Harry Potter Returns
A Harry Potter/Superman Returns Crossover
Chapter Eleven
Where's Clark?
Updated 18 December 2010
Over the next few weeks Harry and the other ex-Hogwarts students became more accustomed to academic life at Potter's Field Academy. After collecting their books, they returned to the cafeteria for lunch, which had been converted back to its usual function after the morning orientation. American food, as it turned out, was not very different from their usual British fare, though Harry noticed that in addition to roast beef, chicken or turkey the cafeteria also provided hamburgers and hot dogs. Dessert was similar as well, though there seemed to be more pies for dessert than for the main meal.
All of it was very good, though, and Ron nodded approvingly as he took a second helping of apple pie, with a roll of cheese on top. "Even Mum would like this," he told Harry, wolfing it down as if it were his first bite of food in a week.
Afterwards the new students met in one of the school's common rooms for an orientation on the school and grounds. The school was roughly circular in design, divided into eight sections. There were five common areas; each was in a different quadrant of the building, as well as the one outside they had seen on their first visit. It was larger than they'd originally thought, with 125 rooms that held two, three or four students per room. Most of the upper grade students had less than four occupants per room. Most of the dorms were near the outside ring of the school, while most of the classrooms were closer to its center, grouped around the cafeteria, which was at the center of the building.
The area surrounding the school was quite beautiful, with rolling fields and a view over a nearby valley filled with trees and a stream; Professor Potter told his new students that he had extended to radius of the magical wards protecting the school to five miles, so students could go for longer nature walks without fear of encountering Mundanes out on hiking excursions — they would unconsciously avoid the warded areas. "You should avoid going too far beyond the wards, however," he warned them. "Unless you have an affinity for wrestling bears."
After dinner, they were assigned dorms, and a proctor showed them to their rooms. In Harry and Ron's case, it was Jimmy Taylor, the first person they'd spoken to when they'd arrived at the school. He led them to a room some distance from the cafeteria, almost on the other side of the building from the entrance foyer. There were four name slots next to the door; only one had a name tag on it, a Grimsdale, D. Jimmy tapped the slots bellow it and two more name tags appeared: Potter, H. and Weasley, R.
"Here it is," Jimmy said, leading them into the room. It wasn't what they might have expected, after five years at Hogwarts — there were no four-poster beds with red velvet curtains waiting for them, just three simple twin-sized ones, and one of those looked thoroughly slept in already. In fact, the whole room looked very lived in, not just the one bed. Their trunks and Hedwig's cage were already in the room, stacked in the center. "Tsk," Jimmy said, shaking his head. With a wave of his hand he swept all the clutter into one corner, leaving two-thirds of the room looking clean once again. "Hopefully, you two will be able to give your roommate some advice on keeping a clean room."
Ron shrugged. "It already looks neater than my room back at the Burrow. Which bed d'you want, Harry?"
Before Harry could answer, there was a groan from the doorway. "There goes the bloody neighborhood," a half-familiar voice said, in a false British accent. Harry and Ron both turned, seeing Dalton, the rude kid Harry had encountered in line earlier, with his friend Tricia. He was staring at their newly-added names next to his door in disbelief. Tricia, meanwhile, was smiling shyly at them.
"I thought I was going to have this room to myself this year!" Dalton complained, turning to Jimmy. "You can put 'em somewhere else!"
"Sorry, Grimsdale," Jimmy said, not sounding sorry at all. "This was the only upper-grade-level room that didn't already have two or three occupants. And nobody promised you a private room, either." He glanced at Tricia. "You know it's not long before lights out — you should get back to your own room, Trish."
Tricia looked at him innocently. "We were just going to study a bit before then."
"Sure," Jimmy said, skeptically. "That's what the common rooms are for."
"Fine," Dalton said, this time without the accent. "Come on, Tricia — we'll leave the newbies with their new room, for now." He stalked off. Tricia turned to follow him, but looked back at Harry and Ron.
"See you guys around," she smiled, giving Harry a long look before running after Grimsdale.
"I didn't know Malfoy had cousins in America," Ron muttered, looking after the departing pair.
"Who?" Jimmy asked, looking slightly confused.
"Nobody," Harry said, quickly. "Just an old schoolmate." Ron snorted. "Thanks for getting us settled in, Jimmy."
"Good luck with Grimsdale," Jimmy nodded. "He's a bit of a jerk, but he's one of the brightest kids in school. Professor Potter thought you might learn a few things from him." He left, shutting the door behind him.
Ron looked at Harry. "Like how to be a jerk?" he wondered, aloud.
"How much help do you need with that?" Harry quipped.
Ron chuckled. "Not much, according to my sister."
They changed into their pajamas, then sat on their respective beds discussing the day's events. Ron was more pleased with the school than he'd expected to be, while Harry, happy to be here at last as well, was still distracted with thoughts of Clea, and the interest she had taken in him. It was a surprise, really, that such a young woman could be powerful enough to be proclaimed Sorcerer Supreme (though Harry still hadn't figured out what that meant — perhaps Hermione knew the answer, he would have to ask her first chance he got), and more surprising still that she had seen something in him. It could have something to do with the combination of magical ability and super-powers.
