Interlude #2
Dolphins:[singing] So long, and thanks for all the fish / So sad that it should come to this / We tried to warn you all, but, oh, dear / You may not share our intellect / Which might explain your disrespect / For all the natural wonders that grow around you / So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish! The world's about to be destroyed / There's no point getting all annoyed / Lie back and let the planet dissolve around you / Despite those nets of tuna fleets / We thought that most of you were sweet / Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women / So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish!/ If I had just one last wish / I would like a tasty fish!/If we could just change one thing / We would all have learnt to sing!/Come one and all / Man and mammal / Side by side / In life's great gene pool!/ So long, so long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!
-Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Wahsu reviewed the last few days of data upload from Curly, Larry, Moe and Shemp; the holo-mechanical terrors that she'd sicc'ed on the Dursley's the first time that she'd reluctantly sent the boy back to the reality where he belonged.
As one of the three ultimate goddesses of creation and the elder goddess most associated with wisdom; she had instinctively known, even in her currently limited form, the importance of that child. In much the same way that Tsunami had indelibly marked Tenchi, young Harry bore Washu's own marking, to a degree only slightly less than little Ryoko.
Now if only she could remember why that was...
She could, of course, open herself to the universe and ascend past the eleventh dimensional boundary, instantly incorporating the knowledge of what she'd been up to across the infinite multiverse, but it wasn't as if she couldn't figure things out from here, like reading a good book, sometimes it was the journey that was important.
Humming, the Greatest Scientific Genius in the Universe looked at her Washu-chan Pan-Dimensional Viewer (TM) and smiled at the sight there-in. To spice things up she entered a few commands into the transcendental, holographic emitters stationed within the Dursley household. This would be fun.
Ever since Harry had managed to bypass her dimensional shielding and tumble into her lab; Wahsu had grown to be quite taken with her cute little guinea pi-charge. Finding that he had a naturally inquisitive mind and attentive personality due to long neglect by the Durlsey's had caused her to take an active interest in his education, perhaps more so than was prudent, but really, it just made sense teaching the basics of transcendental physics and unified field theory to someone who truly appreciated her genius and did not, unlike Kagato, intend to seal her away in one of her own inventions.
It felt good being a teacher again and gratifying to see that her teachings were not abused... by anyone other than herself.
To be clear, Vernon Dursley was not a stupid man. He just had the bad habit of saying inadvisable things in delicate situations, usually relating to magic. First was when he insulted Albus Dumbledore in front of Hagrid.
"I won't care what that old coot says he's not goi-Eeee!"
Harry never would have believed that a pink umbrella could be so threatening, but he supposed a fluffy blue towel or just about anything would do the job if wielded in the massive fist of Hogwart's Keeper of Keys and Grounds.
"DINNAE INSULT DUMBLEDORE!!!"
'OooooHHH the neighbors certainly heard that!' Harry thought.
Petunia, perhaps having the same idea, cringed and edged toward the curtains. "Vernon..." She hissed plaintively.
Misunderstanding, his wife's unspoken entreaty to stop provoking the strange interloper, Vernon Dursley said the second most inadvisable thing that could be said to the one who had just discovered you were keeping his favorite child celebrity under lock and key in a dank, smelly cupboard under the stairs.
"Who the Hell do you Think YOU ARE!" Mr. Dursley bellowed.
Harry wasn't quite clear on what happened next. Either the universe shrank, or Hagrid expanded. Swinging the pink umbrella over his head, Hagrid struck a pose. The tip of the umbrella punched a hole in the bottle-blue ceiling and caused spiraling cracks to radiate out from where it had broken through the plaster.
"Who am I?" Hagrid said with gathering heat.
"WHO...AM...I?!" He reiterated with growing fervor, bushy brows bushing together.
"WHO, THE HELL DO YE THINK I AM?!!" Even Harry had to take a step back.
Then it just got plain weird...
"MY DRILL SHALL PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!"
huh...
