Author's Responses at the end:
Chapter Fifteen: On a Pale Broomstick
A non-descript man sat in a chair in the side-walk café sipping a latté with a touch of Klingon blood wine. It was an interesting and unexpectedly good combination he had discovered on Alpha Centauri years ago.
Around him Paris buzzed with early morning activity. The sky was already alive with shuttles, jitneys and aircars. The Eiffel Tower stood resplendent within view. Local city code ensured no building within five kilometers could be taller than the celebrated structure. And so in effect an historical district ran around the tower with a radius of five kilometers. However, on the edge of that line the behemoths started. Tower after glistening tower; pyramids, cylinders, cones and polygons of various descriptions rose up in a near solid wall around the tranquility and peace of old Paris except for a kilometer-wide corridor purposely left open along the line of the Palais de Chaillot and Avenue d'Eylau.
There were still portions of the city that retained the original charm. Those portions were the sections not obliterated in the Eugenics Wars or World War III. Though hundreds of years later, the portions of the city that had been rebuilt simply lost their historical value, and so those portions of the city were allowed to evolve and advance as the world around it did.
However, the café the gentleman sat at was six hundred years old with a perfect view down the corridor. The bricks were painstakingly cared for, replaced individually as they crumbled under the ravages of time. It was possible not one original brick remained, and yet the structure was unchanged from its original appearance in the seventeenth century.
The man wore ordinary, non-descript clothes. Gray slacks, smooth black shoes and a maroon-colored, short-sleeved shirt in acknowledgement of the coming heat of the summer day. He had no facial hair, did not wear a hat, nor did he sport any body decoration of any kind. A stranger walking by him would not be able to pick him out from a lineup.
A guest walked up to his bistro table and sat without invitation. Like the first gentleman, this other man was unremarkable. They appeared to be opposites sides of the same coin—the first man Caucasian, the second man African—but otherwise they could have been brothers.
"We had a development," the newcomer said.
"Oh?"
"Someone accessed the Harry Potter file. Our senior agent investigated and was forced to take action. However, there was a complication."
"Tell me."
"The person doing the investigating was Deanna Troi Riker, a department head at Starfleet Medical, wife of Rear Admiral William T. Riker, and good friend with Prime Minister Picard."
"Did Masters vaporize the body?"
"He chose not to kill her immediately. She is being held in a sensory pod at the moment. Should we kill her?"
"Absolutely," the first said. "Vaporize her."
There was a commotion and the two men both turned to look. Across the street one of the older buildings had a sheet of monofilm unrolled along one wall, on which they could see moving images. The image both could see showed a figure soaring through the air on what looked like a…broom? Behind him, a trail of dark clouds formed in his wake, as if he were ripping the skies themselves apart.
"In the Malleus' name," the dark-skinned man whispered.
The first man also stared dumbfounded a moment before he closed his jaw. "Tell Masters to keep her alive for now. We may need her as a bargaining chip. And I want a fighter on that broom now. Shoot that witch down. We've been waiting four hundred years for this day. We will not fail in this last, most important task."
"Yes, sir," the dark-skinned man said. He turned and ran back into the mingling crowds that had gathered to watch the odd sight.
The first man drained the last of his latté. The bottom of the cup was still red from the blood wine, which had settled along the bottom. He held the cup up until he got the last drop of the fermented blood and placed the cup and saucer back on the table.
* * *
Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway sat at home sipping a cup of coffee. A book lay open on her lap and a small simulacrum fireplace threw warm orange light over her spacious but Spartan apartment. The wall just to the right of the fireplace showed an old pre-war romance movie. Kathryn never would have heard of it, except the years she spent with Tom Paris under her command taught her far more about Twenty Century twentieth-century? entertainment than she ever truly wanted to know.
It starred an old actor named Spenser Tracy, and a woman named Elizabeth Taylor as the daughter he was giving away in marriage. By her calculations the movie was easily over four hundred years old. And yet…
She realized toward the end of the movie that she was crying.
A news alert appeared in the lower right hand corner. "Computer, pause program, display news alert."
The movie stopped and shrank down to one corner while the news alert appeared. It showed what looked like a young man flying on some type of hoverbike, albeit it a smaller one than she had ever seen. "Audio on," she said.
