Harry Potter, Star Trek Online 1. Ch1 Well that screwed up fast

**To Boldly Go**

(The First Harry Potter - Star Trek Online Crossover)

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_I, in no way own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness; or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licences and trademarks belong to their respective parties, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non-profitable use._

_Lightly Proofread by Antt1995_

_Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'_

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Chapter 1

Well that screwed up fast.

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"Computer, open new personal log. Stardate… No freaking clue, haven't worked out this new date system yet. Let's just say four hundred and eleven Terran standard solar years since I.G."

The sounds of someone stretching filtered through the background of the recording along with the odd click of bones readjusting followed by a pleasurable sigh.

"Apparently all the cool kids do these personal log things these days. Ha! Not that there are many who aren't kids compared to me. In my day they'd be called journals or diaries or something and you'd write them down, not stare into a monitor and talk aloud to an empty room. Still... I'm giving it a shot, I guess. Where to start? Well, I'll start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start." The voice trailed off humming a tune for a moment before stopping and getting wistful for a moment. "I wonder if that song survived the wars. Anyways, from the top... My name is Harry James Potter; I am a Pre-Warp Homo Sapiens Magica, or Subspecies M in the common parlance.

I am a Mage."

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\- Department of Mysteries - 00:08 – April 3, 2063 - 65 I.G. -

Standing before the veil of death was always an interesting experience for him. If he had to put it into words, Harry could feel...something, on the other side, calling to him, reaching out to him. He just hoped his parents would understand this decision of his.

They had been so busy fighting Tom and his Death Eaters for all those years that they had completely ignored the muggles. Even as the Deathly Hallows had fallen into his hands, the world's population was still reeling from the effects of the 'supermen.' While the battered wizarding population was still scattered across their heavily warded enclaves and happily ignorant of the wider world around them. The Eugenics Wars had been raging across the world while they were struggling to kill their own mad man with delusions of power and domination.

In 1992 the great Khan Noonien Singh turned his attentions to the magicals, and more specifically to gaining their power for himself. The mighty Khan, the man who thought himself the pinnacle of human evolution and power, however, found himself utterly unable to wield magic and raged at the mages, killing all that he could find across the Middle East and Asia. Burning down the hidden Babylonian city of the hanging gardens and assassinating the Indian mystics, while his allies across the globe hunted other magicals.

Eventually Khan was brought down and when magical europeans learned of their brothers and sisters' plight it was the Man-Who-Conquered that lead the way in the international search and rescue missions, helping to relocate tens of thousands of magicals to Britain and to recover untended magical artefacts to ensure the International Statute of Secrecy was maintained.

In better years, when the magical governments worldwide still had the power and the will and just a bit of foresight, hidden initiatives to disarm or sabotage the great nuclear arsenals of the cold war took place, yet such projects had stopped or been cancelled with the magical wars of the 1980s and 90s, Tom not being the only Dark Lord the Magical world had faced during that period.

Hiding as best they could, the battered magicals could only watch in 2026 as the first nuclear bombs dropped and World War III began. Holed up in the fortress of Hogwarts and protected by its ancient and powerful wards, the now Lord Potter-Black etcetera could only watch helplessly as the magical survivors he called brothers and sisters fell sick from the side effects of the devastating weapons that the wards had never been designed to stop.

The remains of numerous chemical and biological weapons along with radiation fallout from detonated atomic bombs covered the globe. It was during the harsh atomic winter of 2027 that Ginny and many others died. While magic did supplement and offer a powerful protection against most dangers, a combination of acute hunger, radiation sickness and indiscriminate chemical attacks drained the magicals' reserves of power and correspondingly weakened their immune system. Consequently, most were unable to survive bouts of flu or other illnesses that swept through the castle, killing most of the purebloods whose natural immune system had always needed the reinforcement of their magic.

With Ginny dead, Harry left the then Hermione Weasley in charge of Hogwarts, putting on his battle robes once more and throwing the wizarding world's most powerful and deadly weapon into the seemingly endless apocalypse. Working alongside several government remnants under the codename 'Lightning Strike,' he terrorised his foes, though afterwards he didn't much care to remember the last years of the war or the many atrocities he had felt the need to commit to bring an end to the conflict. There would be no winners to that war, only losers.

In the end, the magical species was on the verge of extinction, and though Harry had gathered survivors from across the globe to Hogwarts, they were simply too few in number to risk being apart. There was far greater strength in community. Harry had also discovered his seeming immortality, a final gift and curse from the Hallows that had bound themselves to him. With this realization he retreated from even his own kind. He began to wander the sprawling irradiated wastelands of the various nations, only returning to Hogwarts for newly created spells to help clean up the effects of the war, in a seemingly pointless struggle to repair the terrible damage done to the planet. The muggles he came across even began calling him the 'Lonely Wanderer,' after he had gained a reputation in several places cleaning up the scum of humanity who somehow always managed to find a way to survive and yet made it worse for all the rest in doing so.

Magicals had long known that they were tied to the earth, connected to it in ways the muggles were not. In fact it was the Earth's ley lines which fueled their magic and created muggleborns, yet the Earth was so changed and damaged by the war that the ley lines had been broken, the energy fields disrupted and out of synch. Only Harry could now cast spells without worrying about giving up years of his immortal life, as the magic inside the rest of the surviving magicals could no longer recharge at the same rate.

It was Rose Weasley in 2057, Hermione's own daughter, who finally brought a nearly broken Harry back into the fold and took off his armour five years after the war had ended, then slowly coaxing him into her bed and rebuilding his mind and soul with her love and acceptance. It was this act which allowed them to discover a temporary means of salvation and thus stop Hermione from cursing his bits off.

It had long been known, yet rarely seen in practice, that when a witch and wizard had sex and one partner had far more power than the other, the significantly more magically powerful lover would temporarily gift part of their magic to permanently strengthen their partner's core via their magical essences, till the pair were of equal power. The effect was measurable due to the weaker party giving off a luminous glow after each coupling. The level of magical power needed for this phenomenon to come into effect was unheard of in the modern day. Even a powerful wizard having sex with muggle woman, who all possessed a tiny magical core, would not be able to trigger the effect.

With Harry's unlimited magical reserves granted by the Hallows, Harry found the witches of Hogwarts begging him to 'share his magic,' as it came to be known, and many very satisfied witches would return to their children, partners and loved ones to share the magic in their recharged cores using medical or ritualistic spells. Not every witch would choose to seek him out, but after Rose talked to him and convinced him that she was fine with it and told the witches of Hogwarts the same, he lovingly accepted all who came to him, yet always remembered to cast a powerful contraceptive charm beforehand.

Sadly, Rose herself could not give him an heir, no matter how much they would have wanted that, as the devastation wrought by the conflicts had affected them all, radiation, disease and near starvation-like conditions did not help a then young girl's development or fertility. Both, however, contented themselves looking after the many orphans at Hogwarts, becoming much loved surrogate parents to a slew of little ones.

Harry learnt much over those next few years with Hermione as his mother-in-law, who seemed bound and determined to teach him all that she knew and more, before her inevitably early death. Despite witches and wizards living to an average of 150 or more only a few decades prior, the war and its acute environmental damage had reduced the life expectancy of most magicals to about thirty-five. Even with Harry giving regular transfusions of magic, that were less and less effective each time, a witch could only hope to live to see her sixtieth year.

However, all was not doom and gloom, as the planet did show some signs of slow recovery and the magical ley lines began to reset themselves.

Harry kept himself busy by filling his days with learning and acting as an advisor to his people, as he had refused to lead them. He also took up the hobby of recovering and modifying muggle technology to help the magicals live their lives and improve their situation.

By 2059 Earth's recovery was well underway, and the muggle world had mostly restored order to the various war-torn nations, if sometimes under brutal regimes. Yet the magical world was not so lucky in their recovery. After an incredibly harsh winter in 2058, the sum total of known magicals stood at one hundred and twenty-eight souls, only thirteen under the age of eighteen.

Rose herself died the next year, due to complications brought on by her harsh childhood growing up in the still highly radioactive environment. Six days later Hermione passed on as well, joining her husband and children in the afterlife; Harry had no choice but to persevere.

With his people now numbering less than a hundred, Harry knew that Hogwarts would never again see new students. And so he dedicated himself to diligently caring for his dying fellow magicals, as well as beginning to shut Hogwarts down, hiding away what little was left of the magical world for good.

On July 16, 2061, Luna Selene Lovegood, while holding Harry's hand, took her last breath and began the next great adventure. At the time of her passing she was the last surviving witch on the planet and the last mortal resident of Hogwarts. Two days after her burial, among the seemingly endless rows of transfigured tombstones surrounding Hogwarts, the handful of surviving house elves, who had bound themselves to Harry, asked their master if they could be allowed to pass on as well. Harry transfigured them some beautiful gravestones for their many years of loyal and dedicated service and sadly granted their request. They then ritualistically killed themselves, their last act of loving service was to bury themselves at the same time, so as not to leave a mess. Harry unabashedly wept at being the last wizard left on Earth, alone in his grief.

Deciding to seal the castle's great wards, that even he he could not fully collapse while tied to them as Lord and headmaster, Harry went south, carefully sweeping the whole of the U.K. for any traces of magic and ensuring those sources would not be found, just as he had done long ago when cleaning up the radiation. Finally reaching the Goblin stronghold of Gringotts Bank in the half occupied ruins of London, Harry found a small group of living Goblins who welcomed their only surviving customer with a surprisingly jovial mood. Any of the long held antagonism that usually showed towards wizards seemed to be long burned out by the horrors they'd all suffered alike. Who knew that the way to truly unite magical beings was to bring them all to near extinction by the muggles' bad decisions.

While the Earth's ley lines were far from fully restored, they had reached the halfway point in their recovery, and though the Goblins were saddened (if only a little) that the wizards had not survived, the warrior bankers held out hope that they would be able to survive as a species, though they were somewhat cryptic about their plans for a 'Perfect World.'

With their guidance, Harry conducted a last planet-wide sweep for magical energies, raiding tombs for magical texts and artifacts and killing the last giants, dragons and yeti to protect the muggles. There had been two real surprises on his mission though, the first had been uncovering a particularly rude, shape-shifting, incredibly powerful, ancient master vampire dressed in red. Yet after a seven-day long titanic battle, even this powerful vampire fell to the Master of Death. The other surprise had actually decided to join him for the ride.

Letting out a half hearted groan he brushed aside the phantom voices his memories had brought forth and readied himself to embrace death. The 'Veil' was his last hope to be reunited with his friends, family and loved ones who had passed beyond even his reach, into the next great adventure. He had had his fill of adventures, enough for a dozen lifetimes, but his time had passed and now he just wanted to see his loved ones once again.

So now he stood ready to meet his end in front of the veil of death, still housed in the abandoned, half collapsed Department of Mysteries, his pockets stuffed full with shrunken trunks containing anything and everything magical or muggle that he believed should be sent into the afterlife and thus out of the reach of any who might stumble upon them and endanger themselves or others.

It was selfish, he knew, but the muggles would recover and his spells and wards would hold for a good ten thousand years at least, hiding what little remained of the magical world and delaying its discovery.

When the spells and wards inevitably fell to the relentless demands of time and the muggles came across what remained, he left carefully crafted panels made of gold in the Hogwarts entry hall for his non-magical brethren to find. Each panel, written in numerous languages and even including images in case they couldn't be read any longer, bore stories detailing the rich history of the magical people and their eventual fall. He had even left a pensieve full of memories that they might be able to use, assuming their physical forms were even compatible anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Harry genuinely smiled and laughed softly at the feeling of nervous excitement bubbling up inside him as he walked up the worn steps in front of the arch. Stopping, he took a final breath, before, without any fear or trepidation, walked through the one thing that promised all beings the release of death. It was now his time to begin the next great adventure.

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\- Location Unknown -

His first thought on the other side of the veil was that he could see the stars, and by Morgana were they beautiful. He had never seen them so clear during the day before! And then he saw the bones. Hundreds of bleached white skeletons stretched out before him on the ground, many wearing metal cuffs mixed in amongst the plain grey dirt.

Dropping suddenly to his knees, he thought at first that it was out of shock, before he noticed a twin pair of suns high in the sky. Letting out a silent scream of horror at the realization that he was no longer on Earth, he faded unconscious, suffocating on the non-existent atmosphere of this strange world far from home.

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\- United Federation of Planets Historical Database -

(_AN: Years with changes to timeline are marked in **bold**._)

Important Historical Event from Earth, Sol, Year 2062 A.D. to current Star Date.

2063 - Humanity achieves warp flight by mission commander Zefram Cochrane. He is later hailed as the father of human warp flight. The Vulcans initiate First Contact with Earth shortly after this demonstration of human warp capability.

**2065 - After negotiations between Vulcan and Earth, Vulcan science teams move to help repair ecological damage done to Earth. Vulcan team leaders note lower than expected levels of damage.**

**2073 - Vulcan High Command dismisses correlation found by ground teams on Earth of historical sightings of the 'Lonely Wanderer' and the sudden decrease in historically recorded radiation levels in said regions. Several large stockpiles of atomic, chemical, experimental and conventional weapons are found missing from abandoned military bases across the Earth. Scavengers are blamed.**

2083 - Earth prepares to found colonies on Mars in next twenty years.

2103 - First human colony on Mars is founded.

2104 - The ecological recovery of Earth is declared complete, **well ahead of previously thought possible estimates for a conflict of its size.**

**2135 - The United Earth government reorganises Orbital Command and the United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA) into the Earth Defence Force (EDF), Starfleet and the Earth Cargo Service (ECS).**

**2150 - The last remaining sovereign nation agrees to join the United Earth government and thus global unity is achieved for the first time in human history. Unearthed recordings of the 'Lonely Wanderer' show him disarming weapons of mass destruction at several military bases, more records soon follow. The 'Lonely Wanderer' is linked to 'Lightning Strike,' who ran peacekeeping and disarmament missions during the chaos of World War III along with his other vigilante work. He is posthumously awarded the rank of Fleet Admiral in the EDF by the United Earth government for contributions to human progress and the betterment of mankind. Several other vigilantes are posthumously given ranks under his command, forming the entirely ceremonial, ship-less, Response Fleet Zero.**

2151 - The _Enterprise_ NX-01 is launched from Earth orbital shipyards.

2153 - Earth Xindi war breaks out, leaving seven million dead in unprovoked surprise attack.

2161 - After jointly winning a war against the Romulans lasting from 2156-2160, Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar found the United Federation of Planets in San Francisco. All naval and military elements of the founding member planets are folded into the new Starfleet of the Federation.

2224 - Tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire lead to a decades-long state of cold war.

2250 - Christopher Pike takes command of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_.

2265 - The U.S.S. _Enterprise_ begins its infamous five-year mission under the command of Captain James T. Kirk

2267 - After a short period of war, the Treaty of Organia is signed by the Federation and the Klingon Empire

2285 - The U.S.S. _Enterprise_ is destroyed over the Genesis planet in the Mutara Nebula. The U.S.S _Enterprise-A_ is commissioned the following year.

2293 - The Klingon moon, Praxis, explodes. The First Khitomer Accords are signed. The U.S.S _Enterprise-B_ launches on its maiden voyage on which James T. Kirk disappears.

2344 - The U.S.S. _Enterprise-C_ is destroyed in the Battle of Narendra III, defending a Klingon colony from Romulan attackers.

2353 - The Borg becomes aware of humanity's existence due to a message sent 200 years earlier. The U.S.S. _Raven_ sets out the following year. The Treaty of Alliance is signed by the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

2364 - The U.S.S. _Enterprise-D_ is commissioned under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The following year, official first contact between the Federation and the Borg Collective leads to decades of hostile engagements.

2367 - The Federation loses 39 starships at the Battle of Wolf 359; it is one of the largest losses in Federation history.

2369 - The occupation of Bajor ends. Starfleet takes control of starbase Deep Space Nine and discovers the Bajoran wormhole; Starfleet begins exploration of the Gamma Quadrant through the wormhole.

2371 - The U.S.S. _Voyager_ launches under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway and is lost in the Delta Quadrant. The Bajoran - Cardassian Peace Treaty is signed. The Founders infiltrate the Alpha Quadrant. _The Enterprise-D_ is destroyed.

2372 - The _Enterprise-E_ launches under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

2373 - The Federation-Klingon War ends. The Dominion War begins as the Cardassian Union officially joins the Dominion. The Borg attempt to assimilate Earth during the Battle of Sector 001. The Borg invades Fluidic Space for the first time and ignites a brutal conflict with the Undine. The next year 2,800 Dominion ships disappear inside the Bajoran wormhole at the intervention of the Prophets.

2375 - 2,147 people are killed in a Breen attack on San Francisco. Martok becomes Chancellor of the Klingon Empire after the death of Gowron. The Dominion War ends with the Battle of Cardassia and the Treaty of Bajor. The Undine prepares to infiltrate the Federation for the first time. The next year Starfleet makes contact with the U.S.S. _Voyager_ still stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

2378 - U.S.S. _Voyager_ returns home after seven years lost in the Delta Quadrant.

2383 - The Federation's opposition to the Klingon takeover of Khitomer leads to a diplomatic crisis.

2387 - The Hobus star goes supernova, destroying Romulus, Remus and several other Romulan worlds.

2388 - The Klingon Empire refuses to assist in Federation relief efforts in Romulan space. The Orion Syndicate under Melani D'ian considers cooperation with both the Klingon Empire and the Breen. The next year the Gorn ally with the Nausicaans to respond to the Klingons' attacks.

2393 - Melani D'ian, leader of the Orion Syndicate, signs an alliance with J'mpok and the Klingon Empire. As a gift, she sends 1,500 Orion slave women to be servants to the Klingon Great Houses; it is unknown how many are spies.

2394 - The I.K.S. _Kang_ crosses into Gorn space in its investigation of the Undine infiltration.

2399 - The I.K.S. _Kang_ returns to Qo'noS with evidence that the Undine are controlling the Gorn Hegemony and are responsible for the conflict with the Klingon Empire. J'mpok declares war on the Gorn after receiving proof of the Undine infiltration of the Gorn Hegemony. A combined Orion and Klingon fleet invades Gorn space in 2399 and clashes with the Gorn and Nausicaan fleet protecting their key worlds. The Klingons withdraw from the Khitomer Accords after the Federation Council condemns the Klingon's invasion of the Gorn Hegemony.

2404 - The Gorn Hegemony surrenders to the Klingons. The Klingons publicly execute more than a dozen Undine infiltrators in the Gorn government and military.

**2409 – The U.S.S. _New England_, under the command of Captain Taggart, deployed three days ahead of schedule without confirmed First Officer on a Priority One VIP retrieval mission tasked with bringing said VIP back to Earth.**

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\- Alandra Mining Colony - Four days before Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

The Alandra Mining Colony on the edge of the Delta Volanis Cluster was home to a only few miners and surveyors providing a moderate sized yield of raw materials for the Federation's war effort, while protected only by a few turrets and some bunker grade shields.

However, the place briefly gained notoriety when survey crews came across hundreds of centuries old human skeletons around a menacing looking stone portal, and one other body that defied any reasonable explanation.

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_AN: A note of thanks to Tsukune08 for the sharing magic via sex and glowing idea from the story HP and Teammates on HPFanFicArchive. I'm casting Harry as an Engineer class for anyone who wants to know (The Miracle worker power can only be explained by Reparo). Yes, this is another harem story. No, there will be no M/Slash. No, I'm not anti-gay I'm just not interested in writing or reading M/Slash. Yes, every member of the harem will be willing. No, I am not profiting from this story in any way or intend to infringe on any rights, trademarks or other copyrighted material, I am simply writing a fan made, no profit, crossover story, a novelization of an MMOG._

_This is a back burner project for me with chapters being completed as I play through the updated missions of the Star Trek Online Federation Campaign, though I will be trying to work in crossover missions with the other factions._

_One final note, anyone wanting to do something like this a Naruto Tactical Officer crossover or a Fallout Science Officer crossover would be welcomed. Those were the other ideas I was playing with, but the HP one won out._


	2. Ch2 Old Dog, New Tricks

**To Boldly Go**

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_I, in no way own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness; or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licences and trademarks belong to their respective parties, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non-profitable use._

_Lightly proofread by Antt1995_

_Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'_

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Chapter 2

Old Dog, New Tricks.

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\- U.S.S. _New England_ on route to Alandra Mining Colony - Two days before Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Cadet Elisa Flores was manning the tactical station aboard the U.S.S. _New England_. For the past few hours she had been left wondering just what could be so important and time sensitive that Starfleet Command had sent a ship full of green cadets, just out of Academy training, several hundred light years off the beaten path to such an insignificant little mining colony that no one had ever even heard of before.

The U.S.S. _New England_ was one of the old Miranda-class starships, which, while not very powerful in modern terms, had remained a sizeable part of the fleet, acting in hunting packs to bring down more modern ships and able to soak up a fair bit of damage.

They had not been scheduled to leave Earth for another three days and even then they would have probably only flown the boring Academy standard training mission to Vulcan or Andoria, and yet here they were, pushing the tiny warp five engine to its limits to reach the ass end of nowhere.

Even worse in Elisa's opinion was the fact that her best friend, an Orion/Human mix called Le'Ora Tanalis, had been on track to be the ship's First Officer for this mission, but 'Ora' (to her friends) hadn't had the time to complete the advanced phaser course that Captain Taggart expected all of his bridge officers to have completed.

Glancing down at the control panel in front of her, she noticed a warning light on the aft starboard phaser bank and started yet another re-calibration sequence. She had had to do them so often this mission it was a wonder she hadn't become addicted to them yet.

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\- Alandra Mining Colony - One day before Invasion of Vega Colony - I.G. 411 -

It had been one or two days since Harry had woken screaming. Suffocating to death in the frozen reaches of some far off planet had not been his plan at all when he stepped through the veil of death ...not that he could die anyway, it seemed.

To say he was ignoring the fact that he was not dead, would not be seeing his loved ones in the next great adventure anytime soon, and possibly could not die at all was understating things in the extreme. He almost wanted to cry at the fact, so many fools wanted to live forever. Thankfully there was no time to think on the various horrors of those possible truths and he judged he'd have about a month before his carefully crafted mental barriers broke under the pressure and he would need to face the harsh realities of his situation. Experiencing mind crippling despair would have to wait a bit, especially if he didn't want to vaporize a planet when his magic reacted to his emotions. Perhaps he'd need to go to the surface of a lifeless moon somewhere and let his magic obliterate the rock when those barriers broke and he allowed himself to feel those emotions.

After waking he had been asked a few brief questions before being isolated in a small windowless room.

'Still, at least they gave me something to read,' Harry thought, as he poured over a datapad that contained the quite informative 'Encyclopaedia Galactica.' He'd skipped straight to 'M' to check their knowledge on magic before working his way steadily from A to G, a handful of pads around him allowing him to take down notes and questions, and reminders to conduct extra bits of research on one thing or another that he had read about and caught his interest.

To be honest, Harry was rather surprised at the warm welcome he was able to get, and even more so that his WWIII identification codes as 'Lightning Strike' were still on their systems and somehow considered valid even though it'd been centuries. Apparently his return was all hush-hush and he would need to appear before high-ranking members of the military to explain how he was found so far off planet, surrounded by human bones, on a dead world. And perhaps even more importantly, how after being put back in a positive atmospheric environment he was seemingly perfectly fine after being moment's before, dead as a doornail.

Not even Death's Cloak of Invisibility could hide him this time.

Reaching for his glass of water, he felt a shift in the tiny magical ley lines of Alandra and an almost non-existent change in the minuscule flow of magical energy the planet produced.

"Oh Harry, my boy! Oh, how good it is to see you! To meet you! You truly are a beacon of change and upheaval in this otherwise dreary timeline. Yes, yes, you'll shake things up nicely. The universe has gotten so stale lately, even with that alternate reality that old pointy ears inadvertently created, but I knew the Continuum shouldn't discount someone like you, even after that unfortunate little walk you took through the veil. Space suits were invented for a reason after all."

"Q," Harry said, identifying the being before him. "I admit, I hadn't expected you to pop in so soon, after all a man should get a few days off after rising from the grave."

"The grave, he says, my dear little survivor... more like dead in a ditch!"

"Actually, I think it was more of a crag." Harry snarked, having expected a visit from the immortal being after reading about the Continuum in the encyclopaedia in front of him and doing further research after seeing the triple red flag rating next to the word. Actually, the book's red flag system was very useful; it basically meant that the information provided on the subject the flag was attached to would do you little good without visiting other pages straight after for additional information and context.

"Doesn't matter, the important thing is you're here! Your little Federation cousins have been woefully stagnant as of late, merely reacting to everything. To be honest, I cannot wait to see how things turn out! Humanity had the potential to equal us in time, I'll admit ...but you mages. Finally, something new! There's even a chance we might station a permanent liaison with you, if you continue to show signs of improvement and further evolution." Q rambled on excitedly. "And the last race that got close enough for us to consider a liaison with were the El-Aurians, before they were nearly wiped out by the Borg, of course. I could start making regular appearances to the plebs! Holidays and celebrations, those kind of things."

Pausing he flopped into the chair opposite Harry, his demeanor suddenly turning serious. "You're not going to spoil this for me Harry; we have a chance for something new, exciting, and a chance to save nearly all the races of this galaxy from its current trend of stagnation and infighting."

"What are you getting at Q?"

"Harry, what that little datapad won't tell you about my people is that we also have very powerful enemies. This universe is at a crossroads Harry, by the start of the next century we need you to have had a minimum of ten children to spread magic amongst the various species, so that means different mothers as well."

"Unlikely, but okay. Now why would the Continuum even care?"

"In one, maybe two, of those species, magic will evolve and thrive. Of course all of your direct children will be powerfully magical, no question about that, but some species will react better to the introduction of magic into their DNA long-term and be more powerful as a result. It's in those hybrids that new magical races will begin and you will be their patriarch, the father of the new race. The magical subspecies you create WILL be able to fight alongside us eventually and save this universe. Believing we had no chance to win, most of the Continuum fled to the new alternate universe shortly after it was created and we pulled out of the mirror one years ago, but if there is a real chance to win in this reality Harry... You have ten thousand years Harry to effectively breed a new race of powerful combat capable troops. If we can't count on you... the Continuum is willing to dabble with time and there are levels we are willing to stoop to, if needed, to ensure we win, but the collateral costs of those plans are...extreme."

"I'll courteously ignore the verbal tap dance you just did to not tell me who exactly you're scared of. Why the other species? Why not just find me a witch?"

"Because there are none, no muggleborns, no hidden enclaves, no DNA for clones. That damnable book of names ensures you can find any witch or wizard from birth even if they travel through time... Plus we can't send you back in time due to your powers as the 'Master of Death' shielding you. Cloning is next to impossible due to both the book, wizards favouring cremation and you being so very thorough in securing the dead and destroying their DNA.

We also can't just go back centuries before you were born and just grab a few witches. It's far easier and safer in the long-run if the Continuum just time locks the entire planet from outside temporal influence from all super-beings, so that our enemies can't meddle with Earth. They could easily decide simply preventing the rise of humanity on Earth would be far more cost effective than mucking around with something smaller, like your life in particular."

"It was only right that I recovered the bodies, although that was not what the 'Book of Names' was meant for."

"I'm offering you a chance few men have and most dream of. I'll clear it with the factions, it's important that the races you begin are accepted by the other major powers and have influence over galactic affairs in order to thrive. You'll have women lining up to jump on your broomstick!"

"No no no no no no, you're not interfering with their lives."

"Ground rules? I won't mind control them, trick them or force them in any way. I'll only gently push the most compatible candidates towards you, those who would be willing to both accept it and produce the strongest offspring. I'll clear it so that they will be wives and not just temporary lovers, women who will want you to bring the children up with them."

Not really seeing a way out of it, especially with his own history of romance and copious amounts of casual sex, Harry let out a sigh of resignation. As much as he originally wanted to die and begin the next great adventure, this was a chance to both 'save the universe' and to bring magic back into it... "Then I agree to play this game of yours, but I demand three unconditional favours from the Continuum to be decided on in the future and should you refuse to grant one, it will cost you an extra two more such favours." Harry demanded, before watching Q give a beaming smile in response and then wink out of the room to do Merlin knew what. "It's not like Earth, this new Federation thing or the other factions will agree to polygamy. Now, what exactly is a Graviton Deflector Array?" Harry trailed off, as he turned his attention back to studying the encyclopaedia. If only he could find a real copy of a 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' Maybe Q could make him one specific to this galaxy? The immortal being would probably get a kick out of doing it...

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ in Orbit of Alandra Mining Colony - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony - I.G. 411 -

"Captain Taggart, U.S.S. _New England_," he offered, while extending his hand. "Welcome aboard..."

"Lord Harry Potter-Black, along with several hundred other titles, although my most recent include 'Lightning Strike' and most surprisingly to me, Fleet Admiral of the now defunct EDF Response Fleet Zero. But you may just call me Harry or Lord Potter, if you must."

"Anything else I can call you? I actually have a Potter on my bridge."

"Then just call me Harry, after all just because Starfleet protocol uses family names, doesn't mean the EDF does."

"You don't see yourself as part of the Federation?"

"My commission was with the EDF and I cannot transfer myself without the UE's permission and as the UE no longer exists... it's a bit of a bind."

"Huh… Sorry Harry, but quite frankly, I find the claims about who you're meant to be a little hard to accept."

"Perhaps a trip to the Medical bay is called for, at least to confirm that I'm human?"

"If you'd agree to that."

"Certainly Captain. Just don't leave me in those vultures' clutches for long. I won't even pretend to hope that medical staff in this century is any less overbearing or prone to torturing their patients than it was in mine." Harry said with a good-natured smile, before following the captain.

* * *

\- Starfleet Command - Emergency Meeting with Continuum Representative - I.G. 411 -

"-unless we all agree to make it happen, this galaxy will fall into chaos and never truly recover. The Continuum simply cannot keep the galactic barrier up forever."

"Q. If, and I mean if, this magic is real. We might consider it."

"While the idea of magic existing is...illogical, should such a human subspecies exist, it only makes sense for a multi-mate scenario, so I ask why you wish to have such a union multi-species."

"The 'Magical Core' Subspecies M possesses or hosts, acts as both a battery and a conduit, allowing them to collect, as well as produce internally, then shape with their intent to change reality, certain types of ambient universal energy, but like a Trill symbiont the magical core is very much separate from its user and is even able to take action by itself if the host is in danger. It's by no means fully sentient, but it has instincts of a sort. I should also clarify, that the magical core is not physical, it goes beyond the physical world and is a part of the soul of all living things. It is the spark of life. And not truly something that can be found by merely examining DNA.

Unlike the Trill Symbiont, however, it is permanently bound to its host and cannot be placed fully intact or as powerfully in a new host. Instead, the Core reproduces, and I use the term loosely, via female hosts, creating a new magical core in their offspring.

Now, while we only have a single male member of subspecies M left alive in this universe, this is in fact a better situation. Magically powerful male members of subspecies M will naturally enhance their mate's natural magical core while mating, temporarily providing a massive burst of magic, which both inflates, reinforces and stabilises their mate's magical core, permanently improving said core. This is an evolutionary response that their core enacts, satisfying a primal need to give their mate and offspring the best chance they can to both survive and thrive.

Now, every species has a magical core, its size is directly connected to the planet the person is born on and their parent's core. For example, a child whose parents are members of a species whose planet has sustained trillions of lifeforms for billions of years will have a far more powerful magical core than a child whose parents colonised a newly terraformed world, even if the parents are magical themselves.

Subspecie M's cores are so large because Earth, unlike any other planet in this galaxy, has nurtured the birth, growth and evolution of two consecutive, separate sentient species over an extremely long period of time. Another powerful, space faring civilization began on Earth and left long before the rise of humanity, Earth's second sentient species to survive an appreciable time. It was in this second evolution, this second sentient species, that their magical cores became powerful enough to manipulate in a small segment of the population. This is a gross simplification, of course, as Earth's history had five main extinction events alone. The story of the evolution of life on Earth is a long one, humanity's evolution and expansion into space is only the latest chapter in a very long story. The relevant point of my story is that it's far longer than any other planet in the quadrant

The rise of a magical subspecies is thus possible on any planet under the impossibly difficult to replicate circumstances I've just described. To put it into context, for magic to evolve on Vulcan for instance, the Vulcans would need to recall all their people across the galaxy back to their homeworld, let them populate the planet to it's maximum sustainable limits and then wait a few million years. Then, and only then, would a few of the Vulcans evolve to the point where their magical cores are of a sufficient size to manipulate like humanity's Subspecies M.

But back on point. Any member of a species Subject M mates with naturally, assuming of course they're sexually compatible with humanity in general, will find their core increasing in size providing he does not protect against it. A child arising out of such a union would have a vastly increased magical core, one capable of magic, compared to a child that came from a mating with a member of the same species as the mother.

Unfortunately, he's too smart and too powerful to let us just breed him with a bunch of women, so true and healthy relationships will be needed between the mothers of his children and himself," Q explained, subtly tweaking the minds of the Admirals present, just slightly, to discourage the idea of trying to go against the immortal Master of Death who could even face down a good portion of the Continuum's wrath. No being, no matter how powerful or immortal, was truly safe from the Elder Wand besides its master. "So to recap and simplify... Any children he has with a compatible woman, no matter the species, will be magical, along with the mother."

"If he has this magic, as you've described it, we'll support and do everything in our power to smooth his way to having multiple wives with whoever he chooses. Half a dozen member species in the Federation already have cultures which practice such marriages. I assume, however, that you want something more from us?"

"Just a few things."

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ on route to Earth - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony - I.G. 411 -

"I can't believe she fainted."

"You did just show us immortal blood cells, just after a DNA test proved you were genetically speaking, human."

"Still..."

_"Captain to the bridge, distress signal from the S.S. Break Even."_

"Hells."

"Don't worry about me Captain; I'll go play around on the Holodeck"

"Thanks."

Watching the Captain enter a turbolift, Harry surreptitiously vanished the blood sample that had just been taken by the ship's doctor. Harry then pulled up a map of the ship's interior on one of the wall mounted computers and set off to the Holodeck. He had high hopes for the holographic environment.

Walking up to the door, a password was requested to enter the ongoing session. Entering his birthdate, he smiled as the door immediately opened into an entry hall, nine separate doors leading off the hall, each numbered with a red light above. Slipping a small golden hourglass from his pocket, he smiled at the memories of the first time he'd used one.

Of course the time turner in his hand wasn't the same as the one Hermione was given all those years ago, Britain's supply having been destroyed during Tom's second reign of terror. However, over the years Harry had raided every magical site and government around the world, and thanks to heavily interconnecting magical bloodlines, had inherited everything else when he found himself a member of a near extinct species. You could now read a small book in the same time it took to list all of his Lordships and hereditary titles that the magicals had ever been awarded over the millennia. They had all fallen to him now. The ones he had received from his parents and Sirius, as well as the ones he earned himself through his actions, like 'Lightning Strike,' would always be the most important to him though.

Flipping the inner gyroscopic rings back, he began to spin the small hourglass filled with time sand. Space and time began to warp and twist around him, as the hourglass anchored its location onto the closest gravitational focal point (the ship) and began dragging him into said focal point's past.

Appearing suddenly in an empty Holodeck, Harry checked his watch, noting the exact time of his arrival and then walked over to the holodeck controls. Quickly programming an exact copy of the location he'd seen earlier, and watched as the lights above doors 1 through 8 turned red, signaling that they were occupied.

First the light above door 8 switched to door 9, then 7's light to 8 and so on, till the lights above doors 2 to 9 were now red.

Hanging the time turner securely around his neck, he entered door number one, checking his watch again as it closed. He quickly noted that he was standing on a starship's bridge, which had a door at the other turbolift with a '2' above it and a red light on.

Multiple holographic crewmen appeared and the computer's female voice began speaking. "Activating Emergency Pilot Training Program, this program will rapidly teach the basics of piloting Federation starships." He smirked in delight at what he'd be learning.

Who said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks?

* * *

\- Planet Qo'noS - First City - Klingon Empire Council Chambers - I.G. 411 -

Standing invisible in the centre of the main council room of the Klingon Empire, 'The Laughing Fiend' as the Klingons had come to call him, more commonly known as Q, half watched the arguing political factions on the Council with disinterest.

Delving into each of the council members' minds, he subtly planted ideas, memories and thoughts. His actions would ensure that the Klingon leadership would quietly approve and support an idea, specifically that the immortal human who had managed turn back the augments and end the human Eugenics Wars in true victory, rather than merely a Pyrrhic one, should be given the chance to retire from the petty squabbles of the faction wars and raise his young.

While it would not stop the battle hungry Klingon Empire engaging him in battle as it randomly came, they wouldn't actively hunt him specifically, and should the Federation and Klingons set aside their differences once again and make peace, they'd use their power to smooth the way for more wives.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ on route to Earth - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony - I.G. 411 -

Stepping out of the turbolift, Cadet Le'Ora Tanalis walked quickly down the carpeted hallway of the ship towards the nearest holodeck, pulling at her collar slightly with her green-tinted fingers.

Cadet Tanalis or Ora, to her friends, was an Orion... and a human... well half.

Her mother had been a low-level member in the Orion Syndicate as a ship commander and had become romantically involved with Ora's father for several years. Ora's deep crimson hair was the only legacy she knew that had passed on from her father. It was both a source of pride and her greatest curse.

The Orions were a slave based culture out of necessity. On a planet where every female over the age of eight could use their pheromones to charm the males around her to protect or kill for her, slavery started as a means of population control. Said slavery had continued even as her race colonised all five of the solid planets in their home star system, though several were terraformed, and as the race colonised other planets, admittedly at sub-light, it was the matriarchal Orion Syndicate that ensured the failing and corrupt governments of those new planets did not completely break down.

Eventually, though, the first case of an Orion enslaved to another species took place, as Nausicaan slavers raided an Orion transport ship, taking both slaves and stories back to their people of strong males of labour and seductive females for pleasure to the intergalactic flesh markets.

The Syndicate bided their time and began selling off the convicts and criminals to the markets while arming themselves and their colonies before then taking over most of said markets and ensuring that the Orions were more than just a slave species. While this worked for a time, the Federation's efforts over the years, as well as many other governments, seeking to end the Syndicate, had left it weakened and after a time the Orions found themselves losing control of the semi-criminal empire.

Until Melani D'ian succeeded in taking it over.

Ora's very capable mother, Suni Tanalis, had found herself promoted to the rank of Admiral eventually, yet her human father had been found to be working for Starfleet Intelligence and years after Ora's birth Suni was lowered to the rank of slave. Thankfully, Ora's father had managed to sneak her back to the Federation or Ora would have also ended up on the auction block as well. With her mother's influence next to nothing within the Syndicate and Ora's exotic looks and heritage, she knew all too well how lucky she was to have gotten out.

Entering the Holodeck, Ora stopped for a moment. She had been sent down by the captain to find the VIP, 'Harry,' and take him to the bridge after the computer began repeatedly erroring when someone queried the computer as to his current location. It was a miracle the computer core hadn't crashed.

Then again, it was a miracle the thing turned on these days.

It was one of the very few things that she missed about her mother's people. Sure, the Federation tech was more advanced, but it was soooo temperamental. Orions built everything for durability and sensuality. The second of which, in her opinion, was not helping her people look less like the sex slaves of the galaxy, then again there wasn't a species in the Federation who could build a decent sex toy.

Shaking herself mentally from this train of thought, she walked across the plain entrance room and through the door with the green light above it, its sensor recognising her and allowing her entrance.

Suddenly stopping in her tracks, her eyebrows raised in shock and she had to stop herself from automatically releasing her pheromones.

Across the room, standing hunched over a worktable, was the VIP she had been looking for, now mentally renamed 'Very Important Hunk' in the privacy of her mind. True, she had seen men with more muscles on the home colonies in her youth; gladiatorial arena style orgies being both an Orion only sport and the default method of sex education for the youth (though not participation). The man in front of her was all hard, compact muscle, with not an ounce of fat showing on his athletic form, his body built for combat, for speed and stamina.

He was dressed in a form-fitting black undersuit that left his head and forearms uncovered and strangely looked to be made of reptile scales with odd, intricately carved pieces of dark wood attached in out-of-the-way areas so as not to affect movement. He, and it was definitely a he, spared her a momentary glance before reaching for a pair of combat pants next to him.

Doing her best to subtly drink in the sight of his muscular torso as it stretched in the undersuit, her mind was again drawn back to the memories of watching the males of her mother's species and the both violent and erotic displays that the gladiatorial pits offered. She wondered how this man would do in the pits and somehow thought he would win. There was just a presence about him, like an ancient coiled snake, timeless and deadly.

Suni was more of a big sister than a mother to Ora, constantly encouraging her to have fun in this life, experiencing new things, also frankly exposing her to sex while making sure that Ora never went too far, a testament to that fact being that no man had ever been between Ora's legs...unless you counted her gynaecologist. But looking at the man before her she could almost hear her mother's voice, once again giving her sage advice about choosing a worthy first partner.

She was still in secret, but infrequent contact with her mother, more so since Suni was given as one of the one thousand five hundred female slaves that secured the Orions' alliance with the Klingon Empire, a culture which had historically frowned upon interspecies copulation, thankfully.

After the first few months in the palace, Suni was eventually given as a favour to a high ranking Klingon and after changing hands a few more times that week, found herself as a handmaiden to the Matriarch of House Martok. Last Ora had heard, Suni had earned her freedom and was now serving aboard a Klingon Bird of Prey.

They both hoped that given enough time and careful planning Ora would eventually be given command of a starship and should said starship just so happen to run across her mother's ship, Suni might end up her 'prisoner' and then be 'convinced' to defect to the Federation.

She broke herself from her musings when the VIP swirled a large, multi-pocketed overcoat, made up of the same scale-like material she had seen earlier, over his now clothed form. She gave him a long, hard look after that. The undersuit was almost totally hidden from view by the thick, matte black combat pants tucked into a pair of knee-high, rugged boots. A pair of holsters on each hip were connected to a multi-pouched belt. A thin, red, v-neck t-shirt covered his torso, in her opinion shamefully hiding the perfect muscles beneath. Over that was a right shoulder to left hip sturdy looking strap of some kind, with an attachment point hanging off it.

As the dark black overcoat settled over his shoulders she noticed a large, thin hood and that the sleeves stopped at his elbows, leaving the undersuit exposed, while dark interlocking metallic plates covered his upper arms, shoulders and back. Seeing him pick up an odd silvery sword from the table, her posture shifted in surprise at the sight of such an antiquated weapon. He seemed to slide it into a spine harness hidden in the coat in one quick, smooth movement that spoke of great practice, then the handle disappeared totally.

