Author's Responses at the end:

Author's Warning: This chapter is the reason for the M rating as there is some sex.

Chapter Eleven: Auntie Kate

"I can't believe you're making me ask an admiral for permission to have sex," Naomi growled.

Deanna smiled with genuine regret. "Not just an admiral, Naomi, your foster mother. And more importantly, the Vice Admiral who ultimately oversees Starfleet Medical. You are both subjects under study, and it is highly unorthodox to allow you to be with another subject."

On the other side of the young psychiatrist, Beverly smiled. "If nothing else, it'll be an interesting conversation."

"You're only saying that because she can't do anything to you," Naomi accused.

"Of course." Beverly smiled again. "And Naomi, please don't think of it as asking permission. We've effectively ruled out pathology. While we might have to keep Bill in isolation for a bit longer, you and the others are free to go any time. And as a consenting adult, you can do anything you want."

"After Bill is eighteen, of course," Deanna added.

"Well, there is that complication," Beverly said.

They arrived at Starfleet Command and stepped off the dedicated tram. They checked in, Beverly's guest identification was stamped, and an adjunct guided them to a lift that took them to the top of the tower.

They found Deanna's husband in the Vice Admiral's waiting room charming the secretary.

"Will Riker!" Beverly said. "Come give me a hug, you!"

"It's great to see you, Beverly," Will said. "How is Jean-Luc?"

"Happily drinking wine, reading and talking politics with the rest of Parliament in Geneva. Are you here for moral support or officially?"

"Pick one," he said with a broad smile. He leaned down and gave his wife a quick peck. To Naomi, he said, "She's been a bit puckish today. The Cardassian envoy has been pushing for more aid again."

The nearby secretary stood. "Admiral, doctors, the Admiral will see you now."

Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway sat behind a large desk cluttered with ten PADDs and several sheets of printed hardcopy. One wall in her spacious office had an astrometrics display of Sector 001 and the surrounding core worlds of the Federation. Will could see several dots moving across the field at warp speed and knew the map was receiving real-time telemetry from the many listening posts the Federation maintained since the war.

"Will," Katheryn said without looking up, "are you here for moral support or officially?"

"Whichever you need."

Janeway snorted and finally looked up. Her eyes ignored everyone else as she latched onto Naomi. "I admit I'm a little disappointed in you, Doctor Wildman."

Naomi visible wilted.

"Kathryn, don't be a bitch."

The whole room fell absolutely quiet as all eyes turned to Beverly, who continued in a perfectly normal conversational tone and a slightly chastising smile. "The girl has obviously experienced a life-altering event. When you see the nightmares she is experiencing, you might just begin to understand. There is no reason for you to be cruel."

"Hello to you too, Beverly," Janeway said coolly. "Why are you here again?"

"Consulting," Beverly said. "And because Naomi is my friend."

"I could have you thrown out."

"And Jean-Luc could have a nice lunch with Fleet Admiral Strein to talk about that," Beverly came right back. "But I'm not here to fight with you. I'm here because someone I care for needs help."

"Fine," Kathryn said abruptly. She walked to a spacious table in a corner of the office and the others sat as well. "So, what are we going to talk about?"

"I'm not entirely human," Naomi said.

Kathryn pointedly looked at the horns on her head. "I was there when you were born. I suspected there might be a little more than human in you."

Beverly sighed. "You only get sarcastic with people you love," she said. "You can show compassion for absolute strangers who've tried to kill you, but Lord help anyone you actually have feelings for. Explains the two divorces. What Naomi is trying to tell you is that she, four other young women, and a young man all share a 1.15% genetic deviation from human norm. The deviation is identical in all six of them, and sufficient to actually classify them as possibly another species if we can prove it is not some form of mutation."

Kathryn was too much the scientist to completely dismiss THAT news. "Okay, you have my attention."

"We all have a paracortex," Naomi said.

"Well, I knew about yours," Kathryn said, though not as unkindly as before. "We detected it during your birth. The Doctor suspected it was a dormant aspect of your Ktarian heritage, since female Ktarians do have a small paracortex."

