Finally finished the next chapter. Thank you everyone who reviewed, I really appreciated all your comments, they give me a lot of motivation to keep writing this. I apologize for taking so long.
Ztenshi104 -Yes.
Pajaro Enjaulado -This should answer some of your questions.
wordgeek1000 -This should answer some of your questions too.
Random Guest -If he didn't touch the Merlin-be-damned space cube, what would happen?
Neither Harry Potter nor Transformers are mine.
Read on.
"What is that sound?"
Arthur looked up at Harry from the paperwork on his desk to see the twenty-two year old twisting around to look at the door. The sound was running feet, getting louder, and Harry was standing from his chair, wand half drawn from a pocket. He lost the wand a second later when Arthur's door was blown inward with an explosive curse, shattering into pieces. Harry was thrown backwards into the desk and a large piece of the door collided with his head, stunning him. The elder Weasley hit the wall at his back, rendered breathless by the impact, and fell to the floor, struggling to keep his vision focused. Two people in black cloaks and masks with a white ouroboros outlined in gold embroidered on their chests ran in through the blown open doorway and stunned Harry Potter with an additional two stupefies to ensure his unconsciousness. Harry did not feel the conjured ropes wrap around him, or getting levitated by the pair that ran back out of the room immediately.
What Harry did notice, was getting ennervated from across enemy lines in the middle of a battle. He ducked out of the way of a blue flash of light and rolled behind a stone bench, wiggling his hands free from the ropes as he went, and cast accio for his wand. It was one of only three spells he could do without a wand, the others being lumos and incendio, and the one he had learned for situations just like this one. A second later he was armed and free of his ropes, and looking at the Veil of Death. He was uncomfortably close to the thing, close enough to hear whispers and see the ethereal curtain wave gently.
Taking stock of the room, he saw six ouroboros members in the Death Chamber arranged around the front half of the room, about halfway between the door and the Veil. Four of them were focused on the door and attacking the aurors trying to get in while the two nearest him had noticed Harry waking up and escaping his bonds. A quick banishing curse sent the slower one crashing into two of his fellows while the second fired off an Egyptian spell Harry had only seen a few times before. He dodged the silver beam of light, but the stone bench behind him suffered, cursed into loose sand that collapsed into a pile and flowed around his feet.
Two aurors had finally gotten into the room, taking advantage of Harry's distraction of the three ouroboros in the middle of the fighting. They caught two wizards from the pileup in the locked sleep spell Hermione designed, a spell that had a duration of only fifteen minutes but could not be lifted. Now only three ouroboros remained standing to fight the aurors and one particularly determined one fighting Harry.
Harry jumped out of the sand, but his enemy was wicked fast with that disintegration spell, and he landed in a new pile of it, losing his footing. He was hit with a petrification spell while flailing for balance, caught by a conjured whip made of light, and slung around out of the sand and straight into the Veil. Someone screamed in fear and rage, but Harry couldn't see who it was as he was enveloped by something he couldn't really see.
The whispering got immediately louder, until something warm and soft at his back escaped the quick-access pocket sown and enchanted into his shirt. His invisibility cloak, which he always carried on his person these days, was wrapping around him of its own volition, and he felt immediately warmer as it covered every last inch of him. The voices cut off as it wrapped around his head, and Harry wondered... His invisibility cloak was one of the Deathly Hallows, the mythical cloak of Death itself; was it protecting him from the Veil of Death, literally hiding him like in the story? Little was known about the Veil, beyond the fact that it killed whoever was sent through it (or seemed to, at least) and that the bodies were unrecoverable. It was the death sentence saved for only the most dangerous, and its most recent victim, excepting Harry himself now, was Voldemort. Even though the dark lord was already dead by then, his corpse had been sent through the Veil. The two-fold reasons for this were to make absolute certain he was dead this time, and to prevent anyone else with dark designs from using the body for any nefarious reasons.
Since the Veil didn't seem to be killing him, thanks to his invisibility cloak, Harry hoped he would get out of this strange dimension, wherever the space behind the Veil technically was, and just like that he was suddenly in the world once more.
