonous bite."

"I'm not sure I like knowing these things are real," Kaylee said warily. "It's a bit easier thinking the monsters in stories are figments of the imagination."

"True," Harry admitted. "I think I may be scaring you guys too much and that's not my intent here at all. Magic is an amazing thing. It's wonderful, and intoxicating, and frankly, waking up in a future where it seems magic doesn't exist anymore is… horrifying." Harry finished sadly. "You know what? I've got something I think you'll all appreciate."

Harry dug into his bag. He began pulling things out. "So far I've located about seventeen wands. The two that are most suited to me are the two I carry around with me. You're welcome to look at them all, but they'll probably just seem like a polished stick to you." Harry set them all out for everyone to look at. "This is a magical pocket watch," Harry showed them the odd clock-like thing. "It's broken, and probably wouldn't be accurate anyway considering the time is read off astral locations."

Harry reached his arm all the way into his bag, much further than should have been physically possible. Seeing the looks he was receiving, he explained, "This bag, if you hadn't guessed is magical as well. I refreshed a few of the charms, but unfortunately don't know enough to replicate all of them. It is much deeper than it looks obviously, and it's been spelled to a constant weight, so it doesn't matter that I've stuffed it full of all the books… I've… located… Ah-ha!" Harry announced victoriously. "This is what I think you'll like."

Harry's hand came out of his bag retrieving a very oddly shimmering material. "This is a particularly rare cloak. Even in the magical world, these are not easy to come by." Harry spun it over his shoulders, and then tucked the rest of his body under it disappearing from view.

"Whoa!" Jayne yelped happily.

"As you can see," Harry's disembodied voice said. "Or rather not see, this is called an invisibility cloak." Harry pulled it down a little in the front revealing his head. "The floating head is always fun." Harry said with a grin enjoying the looks of amazement. "I actually used to have a couple dozen of these before I went to sleep, and I'm pretty sure, that's more than twice as many as anyone else in the world."

Harry whipped the cloak all the way off and tossed it to River. "Try it on. Let me tell you, I probably would've gone crazy if I couldn't have snuck around school under one of these."

"Would've gone crazy," Simon repeated watching his sister disappear from view. He reached out to where she had been and found empty air. Just behind his ear he heard, "Boo!" and he unceremoniously fell out of his chair.

Harry chuckled. "River's tricky enough on her own, but when you combine invisibility with a silencing charm, you can be nearly undetectable."

Simon was looking for where River was when he heard his girlfriend gasp. Simon spun around and saw she had disappeared too.

"Whoa!" Kaylee excitedly said. "It's like looking through a thin film."

Simon started reaching out towards where he'd heard Kaylee's voice and again found empty air. "Where'd you two go?"

Jayne was whipping his head over his shoulders looking left and then right, back and forth, fearing an invisible attack.

Harry was just smiling while his eyes twinkled happily. "I suppose I should add that among my talents is that I've learned to see through invisibility cloaks."

"Oh poo," River's disembodied voice whined just a few feet from Harry.

Kaylee finally let out the snickers she'd been holding in and went over to comfort her pouting boyfriend.

Simon was moaning something about wanting a turn, when Inara disappeared from view.

Mal quickly leaned away from the invisible people. "That's just freaky."

"Yup," Inara said loudly from right next to Mal's ear. He swatted in her direction and was rewarded with a fleshy smack sound as the invisibility cloak jostled and exposed half of Inara's body.

"My nothe, you bathtard," Inara whined. She abandoned the cloak and was rubbing her nose.

Harry lifted a wand into the air and looked at Inara. "May I?"

Inara seemed to hesitate for a moment but agreed. "Thure."

Harry walked up to her and pointed his wand right at the reddening area. A small flash of light flew out of the wand, momentarily blinding her, but completely abating her pain.

She blinked awake the spots in her vision and felt immensely better. "Thanks." She admitted tenderly touching her nose. "I think you cleared my sinuses too."

Harry laughed. "Sorry. Healing's not my forte. I only ever learned one spell because it was all I ever needed. So I have a habit of overdoing the one spell I do know."

