Author's notes: Mainly, this is a crossover with Final Fantasy VII and Harry Potter, supporting crossover worlds include: Monster Hunter, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis and Mermaid saga. If you missed the signs of these particular worlds, it's not that important. For Monster Hunter, and Mermaid Saga it's literally just a few tiny elements I borrowed to add flavour to the fic for those 'In the know'… Shame on you if you don't know the Stargate series though. XP

Chapter 1

The first signs of the end of the world as Harry knew it came to him on a hospital bed.

There was nothing out-of-the ordinary about the man. He was a Scotsman on vacation to visit a relative and had been brought protesting into St Mungo's. Usually, Muggles were referred to the Muggle world's hospitals, but the witch who'd dragged the man into the hospital hadn't taken no for an answer and had harassed the nurses at the front desk until it was agreed that someone would see him.

Harry was handed the man's file the second he walked past the nurse's bay, and as the youngest Healer on staff, he couldn't pass the file down onto a more junior staff member. He WAS the most junior member of staff.

Harry rolled his eyes and kept his face bland as he flicked open the file, wondering when the hazing would stop. No, he wasn't going to give up and go home. Yes, he really WAS serious about becoming a Healer, thank-you-very-much and no, he didn't want to sit back on his gloriously wealthy backside and live off the gold his parents and godfather had left him. If he wanted to WORK for his money then he was going to damn well work and he didn't care HOW many Magical noses he bent out of shape doing so.

It had been a year since he'd declined Kingsley's invitation to become an Auror; Harry thought people would have figured this all out by now. Did they think he'd spent all those months studying for no reason? Sure, he'd been confused in the immediate aftermath of the war and hadn't exactly had any option aside from going to go back to Hogwarts, but even before his graduation he'd made it pretty damn clear that he wanted nothing to do with being an Auror.

Being a Healer was MUCH more interesting.

He'd gotten the taste for it immediately after defeating Voldemort, there had been injured witches and wizards everywhere. At a loss of what to do with himself now that his life-long prophesied goal had been accomplished, Harry began to help those who couldn't move to get to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey reached her limit fairly quickly, draining her reserves almost right down to the core and the only reason she'd taken Harry up on his offer when he'd suggested she instruct him from the sidelines had been sheer desperation. The hospital wing had been full to capacity. All of the beds had been double-to-triple occupied, there were new patients leaning against the corridor walls outside the hospital wing and more showed up by the minute.

Harry had a strong Magical Core and he wasn't nearly as drained as he rightly should have been, given that he'd just died and come back to life. He would be pretty damned useless trying to repair the castle given he had zero experience with the wards, which he'd have to tangle with to do the job properly. Wasn't it worth a try?

It hadn't taken much for Madam Pomfrey to agree; in fact once the idea had been put in her head she'd gone through her treated patients and put the ones who could still cast spells to work. Within the space of ten minutes she'd had a team of healer trainees, all of whom were eager to learn, if only to lessen the woman's burden. He'd gotten his first taste of healing… and he'd discovered he was good at it. Not good in the way he was good at casting spells, but in the way same way he was 'good' at flying.

There wasn't a single healing spell he needed to be shown twice.

It might have been a consequence of no longer having to fight against a Horcurx for his own magic. It could even have been that the unintentional bond he'd had with Voldemort had done something to him, changed him, and that now the older Wizard was dead those changes were unmade. Magic came to him these days as easily as breathing and the first taste of Harry had of that had come to him through healing.

Concepts he'd had trouble with, namely Silent Casting, Occlumency and Legilimency, were no longer such a trial to learn. He was Silent Casting halfway through his first hour of Healing and a sit down with a proper teacher, one who had absolutely no interest in him past teaching him what he knew, had him walking away knowing how to shield his mind. When it came to learning how to delve into the minds of others it turned out he was a natural at it. He was apparently Legilimens who went about the art so delicately that his Healing teacher, Carrock Summerby, wouldn't have known Harry had succeeded had he not presented the man with the information that had been the target of that particular lesson.

"I suppose it's not too hard to understand why you developed such a gentle touch." Summerby had murmured, "You've an instinctive healer who's never had anyone else be so gentle with you. You're… a very kind wizard Potter; don't let that be used against you." The man had been part of the relief team that had shown up three days after the battle of Hogwarts. Harry had gotten his own chance to sit down and recover from the mana expenditure when the man showed up and he was constantly being urged by him to give his future career choice a second thought.