"We have just learned that the young man was being accompanied to the museum by First Lady Beverly Picard, along with four young women and one of the young women's mothers. Witnesses say that after witnessing the message Colonel Green purportedly left to the young man, they were physically sick….?'
Janeway blinked stupidly. She reached for her com badge, which was on an end table not far from her. She slapped it. "Admiral Riker, this is Admiral Janeway, are you there?"
Riker's voice was hoarse and harried. "Admiral, I don't wish to be rude, but this is not a good time. Can I call you back?"
"Will, what's wrong?"
"Deanna has been abducted. Someone using Borg technology beamed her right out of Starfleet Medical."
"Oh no! Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Thank you, no. I'm already working the Fleet Command and civilian authorities. I'll let you know when I find anything."
"Will, could her disappearance be related to what's on the info net now?"
There was silence for several seconds. "It's possible," he finally admitted. "I've got to go now."
"Okay. Good luck, Will, and please ask if there is anything I can do."
"Riker out."
The connection ended abruptly. Kathryn found herself staring at the emotional face of an actor from another century and sympathized. Silently, in one corner of her mind that not even she dared visit often, she wondered when it was that everything went wrong for her. She then wondered how it could be wrong when she was one of the highest ranking officials in Starfleet Command. When she began her career she could never have even imagined making Vice Admiral.
And yet here she was, staring at an ancient movie with tears on her cheeks, wondering what went wrong.
The answer, of course, was so simple it stunned her.
It was wrong because she was alone.
* * *
Admiral Julian Bashir sat up in his bed, a book forgotten on his lap just like Kathryn's. Beside him, his wife of fourteen years leaned forward so that her long dark locks fell forward, allowing him to see the Trill marks that ran down her neck. On the wall opposite them they could see Bill Hogs, aka Harry Potter, soaring through a darkening sky on what looked like a broomstick with handles.
"Isn't that Deanna's patient?" Ezri asked.
"I wonder if her disappearance is connected," Bashir speculated aloud.
The wall chimed. "Julian," a pleasant woman's voice said, "you have a secure call coming in. Unfortunately I am unable to determine the origin of the call. The gentleman identifies himself as Sloan, and says it is urgent that he speak to you."
"Sloan?" Ezri whispered. "As in Section 31? I thought he died?"
"Computer, patch the call through to the bed receiver, please," Julian said. He lifted the small receiver and slipped over his ear. "This is Admiral Julian Bashir. Who is this?"
"My name is David Sloan," a rather ordinary-sounding voice said. "I believe you knew my father. I trust you are familiar with what has been happening on the info net?"
"I am. Are they related? Is this Section 31's doing?"
"That is why I am calling, Doctor. We need to meet. Your office. One hour. Come alone."
* * *
"Weather Service, this is Iberia local. What in the hell are you guys doing? We're receiving hurricane-force winds and ten feet swells."
* * *
"Weather Service, I need to report a water spout. No, two…Mon Dieu! Five water spouts off the coast, ten miles south of Brest. What are you people doing?"
* * *
"This is the Ocean Liner Atlantis III requesting immediate assistance. We are receiving hurricane-force winds. Please reinitiate weather control immediately! The ship is in danger! Repeat, reinitiate weather control immediately! What are you fools doing up there?"
* * *
"Starfleet Command, this is Earth Weather Control declaring a Level II emergency. A local disturbance in the Atlantic Ocean has completely disrupted the network. We have lost control and need immediate assistance."
"Weather Control, this is Commander Paris of Starfleet Command. We are monitoring the situation. We stand ready to offer evacuation assistance if necessary. We are aware of the source of the disruption and are doing our best to bring it under control."
"If you know the source of the disruption then put a photon torp up its bloody ass, man! It's overloading our satellites."
"Hang in there, we're doing our best," Paris said.
Up in Space Dock, Commander Tom Paris relayed a series of commands to the sciences division for them to begin researching how to augment the shattered weather control system. He could see the line of clouds on the planet below from his office. It looked like an old clothes zipper opening up the ocean. Though it was invisible to the naked eye, he used the station sensors to zoom in with a precision and detail unheard of in any other time, until he could clearly see a young man riding a broomstick, ripping the skies open behind him.
