Chapter 3: Harry
Hillary Ogden Schwarts Public School
London, England
Harry raced through the old building, up stairwells and down twisting hallways. He was trying to get to his primary class room in time for the morning break. He'd already gone to the main office, and was considerably lucky overall in that there had been a bit of confusion earlier in the day. Apparently some accident had occurred just outside the school building so classes had been delayed while they'd done a full attendance and waited for the mess outside to be cleared up. So, technically, he wasn't late until the end of the morning break period, after which classes would resume as normal.
Harry attended a public primary school, though it had been offered to him to go to his cousin's private school, his Aunt and Uncle willing to pay for it, he had declined the offer and stayed where he was. Besides, all his friends were here and it had been good exercise for him to run to the Station every morning. From the station it was only a five block run to Hogwarts.
That's what all the kids called it anyway. The adults and teachers insisted on referring to the place as the "Hillary Ogden Schwarts Public Education Institution", but age and random street vandalism had knocked down the 'illary', 'den' and 'Sch' from the front of the school building, thus encouraging grades one and above to call the place "Hogwarts" much to their teachers dismay.
Luck was on Harry's side that morning, or so it seemed, as he entered the classroom and handed the teacher the note from the office, supposedly explaining the reason for his tardiness (they believed he'd been caught up in the freak accident outside and were just glad he wasn't dead, or injured enough to sue anybody), a good five minutes before the break the teacher would've ended it. Once she gave him the go ahead, he went to his desk and put away the books in his bag and spent the short remainder of the break relaxing from the tension of his very busy morning.
"Harry," a whispered hiss came from his right.
He turned and saw one of his best friends sitting there, looking at him expectantly, arms crossed and a shrewd expression on their face. He smiled and said nothing for the moment.
"Harry!" Hermione Granger hissed at him again, adding a glare to her already disapproving stare.
"Yes Hermione?" he grinned and leaned back to answer her.
"Why," she stressed each word, apparently feeling extra fussy today, "are you late? You almost missed class, walking in five minutes before the end of the break! And if there hadn't been something going on, you would be more than three hours late now!"
"I know," he kept grinning.
"Harry!" she hissed again, where if they'd been outside or anywhere but in a school building, she would be screeching at him by now.
"I... was kind of caught up in that accident, and somehow found myself between the dumpsters behind the school," he 'reluctantly' told her. His true hesitancy in saying this was because he hated lying to one of his best friends, but she interpreted it, as he half-knew she would, as being embarrassed for being bullied again.
"Oh Harry," she whispered, this time with much more sympathy.
"I'm OK, just a bit stinky," he shrugged. Then he faced forward as Mrs. McGonagall stepped forward to begin class. Apparently the notice had already been sent out that the break was ending over the intercom, because everyone else in the room matched Harry's actions the moment they noticed their teacher step up.
The stern looking middle-aged woman looked out over her square-frame spectacles at her class and did a quick mental role check, pleased to see that this time, after earlier that morning, everyone was present. "Now then children," she began her standard lecture and continued on with the day's scheduled activities.
An hour and a half later, Harry and Hermione's class let out for lunch, and the two friends took their boxed lunches and went to their regular spot on the roof. They were soon joined by the rest of their group of friends. Including the one other person they called their best friend, Ronald Wesley, a tall (and getting taller) redhead that was only a few months older than Harry. Besides Ron, there was Neville Lachlan, the twins Padma and Pavarti Patil, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, and then the younger years who were all in the grade behind them, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, and Ron's younger sister Ginny Wesley.
"Let's have it, Mister Potter," Hermione practically demanded the moment they were all settled in their spots, "Why were you so late this morning? It's not like you, even if you were caught up in whatever happened this morning."
Harry shrugged and purposely took a big bite from his sandwich to hold off answering for as long as possible while he thought up an answer as fast as he could. Unfortunately, "Solomon" wasn't of much help at the moment as all that was coming to mind was a memory charm to make them forget about his being late. He wasn't about to do that to his friends! Leaving it up to just "Harry" to come up with the answer. Too bad he was a horrible liar, he could use a good story right about then.
They all waited patiently, more or less, for Harry to answer Hermione's question, though Ron was eating his own lunch while they waited, he was still listening for Harry's story.
Finally he decided to go with a version of the truth. Without being the truth of course.
"You guys heard there was some kind of accident this morning, right?" he asked first off. They all nodded, so he continued. "Well, turns out a transformer blew just across the street. All I remember seeing was a big flash of light and sound and it felt like someone hit me with a mallet on my crown."
Hermione and the girls all gasped in worry and concern. The rest of the boys opened their mouths in shock but said nothing. Harry kept his eyes downcast, staring at his lunch in hopes no one would see the lie on him. It helped that his emotions were still raw enough that the next part was easy to convince them was true.
