Science crews from both ships were examining the shuttle bay of the Vivian Smith, in hopes of tracking down where the Delta Flyer had disappeared to. There were traced of energy from the disappearance, but no one could detect anything more than that.
"It does match the Lieutenant's signature," Tuvok reported to her as she sat in the briefing room with several other of her crew. The other Starfleet ships had begun the trip back to Starbase One.
The Hermione from the 20th century perked up. "Perhaps if we got Sirius over to the Smith? Maybe he was trying to Apparate. I don't know that Sirius could trace Apparation signatures, but I know for a fact that I can't."
"It certainly couldn't hurt," Janeway said. The intercom chirped. "Janeway."
"Captain, we've got an incoming message from Starfleet. They say it's urgent."
"Pipe it in here."
A moment later, Admiral Jaaymeson's face appeared. "Captain, you might want to get back to Starbase One. We've found your Lieutenant Potter floating about twenty kilometers away from the Starbase, in that shuttle you designed. He's unconscious at the moment. He appears to have taken a rather severe shock to his system."
Harry floated to consciousness to the familiar sound of a Starfleet sickbay bed. "Welcome back to consciousness, Lieutenant Potter," came the welcome voice of the Voyager's doctor.
"I'm hoping that I'm hearing your voice from somewhere near Earth, and not back in the Delta Quandrant," Harry replied. "Even if we are back in Delta, how did everyone come through the trip?"
"Typical Harry Potter," said one of the Hermione's. "Worry about everyone else instead of yourself."
"Last time I thought of myself first, I was an arsehole for two years," he said. "I don't like that man, and think he should have been keelhauled. And yes, I know what keelhauling really is, beautiful." He opened his eyes to see both Hermiones at the foot of his bed, one in a Starfleet jumpsuit. "Seeing double is definitely a positive right now," he added with a grin. "Double the hotness. Only way it could be better would be if I was medically seeing double, because then there'd be FOUR sexy women at the foot of my bed." He paused. "I'd die happy, if a bit dehydrated."
He could see the doctor shaking his head, albeit with a smile on his face. "With most people I'd say that your sense of humor proved that you were ready for work again, but I'm not sure that you have a sense of humor."
"You wound me, doctor!" Harry said with a laugh. "Isn't that against the Hippocratic Oath?"
"What, telling the truth?" the doctor answered him, laughing. "Quite seriously, though, you seem to be fine. I will ask that you wear this monitor for a while, taking into account the elevated heart rate these ladies seem to cause amongst the crew."
"Doctor!" squeaked the non-Starfleet Hermione.
"If you're flirting with my Hermiones, doctor, then I have only one thing to say to you – you have excellent taste in women." He paused. "Well, two things – they're taken, even if their choice in men shows a marked lack of sanity."
"Actually, it shows an amazing amount of intelligence," came another voice from the doorway. He looked over and blinked a few times, because Luna Lovegood was at the door, wearing an outfit that make him wonder if she was using a Sticking Charm to hold that thing up.
"No," she replied in answer to the unasked question, "I just saw this and decided I liked the looks of it. I've always been a fan of the design school that makes you wonder when the outfit is going to fall off, but is designed well enough not to."
"Pity," whispered civilian Hermione.
"I'm agreeable," Luna said, "but that should be a conversation the three of you have." She spun joyously in place. "They've been showing us around somewhat, but most have been waiting for you to awaken before we have a proper party." Harry ignored the fact that her spin caused the dress to flare up such that he was afraid that she was going to show whether or not she believed in underwear.
"Don't worry, Harry," she giggled. "It's designed too well to flash someone. For me to spin fast enough to manage it, I'd do myself an injury." She danced over to the doctor. "Although being thoroughly checked over by this handsome man would certainly not be an imposition."
"You do know that I am actually a holographic life form," the doctor said. Although it was phrased as a statement, it was clearly a question.
"And I'm a witch. You certainly sound intelligent to me. Perhaps nothing may come of my flirting with you, or perhaps we might discover whether or not we happen to be compatible." She shrugged, which everyone in the room watched with some interest, since the maneuver did prove that the outfit didn't have a bra as part of it. "Thank you!" she said in a bright tone that Harry could only define as 'sparkling'.
"I'm nearly married," Harry said, "not dead."
"Besides," Starfleet Hermione said, "I believe that beauty should be admired wherever you find it. If he hadn't looked, I'd have checked his pulse."
Luna bounced over and hugged the Hermione in the jumpsuit, and Harry chuckled. "Doc, I think it safe to say that the universe's three best female arses are currently in this Sickbay."
"From a purely aesthetic point of view, Lieutenant, I find that I must concur," was the soft reply.
The Hermione in uniform turned her face toward him, not letting go of Luna, an eyebrow raised in amusement. "Ass-thetic?" she quipped as if calling him on a pun. He looked as if he had swallowed a lemon, but there was clear amusement in the look.
The Temporal Investigations officer who had introduced himself as Dalby pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing as if what Harry had told him had given him the beginnings of a migraine. "Let me get this straight - the captain of the 29th century ship, the Vivian Smith, told you that you were in the process of changing the timeline; the past, from his point of view."
