Alone in the 'Verse Chapter 1: The Last Wizard, a Harry Potter + Firefly Crossover fanfic

Alone in the 'Verse

Chapter One – The Last Wizard

Author's note: This is something that popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone, maybe now that I've published it I can get back to one of my other stories...but who knows.

A few of these ideas are also taken from Doctor Who (and obviously Harry Potter and Firefly).

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Really, I don't.

Most of the Chinese is fairly self-explanatory, insert your own swear words.

June 24, 2519 - Middle of Nowhere, the Black, the 'Verse (Present Day)

Harry growled and pressed a pillow over his head as he heard the proximity alert start blaring. "Arg! Why can't you people ever leave me alone?" But he knew he had to get up and see what the fuck was wrong before he managed to run into something disastrous. It wouldn't be fun to end up being continually killed by the vacuum of space. Again. Last time that happened it was a week before he spotted a ship he could apparate to, he had just floated around arguing with himself as to which direction was 'up' at the time. He had also cursed, for the six billionth, two hundred and four millionth, five hundred and eighty seven thousandth, nine hundred and fifteenth time, the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life.

That's right, Harry Potter, the fucking Boy-Who-Lived, had inventively sworn at the lifetime achievement of Nicholas Flamel on 6,240,587,915 separate occasions. He absolutely hated that bloody stone; it had made him the bloody Boy-who-lived-and-lived-and-lived-and-lived-and-lived-again. Stupid bloody stone.

October 31, 2001 - Level Nine, Ministry of Magic, London, England, Earth, the Milky Way (Flashback)

"Hey, Harry! Thanks for coming." Hermione Granger called, as Harry stepped into the Historical Research division of the Department of Mysteries. After the war, Hermione had been given a whole slew of opportunities and was currently rotating through the different divisions in the department to see which one she liked the best, she had yet to decide.

"What have you found that was so urgent it couldn't wait another 16 hours?" Harry asked.

"You'll never believe what we found when going through Perenelle Flamel's possessions!" Hermione said excitedly.

Harry frowned, "Why are you going through the Flamels' stuff?"

"They died a few weeks ago and they donated a whole vault of stuff to the DOM!" She said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"And why are you doing this on Halloween?"

"Well, Randalf over there," Hermione pointed at a blond, nerdy guy in the corner. "Doesn't like Halloween, something about bad luck." Harry snorted. "So he insisted that despite the fact that it's a holiday, we all had to work."

"Okay, that explains you're presence, but it doesn't explain why you called me in. You know how I feel about this day, nothing ever goes right. I'm beginning to think it's cursed." Harry said with a frown.

Hermione huffed. "The Day of the Dead is an important celebration of those who came before. If anything, it's a blessed day."

Harry snorted again. "Right. Sure. You go ahead and think that. Just let me remind you of a few Halloweens. 1981 - dead Potters. 1991 - troll. 1992 - Chamber of Secrets and petrified cat. 1993 - supposed serial killer breaks into Gryffindor tower. 1994 - my name comes out of the cup. 1998 - loud, public breakup. 1999 - wannabe Death Eaters try to burn Hogsmead. 2000 - there was alcohol, the twins, Ron and a camera which has since been destroyed. Are you seeing a pattern here?"

"I guess when you put it that way..." Hermione said with a grimace.

"Yeah. Anyway, there was something you needed me for?" Harry asked, changing the subject before they got bogged down in memories.

"Right, I forgot." Hermione said before grabbing his arm and dragging him off to a table in the back. She presented him with what looked like a pile of blood-red glass shards.

"Are there what I think they are?" Harry asked, reverently hovering a hand over them.

Hermione grinned, "If you think they're what's left of the Philosopher's Stone that you destroyed in first year then, yes, they are what you think they are." She stated proudly.

"Oh." Harry said. "I know for a fact that they can't be used anymore so what's the big deal?"

"The deal is, that there is still power left in them, especially this one." She said, pointing at a small fragment. It was about the size of a sickle, extremely thin, completely flat, perfectly smooth and had what seemed to be a phoenix design on it. The phoenix was a lot darker than the rest of the fragment, almost the colour of blood. The fragment had been placed on a black cushion in a small glass case.