"I didn't know where I was when I came to, or how I'd gotten there," still the truth. "There was this old man there, sitting there staring at me when I had enough sense to look around. He... told me he was dying. We talked for a bit about some strange stuff that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then he... then he..." Harry choked a bit and coughed for a bit, tears springing from his eyes. "He died. Right in front of me. One second he was just sitting there talking to me. Then the next..." he trailed off and didn't continue.
The girls were all openly crying and the other guys were looking away and 'wiping dust out of their eyes' for a few minutes after it. Harry didn't care who saw his tears, or what they thought of him for it. The good news at least, was that they stopped asking him questions about the morning, nobody wanted to bring it up anymore after just that much. Like for example, why he wasn't still in the "hospital" and why there weren't any signs of electrical burns anywhere on him if he'd really been electrocuted by a blown transformer. He decided not to point out those minor points and just be thankful.
"Anyway," he said, quickly changing the subject, "I had to get examined, everyone wanted to make sure I was OK first of all, then I answered some questions, and seeing nothing wrong with me, they took me back to school and dropped me off."
"Wow," most of the girls all said in awe.
"How come you didn't get to go home? Less time at school the better I always say," Ron said out loud.
He was promptly slapped across the back of the head by Hermione. "Ronald! If you can't say something nice, you should not say anything at all!"
"Ow, sorry," the redhead immediately apologized, rubbing his sore head.
Harry laughed along with the rest of the guys, just glad it wasn't them. Then he said, "Well, to answer your question Ron, I wasn't hurt at all, and both my aunt and uncle are working, so no one was home. The adults in charge felt it better for me to be at school than at home by myself. Especially after..." he trailed off.
"That's OK Harry," Hermione tried to comfort him, putting her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Thankfully, I didn't miss anything. Did anybody else not show up yet?" he asked.
"Just Mister Snape," Hermione dutifully reported. "He showed up an hour late, but that was still earlier than you got here. I don't know what his reason for being late was, but the Headmistress seemed to accept his story. I don't know much more about it than that I'm afraid."
"Oh, and Mister Quirrel was late too," Susan added.
Harry felt a tingle go through his head, sort of like static electricity that didn't actually hurt, and he felt a whisper in the back of his mind. Not words exactly, but feelings, thoughts in raw form. About the Citizenship teacher, Mister Quirrel. (AN: For Americans and non-Europeans, the Citizenship course is [from what I've learned about it] similar to Social Studies classes in North America.)
"Why was he late? Mister Quirrel I mean," Harry asked.
Unfortunately, Susan just shrugged and reinforced it by saying, "I don't know. I just heard from Mrs. McGonagall that he was late, and when he finally got here, she said he was over half an hour late. Nothing much else than that. Sorry."
"No, it's OK, I was just curious," Harry said, while trying to hide the sinking feeling that something was wrong, though he could not put his finger on it.
Suddenly, the bell rung, signaling the end of lunch, and they all quickly hurried to put away their trash and lunchboxes and get to their classrooms. Harry went along with the rest of them, unsure about a lot of things, but having no real direction to go in for the moment. So he went to class like he did every day, at least until he had something else to do.
"Hogwarts"
After School
Harry waved goodbye to his friends as they got onto the school buses. Harry, as usual, walked to the Underground station and planned on taking the train home. That plan lasted until he got to the end of the block and came across the one person he honestly never expected to see again. The little blond girl that he'd rescued from being crushed by a truck just this morning!
"You…! But I…?" he trailed off then asked with more surety, "Who are you? What's your name? Mine is…"
"I know who you are," she answered in an ethereal sounding voice. "The Wizard is dead. Long live the champion." She giggled when he stared wide-eyed at her.
She was elfin thin, and looked like a child, anywhere between ages 5 and 10. She had long, flowing blond hair, silver-gray eyes, and pale white skin. She wore simple robes, like something a witch or a wizard from a story would wear, but it looked natural on her. They were also a vivid bright day-glow orange in color.
"Who are you?" Harry asked again, with much more authority in his voice this time.
"You may know me as Luna," she told him. "Luna Lovegood. I am, or I should say I was in the employ of the Sorcerer Supreme of this planet, the Ultimate Wizard and Avatar of Magic Itself on this plane of existence. Since he's dead now, I am free to do what I wish. And what I wish is to never be compelled as I had been by that… man ever again! That means that I must ensure that you never become his heir!"
"Uh… little late for that," Harry shrugged sheepishly.
Luna just smiled and stepped forward. With each step, she seemed to age two years, until by the time she was right in front of him, she was a very attractive adult in her mid-twenties, the prime of her life. Harry gulped and looked up nervously at the ethereal and beautiful blond woman before him.