"Well, at least it rules out spontaneous development," Beverly said with a sigh. "We were worried that they developed their paracortexes only after interacting with Bill."

"And why would you suspect that?"

They explained Bill's mysterious origins and the strange link he had with all five young women. They then showed the admiral some of the footage of the nightmares and the deep-rez scan results. By the end of the conversation, Janeway's expression was at once fascinated and appalled. "I hope you've maintained that isolation."

"That's why we're here," Deanna said.

"I love him. I want to sleep with him," Naomi blurted out.

"Absolutely not!"

Beverly leaned forward and rested her chin on the back of her hands. With the most serious of demeanors accompanied by her most pleasant smile, she said, "Why not?"

"You just described a hazardous being who is having an adverse affect on five people around him!"

"Why do you think it is adverse?"

"Are you playing devil's advocate with me, Beverly?" Janeway snapped.

"Oh yes," Beverly said with obvious relish. "Moreover, what do you think you can do to stop it? You cannot hold Bill indefinitely. He is a civilian, and for lack of any other identity he is a citizen of Earth. In fact, Starfleet's nominal guardianship over him is tenuous at best. He's old enough that not a court in the world would hesitate to declare him an adult, and after that you would have no choice but to release him. Naomi, if you were both released, would you try to sleep with him?"

"In an instant," Naomi said. She looked at the admiral. "Auntie, I really do love him. I'm not a blushing virgin. I am a licensed trained psychiatrist. I'm not blindly rushing in. And frankly at this point there is no reason to think sex would have an adverse reaction. But if we can couple under a controlled environment, we might just get an idea of what's going on."

"You're suggesting making love to this boy in front of your colleagues?"

Naomi blushed almost to her stomach. "No! Er, well, sort of. I am suggesting that we both wear cortical and blood sensors. No video, but some physiological data might give us an idea of just how this bond we seem to share works."

"Of course, Bill is seventeen as far as we know," Deanna added in a small voice.

"Well, of course he's a minor," Kathryn said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Why wouldn't my twenty-year-old foster daughter want to have sex with a minor that she was treating as her patient?"

"Damn it, Auntie, you're not always right!" Naomi shouted. She slammed her hand down on the conference table and it suddenly shattered into a dozen pieces, knocking everyone down.

They slowly picked themselves up. "I'm sorry," Naomi stammered. "That's happened to some of the other girls before, but not me."

"What was that?" Janeway demanded.

"Uncontrolled psychokinetic outbursts," Deanna explained. "As you saw in the file, this mostly occurs to them at night, but sometimes when they are angry enough it happens during the day."

"I'm going to do this," Naomi said in a slow, controlled voice. "I love you, Auntie Kate, for everything you've done for me. As much as Beverly has been like a grandmother, you've been like my mother, and I do love you. But I love Bill too. So much so it almost hurts. I need to be with him. I wanted to do it in a way that might help us understand what is happening, but I swear to you I will never put on a Starfleet uniform again if that's what it takes to be with him."

Kathryn Janeway straightened her uniform. "Then I don't see any reason to discuss this conversation. Dismissed."

Naomi held her chin up high, snapped off an Academy-sharp salute, turned and marched out of the office. "Yet another victim of that famous Janeway charm," Beverly said, still in that pleasant voice. "Good day, Kathryn. Thank you for your time."

"Get out!"

However, Beverly and the others were already walking out when she spoke. They found Naomi in the hall just outside the waiting room. Her eyes were closed and there was some moisture running in a trail down the side of her nose.

Beverly took the young woman in a hug and said, "That woman needs to get laid even more than you do, my dear!"

"Beverly!" Deanna said, aghast.

Beverly grinned. "I find as I get older, and don't have to work here anymore, that I can adopt a policy of honesty. It's actually quite refreshing. And frankly, she should never have been promoted so quickly. She made some very questionable decisions in the Delta quadrant that a more seasoned captain would never have made, which is why almost immediately after the last Romulan incursion, she was reassigned back at Starfleet Command. So, let's go get you ready, Naomi. I shall be Panderus to your Cressida."

