Harry Potter Returns

by JBean210

Look! Up in the sky! It's an owl! It's a broom! It's Harry Potter! What's he doing flying around without a broom? Harry meets Superman under shocking circumstances and they are both a little mixed up-with each other.

8. The Rescue

Harry Potter Returns
A Harry Potter/Superman Returns Crossover

Chapter Eight
The Rescue

Updated 24 September 2010

"I just wish I knew what's come over all of them," Molly Weasley was saying as she poured her husband Arthur and herself another cup of tea in the Burrow's kitchen. "Especially Harry. He seems so…different now than in the past few years. More rebellious. I'm starting to think Fred and George are rubbing off on him."

"Boys will be boys, dear," Arthur said, tiredly, sipping at his tea. "Bill and Charlie both went through a rebellious phase as well — even Percy did, though in his case it was whether or not he was going to sit for all twelve O.W.L.s or not."

"This isn't just about O.W.L.s, Arthur!" Molly snapped. "This is about their futures — Ron and Ginny's, and Hermione's too, as well as Harry! What in Merlin's name persuaded them all to go gallivanting off to some other country to learn magic — and from an American wizard, no less!"

"I don't know, dear," Arthur shook his head and took another sip of tea. "I've sent Dumbledore a letter explaining what we do know about it. I hope Errol makes it to Hogwarts without too much delay — I wish we could've gone through faster channels, but Errol blends so well into the countryside."

"How much longer do you think they'll be?" Molly asked, a bit nervously. She glanced at the clock she kept nearby at all times now, the one with a hand for each member of the Weasley family; Ron's hand (as well as every other hand) was pointed at "mortal danger." "I don't know what to think of all this running around in the middle of the night, waking people up just to have them sign forms and such! This Professor Potter fellow must think he's something special if —"

There was a sudden flash of light, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley both jumped, startled as four figures appeared in their kitchen. Unnoticed, Ron's hand on the clock jumped to "traveling" for a moment, then back to "mortal danger."

"Well, here we are once again," Professor Potter was beaming at his three new students. "Home sweet home! Ah!" He looked around, surprised to see the Weasleys seated at the table, staring at him in astonishment. "My apologies for Teleporting in without permission," he said, with a slight bow toward them. "I thought you'd both be asleep by now, and I wanted to be sure everyone made it home safely, what with all of those infernal Death Eaters around these parts."

"Not at all, Professor," Arthur said genially, though Molly glared at the elderly wizard. "We just thought we'd stay up to say goodnight."

"Yeah, right," Ron whispered to Harry. "I bet Mum wants a rematch with the old boy, the way she's looking at him…."

"Would you like a cup of tea, Professor?" Mr. Weasley said, starting to pick up the kettle from the stove, but the professor waved off the offer.

"Thank you, Arthur, but I must be on my way, yes indeed," Potter demurred. "I must catch up on my beauty rest," he added, chuckling. He bowed toward Mrs. Weasley, "I wish you and your lovely wife a pleasant evening."

Mrs. Weasley, a bit surprised by the Professor's gracious manners, especially after their duel earlier that evening, found herself offering him a small smile. "And to you, Professor Potter."

"Thank you." Potter turned to Harry, Ron and Hermione. "I look forward to seeing the three of you a week from Monday, then." He shook all three of their hands farewell, then strode out the kitchen door. There was a flash of light just as the door closed, and he was gone.

Mrs. Weasley turned back toward Harry, Ron and Hermione. She did not look very happy, not happy at all. Ron gulped, stepping back so he was slightly behind Harry, but all Mrs. Weasley did was sigh loudly.

"I don't know what's come over the three of you," she said, more calmly than even Harry had expected, especially after everything that had happened tonight. "I really don't, you know. But," she went on, throwing up her hands in resignation. "you've all made your beds — now you can sleep in them."

"I could use some sleep," Ron agreed tiredly, rubbing the back of his head.

"That's not what she means, Ron," Hermione whispered.

"No, it's not, Hermione," Mrs. Weasley agreed, "but it's late, and I'd rather sleep now and yell at you tomorrow about it, if that's okay with you?"

When Ron just stared at her, wide-eyed, Mrs. Weasley sighed again and said, "Go to bed, Ron. We'll talk tomorrow. That goes for the lot of you," she added, looking at Harry and Hermione. "Come on, Arthur."

"Good night, Harry, Hermione," Mr. Weasley nodded as he stepped past them. He put a hand on Ron's shoulder. "Better get some rest, son," he told him. "I have a feeling you'll need your strength tomorrow."

Ron nodded, and Mr. Weasley followed his wife upstairs. After listening to them trudge up several flights, Ron looked at Harry, saying softly. "That wasn't too bad, I guess."

"'Wasn't too bad?'" Hermione repeated incredulously, her voice a strained whisper. "It's sounds like your mum's going to tear you a new arse tomorrow!"

Ron and Harry looked at one another, then at Hermione. Ron raised his eyebrows at her turn of phrase but just shrugged. "It's not like that's never happened before," he said — quite reasonably, Harry thought.

"But we are getting to go, aren't we?" Ron pointed out, and Hermione was forced to nod in agreement. "And since Harry will be several thousand miles from where You-Know-Who is," he went on, "I'm hoping we're well shot of him."

"He'll still be here, though," Hermione reminded him, while glancing at Harry, who stared back at her with a level gaze. She had seemed quite sure about going while they were at her parent's house earlier that even, but now… now she'd had some time to think about it, and if there was one thing Hermione did, it was think about things — sometimes too much, Harry felt.

At least he could guess why Ron was going — mostly because Harry wanted to go, to get out of Britain for a while as well as learn some new kinds of magic, and Ron was following along like a best mate would be expected to do. With Ginny going along as well, the four of them would each have both male and female friends to hang out with there.

"We'd better get some rest," Harry said, with a nod toward the stairs. "We can talk about this more in the morning." He grinned, "After Ron gets his morning reaming out from his mum."

"Yeah, thanks, Harry," Ron retorted, in a deliberately whiny voice, then chuckled as the three of them started up the stairs. Harry fell in behind his two friends, absently sticking a hand in his pocket as he trudged up the stairs after them. Hermione would stop on the first floor, while Harry would continue to the second floor and Ron, all the way up to the fifth floor and his room. Harry wasn't really sleepy but he could spend some time thinking about what subjects he'd be taking at his new school — wandless magic and other topics yet unknown, that —

Something in his pocket buzzed against his fingers. It was the fake Galleon, Harry realized — one of the two he'd gotten from Fred and George when he'd visited their shop a few weeks ago. The other one he'd given to Clark, before they left with Professor Potter. He took it out of his pocket, wondering how Clark had managed to send a message without his wand.

On the first floor landing, Ron had paused as Hermione went into her room. "See you tomorrooooo…" he told her, covering a huge yawn with his hands, as she murmured good night to him and Harry. "Coming, Harry?" Ron asked, as he started toward the second floor.

"In a minute," Harry said, distractedly. He was reading the message scrolling across the coin. HARRY IF YOU GET THIS MESSAGE STAY AWAY FROM THE FORTRESS THERE MAY BE KRYPTONITE PRESENT I WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN ITS SAFE. He looked up, seeing Ron staring curiously at him. "Er — just found a Galleon in my pocket," he said, waving the coin. "I've, uh got to go, er —" he jerked his head in the direction of the loo.

"Lucky," Ron said, about the Galleon. "I've got to go, too," he added, starting up the steps again. "I'll use the one next to Mum and Dad's room. G'nite, Harry."

"Night, Ron." Harry stood there for several seconds, digesting the message he'd just read. Something didn't feel right about it. Why would Clark add that he'd let Harry know when it was safe? Kryptonite was dangerous to Clark (and to Harry as well, now!) but it wasn't like it suddenly jumped up and attacked you or anything — they knew how to handle it. And how did kryptonite get into his Fortress in the first place, unless he (or someone else?) brought it there? It would be like a wizard keeping bottles filled with basilisk venom sitting around!

It bore investigating, Harry decided. At the very least, he thought, he could bring along some lead to sheath the kryptonite in — he couldn't imagine there was much of it lying about in the Antarctic. In addition lead, being a heavy metal, was tricky to transfigure, though not as hard as gold, which required a Philosopher's Stone to create.

"Harry?" A voice whispered nearby, and Harry turned toward it. Hermione was peering at him through her door, which she'd opened a crack. "What are you doing out there?"

"Just — thinking," Harry replied, softly, still trying to work out a way to transfigure lead. His increased magical power should help some, if he could figure out how— He suddenly blinked, realizing who was only a few feet away! "Er, Hermione — do you know how to transfigure lead?"

"Lead?" she looked surprised by the question. "Of course I do — but why do you need to transfigure lead?"

"Well —" He didn't really want to get into it with her right now. "It's a long story…."

She opened the door and stepped outside her bedroom. She hadn't changed into her night clothes yet. "I've got all night," she told him. "I'm not really very sleepy. Do you have your books for sixth year up in your room?"

"Yes, but —"

"Let's go up and have a look," she said, pushing him toward the stairs. Harry went along with it, of course; she couldn't have budged him otherwise. They tiptoed up the steps and into his room. His books were still in his book bags from Flourish and Blotts. Hermione rummaged around through the bags, pulling out his copy of Advanced Transfiguration. "So why would you need to transfigure lead?" she asked again, starting to leaf through the book.

"I need to use it for protection from some other material," Harry said, watching her flip the pages in a (to him) agonizingly slow manner. "It's stuff that gives off harmful radiation," he added, hoping that would satisfy her curiosity.

But no such luck. "That would have to be something radioactive," she said, looking up at him with a skeptical expression. "Where are you finding something like that?"

"Not around here," Harry said quickly. "But…I was just…thinking about something Clark told me about, and I wondered if there was a way to make some lead, to stop the radiation from hurting anyone."

"Why don't you just transfigure the material itself?" Hermione pointed out. "You could change that into lead, if it's a radioactive material. Transfiguring something to a base metal is not that hard."

"Er, yeah, I guess so," Harry said, chagrinned that he hadn't seen that obvious answer. "But — it's more like a crystal than a metal, I think."

