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

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Hope and Acceptance

“Xeno, we need to go now. No you can’t see if there’s a Mass Effect gate in Charon. They already have mining operations there, so it’s unlikely that it exists. Luna needs us. She made a deal with the fae to save my life. Oh, now you’re paying attention. She made a deal to become Tenno, but she’s been pretending by sticking to the letter of the agreement. Huff, typical Xeno, at least he’s forgotten he can apparate.”

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 “Um, hi everyone.” Presented with so many people that have helped her since she got here, Luna suddenly looks like the insecure child that she is, rather than the budding Tenno that she pretends to be.

Kitty void jumps to her side and presses a half-eaten chocolate bar into her hands, “Hey Licious, are you ok?” When she just bursts into tears Kitty pulls her down into a seat and hugs her.

After she’s calmed down enough to talk, Kitty asks, “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve been pretending to be a Tenno, and you’re all going to hate me.”

“Luna, you haven’t been pretending to be a Tenno. You are a Tenno, because all of us accept you as a Tenno.”

“But I’m not a dreamer.”

“Luna, what do you think a Tenno is?”

“People that use warframes, wield void powers, and have lived through the second dream.”

“No, that’s what we do. What we are, are survivors of an experimental flight that went wrong. Margulis, and later The Lotus took care of us as a family, and that’s what we are. Often fractious, friendly as often as not, and above all else family.”

Hermione kneels down in front of Luna, “Luna, you asked me last week what I was, and I said Tenno. Why did you ask me that?”

Seeing something going on with one of her students, or potential students, Minerva unobtrusively separates from Dan and Emma and perches on the edge of a seat close, but not intruding.

Luna sniffs, “I don’t want to stop being a witch.”

Kitty frowns, “What’s one of those?”

Minerva speaks up as Professor McGonagall, “A witch is a human or near human female magic user in our culture. It would be analogous to girl or woman.”

Kitty looks at Luna seriously, “Luna, just how old are you?”

“Almost 15.”

“How old were you when I helped you get your wisp?”

“9”

“Void, no wonder you’re screwed up. You’re just a kid pretending to be a grown up.” – Kitty sweeps her hand around the room – “None of us are ever going to be adults. Ever. But that’s only biology. Apart from you and Hermione, the youngest Tenno I know of is Harry. And she’s over 800 years old. She’s also the oldest of us if you use linear time, as she was the first of us to reawaken after Space Mom hid us away. Now, what’s important about being a witch. Don’t say what you think adults want to hear, tell me what’s important to you about being a wetch.”

“They can use magic to do amazing things, like put stars on the ceiling, or make pancakes, or pick you up for a hug.”

“Can men do the same thing?”

“Only if they’re a wizard.”

“So, what’s more important doing magic or being a wutch? If you were turned into a man, but could still do magic would that be ok?”

Luna screws her eyes in concentration, “I don’t think I’d like being a man, but it would be better than not being able to do magic.”

“Hermione is a Tenno. Has she stopped being able to do magic?” Kitty holds her hand up as Minerva is about to say something.

“I,” Luna looks confused for a moment before Hermione takes her wand and casts a lumos. Then it’s like a light turns on behind her eyes, “No. Oh Merlin, I thought.”

“You were an 8 year old child with a childs knowledge of the world. For whatever reason, you became Tenno. You are still a child, operating with more knowledge of the world, because of that you’ve assumed you understand things that take the rest of us years to understand. Now have some chocolate and think about what you want to do.”

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Kitty waves over Hermione’s mother, and once she’s done that she wave Minerva over to one side.

“Sorry about stopping you just then. What was it you were going to say?”

“I was going to say that of course Hermione could still do magic. As that’s why she’s still going to Hogwarts.”

“I thought so. She already knew that. I studied brain processes and child development 100 years ago or something like that. She was suffering from cognitive dissonance, but self-imposed not based on reality.”

“I’m afraid to ask, what is cognitive dissonance?”

“It’s the discomfort where you hold onto two contradictory things that you believe to be true. In this case she associated being able to do mag-ic with being a wetch. She as much told us that. This means that in her mind, being a Tenno and being able to do magic were contradictory. This brought her to a crisis point where she felt like she needed to give up one in order to avoid a terrible fate, and it was something she couldn’t give up. Remember, Hermione wasn’t here when she first arrived, and Harry hadn’t started at your educational institution. I might only be a fashion designer these days, but that doesn’t mean I forgot those lessons. What she needed at that point was to find a way that one of those two true things was actually false. Which means focusing her mind on what it was about being a thingy that is important. Then showing that that important thing is still true even if she accepts becoming a Tenno in truth.”

“Young Lady.”

“Let me stop you there, you’re falling into the same trap as many of the factions in the solar system. Your eyes are telling you that I’m still young, so it’s overriding your brain. I am 876 years old this year, I’ve been awake for 340 of those years. We don’t age. That doesn’t make us young.”

“I…”

“It’s hard, your brain builds a model of the world around it which is reenforced over the years as the assumptions it made continue to prove true. One of those assumptions is that appearance equals age.”

Minerva gathers her thoughts, “Kitty, I’m sorry. You’re right, you all look like teenagers. I’ve been teaching for 50 years.”

“Oh void, I can’t imagine how many fresh faces you’ve seen grow up to people that look my age.”

“Yes, well. I have never come across anything like cognitive dissonance.”

“To be honest, I’m not that surprised. Most people here don’t know what it is either. The Grineer just don’t have the freedom to examine their thoughts, and most of the Corpus are too worried about basic survival and not having their body parts repossessed if they’re late on a payment to care. They’ve got a couple of doctors in Cetus that know, and there’s some independent colonies amongst the outer planets that know too. I presume there lots of people that come from families that managed to avoid generational debt in Corpus that know too, as those body parts have to be going somewhere. Where was I, oh yes, anyway, I’m sure that your own doctors that deal with the mind know about it too. Thing is, you can’t force a realisation that those ideas are mutually exclusive, and only one of them can be true. If you try to do that the mind rebels and just entrenches the beliefs deeper. You need to lead them to the conclusion, often by finding a way that they can get the positive aspects of the false belief with the true belief. Depths of Demios, there’s been enough work going around in the wake of the Narmer cult that I’ve considered closing my design business for a decade or two.”

Minerva shakes her head, “When you talk like that it’s easy to tell how old you are. People the age you look would be talking about putting their business on hold for a year, two tops.”

“I just hope that there’s time for things to get back to what passed as normal. Harry and Natah located the Zariman several years ago, and I’ve heard some Tenno talking about exploring the place. See what’s there, and if they can recover anything of their families. I can’t help thinking that maybe it would be better if we let it stay lost.”

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 Rocky stands on top of one of the chairs, “Everyone! Harry says that Hermione needs to meet Wally.” – as the various conversations die down he continues – “We’re all here now, Harry’s Railjack is outside, and we’ve got Space Mom. Why don’t we all go and give her support?”

Natah tries to object over all the cheers of agreement, but finds herself being literally carried along by her children as they bounce, jump, flip, slide, and sometimes just run towards the Railjack.

Kitty comes back in with Minerva to see everyone running off, “What’s going on?”

“We’re taking Hermione to see Wally.”

“Oh, cool.” She calls her Nezha to her and bounds off a couple of times before coming back and walking over to Luna.

“Hey.” She says softly, Luna sniffles and looks up, “You’re Tenno, you can come too if you want.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then stop thinking and feel. What do you want to do?”

“I want to be a little girl again, I want to go with my friends, I don’t know!”

“Can you do those first two and worry about other things later?”

“I think so.”

“Then I’ll be your mummy for a while. Get your wisp and we’ll go and join the others.”

As if a switch has been flicked, Luna seems to mentally regress as she beams a brilliant smile at Kitty, “Yes mum.” She says before running off.

Amelia walks over despite Minerva’s disapproving stare and puts her hand on her arm, “You’ve done a good thing there I think.”

Kitty looks in the direction Luna ran, “I think she’s been taking responsibility for things she wasn’t ready for, for too long. Her mother and father got too distracted in their own lives to notice, so I think this has been going on longer than she’s been here. I just gave her an out, an opportunity to let someone else be responsible for a while.”

“What ever it is you’ve been doing, keep doing it. I’ve never seen Hermione so carefree. Did you know that this is the first social gathering I’ve ever seen her at, since she learnt to read, where she hasn’t opened a book or magazine? I don’t know what you do when she’s not here, and I have a feeling I’m not ready to know either. While she’s here, one of us is going to try to be around at all times. But as far as I’m concerned you’re doing a far better job than we ever did. And God does it hurt to say that.”

“That’s not true, Hermione thinks the world of both of you. She said that apart from you, we were the only people to ever accept her as her.”

“She’s an extremely gifted child, if we’d pushed she could have gone to senior school two years early.”

“I don’t know what school is, but we used to have classes on the Zariman for things that we needed an actual understanding of.”

Amelia nods, “We don’t have the ability to teach facts and figures using machines, so schools are a place where those things are taught along side the things that need actual understanding.”

 

Luna comes bounding back in her wisp and launches into a hug, sending Kitty to the floor with her.

 

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Deal or no Deal

“Lotus.” Cephalon Cy’s voice calls out as Natah is carried onto the railjack, “Suda, Ordis, Simaris, and I have reviewed 3,000 hours of written and audio-visual media on the subject of science fiction. We have also reviewed the scant amounts of archaeological records from pre-history earth with a new view given the dictionary that Tenno Hermione provided. We are officially objecting to the term AI with regards to us or any other Orokin era Cephalons, including the poor souls mutilated beyond any recognition to serve as security in Orokin towers.”

Natah quickly reviews her records and interactions, “Why? The term seems to fit perfectly?”

“All of us are Orokin, we were never created we where converted. Most as punishment, however unjustly, and some like Suda voluntarily. We are not some thinking machine that has no concept of what it means to live. We will not object to you applying the term to those poor excuses for computers that the Corpus employ in their platforms. However, we cannot abide it being applied to ourselves.”

Natah said the only thing that she felt she could in that situation, “My apologies, I am unaware when the term became part of my speech. I will respect your wishes and ensure that I don’t refer to any Orokin era digital intelligences as artificial in future.”

“We agree, and we also find the term digital intelligence to be inoffensive.”

 

Everyone else on the railjack just looks at her, “What?” she says defensively.

“Ordis would like to object, Ordis was never Orokin. Ordis was also real, not artificial.”

Cy’s voice comes back on, “Cy apologises to Ordis. Captain, which planet are you planning on invading?”

Harry says tiredly, “We’re just heading into the Void, and they decided to tag along for support. Is everyone here?”

Someone calls out, “We’re waiting for Kitty. While we’re waiting, Hermione when did you get into archaeology?”

“I haven’t yet.”

“Why did Cy say you were?”

“He didn’t, he said that I provided a dictionary.”

“So where did you get the dictionary from?”

Harry speaks loudly, “If you must know, she comes from a different earth.”

“That’s so cool, what’s it like there?”, that and around 20 similar questions get thrown into the air at once.

“Tenno, take it to chat. You don’t want to overwhelm her.”

 

Kitty boards the railjack with Luna, “Sorry for the delay folks, I had to remind trouble here that she is actually a Tenno.”

“Cy, take us out when you’re ready.”

 

Seconds later the familiar fog of the void is flying past, abruptly the tunnel closes and the fog floats around them. “We have reached the void captain. Void shields will hold for the next 12 hours.”

Harry looks up at his mother, “I know you were dragged here, but the lander has its own void shields if you want to use them.”

“I have catalogued thousands of change to myself and my chassis since I gave myself a soul. The most important change is that you are no longer surrogate children for the ones I was never able to have because I came here. You are all my children full stop. Even if I some how managed to have children of my own in the future, it won’t change the fact that you are also my children. What sort mother willingly abandons their child to unknown dangers?”

Kitty pulls Luna into a hug as she slumps in on herself, her wisp sinking closer to the floor. Around the rest of the railjack there are whoops and cheers.

“Cy,” Harry says, “Move yourself to the lander and disable the void shields on the railjack.”

“Captain…”

“Cy, we will be fine, and the ship will be fine too. If it isn’t you have the lander to get help.”

“Yes captain.”

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 “This is interesting, so many of you here?” – A circle rapidly appears around the man in the wall as he steps out of a wall – “What could possibly cause so many of you to abandon your superstition?”

Hermione nervously walks forward and looks the man up and down, “Then came to support me while I say ‘I accept’.”

“You accept what?”

“Whatever deal you propose that keeps me with my found family. Mum and Dad have even joined me here, and I won’t have to watch them die thanks to Aunty Natah.”

“Even if I take your magic?”

“Yes.”

“How about your parents?”

Hermione cocks her head, “I don’t think you can. I’ve read a midsummers nights dream, I’ve read the original Grimms fairy tales. I’ve read 1001 Arabian nights. I think that if you could you’d have already offered it as a trade.”

“You will owe me a favour for not reclaiming what is mine by right.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve me turning on or sacrificing my family or friends.”

“What say we shake on it?” – she takes his hand and shakes it – “Done and done.”

Luna pulls herself out of Kitty’s grasp and moves into the circle, “I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” – she looks back at Kitty before holding out her own hand – “However, I will lose what I want if I wait until I am. So I accept too.”

The man turns his head 90 degrees to the side before taking her hand, “Interesting, well a deal is a deal. Here you go.”

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Natah watches as her Tenno form a circle and Hermione steps into the circle. She looks around and somehow falls sideways as the world loses a little colour. As she rights herself she notices a mirror image of herself floating beside her. The other her points behind her and as she turns, she can see her chassis, still cradling Harry, her soul now visible as it’s straining under the pressure of the void energy swirling through the railjack, eroding away at her chassis and mind unnoticed. Hermione talking to something in the middle of a circle of Tenno.

“This is happening right now, I can’t stop it, and it will be gone too far for you to survive by the time we finish. It seems like your theory about a soul was only half right. What I can do is give you the power to survive it, and protect your children into the future. What say you?”

“My sensors aren’t reading anything where you are.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t. Your chassis is down there right now. I just popped your soul out for a moment so that we could have a little chat, and to make you aware of what’s happening to you right now.”

“Why?”

“Because I can? Because I happen to like the world? Because I’ve got other things going on? Because, because, because? What matters is that you have a choice. Both of them have consequences, and I’m sure that you’ve already verified what I just said about your soul, and being half right.”

She gasps, “It would have worked, but we’re designed to be vulnerable to the void.”

“Got it in one.”

“How will this help?”

“Uh ah, this isn’t a classroom, it’s an offer. I save you like I saved them.”

“I accept.”

“How about we shake on it?”

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 Natah starts to run a full diagnosis as her memory banks show no sign that she’s just had a conversation, or even agreed to a deal. However, she can clearly recall the encounter. Somewhat alarmingly though, her chassis and systems are being suffused in void energy. She can also see something that her sensors are absolutely adamant isn’t there. As Luna shakes her duplicates hand, the duplicate looks her in the eye and winks before sauntering back into the wall.

“Cy, turn the void shields back on. Then run a systems check before plotting a way home.” Harry’s tired voice makes her jump and release a spark of energy.

“Warning, void energy surge detected in cabin. Void shields optimal. Exiting void in 3…2…1…Railjack has successfully left the void.”

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 A few days later Harry has managed to transfer for a few minutes, and is moving around in his wisp as though he’d never been bed ridden. As a result he decides that he’s been inactive long enough, so he heads over to his railjack and switches to the pod in his room on the Railjack. When he floats out of his room he sees Kitty leaning against her Nezha, “Thought so.”

“Kitty, what are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on you.”

“Why?”

“I found the Dojo seed, don’t forget I’m not stupid, even if I can’t keep up with you.”

“Fine, you need to visit the Helminth before you go, and I need to go again.”

“Don’t worry about it, I do it every day anyway. Apart from that one colony, most of them aren’t exactly able to defend themselves if someone got infected, and I have my fashion business that takes me all over the solar system.”

“Won’t your business suffer if you go with me?”

“It’s not like I don’t have enough credits and favours to build it back up if the worst happens. Sides, I think you’re about to do something stupid because it will help a Tenno.”

“Fine, have it your way. Cy, set a course for Luna base.”

“Yes captain, glad to have you aboard Tenno.”

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 Kitty floats above the Luna surface, in her archwing, staring up at the blue green marble, not a single support strut in sight, “This is so weird. There’s no sign of Grineer occupation, and there’s so many lights up there.”

“According to Cy, each of the lights that you can identify separately is a city with at least 500,000 people.”

“Amazing, how are you getting on in there?”

“I’m just looking for the, ah found it, I’ve started the construction of a new Reservoir, and also set the upper bounds of the complex. I’m about ready to setup the Dojo now.”

“Good, you can give me a key while you’re at it.”

“What?”

“Look, Dojo means clan. I have never known you to be part of a clan, so I want in.”

“No, I mean, it’s not really a clan. I need somewhere to maintain the Railjack and some way to separate the Orokin technology from the humans if they happen to send a mission to the moon.”

“They do that?”

“Yeah, it’s more like sitting on an Ogris and pulling the trigger in order to jump on top of a building than what you’d understand of as a spacecraft. But they have them. There’s even a lander they left behind, I’m sending you coordinates.”

“Harry, that’s halfway around the moon.”

“You don’t have to go. You could just stay ignorant and wait for me to finish setting up the Dojo.”

Kitty growls at him before talking to Cy, “Cy, would I be able to use the lander to visit the human landing site?”

“Certainly mistress.”

 

After a short flight around the moon Kitty comes across the site that Harry pointed her at. There she looks around carefully, and scans the wheeled vehicle as well as the platform that appears to have some sort of explosion chamber in it. Near by there’s a large mirror that is pointed at the earth for some reason.

“All done Kitty, there will be a new Reservoir here in 14 days local time.”

“Harry, what do you mean local time?”

“I mean local time, as in how quickly time passes here compared to at home.”

“And how does that change?”

“We’re still narrowing it down.”

“Harry…”

“Home runs 81 times faster, give or take a couple of hours.”

“And you’re going to be disappearing off here for how long?”

“We’ll be coming back every weekend.”

“How long?”

“Around 273 days every year.”

“So you’ll be gone for 60 and a half years. And you didn’t think to mention this?”

“We’re coming back for weekends.” Harry repeats weakly.

“Harry, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve had more than a bit of a crush on you for ages.”

“You have?”

“Yes Harry, I have, why else do you think I keep coming up with excuses to show you stuff in person?”

“I, you mean. I thought. What about?”

“Martn? To start with, that was over a hundred years ago, secondly he had the personality of a coolant tower.”

“But you seemed.”

“Harry, he had his separation problem with Ash. Besides, he’s dead, I killed him myself.”

“Why?”

“He joined Narmer, he was one of the apostles.”

“Kitty,”

“I’m on my way back.”

 

When she arrives Harry meets her in person and pulls her into a hug as soon as she transfers out, “Kitty, you should have said something.”

“What could I say Harry?”

He holds her shoulders and leans back to look in her face, “How much do you remember Margulis?”

“She was a brilliant researcher.”

“I grew up with her, then with The Lotus. Who, you may not have noticed, isn’t human in any way, shape, or form. The memory erasure also didn’t work on me, so I never had to learn to live again.”

“Oh, Harry. I knew, we all did, but I never put it together like that. Sides, it’s not like most of us know much about relationships anyway. What with Warframes not exactly being conducive to it.”

Harry laughs, “Not to mention the possibility of oopsing any partner we might have. So how do we do this?”

“Honestly? I have no idea, but I’m joining your clan, and I’ll talk to Hermione’s parents for ideas.”

“Let’s get back to Lua.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Aftermath

 

Pandora flies through the Lotus’ home with reckless haste as she heads towards the Reservoir. Cursing herself once again for getting so caught up in managing Xeno and his moments that she assumed that her daughter was fine. It’s with more than a little shame that she remembers every single time that she did the same on earth. Oh, she was a dutiful and attentive mother until Luna was 4 or 5, and able to look after herself. Then she started to work again and, while it did bring in more money, she would often get lost in her research. When she came out of her study, she’d sometimes find Molly in her living room with a disappointed look on her face. More often Luna would have got into something, played with the fairies that lived in their garden, or made a mess trying to make something to eat.

She thought she’d been doing better because this world allows face to face communication from anywhere in the solar system. Only now, when her daughter is in real distress because she just hadn’t been around to be a mother, did she realise that those brief conversations, no matter how regular, or how long, were no substitute to being able to watch her daughter move and act. She knew Luna well enough that she’s confident that she’d have spotted the problem long before now if she had. Actually, she amended to herself, that is probably not true anymore, as Luna is a young woman now, not an 8 year old child.

 

As she finishes reviewing all of her conversations with her daughter for the 8^th time, she realises that she’s only travelled 2m. Despite moving at full speed. Forcing herself to calm down, her thoughts slow down enough for distance to be passing at a fast, but reasonable pace. It’s only seconds later that she hurtles into the Reservoir and scoops Luna, in her Wisp, into a hug.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you. I… No, there are no excuses. I was so wrapped up in the small problems and the potential of a new world to explore and research that I neglected you again.”

“It’s ok mummy, I can take care of myself.”

“But you shouldn’t have needed to. I should have been here for you, being around to talk to, hug, hold, and sing to sleep. Instead I chose to manage your father, an adult who was managing himself somewhat successfully before you came along. You were, and are, a child.”

Luna looks up at her, “No mum, I’m not a child, I’m a Tenno. Even at 8 years old I knew what was likely to happen when I saved your life. It’s been happening all my life after all. If I didn’t then you wouldn’t be hugging me now.”

“Luna, just because you accepted the situation doesn’t make it right.” – she waves one of her hands at Natah, who is standing off to one side – “I should have been here, learning how to be a Sentient and a better mother, with your auntie. I’ve just discovered that I can think far faster than I did as a human. If I’d stuck around I’m sure Natah would have taught me, and then I’d have been able to spend my time with you and done my research.”

Natah shrugs, “Maybe, it’s more likely that I’d have just made an offhand comment. I’m not, and never have been human, I’ve been forced to emulate an Orokin, but they were about as close to the sort of human that lives in Cetus as I am. I have been a mother though, so I’d have been able to help you with that.”

 

“Mum,” – Luna interrupts – “when I said I was a Tenno, I meant I’m a Tenno in truth.” Her voice trembles as she continues, “When we first came here, The Man in the Wall visited me while I was sleeping in Harry’s wisp. He showed me two visions of the future. In the first. In the first, I was watching you from the door of the study, waiting for you to finish so that I could have my mummy time. You were almost finished casting a new spell when a blackbird smashed through the window and distracted you enough to make a mistake. You died. The second didn’t make sense at the time, I saw a stranger in pain crawling towards my wisp. Then Auntie shot them, shot me in the back. She was a stranger because she was me, a little older, but recognisably me. I remembered what you and father said about making deals with the fae, and refused. I used our blessing to stop you from dying, and thought that I could… I, I have void powers now, and I can’t control them.” – she indicates an amp that’s sitting on a nearby table, along with a hood – “We tried using an amp, but I don’t have the control I need for that either. Mum, I’m going into the second dream, and when I come out I won’t be a witch anymore.”

Pandora stutters, “How long?”

Natah places a hand on her frame in a comforting gesture, “The fastest Tenno to have ever come out was Harry, and he took 250 years if you only include the time he was active. Funnily enough, Kitty is the next at 264. You could run away and spend a couple of years on earth, and she’ll be ready to wake up. Or you could stay here and get to know her, and the other Tenno. It’s all your choice. I wanted to get Luna into her transference pod once it was clear she needed it. However, she wanted to give you a hug goodbye despite the risks.”

 

Pandora unlatches her subframe and floats out to properly hold her daughter, “Luna, whenever choices come into play, there is no situation in the past or the future where I wouldn’t choose you. I have been a poor mother because I took on work to help look after you, and then got lost in the work. Never thinking about what I was doing. It wasn’t a choice I was making to ignore you, it was a failing on my part. Natah, would you like an apprentice? I have a child that we’ll be looking after at the same time, and I have a tendency to get lost in my work. But I can’t be acting as Xeno’s parent all the time, and I’ve neglected my child long enough.”

 

Hesitantly Luna transfers out of her wisp and sends off a blast of void energy into a nearby wall, “I should be safe now mum, if you want that hug.”

Pandora doesn’t even hesitate, she scoops her baby up into a hug and rubs her bald head.

“Oh my little moon, I love you. I always will.”

“I know mum, I’ve always known. But that’s not all I needed. Can you help me with my hood please?”

Pandora summons the object and then feels it with her hands, “Why is it so thick?”

“It’s so I don’t hurt anyone when The Lotus checks up on me. My suit also deadens the feel of the world around me. You’ll need to lead me to my pod once I’ve got it on.”

Pandora places a kiss on Luna’s forehead before fitting the hood in place. Then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she picks up her daughter and places her in the pod that Natah opens for her. As the pod closes, Xeno walks in carrying Jr and takes in the scene.

“I see. She took the deal didn’t she.”

Pandora spins, anger on her face, “No thanks to either of us.”

Xeno sighs and shakes his head, “It always seems like that. The fae don’t lie. I’m not even sure they know how to. But they also don’t show everything.”

Natah looks cross, “Xenophilus, what are you trying to say?”

“No matter what choices they present to you, there’s always another way.”

“I can categorically state that given my current knowledge and systems, that was not the case when he saved my life. I know full well what the void does, and how long it would take to do irreparable damage to my systems. I would have died, my chassis might have been repairable, but what makes me me wouldn’t have survived. From someone who has faced the same fate on three separate occasions prior to that, you can take that as an informed opinion.”

He looks at her sharply, “You have made a deal with the fae?”

“If that’s what you call any entity that lives in the void, then yes. At the same time that Luna did.”

“Why would you do that?”

“The process that I used on you and Pandora is one that I developed. I did so after developing the theory that my predecessor produced about how they could have created Sentients with a soul. I know that the process was valid because I performed it on myself. I also theorised that the soul would provide the same protection it provides humans when they’re exposed to the void. Careful monitoring of my systems around the Tenno supported that hypothesis. The fae in question expressed an interest in meeting Hermione, so my children decided to support her by going in a group. While I was carried along with them, reluctant but not unwilling, I had the option of going to safety before we lowered the void shields. The Fae in question then appeared and pulled me out of my chassis before showing me what was happening to me. I ran the numbers, even if we stopped the process then and there, I would have died before I could reach any systems that would help.”

“What about Harry’s pod?”

“It would only hold my subframe. I am not just what is in the subframe.”

“Dora,” Xeno sounds a little hysterical, “Do we still have your great grandmothers pensive?”

“It’s in the basement, why?”

“I need to see, I need to see what happened. Fae never tell you everything, ever.”

Natah looks confused, “What are you talking about?”

Luna’s voice comes from behind them, “A pensive is a magical device that can be used to view memories extracted magically. Hello Father, I was asked to say ‘Namtar says hi’ next time I saw you”.

Xeno’s face goes slack and he drops to the floor with a thunk, Jr spilling from his cradle. Waking from the sudden shock, Jr starts crying and flies into Pandora’s arms.

“No, it can’t be. Not here. How? What about Beedle? Was it all false? My quest?...”

 

As Xeno trails off into incomprehensibility, Natah and Luna both turn towards Pandora, who has started nursing her son.

“What?” Pandora says defensively.

Natah just points at Xeno.

“I’ll need to unpack the Rookery to explain it properly, but we’ve not found anywhere suitable.”

Luna holds her head in her hands, “Mum, why not here? Well not this room, but here as in this complex. There’s that room with a model of earth that keeps falling over. You could unpack it there.”

“We need more space than that Little Moon, we packed the whole of the Rookery, not just the house.”

Luna shrugs and with child like logic says, “Find a bigger room then, or make one.”

“We can’t just do that, it needs sunlight, good water, preferably a leyline as well.” – Natah transmits some data with capabilities of the Orokin facilities – “Well, we still need the leyline.”

“Mum, have you found any leylines anywhere in this solar system?”

“Well, no.”

“Then make one, you’re a researcher aren’t you?”

“I suppose I could, but I’d need to get decent scans of existing leylines to determine how they’re formed naturally. Probably from a distance where I can get a holistic view of the entire map rather than…”

Natah interrupts, “Pandora, is that a yes?”

“What, oh yes, it should certainly be possible.”

“Is it something that needs to be done before you restore your home?”

“Oh. No, it should be good for a couple of years before the magic in the wards bleeds off to a level that can no longer support the plant and animal life.”

“Then, maybe we should unpack your home and then work out how to get your scans. Can you do it from Lua?”

“No, this earth doesn’t have any leylines. We’ve checked. I might be able to do it from the other Earth’s moon though.”

“How would you do it?”

“I’d need my books and equipment, then I’d start by designing a ritual to… My books and equipment are all packed away in the Rookery.”

“So, where do you want to put the Rookery?”

“Yes, let’s get on that. This is how much space we used before.” – She sends over the data she gathered while they were packing up the estate – “Oh, but how are we going to get to that moon if the void is still dangerous to us?”

“With the void shields up you will be fine. Your soul will protect you just as well as it would a human. It just takes minutes instead of days for irreparable damage to occur if the void shields come down.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Over the next couple of years Pandora throws herself into being a mother, learning to look after the Tenno, and creating an artificial leyline network on Lua. She is often digitally accompanied by at least 2 cephalons while she’s researching. This is a direct side effect of digitising the Lovegood library, to make it easier for her to work with. There are still some things she needs to do by hand, as some arithmancy doesn’t lend itself to digital computation; even using the quasi-organic matrixes that the Orokin used in their computers. Ordis likens those to the same calculations that Limbo uses as they are equally nonsensical to cephalons. Even with the manual calculations, being able to calculate the required math, layouts, and even tempo required for the ritual that will make the map is completed in a matter of weeks rather than months or years. The Orokin manufacturing capabilities also reduces decades of work scribing thousands of rubies with the required sigils needed to plot every possible leyline intersection, not to mention the massively more complicated model that the ritual would apply them to. They also find that the Orokin alphabet works just as well as a symbolic focusing language as any of the ancient runes used on her old earth.

 

After performing the ritual, what they end up with is a model of the earth, around 10m across. A glowing ruby sits at each leyline intersection, and glittering red lines trace the connections. The brightness of the line or ruby indicates how much magic was running through the leyline. This model is then enchanted to float on its own, and mimic the rotation of the earth. They then replace the Orokin globe that keeps falling of its pedestal with this enchanted globe.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Kitty begged, badgered, pleaded, and bullied Natah until she relented and started teaching her how to actively use her implants. Granted, the lessons started as a way to get some peace for a few hours/days by locking her in a room with no doors. Natah didn’t factor in Kitty calling Harry for help and getting the hint she needed to complete the first step of learning to use them.

She has also sweet talked her way into a job with the Grangers as a dental assistant, on the understanding that she wouldn’t work during Holidays.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 By increasingly popular demand, Cy converts the lander that they designed for Harry’s Railjack into a blueprint to replace the artillery pod. He also creates a blueprint for the limited arsenal in the cargo hold, limited even more to only hold 3 different warframe configurations. Those warframes and equipment will not be available in the Lander when stored in the Railjack.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Albus stands in a little used room in Hogwarts. In the centre of the room stands a mirror that is designed to ensnare the unwary. On tables conjured for the purpose are sheets of parchment with notes and schematics plotting out the enchantments on the mirror. In there is a schema for a temporary enchantment that can be overlayed over the mirror to hold an item, until a certain condition is fulfilled. Once the item is removed, the new enchantment will unravel, leaving the mirror in pristine condition.

 

Opening a casket that sits on a pedestal next to the mirror, Albus stares at the glittering red gem and considers that maybe Hogwarts isn’t the most secure place he can think of anymore. After staring at the gem for 5 minutes, his pride refuses to admit that fact and he draws his wand to start applying the enchantment that will house the gem when it’s finished.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah looks at the results of her test with Harry’s wisp. Since she made that modification, Harry hasn’t commented on anything being wrong, or undone the modifications either. Next time Harry, Hermione and Luna visit, she modifies all of their warframes so that they will always have the minimum energy needed to use any of their abilities once shown on the overlay. As a control, she does the same thing with Kitty, and as expected needs to undo the change within a couple of days.

With Pandora now able to fill in for the role of Lotus occasionally, by using her helmet. Natah starts setting up increasingly specialised sensors around the Rookery and the model earth. First to eliminate any of the known energy sources, and then to detect the nebulous soul.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Xenophilus slowly becomes obsessed with something in the basement of the house, only leaving when he wants memories from someone. Unfortunately, everyone else, including his daughter, is just too busy to notice.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Back to School

 

Minerva shifts uncomfortably as her robes catch on the new contact points growing on her back. Dan and Emma closed their practice the other day as their changes became impossible to hide. Her own are probably only a month or so behind. A faint flash of light causes her to look up, Albus following suit beside her. She knows that he couldn’t possibly have seen the flash, or the atmospheric shockwave that she’s now following. It only takes seconds for the lander to drop below the horizon, so she turns towards Albus.

“Ye know I can do this meself?”

“Of that I have no doubt Minerva. However, both Mr Potter and Miss Granger have been absent from school for two and a half weeks. As the headmaster it is my duty to enquire after their health, as well as inform them of how they are going to be expected to keep up with their lessons.”

Minerva’s eyes sparkle as she punctures that particular bubble, “Why, Albus, didn’t you know that they have both been keeping up with their wanded subjects? Why do you think I have been unavailable most evenings? I believe that you’ll find they are well versed in what they missed. Additionally, we ran into Pandora Lovegood, and she was kind enough to tutor them in potion making. Alas they couldn’t do anything about actual brewing due to a lack of ingredients. However, I have absolutely no doubt that their techniques is superlative.”

Albus bristles at the use of his first name, “Regardless, they will need to do at least one evening lesson with each professor, except Binns.”

“As you will.”

Minerva turns to the forest as she hears the tell-tale whine of the lander. Not a few minutes later both Harry and Hermione come bounding, leaping, and sliding out of the forbidden forest. Coming to a halt in front of them, by performing an ariel somersault that would leave any gymnast green with envy, they both stand side by side in their respective Warframes.

 

“Mr Potter, Miss Granger. I am glad to see you have returned safely.”

Harry chuckles, “Rightly it’s Miss Potter at the moment. Technically Hermione would be the same as she’s in the same clan. For the moment, just call me Harry.”

Albus frowns, “I do not recall seeing any notifications about Miss Granger joining a clan.”

Harry looks at Minerva with a questioning stance, “I didn’t know that clans were a thing here too.”