"Wh-what are you?" he stuttered in asking.
She smiled, and then back handed him with her right hand. He felt the force and then the next thing he knew he was flying through the air until he crashed painfully against the brick wall of the building behind him. Thankfully the force put behind that blow was not enough to send him flying through the wall, otherwise he would certainly be dead by now.
"GAAAHHHH!" he screamed, and moaned as he tried to pick himself up. "Wh-wh-why are you doing this? What are you?!"
"Well, since you obviously don't know by now," Luna smirked, "I am what your kind have labeled a Moon Nymph. I'm the daughter of the goddess of the moon and a spirit of nature. And I have been enslaved by that meddlesome old coot for twelve centuries! I'm not about to be passed on to his heir, who not only isn't worthy of his power, but is nothing more than a child! A human child at that!"
For a second there, Harry thought he'd detected a trace of a French accent in her voice, but he couldn't be sure and chalked it up to him having a concussion or something. He decided that enough was enough.
"Sh-sha…" he saw black around the edges of his vision, creeping in closer, and it was hard to concentrate on anything. He was about to pass out.
No! He silently screamed to himself. I won't let it end like this! Not before I've even begun!
With sudden and surprising strength found only in the young, Harry's head snapped up and he shouted to the heavens, "SHAZAM!"
Luna, despite her magical advantages, was too late to do a thing, as before her very eyes, the broken little boy before her was struck by a magical thunder bolt, and when it vanished, the Champion of Magic was standing in his place. "Oh sh—!"
"You said it," the red-gold clad hero cut her off with a right hook to match her earlier blow against him.
She, however, did fly through the brick wall he knocked her into, and the next two after it. Floating with cloak flying dramatically behind him, Captain Marvel flew over to the desperate Moon Nymph and hovered over her prone form. She had reverted to her child-like form, but Captain Marvel did not dare to lower his guard. Then again, there really wasn't much a mere nymph could do against someone with the Strength of Hercules and the Power of Zeus.
Slowly, Luna opened her eyes and looked up at the Champion of Magic and sighed. She picked herself up and got onto her knees before the Heir. "I, Luna Lovegood, Daughter of—"
"Stop," Captain Marvel interrupted her. Somehow, he knew what she was about to do, and given her reactions so far, and what she had told him, in his core he knew he couldn't let her do this. He wasn't a monster that took sentient beings prisoner simply because they were useful to him.
Luna looked up, startled. In her experience with powerful wizards, and there had been plenty in her millennia of lifetime, there were only two things they did with nymphs. They usually preferred one, and if that couldn't happen for some reason, they fell on the second by default. If they couldn't enslave the nymph, they destroyed her and used her body for parts in spell components.
Captain Marvel waited until he was sure she wasn't about to start speaking again, then he landed and turned away from her. "Go," he told her.
The blond child startled and looked up at the magical titan's back. "Wh-what…?"
"You heard me," he snapped. "Go. I have no need for what you're offering at this time, and while I'm no oracle, I would like to believe that I will never need that at all. You are freed from your previous oaths by the death of my predecessor, and I hold no compulsion over you in any form. Go where you like, do what you wish, and don't bother hanging around to see if I'm serious or not. With no oath binding you, I cannot summon you back to bind you anew. Freedom is what you wished for, now you have it. Go."
Luna gulped suddenly and tears filled her eyes. On a starry-eyed child, the effect was very potent.
"My-milord," she sobbed, still on her knees. "Please! Please don't send me away! I… I was only in jest! It was a joke! Punish me however you wish, but please, don't cast me from your sight!"
Captain Marvel turned sharply back to the young-looking creature, surprise evident in his entire form.
"I-I, I was… testing you, milord! A test to see if you were worthy of…"
"Stop," he commanded. She silenced immediately.
"Explain," he ordered, crossing his huge arms over his massive lightingbolt-covered chest.
"…" she couldn't speak for a few moments, and then finally found her voice. "I… exchanged my services for protection with the original Wizard, milord. Protection from those jealous and… resentful of my, well of my nature. I grew… frustrated over time, however. I was being used as a spy and a lure most of the time, my true abilities being squandered. And then for a time I was used as a human whore. For a nymph though, that's actually quite amusing and somewhat satisfying. Eventually, I-I, well I had to do some things that even I found distasteful, and the Wizard ignored my protests, focusing entirely on the Greater Good. I grew to resent him after that. And this morning was somewhat of the last straw in my patience with him."
"I had thought that with him dead, I was as good as dead, so in my folly, milord, it occurred to me that I may be able to afford myself some of the same protection I have been so used to by… by disposing of the Heir. None that would target me would dare to if they thought that I had taken down the Champion of Magic by myself. I apologize, milord, I…"
"Stop," Captain Marvel raised his hand, and the blond immediately ducked her head submissively.