Hermione stopped flipping through the book again. "A crystal? I never heard of any radioactive crystal, Harry."

"Uh — well…" Harry didn't know what else to say. It was important in Transfiguration to at least have an idea of the original material you were transfiguring, as well as the target material. Kryptonite itself was strange from the get-go — it seemed both crystalline and metallic, and it had been over two months since his first and only exposure to it, the day he gained his powers.

"You know, Harry," Hermione went on, in an accusatory tone, when he didn't finish his reply. "You have been acting a bit secretive lately. I mean, tunneling out beneath the Burrow against Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's orders, then Ron and I find ourselves in America without so much as a by-your-leave — when were you going to explain all this to us?"

It was true — they'd rushed around so fast since arriving in Kansas for Ricky's party that Harry hadn't had the opportunity to tell them anything. "Hermione, I promise I'll explain all of this to you soon, but for now, I need to find a way to transfigure that material — and fast!"

She was giving him an appraising look now, as if assessing whether he was really being truthful this time. "Fine," she said at last. "But I'm holding you to that promise, Harry Potter! As for that transfiguration spell, well… I'm sure there's something in this book somewhere, if I can just find it…"

Out of patience, Harry reached out and took the book from her. "I'll find it," he said, and began reading the book as fast as he could. The information flowing into his brain was dizzying, almost disorienting, even for his accelerated rate of thought. Finally, after what seemed to him like hours of reading, he reached the last page and closed the book. He looked up at Hermione.

She was staring at him in astonishment. "Harry," she said, amazed. "Bloody hell!" she blurted, using one of Ron's favorite epithets. "You read that book in — in just a few seconds!"

"It felt like it took a long time," Harry said, rubbing his temple. "But it's all up here, now."

"How could you do that?" she persisted. "Even 'increased magical ability' wouldn't let you do something like that!"

Harry stood, handing her the book. "I'll explain," he told her. "But not right now, Hermione. I — I have to go."

"Go? Where? You know we still can't leave the Burrow without setting off the alarm," she reminded him, then corrected herself. "Oh — right. The tunnel. Alright then," she nodded. "But I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," Harry said, flatly. "No discussion," he added, when she opened her mouth to argue.

"Fine," she huffed, waving a hand petulantly at the door. "Go on, then."

Harry frowned. He wanted to tell her, but now was definitely not the time, not with something going on in the Antarctic with Clark and the Fortress. "Hermione, I'm out of time, I've got to go! I promise I'll explain all this to you!"

"Just go," she said, flatly, looking away from him.

Harry moved at speed, before she looked back, so that he was through the door and down the stairs at the cupboard before she even looked back at him. When she turned her head at the whooshing sound, Harry was no longer in the room, as if he'd Disapparated. She looked around the room, wondering how he'd gotten out so fast, especially since there were spell wards set up so that no one could Apparate in or out of the Burrow.

Meanwhile, Harry was moving through the tunnel at super-speed, blasting out of the hole at the far end of the garden, behind the hedge, and into the night sky. In a few moments he had gone hypersonic, and shot out of the atmosphere, through the thermosphere into the exosphere, over 500 miles above the surface. From there he accelerated even faster, turning south toward Antarctica and the Fortress.

He arrived over the Fortress a few seconds later, streaking downward through the atmosphere, ignoring the heat that was building up across his skin and clothes. They were enchanted to withstand the friction heat of atmospheric reentry, he'd learned that lesson long ago. A few seconds in the Antarctic's subzero weather would cool him and them down, anyway. He slowed to a near-stop a few thousand feet above the Fortress; his super-hearing had picked up strange sounds coming from within — the sound of flesh hitting flesh. What would Clark be doing that would make those sounds, except fighting? He and Clark had sparred a bit a few months ago, so Harry could understand the consequences of hitting someone who wasn't super-powered like himself, but they'd never actually traded blows in anger. The noises coming from the Fortress sounded like several angry men.

Harry trained his eyes on the Fortress, to see what was going on inside, but strangely, his vision could not penetrate the crystal now. Glancing toward Clark's spaceship sitting near the entrance to the Fortress, Harry was able to see inside it, but there was nothing inside — not even his broom. Doubly strange! Landing softly on the Fortress' enclosing crystal blocks next to the access hole in the roof, Harry looked down inside the Fortress, just barely managing to stifle a gasp at what he saw.

Four men were inside the Fortress with Superman. One, a bald man dressed in a thick, warm shirt and pants and parka, stood to one side, watching as the other three men, similarly dressed, were physically beating Superman! Clark looked almost powerless to protect himself — his face was bruised and bleeding, and his uniform had torn in several places as the three men slapped, punched or kicked him back and forth between them.

Harry nearly dived through the opening to fly down and save him, but stopped as he recalled what Clark's message had said. Obviously, kryptonite was present somewhere in the Fortress — it must be why Superman couldn't defend himself against the men who were beating him! If that was true, then the only thing Harry would accomplish by flying down to rescue him would be to lose his powers as well. But he had to do something! For the moment, however, all he could do was watch, until a way to save Clark came to mind.

"Too bad you aren't able to enjoy this like I am, Superman," the bald-headed man said at that moment. "You don't know how long I've waited to put you on the receiving end of a beating like this. I'd say my anti-Kryptonian defense system is working pretty well, wouldn't you?"

The three men had stopped punching and hitting Superman momentarily while the bald-headed man spoke to him. "To a twisted mind like yours, Luthor, I suppose hurting others is the only thing that brings you pleasure, isn't it?"

Luthor, the bald man, looked almost hurt by this remark. "You wound me, Superman — really, you do. Am I so different than any other evil super-genius you've known?" He gestured to the Fortress around them. "I mean, even though I managed to find this place again, after you'd moved it almost twelve thousand miles from where it used to be, then took the kryptonite you thoughtfully provided and turned it into a weapon against you, to remove your superpowers so my friends and I could have a little dance with you, before I destroy the Genesis shuttle (along with your girlfriend Lois Lane aboard, I might add) and announce your death to the world and my complete takeover of all of Earth's technological resources? You know, you shouldn't be such a hater, son of Jor-El." Luthor gestured for his men to continue the beating, even as Superman shook his head in horror at Luthor's threats.

So that's what had happened, Harry thought. The kryptonite was neutralizing Superman's powers! He looked carefully around the walls of the Fortress, trying to find signs of where the kryptonite radiation was coming from. Within a few seconds he had found the sources, twelve of them, in various locations along the walls. They were each beaming enough radiation at Superman that collectively his strength was reduced to that of an ordinary man. And if Harry went into the Fortress, he had to assume he would be detected as a super-powered Kryptonian and neutralized as well.

But he still had his magic! Harry also had his Invisibility Cloak, stuffed into a pocket — he might be able to get inside and, with the knowledge he now had from his Transfiguration text, change the kryptonite to harmless crystal. But he also needed to do something to give Clark an edge, before they killed him. Harry wondered if he could just barge in and take out the four bad guys at super-speed. But if they increased the strength of the green K radiation, he and Clark might end up helpless — and dead. He would have to do something more subtle. Harry looked above him, into the deep blue sky. If only there were a bit more sunlight for him and Clark to absorb…

Well, was he a wizard, or not? There was something Harry could try, though it was a bit crazy. And subtle it was not. But if it worked…

Harry rose into the air, flying upward several thousand feet, to where the air began to thin out. He would need air, and plenty of it, to pull off what he planned to do. Taking out his wand, Harry made a spinning gesture with his wand above his head. The air around him began to transfigure, while at the same time Harry was making calculations in his head that would normally have taken him days to compute. The object he was transfiguring from thin air was very similar to air, which made this spell just a bit easier to perform, considering the size of what he was creating.

A giant, parabolic glass lens.

It was nearly a mile in diameter—large enough to focus a significant amount of solar radiation toward the earth, and concentrate it at the same time. He wanted it focused on only a hundred yards or so, intensifying the radiation so that Clark could more easily absorb it. As soon as it had formed, the lens began to fall toward the ground, but Harry was ready with a Levitation Charm, to hold it aloft.

Flying around to the top side of the lens, Harry concentrated on producing the reflective coating for the mirror. He could not transfigure silver (that would require a Philosopher's Stone just as gold would) but he could transfigure a tin-mercury amalgam, a coating used in earlier times that he'd learned about in his Transfiguration textbook. At super-speed, the back of the lens was coated with a thin layer of amalgam within a minute. Then Harry rose higher in the sky, pulling the lens after him with the Levitation Charm, until enough of the sun was visible over the Earth's horizon for him to aim the mirror so its rays reflected downward toward the Fortress.

Flying downward again to the Fortress, Harry saw that its crystal structure was now glowing more brightly than before. He landed on the roof once again, peeking downward through the access hole in the roof to see what was happening. The Fortress interior was brighter than before—some of the sunlight was getting through the translucent material, even if his X-ray vision couldn't penetrate it. Luthor, who was at the main console, was moving his hands across the flickering crystals—he hadn't noticed the change in brightness yet, as his attention was focused on the image floating in the air in front of him, an image of the space shuttle and its Boeing 777 platform.

Luthor's three goons had forced Superman to his feet and were holding him—one was behind him, his arms wrapped around Clark's throat, while the other two held his arms pinned. "Don't do it, Luthor!" Superman was shouting at him, referring to his plan to destroy the shuttle and platform. "Hundreds of people will die needlessly!"

"Needlessly?" Luthor said, without turning around. "Oh, I wouldn't say needlessly, exactly. They do need to know that I'm in control of Earth's technology, thanks to you, Superman." He glanced back at the Man of Steel. "You know, I'm surprised you even came back to Earth after that piece your girlfriend wrote last year — my favorite article of all time: 'Why the World Doesn't Need Superman.'" He smirked at the surprised look on Superman's face. "Neat title, isn't it?"

"L-lois wrote that?" Superman said, uncertainly.

"Yep. Won a Pulitzer Prize for it, too," Luthor added grinning. "Won't the world be surprised when they find out I control your alien technology now? I think that's something they need to know. Plus, they need to know that I'll do just about anything to maintain that control, and enforce it — including killing you and anyone else that gets in my way."

"You're insane, Luthor!" Superman told him. Luthor laughed.

