Well, thanks for the praise for Nimrod, but unfortunately, that story cacked out. I tried alternatives, but they didn't work out. However, I did realise I have a potential new story idea to try out that plays right into the lore of Resident Evil: Village, and while it may be a while before sample chapters come to the Cauldron, it's immensely promising. As always, watch this space.

Anyway, here's the second chapter of Quarian's Wizard. While most of the chapter is like the equivalent chapter in Yesterday's Wizard, Tomorrow's World, there's a fairly substantial rewrite at the start of the chapter, to reflect the fact that Harry is accidentally rather than deliberately in the future, and that he and Tali are unaware of the soulbond. I've finished eight chapters of this story, and have started on a ninth, so hopefully, this story will be published later on. Fingers crossed...

QUARIAN'S WIZARD

CHAPTER 2:

THE WIZARD AND THE QUARIAN

They spent a few minutes just sitting next to each other, hugging and exchanging apologies. Despite the rancour of their last conversation, they had been through a lot lately. Harry himself had been, and he was fairly certain, especially given the conspicuous new patch on her suit, that Tali had been too. The fact that she hadn't treated him with anger, despite that argument, spoke volumes.

And yet, here she was, in that gorgeous figure-hugging environmental suit (well, it had nano-engineered mechanisms underneath for various functions, from temperature control to waste disposal, from medical functions to neural stimulation), a veil covering her helmeted head. True, he was fairly certain he knew what she looked like beneath the suit, as a few times, she had experimented with her apparel in their shared dream, but he had mostly seen her in this.

It was Tali who broke the silence first. "So, uh…what happened to you?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Yeah, but it's a long story for me. I mean, it could be for you, but…if you were real all this time, and you lived in the 20th Century, then how did you end up here? I know you said you were working on that Time-Turner thing, but I thought, from what you told me, that it allowed you to go back in time, not forwards."

Harry sighed quietly, trying to consider what to tell her. "…Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are about it. One of the other Unspeakables I was working with found out about it, and tattled on me to Croaker. I got into an argument, the Time-Turner was broken, and I was caught up in the mess. I mean, assuming this isn't some delusion of my brain while it de-ages or ages. But what about you? We got into that argument about the Geth when you were about to go on your Pilgrimage, and I'm sorry for that. I'm guessing it hasn't gone well."

"Ugh, that's an understatement, and I'm sorry too. Not that we haven't apologised so many times already," Tali said.

"Yeah, we have, haven't we?"

Dr Michel was keeping a discreet distance, albeit after having finished checking Harry over (and giving him vaccines, ranging from something called COVID-19 to other weird-sounding diseases), but Tali glanced over at her to be sure, before she looked Harry in the eyes. He had erected a Privacy Charm, but she didn't know that. "It's bad. Really bad. The ship I was on detected a Geth presence on some uncharted ice world in the Crescent Nebula, not far from Illium. I captured one and managed to save part of the memory core. Harry…it was bad. Very bad. These Geth seem to worship ancient machine beings known as 'Reapers', or at least that's what I got from the memory dump. But it gets worse. I got a fragment of an audio file. This Geth was recently on Eden Prime, which was the focus of a Geth raid a couple of days back."

"The Geth attacked a world?"

"Specifically, a human colony. There aren't many official reports of it, though, and considering how close that is to the Terminus Systems and the Batarians, they might cover it up that way. But the Geth weren't acting alone. They were being led by a Turian, and a SPECTRE to boot. Saren Arterius."

Harry's eyes widened. From what Tali told him in his dreams, SPECTREs were like the James Bonds of the Citadel, an irony considering that SPECTRE back home was the name of the organisation Bond fought. Saren Arterius was perhaps the most infamous, a Turian (whatever that was) known for getting results…but with a lot of collateral damage. Tali had summed him up succinctly as a bosh'tet, a Quarian expletive roughly meaning 'bastard'. And apparently he was something of a xenophobe, not liking Quarians, and certainly despising humans.

"Shit," he summed up succinctly.

Tali nodded solemnly. "I also think the one he's talking to is an Asari, she's certainly speaking their language according to my translator. I didn't get much more from their data core. But if it really is someone like Saren Arterius after me, then I'm in really deep shit. Still, there's a bit of hope. I got contacted shortly before you arrived by someone claiming to be Wotan, an information broker of some renown. They said they would help me by sending someone called Commander Jeanne Shepard to me when they arrived. But here's the thing, Harry. They said they would use as a passphrase that thing the Marauders used. You know, I solemnly swear I am up to no good, and Mischief managed."