The grass, chill breeze, and pale morning light told him he was quite far from where he'd been before, and when he sat up, the young wizard was quite shocked to see himself in the middle of Stonehenge. The massive stones were glowing faintly with strange lines that faded as he stared at them, becoming indistinguishable from regular stone barely a minute later. A lone man dressed like a muggle was eagerly taking pictures, excited by the phenomenon.
Harry stood, wondered why he hadn't been noticed, then remembered he was wrapped in the invisibility cloak. He walked quietly out of the circle of stones and away from the photographer, unaware that his footprints in the grass were noticed and photographed minutes later. He wouldn't learn about the small fervor be caused in the supernatural theorist community for several days, but he had a very good reason for being distracted. Namely, the fact that the wizarding world seemed to have vanished without a trace, and this was not the same world as before the Veil. Also, he had no idea how to get back home, and everyone probably thought he was dead.
This was a problem.
Harry Potter woke up feeling very strange and with absolutely no idea where he was, so entrenched he had been in his dream. The floating semi-transparent message, "ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE," that was in the upper field of his vision didn't help any either, and the message faded away almost immediately.
"You're finally awake, I see. Tell me, how do you currently feel?" Harry looked over at the sound of the voice and saw a somewhat surly-looking yellow and gray metal face. It took him a few seconds, but he remembered that the name belonging to the face was Ratchet, the Autobot medic.
And why was he looking at the Autobot medic instead of a human one? He had a feeling he was forgetting something rather important. As for Ratchet's question... "I feel weird, honestly." His magic was definitely more active than usual, flowing through him like a current. It also kept poking at the surface of his skin, like that one potions experiment of Luna's that caused Harry and Neville's skin to turn black and light up like the night sky. He sincerely hoped his skin wasn't black again, that had taken over a week to go away. At least the sparkling had stopped within an hour. No matter what he looked like, though, he couldn't tell the Autobot that.
Ratchet was staring at him and he'd apparently been lost in thought too long. "What do you mean by weird?"
"Is there something attached to me?" He felt as if there was, now that he was paying less attention to his magic and the reminiscing it has provoked. He looked down at himself, and mentally stalled mid-thought. His legs and torso were not the way he remembered them to be, now metal instead of flesh. "What happened?"
"You offlined after the battle due to critically low energy levels."
Offlined was a strange word-Battle!? Memories rushed to the forefront of his mind: getting called in for an airstrike, hitting an airborne hostile, the Decepticon hitting him, falling, talking to Optimus Prime, being closed in by the sudden transformation of his own fighter jet, shooting Megatron, sitting down while Ratchet did something to his knee, the flash of a warning and an urgent beeping sound. He was inside an Autobot body. Glee and wonder filled him at the thought, and a wide grin crossed his face.
"Potter! Harry Potter!" Ratchet was clearly getting annoyed with him, as he hadn't been paying attention again.
"Yes, yes! What? Wait, how long was I unconscious?"
"The battle with the Decepticons was two days ago. It is currently 2:16 pm. You have been fully repaired, but because you are human and I cannot remove you from your spark chamber, I need you to tell me how you feel to ascertain your current physical condition. If possible, you could also transform into the aircraft your Cybertronian body was originally and remove yourself to go to the human soldier medical bay." Ratchet shifted his hand into an odd-looking clamp and latched onto the thick cable that Harry realized was connected to his hip and was the source of the mysterious feeling he'd been looking for before getting distracted. It rotated a few times back and forth before disengaging, and "External Power Supply Disconnected: Power at 64%" appeared on his display for a few seconds. It felt like a suction cup being pulled off his skin and closing the tap to a faucet at the same time. "You may now transform," Ratchet told him as he set the cable aside.
"Should I transform and leave my F22 here or somewhere else? And where are we?"
"Here is acceptable, and I can scan your alternate form for reference. Our current location is the underground headquarters of the disbanded Sector Seven."
