Some notes before we begin. Today I'm going to bring you a little Harry Potter/Ghost in the Shell: Arise crossover pilot. Whether this will go further than one chapter has yet to be seen. First and foremost I would like to say that I do not own either of these works at all and I am not making any revenue off these properties, I'm only playing in their sandboxes before colliding them together and playing yet again in the remains of the two properties colliding. I would also like to say that I love both of these properties for multiple reasons, the HP series as I grew up with it and GitS because it has such a fascinating story to tell and let's admit that most of us would love to live in a cyberpunk world. Dat internet, am I right?
Title: Magic in a Shell
Rating: T-M: Given the fact that GitS is a "mature" rated show, this wouldn't shock me if this evolves into an M-rating later on.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost in the Shell or Harry Potter, they belong to Masamune Shirow, Studio IG, JK Rowling, and Warner Brothers respectively. I only own non-canon personalities and OC's that may appear. Let's get this show on the road, now shall we?
XxXxXxX
"Talking"
'Thinking'
"'Quoting something to someone'"
"Anything said over the phone or telecommunications"
*/Anything sent as a text message or email/*
XxXxXxX
2020, Surrey
Life was not kind to little Harry Potter. At the tender age of fifteen months, he had lost his father to a sociopath with an agenda that resembled Hitler's Nazism to a T with the "pureblood" supremacy, when the Potter family home in Godric's Hollow was attacked by the one known as Voldemort. His father stalled the Dark Lord as long as he could while his mother performed a ritual to save their son. Just as she finished the Dark Lord burst through the door between them and immobilized the poor mundane (1) woman, to both mentally torture her and to fulfill the bargain that he had struck up with one Severus Snape, and proceeded to cast the Killing Curse with the infamous incantation of 'Avada Kadavra.'
The ritual did not take Lily Potter nee Evans soul, as was the agreement between her and Lady Death, but of her husband whose body had not yet cooled. You see the Killing Curse didn't kill the person struck but pushed out their very soul out of their body (2). One of the curse's side effects is that it prevents the soul from returning to the body before the soul could re-enter the body, killing the target as the soul is no longer in the body. James was right beside his wife, ready to take her hand as they would face the Lady Death together, however, he was taken in her place. The curse rebounded and struck the Dark Lord, as his soul was weakened from being split already into six total and unequal parts, was disintegrated to only leave smoldering black robes.
Lily took her son and left as soon as the Dark Lord's magic ceased to exist to hold her. They lived in relative peace in London. She took night classes at a local college to finish her Computer Science degree so she could make a living to take care of herself and her son. Lily had succeeded and graduated at the top of her class and was hired on to one of London's top tech companies that manufactured nanomachines for both civilian and military contracts. They made a decent living for two years before Lily discovered something that she wasn't supposed to, the ones behind it put a hit out on her but specified that it was to look like a complete accident. Her car's computer was hacked by an outside source and while she was at a stoplight the car gunned straight into an oncoming lorry (3) which struck Lily, who was on her way to take her son to daycare.
Lily died instantly from a shard of auto glass that made its way into her temple. Her son was taken to a local hospital where it was discovered that he wouldn't make it through the night with the injuries to his internal organs and internal bleeding, unless they did something that had only been done once (4) in Newport City in Japan close to ten years ago to an unborn child whose parents had died in a terrorist attack. The decision was made that the three-year-old boy was to become a cyborg, his only human part being his brain.
The organic body parts were extracted and kept in medical stasis until a full-body prosthesis could be acquired from a company overseas. Some of the nurses on staff, as well as the corner, swore they saw a pitch black mist rise up from the open-looking scar on his forehead and swear by it to this very day. Once the parts were obtained, the surgery began. It lasted dozens of hours involving several brain surgeons in and out of the country who performed their parts via internet connected surgical robots.
A few months later he was released into the custody of his aunt and uncle after much rehabilitation. As he grew older he was constantly berated as a 'freak' by his uncle and cousin and told that his parents were drunks and freaks as well. The doctors and nurses at the hospital called him 'special' and helped him while his own flesh and blood berated him. It wasn't uncommon for Harry to recede into his own consciousness to remember his parents. As he was still a child his memories of his parents were jumbled and partially blurred. He knew that his father had shaggy black hair and his mother had vibrant red hair and looked 'pretty'. He mentioned it to his aunt once and got a beating from his uncle for it. While he was mostly a robot, he could still feel physical pain. In those times he retreated into his mind, just thinking.
Harry was never allowed any food as 'cyborgs don't need food' as his uncle would tell him. For five years he never got any food or water, but something always kept him alive (5). Had he been human completely he would look starved and malnourished, but he only had his brain. When he turned four his aunt and uncle would force him to do chores ranging from cooking all their meals to doing heavy labor in the yard. Though his body would never tire, he always FELT tired.