"Who?" Naomi asked.

"Kids," Beverly said with a sad shake of her head.

* * *

Bill paced the room with anger and frustration. He could feel the girls, all of them. They seemed so close, but they kept the doors locked, and he suspected if he tried to break out bad things would happen.

The feeling of his kiss with Diana lingered on his lips even after two days. The feel of her as he held her in his lap. The warmth of her.

He realized he had come to a stop at the window and was staring out over the bay. Evening was falling. He couldn't see any stars, but he did see one impossibly large light in the sky that he now knew was space dock.

The memory of Diana's kiss was replaced by the agony of the scan.

Finally he walked back over to the couch and slumped down with his head in his hands. He knew there were literally thousands of infonet channels he could watch: dramas from every era, even some pre-war stuff. There were wonderful, intricate games he could play. There was even some erotica he could have looked at, since he was over seventeen as far as anyone knew.

He was thinking desperately erotic thoughts, but had no desire to see a man and Klingon woman grinding together singing Klingon opera. The stuff sounded awful, and Klingon women were very hairy.

The door opened and he looked up hopefully. "Naomi," he breathed in relief. He didn't even think about it—he was across the room in a flash and lifted her in a desperate hug. It surprised him that he was taller than she was now. He couldn't remember if that was true just a month ago.

She felt so small and fragile in his arms, so unlike the strong, intelligent woman he knew. Then he realized her arms were around him. She was hugging him back, just as he'd dreamed about almost from the first time he woke up with her nearby.

He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, and he saw something in her eyes that made his heart skip. Without a word, he leaned down until their lips met. The energy of the moment rushed through him in a flash. He lost strength in his knees and went down to the floor. She went with him, wrapping both arms around his neck as their tongues slid against each other.

Finally they parted for air. "Naomi," he breathed. "Is this real?"

"It's real," she said. She slowly pulled out two sets of cortical sensors. "The price of my being here. If we wear these…then I could stay, if you want me too."

He stared at her wide-eyed. "You would stay with me?"

"God help me, I would," she said. "I think I love you, Bill, just like the others."

"And I know I love you," Bill said. "When I woke up here and I saw you smiling at me, I fell in love. You are so beautiful." He reached up and traced the horns that ran in a line down her face. The contact was more sensual than anything her one and only ex-boyfriend ever did.

She kissed him again, this time with desperate urgency. Her hands sought the hem of his shirt and pulled. When his shirt was free, she worked off her own, followed quickly by her bra.

Bill stared in fascination at her breasts. "So beautiful," he breathed. He leaned down, drawn like a bee to nectar, and suckled her mounds even as his hands caressed her back. They ran down her spine, which in conjunction with his tongue running circles around her nipples, resulted in waves of gooseflesh running her body. His hands continued down, though, below the line of her slacks and panties, until his fingers kneaded the flesh of her buttocks.

The hands curved around her hip and slid her slacks down entirely. "I need you," he whispered. "I need to love you."

"I need you to love me," she answered. She let her own hands travel down the strong, defined lines of his chest to his slacks. They came off so easily, until freeing his rock-hard manhood, which bounced up in a ready salute.

She stood and started to motion for him to do so, but he had other ideas. Strong hands grabbed her hips and he pulled her forward, burying his face in her sex. She felt his tongue and couldn't help the moan that escaped her lips. "Oh God, Bill," she said as the first orgasm—her very first actual orgasm—rocked her entire body. It left her stunned and even a little surprised. Her ex-boyfriend had done this as well, but never with such passion. Never with such results.

Finally he stood, pausing at the inner curve of her hip to kiss her zealously, before working his way back to her breasts and finally to her face. She could smell and taste her own sex on his lips as he kissed her. He literally lifted her off her feet and walked her over to the bed.

"You act like you know what you're doing," she managed to breath.

