"Captain, I am detecting a general distress call," Ensign Kim said, "On heading 020 mark 4."
"Tom, set in a course," Janeway ordered.
A few minutes later in space Voyager slammed into existence from out of warp. Near her was another ship, circular in shape and much smaller.
"Tuvok, hail the vessel," the Captain said as she stood up.
An older man appeared on the view screen, a brightly lit room behind him. "Good day, I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. You sent out a distress call?"
"Yes Captain," He said exuberantly , face breaking out into a massive grin. "But it is not us who are in distress, but you." he exclaimed, causing incredulous looks to emerge out on the Starfleet officer's faces as they looked at him.
"My name is Gathorel, and let me assure you," He said to the looks on their faces. "We knew you were here and no others. We thought doing this would be an amusing way of introducing ourselves, was it not?" The smile faded from his face.
The Captain looked at Tuvok, then back at the alien. "We were surprised Gathorel, normally when we get distress calls it's because someone's actually in distress, not trying to just get our attention. You could have hailed us to get our attention," She chastised him.
"Fair enough." He nodded, but no shame glazed his face. "Our people have heard of you, our space has never been safer since you came here into our quadrant and dealt with races like the Vidiians." He lost his flippant look and turned serious. "For that, you have our gratitude. Perhaps you'd like to join us on our planet, have some sort of cultural exchange as you rest yourself on our planetary resorts." He bowed his head, and raised it again. "We would be honoured."
"One moment please Gathorel," The Captain said as she motioned to Tuvok, and the beep of the mute function rang out. "Well?" She looked at Chakotay, "What do you think?"
"His offer seems genuine, Captain. It would be a good chance to study the culture of one of the few delta quadrant species we have met so far. I would recommend taking him up on his offer." She nodded as he finished.
"Tuvok?" she asked.
"The vessel has limited armaments, all of which a class-3 shuttle could withstand for centuries. Their power output is limited as well. I believe they pose us no threat."
She motioned towards the viewscreen again, and the unmute sound played. "We would be delighted to take you up on your offer, Gathorel, would you like to lead the way?" She asked.
"Of course, this way please." He said, and the viewscreen went back to showing his ship and the space around it as he took off, voyager following closely behind.
o~o~o
Voyager exited warp and started orbiting the Sikaran planet. It was a beautiful looking planet, vibrant green and blue, with hardly any cloud cover over the whole planet.
On the ship, preparations were being made, Gathorel had invited them to beam down to the planet, so that the crew could begin shore leave.
In a corridor on the ship however, Harry was outside Chakotay's office. He pressed the bell and heard "Come in," from Chakotay.
He entered and sat down at a gesture from the commander.
"So, are you ready Harry?" Chakotay asked. "This may take some time, or it may take very little time at all. Did you get to the assigned reading?"
"Yes, I read all of it. So I'm to use a device your ancestors created in order to get in touch with their spirit animals. This should get me in contact with my animagus form."
"That's correct. Once the device is activated and you go into the trance you will appear in your mind. The first animal you come across is your spirit animal, all you should need to do is touch it."
Chakotay grabbed a leather bag next to him, bound in twine, and gestured towards the mat on the floor as he sunk into it cross-legged. Across from him Harry did the same as the commander unwrapped the bundle between them, the device sitting on the unbound leather next to a stone with markings on it, and a black wing from a bird.
"This is my medicine bundle. The Akoonah," he said pointing at the brown device with a large white pad on it, "is what we use to enter the meditative state. Psychedelic drugs do at a pinch, however this device is far more direct and has none of the lovely side effects. The stone and wing both have meaning to me, and help ground me on my journey."
"Why didn't you ask me to bring items like you have in your bundle?" Harry asked.
"According to our research and test this isn't required for wizards like you with a grounding in occlumency. You already have the grounding required without having a physical object to represent it."
"Are you ready?" Chakotay asked.
"Let's do it." Harry said, a determined look on his face.
"Touch the Akoonah then." Chakotay and Harry's hands touched the now glowing pad of the device.
"A-koo-chee-moya." Chakotay began. "We are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers. We are far from the bones of our people. But perhaps there is a powerful being that will embrace this man to find the other side of him that he seeks."
Harry's eyes closed as the room blackened around him.
o~o~o
He appeared inside a forest. Dressed in white robes he looked around at the trees, trunks larger than houses, trunks stretching up to the sky. Huge gaps around the trees, they stretched out as far as he could see.
"Interesting." He muttered, and started walking, footsteps crunching on dead branches and leaves. As he swivelled his head he realized he could hear nothing. No wind. No animals. Silence.
His eyes narrowed as he broke out into a run, purple tinges of light caressing his limbs as he enhanced them with his magic. Before long he could hear the whistling of air passing his ears, and his eyes watered until he casually threw up a modified bubblehead charm.