A slightly more comfortable silence covered the room as River was enjoying being a floating head.

Zoe felt a little bad at how cold they were treating Harry and asked, "So can you do all those kinds of magic? Should I be worried you're going to be cooking a love potion to ensnare our young Miss Tam?"

River's floating head frowned but was watching Harry for his reply.

Harry shook his head. "Nope, I'm afraid not. I've always been rotten at divination. And potions I never liked much because they take too long and do too little. But mainly, without any signs of magical plants or creatures in existence, there aren't any ingredients for making potions."

"Got any other nifty tricks to show us?" Mal asked.

"Hmm," Harry said thinking deeply. "There's a number of modes of transportation for wizards, but the only one I've used much is apparition." With a pop, Harry appeared ten feet away, closer to the door. Another pop and he apparated right back into place. "It's not quite instantaneous, but it's real useful for getting around."

"Do that again!" Jayne cheered.

Harry obliged and popped right behind Jayne. "If you're wondering this is also how I got onto Serenity the first time. I'm used to there being apparition points and or wards preventing it in most places. But without any other wizards or magic…" Harry shrugged.

"So can you just… parition onto any old ship or planet?" Mal asked.

Harry winced and admitted, "It's called apparition and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. Incorrect apparition leads to splinching, and that's when you reappear without all the right parts or with the parts in the wrong spots."

"What?" Jayne feared, picturing a butt-face.

Harry nodded. "Splinching can be as simple as just leaving a few fingers behind, or sometimes you could completely split your body or head apart. There's an entire division of the Ministry just for piecing people back together. I'm probably as good as anyone at apparating, because I despise most other forms of magical travel, and while I used to make it pretty much anywhere on the Earth, no one's ever tried going beyond an atmosphere. If I tried to apparate right now to some planet, I've no idea what would happen. And there's no one to try and fix me if it didn't work. I could apparate across a continent which is more than most people, but in space? Or on the distances that would take?" Harry just shook his head. "I don't have the confidence it would work, and without the confidence I'm certain it won't work."

"What other forms of magical travel do you despise so much?" River asked.

Harry chuckled. "Well there's Floo travel, which are magically connected fireplaces. Pretty sure there's no interplanetary Floo Network. It makes me nauseous to Floo. Then there are portkeys, which are objects programmed to take you to another place. You touch them, activate them, and you feel a tugging as you're sucked through a rather unpleasant vortex. It's a little faster than Floo, but just as nauseating and disorienting. The Knight Bus is a sort of magical taxi and… you know? Things like the Floo and Knight Bus just don't exist anymore."

"No one flies? Or drives?" Jayne asked.

Harry shook his head. "Well, remember my experience is only up to early twenty-second century, but I suppose we do a fair amount of flying." Harry grinned. "And I love flying. But wizards fly on brooms."

"Brooms?" Kaylee grinned and chuckled. "Really?"

Harry nodded. "Yup. That's one thing I would love to locate, a broom."

"I think we got one in a storage cupboard," Mal said pointing over his shoulder.

Harry laughed and shook his head. "Not quite the same thing. Wizard brooms for flying are created specially with a whole slew of charms for acceleration, braking, steering, cushioning, and probably a couple dozen more I don't know about. I miss flying. But our brooms top out around 200 mph, and things like Floo, portkeys, and apparition take anywhere from a split second to a minute or two to get halfway across the world. That's why brooms are more a recreational activity." Harry got lost remembering how good it felt to fly. "Quidditch is played on brooms. I don't think I mentioned that. It's the sport, played up in the air with balls, hoops, and bats."

A comfortable silence fell across the group before Simon summarily announced, "I think that's enough voodoo for now."

Mal looked at him and River's still floating head. "Yeah, I'm not sure how much of this is… is gonna process and stay with me."

Harry nodded, having expected their brains to fill up before now. "If you got any questions, feel free to ask. I know I've scared a few of you, and… and I wish there was a way I could explain magic better to you. But…" Harry sighed in frustration. "Just don't be afraid to ask."

The rest of the crew wearily got up from their seats while Harry sat there deep in thought.