"I do," he said. "My head may not remember, but my heart and my body do." He laid her on the bed and once again let his tongue trace a swath of destruction over her body, until once again she felt him kissing her inner labia and flicking his tongue within her. Once again the heat and pressure came. Every muscle tensed as the orgasm washed over her. "Bill," she begged. "Please make love to me."

He moved back up, rubbing his chest and stomach against her sex as he did so, until she could feel his manhood rubbing against her. Too desperate to wait, she reached down and guided him into her. He slid in slowly, filling her more than she could have imagined. It was never like this with her ex.

Around them, the lights blinked and then faded away. She didn't care. She pulled his head down to her neck as he developed a rhythm. She felt their combined heat sweeping over her. "Yes," she said again and again. "Yes, yes, yes!"

It was over too soon, and yet when she checked her old mechanical watch, they had been making love for more than half an hour. He melted into her, rolling on his side while somehow keeping her skin to skin.

His whole body glistened with sweat, and the smell of his musk was overpowering and stunning. Without opening his eyes, he smiled and said, "I do love you, Naomi Wildman."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she whispered back.

"Only the ones I love." He opened his eyes then, his smile of contentment fading a little before lines of worry. "You know that I love the others, too, right?"

"I do."

"Are you…are you okay with that?"

"I honestly don't know," Naomi admitted. "I've never done anything like this. You're only the second man I've ever made love to."

"Really? But you're so beautiful!"

"There have been suitors, but none ever felt right."

He nodded. "I understand," he said. "I think the same thing was true for the others." He reached up and fondled her breasts with his left hand, gently kneading it. "Naomi, could we make love again?"

"Again?" She looked down, and sure enough, he was ready. The strange thing was that she was ready too. She could feel her nipples hardening and her sex moistening in anticipation. "I should be sore," she said.

"I won't let you be sore," Bill said. "Not as long as you let me love you, you won't feel any pain."

He was on his side and she lay on her back. With gentle moves to guide him, she turned on her side facing away from him, and arched her back until he slipped inside her from behind.

Their second session was slow and gentle. It did not have the same urgency as their first coupling, but was just as satisfying. Moreover, when he finished he stayed within her, and she found she loved the contact. He reached around and she took the questing hand and held it between her breasts, even as with her other hand she pulled the sheet over them.

"You'll be here in the morning?" he whispered into her neck.

"I will," she promised.

* * *

Deanna sat in her office researching historical archives. It was very late, but after their meeting with Janeway both she and Will were worried. Since taking over her office, Janeway had demonstrated a spiteful side to her personality that surprised even those who knew her. Even her long time friend Tuvok avoided her by simply returning to his family on Vulcan.

Part of it, Deanna knew, was how she was treated upon her return. Because of the damage Janeway inflicted on the Borg, she was hailed as a conquering hero. The Fleet Admiral at the time felt political pressure to take advantage of this fame. The Dominion War was still fresh on everyone's mind and here was this Starfleet Captain who managed to get her crew back relatively safe from the Delta Quadrant. It was the stuff of legends.

So a junior Starfleet captain from the Sciences side of the fleet found herself promoted from captain to Vice Admiral, leapfrogging over several senior captains and rear admirals who had more proven records both in and out of the Dominion War. Resentment was natural and expected, since in actuality Jean-Luc Picard was just one of the more logical choices for the position and was senior.

Of course, Jean-Luc was the penultimate statesman. He chose to retire in dignity and assume the role of Ambassador to Vulcan, where he was quintessential to resolving the Romulan Crises with the Vulcan Ruling Council and Ambassador Spock. He came home a hero to the Federation, retired again, married his dearest friend to the fanfare and delight of the whole planet, and was immediately voted in as Prime Minister of Earth, where he still served. While it was not a Federation Position, because of Earth's role in the Federation, he pulled more clout with the Federation President than any single core-world position. Or any mere vice admiral.

It also helped that the President was a former pupil of his who served on the Enterprise.

However, six months into Janeway's position as Vice Admiral, as the excitement died down and people in power reviewed the records of her journey, questions were asked very quietly in the halls of Starfleet Command.

