Brave New Worlds
Chapter 1: The Battle For The Stars
A/N: This chapter serves as the first chapter of two different stories so will eventually be posted twice, one based on the Star Trek Universe (eventual DS9 era) and the other based in the Stargate Universe as well as the sequel to Lost And Very Far Away.
This is that story and is NOT a sequel to my work Lost and Very Far Away… though as stated it hopefully will serve as the first chapter for that too.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY FORM OF STAR TREK. I DO NOT MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT AND SADLY NEVER WILL. THIS DISCLAIMER COVERS THE ENTIRE WORK.
For those that have not read my other stories or do not want to at this time here is a brief overview/Cheat Sheet as they are loosely connected:
HPLAFA: HP/LL Harry follows Sirius through the veil and, unbeknownst to him, is not only transported through space but time as well. He starts in the SW universe as a Survivalist/Bounty Hunter, tricked into becoming Sith, later a Jedi and then takes a third path. All the while he is trying to find his way home and get to see the person he loves most. For this story, it's relevant that Luna, at one point, dies…. Very convincingly.
Note: This was my first written story in almost twenty years… it was also beta'd by my then very pregnant and irritable wife. Added to that I had a damaged hand for the first seven or so chapters so they were dictated by text to speech… A thing I will never do again and I cannot bring myself to go over them anymore so expect those first few to be rough….
HPACOD: H/Hr Harry and Hermione learn a secret of the Room Of Requirement and are never the same. Rituals, tribulations, power and prices all come into play with different levels of Godhood thrown into the mix. For the purposes of this story, Caer Sidi is a place outside of the normal flow of time and any multiverse where the true Gods (those that have transcended dimensions) live and watch over the whole tapestry that all worlds and universes are a part of.
Stardates when used are calculated using TrekGuide.
Thoughts = ' and '
Speech = " and "
Eventual HP/ED
Chapter 1: The Last Apprentice
Time Unknown/1935 AD
Branch 2663/9689
Harry and Luna had been enjoying their semi-retirement for more years than they could count (not that they tried to do such a thing) and they had realised early on that they would need a place to rest and recharge. It hadn't taken much to find this unnamed planet and make it habitable.
It was child's play to them to build a small cottage that wouldn't have seemed out of place in the greenbelt of England, tucked into a small sleepy village where nothing ever happened and in the blink of an eye, two years became twenty. Though the reality, of course, was that it was by itself on an otherwise empty (of people anyway) landmass.
A perfect place to rest between their adventures and their exploring.
Their only company, aside from one another, were a half dozen housekeeping droids and the parts for more. The power systems for which were kept in the basement which in itself housed most of the technology that they had encountered and decided to keep.
Their retirement wasn't complete because they simply weren't the type of people that could potter around doing nothing for the rest of their days. Maybe they were born that way or maybe their lives and experiences had sculpted the need to do things into them, to be among the action, to see what is over the next hill.
In the end, the reason really didn't matter all that much but, every fifty to one hundred years, it was here that they went to rest. Spending a decade or two there wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of their functionally immortal existence.
All of their immortal descendants were lost to them. Some had disappeared, some had been lost through the simple passage of time and, even worse for them, some they had seen die, heard of their deaths or in (very rare cases) been forced to imprison them or strip them of their immortal status.
This all had made them slightly jaded and very tired. They had even stopped counting their age at three hundred as, when you change bodies as much as they did, how biologically old you were was really just a number.
They had used many faces and many names over the years but they always came back to themselves and this place. They always came back to each other.
They had seen the Commonwealth fall and many others take its place some of which were arguably better in some respects but most were infinitely worse. They had fought in more rebellions, interactions and civil wars than they could count and every time it cost them a little bit more even as they moved further into legend and myth.
It had begun to seem to them that the more they intervened, the more the cycle damaged things and the more the personal cost for everyone involved. The fact that there was a constant struggle between light and dark would have been fine (and accepted as a fact of life) if it did not appear to them that their continued intervention not only sped the cycle up but, in fact, made it worse.
The Force and its balance was prevalent throughout this universe, not just in what used to be called the Republic and so they had decided that they should effectively leave well enough alone, at least for the foreseeable future.
This did leave them in a quandary about what to do with themselves now though as they really did not take to a life of pure leisure. That quandary, such as it was, was about to be solved for them by a very unlikely meeting.
-HPBNW-
Earth
2222 AD
Branch 6492
The Harry Potter of this universe was not married to Luna Lovegood and never had been.
He was also not as youthful, regardless of their actual ages, as his counterpart was nor did he have the peaceful nature of the Light Side of the Force to call upon in his times of emotional distress.
Peace had eluded him for much of his life and, rather than feeling the deep and abiding vigour of being in one's prime, he felt every single day of his two hundred and thirty-seven years. On his best days, his bones ached and his face was marked by the stress of the life that he had lived. If it was possible (which it wasn't) for magical humans to have a stress-induced heart attack he would have had one decades before.
Though his eyes were the trademark vibrant green that characterised many of the Harrys that populated the multiverse and his hair was still full on his head it was now snow white and his gaze was often shadowed with worry and wariness.
It sometimes seemed that his life had aged him far faster than time had.
At other points in his life when that gaze had fallen on others, there would have been comments. His first wife would have scolded him with good humour, his second would have simply taken his hand, led him to bed and shagged it out of him while his third (and current) would have done her best to make him laugh so hard that it dissipated from his mind like a cloud breaking under the weight of the sun.
'It's a shame,' he thought, 'that there hasn't been much to laugh about in years and none of the other methods would work now anyway'.
As if to highlight this fact he stood in the ruins of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Its grounds were rocky with debris, the four great towers sundered and few, if any, pieces of the entire castle still whole.
He remembered how it had all started off so well, after the fall of Voldemort, even as the ghosts of his long life seemed to play in his mind's eye tinged (as memories so often were) with regret and not a small amount of nostalgia. He had been naive then, he thought that he had succeeded and gained everything that he wanted in life or was on the path to getting it.
He had a few good and trusted friends, mostly from the former D.A., a loving girlfriend in the form of Ginny Weasley and the two most constant people in his life, the two people that he thought that he could trust with anything after all that they had been through together, Ron and Hermione.
He had been wrong of course and he realised, in hindsight, that three periods of great change in his life altered his perception of both the world and his existence forever.