"Disbanded?" Harry laughed. "Right then," he sighed and mumbled to himself quietly, "how do I transform back?" Another window appeared in front of him along if he wanted to transform. He replied yes and the text changed to read "INITIATING TRANSFORMATION" before the whole screen went black. He was jerked forward into a sitting position and then he could see again. Harry watched fascinated as his cockpit rebuilt itself around him, and the process was over before he knew it, seeming to take less time than the first transformation.
He popped open the transparent hatch sealing him in and looked up at the Autobot medic. He looked so much larger now. Glowing blue mechanical eyes looked back. With memory of what happened last time he tried to unbuckle his harness, Harry opened his carefully and then clambered out to jump down to the ground.
Ratchet sent a laser over him quickly, making Harry flinch in surprise. The flinch compromised his tenuous balance and he fell to the ground, his exhaustion suddenly making itself clear. The Autobot crouched down and set his hand in front of Harry. "Let me take you to the temporary infirmary." Harry climbed into the metallic hand and was lifted up. He couldn't help but laugh a bit at how surreal the situation was and how his life had yet again reached unanticipated levels of weirdness.
He was going to be stuck in the infirmary for too long, so naturally he escaped a few hours later. The nagging feeling that he should be elsewhere right now, no really, that was getting worse the longer he sat still was not helping anything, and because it was originating in his magic, he followed the feeling. It led him through the hallways and right back to Ratchet and his jet. As soon as he saw the jet he felt better.
Ratchet of course wanted to know why the pilot wasn't in the infirmary where he should be, and Harry was practically dragged back to the place he'd just escaped. To make matters worse, and to ensure Harry didn't leave the infirmary again before the staff were ready to release him, he was put under supervision. This ended up causing several problems when, in the middle of the night, his magic flared up against his will and beyond his control to alleviate the nagging feeling that had returned and gotten exponentially worse.
He just knew this was going to end badly when he was forcibly apparated by his own magic, out of his bed and straight to his aircraft. It was just his luck that Ratchet had company of the Prime variety when he appeared right above the open cockpit and fell into it awkwardly with an oof. The medic scanned him immediately while Optimus appeared to be thinking, just watching Harry reorient himself and climb out. The two stared at each other and Optimus asked, "How did you create a space bridge?" Harry had no idea how to answer that question.
"Perhaps his Cybertronian body evolved with the skill, and its programming was imprinted on him somehow," Ratchet suggested as he scanned Harry again. "Because he can remove himself from it, its purpose may be to reunite to two in case of separation."
While Harry found this an interesting theory, he was a bit more concerned with the fact that his magic had acted beyond his conscious control. He didn't want to be forced to apparate to the F22 every single time he was away from it for an extended period of time. Though a small part of him was relieved that the medic and leader both 'recognized' his apparation as a different skill. Hopefully he would be able to figure out a solution to his problem, and if not, he would visit Hermione and she would know what to do.
He didn't figure it out. He kept getting apparated back to his jet, no matter where either of them were, though the length of time he was away from it would vary. Most aggravating was the fact that he had to sleep in the same room. He got a cot instead of a bed, even had to sleep in his pilot chair once because the feeling wouldn't let him rest otherwise, and there was almost always at least one Autobot (though that Autobot wasn't always Ratchet, thankfully) and often a few soldiers in his company. Their reasons, sometimes medically valid and sometimes just a variety of official-sounding ways of saying 'That was weird, we need to watch you for when you do it again', were endless and the near total absence of personal time was grating on his nerves.
Two weeks passed before he had the chance to magically sneak off. A series of apparation jumps took him to Stonehenge, and he knew he didn't have much time to contact Hermione and requisition her help. He was glad he wrote a letter to her in advance, because all he had time to do was apparate to her apartment, leave the letter, and apparate back. The sheer need to return to his Cybertronian half was infinitely worse when he was separated from it by an entire dimension, far worse than he had anticipated. Well under an hour had passed before he was back, appearing with a loud pop to right next to his jet. The wizard climbed into the machine immediately and buckled himself in, then gratefully passed out, exhausted by the sheer distance he had traveled and the number of times he had to apparate to cover that distance.
He was getting better at apparating, at least.
Only two days passed before his ring, a plain-looking silver band inscribed with runes on the inside that had been enchanted by Hermione as their new emergency communication device, heated on his finger. Harry quickly found a bathroom to hide in so he could hear Hermione's message.