Dudley, having absconded with Harry's chocolate birthday cake courtesy of Hagrid, goggled and let slip from his mouth a full quarter of the treat that he'd been gorging on as his gaping maw fell open in shock. "L-lagann..." He whispered weakly, as the half-chewed mess of squashed cake and melted frosting fell to the floor with a disgustingly wet -splat-
Embarrassed, and annoyed, Hagrid's rage boiled over upon seeing the Dursley's fat son.
"DA' CAKE WEREN'T FOR THE LIKES O' YE!!!"
The umbrella swung down in a cloud of plaster...
-BZZZT-
"Waaaaaaggghhh!!!"
Harry paled, Dudley was now even more of a pig than before!
Interlude #2 End
Under Heaven and Earth
Chapter Three: We're off to see the Wizard...
"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.
"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least at least I mean what I say that's the same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "Why, you might just as well say that `I see what I eat' is the same thing as `I eat what I see'!" -- Lewis Carroll
"Well, hello…so you're a wizard! No! Can't be! Magic is real! Oh my! Dear me! Good heavens!"
Perhaps, had Harry been raised under different circumstances disbelief, incredulity and reluctant excitement would have met Mr. Hagrid's revelations.
"Wait a minute…you….You…YOU KNEW! You both knew all along, didn't you! What I was, what I am! My parents weren't drunks, I was not unwanted and unloved…You knew!"
Regardless of how aberrant the relationship, children will seek the approval and love if their guardians. It was an instinct ingrained in the human psyche. Petunia's response to Harry's supposed surprise and outrage would have been cutting, leaving deep wounds of dismay at her rejection that would not fade for years no matter how Harry looked back on the incident.
That did not happen.
What did happen was this.
Harry finished reading the letter.
"Wizards exist." He said dryly.
"Tha' they do Harry an' yer one o' them!" Hagrid nodded.
"Interesting…" The boy managed, already contemplating potential avenues of research.
Freeing himself of his temporary reverie, he asked. "And my parents were wizards?"
"My parents were wizards?" The orphan queried eagerly of his professor.
When the memory was reviewed those words would leave a certain Headmaster faintly troubled….
"A wizard and a witch," Hagrid replied, cheerfully oblivious, "The finest o' their generation they were!" Smiling broadly the man continued, "Yer quite famous yourself! Since yer defeated You-Know-Who!"
Harry, blinked, "...Who?"
"You-Know-Who." Hagrid amended.
"No... I don't actually." The boy responded bemused.
After a moment, understanding dawned and the man rounded on the Dursleys "Ye haven't told him?!"
Harry sighed, "Told me what?"
Hagrid could only look at him awkwardly.
To the side, Petunia raised her head, eyes gleaming from where she sat fussing over her son's new appendage.
What followed was a full minute of vile, venomous, verbal vilification; the likes of which left the woman quivering and Hagrid staring in shock and utter disdain, even Vernon seemed taken aback, albeit only briefly (drills, drills, drills…). The Dursleys were not the absolute worst type of muggle… sad to say but true.
Harry…pitied her.
In spite of their best efforts, Harry's world was simply far larger than the Dursley's would have liked or wished. He had seen things, done things, had been things that they could not even dream of for they no longer dared to dream. Dudley simply didn't know any better more the pity, but his chance would come.
The simple fact of life was that children grow up, some more than others.
He pitied her and her bitter, poisonous, petty hatred, for that was all she allowed herself.
So Harry turned away, determined to get the full story of his parent's deaths from Hagrid at a better time and later date, quite obviously it hadn't been a car crash as Vernon had claimed, his aunt's allusions to them being blown up was troubling. "Right," He said all business, "This is all settled then, my attendance? I just need to go with you."
"Now wait a minute!" Vernon began, and quailed under the combined glare of both the giant man and nephew.
"It was all settled before ye was born. Yer name's been down on tha' roster fer years…" The Gameskeeper explained.
Harry nodded, turned back to his cupboard and sighed.
"Er…" He gestured to the door, leaning against the wall.
Looking strangely shifty, the large man waved his pink umbrella and the door shivered, shedding its numerous locks, chains and bolts, before shuffling back toward the entryway, where it hopped back into place.