Harry had done so. He'd given his future a second thought, and a third and fourth and more. He thought about it every time he cracked open a book in class. Every time he found himself in the library and each time he cast a spell. The ease in which magic came to him these days stayed with him through each subject he tried his hand at and it was revealed that the ease with which he cast his spells wasn't solely limited to Healing. The newfound strength and freedom he'd found in his magic branched out to all of the areas of magical discipline he tested his wand to.

When Harry stepped into DADA, a class he'd already earned top grades in before Voldemort's death and had practically taught at one point, his abilities took him so far that he was honestly torn. He'd have made a devastating Auror, and yet whenever he picked up his wand to Heal it was like he was settling into his own skin. Becoming an Auror was what everyone expected of him, but Healing… was like he'd found his calling in life.

Two years later, one after graduating from Hogwarts, and the Daily Prophet was STILL commenting on it. They didn't seem to realize they'd started calling him Healer Potter though, rather than the more obnoxious 'Lord Peverell'. People were coming around to the idea of him having ditched out on the expected career choice for the one he'd chosen. It might have been happening at the usual glacial pace the wizarding world did anything with, but it was happening; nonetheless Harry was sure he'd be old and grey by the time people stopped grumbling.

At the rate it was going he'd probably be thirty by the time the hazing at St Mungo's stopped. If the witches and wizards around him didn't honestly believe they were doing it, 'for his own good', Harry might have been a little more irritated. As it was, doing all the 'menial' tasks that were thrown at him and taking on the cases no one else wanted meant that he was rounding out his own education.

He'd gotten enough 'Muggle' cases thrown to him that he'd even started to delve into the Muggle side of Healing as much as he could, and had even gone so far as to enrol himself into a part-time Nursing program and completed it in record time. He was currently working on an education as a 'Healer' in the Muggle world too. Muggle medicine became so much easier with even the most basic of spells. He was fast becoming known among his classmates in the Muggle world as the 'diagnosis king', and that might have felt a lot more like cheating if Harry had intended on staying in the Muggle world, but that wasn't where his heart was.

There was no way he'd ever be able to give up magic. It was too much a part of him. It was in his every breath, and it was in everything he loved. The Muggle world's medical students needn't worry over losing a future position to him; he was already exactly where he belonged. St Mungo's was where he wanted to be and the Wizarding World as a whole could go suck a lemon if they didn't like it.

"—SINCE WHEN!" A high-strung male voice was heard, coming from the direction of the examination room the nurses had placed his patient. "ALSO I DON'T NEED BLOODY MAGIC! I NEED A DOCTOR, AN ACTUAL. MEDICAL. DOCTOR!"

Harry paused, took a few steps back to the nurse's station and crooked an eyebrow at the nurses. "Nice try, ladies." He snorted, summoning a vial of Calming Potion from the medicine cabinet. Usually they'd have administered it before he came anywhere near entering the room, or at their busiest they'd have at least handed him the potion on his way past.

"AT LEAST LET ME GO TO A REAL HOSPITAL! OR BACK HOME! I CAN TREAT MESELF! IT'S JUST A WEE BIT OF BRUISING—"

"DON'T YE 'IT'S JUST A BRUISE' ME CARSON! A BRUISE WOULD HAVE HEALED WITHIN A WEEK AND—"

Catching the vial of potion out the air Harry summoned another one and gave the sheepish women at the nurse's station a stern glare. Honestly, the poor patient and family member were stressed enough as it was, he was going to have to report the nurses for negligence now. Marching back over to them Harry leaned in close so he wouldn't be overheard by anyone else. "Usually I'm fine with a prank or two, I don't actually mind, but this is going too far. The next time you involve a patient in this little game of hazing and I'll cast the Sympathetic Hex on everyone involved so you'll all know exactly how the patient feels. " He warned in a low tone. "Don't force my hand."

Catching the second vial of Calming Potion out of the air, he twisted sharply on his heel and marching back towards the examination room. He stopped just outside the door and took a moment to calm and center himself. He was about to visit a patient. The patient himself had done nothing wrong. The patient's poor, concerned companion had also done nothing wrong. Neither of them deserved to be on the receiving end of the molten glare the nurse behind him had earned.

"—WOULDN'T BE WEEPIN BLACK BLOOD NOW WOULD IT?!"

"IT'S NAWT WEEPIN ANYTHIN! WE WERE IN A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT! THA'S JUS' OIL! WE'RE BOTHERIN THESE POOR PEOPLE FER NO GOOD REASON!"

"SINCE WHEN DOES OIL GIVE OFF THIS KIND OF POLLUTED MIASMA!?"

"HOW THE BLOODY HELL SHOULD I KNOW!?"