There were two Earth constables flying behind the figure as escort, but without orders they weren't going to try and take any action. He backed the image up a little and saw a new craft coming toward the broom. It was a sleek and dangerous looking atmospheric craft, looking much like a Romulan fighter, except it was completely black.
"Starfleet Command to unmarked fighter at Coordinates 47.121978 by -7.778320, identify immediately."
The fighter did not respond. Instead, it made a bee-line toward the figure on the broom. It opened fire not with phasers, but disrupter cannons. The two civilian craft broke off, clearly outclassed.
The figure on the broom spun easily away from the green bursts of energy, but the fighter got right back on his tail.
"Commander Paris to Captain Straal."
"I'm reading you, Commander."
"Ma'am, the broomrider is under attack by an unmarked black fighter craft. Requesting permission to dispatch fighters."
"Denied, Commander. This is way outside our jurisdiction. I've contacted Earth Control. If they make a request for assistance, and only if they make such a request, will we intervene."
Tom ground his jaw. "Yes, Captain." He knew it was the right answer—tensions between Starfleet and Earth were uncomfortable at best.
* * *
Over the ocean below, this new sleek, dangerous-looking craft slid easily by the two civilian constables directly behind Harry. It fired without hesitation.
Harry ducked the first flash of disrupter fire. He barrel-rolled and shot down toward the ocean without losing any speed. He was going so fast that, at least within the atmosphere, the sleek fighter was hard-pressed to follow him. Still, that's exactly what it did.
Harry pulled up literally inches from the surface of the ocean. The fighter actually skimmed the surface trying to keep up. Still, it continued firing at the broom and rider. One shot actually struck dead on, only to be stopped when Harry turned and pointed his wand at it.
As quickly as he dove, Harry shot back up straight into the air. The fighter overshot at first, rolled and then followed after. The other civilian shuttles had actually fallen back as soon as the sleeker one opened fire, awaiting orders. Harry ascended at an astounding rate, but the fighter followed on the bristles of his broom.
Eventually Harry leveled out, and then a moment later he pulled his broom up to an abrupt and seemingly impossible stop. The stop was faster than the combat fighter could emulate. Paris and several thousand other curious spectators watching from Space Dock, and all those others watching via the info nets that were patched into the two civilian constable vehicles watched as Harry flicked his wand. Inexplicably, a sperm whale appeared just meters directly above the fighter and crashed into it. The forty-one thousand kilograms of the extinct animal hit the attacking shuttle with more than sufficient force to send both tumbling toward the ocean floor.
Paris suddenly chuckled. "Hello, ground. I wonder if you will be my friend." Then he shook his head. "What in the hell are you?"
* * *
Overhead, thunder cracked as clouds billowed around him in bouts of wild magic. Harry's hands were cold. His face was cold. He could feel ice on his cheeks. He didn't care. Nothing mattered any more, not even the fighter he sent tumbling to its destruction below.
I love you, Harry. He jerked in flight as the report of the gunshot sounded in his head.
All of them were dead. Not just dead. Murdered. You killed your own children, Harry Potter.
It wasn't Colonel Green that killed the last wizards in England. It wasn't Voldemort or even Khan Noonien Singh. It was Harry Bloody Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The father who failed.
Your own children.
He stopped. The air around him roared as once again the two civilian constable shuttles soared past him. A third craft had joined in the moments after the attacker died—it had a symbol of an eye on it and bristled with cameras and sensors—probably a journalist. Harry didn't care, though. He rested on his broom, looking down at the distant, sparkling ocean below.
I would die for you. Harry felt the tears flowing. He would have died for all of them. Instead, they all died for him. And then he killed everyone else. He was utterly, completely alone.
The shuttles were circling back. Harry did not even see them anymore. He laid his head against his broom stick, and with a rage he had had no hope of ever controlling, poured his magic into it. The broom shot straight up with such power it left a trail of magical sparks. The charms struggled to fight the pull of gravity resulting from his sudden acceleration. He ignored the pressure and continued straight up, past the clouds.
He did not look up. He held onto the broom as if it were one of his wives. The air around him grew increasingly cold, but he did not care. He continued flying—the magic of his broom was not dependent upon air. He knew theoretically brooms could fly in space if the wizard survived somehow.
