Z.R. Stein

Lily Potter and the Escape to Remnant – A RWBY/Harry Potter Crossover crossover AU fic.

I do not own the characters of RWBY or Harry Potter in any way, shape, or form.

I have decided to publish a little side fic to this, which will be called The Wizarding World Of Remnant, and it will contain a fuckton of pure worldbuilding. It will have a bestiary, a guide to the continents, little blurbs on the histories of the Lost Kingdoms, a spellbook entry on Semblances, yadda yadda yadda; all the background that I want to create to flesh out the world more but that I won't be able to work into the story if I want to keep it enjoyable. Think of it like this fic's version of the World of Remnant videos. And all of it is meant to be read in Ozpin's/Salem's voice. Obviously.

That's not to say that I won't be worldbuilding within the fic anymore, I'll still do that, but now that I've laid most of the basic groundwork for the world, I want to concentrate more on the characters now. Expect the Wizarding World of Remnant to be posted in a few days.

Anyways, enjoy the story.

Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb! —Kamina

. . .

Sirius Black snorted, trying to clear away a small spider that was clinging to his nose. He dared not swipe it away with his hand, as Qrow had given him explicit instructions to stay as still as possible, to avoid detection by any Grimm that were around.

The two of them were in the midst of their first joint mission together, and Sirius was determined to give his best effort. They had accepted a job notice that had been posted by a medium sized, walled village that was a day's travel by Bullhead from Vale. The village had been suffering sporadic Grimm attacks for days from some unusually aggressive Beowolves, and professional help was needed if the settlement was going to continue existing.

Luckily, Sirius and Qrow had accepted the job, and Qrow was currently patrolling the woods around the perimeter of the village, watching for any approaching Grimm. Sirius, still quite inexperienced, had been assigned guard duty; Qrow had ordered him to sit in a tree near the town's gate, keep his eyes open, and move as little as possible. Qrow wanted to know why the Grimm were attacking the town, as the behavior of the Beowolves that the townspeople described was rather disturbing; instead of their usual pack mentality, the Beowolves that had attacked the village had seemed rabid, according to the witnesses. They had fought each other as much as they attacked the townspeople, which was one of the reasons the town had survived for so long.

"See anything?"

Sirius, to his credit, barely reacted to Qrow settling onto a branch beside him. The past weeks had involved some rather...unique training at Qrow's hands, and his spatial awareness and reaction time had heightened dramatically as a result.

"Nothing yet. You?"

"Nope. Not a peep. But if what the old man in the village said is true, they'll be here anytime. Keep your guard up, your wand ready, and your eyes peeled. I'd hate to have to send you home in a bag."

And with that, Qrow was gone, the rustling of leaves the only sign of his departure. Sirius rolled his eyes and continued his lonely stakeout.

. . .

"Is this a common occurrence in a wizarding laboratory, Lily?"

Lily Potter glared at her rabbit eared assistant before sighing, her hand reaching up to wipe a layer of soot off of her face.

"Don't get snarky with me...and no, it isn't. I must have overestimated the boiling point of the Fire Dust fragments..."

Clover smirked as she looked around the room. The cauldron that Lily was glaring at was little more than a pile of cooling slag, steam and smoke still rising from the remains, evidence of the fire extinguisher Clover had just used on the Dust fire.

"I'm not a magical expert or anything, but what were you trying to do anyways?"

Lily shrugged as she began picking papers and bottles up off the floor.

"Well, I think I have the base wavelength of Fire Dust nailed down pretty well. Now that I know how it's composed, I was hoping that I could start attempting to alter it."

"You mean like creating Steam Dust?"

Lily shook her head.

"No, that's a simple combination. Steam Dust, Lava Dust, Glass Dust, all of those are simply combinations of one or more forms of other, simpler Dust. I want to alter Dust on a basic level. Think of it like an atomic reaction versus and chemical reaction."

Clover nodded slowly.