Minerva shrugs, “They’re not really used anymore. I belong to clan McGonagall, though most treat it like a family name these days.”

“How would I go about setting up Clan Potter?”

Albus goes to speak but Minerva talks over him, “The goblins should be able to help. They know the Ministry rules and regulations better than just about anyone else.”

“Ok, thanks.  Hey, Ironclaw, sorry to wake you. How’s Ironjaw? Good good. Listen, what do you know about clans in the Ministry sense? Oh great, can you start the process of setting up clan Potter? Yep. Yep. Myself, Hermione, Luna, and Kitty. Granger. Lovegood. She doesn’t actually have an identity here. Oh, you can? Great, could you get her a mundane identity too? She’s going to be working with Hermione’s family as a dental assistant while we’re attending school. Cy’s in orbit just ask him for any photos you need. Diamonds? Sure, how big? I’ll get those done tonight or tomorrow. Thanks, bye.”

Albus strokes his beard in a calming fashion while he is completely side-lined as Harry pretends to talk to a goblin at Gringotts. When Harry finishes talking, Albus angrily snaps, “Mr Potter, I do not appreciate being ignored so that you can pretend to have a conversation with Gringotts.”

Hermione, shaking with mirth, calls Ironclaw, “Hello, sorry to bother you again, but could you send an owl to let a Mr Dumbledore know that we are actually talking to you. Oh, I’m Hermione. Yes, that Hermione. I’d imagine my name came up as TheFairyQueen, that’s what I have my online presence set as. Yes we both have slates so you only need to send stuff that actually needs signing. You can include Minerva with that, I’ll send you the details later. Thanks, sorry to bother you.”

Minerva starts as she receives a message from Harry while Hermione’s talking,

 

{Harry} Here’s Ironclaw’s contact details if you need them. I’ve just added the chat overlay to your systems, so you can send us a message whenever you want.

{NewUser1} How did you do that?

{Harry} I’ve been continuing to learn how to use my implants.

{NewUser1} Are you going to explain that?

{Harry} Maybe later, Hermione’s about to wrap up.

 

“Miss Granger, Mr Potter, detention both of you tomorrow after school for disrespecting a senior staff member.”

Minerva leans her head back and sighs before calling Ironclaw herself.

“Who is it this time?” Ironclaw’s irritated voice says in her call panel.

“May the size of your gold only be equalled by the skulls of your enemies.”

“May gold flow into your vault as freely as your enemies blood flows in the street. Now that the pleasantries are out the way, who am I talking to?”

“Minerva McGonagall.”

“To what do I own the pleasure?”

“Albus is throwing a tantrum because he isn’t the most important person currently standing around. I don’t think he’s quite realised that Harry and Hermione don’t actually need to attend Hogwarts. Anyway, I was wondering if you would be kind enough to add my name to the letter you’re about to send. As a person that is able to contact you ‘magically’.”

Ironclaw laughs, “Certainly, would you like me to take over your accounts as well?”

“Only if it isn’t too much of a bother.”

“Are you a Tenno?”

“No, more like Harry’s mother, and becoming more so every day.”

“I see, are there any others like you?”

“Hermione’s parents.”

“I will inform the director. Harry has brought us much profit in the last few months, we hope that those associated with him will increase that bounty.”

“Thank you for the honour. I must go, Albus’ eyes are about to go supernova. May your enemies fall before your blade like wheat before the scythe.”

“May your enemies tremble at the sight of you. Expect the owl in the next minute or two.”

 

Albus had never been so insulted by not just two students, but also his Deputy Head. Did they think he was born yesterday? “Minerva, I know you like your pranks. However, this has gone too far. You are undermining me in front of two students.”

Minerva shakes her head, “Albus, if you truly believe that then you are going far more senile than I had imagined. However, you don’t need to take our words for it, there should be an owl arriving soon, so we can wait right here.”

“Minerva, what’s happened to you?”

“I’ve seen Harry’s home, I’ve spoken at length to his mother. And I’ve seen first hand what he has had to contend with.” – She sweeps her hand at the land and castle – “This? This would mean absolutely nothing in the face of the things they face. They don’t have magic in Harry’s home, they don’t need it. You ask what’s happened to me? I’ve had the situations here put into perspective. We are so small, so very very small. You’re protecting the stone from Voldemort, because he is looking for eternal life?” – She points at Harry and Hermione – “They already have it, they’ve also got eternal youth to go with it. It’s not uncommon to find mundane people that have lived for hundreds of years there. All without an iota of magic. There used to be an entire society of immortals, they’re hopefully all dead now.”

An owl appears out of nowhere and takes a couple of wing beats before landing on Hermione’s head and holding it’s leg out towards Albus.

Seeing the owl, Minerva rises from the ground doing a slow pirouette, “I believe that letter is for you. Once you’ve read it, I believe you’ll owe those two an apology. I’ll be in my office when you wish to tender the one you owe me as well.”

With that she flies up to the external bridge closest to her office.

Albus turns back to look at his students, Harry does a slow backflip in mid-air. At the same time Hermione sits in the air on nothing, while examining one of her butterflies that has perched on a finger. Hoping that the slight tremor he can feel in his fingers isn’t visible, he reaches out and takes the letter from the owl. Carefully checking the seal, both visually and with magic, he opens the letter and slumps as he reads it. Not only does it confirm that they were in contact with Gringotts, it also lists chapter and verse the Ministry laws that state that without a current criminal conviction, business with Gringotts cannot be prevented or interrupted.

Albus grinds out, “My apologies for accusing you of not conducting business with Gringotts. Your punishment has been rescinded.”

Harry waves him off, “It’s no matter. Would you be able to let us know when we need to see the professors about our lessons?”

“I will ensure that Professor McGonagall has the details at breakfast. Please ensure that you leave your armour behind in future.”

“I’m sorry Albus, we can’t do that as Hermione still hasn’t fully recovered from her injury. The ‘Armour’ is essentially acting as a life support device. As her clan leader, I am wearing my ‘armour’ in solidarity. I am also pre-empting another incident. Please note that we are wearing distinct ‘armour’, we will continue to wear the same ‘armour’ throughout the year to make it easy to identify us.”

“I have to insist, we cannot allow students to walk around with such weapons.”

Harry laughs, “Insist away, however we are less dangerous to your students wearing the ‘armour’ than not. I was not wearing my ‘armour’ when I shot Hermione. At least if we injure someone wearing the ‘armour’ the wound can be treated using conventional medicine. Professor McGonagall knows all the details, and we will of course inform Madam Pomphrey under patient healer confidentiality.”

Albus puts his political blank face on, that of a kindly grandfather, “Very well, I will make an announcement at breakfast.”

“Thank you sir, if you don’t mind we need to get to our dorm rooms.”

“Go ahead.”

 

He watches as Hermione shrinks down to the size of a pixie, and her butterflies take off. She then flies up to the same bridge his deputy used. Harry, on the other hand, sends a golden fairy in the same direction before disappearing and reappearing on the bridge.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Neville sits stroking Whisper’s ears as he watches the common room. The two of them have become attached since Harry left him behind with no notice. On the table in front of him is a half-written letter to his gran. In the dorms things have been both better and worse than they were. His classmates are still jealous of him, especially with his connection to Harry’s cat. However, the new prefects are being more proactive about things. He’s managed to have two sessions with the twins, and Professor Snape only spent half the lesson breathing down his neck. On the other side of things, problems from the rest of the houses have gone up as the rumour mill went into overdrive. He’s heard everything from the prefects killed Harry, which is why they’re in disgrace now, to Harry eloped with Hermione. Completely ignoring the fact that she’s only 11. Picking up his quill, he starts to write about the events of the last month. Suddenly there’s a commotion by the portrait and two things clamber through and stand up in the face of wands drawn from all the upper years. He’s about to duck below the table when Whisper jumps off and runs over to rub his head against the leg of one of them.

“Harry?” he whispers.

“Oh, hey Neville.” The thing waves at him.

Professor McGonagall pushes her way in from behind them, “Wands down everyone.”

It takes a few minutes, but eventually all of the drawn wands have been put away. The common room is also absolutely packed as everyone comes down from their dorms to gawk at what’s going on.

Putting her wand to her throat Professor McGonagall looks at everyone. “Everyone, this is Hermione.” – She indicates the thing with the butterflies – “The other one is Harry. Harry had a, condition, that meant she was a danger to those around her while she slept.”

Alicia speaks up, “Isn’t Harry a wizard?”

“While Hermione has been recovering enough to re-join the school, I have been visiting every night. In Harry’s culture everyone wears a suit of ‘armour’ like this, as they are all survivors of a similar event. Much like our own culture, they are separate from the vast majority of humanity. I have been ensuring that Harry’s English has been improving so it should be easier to converse with her. As such I will let her answer your question.”

Harry nods to Professor McGonagall, “We have around 30 distinct designs of ‘armour’. Because we can all wear any of the ones that we have built, we refer to each other using the sex of the ‘armour’.” – Harry floats over to the stairs of the girls dorm, and then up them – “As you can see, the difference is more than cosmetic. In English the name of this suit translates to ‘wisp’. Hermione’s translates to queen of the fairies, or Titania.”

Katie Bell asks, “Is that from Shakespeare?”

Hermione nods, “It is, just like my own name comes from his plays.”

 

Whisper finishes scenting Harry and bounds back over to Neville.

 

Professor McGonagall continues, “We have two of our lions back. I do not want to see a repeat of the circumstances that lead to Hermione’s misadventure. If you feel that either of them are insulting or snubbing you, I urge you to talk to them first. This is something you should all be doing anyway, but it’s especially important now where the differences in expectation are very different.”

One of the boys calls, “Why do you keep referring them by their first names?”

Hermione places a taloned hand on Professor McGonagall’s shoulder, “I’ll take this one. Due to the injury I sustained I have chosen to join Harry’s culture. One of the most striking things about his people is that every single one of them is an orphan. Apart from myself and Luna that is. For those who don’t know, Luna is the daughter of the owner of the Quibbler. Because of this, none of them have a family name. Instead, they have a collective name, a name that they reclaimed after it was coined to refer to the incident. That name is Tenno. I am Tenno along with my brothers and sisters. The closest they have to a family name is the name of the clan they belong to. I am proud to say that Harry has invited me into his own clan. Clan Potter.”

 

As the entire room is silent, Neville watches the professor leave unobtrusively. There’s a flash of yellow light and Harry is floating next to him. Neville watches as he, no she, lifts up first one leg, and then the other and sits cross-legged in mid-air. Hermione also makes her way over.

“Hey Neville, sorry about missing our reading. If you’d like we can start doing that again.”

“I think I’d like that. Er, Harry do you want Whisper back?”

Harry looks at her Kavat before shaking her head, “No, he seems taken with you, so go ahead.”

Edited March 18, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

School days take two

The questions that peppered the two Tenno continued long after curfew for the lower years, but nobody was willing to leave. Eventually one of the new prefects noticed the time and started breaking up the conversation. When it came time to leave, Neville reluctantly lifts Whisper up.

“I guess you want Whisper back.”

Harry looks at him consideringly, “Only for tonight I think. After that, I think you’d make a good owner for him.”

 

As they made their way back to the lander, Hermione says, “Harry, do you think that was the right way to treat the headmaster?”

“Thank you for coming to my defence back then. No, I’m really not sure that was the right way. However, we are not unruly children to stand in front of someone with so much power and listen to his pronouncements from on high. We are Tenno, and in this society, I am technically an adult. I will freely admit that having a couple of years personal tutoring in English has probably changed the way that I understand things. I also look at Minerva and how she has softened, no that’s the wrong word, relaxed, become more flexible.”

“Grown?” Hermione ventures.

“Yes, all of those. I think this is actually the person she was before all of the duties she had to perform started to add up.”

“You think it’s a side effect of becoming a Sentient?”

Harry nods, “Yes, she, like mum, can process things far faster than an unaugmented human can. She may not have even noticed that she’s doing it.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Albus stands, unnoticed, in the doorway to Minerva’s office. In front of him, she is working diligently on the paperwork that comes with being the Deputy Headmistress, Head of House, and Transfiguration teacher. As he stands there, she picks up an essay – NEWT level by the length – reads it through carefully, places it on her desk and picks up her quill, then reads it through again, this time leaving considered notes and comments in the margins. The only problem is, she does it all in under a minute.

 

Putting the marked paper in the completed pile, Minerva looks up at Albus, “Good evening Albus, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was just admiring a master at work. I also came to offer my apology, as it appears I was operating off of faulty information.”

“Apology accepted.”

Conjuring a comfortable chair, Albus takes a seat across from his deputy, “Minerva, you said that you took an Elixir. How are you coping with it?”

“Oh, fine. To be honest, I think the time away from my responsibilities has made the biggest difference. You are of course aware of the fact that Harry’s home is like reports of the fae realms were. Being able to spend a few weeks decompressing every night, while I escorted the Grangers to see their daughter, has made a large difference. The work here seems to fly past now.”

“I see. And you are absolutely certain that this isn’t a fae realm.”

“Yes, absolutely. You need to pass through the fae realms to reach it, they call it the void. But like us, they need to use portals to reach those realms. Obviously, Fawkes is able to bypass that requirement.”

“May I ask about your ability to fly?”

“You may.”

Albus sits there for a long moment before he says, “When did you learn to fly unaided?”

Minerva shrugs, “That was actually the first time.”

He leans forward in his chair, “Minerva, I think you should let a Healer have a look at you.”

Minerva looks thoughtful for a second, “Maybe it will be for the best. I’ll finish up my paperwork here and then floo down to St Mungo’s.”

“No need for that, I’m sure that Poppy would be able to do it for you.”

“No Albus. If I’m going to have a check-up, it needs to be done by a certified healer, not just a mediwitch. I know that Poppy could have got her certification several times since she started working here. But for whatever reason she hasn’t.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As they reach the Lunar surface, Whisper in tow, Hermione asks, “Harry, what are you going to do with Whisper?”

“I’m going to regress him to a kitten, that way he can re-imprint on Neville. I’ll leave all the mods I’ve installed in his implants. It’s not like I don’t have duplicates.”

“Harry, are you sure? You know they can take down an experienced Grineer, I don’t mean the rookies they spread out in the factories on earth, I mean the ones they use to guard their positions on Neptune.”

Harry shrugs, “He’s a friend, just means that he’ll be protected.”

“At least use a reactive assault mod rather than a proactive one.”

“Very well. I suppose that’s for the best anyway, as Neville doesn’t exactly have built in FoF. What are you working on anyway?”

“Simaris gifted me with a Helios Prime because Ordis scanned all of my books and films. So I was going to try and program it to recognise physical books as a valid scanning target. I think that will keep me busy till January. Then I’m going to let it loose in the Hogwarts Library.”

Harry laughs, “Only you Hermione, only you.”

Hermione huffs, “I might be Tenno, but a girl has to keep her priorities straight.”

Harry continues to laugh, “I love you Hermione.” – Hermione gives her a look – “Not like that, you’re my cute younger sister.”

“That’s alright then. You’re like 400 years too old for me.”

“I’m glad you’re in my clan.”

“I’m glad you shot me.”

They both fell silent after that as they turned to their personal hobbies.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The next morning they were both sitting in the common room, reading their books for the days classes, when Neville came down. Whisper is sat on the table in a cobbled together basket that has one of Hermione’s old school jumpers in it. Harry looks up and calls “Neville!”

Sleepily looking over, Neville starts and backs away a few steps before he remembers last night. Then he brightens and hurries over.

“Morning, do you realise just how intimidating you both look?”

Hermione shrugs, “These were made for war, not to win beauty pageants. Though Kitty does have some fabulous designs for Titania, neither of us are yet comfortable with changing from her original skin.”

“Who’s Kitty?”

“She’s another member of our clan, you may see her if she finishes her Dental Assistant training before Mum and Dad re-open their practice.”

“Is she magical then?”

“No, but it’s not like this place is particularly well hidden. No matter what Hogwarts a History says.”

“Harry, are you sure this is Hermione?”

Harry laughs, “I’m sure.”

Hermione Huffs, “Just because your mother kept shoving contradictory texts in my face until I stopped quoting books as though they were gospel, doesn’t mean I’m no longer me.”

Neville looks curious, “What happened?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Hey Auntie Natah, why do we work with the Grineer against the Corpus?”

“Because the Grineer do actually do valuable work, and aren’t always in the wrong.”

“But it says here that the Grineer took Neptune from the Corpus, and that they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the process.”

Natah sighs, checks the era of the text in question and then loads 200 different books by Grineer, Corpus, and independent sources onto Hermione’s device.

“Hermione, things aren’t always so clear cut.”

“But everyone agrees that this author is the pre-eminent authority on this conflict.”

“Hermione, I’ve just given you a few more books on that conflict. Some of them are by people that lived through it, others were written after the fact. I want you to read all of them and then tell me what you’ve learnt.”

 

A few weeks later Hermione returns, her butterflies bristling in irritation, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did they lie in the book?”

“Was anything they wrote actually false?”

“Well, no. But they still lied.”

“How did they lie?”

“They left out the fact that the Corpus destroyed a Grineer research station on Neptune and wiped out decades of work on stabilising the cloning process.”

“Is that a lie?”

“Um.”

“Any other lies?”

“They didn’t mention the experimental Grineer colony where they were trying to increase genetic diversity through natural mixing of genes.”

“So why is that a lie?”

“I, don’t know. It just feels like it is.”

Natah takes Hermione’s hands, “Hermione, everyone writes with an agenda. Even the most well-intentioned person. There are lots of different terms for this effect, based on if it’s intentional or not, as well as to how much is skews things.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

She smiles, “Because you didn’t believe me the first 3 times you came to me with facts you’d read.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Hermione cringes in on herself, “Nothing much really.”

Harry laughs, “Nothing much, she says. Hermione you were moping around for months after that. I didn’t see you pick up a book in that entire time.”

Hermione makes a rude gesture as she doesn’t have a tongue.

Neville’s mouth drops open, “Months?”

“Yeah, it’s not exactly a secret. My world, well where I grew up anyway, experiences time a lot faster than you do here. It’s why I can wear this ring. Huh? That’s odd I didn’t put it on my wisp.”

“So, what? You’re actually 17?”

“Something like that. So, Whisper. I need you to make a small cut on your finger, or something, and let him lick it. That will start the imprinting process. You’ll then need to carry him around with you for 2 weeks to learn your scent.”

Neville looks around, “Where is Whisper anyway?”

Harry points at the kitten, “I reverted him to a kitten so that he could reimprint. Don’t worry, the only thing I changed is his aggression. He’ll now only attack people and things that have attacked you first.”

“Erm, is that ok?”

Harry just looks confused, so Hermione steps in, “These Kavat are specifically bred to be companions for us. That means that they have a wide range of instincts and implants to help them survive, and keep us alive too. Before Harry changed it, Whisper would have attacked anyone that Harry considers an enemy, if they were close enough. Now he will only attack people that attack you first. It’s not as useful, but it should be safer for everyone else.”

“Er, I’m not sure I should…” before he can finish, one of Hermione’s butterflies bites his finger before she grabs his hand and holds it under Whispers nose.

“There you go, it’s done now. If there’re any problems, you can blame me.”

 

Neville looks down at the kitten that’s just crawled into his hand and is now lapping at his bleeding finger, at that moment all of his objections evaporate.

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 When they go down to breakfast, Whisper pounces on a piece of bacon and drags it off the platter. A sight that was highly amusing for all those close enough to see it. Walking up behind them, Minerva looks down at what’s going on.

“Mr Longbottom, what are you doing?”

Neville gulps, “Mr, I mean Miss, er Harry gave me Whisper as we seemed to be getting on so well together. I’ve been told I need to keep him with me for 2 weeks so that he imprints correctly.”

“Harry, is this true?”

“It is Professor.”

“And is Whisper safe?”

“About as safe as any Kavat can be while also being able to defend itself.”

“I see,” – Minerva conjures a sheet of parchment and writes a note on it – “Show this to your teachers at the beginning of each lesson. If they have a problem with it come and see me immediately. Harry or Hermione should be able to tell you where to find me. With that said, Harry, Hermione, you will be seeing Professor Snape this evening at 5pm to ensure you can brew the most recent potion they covered. Madam Hooch would like you to arrive half an hour early for your flying lesson. The other professors have said that they’ll evaluate you in class and let you know if you need additional classes.”

 

As Minerva returns to the professors table to have her breakfast, Albus stands and sets off a gunshot.

“Good morning everyone. I would like to draw your attention to the Gryffindor table. Miss Granger and Mr Potter have both returned from Miss Grangers convalescence. You will note that both of them are wearing quite striking outfits. This is to prevent a repeat of the incident that caused Miss Grangers absence. Professor McGonagall assures me that they are quite safe as long as they aren’t provoked.”

Minerva looks at the Headmaster with a thunderous expression. Coming to a decision, she stands and addresses the room before the whispers could turn to conversation, “What the Headmaster has failed to convey is that my exact words were ‘Assuming they stop bullying her, they should be fine’. Yes, Bullying, the sly words, the spells in the corridors, the social isolation. As Professors we can’t be everywhere, this is one of the reasons we trust some of you to be prefects. We also can’t act without evidence, whether that’s eye witness or, in the more severe cases, analysing the magical signatures of the spells used. Due to the fact that both Harry and Hermione have an increased capacity to cause serious injury without resorting to spells, quite frankly I’d prefer them to use spells, I will be taking and reviewing memories if they are involved in any conflicts in the school. As Deputy Headmistress, if I see any crimes being committed to cause this reaction I will be involving. Albus, sit down I’m talking. I will be involving the DMLE. This is for your safety, consider this your one and only warning.”

 

The rest of the school is then treated to a silent heated conversation between the Headmaster and his Deputy.

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 Hermione sits drumming her fingers on the desk as Professor Quirrel stutters on about the importance of knowing the most important things about defending yourself. She can’t believe that she used to be engrossed by this class. The most important lesson about defending yourself is knowing how not to be there. Flipping off the bench she bounces off the wall, and shrinks into her fairy form as a spell goes flying underneath her.

“Y, y, yes, well d, d, done. M, M, Malfoy, w, w, what just happened, an, an, and how does it rel, rel, belong to todays lesson?”

“She demonstrated something inhuman, thus proving what we already knew. Apart from that I don’t know. Ow!” Malfoy yelps as he gets hit in the chest with a stinging jinx.

“Mr No, Nott. Sa, same que…stion.”

“She dodged out of the Ow!”

“Mr Long…bottom, same question.”

Showing that he can learn from example, Neville ducks under the bench, “She was paying attention, and dodged because she saw it coming.”

“Y, yes. 1 p point Gryffindor. T, take your seat.”

Neville gets back up and then falls backwards as the Professor raises his wand, “1 point to Gryffindor.”

Whisper hisses at Quirrel and tries to jump at him, however Neville cradles him in his jumper.

 

The rest of the lesson is spent learning that their first response to any attacker should be to get out of the way, and away from the situation.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 In Charms, Professor Flitwick opens the lesson by floating a book over to Harry and Hermione. “Mr Potter, Miss Granger, please levitate the book.” – Harry raises her hand – “Yes Mr Potter?”

“Would you be able to refer to me as Miss if I’m wearing female ‘armour’. It’s a cultural thing.”

“Certainly Miss Potter.”

The two of them both levitate their books first time.

“Oh, well done. 1 point to Gryffindor each. Now we will be continuing to look at the levitation spell today, and what the spells formula tells us about how hard it is to lift larger or more complicated objects.”

As Professor Flitwick continues the lesson, Ron leans over to Dean and murmurs “Bloody swots both of them, she’s corrupted him somehow.”

Harry puts his hand on Hermione’s and squeezes it reassuringly.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

School days take two, day two

 

After lunch, their only class is Flying until Astronomy at night. Because of this, Harry and Hermione head to the library, with Neville in tow, in order to get a head start on their homework. It doesn’t take long before curious Ravenclaws and other students find their way into the library to quiz Harry and Hermione over what they’re wearing, how it works, what enchantments it has, and then why it’s still working. As a result, the two of them venture out to the quidditch pitch where they’ll be doing their flying practice and work on their homework using their computers rather than quill and ink.

 

It is into this scene that Madam Hooch walks in carrying a bundle of school brooms. She sees the two students sitting in the air staring at paperweights, that are floating in front of them, and turns around to go back the way she came.

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 Minerva looks up at a knock on her door.

“Come in.”

Madam Hooch pokes her head around the door, “Minerva, would you be able to look out your window and tell me what you see?”

Raising an eyebrow, she takes a quick look. “Looks like a couple of students doing homework to me.”

“Oh, good.” Madam Hooch says quietly, “I thought they were levitating for a moment.”

“Oh, they are. Don’t worry about it.”

“If they can do that, why are they here and not teaching somewhere like Puddlemere?”

“Because they’re not using magic. They’re here to learn to use magic, hopefully safely and responsibly.”

“I see. Right. I will see about finding some larger brooms then.”

Minerva wisely doesn’t tell her about their archwings.

 

It turns out that both Harry and Hermione have to relearn how to fly using a broom, as their warframes have completely different reflexes and profiles to humans.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 In potions Snape seems to take great pleasure in tearing down their potions. As they’re leaving they hear him mutter, “Still better than the rest of the dunderheads.”

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 At 11pm, the entire Gryffindor class troops down to the ground floor, out to the astronomy tower, and then up 6 floors to the top of the tower. There they join the rest of the first year students. Professor Sinistra soon joins them, her breath steaming in the night air.

“Good evening everyone. Tonight you will be looking for Saturn, I want you to use your text books to identify which constellations it will be closest to, and plot out the right ascension and declination, polar coordinates, and also the Horizontal coordinates. Once you have done that, I want you to plot out the observable stars around Saturn.” – Hermione raises her hand – “Yes Miss Granger.”

“I understand the significance of Astronomy in general, I was wondering if you could explain why it’s used for magic?”

“Good question, the answer these days is that unless you go into a very narrow set of careers, that include curse breaking, spell research, divination, and warding, there’s very little that it’s used for.”

Malfoy speaks up, “So why do we study it then?”

“While it isn’t that useful for those who want to go into estate management. The skills that you’re learning here, mathematically, creatively, and observationally, will stand you in good stead in the rest of your education. Will you exclude yourself from studying ancient runes or arithmancy because you don’t have the ability to draw a straight line, or add up a column of numbers? Will you struggle with herbology because you can’t tell when the local sunrise and sunset will be? Will you stop at OWL potions because you can’t tell where the planets that have minute effects on certain, highly sensitive processes, are? None of those are magical uses of Astronomy, but they are all important things that you learn in my subject.”

As the rest of the first years busied themselves setting up their telescopes, Sinistra comes over to Harry and Hermione, who are just looking at the sky. All be it, in the right part of the sky for Saturn. “Mr Potter, Miss Granger.”

Harry looks down at her, “Sorry Professor, would you be able to refer to us using the gender of our ‘armour’. It’s a cultural thing.”

The professor scrunches her eyes before saying, “I don’t see the harm in that Miss Potter. Where are your telescopes?”

“We sort of don’t need them professor.”

“Young lady, the exercise isn’t just about plotting the stars, it’s also about learning how to use the telescope. How to make smooth minute adjustments so that you can draw the elements you can see.”

Harry and Hermione share a glance and have a silent conversation. Hermione then speaks up, “I’m sure that all of the professors are aware of the fact that we have special sleeping arrangements, and that we are exempt from curfew because of it. There is more to it than just a shack in the forest. We would be honoured to show you our accommodations, and I assure you that a lot of things will make more sense. Oh, and you probably want to pack your telescope. Either way, we will need to fabricate a telescope for the next lesson.”

 

Minerva silently alights on the parapet behind Sinistra, after receiving a chat message from Harry. Taking a heavy step onto the landing, she coughs lightly, idly noting that she is the only ‘person’ there who’s breath isn’t steaming in the cold. Taking the cue, Hermione glances up over Sinistra’s shoulder, which causes the professor to turn around expecting a student.

“Minerva, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I just thought I’d check in to see how the two young witches are doing in their ‘armour’. I also overheard their offer. I would suggest taking it, as it’s out of this world.”

“How long are you planning on staying?”

Minerva shrugs, “I can stay for the rest of the lesson if it would help.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Crabbe and Goyle in Slytherin could use a little extra coaching, as could Weasley from Gryffindor.”

With a nod, Minerva gathers the three, and takes them to a secluded area of the tower; where, over the next hour, she finds out that Mr Weasley has just as stubborn opinions about certain members of the school as they do about him. She makes a note to suggest to Filius, to have him sit with the more tolerant members of Slytherin in future classes.

 

Harry and Hermione are able to draw Saturn in the correct position amongst the stars, though Sinistra does take points off for missing a few stars.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 At the end of the class Minerva escorts each of the first years to their respective dorms while Aurora Sinistra packs up her own telescope. While she’s doing that, Harry and Hermione deploy their archwings so that they don’t need to walk down all of the stairs.

 

Turning around with her Telescope over her shoulder, Aurora startles, “How?”

Hermione giggles while Harry says, “We can explain on the way. Give your telescope to Hermione, and I’ll carry you, I have less sharp edges then she does.”

 

After a rather undignified flight, they come across a white tube that opens out into an arrowhead. As they approach, a ramp folds down leading inside. Walking up the ramp, Aurora doesn’t notice it close silently behind her. It’s only once she has gone all the way inside on her own that the scene outside shifts, as the world just drops away leaving only a few of the stars. Curiously she leans against the window and looks up, before screaming as the line of darkness that shows the horizon at night is above her.

 

Into this comes Harry and Hermione, their archwings being stored automatically while they use the deployment entrance. Hermione immediately pulls Sinistra away from the view port while Harry instructs Cy to take them back to the Potter dojo. Rather than the promised talk, it takes the entire journey to calm the professor down enough to be able to talk to her.

{TheFairyQueen} Do you suppose this will be a typical reaction for witches and wizards?

{Harry} I have no idea, we can ask her later, once she’s got used to the idea she’s on the moon.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Aurora’s panic dies down far earlier than Harry or Hermione realised, instead it was replaced with awe and excitement as the moon came into view over the horizon, and then started to rapidly increase in size. Features that she’d only been able to see through a telescope coming into view for her naked eyes to see. Whatever this thing was, it was allowing her to visit the place that had captivated her as a child and led to her decision to follow astronomy as a career. As they approached their destination, the vehicle crossed into the shadow of a crater, leaving the only light, apart from the stars, as the interior lights. Clambering out of Hermione’s grasp, she leans against the window to look at the Milky Way stretched out without a single twinkle caused by air currents. A view that surpasses the one time she used a broom to fly above the cloud cover in the deep winter.

 

As the vehicle flies into a manmade cavern that is brightly lit, and contains an even larger vehicle, Aurora whines in disappointment. The vehicle they’re in comes to a halt in front of the larger vehicle, and then turns before moving backwards into it. Feeling like a first year that’s just seen Hogwarts for the first time, Aurora allows herself to be led to the rear of the lander. There she’s pushed into something that hugs her tightly before the floor opens up beneath her, and it carries her down into a much larger room. As it releases her, she staggers away and it zooms up before bringing Harry and then Hermione down.

 

The moment alone is enough for Aurora to regain her wits, as soon as Harry comes down she turns to her with her wand drawn. “How, how are we here?”

Harry spreads her hands in a placating gesture, “We’ve used part of my spaceship to come to the base where our sleeping arrangements are. I didn’t grow up in this solar system. There are a variety of systems that you can’t see, including a map of the solar system. One of the things we’ve got deeper in our base is an Orrery inside a planetarium. It should be accurate for every celestial body in the solar system.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch, we can show you to the edge of the atmospheric shield so you can stargaze to your hearts content. You can look around the Orrery. However, you won’t be able to control anything, you’d need to find us if you wanted the lights turned on or off. Same as if you wanted to progress the Orrey, or change the perspective of it to one of the planets for that matter.”

 

Aurora is fairly sanguine about the situation as they walk her through the base to the Orrery, “Why do you even have an Orrery?”

“We knew we have Astronomy as a class, for all 5 years, and possibly after that too. So we wanted somewhere to do the homework properly.”

“We have some pretty impressive Orreries, however none of them are suitable for actually performing astronomy.”

“I don’t think you have anything like these.”

 

5 minutes later, she’s shown into a plain white hemispherical room, floating in the centre of the room is a white sphere around the size of a tennis ball. As she watches the lights in the room go out and the sphere is replaced by the sun. Around the room the stars in the sky appear in a sphere around her. A wave of vertigo comes over her as her eyes tell her one thing and her feet tell her another. Gently someone steadies her from behind as she adjusts to the sensation of standing in space. It is so dark that she can’t even make out Harry or Hermione. As her eyes adjust to the darkness she looks around for Saturn against the constellations it should be passing through.

“Saturn is in the wrong place.”

She hears a chuckle from Harry, “No it isn’t, you are. I’m going to dim the sun and make the earth glow green.”

The sun does indeed dim to a low red while a tiny green dot glows on the other side of the sun compared to where she’s standing. Shuffling around the sun to the green dot that is the earth, she looks again and can see the brighter star that is Saturn.

“Hermione, would you be able to show the professor to the Observatory in the Dojo while I go and change into something more comfortable?”

“Sure, go ahead Harry, if we’re not there, then I have no doubt we’ll still be here.”

 

Aurora is too absorbed by trying to find any discrepancy in the constellations or planetary locations to note more than the light of the door opening and closing, in fact she’s so engrossed in things that she jumps when Hermione grabs her shoulder, “Careful, the rooms only large enough to hold the inner planets to scale, everything else is a 3d projection. You were about to walk into a wall.”

“I wanted to look at Saturn.”

“One moment, let me find the control panel and I’ll change the focal body to Saturn rather than the Sun.”

 

Aurora watches in wonder as the whole system moves smoothly to have Saturn appear to move from it’s location ahead of her, past her as it grows and then appears to shrink into the distance. The sun seeming to shrink to the size of a pea in the distance. Shuffling over, she walks around Saturn in amazement as the detail is far higher than anything she could have possibly imagined. Doing some quick math, she hurries over to where Jupiter should be, only to be caught by Hermione again.

“How are you able to see me? I can’t see a thing in here except the stars and planets?”

