Voyager
Harry was stalking around the ship in a foul mood again, but this time tried to stay away from everyone. More importantly, he told them he didn't know what was bothering him, and that he was trying to avoid rampant arseholery again.
It came to a head one day, though. "Harry, you know I love you," Hermione said, "but you're driving me insane with your brooding. You're even worse than when you were in fifth year!"
"That bad, huh?" he said with a laugh that didn't sound very happy.
"Exactly. Now what's bugging you?"
He took a deep breath, and then exhaled loudly. "I'm late. There's no sign of any temporal trips back to the 20th century. I have a madman to defeat, and that prophecy says that I have to be the one to take him out. The fact that he wasn't around in the 24th century when I landed tells me that it was done - but how? That picture showed that I was supposed to jump back five years ago, but I certainly didn't!"
"Ah," B'Elanna said sagely, her hand on her stomach, which was only just starting to show signs of impending child. "Scheduling anxiety."
"I still can't get used to that," he said. "'Sked-yool'. Even after twenty years, I still think it's supposed to be 'shed-yool'. But yeah, that's it exactly. Why can't I remember having done it? I have to have, or else Voldie would have won."
Hermione looked past everyone for a moment. "Wait a minute," she breathed, then inhaled deeply. Harry had always enjoyed it when her brunette holo-form had done it, and this long-haired blonde form doing that was just as enjoyable to him, especially in that cobalt jumpsuit that she wore because of the Borg circuitry still in her. "Let's go to the holodecks. I think I'm remembering something right, but I need to be sure." She stood up and started to walk away.
"Hot damn, I am a lucky man," he breathed as he watched the pleasant sway of her hips.
"If you'd like to be luckier later on, you'll follow me," she called sweetly over her shoulder.
"Hot damn again!" he yelled, running after her.
"Your cheerfulness is real now," Tom said in some confusion when he and B'Elanna caught up to Harry and Hermione. "Why?"
"Because she has a solution," Harry said. "Whenever Hermione had a solution, it was invariably the right one. She might be in a different body now, but it's still the Hermione I fell so deeply in love with in there. Therefore, she has a solution to my problem."
Hermione stopped her forward motion and turned to face Harry. A moment later she separated from him with a *POP!* as she finished the rough kiss and continued toward her original destination. It took Harry a few moments to get his brain working again.
Finally, they managed to reach the holodeck. Hermione immediately said, "Computer, bring up Harry's picture on the Hogwarts grounds." The photo showed up hovering in the air. "Enlarge to life-sized." Dutifully, the picture grew. "Hah! I was right!" she crowed.
"Um, duh?" Harry said with a smile. "What were you right about, though?"
She looked at him and shook her head. "Just a moment." She grabbed Harry and kissed him rather thoroughly again, and didn't let him go when she was done. "Want to take a moment to readjust, or do you mind advertising?"
"Habwah?" he asked. Finally parsing what she'd said, and how he'd reacted, he took a moment to . . . straighten his clothes, while Tom and B'Elanna pointedly looked elsewhere. "Not that I'm complaining, but what brought that on, so I can do it again?" He ignored the feminine snort from B'Elanna.
"Never you mind. But look at the picture. Specifically, look at your forehead. You've got a small scar there; a fresh one. There's no sign of that scar on your head right now, even as an old one." She pulled out a tricorder and scanned his head. "Definitely no sign that you've ever had that scar. The point when you return to Earth is in the future."
He looked at the picture, and called for a mirror. As she had said, there was no sign of a healed scar there. He grinned. "So I still can go back and . . . shit."
"What?" the other three asked in unison.
"The other Hermione."
"Captain, our shields are down to thirty percent," Tuvok said. "They cannot survive another hit."
"They're powering up weapons, Captain," Harry Kim said with some alarm. "Our phasers are offline, as are photon torpedoes."
Lieutenant Potter, seated at the helm, glared at the viewscreen, hands gripping the console in deep anger. Bastards wouldn't even talk. They just opened fire. I'd love to put a Bombarda right through - His thought process ended there as a beam shot from the Voyager and impacted the largest of the attacking ships. It tore right through the ship's shields, crumpling the front of the ship, but also exited the rear of the ship, narrowly missing one of the much smaller vessels.
"That was not phaser fire, Captain," Tuvok said. "I have never seen a weapon of that sort aboard this ship."
"What are you doing up there on the bridge?" B'elanna's angry voice said over the intercom. "The engines just flared for a moment, and I think several systems might have burned out!"