"Harry!" Ron's voice startled him. "I've said your name three times now — is something wrong?"
"Oh…no…" Harry shook his head, back in the present. "Guess I'm just tired. Maybe we should get some sleep." He pretended to yawn sleepily.
"Yeah, I guess so," Ron yawned hugely as well. "I hope our roommate knows how to sneak in quietly—I don't fancy being woken up in the middle of the night."
They put out all the lights in the room, save one, then settled down to sleep.
=ooo=
Magic classes, beginning on Tuesday, were interesting but also frustrating, for several reasons. Being unused to focusing magic wandlessly, Harry and the other ex-Gryffindors were quite far behind the curve in both theory and practice. The Academy students pointed this out gleefully when advancing the notion that America magic was superior to British magic.
Some of the teachers were a bit — strange. Their first class on Tuesday, Advanced Conjuration and Divination, was taught by none other than Doctor Strange himself, and most of the first class was taken up with questions directed toward him rather than about magic.
"What happened to your Eye of Agamotto?" one student asked. Harry did not even know what such a thing was. Strange answered, almost mechanically, that it was in Clea's safekeeping for now.
"Why Clea?" another student asked. "Why didn't Brother Voodoo become Sorcerer Supreme?"
"Clea was the best-qualified," Strange said, but didn't elaborate on why that was.
"Is it because she was your disciple?" Hermione asked, and Harry turned, staring at her. How did she know that?
"She was best-qualified," Strange repeated.
"How long have you been practicing magic?" Someone else asked.
"Since the early 1960's," Strange replied.
"How long was Clea your disciple?" That was something Harry wanted to know.
"For some time," Strange said. She must've been with Strange since she was very young, Harry surmised — even younger than he was when he started, at eleven, to have learned so much in so short a time.
The next class, Advanced Universal Arcana, was more interesting — both because the teacher did not seem to be a celebrity in her own right, and because she kept everyone's minds on the subject. A pert young blond, Miss Sullivan had an engaging smile and a firm hand on her class. She spent most of the first hour summarizing Arcane magic and universal spells for the Hogwarts group, but still assigned enough reading that there were groans about getting it accomplished by Thursday's class.
Third hour, Advanced Herbology, was a surprise when the teacher, an older gentleman name Mr. Beery, introduced himself. Hermione immediately raised her hand.
"Sir, are you related to Herbert Beery, who taught Herbology at Hogwarts earlier this century?" she asked.
"My father," Beery said, proudly.
"So how did you end up in America?" This was asked by Dalton, who had put a look of innocence on his face, though there was an almost imperceptible smirk around the corner of his mouth.
Beery harrumphed, then after a few moments said, "My father wanted me to have an — er, broader education than just Hogwarts."
"Oh," Dalton said, blandly. "I thought it might have had something to do with that Christmas play he tried to direct, the one based on 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune.'"
Beery frowned at him. "What would you know about that play, Mr. Grimsdale?"
Dalton shrugged. "Oh, only that it won 'Worst School Play of the Century' in a recent Witch Weekly poll, sir."
Beery looked decidedly unhappy until Harry turned to Dalton and said, "You read Witch Weekly? Hoping your hero Gilderoy Lockhart's going to win 'Most Charming Smile' again?" Several people in class snickered, and Dalton scowled at him.
"That's enough, Mr. Potter," Beery said, but nodded as Harry sat back in his chair, smiling slightly at Dalton's anger. Dalton didn't speak for the remainder of the class.
Their next class, Intermediate Reading and Literature, was a Muggle — or rather, a Mundane class, and while both Hermione and Ginny seemed to enjoy it, Ron (who wasn't much of a reader past the Quidditch scores in the Daily Prophet) looked absolutely bored by the class, and Harry just read when the teacher pointed to him. Not many of the other students looked any more interested, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief when the bell rung for lunch.
"Finally," Ron muttered to Harry, as they gathered up their books. "I'm starving." In the cafeteria, they each filled a plate with slices of beef and chicken, piles of potatoes and gravy, and heaps of corn or peas, along with a few rolls, then found chairs at the table where Hermione and Ginny were already seated, both having decided on salads rather than a large meal. "So what d'you think?" he asked, of no one in particular though he was looking at Hermione as he said this, before taking a huge bite of the roast beef on his plate.
"I think you should pay more attention in our Literature class," Hermione answered, giving him a severe look, one worthy of Professor McGonagall. "I saw Harry nudge you twice to keep you awake."
"You dib?" Ron, his mouth full, looked at Harry, who shrugged. It wasn't an interesting subject to him, either, but he didn't want to look bored in the class, at least until he knew what the teacher was like. It had been the thin, blond man that had given him his enrollment packet when they'd first arrived. The man had written his name on the board, Mr. Constantine, but then had launched right into the reading lessons without a further word about himself.
"You know, Ronald," Hermione was saying, in an almost lecturing manner. "You have an opportunity to increase your reading and comprehension skills here, as well as learn magic." Ron turned to Harry and rolled his eyes, then looked back at her.
