CHAPTER 1:

THE RESCUE

The warmth was all-pervasive. Had she been capable of coherent thought in her current state, she would have compared it to what could have been the primal warmth of the womb. It was certainly a far more comfortable state than the one she had suffered before now, of constant, unceasing agony, her body warped and bloated and shifting beyond all recognition.

At times, she dreamed. Of her once-happy childhood. The friendship she had with another of her people. And then, the dreams took an unhappy turn, with the death of her mother. The signs of Demon Possession on her flesh, and that of her friend. Her being forced into exile by those she once thought to be trustworthy. Capture by bandits, who wished to sell her, though to where, she did not know, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

And yet, in the depths of her agony and despair, even as her body had warped beyond all recognition, a small glimmer of hope had come. Someone in a hooded cloak had come, and wiped out the bandits. That someone came across her, and for a moment, she thought they were about to attack.

And then, something else happened, as emerald eyes met her own. It felt like her very life had flashed before her eyes, and yet, she somehow knew this wasn't the prelude to death. The presence was gentle, maternal even, a warmth she hadn't felt for an age.

She knew she was safe.

This eternity of dreaming receded, and she felt the warmth draining away. She was suddenly tipped out of the warm womb she had been, and began hacking up the warmth. It took her too long to realise she had arms and legs again, that her body had been restored to normal. Instead, she lay there, hacking up liquid like a landed fish, spasming and twitching as her lungs acclimatised to breathing too-cold air again.

But she was bundled into something warm. "It's okay," said a woman's voice, the voice held all the warmth of a mother. "It's okay. I have you. You're safe, more or less. You can hear me? Don't try to speak for now, just nod."

She nodded her head. "You'll be fine in just a moment. I put you into what is basically an improvised life-support chamber until I could fix that. Breathing liquid is a bitch, though, at least when it comes to the transitions. In any case, welcome back to the world, Esther(1)."

Esther…a name she hadn't been called for an age. But also the name of the girl who was cruelly exiled from her home. Still, her eyes flickered open, only to squeeze shut. Too bright! Eventually, though, she rasped, "How…do you know…that name?"

"Legilimency. Short version? When I saw you in that cage, I…ended up reading your mind. I did the same thing to that bandit leader…only, that monster was no bandit at all. A royal guard, turned cultist…people like him make me sick. I'm not sure whether the Death Eaters are worse than the Cult of Diablos. But never mind about that. When I saw your past…I thought nobody deserved that. We'll look for your friend Elizabeth(2), but later. Anyway, let's get you clothed. This'll do for now. Don't freak out when you feel something on your body."

The girl shivered when she felt something warm, like living tar, envelop her body from the waist down. And yet, once it was finished, she felt comfortable in it, like it was a second skin. "What is this?"

"A special bodysuit derived from a local slime monster. Protects against injury, can be morphed into any shape, and it can be a handy concealed weapon. I used it on those bandits. I've set it to a default defensive state for now, no concealed weapons for you. Anyway, congratulations, you're the first person on this world, that I know of, to be cured of so-called 'Demon Possession'. How are you feeling?"

"…Great. Better than great," she said, opening her eyes and finally beholding her saviour, a woman with red hair and emerald eyes. Those eyes held a gentle, maternal warmth she hadn't felt since her mother died. "How did you cure me?"

"…It's a rather complicated process, though I think I can simplify it when we find your friend. She was showing the first signs of 'Possession' too. From what I can gather, it seemed to be both an excess of magical energy combined with some sort of foreign cell. I've kept samples. Long story short, I managed to fix that. And if I did it correctly, you won't have to worry about that again. Anyway, introductions are in order. I'm Lily Potter, witch, researcher, and royally angry towards the Cult of Diablos. And you're…"

"Don't call me Esther," she said to her saviour. She cringed inwardly at interrupting her saviour, but she needed to make the point. "I…I don't want to be called that name anymore. Please."

"Huh? Okay, well, what name do you want to be called?"

The girl formerly known as Esther considered it, her thoughts too old for her mere ten years of age, much like the eyes of her saviour. "If I am the first to be cured…there's a letter from an ancient tongue. The first letter of that tongue. I…I wish to be known as Alpha…"

In a way, Harry Potter was grateful when he was shaken awake, gently but urgently. His dreams had been fairly unpleasant, a replay of the day he heard of his mother disappearing. But the dream had warped and twisted into his few friends and family denouncing him as Voldemort reborn, just as Neville and that bitch of a grandmother of his did, and even his mother and Hermione, now rotting revenants, coming back from the grave and dragging him into Hell.