"Captain, we re detecting three more ships approaching, and they are powering up weapons. We cannot survive an attack from even one of them," Tuvok said. "I am uncertain what we can do to survive this encounter."
No, dammit! Harry thought. It can't end this way! I still haven't gone back in time! We need to get away from here to allow me to do that! He glared at the ships and tried to think of a way to escape. He thought that he might have cast a Bombarda at that first ship, but …
"Holy shit, it might work," he breathed. "Captain? Permission to do something stupidly dangerous that might kill us all anyway, but also might get us free of these idiots?"
"Given that they'll likely kill us, feel free," Janeway said.
He gripped the console and thought really hard about being away from these belligerent idiots. He closed his eyes, and pushed everything he had into being closer to home.
"Oog," said Tom Paris from the navigation console. "Now I know what the golf ball would feel like."
"Don't let B'Elanna hear you say that or she'll never do that to you again," Lieutenant Potter said with a small laugh. He then realized that they were using emergency lighting. "I think it worked, but I think I blew some circuits."
"We have no power save what is being used for environmental and structural integrity," Tuvok said. "I suspect that once communications has returned, we will hear a somewhat irate call from Engineering."
"What precisely did you do, Lieutenant?" Captain Janeway asked him.
"Well, as much as I can tune my phaser to use the battery … well, with some small amount of work I can cast spells through a phaser. I never thought of that being doable with the entire ship. But with us being in a 'do or die' situation, I decided to try Apparating us away from the battle. I thought of it because of the damage done to that ship. That was me casting a Bombardment spell in desperation. Hadn't actually intended to do that, but it made me realize that I could."
The comm unit crackled to life. "Captain, please tell me that whatever took out our power at least stopped our attackers as well. It's going to take at least a day to get things back to the point where I can think of using the warp engines. Hell, we're looking at a cold start for the engines, that's how thoroughly we're shut down."
"Sorry about that, B'Elanna," Potter said. "It's my fault, but we're apparently away from those idiots at least."
"If this is your fault, you should be made to come down and help us repair, once I get sensors back online. Should be right about … now." As she said that, the bridge crew could hear several of their consoles come to life.
Tuvok examined the readings and raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Captain, I will verify these readings once I am certain that the sensors are reading properly, but it seems that Lieutenant Potter sent us nearly seven thousand five hundred light years closer to the Alpha Quadrant. At our usual rate of speed, we are now roughly three years away from the Beta Quadrant, which means that we are now roughly five years from home."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Captain? Permission to assist Lieutenant Paris in Engineering? If we can temporarily tune the engines to my signature, the way I tune a phaser, then we might be days from Earth, not five years. Haphazard 'get me the hell out of here!' Apparation moved us seventy-five hundred lightyears, so tuning the engines might move us significantly farther." He laughed with some embarrassment. "And maybe this time it won't blow every circuit on the ship."
"Lieutenant Potter is correct," Tuvok said. "Allowing the engines to properly interface with his form of energy manipulation should allow a greater control. I would, however, perform a test run using a shuttlecraft."
"I suspect your time might be better suited to checking your idea with a shuttlecraft, rather than our engines," Janeway said, agreeing with Tuvok. "Tom, care to assist Mr Potter with his endeavor?"
Harry sat in the retuned shuttlecraft and grinned. However far he got, he'd be able to give Voyager a good idea of just how far they'd be able to jump with those engines tuned to his signature. He closed his eyes and concentrated on jumping as far as he could. He wanted to look out that viewscreen and see Starbase One and Earth below it. With that inevitable feeling of being sucked through a hose, he jumped.
There, in front of him, was Earth. Clean, beautiful, happy little ball of water and dirt, with Starbase One orbiting gently above it.
He took several readings to verify that it was in fact Earth, and then powered up again and focused on Apparating straight into the shuttle bay, which he had insisted be left empty until he returned, for just such a possibility as him Apparating inside.
He jumped from the Delta Flyer and ran toward the doors, leaping every few seconds. He couldn't contain himself - he Apparated to the bridge. "YES!" he shouted. "IT WORKED!"
"How far did you go, Mr Potter?" Janeway asked.
Instead of answering her directly, he said, "Computer, download and display sensor logs from the shuttle for the last ten minutes." On screen came the image of Earth, with several Federation and Vulcan ships in line to dock inside Starbase One. The information scrolling across the bottom verified that they were, in fact, looking at Earth.
Harry Potter was literally vibrating. "It worked, Captain! I was actually at Earth!"