"Okay." Harry said, raising an eyebrow. "But I still don't see what this had to do with me."

Hermione's grin widened. "Because it has your magical signature in it."

Harry looked up at her in shock. "What?"

"The design, it is inside the piece of stone and it is blood. Your blood." Hermione said.

Harry groaned, "Why does this always happen to me?"

"Here, you should take a look." Hermione said, handing him a pair of gloves. "Just make sure not to touch it, we don't want anything strange happening."

"I'm not sure that's such a great idea." Harry said warily. "My blood on a piece of super-magical rock that has an inexplicable design on it, touching it, even with gloves on, doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do."

"Wimp." Hermione teased, pressing the gloves into his less-than-willing hands.

Harry rolled his eyes but put the gloves on anyway. Hermione opened the case and then all hell broke loose.

Even though he wasn't even close to touching it, the small piece of stone flew out of the case and raced straight towards Harry. Before anyone had processed what was happening, Harry fell to the ground, there was a smoking hole in the front of his shirt and a slight smell of burning flesh in the air.

"Ah shit." Harry said faintly as he passed out.

Hermione stared at her best friend lying on the cold stone floor. "Well that can't be good."

November 14, 2001 (Two Weeks Later) - Room 618, Unique Magical Mishaps, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Inguries, London, England, Earth, the Milky Way

Harry opened his eyes and found himself in a private room in Saint Mungos, "Ah shit." He said again. "How is it that I always managed to end up a hospital bed?"

There was a squeal and Hermione came rushing into the room. "Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry! We don't have any idea what happened! We've been trying to figure it out but with you unconscious we really didn't want to start anything. We didn't know how to help you so we had to let you wake up on your own. And I-"

"Hold on a moment, 'we'? Who else knows about this?" Harry interrupted with a frown, the last thing he needed was to be the new lab rat for the Unspeakables.

"Well, you did pass out in the middle of the Department of Mysteries." Hermione said defensively. "I tried to get you out before too many people found out but by the time we made it here, most of the department knew what happened."

Harry closed his eyes wearily. "Merlin, Hermione! What did I tell you about Halloweens?"

Hermione had the grace to look ashamed, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, nothing we can do about it now." Harry said with a wave of his hand.

"For what it counts, we can't find anything wrong with you." Hermione said.

"I guess that's good. What exactly happened?"

"Well, like I said before we don't really know. As soon as I took the lid off that glass case, the shard kinda flew up and hit you in the chest. By the time we got you here, you were in a coma. From what we can tell, the shard has lodged itself in the middle of your chest, just under the skin." Hermione explained.

Harry magically ripped his hospital gown open and looked down at his chest, sure enough, right in the middle of his chest, there was a small glowing red circle, there was a soft golden glow surrounding the shard and with every beat of his heart. With his magic, Harry could see the same golden glow pulse through his heart and then flow through his entire body. The design of a phoenix could barely be seen through his lightly tanned skin.

"Any idea what it's doing there?" Harry asked, poking it. He was surprised that it didn't feel any different from the skin around it, it didn't even hurt.

Hermione winced, "No, not really." Harry raised an eyebrow, indicating that she should continue. "From what we can tell though, it has literally fused itself to you. It is no longer a piece of stone but an actual part of you."

"And that means...?"

"It means that they can't take it out."

"Oh." Harry closed his eyes and tried to think about what it might mean to have a bit of Philosopher's Stone stuck in him. His eyes flew open, there was one way to find out if his slightly terrifying theory was correct. "Hermione, do I have any signs of the post-Dragon Pox virus in me?"

Hermione frowned at him, "I have no idea, I'm not the healer." Harry glared at her, "But I'm going to get her now." She amended quickly.

After a half hour of poking, prodding and complicated spell-work, the healers found that Harry's blood was completely free of any virus or poison, including the traces of Basilisk venom he'd had since he was 12 and the lingering Dragon Pox virus from a few months ago, the only foreign substance was Phoenix Tears.

Hermione's eyes widened as she came to the same conclusion Harry had, "You don't think..."

"I do."

"And it is..."

"I think so."

"It will..."

"Probably."

"But then you'll..."

"I certainly hope not."

Hermione blinked. "You hope not?"

Harry sighed, "If this means what I think it means, I'm not sure I like the idea."

