I had another idea, as I do. As you guys know, there is a lot of "adoption" fics out there where a character, such as Harry Potter is adopted by another character early in his life and is given a different outlook on life because of that. While reading another fic and having pre-sleep speculation, I thought of an interesting idea: what if John-117 after Halo 4 was sent back in time and for some reason or another decides to adopt Harry the night his parents were murdered (found on the Dursley's porch).

Part of this idea came from a Halo/Monster Musume idea where John is living in the past (literally) and is hiding the fact that he is a super soldier and from a more technologically advanced future where, if the average person heard that, he would be locked up in the nuthouse. So, I kind of borrowed the start of that idea and just went on from there.

Title: [None chosen at this time]

Summary: Slipspace ruptures are weird, and because of a rupture after Cortana's sacrifice to keep her friend alive, John finds himself in the late twentieth century and finds himself in the parental role raising a kid, something that diverges heavily from his training as a Spartan super-soldier.

Rating: T for now, may get closer to game rated M, but we'll see.

Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my copy of MS Word and my desktop. Halo belongs to Microsoft and 343i and Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I only own the idea itself.

XxXxXxX

High orbit above Earth.

John's mind entered Spartan Time, as his fellow graduates of the Spartan program dubbed it, as his hand closed in on the nuclear device that he was going to use to detonate the Composer on the Mantle's Approach, the Didact's flagship. He knew he was about to die, the MJOLNIR armor wasn't rated to take a nuclear blast, even one with a low tonnage as the one he had. His mind flashed his entire life before his eyes. His mother and father, although he couldn't remember what they looked like exactly; although, he could assume their appearances based upon his own and how genetics work. He remembered his hellish training in the SPARTAN program, leading and losing friends that would become his family in various training scenarios, battles, and their augmentations. He remembered his fights on Installation 04, the First Strike on the Unyielding Hierophant, his encounter with the Arbiter and the Gravemind on Installation 05, and the invasion on Earth from the Covenant. He couldn't forget the Battle of the Ark, as Laskey had informed him it was called, as that had resulted in the deaths of long-time friend and comrade Sargent Avery Johnson and Miranda Keyes but the defeat of the Covenant as a threat and the Gravemind. All of that led him to where he stood, on a Forerunner warship firing a beam from the Composer which was currently hitting the southwest of the former United States, composing all within.

His hand finished hitting the manual trigger and his vision was filled in bright, white light. He expected that to be the end. Oblivion. But the light faded away revealing that he wasn't dead and was in a ball of electronically pulsating ball of hardlight. Outside he saw the debris of the Mantle's Approach floating.

"Cortana?" he asked as he stood up. He looked around but didn't see his companion. "Cortana, do you read?" There was only silence. "Cortana, come in." He turned around to see his AI companion. She was still alive and looked fine. She looked better than fine. She even appeared fully solid in appearance, something that UNSC holotanks couldn't produce. It had to be because of the hardlight. They started to walk towards each other. "How-?"

"Oh, I'm the strangest thing you've seen all day?" Cortana rebutted.

"But if we're here-," John trailed.

"It worked. You did it. Just like you always do."

John looked around seeing that the hardlight bubble was all around them. "So, how do we get out of here?" he asked.

Cortana sighed, but it was in resignation if not regret. "I'm not coming with you this time."

"What?" John replied with incredulousness and disbelief.

"Most of me is down there. I only held enough back to get you off the ship."

"No. That's not-! We go together," he replied in defiance.

"It's already done."

"I am not leaving you here!" If he left her here, he would be desecrating the memory of Johnson. 'Don't ever let her go,' he said to him what felt like ages ago.

"John…" Cortana trailed as she walked up to him and placed a hand on his chest plate. He could actually feel the gentle push from her, something that should have been impossible. "I've waited so long to do that."

A moment of silence passed. "It was my job to take care of you."

"We were supposed to take care of each other," she corrected. "And we did."

"Cortana, please…" he pleaded. She started to move away. He started to reach out to try and grab hold of her, again, something that wouldn't be possible to do. "Wait-."

