Legion
Recruitment

Chapter 1. Recruitment

The door irised open, allowing a single young man entry. He raised his right arm and willed a sphere of silver energy to form around his hand. He concentrated before causing the sphere to pulse flooding the entire building with the silver energy.

Rokk Krinn waited for a heartbeat before turning back to the door. "Clear."

"Wasting my time," a second, smaller, man shouldered his way past the first. "Mordru could never find this facility."

"He found the last two Brainy," Imra Ardeen pointed out before finding one of the large room's many chairs to collapse on. She spread the fingers of each hand and placed them on either side of her forehead and her eyes glowed for a moment. "No one within my range noticed us arriving or Rokk's Magnetic Survey."

The facility's main display bloomed in the middle of the room, with several smaller holographic displays manifesting in the air on either side.

"The other facilities were publicly known," the young man said as he began his searches. "This one is not; I set it up originally as a place to get away from all of you when you get annoying, which happens with distressing regularity."

"Leave Brainy alone, Imra" Luornu Durgo laughed as she slid into the seat next to her friend. "Putting up with us stupid people must be a pain."

"None of you…" the green skinned man born Querl Dox sighed, "are stupid. You are all undisciplined, unfocused, lazy, and lack precision, but none of you are stupid."

"We love you too, Brainy," Luornu responded. "What is the current situation?"

"EarthGov has surrendered," Querl answered, shaking his head. "Not really surprising, considering the President and her entire staff were changed to statues of salt and the Admiralty were killed to a man by controlled staffers."

"And your evaluation?" Rokk asked, having sealed the building's entrances once the last of their depleted membership had entered.

"We have lost," Querl answered simply, his hands blurring at the controls of the building's computer systems. "I am running sims as we speak, with 64,302 complete, and in each of them, save one, each of us will die or be assimilated into Mordru's forces within three hundred hours."

"And that one where we don't die or get assimilated?" Imra asked.

"In simulation 39,128 we fight Mordru with magic," the 12th level intellect said. "As improbable and distasteful as that might be."

"Brainiac 5," Mysa Nal interrupted, "I am not capable of the levels of magic that fighting Mordru directly would require."

"No, you are not," Querl Dox agreed. A holographic display appeared before each of the Legionnaires. "The fractured histories of human magic all appear to claim that previous generations of Homo Magus were vastly more powerful than those of the current generation."

"We stand on the shoulders of giants," Mysa agreed. "But how does that help us?"

"I propose we recruit a historic magic user to help us," he explained. "One of the many whose exploits dwarf those of Mordru."

"Brainy, I thought you said time travel was too dangerous for us to risk any longer?" Nura Nal asked.

"I was correct to shut down our temporal exploits, Dreamer," Querl said in an emotionless tone that his fellows recognized as indicating the majority of his attention was focused on the simulations he was running. "However, exceptions must be made for the survival of Science and our way of life. It is regrettable, but we need to fight magic with magic. To do that we need a legendary user of magic."

Silence filled the room for several seconds as that news sank in.

"Who do you want to recruit, Brainy?" Luornu asked. "Gandalf?"

"Gandalf is a fictional character, Triad," Querl sighed. "While it might be possible to travel through dimensions to find an actual Gandalf, it is far easier to simply go back in time. With the resources available to me, I can assemble a functional, if limited, Temporal Transfer device." A new screen manifested before the green man's eyes. "Integrating my own cybernetic interface into the device will allow for a group of no more than five Legionnaires to travel into the past and retrieve our volunteer. My sims suggest I will be able to sustain a maximum targeting range of 1024 Terran years with an accuracy of plus or minus .02 percent."

In the back of the room, Gim Allon's face took on an expression of confusion. "Plus or minus .02 percent?" He asked. "What does that mean?"

"Seventy five days," Imra answered calling up her own display. "That era is flush with magic users, Brainy. Who is your proposed target?"

"Seventy four point eight days, and I don't know," the 12th level intellect admitted. "I haven't done an evaluation yet. We also have to consider what damage we could do to the timeline. Given the imprecision of my temporal targeting, the candidate must not play a part in any major historical events within five years of leaving that primitive era.

"Okay Brainy, you keep working on your time machine, I'll cross reference the historical records for magic users and their place in history within your targeting window." Imra said. "Zatanna is out, she was deeply involved in the Justice League during that period. Zatara, Mandrake and Raven were all dead within Brainy's targeting window. Dr Fate was officially inactive but consistently busy. Black Alice had not yet manifested her powers. John Constantine was in hell, and Johnny Thunder was in a nursing facility due to his host's advanced age."

"Any other magic user from that time period?" Luornu asked.

"Within Brainy's defined search parameters only one name comes up," Imra answered.

"Who is it?" Querl asked.

"Someone named 'Harry Potter'," the Blond explained. "He has no historical references after…"

"August 5th, 1998," Mysa Nal answered.

Other than Brainiac, every eye in the room focused on the young woman known to the Galaxy as the White Witch.

"Among the sorcerers of Zerox, Harry Potter's name is spoken in whispers," Mysa explained. "His power was unparalleled; he stopped an assassination attempt by the Dark Lord Walmart, his era's version of Mordru, when he was less than two years old. As he grew, so did his power. In his third year of education in magic, he banished an entire horde of demons; in his fourth, he bested challengers decades his senior in a contest of champions; after he left school, he faced off against the resurrected Dark Lord and his Dread Associates, aided only by the fabled Master Strategist Roonil Wazlib, and their faithful cook and quartermaster, Hermione Granger."

Across the room Querl Dox looked up in shock, before shaking his head and returning to his work. Cook and quartermaster? It could not possibly be the same woman.

"Harry Potter was a giant of a man," Mysa continued, "the last wielder of the Death Stick wand, a kind soul, unless you were his enemy, and a lover of women without parallel. He is said to be a direct ancestor of the bulk of all the magic users in the galaxy. One of the mysteries of magic is why he was never heard from again after August 5th, 1998."

"Including us, Sister?" Nura asked.

"Yes," the young woman known as the White Witch acknowledged. "It is his genetics that is believed to have granted our family the gift of precognition, and my own more… arcane abilities."

Saturn Girl turned to look at Brainiac 5. The green skinned man considered for a moment before nodding. "That would be within the window I expect to arrive in the 20th Century."

Dox manipulated a few more controls before continuing. "The late 20th Century only had the most rudimentary of digital architecture. Finding Potter among the untagged masses will be difficult to say the least. Having either Dreamer or the White Witch along in the search will aid in having a reference for the genetic scans. Still, we have a starting point;" He concentrated for a moment before causing a drawing of a tall muscular man wearing glasses to appear before each of the Legionaires. "Legend says he made his home in the English county of Surrey. Potter appears to have been camera shy. This is the only image of him that survives, an image created of Potter not long after his disappearance. As was common for heroes of that era, Potter's best friend was a writer for a major Newspaper of the time, one Rita Skitter. If I can target the era properly, we should arrive in between the time when he defeated his 'Dark Lord'… preferably shortly before he disappeared."

"Which would make him, approximately 18 years old? Well," Imra said to her assembled team, "I guess we know who we will be trying to recruit."

"Yeah," Triad breathed, her eyes never moving from the image. "We need to get us some of that."

"The hard part," Dox cautioned, "will be finding him."

--== LEGION ==--

"Have you made any plans yet?" Dennis Granger asked.

"Not really," Harry Potter admitted. "I need to find a job to pay you back for your generosity, and I need to find my way in the world."

Dennis looked at the distracted young man who shared his kitchen table. Since discovering the boy was homeless since he and his wife had returned from their year long vacation in Australia, he had insisted his daughter's friend stay with them.

What he hadn't expected was that in the two weeks since they have returned home, his daughter would all but disappear.

"You don't owe us anything, Harry," Dennis said gently. "You've ruled out returning to the Magical society then?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded sullenly. "At first it was 'Well done, Harry', 'We always knew you could do it, Harry', and 'Please let me thank you, Harry'. Then it became 'If only you'd been a bit quicker off the mark, Harry', and 'I'm sure you did your best, Harry'. Then when we returned from Australia, it had become 'you're nothing but a glory hound, Potter', 'Why did you let my daddy die, Harry?', and 'What were you waiting for, Potter?'."

The young man ran his hands through his hair before continuing. "Gringotts has confiscated all of my money, the house I inherited was destroyed by the Death Eaters, and I just can't deal with the people any longer. Even the new Minister of Magic only wants to use me. There is nothing in the Magical world for me any longer. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I promise I'll be out of your house as soon as I can."

"Harry," Dennis said quietly, "it's because of you Hermione is alive. As far as Margret and I are concerned, you have a place here as long as you live."

Harry nodded dully, and rose from the table to do the dishes. Dennis finished his tea and stood up as well. He needed to get to the surgery.

--== LEGION ==--

The park near the Granger family home was a nice one. Carefully manicured walking paths meandered between stands of trees and the warm summer weather had the playground equipment fully occupied by young children.

With every chore he could find at the Granger house done and unable to stand daytime television, Harry attempted to find solace in the anonymity the Muggle world offered in wandering the paths for an hour before settling down on one of the many park benches. The rest of the afternoon turned out to be exceptionally odd, even by Harry's standards.

First there had been a blond girl with very large blue eyes who had walked by him three times holding some sort of box the size of a pack of cigarettes. She would look at the box, then at him, then at the box again, with a clear expression of confusion on her face.

Then there had been a brunette girl who walked past him a few dozen times. This one didn't have the box, but she was clearly staring at him. The last time she came by, she stopped in front of him and said "Hallow Ha-wee", before blushing and rushing away.

Harry was left to wonder about her odd pronunciations for several moments before a dark haired young man approached. "Ah am Rock," he said in the same odd accent as the brunette. "We fight now, yah?"

"Get away from me you lunatic," Harry snapped.

This response seemed to surprise the stranger, but he walked away without another word, his head hanging low.

That was enough oddness for one day, Harry decided. He moved to stand up when a woman's voice interrupted him.

"I apologize for that, Harry Potter."

Harry turned to find the blond girl with the large blue eyes sitting next to him on the bench. Internally, he wondered how she had gotten so close without his noticing. "Have we met?" He asked.

"No, never before today," she answered. "And in answer to the question you're asking yourself, I sat down while you were focused on Rokk, who I'm afraid has read far too much historical fiction about this era and believes that a team up must start with a fight."

"Team up?" Harry asked, wondering just what it was about him that attracted these crazies everywhere he went.

"I'm hardly crazy, Harry," the girl laughed. "And I also must apologize for Luornu and Rokk's pronunciation. I only taught them English an hour ago, and I didn't have time to drill them on diction. Hopefully, I'll do a better job when I teach you Interlac."

"Yeah," Harry said, standing up. "Look, I don't know what kind of weirdness you've got going here, but I'm full up with my own problems."

"You are Harry James Potter, born July 31st 1980," the young woman said calmly. "As the 7th month died, one might say."

Harry blinked at the woman owlishly.

"Not clear enough?" she asked. "Your only living relatives are Vernon and Petunia Dursley, who are horrible people, by the way, and your cousin Dudley, who, despite having a mind like a sewer, is honestly trying to be a better person, and suggested that I might find you with your friend Hermione Granger rather than in Little Whinging. We had been looking for you for three days by that point. If not for Dudley, we likely would never have found you."

"Who are you?" Harry demanded.

"Imra Ardeen," she said, with a small bow of her head, "at your service."

"At my service," Harry laughed. "Like I believe that."

"You're awfully young to be so cynical, Harry."

"You call it cynicism, I call it bitter experience," Harry disagreed. "What do you want?"

"I would like you to come with me and be the hero you've always been," she said. There was something about her eyes that told Harry that she believed everything she said.

Which he found kind of sad.

"If there are any heroes in the world," Harry said as he stood up, "I'm not one of them."

He apparated away before the blond could respond.

--== LEGION ==--

"Ooh," Hermione said looking up from her soup, "this is so good, Mum."

"Don't look at me," Margaret Granger said with a smile. "I arrived just before you did. I suspect your father has discovered a new take out restaurant."

"Nope," Dennis shook his head. "My contribution to tonight's meal is carrying the bowls in from the kitchen and tasting everything. This is all Harry."

"It's just soup," Harry said with a blush.

"And just a Lancashire hotpot in the oven," Dennis snarked.

"So this is what you produce when you have decent ingredients?" Hermione sighed. "We should have gone to the greengrocers more often."

"That's what I said at the time, if you'll recall," Harry responded. "I really can't imagine Lucius or Greyback hanging out at a greengrocer. So, how are the Weasleys?"

"Better," Hermione admitted. "Molly spends all her time cooking so that she doesn't think about Fred. George has reopened their shop and is going through the motions, though truth be told his heart isn't in it. Ginny is furious with you for not letting her apologize."

"Of course she is," Harry sighed.

"She truly feels bad about asking why you didn't finish it before Fred was killed," Hermione continued, still trying to bring about reconciliation between her two friends.

"I'm sure she does," Harry said as he collected the soup bowls and exited to the kitchen for the next course.

"Hermione," Margret said quietly. "You need to stop, that silly girl burned her bridges with Harry, and no amount of you interfering is going to change that."

"I know," she sighed. "It's just everything was going so well, we were going to be together forever, and she just had to hit him with that during an argument."