Today Harry turned ten. Most children made a big deal out of it at school and around the neighborhood. For him though it was 'business as usual' where he would wake up, cook breakfast and prepare Dudley and Vernon's lunches, go to school in ragged clothes, literally sit there and think, come home, do chores again, cook supper, do more chores or finish ones not finished before cooking supper, and going to bed under a staircase.
Harry had just come home from primary school and was weeding his aunt's garden. It had become sort of a therapeutic exercise for him, it allowed him to get away from his verbally abusive aunt, and physically and verbally abusive uncle and cousin. They wouldn't bother him while gardening as if Harry botched up the garden while he was working it then Petunia would go off on them too. Harry kept on his borderline autonomous task until he felt something on the back of his neck like someone was behind him. He turned around and saw what could only be described as a robotic spider with four legs and two arms.
"Hello!" it greeted Harry with a wave.
"Umm… hi?" he replied shyly.
"I'm Tachikoma!" the child synthesized voice of the tank stated. "What's your name?"
"My aunt, uncle, and cousin call me 'Freak' or 'boy' and not in a nice way."
*/Red flag noted. Continue with questioning./* appeared on the tank's heads-up display. "Why would they call you that? You look normal to me. Well normal as it relates to a human with a ghost that is," the robot corrected itself, its three-camera 'eye' spun once.
"I'm not human. I'm a robot freak," the boy replied. Synthetic tears leaked out.
*/Secondary red flag noted: emotional distress./* appeared on the HUD. "You know… I could check for you, I mean I'm technically not supposed to though…" it trailed. "I mean you look human and don't exhibit any behaviors that pre-programmed synthetics, like me, have. Plus I'm pretty sure you have a ghost."
"What's a ghost?"
The Tachikoma placed a robotic finger on its chassis in a thinking pose, "Some people also tend to call it a soul, which again synthetics don't have." A tentacle-like appendage came out of the robot's 'hand'. "If you want it'd take only a few minutes."
'Do I really have a soul or ghost? Am I actually alive?' Harry asked himself. "I guess so," he finally replied.
"Hurray!" the robot said cheerfully as it jumped a little off the ground. "Don't worry this won't hurt at all," it said before attaching the cable into the terminal in the base of the boy's neck. "You might feel a bit of an icy sensation in your brain (6)."
Harry then felt as though something that felt like a cold vicious liquid entered his mind, then he himself was pulled into his 'inner sanctum' where he just thought for hours on end. The intelligent robot zoomed around the room looking at the painting on the wall, Harry's personal representation of his memories and thoughts.
"Your mind is weird compared to others," Harry's body language slumped at the unintentional insult. One of the camera pods caught this. "When I say 'weird' I mean different," it corrected quickly. "Usually people have some sort of web where things are interconnected with one another, yours looks like one of those fancy museums that I'm not allowed in for some reason. I think it has something to do with me having a machine gun attached to my arm." It zipped around the room some more and saw some disturbing images involving the child and his blood relatives. */Logging visual information for later examination. Warning: Information will not hold up in the court of law, actual testimony required./* "Well you're human," the Tachikoma finally stated.
"I am?"
"Yep, according to the bylaws concerning cybernetic augmentation and prosthetics, as long as you have at least one organ in your body, primarily the brain, then you are still classified as human."
Harry was about to say something back to the tank, but the connection between the two was severed suddenly.
"BOY!" a fat walrus-like man yelled at the cybernetic child. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT TALKING TO ANYBODY?!" The child whimpered in fear. "NOW GET INSIDE!" The boy complied quickly, running inside. "And as for you, GET OFF MY PROPERTY!"
The Tachikoma straightened up in a serious fashion. "Please note that this confrontation has been logged with Section 3 security forces for further review. Have a pleasant day, sir," the tank implied much sarcasm on that last part as the man definitely belonged to a species that had more blubber than muscle. It then sped off and turned a corner, an icon appeared in its HUD stating that the report for Section 3 had been filed and all relevant files had been uploaded and included.
XxXxXxX
Two months later
Inspector Jeremy Lawson sat inside his office enjoying his late afternoon tea as he looked through the reports filed by other Public Security agents as well as the Tachikomas on patrol. Some were the common pub brawls after hours, others were reports on items stolen by a robbery ring, and a few other domestic disturbance calls in the community. There was one report that caught his eye, it was from almost two months ago with several follow-ups by the same Tachikoma, according to the report it was Tachikoma B-312 (7). It had reported a probable abuse case on a child who had all cybernetic parts, all of which were registered to a hospital in London from almost seven years ago.
