Final Fantasy IX has remained my favourite Final Fantasy game of all time, save for a brief period when Final Fantasy XV replaced it. I've written a number of fics for that game, including Xenophilia, a Potterverse crossover pairing Harry with one of the minor characters of the game, Mikoto, Zidane's 'sister', for want of a better term. Sadly, as with the other stalled sequels I am currently archiving, I rushed into this one, and didn't get too far in until things ground to a halt. So, here it is, archived...
XENOPHOBIA
CHAPTER 1:
RAMIFICATIONS
Azkaban. Not a place people try to go to by choice. The ultimate prison of Magical Britain, horrid, inhumane. Of course, many of the inmates there can be said to be inhumane too, and the guards, the feared Dementors, were just plain inhuman. After all, they fed on happiness, and supped on souls.
The previous night, however, a series of unexplained events had occurred. Only one Auror managed to witness what happened, and even then, he wasn't sure what had happened. He saw the Dementors swarming towards a glowing monkey-man with a tail, of all things, while a trio of teenagers, also glowing and with tails, looked on. The monkey-man used some sort of overpowered magic attack on the Dementors, but one of his blasts went wild, annihilating the high-security wing of the Azkaban fortress, and those within. Thankfully, no Aurors were hurt, let alone killed.
The glowing monkey-man had somehow flown out over the sea to escape the Dementors, only to be swarmed by them. He had had his soul taken, for he dropped into the ocean. The Dementors then swarmed the three tailed teenagers. The Auror had looked away by that point, but when he heard the furious shrieking from the Dementors, he knew, somehow, they had been thwarted.
Soon, there was a visit from the Senior Undersecretary to Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. Said Senior Undersecretary was an unpleasant, squat, toad-like woman called Dolores Umbridge, an officious, saccharine-sweet woman whom her opponents dubbed the 'Batrachian Bitch', for her resemblance to a toad. Even so, she was a canny woman who knew how to manipulate Fudge and navigate the murky politics of Magical Britain.
Shortly after she arrived, and demanded answers, they had managed to find a body washing up on the rocky shore. The body had an arm and a leg worried away by sharks, and the clothes (if wearing a thong underneath some revealing robes counted as clothing) were askew. The beautiful, effeminate face, framed by lavender locks, was now fixed in a dull, imbecilic expression forevermore. No tail was in evidence, until one of the Aurors removed the man's clothing, and used a Finite on him. A tail, like a monkey's or a cat's, appeared, covered in lavender fur, like his hair. Presumably it had been concealed by magic.
Umbridge, shortly afterwards, went to speak to the Dementors. She was one of the few who seemed immune to the vile creatures, and indeed seemed to command their respect, or at least could command them better than most. Soon afterwards, she made her way back to the boat, without saying anything more than the barest of niceties to anyone else. And the Aurors were glad to see the back of her. She was almost as bad as the Dementors, she was, sucking the joy and happiness out of everyone around her…
Umbridge was considering what the Dementors had told her. Apparently, the mysterious quartet appeared with a Phoenix. While they didn't hear anything of what they said, they did tell her a few things. The first was that the man who died, the one whose soul they had consumed, had hundreds of souls within him, which tasted slightly different to the souls they were used to. They knew because they had consumed them. The second was that one of the intruders felt very familiar. Dementors did not forgive or forget, and they remembered the feeling of the soul and magic of one who had prevented them from claiming the soul of Sirius Black: namely Harry Potter. And they were certain that Harry was amongst the intruders, even if the intruder who felt like him didn't actually look much like him.
Umbridge considered this information. Dumbledore had voiced the opinion that the Boy Who Lived was potentially dead, along with Cedric Diggory, claims supposedly bolstered by Barty Crouch Junior. Until the Dementor, pissed that Barty Crouch Junior had evaded them, had eaten his soul. And who cared if the deranged Death Eater was right? Umbridge knew where her loyalties lay, and while she wouldn't be so stupid as to take the Dark Mark, she also followed the winning side. And even if Voldemort didn't rise, well, she was in power. It was a truism that behind every great man was a great woman, and as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, she held more power over Fudge than others would care to admit. He trusted her, trusted her judgement.
