Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the authors. The authors are in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Disclaimer 2: This story is a direct response to the "Ride the Lightning" Challenge by Jonn Wolfe. The challenge was very sparse on requirements, and hefty on suggestions, not all of those suggestions will be making it into this challenge response. For example, this story will not be using the Golden Age heroes, as the Golden Age of the DC Universe was set during World War II, and is not conducive to the life and times of Harry James Potter. For those who want the rules of the challenge, I will post it on my blog, which can be found at the following address:

Cledwins-aerie (d_o_t) blogspot (d_o_t) com

Just remove the spaces and replace the (d_o_t)'s with periods.

Author's Note: I have messed with the Potterverse timeline to make it consistent with the other two universes that I am basing this story on. It should be noted that I finished the first year before even thinking of posting the first chapter of this story… so you at least have that far ahead to look forward to. That said, now that I have the first year finished, I am going to work on my other story that I am working on as a challenge response to someone else up to the end of that stories first year and then I will switch back to this one. I will be switching off between the two stories like that I think.

xXx Harry Potter and the Power of SHAZAM! xXx
xXx Arc 00: Prologue / Ch. 01: Shazam of Canaan xXx

xXx The Rock of Eternity xXx
xXx Indeterminable Time xXx

An exceedingly ancient wizard, though perhaps not the oldest, sat upon his throne inside of the Rock of Eternity gazing at the images displayed before him by the power of a magical artifact known as the Historama. This was the wizard known today as Shazam, a man who was born to the name of Jebediah around 9,000 years ago in the land that would one day come to be called Canaan, and would even later become the lands of Israel and Palestine.

The images that had caught the attention of the ancient wizard on this day, were those of a young family whose home was being besieged by a corrupt and evil wand wizard. Yes, Shazam could now see clearly that the family were also composed of a wand witch and wizard as well as their young children.

The ancient wizard watched as the corrupt wizard spent a full ten minutes using a curse that inflicted intense sanity breaking pain upon the victim against the young man that had stood against him in order to protect his family. The corrupt one did not kill the man however, he merely tossed him aside like a sack of rotten potatoes when he was through playing with the man.

Old Shazam then watched as the corrupt wizard climbed the stairs and blasted the door to the nursery off of its hinges. Much to the confusion of the ancient wizard this corrupt wizard actually spent a good three minutes trying to offer the young red haired woman an easy way to get out of this disaster without any harm befalling her on this evening, if only she would stand aside and let him have his way with her children. No mother that truly understood the feeling of love would ever agree to that.

When the corrupt wizard realized that she would never agree, he simply hit her with the same torture curse that he had hit her husband with, only in her case he only held her under it for five minutes rather than ten. Shazam realized that it would be sufficient to render her comatose for several years, but she would make a recovery, eventually, unlike her husband.

Shazam's eyes narrowed as the corrupt wizard directed his yew wood wand at one of the two children in the toddler crib, and it was pretty clear he had sighted on the young boy. Shazam watched as the corrupt wizard cast that blasted green curse that Teth-Adam had created three millennium ago, much to Shazam's ire.

Then, much to the old wizard's surprise, the killing curse rebounded back towards the corrupt wizard, shattering his body and blasting an extremely large hole into the roof of the building. Shazam instantly knew what had just happened, "The mother somehow invoked a portion of the Deep Magic that was used to create this world. That is remarkable."

Just then the Historama, which was currently focused on the Nursery, detected an entity of some sort that existed on the Astral Plane enter the nursery and latch itself to the boy by gouging a jagged gash into the child's forehead. Shazam frowned upon noticing that the gash vaguely resembled his own symbol, a lightning bolt.

A few short moments later and a sallow skinned man entered the nursery, took a quick glance at the crib, before kneeling to check on the mother. Upon finding her alive, he picked her up into a bridal carry and disapparated with a resounding crack.