"Insane, brilliant," he said. "To-may-to, to-mah-to." His hand passed over a crystal on the console, then turned triumphantly toward the Man of Steel, "Anyway, it's too late to call the whole thing off —" Luthor frowned, seeing the brightened light in the Fortress for the first time. "What's going —"

Superman suddenly thrust his arms out, throwing off the two men holding them. He grabbed the arm of the man holding him by the neck and bent forward, bucking him off as well. All three men were quickly back on their feet, however, and moving toward Superman as Luthor shouted, "Get him, you idiots!"

Superman glanced upward, and he and Harry locked eyes for a fraction of a second; Clark gave a slight nod, acknowledging Harry's help, just as the three men reached him, all three throwing punches at the same time. Superman dodged one, but the other two hit home, one in the head and one in the stomach. However, the blows didn't seem to do any damage. Superman cuffed one of the bad guys, who flew away, landing on the floor and sliding several yards before lying still.

One of the other men faced off against Clark as the third man ran to where a pile of survival gear lay, grabbing with a hunting knife as Superman dropped the second man with a punch that would normally have taken his head off, but now only knocked him unconscious. Something must be happening with the kryptonite — Harry saw Luthor moving one of his hands along a crystal on the console. At the same time Harry could see one of the sources of the green K beams glowing more brightly. He was turning up the radiation!

The third man thrust the knife at Superman — who just barely dodged it, the blade cutting a shallow wound along his side as the Man of Steel punched him twice in the face. The goon dropped the knife and fell to the floor, out cold.

Superman turned and strode toward Luthor. "Stop what you're doing to the shuttle, Luthor!" he said, reaching for the console, but Luthor grabbed him and jammed a fist into his back. Clark screamed; Luthor's hand twisted and came away, Harry saw a small piece of glowing green sticking out of Clark's back, and another piece in Luthor's hand. He had broken off a piece of kryptonite in him!

Kryptonite or no kryptonite, Harry decided, he had to help Clark! But even as Superman slid to the ground he was muttering something under his breath, words Luthor could not hear, but Harry could: "Harry, Lois is on the Genesis — go save her and the shuttle. Go now!"

Harry stopped. He wanted to save Clark, not Lois! He didn't even know Lois! But it was what Clark wanted — how could he ignore that? He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded curtly and shot into the Antarctic sky. The shuttle had been launched from Houston, Texas, he remembered — Harry had a general idea of where that was in the United States. He had to hope he could spot the shuttle and platform, get them to safety quickly somehow, then get back to the Fortress to help Clark before — before… it didn't bear thinking about, he decided. Sirius had died because he couldn't stop him from falling through the Veil in time; he wasn't going to let Clark down — he was going to rescue Lois and the shuttle, then come back and rescue him!

Mere seconds later Harry had passed into United States airspace and was rocketing downward from the fringes of space toward Houston, his eyes quickly scanning the skies below him for any sign of — there! He'd finally located the shuttle and aircraft lifting it into orbit. The rockets at the back of the shuttle were ignited, propelling both aircraft upward, out of the atmosphere.

As Harry approached he realized — these aircraft were huge compared to him! Even this high in the atmosphere he could hear the whine of the platform ship's jet engines, the roar of the shuttle's booster jets. How in the world was he going to stop these things, even with the strength he possessed now?

Back at the Fortress, Luthor regarded the crumpled figure in red and blue on the floor before him, Superman's hand was covering his side, where Luthor had broken off the shiv, making it almost impossible to remove by hand. His men were all out cold, but it hardly mattered now — Superman was no longer capable of defending himself, not with that piece of kryptonite inside him. "A nice try," he said, waggling the broken piece of green K at him. "But I had a trick up my sleeve to match yours." He looked around at the sunlight now streaming into the Fortress through its crystal walls. "How did you manage this, I wonder?" When Superman didn't answer Luthor lashed out, kicking him in the chest. "I said, how did you manage to do this?" as Superman fell backwards, crying out in pain.

Luthor snorted contemptuously. "Never mind, I'll figure it out for myself." He turned back to the master console, bringing up a view from outside the Fortress. "Increased sunlight, interesting. But the sun is too low to provide this much radiation at this time of the year, so…" The view moved upward until a large, flattened parabolic mirror came into view, floating several miles above the Fortress.

"Hello. That's unusual," Luthor commented, then glanced toward Superman. "Strange that you forgot to turn on your defensive systems for the Fortress, but had the foresight to create a lens to focus sunlight on yourself." Superman stared up at him, his hand still clutching the place where the shard of kryptonite had pierced him. Luthor stared back, analyzing the Man of Steel's expression. "Or, did you?" Luthor smirked at him. "Not that I think you're stupid or anything, Superman, but I don't think you had anything to do with that lens, did you?"

"That's for me to know," Superman's voice was barely a whisper, as he lifted himself on one arm. "It nearly worked, too."

"Evasion," Luthor said slowly, nodding. "Yeah, I didn't think it was you." He looked around the Fortress, trying to gauge where Superman's accomplice might be hiding. "You had help."

"There's nobody here but us, Luthor," Superman said, then coughed painfully. "You're becoming paranoid."

"Just because you're paranoid," Luthor pointed out. "Doesn't mean people aren't out to get you. You learn that pretty quick in prison."

In the skies over Houston, Harry had caught up with Genesis and the 777 platform, now being dragged by the shuttle's main engines into the exosphere. He landed on the top of the 777's hull, looking at the coupling mechanisms with his X-ray vision. As far as he could tell, the couplers were all that were holding the planes together — if he separated them, the shuttle would be able to continue on into orbit. Behind him, however, the tail section of the 777 was being seared by the shuttle's rockets, and was beginning to catch fire, even this high in the atmosphere. Some parts of the tail were even beginning to glow red-hot with heat.

Moving to the forward coupling, Harry popped out the pins (they were thicker than his arm!) that were holding the coupler in place. The couplers separated, and Harry smiled with satisfaction until he realized that the platform and shuttle were now rotating away from each other — but the two back couplings were still keeping the planes together! Harry quickly moved back to the left coupler, disengaging it as well, then the right, and the two aircraft slowly began moving apart. Harry stayed with the shuttle, putting his hands against the underbelly of the spacecraft and listening to the vibrations coming from inside. He could hear the shuttle pilots frantically trying to make flight path corrections — the shuttle would need more boost if it was going to make it into orbit. Otherwise it would have to abort and land back in Houston. Well, he should be able to fix that!

Pressing carefully against the ship's underbelly, Harry began accelerating, adding velocity to the shuttle as he listened to the pilots inside. They were amazed that the shuttle was picking up speed, seemingly from nowhere, until they announced to Houston that they were now back on track to reach orbit. Harry slowed, watching the shuttle pull away from him, rising above the atmosphere, now able to continue its mission. Okay, one aircraft taken care of! He looked around for the 777.

It was several thousand feet below him now, and Harry could see that most of the plane's tail was engulfed in flames. Not good! Even worse, he could see that it had gone into a flat spin. On a broom, flat spins could happen all the time, especially during Quidditch matches, if two players passed each other going in different directions and their brooms bumped, but it was easy to recover from them (assuming you hadn't fallen off from the initial bump and spin).

But planes weren't magical, and one as big as the 777 was probably never meant to get into a flat spin, much less get out of one! Harry sped downward after the falling aircraft. He caught up to it within seconds, but how was he going to get it out of its spin? He stood on top of the fuselage, between the three coupling points, trying to decide what he could do as the clouds and earth spun around them. The thing was just so damned big, he couldn't figure how he was going to stop the rotation. The wings must be a couple of hundred feet across, he thought, and the body of the plane was at least that long — most of the tail section was aflame by now, a long, twisting spiral of smoke trailed up and away as they plummeted toward the ground. What was he going to do?

"There's nobody here," Superman insisted again, as Luthor turned back to the console, attempting to use it to discover who else was in the Fortress with them. "I told you, you're being paranoid."

Luthor didn't answer Of course Superman would say something like that, whether there was someone else here or not. Well, when in doubt — inflict more pain. Luthor strode over to where the Man of Steel lay sprawled on the ground, taking the handle of the kryptonite shiv back out and holding in front of Superman's face. Superman flinched away, and Luthor grabbed his cape, pulling him closer. "I'm pretty sure," he said, almost conversationally, as Superman tried to twist away from the glowing fragment in Luthor's hand, "that between the beams of kryptonite radiation hitting you, this piece in my hand, and the shank buried in your side, that you're not feeling the love at the moment, are you?" Superman's eyes looked at him disbelievingly, and Luthor smirked.

"This is just a taste of what it was like for me, the two years I spent in prison," he said. "Well — not including most of the physical pain you're feeling. That's just a perk of the situation, I suppose.

"Anyway," he went on, standing and pocketing the handle once again. "This will all be moot shortly. You'll be dead, the shuttle will have dragged its launch platform out of the atmosphere so that everyone aboard will asphyxiate, and the extra weight of the platform jet will keep the shuttle from reaching orbital velocity, so that both will come crashing back to earth."

"The 777 has onboard oxygen," Superman said painfully, shaking his head. "They'll survive, and figure a way out." Luthor laughed.

"Did you forget that I have control over every bit of that aircraft?" he pointed out. "If I can force the couplers holding them together to malfunction, do you think the oxygen masks were difficult to keep from deploying?"

Inside the body of the platform airliner, most of the passengers were frozen in their seats, staring fearfully out the windows at the sky spinning about them, or screaming in terror at the smoke and fumes that had made their way from the tail section into the passenger section. Lois, predictably, had tried to make her way to the plane's cockpit, but found herself blocked by the blonde NASA liaison, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to keep everyone calm. "You can't go up there!" the liaison shouted at Lois (something she had managed to keep from doing during Lois's barrage of questions, before this disaster occurred). "The pilots will handle the situation!"

"We're in a flat spin!" Lois shouted back. "There's nothing they can do anyway!"

"In that case, you're not going to help matters!" the blonde told her. "So sit down and buckle up!" Lois wanted to punch her, but even if that would make her feel better, it wasn't going to help the situation much. She turned away, trying to think of something else she could do. But what? An out-of-control 777 jumbo jet was a bit out of her league. God, she could use a smoke before — Lois cut the thought off.