"Welcome home, John." She folded her hand in front of her and merged with the hardlight bubble. She was gone. As he finally took in mentally what she had done for him, it seemed like time was moving once more and the bits of pieces of Mantle's Approach started to fall around him outside the bubble. There was a flash of light, and then, nothing.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a clearing in a forest. He slowly stood up, his armor barely making a sound and looked around. Above him, the stars looked familiar, but he couldn't place his finger on it. In the distance he could hear vehicles, so he cautiously started walking that way. As he exited the small forest, he saw a road filled with 'quaint' looking houses, houses that looked like they were part of a community that were historic sites. Few of these places existed due to age and the Human-Covenant War. One moment it was a lit street, the next it was completely dark; although it didn't mean much to John since he had perfect night vision thanks to his augmentations. He saw that there was a man who had an extremely long, white beard and was wearing robes. Or, that's the best descriptor that he could think of. He could see his face, but his built-in sensor suite couldn't detect anything he said, but he could read his lips.

"I should have known you would be here," the bearded man said to no one. "Professor McGonagall." John watched as a woman came out of nowhere. She wore a pointy hat and robes not dissimilar to the Bearded man.

"Good evening, Professor Dumbledore," McGonagall said in response. John now had names: McGonagall for the elderly woman, Dumbledore for the elderly man who looked many years her senior. "Are the rumors true, Albus?" So, his first name was Albus, then.

"I'm afraid so, Professor," he replied as the two started to walk down the street. "The good, and the bad."

"And the boy?"

"Hagrid is bringing him." There was now a new name: Hagrid.

"Do you think it wise to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"

"Ah, Professor," he rebuked gently. "I would trust Hagrid with my life."

There was a sound like an incoming aircraft and John ducked down, allowing the green of his power armor to blend into the greenery. He saw a light in the sky, but it didn't sound like any VTOL, neither turboprop or turbofan, that he had ever heard of. It came down for a landing and it was a motorcycle of all things. Not a newer model either, it was a four-stroke engine that utilized gasoline. That was exceedingly rare to find a vehicle in this condition, let alone fly. He didn't know of any experimental craft outside of that poor attempt to mount handlebars on a jet engine in the late twenty-first century that went awry and exploded; the pilot didn't survive. The man that was on the bike had to be as large as a Brute, but he was a man. His appearance was that of a giant, but that was obvious. He had a long, brown beard and shaggily long hair that curled at some points. His clothing was ill-fitted in the sense it was patchwork made of different furs.

He turned off the bike and looked at the two 'Professors'. "Professor Dumbledore, sir. Professor McGonagall," he greeted. He dismounted the bike and started to approach the two.

"No problems I trust, Hagrid?" Dumbledore asked. Now he had the name of the third person in this whole theatric display.

"No, sir. Little tyke fell asleep as we flew over Bristol," Hagrid replied. Now John knew where he was, relatively speaking. He knew he was on Earth, and now he knew he was in the British Isles. There weren't any colonies that he was aware of that were name Bristol; the only one that was close was the Bristol Sea, but that was on Concord and the stars above matched for Earth-based constellations. "Try not to wake him," he requested as he passed the small bundle, which based upon the language used suggested a baby or small child. "There you go."

They started to walk towards a house, John noticed that it had a number '4' in a metal or wood figurine. "Albus, do you really think it's safe leaving him with these people?" McGonagall seemed to say this with disdain. "I've watched them all day, they're the worst sort of muggles imaginable." She also seemed to say the word 'muggle' with some kind of disdain. Was this a kind of slur? "They really are," she insisted.

"The only family he has," Albus interrupted and insisted.

"This boy will be famous." John had to raise an eyebrow at that. A celebrity? "There won't be a child in our world that won't know his name." Once again, John found this to be odd. While he didn't follow many trends even before the Halos, he knew of names of famous persons in the UEG's civilian circles due to osmosis from hearing Marines lament over certain supermodels and stars alike. While he didn't care for it, he knew of it. While things would have changed post-Covenant war, you'd think that people wearing such odd clothing choices would have stood out.

"Exactly," he agreed. "He's far better off growing up away from all of that," he paused, looking at the child; "until he is ready." He proceeded to set the child down on the doormat carefully. Hagrid sniffled in some sort of sadness. "There, there, Hagrid. It's not really goodbye after all." This seemed to cheer the giant of a man up. The two Professors turned once more to the boy and Albus knelt down to set an envelope down on top of the blanket the child was wrapped in. "Good luck, Harry Potter," Albus said. The Professors and Hagrid turned away and disappeared in a soft crack. Hagrid mounted the motorcycle once more and flew away.

Once John was confident that no one was watching, he started to approach the bundle. He knelt to see the envelope. On it was written 'Mr. and Mrs. V. Dursley / 4 Privet Drive / Little Whinging / Surrey.' He knew the latter city was near London. He was definitely in the former United Kingdom. He noted that the letter was written in a fairly intricate, hand-written style. The color tone of the ink suggested something other than your standard ballpoint ink being used. He proceeded to open it up and read the letter's contents.