"Ok, fair enough, but how exactly is this...applicable. You have to present something to Ozpin, right? What is this going to be used for?"

Lily grinned.

"What can't it be used for? By altering Dust, I am essentially altering magic itself. Right now, Dust is almost purely elemental in nature. Air, Fire, Earth, that sort of thing. But if I change its nature on a fundamental level, I could make Dust that can actually mimic the spells that I normally use. Imagine being able to utilize Dust that exclusively affects Grimm."

Clover's eyes widened comically.

"You could do that!"

Lily smiled at her assistant, a wicked glint in her eye.

"I don't see why not. There are indeed spells that are coded to specific species; Arania Exumai, for example, is a charm that only affects spiders. Of course, there isn't a spell that repels or damages Grimm exclusively, at least that I am aware of, but that isn't much of an issue either; I do have a mastery in Arithmancy, so devising the spell itself shouldn't be too difficult. If I can study a live Grimm specimen, I should be able to create a charm to counter Grimm, then I can alter Dust to perform that charm, and then, well, Bob's your Uncle." Lily clapped her hands together "Grimm repellant."

Clover nodded mechanically and said "If that works, you'd probably be hailed as the greatest scientist Remnant has ever seen."

Lily cackled and responded "Welp. We're not going to get to that point by standing around flapping our lips. Come, my adorable assistant. Let's get cracking."

. . .

A howl pierced the night, and Sirius bolted upright. His back creaked in protest, signalling its displeasure at being moved after hours of sitting perfectly still, but Sirius ignored it. The pack was here.

Sirius swung down from the tree and drew his sword, his wand slipping out of his wrist holster into his palm. He saw a shadow flit overhead, then Qrow landed beside him, his gunblade resting across his shoulders.

"They're coming in from the east. The village is the priority here, so don't let any of them get past you. Try to take notes on their behavior while we fight them, though, rabid Grimm are something I've never heard of."

Sirius grunted his assent, the two men tense as they waited, looking out on the dark forest. The trees were silent, watching waiting. Sirius strained his ears, trying to pick up any sound beside his beating heart and calm breath. After a moment, he heard a faint pounding noise, along with a guttural chuff.

A Beowolf burst through the leaves in a flurry of motion, and Qrow pirouetted, his blade arcing up to decapitate the Grimm before it could reach them; the head of the Grimm sailed by, already decomposing. Another rustle came to their right, and Sirius cast a hasty Protego to block the attack before retaliating.

"Bombarda!"

The blast ripped the offending Beowolf apart, but Sirius had no time to rest; another Beowolf leaped over his shield entirely and was heading towards him. With no time to cast, Sirius rolled to the side, Solar Eclipse shearing off one of the Beowolf's arms while it passed. The wounded Beowolf landed with a huff and began snarling, ramming its head into the trees before it turned towards Sirius. Idly, the wizard noted that the Grimm's eyes were a much darker red than normal, and froth was present around its mouth.

"Come on, you rabid mutt!"

The wolf charged, and Sirius thrust out with his wand; fire burst from the tip, consuming the Grimm before it could utter another sound. When the flames ceased, the only evidence of the Grimm ever existing was a pile of ash.

With that Grimm dealt with, Sirius momentarily turned his attention to his teacher. Qrow was deadly in action, a spiralling tornado of destruction. To an ordinary person, his style would look sloppy and wild, but Sirius knew a thing or two about swordfighting. There was an iron discipline at work in Qrow's style, paired with an unconventional attack pattern that integrated both the mecha shifting forms of the weapon and a plethora of kicks and even headbutts. It was beautiful to watch.

A snarl behind Sirius caught his undivided attention, and Sirius coughed as a massive paw slammed him into a tree. Sirius mentally berated himself for being distracted. His Aura may have protected him from harm, but being smacked by a Grimm had still hurt like a bitch, and Sirius groaned as he heaved himself up off the ground.