Well, time to start arranging things so that she exerted Ministerial control over Hogwarts. Soon, Dumbledore would be out of the way, and Umbridge intended to make sure that the next person to sit in the Headmaster's seat would be herself…
Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. Okay, Dumbledore had told them about this, about Harry's adventures on another world. He'd even told them about what had befallen him on Terra, of Harry getting his soul ripped from his body, said body getting annihilated, and Harry being put into a replacement body.
And yet, seeing the reality was something else. On Dumbledore's prompting, a trio of figures entered the room. Hermione had seen a photo Harry had taken, and recognised Zidane and Mikoto from it. Zidane was a boy of about sixteen, with a shaggy mop of blonde hair and mischievous blue semi-feline eyes that twinkled more than Dumbledore on high-strength lemon sherbets. Mikoto, maybe about their age, had the same blonde mop, but she had green eyes and a more stoic expression. Both had tails protruding from their rears, like those of a cat or a monkey, blonde-coloured and, in the case of Zidane, waving lazily.
It was the third figure, however, that got the most attention. He seemed to be about their age, with dark hair and green eyes, and his tail (currently intertwined with that of Mikoto's) was dark in colour. But to Hermione, that wasn't the strangest, most unbelievable thing about this. The mannerisms, the recognition in his eyes, they were Harry's. Even in a strange body, she could just tell.
"Hello. It's me. I'm back." The voice wasn't Harry's at all. It was a little higher-pitched, with a different timbre. But Hermione was almost sure it was Harry.
Surprisingly, it was Snape who was the first to break the silence. "Potter, if that is you, I daresay you have been extremely careless. Losing your body…that's the kind of carelessness Longbottom aspires to emulate."
"Greasy hair, big conk, poisonous tongue…" Zidane mused. "Lemme guess, you're Professor Snape?"
"And what, may I ask, is it to you?" Snape drawled.
"Zidane," Harry admonished quietly.
Ron was the next to speak, having finished gaping. "Bloody hell, mate, what happened to you?"
"Language, Ron!" Molly Weasley snapped.
"Very long story," Harry said. "Didn't Dumbledore tell you what happened?"
"Yeah, but…well, look, can you prove it's you?" Ron asked.
Harry sighed. "Dumbledore told me this might be the way. Expecto Patronum!" From his hand, now outstretched in a halting gesture, a blast of silvery mist appeared, forming a stag that now cantered around the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place.
Hermione now knew that this was Harry with no more doubt. As far as she knew, only James and Harry Potter had stag Patronuses, and no Death Eater, according to what she knew of the spell, could cast it without dying.
"Hey, I didn't know you could do that, Harry," Zidane said.
"The Patronus Charm is used to send messages and to ward off Dementors," Harry said as the silvery stag dissipated. "Unfortunately, we couldn't use them last night because I have a bad reaction to them."
"What do you mean, last night?" Sirius asked. He then blinked in recollection. "Wait a moment, The Daily Prophet this morning had something about an explosion at Azkaban and Dementors going nuts. That was you?"
"Yeah. Long story short, in order to stop Kuja from destroying everything, we decided to have him face off against Dementors, with a little help from Fawkes," Harry said quietly. "Kuja had stuffed himself to the brim with hundreds of souls to gain a special power known as Trance. To the Dementors, he was a banquet. It was either that, or let him destroy all existence." He shook his head. "I didn't like doing it, even though he was worse than Voldemort. He caused hundreds if not thousands of people to die through a war he started on Gaia, and annihilated Terra, along with the souls waiting in sleep."
"…But you're back, Harry?" Hermione asked. "For good?"
