Alien are Real!

The space shuttle was hurtling towards Earth, the design of the ship managing to protect the worst of the friction from damaging the ship, but the inside of the ship had already been severely damaged. Something had crashed into the ship only a few minutes ago when the crew were making a routine approach, and then it had knocked the whole ship around. Inside the shuttle, five panicking astronauts were trying to guide their shuttle on an even keel, but they were having problems.

"We need to slow down!" One astronaut called out, his helmet limiting how loud his voice was.

"I'm working on it," a female astronaut said before she shook her head. "Damn it to hell! I can barely maintain our angle. We're gonna head into the gravity well."

"The hull's been penetrated. Whatever that thing is it's gotten inside," one of the younger astronauts said, panic in his voice.

"Any idea what it was?"

"No."

"Shit!" The fifth astronaut shook his head. "I wish we had infrastructure up here, bigger and better space stations, other shuttles. We could sure use some help right now."

"Well, there isn't any, but it's a nice dream," the second astronaut said before turning to the navigator, who was one of the younger ones but because of her job she had been concentrating on for the last few minutes, she had not panicked as much as the others. "What's our course like?"

"It's been thrown off. According to my calculations, we're heading for a crash landing just outside London, England," she lifted her head, "Someone get through to NASA and to Britain, they need to know! Fast!"

The crew worked fast, contacting NASA and Britain. The astronauts, so immersed in their jobs as they struggled to bring the shuttle back down to Earth, struggling to adjust their course even if it was just simply too late as they were being yanked down by the strong gravity of Earth, didn't notice a door open, nor did they see a blob of black goo come in.

Xxxxx

Harry Potter, aged 6, had known life was just utterly unfair.

He had done it, he had done it. He had finally escaped to London after promising himself to just get away from the Dursleys before their abuse killed him.

The young boy hated the way the Dursley's abuse just got worse and worse as the years passed. Ever since he had turned 5 last year, they had moved on from simply slapping him around to punching and kicking him; Dudley might have been doing it for a long time before then, but they were nothing compared to the things Vernon was capable of. He refused to call them family, it had been made more than clear to him in the past that they would and could never be family. He hated the way the neighbours had been told lies about him and whispered about him behind his back, and he hated that it was even worse at school.

But most of all, Harry hated the fact he remembered his parents, and while they were vague memories in themselves, he remembered them enough to know they were not what the Dursleys said they were, and what's more, he knew his parents had not died in the car crash; okay, so his memories were not exactly clear, but he knew those men who'd been arguing with them, from the flashes he could remember, had been taking him away from them…

And then he'd ended up at Number 4, but what Harry didn't get was why the Dursleys were allowed to abuse him, and why every single time he tried to raise the alarm with a grown-up, they would turn around and start treating him like a leper. The only friend he'd had was the old librarian lady, who reminded him of Miss Phelps from Matilda after reading the book, and Harry had stopped trying to tell anyone he was being abused since it was like someone was whispering into the ears of everyone around him.

Harry didn't care about the so-called 'freaky' things the Dursleys used to describe the things that happened around him. They always happened whenever he was frightened, angry, or under stress. And they always happened at random; hair would turn blue, he'd end up appearing on a rooftop, or he'd find himself on the other side of the road, while everyone was shocked. And then he would find himself beaten, black and blue. Once he had learnt how to control them after figuring out how they worked, Harry discovered he could virtually do anything.

It was as if his powers had been waiting for him to actually figure out how they worked, and then he found he could create balls of light, or fire, in the palm of his hands, change his appearance and gender and weight and height, or he could make things move. He could unlock doors, and will himself to be invisible or unseen; he still didn't know how that worked, and for the last year he had been working on them while he'd planned his chance to escape.

He could even teleport himself.

Harry had never run away from the Dursleys before, but he had known for a while that unless he did, there was a chance he would leave their house in a body bag.

Originally he had just planned to steal, to get money and food, and then sneak away one day, and practice using his powers. But the Dursleys had beaten him two months ago, around the time that space shuttle had crashed near London, and he'd been so badly hurt that he decided enough was enough. Harry had unlocked the doors and he'd snuck through the back garden and to the train station. Because he had gone without being seen or noticed, Harry was able to get into London without being seen.

Two months, and he had already learnt how to become a pickpocket, quickly figuring out how to go after people, how to hide, and where to go.

Right now, for the first time ever, Harry Potter was happy.