According to hospital records the boy's name was originally 'John Doe' before the mother's name was discovered, a Lily Potter nee Evans, who according to record had a son named Harrison James Potter. She had died on impact with a lorry at an intersection. No illegal substances were in her system, nor was her neural interface active. Officially the death was ruled a suicide, her husband had died two years earlier by the hands of some mass murderer who had gone completely under the radar (8). According to her personal history she lived in Cokeworth where she went to a public school and was able to skip several grades. When she turned eleven she went completely off the radar for eight months out of the year for seven years. Before she left she had daily communications with parents, friends, and other family members; when she returned the first June her internet activity dropped down to almost nothing, an occasional message here and there, but most of her accounts remained inactive for years.
When she turned eighteen she re-emerged and obtained a marriage license from a local priest in Godric's Hollow and was officially married to a James Charlus Potter, who had absolutely no past. While the marriage was legal there was only a driver's license and a passport under his name. No internet activity other than one single email account under his name; even then he only received emails from several people and they always talked in code. Their last known address was in Godric's Hollow, when investigated after the mother's death there was only a burned out husk of a house. It had been concluded that after her husband died she moved away from all the memories to attempt a start at a new life. She got a job as a programmer at a major company for close to two years, then she suddenly died in that accident. What causes a woman that has a child to care for and a well-paying job to just commit suicide? To the investigating officer, this was the question asked. As the woman only had one living relative, a sister, the woman was less than cooperative with the officer as she wanted nothing to do with her sister.
There was a thought that a maneuver called 'Boston Brakes' (9) had been pulled, however, that was not conclusive, so the case remained a suicide on record. Custody had been given to the boy's aunt and uncle after he was released from the hospital. There were reports of an odd man in purple robes roaming the hospital after the operation looking for 'a boy with a lightning-shaped scar.' The man later left after making a fuss and local security got involved. The man later returned with the boy's blood relatives and they then took custody of the child. Ever since then the kid's been a ghost. There were postings on a rumor site that housewives from Surrey used that declared the child to be a delinquent and a rabble-rouser. Initial grades uploaded to his primary school's server showed promise of a prodigy, however, after the first test, they dropped down to barely passing grades. This caused another question to pop into the inspector's mind, what causes a smart child to just become 'stupid' immediately?
Going back to the reports, he reviewed the footage of the child's uncle, especially the first time Tachikoma came around. It was disturbing, to say the least by behavior alone. The uncle's behavior wasn't that out of the ordinary, parents were hard on their children when it came to punishments, however, there was evidence that the man's child was treated better than the cyborg boy and many of his actions were ignored while the boy's was not.
Inspector Larson slid the screen of his tablet displaying the report up and down as he contemplated his options. Legally, his department had the right to barge in and confiscate the child, ethically was another story as the current British law enforcement was under scrutiny for actions as of late by rogue elements inside it. His eye wandered over to the hard image he kept on his desk containing his wife and daughter. His daughter had a missing leg that had been replaced years ago by a cybernetic one. She was an unfortunate victim of an accident in which her entire right leg was crushed and the bones turned to dust. Or, well, fragmented to such a degree that they may as well be dust. Recovery would be long and there was only a single digit percentage that should ever be able to use that leg again outside of extreme and extensive cybernetic replacement parts. He and his wife had made the tough decision to amputate the limb including the hip joint and replace it with a cybernetic one. Recovery was still a long process, but now at the age of fourteen, his sweet daughter was like any other person walking the streets. Indistinguishable from any other person, fully organic or otherwise.
It was at that moment he made his decision. He saved the most recent edits to the report and attached it to an interoffice email and sent it to both his supervisor as well as the office of the head of Children's Welfare. One way or another, this kid out be out of the home he was in.
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Surrey, late night.
To say the residents of the small village of Surrey were awakened quite rudely was an understatement. They had been sleeping soundly in their beds for hours until the sirens and shouting started. Concerned onlookers (see: gossip mongers) came out to see quite the shocking sight. Being led out by gunpoint in handcuffs were the Dursley family. A so-called 'pillar' of the community. Or, at least that's what the neighborhood wanted them to think. None of them could really stand the 'walrus', the 'giraffe', and the 'pig'.
Many found that the giraffe's sense of humor tasteless and repetitive. She told the same joke over and over again and the adults of the neighborhood pretended to laugh while they inwardly sighed or rolled their eyes. The walrus was in appearance to how he acted, he was a lazy slob that only went to work for appearance's sake. There were rumors that he had been visiting cybernetic brothels as well as illicit casinos (those without a license or were run by the criminal underworld). The pig ran around with his merry little band of bullies who tended to break property and bully other kids and blame it on others; primarily his live-in cousin who just so happened to be a full cyborg.
The sort of karmic thing was that everyone in the neighborhood (sans the odd woman living across the street from them) were either full cyborgs or had some cybernetic parts in them. That made talking behind the backs of the Dursleys easy and simple. Thoughts traveled faster than words could be spoken. To the onlookers, there were both surprised as well as not at the same time. It was only a matter of time until the family of animals was corralled for the abuse of their nephew, but at the same time, they were shocked it took this long. Years of police reports had just disappeared. There were already posts going on social media stating that the police were finally doing their job.