Leaving the Dursleys behind in the living room for a moment, Harry and Rubeus shared a moment in the hall. "S'not supposed to be doing magic, the man murmured lowly and winked, 'cept emergencies, be liking t'keep tha' between us please."
Harry nodded, though internally wondering. "Mum's the word…" He agreed, "Just need to grab a few quick things." The boy vanished into the closet while the older man's slightly mischievous expression faded.
"S'not right…" He murmured blinking away tears at what he'd seen and at what should have been. With renewed determination, and a lightly sparking umbrella, Hogwart's Keeper of Keys turned back toward the living room.
By the end of the day, Harry would be set up in Dudley's former playroom…
Properly girded in his black battle-shorts and vest, under a slightly worn, plain blue anorak, Harry tried his best not to tumble to the floor as he and Hagrid rode a vibrant purple double-decker bus that zipped around London and Shires like a mayfly in summer on speed.
Finally, with a snap, the bus squeezed through an alleyway, and stopped on a knut between two parked cars in a feat of vehicular dexterity, that should have won the driver an award for parallel parking between two cars, already parked bumper to bumper.
"Leeeaaaky Cauldron!" The conductor drawled.
As they made their way over to the nondescript tavern that only Harry and Hagrid seemed to notice, a faint worry burrowed its way into the boy's consciousness.
"Say Hagrid, I'm… famous right?" The young boy asked with growing trepidation.
"S'ruth!" The man replied as he opened the door to usher his charge inside.
Suddenly Harry recalled a memory of a wild haired, wild eyed, forty year-old man in a nightgown, handing him a pen and his seven year-old daughter's knickers, asking for an autograph for his darling Luna. Vernon would drag the boy away before the man could teach Harry how to spell Xenophilius for his own pair of boxers…
Oblivious to the sudden flurry of hands rearranging hair over a scar, Hagrid walked right up to the bartender for a greeting.
"What're you having Hagrid?" The barkeep asked as he wiped down the counter.
Hagrid didn't even try to keep his voice down, "Nothing today Tom, I'm bringing HARRY POTTER to get his school things."
Cue the descending chaos…
A Californian Local News Service
Anchorwoman: "And now from our colleague on the streets. Helen, what's the general opinion on the proposed gun control laws?"
Pedestrian: "Well I was for it but then I saw Dawn of the Dead, I wouldn't want to be stuck at home without a shotgun with zombies on the prowl!"
The reporter: speechless
Pedestrian: Misunderstanding her look, "Don't get me wrong, I'm all for keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, kids and random crazies who can't tell a delusion from reality, but...zombies...ZOMBIES..."
-I Kid You Not
Harry Potter, Age 9
"Get it off, get it off!!" Harry whined.
While visiting Washu, the scientist had, rather politely asked to run an experiment on the boy's rather fetching scar.
Harry, not interested in asking questions, had agreed.
"GET...IT...OOOOFFF!!!"
It, being the ghostly specter of something that looked like the unholy spawn of a cliche tentacle monster, and a baby gorgon, ie, big, green and lots of writhing wormlike appendages, some of which hissed, while others stuck themselves into places they didn't belong...
and in the center of it all, glued to the side of Harry-kun's head was a grotesque parody of a newborn that was wailing creepily.
"MoMo ooH OOh OhO hOo OOOooo EEEooooo eoEoOOhooo!"
Washu, well used to the oddities of her universe, was even a little creeped out.
Though she hoped that this taught Mihoshi to finally pay attention to the 'DO NOT DISTURB! THAT MEANS YOU, MIHOSHI!' signs.
"EEIYAhhh! T-that's not an 'IN' hole! Help!" The blonde screamed.
Fascinated, Washuu couldn't decide whether to neutralize the AT-field or go get popcorn and 'VrrrrWhirrr Washu-chan (TM)'
In truth, after, Zero and chibi-Kagato-chan, Washu had only needed a look to tell what was sharing space with Harry's 'scar'. With that knowledge it had taken only a few minutes and some simple, for her, calculations backed by a minor scan to deduce the how and the why.