"Did you tell them of our impending arrival?" she asked.
He blinked at her for several seconds, and then said, "Excuse me, captain." With that, he walked over to a wall and smacked his forehead against the bulkhead twice, although not very hard.
"I gather that I should take that as a 'no' then, Mr Potter?" she asked, coming dangerously close to actual laughter.
"I was just so excited to tell you guys that I was successful that I just . . . I just shot back here as fast as I could."
Janeway was now grinning widely, and mashed a button on the console of her command chair. "This is Captain Janeway. I have some bad news for you, crew. I will be asking everyone on board Voyager to put in as much work as possible in as short a period of time as possible. All shifts will run on a daytime schedule.
"The reason for this? It appears that we have found a way home." She paused. "You heard me correctly - we may well be at Earth by this time next week, if all goes well. If not, we will be a good deal closer to there than before. The new shift rotation begins at shift change."
Harry wasn't sure if the cheer he heard rumbling through the decks was his imagination or not.
"Captain?" Hermione asked quietly from the science console, beside Harry Kim.
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Do I have your permission to steal your navigator and take him to our quarters?"
"Celebration?"
"To quote an audiovisual program I found in the ship's library, 'I need to take this man back to our quarters and have him tear off all my clothes.'"
Harry snorted. "If you think I'm gonna repeat Wash's response, you're crazy." (1)
Janeway was laughing openly. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Miss Granger. Granted. Celebrate a little for us as well."
The crew discovered that sound baffling only works to a point.
Harry and Hermione did get a round of applause later, though.
Three days later, a thoroughly tired B'Elanna Paris called the bridge. "Captain Janeway? I am proud to announce that the engines calibrations are complete. I'd give it about four to five hours to completely settle into the new tuning, but by tomorrow we should be able to have Harry send us as close to Earth as he can manage."
"Thank you, B'Elanna, and please pass along my deep thanks to everyone on your crew down there. No matter what happens, you've done an exemplary job, and if they let me, I'll put you all in for commendations."
"Thanks, Captain. Permission to return to my quarters and sleep for a day?" was the response. Humour was evident in the question.
"How long have you been up?"
"About thirty-six hours straight, Captain. Too excited to sleep, so I worked."
"Then go get that sleep now. I promise we'll wait for you to be awake before we head home."
"Thanks, Captain."
The next eighteen hours were spent making sure that everything was tied down as best it could be. "Never understood why these ships don't have seatbelts in the chairs," Harry grumbled softly.
"Is everybody ready?" Janeway asked. B'Elanna nodded eagerly. "Attention all hands. We will shortly be making the trip we hope will return us to Earth. Grab hold of anything you can, just in case it's a bumpy ride. It shouldn't be, but best to be prepared."
"Actually, it's going to feel like you were pushed through a straw," Harry said after she cut the communication. "Are we all ready?" At their nod, he began to concentrate.
Home. The green hills of Earth, and the pleasures of London. After we get back, I can even show Hermione around a city she's never seen. And then we can figure out how to get the Voyager to Hogwarts. Apparating into Hogwarts airspace would be fun. An image of his bushy-haired friend and the inevitable comeback to the thought came into his head as he built the energy, and suddenly there was the feeling of an Apparation crack that would have been audible in the vacuum of space, he suspected.
There, in front of them, was Earth. But there appeared to be a problem.
"Captain?" Harry Kim said from the science console. "We . . . have a little problem."
"And what might that be, Lieutenant?"
"The signals and the star locations that we're receiving show us to be in the late 20th century. April 30th, 1998, to be precise. 8:47 pm, San Francisco time."
"Exactly 380 years, apparently to the second," Tuvok stated
"A bit more precise than I expected, but thank you, Mr Kim, Tuvok. Any explanation, Mr Potter?" She paused. "I take it that you have an explanation, rather than a new way to program the helm console, since I doubt that hitting it repeatedly with your forehead is a recommended technique."
"Yes, Captain," Harry said. "Permission to add 'ow'?"
She laughed. "Granted. What is the explanation?"
"First off, ow. Second, I suspect that I've just discovered an odd little effect of either Apparating or adding that much power to it. I was thinking about Hogwarts for a moment as I prepared – incongruously, I was hearing Hermione saying that Hogwarts: A History says that you can't Apparate through the school's wards – and when I let loose with the actual Apparation, it seems that Hogwarts was on my mind still. So I apparently yanked us back in time."
