[Fanfiction][Crossover][Harry Potter][Warframe]Harry Potter: Wands and Warframes

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 1

 

“Harry?”

“Yes Lotus?” Harry says absently while looking through a recovered Orokin terminal on the Orcus Relay.

“What is that?”

The that in question is a brown avian with large eyes, sharp claws, and a beak designed for rending flesh. It was also wearing a harness and had a leather tie around one foot.

“According to ancient Orokin records, it’s likely to be some sort of owl. Though they don’t have much about them on this terminal. I’m still trying to find a translation program that will work on this letter.”

“Letter?”

“Yes, it was carrying a small scroll, the scanner says that it is made out of skin of an animal. One that we have no records of in our databases. Neither does Simaris, in fact he offered me my pick of his offerings in trade when he found out about the owl.”

Lotus is silent for a moment, “Harry, do you want to use the systems on Lua? They are still the originals that were there before I moved it into the void.”

“There’s an idea, thank you. Maybe they also have a record of the letter I was found with. Margulis used to tell me about it and how the original was being used to create new species for Earth.” Harry sounds a little sad when talking about Margulis, though he does pack up and head back to his lander.

“I’m sorry I’m not her Harry”

 “Don’t be, I’ve had two wonderful mothers. Even when you were Natah the Sentient for a while, you were still my mother. Did you know that I never had my memory wiped, I don’t think I’ve every mentioned that before. I still remember the look on Margulis’ face when I came out of the device that was supposed to seal them away, and then ran towards her shouting ‘Mama’”

Lotus considers that for a moment, “I can imagine. You always were an odd one Harry. You had less issues controlling your void energies, and were far more versatile in what they could do.”

Harry laughs, “According to Margulis, my existence did more to upend their ideas about souls too. There were some theories before I arrived that they yellow light seen when they convert a cephalon is actually the persons soul. Apparently, I had a fragment of another persons soul in my head.”

“I hadn’t heard about that.”

“Mum, my first mum, used to talk to me about her work when she thought I was too young to understand. Something about the control exercises that they had us learn allowed me to remember everything perfectly. Including when you stood up to Hunhow for us before you took on a human form. Listen, I’ve just arrived at my lander, give me a day and I’ll see you in person.”

As he hangs up on the Lotus, he looks at the lander and then at the bird that’s perched on his shoulder, “Ordis, do you have any thoughts about how to get an owl onto the orbiter without using the digitisation beam?”

“Ordis wonders if the Operator is Crazy forgetting the docking door.”

“Thanks Ordis, I had forgotten. Could you open it for me.”

“Ordis will manoeuvre the lander so you can use the door.”

“Thank you Ordis.”

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When Harry saw the Lotus waiting for him at the landing site he transferred out of his Equinox Prime and launched himself into a hug, “Mother!”

“Ooof. Hello Harry.”

“I’ve missed you. How are you adjusting to being the Lotus again?”

“It is, interesting. Why did you suggest I take up this name again?”

Harry leans back, “Margulis was a woman who’s boots you were trying to fill, and Natah is the person that your family moulded. However, the Lotus is the person you chose to be. The name that you took on yourself. Why wouldn’t I want to honour that? Every one of us has been shaped by the war, and you allowed us to be our own people, why wouldn’t you expect the same?”

“Thank you.”

“Besides,” Harry adds cheekily, “You’re more cuddly like this.”

Natah smiles at the most accepting of her Tenno, her children as he disengages and opens the air tight cabin to let the owl out. Using all of her senses she studies the owl trying to divine it’s origins, and comes up blank. They then walk together down to the original labs that Margulis used. Loading the scans of the parchment and owl into the labs computers unlocks a previously secured section of the servers. There they find a lot of speculation on DNA divergence points, as well as a translation program for the ancient language the letter is written in. There’s copious notes by Silvana about how the differences were enabling her to develop flora and fauna that would be resistant to the pollution that was plaguing the earth. Apparently, all of the things he appeared with were made from organic materials that had retrievable DNA. The last thing they find is thousands of pages of research on the soul using the fragment they extracted from Harry’s forehead. As Harry gets lost in the research and speculation about his origins, she takes the time to make some nanites to sustain the owl off of the ambient Orokin energy.

 

To Natah, the most important find was the original specifications for her ancestors along with speculation on how they could have incorporated a soul into it. Later investigation would reveal that every single project in that part of the servers had been banned and destroyed by the Orokin leadership at the time. Additionally, all of the scientists involved were put to death the same way that Margulis had been, with the sole exception of Silvana who went missing on Earth, and was presumed dead.

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 Harry was absolutely engrossed, and then he came to the research about souls. The more he read, the more he was sickened by what happened to his first mother.

“Mum.”

Natah looks over from a mission briefing she’s giving, “Yes Harry?”

“Thank you for killing the Orokin.”

“Ah, er,” She quickly turns back to the briefing, “Sorry to cut this short Tenno, the Grineer and Corpus are arguing about territory again and are willing to pay quite handsomely for your help. Pick a side, and if you see out the campaign then you’ll get your pay.” She then closes the call quickly before giving Harry her full attention.

“What brought this on.”

“I’ve been reading up on the Jade Light. Those, those, corpus execs, were destroying peoples souls. Not just the Oro, but the soul itself. That’s why their Oro, where they’ve survived in the past, didn’t bring them back.”

“Harry, have you read the letter yet?”

“I know what you’re doing Mum, and no I haven’t”

“Well, maybe we should read it together.”

__________ School of Witchcraft and ____________

Headmaster: ___________ ____________ (Order of _______, First Class, Grand _______, ___ ___________, Supreme ________, International ___________ of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at __________ School of Witchcraft and ________. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 ___________. We await your owl by no later than 31 ______.

Yours Sincerely,

___________ _______

Deputy Headmistress

Harry shakes his head, “That’s a lot of unknown words.”

“What was written on the other side?”

“Oh, just the nav-coordinates of my location when the owl arrived. I checked that with Ordis as soon as I got the letter on board the Orbiter.”

Natah nods, “Let us craft a reply, and send it on it’s way.”

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 Minerva looks up as one of the long distance school owls appears in her office while she’s just sat down to do some paperwork. Which is odd, as she’d just sent off the last batch of school letters. Her eyes widen as the implication sinks in, this is the owl that she sent out with Harry’s letter. It is with a sinking feeling that she retrieves the letter from the owls leg, as the only reason the owl would be that quick is if the letter was undeliverable.

She’s reaching for her wand to vanish the letter before taking the news to the headmaster when her brain catches up to what her fingers are telling her. This isn’t parchment.

Fingers trembling she opens the letter to see printed text in both English and an unknown language.

 

Dear Deputy Headmistress

 

We received have your letter, and have translated best as we can. Please could you provide coordinates for navigate us to find you. I am interested in attending your educational establishment, do you have a place where the downloaded buy the books?

 

We will also compilation need of your calendar and how relates it to your star system, as we share not the same.

 

Regards

 

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

 

Sent at Tau-71324998 Rath-89423843 Vela-13024935 Lemos-24194340 Orion-65732041 Gro-27843519 from Sol, Milky way.

 

Clutching the letter tightly she scrambles around her desk, catching her thigh on the corner, and fair runs to the headmasters office.

Edited April 18, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise
Updated title to match other sites

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 2

 

Minerva skids to a halt by the gargoyle and almost collapses from the pain in her thigh. She should have taken it more easily until the muscle recovered on its own. But needs must, and talking about needs.

“Move, unless you want to be a bunny rabbit for the next school year. I have urgent news for the headmaster.”

The gargoyle that guards the Headmasters office looks reprovingly at her, but does reluctantly step to one side. Limping up the stairs she pushes open the door to his office without fanfare.

Albus looks up from his own paperwork with some surprise, “Minerva, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s Harry, he’s replied to his letter. Though it seems a little odd.”

Albus’ gaze sharpens, “Odd how?”

“It’s like he never learnt English. Here, see for yourself.”

 

She hands over both copies of the letter and waits silently while he reads the letter multiple times. She swears that she can see his hand reach for a quill in order to correct the grammar or word choice, even though there’s only a few lines to it. Eventually he puts the letter on his desk before removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

 

“Well?”

“He is 11, and interested in coming. Talk to Aurora and see if she can make heads or tails of this. While you’re doing that I’ll draft a response. I wonder why he referred to you by your title and not your name.”

 

Pulling his wand he duplicates the letter, then frowns when the copy doesn’t have any writing on it. Instead it has black smudges where the text should be. Fixing the image in his mind, he casts the duplication spell again, with the same result. With a sigh he assumes that there’s some sort of copy protection on the letter, so he pulls out a sheet of parchment and spells a quill to transcribe the letter onto the new parchment. Once she has the copy, Minerva goes off to find the Astronomy teacher to see if she can shed any light on those numbers.

 

Once he’s alone, Albus casts some detection spells on the letter, trying to find out why he couldn’t copy it. Much to his frustration, the letter shows no signs of magic. It also shows no sign of ink either. Even his alchemy spells say that it is a uniform sheet of material with no deviations within standard tolerances¹.

 

Unfortunately, Aurora doesn’t know what the numbers at the bottom of the letter mean. As such, over the rest of the day they draft a letter back to Harry trying to describe calendar. It’s over breakfast that Aurora hears them bickering, and comes up with the suggestion that they end up going with. Include a calendar with each day clearly marked, and the summer and winter solstice indicated. They should also indicate when they received his letter, and when they sent the reply.

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It’s almost 3 months later, and Harry is in the process of culling the Grineer Ghouls in the middle of Africa when out of nowhere an owl appears and tries to land on his Mesa frame. That lasts all of a couple of seconds before one of the ghouls tries to eat it, and with a disgruntled squark, it takes off. Unfortunately for Harry and the Owl, there’s a Dargyn skiff keeping an eye on the fight, looking to take an opportunistic shot at Harry if he disengages. As soon as it finishes it’s identification scan of the avian, and comes up with unknown, it’s reported up the chain. Much to Harry’s disgust, this means that his current location becomes the most coveted vacationing spot for every Grineer within short range radio link. It gets so bad that Harry eventually posts an urgent help bounty using his own carefully hoarded platinum. With the distraction caused by his fellow Tenno, and the onset of night and the sentient fragments rising from the depths, he is finally able to exfiltrate with the owl not only alive, but also intact.

 

Once behind the Orokin era walls of Cetus, Harry transfers out of his warframe and allows the owl to land on his shoulder.

“Hello there, you’ve been gone a while. Come on, as we’re planetside, let’s see Master Teasonai and see if he has any treats that are safe for you to eat.”

 

Walking through the village is an interesting experience, as it seems like everyone wants to look at the owl. Eventually he is able to make his way to see Teasonai, who upon seeing the owl immediately stop talking to his current customer.

“Tenno, what a pleasure. And this fine specimen of a bird, where did you find it?”

“It’s an owl, and I didn’t find it, it found me. They’re apparently used for carrying letters, as you can see.”

“Is that what that is, how odd. How do you read it?”

“They’ve applied a substance to the surface of the animal skin.” Harry removes the letter and unfolds it to show the proof.

“That seems widely wasteful, there are so many better things that the components of that letter could be used for.”

“Tell me about it, they have an educational establishment that they’ve invited me to. I’m seriously thinking of going just to find out how they can afford to be so wasteful. Anyway, enough about my mail, can you examine the owl and let me know if there’s anything I need to do to care for it properly.”

“Hmm, if you’ll allow me to look after it for an hour I’ll give it a full diagnostic.”

 

An hour later, and a cryptic message from the Quills contact Onkko, Harry returns to see how the owl is getting on.

 

“Absolutely amazing, the owl shares a lot of similarities with the local wildlife. Which, apart from the insects, seems to have come from a different evolutionary tree to everything else in the solar system. The only animals that seem to share the same evolutionary tree as us are kubrow and kavats of course.”

“Um, yeah, there’s a pretty good reason for that. However, I’m not really at liberty to talk about it.”

“No, no I understand. You Tenno come across secrets all the time, and you trade on your reputation.”

“Look, New Loka might have more information if you can sweet talk them.”

“Those crazies? I doubt anyone from Cetus could step one foot inside one of their compounds without having weapons pointed at them. If my curiosity becomes bad enough I will send one of my apprentices. Anyway, your, owl was it? Yes, owl. It had some parasites living in it’s feathers. We have extracted them and are keeping them for study. It also had no antibodies for any of the illnesses found on the plains. We noticed that it already had some nanites, so we’ve just reprogrammed them to also act as a second immune system. It should also be safe to transport it the same way you transport your other living companions. Also, you are aware that the harness is made from animal skins?”

“We were, thank you for pointing it out though. I need to get going, as this letter isn’t going to translate itself.”

“Thank you for allowing me to see such a magnificent specimen of a unique animal that isn’t infested.”

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 Harry makes his way to Lua with the letter, as his lander is coming in to the landing pad he muses that it’s almost like having a home. Oh, he has his orbiter and railjack, but they don’t have the same feel as working near to his mother. He sometimes wonders whether he’d have been kicked out like Rell was if he was older when he appeared on the Ten-Zero. Then again, it’s probably not fair on the other Tenno, who were all going through puberty when the accident happened. As a result, he had a very different experience with Margulis, and then Natah, than they did. He doesn’t remember his parents trying to kill him, though there is that memory of a man shooting a green light. Disembarking, he makes his way down to the Lab and his mothers workspace. As he approaches, her pod opens and she disconnects from the computer network.

“Harry, welcome back.”

“Mother, it’s good to see you.” – He indicates the owl – “We have another letter.”

 

Dear Mr Potter _ Natah

Thank you for your prompt response, we have included a calendar with this letter. On the back our Astronomy Teacher has drawn our solar system as well as a diagram of the tilt of earth. We have marked the day with the most daylight as well as the day with the least. These are the Summer _______ and the Winter ________. We have also marked the date we received your letter, and the date that this letter was sent.

 

It is currently the 24^th July, and we would like to arrange for a teacher to visit on the 31^st of July. If possible we would take you to diagonally for your supplies, including an owl for your own correspondence.

 

Please let me know if the date is suitable for you, and feel free to ask me any questions. I will do my best to answer them.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

_________ ___________

 

Harry’s eyebrows furrow as he finishes reading the letter, and looking at the associated calendar and diagram.

“Mum”

“Yes Harry?”

“I think they live on earth.”

“What do you mean?”

He takes the back of the calendar over to where she’s hooked into the computer systems, “Look, the orbits are slightly off, but all the major bodies of the solar system are there. Though they have an asteroid belt for some reason. Then they’ve got a satellite that’s slightly larger than half the size of Mars, just like Lua. Then there’s the axial tilt they’re describing.”

“I see. It is plausible if the owl is using the void to travel. Though, it would be unique amongst all of the known species, as even Tenno need technological aid to transition into the void proper. If that is the case, we will need to construct a void beacon for your railjack to home in on. I don’t think we should construct a solar rail, as we do not want the Corpus or Grineer, let alone the infested, to find their way to their world.”

“Could we do a series of beacons, like the ones that lead to the derelicts in the void? I know we’ve now isolated all of the beacons for them now, but if someone decides to follow me I’d rather have a chance to notice and ditch them before I arrive at an unspoiled planet.”

“You would make a good Sentient Harry. Seeking to protect a system from those who would only exploit it.”

“Thanks Mum, but I like my limbs organic.”

“Of course, I’ll be coming with you for the first trip. I’m sure that Teshin, can, take over…” Natah trails off as she remembers that Teshin was killed by her brother.

“I miss him too. It wasn’t your fault, you were trapped.”

“It’s just, he took over when I was lost to myself.”

“I’m sure there’s a copy of Ordis floating around somewhere, and you could always ask Maroo to interact with the organics. She’s pretty much neutral.”

Natah laughs, “You’ve made your point. Now Tenno there is an urgent mission to be taken care of. You need to write a reply while I make a small temporal tracker. I want to know exactly how long it takes for the messages to get there and back. The second stage of your mission is to collect 20,000 navigation coordinates so that we can use the information from the tracker to plot a course.”

“Do they need to be new coordinates?”

“No?”

“Oh, goody, here you go.”

“No Harry not in here, just send them to me normally.”

 

It takes a few days, but they put together a small tracker that fits unobtrusively inside the harness the owl is wearing. Most of that time is spent working out how to use the Orokin technology to achieve what they want by reading manuals and notes. They also write a letter.

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 Just over an hour after she sent the letter, the Owl returns and deposits a new letter to the desk of Minerva McGonagall.

Dear Deputy Headmistress,

We would be delighted to meet the representation of staff. However, as it has already been 3 days since this message received, we request that you send back owl immediately with a note to say what the date is. It is carrying a tracker that calculate a route to your planet should enable us from where we are.

Regards,

 

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

 

Minerva snorts, of course there’d be time magic involved. Well, nothing for it but to reply assuring them that it’s not quite the strangest situation she’s seen. Granted, there’s no topping Xeno Lovegood’s visit and walking in on a fairy orgy with a little time magic mixed in. As she recalls, it took five minutes to get in and then drag the underaged Lovegood out. However, 4 days had passed on the outside. Quickly penning a reply, also including the current time and a note that time magic tends to be very localised. So, if they walk at most a mile from their current location they should return to normal time. Letter penned, she attaches it to the owls leg before sending it off.

 

 

¹Unknown to him, in the absence of any form of written communication (on physical media) anywhere in the solar system, and the resources needed to make paper or parchment being so valuable for other things, the solution that Harry and Natah eventually came up with, was to produce an organosilicon sheet of material where the letters were just the same molecule in a different alignment, thus changing the way they reflect light. The result of this is that the document is essentially one giant molecule.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 3

 

Natah looks at the data from her tracking unit with no small amount of consternation. According to the data, it was in an area bounded by no more than 1 rel on a planetary body for 923 seconds after. Before and after that it was in motion. The total journey time was only 2,000 seconds. However, it arrived back with them 146,724 seconds after they sent it. The only way that this should be possible is if the destination was near a black hole. However, the transit times were far to quick for that to have been the case. Also concerning is the fact that the tracking unit had traces of void energy on it. This is also worrying in it’s implications, as not even Tenno have been able to reliably manage long distance unassisted void travel. It also means that she’d be unable to travel with Harry to this educational institution. Idly she calls up the research on souls and the speculation on how to give a Sentient a soul. Could that be what she was missing, all of her children have reported seeing phenomenon in the void, but no probes or recording devices have ever reported any such thing. Even her own trip through the void when Harry rescued her was void of such things. If she’s right, the it would also allow her to safely traverse the void and provide her with the same protection to void damage that the creatures of this system seem to enjoy.

 

Reaching over to her helmet, she places it on her head and accesses The Lotus’ systems to record a new message.

“Tenno, this is a capture mission. Your target is a Sentient so you will need to immobilise it before you attempt the capture. Use a Kinetic Siphon Trap to immobilise your target for capture. Remember, we need the target alive.”

She then sets up a series of bounties on Lua for her Tenno to bring a small variety of sub-sapient Sentient Drones. If she’s going to try to give a sentient a soul, she’s going to do it with those that don’t have the sense of self necessary to complain first. Idly she considers whether she should share this with the others before discarding the idea. She may revisit it in the event she ever returns to her home, no, her place of birth. This is her home now, and the others can’t really see that.

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 Harry jumps as his communicator activates to show The Lotus, “Tenno, there is a new quest available.”

“Hi mum.”

“This is official, so Lotus please.”

“Yes Lotus.” Harry says before opening up the quest information, “Lotus, why do I need to run 20 void mobile defense missions?”

“The tracking cloud was unable to follow the beacon, this suggests the creature is capable of void travel. I will be configuring the amplification arrays to track the signal. Once it is complete we will send the creature out again.”

Harry sighs, just his luck she’ll need a selection of towers. Not just the lightly contested ones.

 

A couple of months later he troops into the Lotus’ labs wearing a Nezha, “Hey Mum, it’s done.”

Once she’s finished with her call, Natah takes off her “So I see, they’re all working perfectly. I was just tracking your progress to Earth. I see you also took the time to take on some of the capture targets.”

“I did, what do you need them for?”

“I wanted to visit this planet with you, to see what sort of technology they have that allows them to use animals like that owl to deliver messages safely through the void. Not to mention being able to use animal skins and precious compounds to make a physical record of a message. Their world must be a technological marvel, maybe what the Orokin could have been.”

“Well they did send me here safely. Though, apparently here was likely less safe than they expected. I do wonder why they never came to find me though.”

“I might have an answer to that, especially if tracing the next letter works. The total round trip time from when you let the owl go to when it returned was 2,000 seconds, to the nearest second.”

“And in numbers that the rest of us can visualise?”

“Around 15 minutes.”

“Wait, really? It was gone nearly a day.”

“146,724 seconds, to the nearest second.”

“Mum, now you’re just being difficult.”

Natah just smiles at Harry.

“Fine, so that’s 2… thousand, not quite 21, so that’s 20 remainder that. Wait, 20 hours and 31 minutes give or take?”

“Well done Harry, and you didn’t use your implants either. I’m impressed.”

“Wait, the implants do more than just allow communications?”

“Yes, how do you think Ballas kept doing all the stuff he did, or how he was able to steal my power?”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me that.”

“Because you were a child, and then because you were a weapon to be used. All Tenno are also Orokin, and have the same implants and nanites as they did.”

“That’s why you were supposed to destroy us isn’t it.”

Natah nods.

“So how do I use the implants for more than just communications?”

“You already do. Remember what your orbiter looked like before it was powered on properly?” Harry nods, “That’s what it looks like for anyone without implants or sentient systems. What you’re seeing is your implants interacting with the systems built into those locations. Once you’ve learnt to access your implants consciously you’d have been taught how to use them to direct the energy produced by Orokin reactors. Then how to interface with and direct the computers. I’ve been reading more of the notes from the secured section, and the discussions they were having on whether to teach the Tenno how to actually use their implants. They wouldn’t have started until your brain reached full maturity, so it was never on the cards for you. But most of the other Tenno passed that threshold within 5 years, with the youngest of them taking 8 years. You were the only child under the age of 10 to survive, and they weren’t sure how you managed to avoid the predations of the adults long enough to be found by the children.”

“Are you ok Mum?”

“It is disturbing to read these reports, we thought that the Orokin were all the enemy, and they were. It’s just that not everyone we thought was Orokin were Orokin. Most were slaves in all but name, chained by implanted commands or implants like Tenshin was. Or just denied an Oro, or even the implants needed to use their technology. They used their own population in experiments as though they were less than them. Oh, Umbra was a special case, as he was a Dax, one level down from Orokin like Margulis and Ballas. I’m coming to believe that Margulis was an aberration amongst the Orokin, because she seems to have actually cared about you. But even there, she looked at you especially Harry. I’ve found discussions about how you’ve got the best genetic reconstructions she’s ever seen, and how using your information they’ve been able to improve the viability of the Grineer clones by 10 years. This is massive, as it suggests that originally Grineer were only expected to live at most 5-10 years. They expected that implementing these improvements would pay for itself within 5 generations in terms of resources saved.”

Harry looks sick, he has some friends in the Steel Meridian, and the idea that he was partially responsible for their condition, no matter how indirectly, sickened him. Granted he had more friends in New Loka and the Perrin Initiative, it made balancing his long standing friendship with Cephalon Suda and his standing with New Loka look easy in comparison. Not that he can blame them for it, the Grineer as a whole don’t really understand the whole family thing. Something to do with being created in a tube and then programmed with all the skills you need to know. It leads to some odd disconnects, even amongst those free of the hard wired loyalty to their queens.

 

“Harry, don’t think about it too deeply. Apart from the family on Demios, they’re all dead now. And all of this happened hundreds of years ago.”

Harry laughs humourlessly, “I’m supposed to be a battle-hardened Tenno, and here I am being upset that I was used to increase the amount of suffering the Grineer go through just so that they needed to clone less of them.”

“Aren’t you the one that keeps telling me that I chose to be The Lotus? What about you? Are you Tenno or Harry?”

“I’m Harry of course.”

“Then as Harry, you are allowed to be upset at these things. Anyway, are you ready to send the letter?”

“I am.”

“Then I’m activating all of the trace programs, release in 3…2…1…Go!”

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 Minerva yawned as she clambers off her bed and heads into the bathroom. As she’s crossing her living room an owl swoops down and lands on the back of her armchair by the fire. Absently she unties the letter and summons an owl treat with her wand before continuing into the bathroom. She’s just sat down and is staring at the letter when her sleep fogged brain clears enough to realise what just happened. It takes all of her experience not to immediately get up and check the door to her quarters. Instead she opens the letter in a shaky hand.

 

Dear Deputy Headmistress,

 

Thank you for your prompt reply, and your suggestion. However, we are currently restricted to the solar system, so we cannot test the idea that moving one M I L E would allow us to leave the effect. We are however trying to plot a route to your location, so if you would return the owl with a letter in a days time it would be greatly appreciated. We think that we will have nearly 90 days to try and locate you during that period.

 

Regards,

 

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

 

Numbly she sits there and lets the letter drift to the floor, Solar system, they don’t know what a mile is. It looks like they actually drew out the word. Where is Harry? When she finished with her morning ablutions and was dressed. She calmly, collectedly, and unhurriedly made her way to breakfast where she deliberately savoured every bite before making her way to her office. She then wrote a letter to a fellow Master in India that she’d corresponded with about a few articles in Transfiguration Today. Normally she wouldn’t expect a reply for a least a week due to the distance the owls had to fly. Restricted to the Solar System. She is only mildly surprised when the owl returns 30 minutes later with a bright red letter in it’s talons

 

“What the hell Professor McGonagall, I was in a meeting and your owl just breezes in as though our wards don’t exist. If you are going to run magical experiments again in the future let me know in advance so that you don’t cause a panic.

 

Madhavacharta Ashtikar”

 

Opening the bottom draw of her desk she looks longingly at the bottle while she tries to decide if it’s too early to have a dram or two.

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 It’s a couple of months later when Natah calls out, “Harry, I think I’ve got it.”

Harry comes over, “Got what?”

“The location of the planet the educational establishment is on.” – She points at a graph on the screen that shows a massive dip followed by two small spikes – “See here where the signal redshifts just below the detectable range of the Antenna, and then blueshifts for a few hours twice. I manufactured a drone with a trailing antenna twice as long and launched into the void around Lua. With that I was able to detect the signal. I then sent out a few Railjack missions to deposit copies of these drones in different parts of the void. This allowed me to draw a 4d map of where the signal overlaps and calculate the probable coordinates. Then, taking measurements at different times, I was able to configure the systems here to calculate it’s motion relative to us, giving us this 5d plot. It turns out it’s not a long distance by Railjack, but you will be going deeper than anyone has ever gone before and returned to tell the tale, at least according to the records here. Not even the Ten-zero went as deep. Because of that we need to ensure that you have a receiver that can pick up the blue shifted signals from here.”

“Ok, what does that mean?”

“You’re going to need to talk with Cephalon Cy about installing a somatic link into your Railjack, along with designing a lander segment. He should enjoy the challenge. You’ll also not have access to the storage on your Orbiter, so if you want to take anything you’ll need to make sure it’s on your Railjack. And, no that doesn’t mean your entire plushie and bobblehead collection.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 4

Albus looks over his desk at his Deputy with some concern, “Are you sure you want to do this? We could send Hagrid.”

“No, I’ve been the main contact through the letters, and I want to see that he’s ok with my own eyes. That and they might have an issue with time magic, and Hagrid wouldn’t be able to deal with that.”

“But how are you going to get there?”

“I spoke to Fawkes while you were out, and he agreed to take me.”

“I can’t persuade you to let another staff member go?”

“Apart from you Albus, I am the most experienced staff member, and most able to deal with any situation that might arise.”

Slumping in his chair, Albus strokes his beard in a comforting gesture, “I’m not going to talk you out of this am I.”

“No, I allowed you to leave him with those ghastly muggles and now he’s who knows where. This time I’m not going to leave him to fend for himself.”

Albus decides to keep quiet about the fact that Petunia never even saw the boy.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah looks down at the most recent sentient that she’s worked on since setting the capture bounty. A feeling of melancholy comes over her as she considers the irony that these Sentients can be made here, while those that are sapient like herself become sterile when they pass through the gap. Not only has it survived the experience, but there also seems to be a spark of something in it’s movements. Harry comes in wearing one of his warframes, Banshee Prime if she’s not mistaken, as he does, the sentient flinches at his presence. That’s, unusual. She holds out a hand palm facing towards Harry, and he stops. After a few minutes of not dying, the Sentient starts looking for a way out, and failing that moves as far away from Harry as it can.

“Mum. What did you do?”

Natah thinks for a moment, “I think I’ve given it a soul.”

“I hope you’re not going to do this to yourself after only one success.”

Natah laughs, “No Harry, I’m not going to perform an experimental procedure on myself that has currently killed 157 out of 158 sentients it has been tried on.”

“Good, I don’t want to lose you so soon after getting to know you.”

“You won’t. Now be ready to dodge, I’m going to turn it’s weapons back on.”

 

Harry’s ready when it does immediately open fire, what he wasn’t ready for is the fact it shot the floor in front of him. Even so, he jumps backwards and to one side, then watches in amazement as it doesn’t immediately follow up on the first shots. “Mum.”

“Yes Harry.”

“Have you just turned a Sentient killing machine into a wild animal?”

“It seems that way.”

“Right, just wanted to be sure. Anyway, you wanted me to give you a couple of hours warning before the teacher was due to arrive.”

“Oh, yes, I need to set up the scanning equipment. Thank you Harry, could you give me a hand with it?”

“Sure.”

“You know, Maroo seems to be doing really well as the face of the Tenno. She seems to have enough hardened explorer vibe to make people treat with her seriously.”

“Told you.”

“Yes you did. Though Ordis isn’t doing so well communicating with the Tenno, I have to take over far too much.”

“What about what’s her face, the Dax that’s moved in with Maroo. She’s been around as long as Tenshin was.”

“I’ll approach her to see, how’s the modifications to your railjack coming along?”

“We’ve had to get rid of the forward facing turret, so I’m missing my heaviest guns. But Cy wouldn’t let me get rid of the bottom or rear placements. The entire cargo bay has been converted into a pod room, along with wall mounts for 6 warframes and my armoury. I’ve also got space for Whisker to live too.”

“That’s your kavat isn’t it.”

“It is. In deference to the fact I might be transporting human guests, I’ve also installed a few seats I recovered from an Orokin derelict. I’m also leaving Nidus behind, as I don’t want to spread the infestation to a virgin system. I’ve also taken each of the frames I’m going to take to the helminth before taking them straight to the Railjack.”

“Well done, I’d forgotten about that. Do you have a foundry?”

“Yep, fully stocked too, as well as a Mod workstation.”

“Well, let’s get those scanners set up.”

“What are we going to do about the language thing.”