Harry, who'd been viewing the interior of the aircraft with his X-ray vision, and listening to the conversation through the vibrations coming through the fuselage, looked around again, trying to see what he could do to stop the spin. Only one thing made sense — he could try to oppose the spin with his flying power, hoping that the effect that kept objects he held while flying from experiencing high accelerations would keep the aircraft intact.

He flew out onto one of the wings, landing about halfway between wingtip and the plane's body, grasping the leading edge of the wing and deliberately slowed his flight, opposing the plane's spin. There was a low, shuddering groan, the sound of metal stressed to its limit, but the spin began to slowly decrease. Not nearly fast enough, however, because the ground was only several thousand feet below them now. And they were still over the skies of Houston — Harry had no idea how or where he was going to get the aircraft on the ground, even if he did stop the spin!

He pulled harder against the wing, hoping to slow the plane's spin more quickly. That didn't work, as with a screech of metal most of the wing tore away, sending it and Harry spinning through the sky, spraying fuel after it, which ignited from the exhaust of the wing's jet engine, creating a huge fireball explosion that tore the wing out of Harry's hands, leaving him holding scraps of metal sheet.

The plane and one of its wings had now parted company, leaving Harry floating between them, with a dilemma. Even as the airline fell away from him, Harry knew he couldn't let the wing fall into an inhabited part of Houston! He flew after the spinning wing, taking out his wand and pointing it toward the wreckage. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, and the wing slowed to a stop, floating in mid-air. That would hold it for a bit, Harry hoped. He stuffed his wand back into his pocket and flew after the now-damaged platform.

One good thing had come of this at least, Harry saw — the plane's flat spin was nearly stopped. Now in its place, however, the uneven lift caused by the missing wing was taking the aircraft into a roll. It was also going into a steep dive, heading downward at a 45 or 50 degree angle; Harry could see the passengers inside frantically trying to stay in their seats. He also saw Lois, now forced against one side of the plane by the spin, trying to make her way forward once again. If he was going to regain control of the plane before it crashed, Harry would have to stop that roll. And to do that, he needed make the plane symmetrical once again. Which meant the other wing had to go as well.

But even as he flew toward the remaining wing, it reached the limit of its structural integrity and tore loose from the fuselage, heading straight toward Harry. Harry closed his eyes and braced for the impact; his invulnerable body tore through the metal and bracing of the wing like tissue. Even as he continued on toward the now wingless plane, Harry saw that his arms were blackened from smoke from the fireball. He blinked, realizing that his glasses had come off in the impact with the wing. But there was no time to worry about that now.

The plane's dive was almost vertical now, and there was only a few thousand feet below him to the ground. He was flying alongside the plane, near its underbelly, and the only thing he could think to do now was to slow its descent enough that it he could keep it from crashing when it reached ground level. Fortunately, below him seemed to be relatively clear of houses or other signs of habitation — he'd have to hope there'd be room to set the plane down, somehow.

Flying to the nose of the aircraft, Harry began exerting his flying power against the downward motion of the plane. He felt a shudder of metal, and the entire plane seemed to ripple as they decelerated. Some people inside were thrown forward in their seats, but everyone, including Lois, had managed to get buckled in again, and none of the seats themselves tore loose from their fastenings.

Harry's hands pressed against the nose, which suddenly crumpled inward, unexpectedly giving him more of a grip on the plane's superstructure, something he would need if he was going to keep the body from toppling and crashing as he stopped its downward momentum. The ground was only a few feet below him as the plane slowed to a halt, and Harry lowered the nose until it touched the ground; then, as the fuselage began to tip over, he flew up, about halfway along its length, catching body and lowering it slowly until it was a foot or two above the ground. He let the fuselage settle onto the ground with only a slight jolt. He'd done it — he'd landed the plane safely! And they'd been fortunate enough to come down in a place that was flat and level — perfect for setting the 777's huge body down on.

Harry looked around, trying to orient himself. Sounds were beginning to come to him from several directions — sirens and the sounds of vehicles approaching from the distance, and as he looked around he found he'd landed on a wide, flat expanse of asphalt. In the distance his vision made out signs identifying this place as Ellington Field, and it seemed to be an airfield. The vehicles approaching were police and rescue vehicles; they would arrive in something like a minute. There was also the sound of confused voices from within the plane itself, as the pilots were trying to figure out why they weren't all dead.

Harry looked down at himself. His clothes were black from the smoke and fire he'd passed through as the gas from the first wing had exploded, and his glasses were missing. He needed to leave, before anyone saw him, but he could hear people inside the plane moving about. He should at least make sure everyone was okay, though his X-ray vision showed no one was seriously hurt. Harry floated up to the plane's main entryway and tried to open it, but stresses on the hull from the wings being torn off had jammed the door closed. It was a simple matter to pull the door off its hinges, however, just as the emergency ramp deployed. Harry dropped the door onto the tarmac beside the plane and floated inside, landing just inside the door. He stepped to the center walkway of the passenger section, scanning everyone quickly to see that no one was hurt. Lois, other than a few bruises, was fine. She, along with everyone else, was staring at him in wonder. The plane, which had been filled with noise as everyone was relieved to find themselves alive, had fallen completely silent. A few flashes went off as photographers snapped pictures of him.

"Is everyone okay?" Harry asked. His voice was a croak — he was probably the most nervous person aboard this plane at the moment. It was probably lucky that he looked as messy as he did; it would be harder to identify him from the pictures, he hoped.

"Are you — Superman?" someone asked. The number of flashes began to increase as more and more of the press caught wind of a potential story. Lois had stood as that question was asked — Harry saw her looking intently at him, as if trying to recognize him through all the soot and ash covering his features.

"No," Harry shook his head. "I'm not him."

"Then who are you?" Lois asked, quickly.

"I'm…a friend," Harry said. He glanced around, toward the approaching rescue vehicles. Only a few moments before they arrived.

There was suddenly a barrage of light and sound as the press recovered en masse and tried to question Harry. He shook his head, putting up his hands, and moved toward the door. He had to get back to help Clark! At the door of the plane, Harry leaped into the sky, flying up and away by the time any of the passengers reached the doorway.

Somehow, Lois reached the plane's door first, her eyes scanning first the ground, then the skies, for any sign of their mysterious benefactor. If that wasn't Superman, she wondered, then what might his connection to the Man of Steel be? She looked back along the ship, seeing the twisted metal where the portside wing used to be, and wondered how anyone else could have saved them. The sound of sirens were getting loud as rescue vehicles sped toward the downed jetliner. Lois shook her head, feeling lightheaded, then suddenly fell forward, onto the emergency chute, and slid down it to the ground, unconscious.

=ooo=

By the time Lois's unconscious form had reached the bottom of the chute, Harry was speeding over Antarctica toward the Fortress. Landing once again near the access port in the Fortress's ceiling, he peered down into the control room, hoping that he had not returned to late to save Clark. The men who'd attacked Clark were still lying unconscious on the floor. Luthor, the bald-headed man, was at the main console, his hands moving deftly over the crystal controls.

"It looks like you were telling the truth, Superman," he spoke conversationally, as if he hadn't jammed a piece of kryptonite into the Man of Steel's side just a few minutes ago, Harry thought angrily. "There's nobody here but us chickens."

Superman's fingers were grasping at the piece of green K stuck in him, trying to pull it free, but his blood was making it too slippery to get it out. "I told you," he said; his voice was laced with agony.

"Still want me to surrender?" Luthor asked, sarcastically, then turned back to the console. "Let's see what's happening with our favorite shuttle — what the hell?"

He was staring at an image of the Genesis rising out of the atmosphere. The platform 777 was nowhere to be seen. How had it gotten loose? Luthor began a search for the airliner; above him, Harry pulled out his wand, trying to decide what to do. He couldn't wait much longer in any case — the other men would be waking up soon.

The Fortress finally located the 777, and Luthor stared in impotent rage as the rescue teams offloaded members of the press and checked them out. "How could this have happened?" He whispered, then looked around at Superman. "You sly dog," he said, in a deceptively jovial tone. Luthor touched several controls on the console, then turned and walked toward the Man of Steel, reaching into his pocket as he approached Clark. "There is somebody helping you, isn't there? There pretty much has to be — what with that mirror, and now the shuttle on course and the other aircraft safely on the ground."

Luthor reached down, grabbing Superman by the hair and pulling his head back. "Well, when they get back here, whoever they are, they'll find you dead and this place destroyed!" He pulled the handle of the broken kryptonite shiv from his pocket — the broken edge was still sharp enough to slit a throat, and Luthor reached around Superman to draw the edge across his neck.

Luthor suddenly slumped forward, unconscious, falling across Superman's body. Superman fell back, no longer supported by Luthor, and both men lay still for several moments. Above them Harry, who had just cast a Stunner at Luthor, put his wand away, then stepped into the access port, floating downward toward them. Even as he landed he began to feel nauseated by the green K beams sapping his strength. But his first priority was to help Superman get that piece of kryptonite out of him!

"How's it going?" he asked Clark, who smiled thinly.

"I've had better days," he replied plaintively, then frowned at Harry. "I warned you there was kryptonite present!"

"I can feel it," Harry nodded. "But we've got to get that piece out of you!"

"I can't get any purchase on it," Superman told him. "Maybe there's something in Luthor's equipment that can —"

"Don't worry," Harry said, holding up his wand. "I've got this." He pointed his wand at the piece of green K in Superman's side and said "Accio!" The chunk shuddered and Superman grunted, then shouted in pain as the kryptonite slid free.

Harry caught the piece automatically as it came to him, but immediately toppled over in pain. Clark held out his hand. "Give it to me," he commanded Harry. "I can throw it —"

"N-no," Harry gasped, shaking his head. "I have a b-better way…" His wand hand trembled as he pointed it toward the kryptonite in his other hand. Contact with the kryptonite was starting to burn his hand — he could feel the radiation searing his skin. He muttered the spell to transfigure crystal into rock, hoping it would work. The glow of the green K in his hand diminished, gradually becoming gray. Some of Harry's nausea disappeared, though he still felt weak. He released the rock, looking at his hand. There were still burn marks on his palm. Taking a deep breath, he pointed his wand at the handle of Luthor's broken shiv, lying a few feet away, and repeated the spell. It turned gray as well, and Harry began to feel a bit better.

