Disclaimer: I don't own any of this and I'm not making any money.

A/N - This is a crossover between Harry Potter and Firefly. It is canon compliant to Harry Potter, including the epilogue with one minor alteration. Harry did not discard the Resurrection Stone or the Elder Wand, but was still carrying them when he went to sleep after the battle. Firefly will be mostly canon through the conclusion of the series. Changes will begin with the plot of the Serenity movie.

Warnings - This is rated M for violence, language, reavers, and I'm not ruling out the possibility of smut, though there aren't any plans in the works for that at the moment. Harry is very gray in this fic. Dark gray. Super!Harry.

Pairings - Zoe/Wash; Kaylee/Simon; Mal/Inara. If I pair Harry with anyone, it will be an OC.

*O*

Prologue

The Life of Death

In the year 2018, the magical world was discovered by the world's mundane population. Reactions worldwide varied, but the best were those who sought to employ magicals to do what couldn't easily be done without magic – or could not be done at all without it. Over the course of the following three years, magical-mundane relations across the world rapidly degenerated as both groups believed themselves the "better" species and attempted to act like it. By 2021, the war between magicals and mundanes was global, ranging from tense stand-offs to killing in the streets.

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Conquered, the great Savior, had already fought his war. He'd defeated Voldemort at seventeen, and then gone on to auror training – not because he really wanted to spend the rest of his life fighting dark wizards, but because he really didn't know what else to do with himself. Growing up as he had, fighting – and surviving it – seemed to be his only real skillset. Now, with their world crumbling around them, the people didn't just call on Harry Potter, they demanded that he save them again.

Were it not for his wife, children, and friends, he may have just told them to sod off. Unfortunately, he did have a stake in the magical world that couldn't be ignored… and he'd yet to overcome that "saving people thing".

So Harry fought.

As the war began to turn in the favor of the mundanes across the world. More and more magicals – even whole countries – began to rally beneath Harry's banner. He was, after all, leading one of the only actively fighting magical armies that was having any success. That's how Harry got his crash course in leading. By 2026, Harry had forty-three magical countries under his banner and a military force of approximately 56,000 fighters based primarily across the Indonesian Islands as they were able to hide in those scattered islands under wards heavy enough to turn away mundane ships and divert any rockets they attempted to send into the area.

Though they were horrifically outnumbered by the mundanes, the guerilla tactics of the diverse group seemed to be working. They targeted military installations, research facilities, governmental buildings, and they were finally beginning to make progress.

Then came the Purge. Harry's intel had told him that something was coming, and he'd been desperately dreading it. He'd prepared in every conceivable way, but in the end, it didn't matter. The mundanes had not only identified the magical gene, but found a way to target it biologically.

The magical community came together as never before in a desperate attempt to avoid extinction, but it was far too little and far too late. In just over one year, ten percent of Earth's population – just over a billion people – succumbed to the engineered disease. Not all of them were even magical, or aware of a magical heritage. The disease struck witches and wizards, squibs, and mundanes who carried the recessive gene that was responsible for producing what had once been called muggleborns. A billion people. Dead inside a year.

Harry watched helplessly, scrambling to gather intel and provide every resource for the healers and potions masters that searched for a cure. It wasn't enough.

The very worst of it all, however, was that Harry didn't die with the rest. He contracted the disease fairly early on, fell ill for two days, and recovered. He was the only magical in the world to recover from the disease. He watched his wife, friends, children, grandchildren, soldiers, and everyone else wither away and die before his eyes.

When it was over, Harry went on a killing spree that he hoped would be suicidal. By 2031, Harry had personally slaughtered more than two hundred million people. He'd lost any ability to take pity on even the mundane babies after watching his last grandchild die a painful death during the Purge. He targeted entire cities with a combination of magic and mundane technology, and they died in droves.

His self-imposed mission to slaughter as many mundanes as possible did prove to be suicidal. Unfortunately, he very quickly discovered the true extent of his immortality. Even after detonating a nuclear bomb at point blank range, Harry awoke alive, healthy, and whole in the middle of an obscenely radioactive crater. And just walked away.

It was after that incident that he just gave up. His lust for revenge had faded and he just felt very tired and very alone. Instead of expending all of his energy on killing, he turned it to collecting. Every drop of the magical world that was left was what he would protect in lieu of the people that he had failed.

And so, deep in the heart of the last magical territory in the islands, Harry began stockpiling. He cleaned out Hogwarts – which the mundanes had never managed to unearth – and every branch of Gringotts first. Billions of galleons he melted down into unmarked bars. Millions of books he set his small army of house-elves to organizing. He had enough loose gems to fill an Olympic swimming pool. It was the magical artifacts that took the most of his time, however. A rather large number of them were Dark and had to be handled with care. He destroyed nothing, however, as it was all now a part of his history. Even the most volatile Dark artifacts were carefully stored and secured away.

It was 2049 before Harry became aware that the mundanes were looking to leave Earth, and only then because one of his expeditions for magical artifacts dropped him into the middle of a rather massive riot. He'd been so focused upon his own goals, that he hadn't realized what was happening in the mundane world. Apparently, they'd gone and killed the planet – or were in the process of doing so. A combination of overpopulation and pollution, from what he bothered to learn about it. They were evidently searching for another planet to suck the life out of now.

That night, he cracked open some of his stores of firewhiskey and properly celebrated the chaos that was engulfing the mundane world. Then he went back to collecting his treasures.

It was another two years before Harry paused to check on the mundane world. To his surprise, he found that not only were the mundanes very serious about evacuation, but that they were actually on their way to making it a reality. He spent some time after that just contemplating the almost incomprehensible idea of humanity not living on Earth. Then he spent some time trying to figure out what to do with himself. Though he personally suspected that the planet would survive once the infestation of humanity moved on, and though he truly did hate mundanes, the idea of him – an immortal – spending possibly thousands of years alone on the planet was not very comforting. Even with his house-elves, assuming that they were capable of surviving on the declining planet. He didn't doubt that he was. The peace would undoubtedly be comforting for a while, but he knew that it would get old eventually.

So, though he was by no means ready to forgive the mundanes for slaughtering his entire race, he was beginning to realize that he was going to have to leave with them.

With that in mind, he began making new plans. Plans that would keep him as far from the control of the mundanes as possible. Those plans led him to studying books his own massive collection did not contain. His mundane education, he quickly found, was very spotty as he'd picked up what he needed over the years since starting Hogwarts and disregarded the rest.