River was staring into the mirror watching her body disappear, while Zoe walked over to Harry. She smiled warmly at him, thinking it looked like he needed a friend. "I was wondering Harry," Zoe asked softly. "If you had a picture of Luna?"

Harry's sad smile faltered and he fought back a frown. "I wish I did. But I woke up on the other side of the universe from where I last knew all of my belongings to be. I've nothing of my own. Since she was born a witch and grew up in the wizarding world, she wasn't put in any of the old muggle databases, never got a driver's license or a muggle passport. So unless I get really lucky…"

"I'm- I'm sorry, Harry," Zoe's face fell. "I never even considered… I mean…" She put on a happy face. "I'd say you've been pretty lucky so far, so who knows?"

Harry nodded and half-heartedly agreed. "Yeah. Who knows."

Mal made his way up to the bridge. "Listen, Harry. I want you to know we all appreciate you being more honest with us, it's just… this is a lot to take in and get used to."

"I know," Harry agreed. He flashed him a smile. "I won you all over with my charm once. I figure I can do it again."

Mal smiled with a shake of his head. "Right. Anyways, I was wondering if you'd contacted your friend who you said might be interested in a full pallet."

"Dirty Duncan?" Harry grinned. "I haven't talked to him in a while and wasn't going to offer anything solid without your okay."

Mal nodded. "Well, it could take us some time to move all of this cargo, and none of my contacts are jumping on much more than a box or two. So if he wants it, find out how much and what he'd pay for it."

Harry nodded. "I'll send him a wave right now."

"Thanks, Harry," Mal agreed turning to leave. "Keep me informed."

Harry pulled out his communicator. "You got a bounce connection, Frank?"

"Yup," Mr. Universe replied. "Ringing up Duncan now." Mr. Universe began to hum quietly to himself waiting for answer. In mid-tune he blurted out, "Here you go."

"Harry?" Duncan's video image popped up on the screen. "That you?"

"Hiya, Duncan; how's things?"

"Same as it always is out here. Sam's on my back wanting to start a family and making babies. One of her friends squirted out a little one and apparently it's more contagious than I thought." Duncan explained with a roll of his eyes.

"Oh lordy," Harry jeered. "That's just what the 'verse needs. Little Duncan's running around."

"I'm all for the act and the exercise," Duncan agreed with a lecherous smile. "It's just… being a parent? A responsible adult? That don't sound like me none."

"I don't think it'll ever sound like you, Duncan."

"Yeah, well," Duncan didn't disagree. "What can I do you for, Harry?"

"You remember I mentioned the unmarked, clean ration packs?" Harry reminded. "You still got some interest in that?"

"How much we talking about here?"

"Captain says if you want a full pallet," Harry explained. "We can swing it, assuming the price is right."

"This is good stuff, right? You're not choosing this time to start passing some niou-se on me?"

Harry waved him off. "Naw, I'm saving that for something real good."

"Alright," Duncan admitted. "If it all checks out, you can tell your Captain, I'll give him 2.2 for a pallet. If he starts getting all luh-suh, I'll go as high as 2.5, but I'll be less inclined to be doing repeat business with him."

"I'll pass it along," Harry admitted. "That's a pretty healthy bulk discount, but we are talking about a pretty healthy bulk here. I don't suppose you've come across anything for me?"

Duncan's eyes perked up and he began snapping his fingers. "Yeah, yeah, I did actually. I found something with those chicken scratches you were talking about."

"Really?" Harry asked surprise. "What's that?"

Duncan shrugged. "I don't know what you'd want it for, but I overpaid for this stinking old-ass looking stone bowl with those chicken scratches all around the rim. Dropped the thing a couple times. It's solid as a rock."

Harry's breath caught in his throat as soon as Duncan said stone bowl. He knew very well what Duncan had come across, and he desperately wanted to get a hold of it. "H- How much you want for it?"

Duncan waved Harry off. "It cost me thirty platinum. You swing this deal and it's yours."

Harry's heart was racing in anticipation. "I'll make it happen. Don't go far, I'll be in touch."

"Don't be a stranger, Harry."

"Thanks, Duncan. Thanks a lot."