"Sometimes, it's best to stay out of these sorts of things, Toots," Dennis said, softening the suggestion by using her childhood nickname. "Harry is a proud young man, if you keep trying to push him back together with Ginny, you may lose your friend."

--== LEGION ==--

"I'm too full to read," Hermione said, setting her book aside. "I keep dozing off. That means you have to talk to me to help me stay awake."

"Now you know how Ron feels," Harry snarked, "all the time."

"So funny," Hermione deadpanned with an eye roll, ignoring her father's smothered laughter. "So, you asked about my day, how about yours?"

"Fairly average," Harry admitted, "Gave the house a clean, did a load of whites, spiffed up the garden and ran into some lunatics in the park."

"I wish you'd stop cleaning up around here," Margaret interjected. "It's given these two unreasonable expectations."

"Lunatics in the park?" Hermione asked extending her refusal to recognize what passed for her father's sense of humor to her mother as well.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, putting his own book aside. "A guy who wanted to fight me as a prelude to a team up and a couple of girls, one who barely spoke English and one of whom knew who I was, hinted that she knew about the prophecy, and who wanted me to come with her to 'be the hero I've always been'."

Harry shrugged. "You know, just the normal kind of lunatics I attract."

"Luna should never have published that article," Hermione mused. "If she hadn't every delusional in the world wouldn't be quoting the prophecy at you."

"Better everyone knows than we propagate Dumbledore's endless series of secrets," Harry disagreed.

Whatever Hermione's response was going to be was lost when a plume of smoke suddenly appeared in the middle of the room.

Without thought the two magic users rose from their seats, drew their wands and moved to defend the elder Grangers, Harry in front of Margaret, and Hermione in front of her father.

The smoke cleared to reveal a young woman, with white hair, skin so white as to appear chalkish, and red eyes. She looked about the room before spotting Harry standing in defense of Hermione's mother and knelt on the floor.

"Help us Harry Potter," she said in heavily accented English, "You're our only hope."

--== LEGION ==--

The room was silent for a beat before all three Grangers and Harry broke into laughter.

"You could do worse than misquoting Star Wars, young lady," Margret said with a wide smile, until she got a better look at the young woman. "What have you done to your eyes?"

"Star Wars?" The stranger asked as she rose from the floor in a smooth, effortless motion, her spotless white gown flowing about her body. "I know that this era was a time of multiple incursions into Earth Space, but I am not familiar with the conflict you are referring to." She reached both hands to her face, and delicately traced the antennae like structures that rose from the outside of each of her eyes. "These developed during my studies of magic, it is far from unusual for an adept of my discipline to manifest such structures."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance, each confirming that they had never heard of such body modifications before.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Harry demanded.

"My name is Mysa Nal, and I am here to plead with you to join our cause for freedom," she answered. "May I summon my companions so that we might make our case?"

"Is it too much to hope that they would knock on the front door?" Hermione asked.

The young woman took on an expression of embarrassment as she began the motions for her wandless casting. "That would be… difficult."

A doorway appeared in the middle of the room and a figure stepped through. Harry recognized the lunatic from the park who had wanted to fight. He was followed by the brunette, then the blond with the large blue eyes.

And then a green man entered the room. The Grangers gathered behind Harry upon seeing the green man. No longer were they dealing with Harry's normal sort of loonies, a green man had to be something else.

--== LEGION ==--

The five visitors and Harry joined the Grangers in their dining room. Crowded around the table it appeared that no one knew how to start their discussion until Harry, staring at the one visitor whose flesh didn't match any human hue, broke the silence.

"You're green," He pointed out intelligently.

"I am," the green man responded. "I congratulate you on your firm grasp of the obvious. I am Querl Dox of Colu, a rim planet on the approach to the Magellanic Clouds."

"You're from another planet?" Hermione asked.

"Well, as it was pointed out," Brainiac 5 responded with a rare grin, "I am green."

"None of us are Terrans," Rokk Krin interrupted, his English far better than Harry's first exposure to him a few hours before, though still thickly accented. "I'm from Braal, Imra is from Titan, Mysa is from Zerox, and Luornu is from Cargg. We're here to beg Harry Potter to join us in the defense of freedom. Trillions of lives are at risk."

"Trillions?" Hermione echoed. "The entire population of the planet is just under 6 billion. Where are the extra people coming from?"

"We," Mysa said, gesturing to herself and her companions, "are representatives of the United Planets, a galaxy wide community of inhabited worlds."

"And we are from 1000 years in your future," Imra interjected. "A great threat…"

"A Dark Lord," the White Witch interrupted.

"Yes, a Dark Lord, known as Mordru has all but conquered the entire United Planets sphere of influence," the blond continued.

"To be clear," Harry interrupted, "you want me to go with you a thousand years in the future, to save people who aren't born yet by fighting a wizard powerful enough to defeat a galaxy wide civilization?"

The green man tore his eyes away from Hermione before responding, "That would be a correct evaluation."

"With all respect Harry is due," Hermione said, "there are dozens of other magic users in the world better prepared for such a mission."

"No," Mysa disagreed. "Harry Potter is a legend. The tales of your power are told any time Sorcerers gather. You banished thousands of demons, you won a contest against competitors with decades more training than you, you defeated history's most powerful Dark Lord before you finished school, and you are the last known wielder of the Death Stick wand."

"I what?" Harry gasped.

"I think Harry's legend ended up a tiny bit inflated," Hermione suggested.

"You think?" Dennis laughed. "How did you find him here, anyway?"

Querl nodded. "As the historical records were spotty at best, we tried to use what we thought… at the time, was reliable information."

"What information was that?" Hermione asked.

Mysa spoke up. "In our time, a bulk of the magical beings in the galaxy claim to be directly descended from Harry Potter."

As one, the Granger family turned to look at Harry.

"That would be a neat trick," Harry laughed. "I've had two girlfriends, one that cried on me and one who blames me for her brother's death. Neither of them took me to their beds."

"We know this now," the White Witch responded, looking slightly sad.

Imra looked away, embarrassed. "Tracking the DNA of whom we thought was Harry Potter, we found a low-level criminal called… Mundungus Fletcher."

"Of course you did," Harry muttered.

The red eyed woman continued without looking at Harry. "We discovered that Fletcher used a potion to take on your appearance, stared into a mirror as he took another to … boost production, and then proceeded to…"

"Please don’t finish," Harry grumbled, wondering just why the universe hated him so much. Shaking his head in an ineffectual attempt to clear that image from his mind and sighed. "All of that aside, I'm really not sure that any of this is my problem."

"But…" Luornu sputtered, "the people… They're dying."

"People whose, from my perspective, great grand parents aren't even born yet," Harry pointed out. "From your perspective every single person I know has been dead for centuries. What are your plans for saving them?"

The people from the purported future had no answer for that.

"My point exactly," Harry continued. "If saving the people I know isn't a priority for you, why would saving the people you know be a priority for me?"

The five time travelers sat in silence, none of them could think of a way to respond.

"Besides," Harry continued, "If you've got Time Travel, why are you bothering with me? Why not just hop back to when your Mordru fellow is a 10 year old and kill him?"

"Time isn't a construct to be manipulated at will," Dox replied. "Events that have happened, will happen, regardless of what individuals may do. Mordru rose to power, that happened. If we were to go back to his childhood and attempt to end his life, we would fail, or someone else would become Mordru. Since none of the Legion's members are sufficiently magically powerful to fight him, we needed a magic user capable of fighting Mordru, who doesn't have a historical record to prevent his leaving his own era."

"So, I don't have a future?" Harry asked with a grin. "Why aren't I surprised?"

"Harry!" Hermione scolded. "Of course you have a future. "What kind of time are we talking about here?" Hermione asked. "If Harry and I were to agree to this, how long would we be gone?"

"No!" Querl Dox shouted shooting to his feet. "You cannot come!"

The Grangers regarded the young man with surprise. His normally expressionless face shifted to a look of embarrassment.

"I apologize," he said, retaking his seat. "Miss Granger cannot accompany us to the 31st century. Our Time Machine can only transport 6 people, the five of us and our volunteer."

"And when would Harry return?" Hermione pressed.

"We don't know," Imra admitted. "The fuel for our transport is limited, and we don't know the status of the industrial systems to create more. All of your thoughts are so very clear, perhaps it is time for a little honesty."

"Saturn Girl! No!" Querl attempted to stop her.

"Yes, Brainy," she said quietly. "Harry Potter needs to know the truth."

"Harry," she said, turning toward him. "Because of the limitations of how traveling through time works, we have to return to our own time in 22 hours. We have cut everything so close because we had not anticipated the difficulty involved in finding you. The primary reason for us seeking you out, for coming to you to help us is that on top of tales of your exploits, however exaggerated they may be, you completely vanish from the historical record tomorrow, August 5th, 1998."

"So, you take this historical footnote about me as a sign that I would join you in this adventure?" Harry asked.

"Well," she hesitated, "yes."

"Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this as a family," Dennis said. "You have given us your deadline, let us talk about it."

--== LEGION ==--

The next morning, Harry watched as Hermione vanished into apparation.

"She couldn't wait, could she?" Dennis commented over his steaming mug. "She'll always be running off to the magic users, won't she?"

"She's going to get Ron," Harry explained. "She knows me too well, so she wants Ron to back her up when telling me that I'm being stupid."

"You've decided then?" Margaret asked.

"I laid in bed thinking about it all night," Harry admitted. "And I absolutely do not want to go. It's not my problem, it's crazy that these future people thought to come and snatch someone from the past to fight their battles for them based on nothing more than nonsensical legends."

"In fairness, wouldn't you have reached out to Merlin or Godric Gryffindor to help you fight Voldemort if you could have?" Margaret asked.

"That would be completely…" Harry paused in his protest, before sighing. "Yeah, I guess that would be pretty much the same thing. But I'm no Godric Gryffindor."

"There's that legend thing again," Dennis suggested. "Perhaps Godric Gryffindor was no Harry Potter."

"Yeah, right," Harry shook his head. "But they said people were dying. Even if they're people I don't know, how can I ignore that if I can do something about it? Sure, they won't appreciate it, and no matter what I do, I'll be second guessed by people who have done nothing, but I'm not sure I could live with myself if I didn't at least try."

"I wonder which of them she will talk into staying behind so she can go with you." Dennis asked with a dark expression.

"Hermione is not coming," Harry said. Upon seeing the lack of belief in the faces of his best friend's parents, he again shook his head. "Didn't you see the way the green lad kept staring at her?"

"I did think that was a bit presumptuous of him," Dennis nodded.

"That wasn't a 'wow, check out the hot girl' leer," Harry disagreed. "That was an 'I don't believe I'm in the same room as a legend' stare. I saw that a lot the first couple of years at Hogwarts. Then, if you take into account the way he protested when she simply suggested coming along? Our Hermione has some important things in her future. Greenie knows or suspects that it's a one way trip, and Hermione is far too important to history for her to come along, while I'm just a wand waver who has no meaning to history after today."

"No meaning to history beyond your legend," Margret corrected gently.

"Yeah, beyond a collection of lies, exaggerations, and Dung Fletcher's DNA," Harry agreed.

--== LEGION ==--

"Only you, Harry," Ron laughed after the explanation was finished.

"It's not funny, Ron," Hermione scolded.

"It's a little funny," Harry admitted. "Not so much for me, but I could see myself laughing long and hard if it happened to someone else."

"The problem being that it never happens to someone else," Ron noted. "So, Hermione got me to come over to try and talk you out of going with the future people. Any chance of that working?"

"Not really," Harry admitted. "People are dying."

"People you don't know and who aren't born yet," Ron pointed out.

"Has me knowing them ever made any difference?"

"Nope," Ron nodded. "Sorry Hermione, he's going, and I envy him a bit. Fighting Space Wizards in the future sounds like a lot more fun than degnoming the garden… right up to the point that I remember how terrified I was through all the fighting and that I've got a girlfriend that sort of tolerates me now."

"That's what you call 'talking him out of it'?" Hermione huffed.

"No, that's what I call understanding Harry," Ron grinned. "And you understand him as well, if not better, than I do. After all, you're the one who first noticed his 'saving people thing'. What you wanted was for me to argue with him, for the three of us to get into a fight. That would either guilt him into not going, thereby making sure Harry felt guilty about the future people not being saved for the rest of his life, or he would go with the future people knowing we were angry with him and he'd feel guilty about disappointing us for the rest of his life."

"When did you get so smart?" she growled.

"When I got a smart girlfriend," Ron admitted. "Look, this whole 'going to the future to fight Space Wizards' thing that Harry is going to do terrifies us all. And we're going to deal with our fear the way we always do. Harry is going to deal with the fear by doing what he thinks is best, like he always does, you're going to deal with the fear by worrying about Harry, like you always do, and I'm going to deal with the fear by being hungry and whining about it, which is totally unique to this situation, and surprising to you both."

"I don't believe you," Hermione huffed again. "Either of you."

"But you love us," her boyfriend snarked. "Your mum got anything good in the kitchen? Hungry, Harry?"

"We've got leftovers," Harry admitted. "I guess I could eat."

"Leftovers?" Ron asked, following Harry into the Grangers' kitchen. "What are 'leftovers'?"

While Harry attempted to explain the concept of having food 'left over' after a meal was finished, Hermione remained in the sitting room for several moments wondering if she should be hugging both her boys or screaming at them. Her stomach growled as if offering a third option. She rose from the sofa to join her friends.