Harry did a double-take at Tali. "…Are you sure?"

"Positive. Exact words in English, believe me, I checked. So…well, maybe you really are in your own future, and Wotan was…well, I doubt anyone from your time would still be alive, but maybe their descendants?"

Harry nodded absently, before he looked down at his feet. He'd been trying to avoid thinking about it, about the fact that his plans to try and save those who had died to Voldemort or the Death Eaters had gone awry. That Croaker, that sanctimonious old twat, had dared lecture him about the dangers of time travel, and dismissing the deaths of those he held dear as 'unfortunate', in much the same way as one would describe a rained-out cricket match.

His friends had lived and died without him. He'd probably been declared dead. Croaker no doubt covered it up. And here he was, alone.

No. Not quite. He had Tali. But he had exchanged, even if only inadvertently, all his other friends for her. He had his expanded trunk, so he wasn't without resources or a place to stay, if push came to shove.

He couldn't think about it. He didn't want to. That way led to despair and madness. Tali was in danger. She was the only familiar thing about this time and place. And so he made his resolution. "I dunno about what's going on, Tali, but…if you're in trouble, I'll try to protect you. I know you got combat and survival training on the Flotilla. I'm just worried about you."

"I know. If it wasn't considered nepotism, my father probably would have sent Kal'Reegar and his squad with me," Tali joked.

"I thought your father was distant," Harry said.

"Yes, but…sometimes, he actually shows he gives a damn," Tali said. "Though I'm closer to Auntie Raan, as you know." She leaned into him. "Keelah, I'm glad you're here, though. Our arguments aside, you're one of the few people I could talk to without, well, it getting awkward because my father's a Fleet Admiral. Or being a bosh'tet. I hope that, if I ever get back from my Pilgrimage alive, I am never sent on a mission with Prazza. He's a Kal'Reegar wannabe who thinks insubordination is actually initiative and creativity. He barely scraped through his Pilgrimage. He only got as far as he did because of nepotism, and yet, he accuses me of the same thing."

"Yeah, you've bitched about him before," Harry said. "Anyway, I need one of those Omni-Tool things at least."

"A good gun wouldn't hurt either, to use in conjunction with your spells," Tali mused. "I mean, that IS magic you can use, right? Not some weird biotics?"

Harry just shot her a look, before he noticed the door to the clinic opening, dismissing the Privacy Charm as he watched the newcomers. Humans, all with a shifty look, and with weapons. "There she is," one of them said, raising his weapon, as did the others. "Get the Quarian, kill the others."

Harry promptly fired off a wandless Disarming Charm, and sent the quintet of humans flying, their weapons landing at his feet. He then fired off Stunners, and they were soon left unconscious. Incarcerous spells left them tied up. "You're popular, Tali," Harry remarked, more calmly than he actually felt.

"I never would've thought so, what with all the armed men trying to kill me," Tali retorted, as Harry went over.

He didn't want to do this, using this spell left a bad taste in his mouth. But he needed to. He revived one of them, and meeting their eyes, murmured, "Legilimens."

What he saw in the man's mind was nasty. The man was a career criminal, working for a local crime lord named Fist, who had associations with both the Shadow Broker and Saren. The latter had apparently contacted Fist and told him to deal with a certain Quarian problem, intending to capture Tali and interrogate her before killing her.

Honestly, he'd like nothing more than to kill them. Unarmed and tied up though they were, they were also already unrepentant murderers who wanted them dead. But explaining away corpses would be problematic. So, for now, he contented himself with shrinking them and putting them in his coat pocket. The guns he took and put in his Mokeskin Pouch.

Dr Michel, who had been staring at him, eventually said, "What was that?"

"Magic," Harry said cheerfully.

Her mouth worked up and down, before she said, rather intelligently, "You…but…I…you can't…"

The door chose that time to open, and something stepped inside. Harry whirled to face it, and stopped, and stared. It was another alien, but one he hadn't seen before.

It wore blue metallic armour with a large collar, and had a gun at the ready. The face was brownish-grey, with swept-back crests of horn and blue markings painted on parts. The blue eyes were set in deep sockets, while the mouth had a vaguely feline air to its structure, albeit with a pair of external mandibles. Overall, he got the idea that this alien was a reptile.

"Garrus? What's wrong?" Dr Michel asked. Clearly, she knew the creature.

"I got a tip-off that some of Fist's men were heading here," the alien said, his voice warped and flanging. Yet despite this, the effect was not sinister. Indeed, his voice was gentle and concerned. "Looks like they aren't here yet."