"But why?"

"Um." The confused healer said. "Would you mind explaining what is going on?"

"I think the piece of stone is connected to me and is giving me all the benefits the normal stone would." Harry said softly.

The healer gasped, "But that would mean that you're..."

"Constantly producing the Elixir of Life? Yeah."

Hermione interrupted, "But that's amazing! You'll live forever! Do you know how much you can learn in forever?" Her eyes unfocused as she imagined infinite lifetimes of researching.

"No! It's terrible." Harry argued. "I'd have to wait and watch you all die!"

"Oh." Hermione and the healer said in unison.

" 'Oh', is right." Harry said.

The Healer gave a small smile, "We don't know if that's actually going to happen." She said kindly.

"Yeah," Hermione said, "We will just wait a few years and see if you age or not."

He didn't.

The Next 500 Years

There wasn't really much Harry could do about his 'stone situation' now, or ever, so he tried to forget all about the little (or not so little, in his opinion) incident. But the stone fragment never did go away, it stuck around and Harry never aged. Or got hurt. Or got a cold. Hell, he even died once but just came back to life a few seconds later.

Over the years, Harry slowly distanced himself from his friends, it wasn't a conscious thing, they just grew apart. Everyone grew up, they got married, had children who had children, they acquired laugh-lines and wrinkles, learned the wonders of a rocking chair, started celebrating triple digit birthdays, complained about aching joints, grew gray hair and basically just got old.

Harry stayed 21. His brilliant green eyes never dimmed, his hair stayed as black and unruly as ever, he never could grow a beard and most of all, he never grew up.

Harry was extremely grateful that his little accident had happened when it did, it wouldn't be nice to be stuck in his scrawny 17 year old body and being 30 forever would have been rather annoying. At 21 he was 188 cm (6'2'') and 70kg (157 lbs), had his trademark wild black hair and brilliant green eyes, his skin was lightly tanned and he had just grown out of that lanky teenager phase. His body was perfectly sculpted (but not overly muscled) from years of Quidditch as well as some of his more strenuous activities (coughchasingDeathEaterscough cough). It was really good that he was happy with his appearance because no matter how long he lay in the sun, or how much he exercised, he didn't change at all, even his hair didn't grow.

The only thing that really changed was his magic, it just wouldn't stop growing which annoyed him to no end, he didn't need anything else to make him more special than he already was. However, with this excess power he was able to make his magic work around technology, that made up for his abnormality a bit. Maybe.

Everything came crashing down forty-two years after Harry defeated Voldemort; the entire Muggle world found out about the wizarding world. At first, it wasn't a problem; there was an exchange of knowledge, eradication of disease, end to terrorist groups; many of humanity's problems seemed to be solved. Hermione was ecstatic that her two worlds were working together, the purebloods were happy that witches and wizards were respected and held in awe, the poorer wizarding families had new sources of income as they helped Muggles, basically, everyone was stoked. Everyone, that is, except Harry.

Harry knew that it was too good to last, whether they knew it or not, the witches and wizards were being taken advantage of and due to the Muggles' superior numbers and technological advancements, the wizarding world was basically at their mercy. He had never been more sorry to be proven right.

It only took a year for the first group of wizards to band together and rebel; they had been in charge of magically powering generators for 'clean energy' and when they tried to quit, they were told they weren't allowed. Twenty-seven Muggles and nine wizards died that day. Everything went downhill from there.

Naturally, almost every witch and wizard sided with their fellow magic-users and also quit helping the Muggles, they tried to go back to their secluded lives. The Muggles didn't take too kindly to this, they liked their new workforce. Two months later, after many fights between wizards and their Muggle employers, the United Nations declared that witches and wizards posed too great a threat to the Honorable Citizens of Planet Earth to be allowed to run free. So, they imposed a mandatory registration of everyone magical, taking DNA samples as they went for 'research' purposes.

Then the real rebellion began, it started in America and spread across the globe; offices were trashed, records burned, labs destroyed, and the witches and wizards went into hiding again. But now that the Muggles knew what the wizards were capable of, they were hunted.

With what was left of the DNA samples, some scientists identified what they called the 'magic gene' or MG. They then developed an airborne biological weapon which only targeted those who carried the MG, both dominant and recessive. Millions of people died before the magical community figured out how they were being attacked, bubblehead charms were the only refuge.

