A/N: I want to insert one character from Mass Effect universe, where this Harry Potter had lived before he met Sarah Kerrigan. As you aware, he can "summon" them. What do you think about it? Yes or No?

Warning: raw, proofreaded only once.

HARRY AND THE BLADES

by CreatorZorah

Chapter 4

As the night descended on the cold plains, Harry commanded the dragon to land on a hill. There were four protoss settlements on the surface of Kaldir, three of them being outposts. The protoss turned out to be boring creatures in comparison to the zerg. Neither their biology, nor their magic were new to Harry. He had seen many species like the protoss. Just another humanoid species.

They didn't even differ that much from humans in appearance. They had four digits, didn't have a mouth, their legs reminded Harry of cats and dogs. Though there was some beauty in their form, they were boring.

The protoss were preparing to send their forces to exterminate the zerg threat and Harry was sure that they wouldn't launch the attack soon enough. He overheard them when he infiltrated the settlement, which consisted mostly of researchers and civilian colonists. That didn't mean that these protoss possessed no military. There were quite a few ships and various ground forces. And they could call for the fleet. Thankfully they didn't know about Sarah's presence and didn't think that the zerg were a serious threat to do that..

"Sarah, we have enough time to get our forces in positions to launch a preventive attack against the protoss," he said telepathically and sent her pictures of the protoss disposition.

"Keep watching, I'll lead the swarm," she answered.

Harry had no qualms about killing civilians. They would end up in the better world anyway, but he knew that Sarah wouldn't feel the same. So, he had to decide, if it was a good idea to tell her that the protoss were mostly civilians. Either way she would have no choice but to slaughter them. The difference is the foreknowledge. If he wanted to manipulate her into becoming the Dark Lady again, he had to tell her, so that she would butcher them knowingly.

Soon he felt the zerg surrounding the protoss settlements. There weren't many dragons, only three, but it would be more than enough to destroy the protoss ships. At least Harry hoped so, knowing what kind of monsters these creatures were. He could hear and feel plenty hydralisks. The majority of her swarm, however, consisted of zerglings. He didn't see the protoss in battle, but he believed that the swarm was large enough to overwhelm completely outnumbered protoss, most of them being civilians.

Harry saw Sarah approaching him and jumped off the dragon.

"I have to inform you, that these are civilians, Sarah," he said.

"How do you know that?"

"I was in the settlement and heard them talking. They're mostly scientists."

She frowned. "It changes nothing. If I don't kill them, sooner or later they will call for their fleet. And that would be the end of this brood."

"Perhaps," Harry said. "But we could take them prisoners. We would only need to eliminate their soldiers, ships and interstellar communication devices."

"The risk is too much and I refuse to waste my time, searching for another brood while Mengsk has Jim."

Not there yet. "I don't judge you, because I would kill them all, if I were in your shoes," Harry said. "However, are you sure that you're ready to butcher thousands civilians to save one man?"

Sarah clenched her fists in frustration. "I've got no choice if you don't have another ace up your sleeve."

"This time I have nothing to offer... but we could take the swarm and leave the moon."

"And go where exactly? Char isn't friendly world either. Besides, we'd need a better transport than overlords. It would make the swarm completely defenceless in space. Besides, why do I have to be merciful? Even if I had assured them that my zerg aren't a threat, they would still attack and kill every single zerg, because the protoss wouldn't even try to listen. It's kill or be killed."

Harry nodded. "So be it. May I lead the dragons into the battle?"

"Yes," she answered. "I'll lead the ground forces."

With that the whole swarm moved toward the protoss settlements. Harry was thrilled. Not even a month in the universe and he was participating in a battle of such scale. He mounted his dragon and the four massive creatures took off the ground. He waited until zerglings reached the protoss and the battle begun, before heading to the protoss too.

He had to admit that protoss knew how to fight, though he was confused by their weapon choice. Why the hell were they using energy blades? Did they have some religious restrictions on ranged weapons? It most certainly didn't seem to be so, because there were various war machines that were using ranged energy weapons. Still despite this idiocy, they were formidable opponents.

Harry could feel ten zerglings dying for every killed protoss . But zerglings were closely followed by hydralisks, which were much more dangerous foes. Harry knew then that the protoss stood no chance against the swarm. The protoss, apparently, knew that as well and were launching their ships to defend the settlements from the air. That was when Harry struck.

The protoss ships had shields, so had the dragons, but Harry was still a bit disappointed and delighted that the dragons weren't doing very well against protoss. Even though telekinetic strikes were tearing down the shields, leaving the ships open for deadly claws and tails, the dragons were dying. Harry avoided killing protoss himself, because that would damage the balance. An acceptable damage but what if he would be forced to kill more in the future? Better be careful as long as his direct intervention was unnecessary.