Muttering to himself about that not being a good thing, Shazam watched as a few minutes later another young man, this one in much better looking health entered the nursery. He took a look around, frowned, stepped back out into the hall and disappeared for several minutes, only to return a moment later with a significant frown marring his face, "Where the devil is Lily?"

A moment later a large hand landed on the young man's shoulder as a deep voice said, "Hullo, Sirius."

"Holy hell, Hagrid, what are you doing here?" the young man that was now identified as Sirius complained as he grabbed his chest in fright.

"Professor Dumbledore, he be wantin' ter see the little uns," the one called Hagrid stated.

"Now look here Hagrid! I am their Godfather, it is my duty to look after them if their parents are unable to. What is more, James is still alive, even if he is catatonic… and I can't find Lily!" Sirius yelled out as he placed himself between the half-giant and the children.

"But Professor Dumbledore, he said… he said…" Hagrid tried to respond.

"I can bloody well imagine what it was that he said, however that is clearly not what happened. Either way, I've got to find Lily, so for the moment I am forced to allow you to take the children into your care," with that Sirius exited the room but turned to give a parting shot, "I'll let you use my motorbike to transport them. There is a shrunken sidecar that should fit the both of them inside of the luggage compartment."

"Thank ye, Sirius," Hagrid stated as he nodded his head to the much younger man.

Shazam then set the Historama to follow the progress of both the children and Sirius through the course of the day. Both Sirius and Shazam were relieved to discover that Lily had been checked into a private room within Saint Mungo's, though the identity of the one who had checked her in was apparently anonymous for some reason, as was the identity of whoever was paying her medical bills. Sirius had also brought James along, and the man was checked into the Janus Thickey Ward for long term cases, by virtue of the fact that Sirius simply didn't have the finances at the moment to justify getting his friend the better treatment that Lily was apparently going to be receiving.

Meanwhile with the kids, when they arrived at the Wizarding School, the first thing the Headmaster instructed Hagrid to do, was to take them to be checked out by Madam Pomfrey. What the woman discovered was quite vexing to the ancient wizard. Apparently there was the shard of soul leeching itself on the young boy. However before the woman could do much of anything about the leech, the old, but still young compared to Shazam, wizard hit the woman with a Memory Charm wiping the knowledge of the leech from her mind.

"Now that is interesting," Shazam stated in mild surprise. Shazam was sufficiently ancient that he had been alive when the Horcrux Ritual had first been created, thus he recognized the description of what a Horcrux was. However this was the first time that he had heard of such a horror being placed inside of a living host. What is more, that shard was created without the use of the ritual, which means that the corrupt wizard must have fractured his soul enough times using that ritual that it would fracture with extreme ease should he be rendered bodiless. That indicates that this individual possessed at least three, probably more, Horcruxes aside from young Harry.

It wasn't very long before the old man took the young girl away from her twin brother and departed from the school. Sighing to himself, Shazam created yet another tracer with the Historama, allowing him to continue observing all three of his targets. Due to the young age of the children, the old man was forced to use a broom to transport her, rather than taking the Floo, Apparition or a Portkey.

He did eventually arrive at a quaint little manor house in an out of the way village in London. Unless Shazam missed his mark, then he was looking at the hamlet of Ottery St. Catchpole. The man dismounted his broom, ever so careful of his precious cargo, and walked up to the door of the house, and rapped on it in a pattern that resembled the carol, Jingle Bells.

A few short minutes later a slightly portly gentleman opened the door and said, "Oh Hello, Headmaster, what have you there?"

"Ah, a good evening to you as well Amos. I was wondering if I could ask you to look after young Rose until such time as her mother and father are recovered. Her godfather, Sirius Black, has declined to take up the responsibility I am afraid…" the older gentleman stated as he lifted the young girl up for the man to see.

"Oh… oh yes of course we will take her in. What happened to her folks, if you don't mind my asking?" Amos questioned.