Looking again at the worktable, she noticed other odd weapons on it, her tactical training kicking in as she went over to inspect and identify them.

There were a pair of handguns that looked like the old human flintlock firearms she had seen in holo-programs, yet they seemed made from dark metals and advanced polymers with faint green glowing geometric lines running through them, the green the same shade as her skin.

Next to them was a matte black, bulky looking rifle right out of the history books. The GL-8 Anti-Augment kinetic assault rifle was of human origin, designed and manufactured on Earth between the Eugenics Wars and World War III. It was a man portable, rapidfire, 15mm magnetically propelled depleted uranium slug, rail-rifle, with underslung starburst shotgun attachment. It was a powerful weapon, meant for one thing, made to ensure that once an Augment was taken down that no amount of enhanced regenerative healing would let them rejoin the fight. It had suffered some crippling design problems at the time, however, that had limited its use and later seen it abandoned. The magnetic launchers, while capable of sending a slug with enough force to punch through a steel plate three inches thick, were just too power hungry for the power technologies of the day, the GL-8's fifteen shot power supply clips actually costing more than a new gun. Despite being one of the best kinetic weapons to be made to date in terms of raw stopping power and sheer range, with the switchover to phaser technology any hope of redesigning the powerful rifle with the new energy storage technologies were abandoned.

"Yes, it works, and yes, I fixed the power problems. A modern, micro replicator makes new rounds now. According to my calculations, it can fire two thousand three hundred and nine rounds before a replacement energy clip is needed."

"I never thought I'd see a real one myself, but your modifications easily make it the most powerful man-portable weapons systems I've ever heard of."

"Yes, well I have a feeling it's also just a war crimes tribunal away from becoming illegal."

"I don't know... it would definitely stop a Borg in its tracks. I'm Cadet Tanalis by the way, unofficial First Officer of the _New England_."

"Unofficial?"

"Our launch was pushed up, so I never took the final test or officially received the promotion. Apparently there's some hot-shot VIP that couldn't wait a few days." She replied teasingly, noticing the large pair of gauntlets now on his arms and the even stranger metal collar covered in beautiful etchings that wrapped round his neck that she mentally frowned at.

"Something wrong?"

"Just not a fan of collars. Despite my species' long history of slavery, we've tried to ban it a few times before, but within a generation some new 'Slave Queen' rises up with plans to takeover, charms a few males to do her bidding and then arms them."

"Orion, right. I can understand that, my culture had a frequent 'Dark Lord' problem as well. As for this old thing, well, my hair is bad enough without adding the helmet hair effects, and-" he paused, tapping the side of the metal ring and activated a force field of some kind which grew out of the metal, creating a translucent bubble around his head, another tap deactivating it. "I really don't want to get spaced again... wish I'd worn it on the way through."

"Wait, you were spaced? Who are you?!"

_"Attention all hands, Red alert! All decks prepare to repel Klingon boarders!"_ The shipwide address finished just as a pair of armor-clad Klingons burst into the room about to fire their disruptor rifles. The pair of ancient looking pistols seemed to virtually fly from the table next to her right into the VIP's waiting hands; a pair of malevolent green bolts slamming into the Klingons a moment later, ripping through their shields and armour like it wasn't even there. There wasn't a single mark on either one when they fell to the ground obviously dead, like wooden puppets who just had their strings cut by an uncaring god.

"The names Potter, Harry Potter."

* * *

Deleted Scene from Chapter 2

(It's a Omake so don't take it seriously)

* * *

\- Meanwhile at the top-secret Section 31 headquarters -

"So, Q just showed up and demanded a meeting about 'Lightning Strike?'"

"Well what on earth does that mean?"

"I don't know. Thrans just told me to come in here and say that Q showed up at Starfleet headquarters and demanded a meeting about 'Lightning Strike' - I didn't expect a kind of Continuum Inquisition.

Q flashes into the room and looks at them disappointedly. "You just had to say it... you make my existence far too easy." He then flashed out only to burst into the room in full length black and red robes.

"NOBODY expects the Continuum Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and teleportation...teleportation and surprise... Our two weapons are teleportation and surprise...and instantaneous matter-energy transformation... Our three weapons are teleportation, surprise, and instantaneous matter-energy transformation ...and the ability to erase you from existence... Our four...no... Amongst... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as teleportation, surprise... I'll come in again."

Looking slightly embarrassed Q left, a Section thirty-one agent waiting a moment before speaking "I didn't expect some kind of Continuum Inquisition."

"NOBODY expects the Continuum Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: teleportation, surprise, instantaneous matter-energy transformation, the ability to erase you from existence, and nice uniforms - Oh damn! Look forget this."

Sitting down at the large round table Q teleported the few agents not sitting into chairs. "I want to make it perfectly clear to you insects. Lord Harry Potter also known as 'Lightning Strike' along with the 'Lonely Wanderer' or if you're feeling old school 'The Boy Who Lived'. Should not be interfered with at all costs, and should some poor unfortunate soul upset my plans for Mr Potter, they will find me exercising my vast knowledge and millennia of experience, to suitably express my displeasure."

(If you don't get it watch more Monty Python)

* * *

_AN: Oh! Two chapters in less than 24 hours; some might say I'm spoiling you. Others might know chapter two was finished before chapter one was even posted. Some of you may question the very business-like attitude of Q, please remember Harry is not just some powerless mortal he can just play around with with no possible consequences, and thus a certain degree of respect was shown in this first meeting._

_That's not to say Q wouldn't revert to his normal attitudes around any mere mortals Harry happens to be with._

_I would also like to note a recurring problem with uploading italic text and I apologise to anyone this may affect as only author's notes and ship names are meant to be so. As always feel free to leave a comment and if you are looking for more Star Trek fanfiction, BoredZero's story "Q Effect" is a very nice blend of Star Trek and Mass Effect._


	3. Ch3 Get off my lawn!

**To Boldly Go**

* * *

_I, in no way own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness; or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licences and trademarks belong to their respective parties, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non-profitable use._

_Lightly proofread by Antt1995_

_Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'_

* * *

_AN: For those wanting to play the non-crossover version of this mission on Star Trek Online please turn to the tutorial mission of said game:_ **Training Cruise**

* * *

Chapter 3

Get off my lawn!

* * *

**Previously on Thrans's; To Boldly Go**

_"Who are you?!"_

_"Attention all hands, Red alert! All decks prepare to repel Klingon boarders!" The shipwide address finished just as a pair of armor-clad Klingons burst into the room about to fire their disruptor rifles. The pair of ancient looking pistols seemed to virtually fly from the table next to her right into the VIP's waiting hands; a pair of malevolent green bolts slammed into the Klingons a moment later, ripping through their shields and armour like it wasn't there. There wasn't a single mark on either one when they fell to the ground obviously dead, like wooden puppets who just had their strings cut by an uncaring god._

_"The names Potter, Harry Potter."_

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ \- Day of Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"Did you really just 'James Bond' me?"

Harry just looked at the attractive green-skinned girl in front of him, "I get the feeling you're no fun to be around."

"Oh, I'm fun. I'm the **[Beep]**ing definition of fun."

It took him a moment to realize what the hell just happened, before scoffing aloud. He made a mental note to get a non-Federation issued translator first chance he got, especially if it was going to censor things. His father's wit was present as he reflexively retorted, "Is that an offer to be my Bond Girl then sweetheart?"

"I may be suicidal enough to be wearing a red shirt, Mr. Potter, but the survival rate of Bond Girls is even lower."

"Call me Harry. How about being my Miss Moneypenny then?" he fired back, pleased to see she could keep up with his innuendo. He clipped his assault rifle, the exact same one that had been with him for many years, both during and after the war, onto the harness across his chest letting it dangle in easy reach, ready to brought up to kill his enemies. "And if you're worried about your survival rate in that shirt my dear, feel free to take it off."

"You'd like that far too much!" she retorted. He then walked over to the replicator, punching in his security code so that the computer would allow the replicator to produce a personal shield unit and phaser sidearm.

He had discovered that the Federation had made a good number of mistakes in the haste of its founding, the transition of multiple planets and their vastly different militaries into the new organization meant quite a bit of chaos for a time, most of which eventually sorted itself out over the years. Some of the mistakes that he was now capitalizing on were made centuries ago and had never been found, most even predated the Federation's founding, a continued legacy of the UE to Coalition transfer debacle.

As far as he could tell, the then United Earth government had sent an automated set of orders to the EDF fleets and related personnel in 2155, bypassing the EDF chain of command, stating that with the foundation of the Coalition of Planets they were to transfer into said group's authority and command structure. As such, the UE's main orbital defence computers became the Coalition's, with just the names, ranks and other such related data of its military personnel replaced in a 'Find and Replace' maneuver to correspond to the new standards and rankings, etc., of the Coalition of Planets.

This, in turn, meant that the EDF's purely ceremonial Response Fleet Zero never filed the required transfer order acceptance or refusal with the UE or Coalition respectively, as there was nobody around (or alive) to do so, yet was still officially considered a real, active fleet within the Coalition, even though this fleet never accepted the transfer.

When the Coalition of Planets officially joined the United Federation of Planets in 2161, Response Fleet Zero merely came along for the ride, as they had never officially accepted the authority of the Coalition of Planets but had also never denied it either, thus they logically and legally had not truly been bound by the Coalition's decision to become a part of the Federation and didn't fall under the Federation's authority either. In essence, as they had never truly accepted or opposed the transfer, and the Federation had never truly denied or accepted them it either, Response Fleet Zero was more akin to an independent allied fleet.

Furthermore, since none of this had ever been realized, Response Fleet Zero and all its personnel (who had never officially died in the records as they were MIA) were still automatically receiving the ranks, pay and security clearances of a fully authorized and official Federation Fleet in the modern day, centuries later.

This was not to say that Harry couldn't easily fix the problem, all he really needed to do was declare independence making the fleet desert the original United Earth government, ask to join Starfleet, then order Response Fleet Zero to join Starfleet, before final accepting the transfer as Admiral of the Fleet. In the meantime, however, Harry enjoyed the privileges of his 'official' rank and over three hundred years of back pay. This was a rather tidy sum of money as you might imagine.

He had managed to figure all this out and much, much more during his many repeated days with the time turner. His mastery of advanced Occlumency and unrestricted access to the Federation and Starfleet databases had left him with a better knowledge base than that of many of the Federation's Specialists in their own fields of study. He could fly any starship, of any class and size, that the Federation had ever learned how to use, including the ones captured from various enemies over the years. His extensive engineering knowledge now allowed him to fix anything from a Federation phaser to a Dominion sublight engine, with Klingon, Romulan, Borg and Cardassian technology also covered, to name a few of the races.

A basic level of science officer training had also been covered, but Harry hadn't otherwise delved into it too much. He had also quickly passed (and had quite a bit of fun doing it) all the ground and space based combat proficiency training missions and exams in the database, including some of the supposedly unwinnable ones, though Harry believed that Q must have been involved in ensuring the computer knew how to react to his use of magic and not simply crash when he did the seemingly impossible.

He had also delved into the training courses for Starfleet commanders, while studying history, the known races and cultures of this galaxy, and the historical records and mission reports of the Federation's most infamous ship captains, even those records and mission reports that were accessible only to those possessing the highest of security clearances. It was quite an eye opener...and an education.

In the last two days of training he had tested how his spells would affect the outcome of different scenarios, while upgrading his 'war gear,' as he liked to call it, with modern day technology. He knew that in an immortal's timescale, war was _unfortunately _always just over the horizon.

Tossing the green-skinned cadet the personal shield and phaser he had just replicated, he pulled out the pair of pistols that he and Hermione had created so many years ago. The rounds the pistols fired were a runic modification of the killing curse, specifically designed to only kill non-magicals and the armed, while the spell rounds only knocked out friendlies or non-combatants. These pistols had seen him through many a pitched battle, taken and saved many lives. Having their familiar weight in his hands, the rough grip which was molded perfectly for him, his magic reached into them and he felt like he was saying hello to old friends. In the often seen way that heavily magic saturated items often became something more than objects over time, it almost felt like they were happy, happy to serve and protect their master once more. He smiled at the feeling. The muggles would never truly understand the wonders of magic.

His armour was designed for both conventional and magical warfare, supplemented by a one-way, experimental plasma-based shield he had recovered during the early years of the third World War. Most of his traditional spell casting was actually channelled through the gauntlets on his wrists, while the airtight sealed collar round his neck projected a modified bubble head charm originally designed to automatically deal with radiation or chemical weapons and now further modified to protect him from the harsh environment of space.

"You ready?" he asked, looking at his escort, both of them all business now. He only opened the door when she nodded, both of them leaving the holographic environment and other versions of Harry from further down his personal time stream spinning their time-turners as explosions gently rocked the ship.

"We should head to the transporter room to cut off their reinforcements," Cadet Tanalis advised, motioning down a hallway, the sound of sporadic disruptor fire punctuating the echoing red alert alarm.

"Let's go then."

* * *

\- I.K.S. _Chot_ \- Site of distress call by the S.S. _Break Even - _ Approximately 1 lightyear from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

Aboard the dark rust coloured hallways of the Negh'Var class Heavy Battle Cruiser, Klingon Marauders and Nausicaan pirates stood alongside their Gorn, Orion and Lethean allies in several transporter rooms, impatiently waiting to join the battle on the Federation ship.

However, not all was going as planned, for though the initial ambush and boarding had gone smoothly, reports of Federation forces quickly retaking the decks were coming back as well. Such a thing would be expected for a well-trained ship of the line full of veteran Starfleet officers and crew, yet this vessel was filled with wet being the ears cadets. Thinking resistance would be low, the first wave of raiders to be deployed had been smaller than normal and were mostly made up of mostly battle hungry fresh recruits, who were inexperienced, but still had been already blooded.

"Captain, the Federation _dogs _have managed to cut off our reinforcements and are attempting to retake the engine room!"

"Unexpected... Get me a current status report on the team tasked with taking over the bridge."

"Yes Captain."

"They are brave, but foolissssh," offered the Gorn bridge officer at the helm, as Captain Kadek was waiting for the report he requested.

"It hardly matters anyway, we outnumber them ten to one. Still I cannot but wish we had caught some larger prey than this pathetic training ship." Looking thoughtful for a moment he continued "If they manage to push us off their ship, I might let our escorts test their guns."

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ \- On turbolift to the bridge - Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

Forcing down the strange urge to ask his companion about her history, views or parents' species, Harry could only sigh at the speed of this painfully slow elevator. After stopping at the armoury and finding all the stocked Mk 1 phaser rifles inferior to the Mk III pistol he'd got the replicator to produce (The Mk IV or higher not being in the _New England_'s on-file replicator patterns), they had retaken the transporter room before joining up with several other cadets and then retaking Engineering. After doing that they decided to head for the bridge, leaving a Cadet Zarva in charge of the deck. However, the Klingon borders had had time to make a right mess of the place and Harry knew that some non-replicable parts would have to be replaced outright.

Now heading to the bridge, he began imagining new possible designs to make the turbolifts run faster. The biggest problem in designing it was that the internal motion dampeners maintained a speed to ride smoothness ratio, plus moving components on a starship created thrust, even if by a tiny amount.

Perhaps a command override program to change normal operation... for emergencies only. He wouldn't want to break the dampeners and get stuck in the lift, unless he did want that... maybe a hidden button to make the lift 'suddenly' break down? That could be useful in the right situation.

Feeling the lift slow, obviously near its destination, Harry raised his assault rifle to a ready position, the stock pressed firmly into his shoulder, the barrel down only a few inches from chest height. Stray solid slugs from the GL-8 would do far less damage to control panels than the magical rounds from his pistol he'd found out. He'd already needed to cast a _r__eparo _on a hull breach he'd caused after Ora had told him to shoot an EPS conduit next to a squad of Klingons. Said magical bolt had instantly overloaded the conduit which exploded, killing the Klingons, but knocking Ora out and him on his ass. On the plus side, though, the EPS network was now fully charged.

Bursting through the opening turbolift doors Harry quickly let off a handful of rounds into the teleporting Klingons, noticing with some pride that two were hit by the solid rounds before the enemy transporter pulled them out. One was in for a long, slow recovery, the other would be lucky to last the hour, less if what he read on Klingon medical technology was right. These rounds had been designed for augments with powerful regeneration after all.

"Sound off!"

Harry shouted to the cadets on the bridge, cursing the fact that the Captain had been kidnapped by the Klingons in the transporter escape.

"Cadet T'Vrell reporting. We are just roughed up, sir. No KIA," answered the dark-haired Vulcan in blue. "However, the Captain did not yet assign any official officers and cadets are specifically locked out from taking control of a starship to stop them from joyriding." Her eyes shifted slightly towards one of the cadets by the helm, another cadet couldn't help but to add her own clarification. "Isn't that right, Anna?"

"It was one time!"

"Maybe he made me first officer, but never told me?" Ora spoke up.

"Possible, but unlikely. Computer, state rank and starship privileges of Le'Ora Tanalis."

_"Cadet Le'Ora Tanalis __has been __assigned standard__,__c__adet__-__level __s__tarship privileges __aboard __t__he U.S.S. _New England_."_ Came the smooth female voice from the computer.

Racking his brains for a moment, Harry tried to remember the necessary wording he had learned so long ago (relatively speaking) concerning starship computer queries, before eventually deciding to wing it and hope the computer could correctly interpret his request. "Computer, identify this user, user's faction and recognised standing and authority within Starfleet, United Federation of Planets. My authentication code is Lima, Bravo, Dash, Hotel, Papa, Strike, Strike."

_"__Voice print recognized. Authentication code confirmed and valid. __User is identified as member of __Earth Defense Force, Fleet__ Admiral Harry Potter-Black, __callsign 'Lightning Strike__.__'__ Recognised as member of R__esponse Fleet Zero, Earth Defence Force, __United Earth __g__overnment, __Federation Ally__, Subspecies M, Human__.__ Further __Information is __Classified, L__evel 13 security clearance required__. Starfleet officially recognises United Earth __g__overnment and Earth __Defence Force __as Tier __Alpha allied forces and in compliance with the temporal accords drawn up at the Federation's Foundings, all Earth Defense Force officers believed to be in time travel incidents are to be placed at one rank below their current rank in the Starfleet chain of command__."_

Letting out a sigh of relief, Harry opened his mouth only to be cut off by the computer. "_Admiral Potter, you appear to be attempting to take command of the ship. Would you like some help with that?"_

"...yes." Harry said, growling at Q's obvious idea of humour and the notion that 'Clippy' or another of the annoying 'help' tools might have survived World War III as well.

"Incoming hail from the Klingons; I'm attempting to trace it."

"On screen."

"This is Captain Kadek of the I.K.S. _Chot_," said a one-eyed Klingon appearing on the main viewscreen.

"You may have forced my boarding parties off your ship, but our vessel remains cloaked. You have no hope of finding us… or defeating us. Your choice is simple. Surrender and you will live, your men will go to our labour camps and the women the slave markets. Fight and we will kill your captain and then destroy your ship."

"Never! Better to die!" Cadet Tanalis shouted, the klingons obviously seeing her as the leader of the group, due to her Starfleet uniform and her prominent location on the bridge.

"Perhaps your captain can change your mind?" Turning, Kadek pulled Captain Taggart's beaten and bloody form into view. "Order your crew to surrender, Captain, or I will blow them out of the sky. It's your choice, Captain. Do you want these children to die so young?"

"Very well." Sighing, Taggart shuffled forward, obviously in a great deal of pain. His crew was forced to merely look on. The strength of his voice increased as he began to quickly speak. "Fleet Admiral Potter, you are now the captain of the ship. Your orders... Your orders are to lock onto my comm badge and fir-!"

The crew could only watch open-mouthed at what happened next. What they saw with their eyes made no sense whatsoever, but it sounded like this... *fwt* _*fwt* "What th-" *ting-ting* *fwt*_ *fwt* _"-e hell!" *BOOM*_ However, if they had the necessary background on subspecies M's capabilities, the Federation and Klingon crews would have known that Harry had used the viewscreen to visualise the Klingon ship's bridge, then apparated to the unshielded, cloaked ship, grabbed the wounded Captain, then dropped a magically enhanced fragmentation grenade designed to clear whole bunkers, then apparated back to the New England...all in the span of a few seconds. The huge explosion and the total loss of their bridge and its crew threw the Klingon ship into utter chaos.

"Torpedoes away!" Cadet Flores yelled, having locked onto the location Taggart previously stood and decided to fulfill what would have been his final order. Her mind was now attempting to find an explanation for the disappearance/reappearance of her Captain and Admiral. "Torpedo impact!" She reported as the warheads hit the unshielded and cloaked Klingon ship.

"Status of the enemy ship?"

"Direct hit, signs of secondary explosions along their power grid. Their bridge will be a mess, but they've re-engaged cloak and will be beginning repairs."

Nodding, Harry rested the wounded Captain Taggarton on the floor. "Computer, notify sick bay of a medical emergency, beam Captain Taggart to the infirmary. Transfer command of the _New England_ to myself, promote Cadet Tanalis to the rank of first officer, Cadet Flores to Tactical Officer, Cadet T'Vrell to Science Officer and Cadet Zarva to Chief of Engineering. Confirm orders, then contact Engineering."

_"Transfer of comm__and of __U.S.S. _New England_ under Fleet Admiral Harry Potter-B__lack,__ authorised and logged, battlefield commissions for Lieutenants Tanalis, Flores, T'Vrell, and Zarva, confirmed and logged. Contacting Engineering."_

_"Cadet Zarva here, what's up?"_

"Congratulations _Lieutenant _Zarva, status report on repairs."

_"Yes-Sir-Thank-you-Sir! Uh... most critical subsystems are repaired, but __the klingons __ripped out half the warp plasma injectors, without them we can't even make warp one__.__ I can __eventually __create a bypass to get to about warp two, but it'll take a week."_

"Admiral, this area is littered with wrecks. We could try salvaging the needed parts from the wrecks, possibly even determine whatever is blocking communications." T'Vrell added from her station.

"Lieutenant Zarva, continue the repairs; we will see about getting you the parts you need. Lieutenant T'Vrell, find us a suitable wreck. Cadet-" Harry paused looking at the helms-woman silently asking her for a name. "Anne Potter, sir."

"When T'Vrell has completed the scans, bring us about at best possible speed. Lieute- Okay, we're dropping the ranks, just call me Harry. Flores, work out how to salvage parts and equipment from the wrecks with transporters only. I don't want to just cut through them with phasers and tractor it in."

Confirmations of his orders rang around the bridge as they got to work, Harry's new First Officer walking over. "Congratulations on your first command Harry, though I should at least say Captain. And if we're dropping ranks, please just call me Ora. Tanalis was my grandma," she explained, meeting his eyes. "Now would you mind explaining your little vanishing trick?"

"Have you been briefed on subspecies M?"

"By the Federation… no. However, all Orions are taught about an ancient slave bounty on a mysterious human subspecies, and that the Federation will buy members of said subspecies for such a large sum of money that even a Ferengi would decide to retire after being paid the bounty."

"So what do you actually know?"

"That if a medical scanner comes back with the phrase 'Human: Subspecies M' we're to capture at all costs, try to work out why the Federation is paying so much and sell you only to them or the Intergalactic Banking Group. Not that I ever would, Captain."

"Intergalactic Banking Group?"

"Mysterious race of bankers who deal in small gold coins. Annoyingly cryptic with massive amounts of dilithium to fund themselves with. Always going on about a 'Perfect World.'"

"Where have I heard that before-? To be honest, I don't even know how much about Subspecies M the Federation even knows, but the simplest explanation of who we are is if you imagine a species who are half human, half Q."

"So..._s__pace __m__agic_...now I get the 'M.'"

* * *

\- I.K.S. _Chot_ \- Site of distress call of the S.S. _Break Even_ \- Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

"How did he do that?!"

This question came from an enraged voice, in fact one of the few surviving bridge crew, the magically enhanced fragmentation grenade having ripped through the unprepared crew and killed most immediately. The new second in command replied, "The Denobulan called the human _Fleet Admiral_, perhaps he had access to some experimental technology that we've never encountered before?"

"You ssugesssst a personal transporter? Capable of locking onto incoming comm ssignalssss?"

"Impossible! The Qa'Hom could never think of such a thing themselves," answered the Klingon comm officer, his right arm hanging uselessly by his side, horrifically shredded below the elbow.

"You think him a qa'meH quv then?"

"Enough!" Kadek harshly ordered, recognising the current discussion as useless. "Damage report!"

"Weapons are still off-line, but cloak has been restored. Damage to the bridge is... extensive. It would be faster to return to spacedock and pull the entire section out for replacement." Said the Orion engineer who had been safe in the engine room at the time of the explosion.

"We do not need the bridge to hunt them down and kill them; there is no shame in using the auxiliary stations. Still, the longer we take to prepare for battle the longer they have as well. Send in our escorts, they deserve a chance and should they take the kill we will have learned our lesson."

* * *

\- Site of the false distress call by the S.S. _Break Even - _ Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

As the I.K.S. _Chot_ licked its wounds and the Ferengi crewed S.S. _Break Even_ got the hell out of dodge, the U.S.S. _New England_ picked its way through the wrecks of destroyed ships, while hunting down the communication jamming satellites.

Having long since found the needed replacement parts, Harry had ordered the crew to beam any useful supplies or rare technologies to the Captain's ready room, before retreating to it for 'classified' reasons. Later on, when Razkii went in to pass on a message from the repair teams, he could have sworn that Harry was trying to put a heavy phaser cannon into a small wooden trunk.

However, as the crew of the _New England_ was beaming over a half intact bank of Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile Launchers and their self-propelled and guided ammunition, a stream of green disruptor bolts shot out from the skeletal wrecks, flaring brightly against the _New England_'s hastily raised shields.

Targeting computers quickly locked onto the pair of de-cloaked Bird-of-Preys. Orange phaser beams stabbed out at the dark green craft as the Federation ship turned to bring its torpedoes to bare, just as the ruby coloured torpedoes the Klingons fired splashed harmlessly against the _New England_'s shields.

The Klingon disruptor cannon fire continued to light up the heavily strained Federation shields. As the ship completed its turn, a pair of photon torpedoes quickly crossed the distance, the forward shield emitters taking some of the strain.

Attempting to present its intact flank shielding, the Bird-of-Prey was unfortunately too late. Its forward shields already weakened significantly by the previous attacks, _broke_, under the first torpedo's impact. The subsequent explosion scarred the ventral hull of the ship, venting a few small compartments to the harsh vacuum of space. The second torpedo finished the job entirely, drilling well into the ship's rear superstructure before the high yield warhead in the torpedo detonated while inside the hull, gutting the ship and breaking it's keel apart before forcing the warp-core off-line, a few escape pods detaching a moment later from the doomed ship.

With its wingman out of the battle, the second Klingon Bird-of-Prey dropped its shields and activated its cloak, obviously hoping to end the engagement on its terms. A well-timed phaser strike, however, caught it mid-way in the cloaking process and punched through its starboard main engine.

Reinforcing their damaged shields once the battle was over, the _New England_'s crew could only wait as engineering tried to re-enable the warp drive, hoping that their distress call finally got through.

De-cloaking behind them, the I.K.S. _Chot_ fired its disruptor cannons, beam banks and beam arrays then re-cloaking. The _New England__'s_ rear phaser bank fired back, hoping to score a lucky hit on the unshielded, but now invisible vessel.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ Bridge - Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

"This is hopeless! As long as they keep up these hit and run tactics we can never win."

"I find that I must agree with your assessment, Flores. Their last attack nearly collapsed our shields and they have not yet repaired their photon torpedo banks."

"Your plan better work, Captain."

Harry was currently hunched over a hastily designed and replicated pedestal set up in the middle of the bridge, and was wiring up a simple set of sensors and fire controls built into it. The pedestal also had its own gyroscopic compass housing on two legs, resting on top. "Nearly done," he whispered to himself, wishing that he was building this in a shipyard and not in the field.

Slotting a thin wooden rod into the housing, he gave the compass frame a smooth spin, before stopping it.

"On my order transfer fire control to my new console. Here we go." Slipping his hand under the gyroscope, he wandlessly began stretching his magic out to the shaft of wood in the assembly till it latched on. "_Point me_ cloaked Klingon vessel, I.K.S. _Chot._" This level of specificitiy wasn't strictly necessary for the _point me_ spell to work, but why take a chance?

The piece of wood began to spin around for a moment, before it suddenly slowed and began pointing off to starboard, continuing to move as if tracking something slowly moving through space. The hastily built sensors were now directing the ship's targeting computer along the axis the wooden stick was oriented on. "Transfer weapons' control!" Harry ordered, his fingers stabbing at the fire buttons as they lit up, signalling his station had control of the _New England's_ weapons.

The viewscreen jumped to a hull mounted camera at his order and they watched in awe as the overcharged phaser beam arrays struck out into the void of space, illuminating the decloaking ship as secondary explosions were visible on its hull. The now normally firing phasers continued to hit the enemy vessel's centre of mass as it tried again to re-cloak, tracking it unerringly via the wooden stick's pointed trajectory, no matter the evasive maneuvers the Klingon vessel attempted.

Realizing their cloak was no longer a good protection, the Klingon vessel reactivated its shields and the phasers splashed against the barely charged bubble of electromagnetic energy, the Negh'Var class warship continuing to be rocked by secondary explosions, only its twin disrupter arrays returning fire as their engines died.

The wounded Bird-of-Prey rejoined the fight then, its disruptors splashing against the rear shields, as the _New England_'s crew adjusted the power-flow to compensate.

However, Harry could only watch as the battle turned against them, the _Chot_'s repaired torpedoes now opening fire with the Bird-of-Prey's, the destructive projectiles hammering against the already taxed and thin protective shield bubble.

"We can't take much more of this, Captain!" Zarva advised over the comm from her station in engineering, unknowingly echoing the exact words of so many starship engineers before her.

"Helm, try to put those wrecks to port between them and us and continue rotating our facing side to let up on the shield emitters."

"Yes, Captain."

"Ora, don't suppose you have a trick like Flores' twin torpedoes."

"It's called high yield Torpedoes and another thirty-seconds," shouted Elisa, answering the unspoken side question as the ship continued to shake around them.

"I'm trained for 'fire at will' combat on the phaser arrays, but with only one bank forward and another aft it's not much use on this ship. If you give me manual control I might be able to target their weapons specifically, but I only ever learned the theory behind it."

"Do it."

* * *

\- Site of the false distress call by the S.S. _Break Even_ \- Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

The three ships continued to fire back and forth, the momentary Klingon advantage in this fight was ended as the engineering crew of the _New England_ managed to boost its power output to the shields by shutting down the environmental and artificial gravity systems in several empty sections of the ship. The fight was now in a stalemate, a game of cat and mouse really, as the three ships weaved in and out of the asteroids and shipwrecks around them taking potshots at each other the whole time.

As the ships traded damage, they would bank and weave and in the Bird-of-Prey's case, cloak intermittently, all to try and gain the advantage while still protecting themselves, their engineering teams desperately trying to repair the damage all three had sustained at various points.

After managing to bring its bow phasers to bare on the larger Negh'Var class ship, the _New England_'s phaser beams, modified for this attack to be much more highly focused and thin for greater penetration, sliced into the ship's shields, knocking several subsystems off-line in a paper cut like attack. The damaged sections, despite being easily repairable at any other time, took the enemy's torpedo launchers back off-line along with several key shield emitters, while the phaser array it had come from furiously tried to vent the excess heat after using such an abnormally thin and highly focused beam.

Aboard the _New England,_ Harry was calmly leading the crew, choosing his tone and words carefully to bolster their confidence and calm their fears, giving orders to the helm, new targets to the tactical stations and micromanaging the shields through the science cadets. If anyone could watch at that moment, it would seem like Harry had been commanding a starship all his life.

However, aboard the _Chot_, Kadek was commanding his ship from a rather cramped auxiliary command station, his snarling orders laced with insults and threats as his crew worked to control the fires and explosions occurring all over the ship, while pointing and firing every weapon he could at the Federation vessel. The idea of retreating and cutting his losses never even crossing his mind.

Eventually the fight came down to a single order from the I.K.S. _Chot _sent into subspace_._ "Enter the Battle."

Now de-cloaking, the archaic Klingon Defence Force training ship for new recruits opened fire, the rookie crews of the D7 class training vessel unloading their ageing weapon systems into the already beleaguered Federation ship.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ Bridge - Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

"Shields at fourteen percent and falling, Captain!" Came a worried voice, just as a few lights on the bridge dimmed, the ship rolling harshly from the shockwave of an exploding torpedo.

"We'll make it people; they've played all their cards."

The ship lurched again as the I.K.S. _Chot_'s torpedoes had obviously come back online, a frightened shout alerting the bridge crew that the ship's shields were now gone, several of the lights flickering. A thankfully unmanned control station then overloaded in a shower of intense sparks and a structural beam from above fell, shattering the device that Harry had used to bypass the Klingon's cloak.

"Engines full! Use the phasers to shoot down their torpedoes."

"Captain, permission to install that salvaged shield emitter amplifier we found while the shields are off-line and recharging?" Came the call over the comm from engineering, a quick 'permission granted' from Harry was all that was needed, as he returned to commanding the damaged ship.

Suddenly the lights went out entirely and the ship rocked, red emergency chemical lights taking over and illuminating the previously pitch black bridge. The door to the turbolift and part of the wall suddenly became an open window to space, followed by emergency force fields snapping into place as the disruptor beam ripped into the hull and lower decks, a spaced crewmen reaching frantically for a handhold to prevent their death, before being saved by a quick apparition trick from Harry.

"Rotate the ship Anne!" Ora shouted to the shaken helms-woman, who quickly complied to protect the damaged section by firing the impulse engines and thrusters to both rotate the ship and put a few more wrecks between them and the Klingons. "Don't suppose you've got a trick for that Harry?" Ora added pointing where the lift used to be.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _Renown_ \- In Warp transit to distress signal from U.S.S. _New England_ training cruiser - Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

"We will be arriving momentarily, Captain."

Nodding to his navigator, Captain Vo'Lok watched the forward viewscreen impassively; the _New England_ had earlier reported receiving a distress signal and had gone to investigate and render assistance if needed, before they lost contact. The _Renown_ had already been on its way to check in with the U.S.S. _Khitomer_ in the Pollux system, after it too had failed to respond. It was a worrying coincidence.

However, a garbled distress call from the _New England_ had been picked up on route and Vo'Lok had chosen to check first on the weaker ship before the _Khitomer_, as he could actually confirm it was still alive.

Dropping out of warp, he snapped out an immediate order to raise shields and go to red alert as he spotted the tell-tale dark green colored disruptor fire of Klingon ships. "Scan for the _New England_ and other targets."

"We've got them, sir." Reynolds shouted from the sensor station, switching the viewscreen to show the battered Federation ship, its hull scarred with numerous energy burns and a large hull breach worryingly close to the ship's bridge.

"Bring us in close and extend the shields, target the Klingon vessels and fire all weapons when in range." The Vulcan captain ordered, watching the aged D-7 battlecruiser warp out of the system when the _Renown_ was detected, its captain obviously deciding to save the barely trained crew of the ancient, but still warp capable vessel.

Spotting one crippled Bird-of-Prey drifting in space, he watched as another's warp core overloaded, destroying the ship in a cloud of matter/antimatter annihilation. Vo'Lok took the time to survey the damage the attacking Klingons had taken, a glimmer of respect for the cadet crew quickly banished from the forefront of his mind as he watched the damaged Negh'Var Class Heavy Battle Cruiser shudder and break up. For an old Miranda class ship to take on a heavy battle cruiser, two bird of preys, and an old D-7… and destroy some of them while surviving themselves. That was quite an accomplishment.

"Captain, incoming hail from the _New England_, glad to see someone's alive on the bridge."

If he had been human Vo'Lok thought he might have rolled his eyes at his hyper, overly cheerful comm officer. "On screen. This is Captain Vo'Lok of the U.S.S. _Renown_, to whom am I speaking?"

_"This is Fleet Admiral Harry James Potter-Black, callsign __'Lightning Strike,' __United Ea__rth government Earth Defence Force, __authentication code Lima, Bravo, Dash, Hotel, Papa, Strike, Strike__.__C__urrently in com__mand of the U.S.S. _New England_."_

Looking to his tactical officer for confirmation, he took the slack-jawed human officer's nodding in both confusion and a bit of recognition to have confirmed the authentication as valid. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Authentication confirmed. May I ask your status, Admiral?"

_"We've taken some __extreme __combat damage, but __repair __work is proceeding __well, but slowly__. Do you have time to __render assistance__?"_

"Unfortunately we were ordered to reestablish contact with the U.S.S. _Khitomer_ which went dark in the nearby system. Perhaps you would transfer your crew over? It would be logical to abandon and scuttle the vessel if it is too heavily damaged."

_"I'm __reluctant __to do that, as __the ship is__ still space worthy__.__I__f you could take some of the strain off our sickbay and lend a couple of your security and engineering teams, we could follow you after conducting repair and SAR operations and then join you at the location of the Khitomer?"_

"Logical and prudent. I will arrange the requested teams immediately and transport them over under your command before continuing to the _Khitomer's_ last known location."

* * *

\- U.S.S._ New England_ Bridge - Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System - Day of Invasion of Vega Colony -

Despite only having little more than a glorified skeleton crew of engineers and bridge officers from the original crew, the bulk of the major repairs were completed quickly with the use of the replicators and some basic repair nanobots. Before leaving the bridge Harry did show Ora the wonders of the _r__eparo _charm; the spell able to fix the large hull breach near the bridge. Unfortunately it could only repair the walls and hull, not the embedded electrical components, though he did mutter something about bio-neural circuitry.

After leaving the bridge Harry took the security teams around to the damaged and drifting Klingon ships, appropriating any and all equipment and materials that caught even his vaguest interest (aka looting shamelessly) and capturing the crews in cut off compartments and scattered escape pods around the area.

Captain Kadek was even found alive and was transported to the brig with the rest of the captured crews, only to wake up alone in a cell with the dark-haired, teleporting human standing over him. Every one of his most ancient and primal instincts was telling him that this man was powerful and dangerous and that he should flee before a superior predator lest he be eaten. The man did nothing but grin menacingly down at him, as if he could taste the very fear on the air and it thrilled him, before whispering a word that would haunt his nightmares for many years to come.

"_**Legilimens**_**!**"

* * *

_AN: Anyone who wants to know why the Klingon Birds of Prey did so badly, should remember that they are the lowest rung of Klingon ships, built in bulk and intended as cannon fodder for the Empire...or working in larger hunting parties of five or more. I was going to end the chapter at the point where Zarva said they couldn't take much more, but decided the chapter would be too short at that point, so please enjoy the extra 1000 plus words._

_I am, as always, open to any and all questions you might have, so please ask if you are confused and I will do my best to answer. I love hearing from my readers, good or bad. I also hope to be able to keep up with the quick update schedule that I seem to have taken on, fingers crossed for a regular chapter a week deal._

_Anyone wondering if I'm abusing magic and apparition... yes and no. I'll be going through the rules later, but Harry will NOT be able to just jump any distance and otherwise bypass shields he's unfamiliar with._

_And now the deleted scene._

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ Bridge after the apparition raid on the I.K.S. _Chot _\- Approximately 1 LY from the Pollux System -

"To be honest, I don't even know how much about Subspecies M the Federation know, but the simplest way to explain us is if you imagine a species who are half human and half Q."

"So space magic... like the F**[Beep]**in Star W**[Beep]**."

"Shush! You'll get us in trouble; you can't draw any comparisons between our reality and Star Wars."

"Why?"

"Cause the Trekkies, Trekkers and Treksters will be all over your ass for pre-posing their just Warries somewhere in the multi-verse, even if the Q are nicely explained by evolution, a long, long time ago and force ghosts."

"You forgot to beep yourself..."

"Captain, there's a combined nerd flamer fleet on sensors!"

"Frack! Pilot, prepare for _l__udicrous _speed!"

* * *

_AN: Anyone who can get all three references in the last line wins a pat on the back._

_If you don't get them, remember to ask for your homework assignment, or check the reviews._


	4. Ch4 Error, Anomaly Found

**To Boldly Go**

(No red-shirts were harmed during the making of this chapter.

They were outright killed.)

* * *

I, in no way own, claim to speak for or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness; or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licenses and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non profitable use.

Except Thrans, he's all me. Well, at least a third of me; but totally me.

Proofread by **Antt1995** &amp; Beta'd and Revised by **Joe Lawyer**

* * *

_AN: __Welcome to the re-re-release of chapter 4!_

_For those wanting to play the non__-__crossover version of this chapter on Star Trek Online please turn to the tutorial mission of said game_: **Communication Breakdown** _&amp;_ **Assimilation of the Innocent**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

_Error, Anomaly Found._

* * *

**Last Episode (Warning! This chapter contains character death.)**

"_We've taken some heavy damage during combat, but repairs are proceeding well. Do you have time to offer assistance?_" Harry asked to the man on the viewscreen.

"Unfortunately we were meant to be re-establishing contact with the U.S.S. _Khitomer _which went dark in the nearby system."

"_If you could take some of the strain off our sickbay and lend a couple of security and engineering teams, after conducting repair and SAR operations, we could then join you at the location of the Khitomer?_"

"A logical and prudent course of action. I'll arrange the requested teams immediately and transport them to your ship, before continuing to the_ Khitomer'_s last known location."

* * *

\- First Officer's Quarters, U.S.S. _New England_ \- Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Ora couldn't decide if she was happy or sad to not see her mother's name amongst the list of rescued and captured Klingon Defence Force crew. True, if she had been on the crew of one of the ships, Ora could begin the next stage of their plan, however the number of dead worried her.

She really didn't want to find out she'd accidentally killed her own mother.

To be honest she was tired, sore, worried and confused. 'Harry,' as he'd asked them all to call him, had for lack of a better term,_magic_. To make matters worse, the very worst of her nightmares would be back with the news that some Klingon raiders were taking slaves again.

Rubbing her eyes she collapsed on the bed in the first officer's quarters, a quick nap and then she'd dig out her clothes for the day, the tension slipping away as she remembered and then revelled at the fact that officers had a great deal of leeway in how they could personalize their duty uniform.