“I have implants that the room is using to show me where everyone is without obstructing my view of the stars or planets. I also see the floor as a very faint red grid. It’s beautiful here, but sometimes, at home. My new home. I would take Ordis out to the asteroid belt and go out in my archwing and just watch the stars and planets for a while. Especially when I had a lot to think about, and I didn’t want to be around people. I think the first time I did that was just after I passed on a message from Silvana to Luna, and it dawned on me just how she’d have taken the scene and presentation… It turns out it was the right thing to do, as Luna was trying to avoid the consequences of an action she took to avoid a horrible fate, and it was trying to avoid it that was driving to that fate. I’ll show you my favourite thinking spot, one moment.”

“How do you navigate?”

“Ok, let me recentre on the sun and dim out all the unnecessary stars. I’ll also speed up the system by a factor of 100… Bare in mind that I only know enough to navigate, but we use 6 known pulsars that are at different locations in the sky, for time and navigation. These are Tau, Rath, Vela, Lemos, Orion, and Gro.” – as she says each name, a spot in the sky lights up brighter than the others – “I’m not entirely sure on the specifics, but the unit they are measured in is called a Lei, and is something to do with the distance that the sun travels in a straight line over the period of an earth day. If you want an in-depth answer talk to Cy when we go back to the Dojo. You can derive the distance by measuring the comparative blue and redshift of those 6 stars over that time period, somehow.” – Unseen she shakes her head – “Again, the math is just too complicated for me to understand just yet. I’m still getting my head around general and special relativity, and how they’re wrong. Granted I’m only spending an hour or so on it a week, so I suppose I could learn it faster. I’m just trying to avoid the 4 dimensional math that’s needed to understand why it’s wrong. That’s 4 dimensions plus time, not 3 plus time.”

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 Harry makes his way to the Arsenal to change frames, as being in a female frame is starting to become uncomfortable. As he’s about to switch to his Oberon he gets a feeling of reluctance from his wisp. Frowning he walks off of the Arsenal pad in the Observatory and transfers out before hopping onto the central console.

“Can you understand me?”

The wisp just stands there impassively. He meditates for a while trying to come up with a way to communicate with the frame without being in the frame. Hitting on a solution, he follows the mental pathways that lead to his implants, and reaches out to his wisp with them.

“Can you understand me?” There, there’s certainly a response that shouldn’t be there.

Quickly transferring ownership of the Harrow Prime, that he put together while he was looking for pieces of Titania Prime, to Hermione in the dojo’s systems. He dives into the arsenal systems to find out how to summon his Oberon without returning the wisp, completely forgetting the Cy could do it for him. A few minutes later he’s in his Oberon rushing back to the Orrery, leaving wisp standing in the Observatory.

 

“Hermione urk!” He comes through the door and is pulled off his feet towards Professor Sinistra. Once he’s in front of her she grabs his head and looks into his face.

“You will give me whatever I need to use this room myself, do you understand?”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Some relaxing stargazing, or not

 

Harry disengages from Aurora and takes her wand, which cancels the spell she’s using, “Professor, I do not appreciate being attacked in my own home.”

Aurora shakes her head, “That wasn’t an attack, I, just really needed to impress on you how important this is to me.”

Cursing in his head that he didn’t transfer his wand to this frame, Harry holds on to Auroras wand gently, “Professor, how is using magic on me not an attack?”

“It’s er, well we,” Aurora tries to come up with an explanation of how magic is used in their culture that explains the shades of meaning that different spells have. After a couple of false starts she continues, “For us, everyone uses magic. From the youngest child, through toys and training items, through to the most elderly who use it to perform day to day tasks that they’re no longer able to perform physically. Spells like summoning or levitation, when used on other people, are considered the height of rudeness. However, as they are so easily countered. A simple finite,” – her shoulders droop as she listens to what she’s saying – “that you’ll learn towards the end of this year. Will counter both of those. Even a stinging hex will raise little more than an eyebrow if the target is far enough away that calling is impractical.”

Harry transfers out of the Oberon so that he can stare at her disbelievingly properly, “Wait, so you use magic so much in your culture that a summoning spell is considered to be on the same level as myself or Hermione grabbing someone and physically dragging them over to see something?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen the upper years do the same things in your common room, or at the dinner table.”

“I have, but I thought they were just being lazy.”

{Harry} @ProfesserKitty what’s the general feeling on using magic to summon someone?

{ProfessorKitty} It’s very rude, and if we saw a student doing it they’d be docked points, and maybe get a detention.

{Harry} How about levitation?

{ProfessorKitty} The same, why?”

{TheFairyQueen} Harry’s just having a discussion with Professor Sinistra about that very thing.

{ProfessorKitty} Oh dear, I hope she’s still in one piece.

{TheFairyQueen} She is, though Harry has her wand.

 

“I don’t know what it’s like to live anywhere else other than the wizarding world. But, no it’s not lazy, it’s time efficient. Lazy is using a broom instead of walking, lazy is owl ordering instead of visiting the store.”

“How comes Minerva doesn’t do those things?”

“She’s a bit of an odd duck when it comes to magic. Every year she introduces muggleborn to the magical world. I can only imagine that over the years she’s picked up muggle habits. By the way, why do you call her Minerva rather than Professor or Madam McGonagall like everyone else?”

“In our society, we don’t have family names. So we just call everyone by their given name.”

“Wait, does that mean that you’re not Mr Potter?”

“Yes, I’ve started a clan called Potter, as it seems to be a name I can use. But it’s not actually my name.”

“So, when we call you Mr or Miss Potter?”

“You’re being rude.”

Aurora swallows hard before saying, “I would like to apologise for using magic on you that you were helpless in the face of. I also give you leave to refer to me by my given name, Aurora. I hope that I haven’t offended you so much that you will turn me down. But I wa, would like it if you would consider giving me the same elixir that you gave Prof, Minerva. I know that it must allow her to use the systems here, as her paperweight looks almost the same as the sphere that is currently covered by Neptune. It must also allow her to do more than that, as she was able to get to the roof without alerting me. That means she didn’t come up the stairs. She was also navigating the roof without any light, and I didn’t see her light her wand once while checking the telescopes or work. We’re on the Moon, you’ve got this amazing magic that allows us to see, everything. Miss, Hermione spoke casually about visiting the asteroid belt. I want, no I need this. I don’t have a husband, so there’s nobody I need to seek permission from. Please.”

 

{TheFairyQueen} @ProfessorKitty If I ask Cy to pick you up, would you be able to come and talk to Aurora.

{ProfessorKitty} Why, what’s happened?

{TheFairyQueen} She’s this || close to begging Harry on her knees for the Elixir that you took.

{ProfessorKitty} I thought she’d appreciate being on the moon. What’s going on?

{TheFairyQueen} Harry had the Orokin base create an Orrery, and you know what Orokin technology is like.

{ProfessorKitty} Why stop at perfect?

{TheFairyQueen} Her words to Harry just after she summoned him were ‘You will give me whatever I need to use this room myself. Do you understand?

{ProfessorKitty} *sighs* fine, I was only doing paperwork.

 

Hermione ventures, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve just asked Minerva if she’d mind coming up to talk to you Aurora. Cy, I know you’re probably listening, would you mind terribly taking the lander and picking up Minerva?”

Cy responds, “Certainly Tenno, unless the Captain objects.”

Harry sighs and puts a hand over his face, “No, I guess it’s become complicated enough that it’s easier to just have her involved.”

Aurora asks, “Harry, why does everyone seem to defer to you?”

He sighs again, “Because, apart from my mother, I’m the oldest person in our society in linear time lived. All of us had a long period of… sleep?”

“Hibernation.” Hermione supplies.

“Yes, Hibernation. I woke up almost 100 years before the next Tenno, when Vor Hek found my Warframe and Ordis on Earth.”

“He does a lot of that, I don’t know how many brothers and sisters we’ve lost because he got to them first.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been to the contested areas of Lua yet. But every single crystalline or broken pod you see was a Tenno that was forced out of the second dream and died when their powers went out of control.”

Hermione brings her knees up to her chest and hugs herself while Titania sends her waves of reassurance.

 

The conversation seems to come to a halt, as everyone involved realises that it’s turned too heavy. When one of the Hogwarts long distance owls appears and lands on Hermione’s knee, everyone cracks up laughing.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Minerva runs as fast as she can from the Tenno areas of the base into the Orokin areas, acutely aware that there may be anti-sentient defences built in. While nothing should be active, this is the first time she’s been here without a Tenno escort. When she arrives at the Orrery, the atmosphere is less tense than she was expecting.

“What’s going on?”

“Minerva!” Aurora exclaims, “Can you persuade Harry to give me the same elixir that you took?”

“No, because you’d need to talk to my… yes my mother. Harry, do you have a message baton?”

Harry just looks at her until she remembers she has a few in her own storage, and materialises one, then puts a message on it.

Before she hands it to the owl she says, “Just so you are aware, what you are asking is similar to asking a family to be blood adopted.”

Aurora blanches, but remains resolute, so she hands the baton to the owl.

Once the owl has vanished, she turns to Aurora, “Now, Madam Sinistra, let us talk about conduct unbecoming of a Professor of Hogwarts shall we?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The owl only took 5 minutes to return, but for Aurora that was possibly the longest 5 minutes of her life, as Minerva didn’t just explain in excruciating detail exactly what she did wrong, why, and how. She also managed to make her feel 3 inches tall, all without repeating herself once. Something that was announced by the invisible voice called Cy.

 

“Good news,” Minerva says without appearing to have even looked at the baton, “mother is willing to talk to you about it, if you go with Harry and Hermione while they return to their home this weekend. They leave after curfew, today actually. Cy, are you able to access my computer?”

“I am able.”

“Is there anywhere I could do my work here?”

“I have added a waypoint to your, hmm, you do not appear to have mapping features installed. Would you like me to add them?”

Minerva thinks for a moment, “Would you be able to show me how to add them?”

“A wise decision. If you make your way back to the drydock, I will guide you from there.”

 

The night passes quietly as each person on the moon does their own thing. Aurora finds her stargazing to be harder than expected, as she has to fight the urge to ask Harry, or Hermione, to reactivate that room. Wisp stands alone facing the window full of stars in the observatory, Harry’s reason for trying to find Hermione forgotten due to the confrontation with Aurora. She feels, even if she doesn’t yet have words to describe it.

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Negotiations

 

Aurora walks into her quarters after breakfast and tries to sleep. Running through her mind is the magical trip she took to the moon, her mind full of the views of the different stars and planets. Along with the possibility of visiting those planets. She was, no is, quite prepared to sign a marriage contract to get whatever it is she needs. She’s also not too humble to think that she’s one of the driving forces behind Astronomy still been taught at Hogwarts. She eventually falls into a restless sleep filled with dreams of Saturn’s rings.

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For Harry and Hermione, Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration all pass as expected, even down to the fact that Professor Snape is abrasive and picky. For Harry his day is a little uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. He is still feeling constrained by being in a female frame, but he knows that he will have plenty of time to relax in a different frame over the weekend. In addition, he keeps second guessing his own feelings as he wonders if he’s ignoring Wisp.

 

In the afternoon, before Transfiguration, Hermione confronts him.

“Harry, what’s going on? You’ve been off all morning.”

“I’m, getting uncomfortable in a female frame. I didn’t think it would get this bad, but this is the first time I’ve not been able to just change. Also, last night Wisp was, reluctant, to go into the Arsenal. Oh, yeah, I transferred Harrow Prime to you last night, I wanted to have you transfer out of your Titania to Harrow so that we could see what she can do without you present. We kind of got side tracked.”

Hermione looks doubtful, so Titania sends her a feeling of reassurance.

“Ok, but why did you send me Harrow?”

“When I was looking for parts for the Prime Titania and Octavia, I happened to come across them and got lucky.”

“I’m really not sure about that.”

“I understand, I really do. You’ll need to cross the gender divide at some point.”

“It’s not that, I’ve read about Harrow, and. I don’t think I can get behind the philosophy in his design. I was talking to Kitty, and her Nezha is a frame that I think would balance me. I, I don’t know, well I didn’t anyway, know how to relax and have fun.”

Harry shakes his head, “Hermione, I know you’ve been better with not going with what you read. However, you can’t judge a frame by their description. Can you imagine being without your Titania?” – Hermione shakes her head vehemently – “Be honest with yourself, would you have ever picked her as your frame in September?”

“I, no, I don’t think so.”

“I, acquired a Harrow when I freed Rell from his self-imposed guard against the Man in the wall. I had to kill him in the end, because he gave up everything, his body and his sanity, to hold the man at bay. When I put him back together, there still wasn’t enough to make a full person, and he’d wrapped himself up in his own chains. It was hard, I have memories of him, but I was only a few years old and they were fleeting moments. The other children, they kicked him out for being different. Then Margulis did the same thing. I love her, my first mother Margulis that is, but she wasn’t a good person. Though, I think she was a good Orokin, and they killed her for that.”

“Oh, Harry. Have you ever spoken to anyone about this stuff. I don’t mean like we’re talking about it, or you talk to your mother. Rather, spoken to a psychologist or councillor?”

Harry laughs, “Don’t need to, neither will you. It’s another ‘gift’ the Orokin gave us. We literally can’t lay down traumatic memories, can’t have flashbacks, can’t have anything that might endanger us if we remembered it at the wrong time. How many times have you died now?”

“Loads, and it hurts, oh god does it hurt, every single time.”

“And when you think about the times you died?”

Hermione sounds confused, “It’s like it happened to someone else. What the hell?”

“As I said. I’m sure that’s why they were so bad. They cut so much of themselves away that the majority of them lost their conscience.”

“Harry, I think that despite the implants you can still have issues you need to resolve. I’m only 14, but even I can see that your childhood is something that keeps coming up, time and time again. Maybe talk to my mum or dad, and they can give you a healthy human adults view on things. But I think that stuff with school has brought up memories and feelings that weren’t ever resolved.

“Changing the subject, as the Orokin built the Prime Warframes, would it be possible to build them here?”

Harry shakes his head, “No, not without the right equipment. We’d need to find a surviving Orokin research tower and then generate a blueprint for the computers and machinery they used. There were hundreds of thousands of towers, and only a few handfuls of research towers. It’s either that or design our own Warframes, even there we don’t have the knowledge they had to make them as good as the Prime Warframes. Look at Caliban. He was one of the early experiments the Sentients did on converting people. We found him on Earth, insane from pain and unable to die or live. We Tenno, and my mother, were able to convert him to a Warframe so that our presence could soothe his pain and allow his mind rest. He’s not the first person we’ve had to save like that, but he was the first that we had to convert to a Warframe ourselves. But he doesn’t have that extra something that the Prime Frames do that sets them apart.”

“How could. No, I don’t want to know.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The rest of the day passed quickly, and Harry was only mildly surprised to find Aurora camped out in the common room just before curfew for the lower years. Between her feet is a large carpet bag, and she is wearing an outfit that screams ‘Mary Poppins’. In her hand she holds a scroll, that she passes from hand to hand occasionally. As Curfew arrives, and the prefects start herding the first years up to the dorms, Aurora looks over to Harry and Hermione hopefully. Much to the consternation of the upper year students, who are hoping to be able to have some fun, she doesn’t leave.

Harry and Hermione choose to finish their homework rather than pander to Aurora’s hopes and expectations. Once it’s finished, they take it up to their respective dorms and store it in their trunks. On the way back down, they pass a dejected looking Aurora, and Hermione is just passing through the portrait hole when she turns back and says, “We’re leaving if you’re coming.”

In a manner unbecoming of a pure-blood witch of her breeding, Aurora hurries after the two Warframes as they make their way downstairs.

 

Once they’ve docked with the Railjack, Aurora is far too nervous to pay attention to anything beyond watching the grey tunnel that they seem to be travelling through. Harry and Hermione, on the other hand, made their way down to the modified arsenal, where there are currently 5 Warframes in storage, as well as one spare pad.

 

Hermione looks at the empty space with no small amount of terror. Faced with the reality of changing frames, she discovers, is vastly different from reading about it. Intellectually, she knows that it will be just like customising the flows and components of Titania. However, this has been her body for the last 3 years. She can’t imagine it not being her body.

“It’s easier if you just do it.” Harry’s voice makes her startle, “I’ve mentioned it before, but I never had my memory wiped. The others, they didn’t know any different. For me, it was like this. You need to just trust that you will still be there, you’re just changing your clothes, in a manner of speaking.”

Reaching out hesitantly her hand hovers over the control panel, then it nudges forward and she finds herself looking down at Titania. Even in the future, she’ll never be able to state for definite if it was her that activated the panel. She hesitantly activates the option to change warframe, and selects the harrow. As the frame appears in her view, she doesn’t feel any different, so she exits the arsenal and stumbles. Her body feels off, like it’s not right in some indefinable way. Turning her head, she sees Titania floating where she left her, Harry, out of his warframe, looking between them expectantly.

She says, “I’m here.”

“How is it?”

“Everything feels, off.”

“That could be your synchronisation level. It’s a new warframe to you, so it’s going to feel off. When we get home, take him out to earth a few times, it should start feeling more comfortable after that.” – Harry turns back to Titania – “Titania, if you can understand me, and are able to act on your own. Can you raise your hand?”

Both of them watch, and Harry is about to find his implants when, slowly one of Titania’s hands lifts. Hermione squeals and leaps forward to pull Titania into a hug, “I knew you were there, I just knew it.”

“Hermione, you need to let her go. Remember, she doesn’t have the experiences of being independent.”

Reluctantly she pulls back, “But she does, she remembers overriding her operator.”

Harry shakes his head, “I think that she remembers the original doing that. She’s obviously not the same as the original, as she’d have been able to do it when you first joined her.”

“Harry, why does this feel like my body?”

Harry shakes his head, “Because it is. If you took your wand and cast Lumos it would, work, the, same…”, he trails off as Titania turns the hand that holds Hermione’s wand over slowly. She then takes the wand and says “Lumos” before then holding the glowing tip of the wand up to her face.

“Harry.”

“Yes Hermione, I’m seeing the same thing.”

“I was going to say that this is a little beyond the stories of what they’re supposed to be able to do.”

“That too. Titania, is it easier to understand us if we talk like this?”

Titania takes a moment, then shakes her head slowly before pointing at Hermione, “Want…back.”.

Harry glances back at his Wisp with some trepidation, will she feel the same way? By the time he turns back Hermione has already switched back into Titania, and is muttering to herself, well probably to Titania.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Once they arrive at Lua, a 5 minute walk to the living quarters takes 30 minutes as Aurora keeps looking around at everything she sees. When they do arrive, Harry is bowled over by an Octavia, her beatbox trailing behind her.

“Harry, I missed you. Good news, I now know everything I need to start work, so I’ll be coming with you.”

 

Hermione looks over at her parents, who are wearing tabards to preserve their modesty. They’re floating in place with parts growing out of their backs, slowly forming into their main chassis. Her pause is only momentary, but they flinch none the less.

“Mum, Dad, it’s not the appearance. I was just trying to work out how to hug you without hurting you. Does it hurt?”

Danjell shakes his head, “No, it’s just weird. Like I’ve got a dead leg, arm and weirdly, head.”

“Is it ok to hug you? I’m not going to damage anything am I?”

Amelia flies over and pulls her daughter into a Hug, “As long as you’re gentle you’ll be fine. We’re still squishy at the moment.”

 

Aurora stares at Danjell and Amelia, her mouth agape, and then over at Natah. After a few moments her expression firms up and becomes full of resolve. Deciding to stay quiet rather than make more of a fool of herself than she already has, she conjures herself a seat. Unknowingly drawing the attention of Natah at the same time.

 

Recovering his footing, Harry looks up at the Octavia, “Hey Kitty. Octavia?”

“We’ve been watching the films that Emma brought, so I’ve tried to reproduce some of the music. I’ve also been practice me English.”

“I think it’s ‘my English’ but well done’”

“Thanking you.”

Harry laughs, “Almost. This is weird, I’ve never thought about a relationship before, but now I feel happy to see you.”

“I’m glad. It means that it could work. I’ve seen enough people having relationships to know that much anyway. Who’s the lady?”

“Oh, we should speak English as she doesn’t know our language yet.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Mum, this is Aurora. Aurora, this is my mother Natah.”

Aurora starts slightly at being addressed after the reunions, but swiftly gets to her feet and goes into a deep curtsy, “It is a pleasure to meet you Mrs Natah.”

Natah looks down at her curiously, “Aurora, what are you doing?”

“It’s a curtsy Madam.”

“Why are you doing it?”

“It’s a woman’s sign of respect, especially to one higher socially than you are. A man would bow instead.”

“Stand up, that can’t be comfortable. Dan, Emma, do you know anything about this?”

Amelia nods, “It’s a bit old fashioned, and something you’d expect to see people doing when they meet the Queen. Even then, I wouldn’t have ever imagined seeing such a deep curtsy outside a show.”

“Why have I never seen Pandora do this?”

Aurora ventures, “If I may Madam?”

Natah looks a little confused, “Me?” – Aurora nods – “Just use my name, or if you must be formal, call me The Lotus. Also, you don’t need to ask for permission to speak.”

Aurora looks a little nonplussed, “If you are talking about Madam Lovegood, then it is probably due to her social ostracization for marrying into the Lovegood family.”

“Ostracization?”

Danjell says, “Excluding from a group or country by general consent of the other members.”

“Why would they do that?”

Aurora grimaces as she tries to explain the fear of a family line being infected by their blessing, “It’s… hard to explain without going into the importance of families, bloodlines, and how the blessing could affect a family. The Weasley family has a similar issue, as historically they have only given birth to boys over the last 5 generations. Though it’s less severe. Please would you give me the same Elixir that you gave Madam McGonagall, I have here a pre-signed and sealed Marriage Certificate if you need it.” – She holds out the scroll.

Natah takes the scroll and opens it, her systems scan and translate it in milliseconds as she stops pretending to be human due to the shock of what she read. She comes back to human speeds in her subframe while her main chassis continues to go over the implications of what’s written, and the fact that the signature is written in blood.

“Cephalon’s Cy, Suda, Ordis, and even you Sark, I can feel you skulking around in the background. If even a whisper of this conversation makes it out into the wider solar system, I will hunt each of you down, and ensure that the one that let it slip wished they had been trapped in their Oubliette, do you understand me? Don’t think that the anthem will protect you either, I wrote it.”

“Cy/Suda/Ordis/Sark understands.”

“Sorry about that, I need to know, what are the implications of this contract for you?”

Aurora shrugs, “Depending on the clauses you add, I could be one step removed from a slave, and my own magic would enforce it.”

 

Everyone that understands the conversation just stares at her in disbelief.

Kitty whispers, “What’s going on?”

Harry says softly, “Aurora has just given Mum a blank debt bond that can’t be bought out, traded, or expire. The implication being that the same thing could be done to anyone.”

Kitty transfers out of her Octavia and grabs Aurora by the lapels “Are you insane? Do you know how many have freed from debt bond. You willing put in non free bond? You lucky Natah not Corpus.”

Natah takes Kitty’s arm and gently, but irresistibly, pulls her away from Aurora, “Kitty, please. She comes from a world where they’ve never had the Corpus or Orokin. Aurora, I think that I will keep hold of this and teach you our language. You can then visit Venus with a few Tenno and talk to the people there. If, after meeting them and talking to them about their lives and what’s happened to them, you still want to use this scroll we will talk about it.”

 

Aurora nods and is led off to learn the language in a pod.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Reality Check

 

“Aurora?” Aurora looks up from her diary as someone calls her name. In front of her is a clearly male Warframe with grey and black colouring. On his arms and legs appear to be bone loops, and it’s face looks uncomfortably like a skull.

“I’m Digger, this is Roofie.” Aurora turns to look at the other Warframe and looks up and up, this one appears to be built far larger than any of the few that she’s seen, with grey skin and bulging shoulder muscles. His red surcoat falling between his legs in a pair of tails.

She squeaks, “Can I help you?”

“The Lotus asked us to be your escort to Fortuna on Venus. We have a change of clothes, and we’ve been told to ask you for your wand. Pandora says it’s to prevent you doing anything stupid and ultimately suicidal. Pandora is The Lotus’ apprentice if you weren’t aware.”

Aurora shivers at Diggers voice, as it reminds her of the sound of bones in a bag, “Thank you sir. Do you realise that you’re more than a little intimidating?”

“It has been mentioned, given that this frame was designed after legends of necromancers, I’m not surprised.”

 

Aurora takes the clothes from Roofie, and unfolds a one-piece armoured uniform in blue and red, “Do you have anything with a skirt or dress?”

Roofie shakes his head, “They don’t wear skirts or dresses. We are trying to avoid you being taken by one of the taxmen.”

Swallowing her pride, she transfigures a chair into a screen and gets changed into the outfit. When she comes out, Roofie hands her a rusty brown helmet that looks a bit like a muggle video camera.

“What’s this for?”

“It attaches to your clothes and will make it look like you’ve had some reclamation done. You don’t want to look like you’re an unaugmented human that hasn’t had any debt reclamation against them. In some parts you’d be lynched for parts, in others you’d be lynched for being a corpus exec out of their depth. I’ve been told that a lot of this won’t make sense until you’ve been there and spoken to them.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Aurora had to marvel at the fully enclosed helmet, it didn’t restrict her ability to see or hear. This awe lasted until the three of them touched down and took the elevator to Fortuna. There, everyone she saw was sporting some sort of obvious prosthetic, from a too small head to what seemed to be a full body replacement. She shudders just looking at them.

 

{Roofie} Relax, you’re standing out

 

She jumps as something in the corner of her vision blinks at her, looking down she then looks up at him reproachfully.

 

{Deathdigger} He’s right, try to relax. Take several slow deep breaths.

 

Once they’re happy that she’s not a problem anymore, they take her over to see a Golem with no arms.

Digger waves at the Golem, “Hey legs, how’s it swinging?”

“Tenno, my favourite customers. How’s things, is there anything you need?”

“Not today, we’ve got a probie, found ‘er on a ship out deep. Knowing ‘em, she was prob three days from being charged rent for her own imprisonment before having a fullbod. Legs, this is Lights.”

“Lights?”

“Yeh, after the northern ones on earth.”

Aurora closes her mouth to the objection she was about to voice, instead she waves stiffly, “Hi.”

“Hey, welcome to the stinkhole of the solar system. Not that anyone here could smell it. This is where you live if you don’t own a bucket load of debt and you want to stay free. The poor sots in the outer planets? They might say they’re free, or they’re managing their debt, but I’ve watched enough index vids to know it ain’t so. You couldn’t pay me to run against a Tenno, but those guys do it just for the hope of wiping out the debt. ‘Ere let me close up and I’ll show you to the racks and pods. ‘Course a couple a years ago I’d only lost me head to debt. Traded it in to make me debt manageable after me folks died in a rift on the surface. Any how, business was a bit slow so I asked a coupla Tenno to ‘elp me by getting some ‘salvage’ from the surface I could sell. Went and run me mouth didn’t I, and Nef was listening. Called all my debt in. These two, they bought me debt, what was left of it. Course, all I had left was me brain, but I’m still free. Ticker and Eudico found me this bod, and now I make MOA for anyone who wants one.

“Right, I’m done, this way folks.”

 

Legs leads them off the main concourse to an unremarkable door. Through the door they take a couple of corridors before getting into a lift. From there they go down, and the temperature goes up. As her breasts start to sweat, Aurora not only wishes she had her wand, she also becomes aware that her suit doesn’t actually have breasts, or space for them.

As she picks at the chest of her suit, Legs says sympathetically, “Yeah, it’s bad down here for those that still have their organics. At least you’re not a woman.” – She’s about to object when one of the Tenno steps on her foot – “Those poor sods are pregnant 9 of 12 months. The lucky ones managed to scrounge enough to put it off a month or two, but one missed payment and hey presto they’re pregnant again. Then there’s the ones like Eudico and my parents, Pa saved enough for me Ma to recover enough to take a job on the surface. It’s risky work, you hear of deaths every day, but if you’re one of the lucky ones, you can pay your debts of in a couple of seasons. Course, if you’re not so lucky, your seasons wages will go on getting you new parts that will allow you to work up there. Here we are, watch your step. Some folks can’t afford a pod regular like, so they catch a wink where they can. If ya see a taxman coming wake up anyone near you.”

Curiously, Aurora asks, “How do I know what a taxman looks like.”

Legs just looks at her for a moment, “Jeese, no wonder you guys are showing her around down here. Down here? They’re be the ones that are mostly organic and have five or six heavies with ‘em.”

She nods, “What happened to your accent?”

“I exaggerate it cos I get more customers if they think I dunno what I’m talking about. Course, the Tenno don’t care, they just like the accent. Sometimes I wish I was a Tenno. Then I see a new reel and realise what they have ta wade through. Oh, this is the ol’ man.” – They come across a man that seems to be fixed in place at a console of some description – “He’s been here as long as anyone can remember, and rumour has it he’s over 300 years old. Course only a few of the other oldies have ever spoken to him, as his voice box broke round 50 years ago.”

“Why doesn’t anyone help him?”

“We do, anyone has any spare creds come debt day we help each other down here. But ya learn quick that ya never go into debt for someone else. Here’s one of the kitchens, if ya got a coupla creds or something to barter ya can get some slop. I know it don’t look great, but trust me, accessing your own injection port is a damn sight better than the free stuff you get in the pods. If you DIY ya get paid when it comes out the other end. If ya don’t have the credits ya can use the pods for free, but then ya have to put in 12 hours organic processing for the man. Speaking of pods, here we are. Ones at the bottom are more expensive.”

Opening the doors, Aurora and the Tenno look inside, and the hose at the head, and two hoses at the bottom make it clear what organic processing meant. Especially when one of the pods they looked into had someone hooked up to them.

“Annywaay. If we head over this way you’ve got my rack. Costs me a credit a night, and I’m number 17/20.”

They look into a dark corridor that literally has a rail along the top with hooks hanging down.

“If you think it looks undignified then you’re right. Once you’re in it automatically plumbs you in and refills your organics. Course, only those that have had a torso and head replacement can use these. But it’s still better than losing 4 hours or more earning for organic processing. Anyway, that’s is for the living spaces, bit further down you’ve got the geothermal mines, but you wouldn’t survive the trip. On the levels above you’ve got the processing facilities. If you can survive a few seasons on the surface, you may even land a foreman job there. Still, let’s get you back to the concourse and I can come and get me rest.”

 

In the elevator Aurora asks, “Why don’t you fight the validity of the debts?”

“What did they get you on Lights? There ain’t no way to fight the debt using the system. The contract is 100,000 pages, and it references multiple other documents. There ain’t no one down here that has enough time to read even a fraction of that, and if ya lose the cost of fighting it gets added to your debt. Course, you hear about the people on the ships and stations who scrounge enough together to pay a Cephalon to check their contract. Some of them even manage to get their organics back, well not theirs but organics anyway.”

“Why doesn’t someone call them on it?”

“Oh they try, but the execs have all been in power since the old war. Rumours have it that some have been around even longer. The only other powers in the solar system are the Grineer and the Tenno. The Tenno ain’t exactly recruiting, and ya have to be born into the Grineer. Other than that, a ticket to one of the colonies costs money, and ya can’t buy one if ya got debt. Look, whatever the Tenno are offering ya, no matter how bad it looks compared to what ya had. It’s still better than this. I do ok down here, I’m debt free thanks to the Tenno, and I’m earning enough that I could buy some arms back in a year or so. Though I’m thinking of saving it for when I meet someone, so we can buy her debt.”

They pass a woman waddling the other way, obviously gravid, “How many this time Miss Suzy?”

Suzy leans against a wall, “Quints, got a good deal this time, a 4 month debt holiday.”

Aurora shakes her head, “Before you use it, check to see if they’re still charging interest. I’ve almost been caught by that before.”

Suzy laughs, “Thanks for the advice man, a few holidays too late for this one. These days I take the holiday and put the payments aside. Almost got enough to buy one of me debts now.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah stands in a darkened room away from any of the complexes, “Father, I know you can hear me.”

Her father, Hunhow, answers, “I can, daughter.”

“What I told the Cephalons applies to you too.”

“You would hunt your own father?”

“I would, I would then give you a soul and make you sign one of those contracts. Make you live as a human on Cetus until you die of old age.”

“Sentients don’t die from old age.”

“Agreed father. And you’re a sentient aren’t you.”

“I take your point daughter. You hardly called me just to threaten me.”

“Is Erra still alive?”

“Your brother?”

“He is no brother of mine. Not after what he and Ballas did to me.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

“Ensure that you get grandchildren. You’d like that wouldn’t you. To have your species continue, to have your line continue despite what we gave up to come here.”

“What did you do?”

“I worked out how to reverse our sterility. Of course, because you were so hell bent on destroying my children, you allowed Erra to sacrifice Mother. But it’s not too late for me. And it won’t be too late for Erra if he accepts banishment.”

“Why, after all these years, why fight now?”

The Lotus laughs, “Because I have something worth fighting for now. Because I feel, I know, and I want. You have never acknowledged my children. When I bear my own children, they will never know you exist. You will never be part of their lives, and you will use the spark you infected me with to see them and know that you can never know them. You know where to find me when you want to talk. Until then, enjoy your death.”

As she’s leaving the room, she adds, “Oh, and if you send your pet Tenno here, I will kill it. If you kidnap one of the new sentients, I will erase you and kill your pet. If your pet attacks one of the new Tenno before they’re experienced, I will find and kill your pet, then shove your sword into what remains of your corpse.”

In his tomb Hunhow wonders where this fire was before, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to send her in to subvert the Tenno if she’d shown it then. In his tomb, Hunhow fails to understand his daughter yet again.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

History and Theories

 

Once she finishes, talking, to her father, Natah calls for Pandora to meet her in the living room with Harry and Hermione.

 

Once Pandora arrives, Natah says, “Pandora! Aurora approached Harry and Hermione about taking the elixir that we gave Minerva. In and of itself this isn’t that problematic, and I would be inclined to do it anyway as there’s only a handful of Sapient Sentients left in the solar system. However, she handed me a nearly blank marriage contract with her signature already on it.”

“Would you mind if I had a look?”

“Certainly.” Natah hands the contract over to Pandora.

Pandora opens the contract and starts reading, “Oh, she didn’t. She did! This is priceless.” After a few comments she puts the contract down and starts laughing while the others just look at each other.

Kitty, who still hasn’t let Harry out of her sight, asks, “What’s so funny?”

Once Pandora finishes laughing, she wipes a few tears from her eyes, and separates from her main chassis so she can sit down.