--== LEGION ==--

Ron's eyes widened as the doorway appeared from nowhere to allow the people from the future to simply walk into the Grangers' sitting room.

"Better than a Portkey, I'd wager," he said.

The new voice attracted the attention of the newcomers. "Oh, my," Mysa Nal gushed. "It's you! I don't believe it! It's really you."

Ron blinked in surprise, across the room, Harry and the Grangers stood in silent amazement.

"Have we met?" Ron asked.

"Oh, no," the White Witch gushed, "I just can't believe I'm meeting you. Your legend as a master strategist has survived to our time. The children of Zerox are raised on your legends."

"Really?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Oh, so really," the red eyed woman continued. "The legends of Roonil Wazlib are told wherever magic users gather… And I get to meet you! I never expected that."

"Roonil?" Harry and Hermione repeated while her father shook in silent laughter.

"Ah… Yes," the Querl coughed. "We have to leave soon, Harry Potter. Have you made your decision yet?"

"I have," Harry admitted, pushing the entire idea of 'Roonil' to the back of his mind. "I want nothing to do with your war; I know that whatever I do, win or lose, no one will appreciate it, and everyone will criticize my actions after the fact, totally ignoring that they did nothing to help."

The people from the future seemed to deflate at hearing that.

Not allowing anyone to protest, Harry continued, "that being said, I don't know if I could live with myself if I know I don’t do what I can to help. I've figured out that you think this is a one way trip; you only came to me because history shows I have no future. My condition for coming with you is that when it's all over, you do everything you can to return me to my own time."

"Agreed," Rokk Krinn said, stepping forward. "That would be the least we could do for you," a wry grin crossed his features, "assuming we survive."

The young man reached into his pocket and withdrew a small box which he offered to Harry. "Since you're coming with us, you'll need this."

Harry accepted the box and found it contained a golden ring with a letter 'L' on its face, along with a starburst. "A ring?"

"A Legion Flight Ring," Brainiac 5 corrected. "It will size itself to you once you put it on, and will automatically log you into our systems once we return to our time. It is a communication device, provides emergency life support, and will allow you to fly at hypersonic speeds."

Harry placed the golden ring upon the ring finger of his right hand. "You're trying to tell me that this little ring will allow me to fly?" Harry scoffed.

"Look down," the green man said with one of his rare smiles.

The citizens of the 20th century gasped when they realized that Harry was levitating several inches off the floor.

"Interesting," Rokk nodded. "You must be a natural flier. It normally takes a new legionnaire several hours to make their first flight.

"It's time to go," Brainiac 5 said.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, willing his feet back onto the floor and reaching out to pull Ron to his feet and whispered in his ear. "Take care of her, or I'll kick your arse."

"You'd best come back, wanker," Ron murmured in his ear. "If you don't, I'll name one of my kids 'Albus Severus'."

"Hermione," Harry said when she rushed into his arms. "You're going to make Roonil all jealous."

The brunette glanced over to her still laughing father, "I don't think my Dad is ever going to let that go. You had best come back!"

Margaret Granger pulled Harry into a hug, while Dennis shook his hand. "Stay safe," she implored.

Harry then moved to join the time travelers in the center of the room. "I’m ready."

The doorway opened when Mysa gestured.

"Just a moment," Querl said before approaching Hermione. He hesitated before starting, "Miss Granger, it is a tradition among Coluans of similar ages to exchange an embrace prior to taking a journey. Might I impose on you?"

The young woman was clearly confused, but stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the green man.

The hug lasted long enough that Ron stepped forward, "Oy, Greenie!"

"Hush Ron," Hermione said as she stepped back from the alien.

"Thank you, Miss Granger," Brainiac 5 said as he turned away and lead the way through the doorway.

--== LEGION ==--

Outside the Timesphere the universe swirled and twisted. The effect was both terrifying and mesmerizing. It wasn't really surprising that the view had captured the whole attention of the only person on board who had never seen it before.

"What was up with the 'Coluan tradition' you made up from whole cloth?" Imra asked in Interlac on the off chance that Harry Potter was paying attention.

"I was wondering as well," Luornu agreed.

Querl sighed and allowed a portion of his consciousness to stray from piloting the Timesphere. "A fair question. As you know, the Brainiac line is not known for allowing emotions into their lives."

"Really?" Luornu snarked. "I hadn't noticed."

"My mother, Brainiac 4, is cold and unfeeling. Her devotion to maintaining the primary arrays of the Databases of Colu is unquestioned. She feels my reaching out to other species for companionship is a defect. She herself was a disappointment to her father, Brainiac 3, who ceased functioning three centuries before I was conceived due to her excitability. Emotion has been slowly creeping into the line. This is considered a defect to be patched by my elders; I on the other hand consider it to be an asset, as long as I maintain control."

"Interesting, but it does not explain why you hugged the woman," Imra noted.

"In 2019, Brainiac, the original from Krypton, will attack the Earth and be defeated by the Justice League. The resulting body was turned over to several terran research facilities. It will be unpopulated by the Brainiac intelligence, of course, but there will still be… residue. A team working at Cern in Switzerland will receive the actual 'mind husk' of the Brainiac body, and in 2022 a researcher named Hermione Granger will successfully move the 12th level processing ability into biology through some unknown method."

"The same woman?" Luornu asked.

"Indeed. Somehow, and this is another unknown, this process made its way to Colu where it was applied to my senior ancestor Vril Dox, Brainiac 2."

"That would mean…" Imra said, her eyes going wide.

"I have witnessed familial relationships between several of our teammates and their parents, knowing that the sort of… closeness they have will always be denied to me. I never expected Hermione Granger to be associated with Harry Potter when we came to recruit him. Hermione Granger is, for all intents and purposes, my great great grandmother. Without her I would not exist. I… had to hug her to say goodbye."

"That," Luornu said, "quite possibly the saddest thing I've ever heard."

"I must admit that I find the concept that she might have utilized something as chaotic as magic to bring about my line to be oddly disturbing." Querl said as he returned his full attention to piloting the Timesphere.

--== LEGION ==--

Legion
Reaction

Chapter 2. Reaction

Stepping out of the spherical time machine, Harry stopped short when he found himself in the middle of a field of ecstasy. It was like walking into Hogwarts… but more so.

"Something wrong, Harry?" Mysa asked when she followed him from the Timesphere.

"You're a magic user, right?" Harry asked.

"A minor talent," she agreed.

"There is so much magic here, is it always like this?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what you mean," the White Witch said hesitantly.

Harry looked around the large room the two of them were in, and extended his arms. "It's like being in Hogwarts, but so much more. Just so much magic, I can almost taste it."

"Harry?" Imra asked from the door way, "are you coming? I need to get your basic Interlac lesson laid down."

"Yeah," Harry nodding as he headed for the door, trying to concentrate through the haze of perfection he felt. "Lessons. Why not?"

Mysa remained where she was, while wondering what it was the Legend of Magic was feeling where she felt nothing.

This, she decided, bore study.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry followed the blond into a dimly lit room.

"This is where I will teach you to speak Interlac," Imra said quietly.

"It will be," Querl interrupted. "But not now. First we need to deal with your medical problems, Harry Potter."

"What medical problems?" Harry asked.

"You are a walking disease factory," the green man explained. "A disease factory that is susceptible to every modern human disease in existence. It's nothing personal Potter, all living things are disease factories."

"Excuse me?" Harry demanded.

"The green man waved a device around Harry's body while continuing to explain. "You are a thousand years out of sync with the local herd immunity. That means that minor diseases that would cause an average human minor discomfort could quite possibly kill you, and you are carrying a full load of the common pathogens of your time, none of which are causing you any discomfort, but any of which might be toxic to the general population."

Harry followed the green man into the next room while trying to understand what he was being told.

"Disrobe, and stand on the foot pads on the floor," Brainiac 5 directed, pointing to the place Harry was to stand. "Then follow the directions of the computer. Decontamination of your dermis will take approximately 7 minutes."

"Is this really necessary?" Harry asked.

"Consider that the average generational period of the flora in your gut is 20 minutes," the green man sighed. "That means in the 1,018 years that have passed there has been just short of 28 million generations in the modern human's gut flora. What is now digesting food in your average human likely has only the slightest relationship to that which is in your own digestive system."

Harry blinked at him and the green man sighed. "Yes, it is necessary. Stand on the marks and follow the computer's directions."

--== LEGION ==--

"Is this really necessary? You've never done this for any of our previous visitors," Imra noted when Querl joined her at the monitoring console.

"The bulk of our previous visitors from the past have been Kryptonian, Kryptonian hybrids, and Daxamites," He noted. "I couldn't begin to go about decontaminating them. Potter, however, is human. Better safe than sorry."

"What is that?" Imra asked nodding toward a beige cube the size of a man's fist that appeared on the console next to Querl's right hand.

"A prototype default Legion uniform," the green man explained.

"With everything that has been going on, you found time to make a uniform?"

"Life can't be all work," Querl sniffed. "Besides we need to get him out of those animal skins he's wearing."

"Brainy," Imra laughed, "you're terrible."

--== LEGION ==--

"Well," Harry said when Brainiac 5 reentered the room, "that was refreshingly invasive. I think your machine needs to buy me dinner."

"An allusion toward sex?" the green man asked.

"A bad one," Harry agreed.

"Well done, my sides are splitting with laughter," Querl said dryly. "Here."

Harry examined the beige cube he had been handed. "What is this?"

"Clothing. Place it against the center of your chest and press on it with approximately one Newton of force."

"What?" Harry asked.

"Push it into your chest," Querl sighed.

Harry did as he was directed, while wondering just how much force was in a 'Newton'. The cube seemed to compress for a moment before it jellified and spread over his body, forming a full body suit, complete with integrated boots and gloves.

"Okay," Harry nodded, "That was seriously cool."

"The current appearance is the default setting," Querl explained. "To change the appearance, simply concentrate on what you would like it to look like and your Flight Ring will interface with the nanites in the smartfabric to make the changes."

Wondering what nanites might be, Harry lifted his right hand and made a fist, watching the fabric move with him. Interesting, but odd. "Is there supposed to be this much dust coming from it?"

"What?" Querl asked as he turned his attention from his instrumentation back to Harry. His eyes widened and the green man produced a small device from a pouch on his belt and moved it over Harry's body.

"The nanites," he breathed, "they're… burning out."

Large patches of the body suit began to flake away. "I'm guessing this isn't going right?" Harry asked.

"It is not," Querl agreed, scooping a sample of the dying smartfabric still clinging to Harry's body into a small container, and then knelt to do the same with the material that was laying on the floor. "Back into the shower to remove the residue, then get dressed in your old clothing, Imra will be waiting to facilitate your language upgrade while I find out what happened with the nanites."

"Lovely," Harry said, shaking his head as he steeled himself for another 'date' with the decontamination shower.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry lay on what was quite possibly the most comfortable couch he had ever encountered with Imra seated behind him, her long fingers pressing on either side of his face when he suddenly realized he was thinking in another language.

~ Yes, you are, ~ Imra's voice said in his head in that same language. ~ Don't worry Harry, I'm being careful to avoid your memories, your secrets remain your own. ~

"Good to know," he said. "I've encountered people who could see into other people's minds before, but your method is different."

~ Concentrate on the experience with those people, please? ~

Harry did so, recalling Snape's hammering at his mind, Voldemort's intrusions, and the multiple instances in Dumbledore's presence that Harry suspected the old man had touched his memories.

~ Whatever they were doing appears to be an aspect of magic, ~ Imra noted.

"And what you're doing is not?" Harry asked as a whole new vocabulary suddenly appeared in his mind.

~ I am from the planet Titan, a world orbiting Saturn. ~

"Yeah?" Harry asked, no longer in English.

~ We were originally an Earth Colony established one hundred and seventy six years after we picked you up. Later we became an independent world. My ancestors, starting with the first generation born under the domes started exhibiting a high level of telepathy. With each generation it became stronger, until verbal speech all but died out among us. ~

"Really?" Harry asked, intrigued by the idea of a culture that didn't speak.

~ I never learned to speak until I was 16 standard years old, ~ Imra said, laughter clear in her thoughts. ~ That was the day we formed the Legion. ~

With new concepts and experiences entered his mind, Harry found himself desperate to find one thing to concentrate on so that he didn't drown in the information flood. "Tell me about it."

~ It's not much of a story, really. ~ Imra laughed. ~ I was travelling to Earth on an in system liner to start a job as a translator for R J Brande. Interlac is supposed to be a single common language, but with thousands of worlds and hundreds of species, local idiosyncrasieshave crept in over the centuries. Mr. Brande was on the flight, returning from a tour of his properties and was conducting interviews to save time. I 'overheard' plans for kidnapping Mr. Brande, and moved to stop it. Rokk was also on the flight, along with Garth Ranzz who you haven't met yet. The three of us prevented the kidnapping. ~

"So, the three of you are mindreaders?"

~ No, just me, ~ Imra admitted. ~ Rokk is from Braal, a world where the people can control magnetism, and Garth is from Winath, a farming world where a freak accident gave Garth, his twin sister and their older brother electrical powers. Between the three of us, we defeated the criminals who had over powered Mr. Brande's security people. ~

"Huh," Harry grunted when a particularly large amount of information… history this time, suddenly appeared in his memory. "So, that's when you got together?"