The two years had been needed to acquire the relevant data to support her hypothesis.
a. In a few centuries, assuming the damage caused by in-breeding wasn't too great, Harry's descendants would eventually gain the power of the Light Hawk Wings, which was really just a meme created by the Ultimate Goddesses to judge when a species' matter and time/space manipulation abilities progressed beyond a certain point.
Actually, should Harry reproduce with a modern Jurian His offspring probably would be capable of Light Hawk Wing manifestation.
b. While Harry was at the natural threshold for developing the abilities that he was manifesting ie. Quantum tunneling between dimensions, high level matter and energy manipulation. There had to be some factor that was pushing him to cross that critical point in his species' evolution centuries ahead of schedule.
c. The Soul Fragment of a serial killer really was an ugly thing while it still possessed a 'memory record'.
Of course it wasn't until hours after talking with Hagrid in the Leaky Cauldron about Voldemort, that Harry realized that the soul fragment Washu had reformatted and merged with his own had belonged to his parent's killer.
Needless to say, for the rest of his life, Harry always asked questions and actively looked for his own answers.
Grim realities aside Harry was still an eleven year old boy, so some of his questions were...
"Two speeds," The goblin answered curtly, "Get there Soon and Get there Now..."
The boy blinked, glancing momentarily at Hagrid who seemed to be praying, "What about strapping on some rockets and calling it Get there Yesterday?"
Their guide squinted, "Rock-Ets?"
And so, though it would never be proved, Harry Potter was the one responsible for explaining to the Goblin Nation the uses of muggle chemical explosives, in rocketry, guns, and the making of very big bombs...
The trip went well, Harry acquired a nice fat sack of gold and managed to hang on to his vault key, confident in his ability to keep it out of the Dursley's hands.
After another detour to vault #713, Harry and Hagrid did the rounds shopping, stopping first at the bookstore. Since Harry much preferred to find his own answers, he ended up purchasing, in addition to his school list, Hogwarts A History, in addition to a few texts about him, and pretty much anything else that struck his fancy.
Really, what kind of nickname was Boy-Who-Lived?
He much preferred something edgier like...Ripper!
Then he remembered Aunt Marge's late beloved...
Boy-Who-Lived wasn't that bad come to think of it...
Hagrid, seeing the large pile, let Harry buy a trunk with a space enhancement charm on the inside and a feather-weight charm on the outside, then offering to split the chore of shopping, left Harry at Madame Malkin's while heading off to run an errand.
Neither noticed the purple crystal that tagged along with Hagrid...
Ash, after fighting his way out of a water-logged, deadite filled pit while the castle inhabitants, who threw him in there, were actively trying to kill, crush, impale and generally maim him: Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my BOOMstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart… You got that?!
Now I swear the next one of you primates even *touches* me... - Army of Darkness
This vacation was one of the brightest ideas that he'd ever had. One of his employer's business associates owned a mansion a on the outskirts of a sleepy village between Dunstable and Luton, with a population of fifty.
When the man had complained about needing someone to take care of the property for three weeks while he attended to some business in Spain, Vernon, seeing an opportunity to improve his standing within the company, (drills, drills, drills...) had volunteered himself and his family (Harry didn't count and was left home with Mrs. Figg).
He'd even given up his vacation time to do it but, (drills, drills, drills...) it was worth it. Oh sure, Dudley, the young scamp couldn't be bothered to clean the pool half-decently for anything less than a tenner, but they'd brought along enough video-games, candy, cake, soda, a miniature t.v. and a bb-gun...more than enough to keep his son out of trouble.
-Crash-
But what Vernon really relished was all this time...
-Bash-
-bang-
Away...
-Chop-
-bang--bang-
From that...
-Swack!-
-bang-
Freakish...
-Crash!!!-
-bang--click-
Child...
Vernon was still pretending that everything was o.k. when Deadite Queen Petunia, strode into the study, ignoring the bullets that her husband emptied into her torso with an antique pistol.
Rotting flesh pulled back over blackened and cracked teeth in a ghastly smile.