The monster that had attacked him had seemingly lost interest, though, and was currently gnawing on the shoulder of a fellow Beowolf. Sirius took time to observe the creatures, eyes narrowed. He shouted out to his partner "Hey Branwen, you still alive?"

"Hoping to get rid of me, Black? It'd take a lot more than this to kill me."

"Whatever, jackass. You see this?"

Qrow pulled his blade out of the skull of a fallen Beowolf with a wet schloop and glanced over.

"Yeah. Never seem sumthin' like that before. Weird."

A low roar warned Sirius of a new threat. He Apparated away from the Beowolf that was attacking him, reappearing in the branches above it with a sharp crack. Bending his legs, Sirius dropped down, landing on its neck while his saber slipped into the beast's back, the Dust-infused metal sliding through vertebrae like a knife through hot butter.

The Beowolf slumped over and began disintegrating, and Sirius took the time to examine his surroundings with all of his senses. There weren't any other Beowolves in sight apart from the two that were currently fighting. After several seconds of scrabbling with each other, one of the Beowolves succeeded in gaining traction, and it smashed the other Beowolf into the ground before breaking its skull open. The Beowolf then turned towards the humans, growling, before a shot from Qrow shut it up for good.

The monster collapsed, its body flaking away in death, and the forest was once again silent. Qrow walked up beside him, grinning. A spray of black ichor stained his collar and face, but the elder Huntsman didn't seem to care.

"Well, that was fun."

"Psychopath."

"Che. Hunting Grimm is what I do best, Black. But enough about me. Come on. This pack was probably just the first. From what the village people said, there's at least two more out there."

Sirius sighed, shaking his head as Qrow leaped away, his ridiculously large gunblade trailing behind him in scythe mode. The wizard tilted his head back and looked up at the shattered moon.

"Damn it all. This is going to be a long night."

. . .

Harry glared down at the offending block in his hand, as if trying to cause it to spontaneously combust into flame. He and Velvet were building a castle, though the one year old had mostly been relegated to handing the older Faunus blocks, as Velvet—being four—was much better able to place the pieces. The castle had unfortunately gotten too tall for even Velvet's relatively tall frame to reach to, and both of them were stumped.

"Maybe we could get a chair?" Velvet asked, small brown eyes glancing around the room.

"Cha?"

"Yeah, a chair."

Velvet hopped away and began pulling at one of the chairs in the kitchen, rabbit ears atop her head flopping around.

"Oh, it's heavy! I don't think I can move it!"

"Cha!"

Velvet let out a gasp of surprise as the chair suddenly became much easier to move. She let go, yet the chair continued to float. Velvet stared at it with wide eyes, before turning to Harry.

"You're doing this?"

"Dis?"

"Yeah, with the chair?"

"Cha!"

The chair began to float over to where the two children had been building the castle. Velvet walked beside it, a smile beginning to grow on her face as the chair touched down on the ground.

"Oh right...Mommy told me you're a wizard."

"Wiza? Harry wiza?"

"That's right Harry. You're a wizard."

Harry scrunched up his eyebrows in babyish confusion.

"A wiza?"

"Yes Harry. You, are a wizard."

Harry nodded, smiling a smile that was mostly gums.

'Wiza. Harry wiza."

Velvet nodded in agreement, before she picked up the block that Harry had dropped.

"Come on, let's build it to the moon!"

"Yaaa!"

. . .

Sirius groaned as he wiped the blade of Solar Eclipse clean on the grass, the rays of the morning sun glinting off of the Talonian metal. While Grimm disintegrated upon death, they always left behind some remnant of their existence, mostly black blood or bone fragments. The ichor was the worst smelling thing Sirius had ever encountered, and that was saying something; he thought he'd grown used to such scents after years of hanging around potions labs.