"They were here," Michel said. "But…this one dealt with them."

Harry cursed Dr Michel in his head as she indicated him. The alien turned to him. "Oh? And how did you do that?"

"Easily if you know how," Harry snarked.

"A wise guy, huh? Look, if you show me where you put them, I'll take them down to lockup."

"Lockup?"

"This is Detective Garrus Varkarian. He's with C-Sec," Michel said. "And Tali, he's one of the better ones." To Garrus, she said, "She had a bad run-in with Chellick."

"Chellick, huh? No wonder. He doesn't like Quarians."

"Does any Turian?" Tali snarked.

"Hey, as long as you're not doing anything criminal, I don't care," Garrus said. "I think I was sent down here to stop my investigation. Anyway…"

At this point, a trio of humans, followed by a scarred, hulking example of a reptilian alien with a humped back and a belligerent air, entered. All four were in armour. Two of them were women, one with red hair with surprisingly glamorously beautiful and vaguely familiar looks for a soldier, the other dark-haired and tanned. The man was dark haired. The reptile alien had a crimson crest and similarly-coloured eyes. It was that one who spoke, in a deep, tenebrous rumble. "…Huh. So they haven't arrived?"

"No, apparently this one dealt with them," Garrus said, indicating Harry, who once more mentally cursed Dr Michel.

"So where's the bodies?" the reptile asked.

"In a moment, Wrex," the red-haired woman said, before turning her attention to Tali. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, I presume? I am Commander Jeanne Shepard. Oh, by the way, I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

"Mischief managed," Tali and Harry chorused.

Shepard nodded. "Good…though to answer your question, Wrex, if this guy is who I think he is, he probably dealt with Fist's goons." She indicated Harry.

"…You know me?"

"Of you. My ancestors included William and Fleur Weasley."

"What, you're Victoire's descendent?" Harry asked incredulously. "Are you…?"

"Squib, actually. I think explanations are in order, but we need to get Tali over to the embassy first. I'm hoping Anderson managed to get that asshole Udina to delay the hearing until we got her."

"Wait…do you mean the Council hearing into Saren Arterius' conduct?" Garrus asked. "I've been working on that case ever since the first rumours came out of Eden Prime. Pallin seemed about to pull the plug on the investigation when I got the tipoff to come here."

"Well, looks like I've made your day," Shepard said. "But we need to get going…"

Introductions were hurriedly made on the way over. Aside from Garrus and Shepard, the hulking alien called Wrex was a Krogan mercenary, hired by the Shadow Broker to take out Fist after Fist chose to take Saren's money over their own. The other woman was Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, while the man was Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. Wrex had encountered the humans shortly after he had killed Fist in Chora's Den, having learned about Tali, and going to see if her information was good for the Shadow Broker. He took the fact that Wotan had already called dibs in his stride.

On the way over, Tali also pointed out the other species of Citadel Space. The Asari were basically an all-female race who basically looked like blue-skinned sexy women with tendril-like crests instead of hair, and who could apparently mate with any species, somehow. The Salarians were spindly, reptilian creatures with large eyes and who had a reputation for hyperactivity. Those two were Council species, meaning they had a seat on the Citadel Council.

She also pointed out others. The squat Volus were always dressed in heavy duty pressure suits, and were considered the financiers of the galaxy. The Elcors were hulking, massive, gorilla-like creatures who were surprisingly serene and gentle, with strange gill-like grills where their mouths were, and who prefaced each sentence with their emotional state due to the way their language normally worked. The Hanar were shiny pink jellyfish creatures that spoke of themselves in the third person, and usually politely. She brought up others like the Drell or Batarians, but they saw none on the way.

The meeting in the Human Embassy amongst the shining spires of the Presidium was a little more fraught, if only because the Ambassador, Donnel Udina, was an arsehole who reminded Harry of Fudge, if Fudge was more competent and belligerent. Harry liked Captain David Anderson better, the burly dark-skinned man reminding him of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Tali was coaxed into playing back the file, and Harry could tell that those present were elated, and concerned. But then, Shepard brought up how she had visions of the Reapers from the Prothean Beacon. Oh joy, nightmarish visions, that ended well. Harry spoke from experience.

As they prepared to head for the Council Tower, Harry knew that he'd just gotten roped into something huge. Time would tell if he'd regret it. Though he knew he wouldn't regret being united with Tali…

CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:

So, there you have it. Shit has turned out somewhat differently to canon.

No numbered annotations this time.