Harry could see excitement on Sarah's face. Not only she was controlling the swarm, the swarm had a great influence on her. But he could feel the doubt too. And then she went so far as to ask them telepathically to surrender. Something he didn't expect her to do. The protoss either didn't believe her or decided to fight till the end. Soon they were defeated, their robots and ships were torn in pieces, buildings in ruins and bodies of dead protoss. Lots of them.

Harry wasn't bothered by the slaughter. He knew it was the nature of the zerg. At least the zerg were honest about their intentions. Harry had seen thousands universes where humans had committed xenocide against wizards, universes where magicals enslaved those without magic. He had seen them slaughter other species to extinction. He had seen power-hungry humans destroying their own civilization. And yet they always judged other species for something they considered inhuman. Of all species he considered his former kind one of the worst.

And that was probably the reason for them to be so numerous in the Multiverse. All their faults could be turned into advantages. Humans were strong species. Just like zerg they could adapt to practically anything. To prevail against all odds. Harry had yet to learn more about the protoss, but they seemed to lack the ability to adapt. And the main rule of the Multiverse was adapt or die. The use of melee weapons in this age had almost spelled the death of them from Harry's point of view. They were weak and frail. But he would give them a benefit of the doubt. He knew too little about them.

"Fools," Sarah hissed as Harry landed with the last remaining dragon.

If not for Harry's protective spells, the last one would be killed too, but he couldn't bear the thought of being dismounted.

"I told them I would spare them if they had surrendered," she continued, her eyes suddenly glowed yellow.

"Well, I'm not sure I would have believed you if I were in their shoes," Harry said. "They were convinced that you're that Queen of Blades."

She sighed. "And they were right," she said bitterly. "I'm losing myself."

"You're not," Harry argued. "It's part of you. As I said, you can't change it..."

"But I can do the best thing I can," she finished for him and looked him in the eyes. "How long do you live like this?"

"I didn't count," he answered with a shrug. "A few hundred million years, maybe?"

Sarah shook her head. "The question is, how should I know what's the best thing..."

"I'd say listen to your heart, but it caused me more trouble than good," he said with a grin. "I use my head these days, it's given to make decisions."

He wouldn't say it aloud but his personal favorite was coin tossing. Random was entertaining. Sarah rolled her eyes, and then suddenly she mounted his dragon.

"Hey, that's my dragon!" Harry exclaimed looking at her and zerg who were heading back to the hive.

She laughed and waved a goodbye to him. He could always apparate, she knew that. Harry sighed as Sarah flew away and looked around. There was a living protoss. At least the soul was still in the body, because he felt that the one was dying. He walked towards the protoss and soon saw a female one. She was suffering. The injury paralyzed her and she was dying but way too slowly. To stop her pain, he ripped her soul out and let it go to the Gates. He hated needless suffering.

It was a typical day on Kaldir. It was cold and stormy. He was beginning to hate Kaldir for being so boring. But they couldn't leave the moon, he and Sarah were still working on the dragons. Well, Sarah did the most of work, he was still learning. They wanted to make them function in space so that the swarm wouldn't be completely defenseless there.

Sarah was reading news and intercepted by the adjutant reports and he was sitting beside her, not really interested in news, but in spending more time with Sarah.

"You know, I'm confused about you," Sarah said suddenly. "When you lowered your mind shields, I noticed something."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"In general you call zerg beautiful... Not sure why, but..."

"Because the zerg are," he interrupted her.

"Right," she grunted. "However you called me beautiful too, but when I was listening to your thoughts, when you were studying my suit, you were thinking about the suit and not really about me. Normally it's opposite when I listen to mens' thoughts. And, well, I saw how excited you were at seeing my... well, my winged form. Is that some kind of fetish or I'm missing something?"

Harry blinked. "Thanks. My troublesome friend will tease me about it for aeons. Did you have to claim that I have a fetish only a few days after the friend had said the same thing?" He sighed. "It's simple, Sarah. The zerg adapt and evolve constantly, they're on the road to perfection. Humans on the other hand just adapt. Their evolution is so slow that it doesn't really matter. Human civilizations die long before they can make another step. But you're different. You have an ability to evolve with them. You're a part of the Zerg, you're on the road to perfection."

Sarah frowned. "I'm not sure how it is perfect to slaughter everything on the way."

"The fact is, humans aren't any better. They slaughter everything on their way as long as they can. You told me yourself how people like you are treated. And that's something they do to their own kind. Give humans time, they won't hesitate to destroy the Protoss. Assuming the Zerg don't destroy either of them before that, of course. Humans are much worse than..."

They felt it at the same time. A zerg appeared over the Kaldir. As the zerg got closer to the planet, they rushed out of the dropship and looked at the sky. When the creature began to descend to the surface, Harry was stunned by the size of the creature. He had never seen such monstrous one in the cold of space. Like a giant bug. For a moment he wondered what kind of propulsion the creature had, but dismissed the thought when his mind offered a picture of gas emission...