The mental effect of fighting Grimm was wearing down on him as well. Though their negative pressure was tamer than that of a Dementor, it did accumulate over time. The sheer, raw hate that Grimm exuded was like a mild toxin, seeping into his veins the longer he was around them. Sirius had asked Qrow why the effect was worse than he had remembered before, when the three wizards had been fleeing from Mountain Glenn, and Qrow had responded:

"Well, that'd be because of your Aura. See, most normal people don't feel anything when a Grimm's around, other than, y'know, natural terror. But when you've got your Aura unlocked, you can really feel em, like you are now. Your soul is your shield, yeah, but using it as a shield brings it closer to the surface. It allows you to see things no one else can see, do things no one else can do. You can feel the Grimm around you, all that anger, all that killing intent. It's one of the reasons why Huntsmen are so good at fighting Grimm; we know where they are at all times. But feeling that can really wear down on a man. It's why more people don't get their Aura unlocked."

Sirius shook his head to clear his thoughts and vaulted away. After several minutes of leaping through tree branches, his feet scrambled on the slick surface of the town wall. He flipped up over and landed on his ass, his arrival rougher than he would have liked.

"You look like shit."

Sirius, tired as he was, graced Qrow with a one finger salute while he took a moment to catch his breath. After a moment, he stood up, feeling well enough to make a comeback.

"That's funny, Branwen, cuz you look worse than I do."

Qrow chuckled at his partner and slapped him on the back.

"Heh. Anyways...job well done. Those packs we took out should help the village stay safe, for awhile, at least. And we have enough data on the rabid Beowolves to give to Ozpin. He should be able to make something out of it, cuz as it is, I have no idea what the hell was going on with them."

"Ugh. I suppose that's good, but my body is killing me. It hurts...all over."

Qrow nodded, understanding where the Huntsman in training was coming from.

"You did good out there, y'know? Ya had to have killed at least fifty of em...they were just Beowolves, but still. It takes a Huntsman with steel in 'im to take on that many Grimm and live."

Sirius raised a tired eyebrow at the older man.

"Huh."

"What?"

"I think that's the first time you've given me a compliment that was that sincere."

Qrow snorted and turned away, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Eh, you're still sloppy as all hell. I'm gonna put you through hell when we get back to Vale. We're done with the warm up, it's time for the real training to begin."

"Oh, you absolute bloody bastard. That's it, no firewhiskey for you! Ever!"

"...firewhiskey?"

. . .

"Hello, welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the sun. How may I help you?"

Remus Lupin smiled at the pair of teenage Faunus that had entered the shop, his posture straight as he stood by the register. His first day working at Tukson's shop was going splendidly so far. Tukson had tutored him on using the register and scanner already, and Remus was confident that he would be completely proficient with all of the technology used in the shop by the end of the week. It was actually quite easy, though Remus' previous knowledge of Scrolls may have helped him somewhat. He had already served over a dozen customers as well. Tukson's shop was unexpectedly popular. It seemed that the Book Trade was one of the few Faunus owned businesses in the city, and thus, other Faunus made sure to support its existence with patronage. That's not to say there weren't human customers as well; in fact, fully half of all of the customers lacked any animal characteristics. But a plethora of Faunus visited the shop over the course of the day.

So, Remus was enjoying his new job. Truly, working with books was a dream come true for the former werewolf. There was only one downside to the current state of his occupation...

"Oh, look at you, all cute in that uniform. Mmm...crying shame. Really is. I would rock your world so hard if I could stay."

Remus suppressed a sigh. Thistle, the deer Faunus that has been his predecessor, had opted to stick around on his first day to 'help train the newbie'. Unfortunately for Remus, while she had given him some useful pointers, the girl had mostly used her remaining time at the shop to shamelessly flirt with the wolf Faunus, making increasingly bold passes at him, as well as occasionally, 'accidentally' brushing up against him.

The first few times that had happened had been fine, but the latest incident had involved a wandering hand that had 'accidentally' ended up clamped firmly onto one of his ass cheeks. Remus had let out a rather unmanly squeak when that had happened, and had glared at the grinning Faunus, but had ultimately chosen to ignore it; he only had to put up with her for one day, after all, and he wasn't the type to make a fuss of things. And if the hand had lingered for a few seconds...well, he was going to ignore that too.