Breathing was becoming difficult, but he didn't care. The acceleration of the broom slowed not because of air pressure, but because of his magic faltering. It was becoming so hard to breathe. Just what he wanted.
Suddenly, as Harry stared into the deep, dark blue of a sky so close to the true freedom of space and gasped for air that was simply not there, he experienced a flash of memory. It was a simple memory of Hermione, perhaps thirty, sitting at the table in one of his old quidditch jerseys nursing a cup of coffee. That was it. But with it came a burst of overwhelming affection.
Other memories of his wives emerged in his mind.
He recalled watching Daphne lift a flap on her shirt to expose a swollen, creamy-white breast. He felt a welling of emotion that was not even remotely sexual. Rather, it was a feeling of such love it hurt. For Daphne next lifted their son from his bouncy chair—Harry's first born child—onto her lap and held her breast until the child could latch on. Little Antony James made fists against his mother's pure, soft skin as he drank.
The memory was like the torpedo that destroyed the wall that had held these last few memories back, and suddenly Harry found himself drowning in the emotions of his past life. He saw Luna walking into the Great Hall during her seventh year, Celena Alba Ravenclaw on her hip. She sat down in front of a group of second and third year students, happily whipped open her nursing shirt, and started feeding their daughter to the shock and consternation of the staff, and the adoration and worship of every boy at the table.
"Why, whatever did you think these were for in the first place?" she'd say to anyone silly enough to question why she was so happily breast feeding her child in front of everyone else.
He remembered the way Susan liked to wake him up by rubbing against him until she could feel the rise she got out of him, then she would laugh as she reached down and guided his manhood into her body for their first coupling of the day. Or years later the way all his children regardless of who their mothers were, would flock to Susan for story time.
He saw Ginny laying exhausted and sweaty in her bed, crying tears of joy as she held up Sirius Charlus Potter. She'd seen the name Charlus on the Black family tree, and though she knew Harry was not a descendent of the man, loved the name. And Harry loved her too much to argue about a mere name.
Suddenly he stood at the edge of a grave while he and Luna buried Celena, murdered not by a dark wizard, but by a genetically altered augment sent by Khan Noonian Singh. She was so very small when he found her. The poisoned dart did not leave a mark on her, and in a way that made it so much worse. She looked perfect—blonde locks falling around her tiny, angelic face. Her lips were slightly parted as if she wanted to tell him one of her mischievous secrets, which usually just involved her blowing in his ear and giggling. She looked as if she were about to open her eyes, but he could feel through their magic that she never would.
Luna stood beside him, her face a wretched mask of loss and grief, while the other wives tried so hard to console their sister spouse. But all Harry could see was this perfect little angel, with a lifetime of love and laughter she would never get to share with him.
Khan thought the death of Harry's first daughter would keep the most powerful wizard out of the Eugenics War. He would learn the folly of his arrogance. Augmented intelligence was one thing. The power of the Four Founders was another. With his wives and the international Order of the Phoenix at his side, Harry decimated Khan's muggle armies and left the tyrant's empire open to attack from the other Augment dictators. The Great Khan left the Earth one year later with his most loyal followers.
There was no peace, though. The wars that followed stunned everyone with their viciousness. It went on and on. Cities burned, people screamed out in rage for their pain, but no one listened. Then something happened in the last years of the war. The nuclear weapon strikes which had finally died down started again, but with specific targets.
The Ministry of Magic was hit by a bunker-busting tactical nuke. Diagon Alley followed. Every magical ministry around the world died. Only Hogwarts remained. Harry, the heir to the Four Founders and Lord Hogwarts, sent word out to the whole magical world to come to the castle. With the wards and castle's magic, he could resist even the most powerful explosives.
Hermione and his wives refused to come, though. "There are things we have to do before we can join you!" she told him. "Wait for us, though. We'll join you."
He waited and waited for them, but they never came. His children and grandchildren, those who were not still with his wives, asked about when their mums were going to come, but they never did.
Then came an owl; one of the last postage owls alive. She had a vial of memories attached to her leg. Harry placed them in the pensieve and watched as the orchestrator of genocide against wizard-kind murdered his wives, one by one.