* * *

\- Deck 2, Junction relay 15-E, U.S.S. _New England_ \- Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Running her diagnostic tool once again over the relay junction, Zarva happily sighed. The engineering academy had been filled with horror stories of captains expecting near instantaneous repairs and miraculous solutions to any problem. Thankfully Admiral Pot-_ Harry_, understood that such things took time and was willing to salvage materials to get the job done. He didn't care one bit about how things were normally done, only that they were. It was an incredibly pragmatic approach that spoke of long experience in the hard realities and resource scarcities common to wartime.

Yet his_ 'classified'_ ability to instantly reassemble whole bulkheads was a major time saver, if very mysterious.

She'd been born on the Bolian home-world of Bolarus IX, and after developing an interest in engineering had followed the path that many of her people had chosen in joining Starfleet, for while the Bolians were not a founding member of the Federation, they had fully embraced the Federation lifestyle and the Bank of Bolias was a major player in the galactic economy, despite it's somewhat poor physical security record.

Packing away her tools, she marked down that the final tuning of the salvaged Mark II Shield Emitter Amplifier was completed. The original one, hastily fitted during the battle, had burned out during the intense combat operations, showering the deck with sparks, but luckily causing no additional casualties.

With the salvaged, slightly more advanced model properly installed, the shield regeneration rate was improved quite nicely. Looking at her PDA, she noted that one of the engineering crews had managed to boost their warp speed to 5.8, the salvaged plasma injectors they'd found being a more advanced model than the originals and only needing a slight re-calibration to be compatible for the _New England's _warp systems. As for the standard repairs, the ship's hull was now airtight again. This was accomplished by yet another unusual decision by Harry to use one of the floating wrecks to repair one of the larger holes in the ship's side, even if it was of Caitian make and came with a single, forward (now starboard facing) Heavy Escort Tetryon Cannon, which they had quickly automated and hooked up to the ship's main power supply.

Broadside cannons were an unusual addition to a cruiser, let alone a light cruiser, and said cannon would have to be ripped out upon returning to a Federation dockyard, as the ship's power relays were never meant to take the strain of the Mark VI Tetryon Cannon firing at full power. The temporary extra firepower and the time saved on rebuilding such a large section of the hull had been considered well worth the effort, however. No matter how ugly it looked.

Heading for the bridge, she decided to help the crew working to install the electronic components on the turbolift and surrounding walls that her captain had hastily rebuilt using his abilities. While he had created the support beam walls and fiber-optic cables, he had apparently been unable to do the same with the relevant circuitry, stating the electronic components inside the transparent isolinear chips reacted badly with his _classified _powers.

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _New England_ \- Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"Come on!"

"Vulcans do not gossip, you should get back to flying the ship Cadet."

"Eli, some help? I only want access to his service record."

"..."

"Elisa!"

"What? Sorry, I was reading. What's up?"

"I'm trying to get T'Vrell to let me access Harry's file."

"..."

"You're reading it right now, aren't you?"

"Maybe..." Lieutenant Elise Flores or Eli to her friends, mumbled guiltily in response, Cadet Anne Potter already running over while T'Vrell decided to 'supervise' this activity by looking over Elise's other shoulder.

"It's surprisingly limited, and what little there is is_ heavily_ redacted," T'Vrell noted.

"It's little more than a physical description and a rank and name. Even his fraking age has been redacted! The authentication code though... I know I've seen it before, somewhere in the records."

Anne giggled at that, pushing a few buttons on the touchscreen. "I'm surprised you've forgotten; it's not like there's an earthborn who didn't cover it briefly in primary school. I already confirmed it off the public subspace info-net."

"_Lightning Strike_? _The Lonely Wanderer_? I believe myself to be passingly familiar with most of earth's history, but I have not come across those names during my studies."

"It's not surprising, it's third world war stuff and the old Vulcan High Command declared it as nothing more than rumour and folk-tale."

"Lightning Strike was the heroic soldier who showed up about halfway into the war, fighting back the armies of people like General Green and the Purist movement. Both during and after the war he also conducted secretive disarmament missions to ensure that military technology didn't fall into scavenger hands." Anne explained, remembering her history lessons from school.

Continuing, Elise dredged her memories for more half remembered facts, "The Lonely Wanderer was a travelling vigilante who appeared after the war. It was said that his passing could be tracked by the corpses of the lawless and the righting of wrongs great and small. And while it was only found out later, by a confirmed drop in the recorded background radiation and toxic chemicals in an area. The Vulcan High Command considered the very idea that he was cleaning up the environmental damage preposterous and so it was discredited by them for the most part. Probably would have stayed that wa-"

"Except! While trying to identify a historical break in at a top secret abandoned Swiss research facility, the intruder was recorded disarming and then disassembling a European Coalition minefield with codes assigned to Lightning Strike. The camera managed to capture his face. The image later matched to a picture taken one year before when a person who called himself 'Harry' returned a kidnapped child to the Mongol Chinese Alliance police force, his outfit and gear an exact match to a high resolution photo taken of a hooded Lightning Strike by the then New Canadian Intelligence Service." A slightly breathless Anne finished, Elise taking over again.

"In the end, the United Earth government declared both 'Lightning Strike' and 'the Lonely Wanderer' the same person, a Hero of the People and the Fleet Admiral for Earth's only currently existing paper fleet."

"Paper fleet?" Anne asked as T'Vrell rolled her eyes at the excitable brunette.

"Paper fleet, a variation of the practice of Paper Regiments, a historically dishonest method of conning a regiment's government into paying wages to fictional or already KIA soldiers. To summarize, a military force that only exists on paper."

"In this case, Response Fleet Zero was intended to be a historical record for soldiers whose fates were unknown, after all, without proof of death, the person could still be out their doing tasks in the UEG's name. Without an official fleet posting, should they have returned alive, they could be tried for desertion or otherwise fall through the cracks, so to speak. While it was never put into widespread use, this paper fleet had over three hundred soldiers assigned to it, many of them vigilantes and civilians whose fates were unknown and yet had offered their service well above and beyond anything that could have been expected of them, all in the name of improving civilization or humanity as a whole. In the end it was a way to honor their sacrifices and service."

Each pondered this new information on their captain for a moment. The silence was broken only when Anne spotted some additional information in the file that they hadn't yet looked at. "Hey look, it says he's received extensive Starfleet training. I'll bet the academic records haven't been redacted."

"Nope, already checked. Redacted entirely by Temporal Investigations."

"Agh! We're never going to find out anything."

"You could always ask, you know." Came an amused voice behind them, making the women jump.

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _New England_ \- Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Harry smiled wide as the ladies jumped, Cadet Potter falling to the ground and lieutenant T'Vrell's Vulcan emotional suppression failing for a moment, a startled look flashing across her beautiful face.

True, he had used his father's cloak and a few silencing charms to sneak up on them, but the payoff (and the chance to prank someone after so long) had been well worth it.

"A-Admiral!" Lieutenant Flores squeaked, her hand jumping to salute.

"As I was saying," he continued, as if their panic had never happened, "since your curiosity overwhelms you, I've decided to answer exactly one question from each lieutenant, so think carefully on what you want to know."

T'Vrell's reply was direct and quick, as she had planned on asking this as soon as she saw his record. "Why are your academic records redacted by Temporal Investigations?" this had piqued her curiosity to extreme levels, as Vulcans were used to looking up their colleagues' service records and using them to create a profile. For such a mysterious department to have redacted someone's service record so thoroughly raised all kinds of questions...

"I'd imagine it would be because I did not request permission before using a Class M, Type T time travel device, _repeatedly, _in order to complete my Starfleet training in a very short period of real time."

"You can't go messing around with time travel! What about the Temporal Accords?!"

"Never signed them. I also never signed on with any government that signed them. Not my fault if the UEG, then the Coalition and now the Federation, have decided I work for them."

"True, I guess..."

"Don't worry, the Type T can't 'break' time. The worst it can do is you see yourself, think the future you is an imposter and then end up killing yourself. Perfectly safe if you plan on using it_ before_ you see yourself, though I do have a backup system of questions and answers to check for actual imposters."

"A logical precaution, I'm surprised I've not heard of it before, sir."

"Type Ts are exceedingly rare and anything Class M is suppressed, and call me Harry," he finished, before checking the navigation console and deciding that there was still time for a quick bite to eat before they reached the Pollux System.

That plan went right out the window when acting first officer Lieutenant Le'Ora Tanalis walked in wearing a form-fitting pair of black reinforced pants tightly hugging her legs, with a pair of also black, slightly heeled, above the knee boots on her as well. The top was slightly trimmed with 'tactical red' that complimented her own crimson locks. A belt with a small knife, the powerful hand phaser he'd given her during combat and a couple of utility pouches hung off of her, completing her lower half.

However, it was the corset-like top that stunned Harry momentarily, a fetish that he blamed Rose for getting him into (though Rose's love of them could probably be blamed on growing up around the covers of the paperback bodice rippers Hermione quite liked), as it was in Harry's eyes a perfectly blended old-fashioned beauty with the more modern 'flaunt it if you've got it' sensuality, providing it wasn't so tight as to become a health risk. Sometimes people took the idea of an hourglass figure much too far.

A thin strip of Ora's toned stomach was left open to view, before the bottom of the corset hid her flesh and offered support for her bountiful chest, while thick, rigid sections of black leather banding worked with a more flexible black leather to provide more protection from weapons than the standard federation service uniform.

Hiding the bulk of her cleavage, but by no means all of it, was a silky 'tactical red' v-neck shirt that loosely covered her arms with a pair of vambraces on each wrist, the burnished black metal's top halves on each arm carrying attachment points for a standard engineering tool mount and a small holographic computer, the undersides a black leather again.

Watching her as she gracefully navigated the path from the turbolift doors down towards him, he took note of the Romulan style leather shoulder pads and Klingon style spine protector, idly wondering just how she had managed to get elements of so many non-federation species into a still somewhat federation looking and acceptable uniform. It was certainly a much better choice with the strong possibility of combat at all times.

"Acting First Officer, Lieutenant Le'Ora Tanalis reporting for duty, sir."

"It's Harry, Lieutenant Tanalis," he responded, having managed to regain control of his aroused thoughts concerning the attractive green skinned woman before him.

"Only if it's Ora, boss."

* * *

\- Federation Council - Earth - Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"Will the Assistant Councilor for Andoria, please calm down!"

"**I will not! This is just another transparent attempt by the Earth pink skins to increase their political power! They've done more to weaken us than the Vulcans ever did. I say that there is no subspecies, merely a plot to secure an extra vote!**"

Watching closely from the upper parapets, a grey haired Admiral turned to the nondescript man in black next to him. "What the hell is happening down there? Shon said that we'd have their support! And what the hell is up with the Vulcans?" he asked in confusion, as the Andorian on the council floor continued to rile up the other Councilors with his wild conspiracy theories.

"Andoria's Councilor fell ill this morning. His assistant, who is sitting this session in his place, is unfortunately a long time secessionist." The other man said rolling his eyes, the Admiral letting out a string of curses. Just another 'coincidence' today, like when the Ambassador for Risa mysteriously fell ill and needed to be replaced at the last moment.

Every planet had them, that small, but extremely vocal minority who wanted to secede from the Federation, who blamed them for the various wars, who wanted more power and resources, who supposedly just wanted to rule themselves, etc., etc. Nevermind the fact that every member species in the Federation maintained their own sovereignty. Thankfully the more extreme members were rare, but there had been a few cases of violence in the past.

"**Not only do they claim a new subspecies exists, but they try to claim this one human is a long thought dead hero of their people! I say he is nothing more than a mutant! A**_** weak**_** evolutionary backstep that should be removed before his**_** weakened**_** genes can pollute their already weak species!"** While the Andorian paused his passionate diatribe for a moment for dramatic effect, the room was thrown into chaos.

"Well that's certainly new." The nondescript man commented, mentally flagging the man for an infiltration check. The Aenar Councilor was ordering the stand-in Councilor to be quiet as the Council floor began to return to order, the pair turning to leave the balcony.

"It appears that Harry won't be having an easy time with the Federation Council. We'll be lucky to get them to allow him dual Federation Independent citizenship at this rate, especially with word from the Vulcans."

"What happened? This was supposed to be a cut and dry case of recognition for a new possible member species, an offshoot of a founding member world."

"Consensus on Harry is split; the parties who support the Federation did so, while the Unionists chose to as well, in a 'we'll scratch your back, if you scratch ours' kind of way. However, the Independents fought it because we support it. The Reformists can't agree on why they're saying no, but it's in a historical context nonconformist to do so. Those who support a united Vulcan/Romulan species see any new subspecies becoming independent as counter-productive to their long-term goals."

"Still, that's less than half the votes."

"The Vulcan Science Council has decided to hold back their votes till they meet him and the leader of the Moderates suddenly chose to abstain."

"What's Starfleet Intelligence think about all this?"

"Other than the Vulcans can't even seem to agree amongst themselves on the benefits of logic? We think the leader of the Moderates is hoping for a favour."

"It would be so much easier if we could just admit to it."

"Sure, let's just own up to it, 'Oh, sorry everybody. We accidentally wiped out the first sentient species we ever came across, a culture who lived alongside us for millennia on Earth. Don't worry though, because it turns out we actually missed one and now we want to give him a harem.' It's not going to get us off the the public opinion hook, even if it was only a case of _accidental genocide_. Thats not even getting into the problems that will crop up when your little deal with Q becomes known, or when the_ politicians_ find out about this. I've said it before, I think someone else is pulling the strings, or at least pissing from inside the tent."

"Not this again."

"I've made it perfectly clear that I think the Klingons are right about this."

"We had to wait for the Dominion to attack earth before we were allowed to test for changelings; you'll never get the blood screenings approved."

"Yes... Janeway says we have a peace treaty with them; all hail the_ great_ Admiral Janeway."

"Don't start blaming us. It's not Starfleet's fault the public considers her the female reincarnation of Archer, no matter her many faults."

As the man finished speaking, another nondescriptly dressed man, with a scar and bruises on his face, stopped in front of them in the hall. "Sorry to interrupt, sirs. Priority message was just received via subspace; the_ Renown_ reported a distress call from the_ New England_. Subject M is aboard said ship. They successfully saved the ship and Subject M is unhurt, but the_ Renown_ has continued onto its main objective. The_ New England_ planning to follow."

"AHG! They should have escorted the_ New England_ straight back! Dammit!" Venting in frustration, the man in black closed his eyes, seeming to be deep in thought for a moment before continuing. "Thank you, Drake. Unfortunately all of our assets are out of the sector. See if we can rustle up a crew for project 'Back Step.' Ask T.I. for volunteers if you have to, dismissed."

Watching the man he called a close friend, but never knew the name of, Admiral Quinn gave him a moment before speaking. "I'd send the fleet, but after the Utopia Planitia Shipyards were hit yesterday..."

"I know Quinn. It would take a Klingon invasion fleet entering the sector block to get them to move even a handful of ships."

"Still, I'll recall the crews and set them to condition red. Maybe see if the Academy can rush another class into service or better yet, spare the instructors."

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _New England_ \- Pollux Star system U.S.S. _Renown _&amp; _Khitomer _on station - Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

As the ship rapidly dropped out of warp into the system, the viewscreen on the wall began to transmit the forward cameras' images. The light from the system's star was illuminating thick, turbulent, green clouds of gas that hung in orbit around the planet.

"Shields up. Anne put us on course for stable orbit. T'Vrell, are you picking up any transmissions?"

"We're picking up heavy communications interference, sir. Long-range subspace communications are completely scrambled."

"T'Vrell, taking known gravimetric data of the region and the dispersal of light across the cloud into account, can you extrapolate said cloud's leading edge?"

"Possibly, one moment."

"Ora, Elisa, in the meantime recalibrate the shields to ensure we don't damage the hull with this... fog. Green is not a healthy colour for taking a dip in. No offence Ora." Harry added, looking a little sheepish at how that came out.

"I promise taking a dip _in me_ is perfectly safe." She quietly teased from next to him, a wicked and inviting smile on her face, before going to help her friend at the tactical station with what he would swear was an extra swing in her hips. Harry could only hope that this was somehow Q's doing. If the multidimensional being had not yet started his plan, then that _bitch _had.

Cursing Fate, while still hoping to remain unnoticed in her eyes, was a futile effort, so he stopped that chain of thought in its tracks and began trying to think of ways to contact the_ Renown_. The thick banks of green cloud were playing havoc with the ship's limited sensors and communications.

If he needed to, he could re-create the point-me targeting computer to locate cloaked ships, but it wouldn't help if the_ Renown_ had left the system altogether. He was torn from his thought as his attractive Vulcan communications/science officer spoke to him.

"Sir, if I had the deflector emit a radiation pulse, I should be able to detect the refraction of it off the clouds and use the return signals to pinpoint the total area the cloud covers."

"And if the cloud stops sending back returns in an area, then you know it's clear space! Reverse radar, brilliant work, Rel."

"The comparison is accurate, if crude," she responded doing her best to hide a slight blush of annoyance on her cheeks, as well as the pride and pleasure at the new pet name she had just been given. "Should I do so, Captain?" She added, reverting to his title to satisfy her slight feelings of annoyance.

"Make it so, Rel." Harry returned with a hidden grin tugging at his lip, after hearing her thoughts and feelings via passive legillimency, a side effect of mastering it and the fact that those who actively suppressed their emotions commonly ended up mentally broadcasting them.

"Re-calibrations are complete Harry. We also modified the phasers slightly to account for the gas." Ora offered, sitting next to him again in the first officer's seat while delicately crossing her legs, her booted foot dancing in the corner of his vision to some unknown beat. It was only his many years of practicing Occlumency that stopped his head from unconsciously turning so that his eyes could traverse up her shapely leg.

Gods, he hoped this was Q's fault and not Fate taking a new interest in him after so many years out of commission.

"Pulse complete. Cloud's nearest edge is at twenty-three thousand meters, bearing follows: yaw 63 degrees, pitch 86 degrees."

"Anne, do we have a course?"

"Course laid in Harry."

"Ahead one-third. Engage."

"Harry, I've reviewed the data from the pulse; I'm seeing several unknown silhouettes of varying sizes, including one unusual station sized one."

"Run them through the computer for analysis and identification and perform another pulse from our new position."

Several silent moments passed as the ship moved through the fog-like banks of clouds, the crew nervously waiting till they were safely in open space and able to use their full sensors instead of the limited radar-like echolocation. Ora mouthing 'steady' to herself as T'Vrell's thin fingers gracefully flew across the touchscreen controls before her.

"Computer analysis is inconclusive. The second and third scans I ran showed one less silhouette; there are now another six more."

"Analysis, bridge."

"A fight for certain; multiple ships with at least one side reinforcing."

"I calculate an 83.986 percent chance that the _Renown _is one of the vessels inside the cloud."

"Anne, all ahead full. The moment we're clear I want you and Rel to plot a course to take us as close to the battle as you can get while keeping us out of the clouds. Short range communicators are designed to work in heavy atmosphere, so that should get through this fog fine."

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _Renown _\- Pollux Star System U.S.S. _Khitomer _on station - Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"Forward starboard launch tubes off-line, assigning priority repair work, damage control teams responding. We can't keep this up much longer, Captain."

"The _Khitomer _only needs a little longer to reactivate their warp engines to retreat and warn the colony."

***beep beep*** came the sound of the Vulcan captain's communicator badge, his fingers automatically answering it. "_This is the U.S.S. _New England_ Actual to any Starfleet vessel inside the green cloud, do you read me?_"

"_This is the U.S.S _Khitomer's_ Emergency Medical Hologram speaking, please transmit authentication codes... Codes confirmed_."

"This is U.S.S. _Renown _actual, it is agreeable to hear from you _New England_. We worried that you would fall into the same trap we had."

"Status report if you would gentlemen, we can see signs of heavy weapons' fire illuminating the cloud from our location."

The ship rocked again as a Borg probe opened up strafing the ship in another attack run.

"The Borg have managed to build a transwarp gateway in the area, after seeding this cloud to hide it. Our warp drive is off-line, but we are still able to fight. However, several Borg vessels, including landing craft, have made it past us. I believe the most logical destination, extrapolated from their escape trajectory and our location, is the colony on Vega."

"_Agreed. Due to the already damaged state of my vessel, it's only recently repaired warp drive and its insufficient firepower against large Borg vessels, I'm going to withdraw and contact Starfleet with the situation, before heading on to Vega Colony to order an immediate evacuation_."

"Agreed. Your warning the colony will allow us to take our overstretched repair crews off our warp drive and concentrate on damage control and getting our weapons fully functional again. Now go. We will hold the line."

* * *

\- I.K.S. _Eternal Pride_ \- Retreating under cloak to allied space after a successful raid - Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

The Eternal Pride was a K'Tanco class battle cruiser in service to the Noble house of Martok, and almost straight off the production line. While not the most powerful of ships in the Klingon fleet, she was a significant step up from the Bird-of-Prey and that extra fire-power had come in handy in recent days.

After fighting off a Federation raid, the_ Eternal Pride_ had managed to gain the codes necessary to bypass the Federation system of Sol's defence network, and after speaking with High Command, a raid was ordered on the orbital shipyards around Mars.

While many Klingon vessels had been destroyed or disabled, overall the raid had been a success and far more damage had been done to the Federation, thus securing future rewards for the surviving crews and their victorious captains.

If they could safely make it home that was.

Improvements over the years in detecting cloaked vessels at warp meant that hundreds of Klingon ships were forced to traverse Federation space at Warp 2 or less, assuming they wished to remain unseen and unopposed. Klingon raiders would spend many long weeks practically crawling towards their targets, before blitzing a system and pulling out before the Federation could respond, then crawling back to home space once again.

Sitting at the ship's communications station, the ship's Orian Second Officer played with a plate of nutrient blocks, one of the few meals seemingly not still alive in the Klingon ship, rubbing her eyes now and again in fatigue. The celebration the night after the raid was still going on in the hold below and another would follow when they got back into friendly space and the immediate danger of detection had passed, yet for now the crew of the third watch still had their jobs to do.

Five hours into the third watch Janiza Ran'Leans, Second Officer of the ship, continued to listen to the flowing static of subspace, checking multiple frequencies for possible soft target raids or allied distress calls.

Already she had picked up thousands of irrelevant civilian communications or outdated signals (one's that had been travelling through space for hundreds of years) that traversed space, yet now in the background she could detect the faint rhythmic pulsing of an omnidirectional Federation encrypted message that left her wondering if a Klingon raider had screwed up and forgotten to set up their communications jammers.

This theory was crushed as a high strength message on all subspace channels followed from roughly the same location.

"_Attention all vessels. This is the U.S.S. New England, Borg invasion point found in Pollux Star system. Borg transwarp gateway delivering invasion force. Foothold situation. Ordering all planetary defence fleets to send half of their available military ships to respond. Requesting all armed civilian vessels to divert to the Vega system to help with __planet wide__e__vacuation of Vega colony. I repeat. Attent-_ "

Hitting the yellow alert alarm, Janiza wondered if the Federation would be able to push back the mechanical parasitic race. Should the Vega colony fall, the Borg would have millions of new troops to harass the entire quadrant and they would not differentiate between any species or borders.

As the bridge began to fill with groggy crew members the transmission switched to an encrypted Klingon emergency channel, the coding identifying the sender as Captain Kadek, a somewhat disliked, broke and arrogant captain. Though the human voice speaking was anyone but Kadek.

"_Attention all Klingon vessels. The House of Potter and it's allies, along with the Federation, asks all good and honourable warriors of the Klingon Empire and their allies to divert their course and take part in glorious battle, by aiding the ships involved in the defence of the Pollux system from the honorless Borg invaders. No Klingon vessel responding to this call __for __aid will be attacked by a Federation vessel and will be allowed to leave for Klingon space, without being chased, followed or harassed by Federation forces. This I swear on my honor as Lord of my Noble and Most Ancient House. We ask your help with defending this sector from the Borg's surprise invasion._"

As the message ended and began repeating several members of the crew looked round in mild confusion, at both the mention of the sender's noble house (and the fact that the Lord of that house swore a promise on its honor) and whether they should be engaging the Borg alongside the Federation or leaving them to their fate. Thankfully the Captain had made it onto the bridge, her thigh high hybrid combat boots clanging against the metal deck.

Suni Tanalis' voice galvanized her crew's mood. "It seems that we've done our job too well! We've left the Feds broken and now they must ask for aid defeating one of this quadrant's most dangerous foes. I call-out out any that challenge my decision to do the honourable thing and aid them. Contact all Klingon vessels in the sector. Begin a log in the ship's Record of Battle. We head for Pollux; let us show the Federation how real warriors flight and crush the Borg threat! It would not do to let them finish off the Federation after we've done all the work."

After all, if there was one thing all warrior species hated, it was kill-stealers.

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _New England_ \- On route to Vega Colony - Day of the Invasion of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Pushing the engines to their limit, Harry ordered a course to the threatened colony, quickly sending off priority one messages to Starfleet, local ships, planetary garrisons and the Klingon raiders via Captain Kadek's encryption codes that he'd taken. It was a long shot, but the Klingon Empire might just decide to join the fight since there was much honour to be gained killing the seemingly unbeatable foe. If that wasn't enough, self-interest was a_ powerful_ motivator.

Fingering the small golden hourglass around his neck, Harry's thoughts turned to his crew. A quick time turned powered walk around the ship had given him a feeling for the 'mood' of those under his command.

In total he had seven security teams, two were well-trained veteran teams from the_ Renown_ with years of service under their belt. The other five were what remained of the ten teams of cadets who had started the training cruise. Two team's worth of cadets had been killed outright, the rest had transferred to the_ Renown_'s more advanced medical bays. Engineering was fully staffed surprisingly, the few casualties they had taken replaced by a team from the_ Renown_. However, crew members from Operations were near totally absent on the ship as the teams took heavy damage, their spread out nature had often made them the first to come into conflict with the Klingon boarding parties who rarely took prisoners.

The Science department had merged fragmented teams and had two and a half of the original six teams up and running, while Medical was mercifully untouched by the recent conflicts. Tactical had taken some shuffling, but the fore and aft weapon mounts were now constantly manned, with the 'starboard cannon' being controlled directly from the bridge.

The only civilian crew member on the ship, the chef, had actually accounted for several Klingon kills, showing that you can take the tactical officer out of Starfleet, but not the tactical out of the man. It probably helped that the guy was an eight feet tall slab of muscle, even if the tenderness and care he showed to muffins, of all things, confused even Harry. He'd have to put the man up for commendation when this was all over.

Looking at the errant muffin he surreptitiously found on the armrest of his command chair, Harry frowned. Was he allowed to eat it? The chef had seemed to treat it like a sacred holy relic...

Pulling out a PDA, he sent a quick message on a channel he had taken over for his own exclusive use.

He knew he was going to be using the time turner several times today, and as long as he expected to see himself (thus not killing the possible impostor, and himself. Not that he could die, of course.) a few simple charms to create an ultra thin solid air barrier ensured future him and current him could not truly touch, thus creating an explosion as their matter mutually destroyed each other and thus the only danger of the magic based time turner was bypassed.

Currently, Harry was also in cargo bay one, handing out a mixed variety of solid round assault rifles that had previously been seen only in history books. These rifles, though, came with a new drum shaped magazine that auto-sized to the cartridge type, used a micro replicator to create the right round for the gun type, with each round replicated automatically with an undetectable runic array to phase through magicals. The ammo slips also had a battery to provide five hundred rounds and a small generator which could recharge the gun at one round every ten seconds using atmosphere for fuel. Solid rounds were one of the few weapon types the Borg had historically struggled to totally adapt to (and a few pointless self charging runic arrays Harry included should make it all the harder, via the magical interference it would create).

Another three Harrys were currently back in the holodeck, one designing the ammo clips he was already handing out, another resting and reading over the crew's basic profiles, and the final one... Well, Harry on the bridge didn't actually know, as it seemed that the third 'holodeck Harry' was the furthest up the timeline, but if the mad scientist like laughter was anything to go by when he had made the ammo clip two turns ago, Harry would be having a really good idea soon.

Drawn back to the real world, the PDA chimed, indicating that he had received a reply...from himself.

To Me, From Me.

The Muffin is safe.

He accepts that

they will be eaten.

P.S. Can you get

off the bridge_?_ I

have work to do.

Noticing that they would be arriving in orbit soon, Harry cast a quick notice-me-not on the bridge so that he and himself could switch without anyone noticing and then walked into the captain's ready room, passing by himself from further up the timeline with a quick nod of acknowledgement.

He could easily see how people could go insane from all this.

* * *

\- Vega Colony - Approximately 16 light years from Earth - 411 I.G. -

The colony on Vega had been well established as early as 2125, and its location as a frontier tradeport had brought it considerable wealth. However, the colony had gone into decline as advances in warp and replicator technology meant that trade ships could travel further and resupply less often and thus the frontier moved further out into space. The steady decline was further aggravated by the start of the war, many civilians choosing to retreat to the relative safety of the inner colonies.

Vega IX was by no means undeveloped though, it's starports could hold hundreds of ships at any time, its three main cities billions of lives. However, the once state-of-the-art cities, gleaming, marvels of technology, were now worn down, outdated and automated wherever possible. The planet's population, once numbering in the billions. now stood at just a few million, a pale shadow of itself.

So when the call went out that the Borg were almost on top of them, many panicked, the Borg quickly jamming the communication's network with a flood of interference, as the handful of automated, centuries old, but well maintained planetary defence weapons opened up.

As with all the early colonies, the long travel times between planets meant that often needed reinforcements were days away at best, thus evacuation shelters and defences were built into all levels of colonial life. While the colony's defensive systems had never been updated, they were still well maintained and their low tech methods left them safe from cyber attack. Transporter pads using hard-line technology and closed network public broadcasting systems saved thousands of lives across the planet by consolidating the fleeing public under the transporter shielded defensive lines.

The local and Starfleet security forces, armed with a wide variety of conventional ground weapons, gathered everyone they could in the southernmost city, though many towns and far flung outposts were cut off. Hastily fortified gun nests in windows and archways were manned by all manner of species, while science and medical personnel with scanners set up rudimentary checkpoints to scan for any Borg infected evacuees. The very real threat of a newly infected citizen completing their assimilation while ensconced among thousands would be a recipe for disaster.

Within minutes of the first Borg landing ship entering the atmosphere, they began beaming down drones hoping to overwhelm the hastily assembled defensive lines and shutdown the transport inhibitors that prevented the Collective from harvesting people at will for assimilation.

The air was quickly filled with a cacophony of weapons' fire, as the defenders held back the drones' advance, hundreds of weapons opening up as the drones walked out of cover without fear. The defenders were armed with everything from the latest Federation anti-proton rifle, to the most basic Klingon disruptor rifle. The latter weapon acting as the modern universe's equivalent of ancient Earth's AK-47 in how ubiquitous they were. Even a few truly antiquated kinetic rifles brought by the original settlers for ceremonial use were used to great effect.

In orbit, however, the story was quite different. The defensive satellite network had not been updated since the Federation-Dominion war, some thirty plus years before, and thus was little match for the Borg's advanced fleet that swept the defenses aside like tall wheat before a scythe. The few ships that had responded so far were forced to dive down to the planet's surface like birds of prey, loading and unloading shuttles in mid air and at high speed.

* * *

\- Meanwhile in the Continuum -

The being commonly referred to by Starfleet as 'Q' of the race collectively known as Q, watched on, his senses stretching out as if he was touching the universe itself.** [Q:**_** Except it's nothing like that at all. I mean how you can expect a mortal, single plane human writer to capture the senses of a Q? The sheer arrogance astounds me!**_**]** His observations of the ongoing battle for Vega colony were being actively compared to what would otherwise have happened had Harry not been present. Harry's presence meant that the_ New England_ avoided battle with the Borg at Pollux, thus allowing them to contact and warn the colony before it was hit, thus allowing the many trade ships in orbit and in the sector to help evacuate hundreds of souls every moment with more ships joining all the time. It was Harry's presence, unconventional thinking, and culturally appropriate and persuasive request that would bring the Klingons into this battle, something that no regular Starfleet officer would have even conceived of.

He watched as the raiders turned saviours aboard the Klingon vessels decloaked and began emptying their EPS networks of power through their weapons' arrays. The dark emerald green bolts of destructive energy slamming into the Borg invasion fleet around Pollux.

He watched as Federation ships already at alert left from their fortress-like starbases to meet the threat, while pirates, raiders and bounty hunters, common to any sufficiently large colony, struggled with their personal codes of honor while deciding whether to fight or flee.

He watched as those who hid between shadow and wind watched on as well, events millennia in the making being set into motion and whispering in the ears of many who could see beyond the physical world.

The first pebble of Q's plan had been dropped into the pond. Its ripples, though, were beyond even his comprehension, stretching out thousands of years into the future.

And he could only smile.

It was not the events or the chaos, but at the fact that he was _right_.

Even as he looked on, the universe was changing, the timelines diverging and merging, as his single act of creating a few trace mineral readings on a desolate little rock in the middle of nowhere, detected by a long-range sensor probe decades earlier, brought first a mining outpost and then a storm of change, lightning ripping apart the tapestry of Fate and changing the universe forever.

However, he did not watch alone, a mind just as powerful, yet so much younger than his own, was also observing the primitive beings whom they both stood so far above.

Yet this younger mind could only ask themselves the question, "If one primitive, one man, can change so much, how far above them are we truly? We who could not change our own fates by ourselves..."

* * *

\- Orbit of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"Dropping out of warp!" Came Anne's cry from the helm, the bridge crew nervously sitting on the edge of their seats.

"Multiple Borg vessels detected. Civilian freighter fleet is in position over southern hemisphere and holding." T'Vrell called out, moving the camera to show the near three hundred strong fleet of pea-shooter equipped vessels, a fleet whose _combined _firepower was more than a match for Borg landing craft, probes or spheres.

"Scan for borg lifesigns on the planet and move us into a one hundred and ten thousand kilometre stationary orbit."

"Yes, Harry."

To be completely honest, Harry wasn't sure what to do. He couldn't give a past version of himself a new big idea, as that would mean he would never initially come up with the idea himself, thus risking the creation of an eternally looping temporal paradox. Well, maybe not _eternal_, as he had long suspected the universe had the ability to auto-correct a problem like that, most likely by making it so that he never existed in the first place. Better to get rid of one ridiculously insignificant being in universal terms, no matter his influence, then to cripple a universe after all.

Anyways, back to the current matter, things like saying, "Yes, you can eat that muffin." were fine, but you couldn't say, "You_ should_ eat that muffin" or where did the idea to eat the muffin start? Harry did his best not to think of the fact that time turners indirectly circumvented free will, as you can't go back, prevent or change something that you know happened, so every time you went back, much was already predestined and certain to happen.

He had spent a few years (one of many such study/research trips) using various time turners to write an 'Idiot's Guide' to using the magical devices. Thankfully Hogwarts was very large, with many separate rooms. The fact that Harry didn't_** need**_ to eat (though should he not some organs temporarily shut down) had let him_ heavily_ abuse time travel, making the actual number of years since he gained immortality well over eight thousand and not the four hundred and eleven times the earth had completed an orbit around the sun since his actual birthday.

This entire line of thought, however, was simply a distraction.

Pulling the time turner out from under his shirt, Harry turned to his first officer. "Ora, deploy the cadet security teams throughout the ship, the_ Renown_ security teams to the evacuation centre on the surface, and then engage the enemy ships. The bridge is yours. Good hunting."

Nodding to him in understanding, Ora began to carry out his orders, her eyes filled with unasked questions as Harry spun the golden hourglass and then apparated to the Holodeck before letting go and traveling back in time.

* * *

\- 7 hours _before _-

Seven was the most magical prime number. Tom had set his final goal at seven soul jars for that very reason, and Harry knew that every magical maturity (meaning every time their birth age [linked to each completed orbit by the anchor that held the ley-lines the person was born under (the planet) around the largest gravitational body it was effected by (the sun)] hits a prime number) that had a seven at the end, stabilized a Mage's magical core, while the other one and two digit prime number like 2, 3, 5, 11 and 13 improved some other part of a Wizard's body (and not their core).

In fact he'd had so many maturities ending in the number 31 (Which was tied to the improvement of vision) that he no longer needed glasses. This was proof that the primes were power.

And if he couldn't think of a way to save the lives of the people of Vega in seven hours...

Perhaps 37 (tied to an improvement in magical energy recharge times) hours would be enough?

* * *

\- Vega Colony, U.S.S. _New England_ on station - 411 I.G. -

Danna Brott continued firing her compact phaser pistol into the advancing Drones, ducking down behind the barricade to use the frequency remodulator that Starfleet seemed to have programmed into every replicator they could get their hands on.

As her ship was one of the few capable of atmospheric flight, she had brought it down to the space-port, before grabbing her sidearm and helping to hold the dock with the security guards, bounty hunters and other armed people from all walks of life, while the civilians were loaded aboard.

The sun had long set, the dark skies filled with thick, acrid smoke and the smell of ozone. Around the barricade thousands of drones lay dead, each having failed their task of getting to the vast cargo warehouses of the docks filled with civilians yet to be evacuated. The last defenders holding the line against the enemy, only falling back when the ground beneath them began to be assimilated by the Borg nanobots. It was now a frantic fire fight to hold back the Collective and save as many lives as possible.

Above them shuttlecraft climbed high into the air, above the transporter interference that the defenders hid behind, allowing the ships in orbit to snatch away those inside with transporters, before the shuttles dropped back into the safety of the interference and began resetting their shield frequencies, lest the Borg get a lock on their next run and beam away the evacuees and crew.

Rejoining the defenders above the barricade, she frowned at the pale yellow flashes and the chatter of unfamiliar gunfire, noting silhouettes ducking and weaving out in the smog. A command from down the line to 'hold fire' was heard as figures burst into view.

Dressed in Starfleet security uniforms, each person wore a thick, bulky vest with webbing and shoulder-pads, along with a helmet and neck guard (as the neck was the most commonly used injection point for nanoprobes that the Borg tended to use), their hands firmly clasping a variety of rifles from off the screens of World War III holobooks, a drum shaped clip and wicked looking knife attached.

They looked more like pirates or Klingons than Starfleet Officers.

Watching as the strangely dressed security officers dived behind the barricade, Danna noted the gear was hastily fitted, with helmets that constantly needed pushing back up and stretched or loose straps, suggesting mass replication. A few of the vests even sported Borg plasma burns. She watched as these obviously competent men and women began efficiently checking each others' gear, pulling away and replacing modular sections that often showed the twin pronged puncture marks of Borg Assimilation tubules, the uniform underneath mercifully unblemished as the well designed padded armour did it's job.

"So... name's Danna Brott, Captain of the_ Azura_. What ship you guys from?"

"Temporary reassignment from the U.S.S _Renown _to the U.S.S. _New England_."

"Captains Vo'Lok and Taggart. Good men."

"Hate to be the one to tell you, but Taggart's dead. KIA. You knew him well?"

"_Fuck_... No, not really, only via my dads. I met him briefly at the funeral."

Any further conversation was cut off at the sound of transporters from the Borg lines, the defenders hastily scrambling into position as the pounding of mechanical boots started and green tracking lights from cybernetic optics pierced out of the darkness. The air filled with the sounds of weapons' fire and cries of "Hold the line!" and "Keep firing!" from a few people who had obviously watched one too many epic holovids.

However, high above the defenders, in the orbit of space, the battle also raged. Pirates and bounty hunters alike were holding a perimeter over the southern continent, while the cargo ships and transports saved as many lives as possible. The U.S.S._ New England_ was weaving between Borg vessels along said fleet's outer edge, reliant on its speed, maneuverability, and the closely packed formations to minimise Borg hits on their shields.

But unknown to any currently fighting, an ancient mind was stirring and an enemy feared by every mortal wizard going back to the time of Merlin was starting to awake once again.

* * *

\- Holodeck - U.S.S. _New England_ \- Battle of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

Pulling on one of the simple body armour vests he'd produced for his ground teams, he tested the weight and how it would affect his movement. The modular, super hardened ceramic underplates carved with self sustaining rune arrays were each made to disrupt Borg nanoprobes that would try to infect those not yet in the Collective. The runes, among other things, were designed to convert the ambient energy of the environment into magical power to sustain itself.

Over the top of the plates thickly padded cloth and a sponge-like material allowed for some flexibility, while minimising physical impacts. The material would also require sustained energy weapons' fire before it would burn, melt or vaporise.

While Harry was fairly confident that any attempt by the Borg to assimilate him would fail due to the sheer amount of magical energy running through his body, while his incredibly advanced Occlumency would further disrupt any attempt to connect him to the hive mind, he simply wasn't going to take the risk. The very last thing the galaxy needed were...magical Borg.

Shuddering at the image of flying Borg dressed princess outfits, he turned to his newly made headset and put it on. It was a simple band of blackened metal running round the back of his head from ear to ear. A small box with an antenna was mounted on the left side, with a tall, glowing, pale crystal exposed on the outer face, that pulsed softly. A transparent, green, holographically projected screen was in front of his left eye, adding valuable additional information to his vision, the small horizontal antenna from the box projecting it.

With the fact time was so short the headset was little more than a navigation aid for now, a nexus of sensor data allowing a detailed map and the marking of objectives, but room had been left for upgrades when he had the time.

As it slipped snugly into place, he could feel the mind trapped within the crystal reach out, brushing along his mental shields softly, like a lover's caress, before connecting to the ship's sensors and database.

Feelings of surprise and disbelief were immediately felt, before being replaced by ideas, then images, and finally, words.

'**Even seeing it... It's hard to believe.**' The whisper came from inside his mind, the crystal on the headset pulsing softly.** 'Oh to be able to speak again! I'll never understand what that infernal, arrogant, clever BASTARD was thinking... Thank you for this Harry.'** Morgana whispered directly into his mind.

He had found Morgana's gem buried deep within Gringotts' vault number 1, atop Merlin's staff, which he had obtained upon becoming the last Mage and inheritor of the human magical world.

Morgana (or as history remembered her, Morgan) and Merlin's relationship had been twisted and changed over the years, for despite the fact that they were both enemies (Morgana believing that they should control the muggles like the ancient Roman magicals had, Merlin favouring something like the Statute of Secrecy and separation of the two worlds.) they had eyes for no other.

Or at least thats how she told it on a good day.

Apparently Nimue, Viviane, Elaine, Niniane, Nivian, Nyneve, and Evienne were actually separate women who he had lusted after at various times in his life, his downfall being his wandering hands, or more precisely Morgana inevitably finding out.