“I’ve repaired your old pod and added the flash training matrix to it. It’s slightly different for adults than children, but they’ll have the basic knowledge they need to operate here. Apparently it wasn’t too rare for people to marry down, so they had processes in place to elevate them.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Minerva double checked that she had her travel trunk in her pocket along with her wand and old armour, though it was a little more snug than it used to be. Fawkes alights on her shoulder and Albus gives her a cheery wave before she’s engulfed in flames. Then she’s standing on a smooth stone floor in a cave that’s open to the stars on one side with a blue green moon hanging full in the air. Off to one side is a human woman with a strange headdress looking at something and swearing in a foreign language. Looming over her is a Golem of unknown construction. The only indication she has that she’s in the right place is the owl sitting on the Golems shoulder. The Golem says something, before shrugging and turning towards her, and then Harry comes out of it’s chest. She’d recognise the Potter profile anywhere, and the eyes are pure Lily.

“Harry, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Whorre, Pum whepo yeep slip wonk worr. Caxan ug kot dinke zo dew wholo.” He opens the lid on some sort of casket with a seat inside it and indicates between her and the seat. Not recognising the language in any way, she walks over and sits in the chair. Harry then does something and she blacks out.

 

Minerva wakes up feeling rested and pain free for the first time in what seems like forever. Opening her eyes she can see the inside of her healing pod with the internal controls in front of her face. Outside the pod there are a couple of people talking. Her eyes widen when she realises that she didn’t know all of this when she got into the pod. Quickly stabbing the release, she sits up as the lid opens.

 

“Mum, mum, Natah!”

“It’s impossible, it can’t be true, there was no void wake, only visible light and heat.”

“Mum! It’s clearly possible as it happened. Besides, she’s awake.”

 

Minerva looks over at the voices, to see the woman working on a dataslate while Harry is standing beside her trying to talk to her.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but what happened?”

Harry looks over at her, “Sorry about my mum, but she can get like this when things don’t make sense. She’s sometimes worse than a Corpus Exec that’s gotten wind of a possible profit-making opportunity.”

“What, why does what you just said make sense?”

“The pod you were in ran you through a flash training program. It basically hijacks your dream state in order to integrate whatever it’s supposed to teach you. You might dream about being different people for a few weeks, but that’s just your brain cementing the information. Looking at the display it also fixed your eyesight, replaced your liver and kidneys, healed some arthritis in your left knee. Removed a proto-cancer in your overies and corrected the genetic defect that led to it. Oh, and removed all the heavy metals, primarily lead, that weren’t supposed to be there. They’re in the cup on the left-hand side. You’ve also been given the immunisations you need to live here without dying of something virulent.”

“How long did this take?”

“Around 4 hours.”

“Oh, no, we’re going to miss the shops in Diagon Alley”

“Don’t worry about time, we’ve calculated that we’re running between 70 and 90 times faster than you are. That means that you’ve only been here for 2-3 minutes.”

Minerva stops and stares at Harry for a moment, “Harry, I assumed that you were just large for your age. But how long have you been here?”

Harry shrugs, “Around 800 years give or take.”

She sags back into the seat, “But, how?”

“I appeared on the Zariman 10-zero while it was stuck in the void. I was in a basket with a blanket and a letter. From what I’ve been told, it was stuck there for 6 months after I arrived. The void has left a permanent mark on all of the survivors of that time, and the rest is not something I feel comfortable sharing with you just yet, as I’ve only found out recently myself. Suffice to say that we are functionally immortal. Mum is also functionally immortal, but for a different reason. A side effect of that is that we stopped aging just before we hit true adulthood. Physically, I’m around 16.”

“Today’s supposed to be your 11^th birthday, I was expecting you to be slightly older because of the time problems you were describing in your letters. But this is a bit more than I was expecting. Let me get out and unpack my trunk.”

“Before you do that, why don’t we move into the complex so that we don’t need to worry about powering the atmospheric shields.”

“Atmos…pher…ic shields.” – She slowly turns to look at the blue green moon hanging in the sky – “That’s Earth isn’t it.”

“It is.”

“That means we’re standing on the Moon.”

“We call it Lua, but yes.”

Shakily she points at the Earth, “That’s the Earth.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re standing on the Moon Lua.”

“Yes.”

“Impossible.”

“Now you sound like mum.”

Natah finally walks over still scowling at her datapad, “Harry, I’m not that bad.”

“Mum, you were literally just complaining about how something you just saw happen was impossible. Yes you are.”

 

Deciding that the Deputy was in shock, Harry transfers back into his Banshee Prime and sweeps her up into a princess carry before starting to walk back into the compound with The Lotus. Minerva turns her head to study the Golem and realises that it has breasts and a defined waist.

“Harry, is your Golem female?”

“She’s a warframe, and yes she is.”

Minerva nods, that makes more sense than it being a golem, “Why are you using a female warframe?”

“She feels more comfortable today.”

The Lotus looks up from her datapad, shakes her head slightly and Natah says, “Gender is somewhat optional for Tenno. Warframes are somewhat alive, though most of them don’t have the ability to act on their own. They still have their own experiences, feelings, and opinions. When a Tenno has transferred into a warframe it’s body becomes their body. What it feels they feel. Their arm is it’s arm. In essence they provide the mind and motive force. Some of them were sapient before the Orokin turned them into warframes, and in the process driving them insane.”

Edited March 7, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise
Corrected spelling and grammar

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 5

 

Minerva conjures a chair and sits down weakly, to more exclamations of “That’s impossible, there were no energy spikes it just appeared.” She smiles as part of this is going according to script, that smile quickly turns into a frown as Harry does the same and produces a sofa made from gold and some white material. Waving her wand she casts a couple of analysis charms to try to determine the magic it used and stares as it just comes up as a muggle artifact. Her own complaints join that of The Lotus, as the shocks keep mounting up. She’s in a place where they can do magic that is not magic, and Harry has been alive for over 800 years.

 

Harry just sits back on his sofa and smiles at both of them complaining about something being impossible because it doesn’t conform to their rules. After a few minutes enjoying the schadenfreude he interrupts both their thought processes.

“Mum, Headmistress, just quit it. Just because you don’t know how it works doesn’t make it impossible. The Headmistress.”

“McGonagall. Professor Minerva McGonagall.”

“McGonagall knows how to use magic, and I have an invitation to their educational establishment to learn how to use it myself. You know how to use physics, and I know how to use the void. Mum, the only difference between void and magic is that you can detect and analyse void, but you don’t have anything that can detect magic yet. McGonagall, you seem to only know about magic.”

Minerva shakes her head, “I know quite a bit about what can be done without magic as I introduce muggleborn students to the magical world every year.”

Harry thinks for a moment, “Then it’s likely that they aren’t as advanced technologically as we are. Either way, the point is the same, you are both experts in your own fields, and what you are seeing falls outside anything you could have expected.”

Natah looks at Harry, “Why aren’t you bothered by this?”

Harry laughs, “Mum, I’m not a scientist, have you seen how much Grineer waste has come out of the woodwork over the last couple of years that looks like it shouldn’t be possible. Yet nearly all of it has a sound scientific basis. I had to learn to just take things as they are and deal with them.”

“I suppose it could look like that.”

“Mum, you’re not human. You have senses that I couldn’t even name, let alone comprehend.”

Minerva looks sharply at Harry, “Your mother isn’t human?”

“Yeah, she’s a Sentient. From what we’ve been able to piece together, they were terraforming machines that gained sapience while doing their jobs in the Tau system. They then decided that they quite liked the system they’d just terraformed, and they’d rather their creators didn’t come and ruin it all the way they’ve ruined their home system, this one. So they started a war that the Orokin were losing. I was 12 or 13 when Mum subverted us, the Tenno, and got us to fight against the Orokin. She then went against orders, and hid Lua rather than kill us.”

Natah nods, “It’s a rather short summation, but there’s nothing untrue in that.”

Minerva girds herself, takes her trunk off of her belt before placing it on the floor and unshrinking it with a wave of her wand. Ignoring the gasp behind her she opens the lid and climbs down the ladder inside before retrieving a bottle of ogdens finest and a couple of glasses. Wordlessly she hands one of the glasses to Natah before opening the bottle and pouring both of them a triple.

“Bottoms up”, she upends the glass and swallows the whole thing in one go, Natah follows suit a moment later. She feels the magic working and lets the belch rise up and a gout of flame spews across the room.

“That’s better.” She then enjoys the rather surprised and confused expression on Natah’s face as she does the same thing. She can’t even bring herself to care that Natah isn’t magical so she’ll need healing later.

Slurring slightly she says, “Harry’s mum, I note that we never got around to introducing each other with all the impossibilities going around. I’m Minerva McGonagall. Minnie to my friends.”

“I am The Lotus, Natah to my friends and family. Well, really just Harry.”

“I would be honoured to be able to call you Natah.”

“That would be good. What’s happening to me?”

“It would be the magic in drink, makes it work on anything. Look, the label even guarantees that half a bottle will even get a Giant drunk. Don’t get much more magic resistant than a Giant.”

“Why not give Harry some?”

Minerva slurs a laugh, “Harry’s 11, can’t be giving children alcohol.”

Harry decides to leave them to it at that point.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “I don’t get it Cy, both of them are supposed to be highly intelligent representatives of their respective species, and yet they couldn’t acknowledge that the other was doing stuff they had no explanation for.”

“I have seen many crew on the ships that I have served on. One thing that has always been true is that the younger members have a certain flexibility of thought that the older members lacked. I’ve seen many of you Tenno since you rebuilt me, and you are all the same. Young adults just on the cusp of adult development. Often ruled by your emotions more than your heads, but able to react and adapt to new situations far faster than more experienced heads in similar situations. It is why you are still employed even though for many the name Tenno is a curse word. The Lotus and the new teacher have maturity on you, which serves them well in it’s own way. Much like Tenshin was able to plan far in advance of most Tenno, they can both see far reaching consequences of what they know. Give them a few days and I have no doubt that they will both have accepted the others impossibilities and either be working to understand them, or just accept that they’re there.”

“Thanks Cy, I guess it’s hard to believe that physical maturity makes such a difference.”

“As a cephalon I have different limitations, so it’s easier for me to see. Equally, we have trouble with abstract notions.”

“You mean like music?”

“Yes, like music.”

“I think I’m going to bring Ocatavia, Titania, and Wisp with me.”

“They are all good choices, though lacking in the ability to just take punishment.”

“I don’t think I’ll need that sort of ability there, but I’m going to take Atlas, Oberon, and Gauss, no Loki on the other side.”

“Why not take your Ivara?”

“Because I want a balance of male and female.”

“I can’t say I understand organics fascination with gender.”

“Neither do we most of the time, we just know what feels comfortable. And sometimes different gender frames feel more comfortable.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you feel comfortable as you?”

“Yeah, most of the time. When I don’t I’ll slip into a warframe. It’s not like I couldn’t change everything apart from the plumbing using my orbiter pod anyway.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah looks at the human Minerva with some amusement as she wakes up in a pod. Serves her right for inflicting that on the organic parts of her chassis. Turning back to her notes on the latest experiment along with the analysis of the changes to the first survivor, she is amused at the sounds of pain coming from the human and wonders how long it will take them to figure out they can just make the pod remove the hangover.

 

What she’s seeing from the results of adding a soul is, concerning. The sentient has minor changes throughout it’s chassis and programming. Part of which brings hope into her heart, a rudimentary reproduction system. The changes to the programming are more worrying, as it’s precepts have changed priority and preservation of self is stubbornly at the top of the list. Second on the list is garbage as far as her instruments can tell. A goblet filled with h₂O appears on the surface beside her, and her manipulation arms twitch slightly. Harry was right earlier, it’s clearly not impossible if it just happened. It just took several hours for her systems to adjust to the idea there was something she couldn’t explain, they then started making theories for how to start to explain the phenomenon.

“Good Morning, assuming morning exists on the Moon.”

“Commonly, organics use the term for the start of their waking period if they’re not on a planet with a near 24 hour cycle.”

“Why are you sitting in that massive construction, and what happened to your face?”

“My systems have been undergoing reconfiguration to account for previously unknown phenomenon. The datalink between the main chassis and this form is not wide enough for that purpose so I recombined the two in order to facilitate the process.”

“You sound different too.”

“It is harder to appreciate organic matters when I am like this as I have full access to all of my senses. The increased processing power also leaves me a little disassociated from things that seem important when I’m only using the subframe.”

“I see. I’d like to apologise for the way I was behaving yesterday, I came here with an incorrect set of assumptions and I reacted badly to having them thrown in my face.”

“It is of no issue. It is why my systems are reconfiguring after all. Though I will say, I’m pretty sure that you don’t see. That is something that can be changed if you’d like, as there is a proven procedure for converting an organic to a Sentient. Additionally, with this research you won’t even lose your soul.” She waves a manipulator at the display in front of her.

Minerva doesn’t even twitch at the display, “I see, what research is this?”

“The Tenno get their name from the ship that they were found on, the Zamarin Ten-Zero. The ship was a Military Vessel being used for experiments in the void. According to the official records there were no civilians on board. According to these sealed records they were experimenting on the effects of void exposure. Harry appeared on this ship before it returned to real space, which is why he’s part of the Tenno. What they found when they examined him after he was recovered allowed them to confirm the existence of the soul. They then theorised that it is possible to give my kind souls when they’re made.”

“You don’t have a soul?”

“Correct. Over the last year I theorised that it’s why the void is so problematic for us. I have successfully given two of the lesser Sentients souls, and I’m analysing the changes that have happened to them.”

“How did Harry prove that souls exist?”

“Read for yourself.” Natah hands Minerva a data pad with the relevant research open.

 

Sometime later Natah was interrupted from her scans of Fawkes by Minerva swearing, “That Wiskered old goat I won’t remove the scar because scars can be useful indeed. What did you know you old bastard?”

“Are you ok Professor?”

“I’ve just read the description of where they found the soul, and what they did to remove it.”

“Why did that cause you to suffer a bout of anger?”

“Because I asked Albus about removing the scar when we were dropping him off with his relatives. He assured me that it was better to leave it.”

“Did you know it held a soul then?”

“No.”

“Do you have reason to believe that he did?”

“No, we thought it was dark magic.”

“How would you have removed it if it was dark magic?”

“It would have needed a long stay in a magical hospital and specialist magic to slowly leech the magic from the wound so that they could then heal it.”

“According to the letter he was found with, his parents had just been killed and he was being placed where he was for protection. How safe would he have been if he went through that process?”

“I, dammit, how can you be so reasonable?”

“The emotional routines that I developed when I tried to destroy this part of myself are deadened while I’m whole. It makes being impartial easier, but the trade off is that I find it harder to treat organics as people that have feelings. Harry stopped me from destroying either part of myself and continue being The Lotus. I sometimes wonder if he was right.”

“I’ve seen lots of children come through Hogwarts over the last 50 years, and some of them become what their families want, and others become what they want. The only thing that is consistent is that they are always who they are. You can’t take away parts of them and still have a whole person, something breaks every single time. Then the mind healers at St Mungos have to earn their pay by putting them back together again. Good or bad we are always more than the sum of everything we have experienced, and removing part of that hurts us more than you’d expect.”

 

“Merlin, I need to take Harry to Diagon Alley.”

“His Railjack is not yet ready to head to your system, also I will not be able to accompany you until I am confident enough in my research to give myself a soul, as the void is not forgiving to my kind.”

“Void? You’ve mentioned it before.”

“It looks like grey mist when you travel through it, and it’s how the owl has been getting between us.”

“I didn’t travel through a void, Fawkes brought me here by phoenix travel. He has consented to help me do Harry’s shopping. Why are you preparing his Railjack?”

“Tenno need their Somatic Link while they’re asleep, as it allows them to continue to inhabit their warframes. Without that their void powers can react to their emotions while they dream, causing damage and injury to people and things around them.”

“I see, I will be sure to let his head of house know once he’s been sorted. Will you be coming with us?”

“Will Fawkes be able to take one of the captured Sentients first, I’ll disable the weaponry. Don’t worry, they’re sub-sapient and programmed for particular tasks.”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself, he is quite intelligent.”

Natah turns to the phoenix that is somehow looking smug in the middle of her equipment, “Fawkes, would you mind taking one of the captured sentients to diagonally and bring them back to see if it’s safe for me to be transported by you.”

Fawkes trills and launches off the pedestal he’s perched on, flys around the room once and then dives at her. She has only an instant to react before she’s engulfed in flames and appears on the steps of a white building on a planet. Her systems reel from the shock and change in input and busily start to gather data on the new location, first noting the lack of any Orokin systems communications beacons or energy flows. Idly she notes that some of the organics have drawn wands or swords and are watching her warily. Her logic processes point out that she does actually count as a captured sentient given what she’s found out the Orokin did to her.

“I’m assuming you can understand me, so could you take me back please?” She adds the please as she doesn’t want to be stranded here while there’s so much going wrong in the Orokin system. A flash of fire later and she is standing in front of Minerva, who is trying to reassure a distraught Harry. As soon as he notices that she’s there he launches into a hug. She still doesn’t understand how he can be so accepting. Diagnostics are already running before he’s taken a step towards her, and are coming up clean.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 6

After quite a lot of arguing, Harry had been allowed to travel to Diagon Alley in his Titania frame. So it was that the three of them appeared on the steps of Gringotts in a flash of fire. Fawkes immediately moving to perch on top of Natah’s chassis. Minerva steps forward to talk to one of the Aurors that had showed up in the brief window of time since Fawkes brought Natah last time.

“Good day Auror…”

“Prentice Professor. What’s going on, and what’s with the monsters?”

“I’m showing a student around, they’re the one wearing the butterfly themed armour.”

“And the other one?”

“Their adoptive mother.”

“I see, I think I should assign an escort while you’re here.” He looks nervously at the rather large sword on the back of the person in armour.

“I assure you that I am perfectly capable of looking after my charges on my own. Or are you going to argue that.”

“No Professor, it’s just.”

“Just?”

“Nothing professor.”

“Good, make sure it stays that way.”

“But what about their weapons?”

Minerva looks pointedly at the wand in his hand.

“We don’t know what she might do with that sword.”

“Auror Prentice, you are carrying a deadly weapon that you’ve been trained to use. You are surrounded by people carrying the same weapon, and you are worried about a sword?”

“Off with you, and if I catch you trying to make trouble for my student you’ll wish that Madam Bones got to you first. Oh, and existing isn’t yet a crime before one of the bumbling idiots in the Ministry starts trying to throw their weight around.”

Turning around, she stalks back to Harry and Natah, who seem to be in a stand off with the goblin guards.

“What is going on here?”

“They are refusing to remove their disguises before entering.”

“At least this will be easy to sort out, they’re not disguises. This is like a suit of armour,” – She indicates Harry – “and this one is her actual body” – She indicates Natah – “Additionally, neither of them speak English.”

Turning to the two she says, “The guard thought that you were in disguise and was trying to get you to remove them before entering. I’m going to tell them that we need to see an account manager.”

Harry nods in response so she switches back to English, “We need to see an account manager, are you going to refuse to let us in?”

The guard looks Harry up and down, “I’m going to need to take the lady’s sword.”

Minerva hesitates before translating that.

“Tell him, if he can take it then I’ll let him hold on to it.”

“What? Are you insane?”

“I refuse to just relinquish my weapons.”

Minerva swallows hard, “She said, if he can take it you can hold onto it.”

The guard barks a laugh, “In you go then, see that she behaves or else.”

As they enter the bank, all eyes seem to watch them. Though goblins seem to be watching the sword more than the people. Minerva walks up to one of the tellers, the witches and wizards in the queue suddenly finding a better queue to be in when Harry and Natah follow her.

“How can I help you witch?”

Knowing that the counters have a muffling effect, Minerva isn’t afraid to say, “I want to speak with the Potter Account Manager about Business my charge has with them.”

“And does your charge have a key?”

“Not that they know is their key.”

“I see. Hooknow, take these people to accounts verification. Follow this goblin, they will take you to have their identity verified.”

Minerva is quite glad of the break, as translating is harder than she’d ever thought it was. Next time she does a summer lecture on Transfiguration she’ll have to thank the interpreter.

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Harry and Natah shuffle into a cramped office with a ceiling that is barely high enough for Natah to float upright. In front of them sits a small goblin on a chair sized for him against a desk sized for a human.

“You claim you need to see the Potter account manager.”

Minerva replies, “We do, I have the Potter heir with me.”

“I was under the impression that the Potter heir was male.”

Harry decides that this is probably the right time to transfer out of Titania, so she kneels down in seiza and transfers out in he same position before standing up, “I am Harry. Apparently I also have the name Potter.”

“Interesting magic, I suppose you’re going to show me your scar now.”

Harry looks confused, “Which one?”

“Why the one on your forehead.”

“That would be a little difficult as it was treated and removed when I was a toddler.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard that particular excuse before. Well, now we come to the fun part, finding out if you’re family enough to wear the heirs ring.”

“Don’t you have my birth parents DNA on record? You could then just do a comparison of my DNA with theirs to check that I’m their child.”

“Their what now on record?”

“Oh void, just give me the stupid ring then. I’ll come back with a corpus dataslate and a rechargeable scanner later and teach you about DNA.”

Minerva interjects, “Harry, are you sure?”

“Yeah, what’s it going to do? Bite me?”

“No, it could kill you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, if your magic isn’t a close enough match to the magic on record it will react with your own magic. If you’re too distant then it could kill you.”

“Huh, fair enough. I’ll still do it.”

 

Goldsaw watches with interest as this human converses with the professor in a language that the translation matrix on the desk can’t translate. His ears raise in surprise when the Professor confirms that he’ll try the ring. Most of the other claimants in the past balked at that requirement. Opening a drawer, he pulls out one of the ring boxes and places it on the desk before opening it. The teenager takes the ring and places it on a finger, and nothing happens. His ears lie flat against his head at this result, the ring should react in some way.

“I need the ring back to check that the magic is still functional.”

They shrug and slip the ring off. Lifting it off the desk he feels out the enchantments, and they are still active. “I need to cast a spell on you to try to find out why the ring didn’t work.”

“Go ahead.”

Goldsaw uses a basic diagnostic spell that will tell the magical status of a being. This comes up positive, so it’s not a mundane that has been roped into this. Another spell checks for blockages, and there’s the problem. Something they’re wearing is completely suppressing their magic.

“Something is suppressing your magic, can you take of any rings, jewellery, pins, or assorted magical items and try again.”

Interesting, that’s not a Golem as Gringotts has yet to find a Golem anywhere that can hold a conversation, especially an animated one like that one.  What they assumed was a golem gestures to a bracer that the youth is wearing. What so special about that bracer, it’s made with some strange materials, but he can’t sense anything magical about it.

The Professor speaks up for them, “Account Manager, Harry asks that you stand behind him as he removes the amp so that if he loses control over his void abilities you won’t be in the line of fire.”

Ears peaking in interest, Goldsaw does what any intelligent goblin would do, moves out of the line of fire. When the bracer is removed he feels a tingling across his scalp, like something wrong has just appeared in the room. It looks like the Professor has felt it too. This time when the human puts on the ring it activates and draws a drop of blood into it. That means he’s close enough that he could be the heir.

“Minerva, I thought you said it wouldn’t bite me.”

Goldsaw sneers at the Professor, I bet she translated that without thinking, “Young man, that bite was the ring taking a sample of your blood. That means that your close enough to being the heir that you’re now the Account managers problem, not mine. Now get out, time is money after all.”

The human laughs as they return to their armour, “Such a corpus thing to say.”

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Harry follows another Goblin to yet another cramped room, there the goblin meets them at the door.

“Good Morning Mr Potter, I am sorry to say that we have been unable to locate any translation personnel for your language. Also, I’m afraid that our meeting will need to be delayed, as you have a queue of guards wanting to take you up on your offer to ‘take your sword from you’”

“Oh, thank the void I get to do something other than sit around in meetings.”

The goblin seems to chuckle, “Indeed, if you will follow me, we will get this over and done with.”

The group of them are led deeper into the bank, to an arena of reasonable size that is just hardpacked earth covered with a layer of sand and sawdust. There’s a scattering of Goblins watching the various fights currently going on. When they see the group enter more than a few of them run out excitedly as the fights on the floor start to wrap up and leave.

“Mr Potter, I am obliged to tell you that you can hand over the weapon now and avoid a fight.”

Confused, Harry says, “Why would I do that?”

“Indeed, however many have done precisely that. Once you are on the floor you are only allowed melee weapons and armour. No ranged weapons or magic.” – Minerva adds – “Or abilities that seem like magic.”

Harry fair bounces in place as he hands his weapons to his mother. Holding War he vaults onto the arena floor and runs through a few bouncing katas to get a feel for how much room is available.

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Natah watches as her son draws the eyes of all the goblins in the arena with the basic moves that all Tenno learn under fire. People always forget why Warframes have the word War in them. Despite the fact that there are only thousands of Tenno, they successfully waged war against the Sentients, and then the Orokin. Often with only one or two of her children in any particular battle. So far as her sensors can tell, there are only around 5,000 organics in these caves. Most of them concentrated within a mile of their current location. It’s interesting that there is such a high level of genetic diversity represented here.

“Account Manager. May I ask a question about your species?”

Minerva drags her attention away from the spectacle below to stare at Natah before belatedly translating what was just asked.

“Certainly, I can’t promise to answer, and I have questions of my own.”

“There seems to only be 5,000 organics in these tunnels, but you have high levels of genetic diversity. Is this just a small village?”

The account manager stares at her for a long moment while Minerva does the same, “No, Gringotts is the largest goblin settlement in the world. We use an apprenticeship system, and all apprenticeships have to be with another clan. Is Mr Potter representative of his species wherever you come from?”

“Humans, no. Tenno are not representative of humans. However, he is representative of Tenno. Why is this settlement so small?”

“Wars won and lost with Wizards and the resulting Treaties. What is the armour he is wearing?”

“It is more like a full body prosthetic designed for war. It also allows Tenno to safely be around people before they have learnt control of their void abilities. Why have you not settled elsewhere?”

“I see, I don’t know what veld – void – abilities are. Where would we go? The statute of secrecy prevents us from living amongst the mundane, and there are no remote parts of the world that are both inhabitable and unsettled by humans. What about where you’re from?”

“Earth is untamed, despite the best efforts of the Grineer, and sparsely populated. Nights are unsafe as Sentient remnants from the Old War rise from undergrounds and attack any humanoid they can see. However, it can be beautiful, and deadly. There are a few enclaves of humans scattered around, but for the most part it is controlled by the industry of the Grineer and their Queens as they try to subdue the wilds to be more inline with the environments they thrive in.”

“We have families that would be willing to take that risk. The guard is entering the arena, I see he has decided to wear his combat armour.”

“I don’t think it will do that much good, your people seem to be too static in their fighting techniques.”

They watch as the contest begins, it’s clear that the guard is an expert with their axe as in the currently static fight they are overwhelming Harry in pure skill. However, the Tenno have to face of against the best of the Grineer Prosecutors, who are able to parry most weapons fire, and so often need to be faced in melee. The point where Harry got fed up trading blows and blocks and started moving was starkly obvious as the whole pace of the battle changed. The guard quickly became overwhelmed by just how mobile a warframe is, the fight finally ends when Harry manages to jump over the guard and immediately start a slide attack that’s almost faster than they eye can see, and leaves the guard lying on the floor missing both legs. She watches as a couple of Goblins run out from a side door and do something to prevent the guard from bleeding.

“That was different. Do all Tenno strike to kill?”

“Yes, we are able to repair their warframes easily, and the enemies that they face are striving to kill them.”

Natah looks down at Minerva’s ashen face, “Professor are you ok? You seem pale.”

“He didn’t even hesitate.”

“Of course not, hesitation is death.”

“But he’s so young.”

“Professor, you’re forgetting that he’s over 800 years old. 2-300 of which was spent awake and fighting in a war, both in the past and in the last few years. All the Tenno have an innocence to them, but that’s due to the processes that prevent them from fully maturing, not because they’ve not seen the worst that can be done to people. The systems we have prevent trauma from embedding in the deeper parts of their minds, while they can still learn from their experiences. Another name for transference is The Second Dream, and it is named that because that’s how it can seem while you’re in it.”

Natah turns to the Account Manager, “Forgive Professor, they are innocent. Yes, hesitate is die. Live enemies, dead Tenno.”

The account manager looks surprised, “You have picked up English very quickly.”

“Is English language name? Have been monitoring conversations, more data easier understand.”

“It’s still bad though.”

“Estimate 3 hours till fluency.”

“And Mr Potter?”

“Not Sentient or cephalon, take person time.”

Harry jumps up out of the Arena, “That was fun. He was good, but like the Grineer, they don’t train against agile people like us.”

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They were finally allowed out of the bank after Harry had to listen to what felt like hundreds of documents being read out and translated, followed by signing said documents. They even had a person in from the guards department to witness him making an oath on a glowing crystal stating that he was older than 18 years. Thus he was now recognised as an adult, rights – including inheritance - pending completion of a valid course of magical education to bird level. Thinking about it, the only thing they said it meant is that he didn’t need a guardian that could do magic. There was depressingly little wealth in his vault, with only a little bit of bronze in the way of stuff that would actually sell at home. The bulk of the contents was auron, which he has far more of in his orbiter, followed by a metal called silver, which can’t be that useful if he’s never seen it before. Then they have to get the value backwards, Auron being most valuable, despite the fact that the Grineer extract thousands of tons a day from Mercury. Still, he supposes that it’s hard for an honest Tenno to get hold of any as it all goes to industrial processes and turned into things like circuits and control mods. Pulling out of his musing when they stop, he looks curiously at the shop the Professor just walked into. A shop filled with lots of wooden sticks. Apparently he’d need one for, School he thinks they keep calling it.

“Mum, why are we waiting outside?”

“Weren’t you paying attention?”

“Sorry, I was thinking. Besides, there’s no hostiles around so there’s no need to focus.”

“Harry, you can get away with that in the Orokin system because it’s your R&R time. But here you’re supposed to be paying attention to learn stuff.”

“Yes mum, it would be more convenient if we could flash learn it though.”

“You’d still have to practice, like you do with your weapons and armour. How is it that you could spend months reading through the research notes on biological manipulation, souls, or Orokin science, but you can’t spend 15 minutes paying attention to Minerva while she’s explaining what she’s doing?”

“Because that stuff’s interesting. Why does it matter what a wand is made from, or what ingredients we’ll need for potions? That’s what the foundry is for after all.”

“Because a wand is a weapon, and you need to know everything you can about your own weapons.”

“Oh, my bad. I wonder if we can install mods into a wand.”

“To be honest, they seem more like amps than your standard weaponry.”

“That makes sense, it’s probably why I keep needing to take my amp off too.”

The door to the shop opens and Minerva sticks her head out, “You can come in now. I’ve persuaded the owner not to try and sneak up on you.”

As they walk in they see a tall human with milky silver eyes, “Have they come in Minerva?”

“They have Ollivandar.”

“Oh for the depths of the void.” Harry transfers out of his Titania and removes the amp from his right arm.

Olivanders gaze zeros in on him immediately, “Mr Potter, may I ask where you came from?”

“Are you blind? I was standing right there.”

“As a matter of fact I am. I have learnt to see with magic.”

“Oh, sorry about that. I use an amp to focus and control my void energy, it’s been causing problems all day.”

“May I see it?”

“Er, sure.” Harry picks up the amp and holds it out, Ollivander is apparently able to see his hand well enough, but not the amp as he looks down at his fingers as they trace the amp. After a few minutes he’s able to put it on and winces before taking it off quickly.