"How do you feel now?" Harry asked Superman, who was still holding his side.

"Better," Clark said. "But there are still beams of kryptonite focused on us." How long will Luthor be unconscious?"

"A while," Harry replied, looking over at the unconscious man. "Who is he?"

"A twisted, evil genius," Superman told him. "He set up a crime empire in Metropolis and had been running it in secret for years when I first began operating in the open. Luthor took my presence on Earth as a personal threat, and it's true I would have eventually shut him down if he hadn't decided to strike first, by trying to break off part of the western seaboard into the Pacific Ocean, vastly increasing the price of the lands that would become the new West Coast, which he had been buying up for nearly a decade beforehand. He also managed to lay his hands on some kryptonite back then, and nearly succeeded in killing me with it.

"I managed to escape, with some help from one of his operatives who had second thoughts about his plan to kill millions of people, and put Luthor in jail." Clark frowned. "Unfortunately, it looks as if he found some way to elude justice, at least until now."

He tried to stand but gasped as the wound in his side sent a jolt of pain through his body. "Harry," Clark said. "Can you neutralize the K-beams like you did the pieces of kryptonite?"

"I think so," Harry nodded. He stood as well, a bit unsteady as the beams were now at increased intensity, and their effect no longer kept him and Clark at normal strength, but were actually weakening them, even with the extra solar radiation beaming down from the mirror onto the Fortress. After searching around for a bit, Harry found several of the beams along one wall of the control room, where he recalled seeing them earlier, during his super-vision sweep of the Fortress.

Approaching one of the beam sources, Harry pointed his wand and spoke the transfiguration spell: the green glow dimmed, then faded. Feeling a bit better, Harry moved slowly toward the next location, transfiguring that beam as well, then a third one. There had been twelve beams focused on them — three were now neutralized, though Harry could barely tell the difference. He went on to find the fourth, fifth and sixth beams along another wall, neutralizing them as well. This seemed to help some, but it was difficult to tell — Superman was still unable to rise, the wound in his side was still causing him pain. With half the K-beams gone, wondered if the remaining were compensating, somehow, for the loss of the others.

He found the seventh, eighth and ninth beams and transfigured them; finally, some progress seemed to be made! His palm had stopped hurting. Harry looked at it, but his skin was still blistered from the effects of the green K radiation. Near the control panel, Clark nodded at him; his wound seemed to have stopped hurting as well. Only three more to go —

"Hold it!" Harry turned, startled by the unexpected voice. Two parka-clad figures were standing at the far end of the control room. At the same time, Harry heard a faint whup-whup-whup sound that seemed to be coming from outside the Fortress. One of the intruders, a brown-skinned young man, held a small automatic weapon. He seemed as surprised by Harry's presence as Harry was to see him. The figure beside them, whose features were obscured by a ski mask beneath the parka hood, held a small semiautomatic pistol. They looked at each other, then the man turned back to Harry. "Identify yourself!" he barked.

"No!" Superman shouted, to distract the man's attention. "Look, if you're part of Luthor's men, you can take them and go."

The man moved forward, brandishing the weapon. "No, I don't think so," he said, "If the kryptonite beams are working, then you don't have any powers, Superman. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be lying on the floor, unable to get up.

"I think we'll just wake Mr. Luthor and the others up," he said, continuing to move forward. "Then we'll see what they say about what's been going on here."

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "That's not going to happen."

Stanford laughed. "It's not like you're going to stop me." He swung his weapon around to point at Harry and fired.

As soon as the weapon began to turn his way, Harry shouted "Protego!" and a Shield spell ballooned between him and the intruder, scattering the bullets from the automatic weapon. "What the hell?" Stanford shouted, firing again, this time a longer burst, but the bullets ricocheted off of Harry's spell. "Shoot him!" he shouted at the figure next to him, but the person didn't move.

Stanford spun towards Superman, and Harry willed the Shield Charm to move between him and the Man of Steel, stopping the automatic weapons fire from reaching him. The weapon's chatter cut off suddenly, and Stanford dropped it, grabbing for the weapon the other person held.

"Accio gun!" Harry shouted, and the pistol flew through the air toward him. Harry caught it in his left hand, turning it on the two intruders just as one of the unconscious men lying nearby reached out suddenly and grabbed his leg.

"Watch it, Grant!" Stanford shouted. "He's got a gun!"

But Harry didn't bother with the gun, preferring to use a more dangerous weapon, one he had much more experience with. He pointed his wand at Grant and shouted "Depulso!" The Banishing Charm flung the larger man away, skidding across the floor until he slammed into a far wall of the control room.

Brutus and Grant, the other two men, who had been playing possum as well, stared at one another in astonishment at Riley's quick defeat. Harry gestured with his wand for the two men to join the first two figures.

Meanwhile Superman, spurred by concern over Harry's ability to handle Luthor's henchmen, had gotten to his feet, pretending to be recovered. "I'll take it from here," he said, holding out his hand for the pistol Harry held. Just as Harry handed it to him, however, a shot rang out.

Superman crumpled to the floor.

"NO!" Harry shouted, but before he could move Luthor, who was still on the floor, pointed the revolver he held at Harry.

"Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head. "Even if you're like him —" Luthor nodded toward Superman's prone body. "— I doubt you're in any shape to dodge this. And it will pack quite a whollop." Harry could see green gleaming inside the gun's cylinder. Without taking his eyes off Harry, Luthor nodded toward his unconscious henchman, "Go get him," he told his men. Brutus and Riley moved, watching Harry warily as they walked past him and collected Grant from where he lay crumpled against a wall.

"The helicopter's outside," Luthor told his men. "Go make sure it's ready to go."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Stanford suddenly said. "We were a dozen miles out and it suddenly flew over on its way here! Why'd you send us after it if you could've just had it fly here on its own?"

"The situation changed," Luthor said, curtly. He jerked a thumb toward the Fortress's exit. "Go on — I'll be out in a minute."

The person who'd arrived with Stanford spoke for the first time. "You're not going to hurt him, are you, Lex?" It was a woman's voice. "He's only a kid."

"It's kind of hard to tell he's a kid," Luthor remarked. "Looking at all that black on him, I thought maybe he was trying to revive a minstrel show. Go on," he repeated.

"But boss," Stanford said, urgently. "There's something you need to know —"

"Tell me later," Luthor snapped. "Everybody out!" The others, carrying their unconscious comrade, made for the exit.

When they were outside, Luthor gave Harry a wistful look. "As much as I'd like to stay and find out what your connection with Superman is and where you came from, I'm afraid our business is about concluded. I'm glad I had these kryptonite bullets made — they came in as handy as that shiv did."

"Now what?" Harry asked, though the answer was staring him in the face — this Luthor had the same mad gleam in his eye that Harry had seen in men like Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, and Barty Crouch, Jr.

Luthor cocked the hammer on the revolver. "Sorry, kid," he said with a shrug, and pulled the trigger.

At the same time Harry suddenly pointed his wand, shouting "Expelliarmus!" The weapon fired as it suddenly spun out of Luthor's hand; something hard and hot slammed into Harry's trapezius muscle, just to the right of his throat, knocking him down. Momentarily stunned, Harry shook his head then pointed his wand back at the bald-headed man, but Luthor, who had turned back toward the main console for a moment, bent over and picked up the handle of the shiv that was lying nearby, then ran toward the Fortress's exit. Harry got painfully to his feet, touching his shoulder gingerly. His fingers came away bloody; he'd felt a ragged channel where the bullet had gouged him. If his Disarming Charm had missed…

Dismissing that thought, Harry ran over to where Clark lay facedown on the floor. Kneeling down, he felt a wave of nausea once again — the bullet in Clark's back was kryptonite, just like the other bullets in Luthor's weapon. Clark turned toward him. "What happened to Luthor?" he asked, weakly.

"Ran away," Harry said. He pushed the red cape aside, looking for the entry wound. He located it immediately — an area of Clark's blue suit that was stained with his blood.

"You — you have to go after them," Clark insisted. "Stop them before they get away. Once you're out of the Fortress your powers will return, you can —"

"No," Harry shook his head emphatically. "I went to save Lois, earlier — now you've got to let me take care of you."

Clark looked ready to argue, but he was certainly in no condition to keep Harry from helping him. Instead, however, he asked, "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Harry said distractedly, readying his wand for what was likely to be a very painful extraction of that bullet. "Nobody on the plane was hurt — a few bruises at most. Lucky, considering I nearly tore the plane apart getting it landed!"

"It sure made Luthor mad to see it safe," Superman remembered. "I — uuuuhh!"

"Sorry," Harry said quickly. He'd touched the area around the wound, trying to feel how deep the bullet was in. "I'm afraid this next part's going to hurt, too."

"Just get it out," Superman said, determinedly. "We need to get after Luthor as quickly as possible.

"Right," Harry said, skeptically. Clark didn't like this Luthor fellow, that was for sure! Come to think of it, Harry didn't much care for him, either, considering the man would have shot him in cold blood if he hadn't disarmed him. "Here goes…Accio bullet!"

Superman cried out as the bullet popped from the wound, rolling away on the floor. Harry pointed his wand at it and transfigured it to gray rock. He then did the same to the remaining four bullets in Luthor's revolver. Then he stood up and walked over to where the final three K-beams were, removing them as threats as well.

With all the green K radiation finally removed, Harry stared at the blisters in his palm once again — they were tingling slightly. As he watched, the blisters slowly reverted to normal skin. Harry reached up and touched his shoulder where the green K bullet had grazed him. That wound was gone as well. He looked up to see that Clark was back on his feet again; he was examining his side where Luthor's shiv had entered. The wound was gone, leaving only a small tear in his uniform, and Clark nodded at Harry in satisfaction.

"I'm going after Luthor," he said, without preamble. "He needs to be brought to justice for what he's done."

"I can back you up," Harry agreed, nodding. "In case there's any more kryptonite that needs transfiguring."

But Clark shook his head. "No, Harry, you should go back to your family. Luthor is a dangerous man — I don't want you put in harm's way."