"I can already read, thank you very much," he pointed out.
"That's debatable," Ginny snickered. Ron ignored her, though Harry smiled briefly.
"I'll wager even Harry can read faster than you," Hermione pressed her point. Harry shook his head warningly.
"Don't drag me into this," he said, frowning. "Ron and I don't have anything to prove by trying to out-perform one another."
"Afraid she's right?" Ginny asked, teasingly. Harry looked at her, surprised by the question. Hermione knew he could out-read Ron — she'd seen him read an entire book in seconds. How much, Harry wondered, had she told Ginny?
"What d'you think of our teachers so far?" Ron suddenly interjected — whether he was trying to deflect the current conversation or the question had just occurred to him, it turned both Hermione and Ginny to that subject.
"Mr. Constantine is hot," Ginny grinned at Hermione, who nodded eagerly.
"Yes, and very intelligent, too," she agreed. "I was amazed to find someone who knows so much about the magical influences in British literature over the past three hundred years! It's a shame we'll only have his reading and literature class twice a week." Ron rolled his eyes again.
As Hermione and Ginny continued to discuss other teachers, Ron nudged Harry's elbow, then leaned over and asked quietly, "So how're things going with your increased magical ability?"
"What do you mean?" Harry whispered back.
"You know — are spells easier to cast now than at Hogwarts, stuff like that." Ron glanced past Harry, checking if Hermione or Ginny were surreptitiously listening to them. "I was wondering…maybe that'll happen to me, too!"
"Maybe," Harry shrugged, though it wasn't likely Ron would be struck by lightning while saving Superman from green kryptonite… the thought made his mind wander back to the man who'd tried to kill both him and Clark, Lex Luthor. He and his men had seemingly vanished after their improbable escape from Clark's Fortress of Solitude; it had been weeks since anyone had heard from them.
Just as well, Harry thought. For now, he was more concerned with where Clark was — he hadn't heard from him since they'd parted after his shuttle rescue and the Fortress incident. Harry had thought they were forging a close friendship, but it was as if Clark suddenly had more important things to do.
Well, he probably does, Harry rationalized, ruefully. He might be out traveling around the world, helping people and diverting disasters. What right did some teenaged boy have to expect him to hover about, keeping him company — even if he was the only other super-powered person on Earth, and even if those powers were some of Superman's own?
Harry shook off these dismal thoughts. Sometime soon, he decided, he would take a quick trip to Kansas to see Clark's mother — perhaps she would be able to tell him what had become of him. He turned back to Ron and his lunch, resolving to make that trip at his first opportunity.
=ooo=
Ironically, even as Harry acclimating to his new school in America, the greatest criminal mind of the twentieth century and his men had arrived in London, England. Having located and examined the 777's wing floating above the Gulf of Mexico, Luthor had then turned his attention to the two other items he'd collected: the strange "Firebolt" broom that he'd found in Superman's spaceship, and the handle of his kryptonite knife, which was now, somehow, a piece of gray stone.
With the extraordinary occurrences that took place in Superman's Fortress — the partial recovery of his powers, the young man that came to his aid, with powers of his own, as well as something…extra thrown in for good measure. Airplane wings didn't float on their own accord, nor did radioactive metals, even unusual ones like kryptonite, didn't suddenly become inert, much less transmute to stone in a matter of moments. Luthor had suspected unknown forces at work.
They performed metallurgical and radiation tests on samples from both the wing and the knife. The tests were inconclusive — whatever had caused the wing to float had eventually worn off, and it had sunk into the Gulf. The handle, while now clearly stone, might be giving off some exotic types of radiation, or it might have simply been errors in his equipment's calibrations. The broom had been the same. Luthor found himself more and more frustrated, and intrigued, by the mystery.
He finally decided to take a more forensic approach to the problem, and began studying the Firebolt more closely. The handle was ash, a strong but relatively common wood found around the world; the sweeper was made up of birch twigs, though the object was clearly not intended to use for sweeping. Birch was another wood common to many areas of the world. As for the name and number engraved on the handle, Luthor would have to look for potential uses for such an object, even strange and unlikely ones.
It would take several weeks of intensive search, but he finally chanced upon a lead — in an antique bookstore, of all places. They had docked the Gertrude, now rechristened Alexandria in order to avoid a connection with the Vanderworth estate, off a small town on the New England coast, and Luthor had donned one of his wigs and dark glasses in order to enjoy a small excursion inland, looking for any kind of reference to a Firebolt that might lead him to the broom's maker. The proprietor of the shop, an old man with a rather unnerving look in his eyes had handed him a very strange book.
Quidditch Through the Ages, though Luthor had no idea what "Quidditch" was supposed to be. Skimming through the book, he found that it was a game played, with all things, flying broomsticks. The old man demanded an extraordinary price for the book, which Luthor gladly paid; after which he had Brutus and the boys break the man's arm, then rob him, and considered it a fair trade.