"They had a rather unfortunate run in with Voldemort. Fortunately I believe we won't need to be fearful of him any longer, as it would seem his power has at long last been broken," the Headmaster of the School stated in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Oh ho! You don't say? This is wonderful news!" Amos stated in jubilation as he took the young girl and returned inside the house.

If he hadn't have been watching, Shazam wouldn't have believed it. That cagey old bastard had just manipulated Mister Amos into spreading the news that the corrupt wizard allegedly met his demise. What is more, he did it in such a manner that people are automatically going to assume that the Potter's children were the direct cause of what happened to the corrupt wizard, when absolutely nothing else could be further from the truth.

Either way, now that the daughter had been accepted by a family, Shazam could no longer directly intervene in her situation, so he ceased watching her for the time being and turned his attention to his other two subjects.

What he found startled him. The young brown haired man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, Sirius Black, had at some point cornered the person who had betrayed the secret of the Potter family's location to the corrupt one. This however was the wrong thing to do, as it resulted in him being arrested for killing twelve mundane folks, and the secret keeper as well… crimes which he did not commit, judging by the animagus rat that was scurrying away from the crime scene as swiftly as was possible for such a small critter.

Sighing to himself, Shazam realized that there was no longer any real point in watching Sirius Black, as he would be consigned to Azkaban Prison by that kangaroo court that made up the wand wavers jurisprudence system these days.

It wasn't until close to midnight in the mortal world that something of interest happened, at least from Shazam's perspective. The Half-Giant, Hagrid, had been tasked by the elderly mortal with transporting young Harry across the entire country… by means of a flying motorcycle, how quaint. The journey took the Half-Giant several hours to complete, and when he arrived at the location that the elderly mortal had specified, it turned out that the man himself had already arrived, along with a rather stiff looking middle aged witch, who from the looks of things had been sitting on a brick wall in her animagus form all day if the way she was limping was any indication.

Shazam watched with patient eyes as the old man bound the activation of a particular set of wards he had pre-prepared to the envelop that he placed in the blanket that Harry was wrapped in. He then ushered Hagrid and the cat animagus off the front stoop, and had them leave in advance of him. Once they were gone, he returned light to the street, and disapparated without making a sound.

Shazam stood up with fury etched upon his face, "Those unmitigated idiots! Not one of them bothered to cast a warming charm on the lad! Even with the blankets, he won't last the night on his own!"

With a bright flash of light and the resounding crakoom of thunder, Shazam vanished from inside of the Rock of Eternity.

xXx Privet Drive, Little Whinging xXx
xXx Saturday, November 2nd, 1991 xXx
xXx Just After Midnight xXx

There was a blinding flash of light and the deafening crakoom that thunder makes when lightning had struck the ground just outside your home. These were the sights and sounds that startled Petunia and Vernon Dursley into wakefulness in the ruddy middle of the night.

Grumbling to himself, Vernon got up and walked down the hall to the stairs. He then proceeded to open the front door of his home to check the damage, only to come face to face with the most freakish thing he had ever seen in his life!

There was an exceedingly old man, and Vernon was being very generous by calling him that, standing on his front stoop with what looked to be the Potter's whelp floating around the man's head as if the whelp were an electron and the old man's head was the neutron/proton cluster. What made it even worse, was that the old man was wearing a pure white ankle length robe that had what appeared to be an overly large lightning bolt emblazoned upon the front of it, though it was hard to tell as their was a waist length beard preventing Vernon from getting a good and proper look at it.

"What do you want, you freak?" Vernon growled out.

Shazam smiled pleasantly and said, "I merely wanted to confirm, you and your wife would be most disagreeable to taking care of your nephew, I assume?"

From behind Vernon, Petunia's shrill voice called out, "Of course we would. We want nothing to do with any of you no good filthy freaks!"

"Ah, I see," Shazam stated with a thoughtful nod of his head, "In that case, would you mind if I took him and raised him as my grandson? It would appear that the Headmaster of your sister's former school did not even bother to leave your nephew with a spell to keep him from freezing to death until you noticed him in the morning. I can certainly do better than that in raising a child."