"Believe me, Clark," Harry said earnestly. "I've been in 'harm's way' a lot more often than you think!"

"You should get cleaned up before you go home," Clark said, as if Harry had not spoken. "They're going to wonder what happened if they see you like that."

"You're not even listening to me!" Harry said, angry now.

"I am," Clark said patiently. "It's just that…" he was silent for several moments, staring at Harry.

"I'll tell you what," he continued, in a different tone of voice. "If you'll promise to do as I tell you, you can come along. Is it a deal?"

"Uh…deal," Harry said, surprised by the suddenness of Clark's change of heart.

"And Harry — " Clark put a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for saving me." After a moment Harry smiled. "Let's go."

But the helicopter had somehow vanished from the sky, though only a few minutes had passed since Luthor ran out of the Fortress. Perplexed, Superman backtracked to several of the nearby stations set up by various nations studying the Antarctic region, trying to locate the helicopter, but it had seemingly vanished into thin air. Superman and Harry finally returned to the Fortress of Solitude.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, once they were back inside Superman's retreat. "I shouldn't have argued with you about going, it gave them time to get away."

"It's alright, Harry," Clark said. "I shouldn't have treated you like a child — you saved a lot of people today, including me. You should tell me more sometime about some of the other times you've been in 'harm's way.' When I was your age my idea of high adventure was running through corn fields and leaping from silo to silo on my parent's farm. Hmm… that's odd."

"What is it?" Harry asked, hearing some surprise in Clark's voice.

"The console," Clark said, pointing to the Fortress's main control panel. "There are a couple of crystals missing." Harry looked — there were two unfilled slots in the console. He looked back at Clark.

"I remember seeing Luthor turn back to the console for a moment, after he shot me," Harry said. That must've been when he grabbed the crystals. "But what can he do with them? Don't they only work in the console?"

"The crystals are very powerful," Clark told him. "You saw what Luthor was able to do with them using the Fortress's console. They can also be used to catalyze the growth of more crystal — that's how this Fortress was originally constructed."

Superman looked around the Fortress. "Now that Luthor knows where this is located, I can't leave it here — I'll have to take it with us and find somewhere else for it."

Harry looked around the vast main control room, only part of the entire Fortress. "This place must be as big as Hogwarts," he said, trying to imagine the magic necessary to move an entire castle. "I mean, I know you're strong, but — how're you going to pick up all this?"

Clark smiled. "Fortunately, Harry, I have a little magic of my own. Watch." He turned back to the main console, moving several crystal rods so they all seemed to be in alignment. He then took a smaller crystal from a section of the console and slid it into a slot that had suddenly appeared in the console.

"Follow me," he told Harry, rising slowly in the air, as the console began to glow. The two of them flew outside the Fortress, landing about fifty yards away.

"What's happening?" Harry asked, as the base of the Fortress began to glow even brighter than the focused sunlight shining down on it from the mirror floating miles above them.

"Just watch," Superman said, mysteriously. The glowing continued to rise up through the crystal columns of the Fortress walls, until the entire structure was shining brightly. As Harry continued to watch, awed, the crystal spires began to shrink, growing in reverse, and Harry felt a rumbling in the ground below him as the spires receded downward. Within a few minutes the entire Fortress had vanished. Superman raised his hand, holding it in front of him, and a small object lifted from the patch of ice-covered ground where his fortress had been and floated toward him. As it got closer Harry saw that it was a small crystal, like many of the others in the Fortress except it was a brilliant green in color. It floated into Clark's hand and he handed it to Harry, who looked at it, then back at Clark, with amazement on his face.

"That was brilliant," he said, meaning it. "You mean your entire Fortress is now inside this crystal?" It reminded him of Professor Potter's trunk, folding in on itself so it was no bigger than a matchbox.

"All the information, yes," Superman nodded, taking the crystal back. "After I put Luthor away for good and recover the other two crystals, I'll find some place to rebuild it.

"By the way," Clark added, changing the subject. "I meant to ask how things went with Professor Potter. What did you decide to do?"

"We're all enrolled," Harry replied, smiling. "Ron and Hermione and me. Ron's younger sister Ginny wanted to go too, and her parents allowed it, although their mum didn't seem too happy with the idea. She doesn't like Professor Potter for some reason."

"Are you excited to be going to a different school?" Clark asked, interested.

"I think it'll be interesting," Harry said. "The magic's different than Hogwarts, and learning wandless magic will be useful if we ever find ourselves without a wand. As it is now, a wizard without a wand is rather helpless." His expression turned grim. "I suppose Voldemort already thought of that — we found out on my birthday that Mr. Ollivander, who you bought your wand from, had disappeared."

"Was he taken by this Voldemort person?" Superman asked.

"No idea," Harry shook his head. "There was no sign of a struggle, according to reports. But we're dead sure Voldemort had a hand in it, somehow."

Clark nodded. "When do you start classes?"

"A week from Monday," Harry replied. "It's going to be a long week, I think," he said, a bit ruefully. "I'm not sure Ron's parents are exactly well chuffed about the idea — not sure Ron is, for that matter. I think he's just going because me and Hermione are going."

"Do you think Ron can handle the schoolwork?" Clark asked.

Harry didn't answer right away. "Well," he said at last. "Ron's not thick, but he doesn't always try as hard as he could. Neither do I, for that matter, except in Defense Against the Dark Arts. We still get decent grades, however, with a bit of help from Hermione."

"She sounded interested in that school as well," Clark noted.

"She is," Harry agreed. "Ginny is, too, though I think she wanted to go because Ron's going." Not that that's a bad idea, Harry added to himself. "And I think Ron wants to go because Hermione and I want to."

Clark nodded thoughtfully. "I was thinking of paying a visit to Hogwarts, remember?" he pointed out to Harry. "But if you're all going to Professor Potter's school I may come visit you there — I'd like to read some of the books on magic, to see if I can use it as well. I seem to have some magical ability in me, if I was able to send that message to you through the coin you gave me."

"Oh, yeah," Harry suddenly remembered. "I wanted to tell you — I read an entire book in about five seconds earlier, before I came to the Fortress! And it's like — I can remember every word on every page that I read! That's how I was able to make that mirror to reflect the sunlight into the Fortress, and turn the kryptonite into rock."

"It's a handy ability to have," Clark agreed. "I did a lot of late night reading in college days, and some of my papers were literally written just before I turned them in."

Clark looked around, and Harry realized that they'd been having a conversation in 70 degree below zero cold. "I want to get back and check on Lois," Superman said. "After I find someplace safe to keep this crystal."

"Okay," Harry nodded. He was thinking about the promise he'd made to Hermione, to explain what had been going on with him for the past few months. He wasn't looking forward to it. He sighed, letting his chin drop onto his chest in silent resignation, then grimaced.

"Oi," he said, looking at himself. "I forgot what a mess I am!" He took out his wand and began siphoning off the soot and black with the Tergeo spell. Within a minute he had gotten rid of most of the grime covering his front. It was more difficult reaching his back, however.

"See if you can do it," Harry handed his wand to Clark. "Just think about the dirt being sucked into the wand and say "Tergeo." Superman repeated the spell and the grime on the back of Harry's T-shirt and jeans were gone after several seconds of waving Harry's wand over his back and legs.

"Much better," Clark agreed, handing him the wand back. "I suppose my wand is still safe and sound with your other things?"

"Yes, and your money, too," Harry replied. "I suppose you'll have to go back to Gringotts to get the money for Ricky's tuition."

"I'll work that out with Professor Potter, when I see him," Clark said. "I have some other questions for him as well."

For now, however, Clark had another plan in mind. He had thought he would see Lois again when he returned to the Planet; eventually, Perry would hire him back, he was sure of that — he and Lois had made a good reporting team. But he had come so close to losing her today, after being away for five years, that he just couldn't wait any longer. After he dropped off the Green Crystal at the farm in a secure place, he would fly to Metropolis and try to make contact with Lois without letting anyone else see him. He hoped she would want to see him again as much as he wanted to see her.

When Superman didn't elaborate on what his questions would be, Harry decided he would hear about it some other time. "Well, I guess I'll head back to the Burrow," he said. "I'll see you around."

Clark smiled. "I'm always around, Harry." He raised a hand in farewell, then leapt into the sky, zooming out of view over the mountains in just a few seconds. Harry looked around at the barren expanse where, until just a few minutes ago, Superman's Fortress had proudly stood. He hoped Clark would be able to find this Luthor character soon and put him where he couldn't harm anyone again. He followed Superman into the sky, heading northward for England.

An hour or so later, six parka-clad figures approached the site where the Fortress formerly stood, traveling from the south. It had been a calculated risk, but Luthor had known there was no way to beat Superman's speed once his powers returned. The only way to evade detection was misdirection — they had flown the 'copter to the south of the Fortress, into the Antarctic wilderness, rather than try to reach the Gertrude or one of the national stations lining the coast.

Setting down in a small valley, Luthor had ordered all power supplies shut off and everyone huddled together in the cargo section for warmth. It hadn't been pleasant — no one had bathed in several weeks. But Superman had been fooled, evidently, since they had not been rounded up. Now, however — Luthor had been expecting problems getting back into the Fortress, but not this — the entire structure was gone.

"Is this the right spot?" Riley was asking, looking around at the expanse of ice. "Maybe we took a wrong turn —"

"It's the right spot," Luthor interrupted, irritated. "But he took the entire damn thing with him!" He was glad, now, that he'd taken a few extra seconds to grab a couple of the crystals from the control panel. He would be studying them very carefully to see just what the crystals were capable of. "Let's get back to the yacht," he commanded. "We've still got work to do."

He reached into a pocket of his parka, pulling out a plastic bag that contained a bit of gray rock — the handle to the shiv he'd broken off in Superman, which now had some of his blood on it. Between the crystals he'd stolen, and this bit of genetic material from the Kryptonian, Luthor figured there were some fairly interesting experiments he could perform.

=ooo=

The hero's welcome was waiting for Lois when she arrived at the Planet late Monday morning, after her red-eye back to Metropolis from Houston. The area around her desk had been decorated with confetti and streamers, and a big banner spelling out Welcome Back Lois! was pinned along a nearby wall. There was cake and punch, and she shook hands and exchanged hugs with other city desk employees; even Cat Grant had hugged her before making a snide comment about wondering whether anything would bring Superman out of hiding, if not that disaster.