Harry felt his eyebrows hit his hairline and shoved the vials of Calming Potion into a free pouch on his belt to free his hands and give the patient's file another look.

Carson Beckett. Male, late thirties. Half-blood. Non-magical. Did not recall what precisely caused his injury. That could either be because of the injury itself or a Memory-Charm. Weight was within the healthy range for a Muggle of his age. Instances of sharp pain coming from the injury but no indication of broken bones or torn muscles upon triage. Preliminary spell results suggested a minor brush with possession. Which shouldn't be possible given the man was non-magical. There was nothing THERE to hook into. The man didn't even have enough magic in him to make him a Hedge Wizard, which was someone who could pull magic from an outside source. The man reportedly had no Magical Core, not even an underdeveloped one squibs were born with. When his companion was questioned, the witch who'd brought him in implied a complete lack of any kind of Magical ability and had apparently been kept out of the loop as far as Magic went to 'spare his feelings'.

"More like stop his mind from imploding…" Harry muttered to himself as he snapped the file closed and dropped it into the bracket set into the door. Letting himself into the room, he pulled a pair of Khezu-hide gloves out of his pocket and drew them on, watching as he waited for the screaming pair to notice him. Pulling the matching Khezu-leather face-mask that out of the collar of his tunic Harry fit it over the bridge of his nose, thankful as ever that he'd gotten his eyesight corrected the year he'd graduated Hogwarts. His work was ever so much easier without having to battle with spectacles that were constantly in the way.

His patient was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, unconsciously leaning left so as to relieve what had to be a very painfully sensitive set of ribs on his right side. The man's breathing was a little laboured, which was not in the man's file, and his skin complexion was sickly. There was no other word for it.

Coughing lightly to get the attention of still-arguing pair, Harry stifled a sigh when the Witch turned to look and her eyes almost bugged right out of their sockets in surprise at sight of him. "Oh Merlin~! Carson! Ye're right, we're being too much of a bother! Let's get ye to a doctor! Ye don't need to see a Healer—"

"On the contrary, Ms…?" Harry interrupted, Unholstering his wand and casting a spell that sealed the room's exit.

"J—Julia Beckett." The woman stuttered, stepping a little away from where she'd hurried to try and get her brother onto his feet and off the bed. "I'm his older sister, one of 'em. I'm so sorry to have bothered ye, Healer Potter! We'll be on our way now—"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to go through me if you want to leave with him Ms Beckett, he very clearly DOES need a Healer." he very gently explained, keeping a tight lid on his temper. This was completely ridiculous, when were the magical population at large going to accept his career choice? Would things have been like this had he decided to become an Auror? He eased the poor woman's Muggle brother back onto the bed and heartily wished people would get over him already.

"A doctor wouldn't know what to do with him at this point and now that you're brought him into my clutches, I'm hardly going to let him escape." He finished with a stern frown, though it lost a lot of its impact as most of the expression hidden behind the facial mask.

"Why are ye wearing ARMOUR! Isn't this a hospital? JULIA YOU SAID THIS WAS A HOSPITAL!" Carson Beckett interjected, wildly gesturing at the vambraces Harry's was wearing. Beckett had fixated on them as his sleeves slipped up when he warded the door.

Reaching into the pouch he'd stored the two vials of Calming Potion, Harry retrieved them and pressed one of them into Julia's hand while her brother boggled at the green and black arm-protection. "Drink that for me will you, Ms Beckett?" Harry asked as he stabilized his patient. The man's flailing movements had put more pressure on his ribs and now the man was leaning back with wheeze, which Harry took advantage of to tip a small dose of potion into the man's mouth.

"FER MERLIN'S SAKE CARSON, WOULD YOU BEHAVE!? THIS IS A HOSPITAL YOU GREAT BLOODY—"

"Ms Beckett! Drink. The. Potion." Harry snapped, patience wearing a little thin as he corked the rest of potion he'd just used and stored it back into the appropriate belt-pouch. The woman immediately unsealed the potion and downed the lot like it a shot of whiskey. She quickly fled to the bedside armchair, where she sheepishly sat herself down, finally giving Harry the chance to give her brother a better look-over.

Clicking his tongue, Harry shut his teeth on the warning he wanted to give her on the dangers of simply accepting whatever potion was given to her. Instead he focused on what he was here for. He could lecture the woman when her brother was no longer in need of immediate medical attention. Besides which, who could you trust if you couldn't trust a Healer?

"… but why are ye wearing armour?" his patient repeated plaintively, his question was wobbly but sounded much calmer now that the potion was filtering his panic and hysteria away.

