Title: Pushing Potter

Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

Story Summary: Cassie sees someone with an ability like no one else's, and knows that she and Nick need to find him - before Division can make him the super-soldier they've been aiming for for the last sixty years

Author notes:

First HP/Push fic on ffnet, hah!

Okay, I've added Cassie's speech from the beginning of the movie as a sort of prologue, just to remind people, and to inform anyone who hasn't seen Push but is reading this fic anyway.

PUSHING POTTER

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WITH THE SCAR

o0o o0o o0o

There are special people in this world.

We don't ask to be special. We're just born this way. We pass you on the streets every day, unnoticed by most.

It started in 1945. The Nazis were conducting experiments in psychic warfare, trying to turn those with psychic abilities into soldiers. Lots of us died. The war ended, but the experiments never stopped.

Other governments around the world set up what they called "divisions", trying to do what the Nazis couldn't, to turn us into weapons.

The divisions agents are trained to track and hunt us down like animals. Take us away from our families and friends. They test us and categorize us.

I'm what they call a Watcher. We can see the future, even if that's not always as simple as it sounds.

Others are called Movers, just an easy way of saying telekinetic.

Pushers put thoughts in your head, and make whatever lie they come up with the truth.

Sniffs, Shifters, Shadows, Bleeders... it goes on and on. In divisions' eyes, we're all just lab rats. Only one problem —

we keep dying. No one has ever survived the drug meant to boost our powers.

My name is Cassie Holmes. Division took my mom from me. Right now, the future I see doesn't look so great. The good news is, the future is always changing, in the largest of ways, by the smallest of things. They've been winning a lot of battles.

Now it's our turn to win the war.

~ Cassie Holmes

o0o o0o o0o

Nick woke to Cassie holding a drawing in his face.

"We need to find him," she said.

"What?" Nick wasn't at his best in the mornings.

"The Boy. In the picture." As usual, Cassie seemed faintly annoyed that he hadn't instantly followed her train of thought. "We need to find him before Division do."

Her expression said 'get to it.'

Nick rubbed at his eyes until they were less blurry and took the notebook, squiting at the page.

It was a boy, with messy hair and old-fashioned glasses, and a red lightning bolt on his forehead. Behind the glasses Cassie had drawn his eyes a bright-attention-grabbing green.

"What's with the lightning bolt?"

"It's a scar," Cassie replied matter-of-factly.

Nick raised his eyebrows and stared at the page, glancing at Cassie questioningly.

"Some sicko carved a lightning bolt into his forehead?"

"I don't think so." Cassie was frowning slightly.

Nick handed the notebook back.

"So why does Division want this guy?"

"He's different."

"Different how?"

"No idea."

"Well, that's helpful." Nick rubbed at his eyes again.

"You should take a shower," Cassie told him, and left the room.

Nick muttered,

"Great."

o0o o0o o0o

After his shower Nick walked into the kitchen to find Cassie sipping from a large iced coffee.

"That stuff'll stunt your growth," he said, picking the notebook up off the table.

Cassie sent hi ma look that said quite clearly that she didn't appreciate his interference and he gave up, looking at the drawing instead. If she tried to drink alcohol he'd stop her, but when it came to caffeine he wasn't going to argue with her.

Cassie's sketches still weren't particularly good, but since she'd spent a couple of weeks picking up tips from a street artist when they were still in Hong Kong, her drawings were at least more or less decipherable.

"Is this kid wearing a dress?"

Cassie shrugged.

"I guess. They were all wearing them where he came from." She stared at Nick. "I don't know that either. But he'll be in London two days from now. At a train station. Kings Cross." She looked at the picture. "His hair's black and messy, and his eyes are kind, really green. If you see him, look for the scar. He'll be trying to hide it, but it'll be bright red, like it's still healing."

"And you're sure we need to find him?"