The forest blurred into a deluge of browns and greens. The massive trunks all had large gaps between them, they seemed to be lined up uniformly, equidistant from each other. This made his racing through them easy. After some moments, could have been hours or days of running he came across a stone cabin. It stuck out of the nature-filled environment, like a boil on a face.
He cautiously walked around the cabin, inspecting it. There were no windows. The entire cabin was grey and featureless. It was like someone took a crude drawing of a cabin and gave life to it.
After contemplating, Harry opened the door. White exploded at him, and the entire world went white. He could hear his heartbeat as he looked around the featureless environment, expression grim.
Footsteps started from far away, slowly, inevitably coming closer. There was a diamond of light, and in front of him appeared what looked like a man, in a Starfleet captain's uniform. Black hair, craggy face, and a roguish grin on his face as he regarded Harry.
Harry stared at him, a frown marring his face. "I was led to believe I would find my animagus form in here. So far there's been no animals, only an empty forest, and now you. Who are you?"
The being grinned. "I, am Q. Now that you're not hiding from me, I've found you." He exclaimed. "Your Chakotay called for a powerful being, and here I am." his arms widened in a mocking embrace.
o~o~o
"Oh, shit." Harry muttered, to Q's enjoyment. "I'm presuming you're the Q Starfleet has had multiple dealings with over the years. The Q who introduced us to the Borg? The Q who put all of humanity on trial?"
"Yes. I'm that Q" He said magnanimously, smiling. "I took pity on your species and showed them the dangers they were not ready for that existed just in their galaxy."
"So am I to assume then that we're not in my mind, and you've taken me from Chakotay's office to have this lovely talk?" Harry asked, a strange look on his face.
"Correct again!" Q said, raising his arms up in celebration. "You're a quick one, I like that."
"OK Q." Harry sighed. "Why am I here? Surely you didn't bring me here just to chat."
"You're right." Q frowned. "This setting I think is a bit too much. Let's go somewhere a bit more comfortable." and the two disappeared from the white void in two diamonds of light.
o~o~o
The two reappeared back in the cabin Harry came from with his vision. Harry looked around the featureless room and lazily waved his hand. Two red leather chairs appeared from nothing. Q looked shocked.
"Well that answers one of our questions about you," Q said, sitting opposite Harry in one of the chairs. "Hmm, comfortable." he muttered, rubbing the chair's arms.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"We wondered if you would be able to use your 'magic' in a place like this. By all accounts only a Q should have powers here."
Harry stared at Q, then sighed. "Look. I don't really like attention like this. I don't like to be interrogated. You are supposedly 'all powerful,'" he broke out the air quotes, rolling his eyes, "So why don't you just know the answer to that question. If you wanted to know about my powers you could have just used yours to find out, surely?"
Q stared for a moment, eyes slightly narrowed. "The continuum has charged me to communicate with you in order to find out what you are and what you can do. We can't scan you with our powers, you are nothing like the other wizards of your species - we can scan them fine. Obviously we can transport you with our powers, but apart from that it's like you're not even there. Even other Q show up to each other, and there's no way of hiding, unlike you..."
"Put plainly, you're an anomaly. We don't like anomalies. We've gone over your entire life, from birth, to this very point in time and when you were younger you came across artifacts that, like you, elude our sensing abilities. At some point while you were in possession of these artifacts you went dark to our scans. When we were going through your life, it became clear. You're a catalyst, an agent for change."
"Your abilities obscure so much of our sight around you that we can no longer reliably determine future outcomes, just the fact that you're in a particular place means we can no longer predict anything. We can observe you, but only up to this point in time. It's like this until the death of this reality. It's like you're a chaos agent, the universe doesn't really work properly when you're there."
Harry looked at Q, shocked, and then started laughing. Deep, bellowing laughs. At the look on Q's face, shocked, he dove into hysterical laughter. It was many moments until he calmed down.
"Aah, thanks for that," He said, wiping tears from his face. "I needed that. It's good to know that Harry Potter, Universal Spitoon still happens regularly even after this long."
He chuckled for a while, eventually they stopped. A serious look emerged on his face, to match Q's one. "So, to your sensing abilities It's like I don't exist right?"
Q nodded.
"Before I say anything, what are you going to do with me? I'm obviously here because you think I'm dangerous. I've heard the stories from others about your species, Q. You can be cruel as much as fair."
"Nothing, as of yet. The others," he looked up, "are scared of you, but they weren't the ones to go through your life and examine what makes you tick."
Q stared at Harry intently, unblinking. "And after plucking you from that room on Voyager I know we could end you. I also know you would put up a fight, which would probably decimate the Q. We would win." He sighed. "But the universe would lose. I and some others have done simulations based on your personality and powers, some 'what-ifs' on some things we think are likely to come to be. In all cases we are better off with you there."
"Interesting." Harry said after a pause. "Yeah ok, I'll tell you then."