And so, he glamored his still-infamous face and ventured into the mundane world as a wealthy college student. Despite the state of the world, Harry managed to get into the most prestigious university left standing, the Horizon Academy. Unlike the old universities, the Academy existed to create specialists in any number of advanced fields, including computer technology, engineering, and geology and biology as frontrunners. It was a school designed to churn out graduates that could be useful to the GEA – the Global Exodus Alliance – as quickly as possible. Students were allowed to progress as quickly as they were able through all the courses, but the entrance exams were tough. Only those with the highest potential were admitted.

Luckily, Harry was a seventy-one year old passing for an eighteen-year-old. Even with his spotty mundane education to date, a few months of studying was enough to allow him to pass the entrance exams.

Over the next three years, Harry blazed his way through a mammoth collection of courses, encompassing all of the most cherished studies with some others that seemed useful as well. With the stoic determination of a seventy-plus-year-old man who had lost everything and fought to the death more times than he wanted to count, he lived and breathed his studies. When he – Henry de'Ath – graduated in 2054, it was with the highest honors and global recognition as a genius. Okay, so he may have used a little magic to boost his comprehension and memory retention…

He was immediately given a job within the GEA, helping to collect and store samples of all life on Earth to be transported to their new solar system. He worked hard, cranked up the charm, and played the Slytherin as never before. By 2059, Harry didn't even have an official title or job description. He was passed between the engineering and terraforming departments as he was needed, and he very quickly got his influence into all of the vital aspects of the arcs and the creation of the terraforming robots that would be launched ahead of them.

When he wasn't working for the GEA, he spent all of his free time back at his home base adapting the arc and terraforming technologies for his own personal use. He enlisted his house-elves, who numbered a little over three hundred, to bringing together the raw resources that he needed, and he set them to assembling the less complicated bits. Luckily, their magic was extremely useful in most of the less intricate tasks. Putting together the hull and decks of his arc, for example, was infinitely easier with magic than mundane technology. His ship was not pieced together with welds and bolts, but magically fused into a single, seamless mold.

Harry launched the first of his terraforming robots two years before the GEA, his target being a garden planet far enough from the GEA's area of focus that he was relatively certain it would be overlooked for some time yet.

Once most of his arc was constructed, Harry tasked the elves with loading his entire collection of magical artifacts and wealth into the vast cargo hold. In addition to the same genetic samples from Earth that the mundanes were taking, Harry added that of every magical plant and animal still in existence, including a relatively small clutch of dragon eggs he'd discovered, one egg that he was fairly certain belonged to a phoenix, and several other eggs that he couldn't even identify but to know that they were not mundane in origin – it really was amazing what was kept in some of the vaults he'd raided…

The very few bits of his arc that he'd not been able to construct himself, he stole from the GEA over a period of months, then pinned it on one of the mundanes, forcing into his mind memories of making plans to try to sell the pieces to independents. That way, when the man was interrogated, he could eventually admit to the theft and motives honestly. Unfortunately, by the time authorities reached the place where the man remembered storing the pieces, it had been robbed by parties unknown… Tragic, really...

**July 2077**

Harry watched the live feed from the trial with a blank face that his alter ego was somewhat infamous for, but on the inside, he was seething. During the war, he'd come to hate all mundanes with more ferocity than he'd ever hated Voldemort. During and after the Purge, he'd been ready and willing to kill every single man, woman, and child on the planet. After his four-year killing spree, he'd mostly stopping caring about all of them, focusing instead on saving the history of his people and making sure their collective wealth never reached their murderers' greedy hands.

Then the exodus had come, and he'd switched his focus to getting the hell off Earth while maintaining his complete autonomy from the mundanes. That had led to his alter ego, Henry de'Ath, three years of frantic schooling, and his job with the GEA, which he tolerated only by constantly reminding himself that he was only using them.

That had worked out pretty well. In the twenty-three years since he'd graduated from the Academy, Henry de'Ath had worked his way up to one of the top positions in the GEA. He was technically department head for the Engineering Sect but was frequently called to consult with the Terraforming Sect given his diverse skillset. More importantly, Harry Potter had been constructing his own private arc back home, to which he apparated whenever he wasn't on duty, and he was very smug about the fact that his was better and further along than the GEA arcs.

He was doing extremely well for himself, particularly as he remained the most wanted individual in the entire world, even if they'd long since given up actively looking for him. Some thought him to be dead, having killed himself when setting off that last bomb. Others were relatively convinced that he couldn't die, since he'd been killed many times during the war and after, in situations where there were plenty of witnesses and sometimes video evidence. Either way, he was still listed as extremely dangerous and not to be approached but to immediately call for backup if he was ever sighted. So far, that hadn't happened since '31.

It had been fifty years now, since the last of his people had died. Fifty years since there had been a living human that he cared about. Fifty years since he'd felt that twinge in his heart and mind that had so often sent him off against impossible odds to rescue random strangers as well as loved ones. Fifty years…

It was back.

Standing there in the executive lounge at the Chinese Arc Facility where he'd been stationed for the last two and a half years, watching the live broadcast of Katerine Halle's trial as she was sentenced to be executed for the crime of treason, Harry felt that almost-forgotten twinge. Though he was cursing vociferously in his mind and fighting between panic and fury at his stupid conscience, he watched as the attractive young woman impassively listened to the judgment, her face giving no more indication of her emotions than Harry's own.

The problem, Harry deduced, was the reason that Katerine had been convicted of treason. Her family was living in one of the poorer regions – the slums among a planet already filled with slums – and they were all beginning to succumb to one of the lung diseases that had become so common thanks to the pollution created by the Arc Project. She'd been attempting to smuggle an air scrubber out of the Arc Facility to take back to her family's home. It was a relatively small thing, but stealing from the Arc Project was treason.

Yep. That was the problem. Between her doing it to try to save her family and the fact that the crime had only been determined to automatically be treason after Harry had framed that bloke for his crimes eleven years ago, he knew that he was in trouble. The conscience that he'd forgotten he had was coming back with a vengeance with his empathy for a woman trying to save her family and his guilt for having some hand in her predicament.

The fact that she was a mundane, regrettably, did not seem to be relieving his need to help her.

And then the panel of judges concluded the trial by vindictively telling Katerine that, because of their relation to a traitor, her family would be moved to the bottom of the boarding list with the criminals. They didn't mention that it was as good as assigning them a death sentence given their already precarious health. And Katerine's composure finally broke. Her shoulders slumped, her brightly defiant eyes dimmed, and tears began to trail silently down her face.

Harry growled internally as his hero complex roared fully to life. This right here just proved that there was still some Gryffindor inside him. After the Purge, he'd never imagined that he'd feel anything but pleasure at the thought of a mundane's death. Any mundane. And now he wanted to save one. Ginny would probably be proud, he thought uncharitably. Damn that woman. Fifty years dead, and she was still getting to him.