Eventually, however, Merlin won (Morgana blaming it on the dirty tactic of hitting her at her most vulnerable time of the month) and unable to kill the woman he madly loved, as well as knowing no mortal prison could truly hold her for long, he had trapped her soul and body within a gem that he could carry atop his staff, showing her that he was in the right, till she agreed with him and only then releasing her.

Unfortunately, Merlin, like all mortals, eventually died, and like many who died, the death was unexpected.

So Morgana found herself captive in a gem none knew how to open or that she was even trapped in, and the legend that wizards of great power had stones atop their staffs began.

Eventually, however, Merlin's staff had passed to Harry and after a frantic few days firmly believing it to be a horcrux of some sort and his conventional attempts to destroy it failing, he decided to fight its inhabitant to the death on the astral plane. Whereupon he found Morgana, who proceeded to end a thousand year dry spell, on both sides.

In all fairness, Harry had not stood much of a chance.

Morgana was, after all, a_ highly_ attractive, twenty seven year old woman and known temptress when Merlin had trapped her, and Harry had been in quite a long rut with all the witches long dead. After over five thousand years (time turned, of course) of regular sex, he was eager for some intimacy once again.

While Harry had not lost his soul, she had managed to read his mind after she thoroughly wore him out, he being slightly out of practice. A still groggy Harry awoke to find her running around naked in his mind, dancing and shouting about how she was right and that she had told Merlin that his way would lead to the death of the magical world.

Harry spent the next two thousand or so years learning from her and the goblins while packing up the magical world and tearing down wards all over the world. Morgana helping him to find ancient artifacts and hiding places long lost to history, Merlin having travelled extensively.

But when he was done, and they had failed to find any way to free her, Morgana asked to join him in his plan to die. It was their hope that the unknown magic of the 'Veil of Death' would either destroy Merlin's spells, or that Merlin on the other side would free her from her prison.

However, they had survived the veil, and after a quick chat back on Alandra, Harry had promised to find a way for her to see this new future they found themselves in.

Feeling her copying his most recent memories, he smiled lightly, complaining in faux-exasperation as she softly teased him over Q's 'harem' plan, his attractive First Officer, T'Vrell's on the spot nickname and how relaxed about it all he was pretending to be.

Knowing that there would be a time and place for further conversations, Morgana or Gana (the name she had grown up calling herself, Morgana being a bit much for a little girl) as she told him to call her time and time again, began attuning her mind to the computer's core, for while she was still clueless about many of the technological aspects of this time, the interface Harry had made for her was very good, very instinctual for her to use.

Within the gem, time seemed to flow much faster on a mental level, while physically, her body was totally frozen to the passage of time. Merlin's plan was to let her 'think' on her actions and deeds, while otherwise not aging her body, one that they had both so loved to enjoy together during many steamy nights. Part of him must not have truly expected her to be imprisoned all that long, as the physical differences between their bodies would have been problematic even after only a few decades. Pushing aside her conflicting thoughts on her former lover, Morgana began looking at the scans that the New England was taking, as she connected to the planetary scanners using Harry's command codes.

A three dimensional, topographical map appeared before her. Now filled with buildings. Now with life forms. Now with information on what the life forms were.

Noticing a Cardassian running through the undergrowth from a chasing Borg drone, she pushed an image into Harry's mind, providing the destination as the largest magical core ever known provided the power to transcend space/time without technology.

*fwt*

* * *

\- Central Chamber - Type C, Complex 357 - Orbit Unknown - 411 I.G. -

He had always been owned.

It was at times like these, when she was distracted, that he would remember his past life. It had not been much of an existence, especially with no true self-awareness. The Collective had given so much to him.

Looking across the room with the small red, mechanical eye he had been gifted with, he watched his Queen.

The ability to actually _see_... It was one of those gifts he cherished, a thing that no other member of his species could do, and _thinking_... in an attempt to ensure that he would be sentient, the Collective had upgraded him with every enhancement of the mind they could, and in the end that had given him value.

He had been assimilated years before the last Queen's death, an attempt to integrate his species' incredible reproductive ability into the Collective as a whole, that in the end was considered a failure and a waste. He had been lucky to escape deactivation and recycling, but had been kept around the central hub that the new Queens were born from.

The Federation had given him a chance to be more.

The death of a Borg Queen was a rare thing and the Collective had been left ..._less_, as a result. Its actions were now unfocused and a new Queen would not have been commissioned for several years more had he not forced his will upon the drones around him.

His vastly improved intelligence had allowed him to connect to a third of the Collective across the galaxy and while not as effective as the dead Queen had been, he had minimised the losses while a new Queen was prepared. Said Queen upon her birth had discovered his actions and congratulated him on his quick thinking, before picking him up for a closer look.

He felt he had only himself to blame.

She had become infatuated with him, constantly stroking his body as he involuntarily purred and cooed, a remnant of his species that even his assimilation and subsequent enhancements could seemingly not remove. She had declared him her chief enforcer, her chosen agent and the instrument of her will. He had never actually been _sent _anywhere, but he did pick up the slack when she lost concentration.

He had already saved three whole fleets from destruction in the past hour, while she ranted at the forces that she had sent to assimilate members of Species 5618 on the colony of Vega.

It was not that said force was taking massive casualties or that future members of the collective were escaping that had brought her full attention down on this minor engagement, but that the Borg forces had filed multiple anomaly reports, a rare act by any Borg and one that warranted his Queen's personal attention.

Most of the time the cause for such a report was a relic in deep space left behind by some ultra advanced, but long dead civilization, or perhaps even a Q messing about with the collective, but this was different, new readings and unknown energy-waves had been detected. Future Borg were vanishing amongst strange noises; frankly it was first thought to be an error in the drones' optics. But said error was too consistent and too many, and the Collective was continually distracted as it watched the strange bipedal humanoid appear and disappear through no known or detectable transporter technology, spiriting away it's future members. It did not help at all that the few who had been infected, were seemingly ripped from the hive mind the very instant they disappeared. That was disconcerting in itself.

Starting the mental tug of war with the distracted Collective once again, Facility 684 began to fall out of orbit towards the black hole it was stationed around. He could only roll his single optic as distracted Borg continued to die in even greater numbers and the anomaly reports continued to grow in number as well, distracting Borg across the entire galaxy as their hive mind collectively sought to figure out what the hell was going on. The forces in orbit of Vega were down to a single tactical Cube, as the Federation finished evacuating the colony.

But he would persevere, as would the Collective, for he was the Queen's favoured, he would never age nor want for anything.

He was Tribble of Borg.

And she was stroking him again...

* * *

\- Bridge of the U.S.S. _New England_ \- Orbit of Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

"_We are the Borg. You will be assimilat__ed. Resistance is futile. __Lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Your biological and technol-_"

A wave of Harry's hand shut off the speakers as he entered the bridge, the crew visibly relaxing at the calm presence he exuded, the feeling of restrained power comforting them subconsciously. "Lieutenant Ora, I congratulate you on destroying so many ships, but you seem to have missed one."

"Sir, everyone else is already clear, but our weapons can barely scratch that cube and they've moved between us and open space; we can't enter warp this close to the planet either." Elise explained, feeling the need to inject a dose of reality.

"Can't you just... pop over there like you did with the Klingons Harry?"

"I was only able to do that because they were unshielded and I could see the area that I wanted to be in. Without a point of reference or their shield frequencies..." he replied, leaving his last statement unfinished, but it was clear what he was trying to say.

"Borg vessels all have the same basic structural layout; we have detailed sensor records on their configuration from multiple engagements in the past, including some for this specific class of vessel." T'Vrell offered, adding to the conversation a possible solution.

With the possibility of getting there in hand, each person continued thinking on just how to take down the Borg vessel's shields so that Harry could get to the vessel and... well, do _'Classified' _stuff. "What about the starboard cannon? We could overload the pre-firing chamber to overcharge it. We'd only have one chance, and it would probably burn out the entire EPS network on three decks after a single shot, but tetryon cannons are designed to shut down shields." Ora suggested, remembering the welded on section of derelict ship that they were currently using as a patch job.

"If successfully struck head on, I calculate a 93.586 percent chance that their shields would go off-line temporarily." T'Vrell said, calculating the odds in typical Vulcan fashion. "May I ask what you plan to do when you get over there?"

"Working on it, just line us up for the attack run and fire on my order. Anne, prepare to get us the hell out of here at a moment's notice." Harry answered, opening a pouch on his waist, the busy crew failing to notice him impossibly expand a tiny box into a full-size trunk virtually covered in peeling and faded colorful stickers.

"Begin the attack!" Harry commanded. As he popped the lid alarms began to shrilly blare, as radiation, chemical and biological alarms further distracted the crew and they failed to notice Harry actually climb into the trunk. Anne and Elisa began the attack as ordered, while Ora and T'Vrell were trying to work out what had set off the alarms that they had only learned about in the Academy as trivia.

The Borg vessel had also detected some sudden strange readings from the Federation vessel upon the trunk opening. The Collective ordered a detailed scan and tractor beam on the vessel and not weapons' fire, in an attempt to solve yet another anomaly. The Collective did the mental equivalent of rolling its eyes as the Federation ship managed the pointless task of taking down the cube's shields with a single burst of intense tetryon fire (but little damage otherwise) from a non-standard weapon for a ship of that class, before mentally shrugging it off (a lone voice trying to order the ship to open fire).

The bridge crew of the _New England_ then heard the *fwt* of Harry leaving, finally noticing the large wooden trunk on the deck covered in pre-warp hazard and warning stickers and realized his plan.

* * *

\- Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

In orbit of the once thriving Vega Colony a blinding flash lit up the sky, just as a Federation ship jumped into warp. The light signaled the vast bulk of a Borg tactical cube cracking open as plumes of atomic hellfire burst into space, only to run out of fuel and then be snuffed out. After years of sitting idly in stasis, one of the finest unknown weapons of the second world war detonated, several centuries after it had first been created.

After being smuggled out of Nazi hands by Grindelwald, then captured by magical allied forces, it was locked away in the British Department of Mysteries whose staff improved and experimented on it (as a method of protecting their secrets should the Department ever fall), the last evidence of the otherwise obliviated German nuclear bomb program went up in a glorious explosion of light. While Harry possessed many, far more powerful nuclear and exotic weapons of mass destruction he'd collected over the years from the WWIII era, this one's simplistic, mechanical clockwork components left the Borg with little chance to disarm it, before atomic hellfire cleansed the hallways of the ship.

For half a minute a bright new star hung in the sky. As the large Borg vessel exploded from within, the super fast orbiting irradiated debris and EMP blast falling to and striking the planet below, ensuring that none of the warring factions would bother trying to retake the now dead world, half assimilated and now uninhabitable world.

* * *

\- End of Chapter -

* * *

_AN: See, I warned you that there would be character death, look at all the dead Borg drones killed to entertain you. You're a sick, sick __bastard__. I mean, I only wrote it, but your reading it contributes to the industry, and not only that, you enjoyed reading it__…hopefully. __How many more characters have to die because of your sick need to read about their deaths! How many?!_

**[We Interrupt this author's note to reset your host. Thank you for your patience.]**

Below is the point in the campaign each faction's captain has reached

**Federation:** Completed - Assimilation of the Innocent

**Klingon:** Completed - Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning

**Romulan:** Pre Campaign

**Author Main:** Up-to-date on available missions

* * *

Some items that need addressing:

**Q**. Why Morgana and not Morgan? **A**. Morgan sounds to masculine in everyday use, and Harry would not go around calling her Morgan Le Fay, so Morgana is easier to read (even if every time I type it I add an extra N)

**Q**. But didn't you already do this chapter? **A**. Yes, but it had far less detail and many things that I had left out that I wanted to add. Thus this replacement chapter 4.

**Q**. The Borg Nano Bots/Probes seem overly susceptible to Magic, don't they? A. Borg Nano Bots/Probes due to their size have almost no physical shielding, relying on the fact that most things that could kill them, would kill the host as well.

**Q**. Magical Maturities and Prime Numbers. **A**. This will be covered in greater depth later on, but the idea is that as a magical gets older, for each of the first one hundred primes their age hits, a portion of them increases in power. Numbers ending in 1 being to do with an increase in their magical core (11 being a case of the core doubling [211 being the core doubling twice]). 31 to do with vision enhancements, and numbers such as 131 and 331 only being multiples of the improvements 31 gave. Example: Magical Maturity gained at 93131 years = vision improvement (31) x current vision level (31) x 9.

**Q**. But what about Magicals born on another Planet? How would their magical Maturity's be effected by the length of that planets year? **A**. A Magical Vulcan born on Earth will have their Magical Maturities based on each Earth Year, while a Magical Human Born on Vulcan will have their Magical Maturities based on each Vulcan Year. A Magical born in space, will use their parents Magical Maturity, more specificity the parent who carried them inside themselves for the longest. How-ever their are rituals that can be performed to change the 'clock', but this dose not effects or allow you to re-take past Magical Maturities.

* * *

**Questions asked in the Reviews:**

Rail Rifle, Kinetic or Energy weapon?This rifle is a solid projectile weapon, however the power requirements to charge the magnetic rails, cause the power problems.

Will you be adding characters from the TV shows?Maybe... I'm not committing to any names yet but its a possibility.

Why not clone more Wizards from the bones at the other end of the Vale of Death?Option 1. the tiny amount of atmosphere was toxic and the bodies rotted down to nothing but bone. Option 2 (which I'm going with). The Vale of Death destroys any organic matter that passes through it not protected by magic, (spells on Harry's stuff protected his stuff, and Harry survived cause he's immortal.)

Orion Slave Queens? Think Dark Lord. Orion slavery starts with an Orian Female 'Charming' several males with her pheromones, and then arming them with weapons to control the other members of the female populace, by holding the 'Charm' while dealing with the females so they cannot 'Charm' back or having a female lieutenant do it. Should slave chips be gotten hold of, the males can be relied upon to remain loyal to who ever installs it

On another note...Last chapter I asked you my valiant readers to get the three references in the final line of the deleted scene... 'Frack' = The 1978 Battlestar Galactica series (Note the original spelling of Frack [1978] and not Frak [2004]), 'Pilot' = Farscape and 'prepare for Ludicrous speed!' = Spaceballs, If you got it wrong, go re-watch all of them while waiting for the next chapter.

* * *

A message courtesy of Quark Enterprises.

Hello future buyers! I'm here to talk you you about the confusing world of personal armaments. You, like many others, might find yourself confused with the multitude of choices and makes, with each faction favouring their own type and style of weapon. But today lets give you a leg up on your current or future first thing you need to understand is that weapons come in two size categories, ship-mounted and conventional. This distinction between the ones in your hands and the ones on your hull is fairly both types break down further into Kinetic and Energy weapons.

Lets get Kinetic ground weapons out the way first. Swords, spears, whips or even rocks, every species has their own weapon of choice when it comes to getting up close and personal. Considered by some races as uncivilised, we always think it best for an individual to find the right weapon for them, and suggest you arrange a meeting with a dedicated specialist, and can arrange one if you contact us.

Conventional Energy weapons are the most common method of ground combat in action these days, with a variety of types and styles. From the trusty and hardy Type 1 Federation Phaser and it's ability to stun a target to the Breen Polaron rifle that disrupts electrical systems.

In space, energy weapons are split into cannons, beam banks and turrets. with turrets further breaking down into 360 degree cannon networks or multi-weapon arrays pointing in one direction. With all Energy weapons you have to keep the type of damage it does in mind before picking out that ship mounted beam bank or hand held sniper rifle. Phasers can disable a ships subsystems (engines/shields/weapons/sensors) and stun a ground combatant or even kill and vaporize them..

Disruptors break down the bonds between molecules and can cause future damage to be more effective.

Plasma weapons will cause residual burning against a target and there are even a few rare Plasma-thrower weapons on the market, throwing clouds of burning Plasma at the target.

Weapons based around subatomic Tetryon particles will cause far greater damage to energy shields, but less damage than most against solid targets.

Polaron weapons will drain a target's power fully, causing armour to lock up or batteries to empty. The last category is Kinetic ship weapons, be it the trusty Photon Torpedo or the advanced Transphasic Mine, each comes with it's own bonuses. Photon projectiles are the fastest to reload due to their simplicity.

Quantum projectiles cause significant damage without sacrificing torpedo speed.

Plasma Torpedoes and Mines will continue to damage the target as the ignited plasma eats into the hull and/or shield.

Transphasic Torpedoes can quickly partially bypass shields, but all that tech leave little room for boom requiring a critical hit on your enemy's warp core for instance.

Chroniton weapons will leave your opponents dead in the water as their engines grind to a halt.

Tricobalt projectiles causes the most devastation overall, but their slow speed makes them a easy target for energy weapons. But whether you buy high tech Federation phasers or durable Klingon cannons, each and every weapon system has its own advantages, styles, bonuses and counters. And you can bet new weapons, be they hybrid or exotic, are always finding their way onto the battlefields and marketplaces of the galaxy, and you can trust Quark Enterprises to be there, buying, testing and selling, for you.

Seek us out today for all your weapons' needs!


	5. Ch5 Only a five year journey!

**To Boldly Go**

* * *

I, in no way, own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness, or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licenses and trademarks belong to their respective parties, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non profitable use.

Except Thrans, he's all me. Well, at least a third of me; but totally me.

Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'

* * *

**_AN: It is strongly advised that you re-read chapter 1 - 4 as they were rewrite with a lot of additional material and were vastly improved from an editing perspective as well._**

_For those wanting to play the non-crossover version of this chapter on Star Trek Online please turn to the tutorial mission of said game: __**Stranded In Space**_

* * *

**Chapter 5**

_Only a five year journey?!_

* * *

Cut to a fair sized Starfleet ship's cabin, a short brown haired woman sitting on the edge of the room's bed, her hair slightly messy and a silken bathrobe wrapped round her body, hugging the voluptuous curves of her nude form.

"Hi, my name's Anne Potter, and you might recall me from the post season eight Federation tutorial, up until halfway into the mission **Training Cruise** that is. And no, I have no idea why I wasn't on the bridge after it was attacked, my guess is I was cut by the production crew due to it being too many bridge crew too soon, but it would have made far more sense to have me, the helms-woman, teach you how to fly than Elise, right? I mean she's a tactical Cadet, so how does that make any sense?!"

A muffled shout comes from off screen distracting the beautiful brunette.

"Sorry about that, Elise is a little mad at me because I just got through finishing up a scene where I- Let's just say I think she wanted to join me." More muffled shouting this time a little louder.

"Back on point, I'm here to talk to you because Thrans is a little busy working with our new proofrea-" More muffled shouting, but from elsewhere this time.

"Sorry, I've just been reminded that he does _not _proofread, I quote 'What I did was not proofreading. That would have taken me 30 minutes tops. What I did was beta and revise, reading this whole thing closely and rewriting various things over the course of many hours, with work spread over multiple days.'

Anyway both of them are busy polishing up this story, so I'm your host for now. The basis of this little pre-chapter talk is a thank you for your continued support during the little post chapter four, version one change around, and to announce that it's been changed yet _again_. Well, polished to a fine sheen really. Also, I'm very excited to tell you about this story's, Thrans' and my first, drum-roll please... lemon scene! And while it is a solo scene, you have to start somewhere, right? Baby steps and all that...

On a more personal note the rest of the cast and myself would like to thank our new Beta, Joe Lawyer, as Thrans was planning to rewrite the lyrics to 'I need a Hero' to 'I need a Beta, I'm holding out for a Beta till the end of the night.' as you can guess we, the many characters of _To Boldly Go_, are all pleased to find out we don't have to sing it now."

* * *

**Last Episode**

\- Vega Colony - 411 I.G. -

_In orbit of the once thriving Vega Colony a blinding flash lit up the sky, just as a Federation ship jumped into warp. The light signaled the vast bulk of a Borg tactical cube cracking open as plumes of atomic hellfire burst into space, only to run out of fuel and then be snuffed out._

_For half a minute a bright new star hung in the sky. As the large Borg vessel exploded from within, the super fast orbiting irradiated debris and EMP blast fell to the planet below, ensuring that none of the warring factions would bother trying to retake the now dead, half assimilated and now uninhabitable world._

* * *

\- Deck 1, Cabin 5, U.S.S. _New England_ \- On Route to Earth Space Dock - 411 I.G. -

_\- Warning! This section features a Solo Lemon and implied Group Lemon -_

_\- That means sexual content, press Ctrl F, then search 888 to skip if you wish -_

Anne Potter stretched out on the bed luxuriously, in a manner reminiscent of a contented cat, her short brown hair framing her face, drawing you into her now closed light brown eyes. She began to unwind now after her shift.

When the bridge crew had realised exactly what Harry had planned to leave onboard the Borg vessel, they had each panicked a bit in their own way. Anne's finger, for instance, had hovered nervously over the button to take them to warp, as they waited anxiously for him to return.

The moment he did, she had opened the engines up to maximum speed, getting them well clear of the system and into the relative safety of open space, before joining up with the fleet of cargo ships and transports that carried the bulk of the colony's traumatized survivors. It was their job now to protect the ships filled with colonists from any that would take advantage of their vulnerability.

A quick reshuffle of the total colonists between the ships, for safety purposes, now meant that the U.S.S. _New England_ was carrying five hundred people on board, its two hundred person (Standard Crew) life support systems straining from over usage. Thankfully, Zarva had anticipated the issues that would crop up and set up several small atmospheric recycling plants in the cargo bays to reclaim the excess carbon dioxide each additional person exhaled. The replicators were also now constantly churning out food and blankets for the excess passengers. Still, there was little that could be done for the heat build up from an extra 300 plus bodies onboard, and everyone was covered in a light sheen of sweat.

Rolling onto her front, Anne inhaled the scent of her academy crush. The sheer number of extra people on-board had made cabin sharing a necessity, even for officers, _not _that Anne minded the idea of sharing with Elise at all. The only way it could get better is if both of them had to share a bed with Harry as well. Oh, wouldn't that be sinfully good.

Anne, like many school girls on planets throughout the Federation, grew up reading and learning about the various heroic exploits of larger than life people like Captains Kirk and Archer, and school girl crushes on the historical men were quite common (as were the boys' infatuation with women like Kathryn Janeway, Seven of Nine and Nyota Uhura). Unlike those more 'recent' heroes, Anne had found a deeper and more personal connection with the tales of The Lonely Wanderer after finding a great great grandparent's journal, which had, among other things, included a physical description of the hero which matched Harry flawlessly.

She had always imagined The Lonely Wanderer or Lightning Strike, as he was called during World War III, as a more cocky hero, maybe driven by revenge for a lost love and needing comfort or perhaps he had a need to rescue damsels in distress and needed vigorous thanking afterwards (her fantasy about meeting him always ended in much the same manner). Harry was, however, much... _better_.

Slipping a hand down the front of her loosely fit academy trousers, she bit back a moan as she closed her eyes. Her nimble fingers threading themselves between silky lace and skin as they brushed past the closely trimmed hair above her dampening core.

He seemed darker and older from what she'd seen, like some of the Joined Trill she had met before who had seen so much, but continued on. In the brief time she had spent around him, she had witnessed an indomitable will to save lives, and a teasing playful manner hidden beneath. She was reveling in the chance to be around him, even if she had yet to end up in his bed, like they had in so, so many fantasies ...or on the floor... or in the sonic shower…

Maybe the Captain's chair...

Gently stroking herself, Anne's fingers began to seek out more pleasurable locations, as her body was inflamed by her thoughts. Oh, how she wished that her Captain would simply walk into the room and demand her help with orally taking down his 'Captain's Log.'

Her sultry giggles at the crappy Academy Yard joke showing up in her fantasy quickly turned into a moan, as her fingers slick with juice, parted her folds and entered her body like she imagined _he _would, the bit of her palm just below her thumb gently grinding the sensitive nub that poked out above. Enjoying the slow build up, her mind returned to _her _Captain again, well, not truly her captain, she was only a Cadet and even her friends' field commissions could be rescinded now that the training cruise had technically failed, the possibility of a retake months away. Still, one more battle and she would be promoted officially to Ensign and could request a placement wherever Harry was sent.

Slipping her other hand into her unzipped tunic, she let her fingertips trace the contours of her creamy, slightly freckled skin. Her breaths were coming short and sharp now, as she rolled onto her side and pressed her face into Elise's scented bedding, a low throaty moan of pleasure escaping from between her parted lips. Her dexterous ring finger gently teased her moist entrance, as her middle and index fingers continued to plunder her depths in time with fantasy Harry's powerful thrusts.

Hopefully her crush and temporary roommate Elise would follow Harry as well, should he transfer. None of the closely watching girls on the bridge had missed his reaction to Ora's new uniform, so maybe they all would end up joining him. The thought of Harry pounding someone like T'Vrell into an emotional orgasmic mess, turned her on even more as she began to imagine the rest of the bridge crew in the stoic Vulcan's place. The many different faces and positions blurred together as Harry's name was screamed into the sheets, her world turning white with pleasure.

The room stilled, her panting breaths and the thrum of the engines filling the slightly too warm cabin, the oval shaped transparent aluminium window showing the stars as they streaked by at warp speeds.

Gently working her soaked fingers free from her body, she let out another soft sigh of pleasure and relief, her mind feeling clearer in this post orgasmic haze than it had in days. Between exams, the rush to get off planet, the Klingon attacks, being saved by and meeting her personal hero, then the battle with the Borg, she hadn't had nearly enough of her favorite endorphin laced personal workout sessions.

Deciding not to test the stain resistant qualities of her uniform, she slipped off the bed, letting her trousers fall down her legs to the floor, quickly followed by her lacy underwear emblazoned with little Starfleet com-badges worked into the pattern (a group wide purchase from a post exam girls' day out), as her damp thighs glistened with her juices and perspiration.

Padding softly across the carpeted floor, she entered the small bathroom, dropping her cadet tunic on the floor and turning the sonic shower on, before pulling off her sports bra and stepping into the shower. The slight anti-gravity field lifted her into the vibrating sonic waves as the computer manipulated the field to the exact shape of her body, the sweat and grime of the day falling away, along with the evidence of the personal indulgence that glazed her inner thighs.

Finding her mind turning once again back to Harry, she noticed a building vibration in her groin and realised _someone _had modified the shower. With the vibrations also caressing her chest, she parted her legs further, letting the vibrating, force field directed air currents work their way deeper into her. Her mind filled with the now slightly more possible images of Harry, Elise and herself and the fun they could have.

Still… Even if Elise wasn't interested in such an idea, Anne was definitely figuring out how this shower was modified.

* * *

\- 888 -

\- Holodeck 1 - U.S.S. _New England_ \- On Route to Earth Space Dock - 411 I.G. -

Relaxing on the artificial shores of an alien tropical beach, Harry mused on the current situation. The ship was currently on route to earth with the bulk of the civilian rescue fleet, the rag tag flotilla of ships reminding Harry of stories and films of the evacuation fleet after the battle of Dunkirk.

When he arrived at Earth he would be meeting with much of the Admiralty, to discuss his future. Though there would likely be hell to pay for using a nuke, even if Dumbledore himself would have declared Vega a 'Lost Cause' and therefore sacrificed for the "greater good" considering the planet's partial assimilation could be seen even from space with the naked eye.

However, with 83 percent of the population safely evacuated and another 9 percent of the assimilated civilians safely contained and in stasis (to be later freed from the Collective by trained Starfleet medical personnel), Harry was quite pleased with himself. His call for aid had rallied the evacuation fleet and saved the millions of lives that the Federation Council had later abandoned by telling the fleet of ships that had destroyed the transwarp gateway to 'escort' the Klingon ships who had aided them from Federation space, rather than offer protection and escort to the many civilians being brought back to earth.

Should the Council try to blame him for the now totally dead world, its orbit littered with super fast irradiated debris, he would remind them that if they had only sent aid earlier, it might have ended differently. He knew how the dirty game of politics was played.

Turning the page of a holographic book that novelised the crew logs from the first U.S.S. _Enterprise'_s five year mission, he could only smile at just how far the non-magical branch of humanity had come. Though he was a little upset that he had seemingly went through the veil mere days before the Vulcans made first contact, he happily busied himself catching up on the history of his non-magical cousins.

While reading a particularly riveting part concerning Kirk's interactions with the reptilian race known as the Gorn, Harry heard the holodeck's doors opening and caught a scent that blew towards him on the artificial wind; he didn't need to look up to see who it belonged to. It was a hint of unknown exotic fruits with a slight hint of ozone, the very same scent that you could smell after an electrical storm. Still, he could not find a reason to resist looking over with appreciation at the attractive green-skinned red head who entered, her uniform causing his mouth to dry slightly at the sight.

"Harry, several of the crew, myself included, were wondering what you planned to do after this ...mission." Ora asked, her face a neutral mask, a look that Harry could tell was forced and rather unnatural for a woman whose passion ran so deep.

"I'm not sure to be honest. I know that the Continuum has plans for me, and I'm equally sure that Starfleet has some as well. I'll probably spend a few days checking up on some old contacts and the sights, then travel for a bit."

This was clearly not the answer she had been hoping for; she swallowed disappointedly before continuing, "Any chance you can explain the magic thing? I mean it's just us on the bridge and a few in engineering who know, but..."

"I'll talk with the Admiralty about that, so don't let them go running off when we reach space dock, okay?"

Nodding, she turned to go before stopping in mid stride. "One last thing, I just- The reason I came down here was that the S.S. _Azura,_one of the Tuffli Class Freighters in the convoy, took some damage and it caused a slew of systems' failures. Their warp drive's at risk of irreparable damage now; they're asking if the fleet can drop out of warp so that they can fix it."

"I see. Well, it's not unexpected, I know most of the ships in the convoy are being heavily strained beyond the norm what with all the additional people onboard and the longer distances than they normally travel, some are still probably battle damaged. Pass the word that any other ships needing to drop out of warp are to wait till we have a good defensible location, preferably one with a bit of cover to hide us on sensors. The rest of the fleet will continue on to Earth."

Watching as the attractive green-skinned woman asked the computer for the exit, his eyes remained locked on her swaying hips as she walked out the door. Harry turned back to the book on Kirk's five year mission and began to read again. He was so engrossed in the tale he failed to notice Morgana's crystal on the headset next to him pulse brighter and brighter, before jumping at a loud shout.

_"__**I knew I could get these holographic emitters working for me Harry!**__"_

* * *

\- AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria - 411 I.G. -

A total of three ships requested to drop out of warp with the _New England_, a Tellarite mining ship (1,084 refugees aboard), a Kobliad short range escort (95 refugees aboard) and the S.S. _Azura_, an independent trading ship (814 refugees aboard).

Dropping out amongst the cover provided by a rogue asteroid cluster, the ships began their needed repairs. The Tellarite vessel only needed to adjust its internal dampeners, while the small Kobliad vessel began cooling its interplanetary warp drive and recharging its batteries, the ship not designed for warping about the sector block like this.

The _Azura_ had taken some minor battle damage from the Borg, as it was one of the first ships to arrive and one of the last to leave, but that minor damage had lead to a cascade of system failures that now threatened the ship's warp drive, and while the repairs were simple enough, the extensive system failures meant it would take some time to fix.

Repairs were still being made an hour and a half later, the Tellarite ship having left long ago, while the Kobliad vessel graciously stayed to help watch over the _Azura_. Harry was now getting worried. With news of the Borg attack in the sector widespread, he was well aware that most illegal shipping operations would have gone into hiding, but as more and more time passed the chance of pirates or raiders stumbling upon them increased exponentially. In times of peace Federation space was usually a very safe place, but with Starfleet forces stretched thin due to the war, the risk of piracy was much greater than normal.

Lieutenant Zarva and two engineering teams had already beamed over to help the _Azura's _Captain, Danna Brott, with the ongoing repairs, but Zarva was still unsure how long they would need to finish, and while many pirates had chosen to aid the Federation in saving the colonists on Vega IX, many more had chosen to hide from the Borg and would now be creeping out of their holes, knowing that the anti-pirate fleets would still be protecting their home planets. To many unsavory characters, this would seem the perfect opportunity for profit.

* * *

\- S.S. _Azura_ Engineering deck - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

A sudden burst of steam caused startled yelps and curses from those near the ageing transport ship's engines when it tried to vent the excess heat build up. The primary buffer panel had come loose when the Borg hit the starboard auxiliary fuel line and then had later torn off during the rescue operation on Vega.

The _Azura_ was an old ship, one of the many Tuffli Class Freighters that the Cardassian shipyards had churned out during its recovery process after the Dominion occupation, an upgrade on the Groumall-type transport, the Klingons also using the same basic design. Yet it was now over thirty years old and had seen some hard use, its large cargo bays having held everything from agricultural tools to luxury hovercraft over the years.

Danna would privately admit to herself that she hadn't been taking the best care of her ship recently. Recent trading runs had been very profitable and she had been planning on trading the vessel in for a newer advanced configuration model, its larger cargo bays, faster engines and improved weapons systems making it one of the best transports commercially available, even if it still did not surpass the Ferengi D'Kora class freighter.

While she hadn't truly risked the safety of her vessel or its crew, she hadn't refilled their stock of spare parts as often as she normally would, choosing only to carry one spare of each and waiting as long as possible between replacing components, a perfectly fine practice as long as the spare components were not damaged or defective when you got them. They did only have one spare, after all.

Life support was fine, the large cargo containers built to house livestock when needed were also fine, but the ship was packed to the gills with refugees and she had dumped her cargo of water as she entered Vega's atmosphere, hopefully drowning a few Borg in the process. However, the damp air from carrying such a large quantity of water onboard was not making the ship's cramped conditions any easier.

Cursing loudly, she smacked her palms against the sturdy control interface.

She just knew her ship would not make it off the next planet she landed on. The cascade failures that the lucky Borg hit had caused, had set alight the _Azura_'s chemical fuel tanks, fuel meant to allow her to land on a planet in an emergency situation. The tanks' extinguishers had failed to go off and the unchecked flames had melted several of the ship's superstructure support ribs and heated the keel till it glowed a cherry red before the super cooled high atmosphere temperatures of Vega had inevitably cracked the outer hull from the quick change in temperature.

It had been when they entered warp that the cracks had widened and the strain on the ship's hull had remain undetected for hours due to the half shorted out internal sensor network. Eventually a light on the bridge had turned red and after arranging to drop out of warp, the repairs had begun and the crippling problem found.

But not even the highly skilled engineering teams from the _New England_ could fix the damage for good. Whole sections would need to be outright replaced.

Danna was forced to make a tough decision, declare an emergency and hope the Andorians could send a mobile shipyard before any nearby pirates picked up the signal, or jury rigging the structural integrity field to the warp-core and plotting a non-stop warp jump back to Earth, most likely splitting the ship's keel in the process.

It only took her a moment to choose, one of her fathers had died while serving in Starfleet, and despite his murder, she and her family believed in its values and ideals.

"Lieutenant Zarva!?" She called out, mentally thanking the _New England_'s Captain for lending her some skilled engineers.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_ Bridge - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

**'Harry. It's time.'** Morgana whispered, waking him from his slumber in the captain's chair. "Battle Stations" he called aloud, blinking the sleep from his eyes. _'How Many?'_ **'Five signatures three minutes out, the profiles and readings match Orion origin.'**

"Contacts detected closing port side high. All stations reporting ready!" Came Elise's voice. "The Kobliad Escort is forming up on our flank, _Azura_ reports it needs more time."

"Rotating ship to face target!" Anne shouted while sprinting out of the turbolift, before vaulting the back of her chair and dropping into it with an obviously practised ease, several of the bridge crew reacting to the energetic girl, while others shook their heads in fond exasperation, having expected it.

"Beam over the _Renown's _security teams to the _Azura_, and spread the Cadet teams about the ship." Harry ordered, knowing the makeshift militia from Vega were already posted in various locations to protect the civilians and keep the peace. "Transfer auxiliary power to weapons and shields. And did we get the starboard Tetryon cannon back online?"

"No sir, we didn't have the replacement lenses in the database for replication." Came the voice of one of the engineering cadets taking Zarva's place while she was off the ship.

"Very well then. Rel, can you get a distress call out to Starfleet command?"

Turning from her station T'Vrell unknowingly rolled her eyes slightly at her new nickname, despite the slight warmth in her chest every time she heard Harry use it. "While the asteroid field will disrupt ours and their sensors, communications are fully functional."

"Send the distress call, then begin monitoring hostile comm traffic."

"Understood."

"Database confirms five Orion vessels, unknown registry, three Corvettes, one Brigand Cruiser and- _fuck... _a Slavemaster Battleship. Expect multiple Interceptor Fighters."

"Give me some good news?" Harry asked, as Ora stepped onto the bridge. T'Vrell replied, "The Corvettes are significantly ahead of the Cruiser and Battleship, so we should have sufficient time to take them out before the larger ships arrive."

"The Battleship will stay back unless it has a clear advantage. If we can take out two of the Corvettes without taking losses, we stand a good chance of not having to fight it. That's assuming they follow standard Syndicate operating doctrine though. With the number of potential slaves aboard the _Azura _alone, they may decide to fight it out regardless." Ora added as she took her seat, checking the tactical readout built into her chair's armrest.

"Sir, the _Azura_ says they need about ten more minutes."

"Rel, tell the _Kobliad _to provide Interception support for the _Azura_. Anne, put us five thousand meters away from the _Azura _on the Orion's incoming course."

"Sir, they're jamming long range communications, but I received half a return message from Earth. I don't know who or what, but support is on route."

"Very well. Elise, load and arm all torpedo banks and begi-"

"Sir, Starfleet regulations deem pre-loaded torpedoes an explosive hazard should our ship take damage. A premature detonation inside the armoury could cripple the ship."

"I am well aware, however we will be clearing the tubes in the first few seconds of the engagement. As I was saying, begin phaser bank charging cycles and raise shields to maximum. Anne, on my order, advance till contact."

"Incoming hail, patching to main viewscreen."

The attractive green skinned beauty that filled the screen was ornately dressed in gem studded clothing that gave some semblance of protection to her metal bikini clad form. Her green hair and yellow eyes drew your gaze to her plump full lips. However, the alluring image was ruined by her snarling face, obviously displeased to find a Starfleet vessel answering her hails.

_"Attention Starfleet vessel, retreat from this area immediately or we will-"_

"This is Fleet Admiral Harry Potter-Black of the United Earth Government, Earth Defence Fleet, Acting Captain of the U.S.S. _New England_. I have three vessels under my command and more on route. Withdraw or you will be considered hostile and fired upon."

* * *

\- AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

**AN:** _I rarely do this mid story, but many of you will be wondering how the ships mentioned compare to those you know from the TV shows: Orion Corvettes should be considered equal to a Federation Miranda class or Klingon Bird-of-Prey class vessel. Orion Brigand Cruisers are equal to Constitution-class (refit). A Slavemaster Battleship is carrier class vessel equal in firepower to a Negh'Var Class Warship or the Federation Prometheus-class Escort. The Kobliad Short Range Escort would be best described as a armed coast guard ship, thus no real match for a combat oriented vessel._

AEX-053 was a collection of small asteroids and comets moving on an erratic interstellar path. The collection of rocks, dust and ice had been swinging off several different gravitational forces, never staying inside one sphere of influence too long (compared to other orbital bodies).

Several advanced races had added small probes and transmitters to the area, hoping to one day observe the first seeding of life that the icy comets contained, a handful of simplistic single celled creatures frozen amongst the ice crystals.

However, the amount of stray partials and conflicting sensor data, made the area almost impossible to use long-range scanners within, due to conflicting readings and false sensor shadows. It was the mix of heavy metals and radioactive elements that made the area a nightmare to scan, though.

Such clusters were not rare; several hundred had been found and charted in the alpha quadrant alone. In fact they were regularly used by ships with older drive cores as pit stops, a place to stop and seek protection amongst the rocks from pirates. Unfortunately this tactic was well known by now and pirates often chose these locations as ambush sites, like a predator waiting for prey at the watering hole.

This game of cat and mouse was played across the universe, with both civilians and criminals hiding from each other. So when the short range sensors aboard the _c'Thrat Su'ki,_ a hulking Slavemaster Battleship, got close enough to its planned ambush site and picked up three ship signatures with hundreds upon hundreds of lifesigns, the Orion Syndicate aligned pirates prepared to attack.

With the lightly armed corvettes sent ahead to scout out the prey, the Slavemaster Battleship dropped its speed, knowing its vast size would put it at a disadvantage should the targets turn out to be anti-piracy ships or a Borg splinter fleet.

However, when they picked up a Starfleet encoded distress call from the targets, a decision to contact their possible prey was made. Since the sensor readings were so faulty in the area, the visible background on the viewscreen could allow an observant Captain to possibly work out the vessel's class.

While the conversation was little more than a pre-battle statement by both sides, it gave the all clear for the Corvettes to drop out of warp 15km away from the lead ship, the three vessels quickly transmitting data back to the Brigand Cruiser and Slavemaster Battleship, both of whom watched as the Federation Miranda class starship advanced on the Orion Corvettes, their rowboat shaped and ornately patterned hulls colored a greenish bronze.

At 10km the _New England_ opened fire, its pre-charged forward phasers streaking out and brilliantly flaring the lead Corvette's shields. A return volley of disruptor beams was immediately fired, just as the Starfleet vessel emptied its torpedo tubes, six twinkling ruby red rounds splashing against the Orion's shields, two torpedoes a piece. This was a one off attack that the crew had spent several minutes preparing beforehand.

The damaged and shaken crews of the three Corvettes, could not keep up the exchange of fire with the Miranda class vessel whose phasers were continuing to hammer the lead Orion ship, while another pair of high yield photon torpedoes slammed into the pirate craft, its crew flung violently from their stations. The Orion ship's hull cracked open, the second torpedo stripping away one of the dorsal turrets.

However, the two remaining Corvettes were not idle during this engagement as their disruptor beam arrays continued to stab away at the weakening forward shields of their foe, forcing it to turn rapidly to present its less strained flank. Reorienting the ship allowed its rear phaser array to target the damaged Orion ship, the twin orange beams slashing across the ship's hull causing its engines to die.

Letting up on the damaged ship, the _New England_'s crew did their very best to keep both Orion Corvettes ahead of them or on their flank, knowing that should one of the Orion ships get behind them, the _New England_'s lone phaser array would be unable to force the Corvettes to break off, the Orions' fore and aft torpedo launchers putting the _New England_ at a distinct tactical disadvantage.

Thankfully the Kobliad escort ship decided it was time to intervene, its forward cannon and 360 degree turret network showering the closest Orion Corvette with pale blue hybrid phaser/tetryon bolts that stripped away chunk after chunk of its shields. However, the ship was meant for planetary defence and hunting down the occasional smuggler, so it could do little more than lock a powerful tractor beam on its prey to restrict its movements a bit and continue to fire its weapons. With the _New England _softening them beforehand, they were actually doing a bit of damage.