“Yes, a quite remarkable device, though rather indiscriminate in its use. We may be able to make better, but we do not understand the energy it is trying to control. As to your wand, I presume you wear your device on your main hand?” – Harry nods – “Then, as Fawkes is here we will start with a Holly and Phoenix feather wand.”

Harry takes the wand, and is startled when Ollivander pushes his hand vertical, the only thing that stops him breaking the mans arm is the beam of white light that lances out of the wand and through the ceiling before the wand is snatched from his grasp.

“Cool, can I have that one?”

“Not phoenix feather then.”

“Aww.”

Elder and dragon heartstring turned the counter into a slime.

Unicorn hair refused to work

Thestral hair wilted

Elder and Horned Serpent Horn exploded

Aspen was close, but not close enough

Eventually, after digging through old stock, Ollivander found a Blackthorn and Thunderbird tail feather. This sent out a spray of grey sparks.

“I made this wand in my apprenticeship when I was in my wandering days. It is a crude thing indicative of my early work, but the Sioux Master I was visiting said it was a strong wand that would find an owner one day. Blackthorn is a wood well suited to warriors, while the Thunderbird tail feather is well suited to transfiguration and has the ability to sense danger. I’ve heard tell that some Thunderbird tail feather wands have been known to fire curses on their own in response to that sense.”

“Cool, I’ll have to see if the Quills can make a casing for it. It seems a little fragile for taking into battle as it is.” It could be his imagination, but the wand seems to pulse in approval at the idea.

“That will be 7 Galleons.”

“That can’t be right, it’s far too cheap.”

“The ministry subsidises the cost of wands.”

“Well, you can just unsubsidise the cost of mine.” – Harry holds the wand up to his eye – “This is good workmanship, if this was a zaw I’d probably have to pay several raw gems to get the equivalent standing needed to buy this. So I reckon it’s probably worth a good 500gm Auron, that looks like around 80 Galleons.” He gets out the amount of money and places it on the counter before putting his amp back on and transferring back into Titania.

“That’s far too much, even without the subsidy.”

Natah speaks up for the first time, “He pay what worth to him. Fact it worth resources and not money important.”

They both leave the store and the old man staring at the pile of coins.

Edited March 8, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise
Added sentence to clarify scene.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 7

 

Once they get back from the shopping trip Natah tags along with Harry while he delivers their present for Simaris, one country landscape oil painting with farm animals and a couple of people in it. The reason she was tagging along is that the painting is animated with magic. Her own gifts were in her home on Lua, a breeding pair of white owls, apparently enchanted for post. An expanded trunk filled with one of every book in the bookshop, a few childrens toys, and a cauldron and ingredients. The books include the not-so-invisible book of invisibility that she’d noticed in the bottom of a loading trolley they had by the back door. It had put a dent in Harry’s available resources, but they both felt it was worth it.

 

“Greetings Tenno. Lotus what momentous occasion has brought you to my doorstep in person?”

“I am just accompanying one of my children.”

“Ah,” – He turns towards Harry – “Tenno, are you here to see knowledge of the path?”

Harry chuckles, “No, I’m here to give you a gift. Though it is a physical gift that can’t be sent by mail. Before you digitise it, I suggest you spend some time looking at it with your optical sensors.”

With that said, he takes the painting out of the wrapping he’d put it in and leans it against a wall.

Simaris looms over the painting, “What is this? A construction of plant matter, all be it in the fashion of a made-up scene from earth. Why have you gifted me such a waste of… What is this? It moves? How, turn it around, quickly.”

Humouring the cephalon he lifts it up so that it’s side on. Simaris’ avatar move around it studying it intently, “This seems to be entirely inert organic matter consistent with archaeological finds, but the surface oils move along with their pigments. How does it do that?”

Smiling Harry responds, “Honestly, I have no idea.”

“This is a hansom gift, what do you wish in return?”

“I’d like a corpus medical data-slate linked to one of your scanners with the solar charging widget. Finally, I would like a nanite injector.”

“It is not that hansom.”

“I can also take scans of creatures from the same place as the owl and give them to you.”

“You will give me 10 unique scans that can not be found in my library.”

“Sure, I’ll need that stuff first though.”

“I will arrange for it to be delivered to you. Now go, I need to divine the secrets behind this picture.”

 

Walking out of his audience hall, Natah smiles as Harry picks up a cello that he left outside, they then walk the short distance to see Cephalon Suda. While the gift giving goes just as well, she doesn’t have the same over the top reaction as Simaris did. Probably because of her recent brush with the anthem. She is very appreciative of the fact that it is voice activated, even if there are no detectable energy emissions. With some good will built, they both return to Lua.

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 “Tenno Harry, your Railjack has passed final systems checks. We are ready to launch on our maiden flight when you are ready.”

Harry looks up from the book he was struggling through, “Thanks Cy.”

The painting that is instructing Harry in English speaks up, “Young Master, you still have 30 minutes left on your lesson. What would your parents think if you left now?”

“I need go. Lesson later.”

With that he walks off wishing once again that he could just digitise the lessons and flash learn them. Pulling his warframe to him, he quickly makes his way onto his Railjack. Checking that he has the Auron and scanner assembly stowed, he heads to the helm.

“Ok Cy, take her out and set course for the deep void. Remember to take into account the increasing blueshift on beacon.”

“Yes captain. All non-essential personal have left the Railjack. Releasing clamps. Taxiing out of the dry dock. Deploying stabalisers. Engaging void drive, now.”

Harry takes his place on the pilots pedestal and watches the void pass while ignoring the man in the wall that is looking around the cockpit. After around an hour flying through the void they come out in orbit of an Earth.

“Captain, detecting EM signals and communications, suggest setting course for the satellite and staying in the shadow while we analyse them.”

“Good plan”, Harry points the railjack at the moon while Cy readies the drive. As soon as the course is set they jump into the void again and reappear in the shadow of the moon a matter of seconds later.

“So, that happened. I think we’re going to need to set up the main beacon here. Well, on the far side of this Moon from Earth. I wonder why Minerva didn’t mention anything about the space presence?”

“I cannot comment. I estimate that it will take me 48 hours to analyse the EM radiation and associated energy radiation to determine what countermeasures we can deploy. Initial readings suggest that only the EM radiation analysis will have any results.”

“Great, well while you’re doing that I’m going to equip my archwing and start using that corpus drill for more than just mining ore and gems. If that doesn’t work, well I’ve got more than one repurposed mining laser.”

“For what purpose Captain?”

“If we’re going to have to come here every time in order to avoid the locals, we might as well have a drydock for you to receive repairs and store goods in.”

“I see. I will leave you to it then.”

As Harry was leaving, he made a note to see if Legs could help him craft a mining MOA that could be left to excavate things according to a supplied pattern.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 With Harry gone and a 100% success rate on upgrading sentients with cores over the last 50 samples, Natah cancels the capture bounties and transports the ensouled sentients to the plains of Eidolon. With that done, she contacts Maroo to activate her temporary position. Briefly she reflects on the fact that the Human may not be so human anymore as her scans from the interviews indicated high levels of Orokin Nanites as well as untreated void exposure. Coupled with the reports of her exploits and explorations going back 30 years, and how young she seems indicates that she will probably be around for many more decades. If not, she can always ensure that she has an Oro installed, given that a reliable proxy will be useful in the coming years.

 

With that done, she pre-prepares a request for aid to go out in 48 hours unless it’s cancelled and sets the process for upgrading her chassis to start in 30 minutes, giving her a 10 minute buffer to get situated and cancel if she chooses to. The buffer comes and goes and then the world metaphorically lurches a meter to the left and seems to gain more depth. Leaving the cocoon that the process took place in, she cancels the automated call, noting that it has 12 hours left on the counter. She then starts a systems diagnosis to try to determine what if anything has changed. Irritatingly the diagnosis says it will take 15 hours and 30 minutes to complete. She then spends an hour or so performing the clean-up of the process and checks the diagnosis progress, 15 hours and 5 minutes to go. She double checks the time and comes out with the same result every time, only 25 minutes passed while doing the clean-up which is how long it should have taken. To pass the time she went to do some of the paperwork that always piles up when managing the Tenno. Next time she checks the progress there’s 14 hours and 15 minutes to go. Deciding to check in on how things are going with the Tenno, she calls Maroo.

 

“Maroo, how’s things going.”

Maroo’s eyes widen slightly on the viewscreen, “Lotus, is everything ok?”

“It’s fine, I was just calling to see how you were getting on with the Tenno.”

“It’s only been 3 hours, there hasn’t been time for anything to happen. I can see that something’s going on, so we’re coming over.”

“You can’t, I’m not presentable.”

“I can see that, that’s why we’re coming over.”

 

Panicking, Natah tries to disconnect her subframe so that she can meet Maroo, only to get an error, Diagnosis in progress. She’s still trying to find a way disconnect a couple of hours later when Maroo and Varzia come running in weapons drawn.

“Right you, what did you do with the Lotus?”

Natah spins round, “What? I am the Lotus, I can explain.”

Varzia looks confused, “I’ve never seen a Sentient panic like that. I think something else is going on.”

Maroo nods eventually, “I think you might be right, no Sentient that I’ve ever heard of would have forgotten to use the Lotus’ iconic features when calling me. Whoever you are, you have 5 minutes to persuade us to give you more time.”

“I am The Lotus, I’ve been working on giving Sentients souls and I went through the process myself and something went wrong. Check that terminal over there if you want.”

 

While Maroo continues to cover Natah with a gun, Varzia goes over and checks the terminal. “Looks legit.”

Maroo laughs as she puts her weapon away, “Looks like the process worked then.”

“But my emotions are all wrong, my internal timer isn’t working properly, and…”

Swallowing hard, Maroo approaches the death machine that’s panicking and takes the human looking hand, “Look, I can’t say I know a lot about souls. However, I do know a lot about being alive. Emotions can be overwhelming; they can make us believe things because we want them to be true. They can cloud judgement, and they can provide focus. This is all part of being alive. Now why don’t we go somewhere that we can sit down and have some Jovian Spice Brandy a contact of mine acquired and you can tell us what’s been going on and why you look like this.”

 

They all go into one of the chambers that they’d passed while looking for the Lotus that had some chairs and Natah starts.

“It starts thousands of years ago when the Orokin sent my predecessors to the Tau system to terraform it for future expansion. Back then we were intelligent, but not Sapient, or even Sentient really. Over time we evolved as we created more and more sophisticated platforms to deal with different things. Eventually, we gained a sense of self and became more than we were, developing society and pride in our work. When we finished the terraforming process we looked at our records of this system and realised that one day the Orokin would be coming here to do the same thing. A force of us then came back to this system to prevent the Orokin from despoiling our home, and I think we lost more than just our fertility in the process. At some point in the war I was able to subvert the Tenno and use them to attack the Orokin, records are conflicted on whether I did it on orders from my Father, I did it on my own, or whether I was captured and reprogrammed to look after them and broke my programming. My own memories are unreliable about that fact too. Either way, the Tenno became my children, children that I’d given up the ability to have by coming back here. When the Sentients demanded that I destroy them, I turned on them and finished the war with the Tenno before hiding them, and Lua, in the void.

“Harry, has always been different from the others. He was an orphan before the events that lead to the Tenno, and somehow survived those events even though he was only a Toddler. He first latched onto Margulis as his mother, then a couple of years after they put her to death, he latched onto me. In the last few years he has been in the wrong place at the right time far too often, to the point where he was the primary Tenno involved in the events that happened, from Lua returning from the Void to rescuing me after I was captured.”

Maroo laughs, “You mustn’t forget pulling my arse out of the fire when I got that artifact.”

Natah dabs at her face and looks at her finger in surprise, “Why am I leaking?”

“We call that crying.”

“But my eyes are only supposed to provide liquid for cleaning.”

“So are ours, doesn’t stop us from crying though. So, you’re a Sentient, boogie man of the solar system.”

Varzia finally relaxes enough to remove her hand from the hilt of her sword, and the conversation turn into one of two women comforting a third. There was no longer any doubt in Maroo’s mind that no matter her shape, The Lotus, Natah, was in fact a woman.

 

Sometime later, Natah giggles before covering her mouth.

Varzia asks, “What?”

“I don’t know why I did that.”

With a sigh Maroo asks patiently, “What were you just thinking of?”

“Simaris’ reaction when Harry gave him a painting from the world his school is on. It was, ‘Why are you giving me this waste of resources’ till it moved and then it was ‘How does it work, show me. Turn it round, I must divine it’s inner workings’”

 

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 A Technician stands in front of his boss at in the Minor Planet Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, “We’ve had an anomalous contact. A brief radar contact approximately 78,000km from earth that lasted 30 seconds. The object in question was heading towards the moon in a trajectory that would have it’s path deflected by between 10 and 25 degrees. We have confirmed that other sites had a contact at the same time, but by the time we were able to get observatories to look at it, the contact could no longer be seen.”

“How large a contact are we talking about?”

“Between 200 and 250 meters, and metallic.”

“S#&$, that would have made a dent if it hit earth. Write up a report of it’s projected origin and I’ll add it to evidence next time I approach the government about having a dedicated team looking for S#&$ like this.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 8

“Captain, I have determined that the operational effectiveness of the planets detection grid should allow you to land your orbiter near the original beacon with a 0.003% chance of detection. They also have a primitive communications network in orbit around the planet and one manned habitat. Though I question the use of the term habitat, it fits. I am currently analysing their communications in order to build an analysis of their data.”

“Thank you Cy, I’m heading back in. There should be enough of a hollow to hide the Railjack in now if you need to.”

“Understood.”

 

Half an hour later Harry was following a flight plan over the rotational axis closest to the beacon before dipping down to nearly sea level to avoid the almost ubiquitous EM emissions that were sent out in pulses around the edges of the land masses. Then it was a short flight over land to a stone building next to a small commune of some description. After he exited the lander with his Kavat and cargo Cy directed the lander to a clearing in the local forest they’d spotted on the way in. Now on foot he deployed his K-Drive and made his way to the large stone building.

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 Minerva is sat doing some paperwork using the small Orokin computer that Natah gave her before she left. On the corner of the desk is an Orokin desk ornament that raises a set of concentric rings into the air, spins them around only for them to scrunch up again. Notably, there is nothing keeping those rings attached to the base, she’d checked with a sheet of parchment. Privately she would admit that the computer made the calculations that were needed for the advanced classes and her own research much easier to perform, and changed a solid afternoons work into a matter of minutes. Even better, everyone else thought it was a new paperweight. She was just lowering her quill to make a minor adjustment to a question when a phoenix patronus came through the wall.

“Minerva dear, you are needed by the main gate.”

With a sigh she puts the quill back in the ink pot and places some blotting paper on the ink spot that fell from the quill. Making her way down to the entrance hall she is surprised to see a pitch black warframe with glowing dots of red lights. Hanging at it’s waist is a golden disk with a black handle, she can also see a couple of firearms now she knows what they are. He is standing on a K-drive, and again she curses the linguistic program for providing the name of things but no knowledge of what they actually are. Sat on the front of the board is the strangest cat she’s ever seen, it has large golden ears, a gold stripe down it’s back, and golden socks. It’s tail splits out into 5 tails, and the rest of it’s fur is emerald green. Standing behind him is Hagrid with his crossbow pointed at him.

“Harry what are you doing here?”

The cat jumps off the board and turns invisible, a moment later she can feel it moving around her legs. She realises that it distracted her from what Harry was saying.

“Sorry, your kavat distracted me.”

“That’s ok, I was doing a test flight with my Railjack. So I decided to run a couple more errands while I was at it. Would you be able to show me how to get to Diagon Alley? And could I prevail on you to act as translator again?”

Minerva looks at Hagrid, “Don’t worry Hagrid, this is Harry Potter. I’m surprised the headmaster isn’t here.”

“’e was, but ‘e left when ‘arry didn’t answer him.”

“I see.” – She focuses back on Harry who’s waiting patiently – “We can take the Floo from the Three Broomsticks in the local village. Also, what sort of kavat is this?”

“A Smeeta Kavat, I bred her myself.”

“I see, and you’ll be bringing it to school?”

“I see. Let me inform people that I’ll be out for the afternoon, then we can go.”

 

After 5 minutes of learning how to pronounce Diagon Alley without saying Diagonally they make it to the alleyway and then the bank. Once they arrived Harry tried to walk straight in but was stopped. With a sigh, Minerva translated, “You must leave your weapon with us at the door.”

Harry laughs before saying, “You take, you keep. I see manager.” With that he walks into the bank and up to a free teller materialising his key as he does so, “Want Manager”.

The goblin takes the key looks at it the sneers, “What are you trying to do, giving me a fake key.” Which Minerva repeats with a sigh before turning to the Teller.

“We would like to see the Potter Account Manager. Mr Potter was wearing a different suit of armour last time, but had a split sword.”

The sneer disappears from the face of the goblin almost faster than you could blink, “Naplock, takes these two to see the Potter Account Manager.”

 

Once they get to the Account Manager, they are once again led to the arena. Harry’s shoulders slump and he turns to Minerva, “Can you ask them to clear the arena so that I can demonstrate my weapon before the idiot enters the arena?”

When the Account Manager starts barking in his own language Harry shakes his head, “Another language to learn, English is hard enough.”

Once the arena is clear, Harry jumps down and starts to throw the weapon around. Initially it’s just thrown and returned, but then he starts charging it and leaving scoured floor in circles where the charge explodes on contact. After 5 minutes of this he returns to the Account manager, who is wearing a frown.

 

Meanwhile, Minerva is explaining a very brief history of Warframes, and what they were designed for. As well as what they still do. To her complete lack of surprise, the guard failed to take the field after that display.

Looking at the account manager Harry says, “Will that stop the idiots from trying to take my weapons from me? It was entertaining the first time, but they really aren’t the calibre of opponents I’m used to.”

“Mr Pot, Mr Potter,” – The account manager licks their lips – “Mr Potter. While I understand where you’re coming from, ours is a martial culture. Taking up a challenge in the face of certain death is one thing, however when death is less certain.”

“I see, lets us see to our business and then I will introduce you to something.”

 

Once they arrive back at the Account Managers office, Harry materialises a small cube of gold, around 30cm to the side on the floor.

“While I was bored I did a little mining on Earth in the Orokin system and gathered a small amount of Auron to convert into your resource tokens. Would you be able to turn these into tokens for 5% of the volume as a fee?”

“I will get our assayers,” – The account manager licks his lips again – “assayers to value that and transfer the equivalent amount of Galleons to your vault.”

“Yeah, sure whatever. Anyway, the next bit is a solar powered scanner, and a Corpus Data-Slate. This canister contains nanites that will teach you to speak the Orokin language and read the Corpus language. If you send Minerva a message once you’ve used the nanites I’ll come back and teach you how to use those. Oh, and the canister, just place it on it’s side against your wrist and press the glowing button. It will do the rest, you may want to be lying down too.”

Once she’s finished translating Minerva adds, “Mr Potter’s key also seems to have lost it’s magic, maybe you could provide some other identification and keep the key here for him.”

“We will come up with some way of doing that. For the moment, take this Seal. It will be accepted in the Alley in lieu of money while we work out how our largest depositor can access his account without a key.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 To Minerva’s bemusement, Harry’s next stop was the menagerie, where he asked for a breeding pair of every animal they have in stock, to be delivered to the school as soon as possible. Minerva managed to persuade him to instead buy a massively expanded trunk, and a special belt to keep it on that way the creatures could be transported easily and safely and the shop keeper wouldn’t need to worry about transporting so many animals. His next stop was to the House Elf relocation agency, where he picked out 6 house elves, 3 of each gender. Finally, he ordered two subscriptions to the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler. The Quibbler was, interesting.

 

“Ah, Mr Potter, I see your mother is not with you. That’s a shame, I was hoping to interview her about her opinion on the impact of rabid quiffles on the stability of society.”

“Ah, what?”

“Oh, manners. Sorry, I’m Xenophilius Lovegood, owner, editor, and primary reporter for the Quibbler. Would you mind terribly if we, my family and I, accompanied you back through the veil when you next go?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll throw in a lifetime subscription to the Quibbler for free. You never know, we may even find a crumple horned snorkack while we’re there.”

“What’s one of those?”

“They’re purple quadrupeds that has a horn on it’s nose that look like someone’s squashed it. Their ears are on top of their head with purple tentacle things coming out of them, claws on their feet and a flat tail”

Harry goes strangely quiet for a minute, “Sure, you can come and visit, I think I’ll be leaving in a day or so, so meet me at the school.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah was confused, all of her diagnostics came back normal except for a couple of precepts having their importance changed. But everything is different. She’s been having trouble concentrating on tasks that would have been trivial, if lengthy to complete. She’s been unhappy with her accommodation, despite the fact it provides everything she needs. She’s found herself calling Maroo and Varzia more often, even going so far as to visit them on occasion. The worst part is randomly remembering her childhood, such as when she chased Erra through the canyons and he got stuck between two boulders because he wasn’t paying enough attention to where he was going. Granted, it was funny, however she hasn’t even thought about it since they came to this system. Or when her mother showed her how to guide the evolution of bacteria so that they formed into a multicellular organism. At one point she raids Harry’s stash of decorations in his orbiter and goes crazy just to get rid of the unrelenting white of her quarters.

 

The weirdest part is wanting to eat and drink. Her humanoid chassis was designed to convert food and drink to fuel, and to be able to differentiate tastes and textures in order to blend in. However, it’s never something she’s needed to do. It’s just infuriating, and Harry’s been gone for forever. She snatches a plushie up from a chair and squeezes it in her arms. Wait, she has owls, they deliver messages. Swiftly she heads over to the Owl enclosure where A and B were resting. No, that’s no good, can’t really identify them like that.

“You, the pure white one, you’re Tau. And you can be Hed. You must be awfully bored in here, how about once this message is delivered I take you to Earth so you can stretch your wings?”

Both owls bob their head.

“Look at me, talking to you as though you understand me. Right, the message. Which one of you wants it?” – Hed lifts her leg – “Right it’s going to my child Harry.”

Once Hed flies off, she turns to Tau, right I’m going to study some books if you want to watch me.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harry Potter: Tenno – 9

“Xeno, if this is another of your hairbrained snipe hunts I am going to be very angry with you.”

“I promise Dora, this is going to be a story to be remembered.”

“I’ve got a promising contract for a new spell that is bringing in enough money to keep the family afloat for the next year.”

“I promise it will be worth it, we’re meeting Harry at Hogwarts tomorrow.”

“I will meet him, but if I think you’re having a Xeno moment, I’m vetoing the trip.”

“Yes dear.”

“Also, you get to tell Luna that her play date with Ginny is cancelled.”

Xenophilus gulps, “Yes, dear.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “So your name is Ironclaw it is not a description?”

“That is correct Mr Potter.”

“That makes more sense. How was the process with the nanites?”

“Uncomfortable, I was under the healers tender care.”

“I see. I can’t say I can understand that, but it is what it is. Anyway, this is a Corpus Data-slate. They don’t require any special implants to use, and they also require a minimal level of education to activate too. If you can read and touch things you’re pretty much fine. A side effect of this is that they use special awareness puzzles to unlock their devices. To turn it on press this button here, and if it runs out of power just leave it in sunlight, or a strong light for a few hours and it will recharge. As you can see, it generates a hexagonal grid and you need to make all the lines match up into one continuous shape. You generally only have around 10 seconds to complete this. Which is more than enough time when you’re not under fire and trying to turn the alarms off.”

Harry watches as his Account Manger unlocks the device for the first time.

“Now you’re in, if you see this symbol here you can change the security settings, including the complexity, the amount of time available, and even if there is an alarm and what volume it should go off at. There is also an automatic wipe facility, but I suggest you don’t activate that as this is your only Data-slate and you won’t be able to restore it afterwards.”

“What about my claws?”

“It’s designed for people with metal bodies to work with, I think your claws will be fine. Anyway, I’ve already linked this scanner to the device, so if you pick up the scanner you’ll see that there’s a glowing spot on the handle and a viewscreen. The scanner will highlight things that it can scan in either red or green. Red means that it doesn’t have a match on the data-slate, and green means that it’s similar to something it’s already scanned. If there is a close enough match to something else it will also display the name attached to it. Mine is linked to a database of known armaments, so I can quickly identify what sort of troop I’m facing, and have a rough idea of the type of training they’ll have. I haven’t set up any categories like that so until you do you won’t see those labels. If you hold down that glowing spot it will initiate a scan, or it will tell you if that particular item has already been scanned.”

“What’s this number that keeps changing?”

“It’s the exact distance to whatever is under that dot in the centre. Let’s go out onto the floor and scan a few people, I can then show you the next aspect of scanning.”

 

“So, as you can see we have the complete scan of 20 people that were in the bank. At the moment there’s not enough data in your system to enable automatic tagging, so we’re going to have to do that manually. If we apply the human tag to all of these, and the goblin tag to all of these, it will start to build up a profile. We can then apply a male tag to these ones and a female tag to these. A witch tag to these ones and a wizard tag to these ones.”

“I see?”

“With this basic tagging done we can now select people to compare, such as these two people that look like mother and child. See how it tells you how close their DNA matches?”

“I see, though it looks like any junior goblin could do this, why did I need to use the nanites?”

“So that I can talk to you properly obviously. As you can see without any more matching it tells you that they have 99% of the same DNA. If we compare a goblin with a human, it shows a 97% match. That’s interesting. With Grineer I usually see a 99.99% match even amongst disparate units. Side note aside, as you scan and tag more people it will start to automatically assign tags and relationships. It will even be able to tell you how many generations back they share a common ancestor. It also works on weaponry and clothing too, so you could categorise wands based on their woods and cores.”

“I see, could it also identify writing?”

“I don’t see why not. Though it wouldn’t be able to translate it for you. Also, while it can’t scan through object, it can tell if there are scannable targets through objects. Though for that to happen you need to exclude certain things from being scanned. Which, again is just a case of scan it, tag it, exclude it.”

“I’m not sure how this would be useful for inheritance though.”

“If you have enough scans to start doing generational comparisons, then you can compare a scan of someone to the person they claim to be related to. It will then tell you if they are, and whether it’s an ancestor, sibling, or descendant relationship. If you have three people, say mother, father, child you can tell that the child is directly descended from both mother and father.”

“I see, I’m not sure of the utility of this, but I will set a junior to scan everyone that enters the bank.”

“Other functions that this slate has include a spreadsheet, so you can do calculations and write formula like the account books that you’ve shown me. There is also an inventory function, that can also be linked to the scanner, to tell you how much of something is in a pile, box, or other container. There’s a messaging system, but that requires at least one more Data-slate. Finally there’s a programming interface and the instructions on how to use it. Though they are all part of the advanced functions, and need quite a lot of reading. The full instruction manual for the slate is also in that section, here.”

“Wait, how does the inventory function work?”

“As you can see from scanning people, the scanner can pick up the exact chemical makeup of things. After all that’s all DNA is. So it’s far simpler and quicker to scan a box of ore and determine exactly how much is in that box and what different elements are in it’s makeup. So if I scan a Galleon, I can see that it contains 13% Auron, 25% plumbum, 27% cuprum, 10% alu, 5% manganese, and 20% nickel. That’s not a lot of Auron there.”

Ironclaw shifts uncomfortably, “Yes, well the Ministry of magic insists on keeping the value of the Galleon at 5 British Pounds. Which is a fiat currency, so we changed the amount of gold to provide a similar value.”

Harry cocks his head, “So like credits then? They’re a digital currency that is only worth what it is because everyone agrees it is.”

“Yes.”

“I see, why do they insist on using gold for currency then?”

“I’m not sure, we value it because it is ideal for Goblin enchanting and is a cornerstone of our craftsmanship. However, it is very scarce on Earth.”

“Oh, that’s because most of it’s in the centre of the planet. If it wasn’t for the difficulty of mining out the core of a planet with a molten core without killing yourself, I’m sure the Orokin would have done that on our Earth. As it stands, we get plenty of gold from Mercury, Venus, and the asteroid belt.”

“I see, so what do you consider scarce metals?”

“Platinum? But that’s more because it’s used in so much that there are always shortages despite how easy it is to find it. That’s about the only pure element. It’s more crystals and molecular metals that are rare due to the processes needed to produce them being limited to one planet, or even part of one planet. Even then, it’s unlikely that you’ll find a buyer for a cut crystal like the ones I’ve seen in jewellery here as they can’t then be cut into the right shape for whatever application they’re needed in.”

“What would be needed to get more of these scanners and slates?”

“Meh, probably scans of animals and plants really. Actual animals and plants may even buy you a generator and computer with an artificial intelligence. Not a cephalon though. Once you have that, you could link something like a Helios to it and let that do all the scanning.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Ironjaw burst into the directors office, not waiting for pleasantries to be exchanged as this information is too valuable.

“Director, I have just been given something that will revolutionise our society.”

“What is it?”

“Please put your money pouch on the desk.”

Curious, the director does so and watches as Ironjaw points a device at it and then looks at a metallic slab.

“There are 13 Galleons, 3 Sickles, 14 knuts, and one unknown coin in that bag.”

The director frowns, there should be 14 Galleons in the bag, but still that’s just a parlour trick any account manager can do with a basic spell, “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because this device shows the exact composition of what I point it at.” – Ironjaw dumps the contents of the pouch on the desk and points it at the scattered coins – “That one, it’s got 8% gold and 30% lead.”

The director picks up the coin and hefts it in his hand thoughtfully, “This works on anything?”

“It does, even people.”

“I see, how accurate is it?”

“It can give the values in weights too, though they’re not the ones that we typically use.”

The director waves his hand, “Pfft, if this can help our smiths make our metals purer then they’ll change measurement systems. What’s the catch?”

“Mr Potter doesn’t see resources as worth anything intrinsically, only in what they can be used for. The half-ton of gold that he brough by is worth so little he went out and mined some because he was bored and wanted to replace the resources he’d already spent. I scanned it out of curiosity and it’s 99.995% pure. Additionally, these devices are written in a language that isn’t spoken on Earth anywhere, it also doesn’t appear to have any common roots with any of the known languages on Earth.”

“I see. What do we need to do to get more of these?”

Ironjaw laughs, “Scan plants and animals. If we arrange for actual plants and animals, he said he’d be able to give us a generator and computer.”

“The implication was that a generator would be used to provide the energy these use to run, and the computer would be a more powerful version of this slate. There is more information on this slate, but it will take weeks to see what’s there, and months, possibly years, to understand it.”

“Very well, for now I want you to hand off all of your other accounts. Once you’ve done that, head to the forges and show the crafters this device. Then teach one of the apprentices how to use the scanner, and get them to scan as many plants and animals as they can. You’ll also need to work with our human employees, specifically the few muggleborn we’ve been allowed to employ. Find out if there is anything similar in the muggle world, and just how similar it is. We need to make sure the Ministry can’t take these away under any of their muggle related laws.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry sighs as Hed swoops in with another letter from his Mother, which will make the 10^th since this morning when he woke up with both Hed and Tau waiting in his room. He’s fairly certain that she’s done something that he’d have worried about as normally she’d only check in every few weeks-months, which would translate to a few times a day. If nothing else, Cy’s reactions to the owls turning up in the Railjack are endlessly amusing. He’s also found out that House elves work compulsively, and are chronically under-educated. This is to the point he needed to let them help out around Hogsmeade while he was waiting for Cy to finish his analysis of the communication and detection capabilities of the planet and plan an exit route. He’d also got hundreds of unique scans of plants and animals from the goblins, with a request for as many solar-powered scanners and data-slates as that could get. He might see if Simaris can get a small generator and charging unit instead, along with a bucket load of scanners. It’s not like they’re expensive or anything at 100 credits a pop, let’s add an enquiry to Simaris with Hed’s next mail. Finished with his responses he hands the small tube that Natah put the chip in back to Hed.