"Yes," Harry said simply, interrupting the man.
"So, upon hearing this, you decided it was within your purview to continue your actions, knowingly altering the time stream."
"Yes," was Harry's response.
Dalby actually rocked back, as did his partner Macklin. "We usually don't hear someone we're interviewing openly admit to committing a crime," Dalby finally said.
"Actually," Harry said, "if anyone was committing a crime, it was the other Captain Barklin, by trying to return us to the Delta Quadrant. There is a very specific point in time he would have had to re-insert us, and then ensured that I was killed in the process."
"And how do you figure that?" Macklin asked in derision.
"C'mon guys, you're with Temporal Investigations. You're supposed to be able to figure this stuff out. First I come forward to the 23rd century due to an accident with a magic device that mucks with time. I'm given information that leads me to believe that I had returned to my original time. When I join Voyager, I'm shown exactly what that evidence is - pictures showing me next to an as yet unknown shuttle design, taken by a person I knew from the 20th century, on a date after the point I disappeared from. There was also a shot from somewhere of a ship of Voyager's design, facing what we now know to be the Vivian Smith. This is Exhibit One."
He stood, as he always did when working something out verbally. "Exhibit Two involves the fact that there was no Voldemort still pestering people in this time. This backed up Exhibit One, that I would need to return to my birth century, since the prophecy stated that only I could kill him."
"Prophecy?" Macklin sneered.
"Yes, prophecy. It was said best in Hamlet - 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies.' That cosmic annoyance himself admits that I have abilities that are beyond the average human. Read our damned logs - I know that incident is in there."
He shook his head. "Okay, we have me in the future, and evidence that I would return to the 20th century at some point when I was on what I later learned was Voyager. Cue up seven years in the Delta Quadrant, where we'd probably still be if we hadn't run into a xenophobic and belligerent species that seemed to think the best way to stay safe was to wipe everyone else out. And they were significantly more powerful than us. This led to me accidentally discovering that what I had done to my phaser could be done to a ship's engines, because I fired off a ridiculously powerful blast of what I call a spell and Q calls a 'precursor ability'. It caused some issues with Voyager, but it made me realize that I could use what I call Apparation to get us away from them, hopefully. It worked. That made me realize that properly tuned engines could probably get us back to Earth, since I had jumped quite a few light-years. We tested it in the Delta Flyer - which was, by the way, the shuttle in the photograph. When I came back with logs showing that I had been to Starbase One - which have been independently verified, by the way - we tuned the Voyager engines to my signature, and I attempted to jump us home. I discovered an aspect of my method of travel that I wasn't aware of, and ended up jumping the entire ship back to the late 20th century. Exhibit Three."
"Think about that very precisely, gentlemen. I was now in the time period that other evidence showed I needed to be in eventually, so I was actually following an already established time line. And since I had to be there to deal with Voldemort, I needed to stick around longer. It turned out that the way to get rid of him … well, I'm seeing a counselor for that. It turns out that it wasn't really Khan Noonian Singh that started World War III, it was me destroying Voldemort's soul anchor. So we have two historical things happening that required me to be in that time at that time. This means that any effort to deal with our return to the Delta Quadrant must, by necessity, happen after those items. And it wasn't my power that returned Voyager to its proper time - it was a scientific principal first discovered by James T Kirk's Enterprise."
"Kirk," Dalby snarled. That was all he said, but his tone made sure that it was all that he needed to say.
"So," Harry continued, "we have a situation where were were actually going to be artificially forced back into the Delta Quadrant."
"They were from the future. When they told you that there was a need for you to return to the Delta Quadrant, you should have permitted them to move you there. You do not have the right to decide to alter a time stream."
"It was a stream from our future, which they were artificially attempting to force in a given direction. Isn't that exactly the sort of thing you're supposed to be preventing?" He narrowed his eyes at the men. "You're in league with that specific time stream. There is a given outcome you're trying to force, completely contravening your own laws! What's in it for you?"
Dalby suddenly had a phaser trained on Harry. " Unfortunately for you, you won't be able to pass that along. Pity, really. You refused to submit to the lawfully required return to the Delta Quadrant and got violent. At least that way it explains why you didn't surv-"
He stopped speaking because two red beams lanced out from behind him, striking him and Macklin, knocking them unconscious. "Nice wordless casting, you two," Harry said. "You might want to be wearing just a bit more when Starfleet gets here to pick up their men."
"Don't you like me wearing this?" Luna asked, walking out beside the two Hermiones. She was the most dressed of the three girls, wearing a baby-doll nightie (and matching knickers) that was right on the edge between translucent and opaque. It was rather clear that it was the only thing she had on. Both Hermiones had foregone the nightie aspect of the outfit.
"I happen to think you look amazing, and I suspect the three of us will show you just how amazing you look, but there are people watching this recording, so your state of dress is going into the records. All three girls met eyes and shrugged, which seriously distracted Harry for a moment.
"We've got some people on their way, Harry," Admiral Jaaymeson said over the comm. "With luck, we can use this to at least get some oversight on Section 31. A shadow government does no one good."