Well, it's been a while, but here's the next chapter
Arunion's Command Ship
Harry Potter, Seamus Finnigan and Professor McGonnagall stood nervously on the alien's ship, watching out the viewport as they flew through the blackness. Harry remembered reading about the universe in the library before he had been forbidden to go there by the Dursleys about the Solar System, and the vastness of Space, but he hadn't realised how large the universe was, and how small and insignificant he was in it. Now, they were in another universe, meaning that everything could be even bigger than he had once thought.
His thoughts were interrupted as there was a knock on the door.
He pressed the button on the side of the door, and it slid back to reveal Pelora, one of the Voidstorm, the Princes personal guard.
"Begging your pardon, sirs and madam," said Pelora, formally "But we're about to make the jump into Warp Space for the return to Craftworld Merekwoad. Its best you not stare out into the Warp, many have gone mad while looking out, and this area is poorly shielded. Until we revert to real-space, it's better you stay in one of the more central rooms."
"Thank you," said Harry, then looked down "Sorry for stunning you."
"You need not apologise," said Pelora "You were doing what needed to be done to defend your home. I understand how painful it must have been to leave it. If you're ready, follow me."
Harry led the way, as they left the room and followed Pelora to the central area, where the Prince stood at the head of the ship.
"Shields up," said Arunion "Engage field."
Just these words were enough. The bridge windows turned black, and the ship lights dimmed, as power was diverted from other areas of the ship. Harry saw the other students and teachers that had survived the Battle of Hogwarts gathered in one area of the ship, Professor Flitwick and Kingsley Shacklebolt conjuring sleeping bags for them to sleep in the safest area. More than ever, Harry noticed the absence of people. Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley and the many other students that had died in the battle. Who had died so that they could defeat Voldemort.
The Warp
The Immaterium is not a thing, or a place. As it is not a thing, it cannot adequately be explained by rational minds. It is the domain of the chaos gods, a place crafted by emotion and shaped by the emotions released by psychically attuned races. And this place, that is not a place, is ruled over by four beings who constantly war for supremacy in this realm of Chaos.
When the ship Asurmen's Might reentered the Warp, the gods of Chaos took notice. Khorne, The Blood God, saw warlike visions of robed warriors wielding Tzeentch's magic, and he vowed to stop them before they became too powerful. Tzeentch, The Changer of Ways, the master of entropy, saw beings wielding magic not borne of the Warp, but also, he saw the different factions the newcomers were divided into, and the potential for turning the situation to his advantage. Nurgle, Father of Plagues only gave the newcomers a quick glance, before throwing another rancid ingredient into his cauldron, while the captive Isha, Eldar goddess of the Harvest, and one of the few to survive the Fall, felt a surge of hope coming from the craft, like a beacon of light in the darkness her life had become.
In desperation, she cast her mind towards the craft, hoping to send a message to anyone who would hear it aboard. Slaanesh, The Dark Prince of Excess, only hungered, for the Eldar inside the Craft were so close, yet so far away. Curiously, he also sensed a deep desire, not from an Eldar mind, but from a human child of great power, a desire for something that had been lost, someone. But also in that moment, Slaanesh was cut off as a beam of energy like nothing he had not felt since his battle with Khaine, The Bloody Handed. Filled with rage that the goddess that had slipped through his grasp had survived, he traced her energy back to the garden of Nurgle. His rage increasing, he began to create his daemon hordes, and summon the Emperor's Children, and other Chaos Legions to finish the Eldar Goddess once and for all.
Asurmen's Might
Harry did not sleep easily that night. Whispering voices which he couldn't make out the words, visions of blood and hideous creatures, but then something else. He saw a garden, but one of the most disgusting gardens he had ever seen. Everything seemed to be growing in rotten, the fruit on the trees dripping strange, green goo, and pools of the same permeated the landscape. He saw many tall, glowing figures in robes and helmets, cutting their way through the garden, moving with a singular purpose. As he watched, hundreds of disgusting-looking creatures with various numbers of eyes rose up and began fighting with the glowing figures, but they continued moving forward, cutting down the creatures as easily as they had mown down the massive, stalk-like protrusions that blocked their way, but the glow around them was beginning to fade, and as they continued, the figures began to come into focus. Ahead, Harry could see a cauldron, and next to that, was a cage. As the no longer glowing figures came to a stop, their feet now anchored to the ground, Harry approached the cage. Inside, was a beautiful woman, with pointed ears like the Eldar Harry had met, and with distinct features that made Harry immediately recognise her as an Eldar.