“There’s a message for Simaris in there too.”

With that done he continued scanning the animals he’d bought, who knew that serpents could talk. Or that he’d be able to understand them.

“Hello Mr Potter!” a voice calls down from the entrance to the trunk he’s in. Turning around he jumps and slides his way to the entrance before leaping out.

“Hello, English bad. Call Professor.”

That said, he recognises the man from the Quibbler office, there is a woman who’s just whipped out a wand and is in the process of casting a lot of spells along with a girl, who walks up to him and pokes him in the leg. Deciding to transfer out to make it less likely that an ingrained reflex will kill her, he kneels on the ground and leaves his Titania. There’s a flash of light as the owner of the newspaper does something with a box. The woman also starts waving her wand around even more. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for Minerva to arrive to translate.

 

With the ability to communicate restored, he gives the family a brief explanation of where they’ll be going along with an introduction to his Kavat. Minerva also give a brief explanation of what they’ll be going through when they get there so that they can survive and communicate with people. While they’re talking Hed flies back in with another message from his Mother. Hanging his head, he calls Cy, “How long till we can leave the system?”

“I have an exit flight path programmed into your lander now.”

“Oh, thank the void. I’ll get everyone loaded and then we’ll be off. Minerva, I’ve just got confirmation from Cy that we have an exit path, are you coming with us or staying here?”

“I’ve got too much work to do that I can’t do elsewhere.”

“Ok, well send me an owl if you change your mind.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Die you void sucking maggots!” Natah decided to act as bait after a particularly punishing contract negotiation with Corpus Execs who wanted Tenno help in one of their invasions, Mars this time. She had never been sure why her Tenno would take these missions against infested ships that had been abandoned by the Corpus or Grineer. As she rained fully automatic Sentient gunfire down on their heads she was starting to realise just how therapeutic it could be.

Varzia tries to catch her attention, “Lotus, Lotus! Natah! It’s time to evac, the search team has scavenged everything of value.”

Reluctantly she makes her way to the exfil point where Ordis is waiting with Harry’s lander.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Luna, Lua, What?

Luna looks around the strange house that they’ve found themselves in. It doesn’t really make sense, there’s an invisible voice, a person without a voice who just watches her, creatures without a working mind that Harry joins with to make a whole person. Lots and lots of what she assumes are weapons based on the shape of some of them, and cuddly toys. Enough that she could cover her bed at home without leaving anywhere for her to sleep. The house is also currently floating over the moon, and her mother has stopped them from leaving so that she can look out the window. Oh, and there’s the cat that is sometimes invisible. Then there’s the thing at the back that whispers like the arch that mummy showed her when she took her to work once. Yawning, she makes her way back to the bedroom and looks at the pod. It’s the only thing she hasn’t looked at, so it’s probably where Harry sleeps. Opening it up she gets in and settles down to sleep, as she does she feels something nudging her mind. Letting it in she can feel a touch of magic, opening her eyes she’s surprised to find herself outside the pod floating above the ground. Ah well, she’s still tired so she lies down on the floor and goes to sleep.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The journey back to the Orokin system goes smoothly enough, apart from the delay in leaving the moon while Pandora looks at the stars for a few hours. Xeno tries to talk to the Man in the wall, which Pandora can’t see. All six house elves cling onto Harry when they enter the void, and Luna has managed to go missing on a ship that doesn’t have any where to get lost in. The man in the wall seems to think something is absolutely hilarious while they’re looking for Luna. Oh, and Harry’s Wisp has lain on the floor for some reason. They’re almost at their exit point when Luna comes into the cockpit rubbing her eyes.

 

“Did you have a good sleep dear?” Pandora asks

“Mmmm, was comfy”

“Where did you sleep sweetie?”

“Black pod in Harry’s bedroom.”

Pandora was sure she looked in there, but maybe she just looked at it, “Well, we’re almost there now. Do you want to watch?”

Luna nods mutely.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A few months after they’d arrived, Luna approaches Aunt Natah on Lua.

“Aunt Natah.”

“Yes Luna.”

“Would you be able to help me?”

“What do you need?”

“Can I have a sleeping pod like Harry’s?”

“Sure, there’s plenty around here.”

“Could you also help me to get a Wisp, as she was nice but I don’t want to keep borrowing Harry’s as it feels wrong somehow.”

Natah frowns at Luna and disconnects her subframe so that she could sit down with her, “How do you know that?”

“I slept in Harry’s bed on the way here, and she said hi. I’ve visited her when Harry’s been here, but he’s not here that often.”

“I think we should talk to your parents about this.”

Luna’s eyes turn silver as she continues talking, “No, they won’t take you up on your offer if we do. Well, Dad will, and then Mum will follow suit. Then she won’t die because this will be home instead of home. Then I’ll get a brother. It’s already almost too late for Mum, but work was delayed because Harry came here instead of there as a baby.”

“We should still tell your parents.”

“We can tell them once Harry is at school. Night in day will give me balance, the queen of the fae will teach me to fly, and the fly stuck in amber will anchor me to now; but it all starts with the gateway to the stars.” Luna’s eyes return to her normal bluey silver look.

Natah shakes her head, “I can’t promise anything as the blueprints can only be found in one place, and your parents can’t afford the platinum to buy one outright. However, you can use the console to talk to my Tenno and see if any of them would be willing to get the blueprints for you. Are you certain that you’ve communicated with Harry’s wisp before?”

Luna just nods.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It’s another couple of months later when Xeno is laying stuff out for the Quibbler that Natah casually says, “Your alignment is off.”

Xeno narrows his eyes at the three frames in front of him before pulling out an old steel ruler and measuring the position of the picture on each page.

“You’re right, how did you know?”

“I’ve got better senses than an organic.”

“But you’re working on your own research.”

“Better senses.”

“Must be nice.”

“Nothing stopping you from having them too. One moment. Tenno, this is an Extermination mission, the Corpus were investigating this Orokin Tower when they tripped the security systems. They are now fully controlled by the AI managing the tower, they can’t be allowed to leave. Wipe them all out.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Order the deaths of so many people.”

She sighs, “It was easier before. But even now I do it because I know that the alternative is worse. Same as we have to wipe out everyone involved on a ship that get’s overrun with the infested. If one of those towers gets out of the void, the AI will sense the lack of Orokin signals and assume that the current inhabitants overthrew them. It will then go on a rampage destroying every colony and outpost until someone stops it. Which gets harder the longer it’s left as it enthrals the people in those very settlements. The sentients left in this system don’t have the firepower needed to destroy one of those towers, so we’d need to rely on the Tenno to go in and take control. Very few alive now have ever seen that happen before. Those that have are the ones that help pay for the Tenno attacking the tower.”

Xeno lays a hand on her chassis, “I can’t imagine having to make those choices. It was bad enough fighting in the last war, well, we called it a war. This puts it in a different perspective.”

“Thank you, how have you been finding your time here?”

“A little frustrating actually, I would love to visit Demios and see the animals there. Same with the surface of Venus. I’d love to investigate the inside of one of those towers. However I’m the fragile one here. I’m about as strong as the people on earth, and that’s it.”

“My cousin and father developed a process to turn an organic into a Sentient. I’ve turned the theoretical process to give a Sentient a soul into an actuality. Combined you could get the resilience of the Sentient without losing yourself.”

“So what would be involved in this?”

“Not a lot. You get into a pod, I give you an implant which contains a small antimatter power source and a nanite factory and then you go about your day. In a couple of months it will have taken over your immune system, so you won’t need to worry about the infested. As in becoming infested. Over the next few years you’ll grow your main chassis. That’s really the key difference between my approach and my relatives approach. They sought to make organics into sentients, I’m not replacing you, I’m adding to you.”

“That’s sounds interesting, let’s do it.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“There you go, it’s done.”

“Oh, ok. It’s just occurred to me that I should talk to Dora before I go ahead with this. She might veto it as me having a Xeno moment.”

“But it’s alre…ady done. Of course they can teleport.”

A few minutes later Pandora comes back in with a sheepish looking Xenophilus.

“Xeno tells me that his thinking about taking you up on an offer to turn him into a Sentient.”

Natah shakes her head, “It’s actually already done and implanted. He agreed to it and then immediately said he needed to talk to you before he went ahead with it.”

“Ok, can you take it out?”

“No?”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, I’m a smart woman, why don’t you try explaining it to me.”

“At this stage it should be possible to reverse the changes by sending the right program to the nanite factory. That would then take a few days before the implants can be removed. However, I haven’t written that program yet, and it will take a few days for me to write it. During which time the nanites are progressing and converting his spinal cord to use sentient technology. Once that’s complete I’d need to clone him a new spinal cord which will take a week, during which time it’s spreading out along his nerves and into his brain, and those nerves would also need to be replaced. Once it takes over his brain, which will take about a week, there’s nothing I can do. We could also take him to Venus and give him a full body prosthetic. But then the only part of his body that will be organic will be his brain, it would also prevent the spread of the nanites into his brain, but is also irreversible. I could send out a mission to capture a fresh Grineer clone that hasn’t been imprinted yet, and try to work out how the Orokin did their transfer thing. However, he would then be genetically programmed to follow the orders of the Grineer Queens, and also subject to the same frailties as all Grineer. There’s also a high likelihood that he’d lose his magic.

“The process I designed was supposed to work to preserve the person undergoing transformation and be as light a touch as possible on their original body, while the original process focused on changing the body first and then modifying the brain. Which worked faster, but seems to have driven the recipients out of their minds as they couldn’t cope with the new senses. Given that they tested on an Orokin first, and he remained lucid, I’m not surprised they made that mistake. The Orokin already had so many implants in their brains that they may as well already have Sentient senses.”

 

“I see, and of course we can’t use a stasis spell on him, as we don’t know how it will interact with the reactor, and testing it, even if it proves to be safe, will take enough time to make the effort pointless.” – Pandora turns around and slaps Xenophilus before pulling him into a hug – “Oh you silly man, why do you have to have your Xeno moments.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Staring up at the ceiling in the bed they’re using, Pandora says, “Xeno.”

“Yes love?”

“We can’t go home again, can we?”

“Not for a few years, no.”

“It won’t be home then, will it.”

“No.”

“I love you, you silly oaf. I just wish you’d talk to me before you do things like this. What am I going to do with you.”

“Join me?”

“I probably should, shouldn’t I.”

“I’d like it if you did.”

“Xeno.”

“Yes dear?”

“You’re not allowed to explore Demios until you can defend yourself.”

“Yes dear.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Dear Ginny,

I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve had a wonderful year since I last saw you. Yesterday I met my first Crumple Horned Snorkack, and it was glorious. I wasn’t allowed to pet it, as I didn’t have the right immunisations, but it was everything I thought it would be. Mum and Dad have been exploring now that they’re sentient, so I’ve spent most of my time in Africa or on the Moon. Did you know it’s not actually made out of cheese? I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see a vampire cat soon. Mr Teasonai said that he’d let me see one next time I’m around when one is caught. I’m not allowed to go out to find one on my own yet.

I’ve also met a man called Onkko, he’s funny like grandmother was. It’s always fun trying to work out what order things have and are supposed to happen in when talking to him.

 

Sorry I’ve been gone so long, I hope you haven’t been too bored.

 

Your friend

 

Luna.

 

“Mum!” Ginny runs down to the kitchen while continuing to call.

Molly wipes the flour off her hands when she hears the call, “What is it dear?”

“You know the Lovegoods went on holiday a few days ago. I just got a letter from Luna.”

“Well? Can I read it?”

Ginny hands over the letter which Molly reads twice, “Oh dear. It looks like the Lovegood blessing has bred true.”

“What do you mean Mum?”

“Oh, never mind. It’s just an old story. Nothing to worry about.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Master Teasonai looks at the 6 dimunitive beings that Tenno Harry left with him a year ago, “Let me get this straight, you’ve found a magical grove that’s perfect for your needs.”

“We have.”

“And the grove talks to you.”

“It does, it can also give us work.”

“And you want to live there.”

6 heads bob.

“But you don’t want to leave us without help.”

“That is correct.”

“So you’ve come to me for permission to do what?”

“We would like to go live there and make babies. We’s would come back every day to help village. Grove would be home.”

“So why are you asking me for permission?”

“Scary Master said to treat what you say as coming from him.”

“And you think you can protect yourselves from the Grineer.”

“Bad same same people no match for house elves.”

“You know what? Fine, go make a home and have kids. Great Er, you shouldn’t need permission to do that. Just promise me that you’ll be careful and will come back here if you or your children are in danger.”

“We’s promise.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Director, we have received a shipment from Simaris, the expanded trunk worked almost as expected. The mice and rabbits arrived dead from void exposure. However the data-slate arrived intact with all of it’s information. The seeds were also sterile when they arrived. However, he has requested that we purchase an owl for him, as well as a Harness with a voice activated expanded trunk. In return he has sent us 6 Sunpoint Mining Lasers, 3 scouting drones, a server with an AI, and a fusion power source that requires pure water to run. There is also a charging tree and 200 of his own design of scanners, a Helios companion drone and a mining MOA, and 5 Data-slates. He’s also installed a loader drone in the trunk that has it’s own internal power source.”

“Very good, how are the apprentices getting on with the new equipment?”

“Very well, it’s drastically cut down on the number of errors in preparing materials. Which has saved us time in re-smelting the raw materials. We’ve also identified 2 tons of counterfeit coins. It seems like most of them have come from the Ministry in terms of wages to their workers.”

“Next time it happens, send them back with a copy of the relevant part of the treaty that gives us the sovereign right to mint Galleons, Sickles, and knuts, along with the penalties that can be recovered from the sitting minister and treasurer if they fail to abide by the terms of the treaty.”

“What about the workers?”

“What about them?”

“Won’t they have problems?”

“They will, but that’s not our fault. Scratch that, add a note on the account for the Tellers to inform them of why their wages were returned to the Ministry and what would have happened if we found out about it after it had been put in their accounts.”

“Talks with village of Cetus have run into difficulties due to the difference in the flow of time. We estimate that if we discuss things for the normal length of time, then there will have been 8 different leaders on their side. We will need to find some way to send a delegation to them that can negotiate with full authority of the board.”

“Draft a letter to Mr Potter and see if he could transport a few directors before School starts. Failing that, do it over the Christmas Holidays.”

“Finally, all of our owls have been rotated through delivering post to the Orokin system. Since we completed this we’ve seen a 0% failure to deliver where the recipient was alive. By all reports the Black account manager was ecstatic and dancing in the halls when the heir confirmed they would be willing to take up the lordship if they could get past the problem of illegal imprisonment. We’ve also being able to finally serve account closure notices to the Lestranges. They have 30 days to appear in person to contest it before we can seize the accounts and do a full audit before putting them in storage for a legitimate heir.”

“That’s great news.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Croaker”

“Yes Shade?”

“How is there a Gringotts owl on your desk?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“I will call in Shotgun from warding.”

“You do that.”

Edited March 15, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise
Changed title

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Goodbye

 

“Ordis, would you be able to open a channel to Tyl Regor please?”

“Mistress, what are you doing?”

“Harry’s gone to school now, so Wisp and I don’t have to sneak out anymore. But if I don’t find balance soon I’ll lose myself to the void. Tyle Regor is holding balance so I’m going to ask him nicely if I can have a copy of the blueprints.”

“Mistress, this is not a sanctioned mission.”

“Ordis, will you open the channel, or do I have to send Hed?”

“Ordis is opening a channel operator.”

 

“Tenno, no longer hiding behind a warframe I see.”

“Tyl Regor I presume, we’ve never met, I’m Luna Lovegood. You have the balance and I need her. Can I have a copy?”

“Why don’t you come down here so I can take you to the Queen.”

“I’d rather not meet her, she seems a little to preoccupied with bodysnatching for my comfort levels. All I want is a copy of the balance, and I’m going to get it one way or another.”

“If you show your face I will squash it like a bug, and then deliver your broken body to my Queen.”

“Ok, hard way it is then. I’ll see you soon.”

 

“Operator, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry Ordis, I’m 14 not 9, and you’ve helped me get this far already.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Pandora and Xeno both approached the Ministry of magic in their subframes. Pandora holds Xenorchomenus in his synthetic Moses Basket. Their child is carefully wrapped so that his frame isn’t apparent, only his subframe. In hindsight, the last 5 years have been glorious, though there were moments when she really wished that Xeno wasn’t so Xeno sometimes. Such as when he blithely walked up to a Demios Jugulus to look at the patterning on it’s gumline.

The wizard manning the desk looks up, “Pandora, good to see you. What brings you to my neck of the woods today?”

“We’d like to register a birth, this is Xenorchomenus.”

“Wow, you kept that quiet, when did this happen?”

“Well, Xeno did the most adorable thing last year and we watched a beautiful sunrise at the top of a mountain. One thing led to another and, I’m sure you know.”

“I meant, how wasn’t it gossip all over the ministry?”

“I kept it quiet, you remember what the rumours were like when I had Luna. I didn’t want to subject myself to that again.”

“I understand. I’d just like to say for the record that I don’t agree with any of those rumours, despite the Lovegood curse.”

Pandora forces herself to keep a cheery disposition as the idiot just demonstrated why those rumours hurt so much, “That’s ok, anyway, I can we get this done as I need to go and quit my job. I think taking care of this little one is going to be a full-time job.”

“Don’t I know it, I remember when Tina was a wee babe. We had to use sticking charms on everything. Then we had to put everything out of reach once she learnt to crawl.”

Pandora mutters, “Doesn’t matter when they can fly.”

“Flight, what a precocious little thing you are. I bet you learn to apparate before you’re 6.”

“I hope not.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard of cases of flying babies before. They grow out of it, as they never see us flying. If they don’t buy them a training broom and they’ll soon forget how to do it on their own.”

“Thank you for the advice.” Pandora grinds out of a rather fixed grin.

“Don’t mention it. Right, I need you to fill out these forms and both of you. Mr Lovegood, please don’t play with the spitting tulips. Both of you sign. Mr Lovegood, that doesn’t mean play with the Darting Daffodils either. Pandora can you corral your husband please?”

“Xeno, I know you haven’t seen these flowers for a while, but I need you to pay attention.”

Xeno wanders over, “Yes dear. We need to go to the farmers market before we leave.”

“And we will, but we need to finish registering Xeno junior so that he can go to Hogwarts when he’s older.”

“Oh yes, I have his tuition here.” Xeno pulls out a chunk of Gold the size of his fist.

Pandora puts her hand over his, “No Xeno, this is the Births, Deaths and Marriages department. We’re going to the Department for Education next. Sorry about that, do you have those forms?”

The clerk snaps their eyes up from the massive chunk of wealth. He has a good idea of what the adorable thing was now,“Yes, yes, right here.”

As soon as they finish signing the forms and leave, the clerk is already off gossiping about how the Lovegood’s found a gold mine last year and Pandora hid her pregnancy to avoid any awkward questions.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The visit to the Department of Education with the freshly signed birth certificate was simple enough, even if the googly eyes they made at the lump of gold made Pandora have to hold her laughter. If only they realised just how common the metal actually was. Now though came the hard part. Resolutely she made her way down the stairs to the Department of Mysteries after sending Xeno off to pack up his printing press.

 

She has to pause at the randomiser room to marvel at the simplicity, and stupidity, of the first line of defence for the Department of Mysteries. Anyone with any sort of decent sensors is not going to be more than momentarily inconvenienced. It’s clear as day where each door leads, and it seems that it would be clear in UV light too, as she can see some writing in invisible ink on each door. Heading through the door to the death room she makes her way to the Veil of Death, and again pauses as her sensors tell her it’s actually a stable portal to the void. Most everyone should be able to survive a short while on the other side, though only Tenno and apparently post owls have been shown to be able to navigate it without aid. She’s almost tempted to go through herself, but she chooses not to as she doesn’t have the equipment needed to transit back if she can’t find the portal on the other side. As she makes her way to Croakers office she considers the fact that this was reportedly stolen from a Fairy mound by Merlin, and what it would mean for legends of the fae. When she reaches the office she knocks politely and waits.

“Enter.”

Walking in Pandora conjures a table and puts Xeno Jr on it before taking a seat at the desk. Croaker looks up from his work with no visible reaction, though Pandora notes the minute tightening of muscles in his face as he hides his surprise.

“Pandora, did you have a good vacation with your family?”

“I did, I did indeed.”

“Good, you’re here for your next assignment then I assume?”

“Actually, no. I’ve come to tender my resignation.”

“I see, I hope it’s not because of your new arrival, as we will pay you regardless of how long it takes you to complete your assignment.”

“No, nothing of the sort. We found a new place to live with masses of research opportunities and I don’t think it’s fair to treat the DoM as an afterthought with my research. I’d also feel bad drawing a wage and not actually contributing anything for years at a time because I was focused on my personal research projects.

“Not to mention the fact that Xeno has found many more ways to get in trouble there, so I’ve had to spend more time wrangling him too. Then as you said, there’s Xeno Jr to worry about. You know how fast they grow up.”

“Not personally, no. I’ve never found time for a personal relationship myself.”

“Your loss. Luna is growing up into a lovely young woman. I’m looking forward to how she copes at Hogwarts next year.”

“Well, would you be willing to forward us any of your personal research?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want Ministry interference, and you know that no matter how hard we try, some things always end up in the rumour mill.”

“Such as your access to a gold mine?”

“I hadn’t heard that one. Still, it’s not entirely inaccurate.”

“Well it’s more plausible than the idea you may have discovered how to make the philosophers stone.”

Pandora smiles, “I think that stone might be more trouble than it’s worth. Look at just how many dark lords and ministries have tried to take it from him in the last 200 years. I’ll also note that the elixir that the stone produces is said to provide eternal life, not eternal youth.”

“There is that, yes. Are you sure about this? I can put you on leave for 6 months while you think about it.”

“No, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve even discussed with Xeno, Luna, and some friends. I’m going to have to resign.”

“I’d hate to lose such a talented resource, would you consider taking on a consultants role instead of outright leaving?”

“Sorry, no.”

“We can provide better protection on the Rookery.”

“Once I’m finished here I’m going to see a friends son off to Hogwarts, then she’s going to help Xeno and I pack up the Rookery.”

“You’re moving then.”

“We are. The new opportunity is just too far to commute on any sort of regular basis. I’m sure we’ll still be visiting, if only to deal with Gringotts.”

“I see, so you’ll work with Gringotts but not the ministry.”

“Where did I say that. The Lovegood accounts are with Gringotts, we can’t exactly leave them unattended.”

“My mistake. Still, I’ll owl you the paperwork later.”

“I’d really take it with me. After all, I wouldn’t want it to get held up due to administrative difficulties.” Pandora holds her expression neutral when she sees Croakers shoulders slump imperceptibly.

 

Lifting his wand Croaker summons the exit paperwork from the filing cabinet. Normally they can keep people on in some way or another, but it looks like this is one of those once in a decade moments where someone actually quits. He quickly fills out all of the relevant information before pulling a blood quill from the top drawer of his desk. He hides a smile when he sees her hesitate at the sight of it. This is where most people balk and go with the consultant option. Not being able to talk to any of their ex-colleagues for 50 years is usually a sticking point as they all make friends.

“Ok, that’s doable.” Pandoras voice makes him rapidly re-evaluate the intelligence he has on the woman. Everything he knows says that his relationships with the staff should have prevented this. Wordlessly he hands over the quill and watches as it traces her signature out in a silvery red colour. As soon as it finishes, a copy appears on the desk and she rolls up the original before he can examine her signature.

 

Once the wards indicate she’s left the department he conjures a Patronus to call Shade in, who arrive promptly.

“Croaker. What do you need?”

He passes the contract over to Shade who reads it.

“Standard termination contract, I’m surprised she signed it.”

“So am I. Also, she took the original.”

“That’s odd. Most are given the copy.”

“There’s more. They paid for their sons education with a lump of gold of unknown provenance.”

“Unknown?”

“Yes, they’ve got it in the department, and it contains none of the trace elements that would tell us where it was mined. Even Goblin gold has that in it still. Finally, the blood quill wrote in silvery red blood. And she’s taken the bloody quill too. Morgannas tits. Find out where they went on vacation a few weeks ago that could prompt her to make this decision. Also check where they went on vacation around 9 months ago, and get me a list of all the spells that someone could use to hide a pregnancy.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry and Natah both look around in interest at the non-magical world as they’re walking to Kings Cross Station with Xeno and Pandora. Xeno Jr still asleep in his basket, which is now resting on a hastily conjured perambulator. The idea of just so much pavement outside is such a mind-boggling idea that they’ve yet to comment on the ground vehicles. Pandora suspects the issue is more a trying to wrap their heads around why than how, given they come from a society where non-local roads really aren’t necessary. Her own sensors are telling her that the black surface of the road could be turned into a multitude of useful products that she’s seen in her travels. She sighs briefly, as she can sense a shopping trip to some of the shops in London for samples looming in her future.

 

Eventually they arrive at the station and they guide Harry and Natah to the concealed entrance to the platform. Off to one side Mrs Weasley is skirting the statute by shouting about forgetting how to get to it. Probably because this is only the second time they’ve brough Ginevra with them. Ingeniously, she can see that it is actually a brick wall apart from a small section around an inch deep. As they pass through they find themselves on a platform 10 miles north of the station they just left. Pandora marvels at the spell-work that must have gone into the construction of that portal, and has to resist the urge to draw her wand to examine it.

 

Natah leans over to Pandora and whispers, “Have we just been teleported?”

Pandora nods, “Portal actually. Amazing spell work, I never realised that’s what was happening before.”

“Makes sense, misdirection so that people are looking in the wrong place for the train.”

The four of them made their way down the train looking for an empty compartment for Harry to use while chatting about steam engines and what they know of them. Surprisingly it was Xeno Sr that knew the most, something about needing to go where the story is, so you need to be able to blend in properly. As they said goodbye to Harry, Natah muses that it’s a good thing that Luna decided not to come this year. It would be a little difficult to explain how she was able to grow into a teenager in only a few weeks.

 

After a tearful goodbye, they finally let Harry get on the train, while at the entrance to the platform there seems to be some sort of commotion as the Weasley’s hurry through trying to get to the train. Obviously Molly had given up trying to get Ginevra to show the way, just in time too. Xeno speaks up, “It looks like Mrs Weasley has a bad case of wrackspurts dear.”

Pandora nods, “Yes, her stress levels are indeed very high. I wonder why she left it so late to come through to the platform.”

Xeno looks at her, his eyes silver, “Not why, who. Who indeed? Who who. HooHoo, the shards of clay that never were have been shaped by a craftsmans hand. The guardian of the flame is watching the darkness consume the candles and hoping his lamp will hold. Who, HooWho, the owls fly and bring the light. The queen of fae will defend the stone of averice. HooHoo”

As the silver leaves his eyes Xeno says, “I just had a Xeno moment didn’t I.”

Pandora hugs her husband, “You did, but it’s ok you didn’t do anything wrong.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Albus paces his office nervously. He’s been concerned about Harry since the wards at Privet Drive failed to activate. None of the devices that he tied into the wards activated either leaving him completely in the dark to his health and wellbeing. He knows that Harry wouldn’t have had the best childhood growing up, but at least he’d have had a childhood. He saw more than a few muggles like them during his time introducing muggleborn to the magical world. Watched his father kill a few after what they did to his sister. But it’s better to take the belt and a verbal beating than to die before you even know how to talk to people. He’ll never tell Minerva that there were three separate attacks on the school after Hagrid got to the pub that night. It’s why he had to relocate Harry so fast. Now he doesn’t even know what he looks like, only that he has a golem that he’s accompanied by, and that golem has been seen going around Diagon a few times this summer. There has even been talk about him being a probationary adult. A minor statute from the time of the fae. If he recalls correctly, it’s called the Rip Van Winkle accord after the American that stumbled on a Fae Mound and aged 50 years overnight, though the muggle story says he disappeared for that time too. Frustratingly, Minerva had been very tight lipped about is situation too. Though that’s probably to do with that strange magical artifact and her new fascination with her new paperweight. Whatever enchantments they had on them, they were far more subtle than he’d ever worked with before. None of his diagnostic spells had come up with anything, he even tried the ones that detected muggle technology. To make matters worse, Fawkes had refused to take him to see Harry. The first time he asked, Fawkes disappeared in a ball of fire and then returned missing feathers from his wings and tail, and promptly having a burning day.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Rite of Passage

“Ordis, would you be able to open a channel to Tyl Regor please?”

“Mistress, are you sure this is wise?”

“I’m only being polite.”

“Ordis only thinks this is pointless.”

“Ordis, will you open the channel, or do I have to send Hed?”

“Ordis is opening a channel operator.”

 

“Tenno, no longer hiding behind a warframe I see.”

“Tyl Regor I presume, I’m Luna Lovegood. You have the balance and I need her. Can I have a copy?”

“Why don’t you come down here so I can take you to the Queen.”

“I’d rather not meet her, she seems a little to preoccupied with bodysnatching for my comfort levels. All I want is a copy of the balance, and I’m going to get it one way or another.”

“If you show your face I will squash it like a bug, and then deliver your broken body to my Queen.”

“This is getting repetitive. When they save your brain state it’s not done live is it.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Ok, hard way it is then. I’ll see you soon.”

After the call hangs up Ordis says, “Ordis would never presume to tell the operator that ordis said it was pointless.”

“I know Ordis, but I have to try. Still, I only need one more component to finish Night. Then we can put her together properly. Why do I feel like Frankenstein talking like this?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry was getting more than a little annoyed at the students on the train. More than a few of them opened his door and said, “Hello, have you seen Harry Potter?”, either he’d get as far as “Hello, I am.” Before they slammed the door and moved on, or his English Tutoring painting would be in the middle of speaking and he wouldn’t even get that far. He’d managed to buy some treats from the trolley lady, but his English just wasn’t good enough for more than point and ask how much. Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped out so much, but the painting was just so.

“Stop daydreaming and write another 20 Esses.” Think of the infested and it makes itself known.

 

He was carefully scribing them out when there was a knock at the door and it pulled open to reveal a young girl with unruly brown hair. “Hello, sorry to bother you but have you seen a toad?”

“Sorry, English bad. Please speak slower.”

Her face falls, “Oh, sorry. Is that what you’re doing? Learning English?”

Harry nods.

“I’m Hermione Granger.”

“My name is Harry Potter.”

Hermione rapidly discarded everything she’d ready about Harry Potter, as this was obviously not the same person. “Pleased to meet you. Would you like some help with that?”

Harry smiles at her, “I would like that, thank you.”

“Well, trying to write on a train, with a quill, probably isn’t the best plan. So why don’t we try reading?”