When Fleet Admiral Strein took over, Vice Admiral Janeway was quietly transferred from Strategic Command to Fleet Sciences, a move that ironically enough suited her background better. But it was also a clear signal that the new Fleet Admiral did not approve of the promotion.

Janeway had been on the sciences side ever since. Tragically, she was quite good in the role. Janeway was very organized and had a good grasp on the science being performed under her command. But there was still the bitterness of having to move down, even if only in duties performed. The one truly good thing she did was take a young orphan under her wing and show her love and affection.

Which she threw away today.

Bashir walked into her office. "What are you doing here so late?" Deanna said.

"The kids are having a sleepover," Bashir said. "Ezri had to take an evening shift when one of her lieutenants called in ill."

The two sat in companionable silence for a minute or two, not talking or even working. Suddenly the lights went out, though only for a moment. "Well," Bashir said, "I'd say that's that."

"Did we do the right thing?" Deanna asked.

"I suppose it depends on who you ask," Bashir said with a grin. "Obviously not to Admiral Janeway."

The lights flickered again. "What do we do next?"

"We let them go, I suppose," Bashir said. "We have ruled out pathology. There is no actual proof that Mr. Hogs actually caused the girls to experience what they experienced, and the psychokinetic outbursts at night appear to have diminished. As far as we know, they all share the same genetic variances and are drawn together because of those variances."

"The parents are not going to be happy."

"I suppose not."

"And will Bill return to Hope's Point?"

"Not, I suspect, if Naomi has anything to do with it," Bashir said.

They sat together for another minute before Deanna said, "I feel like we're on the tip of an iceberg, that there is something significant about Bill and these girls that we're missing. Something important."

"Me too. It's quite exciting, actually. So, aside from sitting around trying our best not to think about Naomi having sex with a minor, what are you doing?"

"Doing another database search. All Bill remembers from his youth is an aunt named Petunia, and uncle named Vernon, and a cousin named Dudley. No last name. In a suburb of London that doesn't exist anymore."

Curious, Bashir stood and walked around to look at Deanna's monitor. "Deanna," he asked, "what databases have you and your people been using?"

"General census and demographics," she said. "What else would we use?"

"You do know that those only go back to 2108, right? Before that all census information was recorded by each individual nation, and those records were manually converted into an archaic electronic image format that isn't compatible with the standard dataset format used today. To search those, you have to use an AI to do print recognition scans. And that's assuming the records even survived the war to begin with."

Deanna blinked up at her boss. "You mean…?"

"You've been looking in the wrong place."

sp

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Author's Responses:

First and foremost, I'd like to thank the following people for their reviews and comments:

Darksnider05; fly; Sharnoarasian Empire; gaul1; cruailsama; imgonnadie; Midoriryu; Obsidius; Starboy454; dajohu; Roosterman71; Vyrexuviel; SomeGuyFawkes; GinaStar; Sir Trib The Bold; immortal7; demon blade; CatWriter; Isis The Sphinx; Pointer3109; Vukk; SteveD3; AISCHILOS; JEKrug01; Maximillian1; Debbster21; 1020 Gates; Bobboky; Crys; idlejim; Wonderbee31; arturus; rio45; and Manus Dei.

Thank you all for your reviews and comments. I greatly appreciate it!

A little note about this chapter before proceeding:

Frankly I'm not sure the sex scene worked or even had a place in this chapter, or the story as a whole. I'm ambivalent about it, and my beta reader was even more so. I decided to go ahead and include it solely because of those of you who followed over from HP and the FF and are used to it. I want to say this is the most explicit scene in the story. There are a few other scenes, but this is the most intense because it is the first. We won't be seeing anything like what we saw with FF. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there. Feel free to comment or tell me what you think--whether it had a place in the fic or not.

Now, for Questions and Answers:

Q: I gotta say from a point of view this is ridiculous because they could easily separate them and stop all this.

A: Well, in truth almost all fanfiction is kind of ridiculous. For that matter, having witches and wizards is kind of ridiculous. We read it because it is an enjoyable escape, not because it makes sense. At least, that's my personal approach. That said, as seen in this chapter they are keeping them separated and it hasn't been helping. The damage is done.