Back on the Alexandria, Luthor studied the book in detail. At first, it had seemed to be a work of fiction, about a nonexistent game, but it was consistent with the broom he'd found, and thus more believable. Most of the "Quidditch teams" listed in the tome were based in the British Isles, so Luthor had decided to make that their first port of call.
The plan for getting more information about the broom was uncomplicated. Luthor had Kitty walk around various locations in London, carrying the broom. Brutus, Grant and Riley would shadow her. Anyone showing an unusual interest in the broom would be brought to Luthor for questioning. Of course, there would be a few false starts — some men would interpret the broom as a unique way of meeting men on Kitty's part, but she would be clever enough (Luthor hoped) to distinguish between the men interested in her, and those interested in the object she was carrying. As it turned out, it took only a few days before his men returned with someone who knew quite a bit about Quidditch brooms.
They dropped the small, blindfolded man in a chair in Luthor's main study on the Alexandria, where Luthor gazed at him in bemusement. The man was quite small, not much over five feet even with the top hat he was wearing. He was dressed, strangely, in purple robes. Brutus handed Luthor a small stick.
"This is the only thing he was carrying," he told his employer. "I figured you'd be interested."
"Oh, yes," Luthor murmured, examining the stick carefully. It was similar to the one the kid in the Fortress had pointed at them several times, with amazing results. "Very interested."
The little man was turning his head from side to side, as if he were looking around the room. Could he see through the blindfold, Luthor wondered, with something like X-ray vision? He looked rather worried, Luthor decided; even if he wasn't able to see, he knew they had this stick. "So, what can you do with this stick, little man?" Luthor asked him.
The man froze for a moment, then shrugged. "It's just a stick," he replied, his voice soft and wheezy, like an old man. There was also an edge of tension to it, and fear. Luthor smiled fractionally. Fear was good. Fear, he could use.
"Take the blindfold off," Luthor told Brutus, who untied the covering, allowing the old man to see once again. The man looked up into Luthor's eyes with apprehension as Luthor held up the stick in front of him. "So this is just a stick, right?"
"Yes," the old man nodded, slowly, not taking his eyes off Luthor's.
"Well, then…" Luthor took the stick in both hands. "It won't matter if I break it, then?" He flexed the stick slightly.
The man's mouth set. "N-no," he shook his head, looking uncertain.
Luthor put more pressure on the stick. "Are you sure?" The stick was bending quite alarmingly now. "Well — on three, then: one… two… thr—"
"Wait!" the man cried out, and Luthor released his pressure. The man slumped, relieved, but Luthor bent over, waving the stick in his face.
"Well," he said. "I'm waiting."
The man looked away, seeming to wrestle with his thoughts. Finally, he looked back at Luthor. "It's a wand," he said, shortly. "A magic wand."
There was a burst of laughter, from Stanford. When nobody else laughed, however, he looked around sheepishly for a moment. "Sorry," he said at last. "But that's nuts."
"Perhaps so," the man agreed, too quickly. "Many people have suggested that I haven't much sense."
"That may be true," Luthor added. "But tell me about it, anyway."
"I can make magic with it," the man said. He looked around at them innocently. "If you would untie me, I would be happy to demonstrate its use."
"That would be quite interesting," Luthor said, holding up the wand before him. Magic! That would explain quite a few things. "I would be interested in learning how to use one of these."
"Oh, you can't," the old man shook his head. "You're just a Muggle, if you'll excuse me saying so. Muggles cannot perform magic, even with a wand."
"Hmm," Luthor pondered this. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to have you tell me everything you know about magic."
The old man nearly smiled at this. "My dear sir," he said, a bit imperiously. "I'm a wizard, well over one hundred years old, while you are a Muggle. What makes you think I will tell you anything else about magic?"
Luthor smiled. "Well, I'll tell you, Mister, eh —"
"My name is Dedalus Diggle."
"I — and my associates here — can be very persuasive, Mr. Diggle," Luthor said, gesturing toward his henchmen.
"I cannot be tortured," Diggle stated.
"Oh, not torture!" Luthor agreed. "Torture is a very inefficient means of obtaining information. It's great for inflicting pain, of course — but pain is not what I'm after. It's your cooperation I want, and I have some ideas on indoctrination techniques that I'd like to try out on you." Luthor jerked a thumb, and Grant and Riley grabbed the man and dragged him from the room.
Brutus watched as they left the room, then turned to his boss. "What do you think he's going to give us?"
"With any luck," Luthor said, softly. "Everything, and more."
=ooo=
It was the middle of September before Harry found an opportunity to get away from the Academy. Ron had a sudden attack of homesickness during their first weekend, and Harry, always a good friend, had kept him company, doing their first week's homework together.
The second weekend, Harry was cornered by Ricky in the cafeteria during breakfast, wanting to talk about everything he'd learned in the first two weeks of school. Then he talked several of the boys into a game of baseball, and even Ron, already bored with the school routine, pested him to join. Harry found the game to be somewhat simplistic — played with only one ball and one bat, but a total of nine players guarding the widely-spaced bases and field. And with his super-speed, the game was incredibly slow.