"Honey..." It purred, "I'm hoo-ome"
He was still reloading when the monstrosity to which he was wedded in unholy matrimony, reared back and swung, burying the hatchet; in his head.
"WHUUUHHH!!!"
"Huff..."
"Huff..."
"Huff..."
Wild eyes wheeled around as if on gimballs...
"Huff..."
Finally Vernon settled from his nightmare...
Tentatively, he rested in bed, eyeing his wife, smiling faintly in her slumber. He stayed like that for hours before sleep finally claimed him near dawn.
She stood, gangly and awkward, covered in pig's blood.
-Swine!-
They laughed at her, built her up and then, in one unimaginably cruel move, revealed, the happiest day of her life to be nothing more than a sick joke...
-Pig!-
They laughed at her...and something broke....
Tuny, Tuny, quite so loony, ho-ow does your garden grow?
The screams grew shrii-iller as the flames grew hi-iigher, we-ell, what... do you know?
Silver bells and cockle-shells, headless corpses a-all in a row....
A signboard scythed down toward the neck of a running girl...
Mama, I can do magic too...
Sleepily, Petunia smiled.
"There is a God..." She thought .
"UmmmMmmm!"
A finger traced over red, pouty lips....
"Yeah, Baby..."
And and passed over full breasts, pinching a nipple sharply before tracing lightly across a stomach....
"Juuust like that, tha'sit, riiiight there."
Lips, kiss and caress at a navel, while the hand dips lower....
"Ooooohhhh, Yeah, OOOhhh, Yeah. OH Yah, Uh Hunh, Uh huh, Yeah...
Fingers, dip into the honey pot, teasing out sweet nectar....
These nights were the worst, when Dudley stayed up too late and had to listen to Fat Bogey-man talk in his sleep...
"Stay just like tha'... I'ma gonae lick that treacle jam all off tha' Plump Butt, Sweet Thang..."
Dudley just stared blankly at the ceiling...
The next day Vernon agreed to drive Harry where ever the hell he wanted to go...
Earlier that Day...
Harry settled the waist-band of his black-jeweled, battle-shorts, pulled up the tops of his midnight-black battle socks, stopping only briefly to scuff the shoes that had carried the day.
After Hagrid left him at Madam Malkin's, Harry had spent a wonderful time at playing at being a living mannequin. He'd met a nice young boy and, lacking severely in normal interactions with his peers had decided to just follow Washu's advice and be himself...
So when the other boy insulted Hagrid, whom Harry had grown rather fond of, he kicked him in the whuthers...
Fortunately Madam Malkin had been otherwise occupied, and had accepted Harry's explanation that the other boy had inhaled a floating bit of fluff...
Alas, but all good things must come to an end. There was the strange encounter with the wand maker Olivander who seemed delighted by both the difficulty of matching a wand to Harry as well as the boy's open, inquisitive mind, willingly answering the boy's many questions about wandlore.
And so as they walked back to the Leaky Cauldron Harry split his attention between talking to his new pet cat, Hedwig, and to his eleven inches, holly and phoenix-feather wand, which was nice, supple, and as a brief jet of flame proved, rather excitable...
Harry, having met Funaho, Yosho's Juraian Space Tree, found that being told that it was the wand that chose the wizard, actually sounded rather reasonable, his holly wand certainly -felt- alive.
Heeding Hagrid's cautionary tale of the Trace and about broken wands, Harry shifted his wand to his anorak, placing it in the inner lining, near to his heart. He'd have time to take a look at both later in his own pocket dimension.
Passing into a back-room and ordering some dinner, Harry finally spoke up about what had been on his mind all day.
"Hagrid, I'd like you to tell me what you know about You-Know-Who..." The boy requested, eyes fixed on the older man.
For his part, the groundskeeper only choked slightly on the warm ale that the innkeeper had left in his care.
"Who?" The shaggy-haired man repeated lamely.
"You...Know...Who..." One could be excused for mistaking Harry for the adult and Hagrid the eleven year old child given their relative air of grim determination and recalcitrance...