The rage burned through his tattered occlumency shields. The pain and agony ripped away any hope for control. Without even realizing it, Harry screamed, both with his voice, and his magic. Wild, accidental magic surged through the school and completely overwhelmed the wards. He caught a brief glimpse of Hogwarts herself crying out to him in alarm before he completely lost control and everything ended.
Only to start again with four unfamiliar witches bringing him back to live it all over again. You are utterly alone.
The familiar, terrible rage welled up within him and this time Harry did not fight. "I'm coming, my loves," he whispered. No sound came out—there was not enough air.
Suddenly his magic exploded around him, and Harry let go of the broom.
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Author's Responses
Wow. More than wow. I had more reviews for chapter fourteen than for any other chapter of an active story I've ever written. Enough in fact that it's passed my normal threshold of listing reviewers. So, instead of listing all the people who reviewed, I will instead just say a humbled and enthusiastic THANK YOU. I honestly did not expect such a warm welcome for this story, but I'm very glad to have been wrong.
Questions and Answers:
Q: How did Green kill all the wizards, its an obvious plot hole, etc etc.
A: While only one or two folks were not nice, several did have questions. This chapter gave a general overview of what happened. To the one nasty reviewer, I will try to remind him that a plot hole is an unresolved or unexplained plot element left at the end of the story. An unresolved or unexplained plot element in the middle of the story means that the story IS NOT DONE YET. Good grief. To those who asked nicely, I promise that we still had several chapters left and I will explain the history in more detail further on. Promise.
Q: But I have to wonder- how does Section 31 know about the magical world, and why would they want to keep it dead?
A: Hey, Natch, nice to have you reading. We got a hint of something in this chapter. More will follow.
Q: Sry if you already answered this but how come you didn't want the five current fiances to be the wives reincarnated?
A: That's like asking why I didn't make Harry's hair blue. It's a choice I made as the author of this story. That's the only answer I can give you.
Q: If Harry killed off their children and the last of magic kind in his grief, how can Harry's greatgrand-daughter ask anybody for anything? Are the girls gonna tell him that so Harry can remember what he really did to the last of his kind? Because I seriously doubt even maddend by grief Harry could ever hurt an innocent, especially his own children, they would be the last connectiton to his beloved wives. My thought is he made their magic sleep and then spread them around the world. Am I close?
A: Some of that was revealed in this chapter. Not all of his descendents were at Hogwarts. Harry doesn't think about that because, frankly, he's an emotional wreck. But as you saw in this last chapter, Harry lost all control. He did not intentionally hurt anyone. He simply lost all control for the first time since he came into his full power, and the results were horrific.
Q: Still capturing 5 wizards alive, without harry knowing until sent the memories to him all seems a bit 'god mode on' to me.
A: I will give more details as we go. But keep in mind I am adhering as close as possible to known Star Trek canon here, in which a significant portion of the worlds population died after 30 years of intermittent nuclear warfare. Whatever you might think about HP, you seem to be missing the ST history that is the basis for this fic. Doesn't mean you'll believe it--that I can't control. But that's the foundation I'm using for the fic. Again, more detail of what happened will follow. I estimate there are at least 8 more chapters to go.
Q: According to my high school biology two creatures are of the same speices if they are able to produce offspring who are also able to produce offspring indefinately through the generations, so wizards and witches can not qualify as a sperate speices, perhaps a sub-speices
A: I barely passed high school biology and so will gladly bow to your superior knowledge in this regard. I was actually referring to the genetic difference. The fact that they can reproduce with humans could be as much do to magic as compatible genetics. But in biology I'm the first to admit I know next to nothing.
Q: I do admit to being curious as to when green got a hold of Harry's Firebolt considering it would have been with him when he leveled Hogwarts.
A: Just FYI--that was not Harry's specific Firebolt. The events at the end of the story occurred after 30 years of war. Harry was in his fifties when he died the first time. That broom was a result of decades of additional craftsmanship.
Q: You know, after reading this chapter, I went to and watched "The Savage Curtain", an episode of classic Trek that featured an alien who was playing Colonel Green as part of a study of the nature of good and evil.
A: That episode was the basis for my physical description of Green.
Thank you all for reading and for all those wonderful reviews. I can't tell you all how happy I am that you are enjoying this story.