~ Well, not at first, ~ Imra admitted. ~ But that was when I realized how uncomfortable my not speaking aloud made people, so I set about learning how. Enunciation was harder than I expected. A few days later, Mr. Brande came to us with a plan. He wanted us to emulate the famous heroes of the past like Superboy. ~

"Superman," Harry corrected.

~ Yes, we know that now, but the legends had become so mangled that everyone believed he started his career as a hero at 12 rather than 28. So we were to emulate his example and bring hope to the people… ~

"So, even after that, you still believed the half-baked stories about me?" Harry grinned.

Something cold pressed against Harry's neck and hissed. Harry slapped his left hand over the location and sat up in shock.

"What the hell?"

"Brainiac 5," Imra scolded verbally, "What did you do?"

"After seeing how the clothing nanites reacted to Potter's body, I ran sims on how the medical nanites would react. Short version, they would not," Querl answered. "That left biological immunization as the only viable option. Also, it should fix your eyes."

"A bit of a warning would be nice," Harry spat, still rubbing the injection site, and blinking at the clarity of the world now that he had taken off his glasses.

The green man took hold of Harry's arm and pressed another device against it. This one hissed as well, but unlike the other it immediately began to smoke. Harry's eyebrows rose to his hairline and he immediately slapped the device out of Querl's hand.

"Never take my blood," Harry shouted. "Not only is it rude, it's borderline suicidal."

Querl was kneeling down and had another device humming over the smoking slag that had been his Auto-syringe. He looked over the readings before looking up at Harry incredulously. "Your blood is the most caustic material I've ever encountered. How is it you're alive?"

"I was bitten by a basilisk when I was 12 years old," Harry explained. "A phoenix cried into the wound, saving my life."

"Basilisks and phoenix?" Querl sniffed. "You're entitled to your secrets, Potter, there is no reason for you to lie to me."

The wizard grinned widely, "just to be clear, you came to me because of my ability to be magic, but you know I'm lying to you when I tell you about magical creatures? Okay, fine. The truth is, my blood is the most caustic substance you've ever encountered because of all the garlic I eat."

"Garlic?" Querl

"I love me some Italian food," Harry nodded.

"Fine," the green man said throwing his hands into the air. "Imaginary creatures are real. I had the fabrication system produce a standard uniform for you."

"What's wrong with my own clothing?" Harry asked.

"What was wrong with the clothing of people from a thousand years before your time?" Querl asked logically. "Get dressed and we'll introduce you to everyone."

--== LEGION ==--

"Hi, Harry," Luornu Durgo said as Harry followed Imra out into the large room where the Legionnaires were congregating.

"Hello, Lournu," Harry responded taking a seat across from the girl. "So, what do you do?"

She looked at him curiously, so Harry continued. "Brainiac 5 is a living computer, Imra is a mind reader, Rokk is a living magnet, Mysa uses magic, and some guy named Garth is a living source of electricity. This Legion of yours is a collection of people with talents, so what is yours?"

The brunette smiled, and then appeared to concentrate for a moment. Suddenly, there were three of her sitting on the sofa.

"Whoa!" Harry said, sitting up straight. "That's cool."

"It has its moments," the Lournu in the middle said with a grin.

"So, do you share your mind with three bodies? That must be confusing."

"Oh, no, quite the opposite, actually," the Luornu on the left said with a grin. "Each of my selves are individuals. That's what got us ostracized on Cargg."

"I don't understand," Harry admitted.

"The people of Cargg can all split into three individual bodies, but culturally, synchronicity is valued over all other things. All of the bodies are expected to be the same, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Some of us… aren't."

"And you were abused for being different?" Harry asked, starting to feel a certain kinship with the girl… girls?

"More than a bit," the Lournu on the right nodded. "We escaped from the asylum and stowed away on one of Mr. Brande's ships. When we were caught, rather than being handed back to the Cargg government, he gave us a job. When he formed the Legion, We were the first volunteer after Imra, Rokk and Garth."

"I can identify with being abused for being different," Harry nodded.

"Really?" Center Lournu asked. "They did that on old Terra?"

"Where is he?" A new voice drew the attention of everyone in the room. Harry turned his attention to the new speaker, a redheaded man looking about the room until he locked eyes with Harry.

"You!" the redhead shouted. "What the hell are you still doing here?"

"Garth, no!" Imra added her own voice to the discussion.

"What are you talking about?" Harry demanded, rising to his feet.

"You were brought here to deal with Mordru, not make eyes at Lournu," the redhead sneered. "Get your fossilized ass out there and do your fucking job."

Harry blinked at that. His anger spiked when he realized that this wally from the future was trying to treat him exactly the same way the vast bulk of the Magical world had.

"My job?" he demanded, not noticing that he had shifted back to speaking English in his anger. "You fucking fuckers came to me, asked me to come to deal with a problem that wasn't mine. None of this is my responsibility; none of this is 'my job'."

Garth never said a word, but electricity started arcing over his body. This display of power made Harry even angrier.

"You know what?" He continued, still in English. "Fuck You."

The assembled remains of the once mighty Legion of Superheroes could only gape when the man from the past vanished.

"Damn you, Garth," Rokk spat. "He was our only way of fighting Mordru, you couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?"

"Mysa," a now single Lournu spoke up, "can you follow him? Can you find him?"

"He couldn't do what he just did," the White Witch gasped, still staring at the place Harry Potter had vanished from. "No one can do that. He disapparated. That's a lost skill; no one has the power to do it any more, not for centuries."

"So, you can't follow him?" Querl pressed.

"I don't think anyone could," she admitted, "not even Mordru."

"Well, that's something, I suppose," Rokk sighed before turning back to Garth. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"They've got Alya," the redhead said slumping onto one of the chairs. "She's been assimilated, and is leading a squad searching for people with powers. Do you know what it's like to face off against your own sister like that? Then I found out you got someone to fight Mordru, and he was just sitting here, doing nothing."

"I just taught him Interlac less than half an hour ago," Imra sighed. "We didn't even have a plan yet. Brainy still doesn't have a plan yet, and he's always got plans. I love you Garth, but I swear if you ever treat someone like that again, I will wipe your mind back to infancy and start over."

"If you taught him Interlac, what was that he was babbling?"

"You got him upset to the point that he no longer concentrated on his words, Garth," Imra explained. "He defaulted back to his milktongue. Let's just say he wasn't being complimentary."

--== LEGION ==--

Harry appeared in front of the gates of Hogwarts at twilight.

That was odd, he thought, so much for the three D's. He had only wanted to be away from the electrical loonie. He had disapparated with no destination in mind, and while he had certainly been determined, he had most certainly not been deliberate.

Still, Hogwarts was as good a place as any. After a quick check showed that he hadn't managed to splinch himself in his uncontrolled disapparation, Harry approached the gates, hoping to signal someone inside.

Only to have the gates open to him.

No sign of anyone, the gates just opened. That wasn't ominous at all. Still, lacking anywhere else to go, Harry started up the path that led to the castle.

It was the quiet that got to him. In all the times he had been to Hogwarts, it had never been quiet. There was always something going on. The laughter and chaos of students, the sounds of the lake, animal calls from the Forbidden Forest. Today, however, there was nothing. Following the path, the castle came into view, causing Harry to stop and swallow noisily. The lights weren't on. Harry had never seen the school darkened like that, not even in the aftermath of the battle of Hogwarts when so much of the old place had been destroyed.

Suddenly the reality of what Mysa had told him came crashing home. Was he really the only wizard left on Earth?

Harry swallowed and closed his eyes to banish that thought. After finding his center, he opened his eyes and pressed on, trying not to think about the fact that he had no idea how he was going to get into the castle.

It turned out that he hadn't needed to worry. Just like the gates, the doors opened on their own as he climbed the stairs. Still, there was no evidence of anyone being in residence. The Entry hall, what he could see of it anyway, seemingly unchanged from the last time he saw it.

Harry located his holly and phoenix feather wand in the grey uniform's right thigh pocket and cast Lumos, the first magic he had used since arriving in the future.

And was almost blinded by the flare that erupted from the tip of his wand. A quick "Nox" extinguished the Lumos. Harry settled down to sit on the stone steps in front of the open door, blinking in an attempt to clear his vision.

The problem, he decided, must be the level of magic that he had been swimming in since he came out of the time machine. If witches and wizards weren't using it, would the world's magic… overflow? Were all of his spells going to be so absurdly over powered?

No, he decided. Something to worry about later. Harry turned to peer into the darkness of the castle's entry hall. He couldn't use Lumos, at least not until he managed to learn to crank down the intensity, and heading into the darkness of the castle without some method of seeing where he was going seemed ill advised.

After thinking for a moment, he rose from the steps, and returned to the grounds, searching in the darkening twilight for anything the right size. He came upon a rock, perhaps the size of his fist. Swishing his wand about Harry transfigured the rock into a cup with a long handle emerging from the bottom. Into the cup, he cast Hermione's favorite light source, the Bluebell flames.

The blue flames flared, far brighter than they normally would be, but not with the painful intensity of his Lumos. Holding his new lamp like the torch it appeared to be, he entered the castle he knew so well.

--== LEGION ==--

Searching the castle was more than a little bit depressing. All the rooms were still furnished, and quite a bit of it appeared to be the same pieces he had known and used. The walls were still adorned with portraits and tapestries, but they were all inert, with no sign of life or movement.

Harry had travelled to all four dormitories, none showing any sign habitation in years. The door to the Room of Requirements refused to appear, no matter how many times he walked past it, or how much he needed it to appear.

Every other door opened without his having to touch it when he approached, even doors that had always been locked before. The kitchen was empty, the Great Hall deserted, all of the classrooms vacant, and the library completely empty of books.

This was a common feature of his wanderings. No book, no charts, no preserved specimen, though the furniture was, for the most part still there.

Harry's wanderings finally brought him to the Headmaster's office. Like every other door he had encountered since entering the grounds the door opened at his approach with the stone gargoyle moving aside. Unlike the other stairs in the castle, the magical escalator leading to the office started moving as soon as he stepped on it.

His paranoia peaked at this. Harry slide the Holly and Phoenix feather wand back into the thigh pocket it had come from and pulled the Elder wand from the thigh pocket on his left leg. If this was some sort of trap, he was going to try to give as good as he got.

The stairs stopped moving and the door to the Headmaster's office opened, light from the interior of the room shining out in stark contrast to the darkness of the rest of the castle.

"Come in," a voice called from inside the office. "I was wondering if you were ever going to visit me."

No, not ominous at all, Harry reflected, extinguishing the bluebell flames and setting his transfigured torch down on the landing.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry entered the Headmaster's office hesitantly, keeping the Elder wand pointed downward, but ready to raise it if needed.

Unlike the rest of the castle, this one room was so very different than the version he remembered. Only the desk was familiar. The various silver charms that had Dumbledore had always had around the room were gone, and walls were bare, the books and headmaster portraits were nowhere to be seen, except for a single portrait.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," the man in the frame said. "Allow me to introduce myself. Augustus Lamont, the final Headmaster of this wonderful pile of stones."

"Hello," Harry nodded, his eyes sweeping the room, trying to take in all the changes.

"You offer a bit of a puzzle," the portrait said. "While being the first visitor in almost four hundred years, your path through the castle indicates that you have been here before. Might I ask your name?"

"Harry Potter."

The painted man's eyes widened, "Are you really? THE Harry Potter? Well, what do you know, the House Elves were right. Are you here to wreck bloody vengeance?"

Harry blinked at the absurdity of the question before shaking his head. "I'm here to deal with a new Dark Lord," Harry admitted. "At least I will be if I'm convinced the people who brought me here aren't as bad as this Mordru fellow."

"Mordru?" Lamont asked. "Never heard of him, but like I said, no one has visited in four hundred years, I'm not really up on current affairs. What brings you to Hogwarts?"

"Coming here was more accident than anything else," Harry admitted. "I got angry with my… associates and just wanted out of their presence. I guess you could say that it was my second unintentional disapparation. Forgive my curiosity, but all the other portraits in the school were dormant, how is it you are still active?"

"You'll notice the gems in each corner of my frame? They are charmed to pull magic from the ley lines that power the castle's wards. I developed the technique at the end of my life and never had a chance to extend its use to the other portraits," the man shrugged. "I was terrified of dying and leaving nothing behind. A century after the exodus, I was the last Wizard on Earth."

"I've heard bits and pieces about how the Witches and Wizards left Earth for somewhere out there," Harry said gesturing toward the sky. "Could you tell me about it?"

"Hmm," the man in the painting mused, regarding Harry suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not here to wreck bloody revenge?"

"What would I possibly want vengeance for?" Harry asked reasonably. "The wizards I fought have all been dead for a thousand years."

"Perfectly logical," Lamont nodded, "but the Elves were so certain. Oh, very well, the problem was, you see, magic itself was dying."

"How could magic be dying?" Harry asked.

"Well, not dying, per se," Lamont shrugged, "more like it was… spreading thin. By the time I had become the Headmaster Hogwarts had record attendance, we had more than four thousand students in classes. Globally, the magical population reached an estimated 250 million. It was theorized that the planet had a set amount of magic, and that each user got a slice, so to speak. As the pie was sliced thinner and thinner, more magic intensive spells became impossible to do. You mentioned disapparation, for example, it was a lost art in my childhood, with the last successful attempt being made a generation prior to my birth. We found other, less efficient, but less magic intensive methods of travel, but the knowledge that something so… effective was lost to us was a hard potion to swallow."