Not that a part of him didn't appreciate the attention. While Remus' ego had never been anywhere near as large as Sirius, it was always nice to feel attractive in the eyes of the opposite sex (or same sex, if one was into that sort of thing). He just wished that Thistle would be a little more...subtle about it.

"Thistle, keep your hands off of Remus."

Thistle pouted at Tukson, who had just pushed through the back doors.

"Awww...why can't I just tease him a little?"

Tukson chuckled as he gently whacked his soon to be former employee in the back of the head.

"One, because I said so. Two, because there's no sexual harassment in my shop, Three, I think you're starting to freak Remus out."

Thistle, fuchsia eyes sparkling, turned to Remus, who had a nervous smile on his face.

"But he's just sooo cute! "

"Down girl. I'm sure there are plenty of guys in Mistral that you can assault when you get there."

Thistle blew a strand of hair out of her face, grumbling.

"Well, yeah, I guess, but none of them are here right now..."

Tukson shot the younger Faunus a glare, and she held her hands up in submission.

"Alright alright, I'll stop. No more groping, I'll save the for the guys in Mistral. Maybe I can meet another one as cute as Remus at one of the rallies."

Remus blinked, looking at his grabby compatriot. He heard more than saw the two teenage Faunus leave, and the shop was once again empty, save for the owner and employees.

"Rallies?"

"Y'know, the White Fang rallies? There's a big chapter in Mistral. My sister's actually a member over there. Last I heard they'd just done a protest in front of the civvy council building."

Tukson, who had started stacking books, paused in his actions before continuing. Remus raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What's the White Fang?"

Thistle stared at Remus incredulously.

"You mean you don't know?"

"He's from some remote village outside the kingdoms, Thistle" said Tukson "Give him a break." The older Faunus continued stacking books for a few moments before continuing, saying "The White Fang is a Faunus civil rights group, Remus. We mainly protest against systemic oppression, racism, and laws that are targeted specifically towards Faunus. We...well, there's been more than a little bit of opposition to our ideas, but we are making progress. The group's been around for round about twenty years, ever since the latest Faunus War. I'm a member, same as Thistle. Have been for most of my life."

Remus blinked in surprise. He'd read up on the Faunus Rights Revolution extensively, due to his 'condition', and now that he thought about it, there had been a single mention of a group called the White Fang, how it was a collection of Faunus that came into being after the war, and that currently fought for equality. However, beyond that one line, the organization was never mentioned again, in any of the texts that Remus had read on his Scroll.

"You'd think a group like that would make it into more of the history books."

Tukson snorted, a bitter smile on his face.

"If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that the person who controls knowledge controls power." Tukson shook a book at Remus nose "Why do you think I own a bookshop? One of our biggest sellers is a textbook detailing Faunus history that's written by an actual Faunus, not some stuffy human from Atlas who still thinks we go into heat every month like animals."

Tukson shook his head and continued.

"The textbook manufacturers in all four kingdoms don't see it that way though. To them, the Faunus Rights Revolution is 'too recent' to be real history, so they label it as a current event and only give the barest of passages as to what actually happened. The White Fang doesn't even warrant that much attention, and so our organization has been relegated to a single line in most history books. No one cares about peaceful protesters."

Remus heard a growl, which surprisingly had come from Thistle.

"They'd write more about us if we stopped being so peaceful."

Tukson finished stacking books and turned to the purple haired girl with a sigh.

"I've told you before and I'll tell you now, violence is not the solution. You think people are going to accept the Faunus if we start acting like terrorists? No, they'll hate us even more. My old man fought in the war, and afterwards, he helped make the White Fang what it is today; protesting, petitioning, and working through the legal system. If anyone had reason to resort to violence, it would've been him and the other founders, but they didn't. You know why? Because they knew, same as I do, that the best way to change a problem is from the inside. Only by working through the law can we change it."