Over those next few months, Harry felt his body die over and over again, and every time his patience grew thinner and his anger stronger. Who were these people to decide who lived and who died? They were murdering innocent children as well as people who couldn't even do magic because they had the recessive gene.

Harry led the next attack against the plant that produced the chemicals. But by then, the Muggles were waiting for them, the attacking witches and wizards were mowed down by machine guns whose bullets were coated in anti-magic gel. That night, Harry died five times before he managed to blow up the entire complex, everyone who came with him was dead before they even saw who was firing at them.

Harry spent the next month on 'suicide' missions, taking out biochemical plants and military bases but it was too late to make much of a difference.

A week later, every person involved in the Wizard Extermination Project or WEP, was brutally murdered and Harry James Potter was the most wanted person on Earth. After having been 'killed' nineteen times in front of witnesses, everyone knew that he couldn't die and the sentence was an eternity in prison, but he wouldn't be caught because he was Harry Potter and just cool like that.

Three months later, Harry was the last magical person alive and he wished he was dead. But thanks to a certain alchemist, he couldn't even commit suicide. So, he went into hiding for the next seventy years while the toxic (to him alone now) gases dissipated; it wasn't exactly comfortable to die of chemical poisoning multiple times a day.

When he finally emerged from his self-imposed exile, much to his amusement, Harry Potter was still at the top of the most wanted list. It was depressing to know that he was the last of his kind around but Harry was smart enough to know that there was nothing he could do about it now. However, he would always have a great dislike for scientists (especially biochemists), doctors who violated the Hippocratic Oath, and anyone in any position of government or military authority.

Harry spent a few years tracking down what was left of the wizarding world's stuff, turns out most of it was either stashed away in Hogwarts or in Gringotts, two places the Muggles never did manage to get into, physically at least. Everything from clothing (not much use) to butterbeer was piled in the dungeons of Hogwarts; Harry didn't have much use for extra robes or hundreds of broomsticks, but he did like the firewhiskey. He also liked having a castle all for himself, not that he stayed there often, too many memories.

When Harry rejoined the world he changed his name (for very obvious reasons) and placed an aging glamour on himself; Harry James Potter, 58 year old criminal, became James Evans, 18 year old genius. As James, Harry was surprised to find that people were still under the (correct) impression that Harry Potter couldn't die. This soon led to the annoying habit of the Muggles using him as a scapegoat for everything that went wrong.

James Evans lived to the ripe age of 94 when he was run over by a bus, he left his substantial inheritance to Ronald Grander, not that he actually needed to make a will or anything, banks were often government institutions. And Harry didn't like governments.

Ronald Grander became John Black who became Fred and George Pewter (those were 59 fun years ending with a spectacular hovercraft explosion). And the fear of Harry Potter passed into myth and legend, which was perfectly fine with him. The only problem was that his infamy had been blown so out of proportion that he was turned into a sort of phantom, a ghost story for children.

It was sad that after a few hundred years, there weren't any children named Harry, it seemed that people thought it bad luck to name their child after such an infamous man. Naming someone Harry, was considered almost as bad as naming them Lucifer, Adolf or Gangus. But, despite this bad reputation, Harry couldn't help keep watching out for the world.

Usually he would move to a different continent when he 'died' so he didn't have to remember to glamour himself every day and as time went on, he gave himself shorter and shorter lifespans, just to keep things interesting. Each of his different persons usually ended up dieing a few times before he killed them off for good, because hey, accidents happen.

Unfortunately, there were days (sometimes years) when Harry really wished he wasn't immortal, days when he really just wanted to not be the damn boy-who-lived-and-lived-again. It was these days (and years), that he figured out what exactly the golden glow that ran through his body was; it was life. Life was literally part of his entire body, he had once had his arm disintegrated by acid and within the next 30 seconds he had grown a new one. His head got chopped off by an irate gangster and it just disappeared from the box where they were holding it and reappeared on his body.