"I'm here now, and I think I know what's wrong with you. I'd just like to say that I'm looking forward to seeing what happened. Come meet me at the park in LA. You know which. I will leave the secrecy wards up for the next four hours."
Just hearing his friend's voice helped him feel better, and barely an hour and a half had passed before he vanished from the government secret base and appeared in a park in California. He was welcomed with a tight Hermione hug and then a sturdy like to the chest. "Alright, Harry James Potter. I've been reading the news since I got here, and knowing you, you've gotten involved with these giant robotic people from space. But first, your problem; you have Animagus Syndrome! Congratulations. And not the normal kind, either, but the kind that requires you to apparate."
"Animagus Syndrome?" Harry was baffled. He wasn't an animagus, he had only just started studying to become one, and that was a bare few weeks before the whole Autobot situation started.
Hermione mistook his confusion for a desire for more information. "Animagus Syndrome is common to most new animagi. I had it too. You remember those two weeks I spent half my time as a dog?" Oh, he remembered. It had been pretty amusing from his perspective because one minute Hermione would be talking to him or Ron or whoever else knew and the next minute there would be a Shetland Sheepdog in her place looking as frustrated as a dog could look. One time it had happened in the middle of a Weasley dinner. "For the first one to six weeks, a new animagus will be forced by their own magic to transform into animal form somewhat regularly. This period is the magic adjusting itself and learning the new form and how to transition into and out of it easily. Sometimes, when a person has an unusual form tied to a specific habitat, these forced transformations include apparation to the closest habitat. This is a somewhat rare but recorded aspect of Animagus Syndrome." Hermione gave Harry an expectant look as he gaped at her. "So what animal did you learn?"
"Er, that's the strangest part, actually. I'm not an animagus."
She blinked. "What do you mean? The symptoms you described match this. This is ongoing, which cancels out many other possibilities, and you haven't been cursed or given a cursed object..." She looked at him with a question in her eyes and he shook his head to confirm her words. "It could only be the Animagus Syndrome."
"Yeah, I thought I might have to show you." He handed her the Invisibility Cloak. "Before we go, though, you remember the giant robots you read about?" Hermione sighed. Then she disappeared under the cloak and an invisible hand grabbed his arm.
With a pop, they were in the depths of the Hoover Dam. Not that Hermione would know that just from looking around. Her hand tightened its grip, though Harry suspected that was because he was suddenly the center of attention for two Autobots, Ratchet and Optimus, and two soldiers, William Lennox and Robert Epps. Hermione let go and instead held a single fingertip to his back so he knew she was still there while he immediately saluted.
"Still having trouble controlling the space bridges, Potter?" Optimus asked him immediately.
"Yes sir."
"At ease," Lennox told him with a grin. Epps concealed a snicker. "You've been reassigned to my team," the newly promoted Major told him, "and will be under direct command of Sergeant Epps, here."
"They have come to see a demonstration, if you would," Optimus Prime waved a hand at him and the jet.
"We've seen the video footage, of course, but need to see your capabilities in person," Lennox elaborated.
"Of course, sir." Harry turned around to face the jet and whispered quietly to Hermione. "Go stand against the wall to watch, then apparate out. I'll come meet you again." She poked him twice to show she understood, then snuck away, still under the Invisibility Cloak. Harry climbed into his jet, buckled into the cockpit, and mentally commanded the transformation to begin. Seconds later, there was a third Autobot standing in the room.
"That's a lot more impressive in person," Lennox admitted. "Can you show us your current weapons?"
"I still have the same Gatling cannons and missiles carried by the F22, sir." With twisting metal, the cannons appeared on each arm, and the missiles on his back, then disappeared from whence they'd come.
"Fuel capacity?"
"I no longer need standard fuel, as I rely on the same energy the Autobots do."
Harry Potter rejoined Hermione in the middle of the night. She was writing notes feverishly and did not notice him appear. She froze in surprise when he said hello, and dropped her pencil before she hit him lightly on the chest. "You! Of course you're not just involved, your in the middle of things! How did you even get a, a, a robot body, one separate from your real body that your magic, for some reason, recognizes as your animagus form? How!?"
