One in a Nation

“…It’s at 33 miles and closing…”

“…Lord Harrison James Potter, it is grave tidings that have brought you here today before the Wizgengamot…”

“…We have visual now…”

“…after much deliberation, we can’t overlook the very real threat you pose…”

“…We have exact coordinates…”

“…No one wizard should stand separate from his fellows…”

“…It looks to me...3 miles wide…”

“…you are too dangerous to remain unchecked…”

“…it’s huge!...”

“…it is thus with a heavy heart that we find you guilty…”

“…requesting immediate identification…”

“…and the sentence is…”

“…this s not a hoax!”

“…death!”

Harry James Potter opened his eyes to blinding bright sunlight, the beginnings of what he was sure to be impressive sunburn, and sand in places sand should never be.

He sat up, wincing as muscles ached and dried out skin cracked. He had no idea how long he had laid there, but it must have been awhile, judging by the fact that he’d had to knock off a few critters and crawlers from his person. He shivered in disgust.

Of course it wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t bloody starkers!

 Likely blinding some poor passing lizard with his lily white full moon rising over the desert dunes, and yes indeed there were dunes, he looked around himself to find a rock strewn desert as far as the eye could see.

So…definitely not the train station limbo from his previous visit then.

Harry frowned around himself, scratching a bug bite on his hip as he came to the quick conclusion that wherever he was, he was reasonably certain it wasn’t the afterlife…at least he didn’t think so. After all, he had been dead before, he knew what it felt like to be a disembodied soul, and it certainly didn’t feel itchy and hot.

Harry wiped the sweat from his eyes as he tried to recall the last thing he saw before ending up in this predicament.

Let’s see…he had finally been caught by The Ministry of Magic after 50 long years of them hot on his ever young tail, then he had been barely given a farce of a trial, purely for the sake of formality, before being found guilty of course.

Harry’s face twisted bitterly.

Then he had been dragged in his prison rags down into the depths of the Ministry and taken into the Department of Mysteries, through the spinning doors, and into the room where he had lost the last of his family so long ago, and then finally, though 72 years late, he had followed his Godfather into the silky cold embrace of the Arch, and then… and then…

He woke up in this Merlin forsaken desert!

Harry sighed, rubbing his temples as he looked around vainly for something to cover him up, only spying the occasional cactus, which understandably he was not too keen on in the loin cloth department.

He was eyeing a rather nervous looking lizard nearby when company arrived, sufficiently distracting him from his immodesty and gloom.

Harry starred, mouth open as the giant floating behemoth that could only be described as saucer-like in shape, but so mammoth in size several hundred Hogwarts castles and grounds combined could fit comfortably inside.

The sky was red with the heat of the incoming arrival, metal was flying, and the whole world seemed to roar at him.

Harry’s potential breakfast/bits cover had long skedaddled along with every other living thing in the area, including Harry, as it headed right for him.

“Why are big dangerous things always out to kill me?!” Harry yelled.

Then the thing crashed, and the ground beneath him bucked upwards, sending him and much of the landscape into the air as well as causing a mini-sandstorm to round out his experience.

When the dust had settled, Harry clawed his way back to the surface from under a pile of sand, rocks, dead scorpions, and cacti.

Harry staggered to his feet, limping and bleeding heavily as he held his side, rather sure that he had busted a rib or two as he stared upwards at the giant- he couldn’t believe he was thinking this, though he had seen enough science-fiction to take a strong guess- spaceship, which sat 50 feet in front of him.

Then out of the steam, fire and dust, came a man.

Only he wasn’t like any sort of man he had seen before. Broad shouldered, sturdy, wearing grungy tan body suit, but his head was hairless and spotted, and had a lack of external ears in the same manner that old Voldie had lacked a nose.

The man looked confused and traumatized, much as Harry did.

Then the mam (alien?) spotted him and lunged at him.

Only Harry’s injured body kept him from dodging out of the way in time, and thus he bore the brunt of the man’s frantic grip and odd lyrical-click mumbo jumbo.