It was being directed towards the missus Dursley. To summarize, it was a request (but more-so a demand) that she take this baby into her family circle and care for him due to the deaths of mister and missus Potter and that they were the only family he had. He had to scoff at this. Not like anyone would have heard him, his external communications were muted. There were also warnings on leaving this specific house before his seventeenth birthday and a kind of 'magical protection' that would keep him and her family safe so long as he lived under their roof.

"Magic?" John asked. He had seen things throughout his military career. The Halo, a massive mega construction? The Halo's teleportation grid? How the Prometheans translocated? Alien life? All of it could be explained by science. Sure, it was well above his head and may as well be 'magic', but it was something that the Forerunners and Humanity's ancient ancestors mastered purely by science alone. He looked down on the child and had to think about what kind of people wouldn't even ring the doorbell or knock on the door to announce that the child was there. As he looked at the child itself, it felt… familiar for some reason, but why?

He found a newspaper nearby, it had the date of November 1, 1981. Since it was night, this had to be the next morning's issue, but newspapers had been not printed since close to the end of the twenty-first century. Now that he looked at the vehicles on the street as well, they looked much older and didn't look like any that he had ever seen on any colony during his service history. Going against his better judgment he picked up the child who was still sleeping soundly. He proceeded to walk down the street. In the early morning, a small child saw him and started spreading the urban legend of the big green man.

XxXxXxX

Ten years later. Evening.

John walked through the house that he considered his home for the last ten years and opened the door to the room of the child that was legally his son. "Get to bed, you're up way past your bedtime," he said.

"I know, dad, but this book is too interesting to put down," Harry replied as he tried to feebly hide the book he was reading.

"You may be on summer break, but bedtime is still bedtime."

"Fine," he pouted putting his book away.

"It's not like the book is going to go anywhere, or get up and walk away," John joked.

"G'nite, dad," Harry said.

"Night, kid," he said as he turned off the light and closed the door. He moved into the garage where he kept one secret from his son, his MJOLNIR armor. It was hidden inside a false wall which he claimed was where the backup generator was hidden, which was technically true due to the fusion reactor in his armor would be well more than overkill than any gasoline generator would be able to output. He booted up the primitive computer that he had been forced to use due to being stuck in 1990. He kept scouring message boards of any mentions of higher technology, but all he got were crazies talking about UFOs that didn't match any known Forerunner or Covenant configurations, just the classic UFO saucer. Using his limited knowledge of AI creation, he created a dumb AI to take care of small things, utilizing his armor's computing systems to house it as the ability to run it on a computer wouldn't exist for many decades to come.

He was fairly in-depth in a current message board about theoretical physics as he suggested casually higher dimensions of space, as that's how Slipspace works when a silent alarm went off. When he constructed the house, he placed pressure plates that mapped weight and pressure calibrated during non-visiting hours into the flooring to detect intruders. While he lived on the outskirts of London in which it was usually pretty quiet, that didn't mean that someone wouldn't try something. He pulled the M6D that he had hidden far away from Harry and flicked off the safety.

"Deja, lock Harry's door," he ordered. There was a beep in reply. He turned off the light and allowed his augmented night vision to take over. The darkened home looked like the lights were on to him. He started to skulk around the house. He knew where the intruder was due to where he saw the pressure at the highest point when he left the garage; it was near the living room.

As he looked inside, he saw a man trying to remain as quiet as possible. He had black hair that looked like it didn't get enough oil this morning. Had an abnormally long nose, his skin was pale and wore black robes like those other people that he saw that night almost ten years ago. John snuck up behind him and held his pistol to the back of his head and pulled the hammer back with his thumb so that it made an audible click.

"Hands up," John demanded in a quiet, low tone. The man in black paused contemplating his next options. "I have no problems with putting a 12.7mm hole in the back of your head with this thing." John pressed the muzzle of the weapon against the man's skull. "But I'd rather if you'd comply because getting bloodstains, brain matter, and bone fragments cleaned up is always a pain with semi-armor piercing, high explosive rounds," he casually mentioned. "But hey, it killed the last three men that tried to break in with a single round. Now that you mention it, you look like you're dressed like them." John saw his hand twitch towards his side, but he responded by digging the muzzle once again into his skull. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. The last person that tried that found their arm pulled out of their socket before he could do anything; shot the other two shortly thereafter. Total bitches, couldn't handle a little pain. But I see you're different, unlike them, you recognize the weapon I'm holding to the back of your skull and that if you even try the slightest thing you'll die. Smart man." John patted him down, finding a stick just like he had with the others. He put it into his pocket and lowered his weapon. "Have a seat on the chair," John ordered.