Richard was hovering nearby as well, trying to be protective, which she tolerated with some amusement. He meant well, as always, of course, but his protectiveness was a bit misplaced, even if appreciated — there was nothing he could have done, short of ordering her not to go the Houston, and Lois would never had stood for that, as much as she hadn't wanted to go in the first place.

As soon as the last piece of cake had disappeared, Perry had called her into his office for a conference. He stared at her for some time, apparently waiting for her to start talking on her own. When Lois refused to play the game White finally asked. "So, who was it?"

"Who was who?" Lois asked, blandly.

"You know who I mean!" Perry leaned forward over his desk, glaring at her. "Who saved the plane?"

"How would I know?" Lois shrugged. "He didn't give us his name!"

"And you're sure it wasn't Superman?" White persisted.

"Not unless he shrunk about a foot in the last five years," Lois retorted. "Besides, somebody asked him if he was Superman and he said no."

White sat back in his chair. "So, this was something new, then," he pondered. He looked at Lois again. "Do you think you can get an interview with him?"

Lois looked incredulous. "Chief, I don't even know what happened to him after he set the plane down at Ellington Field! He flew off somewhere and I — well, I fainted," she said, a bit defensively.

"Just like the last time you met a certain super-powered individual for the first time," Perry pointed out, and Lois nodded reluctantly, remembering the helicopter accident that had thrown her off the edge of the Planet building, and Superman catching her and the 'copter and setting them back on the roof. It was strange, Lois recalled; when she'd asked Superman back then who he was, his reply was the same as the mysterious man who'd saved the plane she was on: "a friend."

"I smell a connection," White was saying, as Lois remembered this, "between Superman and this new superhero, whoever he is." He held up a photo that had come from the wire services. "He's going to have to do something about that costume, though — it's way too goth."

"I don't think it was a costume, Chief," Lois said, taking the photo and studying it. It was difficult to make out any of the person's facial features, the black on them had removed nearly every distinguishing feature. A detail Lois remembered from seeing him in person, not present in this black-and-white photocopy, was his eyes; they were a brilliant green. "I think all this was just dirt and smoke from the smoke from the engine fires and the plane's tail section. If you look closely, you'll see he's wearing a T-shirt and jeans."

White took the picture back, staring closely at it, then frowned and reached into his desk drawer for a magnifying glass. He glanced up at Lois, almost daring her to say something, but she just gave him a look of bland innocence. Scowling, White turned the glass onto the picture. After a minute he remarked, "You're right, that's what it looks like. That's the angle you can go for—the human interest. People eat that stuff up."

"Wait a minute." Lois put her hands up to slow Perry down. "You just got my piece on the shuttle accident — I sent it in before I got on the plane home. Has it even been published yet?"

"It's going out in this evening's final edition," White said, almost dismissively. "But I want a piece on your impressions of this new hero, whoever he is. You were there, after all — you saw in him in the flesh."

"Yeah, and in the soot and grime as well," Lois added. "Chief, we didn't say ten words to one another!"

"That'll give it some mystery," White replied, deadpan. "Go for that angle, too — get people curious, get them asking questions. Who is this guy? What's his connection to Superman? Where is Superman, for that matter? Where's he been for the past five years? Stuff like that," White added, waving a hand to encompass any other details he hadn't thought of yet. He looked up at her, then raised his eyebrows at her expression — she was glowering at him. "What is it?"

But Lois just shook her head. "Nothing," she said, resigned to her new assignment. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good girl," White said, and Lois flinched, but kept her mouth shut as she left his office. Good girl, my ass! she seethed, stalking back to her desk and logging into her terminal. Perry wanted a story? Fine — she'd give him one, just like all little "good girl" reporters were expected to do!

But eight hours later she had barely made progress beyond a rough outline of her piece, distracted by her thoughts of Superman and the past. Five years and not a word from the man! Not — one — word! Not even a telegram from Bora Bora or wherever the hell he was. He hadn't even said goodbye — one day he was patrolling the skies of Metropolis; the next, vanished without a trace. Even Clark Kent at least had the courtesy to give Perry notice he was leaving, though she'd been out of the office the day he left, so she didn't have a chance to see him off, either.

She was getting a headache. Lois decided to get some air (and maybe a smoke) up on the roof. She took the elevator up to the top floor, then stepped out onto the observation deck, the Planet's unofficial "smoker's area." It was nighttime, and the cool air helped clear her head, though if truth be told it was probably more of a craving for a cigarette than a headache.

Lois pulled a smoke out of the pack, then rummaged around in her purse — her lighter wasn't in its little sleeve in her purse, and she spent several moments trying to find it, growing more and more impatient until finally it appeared from beneath some tissues. Thumbing the lighter, Lois brought the flame to the tip of her cigarette.

The lighter went out.

Thinking a stray breeze had blown it out, Lois struck the lighter again, but once again the flame disappeared before she could light her smoke. Perplexed, she peered intently at the lighter, trying to figure out what the problem was.

"You really shouldn't smoke, Miss Lane."

That voice. Lois turned toward it slowly, not believing who she thought she'd heard. But it was. It was him. After all these years, it was him. He was floating just at the edge of the building. She stared at him, wondering for a moment if she'd been wrong earlier, or misunderstood what had been said when the person who'd rescued them denied he was Superman. It couldn't be a coincidence that he was here, now.

Superman floated toward her, landing several feet away. "Sorry," he said apologetically. "I didn't mean to startle you." Truthfully, he was very glad to see her again. It had been a long time since they'd talked, and he wanted to tell her why he'd left and what he'd been doing. His mother had been right, though; he shouldn't have left without saying goodbye.

"No, I'm fine, really," Lois said, quickly. "I just wasn't…expecting…you."

He nodded, not hearing the tension in her voice. "I heard that you had a bit of an adventure the other day."

Lois frowned. "How long have you been back on Earth?"

"A while," he answered, not wanting to lie but sensing that she would be hurt if she knew how long he'd waited before seeing her again. That was probably a mistake as well, Superman realized. "I wasn't sure whether I'd find you alone when I came here."

"Why?" Lois seemed irritated by this comment. "Afraid to talk in front of the press these days? Nobody even knows you're back — except for me, of course. They're all concentrating on that 'Mini-Me' version of you that rescued the shuttle a few days ago. Any comment about that?"

Things were not going the way Clark had anticipated this moment. He had thought Lois would be happy to see him again. Instead, she was treating him like some someone off the street she was pumping for news leads.

"I'm not here for an interview, Lois," he replied, calmly. "But, I will answer any questions you might have for me."

She gave him a appraising look. "Fine," she said shortly, stuffing her cigarette and lighter into a pocket. She folded her arms across her chest. "Let's start with the big question, then: Where did you go?"

"To Krypton," Clark answered at once.

Lois frowned. "But you told me it was destroyed, ages ago."

"It was. At least," he added, "that's what the image of my father told me. But then, five years ago, when astronomers thought they found it… well, I had to go see for myself." He fell silent, remembering the long journey to the Arcturus star system, 37 light-years distant from Earth. It had taken a long time to get there, even in a spacecraft created with Kryptonian technology. And ultimately, his journey had been futile — there was nothing left of Krypton but a kryptonite meteor swarm orbiting the star, and another, smaller star that lay very close to Rao (the name Kryptonians had given their sun), called the Companion. He would have to remember to provide readings of that star to astronomical groups — it was unlikely that astronomers had verified its existence yet, with current Earth technology.

"Well, you're back, now." Lois's comment brought him out of his reverie. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I found a graveyard," Superman replied, not looking at her, and the look of pain on his face nearly made her forget how upset she was with him. He turned to look at her, his expression serious. "I read article, Lois."

Lois's expression hardened. "Yeah, so did a lot of people." Oh, yeah — this was why she was upset with him. "'Why the World Doesn't Need Superman.' There's a dinner coming up, they'll be giving me the Pulitzer."

His face showed feelings of hurt and betrayal. "Why did you write it?"

How could he even ask that? "Why did you leave us like that? How could you?" She'd spoken in a harsh whisper, but she wanted to scream at him, How could you leave me like that? She took a deep breath, composing herself, then added more calmly, "I've moved on — and so did the rest of us. That's why I wrote it: The world doesn't need a savior. And neither do I," she added with finality.

Clark was silent for several moments, staring at her. It was strange how something that felt so…right, so necessary at the time you did it, could turn out to be so wrong. Had he lost Lois forever? He didn't want to believe that. "Lois, will you come with me?" he asked at last.

Lois shook her head, but instead of saying no, she asked, "Why?"

"There's something I want to show you," he said. She shook her head again, turning away, in spite of being a bit intrigued with what it might be. It would be too easy to let his…charisma, his sheer presence, sway her resolve to avoid her true… to making the same mistake she'd made before. But then she looked back at him, Superman was staring at her once again. "Please?" he added, quietly.

Oh, hell. She stepped closer to him, but as she reached out to hold onto him, she stopped. "I can't be gone long," she said, warningly.

"You won't be," he assure her. She slipped off her heels, placing a foot on top of his boots.

She looked up at him. He was smiling gently down at her. She might never have another chance to ask this question… "Why did you leave without telling me goodbye?"

His expression sobered, and he looked away for a moment, embarrassed. "I think, Lois," he finally replied, slowly, "that it would have been too unbearable for me to say goodbye to you."

She shook her head. "Personally, I think that's a load of crap. Did you tell anyone else?" she challenged him.

"Just my mother," he told her, honestly. She bit her lip, regretting her earlier comment. "It's alright," he told her, seeing her expression. "She already told me I should have said goodbye to you."

"Smart woman," Lois agreed. Then, because of the reporter in her, she asked, "This wasn't your mother on Krypton, was it?"

"No," Superman shook his head. "The woman who raised me here on Earth. I wish you —" he stopped, because it was a fool's wish to think that Lois and Martha Kent could ever talk about him. He'd had to close that part of his life off from Lois, to keep her from having a nervous breakdown. But it was so hard, not being with her.

