James Potter was going to die.

Lily Potter glared at the afore-mentioned man sitting across from her, a confused look adorning his face. How had she ever thought that look was cute on him? If anything, it was just bloody annoying.

"How could you just leave him there? How could you not HELP HIM? He's your son, James!" She didn't care that people were starting to look at them, that people were starting to talk. They all knew what they were arguing about anyway, so why try and keep it a secret?

This was a close-knit community, almost a family, really. And like all families, they had their fair share of troubles and secrets - old children squabbling with the younger, but all understanding that no one was better, or more valued than any other.

James was an outsider, but from what she'd seen, the entire time they had attended school together, he understood the basic principles that her people lived by. Family was the most important thing in the world to her, and he had always claimed that it was just as important to him.

But he certainly wasn't acting like it now.

James sighed heavily,running a hand through his messy black hair, before leaning back in his chair to regard his ex-wife thoughtfully.

Technically, they had never actually been married, at least not in the eyes of their peoples. The fact that they had had a child together had been enough of a scandal, but for their marriage to be recognized? It simply was NOT to be allowed. And after they had each come in to their inheritance? Well, the natural distrust that run through each of their blood had been enough to put an end to THAT relationship.

But that was all in the past now, best left alone. It was the here, and now that they had to worry about.

And Lily just didn't understand!

He cared for his son -- more than she would ever understand. Lily didn't really know, couldn't comprehend, what a son meant to him. To her, he was her child, and held her unconditional love, and leaving him behind in the wizarding world, to be raised by people other than himself, had nearly killed her.

But to him? Harry was so much more than that. Harry was his BLOOD, a reflection of himself, of all the good he had to offer the world. He was a second chance to do things right this time around, to right all the wrongs he had committed and pay penance for his sins.

And Harry was his heir. His crowned prince.

Oh, he was the prince of Lily's people to, make no mistake. But they did not adhere to the old ways the way that he and his people did -- a sore spot between their peoples, without a doubt. It was one of the main arguments that had kept their two races seperate.

Lily, realizing that she was not going to get a further reaction for the man she had once loved with all her heart, hissed slightly in frustration before slumping back in her chair, glaring heatedly at her dark-haired companion.

(----) (----)

(----) (----)

Harry pushing himself once again to a kneeling position, panting heavily as he stared at his hands, tears welling in his eyes. He just didn't understand! What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he stand?!

He had never been prone to sickness as a child -- it was almost like his body KNEW that being sick would only make his living conditions worse, and there was always the chance the Dursley's would simply let him die, rather than take him to the hospital. Even at a young age, he had been a remarkably healthy baby, rarely getting so much as an earache.

Which was why this sudden weakness was so confusing to him now. Why should he feel so weak, so helpless, so sick? So hot? And he was hot -- feeling as if he were burning up from the inside out.

Grinding his teeth together in frustration, Harry slowly lowered himself on to all fours, staring at the door leading out of the room thoughtfully.

Even if he couldn't stand, he could still crawl.

(----) (----)

Harien had only left for a couple of minutes, to relieve his protesting bladder. He really had to stop drinking all of that American coffee -- he had to go to the bathroom far too often, lately.

However, upon glancing at the scrying crystal that should have showed him young Harry still struggling with his debilitating weakness, all thoughts of coffee flew from his mind, as he realized that Harry was GONE. Missing. No longer there.

Mouth going suddenly dry, Harien quickly adjusted the magics to show him the area just outside of the youth's room, frowning when he could find no trace of the boy.

He shouldn't have been able to get so far so quickly -- debilitating weakness should have been running rampant through his body. And while Harry had always been special, even for one of their people, even he shouldn't have been capable of this.

Even as he raced back the way he had come to contact his superiors, Harien could only think one thing.

Lily was going to kill him.

(--------) (--------)

Harry leaned against the wall, catching his breath, eyes lowered to the floor. People passed all around him, but none of them seemed to take any heed of him, and for once, Harry was thankful to the Dursley's. Because of their treatment of him, he had learned early on how to blend into the crowd, to appear as if he belonged there, to not stick out like a sore thumb. It was one of the only ways he had escaped from numerous beatings from Dudley and his friends. Now, he put those lessons to good use. This time, it could very well mean his life.

He didn't understand any of this -- these people all had eerily glowing eyes, similar to his, though blue and, surprisingly, red, seemed to be the more prominent colors. And, while his eyes had always been startling, they had certainly never glowed. He was certain that somebody would have mentioned it. Glowing eyes? Those were ... kind of hard to miss.

But the most surprising part about those eyes, was who didn't have them .Everywhere he looked, he saws the younger generation of these people, their eyes flicking over him and pausing only a moment on his eyes before they lost interest. When he caught a glimpse of the older generation, however, he found himself looking into brown, or blue, or black -- all normal colored eyes, none of them eery or glowing in any way.

Rubbing a hand tiredly across his eyes, Harry pushed himself upright as he once again took the painful steps, one after another, down this seemingly never ending hallway.