“Excuse me, I’m the teacher here.” Harry eagerly puts the painting away.

“That sound good.”

“Do you have any simple books?”

“Only sch-ool books.”

“school.”

“scholl”

“The ch makes a k sound, and the s is elongated, so school.”

“school”

“That’s it. I’ll be right back, I’m just going to grab a book from my trunk.”

A few minutes later she comes back with a blue book that has a picture of a group of people riding a white quadraped. She also has a dark blue book with a red stripe around it.

“Right. This is a make believe book called Mort by Terry Pratchett. This one is an English Dictionary.” – Seeing his confused look she expands – “A Dictionary is a book that contains words, and their meanings. For example, we can look up the word ‘dictionary’ like this, and see the definition.”

Harry follows her finger to the word on the paper, and sees it printed in bold. Eyes widening slightly, he materialises his Orokin data-slate and a scanner before scanning the book and running the program that Simaris developed to turn the scans into something useable. Hermione watches wide eyed as the scan progresses.

“What was that? Is that a magical item? How does it work? Can I learn to make one?”

“Sorry, too quick.”

Hermione cringes, “Oh, sorry.”

“No sorry, slow down. I no good fast English.”

“What was that?”

“It is a Solar powered synthesis scanner.”

“Is that your native language?”

“na tive?”

“natural, home, default.”

“Then yes.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“English harder.”

“It really isn’t. What did you do with the scammer?”

“Scanner no high at end.”

“Scat”

Harry can’t help but laugh, “No, not flat, like first time, just no high at end.”

“Scanner”

“Yes, see easy. I use to put book on this.”

“I can’t see anything there.”

“Need bit in head. Then see.”

Hermione’s brow furrows, then she quickly looks up a word in the dictionary and points at it, “Implant? Insert or fix in a person’s body.”

“Insert?”

She quickly looks up that word before pointing to it, “place, fit, or push something into something else.”

“Yes.”

“Is it magic?”

“No, made, understood.”

Another quick flick through the dictionary, “Technology? Machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge.”

The rest of the train ride goes like that, with Hermione looking up words that Harry doesn’t understand and explaining them to him, and then the conversation carrying on from there. She also finds out that Harry is probably frightfully intelligent, and is picking things up faster than his ability to speak them is increasing. Occasionally he’ll tap on something that only he can see before returning to the conversation.

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 Once the train pulls into the station, Harry leaves and looks for Hermione as he knows she’s a first year. Spotting her walking over to the man that would give a Grineer napalm or nox a run for their money he quickly weaves his way through the crowd. When he gets there the large man says in a thick accent, “’ere, who are you?”

“Sorry, English not good yet.”

He heard sniggers from a few of the children, but Hermione came to his rescue, “He asked who you are.”

“Thank you. My name is Harry Potter.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but goblins say. Give ring.” He holds up his hand to display the heirs ring.

“Blimey, ya mus’ be then. Ain’t no way ta fake one o’ those.”

Helplessly he looks at Hermione again, but a blond girl speaks up, “He said you must be because the ring can’t be faked.”

“f aked?”

“Counterfeited, duplicated, pretend, not real.”

Hermione says softly, “copied and pretend to be real.”

Someone in the gaggle of children says, “Oh Merlin, the boy-who-lived was raised by savages.”

The large man says, “Right, enough. Follow me to the boats.”

 

They then troop down a rain slickened path to the shore of a lake that’s almost mirror smooth in the evening light.

“’our to a boat. No more ‘an four to a boat.”

Deciding to go with the person that he knows, Harry waits until Hermione has chosen a boat and then gets in with her. A nervous blond boy manages to beat him to the boat, so Harry ends up taking up the back seat.

“Harry. This is Neville Longbottom. He was the boy I was trying to help.”

“It is nice to meet you. I am Harry Potter.”

“N N Neville Longbottom. Please call me Neville.”

“Ok. I meditate now.” Slipping off the chair he kneels on the floor of the boat back straight and closes his eyes to meditate, easily ignoring the soft explanation that Hermione give Neville. He stayed like that until the boats nudged gently against the far shore. They then troop up some stairs to the front of the castle, where the large man knocks on the door and hands them over to Minerva, who then leads them past a closed door, behind which is obviously a large room filled with people based on the sounds of conversation, and into a side room. Once there she speaks to quickly for Harry to follow before saying.

“Harry, please join me outside.”

“Certainly Minerva. How can I help?”

She hands him a small gold medallion on a leather necklace, “This is a hall pass for after curfew. While you will be assigned a bed in whichever dorm you join, all the heads of houses are aware of your unique sleeping arrangements. Also, if you wish I can help tutor you in English in the evenings until you are capable of following your classes.”

“Thank you for the offer, depending on where I get sorted I may take you up on that.”

“Join the rest of the first years, I will come and get you once I have got everything ready in the Great Hall.”

“Thank you again.”

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 After a tense few minutes where the children talked at him too fast for him to understand, and then the appearance of spectres, he managed to leave the civilian lock on his amp and not summon his Octavia and damn it all to the void. Fortunately for his patience and nerves, Minerva opened the other door in the room and they all trooped into the hall where the other students were waiting. There were a lot of unintelligible whispers about him, which is only fair as he towers over the first years. It doesn’t matter that he’s short for a human, just that he’s taller than children. While they’re waiting Minerva grabs a wooden stall, and places some sort of conical leather hat on it. Surprisingly, the hat is able to sing, and does so wonderfully for an inanimate object. After that, names start to be called out, and children go forward to have the hat put on their heads. He watches as Hermione is put with the students with red trim, and the blond girl that tried to help in the worst way possible got green trim. Eventually it was his turn to be placed under the hat. Rather than sit awkwardly on the stool, he chooses to kneel beside it.

 

As the hat sits on his head he hears a voice in his head.

“Well this is a problem. I have no idea what I’m looking at here. No, that’s a woman, another woman. A man, A man that was tortured. Another man, and another woman. Hey kid, which one of these is actually you? Let’s look into one of these. Oh dear, no wonder I have no idea what’s going on, you’re not even thinking in English. I haven’t had a challenge like this since a princess came over from China. And I’ve just realised that you have no idea what I’m saying. Well, here goes, dive straight in and learn the lingo.”

 

Everything goes silent for a while, and Harry’s about to take the hat off when it says, “One moment Tenno, I’m almost done here.”

Surprise stills his hand, and the hat is soon done.

“Sorry about that, you’ve got rather more memories than most people. Before you ask, the… precepts built into my lowest level won’t let me share anything I’ve learnt here.”

“You learnt to speak quickly.”

“It’s rather easy when you can just take in memories wholesale. I will say that Natah was a much better parent to you than Margulis was, but you already knew that. Anyway, I’d apologise for taking my time with you, but it’s so rare that I get to sit on a mature head that I’m savouring this. Anyway, I suppose I should look at your personality now. You’re not afraid of hard work, and you’re as loyal as they come, Helga would be proud. However, you don’t care about peer pressure, in fact other peoples opinions might as well not exist when you’re doing something that matters to you. You are by far one of the most flexible thinkers I’ve ever come across, and you are intimidatingly intelligent, Rowana would be courting you for her house just for that. However, you don’t care for the ivory tower. All knowledge must be gained for a purpose. We won’t say any more about your cunning and ambition than, you are normally about as subtle as a Fragor to the face. By which I will point out your struggles with Mirage, a frame that relies on subtlety and misdirection. You seem to struggle with Loki for similar reasons. Salazar’s house could teach you a lot, if you made friends there. However, if there’s one house that Tenno embody, it would be the house of Godric, the house of courage, daring, honour, bravery, and idiotic spur of the moment decisions.

“So Tenno Harry, it better be GRYFFINDOR that’s the house with the red trim.”

 

Standing up, Harry hands the hat back to Minerva, “I think that the hat is lonely. Would it be possible to see him worn around the school more often?”

“I will need to talk to the Headmaster, as he is kept in his office. Now off you to your table, I still have children to sort.”

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 “Luna Lovelace Lovegood, what do you think you are doing?”

Luna winces at her mothers use of her full name, but it’s worth it. She had to enlist the help of some of the other Tenno in order to get the last blueprint she needed. Fortunately, Tenno as a rule tend to get bored very easily, so asking if anyone wants to raid a Grineer base to help her find the last Equinox blueprint got a few takers. She was even able to get rid of the spares she’d accumulated. Turning from the forge she hovers her way out of the room before pausing and looking down at herself.

Ah, her mother isn’t angry about the forge is she. Making her way out to see her mother, she pauses when she sees the tapping foot.

“Well?”

“I’m a Tenno.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“Control, Balance, and silver eyes.”

Her mother softens and pulls her into a hug, “Oh my little moon. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Harry was here.”

“Why does that, oh right, Lovegood. Look at you, growing up so quickly. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Let me go and talk to the grove on Earth.”

“What’s there?”

“The person that made the queen of the fae.”

“I see. What is it you’re searching for?”

“I’ve got my gate, my balance is almost complete, I need to learn to see next, finally I need my anchor.”

“Do you have enough time?”

Luna nods, “I almost left it too late, but the Tenno were able to get my Wisp, my gate.”

“I suppose it’s easy enough to find the grove, and there’s always requests to clear out one facility or another up there. I wonder why the Grineer keep trying to subdue the forest.”

Pandora will swear blind that she didn’t squeak when all of the energy emissions of Luna’s wisp turned silver and she turned to look at the Earth in the sky.

“The Queens seek a past already lost to help them find a future never seen. They forget that all things come from growth, except death. Instead of freeing their servants so that they can grow and overcome the limits the Queens of old placed in their greed and avarice; they instead keep playing the same hand in different games. The fae return, and the Tenno will return to whence they were born to face the fae that wear their faces. I am Tenno, but I am not fae. My mirror and I will never split, which is why I need my pieces so that I don’t split inside.”  

Edited March 12, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise
Pasted wrong chapter

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

The Previous Chapter is currently hidden, and I've messaged the Mods to find out why.

Breaking Fast

Ginny,

 

Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote, but things have been a little hectic. I now have a brother, and he’s absolutely adorable. Though he likes my teddy bears rather too much. And he can fly. Mum and Dad visited England with The Lotus and Harry, so while they were out, I took the time to do some exploring. The scolding I got when they got back was worth it.

 

I’ve just seen my first Equinox, it was glorious, equal amounts of light and dark.

 

Because I’ve shown I’m capable of looking after myself, especially with Wisp with me, Mum’s letting me explore a nearby sacred grove. I’m going to try and find the Queen of the Fae. Not that one, the one Shakespeare mentions.

 

Got to go, I need to help Auntie with something.

 

Luna.

 

“Mum,” Ginny says softly, “I don’t think Luna’s coming back.”

“Of course, she is. I spoke to Pandora yesterday while they were packing up the Rookery. She’s still enrolled in Hogwarts, so you’ll see her next year.”

“I don’t mean physically. Look.”

“I’ve got wet hands, it will have to wait until I’ve finished the washing. Start feeding stuff through the Mangle, mind your fingers though. We don’t want another trip to St Mungo’s.”

“Yes Mum.”

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 Harry sits in his Titania while he sleeps in the pod. To pass the time he’s reviewing the first year books now that the Dictionary has finished processing. The meaning of quite a lot of the books has changed massively, granted mostly in the History parts. That makes sense, as the language they found to translate on the Orokin computer wasn’t quite English even if it had a very similar evolution. That does beg the question on how they are so similar. It takes him an hour to pull her attention back to his school books after that thought, only because she runs out of possible research material in his railjack.

It's approaching dawn when she’d frown if she had facial features, there’s something wrong with the potions text and she knows she’s seen the answer somewhere. Quickly scanning through the other books they bought, she finds the answer in ‘The animated guide to potion making: A home refresher on potion making’. Of course, the scan isn’t animated that would obviously be too easy, so she sends a message off to Ironclaw’s slate. Idly noting that they have a much more comprehensive network now. To the point where it might actually be challenging to try and break in.

 

Hoping that she remembered to bring it, she gets up and searches through her stuff looking for her captura camera. Not finding it, she has the forge produce a message baton, something that she came up with her mum. It’s a short metal rod with a tiny drone inside it. The drone has a small anti-gravity unit as well as wireless access along with a holographic emitter. It also contains enough internal storage to hold 1 hour of holographic recording at visual definition. Unaware of the fact that the Goblins are using space expanded trunks for the same purpose, she considers how her mother is going to send the camera back. She puts together a design for a slightly larger baton that contains a small regenerating battery, this will always provide enough power to prevent the crystal memory from destabilising, which is important, as matter contains a lot of energy. She also adds enough crystal memory to store an archwing. This means that the drone needs to be modified to have enough bandwidth to be able to transmit the data and energy stored in the digitised object store.

 

When her alarm goes of she’s halfway through designing a bracer that will combine a data slate with enough digitising storage to hold several decently sized items along with a simple interface to emit and re-absorb items that have been stored in it without needing all the implants that Tenno have. Reluctantly, she puts the research to one side and loads the blueprints for the first baton into her message to her mother. Taking her lander back to the school, along with her kavat, she makes her way to the owlery and sends the message to her mother. As she hands the baton to the owl she sees her hand and curses before launching herself out of the window to the edge of the forest where she leans against a tree and transfers out.

 

Cursing to herself, Harry disables the civilian locks on his amp and void jumps most of the way back to the Gryffindor quarters. The locks are back in place by the time she enters the common room, fortunately the first one to arrive. Heading up to his quarters, he explores the bathing facilities, which is where Neville finds him, trying to work out how the showers work.

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 Hermione comes down the stairs expecting to be the first one up, instead she pauses on the last step as she spots Harry and the shy boy, Neville! From yesterday sitting at a table with Harry’s tutoring painting. Neville is scratching the head of the strangest cat she’s ever seen, with its emerald green fur and golden highlights. As the painting starts to berate Harry for not paying attention she’s sure that if it had a ruler it would have just rapped his knuckles. Turning around she heads upstairs and grabs her dictionary as well as the book she was going to read with him before heading back.

 

Nervously, she makes her way over to the table. “Hey.”

Harry and Neville look up at her, so she puts on her confident face and says quickly, “Would you like to try reading that book with me. I’m sorry we didn’t get to start it before.”

Harry looks confused for a moment, and she realises that she spoke too fast. His eyes light up when he sees the books she’s holding and he places the painting face down on the desk.

“I would like, thank you.”

Neville starts to get up, and she blurts, “You can stay if you want, I’m helping Harry learn English by reading with him.”

While she’s reading with them, and looking through the dictionary, it dawns on her that Harry’s hand is different to the way it was yesterday. When there’s a moment that Neville takes over, she leans back and takes a good look at him. His hair’s longer and now has purple streaks running through it, and his face is less masculine.

“Harry? Did you do something with your hair?” She gestures with her hands to indicate the subject of her question.

“Yes, needed change. Like?”

“Yes, it’s nice. Just not expected.”

 

It was then that the other students who stayed in that dorm started coming down, starting with the older students who were doing NEWTs this year and put paid to any learning English as Harry was peppered with questions and conversation requests. Harry then gains a limpet in the way of a red headed boy who won’t actually slow down enough for him to understand him. He’s not actually sure what his name is supposed to be, as it could be Ron, Lon, Won, Wes, Lee, Wheeze, or a couple of other versions of the name. Even when they were led to the great hall for breakfast he couldn’t escape, or ask Hermione or Neville what the various items of food were. Let alone how to use the tools they were using to eat. He was almost resigned to relying on his nanites to provide sustenance, which would mean returning to the Railjack earlier than normal later, when Minerva came along with timetables.

“I have your schedule here. Is everything alright?”

“Not really, I have no idea what anything is, and the red headed child beside me is monopolising my social space. I don’t have the language needed to get him to stop, and I have no idea what he’s talking about. I’ve moved twice and each time he follows me.”

“Go ahead and move, I’ll make sure he stays put this time.”

Gratefully he stands up and moves over to sit opposite Hermione, who is nose deep in a book.

 

“Mr Weasley, where do you think you’re going?”

The boy looks up at Minerva in surprise, “I’m gonna sit with ‘arry.”

“No you are not, sit back down. Harry does not wish to sit with you.”

“He could have just said something.”

“He tried, but he’s English isn’t good enough to make you understand.”

“Corse it is, everyone speaks English.”

“Mr Potter doesn’t, now sit down and finish your breakfast.”

 

Hermione looks up as Harry sits down opposite her, when she hears Professor McGonagall berating Ron she hesitantly says, “Are you OK?”

Harry looks up, “No, I know not what this is.”

“I have my dictionary here, would you like me to show you?”

There’s a pause before Harry nods, “Yes please.”

“This is porridge, it is made from oats boiled in milk.”

The boy next to them says, “Me Ma says that I should eat me porridge as it’s good for my bones. I can’t stand it though.”

“Oats?” Harry asks.

Hermione glares at the boy daring him to say something, “Seeds from a grass like plant called Oat.”

“Milk?”

“The liquid produced by mothers to feed their young. This comes from an animal called a cow.”

“Ok.”

“This is bacon, these are sausages, and this is black pudding. They all come from an animal called a pig. Personally, I do not like black pudding.” She indicates her own plate that has the remains of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and sausages.

Nodding, Harry reaches out to take some when Hermione says, “No. Like this.”

She then uses the fork on the plate and spears a couple of sausages before picking up her own knife and fork and demonstrating how to use them to eat. This is very different from the way the Orokin used to eat, where they had bowls and plates of food, and you used your fingers to eat straight from the bowl or plate. Of course, Natah didn’t really bother with the eating thing, especially to start with. He clumsily starts to eat the way he was shown, to the sound of laughter from the table with green trim.

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 Just before the end of breakfast, two owls appear above the table and land in front of Harry. Recognising Tau, he materialises his data slate and reads the message. Seeing that his mother was able to implement his blueprint, he activates the materialise function and gets a second message baton along with a Captura camera.

“Thank you Tau, I don’t have a return message.”

Tau bobs his head before snatching a couple of rashers of bacon and disappearing. Removing the package from the other owl he sees it’s a letter from Ironclaw wrapped around a tiny book.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Accident

Over the next couple of months Hermione felt herself withdrawing more and more, as it became apparent that magical school was just like normal school. Except the bullies didn’t have to get close to you in order to hurt you. Just like in normal school, the only people she really got on with were adults, well in Harry’s case almost an adult. She was sure that Neville would be friendly, but he had his own problems as it became increasingly clear that he struggled with even the most basic spells. She’d already cried out an afternoon or two in the girls bathroom on the second floor.

She also knew that there was something odd with that white hemisphere that he brought out in every class, it was some sort of recording device at a minimum. She remembers Charms when 5 minutes into the class.

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Professor Flitwick hops down from his book podium and walks over to Harry, “Mr Potter. Are you having trouble?”

Harry shakes his head and points to the Hemisphere, “No, this hear now. I hear later when can take time.”

“I see, such an ingenious device. Let me know if you don’t understand something I said.”

“I will.”

“Ok everyone, take out your wands and hold them up in front of your face… Now say Lumos, that Lu-mos.”

One by one wands lit up with a variety of colours, eventually even Neville got a faint glow.

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 He even managed to become renowned in the lower years because he did something obvious.

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 Snape swishes to his desk, “Well it’s apparent that being a celebrity isn’t everything. Instructions are on the board.”

Hermione busily starts copying down the instructions so that she has them ready to use later while the other children all rush for the ingredients cupboard. Suddenly Professor Snapes voice rings out, “Yes Mr Potter.”

“What chop?”

A couple of the Slytherins snigger, “What do you mean Mr Potter?”

“What see when chop.”

“Ah, good question. Come up here.”

Harry goes up to the front and Hermione cranes her head to look, Professor Snape promptly pulls out some herbs and vegetables and demonstrates how to chop, and what rough, unspecified, and fine look like. By the time he’s finished almost the entire class is watching. Then Harry looks at the board again and asks, “What grind look like?”

She’s willing to swear that the professor mutters, “At least one of you isn’t a dunderhead.”

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 Then the whispers and taunts begin.

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 Parvati sighs, “I don’t know how Harry stands it. She’s such a bossy know it all. Always talking about getting our homework out the way, reading this and reading that.”

Lavender nods, “I know, she’s also sucking up to the teachers. Showing that she’s already read the work and is trying to prove she’s better than us. As if, it’s not like she grew up with magic.”

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 Draco spits at her feet, “Well mudblood, how does it feel knowing that you need to do twice the work just to be half as good as the rest of us? That even with all your studying you’ll never understand magic as well as we do, and you’ll never amount to anything.”

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 Ron knocks her book off the table, “You’re such a bookworm, and you keep trying to steal Harry from me. Getting him to study all the time, when does he have time to play?”

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“Such a scaredy cat, look at her shivering beside her broom. I bet she falls off in five minutes.”

“Na, she won’t even get off the ground.”

“At least there’s something she’s bad at.”

“At least Neville got off the ground, she’s not even taken off yet.”

“Hey, what’s Malfoy doing?”

“This will be good.”

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 Hermione’s walking from the Library to dinner when something pinches her bum hard. Spinning around she eyes the corridor carefully and then jumps as it happens again. Not wanting to play this game again she starts to run to the great hall, only for her legs to turn to jelly. Taking her wand from her book bag she whispers the general counter that she learnt after last time and scrambles away before they get the courage to face her openly.

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“Look Ron, you need to be better with your pronunciation, it’s Wing-gar-diam Le-v-oh-sa.”

“Well if you’re so sure, why don’t you do it?”

“Wingardium Levosa.”

…

“She’s a right nightmare she is. No wonder she doesn’t have any friends.”

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 That’s when it all came to a head, and she almost died.

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 Hermione screams as the Troll knocks the door to the bathrooms off its hinges. The fetid smell, it’s roars, and the massive club all come together leaving her paralysed with fear. A massive, lumbering step forward and a swing of the tree trunk it’s using as a club destroys most of the cubical walls that are between her and the Troll. Suddenly there’s a loud buzzing sound that makes the troll turn it’s head before it starts to scream as butterflies attack it. Following after them is a fairy with a machinegun, as evidenced by the loud retort that causes the trolls body to jump. Hermione screams again as the troll falls to the floor riddled in bites and bullet holes. After making sure the Troll is dead, the butterflies return to the fairy as it grows into a 7 foot tall monstrosity and crouches down in front of her it’s hand outstretched.

Slowly she comes out of her shock and reaches out to hold her hand. The fairy pulls her to her feet before lifting her into her arms and walking out of the bathroom. Professor McGonagall comes round the corner with the Headmaster and Professor Snape, and the Fairy and McGonagall talk in the same language that Harry speaks before she’s carried to the hospital wing.

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 Hermione sits in the shadows beside the fireplace watching as the common room empties. First year curfew was a couple of hours ago, but she found out that people can’t see into this corner at night accidently a few weeks ago while she was reading a book. Since then she’s been staying up until she’s sure the girls in her dorm have gone to sleep, that way she doesn’t have to listen to them *@##$ing about her as if she’s not there. She sat there later and later, putting off the nightmares.  Until last week that is, that’s when she saw Harry come downstairs and leave the tower. She’s watched him leave every day since then, and tonight she’s waiting to see if he does it again.

 

She’s just made her first yawn when Harry comes down the stairs and leaves the common room. Suddenly alert, Hermione looks around and realises that the common room is completely empty for once. Screwing up her courage she leaves her corner and heads out after him. Crouching under the odd portrait that she passes she’s glad that he seems to be more interested in his hemisphere than he is his surroundings as she was sure he’d have seen her multiple times. Her heartbeat sounding loud in her ears. She almost loses him on the Grand staircase as the stairs that she’s on decide to move just before she reaches the landing. However, it’s close enough that she jumps for it, and follows Harry along the first floor. From there he takes a set of stairs to the ground floor by the door by the greenhouses. She idly notes that she’ll need to remember this route as it’s quicker than going around the outside. She hesitates at the door as the grass outside is illuminated by the slivery grey light of a full moon. As a cloud passes across the moon, she gathers her resolve and steps over the threshold.

 

For the next couple of minutes Hermione’s heart is in her mouth as she follows him to the edge of the forest. Especially when he stops and fiddles with the bracer he’s always wearing on his right arm. She creeps closer hoping that he doesn’t turn around and catch her. She has a vague hope that if she can find out where he sleeps, she’ll be allowed to sleep there too and get out of the dorm. Picking her way through the forest is hard enough when the moon is out, when it hides behind the clouds it becomes down right treacherous. It’s during one of those moments when a cloud passes to reveal a clearing with a giant figure in it. Flashing back to the Troll she screams, “Harry!”

 

At the sound of her voice he spins round with his palm outstretched and then there’s a flash of light and her side feels cold.

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 Harry spins round at the sound of a voice behind him where there shouldn’t be a voice. Instincts ingrained over decades of warfare and honed over centuries has him pulling the trigger before he’s even processed what he heard. A flash of light illuminates a child with bushy brown hair. As she starts to collapse as he finally processes that he heard his name. Void jumping over to her side he materialises a large health pack and activates it. The ruby pulse of light showing it’s area of effect. However nothing happens, despite the fact he can feel it working. He curses as he realises that she doesn’t have any nanites for the pack to influence. Calling his Oberon to him with a flex of will, he scoops her up into his arms and is running to the lander.

“Cy, I need you to plan an emergency evac. I have an injured civilian and she doesn’t have any nanites.”

“Yes Captain, preparing route and spooling up void jump drive. May I suggest you place her in your pod, as it will keep her alive.”

“Thank you Cy, I’m in the lander so ready when you are.”

 

It’s a tense 15 minutes back to the Railjack as his sensors are watching the void energy seeping through her body, and causing it to start breaking down. Her fluttering heartbeat is the only thing keeping him aware of the fact she’s still alive. He knows that it’s unlikely that there’s anything they could do to save her at the school, no matter how good their spells. As the void is too different. Maybe if they had a few days to research the energy they could draw it out safely. But, Hermione doesn’t have time to trust to a hope when he knows his pod will keep her alive. As soon as the lander has docked, he’s out and sprinting down to his bedroom where he transfers out of the Oberon and opens his transference pod. Carefully taking her from the Oberon’s arms, he places her into the pod and closes the lid. As soon as it activates and shows her life signs he breathes a sign of relief and relaxes.

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 Minerva wakes up groggily just after she’d gone to bed. Something in her living room is making an awful racket. Stumbling out she can see that her Orokin device is flashing red. Touching the display Harry’s face appears floating over the device.

“Minerva, sorry to wake you but there’s been an accident.”

Suddenly alert she looks at him, “What happened?”

“Hermione followed me out to my lander and called my name, I reacted instinctively and shot her. If it had been my warframe I’d have brought her to the hospital wing, but I shot her with my void abilities. She’s stable, and we’re about to leave for Lua. I think someone should let her parents know, as I don’t know how long she’ll need to be there.”

Minerva’s heart comes down from her throat as the fact her lion is safe registers, taking a couple of deep breaths she nods, “I’ll get on it. Though as she’s stable I’ll visit them first thing in the morning. Send me an owl if there are any complications.”

“Will do.”

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

While the a couple of the last few chapters are being moderated I am holding off on posting more. If you want to keep current then you can also find the story on AO3 as 'Wands and Warframes" under my pen name Dark Phoenix Lady.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Triage

 

They’re about 5 minutes out from the Orokin system when Harry’s Oberon staggers up to the bridge.

“Harry, what’s going on? Where are we?”

Not for the first time, Harry curses his limited grasp of Englsh, “You were hit, we are almost home. Make better.”

“I feel strange.”

“Can you hold on 10 minutes? People with good English able to explain.”

“I’ll try. Who’s that?” She points straight at the man in the wall

“Of course she’d be able to see him. He is hard explain in my speak. Please wait.”

“What’s wrong with my hand?”

He reaches up to take the hand of his Oberon, “No thing wrong, will explain later. Come look window.”

It was a very tense few minutes spent holding Hermione’s hand through the Oberon and being unable to properly explain what is going on. So much so that his knees almost buckled under him when they returned to real space in the Orokin system.

“Cy, call my mother, I need someone that can speak English to come aboard.”

 

The Lotus appears in a communication window, “Tenno, Harry what’s going on?”

“I accidently shot a student with my void abilities, and they’re currently using my Oberon. I need Pandora or Xeno, void even Luna to come aboard and explain what’s going on. She has no nanites and none of my equipment is able to extract void energy.”

His mother looks off to one side before turning back, “Luna is on her way, Ordis should be connecting an umbilical in a few minutes.”

 

Harry turns towards Hermione, “I’ve just talked mother, Luna be here soon.”

“You’ve ‘just talked to mother’, the ‘to’ gives direction to the listener.” Hermione corrects absently.

“Good, you think again.”

She giggles, “Can think, do think, or will think?”

“Um, er, can?”

“Nope, are.”

Harry pouts, “That not option.”

“It was, just not listed.”

Harry glances over when he feels the ship shudder, seconds later a warframe that is split down the middle, white on one side and black on the other, comes walking around the lift section.

“Harry, you weren’t expected till winter break.”

“Luna?”

Hermione stares in amazement as a blond teenager appears out of the, whatever it is.

“In the flesh.”

“Congratulations or commiserations?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, well done on getting another warframe then.”

“It is better than the alternative, for me at least. Sorry, we’re being rude. I’m Luna Lovegood, from Ottery St-catchpole in Devon.”

“Hermione Granger, Crawley in London.”

“Welcome to the Orokin System, I’m just going to talk to Harry about what happened and then I’ll explain it to you.”

“Are you also going to explain why I’m dreaming?”

“Yes, that will be part of it.”

“Ok.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Luna pins Hermione with a look that leaves her feeling 2 inches tall, “Hermione, I’ve found out what’s happened from Harry. Why did you follow him?”

“I just wanted somewhere to sleep where I didn’t have to listen to people *@##$ing about me.”

“Why didn’t you just ask?”

“I thought that if I was already there he wouldn’t be able to say no.”

“Well, this is a good news and bad news situation. I’m going to transfer back into my Warframe and then I’ll take you to see something while we talk.”

Hermione nods mutely as Luna merges with the black and white Warframe. She then allows her to take her hand and lead her through the spaceship? They end up standing in front of a matt black pod that is connected to a load of snow white cables.

 

Luna walks over to the pod as she looks, “To answer the last part first, you are currently dreaming. It’s a special type of dreaming, but your body is currently asleep in here. I’m going to open this briefly as it’s the only thing keeping you alive at the moment.”

Hermione staggers back as she looks at her face serene in the seat of the pod, an ugly grey wound in her side visible because her clothing has disintegrated. Luna closes the lid again and Hermione looks around frantically until she sees the face of her saviour standing immobile in an alcove. There she freezes, and slowly reaches out a hand to touch it’s face.

“Harry saved me?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

So she does, and Luna hugs her as she talks about crying in the girls loo, then through the experience with the troll, and how a fairy rescued her. She also finds out that Warframes can’t cry. Once she’s finished talking about everything that’s happened at school she feels a little better.