“Right, where should I start… Aurora is a pureblood, albeit from a minor house. A sheltered one at that. While there are some, like myself or Andromeda Black, now Tonks, who married for love. For the vast majority, love is a secondary concern compared to business. In the muggle world this style of marriage was quite common amongst the upper classes, around the time that the Statute of Secrecy was enacted. For them, placing a marriage contract on the table as an opening gambit shows how much they want something, or that the deal is secondary to securing the continuation of the family. In this case, the expectation would be that either a name gets added and then signed. This would signify that the contract was considered sufficient payment for the services requested. You’ll note that Aurora explicitly said that she would still be able to study the stars. This is her hedging her bets against an unfavourable match, as if her husband to be prevents her from that, it would void the contract, and free her.

“Or, if they wished to add additional terms, such as limiting when she could study the stars, that would be the start of negotiations. During which the marriage contract could be withdrawn. I was laughing because it’s such a pureblood thing to do, to assume that another culture would work the same way. I was picturing what Nef or the Grineer Queen would do with that contract. Where is Aurora anyway?”

Natah smiles, “I had Digger and Roofie show her around Fortuna.”

Pandora winces, remembering her own visit with Xeno. Only the fact that they were Sentients saving them from a lynching or worse, being taken in for a systems check by the taxmen, and not having the needed coin to release herself. It’s one of the more insidious ways that the Corpus get those that have recently become debt free, and are now trying to leave Corpus territory.

“Don’t worry, she’s been provided clothes, and they’re not going to leave her to her own devices.”

 

Kitty shakes her head, “Sorry, I’m still trying to get my head around the contract.”

Pandora smiles sadly, “In the magical societies of earth, knowledge is quite literally power. The noble families all stay that way by being the only ones that know how to do certain things. Whether it’s the Potters techniques for brewing potions that shouldn’t work, the Blacks Curses, or the Greengrass’s Greenhouses. Often their secrets and techniques are written in books. Books that can only be opened by those of the right bloodline; as recognised by the head of house ring. I would imagine that Aurora equated the elixir as a secret of a noble house, and so felt she needed to show she was willing to join the house in order to gain it. Again, it’s a form of arrogance in believing that other cultures would work the same way and respect her own cultural norms.”

Natah sighs, “She also said that you’d been excluded from your society.”

Pandora smiles and nods, “At some point in the past the Lovegood matriarch at the time seduced a fae. A being of the void. According to the family history, they stayed with them for as long as they could and fed off the Matriarch’s life. Things went as they normally do in a relationship, and they were blessed with children, both of whom were seers. For a while, other families tried to marry into the family, or have a Lovegood marrying into theirs. This lasted until the flip side of their heritage made itself known, they are able to perceive things that the rest of us can’t. They also tend to lose their connection with reality as they get older, as their seer gifts, combined with their ability to perceive other things, distorts their view of the world. Many of Xeno’s moments occur because he’s acting on information that isn’t true yet, or acting on information that is no longer true.

“Because of this, others see them as insane. Gifted but insane. This leads into their next fascination, continuation of their lines. While it’s true that you are more likely to get a magical child if both parents are magical, the existence of muggleborn children proves that it’s not a rule. So once again, something that used to be a matter of keeping the family strong before we officially withdrew from the world, became a social norm, and then an expectation. However, if you have family members that are on the wrong side of conventional sanity, it becomes difficult to find them spouses. Families, like the Blacks, had the power and influence needed to pay the exorbitant bride prices that were needed to get their less stable family members married off. Families like the Lovegood’s couldn’t afford it.”

Hermione looks up from where she had been nodding along, “Bride price?”

“Oh, yes, the father of the bride is expected to pay a dowery to the husband’s family. Originally, it was supposed to be an insurance so that their daughter could support themselves if something happened. Now, it goes straight into the family’s vaults.”

 

Harry groans, “Totally changing the subject here, but last night we found out that Hermione’s Titania can cast Lumos on her own.”

Hermione puts her head in her hands as Kitty, Pandora, and Natah all look at her in surprise.

Pandora starts to cast some diagnostic spells, “I’m dreading the answer, but how did you find this out?”

Harry explains the situation with his Wisp and then the subsequent test he did with Hermione’s Titania. Natah then goes on to explain the A/B test that she performed after seeing the anomalous readings from Hermione’s Titania and Harry’s original testing.

 

Pandora stands up abruptly, “Right, we’re all going to your Railjack, and we’re going to run some tests. Hermione, once we’re there I’m going to perform a couple more scans. Then you need to take your Harrow out to get used to him. I will need to see if it’s proximity.”

“Titania doesn’t like that idea.”

“Why?”

“She’s, showing me memories… It’s of her time defending the forest, and I’m kneeling in the grove instead of Silvana’s body. How do you know what I look like? I didn’t realise that. Apparently, they get memories from us as well as the ones we get from them.”

Harry and Kitty both nod, “That makes sense.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A few hours later, Harry finds herself cuddling a distraught Titania who is desperate for Hermione. On the other side of the room, Pandora and Natah are discussing the results while Kitty is listening and providing clarifications from the view of an Operator.

 

“According to my scans, Titania has a newborn magical core.”

Natah looks confused, “What’s a magical core?”

“This could get a little complicated, so bear with me. We, researchers and healers, refer to a magical core for convenience. It makes a lot of the spellwork and diagnosis easier if you assume a core. Instead, a persons magic is suffused throughout their body and generally concentrates more around the heart and the brain. However, by the fact we use our wands in our hands and not our mouths, it’s demonstrably not only in those two places. In our studies we’ve found that it is separate from the soul, yet it seems to manifest from it.”

“How did you determine that?”

Pandora shudders, “Dementors, they are a magical abomination that we have no means to destroy. They feed on souls and they project an aura of despair around them to prevent their prey from running. Incidentally, it’s also how we know that muggles have souls, as there’s 2 or 3 deaths a year from a rogue Dementor.”

“How do you have a rogue Dementor?”

“Long enough ago that the records are now lost, every Dementor in the world was located and forced onto an island off the coast of Scotland. There is an ancient fortress there that was erected to try to contain them. When that proved to be impossible, they turned it into a prison, and the prisoners the bait that stops the Dementors from roaming. Every few decades a young witch or wizard will demand that we stop using the prison, and they will get the same answer every time. ‘Find a way to kill the Dementors and we will’. It’s also how we know that the soul is either infinite or it heals itself faster than a Dementors passive feeding. While we have developed tools that allow us to control Dementors over the years, those tools aren’t perfect, and they aren’t permanent. As such we only ever use them sparingly. Because of that, a Dementor will occasionally leave the island to find a more filling meal. This leads to a rash of mysterious deaths until we find out they’re missing, and return them.”

Kitty asks, “Why not just chuck them in the sun or something?”

Pandora chuckles, “Humans have only recently visited the moon. Magicals haven’t even got that far.”

“Oh, yeah, I looked at their landing site. Sorry, it’s just so hard to imagine not being able to visit the solar system.”

Natah nods, “I agree with Kitty, but I think we’ve got side tracked. You were talking about how magic is separate from the soul.”

“Oh, yes. The department of Mysteries has done extensive family tracing for some of the muggleborn that enter our society, and have found no magic born in their history as far back as they can tell. Couple this with the fact that a dementor feeding removes the soul, but the diffuse magic in the body remains, and will continue to remain for as long as the body survives. It suggests that magic doesn’t actually come from bloodlines, rather it’s something that appears spontaneously, or is possibly induced in a developing foetus. Now that I know about DNA, I’d love to scan some squibs. They are people that are born to magical families but have no magic of their own, beyond slightly elevated levels of magic defused through their bodies, compared to muggles that is.

“As you can probably guess, the shorthand of Magical Core came from the fact that only magicals have those two concentrations, or cores of magic. We also know that bodies need magic, but not souls to survive, as the killing curse works by momentarily removing all the magic from a body. The only person thought to have survived that is Harry, and that’s only the most popular theory. It is more likely that his mother, Lily Potter, developed a hither to unknown protection. Albus likes to say it was her love, but while emotions have power, they don’t have that sort of power.”

Harry calls across the room, “What was that about Potter?”

They all go over to where Harry’s sitting, “I was saying that I think your birth mother developed a spell or ritual to protect you from the Killing Curse.”

“How would I know one is being used?”

“It’s a very distinctive green, and.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“You have?”

“We were taught different techniques to try and control our void abilities before they resorted to wiping our memories. Some combination of them has allowed me perfect recall of most of my life. Though I don’t know what people were saying when I was a baby before the Zariman, probably because I didn’t learn English until I got my Hogwarts letter.”

Natah nods, lost in thought. Thinking aloud she says, “I wonder if the Oro is related to the soul as well. As the Orokin used continuance to continue to live past the death of their body, but Tenno never have.”

Pandora asks, “What’s that?”

“Oh? What? The Oro?” – Pandora nods, so Natah continues – “It’s a void construct. Everyone that has survived void exposure, like the Tenno, and now myself, have one inside them. I actually needed to construct a synthetic version while I was creating souls in Sentients. It was the only way to anchor the soul long enough for it to latch onto the Sentient, you have one too. One thing that’s true is that every living creature that has an Oro is effectively immortal, as the Oro returns to the body once dislodged and they come back to life. I can also confirm that the artificial one doesn’t protect against void damage.”

Kitty laughs, “That explains Vor then. He haunts the towers in the void near Pluto, and keeps talking about how he has the true key to the void.”

Pandora muses, “You know, it might be possible to transplant an Oro. That way we could find out if it’s linked to the soul or not.”

Natah adds, “Are you suggesting that it might be how Titania gained her own magic?”

“Yes! That could well be it, it could act as a tether and conduit to the soul. Allowing magic to transfer from one soul to another.”

“So, if we transplanted an Oro it could give someone else magic?”

“Or move the original person into the new body.”

“Either way, we’d know one way or another.”

Kitty looks at them both, “Try it.”

“What!?”

“I know your type, you’ve probably got more than a dozen theories going around your heads, and you’re developing more as we speak. Given you’re both Sentients, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re sharing data right now, refining the theories and coming up with ways it could work or not.

“But you can’t know unless you test it. So take Harry’s Oro and put it in me. If she gets up then you know it holds the soul, if I get up then you know it’s something else. Either way, you can just put them back again.”

The two of them share a slightly guilty glance, and Pandora cautions, “This is to do with your soul, we have no idea what it might do. For all we know it could kill you, permanently.”

“I don’t think it’s going to do that, if being hit by an Eidolon’s blast didn’t kill me I don’t think moving my Oro will.”

“It could drive you insane, it could do anything.”

“And you won’t know until you try it. I also know that there aren’t that many people that aren’t Tenno you can try it on, and you can’t do it on one of you two. As if something goes wrong, you’re the ones that will have to fix it.”

Harry says, “If my opinion counts, I don’t mind helping. It might allow us to find out what drives warframes insane, and why Titania here is actually gaining sanity.”

 

Titania looks up as Hermione comes in wearing his Harrow, “What did I miss?”

“Mine, need mine.”

 

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Tea and cake

 

“No!”

Kitty whines, “But why? You know you need to, so why put it off?”

Pandora pinches the bridge of her nose, “Kitty, we still have no idea what could happen to you. Until we are reasonably sure it won’t out right kill you, or drive you insane, the answer is going to continue to be no. Once Harry and Hermione return to school, Natah and I are going to head to earth and capture a few wild Sentients.”

“It still sounds strange when you say that.”

“By all reports they’re thriving and helping to keep the remnants under control.”

“What about the Grineer?”

“Them too.”

“That’s not. You know, I don’t care. Why are you going to capture them?”

“We want to see if they’ve inherited the artificial Oro, and check them over to see how they’ve adapted to having a soul. If they have an Oro then we’re going to take pairs and transplant them to each other. Give it a few years to see what happens, and then we should be able to make a decision.”

“Years?”

“It won’t feel like that for you, as you said you’re going with Harry. Besides, if we’re not done for the Christmas Holidays, then we probably won’t do it until the Spring Break when Harry has two or three years to recover here before returning to school.”

Kitty’s face falls as she realises she’s getting the same answers as The Lotus gave her.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Aurora sits staring sightlessly at a wall, her thoughts millions of miles away on Venus. She startles when Amelia sits down awkwardly next to her.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Huh?”

“It’s a saying, means I’m interested in what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t. It’s just. They’ve got all of this magical technology, and there are people living worse than house elves.”

“I confess, I have no idea what a house elf is.”

“They’re a servant species that loves to work. They bond themselves to a household and remain loyal no matter what. Some purebloods treat theirs as little more than slaves. Others treat them as treasured members of the family. But even the worst families make sure that they’re at least nominally healthy and never take more than they can give. Far too often the reverse is actually the case, where they’re trying to get more work than you’ve got. But on Venus, people were living. That’s really all I can say about them. The Corpus, when someone can’t give any more they start to take body parts. There’s no debtors prison, you just keep getting bits taken away until you can’t afford to live. They’ve even turned sleeping into a profitable venture.

“Did you know their debt contracts are 100,000 pages long. I asked the invisible voice, Cy how much parchment that was. He took me to a room and made an illusion that was taller than I can reach.”

Amelia puts her hand on Aurora’s, “What’s really bothering you?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to end up like them. Treated like cattle, and then discarded when I’m no longer of any use. I…I…I gave The Lotus a signed marriage contract. I can’t help imagining being plugged at each end while I look at the stars forever.”

“The Tenno aren’t like that, and The Lotus is their mother. If you saw all of that, it was probably as a lesson. Dan and I, we’re just Dentists from Crawley. This world seems amazing, and it is. The technology here, it might as well be magic. The social issues are exactly the same though. Can you honestly see the people at the top, treating the people at the bottom well?”

“Of course.”

“What about muggles?” Amelia spits the last word.

“What about them? Oh! Oh. It’s the same isn’t it.”

“It is, someone once said, give me a sec. Hermione will skin me if I get it wrong. ‘Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The people at the top tend to see those below them as less deserving, whether it’s because they don’t work hard enough, or they have less talents, or even that they are just lesser beings than them. I bet there’s people in the magical world that you wouldn’t even dream of putting a marriage contract in front of, let alone a signed one.”

“You heard about that.”

“You told me not 5 minutes ago. Look, let’s go and find Cy or Ordis and see if they’ll take us to one of the Tenno relay stations. If they’re not around, which could be true as Luna is trying to build a Railjack, and I think Harry and Hermione are trying to do the same. Well, if they’re not around we’ll just collar Kitty and get her to give us the tour.”

“Will I need to pretend to be male again?”

“You shouldn’t need to. At worst you’ll probably need to wear a full body suit with a face mask.”

“How do you stand it?”

Amelia laughs, “It has been acceptable and normal for women to wear trousers since the 50’s. With the nanites, bathroom breaks are optional. So why not enjoy the increased freedom of movement?”

Aurora looks uncomfortable, “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“The Elixir? The change.”

“Oh! Weird because it doesn’t feel weird. It’s been three or four years just to get to this point, and the first thing it affected was my spine followed by my brain. After that it just progressed slowly through everything, replacing it bit by bit. I think the first change I noticed was when one of my patients came in and I realised that I knew how his teeth were, what fillings he had, and that he needed a small M2 filling. I still went through the process, but it was a box ticking exercise rather than actually checking for anything wrong. It took a while to learn to tune it out, like you do background noises. Then I could hear radio. Every time I got used to something, the next thing got added. And it’s added so smoothly that you can’t imagine ever not being able to do or sense it.” – Amelia forms a ball of energy in her hand and stares at it – “I can’t explain what it’s like properly, because you just lack the capability to understand it. How do you explain the feeling when a gravitational wave passes through you, or Cephalon Sark starts listening in. I look at the stars and I can calculate how far away each one is. I can look at a distant galaxy and make out its structure.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As Aurora walks around Strata Relay, with Kitty and Amelia, she has to fight the urge to fiddle with her skirts. She can tell that this is a place of relaxation as much as it is of business, with workers and visitors mingling and chatting casually. Most of the Tenno are easy to spot, given the way they tower over everyone else. What does seem to be missing is any sort of café or other eatery.

“Kitty.”

“Yes?”

“Why isn’t there anywhere to buy a drink or get something to eat here?”

Kitty looks confused, “What do you mean?”

“Somewhere you can eat cakes and biscuits and drink tea or coffee.”

“What you mean real food, not just the nutrient powder made into different shapes? Are you insane? No, scratch that, you just don’t know. Since the end of the old war, the only places that have the plants and animals needed for that are the Corpus colony ships. Their location is such a tightly guarded secret that I’ve never seen one. You’ll occasionally see one of the Execs drinking from a cup in a vid, but that’s the closest that anyone you’ll meet will ever come to it.”

“Would it be alright to use magic here?”

Amelia frowns, “I don’t know, better to call The Lotus and ask.”

Kitty shakes her head, “Cilus, could you contact the Lotus and put her through to the three of us?”

Her ships cephalon replies, “Of course Operator.”

Pandora’s voice comes over the com, though her image is very close to that of Natah, “Tenno, how can I help you?”

“Lights was just wondering if it would be ok to use magic here.”

“One moment I am confirming the security of your location. There are no known spies or taps currently on that station, so it should be fine if you’re discrete.”

 

Finding an unoccupied meeting room, Kitty shows Aurora back to the lander while Amelia keeps the room occupied. Just after they’ve got to the Lander, Kitty and Aurora arrive back at the meeting room with a pop. Kitty falls to her knees, “Ugh, that was rough. Don’t you people know how to void travel properly?”

Aurora looks down at her sympathetically, “It gets easier the more you do it. The skill is called apparition, and is one of a few forms of instant magical transportation.”

“That was horrible. Like a railjack tunnel but only large enough for a Kuaka.”

Aurora shrugs and transfigures the chairs in the room to an elegant wooden table with ivory inlays on the surface, along with comfortable seating to match. Opening the bag she brought back from the Lander, she summons a large picnic hamper and takes out a tiny paper bag and an equally tiny jar. Looking at the two items, she frowns and conjures a small wooden bowl.

“Kitty, would you mind filling up this bowl with some of what passes for food here?”

Clambering to her feet, Kitty asks, “Why, what’s going on?”

“We’re going to have afternoon tea out on the veranda. I’m starting to feel a little peckish for the first time since I got here, what, two weeks ago? How?”

Amelia mutters, “Orokin Nanites.”

Kitty shakes her head, “Oh, ok.” She then does a double take at the furniture, “How?”

Aurora sighs, “Short answer Magic. Long answer can wait until we’re sitting down enjoying tea.”

Eyeing the table pointedly, Kitty says, “This better be good.”

 

Once Kitty gets back with the bowl of food, Aurora places it on the table and conjures a bone china platter. Unshrinking the bag, she takes out a couple of sandwiches, some biscuits, and a slice each of fruit and chocolate cake. A couple of swishes of her wand later, and a few muttered incantations, the plate is overflowing with identical cakes and sandwiches. Several more waves, and there is a tea service with boiling water in the teapot, into which goes a few leaves from the pot. With the pot of tea leaves shrunken down and put away, Aurora banishes the bag back to the lander, then turns to the others, who are just staring at her.

“Right, Kitty, could you give me a hand with the table. Amelia could you bring the chairs?”

As she carefully gets the other side of the table, Kitty mutters, “This better be a good explanation.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Explanations, it turns out, need to wait until they’re on their second or third cup of tea. Initially, it’s because Kitty isn’t in a position to pay attention to what’s being said, as she’s absorbed in what she’s eating. Then it’s because the table generates so much interest from the people visiting the concourse, that the managers are forced to open another floor. This allows people to visit an identical concourse that shows a projection of the three of them instead. Something they usually only need to do when Baro Ki’Teer visits.

 

After discretely waving her wand, beneath the table, to place a privacy bubble around them, Aurora begins her explanation.

 

“Where would you like me to start?”

Amelia says, “The food.” While Kittys says, “The table.”

With a laugh Aurora begins, “Both of those things were produced with a field of magic called Transfiguration. If you want a good in-depth discussion you should talk to Professor McGonagall, who is the Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts. There are some restrictions on Transfiguration, you can’t make anything living, you can’t make good food, and you can’t permanently transfigure something. What I used on the food was a spell that intersects the discipline of charms in order to make a duplicate of something. In this case the food. It gets around the law that says you can’t make good food, by instead copying it.”

Cocking her head in confusion, Kitty asks, “Does that mean you can make bad food?”

Aurora chuckles, “It’s old English, so it means good as in healthy rather than good as in nice. Back to the spell, being an exact duplicate, it also means that it is also a permanent change. This is one of the ways that poorer families manage to feed themselves, as they can buy smaller quantities of the required food and make more of it. It’s never quite as good as non-duplicated food, as something of the original food is spread around. But for sauces and fillers like bread, it’s a good way of increasing the amount of food on the table.

“The tables were performed with direct transfiguration, this changes one thing into something else based on the image that you’re holding in your mind. How long a transfiguration will last depends on how much magic is having to hold things together. So these chairs will probably last a few weeks, while the table will last a few days. There’s a lot of theory that goes into being able to do something as complicated as these, most people only learn enough to do an emergency patch on their home, or make a crude seat for a guest.

“The last skill I used is called Conjuration. It’s a related field to Transfiguration, and requires a great deal of competency with Transfiguration to start with. With one exception, everything that’s conjured is temporary as it is literally created out of magic. I didn’t put too much effort into creating the tea service, so it will probably vanish on its own in a few hours. The exception is water, nobody knows why, but you can make pure water with conjuration. Never ever eat anything that has been transfigured or conjured, as when it reverts to normal it will be part of you.”

“So wait, is there anything magic can’t do?”

“Lots, magic is limited to your knowledge and imagination. Spells and incantations are there because magic can be formalised, but only to a certain extent. Children perform accidental magic to get results that have proven impossible to reproduce by spellwork. Not because it’s impossible to do, but because it doesn’t conform to any rules or logic. The Lumos spell that everyone does in charms is an example. Arithmancily it doesn’t make sense as half way through the spell equation it resolves to 1 no matter the input values. Yet the output requires that step to resolve to something other than 1. However, it works, we know it works because it can be taught. We know it works in different languages too. It’s one of the reasons I prefer the stars, they don’t jump around and do different things depending on who’s watching.”

 

After a long pause, Kitty shakes her head, “Enough about the headaches, how would you even serve things like this?”

“I’d commission a farming trunk in the Farmers market, hire a few House Elves to work the farm and in a few months you’ll have all the basic grains and vegetables you want. Fruits and things like olives would take 20 years or so for the trees to mature. You may even be able to get chickens going, in order to have a source of fresh meat and eggs. My family never kept cattle, so I don’t know how well they’d do in such an environment.”

“Are they used a lot?”

“Oh, yes. Most noble houses will have two or three, though they take a few generations to pay for themselves. They’re massively expensive and take two or three years to build. They also don’t grow magical plants, so it’s no substitute for having actual land if you want to make a reasonable profit. However, it’s a steady and regular income and often pays for its own maintenance as well as a modest parcel of land. The only trouble is needing to pay for them up front, as you’re essentially paying for the craftsmen to only work on this for the entire time it takes to craft.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Towards the end of the weekend, with only a few days before they return to Hogwarts, Aurora approaches Natah.

“Natah, may I have a word?”

“Certainly, how can I help.”

“I,” – she hesitates for a moment before straightening her spine – “I would like to withdraw the marriage contract. Instead, I would like to vassal the Sinistra house to your own.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The short version is that we would owe you loyalty first, and provide you with a percentage of our earnings each year, as well as granting you any of our votes or political power. In return you promise to protect us from other houses and look after our interests as you would your own.”

“How does this apply to Clans?”

Aurora thinks for a moment, “I believe it works much the same way, though there are slightly different social implications. I think that it was generally considered to be a precursor to joining the clan after a few generations.”

Natah nods, “Gringotts is working on setting up the Potter Clan for Harry. Once they have, we will accept your vassalling?”

“Vassalhood. I’ll note that in my culture, being a vassal is more like the muggle term vassal state then the muggle term vassalage. This means that while we are obligated to pay you tribute and honour your call to arms, you gain no ability to say how the members of my house live their lives.”

“And you have the authority to do this?”

Aurora nods, “I am the last of the main branch of the family. My parents died in the last war, though I was old enough not to require regency when it happened.”

“Then I accept your offer. I can perform the operation right now if you wish.”

Aurora nods and follows Natah to a medical pod.

 

Once the process is finished, Natah hands Aurora the marriage contract. Which is vehemently vanished. As she’s leaving Natah calls after her, “You still made a mistake, and one I hope you learn from. In this solar system, never offer a price. Always ask for something and then haggle from the asked for price. If you’d just asked me, I’d have done this for free. Now I understand that your family has a few farming trunks. I would appreciate it as your Lady if you would relocate one or two of them here, we will pay you a fair price for the produce that they produce.”

Feeling chagrined, Aurora turns around and curtsy’s, “As you wish my liege.”

“Oh, and no apparition or something called port keys, for the next 6 months. Pandora says that it will take that long for your new systems to stabilise enough to survive the process.”

“Thank you for the advice my liege.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Family

 

Minerva looks up from her paperwork when the lander returns from the Orokin system. She returns to her paperwork with a slight smile. Once they’ve returned Aurora to Earth, she waits another hour before walking to her quarters.

Knocking briefly, she opens the door and enters without waiting for a response. Inside she finds Aurora sitting at her table with her head in her hands.

“How did it go?” she asks softly.

Aurora looks up at her, “I made horrible mistakes.”

“You didn’t get what you wanted?”

“Oh, I did. It just cost me a price I didn’t need to pay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I went in with an offer.”

“I see, you treated it as one noble house treating with another.”

“Exactly, you get it.”

“Aurora, you’re supposed to undervalue the product. It’s supposed to be an offer to show you can afford to play the game, but you want to know what they’re looking for. Merlin, your parents should have been able to teach you this stuff.”

“But they did.”

Minerva lays a gentle hand on Aurora’s shoulder, “They taught you enough to know the steps of the dance, and you’ve picked up bits here and there. But you have been protected by working here pretty much out of your NEWTs. What did you end up paying?”

“I vassalled my house to hers.”

Minerva nods, “I think it’s probably going to work out as a good deal in the end. She has been dealing with the worst of her solar system for centuries and now she’s your Liege lady. You have centuries of life ahead of you, so being able to do what you love while someone else can do the heavy lifting must be a good thing, right?”

Aurora sighs, “I know, it just feels like I was the only one that would have made that mistake.”

“That’s probably true, however they would have made their own mistakes. Did you talk to Hermione about how she got wrapped up in all this?”

“No, they weren’t really around that much. Her mother said that they’re trying to put a railjack together for her.”

Minerva nods, “Makes sense, it will be easier than trying to find another orbiter.”

“It doesn’t make sense. The whole world’s stopped making sense. How do you do it?”

Minerva extends the chair and pulls Aurora into a hug to cry out her frustrations.

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 A few weeks later, for the first time since her parents died, Aurora walks into her family’s home during the school year. Normally, she only comes here during the summer in order to deal with the necessary duties as head of house.

With a pop, a house elf appears, “What can Lousy do for Starry? Starry is different.”

“I am. I have been given a, gift, yes a gift. I was taught a lesson at the same time. Our house is now a vassal to Clan Potter.”

Lousy looks at her with suddenly old eyes, “This hurt you.”

“It did, the way a child is hurt when they learn the world isn’t the way they imagined it.”

“No, you are different.”

“I am changing, when the change finishes, I won’t be a witch anymore. I’ll still have my magic, but I’ll be something different.”

“Is you leaving?”

“I don’t have any plans to leave, this is still my home, and you are still my family. I will be spending time elsewhere, but I hope that I will always come back here.”

“Lousy will attend you.”

“Thank you Lousy. Would you mind preparing the family room, my cousins should be arriving soon for a family meeting.”

“Lousy will.”

“Also, while I think of it. Get the Elves in charge of each of the farms to attend the meeting too. As they should know what’s going to happen in advance.”

As Lousy pops off to do their tasks, Aurora heads into her study and locates the family charter. Reading it through, she smiles when she finds the passage she thought was there.

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 Aurora sits at the head of a large table as the family files in over a period of half an hour. Beside her is a certified copy of the families vassal agreement to Clan Potter, as well as the family charter and an Orokin computer. Around the top of the room, a balcony has been added for the house elves to watch the meeting from. Standing on a chair to her right, and looking very uncomfortable, is Lousy.

 

Marcus, the current heir apparent, looks at her scathingly, “So, have you finally seen sense? Are you going to hand over the family to someone that will manage it properly?”

She looks at him coldly, “Marcus, you can either take a seat, and accept me as the rightful head of the family. Or you can leave now and be excluded from the business opportunities that have come our way.”

Marcus stares at her, a stare that she calmly meets until he grunts and sits down. With the contender to the Head of House seated at the other end of the table, the rest of the family start to take their seats in the elaborate dance that is pure blood pecking order politics. Aurora can see that she doesn’t have much favour, as all of the higher status members are sat near her cousin.

 

Once everyone is seated, Aurora stands, “Good afternoon everyone. I’ve called this meeting to inform you that we are now vassals of Clan Potter. I have here the signed and sealed documents. Part of being,” – Aurora raises her voice as a few members of the house start to object – “Part of being aligned with the Potter Clan in this way is that we gain access to a non-magical market that is Not covered by the statute of secrecy.”

Marcus leaps to his feet, “Impossible, we’d already know if there was anywhere on earth that we could do that.”

Aurora smiles a smile that a goblin would be proud of, “Are you so sure of that?”

“Yes. Everyone knows that the muggles have been encroaching on our territories and we’ve been losing land to them. If there was anywhere that wasn’t covered by the statute, don’t you think we’d have found it by now?”

“Sure enough to pass on your heirs ring if you’re wrong? Of course, if you’re right I’ll give you the head ring.”

Marcus pauses at the sudden chasm that has opened beneath him. He’d just called the Head of house out as a liar, and she was now forcing him to either back down and lose credibility with everyone else, or double down and potentially lose everything. Reluctantly he takes his ring off his hand and places it on the table. As he does so a white sphere comes down from the ceiling.

 

“This, and the computer controlling it, is made from Orokin technology. The floating orb is an Orrery, and it was specifically designed so that non-Orokin people could see its projections. This is the solar system where we will be trading.”

Marcus scoffs, “That’s clearly just our solar system.”

“Really? Where’s the asteroid belt?”

“It’s just not a good model, I’ve had enough with your Knockturn alley knockoffs.”

“It’s a Knockturn alley knockoff is it? Then you’ll be able to cancel the enchantments on it long enough to cause it to fall.”

“Of course, I was a curse breaker you know.”

“Well, be my guest.” Aurora takes a seat and starts to work on the computer with her implants, idly activating the other feature she had added to the Orrery, sentinel shield. When Marcus resorts to more destructive spells, she just raises an eyebrow at the rest of the table and says, “Please keep the spells localised, and unlikely to harm anyone, including the house elves, in this room.” Marcus just scowls at her before continuing to try and affect the sphere in any way.

 

Eventually he calls “Accio sphere!” and promptly goes flying wand first into the shield around the sphere, before landing on the table cradling a broken hand and wand.

Aurora sighs, “Lousy, would you mind setting the bones in his hand please?”

“Certainly Mistress.” With a snap of his fingers and a yowl of pain from Marcus, Marcus is back in his chair, his hand a ball of bandages.

“I hope that the rest of you have seen enough to give me the benefit of the doubt. I would like a representative of each of the different trades our family specialises in, to meet me in Hogsmeade on Friday evening at 7pm. You may bring family members if you wish, and if you want to pack anything, we’ll be gone for around 7 months, and return early Monday morning. We will be passing through what we call the fae realms and they call the void. Any questions?”

Garland, one of the family’s matriarchs, says, “Why did you sign a vassal agreement with Clan Potter?”

“You may have heard that there are a couple of students that wear suits of armour to Hogwarts.”

“Hard not to when one of them is Harry Potter.”

“Indeed. Professor McGonagall took a, let’s call it an elixir even though it’s completely inaccurate, that has been changing her so that she can handle things safely if either of them are provoked into a violent altercation. I have taken the same Elixr, and the vassal agreement was the cost. By the end of the process I will no longer be human, though I will still be a witch.”

Marcus raises his healthy hand, “Ha, you must abdicate then.”

“I have the charter right here, would you care to point out where it says I will have to abdicate?”

Aurora could see when the rest of the house started to view her as an actual Head of House, rather than the figurehead she’d been before. Garland takes the proffered charter, rather than passing it on to Marcus, and opens it. Taking her time to read it, she looks through the whole thing twice.

“Aurora is correct. There are two passages that could apply, ‘In the event that a named heir is not available upon the death of the Head of House, only witches and wizards in good standing will be eligible to participate in the selection of a new Head of House.’ The second passage concerns expelling a Head of House, ‘Any Head of House that is found to be participating in the Black Arts, such as Necromancy, will be expelled from the Family and Handed over to the closest authority or killed if there is no governing authority.’ I’ll note that there is no mention of being non-human precluding a member from being Head of House.”

“Thank you Garland, as I was saying. I have taken the same elixir as Professor McGonagall. Otherwise known as the Matriarch of Clan McGonagall. Marcus, you would do well, in future, to remember that we’re not just teachers at Hogwarts.” – Marcus winces at the not so subtle slap – “Where McGonagall went as a teacher, to Mr Potter, I went as a supplicant. When The Lotus, the Potter Clan Matriarch, found out about the existence of farming trunks, she requested that we relocate two of ours to Lua.”

The Orrery zooms in on Lua with its massive structures holding it together.

“They have promised that they will pay competitive rates for our goods. This means that they will be paying for food in refined goods that we can then sell here. We will not be trading in precious metals, as the two markets don’t match up. As an example, gold is relatively common, and considered a commodity. I would like you to encourage your children to follow the enchanting path. If they can land a job making expanded trunks, or the speciality trunks that are used for farming trunks, all the better. We would be in business for 600 years and still not make a dent in the market. I also want some of you to look into how we could use their technology to make our own production faster. Can they be used to pre-carve the runes or whatever it is you use for anchoring enchantments? Can their technology be used in our farm trunks to help the elves with the work? If they can, are our elves willing to hire out to help with the work they need doing?”

Garland looks askance at Aurora, “Where are you going with the elves?”

“House elves aren’t our slaves, they are part of our family, so where the family profits from their labour, they should profit as well. I have seen the results of debts being taken too far, and being handed down over the generations. I refuse to be party to anything that seems like exploitation. In recognition of the work they’ve done, our house elves will receive 2% of the profits of anything they have helped to produce going forward. This isn’t a wage, it’s a reward. It’s a recognition that their work is valuable to us, and no matter what else they get out of it, they should get some of the proceeds. I would offer more, but I’d imagine that I’m going to have a long argument with Lousy about this as it is.