Harry frowned while considering what he had been told, "I'm not sure that makes sense. I mean, there were times when I ended up needing to cast until I exhausted myself, but the magic was still readily available to others. Unless this theory has an explanation for how an individual's magic would be so completely tied to his slice of the pie to the exclusion of all others, I don't think it adds up."

The painted man paused for a moment and reached for a painted flagon of some steaming drink, and took a long pull. "You make a good point," he nodded. "One that I had never considered before. There were other theories for what was happening, of course, the too many people for the available magic being only one. There were even crackpot claims, like those who said that it was a natural progression of magic, since previous generations were always more powerful than the current, and one particularly absurd claim that the Earth was somehow sentient and had judged the wizards to be unworthy of magic."

Lamont rubbed his painted eyes in thought for a moment then continued, "A Muggleborn who had left the magical enclave he had grown up in for the larger universe returned with tales of a new world the Muggles had found in their exploration of the galaxy. They called it Zerox, and he told tales of just how much magic that world held. Inside of a generation almost every Wizard and Witch on Earth had left for this new promised land, one free of Muggles by treaty and contract, and one that promised almost unlimited power."

"That sounds like something most of the witches and wizards I've known would long for," Harry said sadly.

"Zerox wasn't without its problems," Lamont nodded. "For the longest time the new residents could only access the tiniest bit of magic, despite their being able to feel it everywhere. Then children born there surpassed their parents, and the next generation theirs, suggesting that there was something about the planet that most people had to adjust too. Then, there was the problem with wands."

"Wands?"

"Yes, it seemed that the wood of Zerox wouldn't work in a wand, and there were no magical creatures for the cores," Lamont explained. "For a while, there was a bit of trade between the few of us who remained and Zerox for wand making materials, then they discovered some method of using the local materials, and that cut the last tie they had to old Earth."

"Are you glad you stayed?" Harry asked.

"I was, I am," the painted man nodded. "My ambition had always been to be the Hogwarts Headmaster, and I had achieved it. When everyone was leaving, I found I couldn't leave the only thing I had ever wanted, so I stayed, and so did a few thousand others, mostly ancient survivors like me. Slowly we died out, with me being the last of us on Earth."

"But what about the Muggleborn?" Harry asked. "What prevented them from continuing to appear after the exodus?"

"The leading theory is that the cause of the spontaneous emergence of Muggleborn magic users came from the mass of magic users around them," Lamont explained. "When the Wizards and Witches left, there was no longer the trigger that caused the Muggleborn to emerge. Without the mass of magic users, the Muggleborn that had left for the larger world stopped having magical children."

"I haven't spoken this much in at least a century," Lamont grinned, taking another pull from his flagon. "Would you mind explaining your apparent youth?"

"Time travel," Harry explained simply.

"But that cannot be," Lamont insisted. "All research into temporal displacement is very clear in that one can only move backwards in time."

"I've been told that," Harry nodded, recalling all the reasons Hermione said he couldn't go. "But no one told the Muggles, so they managed it with their technology." A small grin formed on his face as Harry continued. "It might well be correct that I couldn't move forward in time, but I circumvented that restriction by hitching a ride with someone who had travelled back in time when they returned to their 'present'.

The man in the painting's mouth worked with no sound coming out for several seconds. "You know, that reasoning never occurred to me. So, what do you think of the world now? How has it changed since my day?"

"No idea," Harry admitted. "So far, I've seen a few rooms in a building and Hogwarts, then you have to factor in that I also have no idea what the world was like when you were alive."

"Ah," Lamont nodded. "Excellent points, both.

"Okay," Harry said nodding slowly. "You've explained the Exodus, now what was that about the House Elves?"

"History is vague on the topic, but from what I've been able to uncover, not long after you disappeared, an elf who worked at Hogwarts as an employee rather than a slave began to tell stories of your adventures and how someday you would return to free them all and avenge the way they had been treated. Quite a religion grew from it. By the time I was a boy, all elf work would stop at 2pm every Wednesday for an hour so that elves everywhere could congregate at #12 Grimauld Place in London for services. No one knows why they chose that place, but every Wednesday, the every elf in the world would show up and pray."

Harry felt his blood go cold. "#12 Grimauld Place?" He asked wondering when the horrible house had been rebuilt. "What were they praying for?"

"For your return, mostly," Lamont explained. "The services were frequently studied by Wizards. The Elves didn't care if their services were observed, but if anyone attempted to break up the services… Let's just say that no one ever tried twice."

"Did the elves leave for space with the Witches and Wizards, or are they still here?"

"They didn't go to Zerox, no," Lamont shook his head. "The leaders among the Elves declared their fellows free, due to the agreement of servitude lasting until the end of the Earth. They claimed that since Wizards were leaving the Earth, the agreement was void. By this time, your average wizard could not hope to win against an elf given how depleted their magic was, so the Wizarding population left for their new home alone. The Goblins dug their caverns deeper and abandoned the surface completely. The Centaurs had already left the Earth a century before. The elves just disappeared. Not all of them, of course. Three elder elves remained at Hogwarts to care for the place because, like me, they had devoted their lives to the Castle. By the time I was dying, it was just me and Toppie, she cared for me in my final days, and then waited with me until I woke in my frame before going her own way."

"I… see," Harry said, the enormity of the history lesson washing over him. Everything he had ever known was utterly gone… Other than the castle itself.

"Can you satisfy an old man's curiosity on another topic?" Lamont asked, almost pleading.

"I'll try," Harry responded.

"The stories told of you said that you followed the master strategist Roonil Wazlib on his adventures," Lamont's eyes shown in the room's light, "can you tell me about him and his exploits? Did he come with you? Do you think he might sign my copy of his Chocolate Frog Card?"

With all his might, Harry resisted the urge to facepalm.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry and Hogwarts' final Headmaster talked into the night, until the stress of the day finally had Harry falling asleep due to exhaustion. Lamont sent him on his way, inviting him to spend the night in his old dormitory.

Harry accepted the offer, and promising to return as soon as he could before leaving the Headmaster's office for the Gryffindor Dormitory.

The door opened as he approached, Harry entered the Gryffindor common room for the second time that day and contemplated climbing the stairs to his old dorm before changing his mind, and clearing the dust from the common room with a cleaning charm.

Harry lay on one of the sofas and extinguished his bluebell flames, plunging himself into deep darkness.

Sleep came quickly.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry woke to hunger. Headmaster Lamont had apologized for not being able to offer food the night before, but Harry's time with his loving family as well as the horcrux hunt that had turned into an endless camping trip had ensured that mere hunger was not an obstacle to his life.

Oddly, despite having no lights outside the Headmaster's office, the castle's plumbing still worked. Harry luxuriated in the hot water of the shower before cleaning his clothing with a charm and dressing for his day.

He paused at the castle's door wondering if he should stop and speak with the portrait. The painted man obviously hungered for interaction, and Harry suspected that if he were to go to the Headmaster's Office, he would be unlikely to escape.

Stepping out into the sunlight, he decided that he would return when he could, but for now, he needed to know what, if anything, this future time had to fight for.

He needed to see the world. Or at least part of it.

If he was going to disapparate, purposefully anyway, he needed to know where he was going. Outside of Hogwarts that left few possibilities, the Dursley home and #12 Grimauld Place primary among them.

But after a thousand years, would those places even be recognizable? He looked at his right hand where the Legion Flight Ring rested. Perhaps an approach from above was suggested.

With a thought he lifted from the ground, shooting upward at speeds his Firebolt would have had trouble matching.

Ring based flight was amazing. The experience proved to Harry that he had never truly flown before. In an instance he felt like his eleven year old self had on his first flight, but without the restrictions that holding a broom between his legs had always required. Somehow, his altitude, direction and speed of flight was projected into his eyes, not interfering with his vision, but noticeable none the less.

He pushed upwards until he reached an altitude of a thousand meters, then concentrating on Privet Drive, disappeared.

--== LEGION ==--

Only to reappear high above the middle of a massive motorway, with towering buildings on either side. The buildings extended upwards into the clouds and as far as he could see the length of the motorway. Evidently Little Whinging had changed a bit in the last thousand years.

Odd that the motorway was so… empty. Twelve lanes stretching to the horizon in both directions and not a single vehicle on any of them.

Harry had almost decided to go higher to see just how tall these buildings were, when he noticed a pair of young children in one of the many windows of the nearest of the towering structures. The two young boys were waving wildly at him. Harry pulled himself into a hover and waved back.

A woman appeared behind the children, their mother, perhaps. The woman's eyes went wide in fear upon seeing him, and moved the children away from the window.

She was frightened of him? The shock of that realization slowed his reaction when a banisher hit him from the side.

--== LEGION ==--

The spell that hit him certainly hurt, but it still seemed to be somewhat weak in comparison with those he had felt before. Gathering himself, he rotated in the air to face the pair of witches on broomsticks approaching him at a moderate speed.

"I hit him," the redhead in the lead said. "I know I hit him, how is he still flying?"

"Maybe you missed," her brunette partner suggested.

"No," Harry corrected her, "She hit me. I was hit by better banishing charms when I was 12, but she hit me. The question is, what am I going to do to you two for casting offensive magic at me?"

The pair both raised their wands to cast, but slowly, as if they were unsure what they should do.

"Incarcerous!" Harry cast, beating them to the punch. Thick ropes from the Elder wand bound the pair together, far thicker than any he had created before, so much thicker that the brooms they were riding could no longer support their combined weights.

Following them as they slowly lost altitude, Harry swooped in closer to snatch the wands from their hands, before landing to await their slow descent.

"You're a wizard," the redhead said after the mass of ropes from Harry's overpowered Incarcerous pulled her to the ground.

"I am," Harry admitted, still examining the wands he had taken from them. They weren't made of wood. Rather the material used appeared to be some sort of plastic.

"But why would you do this to us?" the brunette asked.

"I was minding my own business, wondering why the locals were all terrified of me, and you attacked me without warning or provocation," Harry pointed out, "and you're asking why I responded?"

A foul look was all the response Harry got from the pair.

"Fine," he sighed. "You're going to take me to your leader."

"We'd die first!" the brunette declared.

"Alright then," Harry laughed. "It looks like the locals are coming out to see what's going on. I'll leave you to it then."

"You're going to leave us tied up, at the mercies of these animals?" the redhead asked plaintively.

"That's the plan," Harry nodded, whipping one of the plastic wands about and getting a single shower of golden sparks before the wand core burned out, causing the wand to slag.

The brunette's eyes widened in horror. "My wand!" she shrieked, "you destroyed it."

"Pitiful little thing," Harry remarked, looking at the burned out wand before tossing it over his shoulder. "A hint for your wand makers. Wood. Wood is good, plastic not so much."

"That wand has been in my family for centuries!"

"Well, I guess the lesson is don't pick fights with people you can't beat," Harry pointed out as he extracted the witches' broomsticks from the knot of ropes and began examining them. Again, plastic. Weird. He laid one of the broomsticks on the ground and upon standing up again, held his hand over the odd device and said "Up."

The satisfying smack of the plastic broom against his hand immediately followed.

"No one damages a Potter Family wand!" the redhead sneered. "Our cousin will destroy you for this insult."

Harry's attention shifted from the broom to the two young women. "Say that again."

"Our cousin will destroy…" the brunette shrieked through her tears.

"Not that," Harry interrupted, "what family did you say?"

"We're Potters," the redhead said, "not that the name would mean anything to someone like you."

"You might be surprised," Harry said. "I want to talk to your cousin; he's your leader, right?"

--== LEGION ==--

"Incarcerous," Harry cast at the wizard who stood behind the door that opened to the redhead's touch. "Keep moving," he said to his two captives as they stepped over the man struggling in his bindings.

A witch and two wizards fell to Petrificus Totalus spells. The fourth person in the room, a witch cast a stunner at Harry, who batted the spell aside and returned one of his own, dropping the woman to the floor.

"Is that everyone?" Harry asked his two prisoners.

The brunette glared at him, but her redheaded relative shook her head. "Marcus is probably in his office," she said nodding toward the closed door. "He takes Muggle women in there… to question them."

"Does he now?" Harry asked. "Would you two hold hands for a moment?"

The pair of witches exchanged a confused look before taking each other's hand. Harry applied a sticking charm to them, and then attached both of their free hands to the wall.

"You two hang out okay?" Harry said before turning to face the doorway that slid open to allow an orange curse to pass through. Harry batted the curse away with the Elder wand. A large man holding a struggling woman as a shield appeared in the doorway.

"Who are you?" the newcomer demanded.

"I'm the lad who's going to end you," Harry explained helpfully.

"Marcus, he made us bring him here," the redhead pleaded.

"I'll be dealing with you later, Modesty," Marcus sneered. "How is it that Earth has a Wizard?"

"Born here," Harry responded, wondering if he should be hamming it up with Tom Riddle style boasts and pretention. He noticed that the woman's mouth was working with no sound coming out, suggesting that she had been silenced. He also made note of her torn clothing and her panicked expression. "And I suppose you're another 'Potter'?"

"Marcus Lyndon Potter," the wizard responded, "33rd in a direct male line from Harry Potter himself."

"Yeah, sure you are, and a bit of a rapist as well, I see," Harry noted.