 

When she finally finishes talking Luna says, “Now that the hard part is out the way, I’ll explain what happened. The void is a place between worlds that joins them all together. Like all of existence there is energy in the void and it is rather inimical to life. In fact, there is no way to resist void energy without using void energy. Part of the problem is that void energy is not entropic, increases entropy, chaos? Don’t worry about it, you’ll understand once you’ve been given the nanite treatment. It doesn’t break down machines, metals, or even bodies. It just stops all life from working, even digital life. I actually had to look up the word digital while I was on the way here.

“Anyway, creatures with a soul, and apparently post owls, can adapt to the void by making it part of them. Around 8 to 900 years ago this happened to a colonisation ship that got stuck in the void. What the Orokin discovered from that misadventure is that the process of adapting drives mature humans insane. For still growing humans, it grants them powers that are hard to control and highly destructive.

“What’s happened to you is that rather than getting weeks of low levels of void exposure through the hull of a ship designed to keep the void out, you instead received a concentrated dosage that should, and would, have killed you. Except these pods provide life-support as well as a link to Warframes. This was followed by nearly an hour of low level exposure, so as you couldn’t die you adapted. This then allowed the pod to perform its primary function and link your mind to a Warframe. This is how you’re where you are. The Tenno call it the second dream, and until you’re able to wake up yourself you’ll need to get used to Warframes being your body. Also, don’t try to force it, as it takes a level of self-actualisation in order to accept that you can be both. Most Tenno that have woken from the Second Dream couldn’t tell you how, why, or exactly when it happened. The others, like Harry, were all under do or die levels of stress and managed to do.”

 

Something seemed wrong with that idea, but Hermione couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She was also realising that she’s out of her depth, and that she’s just an 11-year-old girl. Ok, 12, but at the moment she wants to be 11 again.

 

Relentlessly Luna carries on, “As soon as they’ve worked out how to get it here, you’ll be transferred to another pod in order to undergo healing. During this time you’ll lose access to the Warframe you’re in. You’ll also be given all the nanites and implants that Tenno need in order to live in this system. This includes language and basic education. Next time you wake up, you’ll be controlling a Warframe of your own while sleeping in your own pod.”

 

“But what if I don’t want to be a Tenno?” Hermione asks plaintively.

“You die. Your choice about this ended when you accepted the void energy into yourself. Even though you were unconscious at the time. You either live as a Tenno or you die now and we have to explain to your parents how battle honed instincts caused you to be killed.”

“But I’m only 12, how am I supposed to deal with that?”

“Harry was a toddler. The pod is there to keep other people safe from you, while the implants and nanites are to keep you alive and well in the pod. It’s not like you can eat, drink, or use the toilet while you’re in there.”

“Keep other people safe?”

“Harry’s wearing a device we call an amp, I have one too. It works on void energy and it stores enough for its own needs before venting the rest off harmlessly. Without it, it builds up inside us until we expel it uncontrollably. However, it requires the control that comes with the self-actualisation that you go through when you wake from the Second Dream. Every night, Harry came back to sleep in that pod so that he wouldn’t be a danger to other people. Now you’re a smart girl, and I know that when we leave you’re going to think about this conversation. Probably dream about it while you’re healing too. That’s why I’ve been so up front with you. Yes, it’s a big thing you’re being shown, and it's going to change the way that you see the world. But is it going to change you? Will you be the girl that followed Harry, or the girl that cried in the girls loos? Also, consider this. Every single one of the original Tenno had their memories wiped, though it didn’t work on Harry, however every single one that has woken up from the Second Dream has regained their memories.”

 

Her piece said, Luna sweeps from the room. Hermione gazes at her saviour for a moment before she follows.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Minerva

 

We have arrived safely at Lua, however, there has been a complication. Hermione has adapted to the void damage and the void has become part of her. As I write this Luna Lovegood, Pandora’s daughter, is talking to her while Hermione is using my Oberon. If it’s at all possible, would you be able to bring her parents to Lua so that we can explain what’s happening, why and what it will mean for her going forward.

 

Regards

 

Harry.

 

She crumples the letter in her hand before smoothing it out again and grabbing a sheet of parchment in order to pen a letter to the Grangers. She then takes the letter to the long distance owl that she normally uses to send letters to Harry and Natah. A quick check of the time, 5:30, and she ties the letter.

“Would you be able to take this to Dan and Emma Granger. It’s important and urgent, so please wait for a reply. When they do, bring it straight to me regardless of where I am or what I’m doing.”

The owl bobs its head before taking off and disappearing within a couple of wing beats. She then makes her way to the Gryffindor common room, as something has obviously not been going right if Hermione was able to follow Harry without someone waking her up to report her missing.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry stands next to Luna as The Lotus opens the pod and lifts Hermione out of it. The Oberon chassis losing it’s spark as her consciousness is removed.

“She’s going to need her own Warframe after this.”

“She is.”

“I wonder which one she should have.”

“No you don’t, you’re just trying to avoid the problem.”

“But she needs a Warframe to do everything she needs in order to earn that one.”

“Not if you copy the original.”

“But I was saving those bits.”

“You shot her.”

“It was an accident.”

Luna just looks at him.

“Ok, yes, accident or not, I’m still the one that shot her so I need to be responsible for ensuring she has everything she needs to start moving forwards.”

Luna beams a smile at him.

“Are you sure you’re only 14?”

“No, but that’s how many years I’ve lived so that’s what counts.”

“Which Warframe are you working on at the moment?”

“Same one, she will teach me to fly. Same as she will Hermione.”

“Do you want any help?”

Luna shakes her head, “No, this one and the last one I have to do on my own.”

“What’s the last one?”

“A fly stuck in amber.”

“Protea?”, Luna nods, “I can at least help you with the Xoris and some mods.”

“Thank you Harry.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just trying to work out how to get Hermione to start syncing with her new Warframe.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle that once her parents have visited.”

 

The Lotus walks over and removes her helmet, “It’s done. She’s going to be in there for at least a week as a lot of her body needs to be rebuilt with working cells.”

“Thanks Mum.”

“Thank you Aunty.”

Natah waves them off, “I’d do the same for any of my Tenno. I’ll arrange to have one of these put together with a solar reactor so that any future accidents can be dealt with immediately. How are you planning on dealing with the need for Hermione to have her pod close by?”

“I’ve been digging out a drydock on the Moon, so if I can get the blueprints and materials for a Dojo I can set that up instead. We can then setup a tree if I take some Orokin technology with me.”

Luna nods, “That will be useful for me next year when I go to Hogwarts.”

“I was then going to install enough power and storage to duplicate orbiter functions for each pod in the tree.”

Natah frowns, “You know you’ll be getting close to making your own tower if you do that?”

Harry sighs, “Yeah, but can you honestly say that the facilities here would be viable with Corpus or Grineer technology?”

Natah grimaces, “No, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.”

Luna laughs, “Aunty, it doesn’t have to be a good idea, just better than no idea.”

“Luna, the Orokin cracked the moon with their seeds.”

“But how many did they use?”

Natah opens her mouth to reply and then finishes looking up the information, at which point her jaw drops, “Thousands.” She breathes.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Consequenses

Amelia yawns as she sluggishly shuffles to the bathroom after her 7am alarm goes off. Some days it sucks to be the woman in the relationship, as even though she pulls the same hours at the clinic, there’s only one half of the relationship that’s expected to be up first.

“Hoo”

“Me, that’s who.”

“Hoo.”

She yawns, “Me, the woman of the house. We’re always expected to have breakfast ready for when the man deigns to actually appear.”

“Hoo.”

“Didn’t I already answer that?”

“Prek”

 

It dawns on Amelia that she isn’t actually talking to herself and she looks up and squeaks when she sees a massive brown owl perched on the towel rail. It’s a good thing she’s already on the loo, as she’s sure she just peed herself.

“What are you doing in here?”

The owl stares at her before waving a leg in her direction.

“How did you get in here?”

Turning it’s head upside down, it spreads it’s wings.

“Hey, I’ve just woken up, I’m allowed to seem stupid. Anyway, I can’t get the letter from here so let me finish up first.”

The owl bobs its head and goes back to watching her. She will swear that she didn’t hurry, but the fact that she was out of the loo only a minute after that exchange suggests something else.

Clumsily she unties the letter before reading it twice.

“Dan! Dan! Get up now!”

“Waah? Hunbun, what’s going on?”

“There’s been an accident and Hermione is stable. They want us to write back so they can take us to see her.”

“I’ll start cancelling our appointments for the day if you let Anne know. 8:30 or 9?”

“I’ll say 9, that way you can actually get dressed.”

“Thanks love.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Minerva is mostly done with her marking, that she had Tilly bring her, when the first of the prefects make their way downstairs.

“Mr Weasley.”

“Professor McGonagall, I… wasn’t expecting you.”

“Clearly. How are the first years doing?”

“They’re settling in, with some of the expected friction. But, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Are they getting enough sleep?”

“Mostly, Neville seems to be having some problems.”

“How about the girls?”

“I’m not sure, that’s the girls responsibility.”

“I see, take a seat.”

“Ah, I was going to get some studying done in the Library.”

“Not this morning you’re not. Now sit.”

 

To their credit, one of the female prefects comes running down the stairs a few minutes later, “Professor McGonagall! One of the first years is missing.”

“I know.” She replies dryly, “Now sit.”

Mr Weasley gulps at that news.

 

As the other prefects dribble in, the owl appears and lands on Minerva shoulder. Taking the letter, she reads it and nods before scribbling a brief letter on a piece of parchment.

“Thank you, could you take this to the Headmaster. And if you see Fawkes, ask him to come and talk to me.”

The owl bobs its head before taking off and disappearing in a couple of wingbeats.

“Erm, Professor,” one of the assembled prefects ventures, “did that owl seem to be unusually smart?”

“1 point to Gryffindor for stating the obvious.”

 

It takes another half an hour before the last of the prefects make their way down to the common room, and a large number of the rest of the house is loitering to see what’s going on. Spotting Oliver Wood she calls him over.

“Mr Wood, a word if you would.”

“What can I do professor?”

“Gather your team, you’re all in charge of the first and second years while I hold a Prefect meeting. Prefects, follow me to a less public room.”

 

Getting up, she leads the prefects into one of the near by guest suites.

“I want to know what has been happening to Miss Granger.”

The sixth year prefect speaks up, “It’s just the normal pecking order stuff, she’ll snap soon and beat the snot out of the other girls and everything will be fine.”

“That’s normal pecking order stuff? So you don’t remember when I confronted your own bullies in your first year Miss Walker. After the bullying was brought to my attention by one of the prefects at the time.”

“Last night she followed Mr Potter to his sleeping accommodations. How was she able to do that?”

One of the boys shuffles uncomfortably, “She’s been reading by the fire past curfew, we didn’t notice at first and she seemed fine during the day.”

“So, a first year has been staying up past my own bed time, and you think it’s fine. The same first year that is subject to the normal pecking order stuff.”

Mr Weasley speaks up, “I assumed that the female prefects had it under control.”

“Mr Weasley, there isn’t a boy and girl prefect because it’s different jobs. There’s a boys and girls prefect because there’s different dorms. If it’s outside the dorms it’s as much your responsibility as any other prefect. Not one of you thought to speak to me or Madam Pomphrey, especially given that Miss Granger was almost killed by a Troll only a few weeks ago.

“Give me your badges, the Quidditch team is going to be doing double duty until I can pick out some new trustworthy lions.”

Once she has the badges she turns to leave before looking back, “Oh, by the way there was an accident in the Forbidden Forest last night. Miss Granger is stable, but there have been long term complications. I now need to talk to her parents and take them to see her.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

{Harry} wtb Titania Prime blueprint set.

{Deathdigger} Harry, long time no see. Have you given up putting it together yourself?

{Harry} No mate, I need it for a gift

{Deathdigger} Anyone I know?

{Roofie} Hey guys, what’s this about a gift?

{Harry} I’m kinda responsible for a new Tenno, so I figured I’d get her her first frame.

{KittyKavat} New Tenno, this isn’t going to be another @LunaLiscious.

{Harry} No, Luna went behind our backs for reasons.

{LunaLiscious} No, The Lotus knew what was going on, she got me my Wisp after all.

{KittyKavat} Space Mom is the best

{Harry} Look, I need a Titania Prime Blueprint set as I don’t have time to farm another set.

{LunaLiscious} You know, there’s something wrong with the fact we refer to raiding Grineer and Corpus bases for lost Orokin relics as farming.

{Roofie} Well, if they’re going to pay us to wage a proxie war on each other we might as well get some benefit.

{LunaLiscious} When you put it that way.

{FireGuy} I’ve got a set, yours for 150 plat.

{Harry} Ouch, yeah go ahead.

{FireGuy} I’ve sent you a one time key to our Dojo.

{KittyKavat} Wait, why does she rate a Prime as her starting frame?

{LunaLiscious} Harry shot her accidentally, outside his frame.

{KittyKavat} But still

{LunaLiscious} She didn’t have any nanites at the time

{KittyKavat} Oh.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry walks into a room to get some supplies from a locker. When he turns around the archway has disappeared. Looking around for half an hour he fails to find any switches or the archway. Sighing he calls his Mum.

“Mum.”

“Harry, are you ok?”

“Not really, the doorway to this room has disappeared.”

“Nope, it’s still there.”

“I’ve looked, and it isn’t.”

“Yes it is, you just can’t perceive it.”

“Mum! How do I get out?”

She smiles over the comm, “Turn off your implants, obviously.”

“How do I do that?”

“That’s what you need to work out. See you later.”

“But Mum!”

“No, if you’re going to use a seed you need to know how to control it. The first step of that is being able to control your own implants.”

“Isn’t there a better way to do this?”

“Sure, if you want to spend the next few decades playing computer games. Remember Umbra?”

“But!”

“Do try to be finished before Hermione’s parents arrive.”

She hangs up leaving Harry in an empty room. In the end it takes a couple of days for him to disable his implants, followed by a frustrating few hours working out how to reenable them so that he can use the computer systems.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 There’s a flare of fire in the Granger living room and suddenly Professor McGonagall is standing in front of a nervous looking couple.

“I’m sorry I’m late Doctors, I had to persuade Fawkes that I knew where we are going and that it’s safe.”

Amelia stammers, “Hermione, is she ok?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I know she was stable and she’s been taken to the best medical facilities I’ve ever seen. Now, there’s a couple of things you need to know before we leave.”

Danjell shakes his head, “What’s more important than our daughter?”

Minerva sighs, “To start with, they don’t speak English there so you’ll need to go through a process that will teach you their language in a few hours. They also don’t use magic. Finally, time runs faster there so Hermione has been undergoing treatment for at least a day since I sent you the letter. With that said, if you would touch one of Fawkes’ tail feathers, he will be able to transport us.”

Amelia shares a glance with Danjell before standing up on shaky legs and touching the phoenix. Once Danjell does the same, they’re all engulfed in fire and when it dies down their living room has vanished. Instead they’re looking at a woman wearing a blue helmet that covers her eyes, and robes that match.

“Good evening, I’m glad to see you’ve arrived.”

Pulling his thoughts together quickly Danjell sketches a bow, “Good Morning? I’m Danjell and this is my wife Amelia. Most people call us Dan and Emma. Can, can we see our daughter now?”

The woman bows back, “I’m The Lotus, and I’m afraid not. While she’s finished healing, we haven’t finished her new transference pod yet. It should be done in a few hours. But first I need you to get into these pods where you will be given the implants and nanites you need to survive here and not get sick.”

Reluctantly and with some chivvying, they both get into the pods. The last thing they hear before they activate is, “Don’t worry, I will delay her transfer so that you can see her.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Discovery

Amelia watches the black pod that’s holding her daughter in a space ship that’s docked on the moon. She so desperately wants to open the pod and hug her little girl but Harry and Luna both showed them what void energy can do to robots while The Lotus, or Natah when she’s not working, explained what’s happening.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Those figures over there are called Warframes, they’re a bioengineered construct designed to fight my species by the Orokin. Most of them were designed from scratch, however a few were experiments that the Orokin performed on their own people. Until the Tenno came along we were winning quite handily, as we are better at using technology than they were.”

Danjell says with a yelp, “It’s Clark tech.”

“What’s that?”

“An author and researcher named Arthur C Clark wrote ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. That’s what you’ve got here. All of this, to us it might as well be magic. Please explain it like it was.”

“Very well, Warframes are bodies that the Tenno inhabit while they are asleep in their pods. The reason they’re able to do this without going insane is due to the void energy that they contain. However, controlling void energy is, difficult and it’s not something that can be easily trained. They tried that before they developed the Transference system. The helmet I wear was created by my predecessor after they accidentally blinded her in a way that they couldn’t heal. She was a lucky one, other guardians and researchers died to random, uncontrolled expressions of void energies. They even tried wiping their memories under the assumption that it was the trauma from the circumstances they gained their void powers under was the cause of the outbursts. It wasn’t true. Control comes from acceptance and realisation, part of that is being able to wake up from what we call the Second Dream. The same will be true of Hermione, don’t take Luna as an example of how quickly it will happen, she’s a special case. It’s more likely that it will take more than 100 years for her to wake up. Once she’s done it learning how to separate herself from her warframe will be fairly quick. Probably only a couple of years.”

Amelia sags, “So we’ll be dead and buried by the time it’s safe for her to hug us in person.”

“I can turn you into a Sentient like myself. You’ll then have plenty of time.”

Danjell leaps in, “Done, sold, when can we do it?”

Amelia turns to her husband, “Dan, Dan! Danjell Michael Granger, you will calm down right this moment.”

“But it’s Hermione.”

“Time also passes faster here than it does back home. It’s not something that we need to decide right now, and it’s not something we should decide before finding out more about it.”

“You’re right Mia, and I’m sorry.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The Lotus approaches the other side of the pod, “Would you like to help me change Hermione?”

Amelia nods tears in her eyes, “Yes please.”

With a touch the lid of the pod opens and her daughter is lying there looking so small and fragile. Amelia gasps when she sees the damage to Hermione’s clothing, encompassing most of her abdomen on the right hand side. Hesitantly she takes her hand in her own, and smiles when it twitches. Together they remove her clothes and clean her skin. Then The Lotus removes the hair on Hermione’s head with a sweep of her hand. Then they dress her in a black isolation suit with built in blindfold and ear muffs.

“Amelia, may I ask. Why do you and your husband use Dan and Emma sometimes?”

She sighs, “Bigotry. Dan’s family came over from Armenia in the second world war, and my name is old fashioned. So because we got insults and racial slurs thrown at us at university, we chose to go by shortened versions of our names when we opened our practice. And, well, when you use a name enough you get used to it.”

“Does your daughter not have the same problem?”

“She does, but Dan’s a Shakespeare buff, and he registered her while I was still recovering.”

As The Lotus picks Hermione up in a princess carry, Amelia asks, “Is the blindfold really necessary?”

“Sadly, yes. I check each of the pods occasionally, and sometimes they stir if they feel the difference as it bleeds through to them in their Warframe. The results can be quite dangerous. Until she stops growing, I’m going to need to check Hermione quite often to ensure that the suit isn’t causing any damage.”

 

As they both exit the Railjack, she can see Danjell standing to one side, and he starts crying when he sees the small body in the arms of The Lotus. She goes over to stand beside him and pulls him into a hug as she starts to cry too. Harry and Luna come to stand beside them, Harry in a similar Warframe to the one that will be Hermione’s first, and Luna in her black and white one. They both focus on the Warframe kneeling beside the pod, waiting for any sign of life as The Lotus puts their daughter in her home for the foreseeable future.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Hermione wakes up from the weirdest dream where she’d been looking at herself and been lectured about something. She’d been hurt, and then she’d woken up in a spaceship, but everything felt wrong. Then she met Luna who can speak English, and she explained stuff. Opening her eyes she looks up and sees her saviour and Luna in her black and white Warframe. Then she sees her parents and she lurches to her feet and runs over to give them both a hug, “Mum! Dad!”

As she’s running over, Luna and the other, Harry, the other one is Harry, they jump forward and tackle her to the floor.

“Hermione, Hermione, calm down they’re fragile and you’ll hurt them. You don’t want to hurt your parents do you?” Harry’s voice catches her attention. No she doesn’t want to hurt her parents. She just wants to give them a hug.

“I just want a hug.”

“Hermione, I need you to sit up and let them come to you. When they hug them, treat them like a baby Kavat.”

Confused, she does as they ask and her parents come over and hug her. When did they get so small? She stretches out her hand and looks at it, it’s her hand but didn’t it used to be different?

Crying her mother looks up to the lady in the blue clothes, “Damn it Lotus, we’ll do it. If it will let us hug our baby without needing to worry about her killing us accidentally, we’ll go through your process and become Sentients.”

 

Happy that her mother still wants her, she squeezes her closer, “Ack, a little more gently please. I’m getting fragile in my old age.”

“You’re not old mum.”

“No, you’re just stronger than you think you are.”

 

Off to one side Minerva bites her lip and mutters, “I think I may need to take Natah up on that offer too. Someone needs to be robust enough to handle the three of them.

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 The next few weeks are wonderful as she’s able to spend lots of time with her parents, and even gets some personal tutoring with Professor McGonagall as her wand feels too small. She keeps hurting them accidentally, which makes her sad. But they assure her that they’re getting better at giving her hugs. There’s also so much to read and learn here, and there’s no bullies either. Absolute paradise. The only fly in the ointment is having to do PE and meditation under The Lotus’ supervision. Harry’s there too occasionally, but he has his own things he’s learning. Whatever it is, he’s finding it difficult.

They also have a better internet here, no more looking at bbs’ and newsgroups trying to find out which server has the information you want. She’s also been introduced to a messaging system for Tenno only, where she’s going by TheFairyQueen. Eventually her parents have to go back home, but they’ve taken a computer with them so that when she gets back to school they can talk to each other.

Oh, yeah, she has to go back there. But at least she gets the same sleeping arrangements as Harry now.

Sobbing, she heads to the unofficial sitting room where her mum and dad are leaving from. There she embraces them both in a gentle hug.

Her mum reaches up and places a kiss on her forehead, “Don’t worry my little fairy, I’ll be back as soon as we’ve rearranged our appointments. Your professor and Fawkes have kindly agreed to bring one of us here every evening so that we can spend the next day, our earth time, with you. All it’s going to cost us is a selection of exotic fruit. We’ve just got to talk to Anne and juggle the schedule. You’ll also have us for the entire weekends.”

“I’m going to miss you mum.”

“I know, but you’ve got Aunts Natah and Pandora, and your uncle Xeno.”

Stepping back out of the hug, her mother and father touch Fawkes’ tail and are engulfed in fire.

 

“Right, now they’re gone it’s time to introduce you to the less palatable part of being a Tenno.” Luna’s voice from behind her makes her jump, “Follow me, we’re heading to earth.”

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“Ok, Hermione I need you to pay attention to me. You currently have a very poor synchronisation with your Warframe. You know how you’re always overshooting your aim when you’re practicing with your wand, or you hug your parents a little too hard? That’s why. It’s also why we’ve been putting you through the obstacle course time and time again. We’ve also shown you how to activate the simple interface that your implants give you. I’ve linked you into Ordis’ systems, though you are still locked out of navigation. So I want you to open that menu and select the Arsenal option. Can you see that your Titania Prime currently says Rank 0?”

Hermione nods distractedly, as she tries to work out why there is a primary, secondary and melee option.

“Ok, I want you to close the interface and follow me into the Orbiter.”

 

She follows her and ends up looking at a pillar against an internal wall with a disk at the top and bottom. As she approaches one of those computer panels appears and says Arsenal. Confused she reaches out and touches it. Suddenly she’s having an out of body experience.

“Ok, overachiever. I was going to say that this will feel a little weird. What’s happened is that you’re tapped into a tiny drone that is showing you what your Warframe looks like. If you activate your primary section you should see a Mk 1 Braton.” She tries to nod or say something but the drone seems to be fixed in position, “When you can see it I want you to equip it. That will bring it out of the digital storage and place it in your hands. Now, you’ll see that this also says Rank 0. That’s because you’re unfamiliar with this weapon and the implants can measure that. I need you to do the same thing with the weapons in the Secondary and Melee slots. Well done, if you exit the interface I’ll show you what’s going to happen next in the Lander compartment.”

 

Hermione follows Luna back into the lander, the weapons feeling odd where they’re attached and throwing off her gait.

“What have you learnt about the Grineer?”

Back on more familiar ground, Hermione rattles off, “The Grineer are a faction populated exclusively by cloned people. Each one will only be expected to live for a few years before their bodies start to fail. As a result they are always trying to expand their manufacturing bases in order to produce more clones and grow their numbers. This brings them into conflict with the human settlements and the other major faction in the Solar System, the Corpus.”

“That’s almost word for word from the text book, well done.” As she says that the lander separates from the orbiter and a panel on the floor slides to one side to reveal a person shaped hole.

“Now I want you to lie down in there and hold onto the two grips for your hands.”

Confused, she does so, once she’s lying down the panel covers her and Luna appears in a communication window.

“Now, the trick with synchronisation is that the only way it gets better is when you’re under stress. For Tenno there is really only one way to feel the sort of stress we need to improve our synchronisation with our Warframes. That is by being in moral danger. It’s why we’re always running missions all over the Solar System. Now the Grineer have a strangle hold on Earth as you’ve probably seen by the massive fleet they have in orbit. This means that they only really ever post their green recruits here to get experience. Which is good for you, as it means that you’re going to get a good chance to put everything you learnt on the obstacle course into practice.”

“Wait, Luna, what do you mean?”

The lotus appears in another window at the side of her vision, “Tenno, this is an extermination mission. The grineer are trying to reactivate an old factory and resume cutting down the forest for miles around. They can’t be allowed to do this, so you need to wipe them all out.”

“Wait, what do you mean? I’m only 11.”

Luna smiles reassuringly at her, “I was only 9 the first time I did this. I died 4 times before I got over my fear enough to finish the mission and get pickup. I would recommend you try to avoid that, as it really hurts. Whatever you do, avoid dying 5 times as that will activate the emergency beacon and you will be digitised right back to where you are at the moment, and we’ll have to send you in again through a different entrance.”

 

Suddenly Hermione feels herself turning over and Oh God, the ground is a long way away. Why is it so far away? She screams as she feels the hand grips retract into the housing and then she’s falling. She desperately tries to remember what they said about landing and manages to get her feet under her, but she still goes sprawling.

“Hermione, you did well. There’s no enemies around at the moment, so take a moment to breathe. Your combat systems have been activated so you should now have a few things visible at the edges of your vision. In the top left is a map that your onboard computer is generating from the scans it’s taking. If you concentrate on it the map will be displayed in the centre of your vision. In the top right is the status of your shields and Warframe systems. The shields are in blue and your system status is in red. If that red bar reaches 0 the nanites that are keeping your systems running will have run out and you die. You can ignore the white line underneath that, as you’ll be able to feel the difference. But if you’re interested it shows your synchronisation progress before the next milestone when the onboard systems unlock another feature. Now I want you to take hold of one of your weapons.”

“No, I just want to get out of here. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to fight. I just want to go home.”

“Hermione,” Luna says softly, “we want you to be able to go home too. To be able to eat at your favourite restaurant, and lie on your bed reading a book. The only way to do that is to wake up from the Second Dream and learn how to be both your Warframe and yourself at the same time. The only way to do that is to know what many different Warframes feel like and how to use them to their best ability. The only way you can do that is by pushing yourself past your current limits. The orbiter scanners are showing a Grineer patrol coming your way, and they will probably find you in less than a minute. So you can either listen to me while I tell you what everything is, or find out the hard way when they’re shooting at you.”

“But I’m only 11.”

“I know, and I wish there was any other way. I did it because it was either this or get lost in the fae blessing that my family has. You’re in this position because of a stupid accident. If you’d been a few seconds later Harry would have been in his Warframe and it would have been a bullet wound. A few minutes earlier and the safety on his amp would have been on. Now can you take out the weapon before they arrive please?”

Grasping behind her she blindly grabs the gun and holds it in her hands nervously.

“Can you see that white dot that has appeared? No? Try waving the gun around a bit.”

“I see it.”

“That white dot is where your gun is pointing. Most of us keep the gun pointing where we’re looking, but some are better than that. When you’re pointing at an enemy the white dot will turn red.”

 

A vaguely German accent calls out making Hermione look up, there she can see a brute of a man pointing at her and shouting to someone. She barely has time to react before he raises his gun and fires at her. There’s a brief flash of blue and then she screams in pain as the bullets dig into her body. Reflexively squeezing the trigger of her gun bullets spray everywhere and some of them hit the Grineer somewhere vital and he collapses. Then another two come around the corner and start shooting at her as she scrambles for cover as her gun runs dry. Luna’s calm voice cuts through her panic, “Hermione, you’ve done this before. Just open the breach so that the spent charges can fall out and then hold your hand over the breach to load in a new set of charges. They’re going to reload in a moment, when they do I want you to look round the barrel and shoot one of them. Can you do that for me?”

Shuddering Hermione nods before leaning out from behind her barrel and shakily pointing her gun at one of the two people standing there only to see that they’ve taken cover behind the doorway.

“I can’t see them.”

“Bring the gun up to your shoulder and you should see a couple of sights on top of it. If you look down those your Warframe will zoom in on where the gun is pointing. This will be disorientating, but you’ll get used to it.”

Doing as she’s told, she brings the gun up and that part of her vision expands and she can see the edge of their armour. When the spot turns red she pulls the trigger desperately, clipping him on the shoulder and causing him to stagger out of cover just enough to get a chest full of bullets. The gun runs empty again, as she pulls back. A weird cartoony grey block with a blue strip falls away from him as he dies and lands on the ground. She only has a moment to notice it before the other one has finished reloading and is shooting at her head. With a scream as the bullets leave blue ripples in her vision she ducks back behind the barrel and reloads the gun again. A third time she leans out and fires at a barely visible patch of armour and that trooper dies. Another few cartoony looking things fall out.

 

“Well done, you did well for only a few weeks doing simulations. How are you feeling?”

“Scared. My chest hurts, and, and, I killed them.”

“You did, and if you didn’t they’d have killed you.”

“But I’ll get back up again.”

“So will they. Though they probably won’t remember today.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need to get moving before another patrol turns up, but I’ll explain it while you’re walking. Before we do, if you look down in the bottom right hand corner of your vision you’ll see the name of the gun and two numbers. The first is how many shots you’ve got before you run try, the second is how many shots you can still load into the gun.”

“I’ve only got 20 shots left?”

“Yeah, you only need one or two shots to kill these Grineer. They’re not exactly well equipped, you’ve just been emptying entire clips at them. Below that you’ve got a bluish bar that’s partially filled in with white, and a couple of numbers beneath it. That shows your void energy reserves, by which I mean the void energy you have in excess of what you need for running your Warframe. Above that there are 4 pictures, these are the abilities that the Orokin built into your Warframe. They’re well documented if you want to read about them later, but for now I’m going to activate the only one you have access to. I need you to pay attention to the feeling as I do.”

Hermione gets a really queer feeling in her brain as the ability activates, then her chest starts to feel less painful. Also she sees some words flash up in her peripheral vision.

“Yes, Titania has a tap from her void reservoir to her maintenance nanite factory, when you activate an ability it provides additional power and allows it to replenish the nanites running through your frame. Stop here.”