Turning on the now unshielded Corvette, the _New England_ fired its only ready torpedo, its phasers slashing out at the pock marked hull of the vessel. The combined and concentrated fire turned out to be just enough to crack the armour surrounding the ship's warp core, the next strike causing the anti-matter containment field to fail and explode, gutting the ship from the inside. Only the fact that the ship was carrying less than half the normal amount of fuel stopped it from being totally vaporized.

With two of the ships now launching what escape pods they could, the _New England_ and its ally chased after the last corvette that had broken off to attack the _Azura,_ desperately hoping that destroying the cargo ship would make the cruiser and battleship choose to withdraw and cut their losses.

However, despite its primary role in shipping, the Tuffli class freighter was armed with two fore and aft mounted overlapping phaser turret networks, which gave it a 360 degree field of fire. Its secondary forward weapon's bay made use of a cargo pod to mount a station size phaser bank, able to fire as a powerful forward beam to clear asteroids every hour within a ten degree arc.

The Orion Corvette not knowing of this unusual weapons configuration, chose the shortest route to its target, and the _Azura _had plenty of time to turn its vast bulk, before the bright orange beam lanced out and cored the Corvette bow to stern, the ten meter wide hole causing the ship to shudder and die as its guts were exposed to the harsh vacuum of space.

But the fight was far from over as the Brigand Cruiser dropped out of warp, its dual disruptor cannons and beam arrays flaring against the Kobliad ship's shields, forcing it to quickly jump to warp as a photon torpedo homed in on the tiny ship.

Now facing their new foe, the _New England_ and the _Azura_ were forced to start punching well above their weight class, as the transport and light cruiser went up against the Orion Syndicate's ship of the line.

* * *

\- S.S. _Azura_ Command deck - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

The continued blare of the red alert klaxon echoed throughout the ship as the sound of transporters and the chatter of projectile weapons' fire punctuated the deep tones of the alarm. Danna was busy working the shield controls, desperately attempting to restart the protective bubble that kept the Orion raiders off the ship.

The defensive shield emitters were totally off-line at the moment, except for the emitters on the individual secondary shields that protected each cargo pod. If it wasn't for the experienced men and women of the _Renown_'s tactical teams, the ship would already have been in Orion hands, the pirates, who were actually _slavers _it turned out, seemed to really want to grab the many hundreds of already traumatised refugees.

Hearing yet another Orion thug beaming onto the bridge, Danna spared him but a glance and fired the 22nd century human Phaser Pistol that she had bought from the Lobi Consortium (set up by Quark Enterprises) and kept hidden in her quarters along with the Izh Defense Industries KRP Personal Practical Launcher that she got from the same group. While not as powerful as her Practical launcher, she had modified her Phaser Pistol to crash personal shields with a single shot, allowing the wounded Starfleet security officer on the bridge who had come aboard from Vega to stun the thugs unconscious. Danna shook her head at Starfleet's ridiculous policy of 'stun first, kill only as a last resort.' These were, after all, slavers, who would do unspeakable horrors to them if they were caught..

Sparing a glance at the large tactical display on the wall, she noted the _New England_ pulling away from yet another attack run, nimbly diving through a hole in an asteroid to get some cover, its forward shield close to cracking as it used its speed to pull away from the Orion vessel before lining up for another side on run. Its speed and maneuverability and relatively small size was making all the difference as the Orion ship's hull was leaking air and electro-plasma resin, the chemical mixture the Orion plasma conduits normally used.

Watching the build up of particles within the Orion ship's shields, she quickly ran over to the weapons' controls, her fingers pushing at the archaic buttons, the gauge reading only a twelve percent charge available to weapons.

She needed more power...but where to get it?

The shields!

* * *

\- AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

When the Orion Slavemaster Battleship deemed it safe to enter the battle, it launched its onboard fighter wings and the _New England_ was forced to break off its attack run or risk the non-combatants within its hull. A strange light then began to cast shadows across the rocks. The _Azura's _hull was sparking with bolts of electrical charge and the heat sinks below the ship's nose began to glow orange.

Safety protocols were overridden as power was shunted along networks not designed to take the amounts passing through them and alert warnings began to blare throughout the ship as the already damaged ship started to deteriorate anew.

However, the stuttering blast of orange light that followed made the situation all too clear, the underpowered and overheated station sized phaser array, managed to punch a hole in the Brigand Cruiser's shields, but the underpowered (at least in terms of its max power capacity) beam failed to pierce the hull, instead setting aflame the mix of gases seeping from the ship's many wounds.

Oxygen from compartments now exposed to harsh vacuum mixed with the deuterium fuel leaking from cut open thruster ports, the high intensity phaser beams ignited the mixture, while the electro-plasma resin leaking from the damaged electro-plasma conduit network turned into viscous blobs of high temperature corrosive fuel.

The initial blaze around the ship was quickly over in a moment, but the Orion electro-plasma resin continued to burn hot, melting sections of hull and exposing more compartments and circuitry to the flames, while the flash-fried sensors failed to automatically shut off the inflamed EPS network.

It was only due to the station sized phaser beam's intensity and the poorly maintained nature of the slaver craft that the inferno could take place and continue unabated, yet the really dangerous damage (in this situation) was done to the small, exposed shield emitters, the heat scorching the sensitive projectors, thus leaving the Syndicate's large ship quickly defenceless as the protective shield failed entirely in multiple areas.

The attack, though rather successful, was not without cost for the _Azura_. Its own main shields had been drained of power and its central shield emitters had been destroyed. It would take many long EVAs to complete those repairs and the already damaged superstructure had further buckled in several sections.

Capitalising on the attack, the _New England_ vigorously re-engaged, as the Interceptor fighters from the Battleship joined the fray. The _Azura_'s turrets continued to spray the void with rounds as the Interceptors did their best to stay clear, the Battleship's huge engines slowly moving it towards the fight.

The tiny, multi person fighter crafts were just a bit larger than a Starfleet shuttlecraft, their beak-like nose and aft mounted wings that swept forward giving them a distinctively avian look. Each fighter had a simple network of disruptor turrets for a 360 degree range of fire and a photon torpedo tube, all shrunk down to 'Shuttle Size,' the turret size also finding use on ground transports and ground based offensives.

The current generation of Orion Interceptors were nothing like their warp capable predecessors, the current model's designers had removed the limited warp drive, making the new models far faster and more manoeuvrable. The Interceptors were now reliant on their motherships to arrive at the battle, filling a role as an atmospheric fighter craft capable of raiding planets for slaves by using the onboard transporter or for use as a torpedo/strike-craft interceptor.

Working in attack squadrons of six, they dodged and weaved through energy weapons' fire, their rotating turrets spitting emerald green bolts at the _New England_'s plate-like saucer section, its shields taking a relentless pounding on all sides.

Aboard the _New England_ Ora was manning the phasers, the orange beams stabbing out at her mother's people's shielded fighters, the beams missing about a third of the time, due to the target's speed and excellent maneuverability, as well as the ship's currently limited sensors and Ora's admitted lack of experience. She would have to spend some serious time in simulation to ensure she'd be better the next time and she had a bad feeling that there would be many 'next' times' in the days, months, and years to come.

Ora taking over the phasers did, however, allow Elise more time to work the torpedo controls, working closely with the other tactical cadets onboard to load the torpedo tubes faster as they continued to attack the temporarily crippled Orion Brigand Cruiser and the many holes in their shields. The deadly fires on its hull of still burning electro-plasma resin were making its crew nervous, the crew debating whether to try and repair the emitters, sensors and arrays on the hull in the middle of battle or to abandon the ship and likely face the wrath of the Slavemaster Battleship's Captain.

* * *

\- [Unregistered Ship] _DeLorean_'s Bridge - On route to AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - 411 I.G. -

The _DeLorean_ (Franklin could still only roll his eyes at the ridiculous name) or project 'Back Step,' was a Mobius Class Temporal Destroyer, stolen from the Mirror Universe by the Tholians and then later by Section 31. The ship was meant to be the unused answer to the Klingon's own stolen Krenn Temporal Destroyer, both side's political counterparts agreeing to keep them secret and unused during their conflict, so long as the other side did the same.

Thankfully, both the head of Section 31 and his Klingon equivalent were in near constant contact, both knowing that some information _should _be shared between them, no matter what state of conflict their leaders had put them in, thus keeping the balance else one of the two groups of shadowy operatives decided to enter the fight for real.

The agreement between them also ensured that bio-weapons were kept off the table entirely, that overly war hungry generals who would never choose to stop fighting found themselves targeted by the other government and the corrupt or traitorous elements of both factions were legitimately removed without awkward questions of competency being asked. But more importantly, that time travel was left a completely unacceptable method of winning the war.

However, in exchange for allowing five Klingon Intelligence operatives five weeks without being hunted by Section 31 (Federation Captains and Starfleet Intelligence still being allowed to stumble across them during the course of their normal duties) an exception was made.

Thus Franklin Drake (not his birth name, of course) had been allowed to scrounge up a competent crew for the time travel capable ship.

Most of the truly advanced technology had already been stripped out by the Tholian Assembly Engineers who had originally stolen the ship, however its anti-proton arrays, banks and dual cannons were more than a match for most current ships, the chroniton torpedo launchers ensuring their prey could not escape.

The real gems aboard the ship, however, were the Tipler Cylinder and Manheim Device, which worked as a pair to both freeze the flow of time around the ship and 'rewind' time, allowing the ship to perform the same attack run twice while the damage taken from the first attack was 'rewound' thus removing it. The Manheim Device was also able to create quantum duplicates of yourself, one from your past (which unfortunately duplicated any damage caused to it, to you) and one from your future, each able to attack independent from each other.

The Federation was able to eventually create its own version of the ship, the Wells-class Temporal Science Vessel during the 29th century, however the Terran Empire and The Empire, had no qualms trying to give their past selves the ships, only the actions of the Tholian Assembly stopping them.

But for now, Franklin Drake was in command of the only time travel capable ship (Section 31 knew of, but they suspected with good reason T.I. might own a few) in the Federation, and he was racing it across the quadrant as fast as he could.

The crew, a mixture of veterans, desk jockeys and instructors from the academy, were a varied bunch, each quickly pulled from their normal duties due to a lack of personnel with the needed background checks or clearance levels in the ever overstretched departments of Section 31, many of whom had not been off planet in years, as the traditional pool of reserves had long already been called into active service at the start of the war.

The ship itself was in near perfect condition, the holographic engineering crews at Section 31's hidden shipyards around Venus and its policy of keeping unused sections of its ships and station in a near vacuum environment allowed for limited regular maintenance and minimal wear and tear when not in use.

Drake had been enjoying a brief respite on earth after his mission into Klingon territory. While his plan had not worked perfectly and the safehouse under the First City on Quonos had been discovered, Alexander had been freed from Ruthorpenty.

His superiors were also interested in his report on the Orion who had so doggedly tracked him. The Federation would continue to watch her with interest.

Sitting on the bridge with its militaristic décor, he felt a need to acknowledge the Terran Empire's sense of style for vessel design. It's aerodynamic lines, both along the hull and inside the ship, along with its passive aggressive architecture and carefully placed military gear and manual weapons' controls, left no question that it was built as a destroyer and not just a later militarised time ship. The ship was a perfect choice for extracting a VIP.

Section 31 had known of Subspecies M or 'Magicals' for years. The initial recruits for the organization being from the numerous UEG security services or the sons and daughters of past agents, the knowledge of the seemingly extinct magicals was passed down over the years.

It wasn't until the 23rd century that Section 31 found any leads on the missing race, when an unimportant storage basement in London collapsed into the ground exposing a network of catacombs. The site had originally been chosen due to a lack of known ownership, and when a sign saying 'Ministry of Magic, Great Britain' was discovered, they found out just why nobody had claimed it over the years.

Further attempts to excavate the site failed. It was theorized and later accepted by those in charge that they had only discovered the top level due to a design flaw or simply the passing of time with no maintenance in whatever protective magics the people had used there.

What little had been left and they could access in the building painted a picture of a suffering people, who had later returned to clear out anything of importance or was overly dangerous. Hastily emptied desks stood next to nearly untouched ones, only the paperwork removed by whoever had 'switched off the lights' in their haste to leave. A few newspapers left behind had provided a wealth of information on the people and its culture, the moving pictures fascinating the science department for decades, before they threw in the towel and gave up trying to replicate the effect on what appeared to be entirely normal paper.

Still, Section 31 was _greatly _interested in humanity's magical branch of the family tree, but they had long ago given up on ever meeting a member of Subspecies M and now Subject M was alive and well in their time. Harry Potter was someone they had read about in a few children's books they had managed to recover (taking it with a pinch of salt though). The Lonely Wanderer who had ...well, _stolen_, hundreds of experimental weapons to keep the world safe in the chaos of WWIII. The Lightning Strike, who had helped bring an end to humanity's most deadly war, the war that could have easily finished them off as a species. That man had been found. Alive and well. On another planet far from Earth. In an environment that should have killed him as sure as his age should have.

Any member of the department not long turned irredeemably pessimistic by the nature of their clandestine and unlauded work looked up to men such as Lightning Strike, hoping that one day, those with clearance might look upon their life's work, their many sacrifices and say, 'They did it for the good of the people, just like the other heroes of the Federation, Archer, Kirk, Lightning Strike...' True, nobody took such idle dreams and fantasies too seriously, but there had always been an undercurrent of such hopes and feelings that remained in their hearts, that kept them going in the quiet of the night, when the nightmares got too bad.

Watching the navigation display intently, he noted the limping away Kobliad ship making good progress. It had informed Earth of the situation as soon as it was able, and the data was passed on to them by an agent in Starfleet Intelligence. The _DeLorean_ diverted its course, its crew preparing for pitched battle.

* * *

\- AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - Approximately 1.5 light years from Andoria. - 411 I.G. -

The battle was not going well; wave after wave of freshly replicated Interceptor strike craft were being released from the Orion Slavemaster Battleship, its vast reserves of neurally enslaved Orion pilots barely being tapped.

Aboard the _Azura_ the veteran security teams were beginning to fatigue, their padded armour virtually scorched with numerous burns, while spent shell casings piled up in the corridors almost like mini barricades in the smog filled hallways, the environmental systems being unable to constantly purge the incendiary gasses released by the chemically propelled rounds.

The _New England_'s standard shields, at least those its class was originally designed for, would have long broken if not for the Mark II Shield Emitter Amplifier's boost to the ship's shield regeneration and Anne's unmatched ability to gracefully fly between the large asteroids and comets at high speed, several of the rocks now sporting new craters as the Battleship and its strike craft peppered the area with destructive disruptor fire hoping to hit the _New England_.

This, however, was not to say the Orion carrier/battleship was undamaged, as several scars now dotted its hull where torpedoes had made it past the shields or phaser strikes had slashed the hull, but the _New England_ too had taken its fair share of hits. Its armour, though, was mercifully intact, despite the large burns and scorch marks where the shields had been unable to completely soak up the energy.

Had T'Vrell, Harry's attractive Vulcan science/communications officer, been asked to calculate their chances of success, she would have put it at under 20 percent, followed by the warning that any further calculation would be a waste of her time and decrease the chances of their survival further, rendering the previously calculated number useless, all the while giving you a glimmer of a disapproving glare.

The truth was that this was now a battle of attrition, neither side having the advantage for the moment despite their differences in class. However the battle changed immensely as a ship dropped out of warp, its crew knowing exactly what to do as they watched the _New England_'s helms-woman roll the ship out of the way of an incoming torpedo, its phasers continuing to stab repeatedly at the swarm of strike craft hunting it.

Lining up, the new ship moved towards the battle, a pair of dual cannons began firing rapidly, along with a pair of overlapping independent turret networks. The rounds screaming across the void, before slamming into the Federation ship's shields.

The Nausicaan mercenaries aboard the military grade Vandal-class Destroyer continued to press the advantage, their forward torpedo tubes silent for the moment in favour of the ship's Plasmonic Leech, its power draining abilities starting to affect the _New England_'s power systems, lights dimming all across the ship as the already drained systems began to shut down from lack of power.

The Captain of the Slavemaster Battleship had prudently placed a call to the mercenaries after her second corvette had been destroyed by the surprisingly resourceful Starfleet ship, promising them a cut of the slaves and salvage rights to the captured vessels if they aided them. The number of Nausicaan mercenaries had only grown in recent years with their homeworld joining the Klingon Empire after they sided with the defeated Gorn, some feeling that the Klingons overly restricted their right to raiding, an important part of their heritage. An increasing number of formerly military ships, like the Vandal class currently attacking the _New England_, now found themselves with 'Independent' captains.

As the disruptor cannons _carefully _shredded what remained of the Federation ship's shields, the marines and raiders of the hundred strong Nausicaan crew readied themselves for battle onboard the ships, while the Orions instead moved in on the _Azura_. The powered down _New England_ unable to offer help.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_'s bridge - AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - 411 I.G. -

Standing in the middle of the _New England_'s bridge Harry was hunched over a workbench, wondering why he had to put up with the pair's incessant chattering.

_-Flashback-_

Moments after the Nausicaans began to beam over to take the ship, the bridge crew and Harry ducked as rapid shotgun blasts filled the air, the five Elite Raiders and their team leader nearly shredded to a bloody mist under the fire of three, grim-faced time turned Harrys, the under barrel shotguns on their GL-8 assault rifles lightly smoking when they finished firing. It shouldn't have been surprising to anyone, that weapon had been designed with far more resilient augments in mind with powerful regenerative abilities after all.

Harry could see each of the three Harry's was more bloodstained than the last, the first only having a couple of drops of blood on him, the others only having a few splatters of blood on their hands, rifles, or smeared along the edges of their boots' soles. The one with the greatest amount of blood staining them spoke up first, "Fight now, question later. Bridge crew get to transporter room one; prepare for heavy combat. Set all weapons to kill. Show no quarter, for you will receive none."

With all the combat recently, the entire crew, at Harry's _strong _encouragement, had taken to wearing some form of hand phaser, combat knife, and their personal shield generator on them at all times. Though confused by the situation, the powerful Nausicaan energy rifles were quickly picked up and brought to bear by those with the weakest phasers, and they joined the Harry who had spoken to them. Entering the jefferies tubes, they followed Harry, the tubes lit dimly by the backup chemical lights aboard the power drained ship.

Raising an eyebrow, Harry watched the other two Harrys take up defensive positions on the bridge, one turning to him and repeating a phrase he would later repeat exactly. "Come on then, you've got to prepare for a boarding action."

_\- End Flashback -_

Several minutes had passed since he had conjured the workbench and more and more Nausicaans had been bloodily massacred entering the room, starburst shotgun shells bursting into expanding conical patterns across the room before shredding and rending bodies, armor and all. Harry continued to diligently modify his dual pistols, not seemingly bothered at all by the steadily growing pile of dead Nausicaan warriors forming a growing pool of blood underneath them. However, to truly understand Harry's current annoyance, you needed to be aware of certain facts.

Harry was not narcissistic like Snape, his old potions professor, had believed; it was more accurate to say that he just got on very well with himself.

"You know, this takes me back to that raid on... what the hell was his name? That tin pot little dictator in southern Asia..."

"I think you're right, there are certain similarities between the two situations. Still, while two of us held the line back then, our VIP was _far _more attractive."

"Skyler's ass was truly drool worthy wasn't it, a real work of art. Almost on the same level as dear Narcissa's, bless her... well, _bless her everything_."

"Utterly decadent sin wrapped in flesh, that woman was. Oh, what wonderful memories."

***Ba-Bang* *Bang* *Bang*** Another two Nausicaans dropped to the deck unceremoniously, the shotgun blasts shredding their bodies the instant they fully materialized.

"On the subject of drool worthy women..."

"Ginny? No, wait... Lavender!"

"While ditzy blondes are _always _fun, I was actually talking about the Greengrass sisters."

"Very true. I still say Daphne had a parseltongue. But the group sessions did get mighty weird after Malfoy found out."

"I'd never taken him for one who'd like to watch me and his wife."

"Enough about that ponce. The Patils."

"Good call, but I'll raise you Gabby!"

"Fan-girl slash eternal thank-you sex was surprisingly good... but I can one up that, the night Gabby, Victoire and Dominique dragged Fleur along for the first of many such steamy nights."

"Shame about Bill, always liked him."

"Saved us from that right nasty ward in Brazil, probably still be trapped if not for him."

"Enough moping. Best crazy sex?"

"Luna."

"What?! Luna was not crazy sex, Susan or Hermione were _crazy _sex. Hell, a quarter of the girls were, but Luna was..."

"Super Crazy, Crumple-Horned Snorkack Sex." Harry said from the workbench, really enjoying the upwelling of good memories and feeling some well-earned pride at the remembered faces of utter rapture and piercing screams and wanton moans he'd gotten the girls to make over the many years. And then an idea for a prank entered his thoughts.

"Our _horn _sure was _crumpled _after her... and you keep your mouth shut, Harry. We all know what you're thinking; don't spoil the mood."

"But we never got to have sex with _her_..."

"We never had sex with a fair few of them, no matter how much we wanted to. Poppy or even Minerva are perfectly fine to think about... But not her."

"But sh-" ***Bang***

"Don't make me shoot _me_! You know I will!"

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me."

"Molly Wea-" ***Bang*** "FUCK _me_, you shot me! You actually shot me!"

"I'm sorry, but I warned you!"

"I'm fucking bleeding here! Get me a fucking bandage!"

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England_, Deck 3, Outside Transporter Room 1 - AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - 411 I.G. -

Completing his final sweep of the deck Harry checked his newly modified pistols. The hostile intent modification runes had been rearranged slightly to take into account the fact that he was now fighting alongside non-magical allies. This change would allow him to use the one hit kill weapons without worrying about the dangers of friendly fire.

So far the pistols had taken over sixty Nausicaan lives and he had a feeling many more would follow as he entered the transporter room and handed the waiting bridge crew the looted transporter return beacon the now dead Nausicaan team leader had been carrying. The security and engineering teams the other 23 time-turned Harrys had sent now arriving.

"We are about to board the enemy vessel. I will head for the bridge and shut down the power drain device. Ora, I want you, the bridge crew and the engineering teams to clear out the engineering deck, then meet me on the bridge with Elise, T'Vrell and Anne. Security teams, three man hunting packs, clear the ship. Questions?"

"Rules of engagement?"

"If they're armed, kill on sight and show no quarter. Should you find slaves or true non-combatants, secure them as safely as you can. Still, you'll know if you need to make an exception to these orders. I'll only ask that you be prepared to give me a good reason for that exception later on. Any further questions? No? All teams standby to transport, I'll clear the room."

Dropping into a loose crouch, he tapped the return device that he had taken from one of the raid leaders and drew his pistols from their holsters on each hip, readying them to quickly fire, the sound of a Nausicaan transporter beam activated around him and his molecules were disassembled.

* * *

\- S.S. _Azura _Auxiliary Command Station - AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - 411 I.G. -

The auxiliary command station was a simplistic choke point between the bridge, crew living quarters and the shuttle bay that the Orions controlled and the Federation held corridor that led to the transporter shielded engineering deck and cargo pods which contained the hundreds of frightened refugees from Vega.

When the _New England_ had lost power and fell out of the fight, the Orion Slavemaster Battleship was able to concentrate on beaming over troops directly, rather than topping up their numbers on the civilian ship via the cramped Interceptor fighters.

The Federation forces holding the front of the ship had been forced to engage in multiple running firefights as they broke from their previous positions and ran for the sections of the ship that the Orions could not beam into or grab them from. The tired troops regularly swapped places on the 'frontlines,' as it were, for food, water or an attempt at a quick nap, as gun and energy fire continued to echo through the ship.

Designed to be the ship's backup controls should the bridge be destroyed or taken, as long as the Captain's command codes were used, the auxiliary command station could override and take control of all the ship's systems. The station was a fairly large room filled with displays, terminals and lockers. Its two entrances leading fore and aft had reinforced walls placed just inside, forcing a person entering to turn left or right as soon as they entered the room. The heavily reinforced blast wall just inside the room had long firing slits built into them, allowing a lone defender to hold off far greater numbers attacking from the fore or aft corridors, while protecting the room from stray weapon's fire.

The fighting had quickly devolved into a continuous shootout between the men and women of the _Renown's_ veteran projectile weapon armed security teams and the wave after wave of Orion raiders and neurally controlled slaves whose green disruptor fire eerily lit up the corridor.

Both sides were now waiting, the Orions for the Federation's weapons to run out of ammo or energy (Harry's ammo clips ensuring it would be a long way off), while the Federation civilians were waiting for someone to save them...

* * *

\- S.S. [Translation: _Silent Dagger_], Nausicaan Mercenary Vessel - AEX-053 Rogue Asteroid Cluster - 411 I.G. -

Within the muddy red, angelfish shaped hull of the Vandal-class Destroyer, green light flashed back and forth as the few still alive Nausicaan crew members battled against the counter boarding party. Harry's trenchcoat was billowing behind him as he systematically picked off the mercenaries turned pirates, while quickly, but calmly, walking through the ship's corridors.

Following the path Morgana had created from schematics the Federation database had for this class of vessel, a path that was projected onto his headset's display, he found he was making good progress, his personal shield easily soaking up the few disruptor shots that the Nausicaans would sometimes get off whenever they ambushed him in groups of three or more.

It was all a little disappointing for him in all honesty, their weaponry was far from the most advanced military grade hardware he had read about, and their reliance on their armour and shields left them particularly vulnerable to the modified _Avada Kedavra_ rounds his pistol fired that easily went through energy shields and which would still kill the person inside when it struck armor.

Holstering the pistol in his right hand as he walked up towards the bridge, he reached behind his neck, smoothly drawing the goblin forged Sword of Gryffindor from its enchanted and hidden sheath at the top of his spine like an old friend eager to be used in battle. The blade had been given back to him as a gift from the Goblins when they heard of his plans to die. They believed that he would need a proper weapon that he could trust absolutely in the afterlife, rather than relying on temperamental wand magics or muggle guns. It had been quite an honor for them to give him the masterwork blade like that.

The _Silent Dagger_'s bridge was a rather simplistic affair, stations along the walls, with uncomfortable looking chairs all oriented roughly around the Captain's seat, a large viewscreen showing the powered down Federation ship its raiders had just boarded.

Slowing as he walked into the poorly lit control room, Harry reached out with his senses as far as he could. He could now hear his boots against the metal deck, the muffled sounds of fighting from the other boarding teams, the sound of his heart hammering in his chest and another's heart as well.

***shwoo-clang***

His well honed combat instincts instantly parried the blow aimed at his unprotected head, the curved blade of the Nausicaan Tegolar, with its jagged serrated inner edge, clashing against the ancient Goblin blade, its intricately carved and bejeweled crossguard hilt firmly clasped in Harry's hand.

Backing away from each other after the unsuccessful attack, Harry and the Nausicaan Captain slowly began to circle each other, both instinctively recognising a skilled warrior with an unfamiliar blade style that demanded extreme caution.

The sword of Gryffindor was a wizard's blade, rather than a knight's, thus it was rather thin at two fingers wide lengthwise as it didn't require the extra metal to ensure it was durable. It was more like a fire poker in design than a traditional blade used by the muggles of ancient Earth, and should its powerful magics be removed, it would likely be utterly unable to cut. However, the silvery looking Goblin steel had layer after layer after layer of enchantments placed upon it from the moment it was first forged, the magic shaping the air a micron from the blade edge when it was swung or thrust, giving the blade a near mono-molecular edge capable of cutting through near anything. The absorption properties of the blade further empowered the weapon against corrosive or energy damage, while any poisons or toxins it was exposed to were catalogued, broken down and then replenished by the blade and used to increase it already prodigious lethality. It already had the universe's most potent poison mixture imbued in the metal that could be released with the wielder's unconscious desire for the death of their opponent. As the blade was used more in this time, who knew what else it would absorb to increase its power. He would have to look into what mixtures to expose the sword to in order to make it lethal against the more unusual species in the galaxy, like the non-carbon based ones for instance.

It was the deceptively weak appearance of the masterblade that sealed the Nausicaan's fate, his analysis of the sword being that it was a foil-like weapon made primarily to stab and thrust. So when Harry parried the overhead blow, his opponent considered himself safe, Harry's only offensive attack being to slap the armoured Nausicaan with a seemingly defensive and dull blade edge.

However, the potent and ancient magics on the blade made short work of the futuristic protective armour his enemy wore, cutting deep into the Nausicaan's belly, the potent poisons instantly sent into the wound as Harry effortlessly continued his backwards slash, before pulling his blade up and twisting his body to the side gracefully. The single downwards cut that followed effortlessly took the stunned and hunched over Captain's head clean off his body, ending the poison's debilitating pain that would have shortly killed him anyways.

Rotating his gauntlet slightly, Harry vanished the blood from his blade as it practically sung in well earned satisfaction, very happy to be used once again by its master in glorious battle. Stepping over his foe's headless corpse he found the ship's controls and shut off the energy drain. He stopped his work for only for a second to turn back and quickly conjure a white sheet to cover the body with.

His crew was still new to this level of bloodshed after all.

* * *

\- U.S.S. _New England _on route to Earth Space Dock - I.G. 411 -

Within moments of Ora and the rest of the bridge crew arriving, the _New England_ and the now captured _Silent Dagger_ attacked the Orion Slavemaster battleship, their combined firepower just enough to break its shields and turn the vessel to scrap.

However, the _Azura _was still left crippled and boarded. Harry was now facing a choice between attempting to retake the ship or to wait for aid and have to deal with a likely hostage situation down the line. In the end, however, aid came in the form of an unregistered and unknown Federation ship of a design he'd never seen before; Ora and the others did recognize a few Starfleet Academy instructors amongst its bridge crew though. With some cryptic promises of further information and hinted at knowledge from the vessel's captain, Harry felt assured that they could trust the new ship and its crew.

Despite the fact the _Azura_ would never be allowed to leave spacedock again without a near total rebuild, the academy instructors, engineering teams and the skilled civilians who had worked at the Vega IX spaceport were able to repair it just enough to allow it to limp back to Earth, Harry using the time to once more shamelessly salvage and loot everything in sight and take valuable prisoners from the defeated ships.

Danna, the _Azura_'s captain, had promised him a drink in thanks when they got back to earth, and a hint of something in her eyes suggested that she would be _very_ grateful when they met again, even if Harry got the feeling she would not want to be tied down by anything long-term. That was just fine, he had long ago learned how to prevent the magic sharing that would occur everytime he had casual sex with a beautiful muggle woman on his adventures. A quick chat with 'Drake' left Harry with more questions, wondering just how much Starfleet or more importantly its less that publicly known spy organizations knew about him.

Now relaxing in a lounge chair on the holodeck, Morgana's holographic avatar was lovingly curled up on his chest and from time to time dropping small heartfelt kisses on his shirtless torso and neck. His lounge chair currently rested upon a small island of floating metal a few meters across. The holographic environment beyond the metal island was composed of merged real-time, high-resolution camera feeds (augmented by the ship's sensors) from the ones mounted on the ship's hull, giving them a 360 degree view of space from the _New England's_ current position. He couldn't make out earth yet, but believed that he could actually see Sol and the sight comforted him.

Sitting next to him on a small table was the 'Book of Names,' the ancient volume having been checked cover to cover for a living Mage other than himself and his current companion; it was now merely the names of the long, _long _already dead. The book gave a name, birth year and location in the language of the region they primarily resided in on every magical witch and wizard, living or dead. Each entry gave the same status...dead.

Spotting a tiny, barely visible blue dot, Harry grinned, remembering Kirk's rather heartwarming description on how he had felt upon returning home at the end of his 5 year mission in the book he had finished just hours ago. After 346 years, he was finally _home_ once again.

And though it seemed in his memories like he'd only just left earth yesterday (it was three days relatively), he was positive that for a first time off planet...

_He'd done bloody well._

And he'd be back out there as soon as he could.

* * *

\- So Ended The Prologue -

* * *

_AN: Forgive me! I have betrayed reason and logic! For while I only stuck to stories involving the awesomeness of Alice, I turned to the sparkly and angst-filled realm of Twilight Fan-Fiction! But fear not, after dunking myself in in the great river of Twilight-Hellsing crossovers, Alucard has saved my damnable soul! Thus, I renew my Oath: Let he who writes with his tale the subject of Angst and Romance, always remember. Tread softly, no cliffhangers, and carry a Big Lemon stick (As a reward for you readers staying and putting up with our need to give the story unnecessary drama)._

_On a more Important note, many of you may have noticed that the mission this chapter was based on is out of sync with the 'official' timeline. With the player having visited Earth space dock before this mission. This will __**not **__be the only time I plan to shift mission ordering, but I will only do so for legitimate plot reasons, as sometimes I need characters to be in other locations for an important plot point._

_On a sad note... I accidentally left a pizza in the oven for two hours while writing this... and now like most unpublished authors, I find myself both typing and hungry._

* * *

**Chapter 6**

_Fake Fan-made Trailer_

"So Harry... Who exactly are you?"

Turning in his seat to face the Admiral he smiled "For that, I'll have to explain the history of the Wizarding World!"

"Or you could just read these seven books." Harry offered pulling out a hardback paper copy called 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.'

Only for Q to pop in adding "Or these eight movies!" as he held up a DVD box set from another reality.

* * *

_One last thing. If you have the time. Please share via the reviews what you think of the level of detail in the ship battles. Too much? Too little? Skip it and give us more Lemons? Please let me know._


	6. Ch6 What Rises

**Chapter 6: What Rises**

**To Boldly Go**

* * *

_I, in no way, own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness, or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licenses and trademarks belong to their respective parties, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non profitable use._

_Except Thrans, he's all me. Well, at least a third of me; but totally me._

_Collaborated with, Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'_

* * *

_**AN**: As many of you might have read already, **chapters 1-4 were rewritten with the release of chapter 5**. It is strongly suggested that you re-read them. Besides being beta'd extensively and thus tremendously easier to read than before, lots of little changes and additions were made. Those all stack on each other to make it a hell of a lot better._

_Please note that at no time do I mean to sound sarcastic or less than grateful for the reviews I have received in this Author's Note,_

_Now, after posting chapter 5, I took some time to replay some of the STO missions coming up for research purposes, and once finished decided to check on the reviews that chapter 5 (and the rewritten 1-4) received. While a very mixed bunch, they are on the whole positive, and as I lay in bed (it now being 3:21am) I found myself writing this response, and decided to get up and… write it._

_As many of you are aware, the Star Trek Online game is very different to the TV shows and films, and does not mesh easily with the Harry Potter storyline, in fact the first chapter was re-written from scratch twice as I did my best to fit the timelines together._

_Of course, that means there will be things people are unhappy about or dislike._

_**Immortal Harry** \- There are three primary ways of bringing Harry into the STO timeline, a time travel or portal accident (which could have a dimensional travel component), Harry being sealed or imprisoned outside the flow of time, or Immortal Harry. I admit the Deathly Hallows are as convenient and overused a plot device as love potions, marriage contracts or life debts. But it allowed me to bring a powerful, stable, non-wimpish Harry into the story._

_**Joe's contributions** \- Joe is a hugely valuable asset to this story and a pleasure to work with. Without him the story would not be the same, as his experience and way of thinking allows him to pick up on ideas and phrases that I only half explained or glossed over due to being 'in the zone' at the time and thinking about the next line of dialog. I am learning from his example and doing my best not to hand him a fleshless skeleton when it comes time to beta the chapter (I think I'm producing… 1 week old, only partially decayed zombies [If that makes sense?])._

_**More plot, Less plot** \- Please take note that this is billed as Adventure Romance, that means fighting scenes and lemons, but rest assured that this will not be a story written to a formula (a.k.a. 1 space battle + 1 ground battle + 1 lemon + a dash of plot = 1 chapter ). And while I will be spending less time on space combat as a whole, this is a light reading Adventure Romance harem story, not a 21 part award winning international best seller. Oh, how I wish it was though._

_**Overpowered Harry** \- Yes, I have heavily abused time turners and apparition. BUT a) Harry needed to learn about the Federation and its tech quickly, as that way the story starts up that much faster. To do that time turners are the obvious answer. b) Active shielding (ground or starship based) acts like Wards covering multiple energy frequencies. Should Harry know which frequencies are covered and which are not (due to shield flaws or areas left exposed so the weapons can fire) he can slip between the cracks while apparating, very much like a house elf would do to a wizard's wards. Over time his enemies will learn to cover more frequencies or rotate them to counter him. On another note,Harry was able to go to the Klingon ship as according to canon HP apparition needs three things Destination, Determination and Deliberation. If a Wizard can see in their head where they want to be (and assuming it's not protected by anti-apparition wards), they can apparate to it, thus the real-time transmitted image from the Klingon ship allowed Harry to picture the destination._

_**Packrat Harry** \- Have you ever played Fallout New Vegas with Encumberment off? Canon magic lets you do that in the Harry Potter universe. It's probably one of the coolest and most practically useful examples of magic in canon HP. Combine this useful ability with Harry being in a post-apocalyptic, resource scarce, scavenger society (and Harry's pre-Hogwarts upbringing) and of course he's going to be grabbing stuff left, right and center. That's the only way he and the few magicals left can survive in that messed up world. In that world and in the middle of wartime, everything can eventually have value even if its not immediately clear what that might be, be it magical or muggle. And since he doesn't have weight and space limitations like a muggle does, why the hell not?! Guns, bombs, magical artifacts, priceless works of art, Harry would have grabbed it all, tossed it in his spatially expanded trunk and then split it into two piles later on. Stuff people will want one day and stuff that needs destroying so the world doesn't go even further to shit. What better way to ensure the stuff is safely destroyed than to take it into the afterlife with him? Of course that didn't happen so now Harry's left with a bunch of dangerous crap amongst his magical crap, but I bet you he finds a use for it! If push really came to shove, Harry might just use some vanishing magic on an unoccupied lifeless moon or something. But again, why not keep potentially useful stuff?_

_**At the end of the chapter** \- Please, please, please don't take things at the end of the chapter seriously. The scenes/info in those sections are meant to either entertain (such as my poorly formed Monty Python adaptation or this chapters 'If the meeting had opened differently') or inform you of plot mechanics that might be useful to know for a future chapter, like Quark Enterprises' notes on weapons or the two reports tacked onto this chapter. Please take each with a pinch of salt and if it seems silly, that means it's probably meant to be._

_**Harry's guns** \- I picked this for further explanation because Joe asked me about this as well while beta'ing the chapter. Exhibit A, pretend you're holding a handgun, point it at a target, you'll notice that the bullet fires at about a right angle from the grip your hand is wrapped around. Exhibit B, pretend you're holding a wand. You should notice that a wand is a pretty much straight stick, thus it requires a different aiming style, it's far more like that of a fencing foil or the shape of a flintlock pistol, which were far more elongated and straight (I'm talking about the 'pirate style' ones, not some of the fancier french models). Someone who has trained most of their life to shoot in a particular way will struggle to change their style, so when your having to make a new magically powered gun anyway (meaning only energy is fired)… stick to the design you're familiar with. In other words, since the guns Harry uses are a custom energy weapon anyway, why not use a style of gun that is much closer to that of a wand and has a more similar aiming style?_

_I'm sure others will have points that they want to make or views on my choices ...but._

_This story is an experimental blending._

_I have no template or publicly accepted agreed upon methods._

_I have done my best to keep true to JKR's works and not alienate any readers._

_And I have to turn a quest style MMORPG with 3 different possible main characters, into one story._

_I will get things wrong, I will make choices you don't always like._

_But this is to show that it can be done._

_And help guide anyone who wants to do it their way._

_Trust that the story will be entertaining no matter what narrative choices I make that may differ from the respective canon mythologies._

_(And now, after getting out that response to your always welcome reviews, I can go to bed - 4:21am)_

_This chapter does not relate to a Star Trek Online mission._

_It is the first chapter of two ina non-canon History of the Magical World explanation._

* * *

_Chapter 6_

_What Rises_

* * *

**Last Episode on To Boldly Go**

_Spotting a tiny, barely visible blue dot, Harry grinned in happiness, remembering Kirk's heartwarming description on how he had felt returning home at the end of his 5 year deep space mission in the book he had finished hours ago. After 346 years, he was finally home once again._

_And though it seemed in his memories like he'd only just left earth yesterday (it was four days actually), he was positive that for a first time off planet..._

_He'd done bloody well._

_And he'd be back out there as soon as he could._

* * *

\- Earth Spacedock (Designation Starbase 1) - Orbiting Earth, Sol, Sector 001 -

Settling deftly into one of the cradle-like docking berths in the cavernous, normally busy shuttlebay of the mushroom shaped orbital spacedock, the large personal shuttle powered down its impulse engines and thrusters, the hatch opening with a dull clunk, as a ramp lifted out of the floor and moved into place.

The figure gracefully stepping off, ducked smoothly to avoid the top of the metal hatch, his billowing black overcoat swirling around his knees as his footsteps made a dull thumping noise against the metal grating as he walked over to a small armed party awaiting him.

Officially called 'Task Force Omega' they represented the merged branches of groups such as the Andorian Imperial Guard, U.E. M.A.C.O. Forces, Denobulan Infantry and a few other member worlds' militaries. Unofficially, they were little more than a Federation sanctioned PMC (Private Military Contractor) tasked with guarding cargo ships and participating in various grey, black or omega ops, ones where starfleet security just couldn't cut it, due to image, armament or doctrine.

Despite their somewhat shady uses, they were the 'go to guys' for ground warfare and protection, with each member being fanatically loyal to their commanders and the Federation as a whole, more so in some cases than they were to their own individual species. Each was dressed in their own unique style of matte black full body gear, and all were heavily armed and armoured, for both protection and to proudly show off a bit to the person who was rumored to be a military legend.

Rumors were already circulating around Starfleet about their charge, each one more outlandish than the next, the truth was that most were almost totally clueless about the man and the higher ups seemed to want to keep it that way for now. The route through the station they would be taking had been carefully chosen to do just that and had then been totally locked down, the busy shuttlebay also emptied for his arrival, despite the heavy influx of refugees from Vega Colony.

Starfleet had quarantined the refugees at several remote camps, as 'new' intelligence of possible Borg time delayed assimilation nanites had been 'suddenly' found by Starfleet Intelligence, and so the bulk of the rumors were contained for now due to the quarantine protocols. That seemed awfully convenient though.