"Positive." Callie's face was solemn and introspective as she reflected on what she'd seen. "I don't know exactly why, or what he can do, but if Division get their hands on him then we'll never be free of them." Her eyes were shadowed. "He'll be the first soldier."

That stopped Nick's arguments pretty effectively in their tracks.

Nick didn't know what would happen if Division succeeded in finally achieving their goal of creating a gifted super-soldier, but it wasn't something he ever wanted to see.

"Fine. I'm in."

o0o o0o o0o

Two days later they were standing among the bustle and chaos of Kings Cross station.

"Where is he?" Nick muttered.

"He'll be here," Cassie said, frowning. "Somewhere. He's got to be here. I saw him."

"You sure that hasn't changed?" Nick was trying to scan the station unobtrusively, but only succeeded in looking rather shifty and suspicious instead.

"Yes."

Cassie continued to look around, and suddenly she saw him, standing under one of the tiled arches right as she'd glimpsed him ever-so-briefly two days ago.

He was older than the boy she'd drawn, and he wasn't wearing glasses, but he had the same wild hair and striking emerald eyes. The thin lightning bolt was just visible beneath his hair, standing out lividly against his pale skin.

"I see him."

"Where?" Nick asked.

"Under the arch," Cassie said, not looking away from the boy.

Nick followed her unwavering gaze, and finally picked out there target form the crowd.

Cassie walked over.

As she and Nick got close the boy realised that they'd spotted him and his eyes went wide, and he looked ready to run.

Cassie stopped where she was, and Nick did the same.

"I'm Cassie. This is Nick." She watched him gravely. "We're here to stop Division getting you."

The boy's eyes narrowed.

He was a year or two older than her, Cassie thought.

"You're a Watcher."

"That's right." Nick spoke this time. "And she saw that if Division got hold of you you'd become their first super-soldier, and that would be a bad thing."

The boy gave a short laugh.

"That part's true."

He looked at them searchingly, giving them the uncomfortable feeling that he was looking at their souls.

Then he relaxed a little, and gave a small grin.

"I'm Harry." He held out his hand for them to shake.

Nick shook it.

"Cassie says your abilities are different somehow."

Harry shot her a sharp look, but nodded.

"Pretty different, yeah. That's what makes things so dangerous. What makes me dangerous," he admitted.

Nick didn't think he looked that dangerous, a skinny kid in an old tee and pair of jeans, but he had a tense wariness about him that stopped Nick from being absolutely certain.

"Are you an alien?" Cassie asked bluntly.

Nick sent her an incredulous look, but Harry looked surprised and calculating.

"It's complicated. We need to find somewhere private, I think. This is Kaylee." Harry nodded at the space next to them.

Nick and Cassie looked around in surprise to see a girl with blue hair standing there, grinning at them.

"Kaylee here's a walking GPS system," Harry continued. "You could take her on a high-speed chase across Britain and the little map in her head would whirl around with her on every turn so she never loses track of where she is."

"Hi!" Kaylee chirped. She was about Cassie's age, and her short jaw-length hair was a vivid electric blue. "They don't have a name for me yet, but I call myself a Compass."

Nick raised an eyebrow.

"Does the blue hair make it a little hard to blend in?"

Harry gave him a tired, knowing grin.

"Did you notice her before I pointed her out?"

Nick hadn't.

"People don't notice her unless someone who already knows she's there draws attention to her, or she does something really noticeable like wander round naked." Kaylee made a face and hit his arm, although she looked like she wanted to giggle. "Works against just about everyone but Watchers. It doesn't work so well for me, because some instinct tells people that I'm different and they need to pay attention. Anyway. You have somewhere to go?"

Harry looked inquiring.

Cassie nodded.

"Come with us," she said, and went striding off.

Harry looked at Nick curiously, almost amused.

Nick sighed.

"She's the girl with the plan," he muttered resignedly, and followed after her, Harry and Kaylee behind him.

-

The group stuck to the alleys and backstreets where they could, eventually coming to the apartment building where Nick and Cassie were currently renting.