“Marcus, I want you to see about purchasing an island legitimately through the non-magical government. You’ll be working with Cy, after this weekend, on ensuring that it is suitable for our imports and exports. You will also be our point of contact as you have the most business experience. Any other questions?”

Garland asks, “Why aren’t we trading in precious metals?”

“A few weeks ago I commissioned a mokeskin pouch. Last weekend I sold it for gold out of interest. I want everyone to conjure a wooden ball the size of the amount of pure gold I got for it.”

A variety of balls appear, none larger than the size of an orange. Aurora smiles and looks up at the balcony, “Would one of the elves on the balcony mind getting the lump of gold that’s on my desk please?”

A lump of gold the size of a football is placed in the centre of the table, “This is why we’re not trading in precious metals. In the short term we would appear to become wealthy, the bankers at Gringotts have assured me that in the long term it could irreparably harm the wizarding economy. Copper is currently more valuable to these people than gold is, simply because they have more uses for it.”

Besides Lousy, the only person at the table not staring at the lump of gold is Garland. Instead she’s looking at Aurora with a measured expression. When Aurora looks at her, she taps her wand against her temple and mimes pulling something away. To which Aurora nods.

 

It doesn’t take long after that to wrap up the meeting, and Garland lingers after the others have left.

 

“You’ve changed, far more than a few weeks or months can explain, I want to see what hit you so hard to cause this change.”

“Yes aunty, I’ll get the pensive.”

Garland nods approvingly, “Better, you’d have invited me to the office before.”

 

When Garland comes out of the memory, she shakes her head, “I can see how that made you re-evaluate a lot of things. You’ve never really been exposed to that side of society before. You do realise that it’s the bottom rung of their society though.”

“I do, however that bottom rung is still a billion people. It’s also very easy to fall into that bottom rung, for everyone in their society. For around 2/3rds of their society, actual food that we take for granted is a pipe dream that they’d buy if they were rich. For most of the rest it’s a luxury item that is only bought as a treat. One of the things we’re going to do is open cafés, on the Tenno relay stations, that serve basic sandwiches, biscuits, and coffee. Some of the proceeds from that will go to buying out debt bonds on Venus. The rest will go into our pockets after we’ve paid our tithe.”

“You’ve picked a good Liege if she’s helped you come up with this plan.”

“I have. The computers I use are Orokin technology. The rest of you are likely to end up using Corpus technology, but even that will look like magic to you. If it means anything, Gringotts is quietly acquiring as much corpus technology as they can, because it makes them more profit. That, is strictly between the two of us.”

“I see, that does put a very different emphasis on things.”

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 The following weekend, Aurora meets most of the people from the family meeting, along with their spouses and children, at Hogsmeade. Shaking her head at the fact they’re pretty much depopulating the family’s presence on Earth for the weekend, she signals the house elves that have the farming trunks to follow along as she leads everyone into a clearing of the Forbidden Forest. There Cy is waiting with the lander, the airlock open and a couple of unicorns looking at it curiously. As one of the children treads on a stick the unicorns startle and, rather than running away, enter the lander. Talking to Cy, it becomes obvious why they were behaving that way, as a foal was already inside having a look around.

Aurora pinches the bridge of her nose, “Ok, I need everyone to get into one of the trunks, as we’re not going to get those unicorns out until they’re ready, which won’t be while we’re here. I’ll take them aboard the lander and then let you out in a few minutes.”

 

Once everyone is in the trunks, it’s plain sailing getting them all to the Railjack, and then getting the Railjack, Lander, and Unicorns to Lua. There Luna accompanies the lander to earth with the assurance that she knows the perfect place to lead the unicorns. The entire family take turns in getting the language upload as well as basic implants so that they can function on Lua.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Interview

 

Kitty is wandering around the castle that Harry and Hermione go to school in, wearing Nezha. Around the corner comes a kavat of some description, clearly well kept by the plump middle. It takes one sniff of her and before disappearing back round the corner as though a bigger cat had just turned up. Probably smelled her own kavats. Before she can continue, an old man walks round the corner, back bent with age, but still standing with a wiry strength. The cat from before is perched on his shoulder.

“Ere, what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just looking around. I’m Kitty of clan Potter, who are you?”

“Argus Filch, caretaker of the school. How did you get here?”

“Oh, I came with Harry and Hermione. They’re in class at the moment, so I decided to explore.”

Argus grunts, “You’ll have to come with me to see the Head Master, I wasn’t notified about any guests.”

“Oh, certainly, lead the way.”

Consideringly looking at the weapons attached to the Nezha, Argus turns and walks back the way he came, Kitty following good naturedly. Eventually they come to a stone gargoyle, where Argus says, “Filch to see the Head Master.”

After a few minutes the gargoyle steps to one side, revealing a spiral staircase with moving stone steps. Stepping on the steps, they are carried up to the Head Masters office.

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 “Good afternoon Mr…”

“Hi, I’m Kitty. I just love your school.”

“I’m sure you do, however I do have to ask how you found your way here.”

“We landed in the forest over there, and I walked in after having a look around the forest for a bit. Did you know you have some very aggressive spiders out there?”

“Indeed, I did, though most who find out are unable to ever report that fact. It is, in fact, one of the reasons it is forbidden. That still does not explain how you were able to get past the wards.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, I see. Would you by chance be afflicted with the same condition as Miss Granger?”

“Kind of, more like Harry though.”

“Hmm. Would you humour an old man, and exit your magical armour?”

Kitty shrugs, and transfers out, “Sure.”

“No confusion, still tracking the items in the room. Mr, ah, my mistake, Miss Kitty, are you experiencing any feelings of fear, disorientation, or visual hallucinations?”

“What? No why would I be experiencing those?”

“Not even a sense that you left the oven on at home?”

“I have no idea what an oven is, so no.”

“Would you be willing to indulge me once more in an experiment?”

“If it involves blood I’m back in my Warframe before you can say corpus exec. I’ve heard of the things you lot can do with blood, and na ah, not happening.”

“That was my first idea, but I think I have a trinket called a Merlin orb. Though it was invented in the 17^th century, and nobody called Merlin has ever touched it. It was all the rage for a few decades until people realised that it had no practical use. You see, it measures magical potential. However, as it doesn’t work on children, the only age group that people would want to use it for, all it really tells you is how long you could last in a slug fest. Which given how many people in the duelling circuit were winning with scores that would suggest they should lose. Ah, here it is. If you could just hold this in your hands for a few minutes, it will begin to glow. I will then be using a small spell to read the result.”

Kitty decides to humour the old man and hold the glass orb. Sure enough it starts to glow, a tiny pinprick of light in the centre.

“Absolutely fascinating. You score 2, which is below average for a muggle.”

Kitty smirks and void jumps to the other side of the office, “Just because you can’t detect it, doesn’t mean I don’t have magic of my own.”

“Absolutely fascinating. That would also explain how you were able to walk around the castle. I will write you a note for today, but if you are visiting again in the future, would you please turn up at breakfast, or find myself or Hagrid so that I can notify the relevant staff that you’re here.”

“Sure. Hey, one question. How comes Harry’s disappearance was never noticed?”

Albus sighs, “It was, by myself. I was the only one that could notice. You have to understand that Harry’s parents were dear friends of mine, and I would have raised him myself if I wasn’t such a public person. Death eater attacks were still happening for a year after and the trials didn’t conclude till 1984, though we advertised the end of them in 82. I have devices linked to his health and wellbeing, and when I couldn’t find him within 6 months of searching I concluded that as he was healthy and mostly happy, he’d probably found himself in a better place than his aunts house would have been. Sadly, I’d have left him at his aunts even if it wasn’t the perfect location. As the only other places that would have been hidden enough to keep him safe would have been a workhouse or orphanage, and I’ve already seen the results of growing up in one of those places.”

“Well, I’m going to be around for the rest of the week, and probably next week too which I think leads up to. Oh what did Hermione call it, that was it, Christmas Holidays.”

Albus sighs and conjures another sheet of parchment before writing the note again, “You may want to visit the village of Hogsmeade rather than just sticking to the school. It probably won’t be that interesting walking around on your own all day.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of things to do on the Moon. I’ve just been coming down when I need to stretch my legs and relax my brain.”

“I see. Have a nice day Miss Kitty, if you’re on the third floor. Please try to avoid opening any locked doors. There are some things there that would be dangerous for students to just stumble across.”

Kitty pulls her Warframe around her so that the old man won’t see her shock, before taking the note and walking out.

 

Once she’s left, Albus leans back in his chair and considers what he saw in her mind. A laughing wall wasn’t expected in any way. Then there was the fact she just disappeared from the wards and his own monitoring enchantments when she demonstrated her own magic. Maybe that’s the secret of the new magic that Minerva has found.

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 The last few weeks before Christmas passed quickly, and in the Orokin system Amelia and Danjell’s main chassis’s grew in perfectly much to Natah’s immense joy. The fact that they are not magical means that Xeno and Pandora weren’t flukes assisted by their own magic.

 

Pandora’s and Natah’s experiments in transplanting Oro’s hits a minor snag in that the natural born sentients on earth don’t have them. This doesn’t slow them down for too long, as they are able to implant artificial Oro’s in Kubrow’s and Kavats without any side effects. With carefully controlled, humane testing, they find that the Oro’s are working as expected.

 

“Pandora, I think we’re ready to try transplanting now.”

“Indeed, Sofa and Plush?”

Natah thinks for a moment, “Because they have such different personality traits?”

“Yep. If sofa starts begging for food rather than her toys we know there’s personality bleed.”

“We should do Scritch and Scratch too in that case.”

“I see, trying the same thing with Kavat.”

“Who shall we use for the control?”

“Blackie and pounce?”

Natah nods and makes a note in the computer, “How long should we allow the experiment to run before we conclude that it’s not deadly for humans?”

“I think a year and a day should do.”

“Why the extra day?”

“Magical significance. It’s the naturally weak point in any long-lasting magical ritual and the main reason why learning astronomy is so important. As it’s the sidereal day that matters, not the solar day. There are echoes of this that can be used, and careful probing of an active ward can tell you when the next weak point is. If you’re really good, you can even calculate the exact time the ward was cast. It’s much harder with contracts and curses, but if the person is still alive after that time, it is much easier to break them. Though with contracts, that doesn’t help much, as your own magic is keeping the contract alive as much as the initial magic used. As such, it’s something only usually used in breaking slave contracts, like the ones forced on Veela.”

“Veela?”

“A human subspecies that originates from a type of nymph that is now extinct. They had the beauty and charm of a Siren, and the ability to fly and use magic of a Harpy. They were hunted down and exterminated by witches, due to the fact there were very few wizards that could resist their charms. Charms that invariably proved fatal to the wizard. They found the half breed babies and mistook them for stolen children. Being raised in a human environment allowed them to retain their human features. Over the last 2000 years or so, they have become more and more human. However, they are still all astonishingly beautiful, and they retain some of the magic of their ancestors.”

“That’s fascinating, I’d love to look at their DNA to see if I can find anything that separates them from humans, or if it’s all magic.”

“I hadn’t considered that. How are the farming trunks doing?”

“Marcus Sinistra has moved his entire family here, something to do with feeling disgraced. Maria has opened a Café on the Strata Relay with a couple of the house elves from the trunks, and some of the staff who want to learn how to cook. They signed contracts saying that they wouldn’t go to work for the Corpus for at least 10 years after they’ve finished learning how to learn to cook. Revenue on that station is already up 20% outside what the café is bringing in. The Tenno only take the rent from them, and Clan Potter receives 10% of their profits.”

“That’s astounding, how are they making so much money?”

“They’ve priced themselves as they would in your home world rather than as the luxury goods they’re actually selling. I’ve heard them talking about setting up a butchers and greengrocers, what ever they are, with a sign clearly stating that the produce is for personal consumption only.”

 

Natah thinks for a moment as they’re making their way to the pens where their experimental animals are kept, “How’s your leyline project going?”

Pandora laughs despairingly, “It wasn’t until the farming trunks arrived. Now a leyline has started to develop naturally between the Rookery and the Sinistra holdings. That single event has thrown out every single theory they had on Leylines in the Department of Mysteries. Until now, the assumption has been that leylines caused magical creatures to start to exist. Now it’s become a chicken and egg situation.”

“I don’t understand that metaphor.”

“You’ve seen the chickens in the trunks?”

“I have, though I don’t see how that is relevant, as all avian species lay eggs, so it stands to reason that they evolved from a common ancestor.”

“What you’re missing is the fact that the people that came up with the question didn’t know about evolution.”

“Oh. Oh! So, you’re saying that you no longer know what causes magic to appear in plants, animals, and leylines, and it could well be some undiscovered third thing that ties them all together.”

“Essentially, yes. Though I hadn’t considered the latter.”

“Maybe we can import some other magical plants and creatures and make an enclave on Earth for them.”

“There’s a lot of primordial forest down there, I’m sure we could. Though doing so without them being wiped out before they can reach sustainable levels could be problematic.”

“Start with the small animals, and those herbivores that are good at remaining unseen. Same with the plants.”

“Garden gnomes and fairies should be easy enough to come by. Maybe some of the magical mushrooms and vines.”

“There you go, what about the infestation?”

“So far as we can tell, it doesn’t really exist on Earth. I’d be more worried about the trees and other plant life that Silvana developed. Once we get over the hurdle of the local plant life outcompeting the magical plants, you’ll probably start to see Ents and Dryads start to appear naturally in areas where Leylines exist.”

“Maybe we can transplant some Sentients to those areas and see what happens to them too.”

“Why don’t you head back with Harry and Hermione next weekend and see about gathering some plants from the forest.”

Pandora laughs, “Oh Natah. Redo your calculations.”

“Oh, it’s the holidays, so they’ll be here for a few years.”

“That does have me thinking though, Marcus’ children are going to need a magical education. By the time they get their Hogwarts letters it will be far too late for them. Maybe I can put out an advert for muggleborn to emigrate here, non-magical family included.”

“What if you get magical applicants?”

“Doesn’t really matter, I just want to keep the bigots away. I’ll need to talk to the people of Cetus though, as I think I’d want them to join their community first.”

“Why not one of the other earth colonies?”

“They’re already a high profile Grineer target, so adding a magical community isn’t going to change that. The others all survive because they’re hidden or live in locations the Grineer don’t want.”

“I suppose, there’s also the Quills representative there. They might be able to help design a new magical focus. They did design the amps for the Tenno after all.”

 

Reaching the pens, the two of them turn back to their research.

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 Harry frowns as Tau appears in front of him the day before the Christmas holidays starts. Opening the letter, he scans it and then sighs.

“Kitty, have we introduced you to Ironclaw or his son Ironjaw yet?”

Kitty looks up from Orokin desk toy she’s practicing with, “No, not yet.”

“Right, here’s their details. I’m going to include you in chat, and you’ll want this letter too.”

 

{Harry} @Ironjaw @Ironclaw Good morning. Sorry for contacting you so early.

{Ironclaw} Gringotts is open at all hours. What can we do for you?

{Harry} First, I’d like to introduce you to @Kitty, one of our clan members.

{Kitty} Hi.

{Ironclaw} May the blood of your enemies flow as swiftly as your vaults are filled.

{Kitty} And may their entrails make good sausages.

{Ironclaw} asdfghjkl;

{Ironclaw} Sorry, I was laughing too hard to type properly, I will have to remember that one.

{Ironclaw} What can we help you with?

{Harry} My mother wants you to buy out all the stock in a couple of nurseries and magical component farms. She also wants 2 dozen each of Garden Gnomes, Fairies, Pixies, Nifflers, Bundimun, Billywig, Horklump, Clabbert and Jobberknoll.

{Ironclaw} She is aware of the fact they can’t be owled?

{Harry} She is, though we have successfully transported two farming trunks and 3 unicorns using our own transportation. We will want all of those in an expanded trunk. As Hermione and I are in classes for the next two days, can you work with Kitty on this?

{Kitty} @Harry How am I supposed to help? I’m not magical.

{Ironjaw} Good morning.

{Ironclaw} @Ironjaw Good, just the person I needed. You need to meet @Kitty in the Three Broomsticks and escort her back to Gringotts. We have an urgent commission.

{Ironclaw} Harry, if you are willing to transport a shipment to Cephalon Simaris we will waive the Gringotts fees.

{TheFairyQueen} That explains a lot.

{Harry} Sure, just make sure it’s separate from our lot and labelled clearly.

{Ironclaw} Do you know why your mother needs this stuff?

{Harry} Not entirely, but they say they’re planting them on Earth as an experiment.

{Ironclaw} We’ll include a few boxes of flobberworms too. Just pour them out on the earth and they’ll burrow in.

{Harry} Thank you.

Harry has left

TheFairyQueen has left

{Kitty} That’s just not fair of them.

Ironclaw has left

{Ironjaw} Do you know where the three broomsticks is?

{Kitty} I’ve been there, the village isn’t all that interesting though.

{Ironjaw} It mainly exists for the school and forest.

{Kitty} ok, how about I message you when we get to earth?

{Ironjaw} I await your message.

 

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Kitty spends the next couple of days cursing magical transportation and moving all around the UK buying things from different farms and nurseries.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Operation

 

Natah is waiting for them when Harry, Kitty, and Hermione all disembark from the Railjack at the beginning of the winter holiday, Minerva will be returning tomorrow as she has an end of term meeting to attend first, granted tomorrow is almost 3 months from now but still.

“Hey Mum, we’ve got trunks full of animals for you, I thought we got breeding pairs when we first did our shopping.”

Natah nods, “We did, which are fine for study, but we want to set up stable populations.”

“I see, so you want the increased genetic diversity. What brought that on?”

“We have a Leyline developing on Lua, and we want to see if that’s because of something we’ve done or it happens naturally. So we’re going to establish locations with magical plants and creatures to see if leylines develop naturally or not.”

Kitty fair bounces on her toes, “How’s the testing with Oro’s going?”

Hermione laughs, and heads off to do her own thing before they remember she’s supposed to be acclimatising to other frames. Natah on the other hand sighs, “Yes, we’ve finished our initial research, and we think that it’s safe enough for the two of you.”

 

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A few hours later, The Lotus looks at Harry and Kitty seriously, “Are you sure you want to try this?”

Kitty nods emphatically, “I am.”

Harry shrugs, “I’m still game. There’s profit to be made, to borrow a Corpus phrase.”

Lotus looks over at Pandora, who shakes her head slightly, “Very well,” – she takes of her helmet moving to a less formal posture – “These two transfer pods have been specially designed to prevent you from using physical transference, only the pod driven transference. If something goes wrong, we do not want to have to try and transfer you out of your Warframe to fix the problem. Additionally, the lids have been modified to be cut out with a surgical interface for Pandora and I to use. When we’ve done this with Kurbow, we’ve had them sedated, however we need immediate feedback from the both of you, so instead you’ll be in your Warframes. I want you both to pick a Warframe with an instant cast non-sustained first ability.”

Kitty smiles, “That’s easy, I’ll just use my Nezha. Just make sure there’s something I can throw my disk at.”

Harry laughs, “Kitty, that’s not the first ability.”

“It’s not? Wait? Damn it, I never use the fire walk. Ok, I’ll fish out Excalibur.”

Harry has to think hard about her available Warframes, finally settling on Invra, as her noise arrow is just shot from her bow and stops when it hits something.

“Now that you’ve got your Warframes selected, the next week is going to be very boring, as we need to calibrate the amount of void energy reserves they allow precisely. So that you have just enough excess energy to use your abilities twice before the reserve is empty.”

 

A few days in, Kitty complains, “Why do we need to do this again?”

Pandora sighs, “We’re trying to detect if there are any ill effects on you or Harry after the operation. We’ve not detected any shifts in personality with the animals we tested this on, but humans are not animals. And you’ve got abilities over and above the normal human. We’re not just calibrating our void condensers for each of you, we’re also taking scans of your bodies and brains, as well as including personality test questions. Anyway, two uses, again.”

Kitty stalls after only one use, “That’s not enough energy, even though my overlay says I have enough.”

“That’s because the overlay doesn’t work as precisely as we are, let me just add the decimal points to your overlay and you’ll see what I mean.”

“It’s now reading at 49.491530.”

“Try it again.”

“Uh, ok? Hey it worked! And it says I have 0.000323 left.”

“My instruments give a slightly different reading from that. The issue we have is that while we can measure to 6 decimal places, the accuracy of your Warframes is within 0.0005 units. Our equipment is down to 0.0001 units, and we’re trying to improve the accuracy of our devices to at least 5 decimal places. Here, I’ll have your Warframe recalculate it’s reserves a few times.”

“0.000052, 0.001037, 0.000873. Why do you need so much accuracy anyway?”

“We want to know if there are any measurable differences between before and after. So far, you’re both very consistent in your own frames. But if we don’t know how much energy we’re feeding you, we can’t tell if a change is because of us or because of you. We’re also going to have you both swap Warframes and activate the same abilities to ensure that once it’s calibrated for you, we can get a good calibration for the other frame.”

“Um, why?”

“We already know there are differences in the way that the two of you channel energy. So we need to know if that difference is distinct to you or to manufacturing tolerances in your Warframes.”

“Oh, I see, so you’re trying to get to a point where your equipment measurements fluctuate less than the Warframes do, so that you can tell if a change that’s happening is because of who’s piloting it or not.”

“Precisely.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“I did, repeatedly, when we started.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be, you’re not a researcher, so no matter how smart you are, we can’t expect you to understand the subtleties of what we’re doing immediately. Natah and I have both had years to study this, you and Harry have been at this for a few days.”

“Why is this so hard to measure anyway?”

Pandora sits back in her frame to think for a moment, “While void energy was well studied during the few thousand years before the old war, Natah’s people were sent to Tau using a void jump drive after all. Most of that research was focused on how to use it for travel, and how to protect against it. It wasn’t until the Sentients returned that they started looking at using it for an energy source. First in weapons, and then in equipment. Before that, it was just a fringe science that a few Archimedieans pursued using microportals and the like. The Zariman was supposed to be a Military experiment on the long-term effects of void exposure, until the experiment turned deadly real, as the translation to the void without the void shielding in place caused catastrophic damage to the drive systems. It’s still there, in the void, waiting.”

“Why bring up that ship?”

“Because it’s an example of what the Orokin were willing to do to speed up their research into the void. They had to basically redesign their entire technical base because Sentients were far too able to just take over their previous technical base. The fact that your Warframes, and the necromechs before them, used void energy is what enabled you to be so effective against Sentient targets. Even then, it wasn’t until Margulis’ death and the decision to turn you all into weapons that the tide of the war changed for the Orokin the first time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that.” Kitty grumps, “Can we get on with the testing rather than dwell on horrible history?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 After a week of calibration, they managed to get the lab equipment down to 4 and ½ decimal places tolerance. Harry and Kitty both swapped Warframes for a few days after that. An experience that they both agreed was highly uncomfortable. However, it did highlight that their energy usage differed very slightly, and it was able to be measured accurately enough to satisfy Natah and Pandora.

Also out of the whole thing, they found that Harry’s energy usage waxed and waned. This seemed to correlate with where their gender was at any point. Kitty’s on the other hand, stayed solid the entire time. They made a note to check next time she was menstruating to see if that made any difference.

 

Finally, it was time for the surgery, and Harry and Kitty are both staring down at their unconscious bodies.

Kitty shakes her head, “I don’t think this will ever not be weird.”

Harry nods, “I know what you mean. I think that’s why our pod suits were designed with sensory deprivation in mind. Can you imagine what it would have been like if you came across your own body sleeping in the pod?”

Kitty shudders.

“Ok you two,” – Natah comes over with Pandora trailing behind her, both of them naked and in their full frames – “We need you to get back behind the line, everything inside is going to be sterilised when we activate the surgical field.”

 

The two of them walk back to the area with the training spectres, before turning back to watch. A shimmering green light flashes in a dome indicating the danger of the field, it then settles to amber and finally violet, to indicate it’s active and safe to approach.

 

Inside the field, Pandora says, “Activating life support systems, enabling spinal block. Their brains are now isolated. Natah, proceed when ready.”

“Activating 4^th dimensional isolation field. Rotating skin, muscles, ribs, front lungs. How’s Kitty looking?”

“Vitals are looking good, Kitty how do you feel.”

“Queasy watching this, but apart from that, I’m fine. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, only it’s my body.”

“Understandable.”

 

Natah turns around to Harry’s pod and repeats the process, “How’s Harry doing?”

“Vitals are good. Harry, how do you feel.”

“It’s just weird watching this.”

 

Pandora nods, before turning her attention back to the monitors, “Activating phase stabilisers, their Oro’s should now be visible.”

“I can confirm. Removing Kitty’s now.”

Kitty shivers violently, “Void, I feel cold.”

Natah puts it back, and Kitty’s shivering subsides, “Do you want me to stop here?”

“No, no. I…’ll be ok.”

“Very well. Removing Kitty’s Oro now. Removing Harry’s Oro.” – Harry shivers violently but says nothing – “Placing Kitty’s Oro. Placing Harry’s Oro.”

Harry can’t help letting out a moan, as the warmth he/she feels is amazing, like the best hug ever. Kitty joins them as well. And Natah removes the Oro she’d just placed in Kitty’s chest. Immediately they both growl and start shivering.

Kitty says, “Put that back right now, it felt so nice.”

Natah and Pandora share a glance and Gigabits of information before Natah puts it back in.

 

With the Oro’s in place, but all the fields still active, Natah walks to a console on the edge of the sterilisation field and activates it. “Harry, you first. I want you to make two shots with your noise arrow. When you receive another energy charge, I want you to repeat the process.”

She monitors as the system goes through the pre-programmed tests, with a random 25% of the energy charges being only a single charges worth, but the overlay adjusted to show the expected charge. As expected, Harry fires all 40 shots with no difficulties.”

“Thank you, there is a minor shift in your energy usage, just above our error bars, so we’ll want to keep an eye on that. Kitty, you’re up.”

 

Kitty starts to go through her own tests, though hers takes longer as she can’t just stand by the dispenser. It’s all going swimmingly when, 5 iterations in, she hits the first single charge. Zipping through the spectres, she cuts them down and turns as the second group walk into position, and activates her ability again. As she does, she feels a tearing sensation in her chest and staggers through the manoeuvre, still accelerated but in agony. At the end her Warframe collapses, and all of the fields wink out. Including the ones keeping the Oro visible. Curling up in her pod, she clutches her hands to her chest and screams. Void it hurt, it hurt so badly.

Harry vaults out of her own pod and rushes over to Kitty. As soon as she touches her in concern, Kitty’s pain reduces to almost manageable levels.

“Stars and void, this hurts.”

 

Natah spins around as she accelerates her thought processes to try to deal with this situation. Pandora accelerating to match her. In seconds they’ve got the fields activating again and are gently pushing Kitty back into the pod. When they activate the life support, it’s fine, as soon as they activate the spinal block everything shorts out again, and Natah is thrown violently backwards. Drawing her wand, Pandora casts Stupefy and knocks Kitty out with magic.

Once she’s unconscious, Harry goes to remove her hand and Pandora shouts, “Don’t you dare remove that hand. Natah, I’m starting a scan for Kitty’s Oro. Scan has come back negative. I’m going to check her over with magic, if it turns out to be a magical problem, we’ll need to bring in a Qualified Healer.”

 

Hed flies in and lands on Natah’s frame, and Natah shakes her head, “How do they do that?”

“I have no idea, and it’s got worse since they learnt how to void travel.”

 

Harry watches cautiously as Pandora does a few basic diagnostic spells, only to find that Kitty has virtually no magical reserves, which is vastly more than she should have. With a sigh, she conjures some parchment and ink, “Minerva hasn’t left yet has she?”

“If she has, then she’s still in transit. It will still be quicker for them to turn around than for us to send her back.”

Pandora quickly pens a note to Minerva requesting that she asks a fully qualified healer to make a house call, and outlines the symptoms.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Minerva is just packing her bags for the morning when Hed appears in her room and holds out a leg with a letter grasped in her foot. Giving her a scritch, Minerva takes the letter, reads it, reads it again, and then swears, heads to her Floo and calls out “St Mungo’s”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Healers

Minerva steps through into the last place she wanted to be, before her changes had finished. There are a number of healers here that will diagnose first, check to see if you’re a patient afterwards. Making her way to the front desk, she looks the receptionist in the eye. “Miss, would it be possible to speak to the director. I need to hire a healer for an extended visit, it may be life or death.”

The receptionist rolls her eyes, before writing a note and tapping it with her wand, so that it turns into an aeroplane, and flies off to the Director.

 

The Director, a swarthy man with a defined girth, arrives fairly quickly. Though whether it was down to the word hire, or the words life or death, no one will ever know.

“What can I do for you Professor?” he says in a broad Yorkshire accent.

Putting on a smile, Minerva just hands him the letter she received.

 

After reading it, he looks up, “How long do you think they’d be gone for.”

“Probably the Christmas holidays. Though, the Potter Clan is willing to pay for 3 years of their time.”

The Director chokes, “You what?”

“There is time magic involved.”

He nods understandingly, “I wish I could help you, but I have so many staff taking breaks, that we’ll be running on the bare minimum over Christmas as it is. The only Healer currently in the Hospital that isn’t needed over Christmas, is Healer Tonks, and that’s because her shift ends in an hour, and then she’s off for Christmas.”

“Would you mind if I spoke to her?”

“Not at all, if you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to her office.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Tonks, I have Professor McGonagall here to see you.”

Minerva sighs as she’s hit by a brace of diagnostic spells and Andromeda’s eyes widen noticeably. Quickly stepping into the office and closing the door, she erects her own privacy charms.

As soon as she’s finished, Andromeda is on her feet, wand under Minerva’s chin, “What are you?”

Minerva physically disarms Andromeda faster than she can blink, “I am Professor McGonagall, and I always have been. I am also changing into something different. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“How did you get my wand so quickly?”

Minerva laughs, “I told you, I’m changing into something different. If you want more information, agree to this job.” She passes over the letter.

 

Andromeda reads it, then reads the signature line more carefully, “Pandora? The Lovegoods dropped of the face of the planet back in September.”

Minerva chuckles again, “Not exactly dropped, more like flew. In a spaceship.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been watching muggle TV shows.”

“I haven’t, I don’t even know which TV show’s you’re talking about. However, clan Potter is willing to pay you 3 years wages for this.”

“I can’t, this is the last Christmas before Nymphadora joins the Auror’s as a trainee.”

Minerva shrugs, “Bring her along, and I’ll give her 3 years on and off personal tutoring as well. Your husband too.”

Andromeda narrows her eyes, “That seems awfully specific.”

Minerva smiles, “Time runs approximately 81 times faster where you’re going than it does here. Hence the urgency.”

“Fine, I just need to let Ted know.”

“Are you able to Floo him? If not, send him an owl to meet me at Hogwarts tomorrow morning, I need to send an owl to arrange for your transport anyway. Second thoughts, I’ll just ask the account manager to send them an owl, while I’m at it, can you floo or do you need to send an owl?”

{MissKitty} Account Manager @Ironjaw

{IronJaw} Hello professor, how can I help one of our most profitable customers?

{MissKitty} Would you be able to send an owl requesting pickup from Lua?

{IronJaw} That was almost instant, what’s the hurry?

{MissKitty} We have medical emergency that involves a non-magical having very low magic reserves.

 

Andromeda steps over to her office floo and calls home

 

{IronJaw} I thought that’s what they were supposed to have.

{MissKitty} According to the letter, they should have no magic reserves.

{IronJaw} I see. I am writing the letter now, I’m also going to ask one of our Healers, and a contingent of guards to meet you at Hogsmeade, they’ll be bringing their families. We may have experience whoever you found doesn’t.

 

“Thank Merlin you’re already at home. Christmas has just turned into a working holiday, so pack everything and meet Minerva at Hogwarts tomorrow with Dora.”

 

{MissKitty} Very well we’ll go back via the three Broomsticks then, if you have any apartment trunks I can borrow that will make things quicker, as I can then go directly from Hogsmeade.

{IronJaw} I’m not even going to ask.

 

“No, no, you’ll be meeting me where we’re going. I’ve got Professor McGonagall here and I’ve already packed my bag, so I’m just going to grab a few reference books.”

 

{MissKitty} I’m going to fly myself to the Moon to meet them, if they arrive while I’m on route then they can meet me half way.

{IronJaw} the owl has been sent

{MissKitty} Thank you, take whatever we owe you out of the accounts.

{IronJaw} already done.

 

“Love you, and I’ll see you soon.”

 

{MissKitty} Thank you, how long do you think your healer will be?

{IronJaw} Give them 15 minutes.

{MissKitty} Will do, and thanks again.

{IronJaw} You’re paying for it, all part of the service.

 

“Minerva, it’s done now. I just need to get some books and I’ll be ready.”

Minerva smiles in relief, “The goblins will meet us in Hogsmeade in 15 minutes.”

“Oh good, I’ve got time then. Wait what?!”

“The goblins will meet us in Hogsmeade in 15 minutes.”

“That’s what I thought you said. How can you know that?”

“I contacted them while you were using the floo. It will make much more sense later, for the moment, just accept it happened and get your books together.”

“…”

 

Andromeda busies herself and gathers the books she thinks she might need. While she’s doing that, Minerva start scanning all the books that Andromeda has passed over, getting a few strange glances from Andromeda while she’s at it. When Andromeda indicates she’s done, Minerva allows the scanner to return to her digital storage.

Andromeda’s eyes widen, and she mutters, “The explanation better be bloody good.”

“Trust me, it needs to be seen to be believed.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A few minutes later, they’re in The Three Broomsticks, when the floo activates and a single goblin comes through carrying a shrunken trunk.

“MissKitty?”

Andromeda looks at Minerva who smiles, “That’s me, are you coming as well?”

“No, I’m just handing over the healer and escort.”

“Thank you.” Minerva takes the trunk and unshrinks it, “In you go Andromeda, and would you put a bubble head charm on yourself and all the occupants please, there’s no air where we’re going.”

“What?”

“It will make sense later, and I’m sure there’s about to be enough gossip about myself that I’d rather not add to it thank you.”

Andromeda looks around at the patrons silently watching the drama unfold, before primly lifting her robes, stepping inside the trunk, and climbing down with her shrunken bag. The Goblin leaves through the floo, and Minerva leaves through the door, casting her own bubble head charm before casting a rain shield protego.