There were a few cheers in the room as the woman's sentence was read, but it wasn't as overwhelming as it might have been. Katerine Halle had worked in the Engineering Sect within this facility. People here had known her, even if she hadn't been above the grunt stage. She was very smart. It had been obvious to Harry and most of the others that she would go far. And now she was going to die for doing something stupid, but admittedly noble.

Henry de'Ath just shook his head slightly and turned to leave the room. Katerine's sentence was to be carried out tomorrow. Harry still had two hours of his shift to finish, and then he was going to see if he remembered how to be a hero.

Harry had spent the six hours after the culmination of his shift plotting, trying to decide exactly how he wanted to play his rescue. Given the global recognition of Katerine's crime and sentence, there was no way to do this quietly. Even if he managed to make it look like Katerine had carried it all out on her own, it was going to be a huge ordeal.

Perhaps it was time to send a message to the Alliance that they weren't as invincible as they liked to believe… This was the perfect opportunity.

With that in mind, Harry decided to do this in style. He clothed himself in black robes with a black cloak that would have made Snape envious for its ability to billow impressively. He didn't bother arming himself. He was going to do this as a wizard.

The personal agenda worked into the rescue helped him to feel like less of a Gryffindor fool as he apparated to Teiton Prison, the highest security prison in the world, to liberate one foolish girl with more heart than brain – a condition he himself had suffered in his youth.

His natural invisibility – a trait he'd acquired upon mastering death – a silencing charm, and a series of apparations could have taken him to her cell without any of the guards even knowing that he was there, but Harry was going for a loud and obnoxious statement here – besides, he did kind of miss killing off mundanes with abandon.

"Hold and identify yourself!" came a shout as he approached the main gate of the prison, his cloak billowing around him, twisting shadows clinging to him unnaturally, his face shrouded by his deep hood.

Harry drew to a stop and slowly raised his hands to ease down his hood, revealing his true face to the mundanes for the first time in forty-six years. "My name is Harry Potter," he said in a loud, clear voice intended to carry.

The guard that had addressed him stopped in his tracks and his jaw fell open as he gaped at the man who'd become more legend and myth than fact to the younger generations. It lasted only two seconds before the guard's gun snapped up and trained on Harry. "On your knees, hands behind your head!" he shouted. He wore a breathing mask to protect him from the befouled air that the prisoners were forced to breathe constantly.

Harry chuckled darkly, and slowly shook his head. Then he apparated. During the war – hell, even when he'd been an auror – one of Harry's signature moves was apparating around the battlefield, appearing behind his enemies and killing them before apparating away again. After absorbing the Hallows, apparation had come naturally to him – almost without thought. He could move silently, over any global distance, and it never seemed to tire him in the slightest. There were some perks to being the Master of Death, after all.

Green light flared and the guard's life was snuffed out before he could begin to realize what was happening. Shouts sounded around the area as the guards close enough to see what had happened realized that they were under attack and began to call out in alarm. Harry disappeared and reappeared behind a guard on one of the lookout posts, and he too died in a flash of green. Another perk as the Master of Death was that that particular spell was a natural as breathing. He had only to decide to kill and the curse was unleashed.

Three more guards fell before they even started shooting at him. Bullets ricocheted around the compound, following the green light but never arriving at their destination before Harry was already in another.

Green death washed over the grounds as the bodies began to pile up and Harry felt himself growing increasingly focused, his power singing through him, his magic soaking the surrounding area as the Master of Death claimed soul after soul without hesitation.

Lights and sirens flashed as someone managed to hit an alarm, but Harry could barely hear it over the shouts and screams of fearful mundanes fighting a hopeless fight for their worthless lives. He gloried in the slaughter that he had not felt in so many years. For every life he took, he remembered the faces of the dying as the insidious disease created by the mundanes tore through the magical population until not a single man, woman, or child apart from Harry himself yet carried a single drop of magical blood. Were he not immortal, Harry would have sabotaged the mundanes' efforts to leave Earth and he would have watched them die on their doomed world just as he had been forced to watch his own people die. But he was immortal, and he'd rather live among mundanes than spend millennia alone.

Death filled Teiton Prison as Harry worked his way through it methodically until not a single living soul remained on the compound that was not behind bars.

Finally, Harry appeared before the cell he sought. He hit the pad to activate the lights inside and found himself looking into the bright blue – albeit red-rimmed – eyes of Katerine Halle herself. He wasn't surprised that she was awake and alert. With the alarms blaring, he was sure that the entire prison was awake.

"Who are you?" she asked warily.

"Introductions later," he said dismissively. "Come on, we're getting out of here."

Her eyes widened. "What?" she gasped.

He rolled his eyes. "Catch," he instructed as he tossed her the small coin.

She caught it automatically and vanished with a surprised look on her face. That portkey would take her to a locked room on one of his islands where she could stay until he got there to explain things.

A large part of Harry wanted to head back outside where he could feel a large number of bodies congregating. Beyond the general alarm, someone must have slipped his name up the chain of command because it sounded like there was an army gathering outside. Oh, how he'd love to go out there and slaughter them all. He was still riding the high of his previous massacre and he didn't want to let it go. Unfortunately, that wasn't part of the plan. He had other things to be doing now.

With a deep breath, Harry forced down the urges and made himself stay inside. Once he was under control, he walked leisurely back to the control room where he'd stopped to find Katerine's cell. Once there, he tinkered with the controls until he had opened every cell in the prison. He doubted that many would escape with that attack force outside, but it would incite such wonderful chaos for the Alliance to sort through.

With a malicious chuckle, Harry disapparated.

He appeared at the address he'd found earlier and quickly raised a sweet air spell to follow him and keep the toxic smog out of his lungs – he didn't have to worry about it killing him, but that didn't make it pleasant to breathe. He entered the run-down complex of tiny apartments and located 10Q on the seventeenth floor. He knocked.

"Who is it?" came a suspicious call from within.

Harry smirked and responded, "There's been a disturbance at Teiton Prison."

The door cracked open and an old man's face filled the gap. His eyes raked over Harry's unconventional attire suspiciously. "What kind of disturbance?" he demanded.

Harry leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice, "Katerine Halle has been rescued. She's safely beyond the reach of the Alliance. I'm here to bring her family to her. I assume you are a member of the family?"

The man's eyes grew almost impossibly wide and he hesitated for only a couple seconds before stepping back and drawing the door open. "Get in!" he hissed.

Harry stepped passed him into the one-room apartment, casting his eyes around distastefully at the bunks tucked into one corner, the top set folded up against the wall so that the lower could comfortably be used as sofas. The small space was probably as clean as it could be given that six people were evidently crowded into an area that one would have trouble using with any large degree of comfort.