"And made yourself years younger," Tom Paris said. "And the wound you gave yourself from smacking the console explains the scar that Hermione noticed a couple months ago."
"Go see the Doctor," the Captain said. "See if the jump took more from you than years. Miss Granger, if you'd make sure he gets there?"
Three hours later, Harry, Hermione, and the Doctor met Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, and B'Elanna in the ready room. "He checks out as fine, Captain. He'll have a small scar for a while, but beyond telling him that his head is an inadequate hammer, there's nothing that needs doing for him."
"Excellent. We need a landing party, I suspect, to ensure that everything is as it should be, and then we need to figure out how to return home."
"That part is easy, Captain," B'Elanna said. "The Enterprise – the Kirk one – accidentally invented a manoeuvre that should serve us quite well, because a great deal of study was put into the variables. We slingshot around the sun and slow the ship down to end in our proper time – and if done right, in the Sol system."
"Chief Engineer Paris is correct, Captain," Tuvok said. "I can research and prepare the calculations for the return. But I suspect that Mr Potter, at least, has a requirement to land the Delta Flyer on the surface."
"Agreed. I must admit that I would like to see this school that teaches magic," Janeway said. "So we need to choose our landing party, as I said. I definitely intend to visit this school, and you need to pilot us there since you know where it is. I'd suggest that there be at least two more. Hermione?"
"Yes, Captain. I'd like to see the real school for once."
"Might I suggest Commander Chakotay?" Harry asked. "I wouldn't normally suggest the Captain and First Officer leave the ship on an away mission, but I don't know how dangerous this one will really get. Normally I'd think that Commander Tuvok was best suited, but I think that Commander Chakotay is better suited to translate between the mystical and scientific languages."
"That is quite logical,"Tuvok said. "I concur with Mr Potter's suggestion, assuming that he believes them to be friendly."
"Quite so. The headmaster of the school will be friendly to the point of diabetic worries, but he's got a hundred and sixty years worth of practise behind him."
"What else can we expect?" Janeway asked.
"Well, it doesn't appear that Voldemort has drawn too much blood, based on the sensor readings. Things largely are the same from what I can see. Hogwarts still looks like a safe place to land. What's going to be interesting is watching the response once they realise that 'The Boy Who Lived' has returned to Hogwarts. The sky around Hogwarts will probably fill with owls shortly after."
"Owls?" Tom asked.
"Post owls," Hermione said. "Keep the sensors on us, and you'll see what we mean."
A short time later, Janeway and Chakotay arrived at the Delta Flyer to find Harry and Hermione already aboard. "Eager to get to the planet, Harry?" Chakotay asked with a laugh.
"Damned straight. Can't wait to freak some of them out." He snapped his fingers. "I don't know if it will affect you, since you know about magic, but do I have permission from both of you to disobey a direct order from you, if necessary? The reason I ask is because there are wards around the area that are there to keep people who don't know about magic from finding the school. If you're affected, then it will make you feel either uneasy, or make you think you have somewhere else far more important to be. As I say, it shouldn't affect you, but if it does, it should stop affecting you once we're actually inside the wards."
"In that case, I agree," Janeway said. "You might also wish to specifically lock the console to your use only."
"No, because you can override that. But I don't expect it to be a problem. Just thinking ahead."
"Good idea," Chakotay said. "Shall we?"
"Yes. Also, until we can explain things, perhaps Hermione should go by another name? Perhaps the Annika one you were using for a while?" They all agreed readily.
Harry gently lifted them from the deck and out through the shields. He suspected that he would be reaching the school just in time for lunch. Setting the Delta Flyer's shields to make them radar invisible, he dropped from Luna down to Earth orbit and slid in over the Atlantic, aiming for Scotland.
He sighed as he came in over Inverness. At the speed he was flying, the Cairngorm Mountains weren't far away.
Home. It had been so long since he'd been at Hogwarts, and he still felt like he was coming home. To hell with the Dursleys – they'd never made him welcome in Surrey, and he had no intention of visiting them, unless it was to land Voyager on their roof just before they flew back to the future. The fact that the structure wouldn't be able to hold that kind of weight was a definite bonus.
The mountains he was looking for came into sight, and he saw the castle he had spent five years living in. Harry's voice was filled with awe. "It's been twenty years, but I've made it home. She's still beautiful."
(1) The quote is from Firefly, and Wash (the character's husband) replied "Work, work, work." (Admittedly, he was grinning when he said it.) My thought was that if I'd been on that bridge, I'd have shouted "Stunt double!"