When Nick unlocked the door Harry walked into the apartment and looked around, at the ratty carpet, water-stained ceiling and generally dingy look of the place.

"Nice flat." His tone was ironic.

Kaylee hit his arm.

"Rude, Harry!" she admonished him.

"Sorry," Harry said, not meaning it at all. "Right."

He stuck a hand up his sleeve, and extracted a long thin piece of wood.

He glanced around the flat calculatingly.

"What…" Nick began.

Harry held out the stick.

"Ward with silence," he intoned, and gestured with his stick to outline the doors and windows. The tipoff the stick glowed, and left slight, curving shapes in the air, which drifted to all the openings in the room before fading.

Nick gaped at him, wordless.

"What the hell was that?" Cassie was regarding Harry with wide and demanding eyes.

"Privacy ward," Harry said. He stuck the stick – his wand? – back up his sleeve, and turned to face the others. "Remember how you asked if I was an alien and I said it was complicated?"

"Yeah…" Cassie said slowly, her tone edging him on.

"Well, I'm not from another planet, but I suppose you could say I'm from another world. As far as I can work out I'm from an adjoining universe lying parallel to yours, and I don't have an ability in the same way you do."

He looked at them intently and seriously, to check that they were listening fully.

"I'm a wizard."

Harry waited.

"Hold on, hold on." Nick held up his index fingers in a 'wait' gesture. "You don't seriously expect us to believe you're a wizard, do you?"

In response Harry aimed his wand at a dirty teacup sitting next to the sink, and turned it into a tortoise.

"Huh," Harry said, looking at it. "It's still got a china shell. I need to work on my visualisation."

"It's a tortoise." Nick couldn't believe it.

Cassie peered at it.

"Cool."

Harry waved his wand again, concentrating harder this time, and the tortoise was back to being a teacup. Harry mumbled something and it was suddenly clean and shiny as well.

"You get to do dishes from now on," said Cassie.

"But…" Nick didn't know what to say.

"Are you going to listen to me now?" There was a sarcastic note in Harry's voice.

"You totally should, even if you don't believe him," Kaylee said from the sunken couch. "It's an awesome story. It's got Dark Lords and rescues and time travel and everything."

"Thanks, Kaylee," Harry snapped.

Kaylee just shrugged expectantly.

Harry looked at Cassie and Nick.

"Go on, we're listening." Cassie slung her legs over the arm of the couch and waved Harry on impatiently.

"Um. Well." Harry took a deep breath. "I guess I should start off by saying that both my parents were wizards, but when I was a year old, and evil wizard called Voldemort came after my family. He killed my parents, but somehow I survived, and his spell backfired on him instead, and I became famous at a year old for defeating the Dark Lord."

"How stupid is that?" Cassie commented. "You were a baby. How could you have done anything?"

"Exactly what I said," Kaylee agreed.

Harry waited with an expression of exaggerated patience until they shut up.

"Anyway, I was sent to my relatives, who hated magic. I grew up not knowing anything about the world my family had belonged to until I was eleven, when I was invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Hogwarts?" Nick snorted.

"Yeah. Anyway, let's skip over my first two years, because frankly it'll take too long otherwise. Third year, a bloke called Sirius Black escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban. I eventually found out that he'd been imprisoned for betraying my family's location to Voldemort – that's the Dark Lord – and going on to blow up both one of his friends and a whole street of innocent people."

"Ouch," Cassie said from the couch.

"Can I do this without interruptions, please?" Harry asked, exasperated. "Ask questions later, but let me get this out first."

"Sure. Go ahead." Cassie looked attentive.

"Anyway, everyone thought he was out to kill me, but at the end of that year he ambushed me and my friends, and we found out that everything everyone knew was wrong. The friend Sirius was supposed to have killed was still alive. He'd turned himself into a rat and had spent the last twelve years living as a pet with one of my best friend's families, letting Sirius rot in Azkaban when it was really him who'd betrayed my parents to Voldemort, and killed twelve people just to frame Sirius."