Meanwhile, with the Dursleys, they were having the worst day of their lives. They were utterly and completely humiliated. They saw their neighbors looking at them from their doorstops giving them dirty looks. Some of them even looked smug. Out of all of them, there was one who was not there, one Arabella Figg who lived right across from them. She would usually show up with that bearded, garish robe wearing, freak Dumbledore to smooth it all over, but he was not there and she was not there. The Dursleys were on their own.
One of the officers stepped forward towards them. He was dressed in Inspector's garb, he wasn't wearing the same uniform that the grunts behind them were. "Mister Vernon and Missus Petunia Dursley, you are under arrest for the continued abuse of a minor. Please keep in mind that everything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law," he said to them. He didn't look too happy with them.
Petunia stammered, "B-but what about our Duddikins?"
"He will be sent to a Juvenile Detention facility for charges including damage to public property and harassment of other minors resulting in physical injury," he replied with some smugness, reveling in their misery. After all, he lived to deliver justice to those that deserved it. "After he serves his time, he will be placed with a family who will get him on the right track."
"But what about us?" Vernon spat.
"If the judge has her way, you will never be allowed to see your son or nephew ever again without police supervision." He looked to the grunts behind them, "Take them away."
Guns were prodded into their backs, little did they really know they were stun-guns, but that didn't matter as they complied and filed into the paddy-wagon whose doors were closed behind them. Only able to give a worried glance towards their son and a hate-filled glare towards their nephew.
The Inspector walked towards the cyberized child sitting on the back of an open ambulance who was currently wrapped in a blanket while being attended to by a female paramedic. The boy saw him because his attention turned to him. "Hello?" he asked with uncertainty.
The Inspector knelt down so he was at the child's level. "Hello there, my name is Inspector Jeremy Lawson, what's your name?" he asked kindly.
"H-Harry," he replied timidly. "What's going to happen to me now?" he asked.
"Well, you'll go to the hospital to get looked over and then you'll be going on a bit of a trip to another place who will be able to take care of your needs much better than your aunt and uncle could provide."
He seemed to look up at that. "You mean that I won't have to ever come back again?"
"Not unless you want to."
"Ok."
To be continued...?
XxXxXxX
That's all I have this time around. But this time I got notes.
1. I refuse to say muggle, I mean what sane muggle mundane person would allow themselves to be pretty much called a "mugger?" Lily sure as hell wouldn't let James or anyone else call her that.
2. Now, this is the only thing that makes sense. I mean Harry returned to his body instead of going on the "Next Great Adventure" that Dumbles talked about. My other thought is that it steals an echo of the person it killed, allowing the affected one to still pass on to the afterlife but still allow the wand to keep a "record" if you will of the people killed by it. The spell leaves no mark as even stated on the wiki page and in the books, therefore it's spirit-based magic. My thought is that the only reason that he was allowed back in his body was that the Lady Death (or just Death) canceled the magical side effect on it.
3. Truck. Just think semi-truck.
4. Note legally. This references Mikoto Kusanagi in the Arise reimagining as that is one of the few glances into her origins. The operation saved her life and it was considered legal. There are many other bodies altered in the show, however, they were all on criminals, so therefore this is the only other documented LEGAL case that implanted a human brain into a cybernetic body to keep the person alive.
5. It is mentioned in the original manga that cyborgs, even Kusanagi still need nutrition for their brains which is in a specialized paste which is borderline inedible. In this case, Harry's magic kept him alive.
6. In the Halo series of games, the description of having an AI connect with the neural interface was an icy cold mercury-like liquid flowing into the brain. Not painful, but just unsettling and slightly uncomfortable.
7. That is Noble Six's service number from Halo: Reach, because why not? It's my fic.
8. Now I theorize that the non-magical law enforcement would have been alerted by the Aurors, I mean Voldemort was thought to have killed hundreds of people along with his followers, which just doesn't go unnoticed. I mean people just disappearing and dying for no reason.
9. I was watching a CSI episode where the murderer hijacked cars with aftermarket GPS Black Boxes and caused them to crash, the name came from where the tactic had first been used: Boston.
Now, I know some of you are going to get on my case about this one. "You just released a pilot and now you're releasing another a day later? Get off your ass and update [insert favorite fic here]." Well, sorry to disappoint you, this one has been mostly done for a while but was missing an ending for it. This document was started back in May of 2016 and is now getting finished, just keep that in mind.
What do I want to accomplish in this? Well, I want to explore the while human question that magicals will have to answer based on the fact that Harry still has magic despite being only a brain in a jar, over simplistically of course. It'd be interesting to explore.
That's all I really have for now. Let me know what you think about this one in the usual place.
See you all next time in whatever I post next.