It had started, as things so often did, with betrayal. It wasn't a small one either but rather one that had been conceived and perpetrated for years.
Even today, after everything else that had come after it and all the other moments of great pain in his life the realisation of it still hurt. It was still raw, like acid being dropped into an open wound and if he needed to summon hatred for extreme and destructive spells this was the easiest memory to use.
In a twist of gallows humour, it was an interview for a job, one that would have helped set him up financially for life as well as provide him with a meaningful purpose in a world newly bereft of a Dark Lord that started it all.
Flashback
"Welcome, Mister Potter… again… to the Department of Mysteries." The voice of his interviewer was muffled by the cloak that both shrouded the person's body in a nondescript grey and hid them from identification by way of a hood.
The nature of these robes gave away the person's profession, that of an Unspeakable, even if he hadn't been in the actual department where they worked. Though their identity was clearly hidden and the voice obscured, Harry felt an amount of judgement in their tone when they said the word again.
"Yeah…errm… sorry about that?" Harry's half-muttered response was somehow both embarrassed and yet still defiant. He had, after all, come here at the time to help end a Dark Lord (at least when viewed after the fact) and to try and save his Godfather… not on some pleasure trip.
"Don't worry about it all that much." The voice's timbre had changed to an almost jovial one as if the judgement was manufactured and he got the distinct feeling that the comment itself was something of a test though why they did that he did not know. He was further confused by the chuckle that accompanied the comment.
The person then, unimaginatively enough, introduced himself as Mr Grey before continuing. "If we hadn't wanted you in here then, I assure you, you never would have gotten in the first time around". Harry's gobsmacked look must have been hilarious to the man because he then burst into full and deep laughter for a moment.
"What the actual fuck!" Harry exclaimed, not seeing the same reason for humour as the Unspeakable at the memory of that time and, more to the point, who it had cost him in the end. "You knew and you let us in anyway?"
Even though he knew that it would do no good in the long run and feeling the anger inside him pooling in his red cheeks, Harry's hand twitched waiting to reach for his wand. He did hate and had always hated being manipulated in any way.
"Relax," Mr Grey almost commanded him and it must have been a signal to some subtly hidden enchantment as he felt his anger being blunted. It was almost as if some outside force had scooped it up and smoothed the edges of it. It was still there, he was aware of that, but it was blocked from being the thing that swamped his thoughts. "Let me explain and then you can try and remove my head from my shoulders with whatever magic you want… if that is what you wish".
Left unspoken but hanging in the air like a foetid cloud was the knowledge that, the Harry Potter or not, he really wouldn't get very far if that was the course of action that he tried to take. They both knew that and, if it wasn't for the enchantment, that would have pissed him off even more. "We did not arrange or coerce you to come here when you did at all. In fact, we were preparing a force to repel Voldemort's attack when, at almost the last minute, we were made aware of your plans to come here. It was only at that point that we decided to step aside… can you guess why we did that?"
"The Prophecy," Harry replied, almost spitting the sentence out of his mouth even as his face soured. His hatred of the idea of a preordained destiny that subverted free will had only grown with time and yet he still felt the almost invisible chains of that weight, one that he had broken years ago but left its scars.
He had no doubt that Mr Grey had not only noted his reaction but, then he also had no doubt that there was a file on him somewhere where every single scrap of information they could get on him was recorded. Information, research and espionage was their business after all.
"Yes," Mr Grey responded with a sigh. "This department is very old. It's older than the Ministry by quite a wide margin in fact and we have learned, throughout years of trial and error, that the best thing to do when faced with one is to get out of its way. Magic, Fate and Destiny move around the targets of prophecy, moulding reality around them for as long as they are under its yoke. The only way you can safely get involved is if you are named or invited by one who is. Personally, I find them distasteful in the main and, by the look on your face right now, I can see that you more than agree with me. They are necessary… our records tell us that… they are not kind, never are they anything close to that, but they are needed".
"Why are you telling me all of this?" Harry asked, suspicious despite the honesty that he could feel from Mr Grey. The man (if it was a man) was an Unspeakable and, by their very nature, were not known for being exceedingly forthcoming with information or even necessarily that honest when they did. "It isn't just to put me at my ease or to create a bond between us, is it? There is something more that I haven't been told, isn't there?"
"Perceptive. I like that, though in all fairness if you weren't we wouldn't have been interested in you in the first place. There is always more to the story, more pieces to the puzzle that most people don't see. Often those extra things are irrelevant or worse… they seem that way. There is always more of something and it could save your life one day so remember that… always. To fully answer your question let's look at your file shall we?"
How it was done exactly Harry had no idea but Mr Grey simply held out his hand and a thin file appeared in it. "Let's see here… Harry James Potter, born 1985 and currently you are aged 21. Graduated from Hogwarts a year later than normal and we all know why. You entered the Auror Academy straight afterwards only to be snatched up by the Hitwizard Corps due to a high power range and impressive practical approach. It was that last one that caught their attention and ours, in case you were wondering, not your fame or lineage. You completed your training in just under a year and passed your probationary period with distinction… that's rare…"
"All of which is good," Harry interrupted, though he was inwardly very pleased to hear that his fame had nothing to do with where he had gotten but rather his skill alone. He had tried not to wonder but he was only human. "I do know all this though, so can you get to the point?"
"Yes, of course, but context is important. Ordinarily this would be a formality, especially as we believe that you would make a good fit for our research division as well as our combat arm".
"Seriously? I was never that good in school. If you want a researcher you want Hermione, not me," Harry disagreed.
"On the contrary, you think outside of the box and very well on your feet. Given Hogwarts's questionable teaching staff and the problems you faced due to the Voldemort issue, we believe you did well enough. More than that though, we think that you have promise. I don't think that it will be long before one of us makes your friend an offer for the research division though that offer won't be made by me… or you. As for why you are here now? We obtained a blood sample of yours and have some disturbing news for you…"
Before he could digest the disturbing news that they got a blood sample of his and wonder how they did that he received more disturbing news. It was in this way that he learned of the Great Betrayal.
The shock that he had traces of loyalty potions, breaking down now of course, in his system was just the first one of many. Those potions were keyed to the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Snape and quite a few others.
The fallout of that knowledge caused quite a few divisions in formerly steadfast allies especially when it became public knowledge.