Xxxxxx

There! The perfect host was right there. The alien had not originally planned on harming the crew in that primitive spaceship. The small pod the alien had managed to use to escape when the people of his last host had tried to kill him had gotten him across this part of the galaxy when he had travelled through hyperspace, but severe damage due to weapons fire had weakened the structural integrity until the pod was so badly damaged, the alien had been having problems navigating. It had taken all of the skill gleaned from centuries of symbiotic hosting just to guide the ship close to the atmosphere of a habitable world, but the crash had damaged the pod until it was wrecked. Fortunately, the alien was able to board the ship before it crashed into the atmosphere. The alien remembered clearly that the ship and its people must be truly primitive if they didn't know how to shields, to prevent such crashes that would knock them down to a planet.

And then the ship crashed. The crew were knocked unconscious, and the alien had been forced to bond with one of them after being deprived of a host for so long. The alien had learnt a lot from that bonding, and he knew this world was called Earth and their technology was so primitive they hadn't discovered wormholes, they hadn't gone out beyond their moon, and they didn't have hyperspace travel. Even worse, the astronaut the alien had bonded with rejected it after a good half an hour, and the symbiote was forced to bond with the other astronauts, only to discover the same thing. The problem was the alien needed emotions to live. But they rejected it, too, and the alien was forced to bond with simpler animals that would be enough to sustain it for a time, as it looked for a host. There were a few humans who possessed levels of anger, aggression and hurt, but its senses had picked up a host that was perfect for it, and for the last two Earth months, the alien had looked for it and bonded with a bird to rapidly reach the human.

And now it had found it; according to the knowledge it had assimilated from the astronauts and the few humans it had bonded with, this human from what the bird could see after the alien made the bird land nearby, was the human was young. But the emotions leaking from him were so potent, so unexpected in a being so young.

The alien prepared to leap to the human…

Xxxxx

Harry sensed movement out of the corner of his eyes, and he noticed a bird had landed in the open window of the abandoned building he had taken as home. Harry turned around and smiled at the small creature. He had always liked birds and animals more than people, as they didn't lash out or judge. But this was the first time he had ever seen a bird land so close to him.

"Hello," he smiled, but Harry screamed in shock when a black mass leapt away from the bird and engulfed him entirely and completely.

And then it stopped, and Harry looked down at his hands, turning to the bird, but he saw it was dead. But what surprised him the most was he reached out his hand, without him controlling it, and he actually bit its head clean off and stopped in horror as he tasted the feathers.

"Yuck! What the hell's happening to me?" Harry shouted.

'Calm down, Harry Potter.'

Harry yelped and looked around, but there was no sign of the owner of the deep voice. "Who's that?"

'I'm right here, inside of you. I'm speaking to you in your head,' the voice replied.

"Then get out of my head. Nobody can live there or here, but me!" Harry snapped angrily.

The voice laughed. 'I don't mean you any harm. I am bonded to you.'

"What?"

'Look,' the voice said, and a long black tentacle emerged out of his body with two white eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. 'I am Venom. I am a Klyntar.'

"A what?" Harry asked.

"A symbiote, an advanced alien species," Venom replied.

"Aliens," Harry whispered. He had always done his best to deny everything that lived inside the Dursley's bubble of everything they considered normal.

'Yes, now listen to me carefully Harry,' Venom said, 'this relationship is beneficial to both of us. I saw all of your memories. I need a host to survive, and in return, I can make you stronger than ever. I know, deep down, you want to return to your relatives and make them pay for what happened to you growing up. I can help you.'

Harry became even more interested, and in his head, he saw ways the alien could help him. At the same time, he saw several memories the alien had of the places it had been to.

"You're giving me knowledge, why?" Harry said.

'To prove to you I mean it,' Venom replied.

"I also saw you tried to bond with the astronauts on the space shuttle," Harry was reeling from the news this alien had managed to board that crashing shuttle. "But what took you so long?"

'None of them were compatible, and more than a few of them died,' Venom said. 'That was accidental. I have never understood why incompatible hosts die like that.'

"But I am compatible?"

"Yes. I can bond with anyone, but only the rage, frustration, and malice could allow me to bond with you," Venom said, 'In return, I can heal your body; it suffered many broken bones, and you've also been sickly many times before. I can fix that. At the same time, I can satisfy your desire for knowledge. As you know, knowledge is power.'

Harry considered it for a moment, but he knew the alien, Venom, was being truthful. And at the same time, he wondered what he could do with the knowledge of dozens of worlds. At the same time, what could he do with the alien as well?