At one point, having somehow found himself playing center field, Harry had fielded a long, high hit that was heading over a row of bushes that had been designed the "home run fence." Harry had gone right up to the wall itself, but the ball was easily going to clear it, until Harry made a small leap and caught it one-handed. He landed, still holding the ball aloft to show he'd caught it, and saw everyone staring at him in surprise. He had rose about ten feet in the air to catch the ball. A runner on third, realizing how far Harry was from the plate, decided to tag up and race for home. "Throw it! Throw it!" the catcher screamed at him, though the effort seemed futile. Harry threw the ball.
The ball whizzed toward home plate in a low arc, almost too fast for the catcher to see — it struck the web of his mitt, almost knocking him back onto home plate, and he spun and tagged the runner's ankle as he tried to slide past. "Out!" the umpire yelled.
Everyone on the field was yelling in excitement as Harry walked in, exchanging places with the batter whose fly he'd caught. "I can't believe that throw, Harry!" Ricky was saying, awed. "You threw that a couple of hundred feet, at least, and right on target! Are you sure you never played baseball before?" There was no sneaking off the field after that; the rest of the day was one long celebration. It was fortunate, Harry found, that in America you had to be twenty-one to drink alcoholic beverages, even beer, or every boy with even a passing interest in baseball (or drinking) would have been stewed to the gills.
This weekend, at least, things seemed to settle into a routine. Ron, now missing Quidditch, had pulled out his Chudley Cannons book and was leafing through it. That, Harry hoped, would keep him occupied for an hour or so. Ricky had come to the cafeteria, looking around the room as he ate for his friend Jonathan, the other kid from Kansas — Jonathan very seldom seemed to be around, but being only in sixth grade, like Ricky, Harry did not have any classes in common with either of them.
Casually picking up his tray, Harry announced, "I'll be back in a bit."
Ron, still reading from his Cannons book, muttered, "Okay, see you."
Hermione looked up, catching his eye. "Going somewhere?" she asked, every bit as casual.
"Just — out," Harry shrugged, not wanting to say anything overly deceitful. "Thought I'd go out and get some fresh air."
"Want me to go with you?" Hermione asked, closing her day's copy of the Bismark Tribune, one of the few area papers the school received copies of.
Harry blinked. "Well, not really," he said, flatly. Next to Hermione, Ginny was listening to the conversation with some interest as well.
"Oh," Hermione said, her look of disappointment clearly feigned. "Too bad — I guess you need to go off by yourself for a while…" She looked at Ginny and they shared a smirk between them.
"Okay," Harry said, uncertainly. "See you, then." He put his tray away and walked from the cafeteria, wondering what was up between those two. Halfway to the foyer, however, he thought of something — perhaps he should bring Clark's wand and money with him when he dropped by, in case Clark decided to begin using them.
As he turned, Harry saw someone suddenly step out of view, around a corner further down the corridor. Had someone been following him? He began walking back toward his room, and glanced through the walls ahead of him to see who it was. Surprisingly, it was Ginny. Okay, what was up with that? He continued back to his room, taking the most direct route through the school corridors, with Ginny shadowing him from one or two corridors away.
Well, whatever was going on, Harry wasn't going to let it distract him from making his impromptu visit to the Kent farm. He unlocked his trunk, got out Clark's wand and bag of gold and slid them into his jeans pockets, then relocked the trunk and made his way back toward the main entrance, with Ginny following, staying carefully out of his sight (but not from his X-ray vision).
In the foyer he paused, looking around as if he were thinking about something, while at the same time scanning the nearby corridors. Ginny had stopped beyond a corridor corner, waiting for him to resume walking. Smiling, with a slight shake of his head in amusement, Harry continued outside, walking through the outside commons in front of the school and down a path into a grove of trees. Ginny followed, and Harry picked up his pace, literally, as his feet left the ground and he slid silently among the trees, gaining speed. Ginny might try and cast an undetectable detection spell on him, one they had just learned in Conjuration and Divination class. But it was already too late for that, as Harry flashed out the opposite side of the grove faster than the eye could see, then sped upwards into the sky and turned southeast, toward Kansas.
The flight took only seconds, as the distance from the school to Smallville was less than a thousand miles, and Harry landed next to the barn, so that it blocked anyone from seeing him from the road. He looked around, but Clark was nowhere outside, and he didn't want to invade his or his mother's privacy by using his vision on their house. Walking up to the back door, he knocked, and was greeted by a surprised Martha Kent a few moments later.
"Harry, what a surprise!" she exclaimed, seeing him. "Come on inside, dear!" She smiled at him. "I was going to say, you must be chilled from the wind, but that wouldn't be true, would it?"
Harry smiled. "No ma'am," he agreed.
"So what brings you to these parts, dear?" She began to look concerned. "Has something happened to Clark?"
"Oh no," Harry said. "In fact, I just came to see if he was here — I wanted to drop off a couple of items he left with me, in case he needs them."
"Oh, dear," Martha frowned. "Clark left a few weeks ago, he said there was some studying he had to do. I haven't seen him since then."