Remus, who along with Tonks had managed to survive as they had been rushed to Saint Mungo's and given preferential life-saving treatment purely thanks to their connection to Harry was one such break.
He vividly remembered that he hadn't liked it at the time but he was grateful that they were alive… at least, at that moment, especially as their recovery and that of their baby had been touch and go for a minute.
What he hadn't expected was for Remus to side with the now-deceased Headmaster and the Weasleys over him. This man was supposed to be the closest thing to a father that he had left and he had not only abandoned him as a child (due to his self-loathing over his little furry problem) but did so again for the traitorous Weasley's and the memory of a dead man.
He was not the only one to do so either, though that decision did cost him his relationship with Tonks and any chance of a relationship with his son (who incidentally did treat Harry as family) as they found the illegality of it as well as the immorality too much to bear. Hagrid, McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout amongst others also sided with the Grand Plan of the senile old man primarily, he supposed, because it worked regardless of the cost to him. Even the twins, rabble-rousers and outliers that they were, eventually sided with their family having found the call of blood to be thicker than any friendship with him.
Flashback End
Thanks to the knowledge of a fading love potion in his system, as well as a loyalty potion, keyed to Ginny and aversion potions keyed to every other woman he interacted with, their relationship was shattered forever, built on lies as it was. Hermione's relationship with Ron ended when she found out and had herself tested as she was positive for almost all the same potions Harry was.
The public reacted just as harshly to an attack on their hero too.
Lupin was vilified for an entirely new reason, the twins lost their business to Harry when customers boycotted it and he took their family to civil court for damages and even Bill (who had privately agreed with Harry but couldn't bring himself to cut out his family) ended up divorced from Fleur.
The Delacour family was an old one, it didn't want or need the tarnished reputation that would come with being connected with that family. For her part, Fleur didn't care about that but couldn't reconcile the caring man she loved with the fact that he couldn't cut his family away.
Eventually, that drove the two apart, aided and abetted by the fact that she couldn't stand to be in the same room as them.
On the other side of the coin Magical Britain, led by the Longbottom family, condemned the Weasleys and their supporters. The situation was more than a little awkward for him as Magical Britain was a small place and all of the Weasleys lost any position of trust or power that they once held. Any respect, wealth or good feeling that they had managed to amass since the fall of Voldemort disappeared like smoke under the weight of all that had happened.
Eventually, this led to the second great change in Harry's life as he and Hermione decided to leave Britain for a while, at least until things calmed down, and worked part-time on their holiday for the Department of Mysteries.
It only made sense that they travelled together as they were both injured by the same people and found it hard to trust anyone new.
It was during their first year away from all of that that they fell in love (or admitted that they always were as neither could be sure thanks to the potions), the second that they married and the third that they began to actively research together rather than working on tangential projects. They made quite a few advancements while they were away in many fields. Sometimes they simply improved what was already there but they also pushed many more forward into uncharted ground.
Then Hermione wanted to move on to something more esoteric and Harry was happy to go along because it made her happy. That was the way in which both started to research dimensional travel.
But all things change and, during the exploration of a piece of the amazon rainforest that had been hidden for years, Hermione had been poisoned by a rare magical animal that had been previously unknown to anyone except in folklore and legend.
He took her to the hospital straight away but, in the end, it didn't matter. After a long and painful week of trying to fight its effects and an uncounted number of experimental potions (including a transfusion of Veela blood), she died in his arms.
Harry may have ended his existence then (he certainly wanted to), if not for the third and final change that happened though, in this case, it was more the world around him intruding rather than anything that happened to him directly. That thing was what came to be known as the Last Great Wizarding War.
He kept on with their research though, in memory of her.
In their time away, not to mention his all-consuming grief after her death, there had been no less than three Dark Lords on the continent. They had been emboldened no doubt by Harry's absence, Dumbledore having been shuffled off the mortal coil and how close Voldermort had come to winning in the first place.
Though they were defeated the damage was done. The Wizarding World in general had a hard enough time covering up one at a time let alone three Dark Wizards at near enough the same time. In essence, they won the battle but lost the war that they never saw coming.
They couldn't cover up what all three were doing before the muggles caught on and, modern communication being as fast as it was, it wasn't long before they were aware en masse of both the fact that magic existed and the Wizarding World.
More than that they were aware of everything they had ever done, all the good and bad. Especially the bad.
They worked fast, Harry had to give them that, as they used the cast off's of wizarding society to great effect. Embittered muggle-borns and forgotten squibs came out of the woodwork to seek their revenge backed by well-trained professional armies. They used this to ferret out every magical place and pointed them out to the muggles.
The wizards learned two things very quickly. First, despite what every Dark Lord in recent memory would have had them believe, they were hopelessly and laughably outnumbered. It was not just a matter of numbers either but skill as each wizard nation had no standing army as such, nor did they train many wizards in that way.
Second, it took Harry some time to piece himself back together and come home. When he did, Wizardkind had learned what it was to be hunted. Every creature, from Wizard to Goblin, Centaur to Veela, was now on the run.
What could he do but join the fight and try to save as many people as he could? Not only was it a worthy goal but it also neatly channelled his remaining grief into something constructive. He had, at the time, mentally shrugged at the idea of death in those gory days. One death would be the same as another to him so why not while fighting for a lost cause?
It was during one of those actions, more a running skirmish than anything else, that he and his newly formed unit of Unspeakables (with Tonks as his deputy) that he had remet an old friend by the name of Fleur Delacour. They bonded in battle and blood and, in the fullness of time managed to heal each other enough that they became an item.
Eventually, she became the new Mrs Potter.
By the time he was thirty-seven, their relationship had never been stronger but, it was also clear that the war had truly been lost. All organisations, even the Department of Mysteries, had functionally fallen and many had died. It was barely six months after his birthday that Fleur herself died, saving children from an enraged army unit.
Harry had, in his grief, lost control of his darker emotions then and though what he did to that army unit was something that he didn't like to think about the folklore of a stalking shadow that took you in the night stayed with the muggles for many generations afterwards.
Harry threw himself into his work and somehow got lost in it so much that he couldn't think of anything else than that. His few remaining friends were worried about him but no one seemed to be able to reach him.
Until his third and final wife Tonks.