"You heard my call," said the woman "There isn't much time. I need you to take this."
The woman pulled something from a bag of woven leaves on the ground, and handed it to Harry.
"Give this to Farseer Irthan, and to nobody else," said the Eldar woman. The item was a circlet of flowers of gold, with silver centres, but they appeared almost as if they were not natural "Or else more will end up like that."
She nodded behind her. Harry turned around. Only to see that the plague had claimed the warriors, which he suddenly knew to be Eldar, being consumed by the disgusting garden, their bodies being consumed by a set of rotten trees.
"Now go, deliver this to Irthan," said the woman
"Wait, who are you? What is this place? What just happened?" asked Harry, as the dream began to fade. He awoke with a start, his right fist clenched around something. Looking down, he saw the circlet of gold and silver flowers, clenched in his fist. It was like a circlet of snitches. He felt the flowers, and found that they seemed to be natural, not made of either silver or gold, and felt like what flowers normally feel like. He had thought that with the death of Voldemort, these strange dreams would stop happening, but this did not feel like his dreams of Voldemort. This felt like a message, like someone, or something had sent him this vision. And if it truly was just a dream, where had this circlet come from?
"Did you have dreams?" said a voice. He looked over to see the elven woman Alara standing over him.
"Yes, was that you?" he asked "Were you causing that?"
"I was not," said Alara "Do you know where we are?"
"I thought we were in space," said Harry "Travelling back to your home."
"That is not entirely true, Harry Potter," said Alara "We are in a place our people call The Immaterium, a realm of emotion made manifest, it existed before everything, and will exist after everything has gone. It is very dangerous for our people to travel through it, for the doom of our race lives within it. We have some semblance of protection due to the shielding on this ship, but still, the rulers of this realm attempt to sway us with visions in our dreams. When we die, our souls fade into the Immaterium, where it joins with the energy within. Our cousins on the Craftworlds forever trap their souls within spirit stones after death, in Commoragh, where our darker kin reside, they cause unimaginable pain to others, and through that, send these beings souls to the Warp in place of their own."
"What about you?" asked Harry "Which path do your people follow?"
"We are exiles and rebels, I'm afraid," said Alara "We are lucky to have such close ties to the Craftworld Merekwoad, but we are never allowed to stay for long, just in-case we draw more away from the Craftworld. Arunion gives us all stability, his leadership is unequalled, and his sense of honour has prevented us from becoming the savages that many others that have left the Path have become."
"The Path?" asked Harry
"It is what the Craftworld have as their societal structure," explained Alara "To tell you why it is necessary, I would have to explain the history of our race, and I would rather wait until I have the ear of all of your people before I do this."
Harry considered showing the crown to Alara, but decided that he would heed the strange woman he had met in his dream, and show it only to Farseer Irthan.
"That mark on your forehead?" asked Alara "What does it mean?"
Harry subconsciously flattened his fringe over the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. "I'd rather not talk about it," he said. Thinking about his parents, who he had seen recently when he picked up the resurrection stone, was painful. Alara nodded, and went back to her position at the helm of the ship. Harry examined the crown he had been given more closely. It was exquisitely crafted, almost as if it was grown, and not made, but that was surely impossible.
"We should be coming out of warp space soon," said Alara, her voice being not only physical, but echoing in his mind, too "You all need to wake up. The re-entry can be rocky."
The various students and teachers woke up and held on as the ship gave a sudden jolt. The blocked out shutters faded, to show a gigantic ship. It had many dome-like structures built across its back, and within each, it looked like a different weather and ecosystem existed. As Asurmen's Might approached the Craftworld, Arunion sighed in relief.
The journey through the Warp had been dangerous. One miscalculation could have displaced them in space and time, and without disciplined mind-shielding technology like the Eldar-modified Gellar Field, they would not have made it through without a large portion of the people aboard losing their souls.