Two women and a boy of about eight were huddled on one of the beds, the child placed between them protectively. Harry was a little surprised to see the young one. Children were increasingly rare these days. The women looked like probably mother and daughter, the resemblance suggesting that they were likely Katerine's older sister and mother. The old man who'd let him in closed the door, then moved to join the two men who were standing protectively between Harry and the women and child. At a guess, the men were Katerine's father, grandfather, and perhaps her sister's husband? None of them looked healthy. They were all too thin, too pale, and with dark rings beneath their eyes. The elder woman coughed weakly into a handkerchief already showing spots of blood on it.

"You said Katerine has been rescued?" the old man asked desperately.

Harry nodded, "Minutes ago, yes. She is safe. I'm here to take you to meet her. We probably have a few hours before the Alliance thinks to come here, but it would be best if we didn't linger."

"Who are you?" the man who looked like the father inquired.

"My name is Harry Potter," Harry admitted.

The elders gaped at him while the youngers frowned uncertainly.

"Dear Jesus, are you really?" the eldest man breathed.

Harry stared at the older man for a minute, then nodded slowly. He didn't doubt that that man was old enough to remember the war, the Purge, and what followed. Back in the days when one couldn't turn on the telly or walk down a street without seeing Harry's face, warning that he was incredibly dangerous and very much wanted by the government. It kind of reminded him of that last year against Voldemort, actually. Public Enemy Number One and all that.

"Dad, he can't be," the father argued. "Harry Potter would be older than you."

"Ninety-seven this month," Harry agreed. "I've aged gracefully. Now, I wasn't joking about getting out of here. I can provide you with clothes and all other basic provisions. Pack up only what you can't bear to leave behind."

The old man studied him for about two solid minutes, then drew himself up determinedly and nodded to the younger men. "Do as he says."

"But, dad…" the father tried to protest.

"No, David. Do as you're told." He looked at him with piercing brown eyes and stressed, "For your children, David. Do it."

David sighed heavily, but nodded, shooting a cautious look at Harry before directing the younger man and the younger woman to pack and moving to help himself.

"My name is Alexander, General Potter," he offered one frail hand.

Harry gripped it firmly but carefully. "Just Harry's fine, Alexander. I'm not much of a general anymore since my people were all killed."

Alexander nodded grimly. "I protested against the Purge," he said quietly, introspectively. "I lost friends to that atrocity. I don't blame you for what you did after."

Harry just nodded. He didn't need this man's absolution, though it would make things easier if the family didn't view him as the homicidal lunatic that he basically was those first years after the Purge.

"Can I ask…? How did you become involved in rescuing my granddaughter?" Alexander asked cautiously.

Harry frowned and shook his head faintly. "I… I'd actually prefer to explain that after we reach our destination. I'd rather not go through it more than once."

Alexander nodded and said no more, instead moving to order the younger people around to make sure nothing important was forgotten.

Within half an hour, the Halles had packed up as much as they could carry and they were all standing around, staring warily at Harry as they waited to learn what would happen next.

Harry drew a length of rope a little over half a meter in length from his robe and concentrated on it for a moment, sending a spark of magic into it. It flashed briefly blue, causing all of the mundanes to flinch. "Everyone take hold. This will take you to our destination."

"What?" the youngest man demanded uncomprehendingly. His name, Harry had learned while they packed, was Everett Miller. He was, in fact, the husband of Katerine's elder sister, Lora and father to the boy, Riyal. Katerine's mother's name was Hannah.

"It's magic," Harry explained blandly. "You have heard what I'm famous for, haven't you?"

"That's… That's actually true?" Everett blinked. "I thought… I always thought those stories were embellished or… whatever."

"It's true," Harry said gravely. "Now please grab the rope. Katerine has been waiting for us long enough."

Mention of Katerine was what finally got the six of them touching the rope. Harry activated the portkey before anyone could have second thoughts, then apparated a second behind them.

He arrived just as the family spotted Katerine and he conjured himself a chair to sit and wait while they enjoyed their tearful reunion.

Katerine wanted to know what happened. How they'd come to be there. It was Alexander who explained about Harry Potter, which inevitably drew all eyes back to where Harry was waiting patiently. He smiled when they were all focused on him.

"You can't be Harry Potter," Katerine complained. "You're not any older than me."

Harry chuckled and waved his hand to conjure a pair of sofas and a loveseat for his seven guests. After they got over gaping at the display of magic, they slowly settled themselves into the chairs. "You all must be hungry. Let me have some food brought, and then I will answer your questions."

They nodded slowly and Harry called for a house-elf, which caused the mundanes another fright that Harry ignored. The elf took his cue from Harry and also ignored their exclamations. "Bring some supper, please. Something healthy, but not too heavy, I think."

The elf turned and looked them all over, as though assessing their dietary needs, then vanished with a pop.

"What was that?" Hannah breathed.

"That was a house-elf," Harry admitted. "One of the only magical creatures that your kind didn't manage to exterminate. They work for me."

The group exchanged looks, then flinched badly when a low table appeared in front of them, brimming with soup, bread, vegetables, pitchers of orange juice and water.

The family looked at the spread with wonder written plainly on their faces. "Real food," Everett whispered in awe.

Harry chuckled. "Yes. I have orchards, vineyards, fields of crops, and a quite large collection of livestock. Here and in other places around the world. Thanks to magical protections against the pollution, this is some of the purest food left on the planet. Please, eat your fill. There is plenty more."

Tentatively, the family began to serve themselves, but they were soon eating with too much dedication to make conversation. Harry didn't begrudge them. Katerine would have had decent food fairly regularly between the Academy and the Arc Facility, both of which were filled with enough "important people" to warrant real food from the greenhouses. Most of the remaining human population lived off nutrient paste and water tainted with the chemicals used to keep it safe for drinking. Of course, it was their own sodding fault that the planet had gone to hell. Had the magicals won the war, Earth wouldn't need to be evacuated. Of that Harry was absolutely certain. They didn't generate pollution and they had been a very long way from overpopulating the planet. The magical world was far from perfect, but at least they hadn't destroyed their own world.

"Where are we?" Katerine finally managed to ask.

"An island in the south pacific," Harry admitted. "This one is called Draconis. It was one of many used for refugees during the war. I live on an island nearby."

"And you said that the air… You can keep it clean? Magically?" Katerine asked, nearly stumbling over the last word.

Harry nodded.

"Then… Do you plan to remain on Earth?"

Harry shook his head this time. "No, Katerine, I do not. As you've noticed, I appear no older than you, yet I was born ninety-seven years ago. As I'm sure Alexander recalls, the mundanes – that's you people without magic – believed that I was immortal. Well, they were right. I don't age and I can't die – trust me, I've tried every possible way, including blowing myself up with a nuclear bomb."