His soul got sucked out by a dementor who escaped from Azkaban where Harry had tried to trap them all, his soul just flew back into his body a few seconds later. One day, when he was particularly pissed with the world, he jumped through the Veil of Death (which was surprisingly intact under the pile of rubble that used to be the Ministry of Magic). It just spit him out the other side. His heart got eaten by a dying Muggle who thought Harry (who was Ronald Grander at the time) was the key to eternal life, he just grew a new one while the other turned to dust.

Moral of the story: Harry James Potter couldn't die.

After many years, Harry finally resigned himself to his fate as the boy-who-wouldn't-die, not the boy-who-lived-forever, just the one who wouldn't die. Even people like vampires - who, had the potential to live forever before the Muggles exterminated them - could be killed, Harry could not. So he gave up trying. Instead, he became a bit reckless; once he even died three times in the same day!

In 2294, despite Harry's (he was actually Evan Confringo at the time) best efforts, the Muggles managed to muck up the planet to the point where it just wasn't possible to sustain human life any longer. Funnily enough, they blamed Harry Potter for their depletion of the Earth's resources and their slow but sure destruction of the environment.

Harry knew that if the humans were gone, magical life could survive forever, thrive even. The solution? Get rid of the Muggles.

So, he used his exceptional skills - both scientific and magical - to develop what became known as 'terraforming', he then proved that magic is all about will and intent by randomly picking a galaxy to which the human population could successfully move.

As he was preparing to leave the planet, Harry sometimes lamented the fact that the human race would be starting over in a new galaxy and that he, Harry, would be the only truly sentient magical representative, but he figured if he was going to live forever then what did it matter that he was the last wizard? Harry made sure that there were whole sections of the ship Fauna 1 as well as Flora 2 dedicated to magical plants and animals, Harry warded those sections to keep the Muggles out so they wouldn't get suspicious.

Harry booked Evan a ticket on the Exodus 500 and apparated off once they left the planet, he made sure to leave behind an extremely long-distance portkey anchor (his own design), so he could return to the ship when he was finished on earth. Once all the humans were gone, Harry went about fixing what he could of earth's atmosphere. He got it to the point where it would continue to repair itself and then explained to all the remaining sentient creatures, that the earth was now theirs to enjoy. The goblins and centaurs were extremely happy about this situation.

Harry then packed all his possessions which included, but was not restricted to; incredible amounts of gold, shit tons of muggle money, the entire butterbeer, firewhisky and chocolate frog stores on the planet, all sorts of food that he assumed he could only get on Earth (gourmet coffee being the most important of these), two advanced and one normal time turner, and millions of books, into two massively expanded trunks.

After personally warding Hogwarts (even given a thousand years the goblins wouldn't be able to get past) and a few other notable places (who knew if he'd want to come back?), Harry placed a huge illusion over the planet to make it 'age' and 'die' as the Muggle scientists had predicted. He then popped onto the Exodus 500 just before if went out of his special portkey range. The next sixty years were extremely fun; he kept himself entertained (often at the expense of the other passengers) and made everyone jealous with his extremely good looks.

Somehow, and Harry never did figure out how it started, there was a rumor that the immortal and evil Harry Potter was hiding on the Exodus 500. They were convinced that he was there to sabotage the ship and kill them all; what they failed to notice was the fact that theirs was the only ship that never had any technical difficulties and that their food always tasted like actual food, not re-hydrated plastic.

By the time all the Exodus ships arrived in their new galaxy, Harry had a serious case of cabin fever and he never wanted to see another baby ever again; those things were just bloody annoying. Even though it had been fun tormenting the other passengers, he was still ready to abandon ship. The Exodus 500 was scheduled to land on the second terraformed world, Ariel. So exactly 60 years, 11 months and 23 days after leaving earth, Harry Potter stepped onto real ground.

The first thing Harry did when he got to the new planet was build a ship. The maiden voyage of Hedwig 2.0, piloted by none other than Harry Potter (actually Evan Confringo), was November 1, 2358 (he made sure to sleep through October 31). Then he terraformed, hid and warded to hell and back the smallest of Ariel's six moons (thank you Fidilus and Muggle-repelling charms), and named it Potter Moon. For all intents and purposes Potter Moon just didn't exist, he even messed with it's gravity signature to hide it completely. He then dropped off all the magical creatures and plants he'd brought from Earth, and left to explore the universe.