He had sensed psychic potential in each of the newcomers, they had much untapped potential. Alara had told him of the conversation she had had with Harry Potter, what he had seen, and what
"They believe we are like them," said Alara "Wizards of the future, which from what I can understand, wizard is their word for psyker. It's interchangeable with 'sorcerer' and 'mystic'."
"You read their minds?" asked Arunion
"No, but you'd be surprised what you can hear if you keep your ears peeled," said Alara "And did we not think the opposite of them when we found them? That they, too, were from our future? We always come up with answers that coincide with our paradigm of the world, but when new information comes to light, we try to incorporate it into our view of the world. Our paradigm is changing, Arunion. And maybe our eventual fate along with it."
"You sound like a Harlequin," said Arunion, in a lightly mocking tone. The Harlequins were a group of performers that travelled between the rest of the Eldar kin, telling the tales of the Eldar Myth Cycle, lest it be forgotten. They also fought the forces of Chaos, and safeguarded the secrets of the Eldar hidden within the Black Library. Arunion knew that without the aid of the Harlequins, he would be dead. In his early days, in his arrogance, he had led his merry band onto a primitive world to steal back an Eldar artefact that had been rediscovered by a renowned human xeno-archaeologist and her team. After capturing the archaeologist and her team, they were about to leave the planet, when the ground opened. The planet had been an un-awakened tomb world of the Necrons, a race of mostly robotic humanoids with no emotions, no mercy. His small band fought well, even making an uneasy alliance with the archaeologist. They found a defensible location, and held out, while Arunion tried to formulate a plan. With the tomb world now awake, extraction by air was not an option, and the one Webway Gate on the planet was believed to be collapsed at some point in the past. Still, the gate might be their only hope.
After bitter fighting, with casualties from both the Raiding party he was leading, and the archaeologist's team, they reached the entrance to the portal. An unnatural darkness blanketed the area, and a towering figure blocked their path. The sight of the C'Tan Shard of the Nightbringer still haunted his dreams to this day. His forces had already been severely depleted. They had not the manpower to take down the Nightbringer. Their only hope was the Webway Gate. Arunion stepped forward to do battle with the shard of a star god. It was a battle he couldn't hope to win. The C'Tan shards defied all natural laws, his Voidsabre going right through its body more often than it hit, and each of the creatures' blows staggering him further. As he did battle, other Necron forces arrived, exchanging fire with the Eldar and humans making their way towards the Webway Gate. Eventually, it became too much for Arunion. He was driven to one knee by the foot of the floating creature. As it was about to strike the final blow, however, the Webway shimmered. The Harlequins flowed out of the webway like a well-executed dance routine, which was fitting, for the Harlequins have no distinction between art and war. The terrifying Solitaire ran over the extremely rocky terrain as if it were open ground, and plunged his Harlequin's Kiss and Harlequin's Caress into the C'Tan, bringing them apart, as the creature, too, was ripped apart. The Solitaire, without a word, offered his hand to Arunion. Arunion cautiously took it, and the Solitaire helped him up, and supported him as they both ran for the portal. Once they were safe in the Webway, he departed without ever speaking a word.
Why he and his team had been saved, he did not know. He parted with the xeno-archaeologist on good terms, and returned to his pirate career, but that day remained with him. Why had he been saved? What was so important about him? It was said that the Solitaire was eternally damned, for his soul is promised to She Who Thirsts upon his death, and that this gives the Solitaire insight that The Laughing God had into the Fall, and insight into the future of the Eldar race.
"And do the Harlequins not have great wisdom?" asked Alara "Greater than any among the Eldar. Heed my words, Arunion. Be open to changing your view when the time comes, do not succumb to the arrogance of the rest of our race."
"I was never that kind of person, Alara," said Arunion "I saw the Path as the wrong way to do things, but that doesn't mean I think any less of them. I am an outcast because I accept more than my kin do, and I believe that is a good reason to leave the Path."
"As do I," said Alara "It's why your crew continue to follow you. They believe in you. You make good decisions because of your wisdom, Arunion. That is why you were saved, the Harlequins see all, things that were, things that are and some things that have not yet come to pass. They saved you for a reason, Arunion. Do not squander the opportunity you've been given."
Arunion nodded, and guided Asuryan's Might into the docking area of Craftworld Merekwoad.