Alexander gaped. "That's true, then? You really were in New York…?"

Harry nodded grimly. "I was. I expected to die that day. When I didn't…" He shrugged. "That's when I decided to let go of my grudge – or the more homicidal aspects of it – and move on. Anyway. Yes, I am immortal. As far as I can tell, I'll still be here in a million years. And no, I have no desire to spend the next million years alone but for the company of house-elves. So I will be leaving Earth as well. Not with the mundanes, however. I am building my own arc."

That got another round of substantial gaping. Except for Riyal, who was dozing on his mother's lap and seemed utterly unconcerned for everything now that he had a full stomach for the first time in gods knew how long.

"How is that possible?" Katerine breathed. "That's… There are thousands of people working on each arc. You can't possibly build one by yourself."

"I've based my design off the GEA arcs," Harry admitted. "The technical bits I've constructed myself. The more labor-intensive parts, my elves have put together."

"But… How?" Katerine demanded. "How do you know anything about the arcs?"

Harry gave her a small smile and conjured up his glamor to cover him for a few seconds before dropping it again.

She choked and gaped while her family looked warily between the two of them. "Dr. de'Ath?" she finally gasped out.

Harry grinned. "Quite. When I decided that I wanted to leave Earth, I went to the Academy to learn what I'd need, then took a job with the GEA to learn more. I've been working on my arc for the last twenty-three years, basing it off the Arc Project, but keeping all my most innovative ideas for myself. My arc, which I've named the Phoenix, should be completed within ten years, barring any unforeseen circumstances."

"Harry," Alexander said after a moment of silence, during which Katerine just stared at him with wide eyes. "Why did you involve yourself in our family?"

Harry sighed and shook his head. "Katerine's story… affected me," he admitted. "What she did – or rather, attempted to do for her family… It reminded me of myself when I was young. I would do just about anything – sacrifice anything – to protect those that I loved. Sometimes even to protect people that I didn't know, provided that I believed they deserved it. It is who I was."

"Harry…" Alexander hesitated, then continued cautiously. "I've never heard about who you really are – what you really did…"

Harry frowned and sipped at his tea. "I was an orphan," he finally admitted. "An evil wizard killed my parents when I was a baby, then proceeded to spend the next sixteen years trying to kill me. I grew up fighting him. I killed him when I was seventeen. After that, I joined the magical world's police force. That's what I did until the war. I had a wife and five kids."

That last comment seemed to affect them all pretty strongly. Everett and Lora looked at their son.

"I was thirty-eight when the magical world became known to the mundanes. I did my part as was my job. In 2021, when I was forty-one, the war escalated globally. I was always… exceptionally powerful. I was a natural, though reluctant, leader. The people looked to me to lead them. For the sake of my family and my nation, I did so. When the war began to turn sour for much of the world, they began to rally under me. I led the bulk of the magical world down here after a few of our havens were bombed. It's easier to protect the islands.

"And then the virus was released, and I couldn't fight it. I tried. We did everything possible, but we were dying too quickly. More than a billion people died between April 2026 and October 2027. I was the only one who recovered from the illness." His chest clenched as the memories flew behind his eyes, muted only slightly through time. "I held my baby granddaughter in my arms as she died. My children. My wife. My friends. Everyone who'd looked to me to lead them through the war. To protect them and their families. I watched them all die."

Silence filled the room as Harry trailed off, slowly working to stuff the memories back behind his mental shields so that he could continue to function.

"Half a billion people used to occupy these islands. Half a billion. They were my responsibility, and I watched them all die. Did I go a little insane after that? Yeah. Show me anyone in the world who wouldn't."

A long moment of silence followed before Harry got himself together again. "Well, as I see it, you lot have two choices. If you want to leave, I can drop you off at any city of your choosing in the world – after I take a few basic precautions to ensure that you can't go and blab about me. Don't worry, I won't harm you in the process. Or, the second choice, you can stay here and join me on my arc.

"Now, I know that this probably sounds like an easy choice, assuming that you lot aren't pathologically opposed to magic, which you don't seem to be. Before you decide, however, I want to make it clear that if you stay with me, you will treat me as your captain. You will abide by my rules and follow my orders. If you can't do that, you may want to consider taking your chances out there because it would be very easy to fashion a brig on the Phoenix."

"What kind of rules and orders could we expect?" David asked cautiously.

Harry shrugged, "Oh, nothing invasive. Parts of the ship will be restricted. Attempting to access them would turn out badly for you. Attempting to spy on me or sabotage my ship in any way. Attempting to contact the Alliance in any way without my permission. Any of those might get you a trip out an airlock. Essentially, the rules won't be any more strict than you could expect from the Alliance, but you'll be answering to me rather than some government stooge. As to the orders, if there's trouble of any kind, you'll be expected to do as you're told immediately without question. Failure to comply there will probably earn you a stay in the brig. Unless it results in fatal or catastrophic events, for which I might kill you.

"Perhaps it would be easier to tell you what won't happen. If you join me, then you are my crew. I will not harm any of you without just cause. If someone else tries to harm you, I will protect you. I have no compunctions about taking life in general – I really couldn't at this point – but I stand by those who stand by me. I am not a sadist. I have been quite happily celibate since my wife died fifty years ago, so you needn't worry that I'll try to take advantage of anyone in that way.

"Does all of that make sense?"

The group didn't look greatly relieved in general, but he wasn't going to lie to them.

"What happens when we get to Tauri?" Katerine posed. "Are you just going to make your own place on Londinium like you have here?"

"No," Harry said immediately. "I've chosen a different planet, a bit further out – a few weeks travel from Londinium. I launched my own terraforming robots seven years ago."

"Seven?" Katerine frowned. "GEA launched five years ago."

Harry grinned, "I told you that I'm running a bit ahead of the GEA. I call my planet Elysium. It's a temperate garden world, over sixty percent water on the surface, with gravity already comparable to Earth."

"Your planet?" Katerine questioned curiously.

Harry just nodded. "I believe that I can hide the planet in the same way that I'm hiding these islands. Or, a similar way, at least. I'll have plenty of time to study on the way over. I've scoured the whole planet for everything magical ever made, and that'll all be coming with, so I'll have plenty of study material. Anyway, you lot – or rather, your descendants, I suppose – will be welcome to join me on Elysium. Once the Alliance gets there and settles their world, your descendants can join them if they want. I'll even give them a new last name if yours is still flagged as fugitives.

"Well, it's really late – or perhaps more early now, and I have to work tomorrow. For now, you have free rein of this island, but please don't attempt to leave it. There aren't any modern amenities here, as this was all built for witches and wizards, who don't need things like electricity. If you run into any problems, just call for Kallus, the house-elf who brought dinner. You don't need to raise your voice, just call his name and want him to come and he will hear you. He can bring you food when you need it, and even get a message to me if it's urgent enough.