Her vibrant personality, though dimmed because of what had happened to all of them, still blazed brightly enough that it broke through his gloom. Two shattered people managed to find something to hold onto in a world that had been turned upside down and discarded brokenly to the floor. Harry also became, in a legal sense, what he had always been a father to her child and he gained the dream that he first saw in the Mirror of Erised… a family to call his own.
In the end, it was just the two of them, the war having been lost became simply about survival and everyone they knew either became lost, caught in their own battles, or died trying to stay alive. They hadn't seen another of their kind in nearly a decade by this point and, as far as they knew, they could well be the last of the species.
Even Teddy was lost to them as they had left him with Andromeda and she, like so many others, had simply disappeared without a trace.
His and Hermione's research was finally complete. Call it desperation, call it a hail mary or the depths of despair but Tonks had seen enough of this blood-soaked world and argued that they should spend whatever time they had left in a new one. One where they could rest, where they weren't hunted… one with some hope left.
It didn't take her much to convince him though the one snag was that it did require a magical site to power the ritual. Finding one that was powerful enough, unguarded by the muggles or not destroyed by them was hard enough and eventually, they had settled on the ruins of Hogwarts.
Worse news for them? The ritual would take time to charge and would be noticed because its output was large enough that the muggles would notice because it would hardly be subtle.
"Harry!" Tonks called, breaking him from his musings. "They'll be here in less than an hour".
"How many?" He asked, even as he studied his wife. Thanks to her metamorph abilities she looked far younger than him and, though he was loath to admit it, that ability not only kept her looking beautiful and young but also had saved their lives more than once or twice in recent times.
"Nearly five hundred".
"How long until they get here and how long until we are ready?"
"The army will be here in an hour and the ritual will be here about fifteen minutes after that".
"Great! Two elderly wizards…" Harry began, only to be interrupted by his wife.
"Hey! Watch it you!"
"Sorry love. One elderly wizard and a devastatingly beautiful witch…"
"That's better" she added cheekily even as Harry continued as if she hadn't spoken.
"To hold off almost five hundred trained soldiers for fifteen minutes".
"I like those odds".
"You would," he answered with a bitter but loving grin.
-HPBNW-
Branch 2663
Harry and Luna were still discussing their situation, over tea, in their home. Neither wished for their existence to end at this time but, equally, how did someone escape what appeared to be a constant of the universe that they were in?
"We could build a ship and go to a new galaxy?" Luna half said and half asked.
"Unless it is to an entirely different universe I doubt it will help, even if we could make a way for us to survive a journey of that distance without going insane," Harry replied. "Even then it seems that the conflict in the Force is intrinsic to this reality so it stands to reason that as long as we are in it… there would be no point".
"We could build a new safe haven here for our own society," Luna threw out the idea weakly, not liking the idea even as she suggested it and, by his face as she did, it was clear that Harry didn't either.
"That seems like a futile effort. We know it will not last all that long and the conflict would be longer without something like the Geo Forge…" Harry had destroyed that years before but well after the Commonwealth had fallen, it was too large to move and the potential for misuse far too high. "Create a new Commonwealth designed on the old?"
"Similar problems to my last idea sadly," Luna rebutted softly. "Besides, that would be moving backwards rather than forward…plus we have no children to pass it on to and that would result in even more fighting. I'm not sure I could willing be responsible for so much needless death. On top of that, I would always compare the new to the old… I wouldn't be able to help myself and it would also be far too much paperwork for you, my dear."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Harry asked her, his frustration at their situation bleeding into his voice.
"We wait," she soothed him. "We wait and trust in the Force. At the end of the day that's all we can do".
Even as she said this there was the sound of a thunderclap and a noise like ripping stone outside of their home. Harry couldn't help the comment that slipped out of his mouth.
"Well, that didn't take long did it?"
Though his voice was light, they both moved at their full speed (which was enhanced with the Force) out of their front door and found one of the most curious sights that either of them had ever seen.
An old and bleeding man was collapsed in their front garden. Though he appeared ancient compared to the other two deceptively youthful people and had white hair and lines across his skin he was still unmistakably Harry Potter.
Luna had the absent-minded thought that perhaps the reason for the noise was the universe itself objecting to the fact that there were now two of her troublemaking husband.
Though the older version was bleeding heavily and clearly not long for this world and their natural inclination was to help him, that desire was tempered with some hard-won prudence. So they slowed as they left their front door.
"Trap?" Harry questioned his wife, knowing that even though he was technically more powerful in the Force than she was more sensitive to the minute nuances by a wide margin and, in some situations, her skill outstripped his laughably. Her senses were also far finer, able to pick things seemingly out of the air which could take him precious seconds to ascertain.
Seconds that could mean the difference between life and death.
"It doesn't feel like it," she answered with a faraway look in her eyes as she looked beyond the material world and into the fabric of the Force itself. "It's not time travel either… or at least it doesn't feel like it's something as simple as time travel".
"Well we won't find out anything if he bleeds to death will we?" Harry commented quite practically. Harry had been married to his wife for years uncounted by this point and so, if she wanted him to, he could read her intentions in a single glance. "If he really is me, or near enough, this will work… if not then he will die quickly and very painfully. I'll go get the emergency transfer device".
Said device was something that had been created at the height of the Hutt war. Usually, the immortal branch of their family made a brain-dead clone, forged a connection with it through magic and then put it in stasis. Sometimes that was not possible (it took a fair few hours to reinforce the connection especially as they were technically unnatural) and a blood bag wouldn't do. So, to get around that, the R&D department had miniaturised the original Rakatan transfer device and turned it into a fist-size object which looked like an engraved stone from a distance.
It did have the major downside that you needed to be very near your clone before you died however so it never came into common use.
The Harry on the ground heard very little of this of course as he had quickly passed out due to the combination of his injuries and the shock of seeing his own far more youthful face staring at him.
-HPBNW-
When the Harry who had never married Luna awoke, he was shocked and briefly thought that he must be dead. In all fairness, he had been in a warzone the last he remembered and now, suddenly he was in a guest room of all things.
It had been years since any of his kind were safe enough that they could stay in any place for longer than twelve hours. Hotels, guest rooms and things like friend's houses were out for even longer than that as there were too many entrances and exits as well as it being too easy to discover that they were there.
The Fidelius was never in common use as few people knew it and, even those who did, were well aware of its limitations. The Muggles didn't have to know exactly where you were to drop a bomb on you after all and were happy to do so.