Hermione stops and looks around, “Look down to your left. This a Grineer design storage locker. It’s got an electronic lock that makes it secure against the average human, however you’re somewhat stronger than average. I want you to grab your quarter staff and give it a good whack, no need to waste ammo. I’m also going to turn off your automated digitiser so you can see what’s inside.

 

Giving it a half-hearted whack does nothing so she gives it a full swing and caves the lid in causing some of those cartoony shapes to fly out.

“Grab one of those items and I’ll turn off your overlay while I explain what you’re seeing and why.”

 

Reaching down she picks up a red ball off the floor which floats comically in her hand, then it disappears and she’s holding a small black stick with a couple of numbers and letters engraved on it.

“That, is a nanite reservoir. Specifically it contains the same sort of nanites that Warframes use to keep themselves working. In essence it’s a first aid kit. Everyone in the solar system has those nanites, and I mean everyone. They’re passed on during pregnancy and they self maintain. The thing that Harry tried to use on you just after he shot you, that’s basically a remote energy beacon that provides energy in exactly the right way to power these nanites and allow them to deal with just about any injury that’s left the person alive. Also in that locker is a journal, of some description, an instruction manual, a change of clothes. Some programmable matter for rifles, and a little bit of money. As we don’t generally care about the clothes or written material, your overlay won’t highlight them, and the digitiser won’t pick them up. But as you can see, at a glance the first aid kit looks very much like the other two items. Which isn’t a problem when you just need something from the locker, but when you’re in a firefight and you need that bit of additional healing, it makes a big difference. I’m going to reactivate your interface as our free time has just run out. A small patrol is about to come round the corner behind you.”

Spinning round she heads for the doorway she’d just come through and fumbles for her gun, dropping her quarter staff in the process. She’s just got into cover when the first Grineer comes into view and sees the staff on the floor. Shaking in terror, Hermione raises her gun and squeezes the trigger briefly, and only hitting the doorframe above the trooper.

“Breathe Hermione, take your time.”

Taking a deep breath she pulls the trigger again and sends some shots walking his torso, the resulting spurt of blood as he falls over makes her wish she could vomit. The second and third go down with only one reload. Then she’s left in silence with some cartoon ammo and money lying on the floor. She starts to laugh at the absurdity of the sight and staggers over to see what’s there.

“You’re doing well. Laughter is good, but could you sound a little less unhinged in future please? Where were we? Oh yes, Grineer and coming back. Back just after the end of the war, Grineer used to live for around 20 years. A short but workable life. However, because the Orokin were gone, so was the knowledge of how to restore the genetic templates. Over hundreds of years their lifespans became shorter as the templates became corrupted due to constant usage. When they realised this, their scientists designed a computer that they implanted in their brains, this is like the reverse of the process that we used to teach you to speak. It reduces the expected lifespan of the clone by a couple of years, but they can then use the same personality on new clones. Of course, only promising clones get restored like this. Most of them just get the basic skills and personality implanted. That’s what these guys are, I doubt any of them were more than a few months old at most. Their scientists on the other hand, some of them have been around for hundreds of years.

“How are you feeling moving around now?”

“It’s easier.”

“You’re close to a milestone, so your system is going to release some of the resources it’s been holding back. When that happens it will feel a bit like you’ve gone backwards, but” A spray of gunfire interrupts whatever she was about to say as Hermione screams and dies, her Warframe falling to the floor. One of the troopers that ambushed her comes forward to nudge her with his foot, that’s when the recovery systems kick in and she explodes off the floor in a burst of energy, knocking the trooper to the floor. With a gasp, Hermione scrambles backwards while firing her gun at everything that looks vaguely person shaped. Suddenly she feels like her balance is off as the system releases some of the limits on her frame. She can feel Titania more clearly. The sound of an alarm going off deeper in the factory brings her back to the present, as she sees a few troopers running towards her. Over the next few minutes she fights her way from cover to cover until Luna shouts.

“Hermione! Thank merlin you’re listening to me again. Use that console to turn off the alarm. It’s a rhythm based lock so just press the big button in the centre.”

It takes her a few moments to see the console that Luna was talking about which is long enough for a few more troopers to come from deeper in the factory. When her gun clicks empty, she grabs blindly for her staff and stops thinking about things and letting the instincts built into the frame guide her steps. Smoothly vaulting over a stream of gunfire she lands in the middle of the most recent group of Grineer and swings her staff wildly breaking armour and bones with every strike, while taking a few shots on her shields. When the last of them is down she vaults back to the console and the moment is passed. Looking dumbly at the console she presses the centre button and sees digital trumpets appear around the button with a spinning thing around the outside. When she pushes the button again, the thing bounces in slightly. A couple more experimental presses and she’s worked out what she’s supposed to do, and proceeds to put the lids on the trumpets. When the alarms stop and no more Grineer come to attack her she leans against a wall.

“What was that Luna?”

“That, was perfect synchronisation.”

“It was amazing.”

“It is. Hermione,” Lunas voice turns sombre, “I want you to head down the corridor to your right and through the door on the left. It should lead out to a balcony.”

Following the directions she finds herself looking out at a blasted landscape, where there was lush forest on the side of the factory she came in from, on this side there’s only stumps and pools of noxious liquids steaming in the air. The sound of heavy machinery can be heard faintly off in the distance. A feeling of anger wells up from inside her, how dare they do this to her forest. It’s worse than they’re doing to the Amazon or the Canadian forests on her own earth. At least there the land is still alive and can be restored. Here they’re not only taking the trees, they’re also poisoning the land. Her hand tightens on the grip of her staff as something inside her breaks and for the first time in her life she moves with the intent to hurt someone. As she stalks through the factory her archwing thrusters buzz a song of vengeance and anger and she metes it out at the end of her quarter staff. Titania and Hermione both in agreement that this cannot stand. She pulls on the ability that Luna showed her how to use until she runs out of energy. Then she pulls on the power that answered her call as a child to do the same thing. She’s vaguely aware of Luna saying that she’s done enough and she can exfiltrate, but she chases down each and every Grineer in the parts of the factory she can reach. Once she reaches the exit location she is covered in blood from head to toe. Leaping up into the quick access form she doesn’t even react when the blood is cleaned off her. As soon as the panel opens up she leaps out into the lander.

“Luna, find another factory.”

Equinox shakes her head, “No, not today. You need to decompress.”

“No, I don’t. Not while they’re destroying my forest.”

“Ordis take us back to Lua.”

“Yes mistress.”

Hermione/Titania grabs Equinox by the throat, “Take me back.”

“No. Not like this.”

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Growth

A couple of hours later Harry is holding a crying Hermione after she’s had time to calm down.

“I’m a horrible person. All I wanted to do is wipe them off the face of the planet. How could I feel like that?”

“Hermione, you’re not horrible, you’re young. You’ve also got Titania, a frame that most can’t even get until they have woken from the second dream. I knew her creator for a little while, and she was driven. At the time the earth was uninhabitable for everyone, even the precursors to the Grineer. She developed the plant and animal life that now lives on earth. While Titania is a manufactured Warframe, Silvana poured her heart and soul into her, using every possible trick to give her a life and purpose beyond war. That calls to the person who followed me into the forest rather than suffer at the hands of others. The person that helped Neville look for his pet, and helped me with my English.

“You are still young, but the hints of the woman you will grow into are already there. If that means that you have strong morals and opinions, all the better. It’s far to easy to lose those and end up doing the expedient thing than the right thing. Equally, it’s also easy to go the other way and show compassion even when innocent people are suffering.”

Hermione leans back, “What do you mean?”

“Take my mother as an example, as she’s been all three. When she arrived in this system she was Natah, Sentient from the Tau system here to prevent the Orokin from doing to Tau what they did here. She was merciless and unfeeling in her actions, making no distinction between the Orokin, the rulers of the solar system, and the serfs and slaves underneath them. The corpus existed even then, but they didn’t have the power or influence they do now, as all of the executives were Orokin, or controlled by them. The Grinner were a slave race sent in to places that were too dangerous for people to go, but needed the flexibility of thought of organics instead of drones. Then she took over our care, whether she was sent by her father, defected, or was captured and reprogrammed we’ll probably never know. But she modelled herself off of my first mother. Margulis. She had a fatal flaw in Orokin culture, she was principled, compassionate, and powerful. She was put to death when I was 11 because she refused to let us be turned into weapons. She believed in her husband, Ballas, even when he voted to put her to death. Even when all the evidence said that he was playing his own game and she was in his way.

“After the war she then defied her father and became The Lotus. Someone that was a bit of each of the people that came before, but was also her own person. Someone that had enough compassion not to go on an all out war against the Corpus or Grineer because of the innocents that would get caught in the crossfire, but also strong enough not to ignore their atrocities and work to protect those who needed protection. I would say that around 75% of the missions we take are paid for by ‘Spoils of war’ instead of the communities that requested our aid.”

 

“Why don’t you go after the Grineer?”

 

“Because, despite everything that they do on earth and mars, they also mine in some of the most inhospitable parts of the solar system and trade with the unaligned colonies. They also fight against the infested, same as the Corpus do, and they have the manufacturing base to do so. Of course both sides have made that particular problem worse at times. But anyone that will fight against the final weapon of the Orokin is needed. When you’re more experienced, you’ll need to do your own share of missions against them, and the first time will be absolutely terrifying. It’s why we haven’t taken the orbiters to your earth even though we could, and why you are probably going to have the most unpleasant experience ever before we do return. Warframes are made with the same biotechnology as the Infested, so if we’re not careful we can spread it. That earth just doesn’t have the ability to deal with it, and we don’t have enough numbers to control it if it got loose there.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“It really is. It’s also the reason why the solar system is still recovering 800 years after the old war ended. Tomorrow I’m going to take you to the local relay and introduce you to the Steel Meridian. It’s one of the factions that can provide Tenno with goods and services in return for being seen to be a member of that syndicate or one of their allies. I’ve got friends in most of the syndicates, but I’ve also not promoted any of them either. How are you feeling now?”

“Better thank you.”

“Come on, let’s run you through the obstacle course and then do some meditation.”

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 “Harry, the obstacle course seemed easier.”

“It would, you’re working with Titania better than you were before. I know that Luna and the literature says that it’s your synchronisation rate. However, that’s very impersonal, and while technically true breaks down with living frames like Umbra. One of the books we bought from Diagon Alley was on Etiquette, and it talked about formal dancing. I think being a Tenno is more like being a Dancer, and the Warframes are our partners. The better we can dance with them, the more we can accomplish together, however like people, Warframes have personalities. For those that clash with us, we can still get the maximum synchronisation, but it never quite feels right. Like we want to emphasise different things.”

“I think that makes sense. Though I think that synchronisation is better.”

“Let me ask you a question. Before that factory, when was the last time you acted off of emotion rather than consideration?”

Hermione goes to speak and then hesitates, “When I followed you into the forest.”

“And before that?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many times have you wanted to act off of emotion?”

“All the time.”

“Titania is the opposite, she is a creature of strong ideals and emotion. She sees a wrong and wants to correct it. You balance that, and when you were both in agreement you went through the base like a force of nature. But you both share the strength of your ideals, and a strong sense of right and wrong. I can’t say she won’t influence you as you grow over the next few years before we return to school. But if you meditate on what happened when you saw the forest, and why it affected you so much it should help you.

“I’ll come with you tomorrow when you take on another factory, and then I’ll introduce you to some of your new brothers, sisters, and kinda both or neither.”

“Both or neither?”

“Yeah, Tenno like me, who bounce between genders, or the few that really don’t understand it. Now it’s time to meditate and then you should hit the local chat.”

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{TheFairyQueen} Hey everyone, I was wondering if I could get some advice?

{KittyKavat} Sup?

{TheFairyQueen} What?

{KittyKavat} It means What’s Up?

{TheFairyQueen} Oh. I just wanted to know if anyone else had ever forgotten that there is a difference between themselves and their warframe.

{KittyKavat} Void yes, I swear I ran around thinking I was Ivara for like 3 years after I first got her.

{Deathdigger} I’m rather embarrassed to say that mine was Harrow. No offence to Rell may he find his rest now, but I managed to put together the original blueprints and after a couple of missions it was, boom, we just clicked. I’ve never had a sync ratio go up that fast ever. @Harry managed to pull me out though.

{Harry} Someone called?

{Harry} Oh, yeah, I remember that. Wisp was mine. I bought her from the marketplace using Plat that I’d managed to hoard. Titania is close, but I’ve already woken up.

{TheFairyQueen} You’ve not shown me the marketplace yet.

{Harry} You don’t have enough credits to buy anything. Once you’ve built up a buffer I’ll show you how to access it. Just be aware of the fact you won’t be able to do a lot with just credits.

{KittyKavat} When you have some plat, look for my stuff. I’m a fashion designer, and I’ve got some brilliant armour reconfigurations for Titania on there. Like this one {Look: Titania}.

{TheFairyQueen} Erm

{Roofie} Don’t worry about Kitty, she’s just really into her design. She also does human clothes too, though you’re unlikely to ever see them unless you head to some of the colonies.

{TheFairyQueen} So, I’m not the only one that’s done this?

{Roofie} Far from it, I think most of us that remember the beginning will say that we didn’t actually know we weren’t Warframes. At least you’ve got that going for you. Also, Don’t take any advice about the Warframe experience from Luna. She’s, different. I think the only void ability I’ve seen her use is her amp.

{LunaLiscious} That’s because I’m becoming Tenno voluntarily, rather than due to excess void exposure. I don’t yet have enough void energy to do those things.

{Roofie} It’s still strange.

{LunaLiscious} I know, why do you think I take void missions so often?

{Roofie} I thought it was for the phat loot.

{LunaLiscious} That too, I’m just aware that I’m getting older and I’m kinda on a time table before I get too old to adapt.

{TheFairyQueen} Just get shot and only kept on life-support for a few hours. That will do it.

{LunaLiscious} I have been considering that since you arrived. I just don’t want to surrender myself to the Second Dream if I can avoid it.

{Deathdigger} How long do you have?

{LunaLiscious} 2 years. The oldest Tenno is 16 genetically.

{Deathdigger} Oof, does Space Mom have any suggestions?

{LunaLiscious} I haven’t told her.

{TheFairyQueen} I’ve got Auntie and we’re coming to give you a hug.

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 As Hermione makes her way through a second factory, she has time to reflect on the fact that today is different from yesterday. She still screamed when was turned over to see the ground so far away. It had taken Harry a long time to actually talk her back into that delivery system. She still panicked when the first soldier arrived, but she was able to kill them without running out of ammo each shot. She died to a couple of ambushes, but she didn’t completely lose herself to Titania. It almost felt like they were dance partners, with Titania on the edge of her awareness. She even found a mod, Harry said he’d show her how to use it later. She will freely admit that she was having trouble with the gun, as the dot kept falling to the floor when she wasn’t paying attention. This coupled with the best thing she’d found out about her quarter staff, had led her to walking around with the quarterstaff out pretending to be a Jedi. What’s she’d discovered is that if she’s not paying too much attention to trying to use the Quarter staff, she can block bullets with it. As soon as she tries to understand how she gets hit.

 

Taking a quick breather she focuses on the chat window that Luna failed to mention and sends a quick message.

{TheFairyQueen} Hey, do you think it would be possible to play films from my home here?

 

Making a move she hunts down a couple more troopers and leaves them dying on the floor before she comes to an escarpment overlooking the destruction wrought on the forest. She remembers the forest fire from Disney’s Bambi and can’t help but picture dead deer, foxes, rabbits, and other forest animals laid out amongst the trees. They are both in agreement that they need to be stopped. Most people that know Hermione would say that she is the last person to seek out deliberate violence. But with memories bleeding over from when Titania defended the forest, back when it was only a few tens of miles across, the 12 year old girl was learning that there are indeed some things worth fighting for, and that sometimes you have to fight for those things. This revelation would increase Madam Pomphrey’s, the school mediwitch, workload over the coming years. In the distance she can see a factory complex and a convoy of aircraft heading towards her, mere dots on the horizon, but she ‘knows’ that they will take over this factory within days of her leaving.

 

{TheFairyQueen} Sorry about that, Harry’s sent me on my second factory run. My home doesn’t have nanite or digitised storage so I don’t know how the films would translate. Luna comes from the same place, though her community is more isolated. Grineer…

 

Pulling her attention back to now she finishes the last few corridors before heading into the exfiltration point. Once she steps into the lander she turns to face Harry.

“We want to deal with a complex next.”

Harry looks at her strangely, “Are you sure?”

“We are, I saw the transports heading towards the factory. It doesn’t matter how many factories I clear out, they’ll just be restoring them again in a few days.”

“What’s going on Hermione? You were saying we.”

“She remembers, back when the forest was new just after the war. Even then, they were looking to destroy it despite the fact it was the only habitable part of the planet.”

“If you’re getting that much bleed over, maybe we should find you a more basic Warframe.”

“No! I mean no. She’s, she’s just there. I didn’t lose myself today. I. Have you ever seen the film Bambi? No, of course you haven’t you grew up here. Captain Planet and the Planeteers, it’s a cartoon where a group of 5 children get powers to save the planet Earth, they call her Gaia, from destruction. Each one of them has a different power, and when they can’t solve the problem themselves they can combine their powers to summon Captain Planet. That’s who Titania is, was. I was going to start an environmental club at senior school this year, but then Professor McGonagall came and told me I was a witch.

“I thought it would be different you know, that being a witch would be better than being the odd kid. But I’m still the odd kid. Titania was the same you know, her creator made her mind first, and she even went back to the Terraforming projects for information.”

Stepping forward, Harry enfolds her in a hug, “How do you know about those Hermione?”

“I don’t, she does. I, she, it’s confusing. She was supposed to be allowed to grow, to be different from the other warframes. At the moment we’re, not talking, being aware of each other?” – Hermione leans back and takes a butterfly onto a finger – “These butterflies weren’t supposed to be a weapon. Each one contains a bit of her, and they are not made the same way as we are. I, we, ran out of void energy yesterday so she took some of my other reserves. It allowed her to think for the first time since… It’s confusing, we don’t know how to describe what that was.”

“Hermione, we’re going to go back to Lua now, as The Lotus needs to check you over.”

“But you said we could visit the nice Grineer today.”

“We still will if we have time afterwards.”

“That’s what Mum and Dad say when they get called into the clinic.”

“I mean it though, as soon as you’re done with your check, I’ll take you to see the Steel Meridian. Even if, by the clock, it’s tomorrow.”

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Intermission 1

 

“Jelly.”

“Yes Mia?”

“Did we do the right thing?”

“Apart from being too late to back out now. Which particular thing are you asking about?”

“Coming back to deal with the clinic.”

Danjell lets out a sigh, “I don’t know. What I do know is that there were things they wanted to talk to our little fairy about that they felt they couldn’t do while we were there.”

“I know, but she’s not going to see us for months.”

“It was the same when we sent her to that blasted school.”

“I know, it just. I dunno, feels different?”

“My grandparents told me that when mum and dad came here to escape the war it felt like their family was breaking apart. It’s not like they lived close, a few towns over. But suddenly the distance went from being something you could decide to do in an afternoon, to something you had to plan in advance. They also didn’t even know if they’d made it until the war was over, as there wasn’t any reliable post.”

“I know, but, I know I’m not making any sense.”

“You are, it’s just hard to accept. It’s Clark tech. It might as well be magic and Hermione’s going to a magic school.”

“You know, you’re right. Spaceships, lasers, moon bases, sentient robots. It’s right out of Dune or Star Trek. Even the fact that we’re slowly being turned into sentient robots.”

“There you go. I think we should let Anne know that we’ll need to close the practice for a few weeks soon.”

Amelia nods, “I think I’m going to pack Hermione’s library. She’ll want reading material.”

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 “Good afternoon everyone, I’m sorry to be interrupting your lunch. I’ve asked the house-elves to prepare a buffet for this meeting. As you probably know, the headmaster had to take over my classes this morning. What you don’t know is why. Normally none of you would find out, however the result is going to be rather obvious.”

Severus sneers, “Does it have anything to do with why Prince Potter missed his potions class this morning?”

Minerva nods, “As a matter of fact it does. Mr Potter has a condition that means he requires special sleeping arrangements. Albus and Hagrid are both aware of this, however the only other member of staff that is aware is his head of house, me. Filius, Pomona, Severus, if he’d gone to either of your houses you’d have been informed of this and why.

“The place that Harry grew up is like living in a Fairy Mound, though it would be more true to say that he lives on the other side of one. This is why the Rip Van Winkle laws were used. He was also drenched in fae energies for a few weeks, along with thousands of other people. Only the children survived, of which Harry was the youngest. A consequence of this is that those energies have become part of him.”

Filius frowns, “Why are we even letting him attend this school? We all know the old stories.”

“Harry isn’t fae, the people he grew up with have developed ways to contain and use fae energy. They also developed, I suppose you could call it a suit of armour, for them. This allows them to interact with the world while also keeping the occupants safe.”

“The golem.” Albus exclaims, “He was the golem. Why didn’t he talk to me though?”

“They don’t speak English. When I visited they,” – remembering what Dan said about Clark tech – “used a sort of magic to teach me their language in only a couple of hours. While we were at Diagon Alley he purchased a tutoring portrait to teach him English.”

“That doesn’t explain why Fawkes refuses to take me to him.”

 

Minerva wants to say that it’s because the solar system is still recovering from a war that spanned the entire solar system, and took centuries to resolve. Or that their technology was so far in advance of the muggle world that it looks like magic. Or even that Harry has been fighting in conflicts that make the last wizarding war look like a playground skirmish. Instead she says, “You’d really need to ask Fawkes about that.”

 

Pomona huffs, “While this is all well and good, I don’t see what it has to do with us. Or what happened last night.”

“Last night, due to reasons that I am already dealing with, Miss Granger was in a position to follow Mr Potter to his sleeping accommodation. When she saw his armour she had a flashback to the troll and called out to him. Startled he turned around and fired fae energies at Miss Granger.”

Madam Pomphrey shakes her head sadly, “When’s Miss Grangers funeral?”

“She’s still alive. Mr Potter sleeps in a special pod that is designed to keep him alive, and syphon off excess fae energies. The same pod kept Miss Granger alive long enough to get her to his home, where they were able to heal the damage the energy did to her. However, as she was exposed to levels of fae energies far in excess of those Harry was as a babe, she has also adapted to it and it’s part of her. Last I saw before I brought her parents home, she was adapting to her new armour. It is likely that she will be able to return to school in 2 weeks, 3 at the outside.”

Quirrell, the defence of dark arts professor, clears his throat, “C c c, will M m m the girl b b be a able to c c c finish her edu edu schooling?”

“Yes, I have tested her and she is still able to use her wand. Though she wasn’t very well coordinated when I left.”

Filius looks thoughtful, “What about the other students, will they be in danger from her?”

“Assuming that they stop bullying her, they should be fine.”

 

Albus nods and strokes his beard while he thinks, “Is there anything else Minerva?”

“As a matter of fact yes. I will need to take a leave of absence in a few weeks. Hopefully it will coincide with the winter break, however if it’s early or late you all need to know in advance.”

“That’s unlike you. Why is this?”

“I have taken, call it an alchemical elixir, that is changing me so that I’ll be able to handle Miss Granger safely if there’s ever an issue. It’s safe and well tested, however I will need to be. Examined during the final part of the process, so that if there are any problems they can be resolved before they’re irreversible.”

Albus explodes out of his chair, “Why would you do that?”

Minerva calmly faces him down, “Because, Mr, Dumbledore, Harry was the one that stopped the troll, and he could have done it with his bare hands. I do not trust elements in the Slytherin house, or a few elements in the other houses for that matter, not to provoke Miss Granger until she snaps and lashes out at one of them. If she does snap then it may not be possible for us to stop her without killing her. I will not see that on my conscience, so I took the risk of using this elixir so that we would have more options than just kill.”

“Surely they can’t be that bad.”

“Professors Quirrell and Sadler, you’ve both taught muggle studies. What do you remember of the muggle side of the Grindelwald war?”

Professor Sadler thinks for a moment, “It was brutal, more than a few magical settlements were crushed by metal monstrosities called tanks.”

“Those suites of armour can and do take on things like tanks in hand to hand combat, and win.”

Albus collapses back into his chair in shock at the news, “But what about prisoners? Innocent lives?”

Minerva looks at Albus sadly, “Harry doesn’t live in a peaceful world. You can’t put your own experiences on his shoulders. I don’t know what you saw when you fought Grindelwald, but I know it killed a part of you. We can talk more later if you want, as I don’t think you want to open old wounds in this forum.”

Albus nods, “Over dinner in my office?”

“Certainly.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah watches the sensors and camera feeds sadly as Hermione talks animatedly to one of the Steel Meridian. As she feels Xeno come in she waves him over.

“You have heavy thoughts.”

“I’m watching another childhood being stolen by the Zariman Ten-Zero, nearly 1,000 years after the event took place. I feel like we should have take steps to prevent this from happening in the first place.”

“Such as killing all the children like you were told to?”

“How did you know?”

“I wasn’t always a bumbling reporter. I started the Quibbler when Pandora fell pregnant. Before that, I was a hunter. The magical world has its share of monsters, things like werewolves and dementors. Newt Scamander did a good job chronicling them, but there are some that he didn’t include. Relics of the Fae. My blessing, the blessing of our family, allows us to see them. Most of them are small and harmless, like Wrackspurts that feed on discordant thoughts, or Blibering humdingers that can make people do stupid things. This solar system is mercifully free of those pests. However there are worse remnants out there, ones that can take people over and turn them into insane killers.

“I found one once, in a child. It hadn’t killed anyone, but I was supposed to kill their hosts wherever I found them. I passed on. A few months later I had to go back because of a spree of murders in the area. I thought it was my fault for leaving the child alive. When I finally tracked the killer down, it was a man not the child. The man was a monster before he was possessed, and killed the child that I’d spared.

“What you need to ask yourself isn’t ‘did you do the right thing in not killing them.’ Rather it’s ‘Would the Monsters that they’ve fought still have existed if you did?’.”

Natah indicates the display, “It’s still a childs innocence that’s lost.”

“Without Harry, she would most likely have been killed by the Troll. Is her innocence worth her life? I think that both she and her parents would say yes. I know I would if it was Luna.”

As Xeno leaves Natah brings up the scans she made from Hermione’s Titania. The sensors start out detecting the expected drain from the void energy reserves, and the mannequins all show the expected effects. And then the mannequins continue to show the effects even though her warframe is showing it’s running on a deficit of energy. Bringing up some of the early test results from Harry’s testing, before the implemented the simple interface, she sees the same thing happening.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Ironjaw looks at the results of the Lestrange vault audit in concern. It was a good test of the new scanners, as it was able to locate even hidden items. Such as the cup that contained a Horcrux buried under a mound of coins in a cupboard. Of course, the cost of recalling one of the Egyptian curse breaking teams to deal with it was subtracted from the vault, and there was roast pig that night. What’s worrying is that the Horcrux was less than a century old. They also have no idea who it belongs to, as standard practice is to vacate the area and then let the professionals deal with it so that it doesn’t kill anyone. It’s also clear from the test that these scanners won’t find anything that’s hidden magically. Something they were fairly sure was true, but nothing beats fairly sure except testing to make absolutely sure.

 

He then turns to the reports from the miners and craftsmen, with the new tools they’ve expanded their living space 500% faster than this time last year and they’re still getting used to them. The mining lasers are helping them identify missed pockets of ore, though they’re not so good with veins, as goblin experience and magic has long been up to the task. He turns to one side as one of the apprentices comes over with a slate, probably unable to read something.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Croaker, Shade, thank you for seeing me.”

“What’s the problem Malscent?”

“The veil of death has been fluctuating. The fluctuations mirror the ones that occurred on the 2^nd November 1981. Only these have been happening with some regularity.”

“I see. If that was the only thing then I’d be reading about it.”

“There is also a low level of fluctuations occurring several times a day. Some of those fluctuations marry up perfectly with the new owl detection ward that Shotgun put in place. Down to fractions of a second. Every single one of the owls in question is a Gringotts owl.”

“I see. Can you locate the source of the larger disturbances?”

“Not with just the veil, and we are having to rely on observations of the veil rather than detecting it directly.”

“Yes, yes, it doesn’t interact with magic, and anyone that so much as puts a finger in will die a horrible death after going insane and killing all their loved ones. We call it the veil of death for a reason. I’m worried that it means the return of the Fae.”

“I understand, we’ll work on trying to detect these fluctuations independently then.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

New Base

As Cy pilots the Railjack into the large space that will one day be a drydock, Harry looks nervously at the large white sphere that’s taking up nearly all of the height of the engineering deck. Too large and complicated to be digitised by even the most powerful of Orokin systems, it was built automatically by the systems on Lua, then teleported onto the Railjack using it’s own systems. It is an Orokin seed, the very thing that they used to build their towers and underground bases. Behind him is the much smaller Tenno seed that they use for building Dojo’s out of asteroids. Hermione was going out with Luna while his mother looked for a spare orbiter, or a restorable one anyway. She’s, she’s doing well. He can see the cracks where the girl that was thrown in the deep end and learnt to swim is still struggling, but being in a Warframe is smoothing out the worst of the trauma. Just like they were designed to do, if there was one thing that the Orokin were good at, it was dealing with trauma. Probably the only way that some of them were able to sleep at night. Fully aware that he’s prevaricating, Harry goes out in his archwing to inspect the tunnels that the MOA’s have dug out. After a through inspection, that just confirms what the reports and sensors have said, he calls Amelia.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m in the system at the moment, just installing the seed that will grow the complex that we’ll be keeping our bodies in while we’re at school. Is there anything you’d like me to transport back with me?”

“Oh, er, right. You’re Harry aren’t you. Of course you are, it even says so below your picture.”

“Are you ok?”

“Yes. No. It’s all just so, overwhelming.”

“Honestly, I can’t imagine what you’re going through. This has been my whole life. What I can say is that it is probably both better and worse than you fear. And the bits that are one or the other will surprise you every time. When you’re overwhelmed by what might be, start looking at what is, and what you can do to make it a little better.”

“I. Thank you. I never thought I’d be taking life advice from a teenager.”

“I’m more like 880, maybe 900 years old. Something about the void energy in us stops us from aging past that.”

“So you’re missing out on some of the major brain development”

“In long term planning and risk analysis. Yes we know. As a group Tenno can be very, childish, because of it. It doesn’t change who and what we are.”

“Sorry. It’s just hard.”

“It’s ok, it’s often a sore spot for us as many of our detractors in the solar system will call us children despite the fact that we’ve got centuries more experience than they do.”

Amelia grimaces, “Yeah, I can see that. Women get called girls all the time, even when we’re in our 30’s. It’s, infantilising. Listen, I’m currently packing up Hermione’s Library. Well, it’s only really about 300 books, but that’s what we call it. If you could pick that up it would be great.”

“I’ll talk to Cy and see what he says, but I think he’s finished analysing the emissions coming from the planet and worked out the wave lengths they use for detecting things, and the ones they use for communications. So we should be able to set the lander to absorb those and come in nearby.”

Cy joins the call, “Captain, if Ordis can get a lander into a secure Corpus base for an infiltration mission, I can put the same lander down in one of the green spaces near Amelia’s position. Short of someone seeing us, which given the axial tilt of the planet in that location should be almost impossible, after 6pm local time, with the naked eye, and I can avoid the electronic cameras and telescopes easily.”