"I will warn you, the house-elves are not human, but they are intelligent and have feelings just like us. They enjoy working and being useful, so don't hesitate to ask them for what you need, but don't deliberately upset or harm them. If you do, I will give them permission to ignore you, and you'll soon starve to death."

Harry rose from his chair, ignoring the uneasy looks the family was exchanging at his latest death threat. "You'll find dorms down that corridor," he gestured to the door behind them, which opened at his silent command. "I'll give you one week to make you choice between remaining with me and returning to the Alliance. I understand that you may wish to know me a little better before deciding. I have nothing to hide, and I give you my oath that I will not deliberately lie to any of you unless I believe the justification may save a life."

"That was quite the specific promise," David noted with something between wariness and amusement.

Harry shrugged, "When a wizard gives an oath, it's binding. Were I to break that, very bad things would happen to me. I could lose my magic or even die. I don't make oaths lightly."

David nodded in slightly amazed understanding.

"Well, I'm going to retire now. Remember, if you need anything, even directions, call for Kallus or just say 'house-elf' if you forget his name. Goodnight," he nodded to them as a group, then apparated back to his house.

Over the next week, Harry had breakfast alone, then apparated to his quarters at the Arc Facility and appeared for work. When his shift was finished, he apparated home, changed clothes, then visited the Halles. He took them to his island for a proper tour of the Phoenix and allowed Katerine a supervised exploration of the engine compartment so that she could assure herself that the ship would actually fly and make it to their destination. She was visibly impressed by what she found, though she didn't understand all of it, since she was still quite young, her education not nearly as broad as Harry's own.

Harry devoted some time to dusting off old potions books and doing some brewing for the family. He hadn't felt sick in eighty years and his injuries healed within seconds, so he hadn't had any need for healing potions, but the Halles certainly did. Over the course of the week, he managed to brew them enough potions to cure their lung disease and get them on the way to recovering from the prolonged malnourishment and mild dehydration.

They'd been very leery of the potions in the beginning, but after their lungs healed noticeably with just one dose, they stopped giving him cautious looks and happily took anything that he gave them. He even brewed some basic antiseptic salves, pain potions, and headache potions to make their lives a little more comfortable without access to any modern medicine.

Riyal, in particular, was probably happier than he'd ever been in his life. He took a swim in the tub every night, played in the gardens, climbed trees, and generally ran around and acted like a child in so many ways that just weren't possible in the dying planet outside Harry's wards. Riyal's increased health, safety, and space had a very obvious impact on the boy. Every time he laughed, Harry could see in the faces of all of the adults that their decision had been made by that alone, but he didn't push them to give their answer sooner. He'd leave them the option to change their mind until their week was up.

The night that the decision was to be made, Alexander was the appointed representative, either because he was the oldest and head of the family or because he was closest to Harry's age. Either way, they settled down together in Harry's parlor and Harry cracked open a really good wine bottled in 1980 because he was feeling nostalgic. Alexander almost choked when he saw the date on the bottle and he looked almost afraid to drink it.

"I have thousands of bottles that are older," Harry assured him, which was true, if a bit of an understatement. The old wizarding families had been particularly wealthy in galleons, books, dark artifacts, and liquor, wine especially.

Alexander seemed to consider that a moment before settling further back into his seat and sipping the wine appreciatively.

"Shall I assume that you've come to give me your family's choice?" Harry offered after a minute.

Alexander gave him a small smile, "You already know the answer. We've never lived as well as we do here. And we're all healthy for the first time in so long."

Harry dipped his head in agreement and favored the man with a small smile. "I didn't want to make assumptions. I am pleased with your decision. It would have been a very long trip with just me and the elves."

Alexander returned his smile and they sipped their wine in silence for a while, both watching the fire crackling in the fireplace. "Thank you," Alexander said at last.

Harry looked at him and lifted a questioning brow.

"For saving Katerine. For bringing us here. For making those potions for us. Even the best medicine doesn't work that quickly."

Harry nodded in agreement. "Mundane technology can do things that magic can't, but healing is one area in which they are still a long way behind."

Silence fell again, neither of them mentioning the Purge or the virus that the magical community had not been able to stop. Harry was sure they could have if they'd had more time – more warning. Too many of them were dead or dying before they could make any real progress. By the time they had the information they needed, they no longer had the most brilliant healers to use it.

"Honestly, I've never been much more than adequate when it comes to brewing potions," Harry admitted nostalgically. "The man who taught potions at my school could have brewed a potion to heal the lot of you in one go. He was… an irascible son of a bitch, but he was unsurpassed in his field. …he died when I was seventeen," Harry recalled solemnly. "He gave his life to help me defeat the dark wizard Voldemort – would-be tyrant of the magical world." Harry shook his head and sighed briskly, "It never gets easier – losing loved ones – though it is disturbingly possible to grow accustomed to it. I suppose that that's a skill I'll need in the future."

"You're truly immortal?" Alexander asked curiously.

Harry nodded, "As immortal as it gets – at least as far as I can tell."

"Yet you're the only one. How did it happen?"

Harry shook his head, "Sort of by accident, really. There were three extremely powerful magical artifacts, created in the thirteenth century. Each artifact was powerful by itself and they changed hands many times through the centuries – that much I know for fact. One of these artifacts, a cloak of perfect invisibility, was passed down through the original family, and eventually came to me. I inherited it after my father died and came into possession of it when I was eleven. Another of the artifacts likewise was passed down through the original family, eventually ending in the possession of Voldemort, from whom I took it shortly before I killed him." Well, Dumbledore took it, but Harry saw no need to bring the old coot into this conversation.

"That was an enchanted stone that could call the spirits of the dead."

Alexander's eyes widened dramatically.

"Oh, it didn't bring them back to life," Harry assured him. "It just pulled their spirits from the realm of the dead. They couldn't touch the living or interact with it in any way except to speak to the one who possessed the ring. Those spirits no longer belong in this world and they cannot stay long or come often without experiencing something like pain that grows the longer they remain." He knew that because he'd spent a lot of time summoning dead people after the Purge. "I avoid using it now. It's not pleasant for the dead and not healthy for the living.

"Anyway, the final item was a wand – a magically crafted stick used to focus magical energy in spell-casting. Every magical human needed a wand to use magic effectively. I'm the only exception to that, and only because of who and what I became after I gained mastery of that wand – before I even possessed it. Well, the wand was exceptional because it was supposedly unbeatable. The master of the wand could not be defeated in a duel – unless, of course, the wand deemed him unworthy and chose the challenger instead, in which case the wand could actually betray its master. That's a point that wasn't really known. I only discovered it through research and through getting to know the item.