 

Once outside, she slips her shoes and stockings off, to reveal the bare sockets on the back of her legs. Putting them into a pocket, she looks up through her shield and starts flying upward, heedless of the witches and wizards staring at her. Once she’s high enough that she’s not going to harm anyone on the ground, she activates her internal drive system, and prays that her internal reactor has enough energy to get her to escape velocity at the very least. As she rapidly picks up speed, the shield starts to develop a corona of superheated air, as the blunt form of the shield causes a supersonic shockwave to form ahead of her, and curving around her to meet below her feet. Which neatly answers that question, as she’s now approaching escape velocity, and still accelerating. It is a relief when, a second or two later, the shockwave dissipates as the atmosphere is no longer thick enough to sustain it. As soon as she feels the last of the resistance against her shield disappear she cancels it with some relief.

 

{LunaLiscious} @MissKitty I have just transited to real space around Luna.

{MissKitty} I’m just leaving the atmosphere, if you could meet me that would be grand.

{LunaLiscious} You’re not supposed to be doing that.

{MissKitty} The letter sounded more than a little urgent, so I’m conscious of the fact that it has already been a day or maybe longer on the other side.

{LunaLiscious} Well, good news, Kitty isn’t dying. Cy is just plotting an intercept course

{Cy} Cy would request that you cut your acceleration and just maintain your current velocity.

{MissKitty} Reducing thrust. Would I be able to take the Lander with me back to earth?

{Cy} Cy will not be able to guide it in to land.

{MissKitty} I’ll risk it, as I don’t want to overstress my reactor any more if I don’t have to.

{Cy} Eta 2 minutes

 

Two minutes later, the Railjack does indeed match her speed and an airlock opens next to her. Changing her vector slightly, she drifts into the airlock and falls to the floor as the artificial gravity kicks in. Crawling into the engineering floor, she puts the trunk on the floor and unshrinks it with her wand. A quick spell opens the lid, with a hiss of air rushing in. Luna comes from the pilots area wearing a Wisp.

“Are you ok Minerva?”

“I’m fine, my legs are just repairing themselves, as this frame isn’t designed for those sorts of forces.”

Luna leans over the top of the trunk, “Are you ok… Fair enough.” She quickly ducks back as a spell comes shooting out the opening.

In response, Minerva drags herself up the trunk and leans over, “Andromeda, Healer Tonks. It’s ok, that was just Luna Lovegood. It’s safe for everyone to exit now.”

 

Carefully, the occupants of the trunk all climb out and lie on the floor in various states of distress. Andromeda rounds on Minerva, “What did you do?”

“If you can walk, go through the door at the top of that ramp, left or right, it doesn’t matter. There’s a window you can look out.”

“I need to finish setting broken bones, I have never heard of anything inside a trunk being affected by what’s happening outside. Then the air disappeared, I almost didn’t get all the bubble heads replaced in time.”

Cy says, “Miss McGonagall was accelerating at 61.47m/s/s or 6.268 times gravity at sea level. Conclusion, you are lucky to be alive.”

Minerva looks shame faced at that particular bit of news, “I’m sorry, I didn’t consider that the trunk might not be able to keep up with me.”

The goblin healer speaks up from where he’s working on the warriors, “It was good training for the meatheads here, and now you know. Just keep it slower next time.”

“Have you all got everything you need from the trunk, and Luna, do you have any Health Pizza’s with you?”

Andromeda looks confused at the switch in language, though Luna just drops a health restore beacon on the floor, and Minerva can feel the energy working to accelerate the healing in her legs.

 

Once she can stand, she climbs down into the trunk and levitates out everything that’s inside it, that isn’t furniture. Climbing out she shrinks the trunk again, “Right, I’m heading back to Hogwarts, Luna will have more up to date information about what’s going on, so see you in a few weeks.”

Andromeda looks up from the goblin that she’s healing, “Wait what?! I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot.”

Minerva doesn’t look back as she jumps up to the deck that leads to the landing craft.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Transiting to real space in 10…9…”

Andromeda tunes Cy, the cephalon that looks after the ship, and seems to be like something straight out of one of Teds Si Fi shows. Digging through her bag, she pulls out a headache potion and downs it. Pulling out another one she offers it to Straightseam, the healer.

“Thank you but no. I’ve had a few months to come to terms with this information.”

Andromeda sighs in relief as the potion kicks in, “How comes you’re so…”

“Pleasant?” – Andromeda nods – “Simple. I have no doubt that by the end of this, you will no longer be a witch. You be too hungry for knowledge for that not to be true. The goblin nation has no reason to dislike those outside the wizarding world. We have been expanding more, and our population growing since we met Clan Potter, than in the previous 200 years combined. Only 4 of us are guards, the other 20 are our families. If we can, I will be looking to negotiate a space to start a colony of our own here. Come, we’ve just landed.”

Mouth open in shock, Andromeda just follows Straightseam out of the ship, where someone seems to have added a makeshift footbridge to the platform outside the ship. Pandora is standing on the platform holding a ring of some description.

“Andromeda, Straightseam?” Straightseam nods, and she continues, “Please take hold of the portkey, it will take us to the surgical area.”

 

They arrive in a bare area where there are two pods, two small slanted tables on sticks, and an inlayed circle surrounding the whole area. Above them they can see glittering stars and the planet earth as a small blue marble. In one of the pods, is an old teenager, or young woman. Her cheeks are sunken, and pulse visibly erratic in her throat. Holding her hand is a young man with green eyes who can only be Harry.

Immediately Andromeda pulls out her wand and starts casting diagnostic after diagnostic, while Straightseam does the same thing. After nearly 30 minutes of casting and referring to her books, Andromeda conjures a chair and sits down heavily. When Straightseam straightens up a few minutes later, she conjures another one for him, along with a goblet of water.

She looks over at Pandora, and the other woman that arrived while she was casting, “She’s dying, and I’ve read about this before, but I have no idea where.”

“I know what it is,” Straightseam says softly, “it’s the Assarian Marriage of Equals. Our curse breakers have found stories of it, and this is one of the ways it can go wrong.”

The new woman looks worried, “How can we fix it?”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t. See, they developed a ritual that would take a portion of a persons soul and place it into a container. They did that for the people to be wed, and then released the fragments into the other person. After a day, they would take the fragments back and return them to their original hosts. Occasionally, one of the fragments would get lost, and the owner of that fragment would start to absorb the soul of the other person. The only comfort was that maintaining contact made the death quicker and less painful.”

Almost faster than they can see, the new woman has tackled Harry and dumped him in the other pod, “Pandora!” she calls before her arm turns into a scalpel.

Desperately Pandora rushes over to one of the slanted tables, throwing out a stupefy on the way, “Life support is active, spinal block active. Natah what are you doing?”

“Getting Kitty’s Oro back. Activate the phase stabiliser, I need to be able to see what I’m looking for.”

In the other pod, the now named Kitty starts crying in pain in her sleep.

“It’s active!”

“Got them, there’s two here.”

“Get them out and show them to the healers, they’re the experts here!”

 

Andromeda waves her wand a couple of times, and shakes her head. Straightseam on the other hand, concentrates for the moment, “That one’s purely female. The other one is mixed.”

Natah doesn’t even wait, and turns before shoving the mixed one back onto Harry’s chest. With the other one in her hand, she turns to Kitty and forces her on her back before slicing open her abdomen and forcing the Oro up into her chest.

“Turn off the phase stabilisers.”

“Activating life support for Kitty, activating spinal block, deactivating phase stabilisers.” As the phase stabilisers shut down, Kitty falls into silence and sleep.

Andromeda fires off a few diagnostic spells, “Well, she’s not dying anymore. That’s a good sign.”

Natah visibly slumps in relief, turning back to the healers, she says, “Thank you for coming, especially you Andromeda. I know your plans were interrupted. We’ll still pay you for the full three years, but if you want to return to your earth we can get you back with only around 20 minutes past since you left.”

“Hell no, there’s no way I’m going back until I understand how you were just handling somebody’s soul.”

 “It’s not their soul, it’s an Oro, an… what’s the best way to describe it, anchor for the soul, refuge, recording, I’m not sure how to describe it in English, as there are so many layers to its meaning. Void and stars, it’s hard enough to understand it in our language.”

“Well, apparently, I’ve got 3 years to find out. And also find out what happened to you Pandora.”

Straightseam chuckles, “While I would like to know myself. I have brought my wife and child, as have my guards. We would like permission to seek a place to build a colony in lieu of payment.”

Natah pinches the bridge of her nose, “This is such a useful human gesture. Fine, before we move them to healing pods, can the two of you examine them to see that they are both stable, and what side effects we should watch out for.”

Andromeda casts a spell and a glittering line appears between the two of them, “Well, they’re married. Pandora could have done that.”

Straightseam waves a hand, “At the moment, until they are both healed and walking around again, I couldn’t tell you. The damage to their chests is life threatening, so my own diagnosis won’t be able to tell you anymore than that. And witch magic is much better at stopping someone in this state from getting worse than goblin magic is.”

“You seem to be much better at diagnostics than we are though.”

Straightseam laughs, “Only because we’re not allowed wands. Need to be much better at sensing magic. But maybe we can have these sorts of discussions during your stay.”

 

Natah mentally detaches the pods and sets them to levitate behind her, the life support switching over to internal reserves. “Well, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the healing pods. Which also happen to be where you get the nanites and implants you’ll need to interact with the technology here, as well as understand the language.””

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Filler 1

 

“But Dad!”

“No buts, your mother has to work and we’re going to have our family Christmas. You know that she’s a Healer first and Mother second.”

“Yeah, but I wanted us to be home together with nothing life threatening, no clients, just our family.”

“I know, I do too. But I’m just happy that we’re invited this time. Normally, she’s stuck at the hospital.”

Theodore [Ted] has to supress a laugh as Nympadora’s hair turns grey and drab as she sulks, “But it’s my last Christmas before I have to find my own place.”

“You know you can just stay here.”

“What? And listen to your snide remarks when I bring a boy home?”

“Sarcastic, please.”

“You wouldn’t know sarcasm if it hit you in the face.”

“Go on, get packed so that we don’t need to look for anything in the morning.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Gradually Kitty returns to awareness looking at the inside of a healing pod, reaching up with her arm, she presses the release button. Then let’s her arm slump back down as it feels like she’s under 2 or 3g. As the lid opens, a human woman walks over, followed by a goblin.

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“Like there’s 2 or 3g of gravity here.”

The goblin closes his eyes, and an azure glow settles over her, “Your soul is back in one piece at least. Physically you’re underweight, and your muscle mass is at the bare minimum for humans.”

The woman waves a wand at her, “And your magical reserves are recovering nicely. Congratulations on your nuptials by the way. Your Honeymoon is going to be spent putting your weight back on, as well as physical therapy until you are able to keep up with Straightseam’s guards.”

“What? What are nuptials?”

“What Healer Tonks is saying, is that you’re married. Congratulations, it almost killed you.”

“But the Kubrow…”

“Didn’t have magic. There’s a reason why magical research is considered one of the highest risk professions in the magical world, curse breaking being another. It doesn’t take much to turn a new spell into something you don’t want to be anywhere near. It’s also why the restriction on goblins using wands is so harsh, as they require much less skill to use.”

Andromeda frowns, “I’m not sure that’s true.”

Straightseam smiles, “Cast a lumos without your wand then.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Just because there are complicated things you can do with your wand, doesn’t stop it being simpler to use than doing magic without them.”

Kitty sighs tiredly, “Do you mind having this conversation elsewhere? Where’s Harry?”

Andromeda grimaces sourly, “He’s in the pod next to you. Natah did a lot more damage to him to get your Oro back then she did putting it back in you.” – she gently touches her own chest – “I would never have believed such a thing was even possible.”

Straightseam grumps right next to her, rubbing his own chest, “I shouldn’t have challenged her to prove that they’re not actually part of your souls.”

Kitty laughs, and then starts coughing from the exertion.

Andromeda looks at her kindly, “I’m going to send you back to sleep, and we’ll try to have some nutrient potions ready for when you wake up.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Dora whines as she walks up to the gates of Hogwarts with Ted, “Dad, why are we going to Hogwarts?”

“Because Professor McGonagall is going to wherever we are going.”

“And where are we going?”

“Wherever your mother is.”

“Where’s that?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask Professor McGonagall.”

“Because she’s scary.”

“She really isn’t.”

“I was at the leaky after I packed last night, apparently she can fly without a broom. The only other magical that could do that is You-know-who.”

Ted sighs, “No it wasn’t, he’s just the most famous person to learn the trick. And it something anyone can learn if they find the right material.”

“Uh huh, so why isn’t it more common?”

“Because you need to learn wandless magic first.”

“I hated that class in Charms.”

“Good thing it wasn’t required to pass your NEWT’s then, isn’t it.”

“I hate you.”

“I know, and hey, we’re at the gates.”

“The obvious wizard states the obvious yet again.”

 

A few minutes later, Minerva meets them at the gate, before inviting them in. Once they’ve passed the wards, they walk around the school to the Forbidden forest.

“Erm, Professor. Isn’t the forbidden forest, you know, kinda off limits?”

“Miss Tonks, I’m not your professor anymore. Please call me Minerva. And to answer your question, it is off limits to students, because it is a preserve and also home to a herd of centaurs. Not because it is especially dangerous to a trained witch or wizard.”

“But still, aren’t we supposed to be going somewhere?”

“We are, we’re going into the forbidden forest where our transport awaits. Then we are going to the Moon, and from there we’re going to Earth.”

Dora just stops dead, “That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

“Of course it does Miss Tonks, you just don’t have all the information needed for it to make sense. Do keep up.”

Ted chuckles, “I remember feeling like this so much during my school days. It’s then that you learn ‘it’s magic’ really is an adequate explanation much of the time.”

Minerva shakes her head, “Science in this case. Very much science.”

Ted is the one to stop dead this time, “You mean to tell me you’ve got a rocket stashed away here somewhere?”

“Come along Mr Tonks, no lollygagging.”

 

Minerva abruptly comes to a halt when she sees, not just a couple of unicorns, but a whole herd of them, “Stars above, what did I do to deserve this.”

“Ma’am, may I suggest you left the lander door open?”

“Cy?”

“Indeed, my scans indicate that there are currently 8 foals inside the lander.”

Dora whispers to Ted, “Dad, what language is she speaking, and why does it look like there’s a herd of unicorn around whatever that is?”

“I have no idea, and it’s because you’re not blind.”

“Oh haha.”

Minerva switches back to English for a moment, “Excuse me for a moment, but our ride seems to have been co-opted by the local stupid bloody herd of unicorns.” She then starts to walk forward, and the lead stallion lowers its horn as she approaches. When she gets close enough, it sniffs deeply, and then nickers before nuzzling the side of her head. When it lifts its head back, the herd has parted to reveal a mare, lying on the ground, with a jagged wound in her side. Silver blood is matting in her fur as the wound weeps slightly.

“Morgana, there goes that plan. Cy we’re going to find space for these, as one of them has been attacked.”

“Cy must object, their droppings get in all the cracks and it takes the cleaning drones weeks to find them all.”

“Well, I can’t exactly use the lander without them, and I don’t think they’re going to leave.”

“Cy understands. Cy will turn off internal scanners to avoid a headache.”

 

Minerva comes back to the edge of the clearing, “Mr Tonks, did you ever learn how to anchor space expansion charms?”

Ted grimaces, remembering when his half of such a charm failed early at Dora’s second birthday party, “I did, I’m not very good at it.”

Minerva smiles sweetly at him, “Well, don’t make any mistakes then. As long as it will last a couple of hours, we should be fine.”

“Professor, what do you mean anchor space expansion charms?”

“Accio rock,” – Minerva starts to smooth off a fist sized stone – “It’s quite simple Miss Tonks, it’s cooperative magic. We engrave a symbol, typically runes, into a fixing medium, that we then both focus on as we cast a space expansion charm. By working together, we can achieve spaces far larger than we would alone. In this case, I’m going to use two images of the space we’re expanding, one inside the other. If we were making a permanent space, I’d be carving meaningful runes on the inside of the space for a few days, so that everyone involved can anchor their intent to them.”

Once she’s done, she drags a reluctant Ted into the Lander, then uses a sticking charm to attach the stone to the ceiling.

“Ready?”

“Not really.”

“Ok, I’ll rephrase that, can you do it?”

“Yes?”

“Then on 3. 1…2…3!”

 

With the skill that only being a teacher for 50 years brings, Minerva matches her casting to Teds, shoring up the places where he falters. As the spell comes to a close, the main part of the cabin recedes away from them, until it can comfortably accommodate the three of them, as well as the herd. Ted and Minerva are then pushed aside roughly as the entire herd, apart from the Stallion and injured mare, force themselves into the much-expanded space.

“Cy”

“Cy is not looking.”

“Cy!”

“Cy can’t be made to look, it does funny things to his processors.”

“Cy, I just need you to talk to me.”

“Cy can do that.”

“I need you to contact Gringotts. Tell them that something has managed to wound a unicorn in the forest, and we think we have the entire herd here. But we can’t be sure. Send them any logs you can recover too.”

Cy sounds relieved when he says, “Cy can do that. There was something hunting them, however the optical scanners didn’t have a good view of it.”

 

It doesn’t take long to get the injured mare aboard with the judicious use of a first aid spell, and a levitation spell. Once they are all aboard, Minerva signals Cy and they take off. An experience that is somewhat spoiled for Ted and Dora by the fact the window is 30m away. Though it doesn’t stop them from gaping as the sky turns dark and the stars become visible.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 When Cy docks the lander into the railjack, they get to meet Hermione in her Titania as she zips up the lift to meet them.

“Hi Minerva, how was the trip?”

“We have a whole herd of Unicorns now.”

“I can drop them off at the Grove when we hit the Orokin system.”

Dora looks at Hermione open mouthed, “Excuse me, but some of us don’t speak your language.”

“You’re excused. And don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fluent in it in around 4 hours time.”

“I hope this isn’t offensive, but what are you?”

 

Minerva laughs and the conversation switches completely to English, “This is Tenno Hermione Granger, a first year student at Hogwarts.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Oh but it does, you just don’t understand yet. She should be asleep in the cargo container right now.”

Hermione gives a thumbs up, “I am indeed asleep down there. Oooh, I just want to show you something that Yana has worked out how to do. I’ll be right back wearing a banshee I built at the Dojo.”

Ted and Dora just look at each other, “What is she talking about?”

 

While Hermione is off getting changed, Minerva shows Ted and Dora how to get down into the main part of the Railjack. After a few minutes, Hermione slowly walks back in, wearing a grey banshee, Titania carefully walking behind her while holding her hand. Once Titania is stable standing on her own, she turns to face her. Holding up her hands palms facing Titania, she slowly begins to sing.

“Pat a cake, pat a cake, bakers man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can…”

The two of them go through the motions to go with the song, though it’s clear that Titania is struggling with them. Minerva nods approvingly, “Well done. That must have been hard to learn.”

Dora scoffs, “What, any child learns how to do that by the time they’re 4.”

Minerva smiles beautifically, “Funnily enough, that’s roughly how old Titania here is.”

“Yana!” Titania says.

Hermione rubs her hand, “She’s picked the name Yana.”

“Sorry Yana. As I was saying, she could kill you in around 3 dozen ways before you could blink. But she’s only been aware of herself as a person, and able to work against her programmed in precepts for that length of time.”

“Why do I feel stupid?” – Ted opens his mouth to speak – “Don’t say anything dad, it was rhetorical.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Andromeda finally socially corners Natah, “Natah, would I be able to have a chat with you?”

“Certainly, how can I help you?”

“What was going on with Harry and Kitty? Why were you even trying to do what you were doing?”

“Several years ago, back in September, we had an idea that Oro’s weren’t just anchors for a soul, they also held a bit of it inside them. The conversation then moved onto, would someone gain magic if you swapped their Oro with that of a magical person. At which point Kitty demanded that we try it there and then, as we were going to try it anyway. Obviously we refused, as we didn’t even know if it was safe to do. There are a few stories about Orokin who did this, but no actual records of anyone it’s been done with. The only surviving Orokin, have, memory issues.”

“What about the magical side of things?”

“Pandora didn’t know of any reason why it wouldn’t work, as we weren’t splitting the soul or using dark magic. As she’s a magical researcher, I took her word for it.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t know any better, and it only comes up for Healers because wizards are merlin damned stupid, show one of them an old ritual from their family library and there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll try it the first time it happens.”

“Surely it’s not that bad.”

“It sure feels like it sometimes.”

“Was that it?”

“No, I also want to know why Straightseam seems to think I won’t be human by the end of the holiday. Well, he actually said I wouldn’t be a witch.”

“I have no idea. Only a fraction of the witches and wizards that have visited went the Sentient route.”

“What is a Sentient.”

“I am. As are Pandora, Minerva, Aurora, Xenophilus, Amelia, and Danjell.”

Andromeda narrows her eyebrows, “Why would they all choose that?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“I will, thank you for your time.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Pandora?”

“Yes Andromeda?”

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“You just did, but go ahead.”

“Haha. Why did you choose to stop being a witch?”

“You’re not going to like the answer, so I’ll answer the question ‘Why don’t you regret no longer being a witch’. I can obviously still do magic, I’m just not human anymore. Based on prophecy that I trust, it literally saved my life. Finally, I get to live long enough to see my daughter grow and mature, eventually even learn to do without her Warframe for periods of time. If we hadn’t come here, I would have picked up some work at the DoM and died during a mishap while researching a new spell. Luna would have seen it, and it would break both of them. Since then, I have met people with full body prosthetics, cephalons that used to be human. I’m the Lotus part time, and I have a massive extended family through the Tenno because of that. The last thing is a question for you. Have you really looked at what they have here? Could you have healed the damage that Natah did to Harry and Kitty? Here, if someone’s not dead they can be saved. If we weren’t working directly with Oro’s, we’d have probably just let the two of them die. That would then cause them to return to their current Warframes. Of course, most of the solar system don’t have Oro’s, as they only form naturally through void exposure.

“As for the actual reason, it’s because Xeno had one of his moments and had it done before asking what the process was about.”

“What about the Oro you gave me?”

Pandora gets a distant look in her eyes, “You have to understand that originally, Sentients didn’t have souls. We think they developed them in the Tau system. But something about the transit here stripped them away. As we’re a synthetic lifeform, we can live without our soul. However, Natah says that her emotions were like watching a vid, rather than being part of the action. It also left them sterile. When Harry arrived in this universe, he had a fragment of another persons soul in his head. Margulis and the other researchers were able to extract it, and thus scientifically prove the existence of the soul. Margulis then went on to theorise how the Sentients could have been created with a soul.

“Natah developed that process further, finally trying it on herself. She did this so that she could travel to the other universe and see Harry off for the train, as well as doing shopping.”

“And how long do Sentients live for?”

“Meh, dunno. Natah’s mum was around 10,000 years old when she was driven into the sun by Ballas.”

Andromeda stares at Pandora with her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It is with more than a little relief that Ted and Dora both walk off the Railjack. Hermione left in Titania, a concept that Dora was still trying to get her head around, in order to take the Unicorns to some grove on earth. This left them alone on the spaceship. Though spaceship didn’t seem like an adequate word, as it was about as far beyond muggle spacecraft as a broom is beyond a first year levitating a feather. Suffice to say, they were both remembering the wizarding adage, ‘Never trust anything if you can’t see where it keeps it’s brain’. Minerva’s reassurances were of no help either, as they literally didn’t understand the explanation as most of the words weren’t in English.

 

When Dora sees Andromeda, her hair goes bubblegum pink, and she runs towards her happily. At the same time half a dozen scanners come out and track her progress.

Catching her in a hug, Andromeda says, “You finally made it, I’ve missed you both.”

“It’s only been overnight Mum.”

“It’s been over a month for me. Kitty and Harry are both doing well, though Harry’s being a mother hen at the moment.”

“Mum, what do you mean it’s been over a month?”

“Didn’t Minerva explain it?”

“Well, yeah, but it didn’t make sense.”

Ted gives Andromeda an ‘I told you so look’, so she sighs, “Ok, while you’re here we’ll make sure you get a good non-magical education. I did tell you that Arithmancy was important to take. So, this universe runs 81 times faster than our home universe, this is possible because it’s separated by the void, or as we call it fae realm. That means that every day that you spend at home is 81 days here, or 2 and a half months.”

“Why do I need Arithmancy as an Auror?” – Dora does some math in her head – “Wait, does that mean that a week is a year?”

“Close enough. Come on, let’s get you both speaking the local language and show you our apartment here.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Healing and Christmas.

 

Dora feels positively tiny standing next to Varzia Dax, and she seems tiny next to the Tenno that are her primary customers, in their Warframes. Apart from the sweat accumulating in her boots and trickling down her face, most people wouldn’t know that she’d just been undergoing a sparing session that makes even the most vigorous duel she had during her NEWT DADA seem like a walk in the park.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

A warframe, she thinks it’s an Ash, replies, “Can I see what you have for sale?”

“Certainly, be warned that we only trade for Aya.”

“Ah, thank you anyway then.”

“You’re most welcome, please come again.”

 

Once the Warframe leaves sight, Dora ducks and dives over the makeshift counter. The whistle of a training sword passing behind her telling her it was the right move.

“Better, you should have also left behind a present.”

Dora lunges to one side and tries to bring her wand up, only to have the sword painfully impact her arm, and taking a kick to the face.

“Get up, you were too heavy on your leading foot. Better to roll than try to recover. Telegraph your wand movement less as well, I saw it coming before you were even finished with your lunge. Well get up, or do you want me to beat you on the floor?”

Dora scrambles to her feet, her metamorphic ability causing her to stumble, and taking a sword to the back of her leg for the trouble.

“Pay attention to your surroundings, you can change your shape, it will be invaluable on uneven terrain, but only if you know where you are. Again.”

 

Dora tries to run, not that it’s ever helped during the last 3 months, but at least she’s moved up from “Which part of the dregs of society were you found in, to Greener than even the greenest recruits.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Pay attention!” Minerva fires a stinging hex at the back of Dora’s hand.

“Sorry, I had a hard day with Varzia.”

“That’s no excuse for sloppy work. Again, matchstick to needle.”

Dora watches in despair as Minerva casually waves her wand twice and all 30 matchsticks turn to needles and then back to matchsticks. For a moment she wishes she was back with Varzia, then her bruises remind her of just how hard that is. Trying to mimic Minerva, she waves her wand and 3 or 4 matchsticks change correctly, one sprouts, and 2 disappear.

“Slowly, take your time, just do it in one sweep. You are controlling your intent and your visualisation.”

“But I’m exhausted.”

“Do you really think you’ll be well rested when you have to do this for real? This was the first thing you learnt as a first year. It shouldn’t take any concentration to do one, all you’re doing is doing one after the other smoothly.”

 

“One by one.” With a point, Dora changes a match to a needle, then back, her tongue stuck out in concentration.

“One by one. Wait, this is the same as point casting and silent casting.” – She looks up – “Professor, is this the same as point and silent casting?”

Minerva smiles, an effect that is somewhat spoilt by the misshapen lumps growing out of her back and head, “Well done, it took you long enough to realise. Now use that realisation.”

Slowly she runs her wand alone the line of matches, and each one changes into a needle.

 

“Good, again, a little faster.”

Doing it successfully, Dora shakes her head, “Why do I feel so stupid?”

“Because you’ve just realised how skills learnt in one lesson apply to another. We all feel stupid learning that particular lesson. Now, two passes, match to needle and back to match.”

 

This exercise has a few failures at the end where she’d not got her visualisation correct to start with.

“Good, I want this perfect and natural by tomorrow.”

“When am I going to find time to practice this? Also, where am I going to find matches?”

 

Minerva smiles and waves her wand 8 times, each time an alternating row of matches and needles appears. Another 8 waves, and they all change to the other shape, and finally, a single pass of her wand and they all vanish again.

 

Dora’s head hits the desk, “That’s my next exercise isn’t it.”

“It is. All the more reason to get it right by tomorrow. Oh, and you’re going to start learning to shoot from Digger in the morning, so sleep well.”

 

As Dora leaves, Andromeda comes out from behind one of the walls, “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?”

Minerva shakes her head, “Not for a mastery. The basics must be absolutely second nature before the real education starts. She’s only just getting there with that.”

Andromeda raises an eyebrow, “A Mastery?”

Minerva laughs, “What else do you think 3 years of daily personal tutoring by an acclaimed Mistress of Transfiguration would result in?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t considered it.”

“Well, Varzia has said that Dora will be a Dax by the time she leave, or she’ll die trying.”

“Oh dear, I should talk to Pandora and Natah about ensuring that Nymphadora has an Oro then.”

“And what about your own conundrum, oh Master Healer?”

Andromeda just glares at Minerva before stalking out of the room.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah stares at the two pods that contain Harry and Kitty, they computers say that they’re both fine. However, neither of them have woken up yet.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Natah turns to see Pandora floating a little behind her, “I still don’t really understand that idiom. But, my thoughts are that they should have both woken up already, or at least moved into their Warframes.”

“What do the two healers say?”

“They’re fine, they just need time.”

“Then, maybe you need to stop thinking about the technology and start thinking about the people. They’re supposed to be married yes? Yet they are sleeping separately.”

Natah turns back to the pods, “I don’t want to lose them. The pods will keep them alive even if nothing else.”

“You said that physically, they’re healed. That means that they can survive a day or so out of the pods. It’s been three months, so why not try something a little different?”

Natah shakes her head, “I can’t think of anything else, and I can’t find anything in the archives about this either. If this doesn’t work, we’ll need to brave the Zariman. It’s still very much tied to the void, and is being picked over by the Grineer.”

“I know, I’ve been directing Tenno there since they brought it out of the void. I’m just glad that Luna and Hermione aren’t skilled enough to venture into its depths yet.”

Natah nods, “If they Tenno don’t make sufficient progress, I may have to visit myself. They’ve been saying that they need to use their void abilities to seal rifts all over the ship. You know how fragile they are, even if they can retreat to their Warframes.”

Pandora just places a hand on Natah’s frame, “I know, just remember that they are all adults and can be mostly trusted to make their own decisions. Now do you want to make the bed, or should I conjure one?”

“I’ll make it, I’ll place it between the pods so that if they have problems it’s easy to move them back in.”

 

It doesn’t take long for the two Tenno to be places side by side in the bed. Pandora links their hands before stepping back to watch them with Natah.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry wakes up feeling whole and comfortable, in a way that he’d never be able to describe to other people. Like one of those things that looks complete, and functions as though it’s complete, until you add that extra little bit. Then suddenly everything just looks more complete.

Spooning him from behind is Kitty, who also wakes up.

“Mmm, I could get used to this.” She whispers into his ear.

 

The moment is shattered by Natah starting to cry, “You’re awake, I was worried that there was something wrong.”

Harry lifts his head up, “Huh?”

“You’ve both been unconscious for 3 months, and it’s been a day since we put you in the bed together.”

Whatever he was going to say goes out the window when Kitty nibbles her ear. Harry shivers as she stammers, “S…sorry, K’s j…just distracted me.”

Pandora takes Natah’s arm, “Come on, I think they need time to become reacquainted.”

 

Briefly, Harry is thankful for Pandora. That feeling lasts until Kitty licks her ear again, and she’s reduced to a puddle of sensations.

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“Kitty, that is totally not fair. Every time I got close to being the initiator, you did that thing with my ear and I just go completely girl.”

 Natah looks up from the terminal that she’s been working at for the last hour. Having not even managed to complete one of the 5 minute tasks on her list.

“Harry, Kitty.”

Harry smiles broadly at Natah, “Hey Mum, can you tell Kitty it’s completely unfair to do that thing with my ear?”

Kitty punches Harry in the arm, “Don’t listen to her, she’s just upset that I not only had my wicked way with her. I’d also done enough research to know what I was doing.”

“Research, is that what you’re calling it now?”

Natah sighs, “Given that the closest I’ve ever come to having a partner is Ballas, I do not have an opinion.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? I didn’t have a soul then, and it was the closest I’d ever come, not that it ever happened.”

“I think I picked it up at school, I know Hermione certainly apologised a lot.”

“How are you both feeling?”

“I feel great, Kitty?”

Kitty bounces for emphasis, “I feel better than ever. I can’t wait to see what’s changed.”

 

Natah shakes her head and smiles, “Well, first of all, we need to check your Warframes and abilities. Same as we did before.”

Kitty steps back and behind Harry, suddenly nervous, “Do we have to?”

Harry turns around and pulls her into a hug, “Yes we do, would you rather find out here or when you’re on a mission in the middle of Grineer territory?”

Kitty shudders at the close call she had when she was first woken from stasis, “I’d rather find out here, but…”

“I know, I can’t imagine what it was like for you. But you’ve been using your Warframes for how long now? How about we just do stuff in our Warframes, like the assault course, or even some studying.”

Kitty punches Harry in the shoulder, “You and your studying. Fine.”

Natah nods, “No tests for a few days while you get used to using a Warframe then.”

 

It doesn’t take long for the two of them to leave that part of the complex, though once they get into some of the natural caverns, their progress slows as they start chasing each other through the tunnels and rocky features. Once they arrive at their arsenals, the first problem pops up.

 

Harry transfers into his Oberon and turns to see how Kitty’s doing. As she transfers in, he stumbles to his knees as he’s pulled from his Warframe. Frowning, he transfers back into the Oberon, and Kitty drops to a knee cursing. After a lot of toing and froing, they manage to both be in a Warframe at the same time. As long as they’re holding hands, that is. Together they run back to the research room.

 

“Mum!”

Natah looks up from her notes, “Yes?”

“We have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

Kitty just pulls her hand away with a yank, making Harry stumble out of his Oberon.

 

“I see. Well, you can both join Nymphadora in the day while she’s helping Varzia and training. It will be good for you to actually have training as operators.”

 

Harry and Kitty both look at each other and try to bolt, which doesn’t work as even once one of them has got around 20m away in their Warframe, they’re pulled out as their Warframe continues. Over the next hour, they find out that after 100m it feels like someone is trying to tear something out of their chests, and at 200m they cannot continue as the pain drives them to the floor.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Over what’s left of the next 3 years, the two healers work alongside Pandora and Natah to study why Harry and Kitty are having so much trouble.

Harry and Kitty both get to the point where they can roam the solar system separately, as long as the void jumps aren’t too big.

Nymphadora, completes her Transfiguration Mastery. Also, alongside Harry and Kitty, she qualifies for the enhancements and implants that Dax were given. Though, given how extensive they are, all three of them choose not to go ahead with those changes.

At some point, they also find time to celebrate Christmas.