Nodding respectfully to the the dark haired man with near glowing emerald green eyes, the security team didn't bother to greet him verbally, but simply acknowledged him as a fellow warrior. Another shuttle from the New England then passed overhead, the recycled air whipping up into strong gusts as it moved through the room, one of the station's many vast shuttle bays.

Nodding again from behind his visor, the team leader motioned to a lit green door, the guards falling into step around the VIP as they left via the only unlocked exit.

Stepping out into a well lit, cream coloured corridor, the group passed several doors, the station's design seeming to age as they passed through several thick bulkheads, before arriving at what seemed to be an old-fashioned cargo elevator, the platform shaking slightly as it sunk on gears into the station's armoured bulk, sometimes moving sideways on tracks due to the station's particular shape.

Shuddering to a halt several minutes later, the group stepped into a wide grey corridor, its configuration and lighting style suggesting that they were in one of the oldest and most heavily reinforced sections of the station, the signs of modular tech, mechanical push buttons and refitted equipment giving credence to this theory.

A small group of high ranking Admirals and people obviously trying to dress nondescriptly greeted them.

"Move to your guard posts, you've got the list of names who are authorized to enter. This way, sir." A balding white haired trill said, the man next to him reminding the armed guards that voiceprint, DNA testing, and authentication codes were all required as well.

Splitting off from his escort, the VIP followed the Admiral, each a decorated commander carrying a phaser and a non-regulation weapon of their choice, their personal shield barriers active even this deep into the station's bulk, such was the level of paranoia surrounding this meeting.

Entering a large, but simple room, Harry noted the girls from the New England had already arrived, having taken a more direct, yet public route through the station's bulk. They were now standing at the end of the room clearly meant for him, the long wooden table having only a single seat at the end nearest to them.

Walking the length of the room he gave them a small smile in acknowledgment, T'Vrell's slight Vulcan nod conveying the same message as Ora's cheeky smile and Anne's nervous wave. Elisa only briefly met his eyes and then stood straighter, Harry deciding that he would have to work on getting her to relax. Zarva spared him a glance and a smile before returning to her PDA, probably already in constant contact with the repair teams at the dry dock the New England had been pulled into.

Reaching his seat, he swung his jacket off his body and onto the chair's back, before dropping into the chair. A subtle flare of magic hidden by his movements invisibly expanded from his body and flew out in all directions. The magic thoroughly scanned the area and people for traps and hidden dangers, finding none, however it did detect over sixty heavily armed personnel just on the other side of three of the room's doors, the fourth leading to an unoccupied bathroom. Another flare of magic reconfigured the chair's shape through a handy bit of transfiguration to mold to his body and chosen clothing perfectly. A few more subtle cushioning and comfort charms were also applied and would make a world of difference if this meeting went as long as he thought it would.

He had a feeling he would be sitting in it for quite a while.

"Thank you for coming, my name is Franklin Drake," a man greeted, his face bearing both old and a few more recent scars. "These men with me are various Starfleet Admirals currently stationed at Earth Spacedock and assorted other high officials. I'm here on behalf of my boss, but both my department and he shall remain unnamed for now. In a moment I'll be asking a few simple questions to start with and then making an offer, then we might turn the meeting over to the Admiralty present and a few of the other departments who also wish to speak with you. In the interest of disclosure, this meeting is being recorded.

Please state your name, date of birth and planet of birth for the record."

"My name is Lord Harry James Potter-Black. By birthright, inheritance and conquest Lord of the Most Ancient and Venerated House of Potter, Black and many others, also known as Lightning Strike and The Lonely Wanderer. Fleet Admiral of Response Fleet Zero. I was born to James and Lily Potter on the 31st of July 1980, old calendar, on the planet Earth."

"That would make you currently 428 years old?"

"Technically I was and am 17 years old, PI, although I continued to grow physically to my prime at what I'd estimate to be 25 and then stopped aging altogether, at least physically. Four hundred and eleven years, however, since IG. So, in one sense, perhaps you could accurately say that I'm 428 years old, if we merely went by a calendar."

"PI and IG?"

"Pre-Immortality and Immortality Gained, and no, I have found no way to replicate the effect. Nor should anyone truly want such a curse if they had the wisdom to truly understand what it meant."

The silence that fell in the room with that answer was heavy, as everyone tried to contemplate what had been said, trying to wrap their minds around it and finally, to see immortality as a curse. Several who knew a little about the fate of the magical world after WWIII were thinking, 'Duh or you wouldn't be the only one left.' However, after brains rebooted, most of the room just looked sceptical and maybe a little angry at what they saw as a joke in poor humor.

"...Setting that aside for now. Would you please state the method that you used to travel over fifteen lightyears, from Earth to the Alandra mining colony."

"While attempting to die, I passed through a portal long believed by my people to be a direct connection to death and the afterlife, mostly, I suppose, due to the fact that none have ever returned from the other side. However, in the brief few moments of consciousness I had upon my arrival, I found myself on an unknown planetoid with twin suns in the sky." Harry answered calmly, ignoring the gasps of surprise and shock by some at his admission of attempted suicide.

"Would you please name the portal you used."

"The Veil of Death." Harry said after a moment of consideration, curious about the question's wording.

"Thank you Mr. Potter, I'm pleased to announce to you and the others here that my department, Section 31, is now fully satisfied that you are who you claim to be, and would like to offer our services at storing the captured Nausicaan-Vandal class ship you took, as the Federation does have laws against prizes of war. We can later transfer a suitable amount of Energy Credits to an account of your choice should you wish to sell it for its fair market value, or transfer it back to you should you find the Federation unwilling to give you a ship of your own."

"Is this true Admiral? I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Admiral Quinn," the white haired trill spoke up. "I'm in charge of Earth Spacedock and the local defence fleet. Apparently the Federation believe that the taking of 'Prizes' during wartime promotes unhealthy competition and overly risky practices amongst its captains while endangering our already overstretched security forces."

"Most of whom are ridiculously overqualified for their role; we don't need every damn crewmen to have multiple advanced degrees," another Admiral muttered, obviously bringing up a long debated matter of contention.

Harry's questioning look earned him an apologetic smile and an explanation. "More than 60% of our Starfleet applicants for both crew and officer training are considered below the Federation's new acceptable levels of education and thus are denied. Yet most of those who do have the degrees required, and would consider joining Starfleet, are supposedly needed more urgently in other civilian roles. What is truly frightening, is that more than half of our fleet would be in drydock at this very moment from lack of qualified personnel, if not for the advances in holographic crewmen and greater automation aboard ship. Both of these things cut back the required number of crew members for most ships, but both could also just as easily fail if the ship becomes too damaged in battle. Then what do they do?"

"All this during a time of war. The Klingons must be laughing their asses off." Another Admiral added.

"Thank you for your candor, Admiral Quinn. I found it rather refreshing. To get back on point, if your offer is still on the table Mr. Drake, I'll gladly take it." Harry said, knowing how valuable a getaway-ship or emergency-fund could be, depending on how things developed.

"Harry, most of the people around this table are already familiar with Earth's 'Subspecies M,' as your people have come to be called since we learned of their existence. For those in this room not in the know and for the sceptics, the department of Temporal Investigations has suggested a brief demonstration and the story of the Potter family."

"It's been a while since I've done this..." Harry hedged, thinking about his brief stint before the war introducing new muggleborns to magic, while teaching at Hogwarts.

"Well… Tricorders and scanners out people, you'll want to run some scans, I'm sure, to verify this isn't some elaborate technological trickery."

Loosely curling his gauntleted right hand as if he was holding a wand, he caught his trusted holly and phoenix feather partner, the same wand he'd been partnered with when he was eleven years old. The wand eagerly sprang forth from a hidden opening in the inner wrist joint and he felt a burst of warmth and happiness to be used once again. He idly wondered as to what had become of Fawkes or any of the other phoenixes actually. Even with all the years since Dumbledore's death and all his traveling around the world, he had never again come across the immortal firebird who had once saved his life. It might have been nice to catch up again, one immortal to another.

Twirling it gently, he let out a small, controlled shower of magical sparks, which faded a few inches from the wand's tip as he didn't want to alarm anyone. He then chose a suitable spell.

Slowly waving his wand in the air, he began to shape and change his magic with intent, just as a conductor would an orchestra, the invisible tendrils of energy obediently wrapping around a solitary jug of water on the table, before lifting the liquid directly from its glass container, the water shifting into numerous shapes before splitting apart and merging into many others. Commanding some of the water to now freeze in midair, he began to shape it into a humanoid figure as the Admirals watched on in awe and wonder, only a dedicated few still steadfastly keeping an eye on their sensor readings.

The beautiful female fairy made of ice was only the length of his palm from head to toe, but a whispered summoning and possession charm,"**Isolde****,**" breathed life into the tiny form and it skated and danced across the table. The rest of the water began spinning in graceful rings around the dancer, as tiny snowflakes and patches of frost trailed in her wake.

Waiting a moment for the entranced Admirals to look back to him, he conjured a Phoenix Lily that would fade in a day or so, its petals made of a warm, harmless fire that was used in several advanced healing potions.

Wrapping it in his magic, he forced the Lily to grow and shape itself into another figure, a miniature lady with flaming hair coming to life with a whisper, "**Ena****.**"

Jumping out of his hand and onto the table, a string of gymnastic-like moves left little bits of fire whenever her little feet touched the table. Unnoticed and oblivious to the others, the dancer summoned small balls of flame and began to playfully juggle them as she spun, jumped and flipped about. Finishing his creations, Harry released his wand in midair, a recall charm on it returning it safely to his holster before it hit the floor.

Watching the Admirals begin to get over their shock, he turned to look at the utterly entranced bridge crew behind him, T'Vrell, who had her own scanner out, had a slack jawed expression on her beautiful face, showing both her youth and possibly less rigorous adherence to the Vulcan people's belief in suppressing all emotion.

Sensing those in the room had their balance back, so to say, Harry decided to begin the section he usually showed to the parents of the children he visited, a warning to some of magic's other less fun applications.

Coughing gently, he watched the miniature figures stop their dancing, turn to him and then spotted each other. Most in the room jumping back in shock as the miniature women with snarls on their faces flung tiny shards of ice and fireballs at each other, both locked in an elegant dance of death. All the onlookers got the message he was sending, as they watched the fierce battle of fire and ice.

Like all things, magic could harm far more easily than it could heal, destroy far more easily than create.

The battle ended, however, when Harry tapped the table with a single finger, and the water and flames surrounding the dueling miniature women bound them in place. Harry then used the wooden table to channel his magic, it's now scarred and burnt surface repairing as if it never was, the pair of little ladies continuing to struggle helplessly, bound in each other's elements.

Banishing the pair back to their raw materials, he made a mental note to apologise to the pair of immortal elemental spirits, both for making them so small and the crude vessels he had placed them in.

"As you can see, magic, as my people have always called it throughout our known history, is real. If you think you can find a scientific explanation, please do so and then share it with me, we've yet to understand everything about it.

My family, the Most Ancient and Venerated House of Potter, has existed for over 7000 years, and can trace its heritage back in written record to the region that later hosted the ancient city of Paphlagonia, now northern Turkey.

The first of my Magical ancestors was salesman, slowly traveling and trading across the region, selling amongst other things pottery and other items his uncle made, his talent for magic allowing him to travel faster and safer than other traders, all while carrying vast quantities of goods with his magic. However, his magic also meant he outlived his entire non-magical family. After their deaths, he traveled south till he hit the shores of the Mediterranean, before then going east, then south along the coast. He eventually settled in a coastal town that would be known as Lod, Diospolis or Lydda, at different points in history. That town for generations would act as the home for the newly named Potter family and the trading empire they built with the aid of magic."

Pausing to use a charm he'd been taught by Professor Mcgonagall after becoming a teacher at Hogwarts, he felt the dryness of his mouth ease up and continued.

"The Potters traded up and down the Mediterranean for years after, learning the magics of each culture that rose and fell over the centuries and millennia, while launching trading and exploratory expeditions to all corners of the globe. Obviously this was far, far in advance of the discovery of some continents by the vast majority of the non-magical population. The house's sons and daughters went out into the world with a direction in mind, armed with disposable return portkeys to Egypt and a network of communication mirrors, invented by the family's first rune mistress.

It was a golden age in my family's history. At our height, we were a family of over one hundred magicals, more of a clan than a family. At that point, this was near unheard of.

While traveling through Greece, the head of the family at the time came across a young oracle, gifted with incredible powers of divination. The prophecy she gave to the man signaled both the first division of the family and our journey west.

By this time, my ancestors had traveled as far as China, India, the southern most tip of Africa and Scandinavia, but our dealings to the west stopped at Greece, as the Roman magical community controlled the Empire, and the region's trade. So when the Oracle told my ancestors 'The one who will be the Potter's salvation, can be found within the Eagle's nest, for while the Eagle sees all beneath its wings, it never checks its shadow,' they were hesitant in going to Rome.

In the end the family split, a small party would go east, the rest would split between Lod and Rome.

Five Potters traveled east to China and joined the small magical community there. Given the historical sizes of China's population, that probably seems strange to you, but the constant changes in government and the close ties to the Nobility often pitted the country's magicals against each other. The many conflicts killed them off faster than they could breed, magicals never gaining a significant foothold in that country. This group's children and grandchildren would in time return west years later with Genghis Khan's hoard, as magicians, breaking off from him on good terms around 1221 AD.

The group that went to Rome found the city less than welcoming at first, but within three generations my family had the people's respect and control of a sizeable part of the country's army. The exotic and ancient battle magics the Potters had accumulated over the millennia secured their protection at home and on the field, while over four thousand years of good breeding, magical talent and exotic looks, left the Potter women a very desirable match for the ruling elite.

However, the constant warfare and ruthless politics of Rome caused a great many deaths in the family, and when the Potters who had stayed behind fled the Roman advance, their cousins numbered less than ten.

The knowledge they brought on wards and new battle magics, however, allowed the Potters to keep their edge, and the family was able to hold it, eventually securing governorship of what would later be called Normandy in France."

Clearing his throat, he redid the charm, no longer used to speaking to large groups for long periods, but rather enjoying the fact that he could share his family's celebrated history with others. The worn and heavily spelled tomes were even now stored deep within a heavily protected and shrunken, glass fronted bookcase, stored in a bottomless pouch on his waist.

"The governorship saved the family, now numbering only five members, but the Potters were more than willing to… marry the local talent and thereby introduce new blood into the family, unlike their heavily inbreeding superiors back in Rome.

In about 121 AD, the Potter family was asked by the emperor of the time to provide a talented Mage to help with the construction of Hadrian's Wall, the Potter family's knowledge of several of the ancient Egyptian spells used in the construction of the pyramids being deemed vital to the Empire."

"Wait a moment! I know we've all been holding off questions till the end, but we know how the pyramids were made. There is no sign of… magic… anywhere in its construction or discovered thereafter."

"Oh, but there is. I'll admit the clean up job was well done, though. When the Statute of Secrecy was introduced, which I'll get to in due course, we removed, changed or hid most of the stuff we could get at or find, but we couldn't hope to get all of it, a lot of which was well hidden by the egyptians wizards or artifacts and information ingrained into everyday muggle life. However, the first line of defence was your belief that magic didn't exist, a belief we encouraged and has worked to our advantage. Anyone who saw something or experienced something magic related you immediately branded crackpots and loons. Anyone who insisted too strongly that what they saw was real was then locked up in mental hospitals. The insane asylums acting as nice little holding cells for us, at least till we could get round to modifying their memories and letting them out.

An example, all those ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, showing priests performing rituals. The non-magical community sees the priests as their funny, little, ignorant ancestors, with their silly superstitions. A wizard trained to read the deeper meanings of those symbols, however, will see the recorded history of one of the magical world's golden ages.

The magical community used the age of 'Enlightenment' to remove the idea of magic as anything but utter foolishness, a product of ignorance and superstition that they were now far beyond with their science. No longer would it be used as an explanation in the non-magical community for the unexplainable or bizarre. Of course that meant other explanations were needed, like aliens for one.

It was pretty funny for all of us then just how well that conspiracy theory was accepted, you've been in space for 300 plus years now… found any little grey men yet? Any species that ever matched that description? No? Ha, man oh man, the North American Ministry for Magic loved that Roswell stuff and used it for years to hide anything and everything magic related!"

The faces in the room varied from embarrassment to interest, a few others thinking back to pre-WW III history lessons and putting two and two together.

"Going back to your original question, the Wizarding population has always been smaller than our non-magical cousins and we by no means built the great monuments of the ancient world alone, so don't let that take away from the achievements of the past, but the non-magical community have always looked for reasons why things happened, especially if they couldn't explain it with what they thought they knew of their own past. To hide our role in those events, all we had to do was suggest it was something other than magic.

Anyway, back to my family's story… Once again the family split up and the eldest son of the governor, traveled north to the island of Albion or as the Romans renamed it, Britannia. Unfortunately, before his work could be finished, he died during a border incursion, but not before marrying a daughter of the Peverell family and having a son and two daughters with her. Thus the family continued in its new home.

By this time the Potters in Asia were looking for a way back home, but were still in contact with the Potters in France, while none of them knew of the new Potter branch that had begun in Britain. Both the British and French branches of the family grew in the many years that followed.

In 410 AD Rome formally withdrew from Britain and by 600 AD Merlin and Morgana were fighting over the path to take for the future of Magical Europe. The Potter's European lines spent most of this time training in the local magics and rebuilding their numbers and in 1066 they finally met each other and realized that they were one family.

William the Conqueror had been working discreetly with the magical community, exchanging protection from the Catholic church for support on the battlefield. So during his Invasion of England the Potters in France prepared to move further away from the church and supported him on the field.

Unfortunately, the French and English Potters found themselves up against each other, neither side able to destroy the other as their respective kings had commanded. This obviously raised questions concerning their loyalty after the battle. Fortunately, it was discovered later on that ancient spells placed upon their bloodline itself stopped them from magically or otherwise killing each other. At the same time the English Morani family tasked with protecting King Harold, allowed said King to die, having switched allegiances the very night before the battle. "

Pausing for a bit, he took a glass of cool water that was passed to him, Ora having gotten out of her seat and used the replicator, when she noticed him swallowing more often, the charm only able to remain effective for so long. Smiling his thanks to her, he took the chance to look at the Admirals and gauge their reactions to his story.

Each had been listening attentively, some with looks of excitement on their faces, some even tapping on pads in front of them taking notes, or reminders to look up something he had spoken about or jotting down questions for when he finished.

Rolling his neck from side to side, he decided to power through the next section, the fall of his family and race would be much harder to talk about, and it may be worth changing locations.

"The Potters found themselves in conflict after the invasion, William accepting the British faction's oaths and suggesting that the two Lord Potters might actually be of the same family line.

Each attempted to outdo the other, each pulling out their oldest family records, only to be shocked at finding them exactly the same. In time they worked out the history of the family split, and all would have been well had they been able to agree on which Lord Potter was THE Lord Potter. The Frenchmen believed, as they had been on the winning side, that they should be on top, while the Englishmen believed they should be in charge as they came from the eldest brother.

Both the French and English Potters were told by the king that they were no longer welcome at court till they reached an agreement and re-joined the families.

All this time, however, the Morani family were gaining power, and when one of the family's sons attempted to force a druid into marrying a fifteen year old Violet Potter from the English branch to him during the school year at Hogwarts, the family got away with only a slap on the wrist.

Fearing the family would soon find itself as unprotected as they were when they first came to Rome, the French and English Potter women sat down to talk in secret.

With the help of the Black, Bones and Longbottom families, in exchange for Potter daughters being encouraged to look for husbands amongst their families (but free to choose not to), a plan was put in place, and the English and French male Potter heirs married a Bones and a Longbottom girl respectively, with the first born son produced of either union, would marry the first born daughter of the other, thus merging the families into one.

However, with the help of family magic the Black family possessed, the pregnancies were timed to happen together and potions used to ensure one was born a boy, the other a girl, and both children metamorphmagus from birth.

A Metamorphmagus being very much like a Changeling in ability, yet only able to assume human forms, but on a level of detail no 'Founder' has been seen to achieve according to your historical records.

The male Potters enraged with their common enemies' act, launched a combined attack on the Morani home, the Black family sneaking the children into the house as its wards fell.

Over the course of the fighting the British and French Potter males bonded. When they returned with the children the midwives and mothers claimed to be unable to remember who had had the boy and who had had the girl. Yet the English and French Potter males cottoned on to the trick, but decided to accepted their wives' choices, the bonds of battle finally strong enough to bridge the gap.

The two children went on to marry and rejoin the family's main bloodline, reuniting the two branches of the family once again. The Morani family took the blame for the kidnapping and were banished from England with a curse placed upon them renaming them the Malfoi family or 'bad faith' in french, but over the years the spell degraded to just Malfoy.

Historical records are fairly sparse over the next few years. We do know that the Vatican church built up an army of first generation magicals that they had identified and kidnapped, who then joined the Crusades, most of the rest of the magical world cutting Europe off for not having a handle on the situation.

Spain's own secret first generation army was used in the conquest of South America, both the local magicals there and Spain's forces wiping each other out, while Shamans began dying out in all but India. The magical world by this point was tired of being used like weapons by the powers of the day and realized something needed to be done.

In 1689 the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was signed, going into full effect by 1692, officially cutting us off from the non-magical world, gradually relegating our kind to myth and legend.

World War I passed us by without too much change, many magicals choosing to flee from mainland Europe to America or Australia, but most of the pureblood families came to Britain, one of which was the Malfoys. Only a few Wizards actually fought in the trenches, those who did agreeing to leave their wands at home, but it was men like my great grandfather who brought back news of the horrors of the first war and the many terrible weapons the non-magicals had created. He began to develop magical ways for our people to counter them, to ensure that our community would not be destroyed because of the non-magical's war.

Before World War I, magical wards, in terms of its protections against non-magicals, were designed primarily to hide us from your sight, but that would do little against a creeping artillery barrage or the blanket bombing of an entire area. We'd die just like you would. With the experiences of WW I, Magical Europe banded together after the war to strengthen and devise defenses against the new muggle weapons.

But it was a Gellert Grindelwald, a young Hungarian wizard boy whose family refused to move, that saw the potential World War I had and the imagination of a child will go to places others know not to.

Now do not misunderstand me, had Grindelwald been stopped earlier, World War II would still have happened.

But he did play a major part in Hitler's early successes, manipulating Germany as part of the 'Great Muggle Reduction Plan.' Of course there were thousands of Witches and Wizards who violently opposed him. My Family had always been a rallying point in times of war due to our skills and ancient magics and this time was no different. Except this time the Potters were cheated their rightful dues, my family's sacrifices swept under the rug by another's underhanded victory.

At the end of the war, what had been a fairly large family of twenty six, had now been whittled down to just three, leaving only my grandfather, his mother and a single cousin alive.

As my Grandfather lead the final push on Grindelwald's last fortress, Albus Dumbledore, Grindelwald's on again off again lover, entered the base without any of the guards stopping him and betrayed, then defeated Grindelwald, imprisoning him in his own inescapable prison that he had designed and built.

Dumbledore was hailed as a hero of the war, while our family's many sacrifices and huge contributions to the success of the war were seemingly forgotten overnight. The Potter family's jealous enemies backed Dumbledore afterward and suddenly he controlled the courts, the British seat in the International Government, and had considerable power in our equivalent of your Federation Council via his sycophantic allies and various proxy votes, while also taking the seat of Headmaster in Britain's only magical school. His control of British magical culture was near absolute.

In time, my Grandfather, despite the extensive injuries he suffered during the war, managed to have a son, only to be later killed during my father's fourth year, when he was only 14.

...Charles and Dorea Potter, my grandparents, were ambushed in the middle of the central magical shopping district by the new British Dark Wizard extremist faction, the Death Eaters, followers of the self-styled Lord Voldemort. My unborn aunt was one of the less known casualties. What happened next… I won't say it was truly my father's fault… He just didn't know, nor was he ready at that point having been orphaned so young, but in his grief and rage he turned to the so-called 'Leader of the Light' Albus Dumbledore and swore his service till Voldemort's Death.

The family magics likely rejected Dad because of that. Without access to the main Potter accounts, the well-warded family properties or our extensive library, he should have taken my mother and fled the country, waiting to return until I was born and could claim the lordship and all our family's resources…"

Pulling off his gauntlets, he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration at what came next.

"In a dark, dingy little pub called the Hog's Head, sometime in early 1980, a prophecy was made. And while it didn't signal the beginning of the end of the wizarding race, it bloody well made sure we fell."

* * *

_**AN**__: _Next chapter hopefully within a week, but I may be starting a new job soon.

* * *

\- Deleted joke scene - If the meeting had opened differently -

"So… how does having magic make you different from us?"

"I'll live longer… heal quicker... it enhances my muscles making me stronger, improves my stamina and agility and flexibility… It'd probably just be easier to say the improvements are pretty much all round."

"So… kind of like how the augments were?"

"Kind of… Magic just…Because of it, I'm…

I'm just better…... Oh, and wizards all have much bigger penises on average."

*sounds of phaser fire*

"Well, that's that threat dealt with."

"Wish we'd have realized that as quick when we defrosted Khan."

"Yep… Totally why we all opened fire. All agreed?"

* * *

_(__**AN**__: An explanation of ship 'gear slots' and _'_Why you can't have 50 Phasers banks...no matter how bad you may want it')_

**Notice from Starfleet Corps of Engineers to all Starfleet Captains:**

In response to the growing number of captains modifying their vessels with non-standard technologies, and the growing number of catastrophic failures from improperly tested systems, and **at the order of the Federation Council, **the Starfleet Corps of Engineers will be refitting all ships in active service with new safety features and modifications to their computer cores.

This will affect Captains in three general ways:

1) Effective immediately, all new vessels will be fitted with a secondary Warp 5 engine, as well as a back up maneuvering impulse engine, deflector array, and shield array, along with several other ship miscellaneous systems. These safety features will be installed in all active duty vessels over the next sixth months and all inactive vessels by the end of next year.

These secondary and backup systems will remain offline unless the primary system fails, allowing ships to safely retreat to the nearest Federation facility for repairs, to remove any crew installed technology that is causing the fault.

2) To facilitate the installation and functioning of these upgrades, due to class specific internal size constraints and the limitations of current **E**lectro-**P**lasma **S**ystem (EPS) grid technology, all vessels will be officially rated by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers for the maximum number of active weapons' platforms it is allowed at any one time.

Weapons' platform slots will be categorized into Fore and Aft mounts with no-more that 8 active mounts on any ship, and no more than 8* weapons firing at any time.

Please note, weapons limitations will be lifted in the event of an Omega class operation.

*Appropriately trained bridge officers will be able to override this for a fixed time limit, before a 'cool down' period activates.

3) Ships will also be assigned a fixed number of Engineering, Tactical and Scientific subsystem mounts (also known as console slots). This is to stop multiple systems conflicting and overworking the computer core.

All specified changes above will be monitored by the ship's computer core. Any attempt to override the protocols specified by the Federation Council will result in a shipwide reboot and will require manual re-activation of all weapons and consoles.

* * *

_(**AN**: Summary of Harry's gear)_

Temporal Investigation Report

Subject: Lord Harry James Potter-Black, aka Lightning Strike, aka The Lonely Wanderer

Relevant Time Period: Multiple (Subject is a confirmed Immortal)

Available briefings:

Early History - Unlocked

Family Ancestry - Partially Unlocked

Public Time Travel Incidents - Level 9 Clearance Required

Kill Count **[Recently Updated]** \- Locked

List of Known Resources, Pre-Federation Contact - Special Access Granted

An Analysis of Known Equipment Belonging to Lord Harry James Potter-Black:

Time period: Early 2409

Please Note: Almost all items are extensively modified or made possible due to the unique abilities and secret techniques of pre-warp Human Subspecies M.

**Known Armament:**

**Conventional:** Various conventional forms of solid round armament, using chemical propellant or magnetic coils or pressurized propellant to generate kinetic force. Large quantities of conventional explosives and heavy/anti-armour weapons.

**Exotic:** A variety of chemical, biological, nuclear, and experimental weapons. Possible examples are Swiss designed antimatter bomb, humanity's first handheld particle weapon developed by Argentina, the captured and heavily modified (by Subspecies M, British Unspeakables) result of Nazi Germany's atomic bomb program

**Subspecies M:** Several melee weapons, most notably the semi-sentient, venom coated 'Sword of Gryffindor.' A variety of magical foci, including, but not limited to, wands, staffs, staves, rings, gauntlets and tomes containing alchemical arrays. His most dangerous weapon, however, is a pair of magically charged pistols, that either stuns or kills the target, the setting depends on the target's and user's intent, guilt or alignment (It should be noted that the weapon is incapable of killing a truly innocent being).

**Defensive Gear:**

**Shields**

The primary line of defense an attacker will have to bypass is a salvaged experimental shield array further enhanced by the unique abilities of Subspecies M. Always active, the defense consists of three separate energy layers, but allows air molecules to pass through via microscopic randomly placed and shaped tunnels. It is notably different from modern personal shields due to its adaptive form fitting shape and its ability to cover all directions, including under the user's feet. The shield consists of an outer, one-way reflective barrier that allows incoming fire, and a gap containing a colourless, pressurised, gelatinous plasma mixture that is released on the shield's activation and recalled on deactivation. The final layer is a one way reflective barrier that blocks incoming fire, that is more powerful than the outer.

When an energy attack or solid round strikes the shield it passes the outer barrier and enters the gap between the two reflective barriers, impacting on the inner. The kinetic energy of the solid round loses potency passing through the first barrier and further energy is lost passing through the gel-like plasma mix, finally striking and flattening against the inner reflective one way shield. The flattened round then acts as a disposable armoured scale and can sometimes (although rarely) help stop other impacts.

Energy attacks will, like kinetic strikes, pass through the outer shield, only unhindered. The gel layer acts to dissipate some of the energy beam or bolt's coherency and temperature, before the attack hits and reflects off of the inner reflective shield. The reflected energy is then passed back through the gel before then reflecting off the outer reflective shield. It is with the reflected energy that the gelatinous plasma layer shows its real purpose, slowly absorbing and distributing the energy, causing the gel to heat up and glow.

Should the two reflective shields become overwhelmed, the weaker outer shield will break first, the release of trapped energy and sudden expansion/vaporisation of the pressurized gel will provide some cover before the inner shield collapses (though several more harmful direct strikes would be needed), at this point the user will normally seek cover for the outer shield to reset and the gel layer between the two shields to refill (Note: The original shield unit only carried three small portions of gel, but it is believed the capacity has been increased with Subspecies M techniques to infinite levels).

**Warning**: Do not stand close to target when collapsing the outer shield. The gel in the secondary layer is plasma based and prone to igniting on contact with oxygen and with high-temperatures/energy-discharges.

**Clothing/Armour**

While most of the subject's clothing will change depending on his need, three items are almost always present. These are his form fitting undersuit that leaves his head and forearms exposed, his gauntlets, that can be hermetically sealed near the elbow to the underside and finally a metal neck collar.

First, the black undersuit is a combination of pressure gel padding to reduce kinetic impacts and the hide of a Basilisk snake that he killed in his youth, the skin of said beast providing exceptional kinetic, EM, chemical, thermal, explosive and exotic protection, along with being near impervious to the effects of most of Subspecies M powers. The undersuit is also notable for the multiple wooden strips and buckles connected to it, which act together very much like a Subspecies M 'Broomstick' allowing unaided flight. Unseeable and undetectable to any who are not familiar with Subspecies M's techniques, the undersuit also has multiple hidden pockets using Subspecies M's unique spatial expansion techniques and a spine mounted scabbard that utilises the previously mentioned spatial techniques to ensure movement is not impaired.

Second, originally created during the 9th century in Scandinavia on Earth, the subject's gauntlets are able to act as a foci for Subspecies M's powers, but requires direct skin contact. Recent upgrades consist of several foldout wrist-mounted detachable engineering tools, a holster for a wand, and a hermetic seal to make the gauntlets 'airtight' when worn.

Third, attached from the front with a hinge at the back of the neck, the metal collar the subject uses is known to produce a transparent bubble shield around his head which acts as an air recycling unit and thanks to another hermetic seal that locks to the undersuits neck piece, it provides an airtight environment for the wearer when needed.

Other regularly seen items are several belts with spatially expanded pouches attached and a knee length coat with reinforced detachable metal sections made of more blackened Basilisk hide.

**Other items of note**

Subject possesses an unknown quantity of Subspecies M's unique temporal devices which are man portable and are worn around the neck, designation 'Time Turners.' Models witnessed were capable of traveling back in time in: 1 hour increments, a flat 24 hours, 30 minute per turn to a maximum of 168 hours. It is believed that the Subject has the complete stockpile of his people's temporal devices, but due to purposely incomplete record keeping by the various Ministries of Magic on Earth and the fact that no two time turners are exactly the same as the creation of the item is believed to be far more like art than science, this cannot be confirmed.

First seen after his arrival in Federation space, the subject's headset was possibly conceived before he left Earth. Best described as a semi-flexible band of dark metal that reaches round the back of his head from temple to temple, with a small rectangular box in front of the left ear, with a short horizontal antenna extending forwards from it. The headset's antenna is tipped with a miniaturized holographic emitter and several eye tracking, range finding and facial sensors, to provide an upgradable heads up tactical display (HUD), that can be wirelessly connected to a computer network. The headset's most unusual feature is the custom interface slot for the crystalline prison designed by Subject M 14529. The fact that time is slowed within the crystal prison allows a friendly inhabitant to aid the headset's wearer with processing raw data for the tactical display.

It should be noted that the subject is known to have some form of subdermal Subspecies M psycho-cybernetic implants. The exact nature or origin of the three implants are unknown, but the set of items is said to be the source of his immortality, while vastly boosting his Subspecies M powers and providing active camouflage to both himself, his equipment and anything he's touching with bare skin. Reports of the implant user being able to summon shades or incorporeal spirits of the dead have so far proven untrue, but if this is due to the user's personal choice, lack of understanding as to how to accomplish this feat or simply false information, is currently unknown.

A vast physical and digitised library.


	7. Ch7 Always Falls

_**Chapter 7: Always Falls**_

* * *

_**To Boldly Go**_

* * *

...

...

...

...

*A wild Rattata appears*

...

*Rattata is evolving!*

…

*Rattata evol- Wait… Its just Wormtail, aka Peter Pettigrew.*

...

"m-Master… Master, are you here?!"

"Of course, you sniveling worm, however I'm surprised you managed to sneak in to this story like the rest of us." Voldemort sneered as he stalked out of the shadows.

"The rest, master?"

"You two aren't the only ones Peter. Hello again Tom."

"Shut it, Fumbledore. Anyway, what do you want Wormtail?"

"Well, my lord… I was just thinking… that with ..._him_, having not written anything, we could… take command, write the story the way we want."

"Dumbledore! I've had a brilliant idea."

"Yes Tom, but I get to write me an all boys wizarding school."

"Understood, just stay out of my way, I'm going to be wiping out the subhumans and creatures in my yet to be written, mega-ship the _Crucio_!"

"Um… master, can I write a few snarry scenes?"

"Sure whate-"

***BOOM***

"Fourth Wall Police, Freeze! You're all under arrest!"

"What!?/Oh-dear/_*Squeak*_"

**Sometime later...**

Officer: "Thanks for the tip off. But, why help us?"

Shadowy figure: "Simple. No way was Tom taking my ship name."

Officer: "Oh… guess that makes sense." He says, before walking off out of earshot.

Shadowy figure: "That and I can't stand the thought of snarry… No, he'll be mine. All mine."

**[Can you guess the shadowy figure? Is said character male? If so, you're wrong!]**

* * *

_I, in no way, own, claim to speak for, or represent any character or persons involved in this story. Any description, likeness, or portrayal of people, persons or events in no way is meant to show the views, opinions or actions of said people, persons or events. Any and all licenses and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and their lack of comment or notice to the writer is considered consent of non-profitable use._

_Except Thrans, he's all me. Well, at least a third of me, but totally me._

_Collaborated with, Revised and Beta'd by 'Joe Lawyer'_

_**AN**__: And I'm back…_

_I'll be tacking on explanations for my lack of activity in the end author's note, but I would like to say that my personal image of Hogwarts differs greatly from the films, and the 'defence' of Hogwarts in the final instalment was lacking due to their being no Hogwarts accepted Headmaster._

_This chapter does not relate to a Star Trek Online mission. _

_It is the second chapter of two in a non-canon History of the Magical World explanation._

* * *

_Chapter 7_

_Always Falls_

* * *

_**Last Episode on To Boldly Go**_

_Pulling off his gauntlets, he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration at what came next._

"_In a dark, dingy little pub called the Hog's Head, sometime in early 1980, a prophecy was made. And while it didn't signal the beginning of the end of the wizarding race, it bloody well made sure we fell."_

* * *

\- Earth Spacedock (Designation: Starbase 1) - Orbiting Earth, Sol, Sector 001 -

"I have always been skeptical about prophecies," Harry continued, accepting the looks of disbelief and confusion from the others in the room. "Over ninety percent of prophecies recorded are classed as merely 'possible futures,' given by recognized seers. About nine percent are truly fixed future events spoken of by Oracles. The final one percent are usually the most famous of them all, those being self-fulfilling prophecies, which can be given by virtually anyone with even a touch of the gift.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..._" (_**AN**__: Taken straight from the Harry Potter wikia site._)

Two men who heard those words decided that the prophecy made that night was of a fixed future event, rather than merely a possible future, and thus it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any self respecting Dark Lord upon this information being relayed to him would avoid the probable child spoken of in the prophecy like the plague, doing their very best to ignore the prophecy altogether. Unfortunately, the dark lord at the time, Tom Riddle or Lord Voldemort, only heard part of the prophecy, in fact only the first two lines."

"Sorry to interrupt, I'm Commander Samuel Winters, 2IC of Starbase 1. Voldemort? Why 'flight from death?'"

"...Wizards… I mean it was only a small minority of us, but they did exceedingly dumb things in what they thought were very clever ways. 'I am Lord Voldemort' is an anagram of Tom Marvolo Riddle, his real name, and I learned later in life that the man couldn't actually speak french. I suspect that after working out all the possible anagrams of his birth name, he simply went with Voldemort because it sounded semi-cool. The name was chosen when he was only 15 or 16 years old, so we should probably cut him some slack.

Anyway, Albus Dumbledore, however, heard the full prophecy, and after working out the two possible wizarding children in the most narrow minded, literal, overly simplistic interpretation of the words, informed their parents, helping each move into hiding for their protection.

On 31 October, 1981, however, Tom Riddle managed, with the help of a traitor, to attack the home of the family he judged the larger threat of the two. The child's father was killed at the foot of the stairs, buying time for the mother to cast a still unknown spell upon her son.

And so, moments after the dark lord killed Lily Potter in front of my cradle, forming one of my earliest memories, Tom Riddle was _temporarily _defeated, the backlash from my people's most reliable curse's only known failure casting his consciousness from his body, and forcing him to spend nearly a decade and a half trying to regain a physical body as a roaming spirit."

As Harry took a sip of water he could _feel _the eyes of the entire room on him, almost squirming in his chair as waves of unwanted pity were directed at him.

"I was improperly and irrationally hailed as a hero, the general public believing that I had somehow slain the worst Dark Lord in recent history in my nappies. All the while the people of the country were still unable to bring themselves to even say his name, while those in the know about the Dark Lord's un-death waited for me to come of age and finish him off for good this time.

Rather than being spoiled and fought over by the wizarding world, I was placed with my non-magical aunt and uncle, and grew up abused and… basically treated as a useless freak. In fact 'freak' was what I thought my name actually was until I was about five years old and learned my real name during roll call at school. I later survived several of Voldemort's plots during my youth by sheer dumb luck and the support of friends, only showing the then unknown to me historical qualities of the Potter family on a handful of rare occasions.

I was however, even then, a magical powerhouse, but little more than an average student with little ambition due to my upbringing, desperate need for acceptance and thus to fit in, and fervent desire to remain 'just Harry' rather than 'The-Boy-Who-Lived,' which always translated in my mind to 'The-Boy-Who-Survived-When-His-Parents-Did-Not.'

On the 30th of June 1997, Albus Dumbledore died at the relatively young age of 115, assassinated during a plot organised by Lord Voldemort who had regained physical form nearly two years prior. Historically speaking, the death of such an influential leader would have rallied the 'light magic faction' at Hogwarts, Britain's oldest school, but Dumbledore was never one to share power or critical information, and Voldemort had spent two years targeting and eliminating anyone who could realistically oppose him in secret while the government desperately denied his return.

With the leader of the light magic faction dead and no successor in place to take over, Voldemort's feared Death Eaters were able to quickly take over the English Ministry of Magic, legitimizing his claim to power in magical Britain. Under his rule of the country I gained the second title given to me that I felt I had truly earned."

Chuckling slightly at the tension in the room, he let the words out in an ominous magic-laden whisper that somehow reached the ears of everyone present and sent chills up their spines. The words of the title were able to conjure all kinds of mental impressions amongst those present, even some historical examples from various cultures they'd encountered in their careers. The few who knew Harry had been heralded as the people's hero only a few years before the title was given, tried not to imagine how bad the situation might have gotten for Starfleet if someone like Voldemort had taken over the Federation.

"I became known as _**Undesirable Number One**_.

I spent most of the year following Dumbledore's death on the run, attempting to locate and destroy the anchors to immortality that Voldemort had used, and eventually engaged him in open battle, at the very gates of Hogwarts itself.

In the end, I was victorious, but it was not the end of my troubles. Before I defeated Voldemort, I already possessed two parts of a powerful trio of legendary magical artifacts.

The trio was then completed moments after Tom Riddle died at my hands.

In his possession was the third item, a powerful wand known at various times throughout history by such names as the Elder Wand, the Death Stick, or the Wand of Destiny, which at its creation or over the millennia had developed a singular fixation on the phrase 'you keep, what you kill.'

With the trio now in my possession, together for the first time in thousands of years, they bound themselves to me permanently, absorbed into my essence, my very soul, though I do have the power to call them out temporarily before they inevitably return back into me again.

That day legend became reality and I became the so called 'Master of Death,' an _Immortal_, and unable to give the items or the curse up, no matter how _desperately _I tried. And believe me, _I tried_. Unlike so many other fools before and since, immortality was never something I desired. I truly looked forward to the next great adventure, to be reunited with all my friends and loved ones who passed on during my long, long life."