Finally Hagrid sighed, "Ye 'ave the right o' it." He rumbled, sounding weary.
"You-Kn-"
"Stop!" The dark-haired boy cut in. "I'm sorry Hagrid." He apologized upon seeing his guide's startled face, "I gather that this man is why my parents are dead? Why I have this scar? Why I-I'm famous?"
Seeing the man nod, Harry continued, voice dripping with passion and a faint, sibilant undertone, that compelled, another point of worry for the wizard viewing that memory "This man who murdered my parents, tell me his name!"
Another man of less iron will, might have been reduced to a babbling mess, Hagrid, though not the sharpest trowel in the tool-shed, was protected from the unintentional psychic outburst by his heritage and was moved to speak wholly by the stubborn set of a mother's jaw, that he could clearly see within the boy.
So while the wizard's closest to the back-room's door began gabbing their deepest secrets to anyone who'd listen, Hagrid sighed.
"Ye have tae understand, 'arry. Magic, magic is a wonderful and 'orrible thing. Ye got wonderful wizards, like Albus Dumbledore, the 'eadmaster of 'ogwarts, and terrible, terrible ones, like..." His voice hushed and became so faint that Harry strained to hear it. "Voldemort...they called 'im Voldemort, don't ask me tae sae it againe, 'arry. only for you... 'Twas a dark time, don't know who to trust, when yer neighbor or the bloke down the street might me one o' 'is followers. They called themselves, Deatheaters and wore masks..."
The man now stared blankly at the wall above Harry's head. "Only one they say he was 'fraid of were Dumbledore, if he wanted yae dead ye were dead, there was a curse...a killing curse....no one ever survived it." Dark eyes fixed on wide staring green, "Until you tha' is. He attacked yer home, killed yer family, you were the only one left alive.... none believed it, 'e would'na just left...but he's gone... some say that when he tried to cast the curse on ye, somethun went wrong, tha' it turned back on 'im, killed him, tha's wha' they say anyways..."
"And what do you believe, Hagrid?" Harry asked with dread, noting the man's skepticism.
Brown eyebrows frowned over beetle black eyes, "Dumbledore say's tha' 'e still aroun' sumwhere, I believe 'im, folks like You-Know-Who, they get so evil... maybe 'e weren't human enough tae die..."
The scary thing was, Harry understood perfectly well how that could be...
It was a little after Mihoshi had been detached from the odd growth on the side of his face and ushered out the pocket dimension. Washu had neutralized the entity's ability to affect the physical world and began explaining to him just what it was.
He wasn't too enthused...
"You see Harry-kun," The scientist explained, "A soul is like the water in the sea, it's not something that can just be divided up into discrete parts and treat it as a separate object. A soul is a soul, you can separate it into a billion, billion pieces, and all you'd get is one soul." There were graphs, transcendental physics and power-point presentations involved but what it boiled down to was, "The things that people call a spirit or an aura, existed independent of, though conjugate to, the existence of the soul."
Harry had asked what that had to do with the thing on his head and was shocked by Washu's answer.
"A soul can't be destroyed." She explained, "If it's too badly damaged, the memory record is wiped clean and then the soul is returned to the quantum ether. In short, the souls of all beings in the multiverse, constitute the soul of the multiverse and exist as a phenomena stimulated by the Ultimate Goddesses of creation."
But, Washu added, even though one couldn't actually kill a soul, one could mutilate one's own soul severely, like the thing on Harry's head. Though, and the red headed scientist had been clear on this part, due to the sheer persistence and durability of a soul, such extreme self-mutilation had to have been done by someone with a truly prodigious, willful, blissful, once-in-a-lifetime level of idiocy...and evil.
Harry hadn't wanted anything to do with the thing at first but Washu had assured him that once the soul's 'memory record', the consciousness of its original owner, was erased, it could be merged with Harry with little ill effect. This was apparently necessary since it was Harry's connection with this soul fragment that had activated a facet of his powers that wouldn't normally have been seen in wizards for another four hundred years....
Harry grew Light Hawk Wings...
AN: Like it? Good Bad? Read and Review :) TTFN