In the hustle and bustle of colonizing the new galaxy, rumors of the evil Harry Potter settled down a bit and he became a fairy tale. But if anyone ever cared to look, Harry James Potter was still at the top of the most wanted list; he was on record as being unable to be killed and had therefore never been assumed dead. It was amazing how people could get the smallest things right while completely missing the big picture.

Harry's was both an exciting and lonely existence, exciting because he really didn't have to worry about dying, and lonely because any friends he made would eventually die and he would have to move on. Usually when he died it was in unfortunate circumstances; more often than not, he would get shot. This was because he wasn't exactly the most careful of people, what good is eternal life if you don't take a few risks? However, the aftermath of those risks were often swear-worthy, it's not fun to be shot in the face, flung out an air lock, poisoned, beheaded, dismembered, burnt to a crisp, attacked by Reavers or something similar only to wake up only to have to obliviate a shit-ton of strangers, pick another name, change his face and move to the other side of the galaxy.

One of the more interesting things about living forever and owning two advanced time turners was that he could go back and repeat a few years, this was quite amusing, especially when he wanted a sidekick or a twin brother. It had only taken what he thought were a few missteps and slip-ups for him to find that he couldn't ruin history by meeting himself; he realized that along with not being able to die, he couldn't erase himself from existence. This made quite a few years very fun.

Harry kept journals of his travels, and even published a few 'science fiction' novels based off his own life, he also kept track of his age. Well, his relative age, he would always be 21 but had obviously existed for much longer than that.

Harry used his many resources to make himself extremely wealthy; gold was no longer his only currency (it was only accepted in a few places and even then, with a raised eyebrow), he had quite a few bank accounts under different names which held both credits and platinum. Along with Potter Moon, Harry also owned copious amounts of land across the galaxy and had shares in many major companies. He also kept a few running identities who were elusive men of the 'don't call me, I'll call you' variety. Some of these were respected members of society, most notably Lord Henry Ashwinder VI who was a filthy rich man and owned more than half of Sihnon.

Lord Henry Ashwinder VI (and VII, VIII, IIX, and IX), also owned the land on which the Companion academy was built, though he didn't know about it till after it was built. Somehow, without Harry's involvement, the academy kept track of many Earth-that-was legends. They didn't only focus on Companioning, they also learned about the arts, including literature and myth. Because of this, some of the more studious Companions had heard of the evil Harry Potter, by the time Harry found out about this, it was too late to obliviate all of them because some were already spread throughout the universe. Ah well, it was kinda flattering that they remembered him even hundreds of years later.

Harry was also the silent owner and original creator of Marauder Entertainment, Nimbus Transportation (he bought the Nimbus broom company in 2019 so it wasn't copywrite infringement, not that that would have mattered) and Granger Publications.

Then there were Harry's less reputable identities, the highlights being; Lethi Demen the bounty hunter, Felix Flamel the legendary thief, Peter Pettifer the drug runner and Orion Tonks the all-purpose upper-class middleman who worked for his favourite alter-ego, Sirius Prongs Lupin the ruthless crime lord. Thanks to some really clever electronic finagling by Harry, a bit of time travel and a whole lot of magic, almost all the other criminals and smugglers knew not to mess with Mr. Lupin, Tonks or Demen, especially Demen.

Funny thing was, 'Sirius' hadn't actually done too much. Sure, he had killed himself a few times, robbed himself, hired himself and hunted himself, but no one else was actually hurt (corrupt politicians, other crime lords and misguided scientific researchers don't count). He did manage to get a reputation worse than Niska, who, in Harry's opinion, was an arrogant upstart.

Every now and then, Harry would visit Potter Moon to make sure all the magical creatures etc. were getting along with each other (this sometimes included the more temperamental plants) and to stock up. He would add to his extensive museums, mix potions, hang out in his mansion, make up cool names for himself and generally forget that idiot people still existed.

Potter Moon was also the base of operations for his many enterprises and where the main servers for his various companies were located. There was a reason no one actually managed to infiltrate the headquarters of his companies or find Lord Ashwinder, Lethi Demen, Felix Flamel, Peter Pettifer or Sirius Prongs Lupin; their home didn't exist.

No one knew about Harry's little moon and he liked it that way.

Thanks so much for reading, the second (and final) chapter is already written and should be up in the next day or so.