Those in the room could mostly understand his feelings, other 'Immortals' the Federation had come across had described having the same problems with eternal life. It seemed clear that unless extremely long life or true immortality was the natural state for a being, then it was very difficult for a person of a naturally mortal species to live without end and not feel cursed in time. But even then, that wasn't always a certainty either… even a Q had once wished to die after all, although that desire seemed more philosophically based.

"I was not the only one suffering, however, magical Britain was the most heavily populated magical country in Europe at the end of World War II, France coming just behind with a population a quarter of the size. Voldemort's first rise killed about an eighth of that number, however his second rise and short reign as the defacto head of our government lead to the deaths of two thirds of our population. 'Work camps' and 'population redistribution centers' lead to the deaths of almost all of the muggleborn in Britain, those without magical parentage, as well as the halfbloods, those with some magical parentage, and finally the magical creature populations.

Years of secret government sponsored efforts to weaken and dumb down the magical population left most near powerless to fight back against Voldemort and the old family purebloods who had always hoarded their ancient magical knowledge while training their sons and daughters in secret.

You may be wondering why the world's other magical nations did not help us.

North America was barely colonised by magicals, and after the Salem witch trials most magicals in that country fled, the region's native magicals never advancing beyond Shamanistic-style magics. South America was never colonised by magicals in the modern day, again, as that place had a stigma against it ever since the deaths of the local magicals from the Spanish Conquistador indoctrinated muggleborn army and diseases like smallpox. The surprising lack of magical ley-lines passing through the country didn't help either.

Africas magicals had barely progressed beyond their shamanistic lifestyles and European colonialism, with its propagation of the Christian faiths' views on magic, meant those who had the gift of magic isolated themselves from the non-magical world, to such an extent that many died off without finding a child to pass on their knowledge to or believing their 'satanic' powers made them unfit to breed, living out the rest of their lives as hermits within the hidden european warded magical creature reserves in Africa.

The Russian magicals, powerful as they were, were heavily integrated into the country's non-magical aristocracy and when the revolution came, those who could fled the country. The rise of communism and eventual iron curtain, began an global effort to spirit away any newly born magicals in the country, rather than risk magic's detection by the ever watchful Russian communist government. Thus the nation had only a minimal magical community even after the USSR fell.

Eastern Asia had a small, tightly knit magical community, but rarely left the confines of the magically hidden and protected lands that they had lived on for thousands of years, other than to bring muggleborns and their families under their protection.

Australia was never really colonised, magical europe still viewing it as a penal-colony/place-of-exile, though a magical school was built there for muggleborns and the children of those in hiding. There was a joke, in somewhat poor taste, that went 'if you want to find a pureblood in hiding, check the school in Australia for their children.'

The magicals in the Middle East did very well for themselves, hiding in vast ancient cities, powerful wards keeping the non-magicals away for millennia. Yet strict population controls kept the population levels from growing too much, even with occasional immigration and muggleborns being born. And even if they had the population to aid us, the crusades and our warlike ways meant that they did not even read our letters begging for aid.

In fact the only magical nation we were on relatively good terms with, that had even half our population, was India.

But… this was the 1990s.

The eugenics wars.

Khan's influence spread throughout India and the Middle East, and after finding he himself could not gain the ability to use magic… he did what he did best, declared us inferior stock and attacked.

Only Europe and a few physically hidden enclaves were spared his and his agents' attentions. The powerful avoidance wards used as a first and in most cases, _only_, line of defence against non-magicals, were not calibrated to an Augment's enhanced brains, allowing Khan's soldiers to virtually ignore them through sheer force of will and bypass many of our defences as they chose.

However, one group of magical people had spent hundreds, if not thousands of years, in the equivalent of a defensive arms race.

Europe's centuries of magical and non-magical warfare, along with its talented teams of curse breakers and ward builders had led to a vast variety of overlapping, broad-spectrum wards, which possessed avoidance, defensive and offensive capabilities. Those magicals in Europe who had witnessed and experienced firsthand the horrors of World War I and II had created and deployed many new wards and protections to defend against sustained artillery and chemical attacks. The very reason Europe and its 'warlike' nature was shunned by the rest of the magical community had ultimately saved them from Khan's wrath, when so many others were killed.

In February of 2001, I was asked to lead a diplomatic party to attempt to reconnect with the Middle Eastern magicals. We already had some dealings with what was left of the Egyptian magicals, although they had never really recovered after the Roman occupation. The magical presence there was little more than a heavily warded outpost for magical tomb raiders and recovery squads, wards that made sure muggles never stumbled across the region's true history. So I traveled from there, towards the ancient city of Babylon and into the vast warded section of the city.

When I arrived I found that it was little more than a _tomb_. The beautiful and ancient terraces of the hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, were littered with the bullet ridden dead, the magical populace overwhelmed by the cruel Augments. The vast subterranean city was now nothing more than a sprawling catacomb, traces of a two-part airborne neurotoxin hung heavily in the air. The poisoned air killed over half the diplomatic party I was with before we even realized what was happening. It also served to confirm to me my new found immortality.

This was my third...death, by this point. Which marked the beginning of a string of experiments into my still growing powers and a global effort to track down and protect the remaining magicals, while packing up what remained of the magical world. Between 2002 and 2015 nearly half of Britain's adult magical population was overseas running search and rescue and salvage operations and by 2010 almost ninety percent of magicals worldwide resided in Hogwarts and in the newly expanded Hogsmeade village near it.

But in 2026 World War III began. Your history remembers it quite dryly as a 27 year long conflict ending in a single massive nuclear holocaust, while in fact it was 27 years of bloody revolutions, terror attacks, endless border skirmishes, widespread civil wars and senseless purges. The armies swept across continents in waves and ripples, theaters of warfare opening and closing sometimes in at most a few years, only to receive a temporary peace that might only last a single day before two new factions began to fight and dragged everyone else back in.

A handful of nukes were used in the opening days of the conflict, far from the envisioned apocalypse, but enough to drop global temperatures six degrees and by the end of the decade a further eight. Bioweapons soon followed, a host of airborne indiscriminate killers travelling freely on the winds, pushing many witches' and wizards' magically reinforced immune systems to their breaking point, as the vast amounts of death and destruction from the nuclear warheads disrupted the planet's interconnected web of ley-lines which we unconsciously tapped into to recharge our magic.

The first detonations affected the network only slightly, but enough that we should have seen the signs… The centaur were one of the magical races most in tune and reliant on the ley-lines, each of them went mad as their brains were forced to now comprehend the normally fixed and unchanging energy network. They all died soon after or committed suicide. They were the first sentient magical race to fall. Soon after the more magically relient and sensitive creatures began to die off in droves. The Unicorns died in the first six months. The Dragons were rendered flightless within the year. The ghosts... magical imprints of people whose deaths were incredibly traumatic to them or those who clung to life with unusual tenacity, long considered effectively immortal by our people, slowly faded to nothingness.

By the end of the war only a handful of creatures who had massive magical reserves and rarely used their gifts, and even then only in small ways, were alive. And despite finding a method to increase our chances of survival… the last witch left on the planet, Luna Lovegood, a very close friend of mine and a beacon of light in an endless night devoid of stars, died in 2061. You may ask why I consider immortality a curse...imagine yourself the last of your kind and being unable to be reunited with your loved ones even in death.

By this time I'd already traveled the world as both Lightning Strike and The Lonely Wanderer, repairing the effects of the war, saving cultural artifacts, removing the most destructive of weapons remaining and cleaning up the last bits of the magical world."

"Wait. Sorry, Cultural artifacts?"

"Books, music, films, TV shows, paintings, sculptures… I took whole servers that were once hooked up to the internet and transferred them to safety. Whole museums worth of objects."

"Why?"

"You- humanity, couldn't be trusted. You were tearing our world, our planet, apart. How could I leave something like the Crown Jewels or Michelangelo's David for some scavenger or two bit warlord to claim as a prize or to be destroyed in yet another pointless skirmish or purge of history. My initial plans were to slowly sneak them back into the muggle world when you made peace with each other, to ensure trusted people 'stumbled' across the seemingly hidden stash of some forgotten World War III looter."

"You still have them, right? I mean the cultural knowledge alone is priceless."

"When I realized that I was the last magical left and decided to die, I left them all at Hogwarts, knowing the wards would eventually fall and you would find what little remained, so that you would know of both our existence _and our fall_. This was assuming humanity survived as a race at all, something I was not so sure about then. You know… perhaps we should move our conversation there. How quick can we ready a shuttle to take us to southern Scotland."

* * *

\- Meanwhile deep inside the Delta Quadrant diabolical plans are underway, overseen by the ever watchful eye of, Tribble of Borg! -

Aboard the lead tactical cube, deep within the command chamber, a tiny unblinking red lens stared out at the organised chaos, trying to distract himself from the continued touch of the drone holding him. The Tribble of Borg watched the organised chaos of those under his command.

With most of the Collective retreating to shipyards and staging areas to refit ships with long considered wasteful or inefficient automated systems, ones that would ensure the distracting anomaly witnessed on Vega did not result in losses that Tribble of Borg had barely mitigated the first time around, our assimilated villain prepared for his greatest task yet.

From across the galaxy the strange, bizarre, and unique, were being gathered under his command, each chosen specifically because of their ability to remain unaffected by the data collected on the anomaly.

One of One, Tactical Subunit of Secondary Experimental Division of Unimatrix Zero One, was the result of a Borg super soldier cloning experiment originally believed to be a dead end, a member of species 125, the same as the current line of Borg Queens. She was the equivalent of a teenager in body and an infant in mind, but three times as deadly as a heavy tactical drone and able to punch through solid duridium alloy.

Several recent upgrades had given One of One a mind more inline with her body's physical maturity, but her mind still struggled to communicate with the collective and mostly learned from example, thus she had taken up the Borg Queen's habit of petting the possible future Tribble Overmind.

But soon, very soon, none of that would matter (not even the Xindi Aquatic drone struggling to use his cybernetic legs), because they were nearly ready to leave and begin hunting down the menace that had so severely disrupted the calm of the collective.

* * *

\- Federation, Type 2 Heavy Shuttle Barge (Designation: _Heavy 98_) - Shuttle Bay 12 - Earth Spacedock (Designation: Starbase 1) - Orbiting Earth, Sol, Sector 001 -

"_***Whistling* The shuttle to Saturn will leave at 0830 hours."**_

"Flight Control, this is Transport _Heavy 98_, we are beginning preflight checks. Standby to receive flight plan."

"_Transport _Heavy 98_, Roger that. Standing by to receive flight plan, ground crew reports external checks complete."_

"I still can't believe I'm being relegated to the passenger seat; I'm a natural at flying!"

"Not my fault you've only got a Level 7 piloting licence, Harry." Anne replied, as she continued the preflight checks on the old, but well maintained personnel shuttle, while Harry continued to mutter and groan at the unfair limitations the laws imposed on a holodeck education.

Rather than beaming down to the surface, which would be publicly logged in the station's officials records, including the destination, the admirals. high ranking officials, _New England's_ crew, the many guards and Harry, would be taking the mostly phased out transport shuttle on a steep full burn reentry flight to the surface. They would be using the planet's gravity and rotation to get into the atmosphere and quickly away from both public and any hostile sensors that may be watching, as quickly as possible.

Modern shuttlecraft would burn up doing such a maneuver, but the Type 2 Heavy Shuttle Barge predated even the Warp 5 engine and was the Federation's sublight mass taxi for years, at least until transporter technology became far more mainstream and widely available to everyone.

"Flight Control, Transport _Heavy 98_ has preflight checkout; the board is green. We are awaiting authorisation to begin launch sequence."

"_Transport _Heavy 98_, Roger that. Hangar bay personnel have cleared the deck. You are authorised to initiate drop maneuver."_

"Transport _Heavy 98_, Roger that. Alright… Attention all passengers, please buckle in and sit tight, we are about to leave the shuttlebay then begin de-orbit burn."

* * *

\- [Error Location Unknown] -

Q was pleased to be back in the saddle, so to speak; he'd been forced to spend far too long cleaning up after his son, following the boy all around the universe. However Q Jr. had _finally _begun to shape up into the Q the Continuum desperately needed.

And so Q had some time off while his on again, off again wife, Lady Q, reconnected with their now 'respectable' son. Kathryn really would have been a better choice for a mother.

Looking out over the timeline from his favorite hideout, he plucked away at a pocket universe model of history in a hyper-dimensional visual form, tugging at the odd strand before him making both subtle and near invisible changes to the timeline.

He was being unusually careful with the timeline at the moment, as far too many powerful factions were involved and any major changes would be immediately noticed. After getting permission from the Continuum to take command of the entire reality while all but a few Q retreated to the new, more stable one old pointy ears had made, he was being extremely careful to not destroy the fragile future he was working towards bringing about. The slightest mistake could bring ruin.

His current project (read: meddling with time) would be twenty three years before Harry had even woken up from his dirt nap.

Harry's role as the young (compared to a Q) Master of Death was far _more _than the Mage was even yet aware of. His unique position meant that he had true free will, from even powerful beings like himself mucking about and was one of the only mobile truly fixed points in space-time, as if the hand of some great cosmic power had grabbed hold of the strings of fate and forced them to conform into a single thread where Harry was concerned, though if this was a reaction between the Hallows and Harry's magical time turners or something else, Q did not know.

Thus every change Q was making to the model timeline of this reality actually would go 'into effect' 24 years ago, Q rolling back time to make the changes apparent in the 'present,' and outside Harry's powers interference.

His initial temporal manipulation in the timeline of the Romulan Empire would not be hard to introduce, but the followup changes to ensure Sela's plan ultimately failed, but remained undetected, now that would be much harder.

Still, he had always felt a little bit of pity for Natasha Yarr and her alternate universe counterpart, and while some might not agree, this would more than make up for it.

* * *

\- Federation, Type 2, Heavy Shuttle Barge (Designation: _Heavy 98_) - Descent orbit, for re-entry over the British isles, Earth, Sol -

"Have I ever told you how much I hate reentry?" Elise shouted to T'Vrell over the noise of the bouncing shuttlecraft.

"Our steeper angle of descent will make us look like debris, better hiding us from prying eyes. The Admirals seem rather paranoid about keeping Harry secret." The Vulcan replied, showing little discomfort at the tight seating straps pulled against her. The old shuttle barge continued to max out its impulse engines in its fifty degree dive to the planet's surface, traces of reentry plasma flickering across the transparent aluminium windows.

In the cockpit at the front of the craft Anne clutched at the shuddering control stick, the computer guidance software unable to safely conduct such a steep reentry, requiring her to use all her considerable piloting skill to get below the passive sensor net as quickly as she could. Most of her mind was locked on to the task at hand, but a tiny corner of her brain was celebrating that she might be in for both the quickest and steepest reentry over Earth on record, should the events today ever go public.

Harry, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, was rapidly tapping away at the control station in front of him, displaying the route to Hogwarts on the forward screen, both impressed with Anne's skill and slightly jealous not to be at the controls himself. Whether it was a broom or the controls of a starship, he _loved _to fly, in all its forms, and his training in the holodeck had proven that his amazing natural instincts and prodigious skill in flight were present even when piloting a modern starship.

Unfortunately for his ego, Anne was a Level 9 pilot, so prodigious in skill that she'd been asked to retake a final exam more than once because the results the first time around seemed impossible for a human. Harry meanwhile had gotten an admittedly very respectable Level 7 official qualification, as Federation regulations required a live examiner and for the test itself to take place at an accredited facility (so that the results could be verified as genuine) for any pilot's licence above said level. While inconvenient at the moment, it was a prudent requirement given how technology could be manipulated in the modern day.

In the back of the vessel, the Admirals and other guests sat in various states of discomfort, some wishing that they'd suggested the transporter pads to reach their destination. The only new member of the group was an Andorian captain named Va'Kel Shon, who, if scuttlebutt was to be believed, might be in command of the next _Enterprise_. He was being rapidly caught up by the recently promoted Captain Akira Sulu, great-grandson of the famed Hikaru Sulu.

As the shuttle began to level out and lose its cherry red glow, those who looked out the small portholes noticed the verdant green fields of England and signs of an abandoned railway line.

England had not come out of World War III all that well, many nations deciding to settle centuries-old grudges. By the end of the war its population was numbered only in the thousands. Consequently most of the old UK was now lush rolling farmland and pristine forests, with automated systems producing vast amounts of food and lumber, the area's only remaining large city being the once nuked London that was rebuilt just up the river, mostly by Starfleet as an administrative center.

As the craft slowed, Harry was forced to activate the shuttle's emergency seat locks, trapping the other passengers in their seats and taking the control stick from Anne, each being magically told to turn back by Hogwarts' powerful aversion seats now containing the quite loudly complaining non-magicals, that all suddenly had other more important or pressing appointments and meetings to attend. Harry ignoring their cries as he slowed and landed the ship.

While unable to land inside the expansive valley surrounding Hogwarts, Harry knew the locations of several outer wardstones that allowed the school's Headmaster to connect to the wards and purposely had landed the shuttle near one.

Approaching a large volcanic crater that would never show up on any map, Harry did not try to land in the bowl itself, despite being wide enough to fit a small city into, but instead gently guided them down onto a wide cliff ledge, with wild goat tracks leading both up and down the rockface.

The shuttle had barely enough room to land on the ledge with the high cliffs around it, but the overgrown trail rambling its way up into the hills above them was still accessible, as the cold Scottish air whipped down off the heights above and generally gave a feeling of intense foreboding.

Just off the path and seeming to be growing out of the rock face itself, a weathered stone monolith visibly poked out, a few hardy weeds growing at its base, its worn surface still showing the deep carvings that almost seemed to shift and squirm across it the longer you stared.

Touching a tiny carved rune on his left gauntlet as he walked over to the monolith, he pushed a tiny jolt of his magic into it, the sound of shifting metal plates filling the air, as Harry's left hand became exposed to the elements. A minor, underpowered cutting curse drawing blood from the palm of his hand, before he touched the outer wardstone.

Smiling now, he could feel Hogwarts' incredible joy at his return, the school having only grown more aware with the hardships of the last half millennia, Rowena Ravenclaw's sheer genius and foresight showing again during World War III as the school's wards slowly remodulated themselves to the ley-lines' shifting frequencies.

The system was far from instantaneous and the semi-conscious building had been forced to draw an incredible amount of power from its Headmaster to make the changes necessary to protect its charges during this period of upheaval. The then Headmistress McGonagall fell into a coma instantly from the strain when it first happened, her magic almost totally drained as Harry, the then Deputy Head, was automatically promoted by Hogwarts to get the required power, the Hallows recharging his core faster than the school could drain him.

He ignored most of the notifications for needed maintenance on the school's wards and enchantments, as well as the reminder that he had not backed up the Library recently, but paused in thought at a stranger notification that he had forgotten to log out properly one hundred and twenty three years ago, it seemed that he would be time traveling again in the future.

Taking the anti-muggle wards offline temporarily, along with the more defensive siege wards, he left the shield, maintenance, obscuration, stasis and pax wards fully in effect.

The pax ward was Harry's own unique creation and addition to the Wizarding world's pool of knowledge, the ward stopping all acts of conflict in the area it covered. Sure, people could try to punch or fight each other, but the ward ensured the blows would never hit, as an infuriating combination of dizziness and bad luck disarmed the combatants.

Stepping back into the shuttle, he unlocked the seating, promising to answer some of their questions when they reached their destination.

As the group gathered outside the shuttle, they noticed the weather seemed to clear up and the once foreboding path up and into the mountains seemed now to invite them along. While the group got ready, Harry shrunk, summoned and pocketed the now palm sized shuttle, before turning back to them.

Each member of the group, bar Harry, was loaded down with hiking gear and supplies, the female members of the _New England's_ crew asking Harry to 'check' and 'recheck' their harnesses and straps several times over, the shameless teasing, flirting, and flaunting of delectable assets not going unnoticed by Harry, their guards, or a few of the Admirals, one of which asked him to check _her _as well.

But despite delays, the group eventually set off up the path, Harry explaining that it was one of several that his people had used to reach Hogwarts before the train line was built, each path made for a different skill group and getting harder and more dangerous for those who took it, a spooky test of courage for the untrained or a test of skill for those who had it, Hogwarts itself deciding which test to give to the individual.

Said tests being a type of refresher course for the new school year.

The winding route gradually went up the mountain and even Harry had to pull out a staff to walk with, questions of the route length and how long it would take being answered by Harry in the most grandfatherly and vague manner he could come up with, leaving several in the group convinced that he was a Tolkien and more specifically, a Gandalf fan.

However, after the eighth variation of the explanation that if a wizard always arrives precisely when he means to, a magical path will only be as long as it is needed to be, they reached a tunnel into the rock face and Harry began to explain some of Hogwarts' history.

The site itself had been in use long before the Romans came to Britain, but in about 400 A.D. was turned from a small magical training camp in the village of Hogsmeade, into a proper school on an outcrop of rock by the lake.

With the help of the goblins, best described as the bastard children of a Ferengi lawyer/banker and a Klingon warlord, the school was built to be a vast multi-towered citadel, covered skywalks and vast halls, built amongst more classrooms than would ever truly be needed, while automatically reconfiguring dorm rooms and personal apartments always ensured the right number of beds.

It was said that Hogwarts was 70% solid stone, 10% fixed entrance halls, 50% secret passages and 100% pure magical energy.

While this would make little sense, arithmetical or otherwise, to the uninformed, anyone able to connect to the castle would find it to be far more than brick and mortar. The castle's vast bulk was far more like the room of requirement or a station sized outdoor holodeck, than a conventional building, creating rooms, corridors or other spaces at the user's will, while hidden passages opened and closed as Hogwarts itself wished them, its child-like mind having a little too much fun after sheltering and nurturing generations of pranksters that had walked and played through its halls.

Explaining how a _building _could be semi-sentient and yet not fully, took up most of the time they were walking within the tunnel, the conversation ending moments before they could see the light of the exit.

Hogwarts was built within the vast circular bowl, almost seven miles across, of an extinct volcano. A large lake at the center fed from the hillsides and draining into underground caverns acted as a natural focal point. On the worn cliffs of the north western side of the lake was Hogwarts itself, partially built into the cliff face, its spires and surprisingly militaristic and gothic stonework almost gleaming in the sunlight.

To the southern half of the bowl, a vast forest stretched from the mountains (a few showing traces of snow) to the lake, and in the east they could make out a few hundred buildings and the rail-line.

Most surprising to the non-magicals were the innumerable grey blobs that covered the grasslands and hillsides in calm orderly lines, stretching down from the northern hillside. Moments of inspection later, a Betazoid in the group threw up as one human Admiral slowly looked away from a pair of binoculars he had brought up to get a better look, both pain and _shame _in his eyes, the group quickly realising just what they were looking at.

"They're split into four zones." Harry grimly explained in a quiet voice, gesturing to each in turn. "'Those who came before,' the people who died from natural causes, accidents or plain stupidity, pre-2026, along with the exhumed bodies from other purely magical graveyards. 'The warriors,' those who died in wizarding wars on _any _side. 'The victims,' those who died at the hands of non-magicals or because they were magicals. 'The survivors,' those unlucky few who died after World War III and perhaps may have come to envy the dead.

It may seem strange to you, but in a society where people can turn the dead into mindless soldiers, we go to painstaking lengths to secure our dead. You'd only find a handful of bodies actually in these graves, as we prefer to burn them to ash, then transfigure them into gravestones; cuts down on necromancers stealing the bodies, you see, though the fields of France are a far better location to get bodies, even today."

"How… How many graves are there?"

"I stopped counting long ago. Locator spells, house elves, scrying and magically updated records, those let us recover the dead afterward, including the ones that had been experimented on and dissected by the various governments and warlords who knew or learned of magic, but 'the victims' and 'the survivors,' those I mostly buried myself… more than a million bodies… with extensive use of time turners of course."

A telepathic betazoid Admiral just looked at him slack jawed, Harry ignoring the continued attempts (read _pitiful_) to probe his mind. "How are you still sane?! Don't you feel anything?!"

Finally looking at the Admiral, he latched onto one of the telepathic probes with his magic, dragging it into his ancient fortified mind, "I did the whole insane thing after the last of us died and I was left all alone, the last of my race… it's _surprisingly _tiring work, you just get used to it after a while, so I just compartmentalise now." Harry explained, dipping the man's mental probe gently into one of the darkish 'slightly less debilitating' corners of his mind for a single moment, showing a few very short memories of that time like a slideshow. The betazoid Admiral promptly collapsed onto the rocky ground and began shaking at the overwhelming despair that could be felt in those memories. The dark emotions of an 8 thousand year old immortal were not to be trifled with by mortals.

Turning away without a word, Harry began to walk to the school at a slow, but steady pace, giving the group plenty of time to catch up.

* * *

\- First City, Qo'noS - Heartland of the Klingon Empire -

The First City of Qo'noS, the beating heart of the Klingon Empire, was a world that many would have left for dead after its moon exploded. A world that forged the warrior people known as the Klingons, who threw off the shackles of enslavement by an alien race and clawed their way kicking and biting to become one of the two dominant superpowers of the Alpha Quadrant.

It was to this world that Suni Tanalis, sworn warrior of the House of Martok, found herself beaming down to, her blood tested like all others who wished or were told to visit, before stepping out into the smog and pollution of the dying world.

Leaving the transporter room built just off the main concourse that ran out of the Great Hall in the center of the famed First City of Qo'noS, she heard the reassuring clicking of her First Officer Koren's boot heels and the heavy footfalls of her Gorn security officer.

Her decision to order the Klingon vessels to aid the Federation against the Borg incursion had been a risky and politically unpopular one, and while it was very unlikely that she would be killed within the Council Chamber, it was far from a short walk to the relative safety of the Great Hall proper.

While she had some protection from the famed House of Martok and had said house's favour, it would not be enough to stop a determined opponent, and so it would be her presentation on why she lead the supporting action that ultimately determined her fate.

That said, her past actions against the Federation and the successful raid she lead on the Utopia Planitia Shipyards would buy her some favour with Chancellor J'mpok.

* * *

\- Hogs Valley - Old UK - Earth -

Coming down off the hillsides Harry lead them to a small stone dock on the edge of the Black lake, its cool waters lapping softly against the worn stonework as the sun beat down, shimmering beautifully off the lake.

A simple sweep of his hand saw the materialisation of several boats for their use, the sight of such a thing causing several science-oriented officers to draw their tricorders in a quickdraw that would make an ancient Earth gunslinger proud. The personal styling in tricorder holster style and location on their belts really sold just how serious these guys were. He idly wondered if they had ever named the things. Shaking his head at these strange thoughts, Harry finally got them into the wooden boats after a few minutes of cajoling had allowed the group to cross.

Enacting the time honored tradition of making new students cross the lake to see Hogwarts for the first time, rather than using the stone bridge at the main entrance, Harry magically propelled the small boats across the lake, small waves rocking the boats from the lightly gusting winds.

The once tall, yet gently rolling granite hills around the lake that Hogwarts had been been built on had over time been quarried for the school's construction and the school now sat on a plateau about a hundred meters above the lake, a deep ditch around it with a main stone bridge and rear wooden one providing access.

However, a third public entrance was available, cut into the rock face in a way that would remind people of ancient dwarven architecture, the door and dock in front of it surrounded on all sides by cliff faces, a roughly hewn arch leading from the lake to the docks, as vines and water came down the steep cliffs along with signs of the sky above.

The torches, a mix of dragon's fire, a ward and fire opals, were still lit, dancing flames lighting the fortified entrance sunk into the cliffs.

It took a few moments to get them all out of the boats safely, the little craft vanishing as Harry cut the flow of magic to them. When they were unloaded and ready, Harry lead the group through the thick metal banded stone door. The solid stairs beyond were eleven steps followed by a landing that might turn them a few degrees or even back on themselves, then another eleven and so on, slowly leading them up by torch light to the surface, a few Admirals commenting how hard it would be to attack after the sixth landing.

Finally they passed through a studded, wooden double door into an entrance hall of sorts, carved figures and buttresses climbing the walls of the cubelike room, one of the more observant people pointing out the viewing/firing slits artfully hidden in the shadows and stonework above them.

As the door behind them closed, Harry lead them through the single file door ahead, and they entered Hogwarts' main entrance hall, the roof several floors above them, with a handful of balconies looking down and a clock and bell in the rafters, the three story main door to their left was closed, a wonder in itself, the heavily carved wood and bands of metal showing no signs of age even after centuries of neglect.

Around the door, above and to the left and right, vast clear glass windows that would have looked just as comfortable in a medieval european church let in light from the south, illuminating the stairways across the room from it, one central flight heading up into the school proper, before splitting left and right, while two others to the left and right lead down into the network of tunnels and rooms known as the dungeons.

Directly across from where they stood were the closed arched double doors leading into the great hall.

The entrance hall itself was about half the size of a football field, and had several benches against the walls, while tapestries and banners depicted scenes from the school's history. But more importantly for those who had entered were large gold tablets, magically reinforced so as to be near indestructible, their surfaces were covered in the history of Harry's people and one of several things on Harry's list of things to gather up.

As Harry left them all to wander about the room, he asked Hogwarts for a table and benches in the room's center, as the noise of tricorder, scanner and recording devices filled the air, a few who weren't interested or were untrained in the sciences, joining him at the table lost in their own thoughts.

Those that had come from Starfleet's scientific ranks were lost in their scanners or around the tablets, while the few with a long career in engineering examined the building's structure and theorised about the vaulted ceiling above them, and the type of technology needed to construct it.

The majority of the guests had a background in intelligence or tactical and spoke softly amongst themselves while taking the chance to rest, a few looking at the tablets depicting the more recent and tragic history of Harry's people.

For most of the group, however, the horrific reality of the situation never truly set in, each long since familiar with digging through the remains of long dead civilisations, this site just being in better condition and not requiring translation tools. Only the less experienced crew of the _New England_, having not been desensitized to picking through the remains of other species and cultures, felt the full shock of such a people's loss, unable to totally comprehend or understand how multiple sentient species ON EARTH could be wiped out.

Captain Shon having only heard about Harry's magic and seeing him summon the table and benches, began probing the last wizard for details about his abilities and their various applications. Andorian mythic legends had long centered around the telepathic Aenar, who were later proven to exist, and he wondered about some of the other legends of his people. This conversation then moved into more theological territory as Shon shared stories and legends about the Andorian sun god, his foe, and their servants, comparing them to the Fire and Ice elementals Harry had summoned to this plane of existence.

Eventually the group began to congregate at the table, sipping from water canteens or nibbling on ration bars, the long walk and excitement a little too much for some of the older Admirals long used to more sedentary desk work.

But as expected, the questions began to slowly flow, how many people had the school provided services for, when was it built and did he go there, even a summary of the basic types of magic, charms, curses, wards, etcetera. All these Harry answered the best he could (or wanted to, he wasn't stupid after all), but the conversation began to slowly turn towards more substantive topics.

When asked to explain the loss of magic, Harry started with how planets gained magic in the first place.

He stated that as the cycle of life and death continues on a planet, it acts like a generator, releasing ambient magic, which acts very much like most forms of radiation in its movements, but it can be trapped like gasses and channelled by a planet's and solar system's magnetic and gravitational fields, normally into two 'webs' that made up the planet's air and ground ley lines.

When the ley line reaches a kind of 'critical mass' (with enough ambient magical energy running through them,) they activate and begin to affect the beings on the planet's surface.

Air ley lines are the more powerful, as they are not fixed to the planet and act like a brush sweeping up escaping ambient magical energy, unfortunately their constant and unpredictable movement makes them of little use, other than for magicals to draw on for recharge and the creation of a few new magical creatures over time.

Ground ley lines are the main source of new magical creatures as unborn offspring near them are constantly saturated with magically charged energy. They are also used by practitioners of warding and ritual magics, or for power taps in the higher level magical arts.

As the cycle of life and death continues, the balancing of newly collected power across the ley lines creates ripples, some of the magical energy washing out of the ley line, like a cup overflowing, effecting those in its path, then drawing back into the ley line.

These ripples in the magical flow are how first generation magicals are born, the ripple sometimes washing over the unborn child in just the right way and at just the right moment of development to form a magical core that will stay with them for life. A seemingly totally random event, akin to accidental magic on a planetary scale.

As a witch or wizard draws on their magical core, their stored magic is focused and discharged, ambient magic being drawn from the ley lines to 'refill' his or her core after usage. The magic used in the spell eventually dissipating back into the planet, solar or galactic leylines.

"When World War II ended," Harry continued, "we found, to our abject horror, that the ley lines could actually be damaged, something we never thought possible. The use of the two nuclear bombs caused such a huge amount of death, so quickly, that the ambient magic joining the network created huge ripples. They were less like natural waves and more like artificial tsunamis in effect. Those tsunamis crashed into each other at different points, shooting out huge chunks of the planet's ambient magic into space, beyond our ley lines' ability to naturally recollect.

Eight years after the war, Hogwarts' incoming new student population was below one hundred first years for the first time since its founding over a thousand years ago."

Harry then began to explain the wizarding world's efforts worldwide to neutralize the muggle nuclear threat after the danger was realized, how magicals replaced key missile components to render them non-functional, cast forgetfulness charms and subtly manipulated world leaders to create international treaties amongst the other nuclear nations to both limit the proliferation of nuclear arms as well as to ensure peace between them.

"But, in time, the reasons for such projects were forgotten about, magical civil wars and lack of funding crippled the projects almost as much as the non-magical governments' decision to better hide and protect the weapons did.

In the end… we forgot we needed to save ourselves, lest we be accidentally destroyed by your actions.

And so, when World War III came… all that death, continually sent waves and tsunamis through the ley line network, blasting more and more of the planet's ambient magical energy into space, till eventually the system just lost too much pressure, ley lines once filled to bursting by the power flowing through them, were _emptied_, and like the laws of hydrodynamics, you cannot draw on more magic if there is a higher concentration in you than in the world around you. Besides, a vital part of the network's health and volume were the numbers of magical beings on the planet and by that point there were so few of us left alive."

"Did- Do you blame us? Humans, I mean." Anne asked quietly, Harry sighed in response.

"Some did… most were far too busy just trying to survive to entertain realistic thoughts of revenge.

Khan… struck too fast and without enough warning for us to stop him, but he was your version of a Dark Lord to some extent and as much as we hated it, we could _understand _that. From time to time, no matter what you or we did, no matter how vigilant or proactive, Dark Lords would show up and inevitably affect both worlds.

World War III was seen as mostly your fault, but then again… we could have minimised the damage if we'd realised just how bad things had gotten. It took us a while to work out just what was going on. True, we knew the nukes had gone off and did our best to survive the effects of the fallout, but by the time we realised just how bad things had gone wrong, what the long-term implications were beyond the immediate destruction and death...it was far, far too late.

We were just too few in number and too busy trying to survive day-to-day to have the _luxury _of placing blame. Oh, there was certainly talk of fighting back, of driving all the muggles out of Britain and securing the entire island for ourselves so that we could better protect ourselves, to separate ourselves from your conflicts forever. There is a great deal of mass destruction even a single powerful magical can do when they have no concerns about collateral damage.

In our despair and rage terrible plans were put forth by the more extreme survivors, some calling for us to bring forth the cursed fires of hell, near impossible to extinguish even with magic, to wipe out the remaining cities and armies of the great nations. Others believed we should be summoning the more war-like elemental spirits from the other planes of reality, who being impervious to conventional harm could fight and kill for us in magic's name. While in darkened rooms some muttered of raising an army of corpses and setting them loose to wipe out all the muggles left on the island… In the end, reason prevailed.

We just couldn't afford to waste resources, everyone of us who died fighting would result in others starving from lack of food, and most of the magicals had only about a week's worth of magic left in our cores if we were combat casting or performing costly rituals. I had the necessary power, of course, but- In the end, despite the pain of losing my friends and loved ones, I _chose _to forgive. When necessary to protect my people, I fought like a demon, but there was just no more point, the damage had already been done. Death and mass destruction would not have brought my people back nor better secured our future at that point.

Many also felt it was their own fault, especially in the older generations, for not keeping on top of the problem, but the general feeling was that we should have seen the signs that war was coming and done something to stop it.

Of course there were a few who felt they 'had to make a stand' but they were only fifteen 'pureblood' men and women, each falling within a few days of starting to fight.

If I was sent back in time… I could have changed it. Rewritten the history books and stopped the war altogether… I'm still not sure if I made the right choice not to back then. With what I know now, you'd probably have never left Earth without the shake up the war caused."

Harry's words sparked a line of questioning on time turners and the group slowly moving from topic to topic (**AN:** it was really quite hypnotic [If you don't get it, it's a TNG joke]), but in time a question Harry had dreaded was asked.

"Harry, you mentioned other... magical species? Centaurs?"

"I did. Before the war, animals and creatures that had access to magic were split into three categories, Fey, Creatures and Sentients.

The Fey were creatures reliant more on natural magic than non-magical biology to exist, more creatures of spirit and energy than flesh and DNA. Most of these had died off on Earth long before even the Potter family records were started, but some, like pixies, winged humanoids the size of your palm, elementals and house elves lived on for a time. Only the elementals, house elves and a few primarily extra-dimensional species survived the war. The house elves were a unique natural servant race who drew on their masters' magic to live and orders to guide them. Their first masters were other fey and later humans. In the case of the surviving house elves they drew on Hogwarts' magic, and after the last witch on Earth died, asked me to release them from their service, a task only the current Headmaster could do, choosing to die with dignity as a single people rather than fade away one after the other with no one left but me to serve.

Elementals, however, live like several other magical species on a separate dimensional plane from us, and enter our realm by drawing magic from a pact with their summoner and master. As they are not native to this dimension, they cannot survive here without their summoner's magic to bring them forth and sustain them.

Creatures cover the largest number of former magical species, which included those species which could still evolve biologically without magical intervention, or who were made via other magicals cross breeding species or through ritualistic means. The creature which provided the hide for my armored undersuit is a prime example of both magical crossbreeding and ritualistic magic, and maybe even the seemingly nonsensical nature of magic, requiring an amphibian to incubate a poultry egg while several spells are cast. Other species range from Unicorns and Dementors to Gnomes and Dragons. Most of these species were heavily reliant on magic to sustain them long-term or found their natural habitat poisoned or wiped out after the war.

Magical species considered to be sentient were further split several ways depending on the nation or region they primarily inhabited, but magical Britain's distinctions, while not morally right in their application in modern terms, are perhaps the best way to explain them.

Split into five classes, the lowest class were the goblins, a subterranean humanoid species very different from humans.

Known for their warlike tendencies and greed, hundreds of wars were waged with them across the globe throughout history, but it was with the invention of the wand that the balance of power shifted into the human magicals' favour. Initially pushed out of Europe due to its populations' skill and experience, they found themselves unwelcome across the planet due to their extreme warlike nature. Hundreds of years after being pushed out of Europe, they paid their way back in.

In a series of treaties magical Europe forced the goblins to agree never to wage war again, in exchange for being the only European magical bank. While this sounds like a terrible idea at first, vast numbers of magically binding laws and protocols ensured the goblins could not cheat a wizard who knew the system, but further goblin laws and a language barrier meant only a handful of people fully understood all the agreements, with only a tiny fraction of them being non-goblin.

The few who knew the system well enough so as not to be cheated by a goblin, were held in the highest honour and the few who could outwit a trained goblin, were entitled to start their own goblin recognised clan, something I'm proud to say that my Potter ancestors accomplished.

By the year of my birth the goblins enjoyed the cutthroat world of high finance far more than they did literally cutting throats, not that they ever truly gave that up amongst themselves.

However, their brutality, non-human nature and general dislike towards the vast majority of increasingly ignorant wizards, earned them, in the government's eyes at least, the rating of a Class Five Sentient.

Classes One through Three, were Pureblood, Halfblood, and Muggleborn respectively, a sign that those in power were backed by the regularly intolerant Pureblood factions.

Rather than dwell on the social problems we had almost solved before World War III began, let me just say that blood status was very much like the race or gender or sexual orientation discrimination issues that our non-magical cousins suffered from at the time.

To be a Class Four Sentient was to be one of many magical creatures. Centaurs are physically like the ones from non-magical mythology, half-man and half-horse, spending their lives in isolation trying to predict the future via the movement of the stars and the flow of magic in the ley-lines.

Werewolves and vampires both existed as well, both feared and rejected by most others, establishing their own packs and covens and cultures all their own.

Veela were a 'socially acceptable' all female magical species, very much like the vampires and werewolves, instead turning into fire wielding bird women who could release a powerful magical pheromone that would leave weak-willed males totally stunned and incapable of thinking at all.

In fact the Greek legends of the Sirens can be directly attributed to a colony of Veela's nudist beach in that area, sailors who reached the shore, inevitably succuming to death from extreme physical exertion.

The giants, surprisingly, while having the lowest IQ and being confined to reserves to both protect the non-magicals and preserve the Statute of Secrecy, might actually have survived to this very day even with the war, but their fast birth rate, huge size, destructive and carnivorous nature, eating even humans when available, left me with little choice but to wipe out the species in the face of the end of the magical world."

"You killed them?!"

Slightly annoyed by the interruption, Harry frowned slowly, catching the eyes of everyone as he spoke, his voice hard and unyielding. "Don't misunderstand what I've said, I dismantled, packed up, and defanged what was left of the magical world. We were no longer around to keep the balance between our worlds and to protect you from the _most _incredibly dangerous parts of what was left of it, now completely unchecked, so I did what needed doing. I was my species' savior, weapon, leader, protector, caretaker and _**undertaker**_. I am the final eternal epitaph to my people and a monument to all our deeds, greatest works and even our sins."

"And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'" One of the older officers whispered to himself, lost in thought.

"Lets just calm down a little; it's neither our right nor our place to judge, Lord Potter. We've made some questionable decisions in the past as well."

"Something for the historians to argue about then. But may I ask what happened to the goblins?"

"No idea; haven't had a chance to check. Through our treaties they couldn't destroy you or try to take over, but their population was less than five thousand and still falling last I spoke with them. They may still be in their tunnels for all I know."

"Still, something that should be checked on."

"Indeed," one of the Admirals muttered, each drawn into their own thoughts.

"Not to sound like we only came down here for the artifacts, but..."

"Which collection?" Harry said chuckling.

"What have you got?"

"Art, fine art, literature, films, sculptures, reclaimed… I grabbed thousands of items. I've even got at least half the internet."

"Half the internet?"