"I find that Healing, Mr Beckett, has quite a bit more in common with a full-contact sport in this world than it does in yours. You wouldn't believe the things I've been tossed into or through, or even had to tackle or been bodily tackled by. Eventually I got rather tired of relying on cushioning charms and decided to splash out a little. Best decision I've made in years, three months since then and I've yet to be taken off roster for a work-related injury, I've broken all the records!"

He enjoyed the boggling look of pure horror on the man's face for longer than he really should have before he broke, snickering at the hilarity of the expression. "It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, I'm mostly just joking. Sometimes I'm asked to treat a particularly difficult patient and it just pays to have a little extra protection on my extremities than it does not to have it. Wearing any more armour than a thin pair of greaves and vambraces would get in the way of the job, not to mention these ridiculous robes."

"Mostly?"

Ankle length forest-green robes with far more fabric than any one robe really needed. No pockets, which Harry had added in himself after a while. A hood that would have easily doubled as a sack, should he have needed one. Sleeves, while still long, would have swept the floor had he not taken a pair of scissors and a sewing charm to them. The stupid thing was meant to be worn open over the green tunic and breeches that came with the uniform but again, too much fabric. At the very least they offered some protection, which was woven directly into the material. Harry hadn't known about that until after he'd already ruined the sleeves by altering them and the protection charms sewn into the hems had failed, but now he had something stronger so it all balanced out. The rest of the robe was still perfectly usable!

"I… suppose I've been in situations where armour would've been useful." His patient commented, now calm enough to indulge his curiosity by running his fingers over the graduating green shell covering Harry's right arm. Harry let the semi-stoned muggle do it; he was busy giving the man a complete Magical scan.

The siblings should have looked fairly similar. They both shared enough of a familial resemblance that they could have been mistaken as twins, both with dark hair and matching cornflower-blue eyes. At the moment however, they looked like a study in contrast, with the older sister Julia looking a healthy pink in comparison to Carson's positively green undertone. His skin looked ashen and paper-thin, his eyes were darkly circled, bruised and sunken, and there were deep black veins reaching up from under the collar of his shirt and creeping up the side of his neck.

This was another thing that hadn't been reported in the man's file.

Harry was contemplating the merits of going back out of the room to have a stiff talking-to with the nurses in Triage, (they had clearly left a few things out of their reports!), when he felt it. To his senses it felt like a sharp tear, the screech of nails down chalkboard, a DJ scratching a record and the broken jangle of an electric guitar put together. His patient folded over himself at exactly the same time, twisting in agony around his ribs and the man's laboured breathing rattled as his hair seemed to turn ashen right as he watched.

"Levisomnus!" Harry barked out, catching the man and immediately casting a spell that would place the man in a gentle, uninterrupted sleep and temporarily free him from what was unmistakably agonizing pain. Ignoring the shocked gasp the man's sister made, Harry flicked his wand, re-positioned the man so he was lying flat on his back and banished his shirt. The 'bruise' spanned under his waist-band right up into his throat and it was spreading out from a blue-black center in spider-like tendrils of corruption.

"What the hell is this?"

Harry had never seen anything like it. The nurses had never seen anything like it. The senior Healers called into the room to consult had never seen anything like it either. The corruption spread so fast and it grew by the minute, it was so bad at one point that they had to temporarily freeze time around Mr Beckett so as to give everyone time to figure out what the hell was afflicting him.

The examination room was placed on lock-down and quarantine. The patient was transferred to a sterile and purified ritual chamber and everyone who'd been in contact with the man on the way in was checked over. A total of three others were quarantined along with his patient, which included the man's sister, the triage nurse who'd admitted him and one of the Healers who'd passed the patient over initially. All of them were beginning to develop dark, spider-like lesions along random parts of their body.

Ideas were tossed back and forth among the Healers on the case, everyone was now kitted up in protective gear, like they should have been right from the start. It only took the threat of a potential break-out for people to start following the same precautions Harry had been since beginning his training as a Healer.

"…this is going to sound a little crazy, but I want to try an exorcism ritual. I know it didn't present like a typical possession, but it's acting like one regardless of the host's lack of a Magical Core. If Mr Beckett came into contact with something magical enough to leave an imprint on him, wouldn't that have been enough for a possession to latch onto? It's clearly spreading much faster in everyone else. Perhaps the Beckett family gave Mr Carson one too many Obliviates?" Harry suggested to the other Healers, keeping his facemask up over his mouth and nose even as he stepped out of the closed off ritual chamber they were keeping Mrs Beckett in.

"Everything else matches. The deterioration of the host body, the lack of vitality, even the… that black discharge. There's enough pure hate coming off of it that it's giving me flashbacks."