Nobody seemed to be taking any particular interest in him, and for that, Harry was thankful. He didn't know what he would do if somebody started questioning him, didn't know if there was anything he could do, not in his current state.

He had survived Voldemort, dammit, and he would survive this!

Gritting his teeth in determination, Harry forced himself to straighten his spine, hand still held against the wall as he forced himself to walk faster, forcing a surety in to his steps that he himself didn't feel. If he looked like he had a purpose, though, people would be less likely to question him.

Several hallways away, Harien came to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door, panting heavily to catch his breath before he slowly straightened to his full height, knocking loudly on the decorated surface. A moment or two passed, before Lily finally answered, looking ruffled and upset, a small frown pulling at her lips. "What is it?"

Harien swallowed uncomfortably, searching in his mind for a moment for the proper way to put this, that would include the least bodily harm to his person, before finally giving it up as a lost cause. There was no way he was going to get out of this unscathed, so why even try?

"Harry is gone."

Lily simply stared at him for a moment, mouth opening in to a little O of surprise, before her brows came together in a scowl. "What do you mean, 'Harry is Gone'? Did James do something?"

"Erm, no. That is ... I left the room for a second -- a second! -- to go to the bathroom. I couldn't have been gone for more than two minutes, I swear it, My Lady. I've checked the security cameras, James Potter had nothing to do with it -- Harry just got up and walked out. I can't find him, Lady. I've tried, oh I've tried, but he's just gone. I don't know how he did it, he shouldn't have been able to do it, he should have been incapacitated for several more days, at least. But he did, and ... " Harien knew he was babbling, but he couldn't seem to stop himself, until a loud SMACK resounded through the hall, as Lily's hand make contact with the side of his face.

"You lost my son? How do you lost a person?!" She raised her hand to smack him again, and Harien winced, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the pain that never actually came. Cracking open one eye, he blinked in surprise at the sight of James Potter standing behind her, holding her upraised hand in his own hand, simultaneously protecting Harien while glaring at him at the same time.

"You can kill him later, Lily. First, let's find Harry." Lily simple settled for glaring at Harien, before finally nodding tersely, and James released her hand, stepping around her as he pulled on a shirt."Show me the security cameras."

Cameras was really the wrong word, because nothing even remotely muggle was involved. Small gems were situated in the walls around the complex, some hidden in nooks and crannies, and others artistically arranged in paintings or sculptures. Through these gems, one could use the Scrying globes to monitor the entire complex -- especially useful when visitors were admitted, or a Young One was brought home.

After their first year of life, a child became unable to stay with their parents -- exposure could bring insanity, and, depending on the power held within that particular child, sometimes even death. They had to be sent away, the earlier the better. But for Harry, things had been different.

Not yet at the point where he had to be separated from his parents, James and Lily had fought to protect him from Voldemort. And it had cost them their human halves.

It was part of the reason they were so unique, why their relationship had actually worked, for a while. Both half human, their marriage had been planned out before they were even able to walk, both sent to stay with their human relatives. However, once a Child reached their 17th birthday ... things Changed drastically.

A Child went through their Change sometime around their 17th birthday -- sometimes on the exact day of their birth, but more often than not it was within a couple days of that, sometimes even as much as a week or two.

Harry was one of the few who had changed on the exact day, and while usually only his parents would have been sent to retrieve him, he was special, different. Unique. The only grandson of the Royal Pair, he needed to be handled with care, especially considering just what blood ran through his veins.

Two different, unique magical races, each with their own histories and magics running through their systems.

James leaned back in his chair, looking over at his wife as she stared at the Scrying Glass, still filtering through it's images. He'd been doing the same thing only moments before, but it was like Harry had never even been there - they couldn't pick him up on any of the Cameras, and the minute he had left the observation room, it was like he had disappeared -- they could see him get up and walk shakily out of the room, but the minute they switched to the Cameras in the hall ... nothing. Nada. Zip.

Was his son really that powerful? The human half of Lily and himself had actually weakened them, a good portion of their magical energy going to stabilize themselves, because the human in their blood never could correctly mix with magical creature.

But Harry ... had that happened with him? Or was it that the blood of both their people was enough to override the human in him? Even after his transformation, even after the human blood in him had been killed by Voldemort, he had never been able to regain the power he should have had -- his magic had grown while that human blood was still in him, and it had stayed the same, unable to grow anymore, even when the blocks that had once held it back were no more.

He still loved Lily, and James was relatively sure that she felt the same way. But ... their people had an ingrained hatred for each other, relatively similar to the hatred between a werewolf and a vampire. Not that Lily ever liked to hear that comparison.

Lily finally glanced up, a frown on her face as she mirrored James' position. "We'll have to call out a search." She said it so simply, yet he knew how hard it was for her to say those words. She didn't want to, didn't like that it was needed, but ...

His people would be best suited for it, and those who had come with him would gladly scour the ends of the earth looking for his son. Her people would want to help, of course, but they didn't have the tracking abilities needed.