By this point Harry was vastly aggravated and not in the best mental place to be accosted by an alien, and the manhandler was bigger than him and very much threatening, his magic finally made an appearance.

The force surprised even him, sending the alien flying through the air for some distance away, and crashing back through the deep fissure that had ruptured the ship upon crashing.

He wasn’t the last though, more and more confused and frightened people began pouring through the opening, some of them alert, some of them carrying children, some of them pregnant, and some of them looking stoned out of their gills. All this stumbling and shuffling right towards him.

Then another gatecrasher in the way of helicopters and the rising cloud of what Harry heavily suspected was the arriving cavalry of wherever he was, approached from the sky and the horizon.

That spelled more problems than the aliens, in Harry’s opinion. He knew from a life time of painful firsthand experience that the humans would be the ones to worry about more, especially the military/government agent variety in this instance, and muggle ones as well.

Ignoring what he presumed were yelled demands and grasping alien hands, Harry used his flagging magic to coat himself in a small bubble of energy that had him sliding like an eel through the steadily increasing crush of the crowd.

With only two venues open to him: the investigating muggles or the unknown chasm of an alien ship, Harry chose the ship.

Harry slink-limped from shadow to shadow, only the trail of blood from his numerous injuries and gashes and his torn up feet, though with the low lights and aliens eager to escape the ship (which smelled an awful lot like a combination between hot metal and Vaseline), no one looked for his trail.

The deeper he went inside, the quieter it got.

It was oddly eerie, and there were bodies strewn all over the place, some injured and moaning, some dead, and some in an odd daze.

Harry bit his lip when he eyed an alien that looked close to him in size, his skull caved in by a fallen pipe of metal in one small bare room and Harry knew this was an opportunity to at least solve one of his pressing needs.

There might have been a time in which Harry would have hesitated, even outright refused what he was about to do, but his decades on the run had eliminated any sense of moral outrage or squeamishness, so silently, he divested the poor sod of his clothing, and put them on.

He felt much better now that he was clothed, even if it did smell a bit and was a little bloody along the collar.

Harry staggered further inward, looking for a place to hole up and wait out the feds, when he heard it.

A woman was crying out from behind a blocked door, smoke pouring through the gaps in the debris.

Harry’s eyes meant golden brown through the cracks, and the women called out to him, gesturing and pleading.

Harry bit his lip, he didn’t have long until the entire place was swarming with muggles, if he stayed to help, he risked being caught.

Harry tried using his magic on the door, but it had long retreated to deal with his injuries.

Super. Harry sighed and after meeting the pleading gaze one more time, swore heavily as he began to push and pull the debris out of the way.

He had managed to create a sizable hole, and the woman scrambled out through it, trailed by a group of crying coughing men, many of which looked rather overweight, some of them carrying tiny bundles protectively to their chests.

Harry sighed as he stumbled off while they were occupied in saving themselves.

A moan caught Harry’s flagging consciousness, and he turned his head groggily, spotting a slight form pinned underneath a heavy beam.

Harry slid down the wall, landing beside him, unable to keep himself upright any longer.

He somehow ended up suddenly lying down, and the eyes he met were a soft mix of amber and blue, staring into his own in terror and pain.

Harry let out a pained breath when he saw the blood, knowing that the poor sod didn’t have long for the world.

He felt a flare of pity and compassion, likely induced by his own pain and injuries and massive exhaustion, and it was perhaps what he would blame it on if he was in the proper frame of mind for it.

He rolled himself as close as he could until he was practically nose to nose with the alien and smiled, though whether this translated into something reassuring or not, he could not tell, and reached out a hand, mildly surprised when the other mirrored his movements, and the two cupped each other’s face.

Harry then did something very, very stupid.

He reached down that well that was his magic, and ripped it away forcefully from healing him and turned the protesting, writhing power towards healing something else.

The metal beam exploded in a flash of bubbles, the blood stopped flowing and receded back into the source, damaged organs, crushed bones, gashes, everything receded until there was nothing but scars and bruises.

Harry’s breathe gargled and he thought to himself, before the darkness took him ‘finally! I better properly die this time!’