"Your protection remains intact," he told her after thinking some things over. "The agreement was with my predecessor, and it occurs to me that while there was a statute of limitations on your half of the agreement, the exact wording was that the Wizard Supreme would protect you for all of your days and you would serve him for all of his. The protection you speak of lasts until you ultimately pass on from this world, but your service in payment was only to the one that made the first agreement, and he has passed on. I say again, you are free, and you are still protected. Go."
Luna looked up in wide-eyed shock. Then, before he could even say another word, she vanished in a sprinkle of silver moonbeams.
Captain Marvel let out a sigh of relief, glad that was over with.
Just as he was about to change back to Harry though, something slammed into his back and knocked him into the ground. Literally.
Whatever it had been, it wasn't done with him, as before he could pick himself up, it threw him from the ground directly into the side of a building. Then, after a couple of sharp blows to his head, it threw him back to the ground, then immediately into the air, and then another heavy blow blasted him into another crater in the pavement.
When it seemed to have taken a moment to breathe, Captain Marvel shook his head to clear the disorientation he felt, and then slowly and steadily got to his feet. Achilles screamed a silent, wordless warning, and the red and gold clad hero reacted with the speed of Mercury. He caught the next blow centimeters before it connected and held it steady. Looking up, anger burning in his green eyes, Captain Marvel observed his assailant before attacking with all his strength and power.
He didn't even get that good a look at whatever it was as it went flying down the alley to crash into a couple of dumpsters, except that it was definitely a demon. Though he could tell that much just by the smell. Brimstone.
When the creature got back it it's feet, Captain Marvel was already in the air, flying towards it, fists clenched and read. He had ample time to look it over now, and took the opportunity to do so. It stood just over seven feet, had green shark-like skin, but was built more like a humanoid dinosaur, velociraptor to be specific. It's eyes, however, were blood-red pupils, slit like a snakes or reptiles. Solomon immediately identified it as Duramonill, the dark servant of the most powerful demons of the underworld. A message-runner for the dark forces, when the message involved death and violence anyway.
Something that immediately drew Captain Marvel's full attention, however, was that Duramonill had been off the market for the past thirty plus years, due to the simple fact that he'd sworn himself in service to the Dark Lord. And what he'd sworn upon wasn't something to take lightly. Which meant unless the Dark Lord had willingly freed this demon lackey from his vow, he was even now in service to the Dark Lord.
What's more interesting, the Champion of Magic thought to himself as he flew closer to the demon, Duramonill can only step onto the earthly plane if he's been summoned to it, and there are not many that can pull that off. Which leaves only one conclusion, the Dark Lord had summoned Duramonill for something, and seeing how the first thing he did was attack Captain Marvel, it was pretty clear what the message was.
"Wait—!" the green demon put up its arms to ward off the hero's attack.
One centimeter from having his fist cave in the dark creature's skull, Captain Marvel's fist stopped cold. Before anything else could happen though, he pulled it back and put his face where his fist had been less than a second before.
"Talk. Fast," he ordered.
"I-I-I b-bring a message from the D-Dark Lord...!" the demon spoke with a Southern English accent, making him sound like he was from Central London.
"If it is simply that he knows I'm here, I figured that part out already. Where is he?" Captain Marvel spoke harshly.
"N-no, the message is, is, is..." Duramonill gulped when he caught the look in the red and gold clad hero's eyes. "Is that... he's here, and that he doesn't care what you do or try to do. Be-because, you can't stop him. He's—urk!"
"Watch me," Captain Marvel growled in the demon messenger's face, grabbing him by the throat and squeezing tight. A minute and a half later, the creature's head popped off and it's demonic soul was sent back to the underworld from whence it came.
"Message received. Bastard," Captain Marvel whispered as the black smoke from the demon's vanquishing slowly dissipated in the air around him. He looked up into the sky, glaring at the unknown face of the one that had killed his parents and been responsible for the death of his predecessor. "I'm coming for you, no matter what. And I will stop you."
Feeling too emotional to really go home at the moment, Captain Marvel took off onto the sky and worked himself ragged in fighting evil for the rest of the day. From demonic and magical, to criminal and mundane, if there was anything he could do to stop it from happening or to help the people suffering, he didn't quit. It was close to midnight by the time he finally went home, held up entirely by the magic of Atlas.
"SHAZAM!" Captain Marvel called as he landed softly in the backyard of his home. A bolt of lightning shot down from the clear night sky and revealed an exhausted Harry Potter. It was all the young boy could do to clamber up the stairs to his room, change into his pajamas, and climb into bed. He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.