Of course, the whole lead-up to the Quidditch World Cup gave him more than a little unease. It hadn't helped that he was morose due to what happened to Hermione, even if it was a year ago now. Not long after she came back home from their second year at Hogwarts, her house was attacked. Everyone in the house was murdered. The Dark Mark had hung over her home. And on his thirteenth birthday to boot, as if a Death Eater (he'd like to say a Malfoy, but this was too blatant to be Lucius, and Draco didn't have the smarts to pull something like that off so flawlessly) had decided to give him the worst birthday present.

But Sirius had gotten him the ticket to the Quidditch World Cup, and he had accepted, hoping he could enjoy it. He had been, until that Weasley brat accused him of dragging Hermione down with him, that it was his fault that Hermione was dead. Not that Ronald Weasley truly cared about Hermione. He and that younger sister of his were cronies of Longbottom. He just liked reopening old wounds.

But that wasn't all. He felt like he was being watched at the campsite. He was probably being paranoid, but after his expulsion, all for the crime of saving Buckbeak, he wasn't in the best of moods, and hadn't been for some time now. Even Sirius and his remaining family's attempts to give him support only went so far. They did their best, Sirius, Remus, Andromeda, Ted, 'Don't Call Me Nymphadora', but there was only so much they could do.

He'd been with the Black family since his mother vanished while working in the Department of Mysteries. It was shortly before he turned ten. Even now, it still stung, even if the pain was dulled by time. And that brat Longbottom never missed an opportunity to claim that his mother abandoned him.

Harry knew the truth, or he suspected it. Croaker had admitted that someone had sabotaged a certain device Harry's mother had been working on. He was tight-lipped about it, but every method that they could use showed that Lily Potter was still alive, they simply didn't know where she was. So Harry held onto hope.

He also suspected he knew what had happened. That old bitch Augusta had barged in on a meeting Harry had had with the old Unspeakable just prior to going to Hogwarts for his first year. Harry was ushered out, but he did hear something about Augusta accusing Croaker of 'wrongfully detaining' her brother Algernon, another Unspeakable.

The Longbottoms had had a vendetta against him and his family for a long time. Augusta always denounced him and Lily for getting her son killed that Halloween night when Voldemort tracked them down. The Longbottoms were only just visiting, too, Neville and his parents being amongst the few allowed to visit the Potters at Godric's Hollow. The upshot was, in the end, everyone in the house was dead after that night, barring himself, his mother, and Neville Longbottom, now the Boy Who Lived.

And that fame went to his head. That bitch of a grandmother of his didn't help matters, but one of the few things Harry agreed with that greasy-haired bastard Snape on was that he was an entitled spoiled brat. In fact, Harry thought he was an evil little SOB who had no business being in Gryffindor. Longbottom tattling on him about Harry saving Buckbeak only ensured that.

Still, he had a happy enough home with Sirius. And despite an unfortunate run-in with the Longbottoms earlier, he'd enjoyed watching the match between Bulgaria and Ireland. For all that he was cheering on the Irish to win, he enjoyed watching Krum's use of the Wronski Feint.

He'd gone to sleep, trying to shut out the noise of the drunken revellers outside. But now, here he was, being woken up. And he knew something was wrong.

He blinked as he recognised the concerned features of Nymphadora in the dim light, her hair shifting between different colours. And then, he heard the noises outside their tent. "…Dora?" he asked.

"Harry, you need to find shelter, away from here. There's some woodland nearby."

"What do you mean?"

"So-called former Death Eaters are having a drunken riot, fucking around with the Muggle caretakers and blowing up tents. Padfoot, Mum and Dad have already gone to stop them, and I guess I'm back on duty," she said. "Harry, make for the woods. Don't stop running until you're well in. We'll come for you, okay? If you see your friends, bring them with you."

Harry nodded, before he headed out of the tent. Panicking people everywhere, hooded and masked wizards, no doubt Death Eaters (or at least wannabes), laughing as they levitated a Muggle family over sixty feet into the air. They were also firing spells at the tents, setting them on fire or blowing them up.

