The Way Home – Going Home Rework

by Warringer

Prologue

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Harry James Potter grunted as the shock stick hit his side. Having been forced into the role of a slave for now three years forced him to be able to simply shut out the pain he felt from the impact and the electric shock of the stick.

He glared at the Doranian slaver from underneath his mob of unkempt and dirty hair for a moment, before grabbing his cousin Dudley and pulling him along into the waiting shuttle.

The invasion had been swift and brutal. First the Doranian force of eleven cruisers had battered any major population center and military installation with asteroids before they had been reinforced by even more cruisers and landing ships.

As far as Harry knew London had been hit five times, making him doubt that much of the wizarding community there had survived there.

For a moment he thought Dudley. The Invasion had made the Dursleys forget about their hatred against wizards for a time and Harry had watched the telly with them, wanting to know what the government or anyone else would do against it.

And Vernon had actually ordered Harry to get his wand in case the aliens would come to Privet Drive, so that he would defend them all. It had been surreal for Harry.

Than the invasion force landed and one of the landing ships touched down in Little Whinging. The Doranian forces had swept through the town like locusts and those they didn't kill on sight, they herded together.

Harry had in fact tried to use a 'Reducto' on them, but a stray plasma beam had hit his wand hand and not only burned the wand to cinder, but also burning his hand rendering it pretty much useless.

He could still remember how the Doranians had singled out several of the older people from the crowd they had herded together next to a landing ship. They had than proceeded to dismember and kill them in rather cruel fashions. Two of them had been Vernon and Petunia.

Even if Harry hadn't liked his aunt and uncle, this was not a death he would have wished them. Not even Tom would have deserved being cut open like a pig before being forced to watch how a giant cat ripped the still beating heart from the body, like Vernon.

It had been a example to the other people. Resisting was a bad idea any everyone who resisted to die like one of these people. Dudley hadn't been in any shape to resist anyway. Being forced to watch his parents being killed like that would have made everyone go into shock. The shock still effected him to this day, as he had lost his voice at that day.

After being herded into the landing ship more than a thousand people of all ages were ferried off the planet and to the next Doranian slave procession center.

Harry shook his head clear and breathed in deep as the bulkhead to the slave compartment was smalled shut, the electric noise of the locks being shut and the vacuum seals closing.

The smell of the slave compartment was bad, but after living three years in places like this had hardened Harry. He didn't knew if he should thank his aunt and uncle next time he saw them for making him able to keep himself sane and mentally active, where Dudley had pretty much been broken.

For a moment he wondered where his cousin was now. They had been separated two years back, when they had been put to use in an asteroid mine.

He glanced around in the slave compartment. It wasn't very large, but still larger than Privet Drive 4. He noted a group of Nomads in one corner, one of them seemed to dress the wound of a second one, while the others tried to groom their fur.

In another corner was a whole group of beings Harry had gotten to know as being one of the most sought after slaves of the Doranians, Shin'bi. Their clothes were mostly intact and the way they debated with each other told Harry that they were most likely just captured.

"You're a Tommy, aren't you?" he heard a human voice with a very noticeable German accent speaking up behind him.

Harry was not all that surprised by the voice, now and than there were other slaves who wanted to be 'friends' and slowly turned around to see a taller man standing there. The man appeared to be human. Sure there were several races that looked human, but Harry doubted that they either spoke English, had a German accent or used the word 'Tommy'.

"I guess so," Harry replied and shook his head, deciding that he should sit down as well.

The man cursed in several rather colorful words Harry guessed to be German.

"The Vree got you too?"

Harry snorted as he leaned against a bulkhead and slid down to the ground. Sure the Vree were known to make good money with slaves, but he doubted they would have been able to keep a wizard down after teleporting him on their ship.

"No," he said and shook his head, before placing it against the bulkhead." Doranians."

The man narrowed his eyes.

"Doranians? How?"

Harry looked at the man again. As he had been abducted by the Vree before the Invasion, he couldn't know.

"They invaded three years ago," he said with a sigh." Nuked just about everyone on Earth. Russians and Americans tried to nuke them in return, but it didn't work."

The man blinked and sat down next to Harry.

"Nuked?" he asked and Harry noted the wonder in his voice." What is 'nuked'?"

Harry looked at the man. He appeared to be in his late thirties and yet he didn't know what a nuke was?

"Nuclear Weapons ring a bell?" he wondered, observing the man and his blank face.

"No sorry," the man said after a while, shaking his head.

"Atomic Weapons?" he tried again.

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Like the ones from these American Pulp novels or Buck Rodgers?"

Now it was Harrys turn to raise an eyebrow.

"When have you been abducted by the Vree," he finally asked after a few moments of silence.

"March 23rd 1932."

Harry stared at the man for a moment and than shook his head, before looking at his wristwatch, the only thing he still owned. The mechanical watch was a gift from Arthur Weasly and was charmed to always show the correct time as well as the correct date.

"We have the 2nd July 1998," he said slowly and looked at the mans face.

Again he head a sting of colorful curses, this time even going as far as meshing in several of alien origin like Centauri, Doranian or Jurian.

After about five minutes, the man calmed down and massaged his temples. Than he looked at Harry.

"Joachim von Bismark," he introduced himself and held up his hand, inviting Harry to shake it.

Harry chuckled a little and grabbed the hand shaking it.

"Harry James Potter."