"Huh," Harry pondered this. Had Clark gone off to Hogwarts without letting him — Harry — know? And without his wand, too? He could get another one, no doubt, but the wand he'd bought from Ollivander's was one of the last ones the old wandmaker had sold before disappearing last summer. "Did he tell you where he was going, Mrs. Kent?"
That brought a slightly exasperated smile to her lips. "No, dear — he's a grown man and lord knows, he's certainly capable of looking out for himself. Even if his mother does worry about him. Do you still want to leave those items here for him?"
"What? Oh, yeah…" Harry took out the wand and the bag of wizard gold and handed them to her. She looked at them in wonder.
"Is this a…?" she held up the wand, staring at it.
"— a magic wand? Yeah, I guess so," Harry said, feeling almost sheepish saying it aloud. "The bag has coins in it that wizards use — gold, silver and copper coins called Galleons, Sickles and Knuts."
Martha opened the bag and poured out a handful of the coins into her palm. She looked at them for several seconds before shrugging and pouring them back in the bag. "Very interesting, Harry. I'll make sure he gets them the first time he comes home. Now, would you like something to eat before you go?"
"Well, I just ate," Harry said, then spied something on the kitchen counter and added, "but maybe I could have a small piece of your apple pie…?"
Two slices later Harry sat back from the kitchen table. "That was so good, Mrs. Kent! Your pies are the best, even better than the ones they make at school."
Martha smiled, placing the remainder of the pie back under its glass cover. "Thank you, Harry! I can't call it magic, but making pies all these years gives a body a lot of experience in matters like that." She rinsed off the knife and dropped it in the utensil rack of the dish dryer, then took a dish towel and began drying her hands. "I — don't know how difficult it is for you to visit, but it's nice to see you again. If you'd ever like to drop by sometime for supper, I'd love to have you over. Perhaps we can even arrange for Clark to be here —" she laughed, nervously. "If we ever hear from him again, that is."
"Oh, I'm sure we will," Harry said immediately, a bit alarmed at that possibility. He wouldn't have just left again, would he? Without saying anything to his mother, or to Harry? "He's probably at my old school — my headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, offered to give him some magical training. Although," he added, uncertainly, "that was before I decided to attend school here in America. But it must be something like that, I'm sure!"
"Wouldn't he have needed that wand you brought here?" Martha wondered.
"Well…yeah," Harry admitted. "But he could have gotten another one…" Even as he said it, however, Harry realized Clark probably wouldn't have done that — he would have found a way to contact Harry for his own. In fact, Harry remembered with a start, they had a way to communicate now: the enchanted Galleons Fred and George had given him! He'd given one to Clark, and Clark had used it to signal him from the Fortress that something dangerous was going on there. Presumably Clark still had that Galleon, but hadn't used it since then.
He should have mentioned it to Clark's mother, but instead said, "If I hear from him I'll let him know you want to see him, Mrs. Kent."
"Thank you, Harry," she smiled. "You're a good boy."
Harry nodded, feeling guilty, and walked outside. He took several steps before lifting off in a low climb, then rapidly accelerated into the sky. But instead of speeding back to the Academy in seconds, he ascended to several thousand feet and about a thousand miles per hour — it would take him less than an hour to get back, but Harry was in no hurry now. He would only have to deal with Hermione's questions, Ginny's snooping after him, and Ron's — well, his growing envy, as Harry saw it, of his new abilities — and that was just of the few things he'd let them in on — no one knew of the full extent of his powers except Dumbledore and Clark.
But What had happened to Clark? was uppermost in Harry's mind at the moment. Harry had almost expected to see him at the Academy — learning wandless magic was much more advantageous than Hogwarts magic. Harry had seen that for himself in just the past few weeks of classes. At the very least, Clark should have let him know what he was up to. He might even be back east, in Metropolis, doing his Superman thing again, for all Harry had heard of things going on in the Muggle — or Mundane, he reminded himself — world.
Finally Harry caught sight of the river that ran through a part of the "safe" area surrounding the Academy. The river ran through a gorge; there was a long train trestle crossing the gorge, coming down from mountains to the west of it. There was a bluff overlooking the gorge, a clearing just at the edge of a grove of trees. Harry angled his flight downward, deciding to stop there for a bit, when he saw that the place was already occupied.
Focusing in with the enhanced vision, Harry saw it was one of the sixth graders from the school — Jonathan Clark. That was surprising, he thought—the place was quite a distance from the school, almost at the limit of the safe zone. Jonathan would have had to walk a long time to get there from the school. Harry changed the angle of his descent, landing some distance away inside the grove of trees beyond the clearing. He walked out into the clearing, coming up behind the young man, who seemed not to hear him. Jonathan was sitting near the edge of the bluff, looking out at the scene before him. It was quite beautiful here, Harry decided.
"'Lo," Harry said at last, after standing behind him for several seconds. The kid turned around, looking up at him in surprise.
"Oh, hi, Harry," he said. He had a young, eager face, much like Ricky, though he was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, rectangular rather than round — other than that, he looked similar to how Harry imagined he looked at around twelve, except Jonathan was a bit stockier than he'd been.