This was why, regardless of any injuries that he might have, he sprang up. Lurching out of bed, a distant part of his mind registered no pain as he did so but he put that down to adrenaline even as he searched for his wand with frantic desperation.
That desperation led to nothing as he did not find it, nor did he find himself in the clothes that he was wearing the last time he was conscious. Instead, he was dressed in what he assumed was an odd smock but were actually standard Jedi Robes without the belt or obi.
He tried the simple wooden door but found it locked and, without his wand, that easy exit was denied him for the moment.
Then he caught the sight of his reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall and he gave a shocked gasp. He studied the face of his twenty-something self, having dim memories of how his face used to be brought back into vivid focus as he stared at something that he knew shouldn't be possible.
There was also no sign of any injuries on his body which was more than a little disturbing.
It wasn't just the almost horrific amount of injuries that he remembered receiving recently that were missing but every scar and blemish he had ever gained from any battle or brawl. Given the life that he had led up to this point that was quite a lot. He vividly recalled the basilisk's fang mark, an arrow from an enraged centaur that hit his side, the cut of a goblin blade on his leg and a bottle smashed on his head. All of those incidents caused scars, he knew that and yet there was no sign of anything of the sort.
To further enhance his unease it was only at this point that his conscious mind registered the fact that he wasn't wearing his glasses.
It was fair to say that he was both disturbed by his immediate situation and, happily, subconsciously using that emotion to distract himself from the exact circumstances that led him to this place. Unfortunately, as he realised this snippets of memories came and broke that flimsy barrier despite his best efforts.
The smell of blood was suddenly fresh in his mind, despite the fact that he knew it wasn't really there, he could taste its coppery tang in the air and he closed his eyes while softly shaking his head against the images that came with the sensations.
The flash of gunfire played against his eyelids, the screams, the bright flashes of magic and the sensation of his wand burning hot against his skin as he threw spell after spell and ignored his own agony… Tonks screaming.
'No,' Harry thought as he violently wrenched his thoughts from that and where it would lead him but the loos, the despair was still there. 'It would be far better if I were dead,' he concluded morosely.
Before he could dwell anymore on it or follow that dark path further the previously locked door opened and admitted someone that he knew (if he were still in his own world) couldn't be here.
Luna Lovegood.
'It worked, it actually worked,' he thought as he saw her. Far from feeling jubilation at that thought or even a sense of satisfaction at this fact, all he felt at that moment was bitterness.
-HPBNW-
Even without the Force telling her so she would know this was not her Harry.
Aside from the fact that she had seen him when he looked older, she had never seen her husband look so trapped as this man did now or so full of grief. She had felt it, but she hadn't actually seen it.
"You're not dead," this Harry said bluntly to her. Both his tone and the Force itself emphasised the deep anger that covered an even deeper grief, all wrapped in a fraying iron will. That anger bled into the air around him like a dark and greasy smoke to her senses, it soured everything in the room.
"Neither are you," she stated neutrally. She was trying not to provoke him while giving him the truth about his situation. He may not have been her husband but she knew enough to know that if she lied to him now he would never forgive her.
"My Luna, my friend, died in the siege of the Ministry almost one hundred and sixty years ago. You are not her. You are a child. I do not know you, I don't want to and frankly, you are far too…"
"Not spacey? I was…years ago but time changes us all and I would watch who you are calling a child young man".
"No matter what spell or enchantment you have used on my body, the fact remains that I am 237 years old. Even if you have made us both look like we are in our early twenties I doubt that you are close to that age".
"You're right, I'm not". Noticing that he looked smug, if only briefly, at that revelation she couldn't help but wipe that smirk away and replace it with a gobsmacked look. "I'm far older. I actually stopped counting at three hundred".
"Bullshit". Harry's succinct and oh-so-well-thought-out reply caused her to laugh briefly which unfortunately sparked the anger that he had valiantly been trying to control. An anger that was fuelled by a level of grief that he had barely begun to grapple with and one that pulled at the scars of similar losses not to mention an entire world and way of life.
Suddenly he was aware of something foul yet intoxicating moving within him, like a drunk deciding to have another knowing that he would be sick, something that didn't feel like his magic but was powerful and fed on and enhanced his dark state of mind… something that hungered and felt good as well as wrong.
To Luna, who understood these things better than him, she could feel the dark side rising in him even as the room began to shake and the bed against the wall cracked with its unravelling fury.
He felt this new power reach out, ready to rip, tear and kill until something changed in the room. It was too new a sensation for him to understand exactly what it was but he understood enough to know somewhere inside him that there was something akin to what was coming out of him but, at the same time, it was also the polar opposite here as well. It was steaming from the Luna who couldn't (to his mind at least) be Luna but he wouldn't consciously admit that for a long moment.
"Enough," Luna said softly, though there was still an edge of command to her voice.
From her expression and her stance he could see that it was her, or something working through her, that stopped whatever was happening. "I am at least three hundred years old. I am Luna Potter, formerly Lovegood, formerly the Silver Princess of the Commonwealth. My husband is Harry Potter, formerly the Silver Prince, ex-Sith, ex-Jedi and the founder of the Knights of the Silver. That power you felt…it wasn't magic… it was the Force and thanks to your situation you will have many years to learn about and try and understand it".
"Whatever that was, I never felt anything like that before. It couldn't have come from me".
Privately Harry was amazed that Jedi, of all things, were real in this place, and given everything else that he had been through recently it wasn't that hard to accept. It was made even easier as he had a good frame of reference in the fact that the first six films were well documented in his universe (and unbeknownst to him the Legends continuity as well).
"Your body was dying," Luna continued, despite his objection. "You are now in one of my husband's clone bodies, not that we keep that many around, but that means that you now have all of his abilities… which includes the Force. You lack the skill to control them, however."
After saying her piece she swore on her magic and life that she was telling the truth and the flash of magic around her was enough to see that it took. As she was still breathing and not a corpse on the floor he knew that she wasn't lying.
Neither mentioned that she was using the Force and magic to blunt the depth of his darker and more volatile emotions as that would not only lead to a conversation that he didn't want to have but they both could feel her doing it. He was sure that she could easily be more subtle so he concluded that she wanted him to know, needed him to know, that this was not a manipulation… more a helping hand to keep him steady.