"You're powerful," Marcus pointed out, "I could clearly see that in the monitoring charms, but you're nothing compared to our Lord Mordru."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry sighed. "I've heard that before about another wally with delusions of godhood. Let the woman go and we'll discuss this like adults."

"DIE!"

Harry sidestepped the curse he didn't recognize before responding with a piercing hex. The shaft of magic shot from the Elder wand to the man's left eye, exploding out the back of his head. Rushing forward, Harry caught the woman before Marcus' dead weight could pull her down with him. Her eyes wide and panicked, Harry murmured the sleeping charm and she slumped in his arms.

Harry lowered Marcus' victim onto the table near the wall after casting cushioning charms on its surface. He then turned to face the magic users in the room.

"Well, I've killed the rapist," he said quietly meeting each of their eyes, "what should I do with you lot?"

The redhead- Modesty if Harry recalled correctly - opened her mouth but harry interrupted her with a wave of his hand.

"Before we get to that I'd like to ask your boss a few questions." Harry said as he pulled a ring from his pocket and twirled it a few times in his hand.

Any idle thoughts the captives had of resistance fled.

--== LEGION ==--

Harry reappeared at the spot he had disappeared from the day before to find alarms blaring, lights flashing and the collection of heroes who were known as the Legion focusing their powers at him. No one was actually using their powers… yet, but the potential for pain was only a fraction of a second away.

"I'm back," he announced redundantly. "Everyone calm down. Who is in charge here, anyway?"

"It's him," Imra confirmed. "Everyone stand down. Brainiac 5 is our current leader, Harry."

"Where the hell did you go?" Garth Ranzz demanded.

Harry turned to stare at the redhead. "I'm not talking to you. I've had a bad enough day without having to deal with someone like you. Fuck off."

"What did you do, Harry?" Lournu asked.

"I gave the Wizards on Earth 24 hours to get the hell off the planet," Harry sighed, his anger fading. "I had to explain the facts of life to the contingent in London, but they know I'm serious and that they don't have the ability to fight me."

"How did you convince them to leave?" Brainiac 5 asked.

"I immobilized the entire London coven, found their leader in the middle of a rape, and killed him when he wouldn't surrender. Evidently he was supposedly able of fighting any five of them at once and the way I finished him frightened the rest of them enough to be willing to face that Mordru bloke."

Silence filled the room. "You killed him?" Imra asked.

"Yes," Harry admitted. "He was using his victim as a shield and trying to kill me. He really didn't give me much of a choice."

"This is unfortunate," Braniac 5 said. "The Science Police will have to be notified."

"They have been," Harry said. "The London Police were doing the best they could while staying out of sight of the wizards. While they were deliriously happy that I had chased the London coven out of the city, they weren't terribly happy to allow me to leave after they found out I was a magic user, but the rape victim told them what happened and convinced them that I was one of the good guys."

"You killed someone," Garth pointed out. "You can never be in the Legion."

"Oh, no," Harry said sarcastically. "I can't join a club I've never wanted to join. How will I go on? Fuck you, again."

"Harry Potter," Querl said quietly, "Are you willing to work with us?"

"As long as it's with you and not for you, I'm fine with it," Harry said. "I saw what my fellow magic users were doing in London and I was told about what they've done in the rest of the world. And they're doing it in my name. They honestly believe they are my direct descendants."

"All of them?" Mysa asked.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "They were promised Earth as a place that the Potter family would rule for Mordru. All 270 of the Wizards on Earth claim to be Potters. I've frightened them enough to run home."

"Aren't they more frightened by what Mordru will do to them when they return to Zerox?" Imra asked.

"No. Evidently Mordru has a strict rule regarding the treatment of witches and wizards. They expect to have their magic bound for some amount of time, or at worst to be transfigured into some kind of animal as punishment for their failure here," Harry explained. "My killing and interrogation of the leader of the London coven shook them to their cores. They honestly never believed that they might be treated in such a manner. You lot evidently fight very civilized wars."

"I thought you said you killed the leader in a fight, now you're admitting to interrogating him first." Garth crowed. "I'm taking you in!"

"The interrogation was postmortem." Harry said flatly.

The assembled Legionnaires began an uncomfortable silence while considering his words. After several minutes Harry broke the silence.

"So, you're the leader Brainiac, what's our next move?"

"With the fall of EarthGov, we are currently and extra-governmental militia. I never expected you to vanquish the magic users on Earth in a single day. We will have to consider our next move carefully while Earth reestablishes its government."

"What's to reestablish?" Harry asked. "The London coven told me that they hadn't killed anyone. I'm fairly sure they didn't lie to me."

"The entire leadership of EarthGov, were changed to salt statues!" the large man named Gim Allon said. "Including the President of Earth… My mother."

"Statues?" Harry asked. "Could I get a look at them?"

--== LEGION ==--

"Hmm," Harry hummed looking closely at the 'statue' of a man showing obvious horror.

"What?" Mysa asked. "I've already tried to reverse the spell, and failed. Do you think you can?"

"Don't know," Harry acknowledged, waving his wand over the 'statue' in a diagnostic charm and checking the indications with a confused expression. "That can't be right."

"What can't be right?" Querl demanded.

"This looks like the Inanimatus Conjurus Spell," Harry explained.

"We don't know what that means, Harry," Imra said gently.

"It's a fifth year transfiguration spell. I've never seen it used on people, but that's what it looks like."

"Fifth year?" Gim asked.

"Fifth year of school at Hogwarts, when we were 15," Harry said absently, doing another diagnostic. "Oh, come on."

"What?" Gim asked.

"Which of these people is the least important?" Harry asked.

"What kind of horrible question is that?" Mysa asked indignantly.

"They are all considered dead now," Harry pointed out. "I think I know how to reverse the spell, but I might be wrong. Being wrong might mean that they all remain statues, and it might mean that the one I test on will explode in a spectacular and definitely fatal manner. Which of these dead people would be the least missed if he were to remain dead?"

"That one," Gim stepped forward pointing at the tall woman statue.

"Gim, that's your mother," Mysa gasped.

"My mother would always risk herself before others," the big man said quietly. "She would never forgive me if she were revived after risking someone else. Do your voo doo on her."

Harry nodded, and jabbed his wand at the transfigured woman. "Finite Incantatem."

Nothing happened for a full second, then the statue of salt became a flesh and blood woman who drew a desperate ragged breathe before starting to collapse.

"Mom!" Gim shouted as he rushed forward to catch her.

Marte Allon blinked several times as if unable to believe what she was seeing. "Gim?" she asked. "What happened?"

--== LEGION ==--

Legion
Revival

Disclaimer: In the not-too-distant past; call it 1998, A.D. there was a guy named Harry, not too different than you or me. He worked in a magical world all day, just doing magic stuff to pay his way; He did his job well with a cheerful face, but the Universe didn't like him, so it shot him into space.
They made him fight space wizards, the worst ever made. But Harry says when you got lemons, you have to make lemonade. Now keep in mind he can't control when the fights begin or end. Because he was recruited by some space heroes and used to further their good guy ends.
Legion roll-call:

Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, Triad, White Witch!

And so many others
If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts; Just repeat to yourself "It's just a HP/Superhero fic, I should really just relax!" while reading:

Harry Potter and the Legion

Chapter 3. Revival

[1:1] in the beginning there was the work,

[1:2] the wizards were slovenly and without discipline. Their houses were disheveled and filth covered the floors and walls of the magical homes.

[1:3] the elves came to work, to cook the meals, to clean the houses, to repair all the things that wizards broke in their haste and brutality.

[1:4] But the elves were not appreciated by the wizards, and yes, they were punished for mistakes real and imagined.

[1:5] Then Mr. Harry Potter, Sir said unto Dobby, "Sit down and let us speak"; and Mr. Harry Potter, Sir saw the Elves as equals.

[1:6] And Dobby saw Mr. Harry Potter, Sir to be a great and powerful wizard, who stood against the bad masters in defense of elves and wizards alike.

[1:7] So Mr. Harry Potter, Sir freed Dobby from his bad master and called Dobby his friend. No wizard had called an elf friend before. This was a new thing that Mr. Harry Potter, Sir had done.

[1:8] And so, Dobby was a free elf, but he bound himself to Mr. Harry Potter, Sir, in secret so that he might serve a great wizard who was also his friend.

[1:9] And Mr. Harry Potter, Sir said, "Dobby, do not punish yourself. If you learn that you are wrong, learn from the wrongness to understand that which is right. Let that which is right guide you through life and I think I'm going to make a sandwich, would you like one?" And it was so.

[1:10] Mr. Harry Potter, Sir called the Hoggywarts Castle home, the Wizards silly, and the Elves, friends, and the Acromantula scary buggers. And Mr. Harry Potter, Sir saw that it was good.

[1:11] After the great battle where Mr. Harry Potter, Sir destroyed the evil Lich Lord, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir said, "Dobby, I have to go away for a while. Take care of yourself, Dobby, and if you can, watch out for the Weasleys, the Castle, and She Who Knits, for despite her fiendish plan, she means well. When I get back we'll see what we can do to make life better for all the Elves." And it was so.

Excerpt from the Book of Dobby; Beginnings, Verses 1:1 through 1:11.

--== LEGION ==--

"How about 'Abra Kadabra'?" Chuck Taine asked.

"Pass," Harry responded while looking around the vast interior spaces of the Legion Headquarters. The reestablishment of EarthGov had led the Legionnaires to return to their home.

"Just as well," Brainiac 5 sighed. "That name is already taken by a time traveling villain from the 46th century."

"Hokus Pokus?" Rokk suggested.

"No," Harry said, while attempting to determine if the Legion Headquarters actually was larger on the inside than it was on the outside or if it was all just an optical illusion.

"Another pseudonym for Abra Kadabra," Brainiac noted.

"Let's just call him 'Magic Boy' and be done with it," Garth interjected.

"I'm 18 years old, and I'm not a Boy, not a Lad, sure as hell not a Kid," Harry disagreed. "Also, fuck you."

"Magic Man?" Imra asked hesitantly.

"While I might have 'magic hands'," Harry said with a small grin. "Unfortunately, my eyes are green, which sort of ruins lyrical tone of the song. Besides, who wants to hear women explaining their relationships to their mothers?"

"What?" Imra asked in confusion.

"We could just use 'Magik'" Lournu suggested.

"Already taken by a time and dimension travelling witch who tends to get all kinds of stabby with her soul sword when annoyed," Harry explained. "Since you all insist that I need to use a code name, I've got the perfect one to use."

"What?" Lournu asked.

"Harry," he said simply. "Harry Potter if anyone wants to be formal."

"But you have to have a code name," Rokk insisted.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"To protect your loved ones," Imra explained.

"What loved ones, and protect them from what?" Harry demanded. "Everyone I know has been dead for a thousand years."

"Oh, come on everyone," Gim Allon laughed. "If Harry wants to use his name, let him. The only reason most of us use code names is for the tradition of it, it's not like who we are is any kind of secret, we don't wear masks, it would only take a moderately intelligent AI to figure out what our names are. I've always thought the whole code name thing was stupid, but I went along with it because everyone else did."

"Harry it is then," Brainiac 5 announced. "On to more important matters. Earth is wizard free…"

"Except for Mysa and me," Harry interjected.

"Yes, except for Mysa and you," Brainiac 5 sighed, "and you two are, currently, the only exceptions to the prohibition of magic users on Earth just passed by the reconstituted EarthGov. Mordru's forces are in control of 1329 worlds, and we need to do something about removing them."

"Why?" Harry asked. "It seems to me the problem is Mordru. Knock him down and his followers are more likely to turn on each other than continue with his war."

"Our primary concern about Mordru's new empire is that his forces are making incursions into Khund and Dominator space. This could possibly lead to war with those two empires."

"That would be good, wouldn't it?" Harry asked. "Opening up Mordru to more enemies, I mean."

"Unfortunately, neither the Khund nor Dominators recognize the dissolution of the United Planets. They will see an attack from Mordru's forces as an attack by the United Planets," Imra explained.

"Harry has proven himself to be a powerful wizard," Mysa pointed out. "Perhaps the most prudent approach would be to send him and our most magic resistant members to confront Mordru."

"What she said," Harry added helpfully.

"There might be a problem with that," Gim said, "When the Wizards were here, they trashed the EarthGov Fleet, all the UP ships in system and our Legion Cruisers. Until we find something else, we're stuck here."

--== LEGION ==--

"Mysa," Harry asked. "Do you have a moment?"

The White Witch stopped and turned to face the Legend of Magic, "How can I help you, Harry?"

"I know this is probably a stupid question, but has anyone considered that space ships damaged by magic might be repaired by magic?"

The young woman's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure that would be a good idea, Harry. There would be a lot of resistance to anyone using magic around people."

"They didn't seem to mind when we brought them back from being salt statues," Harry noted. "Would it hurt to ask?"

Mysa considered his point for a moment before nodding. "We can but ask. Brainiac 5 is resistant to the use of magic under the best of conditions… It might be best if we approached EarthGov via Gim."

--== LEGION ==--

"Absolutely not" the Admiral shouted.

Marte Allon cast a cool glance toward the man before turning her attention back to Harry. "While I feel Admiral Clouseau is over reacting, Mr. Potter, I have to agree revealing classified systems to an untrained civilian would be not a wise thing to do."

"I can understand your position, Madam President," Harry nodded, "In my own time, the likelihood of someone like me being allowed access to military systems would be laughable."