Q: I have a petter answer to why a fith girl was pulled in. It is the same reasons that there were 5 girls in the first story.

A: That is exactly right. The Potter family line is exerting its own pull, just like the lines of the Four Founders.

Q: So the question becomes, referring to your Q&A at the end of this chapter: You say the girls are not the same. Does that mean an entirely new person picked due to the nature of the magic that brought the original group together in the first place, or same soul that is now an evolved personality due to new life experiences? Or could it possibly be a mix of the two?

A: That is actually directly answered in the chapters following the recovery of his memories, so I'll have to defer an answer for now. Sorry. Regarding the scan--since I can't remember if I address it directly, essentially the scan is piercing their magical core, which is what causes the pain. That too is explained soon. Good questions all.

Q: I've given up guessing who Grams was, was she a descendant of Harry's or one of his wives?

A: That is another question that is directly answered in the story. It is an OC, though, so don't worry too much about it:)

Q: For example the plica semilunaris (NOT "plica semlunaris"), is actually useful and needed. It helps remove nastiness from our eyes.

A: Sadly we are only mere literary types with a very poor background in biology. It was my admittedly poor attempt to illustrate that Harry does not have any vestigial organs due to the fact that, at least in this fic, Harry is biologically a slightly more advanced form of human. I regret my examples 1) didn't work for you; and 2) the source I literally copied and pasted the term from had it misspelled, since I wouldn't have known it on my own for the world.

Q: Did they not even NOTICE that Bill Hogs was somehow able to strongly effect the electronics when he focused extra effort/energy into helping his lady friend at the end there?

A: Oh yes, they noticed. Thing is, Starfleet had seen biological energy fields, advanced species and even God-like beings before. So their absence of shock does not mean they don't notice it. It just means they're not shocked by it. Surprised, maybe. But not shocked.

Q: Also the comparison between Kes and Harry is almost scary.

A: Glad you caught that. Yes, the comparison was intentional. At the end of Kes's life when she was at full power, she was scary. Still a crappily written character, but powerful. And I wanted to illustrate that Starfleet is aware that Harry could potentially have similar power. Going back to the previous question--they are aware.

Q: Are the girls reincarnations of his original mates, or just something new that came from being reborn? Also is Harry going to have the opposite effect on men?

A: The girls are original characters, not reincarnations. Harry does not repulse men, at least not for magical reasons. The other questions are answered as the story progresses.

Q:How public will Harry's past get?

A: Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Q: I have read this story since day one, I will read it until it is over. You are one of the rare authors who appears to me to take this seriously, and enjoy what you do. That dedication makes reading your work all the better. Thank you for placing this online and sharing your efforts.

A: Not a question, but a genuinely kind review deserves an equally heartfelt thank you!

Q: Crys

A: Shhhhhh!

Q: I think this is excellent, are you going to explore the 'grams' link any further?

A: Remember Susan was planning on telling him everything about what happened right before she had her first nightmare? It will definitely come up. Also, I'm proceeding under the assumption that like newborns, Harry's reborn body's mind was still forming synaptic connections. In essence, he has no memory of those first few hours. Hence he doesn't remember the rabbit.

Q: I thought that there would have been more empathy shown by the starfleet orphanage - the lady in charge just seemed a little out of character for a professional teacher/social worker. Will starfleet intelligance or section 31 be making an appearance? (They would be jumping all a potential Q)

A: I didn't have much time for the orphanage, but the scene with her and Naomi was intended to show that she was genuinely concerned for Bill. I guess I just didn't give her enough time. As for your second question: Bwahahahahahahaha!

Wow, lots of questions this time. I really appreciate the fact that you folks are thinking about this. It means a lot. And back to this chapter, again I wouldn't mind feed back on whether the sex scene fit or not. I was fully intending this to be a PG story when I first started writing, then I ran into that scene and I'm honestly just not sure. So let me know what you think.

Thank you all for reading!