Thistle huffed, her arms crossed.

"And what do we have to show for it? Twenty years of protests, and we've only just convinced the Vale council to repeal Prop C619."

Remus, who had been following the flow of the conversation silently, asked "Prop C619?"

"A voting restriction. Faunus were only allowed to vote if they subjected themselves to a blood test before entering the voting booth."

Remus frowned, confused.

"Why would they do that?"

Thistle was the one who answered him, an uncharacteristically angry look on her face.

"They wanted to make sure we weren't rabid, those racist bastards."

"You know there was more to it than just racism, Thistle." interjected Tukson "Venken's Disease was a serious problem for Faunus, once upon a time. It was a holdover that had its reasons for existing, back in the day."

Remus raised a hand and said "Ok, I am totally lost here."

Tukson nodded, understanding.

"Yeah, I'm not surprised. It isn't very common knowledge, unless you're a political science major. Venken's Disease is a condition that was somewhat common in the Faunus population about fifty years ago. It wasn't usually fatal, but whoever was infected would begin behaving...erratically...once they caught it. Severe cases were easy to spot, as they'd foam at the mouth and attack people, put the majority of infected people just acted a little bit off."

Tukson scratched one of his sideburns "One of the main requirements to vote on any measure in any one of the four kingdoms is a sound mind; we don't want people voting if they don't have full control over their own actions, the kingdoms are big on personal freedom like that. So, the blood test was put in place to check for the disease. The problem was that the test was never applied to humans, seeing as how less than one percent of them can even contract the disease. And, in the last fifty years a vaccine has been developed for Venken's, so it's pretty much vanished from the Faunus population."

"But the blood test stuck around." concluded Remus.

"Bingo. And a lot of Faunus didn't like that. Said it wasn't fair to single them out for blood tests, said the council was keeping the law on the books to drive down Faunus voting numbers. After all, if you've got to be poked and prodded with needles just to vote, you're probably a lot less likely to go to the polls. They've denied us for years, saying that it was still necessary. But, well, last year our efforts finally paid off, the council listened to us. C619 is off the books in Vale, Vacuo, and Mistral, and Atlas should be following their lead soon. That's the White Fang at work."

Remus nodded slowly.

"Well...that's good then."

Thistle huffed again.

"It should have happened sooner. Protesting takes way too long."

Tukson shook his head at his employee in fond exasperation.

"You're a good kid Thistle, but change isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Things will get better. You've just gotta have a little faith."

As Thistle continued grumbling, Remus thought on what the two of them had told him. The situation of the Faunus reminded him more and more of the werewolves back home, though it was becoming more evident that Faunus did have more rights than he had had back in Britain. Werewolf rights barely even existed in Remus' home country; as Dark Creatures, they could be arrested and tried for minor crimes before being exiled. Luckily, Azkaban was off the table except for the most serious crimes, but if a werewolf bit another human, even unintentionally, there was a good chance they would be thrown into the wizarding prison.

Faunus at least had basic rights, though they did still suffer from discrimination and a number of unjust laws. And Remus was a Faunus now...

"Hey Tukson?"

Tukson grunted from the shelf was was squatting by as he arranged some more books.

"When's the next White Fang meeting?"

Yeah, that's Remus' intro to the White Fang. Keep in mind, the organization is still very much a peaceful one right now. I always theorized that Tukson left because he was uncomfortable with the direction the White Fang was taking; he'd tried to stick with his brothers during the years that they went from peaceful to violent, but he'd eventually gotten fed up and decided to leave. That's how I saw it anyways.

And for those of you who are wondering...yeah, there is definitely a reason the rabid Grimm are mentioned in the same chapter as Venken's Disease. What could it all mean, dun dun DUN! Well, you'll just have to find out in later chapters, won't you?

Z.R. Stein is out, peace!