Petunia and Vernon both blinked. Petunia eventually sighed saying, "Most of my problem with that lot is that they took my sister away from me, and I will be damned if they take any more of my family away from me. I don't even really want to contemplate attempting to form an emotional attachment to this child, only to learn that he will be dragged into that world too. So yes, you may take him. I do have to hope that the curse of that world does not befall my own son though."

Shazam nodded his head sagely, "I do not believe you need to worry, madam. It seems as though your parents had taken a secret of theirs to the grave. Your sister was adopted. I am not sure which family she belonged to, but she was actually a Half-Blood Witch, if I have my lingo correct."

"SHE WHAT?!" Petunia shrieked out in outrage.

"Yes, well, you should be able to ask her about it in a few years, she is currently being treated for severe nerve damage inflicted by over exposure to a rather nasty curse. However she should make a full recovery," Shazam explained.

Petunia didn't look relieved, so Shazam ignored her momentarily as he used some magic to clip a lock of hair from the young toddler's head. He then turned to the adults and said, "I am afraid that in order for this to work, I must engage in a slight bluff in order to distract the Wizard who left Harry here. You see the Wizard who left your nephew on your doorstep intended to force your hand by linking a set of wards to the house that would protect the boy from enemies, but which would also force you to house him until such time as he could no longer call the place his home. What I intend to do, is create a duplicate of Harry that has enough magical oomph to be able to maintain those wards, while also growing up with each passing year, allowing the people who monitor this residence for the old man…"

"What do you mean monitor our residence?" Vernon questioned heatedly.

"I was hoping you would ask that question. I imagine that he will have at least one individual moved in by this time next week, or whom is perhaps already in residence here, whose sole purpose is to monitor your family for his bird watching society, which is simply what I call his little vigilante organization, as I have a severe dislike for its actual name and am too polite to call it by what others probably would call it. Anyways, as I was saying, this would allow you to hide the fact that the real Harry is not living with you behind a clever ruse. On the plus side, you won't be bothered by those little spasms that the wand wavers like to term 'accidental magic' nor any other unexplained phenomena. To outward appearances, your version of Harry will be a perfectly ordinary non-magical boy," Shazam explained, then as an afterthought he added, "I will place a secondary ward that will redirect Harry's Hogwarts letter to my Gringotts Drop Box. It appears that all other mail directed to Harry will be blocked by the Ward's set up by the old man, should you choose to accept my proposal?" Shazam finished his explanation.

A frown marred Petunia's face, "What happens in ten years, when your Harry will be off to Hogwarts, I assume?"

"Ah, well in that case, I would suggest you simply pack your family up and move abroad rather permanently. I will still be able to get in touch with you, should it be necessary, but I doubt it will outside of informing you when your sister is awake," Shazam stated.

Petunia nodded, "Yes, alright, we accept your offer!"

"Ah good, now just give me a moment…" Shazam mumbled a few words under his breath as he waved his fingers over the cut locks of hair, and just like that, an exact duplicate of young Harry manifested seemingly out of thin air, blanket and all, and floated over to Petunia.

"Now the real Harry and I had best be off," Shazam stated as he threw one of his hands out behind him and away from the Dursley Residence, which caused a tear in the fabric of reality to open up behind him, "This will be so much safer than Apparition, Lightning Travel, Floo Travel or any other form of magical travel I could care to name."

And with that, he cradled Harry in his cloak, which provided the young child a measure of protection from the dimensional energies, and transferred the two of them back to the Rock of Eternity.

Once they were through the portal sealed itself up as if it had never existed in the first place, much to the amazement of the dumbstruck Dursley adults, "Petunia, just who did we consign our nephew over to?"

Petunia frowned heavily, "I haven't the faintest idea Vernon. But he is vastly more powerful than anything I have ever heard Lily describe as being possible from the people within her community. I think we did the right thing… I hope we did the right thing!"

xXx Chapter End xXx