Smiling gently, James leaned down and kissed his wife gently on the cheek, slightly surprised when she didn't jerk back away from him, like she usually did. "Good Luck." She whispered, and James knew better than to respond.

Lily smiled sadly as she watched him go, wondering if the feelings she had developed as a human would ever truly dissipate. It was confusing, and hard, to love and hate a person at the same time.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped outside, blinking a little against the glare of the noonday sun. Odd .. for some reason he could have sworn it was the middle of the night. Eh, this way it would be easier to see where he was going, anyway.

He was still blisteringly hot, but he really couldn't take any more off -- they'd left him in only a loose pair of pants and his t-shirt, no socks or shoes on his feet. And as much as he would have liked to strip down to his birthday suit just for the relief it would give his body, he held himself in check. Couldn't have the police picking him up for indecent exposure, now could he?

Glancing uneasily over his shoulder, Harry quickly started walking again, breathing deeply through his nose in an attempt to ease the burning in his throat. It felt as is multiple blisters had formed on the back of his throat, but when he ran his tongue as far back as he could get it, all he felt was smooth skin, feeling a bit warmer to his tongue than the rest of his mouth did.

He'd never really gotten sick as a child, unlike Dudley, who was always complaining about one ailment or the other -- most of which Harry was pretty sure had been imaginary, just another way to get what he wanted -- usually a day off from school to play his video games. But Harry had never really had anything to complain about -- unless you counted the hideous haircuts Aunt Petunia would force upon him. His accidental magic had taken care of those quite nicely, though.

Maybe that was why he felt so bad -- because sickness was so unheard of for him. Keeping that thought in mind, Harry forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, holding close the idea that things felt far worse than they actually were. He wasn't really hot enough to burn the sun to ash -- he just felt like it.

Lily paced back and forth across the small observation room that had become like a second hoem to her since they had recovered Harry, lips pursed as she glanced at the ακούστε, which remained just as frustratingly silent as it had been for the past half hour. James had only called her once, to let her know that the search had turned up fruitless so far, with no sign of Harry and nobody who had seen him leave.

How could they not have noticed him? Barely clad in a pair of sweatpants and a thin t-shirt, he would have seemed out of place in the cold corridors, although to him it would have felt as if the entire complex was as hot as Hades itself.

Running her hands through her bright red hair, Lily sighed in frustration, turning to sit down at the desk that looked out on the empty room below -- a room that should have held her son, still in the throes of a fever.

She hated this. Hated knowing that her son was out there somewhere, hurting. It had been different before, when he had been under Dumbledore's care. Then, she hadn't had any specifics, and could fool herself into thinking that he was fine. She had heard about his more dangerous adventures, yes, but not until after they had been dealh with -- when Harry was safely back at Hogwarts, bruises and scrapes dealt with and happy with his friends.

This was different. She knew he wasn't safe -- she knew he was in danger every minute he spent out there on his own.

The fever currently gripping him wasn't something they had induced, and she wished it would just go away. Wished it was something the Elders had cooked up so that they could control the young lings until they understood just what was going on. But no. This illness was something beyond their control.

When the young lings finally rejoined the rest of their people, their stint int he mortal realm finished, they would be gripped with an unnatural fever, their bodies finally coming into contact with their natural realm, a realm where all the illnesses they had once been immune to would suddenly hit them with their full force.

Young lings were always immune to such illnesses in the mortal realm -- and that was so misleading, wasn't it? The Mortal Realm. Making it sound like they were anything but moral. Immortal. She wished they were immortal, that she didn't have to worry about her son every minute he was out there, every minute he was in danger. Wouldn't it be nice if nothing could him, out there in the world?

Nobody was really sure where the term came from, only that it had been used since the oldest of the Elders could remember, passed down from generation to generation until it was so immersed in their culture that nobody would ever dare trying to change it. Why should they? They Old Ways were best.

Leaning forward so her elbows were resting on the counter in front of her, Lily cradles her head in her hands, letting out a shuddering sigh.

TRANSLATIONS

ακούστε rough translation is "listen" in Greek. A small communication device, it is similar to the mirrors that Sirius and James would use when they were in school, and the one that Sirius gave Harry in Order of the Phoenix.

Authors Note

First of all, I'd like to formally apologize for not updating before this. I've actually had most of this chapter done and saved on my hard drive for quite some time, but just haven't finished it until now. I've also downloaded a word processor recently, so my spelling should show a marked improvement :) I am, as of right now, on a kind of vacation from ... well, life. No work, no school, no responsibilities other than picking up after myself and doing the dishes every once in a while :D Therefore, I have plenty of time to write, among other things. So, hopefully the next chapter will be along soon, although I am working on a couple of other ideas, along with some other stories I've had going for quite a while.

As always, feedback is more than appreciated, especially since all of the reviews thus far have been so very encouraging – not a single flame thus far! To be honest, I think I've only ever received one, maybe two flames the entire time I've been writing on so meh. Enough rambling! I hope y'all enjoyed the story, and please remember to leave a comment/review! It'd be very much appreciated :)