"Those artifacts are definitely the cause. According to our lore they were called the deathly hallows. They were created by death, and the person who held all three of them would become master of death. As soon as I came into possession of all three of the hallows they went inert, however the power from the three of them moved into my body - after I touched all three, they became nothing but ornaments."
"After that, I noticed many things. I could hide myself at will. Not just become invisible, but it's like I was never there to sensors, cameras, and everything else. I stopped leaving footprints in snow, despite sinking into it. My breath never disturbed the air. I became able to call on the spirits of the dead at will." Here his gaze grew distant. "I lost myself to that for a while. The last thing was that I could now cast magic better than before but without any wand at all."
"I also found myself slow to tire, I always had reserves. I could cast the same spell indefinitely, until I fell asleep from exhaustion. For my wizarding brethren there was a limit, you could only channel so much power before you couldn't any more. Not for me."
"Years after this, my friends and the public in general started questioning why I hadn't aged from that day. They still do. They all think it's just part of being Harry Potter." He grinned wryly. "One advantage of my fame from birth is that it's easy to use the 'I'm Harry Potter' explanation for exactly why I can do things others can't. I survived the killing curse, that seems to be enough answer for most."
"I guess one of the things I can add to the list is being able to hide from the Q." He chuckled.
"Have you ever tried fathering a child, Harry?" Q asked.
Harry looked up hard, and stared. "That seemed too nonchalant, Q. What's brewing in that endless head of yours?"
"Just answer the question."
He sighed. "I've never really wanted to, in case they age and I don't, or potentially worse they don't age but wreak havoc on the universe and I'm forced to put them down. I've had to do that with close friends' relatives and it's heartbreaking. I can't imagine what it would be like to do that with one of my own."
"So you haven't tried out of fear then?" Q asked. Harry's nod was his only answer. A light breeze, a ripping sound, and a presence washed over the two, who both looked up in surprise.
"YOU WHAT?"
o~o~o
Back on Voyager, it was mostly business as usual. Chakotay got questioned, but the consensus became it was the Q who took Harry. A partial search, full scans and magical sensing, and some of his colleagues from Section 31 came to fill in the gap.
The Sikaran planet seemed to hold many wonders, but those soon became lackluster as it was discovered the Sikarans held a high view of novelty, but not much else - the Voyager crew was simply their latest novelty.
Ensign Kim discovered through a tryst with a Sikaran their spatial trajector transporter system, which could send people light years across the galaxy. However it was found this could only operate due to the crystalline core of the planet.
Voyager quickly moved on.
o~o~o
As voyager left Sikaris the bridge was quiet in contemplation. Just after Janeway gave the command to engage the warp drive there was a flash of light, and Harry Potter appeared, along with Q and a woman.
"Captain." Harry nodded, and looked around the bridge to see looks of relief on most faces. Tuvok's was of course as impassive as ever.
"Agent, welcome back. We guessed the Q took you from Chakotay's office, I trust you weren't harmed or bullied in any way?" She sent a glare at Q, who had a look of pure innocence on his face.
"I assure you, Captain Kathy, that no harm came of him, and none will from us." The Captain's eye twitched at the name.
"Captain, if you will allow it, the Q have suggested a secondment of sorts - Quora here would like to join the crew in our exploration of the Delta quadrant, and study wizarding magic under me with her time here."
He sighed. "I will also be studying the Q powers under her - it's part of the arrangement between the Q and I."
Janeway looked at the three of them, a small frown on her face as she contemplated the ramifications of the statement. "Does this mean you will no longer be able to help us in our mission Harry?" she asked gently.
"No ma'am, as long as I stick to wizarding magic then the Q will have no problems with me using my powers. Quora here," he gestured to the petite brunette with cold blue eyes next to him, "will be my liaison to the Q, and has the ability to clear use of Q powers if they deem the situation dire enough."
"Captain," Here Quora stepped forward, blue eyes impassively locked with Janeway. "I am here with a warning from the continuum." She looked around the bridge, locking eyes with everyone. "Something is coming. We aren't sure when it will come, or what form it will take, but it will change the very course of life in this galaxy. Possibly for the better, but more likely for the worse."
"They have told me what they know about this threat Captain," Harry stated, "we will need to meet with Starfleet command to brief them on what the Q told me, and how we think they should prepare." He chuckled wryly. "We don't have all the answers, but what the Q have said to me is that what we discover here in the Delta quadrant on our mission will be of the utmost importance to what's coming."
"I will pop in from time to time to check up on you, my dear Captain Kathy," Q said, moving forward and reaching out with his hand to Janeway, stopped by Harry's arm. Harry shook his head, and mouthed "inappropriate" to him, to which he nodded to Harry, then Janeway, and disappeared in a diamond of light.
"Well Agent," Tuvok piped up, "Things certainly aren't boring with you on board."
The bridge devolved into laughter, to which Tuvok just looked confused.