"Tell me everything," he said with an apologetic look both generally interested to know and wanting anything to keep him out of his own head for a while. He knew they would come to the fore again eventually but…not yet… not yet.
-HPBNW-
"How is he?" Luna's Harry asked her quietly as she softly closed the door to their guest room.
"Haunted. Broken. Raw. Basically? He's about what you would expect," in an equally soft voice.
"I know the feeling," Harry answered her with a haunted look in his eyes and a carefully neutral tone in his voice. The old pain resurfaced in his voice despite his best efforts though, the same pain that he had been trying to hide from her with limited success for centuries.
"Hey," she said softly and loosely gathering him in a hug while a tenderness bled from her every pore, "I came back didn't I?"
"Yes," he said roughly as he kissed her quickly but with all the tenderness that he possessed in his body, "you did. Is there anything else I should know about him?"
"I got the sense that he was both humouring me and using me for a distraction. He doesn't want to stay here. He doesn't want to live". She shrugged and then continued "Whether that is a true desire or merely a symptom of his grief…I can't tell you. He did agree, for simplicity's sake, that while he was here his hair would be charmed white and go by Harold rather than Harry though…"
"Well, it might be a tad disconcerting for him to feel you using the Force to check who he is every time you need to otherwise. You wouldn't want to spread our bedroom secrets to him now would you?"
The last part of what he was saying was a very feeble attempt to inject some humour into an otherwise very heavy topic. It didn't work too well but Luna did appreciate it and therefore it did well enough.
"Exactly," she responded while smiling briefly. Even as she did so Harry turned the conversation back to his other self.
"While you were gone I did some searching of my own… in the Force. He won't stay here, not forever. It wouldn't be good for him anyway as there are too many Force users here to upset the balance, to speed it up on its course of eternal warfare. It's why we are uncertain of where to go".
"But?" Luna pressed him as she sensed that there was more that he wanted to say.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing. He needs a fresh start and so do we… we can help each other even if the Force is guiding us down different paths".
"Let's do that then," the simple words that he spoke belied the difficult nature of their task. "If he wants to of course. First, we will have to get him through his grief and have him learn control before he harms himself or others. But…if he wants to die, no matter what we think or try and do….. He will succeed".
"When has a Harry Potter not succeeded against the odds?" His question was hypothetical, self-reflective and not a little bitter.
-HPBNW-
"What do you want from me?" Harold's question neatly derailed their delicate approach and left Harry with only blunt honesty. When he asked the question the two of them were alone, in an enclosed paddock to the rear of the house and sitting in a relaxed position facing each other. It was his third lesson on the Force and his first with his counterpart.
Both men found looking at a living, breathing and talking carbon copy of each other more than a little disturbing but, eventually, they would get used to it.
"To learn basic control," Harry deadpanned. "Why else do you think we are sitting here in the dirt?"
"That's not what I mean and you know it. What do you want from me?"
"We want you to heal." At Harold's frank stare Harry shrugged. "Fine. We would also like knowledge of the technology that brought you here. If you don't want to share it, that's fine, but Luna thinks that it's the best chance for a fresh start for all of us".
"I don't have anything left of the method except the plans in my head," Harold objected.
"Don't worry, Luna and I have resources. I even bonded with a phoenix once but Chime was young and wanted to explore where I was ready (in large part at least) to rest. Thanks to your new body and the clones that we have in storage or could make for you, we have the time".
Harry smiled to himself for a second as he remembered his friend. Thanks to their bond being natural, rather than the twisted one that Dumbledore had used, Chime was easy to release and had easily communicated his desire for that to happen.
They parted in friendship, joy and in sadness and all Harry could hope was that his friend was doing well wherever he was. The phoenix did still visit occasionally but these days it was becoming rarer and rarer as time passed on and Chime grew up.
Chime did have a whole universe to explore after all.
"I don't have anything left in me to make a fresh start anywhere," Harold replied, after searching his mind for a long moment for another objection and just finding his pain and grief fuelling his thoughts.
"If you truly believe that," Harry shrugged again, "then nothing that I teach you will change your mind or get in the way of your choice. You might be right anyway, in a sense, at least regarding where you are from and here…though for different reasons as a fresh start in one of those places would be… difficult to say the least. The Force, like magic, is a fundamental thing. They are both weaved throughout this universe like a fine thread and, in different ways, aware. Don't ask me to explain how… I'm not Luna but, given that, I doubt they'd lead us to a place that is terrible or where they don't exist".
"None of which explains why I should learn though," Harold's voice was bleak and his gaze full of bitterness as he spoke.
"Your first wife," Harry began with a strange almost wistful note in his voice, "was Hermione wasn't it?" At the other man's sharp nod Harry continued, "What would she say if you gave up now? What would she say if you gave in or turned down learning new knowledge out of hand? This is knowledge that can be used for whatever you want in the future and help you do whatever you choose to do more effectively".
"And if I decide at the end of this…training… that I'll use it to join my wives?"
"Then that would be your choice and one that both Luna and I will respect. Despite our… similarities… it is your life, not mine. Teaching you will allow you to see a greater viewpoint while allowing us to reacquaint ourselves with a mortal one more than we have in centuries".
"What is that supposed to mean?" Harold asked sharply and Harry grimaced at his choice of the word mortal before answering him.
"When Luna and I don't spend a lot of time around people we… lose track of them and the passage of time. Fifty years can go by in what feels like the blink of an eye to us and that is not a good thing. Your training with us will remind us of that and help keep us grounded. I can promise though that, however long this takes, you'll leave just as youthful as you are now…. If not more so.".
"How long is this going to take that you'd make that promise?"
"As long as it takes," Harry replied and before Harold could voice the objection that he could feel was coming he added, "usually around twenty years".
"I'm not sure I have the strength to last that long." He paused, picking at the dirt by his feet before he added, "You are right though… Hermione will be pissed with me if I don't take that opportunity regardless of anything else. Fine… I'll learn for as long as I can….until I'm well and truly done with everything and can't take it anymore".
"That's fair. You might change your mind when you feel the Force fully for a while. It has a way of relaxing you and lets you feel whole? More? Language doesn't really do it justice".
"Forgive me if I'm sceptical," Harold replied with a sense of disbelief.
-HPBNW-
25 Years Later
'Annoyingly,' Harold thought as his mind replayed that day, 'the other me was right.'