Lois must have had some idea what he was going to say, because she said, "You know I have a fia— a relationship with Richard. Richard White, he's Perry White's nephew. He's a pilot — he takes me up all the time."

Superman offered her a small smile. "Not like this." Lois glanced to the side. They were already in the air, moving away from the observation deck, and Lois involuntarily clung closer to Superman, leaning against his chest.

After a moment she looked up at him again. "I forgot how warm you are."

They floated up into the night sky, above the Planet building, rising higher and higher until Lois could see the entire city below them, sprawling and brilliantly lit. This high above the city, the sound of traffic had faded into the distance; it became so silent that Lois started slightly when Superman asked, softly, "What do you hear?"

She looked around, listening intently, but there was no sound. "Nothing," she replied.

"I hear everything," he told her, looking around as well. Lois, you wrote that the world doesn't need a savior… but every day, I hear people crying for one."

He looked into her eyes, his expression forlorn. "I'm sorry I left you, Lois." She looked back at him, equally somber, but had no reply for him. "I'll take you back now."

Gathering her to his side, Superman flew slowly downward toward Metropolis, but instead of going directly back to the Planet, he moved toward Metropolis Bay, flying only a foot or two over the water; Lois could see her reflection, so close she could almost reach out and touch it. At one point she glanced off to her right; whether by design or chance, they were flying by her and Richard's shoreside house — she could see his plane, moored to the docks outside their home, as they went by. She looked at Superman and he smiled at her, seemingly unaware that they had just passed her home.

They continued along the shoreline until the reached Metropolis River, flying past the Ivory State Bridge, then along Main Street and through the downtown district to the Planet building, soaring up along its side, reminding Lois of the first time they met, when she was falling and he caught her, until at last they reach the observation deck and they slowly floated downward, her stockinged feet at last touching the floor.

It had been a magical trip, and Lois's anger had long since dissipated. He had let her go, but instead of stepping away she moved toward him, her mouth nearing his, and he did not pull away. But mere inches away from kissing, she stopped, and looked at him unapologetically. "Richard's a good man," she said, excusing her momentary lapse. "And you've been gone a long time."

Superman nodded slightly. "I know," he said. There was nothing else he could say, it was truth. He had lost her forever, he finally admitted to himself. He turned away and seemed about to fly off.

"I —" Lois added quickly, to keep him from leaving. She didn't want it to end forever, not like this. But what could she say that wouldn't sound like she was leading him on? "So," she asked, trying to sound casual, "will I see you around?"

He gave her a small, wry grin. "I'm always around," he said, remembering what he'd said to Harry not long ago. He raised a hand in a parting gesture, then rose into the air. "Goodbye, Lois."

She watched him fly away, soaring upward until the Metropolis night swallowed him from view.

=ooo=

As Harry approached the Burrow, he hesitated, hovering several hundred feet above the Weasley home in the early morning hour. After the experience of rescuing the shuttle and its transport platform and all the people onboard both aircraft, then the fight with Luthor's men in the Fortress, and saving Clark (and himself) from dying from kryptonite poisoning, his day still wasn't through.

He could imagine several possible scenarios once he entered the Burrow: Hermione could be awake and waiting for him to reappear, to quiz him about his behavior over the past few months. Even worse, she might have awakened Ron, perhaps even Ginny, and all of them might be waiting for him! He had promised to tell her what was going on, of course, but he'd hoped to pick a better time and place than in the Burrow at three a.m.! Harry let his X-ray vision sweep through the Burrow, to see who was awake and where they were.

But the entire house was asleep, surprisingly; Harry felt some relief at being able to put off the inevitable for a while. Hermione, Ron , and Ginny were all nicely tucked into their beds, all fast asleep, as were Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Harry floated down to the access hole past the Weasley garden, making his way through the tunnel and up into the cupboard under the stairs. He replaced the floorboards that he'd removed coming in, then slipped into the hallway, remembering to put a Silencing Charm on the hinges of the door when they began to creak.

To avoid making any further noise Harry lifted an inch or so off the ground, using his flying power to float silently up the stairs and into his room, Fred and George's old bedroom. Still floating, he changed into night clothes and settled into bed, hoping he'd be able to nod off quickly even if he wasn't physically tired. Mentally, however, though he felt drain by the day's events he still wasn't sleepy.

Would a Sleeping Potion help him, he wondered? From what Clark had told him, poisons and other deadly substances couldn't hurt him internally, even though he could still ingest food. But potions and some plants and herbs were magical in nature, and he was still susceptible to magic. Clark had explained at some point during their time together in the Fortress this past summer that Krypton had been a planet with limited sources of edible materials, that at some point in their history Kryptonians had undergone genetic engineering that allowed them to absorb energy directly from Krypton's red sun, which they called Rao. Rao, though a red giant star, put out light that was less energetic than Earth's yellow sun; upon coming to Earth, however, Clark began receiving greater amounts of radiation, which super-energized his Kryptonian physiology and gave him his powers. Somehow, the combination of kryptonite, the lightning strike, and perhaps the Kryptonian crystal of the spacecraft, possibly in concert with Harry's magical genetic structure, had created a conduit between the two of them, intermingling their abilities.

Harry's mind kept replaying the events of their first meeting, as well as what had happened in the Fortress earlier that evening, and the shuttle rescue. His mind wasn't going to let him rest, it seemed. Harry tried to erase all thoughts from his head, trying to call up sleep, but the more he tried the more his mind seemed to race with details — flashes of pages from his Transfiguration textbook, discussions with Clark about training his super powers, what Clark was going to do to learn about his own magical potential, which they had barely explored. It was becoming a bit maddening, really. Harry wondered if he could Stupefy himself…

Suddenly the morning sun was shining through his bedroom window. Harry blinked — he'd dropped off to sleep at some point without realizing it. He glanced at his watched, then blinked again in surprise. It was nearly nine a.m., later than anyone (except Ron) usually slept at the Burrow, except for Saturday mornings. Why hadn't anyone come up to wake him?

Harry got up, throwing on a new pair of jeans, a shirt, and his trainers, then padded downstairs to the kitchen. Normally by this time on a Sunday morning the kitchen would be empty except for Mrs. Weasley, who would be watching the breakfast dishes wash themselves, but today all of the Weasleys were still at the table, as was Hermione. Everyone looked up at him as he walked in the room.

"Morning," Harry said, wondering what was going on. "Am I too late for breakfast?" No one answered for several seconds.

Finally Mr. Weasley looked at his wife, who'd been staring at Harry with concern, and she started and jumped up. "Of course not, dear! What would you like?"

"Um, whatever you have is fine," Harry said, a bit concerned now by the looks and the silence he'd been greeted with. He glanced at Ron, who gave him a don't-look-at-me shrug, then toward Hermione, whose expression was unreadable. He finally turned to Ginny, but she was staring at her father, who began to speak.

"Harry," he said, with an uncharacteristic hesitation in his voice. "I just want you to know that I thought it was important to keep everyone in the loop about this new school business…"

A steaming plate of eggs and sausages was set in front of Harry, and he nodded thanks to Mrs. Weasley, who sat down next to Arthur again. "It's just that — we're worried about you, dear," she went on, speaking into her husband's silence. "It's important for you to remember that."

Harry nodded, his mouth full of eggs and sausage, wondering where this was going. And why were Ron, Hermione and Ginny watching him so intently? What were they expecting? He swallowed his eggs and asked, "Is anything wrong?"

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley glanced at one another. "We're just not sure about this American school you all want to attend," Mrs. Weasley went on, with a determined look on her face. "This 'Professor Potter' person seems a bit dodgy, and so does that — that 'magic' he's been teaching at that school."

Harry sat back in his chair, looking at the older Weasleys in surprise. He knew they hadn't been thrilled with the arrangement, as suddenly as it had been sprung on them, but his sense of Professor Potter was that the man was being straightforward and honest with them. He was a bit eccentric, no doubt, but…

"Dodgy?" he repeated, a bit annoyed. "From what he's said, both Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore have known him for years now."

"Neither of them like him very much, it seems," Hermione put in, unexpectedly. Harry looked at her questioningly. "Well, so I've heard," she added.

"Have you changed your mind about going, Hermione?" Harry asked her.

"No," she answered quickly. "I still want to go! I'm just saying, that's what I've heard." She glanced toward the hallway leading to the living, then back to Harry; there was an intensity in her eyes, as if she was trying to convey something to him but couldn't say it out loud, with the adults present.

Harry turned to Ron and Ginny, who had both remained silent to this point. "Are you two still planning on going?"

Ron's eyes flickered to his mother, but Ginny answered immediately. "Yes, I'm still going, Harry — assuming Mum and Dad don't forbid it." She gave her parents a mutinous stare, as if daring them to say otherwise. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at one another but remained silent.

"M-me too, Harry," Ron said, trying to ignore the bereaved sigh that escaped his mother as he spoke. "I think the Professor's on the up-and-up as well."

"But it's up to you, Harry," Hermione said, leaning toward him over the table. "If you decide not to go, we'll stay at Hogwarts as well."

Harry shrugged, perplexed by that comment. "Why would I change my mind?"

"There's someone here to see you," Mr. Weasley said. "He's been waiting for you to come downstairs, in the living room," he added, nodding toward the hallway leading to the front of the house.

Harry stood, leaving the rest of his breakfast, and walked into the hallway, not even bothering to use his X-ray vision to see who was waiting for him. From the expression on everyone's faces as he'd stood and left the kitchen, it was pretty clear who he was going to find there.

"Hello, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said, as Harry walked into the living room. "I hope you are doing well this morning." Harry nodded, mutely. Dumbledore held out a small brown bag toward him. "Before we begin discussing your transfer to Professor Potter's school, would you like a lemon drop?"

Silently, Harry took a piece of candy from the bag and popped it into his mouth. The bittersweet taste of lemon in his mouth was perhaps a premonition of the argument that was obviously about to ensue. He'd expected, rather more than not, there'd be some kind of resistance from Professor Dumbledore to him leaving Hogwarts — he just hadn't expected it to come mere hours after the deal was made. Getting the Dursleys to sign his consent form had only been the warm-up match, Harry realized now. This was going to be the main event.