"I guess you know who I am?" Harry asked. The question was sincere, not ego-driven — Harry had always been surprised when everyone seemed to recognize him on sight, but it was a "benefit" of being the Boy-Who-Lived. Or perhaps a curse…
Jon looked at him. "Of course I do. I've been meaning to come talk to you —"
"What for?" Harry interrupted, surprised once again. He had kids at school pestering him all the time — they wanted to hear stories about Voldemort, or had questions about British magic, or just wanted to be around him.
"Harry, I —" Jon stopped, turning toward the gorge as a series of short train whistles suddenly sounded. Harry looked at well — his enhanced vision quickly locating the source: a train was coming down the mountain pass toward the gorge, traveling quite fast. There were more than one hundred cars making up this train; Harry wondered if the drivers would slow it down before they crossed the gorge. Suddenly Jon gripped his arm, pointing.
"Harry, the brakes must be out on that train!" he said, urgently. "It shouldn't be going that fast! We're going to have to slow it down!"
"What?" Harry said, dumbfounded. How could this kid know —?
But Jonathan wasn't waiting for him; he leaped off the bluff, an amazing jump that landed him on the floor of the gorge, unharmed, hundreds a feet closer to the trestle; he jumped again, up into the air, to land nimbly on the tracks in the middle of the trestle, a quarter-mile away. He waved to Harry, gesturing for him to follow. How could he —?
Suddenly things fell into place for Harry. Of course! It was Clark! Harry stepped forward, off the edge of the bluff, and flew over to where Clark was standing, in the middle of the trestle as the train bore down on them. "Clark? Is that you?" he asked.
Clark nodded hurriedly, but pointed toward the train. "Harry, you're going to have to slow the train down — you can use your flight power to do that!"
"I know," Harry nodded. "But what happened to —"
"I can explain afterwards," Clark interrupted him. "But for now, just slow the train down — don't stop it, we don't want anyone from the train getting off and looking around. They'll be able to stop it by the time they reach the next station." Clark turned toward the opposite end of the trestle and leaped — an arcing jump that landed him on the edge of the gorge. He turned to watch.
Harry turned to face the oncoming train. It was coming fast — Harry estimated it was traveling about a hundred miles an hour. Harry could run faster than a hundred miles an hour, but he knew that the faster a massive object went, the more energy it took to slow it. With a 100-car train coming at him at over 100 MPH, its kinetic energy would take millions of foot-pounds to slow. He wouldn't be able to exert his flying power over the entire train, either; at best he would have to slow down the front engine, one of the heaviest cars on the train, and do so slowly enough that the other cars wouldn't jump the track as the train decelerated.
As the train approached Harry lifted just above the track, arms extended and hovering with zero stopping power initially. He would apply braking flight after the train began pushing him backward. The engine slammed into his hands, pushing the metal inward, and Harry began using his flying power to oppose the train's energy. There were a series of loud bangs as car couplers slammed tight in a domino-effect When they stopped Harry began exerting even more against the train, and the squeal of locked metal wheels resounded throughout the gorge.
The front of the train passed over the opposite side of the gorge, where Clark watched as Harry passed by, still doing at least sixty miles an hour. Harry kept pushing against the engine, slowing it more and more, until he was nearly a mile from the gorge. He flew away from the train, now going about thirty miles an hour, keeping himself low so the engineers up front could not see him, and rejoined Clark back at the edge of the gorge.
Harry stood silently beside the twelve-year old Clark as the remainder of the train rolled by. He was trembling, but whether from anger at Clark, the excitement of the rescue he'd just performed, or just relief, he wasn't sure. Finally the last car rolled by, now traveling at a much safer speed of thirty miles an hour, and Harry turned to his Kryptonian friend.
"Why didn't you tell me you were at the school?" he demanded. Somehow, being taller than Clark made Harry feel he had the right to know this. "We've been there for weeks now, and you've never said more than a word to me in the hallways!"
Clark smiled ruefully. "I know, Harry — I'm sorry. I wanted to, the first day we were there, but once Ricky found out I was from Kansas as well, he considered me an instant friend. Anyway," he grinned. "You should thank me — I've been keeping him away from you."
"What for?" Harry asked.
"He's been wanting to get into your group since the first day," Clark told him. "So do a lot of the other sixth and seventh graders — being part of Harry Potter's 'posse' is all they can talk about."
"Posse?" Harry looked surprised. "I'm not even sure what that is…"
"A gang," Clark clarified.
Harry just shook his head, dumbfounded at the idea. After a moment he looked down the track, toward the departing train. "Why did you have me slow the train? Why didn't you do it? And what's going on with you being twelve years old?"
"Professor Potter wanted me to blend in with the other students," Clark said, spreading his arms slightly. "He thought I could move around the school more easily if everyone thought I was a kid, too.
"Unfortunately," he went on, "the spell he used made me completely twelve again — including my powers. At twelve, I could run fast and leap long distances, but I hadn't learned to fly yet."
"You can't remember how?" Harry wondered.