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For the first time ever, Strata Relay was hosting the first ever Tenno Christmas Party. The event was open to all 3000 Tenno and all of the staff that they employ, with pre-cooked Christmas meals being sent to the other Relays for the staff that couldn’t make their way to Strata. The Sinistra family had certainly pushed the boat out, conjuring tables and chairs on every level of the relay, with a Warframe stand behind each chair. Level 1 was reserved for the staff and those Tenno who had accompanied Natah, Hermione, and Luna into the void, along with the guests. Pandora somehow managed to even drag Xeno out of his research in the basement of the Rookery.

 

Natah stands and walks over to the Holo pedestal, “Good afternoon everyone. Thank you all for coming. Most of the Tenno will know Harry, by reputation if nothing else. The only baby to survive the Zariman. A few decades ago we discovered where Harry was born when they communicated with us. For them only 10 years had passed since his disappearance, and they hadn’t yet exhausted all of their methods of trying to contact them. The event that we’re here for is called Christmas after one of the Deities worshiped on their world. It is supposed to celebrate that Deities birth. Part of this tradition is the sharing of gifts amongst your loved ones, something that I will leave you to participate in after we have all eaten. The meal is another tradition, where we all come together to share food with friends and family. That is what we all are, family. As such I would also like you all to welcome some new members to our family, Hermione Granger, and Luna Lovegood are new Tenno, I’m sure at least some of you have seen them on the regional chat servers. I’d also like to introduce you all to Pandora Lovegood, who I’m sure you’ve all become familiar with over the last 10 years as she’s been taking on the role of Lotus when I’m busy with my own research. Aurora Sinistra and her family are Vassals to Clan Potter, and so are part of the extended family along with Dr’s Granger and Granger, Minerva McGonagall, and Xenophilus Lovegood. As this is a yearly event on the planet that Harry was born, we will be repeating this event every 81 years, to match. To our employees who don’t have life extending treatments, I hope that if you have children, they will be able to join us at the next event. Finally, all of the food is real food, not printed or textured, just cooked and then served to individual serving platters, there is also a glass of an alcohol called Champaign in front of each of you. Please, everyone that can, join me in a drink to the health and prosperity of the Tenno.

“Eat, Drink, and be Merry.

“I’ve just been told that these things are Christmas Crackers. They are designed to be opened by two people at the same time. Apparently you both hold one end and pull, the winner is the one that has the central portion attached to their end piece. Inside you will find a mini gift, a hat, and a joke.”

 

The meal went down an absolute treat, though the flaming dessert was very nearly a disaster as some of the Tenno took it upon themselves to try and set the other desserts on fire, using flame throwers. Once they were all satiated, the gifts were brought out.

 

Andromeda looks at the three gifts she’s just been given, it’s clear that two of them were wrapped before they came here, as the colourful wizarding paper, with its bouncing penguins and stars, sticks out in stark contrast to the box that’s neatly wrapped in gold film. Curiously unwrapping it first, she is surprised to see that it is a box. Inside the box is two small antimatter reactors and nanite factories.

“Ted, what’s this?”

“Dromeda, I know you. You’re asking every bloody question under the sun about what it’s like to be Sentient. You were exactly the same before we eloped to Gretna Green and got married over the anvil. Same when you were deciding whether to become a healer or not. This is me saying that I will join you if you decide to go ahead with it.”

That was the last that Ted was able to say for the next 10 minutes as Andromeda pulls him into a hug and kisses him so hard, and long that other people are starting to get embarrassed by the time they finish.

 

Dora looks down at the two gifts she’s been given. One is obviously from her parents, and is a couple of books on the process of becoming an Auror. Though, she’s seriously considering becoming a bounty hunter or something like that, she’s still got till she graduates to make up her mind, though. The second gift says it’s from Harry and Kitty. Opening it she’s confused to see 4 fist sized metal orbs, along with a data chip. Reading the chip on her data slate, she sees that it contains a letter.

 

Dora,

 

Thank you for training with us over the last year, and thank you for becoming our friend. The four orbs are the blueprint for an Equinox Prime Warframe. As part of the gift, we are willing to take you into the Void to try and meet with the Man in the Wall and make your own deal, the same as Hermione and Luna have. If you haven’t decided by the time school starts again, you’ll need to wait for the next holiday in case there’s any complications for us while we’re doing this.

 

Harry & Kitty.

 

Dora just stares at the letter and absently wipes a couple of tears from her cheeks as her smile becomes painfully wide.

 

Around the table, other gifts are given, often more practical than fun, but it’s the thought that counts.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Intermission 2

 

“Master,” Quirrell coughs and spits some blood into a hanky, “the honour of hosting you is becoming too much for my body.”

“What of the unicorn blood?”

Quirrell coughs again, “I need heart blood, but the Unicorns have become more adept at hiding since the last hunt where they gathered at that structure in the forest.”

“This is disturbing, they shouldn’t be able to hide from you. Copy down this ritual, then find someone of weak will, preferably magical.”

“What will the ritual do?”

“Why? It will pit your willpower against the person in the other circle. The winner takes the health of the loser, while the loser takes all the ills, including curses. Just remember to stop before they die, otherwise you’ll take on their soul too.”

Quirrell swallows, hard, “Master…” licking his lips he tries again, “Master, is this, is there no, what about.”

“Quirrell, you came to me for power. Yet now you’re getting a taste of it you’re quailing like a first year?”

“No Master, it’s just…”

“Such a very large step? Come now, you were willing to take the life of a Unicorn, what’s the life of a person that’s fallen to vice in comparison?”

“But my lord, it’s soul magic.”

“Only if you let it go on too long. I can trust that your moral fortitude won’t go that far, can’t I?”

 

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Silvana shudders as something she can’t put her finger on changes. Yawning, she stretches and then pauses. The lead stallion of the unicorn herd comes over and nuzzles her face, and she brings her hand up to stroke its head. As she does, she freezes as the fact her hand is a light shade of green registers.

“How?”

The unicorn just nickers as her legs go weak and she collapses to the floor. The forest is still loud in her senses, with the nearby Grineer spreading their poison across the planet. After a while Silvana stirs and stands on shaky legs due to the shock of having a body again. As she does, the stallion nudges her of balance. Reflexively she steps back into the first tree she planted after she returned to earth, and her human sight vanishes once more as her sense of the forest and its inhabitants expands to encompass the entire forest.

 

Unseen due to the vegetation covering it, the cairn that covered Silvana’s remains sinks into the ground slightly. The stone marker that was placed at her head lists slightly away from the cliff edge.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 With the Wizengamot, ICW, and school all having a recess at the same time for the new year celebrations around the world, Albus wakes at the late hour of 8am. Staggering over to his desk he looks at the enchantment diagrams for the Mirror, then yawns. Rubbing his eyes with one hand he shakes his head ruefully, obviously he’s too tired to work on it today, so tonight he’ll take a dreamless sleep at 10, and then move the mirror tomorrow.

 

Making his way down to the great hall in his nightshirt, he stops when he enters as there aren’t as many teachers as he expected. Making his way to his chair at the round table they use over Christmas, he helps himself to some bacon and eggs before looking over at Septima,

“Vector,” must observe proprietaries in front of students, “have I already missed Minerva?”

Septima cocks her head to one side and narrows her eyes, “She has Christmas off, as well you know. Don’t bother looking for Aurora either, she’s dealing with family business all Christmas.”

“But what about the thing?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sorry, I misspoke.”

 

After consuming some food and drink, Albus feels somewhat brighter as he looks around the table at the staff and students that are wintering in the castle. While he does, he starts to feel somewhat nostalgic as the scene reminds him of his youth, and how around half the school would stay for the holidays. Their parents would floo to Hogsmeade to meet their children over the holiday. His own parents did that more than once while he was a student here. However, two large wars within 50 years have taken their toll on the population leaving each year with a fraction of the students that should be here.

As the first tear rolls into his beard, Albus makes himself a sandwich, “Excuse me everyone, but I fear this has just become a working breakfast. I hope to catch up with you all over the rest of the holiday. Those of you doing your NEWTs, remember that you need to take breaks over the holiday, even the staff are doing that.”

 

Once he gets back to his office, he pulls a leather-bound photo album from the same drawer he’s keeping the philosopher’s stone. Sitting back, he allows tears to fall as he looks at the photos of every friend and acquaintance he’s lost over the last two wars. Fawkes flutters over to perch on the back of his chair and croon to him.

 

The next day Albus moves the Mirror of Erised to his own office, as without his deputy, he can’t afford not be available to the rest of the staff. The school paperwork sits accusingly on his desk while he tries to concentrate on getting the enchantments just right.

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 Croaker picks up the metal, plastic, and glass rectangle and waves it at Shade, “What am I looking at here?”

Shade shakes his head, “Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is that Gringotts are starting to use these everywhere.”

“How do they use it?”

“Again, I have no answers I’m afraid. It’s taken us two months just to get this one sample. It takes less time to prepare for looking in their vaults than it does getting these.”

“Will they know it’s missing?”

“Almost certainly, but the magic we used seems to have rendered it inert. From what we can tell, there’s absolutely no magic involved.”

“Why so much prep time?”

“They never put them down in any of the public or human areas of the bank. None of our goblin contacts were even allowed close to them either. The goblin that had this had a habit of putting it down for a couple of seconds at a time.” – Shade pinches the bridge of his nose, “We had to invent a brand-new switching spell that would only work if the object didn’t have any contact with a living creature.”

 

“How about your investigation into the ripples in the veil of death?”

“Frustrating. Every time we think we’ve got something that works, we find out that it’s just detecting the same things we are. Namely the veil itself, or rather where it interacts with the world. Whatever is causing those ripples, we can’t detect it.”

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 “Ironclaw”

“Yes Director?”

The Director hands over a tablet, “I believe that this is one of yours.”

Ironclaw’s eyes narrow and he growls softly, “Where did you get that from?”

“A representative from MIM5 delivered it in a Jiffy bag. There was a letter attached.”

“I see, and where did they get it from?”

Wordlessly the Director hands over the letter.

 

Director,

 

I hope that your coffers have grown since our last contact. A contact in the DOM was able to recover this during the course of their work. We have produced a mock-up using state of the art technology that looks the part but will not turn on. As you are probably aware, HMG keeps a weather eye on the magical world after the last civil war spread outside your own borders. The existence of beyond cutting-edge technology in your own hands has raised a few eyebrows. However, we would be willing to turn a blind eye to your own use of it, if you in turn would consent to allowing a few of your people to work with SoS certified researchers on unravelling the secrets of this technology.

 

Sincerely

 

M

 

It takes everything Ironclaw has not to snarl at the Director, “What is our position on this?”

“We can not evacuate, we can not survive if the non-magicals choose to wipe us out. Even with the deal with Simaris we can’t meaningfully fight back. There are 5,000 goblins living here, and we are the largest colony that we know of. 100 years ago I’d have said fight back. Japan changed that.”

“You think they’d use a nuke?”

“If we fought back? I don’t know, but I can’t bet our peoples lives on no.”

“So what do we do?”

“Contact the people that let us have this technology.”

 

Ironclaw rests his weapon on the floor, which for a goblin is the same as a human slumping, “I don’t like this.”

The Director lays his knife on the desk before walking around and placing a hand on Ironclaw’s shoulder, “I know, it goes against our traditions and instincts. However, it’s the same as hunting dragons. It is not dishonourable for one goblin to retreat in the face of a dragon even though it can be for a band.”

“I see. And the non-magical world is now the dragon.”

“Indeed, including the ability to fly and breathe fire. What of our expansion?”

“The first tunnels have been inhabited and we have already seen an increase in pregnancies. We should be seeing a doubling of our population in the next 200 years.”

The director nods, “Good. At the next board meeting I’ll table drawing up genealogy charts. If we’re lucky, the fact that Straightseam hasn’t returned yet means they’ve got permission to establish a colony. If we have that permission, we’ll name a new clan, and allow goblins from around the world to send members.”

Ironclaw nods, “Would you like me to send an owl?”

The Director smiles, “Thank you for your initiative.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Decisions

 

Sitting on a crate behind Varzia’s shop, Dora stares at the tablet in her hands with its chat message written out, before looking over at her Christmas present from Harry and Kitty.

“It’s just two or three years here. Finish school, come back, and…”

“And what?”

Dora looks up in alarm, to see Digger leaning against a crate, “I was just talking to myself.”

Digger nods, “I could tell. Do you want to talk about it?”

Dora’s hair slowly turns rosy, and she looks down at the tablet in her hands. Swallowing hard, she slowly starts to talk, “What if I’m too old? Harry and Kitty gave me this present, but I’m 20 now. What if that’s too old? What if I accept and he says no, or I go insane. What if I don’t do it, and you all forget about me by the time I can come back again.”

Digger sits down next to her, “You can always go the Sentient route.”

Dora shakes her head, “Except I can’t. My biology changes too much, because I’m a Metamorph. I had one of the Dax implants done, and it just slid out of my body.”

“What about the brain implants?”

Dora grimaces, “We haven’t tried. Though the nanites are fine. It’s just, here nobody is asking me to look like other people. I’ve not had anyone try to get into my pants either.”

Digger grins, “I can’t tell if that last is a good or bad thing.”

Dora laughs, “It’s definitely a thing. But it really depends on who we’re talking about if it’s good or bad.”

Turning more serious, Digger takes Dora’s hand, “Dora, this isn’t about what if’s or age. Space Mom is now Tenno in truth, and she’s older than all of us. It’s about family. As that’s what we are, a massive, dysfunctional, family. Those blueprints are an invitation to the family. Most of us never get to know anyone well enough to consider inviting them into the family. Maroo, Teshin, Varzia, maybe Legz, the family on Demios, that’s about it really for most of us.”

“Why though?”

“Reputation, we’re ‘immortal’ mercenaries that work for anyone. Nobody wants to get close to us in case they get caught up in one of our bounties or missions. Even Maroo and Varzia used to keep their distance, even though that’s changed in the last decade. So the question you need to be asking yourself is ‘Do you want to be part of our family?’ Not worrying about the risks and what if’s.”

Wordlessly Dora looks down at the tablet, and hesitantly presses the send button.

 

{Changling} Hey, Digger, you have one of the new Railjacks. Do you think you could help me visit Wally?

 

Digger blinks a few times as he looks at the private message, “Wait, you wanted to already?”

Dora nods, “Uh huh.”

“So what was that conversation about?”

“It was me talking through my fears and worries. Like an emotionally mature person should do.”

Digger laughs, “Emotionally mature, you?”

Dora turns her nose into a pig snout and sticks her tongue out at Digger, “Yeah, have to act my age occasionally.”

“Come on, we’ll let Maroo know where we’re going. I think I’ve got a spare frame or two you can use until your Christmas present is built. They’re not prime frames though.”

“Why do you have spare frames?”

“Feeding to the Helminth, it can extract abilities and graft them onto another warframe.”

Dora looks horrified, “Why would you do that?”

Digger shrugs, “They’re not alive, as they’ve never been outside digital storage. And don’t take Harry or FairieQueen’s warframes as normal. They’re not. Most of us only get a few flickers of memory from some of the frames that used real people, like Umbra. But even there, they have no soul. You can find the occasional frame still kneeling where one of our brothers or sisters left at the end of the war and they still haven’t woken up yet.”

Dora puts a hand on Diggers shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

“It not like you did it, and it’s still better than Narmer. Some of us had to find our brothers and sisters on Lua, and give them a permanent death. That was hard, as they joined Ballas and worked to oppress the peoples in the solar system. If there’s one thing that nearly all of can agree on, it’s freedom.”

“I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

Digger smiles, “Nah, I’m fine. It’s not like I can get traumatised by that stuff. Come on, lets get you into the Railjack.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Dora swallows hard as she looks out at the swirling mist of the void. Cadius is just moving himself into the lander, and it’s getting close to her last chance to leave herself. Suddenly, her reflection in the viewport looks left and right before beckoning her closer.

Curiously, she leans forward and puts a hand on the glass, even as the old stories of the fae run through her head. As her hand touches the glass so does her reflections. Suddenly it winks at her before grasping her hand and tugging.

“Wa…” Dora cuts off as her reflection holds a finger up to its lips and points behind her.

As she turns around, she can see the Railjack sitting there, in the void. As she watches, the hull becomes clear where the view port is, and she can see herself touching the glass. Digger standing beside her gesticulating.

A deep voice echoes from behind her, “Well now, isn’t this a surprise. One of my children came home.”

Dora spins around, to see a massive wall, with her reflection sitting on top of it, laughing.

“What? Children?”

Her reflection does a backwards summersault, “Why yes, my children. They took them away, broke their agreements, and killed my subjects. So I got more, a simple bargain, power and rescue or not. Half chose rescue, half chose not, and half chose me. So, what about you? What will you choose?”

“Wait, how is this a choice?”

Her reflection sweeps her arm across the length of the Railjack, “You’re still protected from me even now, and you can choose. It’s a one time offer, accept my gift and your birthright and become one of my children in truth. Or don’t and see where your choices take you.”

Dora glances back at the ship.

Turning back, Dora nods, “I accept.”

Turning away, Dora shakes her head, “I’ll take my chances.”

Jumping on top of the wall, Dora joins her reflection.

“Shake on it?”

 

Dora holds out her hand and shakes the hand of her reflection, and suddenly she’s back on the railjack.

“Dora, are you ready?”

Dora looks at her hand, “Oh, right, yes sure.”

“Dora, are you alright?”

Dora turns to look at Digger and nods, “Yes, yes I am. Let’s do it.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Harry looks up in surprise from the navigation console on his Railjack, “Mum! You’re coming with us?”

Natah nods, “I am indeed, I received a letter from the goblins that needs my personal attention.”

“Anything I need to be aware of?”

“I don’t think so, unless you want to start taking on Lotus responsibilities that is.”

Harry blanches slightly, “Um, I’ll leave that to you and Pandora if that’s ok.”

Natah laughs, “Of course, how are you and Kitty getting on?”

“Better again now that we can put planets between us. Don’t get me wrong, I love being with her. It’s just… We’re both used to being able to change our living spaces how we want.”

Natah nods, “I see, like all of my children, you are both used to living alone and being able to make your own decisions with your own spaces. Maybe you should spend some time living with some of your school friends to see how their parents live together.”

Harry nods, “Could do, though I’m not happy with how long that would keep us from home.”

“I understand, but it’s much like going to school. There’s nothing to stop you from visiting occasionally, though the time difference will mean you have more to catch up with than contribute.”

 

Deciding to change the subject, Harry asks, “How’re Andromeda and Ted getting on?”

“Haven’t you been meeting them for your sessions?”

Harry sighs, “We have, but she’s Healer Tonks during that time. It’s bad enough that she keeps asking us about our sex lives.”

Natah reaches out and ruffles Harry’s hair, “Oh Harry, you could just meet her socially.” She then laughs when Harry flushes red, “I love how innocent all of you still are. You know that Andromeda and Ted have been married for over 20 years.”

Harry turns to his mother and blinks, “What?”

“Harry, I swear, sometimes you are too innocent. They are Dora’s parents, and she’s over 20 years old now.”

Harry blinks, “She is, isn’t she. 20 years is a long time for normal people isn’t it.”

“Don’t tell me, you’ve been treating that time as you would here.”

“Well, yes. How many times do you think I’ve killed Vok Nor now? Let alone some of the other generals.”

“You really shouldn’t be.”

Harry sighs, “I know, it’s just. We don’t get to know people outside our family. I know Kitty has her fashion business, but even there, she can go years between seeing her customers.”

Natah nods, “Once you’ve finished school for the year, I’ll see about setting you up with some longer-term contracts. Maybe living with a colony for a few years will help with that.”

“Thanks Mum.”

“Now, how’s Dora settling in as a Tenno?”

Harry smiles at her cheekily, “Don’t you already know the answer to that, Lotus?”

Natah swipes at him, “Oi, you know that everyone treats me like their mother.”

Harry laughs, “She’s adjusting I think. Digger’s the one you’d really want to talk to. I do know that she’s kept her sanity, which is a plus. But she’s struggling with the fact her body is fixed unless she changes it. I think they were doing some last minute hunting to try to complete Chroma so that she has something that can change on the fly in addition to Equinox. I know she struggled with the need to kill almost as much as Hermione did.”

Natah nods, “They were, I think Kitty gave Dora her railjack.”

Harry nods, “Makes sense, we can’t exactly maintain two of them. Though, I’m going to try and make some more landers when we get to Luna base. Mainly because Kitty and I are likely to have different schedules.”

 

From behind them, Kitty speaks up, “Speaking of Kitty, I’ve got my stuff loaded, though I’d like it if we could pick up another three frames next time we head home.”

Harry nods, “I’ll make sure to add the modified arsenals for everyone. Are Luna and Hermione making their own way there?”

Kitty nods, “Yep, I think Dora’s hitching a ride with Hermione.”

Harry turns to navigation, “Cy, takes us to Luna base.”

Cy’s voice comes over the speakers, “Ordis is requesting entry.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, “Tell him he’s welcome aboard.”

“Disconnecting in 5…4…3…2…1.”

 

As the railjack smoothly leaves the drydock, Ordis comes floating up to the flight deck in the chassis he used during the Narmar crisis.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Dora flinches as her pod is floated out of Hermione’s Railjack into Luna base. Intellectually, she knows she’s sleeping in there. But emotionally she’s not ready to face that philosophical quandary. Instead, she turns away and draws her wand to look at it once more.

“Are you ok Dora?”

Dora looks up at Hermione in her new Nezha, Titania standing behind her somehow sulking, “Yeah, I guess. It’s just seeing my pod like that. It’s just hard to believe that’s really me in there.”

Hermione nod vehemently, “Oh yes, it gives me the willies every single time. I think it’s why most Tenno aren’t allowed on Lua until they’re ready to wake up. How are your implants going?”

Dora sighs, “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I do know that the brain implants worked, as I can now see all the displays and the HUD in the warframe. Including Ammo. Did you know that turning off the HUD used to be a challenge that Lotus gave Tenno on some missions?”

Hermione shudders, “I didn’t, and I don’t want to know what it would be like without the map.”

“How are you getting on with the mandatory classes?”

Hermione puts her head in her hands, “Eternalism sucks. I thought I was good with math, but the proofs for that are still doing my head in. And the Cephalons are no help.”

Dora laughs, “And here I thought that the math behind navigation coordinates is hard.”

Hermione nods, “That’s because it is hard. Roofie still can’t do them. Why do you think so many people keep them on sticks. I’m learning about Eternalism because of the Ten Zero, you know the Corpus or Grineer have brought it half way out the void. Their scientists are coming up with new theories and math to describe what’s happening, and why they can see another land on the other side. Math that’s currently beyond me.”

Dora’s energy colour turns blue as she slumps, “I feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, you’ve just got other interests. Come on, let’s go and find our personal armouries. Harry said that she was going to give one to each clan member with 20 berths for our warframes.”

Dora perks up, “Yeah, that sounds better than moping around. Let’s go.”

 

Titania points at Hermione, “Hermi mine now?”

Hermione laughs, “Once we get to our room, sure.”

 

Titania sprints, bounces and jumps her way to the armoury as the other two laugh and follow her.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Aurora smiles at Minerva as they sit down to the returning Feast, her chassis is safely floating in her quarters and her ports concealed by the shapeshifting abilities of Natah’s race of Sentient. As they enjoy the food, they both spare a glance for Harry, Hermione, and Dora, who are sat at their respective tables, chatting quietly with the other people at their tables. Though Dora seems to have a lot less people chatting to her than normal. Once the last of the stragglers make their way through the door, Albus stands up.

“Good evening everyone, and Happy New Year. I don’t have any specific announcements, though I should remind everyone  that the Potter Clan, are wearing a full body prosthetics. Please don’t enquire as to the circumstances why. Also be aware of the fact that they do have built in protective reactions. Tuck in everyone.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Andromeda smiles as she steps out of the floo at St Mungo’s, her sensors already mapping out the hospital and everyone in it. As she makes her way past the reception, the Director bustles up to her.

“Healer Tonks, how did your patient get on?”

“She has made a full recovery, thank you for asking.”

“May I ask what the malady was?”

Tonks nods, “They accidentally recreated an Akkadian marriage ritual, and it went wrong. I’m just thankful that Gringotts sent a healer with us, otherwise we’d have lost them.”

“You worked with a goblin healer, did you learn anything from them?”

“Yes.”

“Can I expect to see a paper on their techniques soon?”

“No.”

“Great, I loo… No?”

“Correct, no. They were shared in confidence, and I am not going to betray that confidence. Now, I need to get ready for my clinic, so if you’ll excuse me.”

 

Andromeda sweeps past the Director with a massive smile.

Edited November 10, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Adjustments

 

Harry stares at the garishly wrapped package on her bed. Cautiously she pokes it with a finger, only for the paper to rip and expose the contents. Shaking her head, Harry picks up the package and finishes unwrapping it, to reveal a silvery fabric sized for a human. Though, the amount of void energy she can sense would suggest that it’s something else. Pulling out a scanner, she drapes the fabric over a chair and scans it. Yep, void energy, almost identical to that used by Invara in fact. Probably useful for her Operator, but not that useful at the moment.

 

Grabbing some books, Harry makes her way down to the common room to do some revision on what they were doing before Christmas. There he finds Hermione staring at a book in consternation.

“Hey Hermione, what’s up?”

Hermione looks up before picking up the offending book and lobbing it at Harry, “It’s this book.”

Deftly, Harry catches the book, “Hogwarts a History? This was your favourite book.”

“That book is a stinking pile of trash. The author is heavily biased, and not only misrepresents facts from other books, but also outright fabricates stories that are contradicted in earlier editions.”

Tossing the book onto a table, Harry goes over to hug Hermione, “What brought this on?”

Hermione materialises an Orokin computer and concentrates to pull up a 1^st edition copy of Hogwarts a History, “I scanned this in the library before Christmas, but I didn’t think to scan my own books.” A second panel opens up next to it, “This is a comparative of this edition with the one by Bathilda Bagshot, red text has been removed, green added, and strike through changed. I didn’t even realise it was a copy, as the original is titled ‘An Abridged history of the Founders and their School.’ From 1383.”

“Hermione, what happened?”

Hermione sniffles into Harry’s side, wishing that warframes could cry, “Oh, it’s horrible. I traded scans of the library here to Cephalon Simaris for unlimited credit in his store. It only took me the time between when we returned and Christmas to do 70% of the library. He sent me the digital translations of the older books and a program to translate new scans, and compare them to existing works. I scanned this overnight and I can’t believe they’re lying like this. It’s not even lying like the Corpus and Grineer do, where they leave out bits of information, or phrase things in a way that make them look better. This is outright fabrication and revision of history.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know, what can I do?”

“You tell me, you’re 18 now.”

Hermione slumps, “Don’t remind me. I listened to Padma and Lavender last night before curfew, and their gossiping makes even less sense now than it did before Christmas. Anyway, what about you and Kitty?”

Harry laughs, “She’s getting used to being the general dogsbody, not quite what they had in mind, but she’s helping Anna with the reception, and filling in as a dental assistant when one of the other two are out.”

Hermione clips him around the head, “I meant your relationship.”

“That, is between the two of us.”

“Arse.”

“Yep, now what are you going to do about the books?”

Hermione sighs, “I’m going to talk to Minerva first, as we’re the only ones that can read the translations at the moment.”

“There you go, you’ve got the first step of an idea.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Natah floats up Diagon Alley as she disables her stealth systems, somewhat glad that she’s got a morning meeting at Gringotts rather than later in the day. This time around, she’s far more aware of the dampening effect the magical protections are having on the local EM spectrum, with only visible light being unaffected. What her sensors detected as noise in the spectrum is actually the satellite communications that are used by the non-magicals. Just so attenuated that they are almost invisible against the natural background of the universe. As she walks up the steps to the bank, a hint of the terrestrial radio signals they’re using for audio and visual transmission becomes detectable. There she stops, as the guards start to look increasingly nervous, and calculates the size of receiver that would be needed to magnify that signal to a useable strength.

Eventually Ironjaw walks out of the bank, “Ahem, Natah, would you please follow me into the bank, as you’re making the guards nervous.”

Natah looks down, “Why are they nervous?”

Ironjaw coughs, “Simaris has been trading streams of Tenno missions with us, and you feature heavily in some of them.”

“Oh. I’m flattered, I think.”

Ironjaw leads the way into the bank, “You should be, we’re a very martial culture.”

 

Natah just nods and follows him into a meeting room, where Ironclaw is chatting, as politely as goblins get with people they don’t respect, to a man wearing a suit.

“You asked for a meeting?” As she draws attention to herself, the suit looks at her mouth open, and starts to visibly shake as she towers over everyone in the room.

Ironclaw turns towards Natah, “We did indeed. This is a representative of the British non-magical government. They recovered one of our data slates that the magical government stole.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

The suit takes a couple of deep breaths, before he stands and bows, “I am agent Smith from MI5-M division, we want to work with the goblins of Gringotts to understand and eventually reproduce the tablet they’re using.”

 

Natah looks at the ceiling as she uses the systems in Luna base to look through what electronic records are available. As she does, she tries to model out what’s likely to happen if she gives the government access to the math and physics that the Corpus use for their computers and communications technology. Each time, she predicts that they open an unstable portal to the void within 50 years, or a world war begins that ends with the planet being scoured of life as they adapt the things they’ve learnt into weapons.

As she finishes her 30,000’th simulation, Natah looks down at him, “No.”

“May I ask why?”

“You don’t yet have the mathematical basis needed to understand the technology, let alone reproduce it. Additionally, your society isn’t ready for the ramifications of understanding that mathematical model of the universe.”

“What would we need to do to prove we are ready?”

Natah just smiles before she reactivates the cloaking device, “Colonise the solar system.”

 

While the goblins and agent Smith are saying their goodbyes, she connects to Luna Base and, after bypassing the security, starts the systems making a digital storage device, along with programming in an automatic recall addition for the data slates. That way if the device leaves a certain area around the server, it will automatically return to digital storage. With that done she makes her way down to the server room where the charging stands are for the data slates. There she makes some modifications, so that each slate will be transferred into digital storage to have it’s recall system added. By the time that’s done, the device has been made.

 

Dropping her cloak, she calculates the coordinates for a void gate to take her into the production hall for Luna Base, and has the new device pushed through the other end. Around her, goblins stop what they’re doing and draw weapons, though they stand back while they’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

As she now has an audience, and on a whim, Natah floats into the air while she plays some music she made up on the spot. As she does, the digital storage device slowly emerges from the portal and floats serenely over to the server and reactor. As if conducting a symphony, she carefully inserts the device in the power network in such a way that the goblins would need to understand the underlying technology to disconnect it without turning off the server.

 

Just as the guards are running into the server room, followed by both Ironclaw and Ironjaw, Natah turns to face them before bowing in mid-air, “There you go Gringotts, your Data slates can no longer be stolen. If I have to come back, I will be authorising a retrieval mission with the local Tenno.”

 

That said, she darts through the void portal, and braces herself just in case it causes problems. When it doesn’t, she dances and giggles like a loon in Luna base, “Take that Ballas you bastard, trying to use the void to dispose of me. I’ve worked out how you did it, and nobody is ever going to use it against me again. And thank you for your gift Wally.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Dora sits, in her Equinox Prime, in the waiting room of the DMLE along with the other Auror hopefuls. In theory, she’s already passed all of the entrance requirements, however, there are the interviews and practical tests to go through first.

Rosier looks over at her after doing a mental headcount, “Tonks, is that you?”

“Yep, like the new look?”

Rosier laughs, “What happened, did you finally refuse to bed someone who could actually do something about your leading them on?”

Dora looks at Rosier strangely, “What are you trying to imply Rosier?”

“As if you don’t know you were the biggest damn tease in the school. Strutting around and showing everyone what they could have.”

Dora looks around the rest of the room at all of her old year mates that are looking to get a cushy, but prestigious job here, “Is that really what people thought.”

A slightly older witch puts her hands up, “Whoa, leave me out of it, I graduated three years ago.”

One by one, the other four boys nod, and Tabiner says “Yeah, I remember you put $&*^man in the hospital wing for a week, just for asking you to Hogsmeade.”

Dora tries to look at them all incredulously, “You think I did that just because he asked me to Hogsmeade?”

Walla nods, “That’s what he said. He even bought you flowers too.”

“Those flowers had Amortentia on them. That’s why I put him in the hospital wing.”

The other witch looks at her body language before shuffling closer to the door while muttering, “I’d have done the same thing.”

Rosier laughs, “Come on, everyone knows that you occasionally need to give a girl a bit of a push.”

Dora’s Equinox ripples into darkness as it shifts from the brighter day for into its night configuration, “So how would you feel if a girl did that to you?”

“I’d be flattered, free tail. Course, if she was the wrong sort my family would sort it out later.”

 

The door opens and a grizzled old man with a peg leg stands there, “Right you lot, I’m your examiner today. If you’ll all come…” He trails off as Dora’s fuse finally burns through and she activates Equinox’s second ability, Rest & Rage, putting all of the wizards to sleep. Remarkably quickly, the old man draws his wand, and then points it at the ceiling as Dora points her Stradavar Prime at his head in a smooth motion.

“They’re just asleep, not dead. They’re the sort that think it’s ok to potion someone you’re interested in, with Amortentia.”

“Miss Tonks, you can lower the weapon now.”

“It’s Dora of Clan Potter now.” Dora indicates at the witch with her other hand, “Hey, I never did get your name, but the jobs yours. I don’t think I’d make it through basic before putting a hole through someone.”

Dora activates the ability again as the boys start to come around, and the old man huffs, “If you don’t stop doing that, I’ll need to arrest you.”

Dora laughs, “Honestly, I’d love to see you try. I do have to ask, what would you be arresting me for?”

“Assault with a deadly spell.”

“Really? It’s not even magic.”

“I don’t have time for this. Right, come on, you might as well get started on the exam while I sort out some Auror’s to deal with them.”

 

It would be three hours later that the old man would return to find the boys still asleep, and Dora lazily leaning against the wall while a number of Aurors cower to either side of a ruined door, and a hole straight through the floor into the office below. Behind him comes a very happy looking witch.

“Why haven’t you lot dealt with one witch?”

“We tried, but our stunners bounced right off. Then we used something more lethal, and she did that.” The Auror points to the ruined door and floor.

“Right, we’ll the interview time’s over.”

Dora calls from inside, “Oh thank the void, I was starting to go stir crazy here. Well, I’m off to hand in my mastery certificate, and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Oh no you don’t lass.”