Harry waited for Hermione to work out her exasperation, then said, "The improbability of events I am subject to is a phenomenon, remember. You said so yourself last year. Everyone agreed, even Luna, and she wasn't at that meeting."
"She said you were born with an extremely high quantity of Cause Zithers, which increase the likelihood of the unlikely."
"They were Cahs Zweiters."
"How do you remember that?" A shrug was the only response. Hermione sighed. "How did this happen?"
"Okay. Part one, there was a giant magical cube from space, powerful beyond all reason. It was hidden by the US government under the Hoover Dam and one day I sneak in and touch it because I had a feeling that told me to." Hermione gave him A Look, so he hurried on with his story. "Part two, giant robots from space land on the planet and start causing trouble since they're from two different factions that hate each other, the Autobots and the Decepticons. Part three, they start fighting over the cube thing, which the Decepticon leader wants so he can destroy everything and the Autobot leader wants to save the planet. I get called in as part of the aerial strike team. Part four, one of the Decepticons was hidden in the strike team as one of the planes, I notice and attack him, he attacks right back and disables my plane. When I grab my harness to apparate out, because the auto-eject failed, magic floods through and the jet turns into a robot instead. Part five, now I'm piloting a robot and the fight finishes pretty soon after that. Ever since that happened, whenever I try to leave for any length of time, my magic forces me to apparate back to the plane, sometimes I have to stay in the cockpit for the feeling to stop. I tried to figure it out, couldn't, and wrote the letter to you."
Hermione was silent for a few minutes, pondering Harry's tale. "Alright, remember when I said the Animagus Syndrome could last up to six weeks? It's barely been three for you. Also, magic does this to memorize the other form, so you should probably spend more time in the plane, in its other form, especially. That's what your magic is trying to learn. I know you have other duties as a soldier, will you be able to do this?"
After thinking about it for a second, Harry nodded. "Yes. I've been allowed a lot more free time than usual, because I keep apparating and can't stay anywhere else for more than a few hours at a time. Luckily everyone thinks the apparation is an alien skill called a space bridge that I learned when my jet first transformed."
"Alright, I believe that's it. I have to get back, but I'll return next weekend to check on you to see if it's helped."
"Thank you for the advice, and I'll see you soon. My time is just about up now, anyway." Hermione handed back the Invisibility Cloak and Harry Potter disappeared with a pop.
The wizard soldier spent nearly all his waking moments over the next few days as a Cybertronian. During that time, he practiced moving around in the significantly larger body, avoiding people and other suddenly-small obstacles. He trained with Ironhide in using his weapons, with Ratchet on learning about his new body and its general capabilities and in making the transformation as smooth and fast as possible. He spent time with Bumblebee on changing his appearance, mostly for the purpose of distinguishing him from the Decepticons. He was officially inducted as an Autobot by Optimus Prime and received the insignia, which sparked off a party among the rest of them. Briefly he was surrounded by scientists, as they tested him, the jet, and whether he could change anything else into living metal. He couldn't, unless he was holding the fragment of the Cube, and in that case it was really the Cube doing all the work. Eventually he was left alone, only given slightly more attention than the other Autobots.
Before he knew it, it was time for his next meeting with Hermione, and they met in the middle of the night again. Harry happily reported that the needy sensations were dropping off and that Hermione's advice had been effective. The date of their next meeting was set, and life continued.
After a number of changes, Harry Potter was the pilot of a mostly blue F22-turned-Autobot accented with light gray. While he still bore a strong resemblance to Starscream, he was at least distinguishable by his distinct coloring. He was given a long, Cybertronian scale knife to add to his small arsenal and training in how to handle it, as well as how to fight with a knife as a human.
The months passed. The new Autobot base was constructed, the military team assigned to them was officially formed, and Optimus Prime's call was heard through space as new Autobots arrived on Earth. Of course, Autobots weren't the only Cybertronians to arrive...
Tada! Next, the second movie.
What do you readers want to see? Review please!