"So, I gained mastery of the cloak when I inherited it at eleven, the ring when I was seventeen, and the wand a few months later. That first night after I came to possess all three items, I woke to what felt like a fever. I was slightly delirious. The three items were there before me, floating apparently under their own power and glowing faintly with a color that I could not and cannot describe. The magic in the air was so thick that I could hardly breathe. And then the items glowed more brightly than ever until they seemed to be made of nothing more than magic itself. They absorbed into my skin and I felt like I was on fire. There was pain – a lot of it – and then I passed out.

"When I woke up – two weeks later – my magic had changed. I'd always been very magically powerful, but that power had grown exponentially. I could perform with a thought magic that I'd never learned to do with a wand. I never needed a wand again after that. In truth, when I tried, I found that they only slowed me down. That's also when I gained the ability to heal from any wound in seconds, and my terrible eyesight just righted itself.

"Luckily, I didn't stop aging at that point. Between growing up malnourished and spending a year in hiding, living out of a tent, I was a scrawny and sickly-looking boy then. No, my body continued to grow and mature until I was about twenty-five, at which point it just stopped. My hair and nails still grow, but my body remains youthful and healthy as the years pass. After letting that nuke go off right in front of me… I think that it did destroy my body utterly, but that my body simply put itself back together in the seconds following the explosion. The mushroom cloud was still growing above me when I came to…

"Anyway, the legend behind those three artifacts is that they were created by Death himself – as in the avatar or personification of Death or perhaps the God of Death. I don't know. The story was so old it had become a faery story. Almost no one believed that it was actually possible to become Master of Death. I certainly didn't. I simply thought them three very powerful and old magical artifacts. I know now that the legend was true."

"So you are the Master of Death," Alexander frowned thoughtfully. "Are you a God, then?"

Harry shrugged, "I don't know. If I am a God, I might be the only one or the others just aren't talkative because I certainly haven't met any. I do have a connection with Death though, beyond being able to use the resurrection stone with a mere thought since it became a part of me. I can… feel it when someone dies. I can feel the spirit leave the body and transition through the veil. Whenever it happens near me or by my hand, I feel… stronger, as though a part of that passing energy was transferred to me." He sipped his wine, then shrugged one shoulder. "It's difficult to explain."

Alexander nodded pensively and they sat in silence a while longer.

"Do you plan to take on any more passengers?" the mundane finally asked. "The Phoenix is certainly large enough, and there are many more families such as mine who won't survive until the Alliance lets them aboard their arcs."

Harry nodded slightly. "Yes, I likely will take on more passengers. I won't take just anyone in need, however. There may be some soft spots left in me, but I won't extend them to every urchin. I've allowed the Alliance to know that Harry Potter still lives and is still a danger. I will probably take on more enemies of the Alliance. Not those who deserve to be punished for their crimes, but those who were justified in their actions – like your granddaughter."

"Any idea of how many you plan to take?"

Harry shook his head. "I'd like at least a few dozen from mixed families or the lot of you will almost all die out before we arrive. I'd like to at least give the option for those like Katerine and Riyal to find someone to share their lives with over the voyage. I don't want to bring much more than a thousand though. I've never been a great fan of crowds and the Phoenix wasn't built to be a human transport vessel. It won't be difficult to make a few changes at this point to accommodate more people. Not when magic can mold the decks and bulkheads like clay. I'm not concerned for supplies either. A relatively small amount of food can be made into much more through magic. I don't even need to do that as it is well within the capabilities of the house-elves. And I'm powerful enough that I need very little raw material to conjure and replicate most of the more mundane things, such as clothes and toothbrushes.

"I suppose I'll have to put some thought into entertainment though," he noted pensively. "You all won't be keeping yourselves busy with magical research as I had planned to do with most of my time during the voyage. I'll have to expand the exercise facilities, the galleys, the restrooms…" After a moment of thought, he nodded to himself and stood. "I should take you back and get started to modifying the layout of the Phoenix."

Alexander nodded as he tiredly pushed himself to his feet and tipped back the last of his wine. "I was wondering, Harry, would it be possible for us to look at some of your books? I, for one, am very curious about magic and the magical world you speak of so often."

Harry smiled and nodded. "I'll send an elf over with some history and theory books that you can peruse at your leisure. I have multiple copies of most of those anyway."

Harry apparated Alexander back to his family, gave instructions for an elf to bring them a list of books, then returned to his office and located the plans for the Phoenix. He was glad now that he'd gone a bit extravagant with the size. He wouldn't have to sacrifice any of his cargo to accommodate a thousand passengers. It would also be nice if he could find more people like Katerine who could fill out a small crew to help with the routine operation and maintenance of the ship so he wouldn't have to do everything. For the most part, the thing would fly itself, but it would require some attention over the years.

And he should probably see about getting a more comprehensive mundane library to educate the younger mundanes and those who would be born during the flight. And he should see about stockpiling potions ingredients. With that many civilians on board, he'd need to brew very large batches of the basic potions, and probably keep a few of the less basic ones on hand for emergencies. He wondered if he could find a good doctor or two. It would be nice to have someone who could care for the simpler injuries and illnesses.

Ah, so much to do and only a decade in which to do it. At least he already had the facilities to house anyone that he picked up during the next decade so he wouldn't have to worry about trying to let them live aboard the arc prematurely. Draconis alone could house more than five thousand people very comfortably and he had plenty of house-elves to keep them fed, clothed, and see to any other miscellaneous needs.

With his mental to-do list in order, Harry turned his focus back to the plans for the ship and started penciling in some alterations.

Harry's last decade on Earth proceeded much as the previous two except that he now had a growing number of mundanes to look after on Draconis. His original thought had been to just sweep up anyone like Katerine who caught his eye. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized how advantageous it would be to have people of a certain skillset with him. With that in mind, he started targeting those people and actually recruiting them.

He didn't bother with most of those employed by the GEA unless they were like Katerine and had families in trouble. He didn't try to get anyone who didn't have a good reason to say yes. Some of his targets had worked for the GEA – which employed or had employed pretty much all of the best and brightest on the planet – but were fired for various reasons. Some were convicts that he had to liberate as he had Katerine – those were, honestly, the most fun.

He was questioned less as time went on and his legend grew once more into fact among the press. They didn't know a lot about him that was true or substantiated, but at least people believed that he was still alive, and the existence of magic was becoming more well-known. Unfortunately, the Alliance had decided to declare him some manner of demon through the press, so a few of those Harry tried to recruit were impossible to convince – the sort of people who'd rather be martyrs than accept his help. Those people and anyone else who refused him, he just obliviated without much concern.