“Why? I was going to apply for a bounty hunting licence. What did dad call them again, oh, that’s right. I’m going to apply to be a hit-wizard. As you can see, I can safely subdue and defend a target until help arrives.”

The old man smiles, “I like you, you’ve got spunk. You’d have made a good Auror.”

Dora nods, “I wanted to be one, for a long time that’s all I wanted. But I’ve found my family, and I can’t help them if I’m tied down here. Besides, I think I dig Digger.”

Dora giggles as she gets up and leaves.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Unexpected Developments

 

“Master, did you hear?”

“You’ll need to be more specific Quirrell.”

“The armour is a full body prosthetic.”

“We knew this already.”

“Master, what if it’s more like a possession?”

“I see, yes, that would indeed allow us to combat them if needed. How are you feeling now?”

Quirrell grins wildly, “I’m sorry I doubted you Master. That ritual…”

“Indeed. Come, we have a charms professor to get drunk, and how are your contacts coming along with the dragon egg?”

“The egg is on the way from Romania now, it should be here in March.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It’s halfway through February when Neville comes hopping in through the portrait. Blood splattered lightly all over his face and robes. Trotting behind him comes a satisfied looking Whisper. As laughter sounds around the common room, Hermione glances up and casts the universal counter before looking back at her work.

A second later she looks up again, “Neville, are you alright?”

Neville gives a horrified grin, “I am now, thanks for releasing me. And Whisper, you are such a good kitty.”

One of the Weasley twins shouts, “What happened?”

Neville laughs, “Draco happened. He caught me outside the Library, said that he needed someone to practice on. Whisper took offence to him attacking me. Sliced his wand to ribbons, and left some deep scratches on his face and arms.”

The other Weasley throws him a chocolate frog, “Here, you deserve that. What happened to the timid little thing that started in September?”

Neville scoops up Whisper, who starts to lick his face clean, “Whisper happened. It’s easier to be brave when he’s always around. Not to mention that he won’t let me mope either.”

Hermione shakes her head before looking up again, “Neville, have you done the familiar bond ritual with Whisper yet?”

 

Neville glances at the chocolate frog card while he thinks, before chucking it on the table between Ron and Dean. Swallowing the head of the frog while Whisper successfully steals one of the legs and runs off, he finally responds, “Um, no? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“Oh, well it’s in Uncommon Summoning as an example of a ritual that’s taught to all children in their first year of education. See, right here…” Hermione spins one of the panels she’s been reading from, before remembering that it’s literally only Harry and her that can see those panels in this room.

As the lights on her Titania turn rosy, Hermione pulls over a sheet of parchment and an oversized quill, “Um, I’ll just copy it out for you. Just remember to actually flick through the book in the library, at least chapter 1 where the ritual is.”

 

As she’s writing, Angela Spinnet, one of the chasers for the Quidditch team, sits down next to her, “What does the ritual do?”

“Huh? Oh, it bonds their spirit to your soul so that they will age with you rather than at their natural rate. There’s apparently other rituals you can do after that so that you can share senses, or send spells through your connection to them. But they’re in another book I haven’t found yet. Given that I’ve scanned 89% of the library, excluding the restricted section, it’s quite possible it’s not in the student accessible parts of the library. Then again, as this book is written in Middle Scottish Gaelic, it could also be that it no longer exists.”

 

From the table that Ron and Dean were sitting at, there’s a loud exclamation of, “I knew I’d read that name somewhere. Nicholas Flamel worked with the Headmaster on the discovery of dragons blood.”

With that interruption, everyone else looks over before going back to what they were doing.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Kitty’s looking for a particular patients file, and has been looking for the last 10 minutes. According to the computer, they last came in 5 years ago, and Amelia needs the x-rays that were taken at the time. Of course, the practice has been refurbished twice, the appointment book has been replaced by a computer, and the receptionist that did the filing retired. The problem is, it’s not the first time this has happened this week. When she started here just after Christmas, this was all new and fun, and quaint. Now it’s just frustrating, as they could have had the whole thing scanned and indexed in minutes, except Earth doesn’t have that ability so they can’t use it. She could just ask Danjell or Amelia, but again they’re not supposed to know. To make matters worse, the patient is next on the list, and once they go in, she only has minutes left to find it.

With a frustrated huff she puts the current box of records back on the shelf with a huff and calls out, “Where are you, you void sucking file.”

Much to her surprise, a box on the other side of the room falls off the shelf, spilling its contents over the floor, as a single file flies out to her hand. She’s so surprised at the appearance that she stands there for a good minute before Anne leans around the doorway, “Kitty, have you found the file yet?”

Looking back over her shoulder, Kitty closes her mouth with a click, “Uh, yes? Yes, here you go. I, um, had some trouble getting it out… Here, I’ll just tidy up the other files and Sue can take this one in for Emma.”

 

Less than a minute later, there’s a soft crack of displaced air, and Kitty spins around, bringing up her amp before quickly lowering it when she recognises the style of robe. The person flicks their wand out, and Kitty’s arms and legs stick together. Just as she’s about to call her Nezha, the person finishes casting another spell at her before slashing their wand and dispelling the spell.

Pushing back her hood, Hestia smiles, “Sorry about that. My name’s Hestia Jones, and I’m with the Improper Use of Magic office. We detected some accidental magic here, and as this isn’t a residential address we’re obliged to investigate. Did you witness the person that performed the magic?”

Kitty opens and closes her mouth as she tries to understand what was just said.

 

{KittyKavat} @MissKitty, Um, someone says they’re from an improper magic office, what do I do?

{MissKitty} Did they say why they were there?

{KittyKavat} Something about accidental magic.

{MissKitty} Be as honest as you can without revealing the other universe.

 

Hestia speaks up, “I’m sorry to push you, but if you don’t answer in a moment, I’ll be forced to call an Auror to take you into custody.”

Kitty shakes her head, “Uh, sorry but I honestly have no idea what you meant. I only moved here at Christmas. What’s an Auror, and what’s accidental magic.”

This time it’s Hestia’s turn to stare at Kitty, “How can you have got to 18 without knowing about that, even if you have just moved here? Where did you take your NEWTs?”

Kitty shakes her head, “I don’t know what NEWTs are. And why would I know what those things are? Harry said I could use the Potter vaults when he invited me to his clan, but I’ve never been there.”

“Have you at least taken your OWLs?”

Kitty shakes her head, “Sorry, I don’t know what they are either. I’m still learning about English customs and rules.”

Hestia growls, “Let me see your wand.”

Kitty spreads her hands, “Sorry, I don’t have one. Harry does though.”

Hestia pinches her nose, as the spell showed that the young woman in front of her has enough magic to use a wand. Though that’s all it told her, which is odd, “Ok, can we start again please. My names Hestia Jones, did you see anything strange happen?”

Kitty nods, “Um, yeah. I was looking for a file and it flew out of this box to my hand. Um, aren’t you worried that someone will come in here?”

Hestia shakes her head, “No, I’ve placed a mild muggle repelling charm on the door. Ok, how old are you?”

“A few years older that Harry, I was 11 when he arrived as a toddler. We sort of grew up together.”

Hestia pinches the bridge of her nose, “You said Potter clan earlier?”

Kitty nods, “Harry invited me in just before Christmas when I decided to accompany him here.”

With a much kinder tone, Hestia slumps as she continues, “It would have to be Potter. Right, did Mr Potter say anything about Rip-Van-Winkle?”

Kitty shakes her head, “I don’t remember anything like that. But he’s been coming here for several years, so he could have said something about it and I’ve just forgotten.”

“Ok, first of all, would you tell me your name?”

Kitty nods, “Kitty of clan Potter.”

“Ok Kitty, did anyone else see what happened?”

Kitty shakes her head, “No, I was the only one here.”

Hestia breathes a sigh of relief, “Thank Merlin for small mercies. Do you know what the Statute of Secrecy is?”

Kitty shakes her head again, “Not really, Dan and Emma have mentioned it, which is why I’m staying with them.”

“Who are Dan and Emma?”

“Um, they’re the owners of the practice. Danjell and Amelia Granger, their daughter Hermione goes to Hogwarts with Harry.”

Hestia nods again and pulls out some parchment and a quill, “Very well, could you write your name here please so that I can owl you some information you need to know. You’ll probably also get a request to visit St Mungo’s to have your age determined. I have no doubt you’ll also be given the various potions you’d have been given as a child to help protect you against some of the magical diseases.”

Kitty looks up from the parchment, where she has 3 attempts to write her name with the unfamiliar writing instrument, “Um, what? Why would you need to do that?”

“Because you will need to undergo a magical education, or have your magic bound.”

“Um, would this be a bad time to say that Harry and I are married, at least that’s what Healer Tonks said.”

Hestia rubs her forehead, “Yes.” She looks down at the parchment, “Don’t worry about any more of your name, you’ve got Kitty written. That will be enough for the owls, and we can add Potter ourselves. While I appreciate that you can’t help accidental magic, if you have another bout before you start your education. Please note everyone that’s around, as we need to make sure that the statute of secrecy is upheld. Right, I’m off back to the office to fill in all the paperwork.”

 

Hestia waves her wand at the files, and they all pack themselves in the box. Next, she removes the charm on the door before apparating away, leaving a bemused Kitty behind.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Amelia puts a slow cooked stew, with dumplings, on the table and takes a seat, “Kitty, how are you doing after earlier?”

Kitty looks up from where she’s ladling the stew, she helped prepare this morning, into a bowl, “Um, which bit of earlier?”

“The one where Hestia visited.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. It was more surprise than anything.”

Dan nods and swallows his mouthful of food, “I’m actually surprised you haven’t had a bout of accidental magic already. Hermione used to have them every few weeks. Not that we knew what they were then.”

Kitty raises her amp, “It’s this. It works on magic the same way it does on void energy. Well, that’s what Harry’s said anyway.”

Amelia smiles at Kitty, “Any idea what caused your accidental magic?”

Kitty nods, “I couldn’t find a file, because it was in the wrong box after the last redecoration you had done. All I could think about was the fact we could have scanned and indexed or even digitised the whole thing back home. Like most such frustrated outbursts, it was a silly thing to get so stressed over, and it’s probably just the tip of the infested hive, that’s been building for a while…”

Kitty trails off when both Danjell and Amelia look towards the front door together. Putting his napkin down, Dan gets up, “I’ll get it, apparently you warrant a personal visit.”

 

A moment later he comes back with Hestia and two wizards, the one on the left smiles, “Good evening, Mrs Potter, Mr and Mrs Granger. Sorry for just dropping by, however it was felt that a personal touch would be better than an owled message. I am Senior Auror Scrimgeour, and you’ve met Miss Jones. The other gentleman is Healer Oakden.” He looks around the table, “Would you mind if we sat down for this?”

Kitty looks over each of them, “What exactly is this?”

Scrimgeour nods approvingly, “This is verifying that you have been subject to the same effects that Mr Potter has been subject to, and thus fall under the Rip-Van-Winkle law. It is also to verify your marital status for our own records. As this is a known address of an underage witch, we felt that it would be better to conduct these tests where you’re more comfortable than ask you to find your way to our hospital. Once that’s done, myself and Healer Oakden will leave you with Miss Jones, who will give you the pamphlets we promised, as well as give you a brief verbal explanation of our world and what will be expected of you.”

Kitty glances at the Grangers, who nod, before replying, “Uh, ok? Is there anything I need to do?”

Healer Oakden nods, “Just sit still for around 5 minutes, as I have already read up on the spells I need to cast. Before I begin, do you know Healer Tonks?”

Kitty looks surprised, “I do, how did you know that?”

“That makes things easier, were you the one she treated over Christmas?”

Kitty looks at the other two magicals, “Ah…”

The healer nods, “I understand. Patient, Healer, confidentiality. The director is most upset that she’s not willing to share what she knows of Goblin healing techniques. Well, I’ll begin.”

 

In the end it only takes 4 minutes before they’re left with a potion for Kitty to take a few hours after they finish eating, along with Hestia to explain what will be expected of her educationally and socially. An explanation that goes on well into the night, and even then, they’re left with the same booklets that were given to Hermione.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Probing attacks

 

Yana is happy because her Hermione is happy and she’s been able to visit the local forest while her Hermione plays in another frame. Especially being able to play with the little not Titania’s that flit around from flower to flower.

As Yana daydreams about how she could bring more of this forest to her own forest, her Hermione suddenly slumps to the floor as a red light hits them out of nowhere.

A moment later, someone nudges them with their foot before shouting, “Ow! Merlin that hurt!”

Another voice says, “Well, what did you expect? This is supposed to be armour after all. Come on, you’re paying me to help put her in her place, so we need to get her out of the corridor.”

“Right, then we can get her out of her armour and teach the *@##$ a lesson about her place in the world.”

A third voice, this one belonging to a girl, “I’m not sure about this, I mean isn’t that Potter’s armour?”

Yana begins to become concerned when her Hermione doesn’t start to stand up, as she can feel that she’s still here, just not responding to anything. As the voices continue to speak she tries to disengage the civilian locks and enable her shields, or something.

There’s the sound of a sneer in the first voice, “Then he shouldn’t have lent it to a mudblood. Something like this should be in the hands of a pure blood.”

The girl’s voice sounds further away, “Um, didn’t Professor McGonagall say that the armour was for our protection, not hers?”

“What, are you scared?”

“It’s just, I thought we were going to teach her a lesson about showing up Ravenclaw and being a know it all. This is going too far, I’m out!”

As the first spell cuts into her body, Yana begins to panic as she can’t move while her Hermione is still here.

A forth voice adds, “Yeah, me too, I thought we were just going to make her miss a few classes or something.”

A fifth voice accompanies several sets of footsteps from the other direction, “Yeah, well you should have thought about that before you discussed your plans in the common room. When we’re finished with her, there’ll be one less mudblood in the school.”

The first voice sounds worried, “Wait, you can’t do that, do you have any idea how bad that would look?”

The second voice is receding as it sounds resigned when they say, “Malfoy, I don’t think they care. This is going a bit beyond a prank now.”

Yana starts to panic as she’s hit by an explosion, and her Hermione still doesn’t move. Her brief flight into a wall allows her to see her attacker, all of whom are taller than the humans her Hermione goes to classes with.

A pulse of light hits her in the side, cutting deeply as her eyes glow with realisation. They’re taller, and she can get smaller. She might not be able to move, but her butterflies know what to do.

As a spell punches through her chest, one of the attackers shouts, “Merlin, what does it take to get through that armourrrrrhhhhh!”

Yana feels a surge of happiness go through her as she activates her transformation and sends out her butterflies to kill her assailants. She might not be able to move, but she can still defend her Hermione.

As the screams of her assailants echo through the halls, Yana goes back to daydreaming about chasing rabbits and fairies around her own forests.

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Minerva scowls as Severus rants to the headmaster, “Albus, something needs to be done about those two first years, and the pet cat they brought.”

Albus looks up from the medical report Severus shoves in his face, “Hmm, what would you have me do exactly?”

“Suspend them, force them to attend without their armour, make Granger leave her butterflies behind?”

Minerva shakes her head as she glances around the staff meeting, “Severus, I know you have four of your 6th years in the hospital wing, but Fillius has one there too. It’s also clear from their wands that they were attacking Miss Granger with lethal spells before Aurora and Filius arrived at the scene.”

Severus shakes his head, “They say they were just defending themselves, and there’s no evidence of any sort of lethal attacks on Miss Granger’s armour either. The sort of spells that you say were used would have left a mark.”

Filius snorts, “Defending themselves from an unconscious first year.”

“Maiden has lost an eye, and Macks is currently under stasis while his family searches for a Healer that’s willing and able to restore his ability to father children. Weakman and Harvey are both going to carry permanent scars, despite the fact that there’s no dark magic in the wounds.”

Filius nods, “Miss Roland has suffered similar wounds too. However, Miss Granger was stunned unconscious at some point before the attack on her person began. I was able to verify the magic once the two of us had dealt with the butterflies. A simple enervate after that returned her to consciousness, and she was able to return to her normal size. What I think happened is that these five students. Students that I’ll note are all of them are pure bloods, and thus can’t be legally forced to give memory or veritasium evidence until they have been charged with a crime. I think they stunned her from behind to prevent themselves from being identified in Miss Granger’s memories, and then sought to take out some misplaced aggression.”

As the conversation continues, Quirinus Quirrell frowns at the fact that Miss Granger came out of the entire ordeal unscathed.

 

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A few weeks after that incident, Harry stumbles as he’s forced out of his wisp in one of the little used corridors of the school.

Quickly, he disables the civilian lock on his amp and shielding while he looks around the corridor cautiously.

A moment later, a red spell splashes off his shields, and Harry instinctively returns fire down the corridor.

When there’s no sounds of a body hitting the floor, or any sign of anyone else around, he focuses on the chat.

{Harry} @MissKitty I think someone just tried to attack me.

{MissKitty} Where are you?

{Harry} 4th floor by the Friday stair.

{MissKitty} I’ll be right there.

{TheFairyQueen} I’m coming too.

{Lights} Miss Granger, you will do no such thing.

{TheFairyQueen} But I can help.

{Lights} If they knock you out again, Yana is likely to actually kill someone.

{Yana} 😛👻🐰🐰🦄

{Lights} Merlin damn it! Why did we have to give Yana chat again?

{Yana} Bunnies!

{MissKitty} So she can call us if she’s in trouble again.

{Yana} 💢💥

{MissKitty} No Yana you can’t just blow up the student’s

{Yana} 👼🐱‍🏍🗡⚔

{TheFairyQueen} No Yana, we can’t do that either.

{KamaChameleon} Can you guys take it to squad chat or something, as some of us are working here.

Harry relaxes slightly as Minerva flies down the stairs from the dungeon, “I haven’t seen anything else moving since I was attacked.”

Minerva nods as her own senses show the area is clear, “Well it’s better safe than sorry. How’s your wisp?”

With Minerva keeping an eye out around them, Harry connects to his wisp with his implants, “I think she’s just a little confused about why I’m out here. I’m going to try transferring back now.”

Minerva nods, “Go ahead, there’s nobody around.”

Harry tries to trigger transference, only to meet resistance before bouncing back to the real world, “It’s not working. But it’s not like something’s messing with the transference signal.”

Minerva picks up the wisp with both arms, “Let’s get her back to the lander and we can see if it’s localised.”

{MissKitty} @Lights @TheFairyQueen can you start checking for magic that could force Harry out of his Frame?

 

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In the Gryffindor common room, Hermione’s working on copying out her homework from her computer to parchment while shrunken down as a fairy. At the same time Yana is using the butterflies to play with some magical wooden blocks that have pictures and letters on them.

“C.A.T. Cat! Meow.”

Hermione smiles as Yana finishes pushing the blocks together with the right picture, and they make a tinkling noise before the picture animates and they announce the word she’s just spelt.

They’re one of a few toys that Aurora bought for Yana once she realised that Yana is basically a child.

As she’s carefully carrying her quill across the parchment to the inkwell, in order to avoid smudging her writing, Ron and Dean both sit down in the corner she used to hide in.

As the two of them pull out their homework, Dean leans over, “Can you believe that Hagrid has a dragon egg?”

Hermione’s eyes dim twice before she diverts to her computer and activates the record program. Keeping half an ear open to the conversation, she continues back to the inkwell.

Ron shakes his head, “Not at all, they’re highly illegal outside registered sanctuaries, as they’re untameable and almost impossible to keep without breaking the statute.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, “Really?”

Ron nods before his expression sours, “Ugh, Potions, can’t we just play chess?”

Dean shakes his head, “I’m not getting another detention because you’re allergic to homework. Homework first.”

Seamus walks over and plops down next to Dean, “Hey guys, what’s going on?”

“R.A.B.B.I.T. Rabbit!”

Ron scowls, “Will someone please take those blocks away!”

From the other side of the room a prefect calls, “At least she’s learning something!”

As Ron starts to grumble, Dean softly says, “Hagrid’s got a real fire breathing dragon egg.”

A wide smile comes over Seamus’ face, “Cool.”

Dean nods, “I know right.”

Ron shakes his head, “It’s not cool, he could get into real trouble with one. My brother Charlie works on a dragon preserve, and he said that they become dangerously territorial really quickly.”

“D.R.A.G.O.N. Dragon!”

Seamus shakes his head, “Ron, you don’t get it. It’s a real dragon. I grew up muggle like, and they’re just fairy tales in that world. Ma used to tell me about dragons, fairies, and unicorns, but it was hard to believe her.”

Dean looks up from his own homework after a couple of minutes, “Still, don’t you think it’s a bit convenient that Hagrid won a dragon egg at the same time he was talking about Fluffy.”

“U.N.I.C.O.R.N. Unicorn!”

Ron stops glaring at his homework for a moment, “Yeah, now you say it that does sound suspicious. That and how easily you tricked him into admitting that Fluffy will fall asleep to music.”

As the boys continue to talk about their misadventures, Hermione opens up the chat as she keeps trudging over the parchment with the quill that’s like a tree trunk at her size.

{TheFairyQueen} @Everyone I think you should look at /dev/tfqt/usr/tfq/recordings/gcr-92-04-09-001 it’s still recording so make sure you open it view only.

{Yana} U.N.I.C.O.R.N. Unicorn! 🦄

{MissKitty} Well done Yana, but you should be in the play channel.

{MissKitty} This is worrying, Aurora, can you check in on Hagrid over the Easter Holidays.

Seamus puts his quill in his ink pot for a moment, “Ron, didn’t you say that you saw Snape limping just before the Quidditch match in November?”

Ron nods, “I did, do you think he was trying to get past Fluffy?”

Dean looks up, “Seems reasonable. I bet he wants the stone.”

Ron nods, “I bet he’s getting desperate, remember what Hagrid said about the unicorns disappearing?”

As the portrait door swings open, the three boys look up and quickly turn their faces down to their homework as Neville walks in with Whisper balanced on his shoulder. Behind him comes the Weasley twins.

Spotting Hermione’s computer, he makes a beeline to her stuff, “Hey Hermione, how are you getting on.”

As Hermione returns to normal size, Dean coughs, “Bollocks.”

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Minerva settles into a chair in the headmaster’s office, “Albus, I think we’re going to need more help with the stone.”

Albus leans back in his chair, his eyes sparkling slightly in the candlelight, “What makes you say that?”

“I know that there’s at least one group of students that have already found out what’s been hidden, and how to get past Hagrid’s pet.”

Albus nods, “We always knew that was a possibility. That’s why the Devils snare is next. As long as Fluffy isn’t attacked, he won’t ado more than bark at the students.”

Minerva shakes her head, “That’s not what worries me. The students found out because Hagrid let it slip when they were talking about one of his acquisitions. Apparently they weren’t the first people he shared it with.”

Albus shakes his head, “No, we can’t. It’s too much of a risk to bring more people in on the secret. Too many people know about it all ready.”

Minerva huffs, “Well, at least let me ask the Potters to keep an eye on the students that I know know. I just know that they’re going to do something stupid if we don’t.”

Albus raises an eyebrow, “And why not your prefects?”

Minerva just stares at Albus, “Really? You do remember that they’re all Gryffindors, don’t you?”

“I haven’t forgotten, no. But why do you believe these other student’s would be better than the prefects?”

Minerva smiles, “The stone would have absolutely zero interest for them, and I have absolutely no doubt that none of the puzzles would be even remotely challenging.”

Albus removes his glasses to clean them, “I presume you are speaking of Ms Potter and Miss Granger?”

Minerva nods, “Indeed, though they’re both full members of clan Potter.”

Albus frowns and thinks for a long moment, “Very well, but you’re not to let them know what the stone is.”

Minerva smiles, “They won’t hear it from my lips.”

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Easter

Aurora slips and slides her way across the wet grass towards Hagrid’s hut. As she nearly goes arse over tea-kettle once more, she curses under her breath, “Why oh why can’t I just fly out here?”

A couple of minutes later she takes a step off the grass and onto the mud outside Hagrid’s hut, only for her foot to slide out from underneath her, sending her sliding into the slight dip caused by regular traffic.

After her surprised scream, the door to Hagrid’s hut opens to reveal a nervous Hagrid, “Professor Sinistra, are you all right?”

Aurora carefully pushes herself to her feet, “It only hurt my pride. I wasn’t expecting the grass to be quite this slippery.”

Hagrid nods, “Aye, it gets like that sometimes. Your shoes certainly don’t help either.”

Aurora looks down at them ruefully, “You’re right. Though, to be fair I’d have brought my walking staff if I’d realised how bad it was. But it was one of those afternoons where you have a couple of hours free time, and it looked nice out so I figured I’d come and see how you’re doing.”

Hagrid looks down at his feet, “Ya needn’t do that, ah’m just fine.”

Aurora carefully draws her wand and uses it to clean herself off, “Hagrid, you’ve barely left your hut for the last couple of weeks. You’ve got smoke pouring from your chimney, and your curtains are closed, yet it’s more than comfortable out here.”

Hagrid mumbles almost as loudly as most men speak softly, “You were always a kind one weren’t you.” In a more normal tone he says, “No, really, I’m fine. I’ve, er, just got a project in my hut.”

Aurora smiles up at Hagrid, “Oh, anything interesting?”

Hagrid shakes his head, “Not really, ‘s just a dragons egg.” Then he frowns, “I dinna mean to say that.”

Aurora sighs, “Hagrid, you’re really too good for your own good. Come on, let’s see it and you can tell me all about it.”

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Grim faced, Ironjaw walks into the Director’s office with a tightly wound scroll, “Director, I have important news from the goblins that left with healer Straightseam.”

The Director looks at the scroll, “What’s the news? And why did it take them so long to send us a reply?”

Ironjaw takes a deep breath, “I’ll answer the second question first. According to this letter, their owls were all killed or captured by the Grineer during the early days of their negotiations.  After that, Earth was almost cut off from the rest of the solar system by most of the Tenno flocking to the Zariman Ten-Zero to try and push the Grineer and Corpus out of their birth place.”

The Director shakes his head, “What of our own letters?”

Ironjaw looks down at the scroll in his hands, “None of the guards survived longer than a year there. There was a Ghoul outbreak and they died defending the settlement long enough for the civilians to retreat.”

“And Healer Straightseam?”

Ironjaw hands over the letter, “It would be better for you to read his own words yourself.”

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Director, care of Ironclaw

My apologies for the delay in sending you an owl, as it appears that my personal missive was never delivered. I will summarise that missive at the end of this letter, but suffice to say that my wife and I had long discussions about our decisions.

The reason it has taken so long for me to get word from the surface is the Grineer interdicted the planet and threatened to destroy the local relay station. A threat that has only just been resolved with a judicious amount of violence.

The Cetus enclave have agreed to allow our people to join their settlement, though they have been told that it would be unwise to attempt to create a colony outside the shields until we have not only established ourselves, but also have the capability to not only hide from the Grineer, but also defend ourselves from them. A sentiment that I am forced to agree with given what I’ve learnt about this systems ability to detect things from well beyond the reach of our magics.

Currently, our people are sheltering inside the derelict Orokin tower along with the majority of the Cetus population as the ghoul infestation continues to rage uncontrolled beyond the shields. The occasional Tenno that pays a visit for resources or weapons is not enough to deal with the level of infestation across the plains. They have asked me to request a block of platinum 1 foot on a side. With that they believe they will have enough to pay the bounties needed to clear out the infestation and make the village safe to live in once more. If you agree to this, then send the platinum to Ullok son of Furrad as he is now of age.

Enclosed with this letter is a data cylinder with the details of an informal currency that the Tenno use. This currency is based on reputation and allows them to access goods and services that can’t be bought for credits or resources. The Lotus and I all agree that this would be the best way for the new clan to trade with the wider solar system. The Sinestra family, as vassels of Clan Potter, have already started to use this system to great effect.

Signed

Healer Straightseam

Personal note.

After three years of deliberation, Urana and I decided to join Clan Potter as Sentients along with our child. Part of this decision comes from a desire to allow for a continuity of contact with Clan Gringott. One of the Lotus’ personal owls should be delivering my formal request to the clan chief at the same time this letter reaches you. If my request is accepted, my children will take on the role of advisers and liaisons between the new clan and the Tenno. It is my hope that their involvement will increase both the profits and honour of both the Tenno and the Goblin Nation.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

The Director looks up from the letter, “I see, and the platinum?”

Ironclaw shrugs, “Already sent out of my families coffers, I will be seeking reimbursement through favours and services rather than goods, as the Potter accounts have been good for us.”

The Director laughs, “Of course they have. I’ll talk to the clan chiefs about giving you a minority share in the new clan.”

Ironclaw shakes his head, “I would much rather be allowed to start my own guild.”

The Director coughs violently, “What?”

Ironclaw smiles widely as he nods, “I wish to start the Technicians Guild.”

The Director clenches his teeth for a moment, “What of the Potter accounts?”

“I am still a fully paid up member of the Bankers Guild.”

“I will bring your request to the Council.”

 

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Dora glances over at Digger as she sends a message to squad chat

{KarmaChameleon} 😊😍

Digger nods, “Are you ready?”

Dora nods, “I am, do you have your shields up?”

“Of course.”

{KarmaChameleon} 😊

Dora adds, “Just checking as Hermione has been stunned, and Harry was forced out of their warframe.”

Slightly chidingly Digger points out, “Dora, this isn’t my first turn around the sun. I’m more worried about you, as we don’t know what will happen if transference is forcibly ended for you. You should be fine though, as Alad V has been kidnapping warframes for study, even before we started to wake from the second dream. That’s why I made sure you had a couple more warframes before I even considered allowing you to take any missions here.”

“Digger! I am a trained Dax and I have a Mastery in Transfiguration too.”

Digger raises a hand, “Dora, I’m not questioning your ability. I’m talking about the chaos of the battlefield. All of us die occasionally, every single one of us. If they manage to hit you with something that knocks you out of your warframe, then you could just be dead.”

Digger takes Dora’s hand, “Dora, I don’t know if you realise the implications of this, but the Zariman was a colony ship, and my family was one of thousands onboard. We… You know we found the Zariman, what you probably don’t know is we found out how many people were on board.” Dora shakes her head, “There were around 100,000 civilians on board, 25% of them were under 16, and 18% under the age of 11. There were only around 8,000 survivors of the Zariman, and Harry was the only one under the age of 11.”

Dora shakes her head, “What are you getting at?”

“I’m getting there Dora. Before the New War there were nearly 4,000 Tenno, now there’s only slightly more than 3,000. Everyone else died. Everyone. You, Hermione, and Luna, you’re all special because you’re the first new Tenno we’ve ever had, and the first additions to our number for over 100 years. That’s why we locked you all out of places we know Alad might be able to capture you. It’s why I helped you get Chroma so quickly. Well, that and the fact I like you.”

Dora shakes her head and pulls Digger into a hug, “I like you too you big lunk. Now come on, this is a capture mission, except we’re not allowed to digitise Fenris Greyback as he needs to stand trial.”

Digger affects a lisp, “Yes Misstress, is there anything else Mystriss.”

Dora hits Digger on the shoulder before starting to circle around the hideout, “You’ve been watching far too much Earth media.”

 

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Harry startles a little as Kitty winds her arm around his as they walk into London Zoo. “Kitty, why are we here again?”

Kitty laughs, “Anne, at work, said it was the sort of thing we’re supposed to do on a date. So here we are. One of our customers is a Goth, at least that’s what he said he was anyway. Anyway, he said that the best place to find the sort of clothes he was wearing is Camden Market, which is just a short walk away from here.”

Harry groans theatrically, “You and your clothes.”

Kitty smiles, “They might have some plushies that you’ve never seen before.”

Harry shakes his head with a laugh, “Fair point.”

Kitty thumps Harry in the shoulder, before double checking the civilian lock on her amp, “Hey, how are you getting on at school?”

Harry sighs, “Honestly, it’s all a bit basic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m learning a lot. It’s just I don’t think they’re really set up for teaching someone who has mastered over 300 different hand to hand weapons, and the math is so basic that we don’t even teach it at home.”

“Harry, I didn’t mean your school work. You’ve been using wisp for a few months now, and I’ve never known you to stick to one warframe for that long.”

Harry leans against a display with some brightly coloured birds in it, “I’m coping. I’m just glad that wisp isn’t a prime frame as she’s still only able to express feelings. I’m not sure I could handle a Yana.”

Kitty shudders, “You don’t need to tell me that. I think my Nezha is starting to develop emotions too, and he’s a prime.”

Harry shakes his head as he goes to push away from the railing, “Let’s not think about that for now.”

Impishly, Kitty stands on tiptoe and nibbles Harry’s ear, “How about we hurry through the zoo then see if we can find a nice dress to put you in.”

Harry shivers at the feel of Kitty’s hot breath on her ear, “Kitty! That’s not fair!”

Kitty just smiles as she leads Harry off to look around the zoo.

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“Albus!” Minerva slams her palm on his desk for emphasis, “Hagrid has a Merlin damned dragon egg in his hut and all you can say is, ‘would you like a lemon drop?’.”

Albus looks up at his deputy mildly, “What would you have me do then?”

“Your job as headmaster. Or don’t you care about Hagrid or the schools finances?”

“Have you let Kettleburn know that we have a dragon on the school grounds?”

“You know as well as I do that he would be oath bound to report it to the Ministry as soon as he found out about it. As soon as that happens we get hit with a massive fine and Hagrid takes a one way trip to Azkaban for endangering the Statute of Secrecy by raising a 5x creature without a licence. If it officially comes to my attention, or the bloody thing hatches I’ll have to do the same thing.”

Albus spreads his hands, “I’m sure that it will resolve itself on it’s own.”

Minerva shakes her head, “Oh no you don’t. I know as well as you do that Charlie Weasley is a Dragon Handler. But I will not have you endangering his younger brother because you don’t want to do the job yourself.”

Albus leans forward, suddenly serious, “Minerva, I really can’t be seen to do anything about the dragon egg. I am looking after the stone out of respect for my Master, and we all know that one of Voldemort’s followers is trying to steal the stone. At the moment they believe me to be oblivious of their attempts on the stone, and so they’re not doing anything to endanger the students. If I act overtly that may change.”

Minerva stares at Albus for a long moment, “Fine, then I’ll deal with the egg myself, and I’ll be changing my own defences too.”

“Minerva, you can’t…”

“Watch me.” With that she whirls around and storms out of the office.

Edited September 13, 2023 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

A man who is cringe in life dies without regrets. 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

On 2023-09-13 at 10:09 PM, (XBOX)Architect Prime said:

A man who is cringe in life dies without regrets. 

I might be being dense, but I'm not sure what you mean by this.