"I don't think it's that," Clark said. He closed his eye, concentrating for a second. He began to wobble, lifted off the ground a few inches, then settled back. "I can almost muster it," he said, opening his eyes again and looking at Harry. "But not quite. It does let me make long leaps and land more or less without smashing stuff, but I can't fly yet."
"How long are you going to be like this?" Harry asked, suddenly realizing that he was now the strongest person on Earth! "I mean, what if Luthor shows up again —?"
"The enchantment is only in effect as long as I'm within the safe zone of the school," Clark mentioned. "If I leave the area I'll revert to my adult self. But I only intend to do that once I've learned enough about magic to study it on my own."
"Oh," Harry said. "How long will that take, d'you think?"
Clark shrugged slightly. "At the rate I'm going through the library, I could be done in another month or so."
"That's all?" Harry looked surprised once again. "You must be reading lots of books every day!"
"A dozen or so a week," Clark nodded. "There's quite a bit to take in, I've found…. How are your friends doing, Harry?"
"Fine," Harry shrugged, recognizing the question as an attempt to deflect the conversation away from himself. "If you don't want to talk about it —"
"Harry, wait a minute," Clark held up his hand, and Harry fell silent. "We can talk about whatever you want, but —" he looked around. "Do you think we can go somewhere a bit more peaceful?"
Harry looked around. They were standing near the edge of a gorge, by a public railway. Except for anyone in the now-distant train and at the school, some miles away, there was no one else around. A smile slowly broke across his lips. It was hard to stay mad at Clark.
"Sure, I guess," he agreed. "I do have a couple of things to tell you — oh, and I just got back from your mom's house —"
"Follow me, then!" Clark said, turning and leaping away, a jump that took him toward the bluff where Harry had first found him. Harry followed, flying after him, and the two spent several hours chatting about Clark's mother, the classes at the Academy, and other things that occupy the minds of teenagers.
"Clea? No, I'd never heard of her," Clark was saying some time later, shaking his head. "I only know one female magic-user, offhand — she's the cousin of the Illusions teacher, Professor Zatara."
"That's the only magical superhero you have?" Harry looked a bit disappointed — he thought wizards using their powers would be fairly common here in America, where the laws on magical secrecy seemed to be much more relaxed.
"Well, there was someone who used to call himself Doctor Fate," Clark recalled. "But he disappeared years ago, before I became Superman."
"Anyway," Harry went on, "I was in the library the first day, looking at the books, and I found her reading a book — or she found me! I think she was looking for me," he added, almost looking embarrassed but strangely proud at the same time. "She said she saw a lot of potential in me!"
Clark nodded, agreeing. "There is a lot of potential in you, Harry." He was silent a few moments, then added, "I wouldn't read much more into what she said, however."
Harry blinked. "What do you mean?"
Clark was silent for a while, thinking. "Well, I get the impression that you, well, 'like' her."
Harry grinned. "I do like her. What's not to like about her? She's young, she's pretty…"
"She's also very powerful," Clark pointed out. "From what I've read, having the title of Sorcerer Supreme means she's the most magically powerful being on Earth. In fact, she may be responsible for the safety and integrity of our entire space-time dimension, if what I've been reading is true. Power like that can do unusual things to a person's viewpoint."
"So?" Harry shrugged. "What's wrong with that? Look at all the power you and I have, for instance! It hasn't turned us evil."
"Harry," Clark explained. "Power like Clea has makes you and me look like nothing. Not even Professor Potter, or Dumbledore could stand up to her, if she wanted to do something. I'm not saying you shouldn't like her… just that you should keep your perspective about who she is, and who you are."
Harry looked at Clark for several moments, then grinned. "Sure, Clark. I guess I can do that." He looked around. It was getting later in the afternoon. "I guess we better get back to the school — it's been several hours."
They both stood. "Do you want a lift?" Harry asked, holding out a hand.
"Nah," Clark said. "I can run back." He smiled. "I kind of miss running through the fields on my parents' farm, it'll be nice to run again for a while. See you back there, Harry." He took off.
Harry lifted into the air, arriving at the school a second or two later, well ahead of Clark. Now that he knew his friend was here, he felt better about things. And he was going to emulate Clark and begin reading at least a book or two a day — he'd just see how long it took him to read through the library!
It was just too bad Clark didn't seem happy for his interest in Clea. Harry thought he would have been happy for him to like someone like her. Harry shrugged to himself, deciding that Clark had his own issues to work out, maybe with that Lois Lane lady, and went to find Ron or Hermione.
=ooo=
Author's Notes: A few review questions asked and answered.
Q: Not bad, its not going to be slash is it?
A: Nope.
Q: Since Harry is (much more beneficially) part Kryptonian now, could Clark/Kal-El stand as the blood relative for the Blood Wards?
A: Why? He could kick Voldemort's ass anytime now.
Q: It's looks like Harry got a crush on Clea...
A: Ya think?
Q: NO HARRY/GINNY, don't make me tell your mother. lol.
A: Harry and Clea, then?
Everyone have a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season!