"So you know that we won't be allowing you access to our systems that you would probably duplicate with your infernal magic," Admiral Jacques Clouseau sneered.

Harry smiled, wondering if the man knew of his 20th century namesake.

"Admiral, Madam President, you are both giving me far too much credit. As Gim explained, I am from the 20th century. In my time, space craft capable of interstellar flight were the things of Science Fiction Movies and novels. Then you add in the fact that I was educated as a Wizard. This means that I have the Science and Math skills of an English primary school boy of the late 20th century."

"Then what do you imagine that you can do?" One of the members of the EarthGov Council asked.

"One of the wonders of magic is that what specifically needs to be done is utterly aside the point," Harry smiled. "What truly matters is the intent of the caster. I don't have to know what it is that your technical marvel does, I just have to intend for it to be repaired. Why don't I show you? Does anyone have something that needs repair? Preferably, something that you've never been able to have repaired because the skills are lost or the expense would be too high?"

There were a few moments of discussion among the assembled EarthGov before a woman stood up in the midst of the Council. "I have an antique timepiece, which has been handed down in my family for centuries. During the attack of the Wizards, it was physically damaged. It has never worked, but now it is physically marred. I brought it with me today in hopes of finding an artisan capable of repairing its physical form, but if you could repair it, I would appreciate it, forever."

The woman approached Harry to hand him a crumpled silver device.

Harry recognized the piece as a Nurse's Watch. A small watch that hung from a chain attached to a small badge inscribed with:

Jen Kessen, RN

Mercy Hospital

The watch's crystal was shattered, the hands missing, and the face unrecognizable.

Harry considered the watch for a moment. Repairing a watch that was lacking so many of its parts would take quite a bit of doing. With that in mind, he pulled the Elder Wand from his pocket, made the appropriate movements and muttered "Reparo!"

The Council chamber became utterly silent as the dozens of government officials utilized the technology of the room to monitor what Harry was doing. When the ancient watch began to flex in his hand there were gasps throughout the chamber.

"Tempus" Harry chanted. He then pulled the stem on the watch and set the time on the watch before pushing the stem back in and winding the stem 10 times. Raising the watch to his ear, he smiled.

"Here you go," Harry handed the watch back to its owner, "Fixed."

"It's beautiful," she gushed, "Better than it ever was…" she looked up in shock. "It's working ?"

"There you have it," Harry said quietly, "I have no understanding of just how a clockwork watch works, but I repaired it simply by having access to it. Similarly, I have no understanding of the workings of a modern space ship, but there is a chance that I might be able to repair one."

The Council chamber was silent as they considered his demonstration.

"Seriously people," Harry laughed. "Your choices are waiting the five months the admiral projected for the repair of your 'space dock' and then another six months for the first of your ships to be repaired enough to start being useful, or you could take a chance on me being able to fix one of your ships in about five minutes. What do you have to lose?"

"What do you want for your efforts?" The President of Earth asked.

"Access to a ship capable of getting me to Zerox," Harry explained. "Not possession, just access. The Legionnaires have agreed to crew it, so there would be no risk to your people. I was brought to this time to challenge Mordru, the sooner I get the job done, the sooner I can at least try to go home."

The Council conferred behind their privacy shields for several minutes before they returned.

"The Council has decided to take a chance with you, Harry Potter, with one condition…"

--== LEGION ==--

Somehow, Harry found the engine room of the UPS Magellan to be somewhat disappointing.

Oh, sure, it was futuristic and all that, filled to the brim with equipment that he wouldn't be able to identify on the best day of his life, but still…

A thousand years had passed, and it appeared that Star Ship development had plateaued at the level of mid Captain Kirk. Or at least at an approximation of the few bits of Star Trek that he had managed to see through the louvers of his cupboard door.

He looked about the cavernous space with the evidence of magical sabotage everywhere around him. It was odd, really, he'd only been aboard for an hour, long enough for the ship's captain to make it very clear that he was only allowing Harry to try to fix things because of orders he had received from his superiors and for him to be banished to the engine room where most of the damage had been done. The oddness came from the room itself. Now that he was off the Earth, (and part of him was freaked out by that) the background magic had receded to what felt more like 'normal' levels, but this ship… It was as if magic had permeated the very metals and ceramics used in its construction.

~ I don't know why you're wasting our time, ~ the ship's Executive Officer voice bloomed in Harry's mind, pulling the young wizard from his musings, ~ It's not like a primitive like you could understand our systems. ~

"One of the best things about being a primitive," Harry snarked, "is that I can think about how a polite society would treat a visitor who is only trying to help while you're telling me about how civilized you are. Multitasking, you see."

"It is unwise," Imra interjected, shooting a glare at the older woman, "for a Titan to make comments about civilization, and it is rude to use telepathy on a verbal sophont. Have the protocols of Psion been forgotten in your climb up the ranks?"

"People, people, people," Harry sighed. "Let's all play nice, shall we? Be realistic, Imra. No naval officer of my time would have been happy to have someone with my level of education anywhere near their engine room. Commander Greelar is only being cautious."

"Harry," the blonde woman sighed. "You are trying to help."

"And the Commander knows that her superiors feel that they have no choice," Harry pointed out. "After her recent experiences with magic users it is not surprising that she doesn't trust me, and I don't blame her."

Harry turned to the UP officer and continued. "No, Commander, I do not understand your ship's engines, but there is a fair possibility I can fix them. If it turns out that I'm wrong, then we've wasted fifteen minutes while you wait for your turn in the Space Dock."

"Your berth at the dock is 18 months away," Mysa suggested helpfully.

The officer fumed silently and Harry turned to look at the closest panel.

"Hmm," he hummed, drawing the Elder wand, "Nope, no idea what it does. Reparo!"

The metal and plastics of the console appeared to flex back into a recognizable shape, lens reformed in place and indicators lit up.

"Well that part worked," Harry noted. "And it appears that the power is still on, which is good I guess. Is this thing doing what it's supposed to do?"

The Executive Officer gestured and a technician moved to the console, his fingers playing over the controls. "Main propulsion is on line," he said in amazement, self-diagnostic is running, and has found no errors, but I can't check any further until the Engineering core is online."

"Where is this 'Engineering core?" Harry asked curiously, "Let's get this show on the road."

--== LEGION ==--

Several dozen Reparos later, Harry sat on one of the control chairs with a drink he was told was tea, but which tasted almost exactly unlike tea and sighed. "I may have overestimated my abilities to fix things… Either that or I underestimated how much damage Mordru's followers had done."

"You're too hard on yourself, Harry," Imra said, "in the hour you've been at it, you've fixed systems that were expected to take months to repair using normal methods."

"It will take time," Mysa agreed.

Harry's brow furrowed for a moment. "Mysa, if I teach you the spell, could you preform it?"

"Unfortunately, no," the woman said shaking her head. "The form of magic I have studied does not involve an external focus, rather is uses my body as the focus of my spells. This involves a far higher level of magic over most users of external foci, but has limitations in the number of spells I have access to at one time, as their invocation involves memorization and study to prepare for the casting."

"I've watched Mysa do her magic many times, and each time I am amazed," Imra interjected.

"I can currently prepare to cast an even dozen spells as my maximum," Mysa continued, clearly embarrassed by her friend's assessment. "As is the nature of my magic, once I cast my spell, the specifics of the spell are wiped from my mind, and I must repeat the preparation rituals to regain it."

Before Harry would ask another question, the trio were interrupted.

"Mr. Potter," Commander Geelar approached them respectfully, "I would like a chance to apologize for my earlier attitude. Our engine room systems now all check out as being in better condition than when they were new. Whatever you did dialed in the calibrations of the various subsystems and caused the different subsystems to mesh into a single entity. Whatever they're paying you, it isn't enough."

"So, the engine room is done?" Harry asked hopefully. "What's next?"

"The Power Room," the Executive Officer of the UFPS Magellan said with a large smile. "The Zeroxians never went near it, and as far as we can tell, there is nothing wrong with it, but we were hoping that you might work your magic on it."

--== LEGION ==--

Once he was standing in the center of the Power Room, Harry stood stock still, his mouth open in shock as he stared at a crystal the size of a large beach ball pulsing the air around him in time with his heartbeat.

Pulsed with magic.

"That's a ward crystal," he said once he regained the ability to speak.

"No," Commander Geelar said with a shake of his head. "That's a Power Crystal. It powers all ships systems."

Harry reached out hesitantly and touched the crystal that hovered silently above its containment crystal. Some of the most intense magic he had ever experienced flooded his consciousness.

No wonder magic seemed to be everywhere in the all Muggle ship. They were powering it off a massive ward crystals. If he had some ward stones, he could…

Harry blinked as the idea formed. Surely it couldn't be that easy…

"Harry?" Mysa asked. "Are you all right?"

"I need to go check something," Harry said quietly. "Commander, are all the ships powered by these crystals?"

"They are," the woman admitted.

"Yeah, I really need to go," Harry nodded. "Ladies, I'm not sure how long this is going to take, I'll meet you at your Headquarters as soon as I figure a few things out."

"What things, Harry?" Imra asked.

"It will sound crazy," Harry said shaking his head. "I don't want to say anything until I know for certain it will work."

The three women watched as the Wizard from the 20th Century vanished from sight.

"I wish he wouldn't do that," Mysa sighed. "It makes me feel so inadequate."

"Where did he go?" The Magellan's Executive officer asked incredulously.

"He used a lost form of teleportation," Imra explained. "A skill beyond ability of modern magic users."

"There were giants in ancient times," Mysa agreed. "And he was the most powerful of them all."

--== LEGION ==--

"Harry," the portrait said cheerfully. "You've come back for a visit."

"I couldn't stay away, Headmaster," Harry couldn't help but laugh at the enthusiasm of the painting. "I'm here hoping that you might be open to teaching me something."

Lamont smiled, "Of course, Harry, teaching was my life after all, and it's not like I have much else to do."

--== LEGION ==--

A slight snap echoed in Brainiac 5's personal lab. The 12th level intellect reacted immediately, his hand flew to the controls of his force field belt as he turned his attention to the invader.

"Brainiac," Harry Potter said brightly. "Just the lad I wanted to see."

"Where have you been?" the Coulan demanded. "Five days without a word, we thought you had been kidnapped, or worse."

"Well, gosh, Mom," Harry snarked. "I'm sorry I worried you. I had to take a class."

"A class," Brainiac 5 repeated.

"Yeah," Harry agreed placing a large satchel on the table. "Anyway, can you duplicate these?"

Querl raised a single eyebrow as the man from the past revealed six palm sized slabs of granite. Examining the slabs, he nodded slowly. "Easily. What are they for?"

"Repairing the spaceships."

"Starships," Brainiac corrected automatically. "How can a few pieces of carved rock repair a starship?"

"A 'few pieces of carved rock' can't," Harry admitted. "But these are ward stones. When properly placed about a starship with a power crystal, properly carved ward stones can."

"Magic," Querl sighed.

"Yep," Harry agreed. "There are lots of things that you can do with wards, fire suppression, intruder defense, and one that was overlooked a lot back home, maintenance of the building they are set on. If we put these in the correct places on the starships, they should, over time, heal the ship."

"Heal the ship?" Querl asked, feeling a bit faint.

"Yeah," Harry agreed happily. "It will be a lot slower than me doing it to each ship's systems individually, but if we can get enough of these beasts, repairing the fleet will take a fraction of the time of me casting charms on each system on each ship one at a time."

Brainiac 5 continued to stare at the Wizard from the past until Harry grinned. "Look, I know what it sounds like, I was unaware that magic even existed until I was 11 years old. It took me a while to actually believe it, but I finally did. I've demonstrated that I can repair complex systems using charms. I was starting to realize just how long it would take to repair an entire ship, much less a fleet, when they showed me the Power Crystal. That's when I got my idea."

"And you learned about using these 'Wards' in a week?" Querl demanded. "Who taught you?"

"Who taught me doesn't matter, because he poses absolutely no threat to anyone," Harry laughed. "And no, I didn't learn about wards, that's a field of study that requires years of study to even become a journeyman. I learned that, yes this specific maintenance ward exists, that took about fifteen minutes, and I learned how to carve the runes. That took the week."

"Just to carve them in stone? Brainiac 5 asked.

"My technique is abysmal," Harry confided, "and I evidently have all the skill at carving stone of your average arthritic baboon, according to my teacher. Still, these six carvings were deemed 'adequate' enough to work."

"Alright," Brainiac 5 nodded. "What was it about the power crystal that inspired this idea?"

"In my time, we called them Ward Crystals," Harry explained. "Finding it explained why everything seemed to be infused with magic on the ship."

"Power Crystals are one of Earth's major exports," Querl mused.

"The ones I saw in the 20th century were about the size of my fist," Harry explained. "The ones you've got on the ships are bloody huge. They should work fine."

Brainiac 5 watched the Wizard walk away as he continued to try and wrap his mind around the concept of a starship that could heal from injuries.

--== LEGION ==--

"What now?" Captain Akins of the UPS Magellan asked as Harry placed the last of his stone plates to the aft most bulkhead of his ship.

"Now, we wait to see if it works," Harry explained. "It worked fine in the Legion's labs, and it worked for a few centuries in various magical homes during my time. No one has ever tired it on a ship before, so we need to wait. If it's any help, the first effects should be seen in the forward portions of the ship, since we established the warding there first."