"What a magnificent creature," Harry muttered.

"Leviathan," Sarah told him.

"When you told me about it, I didn't think that it would be so large."

Sarah grinned. "Well, one problem solved, there is no immediate need to evolve your dragons now."

Harry felt that she was happy to be finally able to take the swarm and free her beloved. It was actually sad, because just like other zerg she possessed an immortal body, while Jim Raynor was just a human. He shook his head and followed Harry to the immense zerg that landed next to the primary hive. It was quite warm there, the air stank a little bit and the floor was pleasantly soft.

Zerg that were inside didn't seem to mind him, that meant Sarah was already in control. As they moved further into the Leviathan, he felt an approach of quite large zerg and the moment later he saw it, but the sight disturbed him a little. There were two souls in the single being. One was clearly zerg, but the second was a human soul, trapped, unable to escape, unable to do anything, but watch and listen. It couldn't affect the zerg in any way, so he ripped it from the body of zerg and watched as the human soul of a woman departed to the afterlife happy to leave this world behind. Sometimes things like this could occur when the creature's body lived through the brain death. That or when poor idiots believed it were a good idea to split their souls.

While helping the poor soul, he didn't notice Sarah starting her conversation with the zerg.

"I'm confused," the zerg said in a female voice. "Why is there a terran with you, my queen?"

"I'm not a terran," Harry said. "The body is just a shell for my spirit. And by the way, how is that you actually speak a terran language?"

The zerg ignored him, obviously waiting for Sarah to answer the zerg. The mind of the zerg was much less protected than Sarah's and Harry entered it easily. Not deep, just to clarify a few questions. Her name was Izsha. Apparently she moved the Leviathan from Char to Phaeton as soon as she could sense Sarah again, but Sarah left the planet and Izsha set the course for the Kaldir.

Izsha was an interesting creature. She had a very long body of a serpent and large a few metres long tentacles on her head with huge claws. Unlike the majority of the zerg she had a quite human face and considering that she had a human soul trapped in the body it was clear that like Sarah, Izsha had been mutated out of a human female..

"He's helping me, Izsha," Sarah said. "And you should answer his questions."

"Yes, my queen," the creature said and turned its head to him. "I'm speaking a terran language, because it was a wish of Her Majesty."

"But you can talk telepathically, don't you?"

"Yes," Izsha answered.

"Why do I sense only few zerg on the Leviathan?" Sarah asked.

"They were taken by the broodmothers, my queen."

"And..."

Suddenly Harry sensed a presence of some creature that felt like a protoss, but a little different. "We have a guest," he interrupted Sarah.

As he said that a protoss appeared out of the thin air. It didn't look like the teleportation the protoss used. Still, he was a protoss, if a strange one. Harry wondered if he wanted to commit a suicide to teleport to the Leviathan in close proximity to a zerg hive. The protoss' mind shields weren't on par with Sarah's. Well, in some way he was even more protected against intrusions, however there was a subtle way to get into his mind without damaging it. Harry doubted that anyone else beside him would find it though.

He didn't touch his memories, there was no time. Harry was interested in the protoss' intentions. What if he was a suicide bomber? Much to his surprise the protoss was here to talk. Harry placed a hand on Sarah shoulder, because he could feel that she was ready to rush towards the protoss and smash his brain out of the head. Just like she had tried to do with Harry's head when they had first met. What a hothead.

"He's here to talk," Harry explained.

"Indeed," the protoss said.

"What about, Zeratul?" Sarah asked narrowing her eyes.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you two are acquaintances?"

Sarah nodded. "I remember we met when I was the Queen of Blades."

"I assume it wasn't a friendly meeting," Harry mused sensing the protoss' confusion over his presence. "I'm Harry Potter, by the way. Her Majesty's Court Sorcerer."

Sarah smacked him upside the head. "Why can't you be serious for once?"

"That wasn't nice, Sarah," Harry pouted and eyed the protoss. "So, will you talk?"

"Xel'naga want you to be the leader of the Zerg, Kerrigan," the protoss said. "And I came here to help you achieve that."

"Aren't these Xel'naga dead?" Harry asked.

"They are," Sarah answered. "He's probably talking about the prophecy Jim had told me about."

"No way!" Harry exclaimed with a grin. "You're the Chosen One?"

"The Chosen One?" Sarah questioned.

"If there's a prophecy, there is always a Chosen One," Harry stated.

"I don't believe in prophecies," Sarah said.

"It doesn't matter, actually," Harry said wondering why the protoss wasn't contributing to the conversation. "Prophecies tend to come true anyway one way or another. But your choice matters. Prophecies always have a room for different interpretations."

"And how exactly do you know that?"

"Did you forget how old I am?" Harry asked with a grin. "Besides I was the Chosen One myself."