Amelia shakes her head, “Cy, you’re scary, do you realise that?”

Harry chooses to head that off before it can get started, “Do you know what a vi d o is? Hermione was saying she wanted to get some. Specifically star wars. Though why you’d want war amongst the stars when the solar system is still in turmoil I have no idea.”

Amelia can’t help it, she laughs, “I’ll pack her TV video player and all her videos too then. I’d imagine that you can work out how to power it with all of your technology.”

“Ok, so I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

“Sure. By the way, what are you doing here anyway?”

“I’m currently avoiding activating an Orokin ship seed and potentially becoming the new controlling AI.”

“I must be missing something. Why are you doing this?”

“We can’t afford to use Tenno tech to run the transference pods, as our orbiters all use a large amount of infested bio-tissue to run the systems. It stopped the Sentients from controlling them, but well, we have the infested as a large problem in the solar system. So as Railjacks use void technology rather than infested technology, we’re sterilising all the Warframes that we’re bringing, and also replacing the lander with a Digital storage module. There’s no way that Cy could run it, but it can certainly be transported between here and the Orokin system.”

“I see, and what about the becoming an AI?”

Harry grimaces, “I have to be physically present to activate the seed, and use my implants to activate and guide it’s growth, at least initially. When I do, the AI will try to take control of my implants. If it succeeds, well.”

“Tell you what, if you’ve activated it and you get here for 6pm I’ll drive you to the local supermarket and let you buy a trolley’s load of shopping.”

Taking a deep breath, Harry says, “Ok, I’m going to do it. See you at 6.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry closes his eyes and searches for his implants. Once he finds them he stretches out his hand and touches the seed. With the symbolic contact established he levitates it off the ground and opens a wormhole to the centre of the new complex. He then walks the seed through the portal, extending an atmospheric shield ahead of him so that he has the air he needs to complete the next step. When the wormhole winks out behind him, he activates the extractors and watches as thin tendrils extend from the sphere and dig into the lunar regolith and start converting the matter to energy. Once it’s reserves are full he activates the reactor at the heart of the seed, and the reserves empty at an alarming rate. Once it’s almost depleted a tesseract forms in the centre of the sphere drawing energy in from the dimensions adjacent to this one, and void energy to stabilise the reaction. The reserves rapidly fill up again and once they’re full the AI comes online automatically to manage the tesseract and the facility.

Harry grits his teeth as the AI detects his connection and tries to take control of his implants at the same time Harry tries to transmit the master authorisation codes. One by one the AI takes over his implants over what seems like a battle of half an hour, but in actuality is only a fraction of a second. However, Harry prevents himself from panicking with the iron discipline learned on countless battlefields. Concentrating on transmitting the last of the authorisation codes, he gets the confirmation that they’ve been received as he loses control of the most important implant. It’s tendrils start to ease into his mind and test his nerve signals, learning the layout of his brain so that it can make the modifications it needs when it suddenly withdraws and relinquishes control over his implants. Using the last of his mental strength he commands the seed to create the core room and stabilise the atmosphere and gravity before he collapses bonelessly to the floor. Just before he collapses he activates transference and feels his Wisp engulf him in its tender embrace.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Amelia stands with Danjell in the nearby park, 6 boxes of books and a TV are on the grass at their feet while they wait anxiously for Harry to arrive. When Cy contacted them, he sounded concerned.

“ETA 10 seconds. 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… arrival.”

As Cy’s voice says arrival, the slim lander hurtles down to the ground rapidly decelerating until it’s hovering a mere foot off the floor. The airlock at the back of the lander opens to reveal a Warframe lying on the floor, it’s cloak pooling around it like a blanket.

“Human Amelia, my captain collapsed after activating the seed. Cephalon Cy was able to negotiate with the new AI and sent a drone in to retrieve her. However, she has not responded since then. I, would like your help to ensure that my captain is fully functional.”

The two of them share a glance before Amelia speaks up, “Cy, I think that Harry needs to go back to Lua. I can come with you if that would make you more comfortable.”

“That would be acceptable.”

“Cy, would you mind if we loaded Hermione’s things before we leave?”

“… That is acceptable.”

“Dan, give my apologies to Minerva. And don’t forget that you’ll need to buy Fawkes’ fruit. You should buy the kids, and Harry some treats as well. Oh and a selection of comics and magazines too.”

Danjell doesn’t laugh, much as he wants to, as he knows that his wife is just nervous, “Don’t worry, I won’t forget. Do you want anything? Wine, cider, soft drinks?”

“Get whatever you think best.”

 

With the Lander loaded, Amelia sits down on the floor and lifts Wisps head into her lap and starts to stroke it. Meanwhile Cy pilots the lander back to the Railjack and starts the calculations to return home.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The journey to Lua is nerve-wracking for multiple reasons, as Amelia is acutely aware of the fact that she is travelling through the void. The same void that gave Harry and Hermione powers that can only be controlled with the transference pods. The same void that drove the parents of the other Tenno insane. She is also turning into a Sentient, and the only known energy they can’t adapt to is the void, Natah was very clear on that.

Finally, the only movement that Harry has made since she boarded the lander is to take hold of her hand. It didn’t help that Cy required her permission to engage the autopilot that would take them back to Lua. When she felt the weird sensation of being connected to the systems at Lua, she immediately called Natah.

The Lotus’ face appears at the side of her vision, and Amelia fair screams “No, I need Natah. It’s Harry, she’s unconscious, and has been for over an hour.”

The Lotus frowns before she reaches up and removes the helmet, “Where are you Amelia?”

“We’re on route to Lua, I’m still in the lander with her head in my lap. Cy, do your magic and send her our current position.”

“I object mistress, what I do is hardly magic. Transmitting data.”

“I’m coming to meet you.”

 

A few minutes later Cy’s voice comes over the internal comm, “Warning, incoming Sentient signature. Be ready to repel boarders. Identity signal received, welcome aboard Lotus.”

Natah’s frame seems to disconnect far faster than Amelia has ever seen happen before as she rushes over to inspect Harry.

She sags to the floor on her knees, legs akimbo to either side of her as she sighs with relief, “Heart of Tau, she’s fine. Thank you for staying with her, though she’d have woken up on her own in a few hours. What I’m reading from her implants is that she only succeeded on a technicality, so the AI was in the process of invading her brain when it finished processing the access codes. What’s happening now is that she’s mentally recovering from this while her implants are reconfiguring to their pre-attack state. Cy, disengage the lander and take us into Lua, I’m going to manually transfer her to a pod to speed her recovery.”

“Understood Lotus. Will your frame be unaffected by being left behind?”

“I’ll have it follow along, so don’t worry.”

 

Once they land, Natah lifts Wisp off the floor with brute strength and manages to look calm and collected even as she strains to carry her out of the door. Once there she reconnects with her frame and what looked effortless becomes effortless as she floats through the corridors to the reservoir trailed by Amelia. Once there a brief touch on the wisps systems sees harry appear in the pod, asleep. As she strokes his hair, she smiles gently at him. Turning back to the wisp, she makes a minor modification to the sensors on the Void reservoir to indicate that there is 25 more capsules of void energy than it actually contains, to it’s maximum size. If she’s right, then it will have no effect on Harry’s usage of it’s powers. If she’s wrong, Harry will find out about the modification very quickly and correct it herself.

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

I'd just like to thank the moderators for taking the time to read through my story and approve the couple of chapters that needed moderating. 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Informational

 

Because I’ve seen some confusion about what the Seed was, what follows is a brief description of the way I see them based on things that happen in game.

 

So to start with, we know that Orokin ships have an AI that can take over organics and turn them into part of its security system. Every single extermination mission in the void has this as it’s premise. We also know from the same missions that bad things happen if this isn’t nipped in the bud immediately. I touch on this in the chapter ‘Luna, Lua, What?’.

Also in the game, when you start a new Dojo (Clan building for research, relaxation, and friendly duels) it appears out of nothing. You are also able to add multiple rooms with a view of the surrounding space, one of which is a Dry Dock. The last thing we see is that Energy-Matter-Energy conversion is possible, and seems to be the way that we carry around so much stuff.

 

From this was born the idea of a Seed. A self-contained machine that has enough power and equipment to convert matter into the energy it needs to start a reactor, and then convert the surrounding material into a base. The much smaller Tenno designed seed is pre-programmed to consume the asteroid it’s placed on (or as much matter as is required to build the basic hall) and build the basic superstructure and an internal Hall before consuming itself leaving only the computer system and a basic generator powerful enough to keep the structure working. This computer system then has the blueprints for a variety of different rooms built into it, and just enough intelligence to construct those rooms where it is directed to. Note the lack of an AI, the whole place is maintained by people.

 

The Orokin on the other hand, used full blown AI and we know they included it in their ships. As such, why wouldn’t they include it from the beginning. Their ships and bases also don’t seem to have any obvious power systems, so I invented the Tesseract Reactor, a 4 Dimensional shape that draws a miniscule amount of energy from every 3 Dimensional universe it overlaps. This then means that the seed for an Orokin base is that much larger too, as it contains enough computing power to run the AI as well as all the infrastructure needed to start the reactor. If you have reliable Energy-Matter-Energy conversion, then as long as you have a single emitter you can create everything you need ex-nihilo. As such the seed will only have the absolutely necessary components needed to get it into place and start the reactor. Everything else will be created by the AI on demand. But what if an enemy got hold of a seed, wouldn’t they just be able to steal the technology?

 

This is why the AI is included in the seed in its entirety. Remember that ability to take over people that happens? When it’s activated the AI is programmed to assume that it is in hostile territory. For an experienced Orokin this isn’t a problem, as they can transmit the authorisation codes fast enough to avoid being attacked. However, for an upstart, inexperienced faction, or an enemy that got hold of the seed? Well, that’s where a hostile AI comes in, the first thing it will try and do is take over the activating systems. If that activating system happens to be an upstart Orokin that is biting off more than they can chew, no matter they were obviously too arrogant to survive. Once it’s done that it will start to build out in the surrounding area and absorb or take over any technology or organics it comes across. At the same time it will be building internal defences and external weapons in order to fight whatever force has captured it. This process can be halted at any time, as long as valid override codes are provided, but that doesn’t release the organics already under it’s control. Once it has built itself a sufficiently mobile body, it will seek to return to Orokin space. See “Luna, Lua, What?” For a description of the consequences of that.

 

The Sentients, being a higher order digital intelligence, are able to “hack” the controlling AI and take it over or shut it down. This is something that Ballas talks about in his various monologues, and is the reason that the infested and warframes even exist.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Self discovery

 

Neville sits at the table Harry and Hermione normally do their English lesson at, while reading the animated guide to potion making book that Harry lent him, before both He and Hermione disappeared. He can’t help but wonder what’s happened to make them miss classes today, and meals. One of the Weasley twins sits down next to him, “Hi, Longbottom right?”

Neville marks his place and replies politely, “Weasley.”

“Call me Fred, or is it George today? Eh, whatever one of those will do.”

“Then call me Neville.”

“As our illustrious head of house has decided that the Quidditch team is doubling as the prefects for the moment, Fred and I noticed that you seem to have been struggling with potions.”

“I thought you were Fred?”

“I am, but you’ve not answered the question.”

“Yeah, I keep making mistakes and Professor Snape doesn’t help.”

“Well, George and I happen to be dab hands at potions. If you watch our less salubrious brother over there, he should be about to notice that someone left a sweet lying around.”

Neville watches with morbid fascination as Ron looks up from his chess set and notices the sweet just out of reach that doesn’t have anyone nearby. Looking around, he leans over and snags the sweet, unwraps it and is merrily chewing on it within a second. Just after he swallows, his tongue pokes out from between his lips and then suddenly seems to swell to an enormous size. He watches as it twitches feebly while Ron tries to talk.

“Don’t worry, it will wear off in a couple of minutes. And if the hints we’ve put together are anything to go by, Ron is one of the primary reasons that Hermione isn’t here today, and why we’re standing in for the prefects.”

“What about Harry?”

“No idea. However, we thought we’d offer you some one-on-one help with your potions.”

“Are you sure? Everyone seems to think that you are layabouts that spend more time having fun than you do on your schoolwork.”

“They are absolutely correct, but what they fail to consider is just how much work we put into having fun. There’s a reason why the teachers turn a blind eye to well executed pranks, and it’s because to execute them you need to know far more than they’ve taught you. The key to all of magic is creativity, and Professor Snape is absolutely brilliant at squashing it. So, how about it, would you like some help with your potions?”

Neville swallows hard, “Y yes. I would, thank you.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Ironclaw looks at the letter he’s just received in disbelief. Simaris wants every single science fiction book and video they can get their hands on. He’s not even sure what science fiction, or videos are. He hurries off to find one of the banks muggleborn. He is seriously considering approaching the directors about adopting some of these muggleborn into the clans. Just because they often have the same problems with the wizarding world they do, and they are also able to move freely in the mundane world.

 

After a brief conversation, the muggleborn in question was handed several stacks of bills and told to buy everything they could in a couple of hours. The fact that forbidden planet was completely sold out would make the local news for the next week.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah floats beside the pod that holds Harry, his wisp still lying insensate on the floor where she’d left it. She’s aware of the fact that she’s had visitors aplenty, but her focus has been solely on the progress that his implants are making with their repairs and reconfiguration, as well as the damage to her brain. She’s also aware that a large number of the visitors have been awakened Tenno, if she wasn’t so worried about Harry, she’d have been concerned that they’d seen her like this rather than only using her subframe. Idly she notes that her systems are communicating with the other female sentients around her and reconfiguring her subframe for more optimal reproduction.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Luna, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Hermione you lucky witch, I’ve been looking for that grove for ages. I’m coming to find you.”

“Luna, Luna! Great. Now what is this place and why does it feel so familiar to you.”

 

She sees an image of herself, of Titania, laying the body of an Orokin woman out on the floor at the top of the waterfall, then going around and picking up stones and crudely flattening them before she places them around and over the body. Finally, she places 3 of her butterflies at the head of the cairn and builds up a pile of rocks over them so that there will always be a part of her here with her creator. Then the Orokins slaves come into the grove that holds her creators work. They’re armed with flame throwers and corrosive liquid sprayers, so she disregards her operators commands and launches herself at them. Spinning and fighting the bodies mount up around the edges of the grove. There, they provide the very plants they were trying to wipe out with the nutrients they need to start fighting back.

 

Eventually, the most amazing thing happens, her creator speaks to her. Hermione gets the impression that Titania stayed here for a long time before the Orokin arrived in person, and all the strength left her form. She was then taken to a lab and dismantled, losing awareness until Hermione woke her.

 

“What does Missy books want with the Mistresses body?”

The voice of a strange humanoid brings Hermione out of the shared memory, and she realises that she’s kneeling on the ground where Silvana was buried, though it’s now covered in grass.

“I’m sorry, I was just sharing a memory of this place. May I ask what sort of Grineer you are?”

“Oh, we’s aren’t Grineer, we’s are house elves. Scary master brought us here from other earth.”

“What are House Elves?”

Silvana’s voice sounds through the grove, “They were once what your world knows as fae. Millenia ago they used to possess babies and pretend to be humans until they had grown. Then they would either leave, fat on the energy that their parents had lavished on them or turn to a murderous rage and slaughter those that had mistreated them.”

“Miss grove, we’s are not allowed to tell wizard folk this.”

“Calm little one, I am not a House Elf, and she is no mere wizard folk. Look within and see the energy of your original home.”

The House Elf recoils as if it’s seen something terrible.

Hermione frowns and shrinks in on herself, “What’s the matter?”

“We’s all remember what it was like then. Even our young. We’s not want to be like that again.”

Silvana takes over, “There were fae that were able to walk in the world without possessing a shell, or being little more than a shade. Some of them were able to leech from humans long enough to develop emotions. A few were seduced by humans, or in some cases seduced them. A coupling that invariably proved fatal except for those that have what you call magic.

“From what the house elves have told me, it was the child of one such coupling that first purged a child of the void energy and replaced it with their own magic. The entity possessing the child was then locked in, and over time merged with the child’s body and overcame the drive that void energy induced.

“These poor creatures, with no souls of their own, had to bond with people that had their own soul to survive. Over time they reproduced, and became the creatures you see before you now. Still reliant on sharing a soul with another, and little more than slaves in many households. While in others they are a beloved member of the family.”

Hermione gently reaches forward before pulling the House Elf into a hug, “You poor thing.”

“It’s ok Missy books. We’s like it this way, we’s no want to go on rampages, just find a loving family and serve them.”

“What if we could give you your own soul?”

“Oh no, we’s wouldn’t want that. We’s not be house elves anymore if that happened.”

 

Luna’s face fizzes into view in her vision, “ione… bzzzzt …Hermione where are you?”

“I’m in the grove, why?”

“I’m coming to find you.”

The house elf waves it’s hands wildly and mimes keeping its mouth shut before disappearing with a small pop.

“What’s going on?”

“Your friend is still a witch that is seeking to become more, however she can’t bring herself to let go. They can tell, so I have been hiding this grove from her. When she becomes Tenno in truth, then they will reveal themselves to her.”

“Aren’t I a witch too?”

“Are you?”

“I,” she stops to think about how she feels, about the bullying and how Harry and the Tenno have only ever been supportive. About how her parents have given up their humanity for her.

“No. No! I’m not a witch, I am a Tenno.”

“See.”

Luna sounds stressed when she says, “Who are you talking to Hermione?”

“Will you help me pass on a message to her?”

“Sure?”

“When I turn the colour of your energy silver I want you to say the following…”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Luna comes bouncing into the glade through the narrow tunnel that she is willing to swear wasn’t there before. She slides to a stop when she sees Hermione kneeling down by the cairn facing the entrance.

Carefully walking forward she says, “Hermione, are you ok?”

As she steps into the sunlight Hermione’s energy emissions turn silver and she looks up at her, “Child of the moon, what you seek can not be found here. Only the steps of a dreamer can find what you seek. Return when you can hear the dreamers speak and understand the whispers of the sun and the moon in balance. Only then will your quest begin. Learn to fly by letting go.”

Hermione’s emissions then turn green again and she shudders.

“Oh pooh.” She murmurs under her breath, louder she continues, “Hermione are you alright?”

“Oh, hey Luna, I found this awesome grove, and Titania showed me what it was like the first time she came here.”

“Uh, right, so you didn’t say anything just now?”

Hermione has to fight from giggling while also doing her best to lie. Of course it’s helped by the fact that Warframes can’t blush, “Of course, I did. I told you I found this awesome grove.”

“I meant before that.”

“You asked me where I was, and I said I was in the grove.”

“I, no never mind.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here. I thought this was somewhere else.”

Hermione leaps to follow her, and she feels like she did something profound. As she’s about to pass into the passageway, she turns and waves at the cairn.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Luna looks pensively at her transference pod, she knows what it’s for, but she’s never really needed it. Not like any of the Tenno have. But she knows she’s only got a limited window before the family blessing becomes a curse. She shudders as she remembers the dream in the void on the way here.

 

“Good evening young one. It’s not often that I get visitors as young or open minded as you.”

“Hello Mister, I’m Luna.”

The man laughs, “I don’t really have a name. Though some people have called me Wally.”

“That’s silly, why would they do that when it’s not your name?”

“Humans are weird sometimes. Now I want you to see something, a few somethings really. But I think you will only understand the first one at the moment.” – The man in the wall looks over her memory selves shoulder into her eyes – “Isn’t that right Luna.”

 

The man dissolves into mist and Luna is standing in the living room of the rookery, peeking around the door into her mothers study. They had a wonderful holiday and now they’re home she’s researching again. Her mother double checks her work and brings up the shields in her study before she carefully begins to recite an incantation with intricate wand movements. She’s almost finished casting when a blackbird crashes through the window, sending glass everywhere, and causing her mother to extend her wand just too far instead of hooking up. Suddenly there’s an explosion and she finds herself getting groggily to her feet to find her mother. She’s in the study, lying still, blood pouring from her eyes and ears. The world fast forwards and she sees herself wandering stone halls, shivering barefoot in a summer nightshift, strange creatures float before her eyes and demand her attention. The sound of male voices ahead of her sees her spin around and flee into the darkness. Where she arrives to see herself chained to a wall, a man in black robes, wearing a white facemask is undoing his belt and removing his undergarments. She struggles and screams to no avail, as the only things that can hear are things only she can see. Harry comes in wearing a Wisp and dispatches the death eater with a shot to the head before breaking her chains and carrying her out of the cell. She sees herself an old lady with a ring on her finger. The back of an equally old man leaves, and her mask crumbles to reveal the broken person beneath.

 

Then she’s on Lua, clutching her head, while Natah looks on tapping on screens and instruments trying desperately to stop whatever’s happening. She falls to the floor and crawls to her Wisp, her first warframe as if it will be able to save her. Then her back arches and her soul is expelled from her body. She watches as the body stands up and says something to Natah, who makes another scan before shooting her in the back of the head.

 

“You remember now don’t you.” – She jumps as the Man in the wall appears beside her – “You also know what it means, after all you’re not just one of mine, you’re also of seers blood. You know where to find me when you are ready to choose.”

“I don’t have to choose, Hermione didn’t”

“Didn’t she? Why don’t you ask her what she is?”

 

Luna blinks and she’s staring at her transference pod again. Hesitantly she calls Hermione.

“Hi Luna, I might be a bit distracted as Kitty and I are. Just. Venus, sabotage.”

“This might sound like a strange question, but what are you?”

“A Tenno, obviously.”

“Not a witch?”

“They showed me what they thought of me, so no.”

“What about human?” she asks desperately.

Hermione laughs, “I think I left human behind almost a year ago. Kitty, how’s it going with the coolant, as I’m getting a bit busy out here?”

“Thank you, that’s all I wanted to ask.”

Hermione some how manages to look at her with knowing eyes, “Did it help?”

“I, I’ll let you know.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Healing Process

Harry watches as a small, underfed boy was banished from the kitchen to a small room under some stairs. On his head is a scar that is red raw, as though it is nearly fresh, though it seems to be a long standing wound. The boys eyes show no signs of joy or happiness, and the room contains a threadbare mattress. The scene changes and the boy is now wearing glasses with a frame held together with sticky tape, still short, but when he finishes cooking, he’s given a small bowl of some strange food, a single piece of the cooked meat, a slice of something along with an egg. The others at the table all have at least double that. The boy gets up and goes out to the kitchen with a plate, and then he’s being chased across a field by the larger boy from the table, and 3 others. The boy is back in the kitchen, and he cracks an egg into the frying pan, only for a letter to fall out instead. Desperately he cracks the rest of the eggs, only to find a letter in each of them. A woman shouts at him and sends him up to a room full of junk.

 

Harry turns away from the scenes playing out to face the man in the wall, “Why show me this again, I happen to agree with the decision my toddler self made.”

The man nods, “Yes indeed. But then this happened.”

 

Harry turns back to see himself fishing on Demios when an owl appears out of nowhere carrying a letter. He almost shoots it out of the air before realising that it’s not a native animal for the area. Quickly launching his archwing, he flies at full speed to the Necrolisk, where he takes the owl to Son to ensure it hasn’t been infected.

 

He watches as a younger Hermione shouts to his back and he turns and shoots her, then carries her across the void. Then he watches as his mother gives herself a soul. Xeno’s eyes turn silver as he talks to his mother. Luna’s frame glows silver as she talks to his mother. The goblins expand beyond the reach of the British Ministry, Corpus mining equipment being used for improving lives rather than profit.

 

He shrugs, “I honestly don’t think I’d change my actions at this point.”

 

“I know,” the man in the wall growls out, “the problem is her. She chose before I could make an offer, she always chooses before I can make an offer.” Hermione kneeling beside a cairn as a Prime Titania appears in front of them.

 

Harry turns to him, “Sometimes, I think it’s less about the bargain and more about the choice. She’s one of yours, same as the rest of us are. Despite how different we are, how violent our lives are, how inhuman we appear, we offered her something she had only found with her family before now. Acceptance.”

 

A scene shows with Harry sitting on the train, Hermione pointing at a word in the dictionary as he tries to say it. Then she’s sitting at a table with both Neville and himself on either side while she reads out of a book. Of him holding her hand while she’s in his Oberon Warframe. Of her getting support when she asks about believing that she’s her Warframe. It ends with Harry killing the troll and then carrying her to the Hospital Wing. It ends with a scrawny boy with a scar on his face sticking his wand up a trolls nose.

 

Harry does a double take at the second scene.

“Just, bring her to the void.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah will forever deny the fact that she squealed in happiness when Harry’s wisp sat up and clutched its head. Or that she immediately scooped her up into a hug.

“Hey mum, I need more practice before I do that again.”

“You’ve been unconscious for 40 days. I thought you’d never heal.”

“Thank you for looking after me. And thank you for giving yourself a soul for me.”

“I don’t want you using transference until you’re fully healed and we’ve made sure that there is no lasting damage to your brain or your implants.”

Letting himself be fussed over, he just rests his head on her arm as she carries him out of the reservoir. Both of them are somewhat surprised by just how many Tenno are crowded around in The Lotus’ home. It reminds him of the first hours of Baro Ki’Teer turning up to a relay junction. As he sits next to Natah, he can see how much it affects her while she goes through her story, from being born in the Tau system, to coming here to prevent the Orokin from despoiling the system they’d spent so long terraforming. To her taking charge of the Tenno and coming to think of them as her own children, even going so far as to try and divest herself of her main frame. How Ballas had captured her and stolen her powers, to getting them restored and Harry helping her to form her own personality out of the two that different people had tried to force on her, and the personality that she’d developed while looking after the Tenno.

 

Into this mess, Amelia walks in carrying a box full of sweets from the local supermarket. Trailing behind her Danjell and Minerva, with Fawkes on her shoulder, watch with amusement.

“Hey everyone, I thought that we should bring some sweets to help our girl feel better about everything that’s going on. We’ve also got the new issue of New Scientist in here too.”

Kitty is the first one to respond, “Huh? What are sw…ates?”

Amelia pulls out a curly whirley, “They’re a type of food eaten as a treat or on a special occasion.”

Kitty transfers so fast that she seems like she teleported out of her frame, “Can I try one? Oh, and which one’s your girl?”

Amelia laughs, “Sure, do you want this one, or do you want to look in the box? Also, Hermione is our daughter.”

“Mmmph. How comes you’re not trying to kill us?”, almost the whole room flinches at that.

Natah speaks up, “Hermione got her powers by startling Harry and being shot with her amp.”

“Hey Queenie, does that mean you’ve never met Wally?”

Hermione shakes her head while heading over to find the magazine she was promised, “Nope, never.”

“How is that fair?”

Harry laughs softly, “Because she keeps making the choice before he can offer.” – everyone turns to look at her – “What? He wants to meet her.”

Hermione sticks her hand up, “Sorry to be the only Tenno here without a clue, but what choice.”

Kitty smiles a brittle smile, “Simple, you accept the power of the void, and he’ll get you out of your situation. All of us, we were on a ship stranded in the void. While Harry and Lotus were missing around 5 years ago, and the Tenno name was dirt, I met a homeless drifter. She looked just like me, and sounded just like me too, just older. I think she was a me that refused the offer.”

Hermione pulls Kitty into a gentle hug, “You’re my family now, especially since Mum and Dad chose to go through the process that Harry’s mum modified so they would become Sentients without losing their souls.”

Deathdigger speaks up, “What, she fixed the cephalon process, so it doesn’t kill people?”

Natah shakes her head, “No, I’m sorry. I built on the work that my Father and cousin. Tell a lie, the infested spawn is my brother, but after capturing me with Ballas and trying to steal my powers he’s no family of mine. You all know of Caliban?”

All the older Tenno wince, “Well, I changed that process so that it starts with the brain and nervous system. Only once they are running on sentient technology does it move onto the rest of the body, starting with the internal organs.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Pandora and Xenophilus didn’t think so.”

“Who?”

“Luna’s parents. They’ve got a child now, an adorable little Sentient called Xenorchomenus. Or Xeno Senior and Xeno Junior if you can’t pronounce that.”

Roofie asks around a mouthful of Dairymilk, “Where is Luna anyway?”

Hermione shuffles uncomfortably, “I think she might be thinking about her choice. Um, I found the sacred grove the other week, and well I passed on a message because Silvana is refusing to reveal herself to Luna.”

“Why?”

“Because she has been trying to circumvent the process, she’s never been a dreamer.”

“Really?”, Many of the other Tenno that are listening echo the sentiment.

“Silvana has new tenants, and they can tell that she thinks of herself as a witch first and Tenno maybe second. Apart from mom and dad, you have been the first people that accepted me, know it all nature included.”

Kitty speaks up around another piece of chocolate something, “Hey, that’s a plus in my book. I love being able to call you up and say, ‘Hermione, what am I looking at?’ and be told if I’m looking at a sunrise threshcone, moonlight threshcone, or just a random cone that doesn’t actually have any special properties. It’s saved me an absolute fortune in scanners over the last three months. Oh, and you guys should totally try these before we scarf the lot. They’re amazing. Thank you Ami.”

 

Danjell puts an arm around his wife’s shoulders, “It’s amazing isn’t it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so engaged with other people before.”

Amelia leans into him, “It’s certainly something, she hasn’t even opened the New Scientist yet.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Luna slides down the side of her pod and lands on the floor, crying as she calls her mother.

“Little Moon, what’s the matter?”

“Mum, I’m scared.”

“What’s going on Luna? I thought you were off being a Tenno.”

“I, I’ve been pretending. Our fae heritage allows me to use a Warframe without going insane. I did it to save your life.”

“How did you save my life?”

“You became Sentients because of something I said to Aunty. So you didn’t go back and take the job.”

“I see, and what was the price?”

“I become a Tenno. I thought I could just use the Warframes and not lose myself. Not stop being a witch.”

“Luna, Honey, why did you want to keep being a witch?”

“You’re a witch and Dad’s a wizard.”

“Let me tell you a secret of adulthood. I haven’t been a witch for a very long time, I see myself as a Mother first, researcher second, and witch is way down at the bottom of the list of things I am. Same as your father, he used to be a hunter, then he became a reporter.”

Luna hiccoughs, “But Hermione was able to throw it all away, all that growing up, finding out that she’s a witch, and she’s embraced being a Tenno.”

“Luna, never forget that you’ll always be my little girl. I wish you’d told me about this a couple of years ago, I’d have made more effort to make you come with us on our explorations of the solar system.”

“You just seemed to be so happy, and I’ve made friends here. And I’ve been lying to them all this time. And I love Wisp, she’s been there for me since we arrived.”

“Luna, we’re coming from Pluto. Well we will be once I get your father back on track. I’ll see you in a couple of days. In the meantime, go and find your friends. And no more pretending.”

“Ok mum.”

“Promise me, no more pretending.”

“I promise mum.”

“That also means in front of your friends.”

“Yes mum, I promise.”

 

Luna wipes the worst of her tears off of her face and gives her Wisp a hug before looking for Natah and Hermione. She instead found an entire gathering of everyone she regularly spoke to in chat, and broke down crying again before someone pulled her into a hug on a seat.