"Captain, XO," the Captain's personal communicator spoke.

"Captain," Akins said after engaging his communicator. "Go ahead XO,"

"Sir," Harry recognized Commander Geelar's voice, "that bulkhead aft of the bridge that was sprung during the last Khund incursion just repaired itself."

"Repaired itself?" Akins repeated. "We were told that would have to wait until our next yard period to even attempt a repair. Are you sure?"

"I watched it flex and snap into place myself, Captain." Greelar admitted. "Whatever it is Potter has done, is working."

"Structural repair is one thing," Harry cautioned. "The repair of your more complex systems are entirely another. I think we should wait until we start seeing those systems reacting to the wards before we start celebrating anything."

--== LEGION ==--

Harry paused outside the meeting room and sighed. Damn the EarthGov Council and their conditions anyway. They had fifteen functional space craft now, and they were still insisting that he do this this.

"Problem Harry?" Gim asked.

"No," Harry responded, "Nothing wrong."

Harry couldn't help wondering, not for the first time, just what it was he had done to deserve the way the Universe was so intent on treating him, Harry approached the doorway, which hissed as it moved out of his way.

And it was worse than he had imagined. Rather than a conference room, the door opened into a huge auditorium. The room seated at least three thousand uniformed individuals and the aisles were filled with those unable to get a seat.

So, Harry thought, that's what 'standing room only' means.

The worst terror he had ever felt since the first time he stepped in front of the DA gripped Harry's soul. He took a few deep breaths and made his way to the podium at the center of the stage. Pausing to look over his hasty notes, he calmed himself and tried to imagine what the audience looked like in their underwear.

This strategy backfired badly once he realized that those in the front most row were all extremely attractive women. His imagination fully engaged, Harry stood there staring with his mouth open for several seconds until nudged by Gim Allon, who was looking at him like he had gone mad.

"Sorry," Harry said, "I wasn't expecting such a large crowd."

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, and Harry continued. "My name is Harry Potter, I'm a wizard from the 20th century. I hope that your ships are working out with their new 'wards'."

Thunderous applause sounded from the room, though there were more than a few boos as well.

"Hey now," Harry said, with both hands up, "I can understand not liking Wizards, but I'm one of the good guys. I fixed your ships, remember?" The reception wasn't all that surprising, really. Still, he reflected, it isn't me they were here for, is it?

Again, Harry centered himself before speaking. "I met Ron Weasley, or as you know him, Roonil Wazlib on the train to school in September 1991…"

Applause echoed throughout the auditorium, far louder than the celebration of his repairing their ships.

Damn you Ron, Harry thought as he moved on to his attempt to satisfy the 31st century's endless curiosity about Ron Weasley.

--== LEGION ==--

Mordru leaned heavily on the left arm of his throne as the last of the Potters were dragged from his presence. The family's penance for failing to hold Earth was only beginning.

How they could be defeated by a single feral hedge wizard of Earth was beyond his imaging.

"Leave me," The Dark Wizard commanded his staff.

It took only seconds for the Master of Zerox to have his privacy. He returned to his throne, and leaned back.

"A native born Earth Wizard?" he mused aloud. "How can this be possible?"

"Magic arose on the Earth once," the most trusted advisor to the Dark Wizard noted. "It is not completely unexpected that it might happen again. What disturbs me is the skill this hedge wizard exhibits. He completely overwhelmed the London coven with a casual ease."

"And he killed a wizard," Mordru mused. "That is a violation of my first rule."

"A wizard who was trying to kill him," the advisor noted. "You cannot hold self-preservation against a powerful, if misguided young man."

Mordru nodded in grudging agreement. "Earth's magic is depleted, all of my forces spoke of the difficulty of performing the simplest of spells there. This is why I gifted it to a clan as strong as the Potters."

"Of course," the old man nodded, once again stroking his beard, "And this hedge wizard, having grown to maturity in that environment might have a slight advantage."

"It was an odd charm he laid upon the London Coven," The Dark Wizard noted, deep in thought, "the illusion of summoning the spirit of a dead man. What would have happened to a man to have him create such a spell? Nearly a week later they still believe what he showed them."

The advisor nodded, stroking his beard in thought. An illusion. Yes it had to be, after all these years. The unnamed wizard couldn't possibly possess the… no that was absurd.

--== LEGION ==--

"Okay," Harry said, arriving in the Legion's Mission Briefing room finding Querl, Imra and Rokk waiting for him, after having been escorted through the barricade surrounding the Legion Headquarters by several officers of the Science Police. "I’m here. What did I do this time?"

Brainiac 5 looked up from his monitors. "I honestly do not know."

"Okay…" Harry agreed expectantly. "So you sent the police after me because…?"

"You were not answering the calls I sent to your ring," Imra answered.

"I've been placing and priming ward stones for two weeks," Harry pointed out. "The Captain of the Free For All was nice enough to offer me a bunk on his ship so that I could finish in the morning. I woke up to find this lot standing in the room."

"I couldn't find you, you weren't answering calls," Brainiac 5 pointed out. "Then these Gentlemen appeared asking for you,"

Harry only noticed the dozen cloaked figures standing at the wall behind the Legionnaires after Brainiac had pointed them out.

"Quite literally appeared, much as you do when you do your teleportation. As this sort of things fits into what I have come to call a ‘Standard Category’ for things likely to involve you," Brainiac-5 continued, actually making the air-quotes hand gestures, "I decided that it would be best to put you in front of it first, sparing us time, credits, energy, resources, and every other possible expenditure, against it."

Harry just blinked, before he began to rub his forehead. "Of course you did. You've seriously defined categories of weirdness just for me?"

"Well, after the incident onboard the Wood Nymph with the Viole…" offered Imra.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Veela, not Viole," he sighed. "And the Veela leaving Earth to form a colony on New Haven in the Tau Ceti system 800 years ago could not even remotely be my fault. Nor is their reaction to the first Wizard they had encountered in all that time my fault either. Took care of that pesky virginity thing too."

Ignoring the discussion, Brainiac 5 turned to the cloaked figures. "You asked for Harry Potter," he said, "Harry Potter is here!"

As one, the group approached him, as they got closer, Harry notice a few oddities about their appearance.

Glamors. He narrowed his eyes and willed his magic to clear his vision. The cloaked figures came into sharp focus, allowing Harry to identify his visitors.

Goblins. Specifically a single goblin from the banking guild and eleven security goblins.

The security horde stopped 10 feet away from Harry, allowing the single banking guild goblin to advance alone.

"Harry Potter," the goblin said in English, his deep voice did not really go with his small stature. "I am Lockspike of Gringotts Bank. We need to speak."

--== LEGION ==--

"What do you want?" Harry asked once he and Lockspike were alone in a small conference room. "I've kept to my side of the bargain. I've not set foot in your bank, I've not touched a galleon, sickle, or knut in a thousand years, and I've not spoken to anyone about our agreement."

"I am here about a matter of honor," the goblin said. "One that we had thought would never be made right with your disappearance."

"I'm listening," Harry said impatiently.

"You are somewhat more… abrupt than your legend suggests," Lockspike noted.

Harry grinned. "You call it abruptness, I call it learning from bitter experience. What do you want?"

"A year and seven months after you disappeared, it was discovered that the management staff of the London Branch of Gringotts had been collaborating with the Dark Lord Voldemort and his Ministry against the interests of Gringotts bank."

Harry looked at the goblin blankly. "And that has what to do with me?"

--== LEGION ==--

"What was that about?" Imra asked after the cloaked visiters had exited the Legion Headquarters.

"My personal banker paid a visit," Harry responded in a dazed manner as he found a seat.

"Banker?" Rokk asked curiously. "I didn't know there were still bankers. Everything has been computerized for centuries. What is that you've got there?"

"It’s my account balance," Harry replied, looking at the numbers on the long roll of parchment. Although he had to hand it to the Goblins, they even when they were vacating their vendetta against him, they found a new way to slide a knife between his ribs and give it a little twist.

"How could you have a balance?" Imra asked. "You haven't done anything that would earn you money, and any accounts you may have had in the 20th century would be worthless as all the banks from that time failed during periods of economic downturns in the times since."

"You seem awfully certain of that," Harry noted.

The blonde's cheeks colored, "We checked when you disappeared the first time."

"Sensible," Harry admitted. "The problem with that is that not every bank is computerized." Harry slid the parchment across the table to Querl. "The Galleon is extinct, and Gringotts doesn't deal in UP Credits, so they put it in grams of gold."

The Coluan actually twitched. "This is an absurd sum, entire planetary governments don't have reserves like this."

"Neat," Harry laughed. "Maybe I can get myself a nice little spaceship… There should be some benefit to being the last wizard on Earth."

"All of this seems to be good news," Imra observed, and while I'm not reading your mind, I am picking up enough of your surface thoughts to know that you're not happy."

"Ah, well, I also got this bit of news, which demonstrated to me that there most specifically wasn't any benefit to being the last wizard on Earth."

Looking at what was written on the second parchment, Harry sighed. Even ten centuries in the future, long after they had left the planet, the Ministry was still messing with him.

"I am the last wand wizard on Earth. The last Earth born wizard, since the phony Potters hadn’t counted for some reason, and I'm sure that little detail will end up biting me on the arse eventually," Harry whined manfully, "Anyway, the goblins have a long term agreement with the Ministry of Magic, and since I am the only wizard, I am the Ministry of Magic."

"And this means… what?" Rokk asked

"It means that I am required by custom, contract, and law, to provide Gringotts bank with a building."

An odd sound came from Brainiac 5 "You’re laughing, aren’t you?" Harry growled.

"I do not laugh," the Coluan protested, before the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "I have been known to experience a certain level of satisfaction when my hypotheses are correct."

"No one likes a smart arse, Brainy."

"Yes, you've mentioned that in the past I believe," Querl noted blithely.

Harry's glare grew in intensity. "I swear, if the Dementors show up, asking for a place to guard, I’m sending them to your lab."

--== LEGION ==--

Marte Allon led the procession of young heroes to the waiting ship.

"I am truly sorry, Harry," she said, "This is the only ship we can spare until we reestablish security in the Sol Sector. It's a cargo hauler and has no weapons."

"None of the Legion's ships have ever had weapons," Querl Dox pointed out. "We tend to be our own weapons."

"And worst come to worst," Harry grinned, "We'll find out if my magic works in space. I always wanted to be a space wizard back home, to become one with the force and save the princess, who, hopefully, doesn’t turn out to be my sister."

The assembled legionnaires had learned to ignore Potter's 20th century ramblings, though it was a new experience for the President of Earth.

"Well," President Allon said hesitantly, "Good luck with that. The ship is yours, Harry, a gift from a grateful Earth."

Harry blinked. "It's… mine?"

"Yes," Marte nodded. "We felt that it was the least we could do for the man who single handedly brought our fleet back into service."

"I've got a starship?" Harry asked in wonder.

"Harry," Lournu said kindly, "In all honesty, it's an ancient piece of junk."

"It's a starship, it's got the ward stones that are repairing everything back to its original configuration, if not better, and it's mine," Harry disagreed. "I've got a starship!"

"Yes, you do," Querl agreed. "What are you going to call it?"

"I get to name it?"

--== LEGION ==--

Earth shrunk rapidly in the distance while Harry stood in what the passed for an observation deck on his own, personal, starship. The Snorkack .

"So, what is a Snorkack, anyway?" Rokk asked.

"Not a single clue," Harry admitted. "An old friend was always talking about them and no one believed her, not even me. I just decided that anyone just giving me a starship was at least as unlikely as Luna's creatures, so, why not?"

"I wish I could have met your friend," Rokk admitted. "She sounds like someone who could be fun to know."

"If she didn't cause you to stroke out when her crazy ideas run up against your logic," Harry grinned before pointing at something outside the ship. "Is that… Mars?"

"Should be," Rokk said looking curiously at the red disk starting to recede behind the ship. "We should be crossing Mars' orbit about now. Want to go grab something to eat?"

"No," Harry shook his head, still focused on Mars. "I'm going to watch the scenery for a while."

"Okay," Rokk laughed, "Don't forget to eat."

Alone at the view port Earth's last wizard took in the sights he never expected to see. It was all so wonderful, how could the others think of this as being so normal? He couldn't imagine that this endless vista would ever become boring.

--== LEGION ==--

It had taken all of four hours for the wonder to wear off. Harry had come to the conclusion that whatever else faster than light travel via warp drive might be, it was insanely boring.

Still, he was on his way to a planet orbiting another star in his very own personal starship. In the grand scheme of things life didn't get much more interesting than that.

"I was wondering if you would ever peel yourself away from the observation deck," Lournu said, interrupting his musings.

"Give me a break," Harry smiled. "Where I grew up, fewer than a thousand people had been off the planet, and absolutely no one had ever been moving faster than light. I'm allowed to find it interesting."

"Tourist," she snorted faux derision as the pair reached the cabin Harry had claimed as his own. "We've still got four days until we drop back into real space outside Zerox's orbit. Do you have any plans?"

"Not really," Harry admitted.

"Oh, good," the Carggite smiled, pulling him into his own cabin. "I do."

--== LEGION ==--

A/N: No, I hadn't forgotten this story… Or Death's Knight, or Technomage, or Distaff Side. I've been suffering through a massive case of writer's block. Finally got the juices going, so here we are.

Hope everyone likes it