As the two of them sat down across from each other, John's pistol never left his side. The other man saw that the chair that John took was more reinforced than expected, he also gulped in shock to see the six-foot ten-inch man who looked like he could break him in half with his bare hands if he wanted to. "Who are you?" John demanded.

"Severus Snape," the man tried and failed to regain his composure with the announcement of his name. "Professor of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." At the end, he sounded like he didn't want to run at least on pure instinct.

"Tell me, Professor Snape, what brings you to my home in the middle of the night? What specifically drove you to break into my home?"

"How did you know I was here?"

John pulled out the stick and examined it. Despite being a Spartan, he knew how to hold things gently. "I don't know, a magician never reveals his tricks," he enigmatically replied. "But I might tell you if you tell me how you broke into my home without setting off the door alarm."

He paused for a moment and looked around. Seeing that there was no other option, "Magic," he admitted.

John raised an eyebrow at that. "Really now? And what is a magic man like you doing here?"

Severus felt insulted at that jab. So, he stared back at him, specifically in the pupils, John noticed. He felt a building pressure in his frontal lobe, a pressure that one might feel when ascending or descending too quickly. Not painful, but not comfortable. As for Severus, he saw things he wished he could unsee. He saw as the man in front of him killed hundreds if not tens of thousands of enemy combatants that weren't human, that were technologically superior in almost every way. He saw as he tumbled through the open vacuum of space to drop an enemy bomb inside a massive ship that even the military industriousness of the Americans could ever comprehend and blew it up. That vessel alone had to contain tens of thousands of crewmen alone based upon its size, snuffed out by one person. For once in his life, Severus legitimately feared someone other than Voldemort. While wizards were crafty and tough and could outmaneuver muggles with ease with magic and how unpredictable they could be, this one man was a one-man army of which was faster than any human he had ever see move, stronger than any man powerlifting for the Olympics, and more resourceful and deadlier than any wizard could ever hope to be. And this was a glimpse of this man's life before he was thrown out of his mind. He looked to be almost forty, and that was just a single moment in his life.

"What are you?" Severus muttered in sheer awe and terror.

"A man who is getting really tired of your shit," John replied in annoyance. The pressure was gone now. "What do you want?"

Severus didn't withhold any information and told John everything. He was a professor who came there at the behest of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, same school, to find one Harry Potter as he cased to be at the residence that he was left at ten years ago. This did clearly show the gross incompetence of the leadership of Dumbledore when it came to this situation. John dug out every piece of information that he could about the man, his history, what he stood for. Allegedly he was the veteran of a shadow war with muggles (non-magical) and wizards during the Second World War.

"I think we've diverged far enough though, what do you want with my kid?" John asked.

"Your kid?"

"I adopted him off of that doorstep that cold November morning, legally he's my kid. What do you want with him?"

Severus extended a hand containing an envelope. On it was written, 'Harry Potter. Largest bedroom, Halsey residence. Reading.' John opened it and quickly read over the letter. "An invitation to join your exclusive school," John summarized.

"It's something that the Headmaster wanted hand delivered-."

"No," John interrupted.

"No?" Severus was shocked. While he didn't like Potter, no one turned down an offer from Hogwarts.

"Because you decided to sneak around in the dead of night instead of waiting until morning or showing up at more reasonable hours. Get out." He tossed the stick back at Severus who caught it and pocketed it. He proceeded to leave the house. Once gone and alone, John said aloud, "Deja, unlock Harry's door, turn on the proximity sensors. Flag anything out of the ordinary."

"Yes, sir," the response of the dumb AI came.

To be continued…?

XxXxXxX

That's all I have for this one. You can thank the endings of Halo 4 and the beginning scene of the Sorcerer's Stone for how quickly this one came about. So, I just want to cover what I hope to accomplish in this if continued. The first thing will be giving John a break from being the Master Chief. You know he needs a vacation. My intent that if this was to follow the HP storyline, he would be sent back to when he ended Halo 4 to continue the fight. There are a couple of things that I do want to keep hidden in the case that I do turn this into something and I don't want to reveal everything, at least not right away.

But what did you guys think? Let me know in the usual ways. See you next time in whatever I do next.