A surge of anger flushed through his veins. Harry wanted nothing more than to fight them, to save those poor Muggles, to put an end to these bastards who were still free when they'd faked being brainwashed by Voldemort. But for now, there were plenty of other wizards trying to stop them.

Besides, where did heroism ever get him?

He was about to make for the woods as instructed, only for a stray spell to explode near him, and send him flying. He must've blacked out, because the next thing he knew, a masked Death Eater was standing over him, a wand pointed at him. Harry was dazed, unable to move much.

"Here you are, you interfering brat," sneered a too-familiar voice, the voice of Walden Macnair. "I was going to kill that damned Hippogriff…but I guess I'll be glad to take your life instead. Harry Potter, trampled by a panicking mob. How does that sound?"

Before Harry could retort or even try to defend himself, though, a sword seemed to sprout from the man's chest, spraying blood all over Harry's face. And then, a hooded and cloaked figure behind him said, in a warped, flanging voice, "It sounds atrocious. But what can I expect from an inbred pustule who gets off on hurting the powerless?" The blade was yanked from Macnair's chest, and as the Death Eater turned, his rescuer said, "Here's a better one. Walden Macnair died when he lost his head." A flash of light heralded Macnair's head flying off his body, borne aloft by a fountain of blood.

Harry stared at his saviour, her face invisible behind her hood, even in the light of a nearby fire. Some sort of Privacy Charm or something? He knew the Unspeakables could conceal their faces if need be, something his mother let slip. He got the impression she was staring at him, though. Even as his vision swam, he couldn't help but stare in horror…and not a little relief, even joy, seeing Macnair die. He was looking all too pleased at the prospect of executing Buckbeak, and he was going to kill him too.

The figure gently kneeled down in front of him, and waved a hand, casting a spell. "…Concussion," she said. "Dammit, where's Sirius? I was told by Saul that he was looking after you, and…never mind. Stay there for now, Harry. I need to finish up." She then yelled, "DELTA! THE CIVILIANS IN THE AIR! FETCH! ALPHA, BETA! CLEAN UP THE TRASH, IN THE NAME OF DUN SCAITH!"

The lupine howl that answered her heralded a dark shape leaping into the air and grabbing the poor Muggle family out of the air. Harry stared, wondering if his concussed mind had hallucinated someone leaping sixty feet up, and not once, but twice in quick succession, each time grabbing two of the Muggles, landing near his saviour.

After she laid the Muggles down on the ground, the hooded figure (no cloak, so her rather buxom figure was on display) asked, in a raucous, rasping voice, again of a girl about his age, "Can Delta hunt now, Boss?"

After a moment, his saviour said, "Only the ones with masks like this one." She indicated Macnair's head.

A rasping chuckle came from the one called 'Delta', and she charged in. Harry only consciously realised now that he could hear screams of pain, the whipcrack noises of Apparition, and the like coming from the Death Eaters. But his vision, indeed, every one of his senses were fading, unconsciousness eating away at him.

The last thing he saw and heard before everything went black was his saviour gently kneeling down next to him. "Don't worry," she said, her voice now achingly familiar. "I won't let them tear us apart ever again…"

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, Harry's been through a lot. But what is this version of Shadow Garden doing on Earth?

And Shadow Garden is now known as 'Dun Scaith', aka Scathach's famous fortress.

Now, I was wondering about a theme for Dun Scaith and Scathach. I'm actually torn between a few pieces of music. There's Magus' battle theme from Chrono Trigger, and then there's A Dramatic Irony, a remixed version of Vivaldi's Winter and Summer used for the character trailer for Kafka from Honkai: Star Rail. I can see Scathach, in her more chuuni moments, using some of Kafka's lines, like "The silk's too fragile to be a threat…unless you're more fragile than the silk!"

1. I debated with myself long and hard what name to give Alpha, especially as her canon birthname hasn't been given. As 'Sarah' and 'Lilim' (Delta and Zeta respectively) are names of Hebrew origin, I decided to use those. I debated with myself what name to give Alpha, before deciding on 'Esther', which, while seemingly similar to 'Estella' or 'star', is also said to come from Hebrew letters 'to remain hidden'. Fitting for a Shadow, no?

2. For Beta, I chose Elizabeth, because Elizabeth is the long version of 'Betty', which is not far from 'Beta'. Yes, I know, there's the Vampire Progenitor later on in the Lawless City arc, but it's not an uncommon name on Earth, so why not in the Eminence in Shadow world?