Eventually, he went into his stores and located an ancient artifact that had been created to bind mundane serfs to magical lords in times before the Founders. Basically, it was made to allow mundanes to swear magical oaths. Traditional magical oaths used the magic of the person speaking it to do the binding, which obviously would not work on mundanes. The artifact called upon ambient magic to do the binding. He wasn't a hundred percent certain how it would work in space, unfortunately, but it was better than nothing. Though he did believe that everyone he'd recruited was happy with the opportunity to join him instead of going with the Alliance, he'd simply been through too much in his life to put too much faith in mundanes. And the more he gathered, the more difficult it would be for him to reliably monitor all of them.

And so, one by one, the mundanes swore fealty to him and he went about treating them exactly as he had before. The arc also progressed more rapidly than he'd expected. Once the mundanes were sworn to him, he trusted them enough to let the engineers help out without his standing constantly over their shoulders. He checked their work when they were done just to be sure it was done correctly, but he didn't feel the need to monitor them lest they sabotage something. The binding stone would ensure that.

By 2085, Harry was a little disgruntled with himself as he'd managed to accumulate twelve hundred passengers with about three hundred being skilled and useful in his or her field and the rest being the friends and family that had bought Harry the allegiance of the skilled. It was more than he'd planned. Why did everyone have to have so damn many loved ones? Oh well, he was pleased with his collection. So many specialists would mean a very well educated future generation that landed on Elysium – and every single one owing him allegiance. He truly loved it when his Gryffindor and Slytherin sides worked together.

He never grew as close to any group of mundanes as he did to the Halles though. They were the only ones that knew the full story of his life, and had become almost like family to him despite them all being mundanes. The one to whom he was closest was undoubtedly Katerine. Though he'd been resistant to the idea for a long time, mostly due to the age difference, she'd eventually gotten him into her bed and he'd not wanted to leave since.

Katerine was… unlike Ginny in almost every way. He was glad of that though. He'd hate to compare his girlfriend to his late wife. Katerine's personality was kind of Ravenclaw meets Slytherin though her loyalty to her family was unquestionable and she was obviously capable of acting like a Gryffindor to protect them if necessary. She was brilliant and devious within a background of calm and quiet that was very unlike Ginny. But she'd grown up in a world rapidly going to hell and her intelligence had made it apparent when she was quite young that she could be her family's saving grace if she could get into the Academy. And she had. She'd also graduated with honors in just under three years. She'd gotten a good job and would have moved up the ladder fairly quickly. The problem was simply that her family had run out of time. They hadn't been able to wait the few years it would have taken her to get into a place influential enough with the GEA to get her family into a better living situation.

She'd grown up believing that it was her responsibility to take care of her family, despite being the younger daughter and she'd done it to the exclusion of everything else. Harry was actually her first boyfriend that lasted more than a week. And though he felt a little odd to be anyone's "boyfriend" at his age, not to mention never quite knowing how to handle her parents and even grandfather being younger than him, he enjoyed his time with her too much to end it.

Though there was no religion to speak of on Draconis and no government beyond Harry himself, in 2084, he decided that he wanted to marry her, so he did. He picked a ring for her from the barrel of wedding rings collected from the magical world, where it had been tradition to pass wedding rings through the old families for thousands of years and most families had at least a dozen sitting around in vaults. He married them himself, since he was the only authority in their little society. They each wrote their own vows, though Katerine insisted that he promise only to remain faithful to her for the extent of her natural life. She knew that he would still be a young man when she died of old age and she didn't want him to feel beholden to her when she was gone. She'd seen how loyal he was to his late wife more than fifty years after Ginny's death. It was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him, yet also one of the major obstacles that had kept them from getting together for as long as they had.

And so they were married in the eyes of their community, which was really all that mattered. She agreed to take his assumed last name because she wanted to have children and neither of them wanted those children forever saddled with the extremely infamous Potter name. Anyway, it wasn't as though his assumed surname wasn't one to which he was entitled. He was essentially the embodiment of Death, after all.

In 2085, the Phoenix left Earth bound for their new home. As far as the GEA was concerned, Henry de'Ath had simply disappeared without a trace.

Harry and Katerine's first child was born in 2086. Considering that Katerine was already thirty-two, and that she wanted more children, they didn't waste much time. Their second child was born in 2087 and the third a year later. All three were boys, and Katerine couldn't have been happier. Harry was just relieved that enough time had passed that he wasn't bogged down by memories of the children he'd lost upon looking at the children he had now.

In 2106, Harry became a grandfather again and by 2115, he was a proud granddaddy of nine beautiful children.

It was truly amazing, what could happen when one threw together twelve hundred people on a very large ship completely cut off from everything beyond that ship for eighty years. Sex was evidently a popular pastime.

By the time the Phoenix reached Elysium in 2165, Harry had twenty great grandchildren and twenty-eight great-great-grandchildren. He'd left Earth with just his wife and his inlaws and reached Elysium with a rapidly growing family of sixty direct descendants, almost half of which appeared older than he did.

The population aboard Phoenix had also grown more than he'd expected. Excluding his own family, and allowing for the deaths of the older generations, the twelve hundred passengers had become nineteen hundred. Granted, that may have been helped along by good, healthy food, excellent medical care, including magical potions when needed, and fertility potions for those looking to have kids but experiencing difficulty after living in the pollution on Earth.

What pleased Harry greatly was that every single one of his descendants carried the magical gene. His three children, nine grandchildren, and twenty great grandchildren all carried the magical gene dominantly, meaning that they were witches and wizards. The closer the relation to him, the more reliably powerful they seemed to be, but there were some outliers even among his great grandchildren who were very powerful. The third generation were a fairly even split between the magical gene being dominant and recessive – meaning witches and wizards or squibs. Even the squibs exhibited varied degrees of talent though. There were two Seers already in the mix and almost every one of his descendants were Parselmouths, even the squibs. Apparently, that gift would not be rare in the magical world as populated by Harry Potter.

More mundane blood in the mix obviously meant fewer magically endowed children, but they all carried the recessive gene and they probably would for a very long time. Which would mean that there would eventually be more muggleborns. It was possible that the magical world could exist once more, probably due primarily to the fact that his magic was powerful enough to carry through several generations of intermixing with mundane blood.

The absolutely very best thing, however, was that he checked the blood of all of his descendants and found, without fail, that they were all born with an immunity to the Purge virus. It was possible that the mundane world could once again create a new strain, but he would be ready for it this time. He and several of his descendants were already working on a way to protect themselves from genetically targeted illnesses.

And Harry found himself becoming an amateur wandmaker as well as teaching all of the magical subjects to all of the new magical children. When his children were old enough, they started helping to teach and so-forth until there was a miniature school of magic aboard the Phoenix. The future had never looked so bright to Harry.