It turned out that feeling the breadth and depth of creation on a regular basis did help dull his grief. It didn't remove it, perhaps nothing ever would, but it helped as did the company of his teachers even if one was basically his twin.
Over time, with all the new things that he was both learning and teaching (the other him and Luna did want to learn what he knew after all) he had come to very rough terms with what had happened to him. It wasn't perfect but then perfection would likely be impossible under the circumstances and he could feel that emptiness inside of him. It was a gaping maw of nothing where the people he loved once resided but, it was more manageable now and thought he could live with it.
Hopefully at least and, as strange as it might sound to someone else, manageable was something that was enough for him for the moment.
In the last quarter-century, he had trained hard with the desperation of a man who felt like he had nothing else for which to draw breath in the morning. He threw himself into his tasks so much and for so long that the watchful eyes of Harry and Luna didn't have to prod him to apply himself and, if they said anything about his work ethic, it was to slow down so he didn't burn out or go too far, too fast.
His relationship with the two was that of a trusted student and, in Luna's case, a dear friend.
The reasons that he was closer to Luna than to Harry were many and it started with the fact that the uncomfortable nature they both felt around each other never completely went away, it did lessen with time but even at its best it was like there was a constant edge to their relationship.
Another reason was simply personalities. Harry and Harold, perhaps quite understandably, were far too similar as they had a very similar outlook and stubbornness when approaching life in general. This meant that, when they disagreed, it would often take weeks to form a compromise and neither man was ever truly happy with it.
Luna, on the other hand, was much more understanding. She simply was there when you needed her (whether you knew you needed it or not) and gave you space when you didn't. She was often the peacemaker between the two men and was exceptionally empathetic.
Though he had no romantic feelings for her himself (or anyone really as he believed that urge had finally been burned out of him) it wasn't hard for Harold to understand why his counterpart did and he, in all honesty, valued her just as highly if differently than Harry.
That was not to say that the two men didn't value each other as well or as deeply, it's just that it was… complicated and always would be.
His word had not only been rewarded with making his own knight armour (that easily compressed into the necklace that he wore around his neck) and having fashioned his own single-bladed cerulean-coloured lightsaber but also a mastery in the Force that was impressive. Luna and Harry had judged his abilities with that mystical energy as being at least Knight level and even verging on Master level in some areas.
Luna had been annoyed that he, like her husband, tended to favour Shien/Djem So rather than her preferred Ataru. He hadn't learned multiple forms as they had as he learned only a couple to a large extent, although he did understand the basics of a few more and understood enough to get by if nothing else of some of them.
Perhaps even better than that, before it fell the Commonwealth had flourished for many centuries and had advanced its technologies (both those known to the general populace and those deemed sensitive or secret) quite a bit. Though they never had approached the level of the Celestials, frankly no one did, they did manage to approach the skill of the Infinite Empire in a few respects. That then future civilisation, in turn, had created its own technology from the crumbs of their rebellion against the waning Celestials and used the barest crumbs of that technology to create their Empire.
Not that many people knew even that much in the brief span of time when such conclusions could have been easily drawn.
Regardless, Harry and Luna were some of the few that could and they were also (in Harry's case especially) both somewhat paranoid about technology and hoarders. Years before they left the Commonwealth they had taken steps, much like the governments of Harry's original time once did, to have access to the advanced technological and magical records and so had been able to cherry-pick the advancements that they found interesting or useful.
That plethora of knowledge included (but was not limited to) ship advancements, cutting-edge rituals to recreate some aspects of the Geo Forge after it was lost, droid construction, a way to purposefully convert iron to N.A.S, a blending and advancement of the twin processes of blood bags and cloning, spells for growth, purification and containment to name but a few. They also managed to unearth some lost rituals of Earth once all hope for it had been lost in this dimension.
No subject was truly off-limits to the pair and few pieces of knowledge were without more than a single application. They had even managed to appropriate several blood samples of various creatures and place them under stasis. The fact that they were effectively immortal really did help them in this regard because it allowed them decades to get a single piece that they found interesting, as did the sporadic nature of their visits thanks to their wandering nature.
This most sensitive of information was now held by all three of them and, in Harold's case, was currently stored in a data clip that was magically reinforced and hidden inside on one part of his survival belt, tucked behind his own Sorosuub blaster and on the opposite hip from his lightsaber.
Harold had created a capsule, with guidance from both his teachers and the Force, that was little more than a magically expanded escape pod, to carry him through to whatever was next once his training was complete.
It helped that he used droids and New Atlantis Steel in its construction as it meant that the construction went far quicker than it otherwise would as well as blending the Force and magic to give him the best shot of success.
'The only real mistake I made with it,' Harold had thought after it was finished, 'was to jokingly call it a TARDIS'.
It was meant as a joke, especially as the thing looked almost nothing like the fictitious time travel device. The only way in which it was really similar was in its dimensions and lack of weaponry but Luna had, in her way, taken the joke seriously and loved it.
So had Harry because, apparently, Harold's expression whenever Luna would call it that made him laugh. Of course, Harry made sure to bring it up often and when Harold grumbled about it Harry would just laugh harder.
He managed to get his own back though as, despite technically being the same person, he managed to learn more than the rudiments (through masses of trial and error as well as many intuitive leaps from Luna) of alchemy which was something the other Harry was so bad at it was beyond a joke.
Needless to say, he rubbed it in the man's face very often.
Still, with that complete, the time for Harold to be called that or look different from his counterpart had ended as they all sensed that a parting of ways was coming soon and he was far enough along that his presence in the Force was distinctly different to that of his counterpart. It was also easy for him to project it.
While he was creating his pod Luna and Harry had designed and made something different. Using a small army of droids and their greater experience with that form of construction they had made a nearly 90ft long (180ft enlarged interior) starship that looked, not that he knew it, like a black version of a Baudo-class Star Yacht, though around three times the size.
They named it the Marco Polo.
They were using large magical batteries (they had half of the lower of two decks devoted to them), one to help power all the enhancements on it and the other to power the newly coined reality drive though both they and he had designed the drive to be a one-use thing.
He didn't have the time to charge or construct such things for his own vessel (beyond the bare necessity of magic batteries) though as he had a lot more to learn in the same time that they did. This was one of the reasons that his pod was much smaller, barely topping ten feet unexpanded and thirty with magical enlargement.