"Well, some servers were destroyed or too damaged to recover, then I had to filter out and delete all the viruses, popups, adware ...porn that's… well sometimes a kink's not a kink and just plain wrong. I mean I'm _far _from a prude, I assure you, but some stuff is just more about shock value, degradation or just plain hate speech."

"Perhaps we should let you pick…" One of the admirals offered, uncomfortably remembering a many times great-grandparent's story of a young vulcan coming back from a salvage mission in the period after first contact and how that young man found it illogical that the two girls only had one cup.

"Anything that would surprise us?"

Leaning back, Harry ran a hand through his hair, stretching his back. "Library… but which to pick..." he muttered finally, before pushing off the bench and striding off.

"Chop chop!" Harry yelled back to the group as they scrambled off the benches to follow him.

* * *

\- First City, Qo'noS - Heartland of the Klingon Empire -

"Order! Order! Tanalis! You stand accused of aiding the enemies of the Klingon Empire during a time of war! Explain yourself!"

"Chancellor, as you undoubtedly remember, it was I who managed to obtain the access codes for the defense grid protecting the Federation's Sol system."

"HA! I bet the _whore _was able to _obtain_ the codes, just like the rest of her Orion sisters _obtain_ something else eac-"

"You will be silent in this chamber, Ambassador B'vat!"

Continuing, Suni gave a brief outline of how the raid progressed and how they received the message on their slow journey back to the empire.

"And so after hearing of this Borg invasion you chose to go to the Federation's aid?"

"Sir, our continued victories against the Federation had left them weakened," Suni answered, carefully choosing her words. "Had I not ordered the Empire's ships in the area to join in the defence, it is likely the Borg would have gained a strong beachhead between the Federation's heartland and the Klingon Border, their assimilated forces then preying on the nearby Federation worlds and inevitably beginning to attack us with billions of slave soldiers and thousands of ships. The Borg care not for any border, to them we are just another species to assimilate.

I considered it to be in the Empire's best interests to stamp out the dishonorable pestilence that the Borg represent as quickly as possible, lest we be forced to waste our brave warriors fighting in our own space, against such an unsatisfying foe."

"You have a way with words Tanalis, and your tongue is as silver coated as a Federation diplomat's; had this been any other foe I would have already cut yours out for trying to manipulate me. However, I happen to agree with what you're _not _saying aloud; that the Borg are a threat we cannot afford to play with, like we do the Federation. Better to fight them in Federation space than in our own or give them too long to establish themselves in this quadrant, lest we _all _be destroyed.

It is the decision of this High Council that you will not be punished for aiding our Empire's foes. A decision will be made as to standing orders for our fleets were future Borg threats and incursions are concerned in the next few days. In the meantime Captain, return to the celebrations, you struck the Federation and the Borg mighty blows this day in glorious battle, worthy of song!

Glory to the Empire!"

"**LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!"**

* * *

\- Somewhere in Hogwarts -

It was impossible.

...

He just couldn't believe it.

…

Somehow...

…

Someway...

...

The Legacy of the Marauders, the ones to map the castle's ever changing hallways.

...

Was lost.

Oh, he recognized _where _he was; he also knew where he was meant to be going. But Hogwarts was continually reforming around him, walls unfolded brick by brick ahead of him, and hidden passageways used in his youth changed their passwords faster than the marauders' map could update.

"S-So… How m-much… further?" A middle aged Admiral asked, panting for breath.

"Not far," Harry answered, shamelessly lying through his freaking teeth; his mind still trying to work out just why Hogwarts was giving him the runaround, especially since he was still considered the Headmaster of the damn place. "We can take a short break if you want."

Several of the group gratefully propped themselves up against the nearby walls, Drake walking over to him.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were lost." He said under his breath with a small grin, so only Harry could hear.

"Lost? No… More annoyed at Hogwarts… She's always liked to play games, but she's never been this annoying. It's like she wants to send us anywhere _but _the library."

"She?"

"Lady Hogwarts. It's hard to describe. Hogwarts is filled with highly complex magical interactions with millions of self-evolving runic arrays and effects, very much like much of the artificial intelligence work the Federation's done in recent decades," Harry said thinking back to what he'd read on Excomps and Soong's positronic brain.

"Over the years people noticed that Hogwarts began anticipating the faculty's needs, creating rooms or new passages sometimes before we knew that they were even needed. The more tasks Hogwarts performed and the older she got, the more subtle and far reaching her actions became."

"But then why is she slowing us down?"

"I'm not sure… There's no danger ahead or the wards would have informed me immediately… she just..." Harry paused, a stay memory sparking a new chain of thought.

"There's a _reason _we took the boats across the lake, it's not just tradition, but an induction for ALL who are newly exposed to magic, it lets you see and experience the wonder and splendor of magic and Hogwarts!"

"What?"

"There's a routine to arriving at Hogwarts, cross the lake, go to the great hall, then the house specific route to the dorm OR the main stairs. Because it introduces you to magic and lets Hogwarts show off!" Now working out where to go, Harry walked off, looking left and right as he felt out the magic around him while muttering to himself, the group quickly falling into step.

However as they turned the next corner the group stopped, their eyes wide as they looked out onto a huge chasm.

All around them were the carved stone buttresses of Hogwarts' main stairwell, with hundreds of doors and archways spread across the floors above and below, the grinding sound of stone echoing around them as segments of stairs continually moved. Creating walkways of stairs that lead to platforms which might go off at 90 degree angles before finally connecting to another set of steps leading to a hallway three floors down.

It was not well known, but a user could actually control the stairways as long as they held their exit firmly in their mind and trusted the stairs would get them there. You could even step out into air from one of the arches with no steps present and Hogwarts would move the steps and platforms to catch you, though the application of a well timed cushioning charm was _suggested_.

The stone walls were virtually covered in portraits and paintings of people sleeping, hidden artfully amongst the stonework, with carved gargoyles peering out of the shadows. A few in the group began to question their eyesight as the painted images seemed to move sluggishly.

Harry of course merely noted the still sleeping, but active portraits and decided he really needed to meditate and tap into the ley lines soon, his passive sensory skill only allowing him to detect that they were now active and stable, but not their overall strength. His presence in the building itself should also feed the magical needs of the school, strengthening the wards and other protections after centuries without a magical being walking its halls or its powerful headmaster to draw magic from.

Stepping off onto their floor Harry looked back to check the group were all with him before leading them down a short hall and to the solid oak doors of the library, a touch of magic swinging them open as he was about to walk into them. The open doors exposed a huge vaulted room, rank after rank of intricately carved wooden shelves stretched two or three stories above them with walkways, ladders and platforms forming catwalks high above, to reach the precious tomes of knowledge contained within the room's walls.

Ahead of them was the slightly dusty librarian's desk, lit by a magically powered reading lamp, an open book showing the last few people to borrow from the vast repository of magical knowledge. The last handwritten names there brought back bittersweet memories of happier times, a time when he wasn't alone.

Stretching out from the entrance a deep purple carpet branched off in one unbroken piece between the stacks, signs overhead telling you where each route lead, be it to fiction, human magics, social sciences or a host of other topics each further breaking down into their relevant fields.

But the library was not all shelf after shelf of knowledge as small island tables and reading chairs were nestled away among the silent halls, allowing those students who wished to work in a more peaceful environment than their common rooms the opportunity to do so.

Waving the group over to him, Harry began to quietly guide them through the towering shelves, and passed the heavy leather bound tomes (that would make many a bibliophile's nose bleed). The group talking in no more than hushed whispers despite the fact that no librarian had been there for many a year to hush any who chose to speak too loud.

Branching off from the historic walkway into the playwrights' section many in the group were curious as to what he planned to show them, while others did their best to read or record the names of the books they passed. Those at the front of the group could hear the barely muttered whisperings of the last living wizard.

"W W W… J... K... c'mon… Plato… W W W, R… U... where is it… W!"

Entering another set of stacks, Harry eventually lead them to a small clearing amongst the shelves, an empty portrait frame sitting in a carved out display amongst the shelves failing to excite the group, till one of them spotted the identifying plaque beneath it, and looked at the leather bound tomes and glass display cases near the frame.

"Shakespeare..." Elise whispered, a finger tentatively stroking one of the well worn books.

"His complete works, both magical and non-magical," Harry replied. "48 individual plays, 231 sonnets, five narrative poems and sixteen other verses. And a less than _currently _impressive portrait. Many of these works are signed and have the original handwritten notations."

"He was a wizard?!"

"Yes and no, now and again we get… for lack of a better term, evolutionary throwbacks, those born into a magical family who can't perform magic. Most pick either the magical or non-magical world to live in, but some straddle the border and are quite successful at it."

"Shakespeare being one of them?"

"Oh yes, but you would be surprised how often the 'Statute of Secrecy' that split our world was… _bent_,on occasion? Many witches and wizards interacted with you for hundreds of years and just kept it quiet.

Unfortunately, the practice fell out of favour when one muggleborn went… well, many considered it too far, but in the end we got the 'Lion King' so… checks and balances."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to let us take a copy of one of these?"

Looking thoughtful for a moment, Harry was torn between releasing them by himself in the future or earning some goodwill immediately… but then again, there was still no way to be sure the Federation would be his ally long-term, even if he was mostly sure a good deal of Starfleet would support him given his recent successes in battle against the Klingons and the Borg and further saving millions of Federation colonists on Vega. These were unpredictable times though and the Federation was in a period of extreme chaos with their leaders making decisions and policies that even the admiralty just didn't understand or support. Unfortunately, _anything _was possible.

Walking over to one of the display cases he called forth the Elder Wand creating an identical copy of the manuscript for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and summoning a book containing ten of the Bard's 'magical' sonnets off the shelf (the book being an academic breakdown of the sonnets and the derived messages and meanings of each) and copying it as well.

"I would be very foolish to cast away near a thousand years of hiding and allow you free reign over these halls, but... till our friendship is more strongly secured and trust is earned on both sides, please take these as a gift. You may copy and distribute them for free as you wish, but I would be very disappointed if I found people having to buy them." Harry said seriously, handing the items over.

"An understandable decision," replied Admiral Quinn. "Many of Earth's classical texts are made freely available in our public databases, even to alien cultures. As a long-time reader of Shakespeare, I know I personally am very much looking forward to reading these."

"I must say, I am impressed with the amount of material you managed to save during that chaotic and dangerous time; it is a shame that you could not get everything though."

"What do you mean?"

"There have been several cases of World War III era artifacts being sold or stolen; just last year we came across the Statue of Liberty's head being smuggled off mars."

"Realy? I'm glad I grabbed as much as I did back then. Still, is it that much of a problem even so long after the war?"

"Oh yes, we've been picking up all manner of art and artifacts for years, many even recently. We only got back the Mona Lisa in 2366."

"WHAT?!" Harry yelled, a hint of fear slipping through his facade. "Who had it?!"

"A man named Kivas Fajo, is something wrong?"

"Yes, something is very, very wrong." Harry answered, walking off into the stacks quickly, the group barely keeping up with his fast pace.

In the end they were forced to pull out their tricorders to track him, his trail leading out of the library and down one of the less elaborate staircases, before ending up (according to the museum style signpost) in the Renaissance section of the Masters' Wing.

Entering what had probably once been a very large classroom capable of holding a hundred or so students, they glanced over its walls now covered in shelves and display cases, a collection of familiar looking models hanging from the ceiling. Some looking in confusion at the misspelt name labels throughout the room.

Finally catching up with Harry, they found him, with wand raised. The wooden tool was clutched firmly in his hand as he deftly traced elaborate patterns in the air before pointing forward at a familiar painting.

The painting only brought up more questions and confusion as the figure within would normally be seen to have a secretive smile on her face. But this Mona Lisa was looking decidedly miffed at the man before her, her hands on her hips, glaring intently as he continued to wave his wand about.

Eventually the silence was broken as Harry let out a sigh of relief, "Thank Merlin, I was really worried someone had managed to break in for a minute."

"Harry?"

"Hm, yes?"

"What's going on?"

"Sorry, when you mentioned the Mona Lisa had been recovered, I was worried someone had managed to break into the castle despite all its defences, but here she is, safe and sound, so I'm guessing it was just a good fake."

"_La puttana!_ Always with pretending to be me," came a voice from the canvas that made them all jump. "I remember a time when hundreds came to look upon my beauty, and now you're saying some fake sits in my place of honor?! It's as bad as when Peruggia stole me!"

"She… She's talking?"

"Of course I am, idiota!"

"We developed a technique many centuries ago to imprint paintings with physic echoes of the people portrayed in them. Lisa is one of Leonarda's greatest works."

"It's pronounced Leonardo."

"Only to the non-magicals who didn't know any better; the church at the time wouldn't have stood for Leonarda living the life she did and so 'Leonardo' was born."

"Wait, you're saying one of the greatest engineers and artists of Earth's renaissance period was a witch?!"

"One of the finest muggleborn graduates of Italy's Collegio di Magia on record; pity the church found out about it a few years later, but… what can one do?"

"Leonarda was a such a dear, why I remember when I found out the truth about her little secret-"

The group clustered around the portrait asking questions to the woman, while trying to absorb what they had been told, a few marveling at the various displays of journals, models and pictures that Leonarda had made and that Harry had collected from the ruins of Italy's magical museums.

Knowing their attention was firmly elsewhere and the group would be thoroughly distracted with the animatedly and happily talking Italian portrait, Harry pulled out the timeturner hung around his neck.

A few spins of the hourglass later, Harry was gone and a slightly older version of himself was just entering the room with no one the wiser. 'Slightly older' being a matter of some philosophical and metaphysical debate considering Harry was incapable of aging as an eight thousand plus year old immortal.

* * *

\- Hogwarts, 5 hours before landing party arrives -

Arriving in his past Harry exited the display room he'd set up so long ago.

The damage to Hogwarts' maze of stone halls was minimal, only a thin sprinkling of dust having built up, a testament to the house elves' skills and the elaborate stasis wards. The woodwork was in excellent shape as well, as was the mortar between the giant granite slabs that made up the school and were battered by the harsh Scottish winds each winter.

Pushing back the memories and nostalgia his return brought to the surface, he swiftly moved through Hogwarts' hallowed halls taking stairs three steps at a time before finally reaching the seventh floor corridor.

Despite the passive defences he had placed on this particular section of the school, he brutally ripped through the wards as if they were wet tissue paper, barely slowing in his pace as he did so before coming to a stop next to a well worn tapestry.

The Room of Requirement was an exceedingly strange and wonderful place, and the unmistakable proof that Hogwarts was truly alive, though if the room came first and then the spark, or the spark then the room, well no one knew. The room was a miraculous mix of each of the magical branches and a few that had only been theorized as possible, not even Harry with all his spare time over the many, _many _years had managed to find information on its origin, its creation or even its true limits.

"I need access to 'Harry's complex,' I need access to 'Harry's complex,' I need access to 'Harry's complex.'"

One of the few things he had successfully figured out over the years was how to access the room's entrance controls, and thus could now change some of the 'activation codes' so to speak. No longer did you need to pace back and forth (something that someone could easily do accidentally without even knowing of the room's existence) but you were now required to spin on the spot as you requested the room or be a house elf. This, of course, insured continued access for Hogwarts' long dead caretakers, while ensuring nobody else could accidently come across the room and use it for their own purposes.

Stepping through into a large garden/training room, Harry made his way across it to one of several doors leading off into other rooms, ripping down yet another layer of wards he'd long ago placed.

Unwilling to blindly hope that the Federation and the people of Earth would accept him or that old hatreds directed at his kind would not flare up even in the modern day, Harry had decided he would need to consolidate his power base, and re-secure his people's cultural heritage. When he had stepped through the veil his pockets were filled with hundreds of shrunken trunks, that now contained vast sums of material and monetary wealth, along with the most (and some of least) dangerous weapons of Earth's violent past, not to mention the copious amounts of salvaged (and looted) technology that he had managed to hoard away since arriving in this century, including many things the _New England's_ replicators had produced for him in quantity while he still had near unrestricted power onboard the Federation starship and the rights to delete the replication logs.

But there were vast amounts of stuff that Harry had not brought on his trip as he was supposed to die.

The Room of Requirement had been set up and warded to guide and test any future magicals who found the school if the castle's wards fell through a complex sequence of illusions and memory fragments powered by the Elder wand, guiding any neo-magicals to the vast number of spell books kept in the RoR.

However, with the possibility that the school could now become public knowledge on account of his return, Harry was minimising the chance that anyone could learn Earth's magic without his knowledge or approval. Hopefully this would ensure other magical groups, should there be any, would be forced to come directly to him.

Entering the library room of the complex he'd had the room make so many years ago, relatively speaking, he wordlessly ripped up several of the stone floor slabs with a wave of his hand, exposing a purposely placed chest. Its expanded interior was designed specifically to hold the thousands of magical spellbooks neatly stacked around him.

While the Hogwarts' main library was a fountain of knowledge, both magical and mundane, especially after Hermione had had decades to expand it and add anything he had recovered from around the world, anything relating to the use, teaching or theorising of magic was stored within the RoR, a calculated plan to ensure that if the castle was totally destroyed someday, the knowledge in the room would not be lost.

Pushing a recall rune on the box's lid, he watched it pop open a second later and books started to speedily fly off their shelves, before moving on to other rooms that needed clearing and storage, whether that was the backup portraits for the ones on display in the school or the huge number of salvaged and hand-me-down magical foci he had collected over the years. Many of these wands and other foci had been the vast unsold inventories left in wand stores like Britain's Ollivanders, worldwide, while many more had belonged to the wizards and witches in the graves outside. Harry's eyes involuntarily glanced over to the shelf were Ginny and Rose's wands had been placed after their deaths, the wands of most of his other lovers had been placed with their family's instead. He'd like to think that the wands' former partners would be pleased that perhaps someday their trusted tools would be in the hands of the next generation of magicals, that they could play a small part in the revival of their race.

Though he'd have his eyes on the person who claimed Draco's or Snape's old wand.

* * *

\- Third Floor, Hogwarts, D: 0 H: 00 M: 22 S: 34 MS: 538 till timeline re-synchronisation -

As he heard the sound of grinding stone behind him, Harry ran his hands over the various pockets and pouches he wore, mentally cataloging all the sealed and shrunken containers within each.

While the Room of Requirement had been set up as the training center for future magicals, Harry had repurposed the Chamber of Secrets into the castle's vault, it's precious stocks of rare materials, copies of knowledge and biological samples, now stored on Harry's person.

The empty shelves within Salazar's chamber were now filled with the many bio and viral weapons he had at one point planned to carry into the afterlife.

The vast arsenal he had accumulated over the years of his life featured many of the most elegant, destructive and deadly of humanity's additions to the timeless art of overkill and he had no wish to risk carrying such deadly and in many cases, immorally created, concoctions on him anymore.

Thus, such items were now stored deep within the deepest level of Hogwarts, accessible only to him, a change in passwords on the parseltongue doors ensuring it.

Stepping quickly through the winding corridors of Hogwarts, he suddenly felt half dressed, remembering too late that he had forgotten to wear the specially designed headset that allowed Morgana to talk and experience everything with him, sometimes in even more vivid detail than he could as she could often hook into a ship's host of advanced sensors. Knowing that he would be in for an earful anyway, he decided to get it over and done with quickly and slipped the metal strap into place on his head, doing his best to ignore the menacingly pulsing crystal attached to the side of the device.

' … '

Recognising that the ancient sorceress, yet young in some ways, had decided to go for the silent treatment for now, Harry mentally berated himself for forgetting about her. He knew that being forgotten about _again _was one of her greatest, if unspoken, fears. He would have to seriously make it up to her…

Continuing to ponder what he could get the trapped woman, who represented possibly the last and best hope of a revived magical people, he once again scoffed at the sheer audacity of Q's plan.

Q had not been the first to offer Harry a harem, as when he took up his various Lordships and titles it had been made clear to him that he could, in fact, claim any number of unmarried witches that he wanted. However, Ginny had been more than enough for him. Had she never died, it would have been foreseeable that unless Ginny had brought another girl to their bed, not something he'd put past the spirited redhead, she would have been Harry's second and _last _lover.

Reaching the right room, Harry glanced at the output of a quickly cast _tempus _charm, pushing down the ever so slightly guilty memories of Hermione and him and their long, _passionate _nights together on the horcrux hunt after Ron had abandoned them. How rumours had never sprung up about the two of them alone in that little tent for weeks on end, Harry would never know.

With the benefit of age, thousands of years of hindsight, and the experience of _many _life or death situations in wartime, he realized that Ron leaving them at that point should have been the last straw, in what was yet another in a long string of betrayals, one that neither Hermione or he should have let slide or forgave.

Hermione and his intimate time together in the tent was always something he looked back fondly upon, even with the slight guilt, as it had greatly strengthened their bond in the end. It was a bond that had lasted a lifetime, through the most horrific conditions, one that he had cherished and held sacred and he knew for certain that she had felt the same. Their forbidden intimacy rekindled years later into a blazing inferno when her own daughter, Rose, realized the magic sharing properties of sex with him, and gave the two best friends the needed excuse to begin again. It was never and could never truly be _just sex_ between Hermione and him.

Waiting another couple of seconds, he listened as the footsteps came closer, before stopping, then entered the room after he felt the faint, telltale breeze of displaced air and completed the synchronization of his personal timeline.

* * *

\- Great Hall, First City, Qo'noS - Heartland of the Klingon Empire -

As Chancellor J'mpok watched the last of the sycophants who surrounded him like flies on a Targ's backside, leave the room, he once again bemoaned his foolishness at taking the seat from Chancellor Martok.

True, Martok had been a fool not to see the threat the qa'meH quv represented, and J'mpok's own belief in the true Klingon lifestyle of constant battle and conquest, something which had regularly set the two at odds in the past, but Martok knew how to rule the Empire well and would never have made the stupid mistake of allowing the House of Duras back into the Empire after their many betrayals and lack of honor over many generations.

True, Ja'rod, Lursa's son, was seemingly honorable, but it had made J'mpok no friends amongst the other great houses, and had in fact completely alienated the Son of Mogh and the Great Houses of Martok and Grilka.

Not that the Lady Sirella would have made peace with him anytime soon, especially after he had killed her husband of so many years.

But eventually the Houses of Mogh and Martock would merge, though if it would go to Worf's son or grandson, only time would tell. House Grilka's heir would most likely take after her mother, becoming head of one of the few newly matriarchal Great Houses in the Empire, in fact Koren was already the First Officer aboard a Klingon warship.

Perhaps the young warrior would like a command of her own? If helping her in her career ensured she proved more amenable to friendship between their houses, then all the better, he could certainly use some more attractive company on the High Council in his old age.

Thinking of the young Klingon heiress reminded him of her Orion captain and the unusual message his forces had responded to, and more specifically, the Houses mentioned in that message.

Perhaps it was time that he spoke to the head of Klingon Intelligence, for as questionable as their honour was at times, they could certainly be trusted more than most he met these days.

* * *

\- Hogwarts Main Lawn - Hogs Valley - Old UK - Earth -

The main lawn outside the castle's front door was actually more of a large, mostly grass filled, walled garden, with smooth stone slabs along the edges and running through the middle to the space where the student carriages used to pull up.

Accessible from the outside by only the long stone bridge that crossed the carved out ravine, the main lawn was surprisingly large, with more than enough room for a couple of games of amateur football, although that reference was a little dated in the 25th century. Did they even play football anymore?

The covered walkways around the edge acted as both shelter for those wishing to sit outside, protected from the elements, as well as serving as ranged defensive positions in wartime. It provided a commanding view of the valley on three sides, while a small portcullis gatehouse further protected the castle from anyone trying to cross the stone bridge.

For those in the know, however, there was also a ward access stone here, like the ones out by the boundary line, and it was this stone that Harry was currently interacting with.

It took him only a moment to do so, but by dropping the portkey wards and setting the flight wards to one way, Harry ensured that he would be able to return to the castle whenever he wanted with little chance of detection. It would also save his currenty tired tour group the long walk back to the ward boundaries.

With a few seconds spell work, the slightly charred shuttlecraft they had come down on was quickly returned to its correct dimensions, and since Harry was the only one feeling wide awake (due to a quick self-targeted _Rennervate_ ), he was allowed to claim the pilot's seat for the trip back; this was in exchange for an apparently cold Anna getting to kip in the co-pilot's seat with his jacket pulled up round her ears.

As the rest of the tour group chatted gently amongst themselves in the back or stared intently at the sensor readings they had taken during this excursion, Harry flew the shuttlecraft gleefully higher and higher, oblivious to the deeply breathing young ensign sitting next to him, her nose pressed into his jacket and a blissful smile on her face.

* * *

\- Earth Spacedock (Designation: Starbase 1) - Orbiting Earth, Sol, Sector 001 -

Arriving back at the large mushroom-like orbital station had gone very smoothly, the dedicated orbital thrusters on the shuttle removing much of the complexity of orbital travel. After docking, the group split up, each heading their own way, with plans to meet again in the morning.

Harry was led back into the bowels of the station, before being dropped off at a fairly large, modern apartment, the far walls dominated by large windows looking out into the interior of the vast space station and the docked starships within.

Walking over to the replicator, Harry spent several minutes having the wall mounted apparatus create a multitude of small, but highly advanced parts, ones that would allow him to build a suitable apology gift for Morgana, who was _still _quite miffed at him and giving him the silent treatment. His extremely high level security clearance and access rights aboard Federation facilities came in handy once again.

With the advent of interplanetary flight, dreams of creating the world wide web again, but on a more massive scale, fell apart, as while laser-based communication satellites could be used to somewhat network planets together, time delays via that method meant that they were limited to being used to transfer large data packets, rendering casual and instantaneous web surfing impossible.*

Subspace too proved far from fast enough, so every planet had built its own intraweb, which would receive, when possible, copies of the other planets' intrawebs, something that had become more and more convenient with the repurposing of the MIDAS deep space communications array, the two-way hyperspace technology onboard allowing it to update planets more often with far greater ease, even across vast distances.

But all this did little good for starships outside of a friendly planet's orbit, thus Harry had not yet designed and built the needed wireless interfaces for Morgana to connect to such a planetary network. He had high hopes for it when completed, though, as her somewhat pseudo-AI existence would make the vast planetary networks of data a veritable playground for her to explore at her leisure.

The upgrade was not terribly complex, thankfully, so he was able to quickly put it together and install it, before placing the headset on a side table overlooking the room, allowing Morgana to explore Earth's intraweb at her pleasure.

But as Harry sat down to enjoy a purposely cold slab of lasagna he had replicated, he received a somewhat expected/unexpected guest.

"Sooo... Harry my boy, how are you liking things so far? Is the 'next great adventure' as interesting as you thought it'd be?"

"What do you want Q?" Harry asked, as he looked over at the Q before him, before quickly looking away. Known for always dressing to both impress and mock, Q was wearing a truly eye-watering set of traditional wizarding robes, one that would not have looked out of place on Dumbledore back in the day, who was known for his extremely colourful, if questionable, clothing ensembles.

"Want?! You wound me, good sir, I'm just ..._checking in_, if you will. Seeing if you have any questions."

"So a 'Q &amp; A' with Q?" Harry said, a small smile tugging at his lips.

Kicking his feet up onto the table from his seat, Q chuckled sarcastically from across the table, "Oh, good one. How droll. But in all seriousness, we need to be working together on this Harry. I can't be at your beck and call forever.

Look, I'll put it bluntly Harry, I know you've not jumped onto the harem bandwagon fully, and I get why, I really do, but these girls are much better off with you involved in their lives. I mean look at that lovely little helmswoman of yours for example, Anna; if you'd not been on the _New England_, she would have _never _been seen or heard from again. Your emerald skinned first officer? Would have died alone, nothing more than a disposable _plaything _to a cruel man, had I not intervened and set her on a path to you.

And don't think I've not noticed you flirting with 'Rell.' Your marauder side can't wait to watch her prim and proper Vulcan facade crumble into dust at the sheer ecstasy you could bring her. But I'll tell you, unless you take her into your heart and harem, she's destined to start experimenting with Trellium-K, after a careless comment made by one of the crew. She'll end up little more than-"

"**ENOUGH!"**

Harry's magically empowered voice actually moved Q back a little, the swirling energy in the room which had sent ripples through space-time itself, gradually calming, the Master of Death's anger palpable enough to actually worry Q, who canceled the station's now blaring alarms and rewrote the last few seconds of memories, both sentient and computer based, with a twitch of his fingers.

"You've made your point, Q," Harry whispered, unwilling to risk the lives and futures of his new found friends, no matter how recent, though hearing about what would have happened to these women had he not come into their lives was a wakeup call.

"Harry, I'm certainly not asking you to produce a kid in the next 9 months, or even take one of them to bed with you _tomorrow_. For now just let them into your life, see them as potential mates, not merely as children millenia younger than you. I've picked them out because they're the most compatible women for you in all the cosmos, based not only on what I know of yours and their past, present and future, but a number of factors so numerous and in-depth that it would boggle even your mind to realize. I assure you, I've done my homework; they could not find a better, more fulfilling, and _happier _life in this particular timeline and reality than the one by your side."

The room descended into a thoughtful and congenial silence as Harry took a small bite from his meal, weighing Q's words. Q further reclined in his seat to seemingly get more comfortable, then conjured and took a sip from a glass of an old nerve tonic recipe that would soon become all the rage in the quadrant, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Q," Harry spoke aloud, swallowing another bite. "If you're truly amenable to a 'Q &amp; A' like you said, there's something that has been bugging me. Why is nearly everyone humanoid? And why do 90% of the habitable worlds in the galaxy have a 0.5G to 4G environment, with an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere and carbon based life? The odds just don't stack up, _at all_."

"One of the first races… No, _the _first. The first race who achieved spaceflight did so incredibly early in the lifespan of this galaxy and the other local galaxies, and found themselves… completely alone. You're destined to find out more about it later on, but most species were… to an extent, seeded, purposefully, their homeworlds and those around them terraformed to the familiar standards of that First Race.

Of course, evolution played a huge part in all this, the seeding was never that complex, little more than an increased chance of creating humanoid, carbon-based life. That race just wanted to nudge things gently in the direction of life, rather than direct every step like the worst micro-managers trying to ensure a particular outcome."

"They still around?"

"Define 'around.' It's a case of both yes and no. But more importantly, these are spoilers..." Q said trailing off, unwilling to tamper _too much_ with events yet to come lest it all come unraveled and the future spiral off into chaos. "What do you think of the Federation so far?"

"_Flawed_. And far too caught up in the ideals, in the dream of it all, to acknowledge and deal with the harsh realities of their situation.

Don't get me wrong, what they've done is great, but it won't last, can't last. In a universe with just the Federation in it, they'd probably be fine, but that's just not the case. In fact, I suspect the only reason they've lasted this long is the unacknowledged men and women running around behind the scenes, with a roll of duct tape and a bloody dagger.

The way I see it, the Federation's greatest flaw is in its founding charters, both the Federation's itself and the one which created Starfleet. Starfleet was, in effect, given a directive to expand and explore at a quite frankly reckless pace, while the Federation's charter aspires to grant its members maximum personal and sovereign freedoms at home. However, that idea of freedom also has a dark side, one which results in infrastructure being woefully undeveloped on many worlds and governance being haphazard or outright harmful to their citizens. This laissez faire attitude leads to sometimes vast disparities in quality of life, overall wealth, and rule of law, even between fellow member planets within the Federation itself.

Worlds newly colonised by species whose homeworlds are already within the Federation aren't even forced to join the Federation or otherwise follow its laws, while the colony is often left with just the initial supplies their homeworld gave them, with only an overstretched and overworked Starfleet to turn to for aid should problems arise, and they often do, some colonies falling into lawlessness, anarchy, and despair.

Total freedom is a nice idea on paper, but just doesn't work. The need to explore without limits regularly increases the list of enemies the Federation has, while stretching supply lines and resources that are needed back home. Why not apply much of those resources to making every member world of the Federation a paradise, or increasing the Federation's baseline infrastructure and manufacturing output?

Freedom, self-determination, the rights of the individual/planet, these would likely be their answers, even as the citizens of those planets suffer. Their minimum interference policy towards even the less advanced _Federation member worlds _leaves vast wealth, resources and technology gaps that weaken the whole of the Federation and breeds resentment and, in time, maybe even rebellion.

Had the Federation spent more time and resources investing in aging colonies like Vega, they might have been able to beat back the Borg on their own, without the need for outside help and intervention."

Nodding at the idea, Q agreed, and took another sip of his drink. The relatively small Borg landing force that had attacked Vega would have been destroyed in orbit by vast networks of defense satellites, stations and ground-based cannons had it attacked one of the core Federation homeworlds, like Earth, Vulcan, or Andoria.

"Starfleet is the Federation's only true force for real change, evolution, and adaptation, but that group spends so much time exploring and scanning the next planet further out that all they're really gaining is a comparatively small amount of scientific data and even more enemies." Harry then picked up a data pad he'd compiled on the flight back to Earth.

"This is the state of the Federation in cold, hard numbers: 56 Fleets, 9,628 Federation Colonies, Starbases and Facilities, 239,573 combat ready ships, yet only 43,582 of that number are active ships with, at best, a skeleton crew, supplemented by extensive automation and holographic crew members.

20,268 active ships are on permanent defensive or offensive assignments, based out of 4,862 locations.

5,012 ships assigned to emergency response, 2,000 hospital and medical ships, 7,000 resupply and refueling ships, 382 ships testing new technologies, 8,285 detached to long-range, long-term exploratory missions.

The rest are split between maintenance, training, special assignments, or functions as the replacement pool to plug the losses that inevitably arise. These numbers, of course, don't include Temporal Investigations or Starfleet Intelligence assigned ships.

At first glance, at least on paper, it looks ...okay, I suppose, but only until you start looking at the ship classes.

Let's talk about those 2,000 hospital ships, for example. You would expect vast hospital ships with thousands of beds and tens of operating theatres.

In reality, you'd find that most of them are Oberth-class ships, a design that is well over one hundred years old at this point. The Oberths are not, like you'd think, purpose built hospital ships either. They're essentially 160 meter long modular scout vessels, the cargo bays and botanical gardens stripped out and repurposed into dormitory-style medbays.

The rest of that number is made up of Olympic, Hope, and Horizon-class ships, led by a core of eight Nebular-class ships. Only the Nebulars are worth anything in combat and even then, more geared towards a support role. Frankly, I wouldn't trust the Oberths not to spontaneously decompress if a Klingon looked at them the wrong way.

At the same time, there are over 300 Intrepid-class vessels and another 200 odd mix of the Cochran and Discovery variants sitting uncrewed at various fleet bases throughout the Federation.

Why, do you ask, does the Federation have so many moderately powerful, useful, and combat-capable vessels sitting empty when they're in the middle of a fucking war? When the Klingons are at the gates and killing or enslaving Federation citizens? Federation Order 28i-503.

Written eight years ago, the order breaks down to three key parts. First, all new Federation Captains will be required to have, before being assigned a ship of their or their fleet commander's choice, a sufficient amount of time in command of a lower-tier vessel. The vessel-class rankings are even attached to the order. (**AN**: see Star trek Online Ship tiers) Second, 'promotion' to the next tier of ship will take place after a fixed number of military engagements (that scale and number depending on the captain's current tier) or alternately by the decision of a Federation assigned civilian oversight committee.

Sounds relatively harmless and reasonable on its face; put them in a family car for a while before you give them a weaponized racecar. However, before we can put you in a car, so you can eventually try this racecar down the line, you've got to get on this bicycle for a while, but before we can let you on that bicycle… and so on and so on.

Finally, on top of all those hoops to jump through, a Captain who wishes to command a ship in the next tier, must either attack a couple of dozen fully-armed men with a spork, or wait for their name to be called so that they can then be judged by a panel of civilians who have about a one in sixteen approval rate.

In short, with one seemingly reasonable order, the Federation voted in requirements that crippled Starfleet's effectiveness and their ability to crew their most powerful vessels.

It gets worse when you realize that over half of all active Starfleet captains are still only allowed to command the lowest ranked vessels available, meaning the fleets' foundations are built on five ship hulls; the admittedly well-rounded Miranda-class starships and its variants, the old Constitution-class ships with refits, the initially phased out blockade running Steamrunner-class vessels, some Andorian Kumari-class escorts that were donated a few months ago and the backlog of Oberth-class light science vessels.

And all of this during a time of war!"

Q, having patiently sat through Harry's semi-rant/monologue, could only smile at the younger immortal's exasperation. While he'd already known about everything Harry had said, or would have known if he'd bothered to think about such small matters, his current role as a sounding board for Harry was an important one, as Harry had yet to build a receptive support network he could share his thoughts with. While the young women that Harry would inevitably breed with were the ones Harry should and would be turning to, in time, they weren't quite ready to see the serious flaws in their 'perfect little paradise' called the Federation.

Getting up, Q smoothed out the wrinkles in the colourful robes he was wearing, a habit he'd picked up from his time around his favorite Frenchman, watching out of the corner of his eye as Harry continued his fuming.

The Master of Death was just beginning to unravel the tangle of lies that the Federation had been ensnared in, and while neither of them would have to actually pick up the pieces, it was important that Harry chipped away at the right parts of the Federation's oh so perfect facade and exposed it for what it was.

"Which reminds me of another point, Starfleet and the Federation are so in love with the unattainable dream of total, unending peace, that they _can't_ seem to fight a war with the will and desire to actually win in the meantime!

The only reason the Federation still exists as they are is because it's been able to outlast everyone its gone up against! The Klingons, for all their might, don't have enough experienced leaders to win a quick enough victory before the chancellorship inevitably changes on them for whatever reason (most regularly political assassination), the Romulans' imperialistic greed always led to them biting off more than they could safely chew and are now splintered as a people, the Cardassians can't trust each other long enough to work together to get anything large-scale done, the Borg's powerbase and stronghold is half the galaxy away, and the Dominion is at the mercy of the wormhole and the powerful aliens who control it and who have already proven they'll do whatever the hell they want.

The Federation has more than enough manpower and resources to easily conquer and control the entirety of the Alpha Quadrant, but its meaningless when _everyone _knows that they lack the will, the drive, and the organisation to do so, much less the sheer ruthlessness and pragmatism necessary to keep it all together for very long."

"That, Harry, is one of the main reasons we asked for your help." Q said, having moved to look out the window while Harry had ranted at the sorry state of the Federation.

"What?"

"I won't lie to you, we do need a new race of magicals, preferably strong and able to fight alongside us against some very powerful beings; a skilled and powerful army to support us in battle.

But the Continuum civil war showed us that...given the right tools, even the simplest group of ridiculously weak mortals can become a powerful force of irregulars and frankly a militarised Starfleet is less likely to turn the weapons we might give them onto us in the end, than say, the Klingons or the Dominion.

The politics, the counterproductive and ridiculous Federation Orders that do more harm than good, those will all sort themselves out soon enough; you don't have to worry about that. But I do need you to guide a thoughtful and pragmatic reorganisation of Starfleet in the days ahead, to be its poster boy and eventually breed the magical officers who will lead Starfleet into ultimately joining a battle that not even the Continuum is guaranteed to survive, should we lose.

But, my dear boy… I'm not totally heartless. I'll give you a hint and a free one at that. Starfleet's Charter allows for them to undertake mass training exercises at their own discretion, in order to look at new possible tactics and doctrines. Most important to note is that the exercises can be of unspecified length and scope." Q finished, watching as Harry's mind went into overdrive.

"Anyway… I'll leave you to your meal," Q said, motioning at Harry's half eaten dinner. "But do try to seriously think about what I've said, especially in regards to the girls."

And with that, Q flashed away, leaving Harry to his thoughts as he chewed his food slowly.

* * *

\- 51.5072°N, 0.1275°W site of Old London, Island of Great Britain, European continent -

\- Earth, Sol, Sector 001 -

As the first signs of dawn crested the horizon, highlighting the huge skyscraper towers of the new, relocated London, the replica bells of the rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral rang out their familiar tune. A lone, hooded figure, stood out amongst the rubble and clutter that used to make up the capital of the island once called Albion by the ancient greeks.

Picking its way through the rubble, the hooded figure continued to quietly meander through the abandoned graveyard of the Old City, the once sprawling metropolis destroyed by the atomic fires and violence of the third world war, stopping every now and again by a half destroyed road sign to reorient themselves by a crumbling landmark that had lost its meaning to everyone else.

After several minutes, the figure stopped, before raising its right arm and closing a metal wrapped fist, before ripping it down like one would a curtain.

As the first rays of the sun shone on Harry's hooded face, the wards temporarily fell, exposing the rotted ground floor of what was once a pub and the hidden entrance to a winding magical alley beyond, filled with wonder.

But where once stood the magnificent and imposing white marble building he had been looking for, was _nothing…_

Just a three mile deep empty hole in the ground.

"Well..._fuck_."

* * *

**AN:** Twenty thousand words, aren't we a lucky audience? But in all seriousness, I would like to apologize to all of you. This chapter has taken nearly 6 months, and while I was unavoidably unable to work on it for a large chunk of that time, that's far longer than it should have ever taken.

Unfortunately, this chapter was always going to be a long one, as I tried to balance seemingly endless amounts of text explaining complex ideas on how magic was going to be working, with something that was actually readable and accessible to anyone besides both hardcore HP and ST fans. This was only further complicated by me getting a job, then ending up in the hospital without PC access, then finding a new place to live, followed by getting a much easier job. Thankfully, my beta and collaborator, Joe Lawyer, was willing to come back onboard and will continue to add his valuable insight (even if I hate [but appreciate] his habit of often asking the awkward questions, aka 'why didn't they?' or 'did they try?')

Now a ***NEW* POLL**. Polls won't play as much of a role in this story as I have used them in others, but I recently found myself writing Elsa rather than Elisa, and as we have an Anna on crew, should I go back and change an admittedly canon character's name, so as to be able to throw in the odd Frozen joke? A poll will go up.

As always, reviews are greatly enjoyed, welcomed, and encouraged, so please take just a few seconds and review, Feel free to ask questions or give your thoughts on how the chapter went and the story's developments. And to conclude, my sincere thanks to you for continuing to read this despite the long, long delay, expect the next chapter within a month.

**[Alert end of chapter shameless plugging]** Some of you have mentioned how you've started or restarted playing Star Trek Online after reading this, and as casual gamers might be looking for a low maintenance fleet to join or shove an alternate character into, and unless I log on in a bit and find someone nicked the name, I'll be renaming my fleet to Harry's Future Fleet, I might even make a Harry alt who'll do missions at the same rate as the one in this story… Either way, contact me via or Thrans Thrans on STO if you're interested.


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