Harry's voice was bitter.

"We were going to turn Pettigrew in, but he escaped. Sirius got caught, and we tried to tell the Ministry that he was innocent, but no one wanted to listen to a bunch of thirteen year olds. Only the headmaster believed us. My friend Hermione had been given a time travel device so that she could attend several classes at once – only Hermione would time-travel just to get extra classes – and we decided to use it to go back in time and rescue Sirius. And that's where it all went wrong."

"What happened?"

Harry glared half-heartedly at Cassie, who remembered she wasn't supposed to interrupt.

"Geez. Sorry. You're telling an interesting story, I was getting involved."

"Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a city street somewhere, with half a broken time-turner, and no Hermione." Harry's eyes were dark and pained. "That was almost two years ago now. I've spent that time looking for Hermione and keeping away from Division. For a while there was the odd story of a girl with weird abilities; not much, just this persistent rumour, and I was pretty sure it was her. Then a few months ago any information suddenly stopped. Everyone who'd heard anything about the rumour clammed up. I think that Division got to her."

Harry sat on one of the rickety kitchen chairs and buried his face in his hands for a moment.

Then he sat up again, looking grim but determined.

"Since I got here I've been learning to use my magic differently to how they taught me at school. I've sort of – learn to make up spells, and to use magic without speaking the incantations for some things. I think I could get Hermione out, if I knew where she was, but I'd have to get to her okay first."

"You think you can break into Division and steal back your friend?" Nick asked skeptically.

Harry drew himself up indignantly, green eyes glinting.

"I've thwarted a Dark Lord's attempt to return to human form and killed a 60-foot long basilisk with only a sword, an enchanted hat, and a phoenix," he said coolly. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, but I think I can do it."

"What about more than one person?" Cassie asked, her voice small, but intense.

Harry looked at her in surprise. She had a weary, worldly, rather sad look to her, and her eyes were suddenly vulnerable.

"I don't know. It'd depend on how close they were, I suppose. Who are you thinking about?"

"They've got my Mom," Cassie explained quietly.

"Oh."

Harry visibly weighed different considerations. Kaylee watched him.

"She's the most powerful Watcher in the world," Cassie tried to convince Harry. "She'll be able to help you."

"Cassie's not exaggerating about her mother," Nick said wryly, watching the girl with concern. "The stuff her mother's seen, years, decades before it happened is frightening."

"Don't call my mother frightening," Cassie said shortly.

"Everyone's mother is frightening," Harry said absently. "Especially if you don't have one."

Nick looked at him sharply. Harry noticed, and said,

"Speaking from personal experience, here." He frowned at Cassie. "I can try, I suppose."

Something in Cassie's face glowed for a moment, before it went back to looking cool and uncaring.

"How are you planning to find Hermione?" Kaylee asked. "I know about the 'point me' thing, but it doesn't work on a big scale."

Harry took a deep breath.

"I'm going to try and invent a ritual," he said honestly, "but I'm hoping Cassie will see something that will help."

"Right," said Cassie, standing up.

"Oh, no you aren't," Nick warned, guessing what she planned on doing.

"Shut up Nick. Harry, you better have money, because you're going to buy me booze. Come on."

"Sure," Harry agreed, getting to his feet as well. "Because supplying alcoholic drinks to minors is what I do."

"He's being sarcastic," Kaylee said helpfully, watching speculatively.

"I figured."

"I went into a bar once, and he came in and hauled me out and told me off."

"That," said Harry, "is because it was also an illegal brothel, and you may recall that at the time I hauled you out, as you put it, I had to fight my way through three guys trying to drag you off into a back room and ended up getting a broken cheekbone for my troubles. Bloody right I told you off. I was lucky that the Stitch who fixed my eyes was willing to do me another favour."

Nick's expression said clearly that his sympathies were with Harry.

-

END CHAPTER