"Well, I'm back for the time being at least," Harry said. "I've dealt with one, no, two genocidal maniacs. I guess I'd better deal with another. After Voldemort's dealt with, well, who knows? I mean, Gaia's a lovely place, that war I mentioned aside. And, well, I'm considered dead here, aren't I? I'd have a hard time explaining away how I came back with a tail."
"And you called these 'Genomes' in your last letter," Hermione said thoughtfully, her eyes flickering over to Mikoto. "So are the Genomes clones or genetically modified organisms?"
"The latter," Mikoto said. "They are enhanced versions of the original genome of the Terrans."
"Enhanced using a vector virus?"
"No. By assembling the genome codon by codon, with enough variation to ensure genetic diversity without compromising the integrity of the coding DNA."
Hermione gaped. "How could you do that, assembling a genome piece by piece like that? The needed computing power alone must be phenomenal, never mind the ability to actually assemble the base molecules of DNA!"
"Before the collapse of our civilisation, genetic modification had reached its peak," Mikoto said, before peering at Hermione. "Harry was right. It seems that you ask a lot of questions, and forget that breathing is paramount to optimal brain function."
Hermione's eyes widened. Had Mikoto just insulted her? No, the faint but wry smile playing about the Genome's lips was free from malice, though not from mischief. And then, Mikoto said, "I will endeavour to provide you with whatever information I can about how we came to be, Hermione. Gaia has only recently discovered electricity, they are yet to even conceive of genetics."
"Has anyone got a translation charm for this conversation?" Sirius asked, putting his hand in the air.
"It's called a science textbook, Black," Snape retorted. "They are speaking of concepts that your family, along with so many other Pureblood families in the world, would have trouble grasping. No wonder you can't understand it."
"In any case," Dumbledore said, interjecting carefully before any fights broke out, "it is true that we need to come up with a way for Harry to be at Hogwarts, albeit under an assumed name. After all, he has been presumed dead, and coming along in a new body would cause problems. Therefore, I am enrolling Harry under a new name, and, if she wishes to, Miss Mikoto as well. We are also negotiating to have Zidane and his comrades assist the Order. As Dobby and Fawkes can ferry people between the two worlds…"
"Can we trust them?" Remus asked.
"Most of them," Harry said. "Not so sure about Amarant, but the others I fought alongside, they're good people. Plus, I think Vivi and Eiko wanted to see Hogwarts after I described it to them. They're a bit young to attend, but they're powerful mages. So's Princess Garnet. You should see summon magic sometime."
"What name were you going to go under?" Ron asked.
"I'm still working on it. I think Mikoto was going to call herself Mikoto Tribal, because that's Zidane's last name. It's still going to cause comment with us being there. I mean, how many people do you know have tails?"
"Aye, you have a point there, lad," Moody remarked. "It's still going to be difficult with you in Hogwarts, though, what with Umbridge set to come."
"Umbridge?" Harry asked quietly. "Oh, yes, Dumbledore mentioned her."
"And she hates anyone with non-human heritage," Remus said bitterly. "Even if we don't go around advertising that you're Harry Potter, she'll still target you, especially if you seem like you support Dumbledore."
"One thing I had hoped to do to forestall Umbridge was to hire a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher," Dumbledore said. "Unfortunately, most promising candidates have been scared away by the curse, and the few willing to risk that are unsuitable for various reasons. I meant to ask you three, are there any from Gaia who might be willing to take on the role?"
Zidane, Mikoto, and Harry all looked at each other, before Zidane remarked, "I dunno. I'd have to ask. There's a couple of people we know who might be able to help. When we head back there, we'll discuss the situation. Dagger and the others will be worried about us."
"Dagger?" Hermione asked.
"Zidane means Princess Garnet," Harry explained. "It's a long story."
"Don't you mean a long 'tail', Harry?" Sirius asked, looking at Harry's tail, provoking a round of laughter that even Harry joined in. Still, it was really only one moment of levity before the problems of the year could begin in earnest…
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
And there you have it, the first chapter of Xenophobia. Hope you enjoyed it.
No numbered annotations this time.