Both ships, his pod and their yacht, were made from the same materials though with a N.A.S and titanium alloy and were much the same in terms of armour if not armament.
Their goodbyes to each other, less than an hour ago, had been heartfelt. He had grown to care for the other Harry a great deal and there was a mutual respect there, if not love. They had eventually viewed each other like distant cousins, thrown together by fate and circumstance, and they would miss one another after a fashion.
Luna was a different story. She had been teary-eyed and they looked at each other almost like siblings. He truly believed that, if the Force hadn't warned them all that it would be a bad idea, she would have tried to convince him to come with them.
Not that she would have succeeded.
Her hug to him as they parted was full of affection and shaded with more than a little desperation as she did not want to let him go. In truth, he felt the same as there was love there, not the romantic kind that she shared with her husband or he had once had with his wives, but one that was just as deep and they would both miss each other.
As he boarded the ramp into his pod he took one last look at the place he had lived for a quarter-century. It wasn't home to him, in part because home was more about the people and he had lost so many and also because he hadn't had a physical one in so very long, but it was the place he recovered.
It was also beautiful, quiet and peaceful. He knew that he would miss that peace most of all the things about being here.
-HPBNW-
The Force sang around Luna like some sort of a cross between a loving friend and favourite and eager-to-please pet. She had always felt closer to the mystical energy than Harry, though not as powerful in it, and she had wondered why (in her younger years) that was.
Eventually, she had concluded that it was probably because her connection to it was completely natural whereas Harry had artificially added his to his genetic makeup rather than being born with it. In truth, it was likely more complex than that, as there was also the fact that each of them were more in tune with certain aspects of it and he often struggled to sense its intentions as clearly or as quickly as she did.
Even when he did manage to do so as fast as she did it was rarely with the same clarity and, in times of stress, he sometimes slipped back into the mindset of treating it more like a tool that could think rather than a partner.
'Doubtless,' she mused, 'thanks to the fact that his early training was with the Sith rather than the Jedi. He may be over it now but that instruction left scars that exist even today and ingrained habits are often the hardest to break'.
Right now she could feel how happy the Force was with their course of action and she had a fair idea of why.
Powerful Force users such as herself, Harry, Revan, Yoda, Anakin and a few others did not come along that often and when they did they often came in pairs. It was her personal belief that this was because, simply by living their lives, they were often focal points or agents of change. Pairs were required (in her view) to help form and maintain a balance between the two sides of the Force and the multitude of lesser but still capable users of it.
The problem then was, quite simply, that she and Harry didn't die.
Though they were as careful as they could be and tried to remove themselves from galactic events as much as possible it was hard to escape the idea that it was often their very presence as well as their actions that sped up the interactions between light and dark.
Which left the galaxy as a whole less time to recover and the societies in it less time to adapt to the changes that came about, less time to grow and adjust.
In short, it was time that they stopped being in the way.
-HPBNW-
Caer Sidi
Harry Emry's occasionally watched other versions of himself and he wasn't the only God to do so, in fact, they all did at one point or another.
Most did it to judge when to send a small piece of themselves or create an agent to elevate one of their other selves to the level he was now at. This was not for altruistic reasons but was rather a common way for the Gods to gain information and experience without sacrificing (temporarily) their state of being by becoming mortal.
It also enabled them to gain a small hold of those realities and, eventually, gave them the ability to claim them as their own. This, in turn, would increase their followers and their power.
Harry, on the other hand, viewed them less as parts of him waiting to recombine or pawns to be used and more like estranged cousins. Occasionally, very occasionally, and very gently he even tried to help them.
Case in point, he had time (relative though it was) to do something here before he had to leave for that problematic universe that contained the mysterious Winchester brothers.
Reaching out with his senses he felt the magic of that place yield and had to restrain himself from pushing at all. Magic always yielded to him but, unless he wanted to go through the long and tedious process of claiming the universe (or cause it to break apart under his metaphysical weight), he had to be careful not to disturb the delicate balance he found there.
His mind turned to the other power in that universe and he communed with the Force for a moment. It wasn't as easy for him as it was with magic as it was a simple-minded thing to him and, unlike magic, he wasn't predominantly made of it.
He had traces of it, all the Gods here had traces of every fundamental force, so it wasn't impossible merely… very hard… like wading through treacle and shouting at the top of his lungs at the same time…. while juggling.
It helped that the Force there was fully awake here and aware, as far as its comparatively small existence could be, of what he was. He also was grateful that he didn't have to risk more of his power to force what he suggested as he found both the Force and magic agreeable to his request.
'Far better,' he thought, 'for them to use their own power reserves rather than me attempting to use mine and having to explain to the others how I accidentally gutted an entire reality.
What he saw when he looked down upon these other versions of himself was potential. Not potential for himself to take advantage of them but, rather the potential for them to grow and truly enjoy their lives again if they were given the chance.
He saw beyond their simple flesh and, in a metaphysical glance, knew them as well as he knew himself.
In one he saw a broken man, bent under the weight of his sorrow, who was sorely in need of a fresh start and the other was a man of contradictions and iron will. Here was a man who was forced to be a warrior before his time, who carried the scars and weight of horrors beyond most people's understanding, and yet sought the light thanks to the former Seer who loved him.
His light in the dark, bound to each other willingly, with chains of love that were all the more powerful because they were willing.
It didn't take much, hardly anything at all really, to arrange it so their destinations changed. They would have been largely random if he hadn't interceded as, with all the good intentions in the world, neither local force could see as far beyond their own boundaries as he could restricted as they were by their very natures to their small corner of the greater multiverse.
Both men wanted to find peace and happiness and he hoped that his actions here would help them get it. Even Gods strived for the same and, when you found it, he knew it was rarer than diamond.
One would travel to a universe with thousands of varied species, where human beings had travelled out into the stars as a great federation of races that explored their universe. Another would see another path that was different to anything that they had seen before.
Both would have the opportunity to carve out a place in a universe where the balance to the Force wasn't quite the same and people needed his help.
As much as he would like to stay and watch what happened he knew that it was time for him to go. Time was fluid here but not without its rules and, just as he had his own task to complete, he knew it would be centuries in his time before he could view them again.
Besides, there was a very thin line between helping and meddling and a new life as a demi-god awaited him.