Everyone exchanged looks as if they suddenly remembered who they were talking to. Who they'd all gotten rather comfortable with hazing. Harry stamped down the urge to smack them all in the face with well-deserved Bat-Bogey Hexes, he had better things to waste his magic on. Namely an exorcism ritual that may or may not work.

"It… does sound like the most plausible idea. Very well Healer Potter, begin with your patient and then join us once you're done. We'll start on the others." Accepting that, Harry returned back to the ritual chamber and patient, pulling his wand out as he skirted the edge of the protective circle the man was resting in.

Carson had been stripped down and a white sheet had been placed over his body, folded over his waist to preserve his modesty. The blue-black corruption seemed so much malevolent now that its progress had been halted and when Harry checked the man's recorded temperature on the self-updating file he hissed in sympathy. The muggle's body was working over-time to fight of the invading presence in his body in the only way it knew how, by working up a fever, and if left unchecked it would spell death for the man.

"You should thank your sister when you wake up," he started conversationally as he stepped into a separate protective circle of his own, a much smaller one just outside the one the muggle had been placed in. "Who knows what would have become of you had she not insisted on bringing you here? Rest easy now, you're in good hands."

Sealing the room Harry raised his wand and began the ritual.

Immediately he could tell he'd been correct in his assumption that the man had some kind of spirit possessing him, but he'd have never guessed how powerful the thing was.

Female. Old. Older and more vicious in her hate than even Voldemort had been at his prime. The thing had experience with exorcists and it fought the purification ritual Harry was preforming like a hardened veteran. It bucked and twisted, forced the hold it had on the muggle into splitting open and spraying blue-black ooze across the room. It ate through the first layer of protection around the patient and splattered uselessly up against the protections Harry had habitually raised around himself. The sheer level of hate it would have taken to disrupt the initial protection of that first circle was unbelievable, but it wasn't unheard of to come across a spirit that was both old and strong enough to do so.

Stamping down on the correct rune with his foot Harry instantly had three more barriers of protection spring up around him and swiping his foot across another had chains of pure light repairing the patient's broken one. He wasn't about to let this thing test its barrier-breaking abilities on the room itself. What kind of Healer would he be if he managed to get his patient spirit-free only to have said spirit escape off into the hospital?

Using the wound the spirit had opened up in his Patient Harry forced a stronghold of his own into the man and PUSHED the evil presence out. He flushed the man with wave of purification and stamped his foot down onto a third rune that had another triple-barrier forming over the Muggle. He kept a weather eye on the dark sludge that had been expelled from his body and began casting healing spells on the man's wounds.

The sludge hissed at him.

Visually, the black and blue blob hardly looked threatening, but what it lacked in structure and stature it made up for in pure presence and attitude. Pulling a crystal vial out of pouch Harry quickly sealed it inside before the thing knew what was happening and tilted it sideways to the light, trying to understand how exorcists before him had failed to subdue it.

Sure it's spit-trick might have caught a few exceptionally stupid Healers on the back foot, but exorcism rituals these days had safety-measures put in place for wily spirits like this. Professional exorcists got paid in accordance of how old or powerful a spirit was when exorcised; news of a corrupted one THIS old would have had them all scrambling to be the first to get rid of it. More than that, there were alarm systems set up in places all over the magical world designed to detect spirits of all kinds. Wards that were tested and updated every six months, and yet this thing had slipped past them all. Not to mention the private alarms set up by individual witches and wizards. St Mungo's had one of the most advanced security systems in the country, how in Merlin's name had this thing escaped setting off every Ward and Alarm Spell in the hospital?

Something this old had no right to be lurking around undetected in this day and age.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Harry asked, frowning at the thing.

A hateful hiss was the thing's only reply.

OoO

Harry spelled his patient dressed in a set of clean pajamas and transferred him to an observation room. He set up another triple-barrier around the bed, raised a protective ward on the room just-in-case and told the nurses to send him a message the second the man so much as twitched.

"I'll be returning to the ritual chambers to assist with the other cases. Don't let me come back to see that he's awake without me getting the message first, I will NOT be tolerating any kind of bullshit on this—"

"Harry!" a bright and cheerful voice interrupted him from across the otherwise empty ward. A voice that had Harry's blood draining from his face and chilling in his veins. No one was supposed to be back here right now. The ward was supposed to have been evacuated AND on lock-down! How had Ginny managed to get in?! "Merlin, when are they going to stop with all these drills? I know 'practice makes perfect' and all that but—"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!" Harry roared, hurrying to meet her before she got any further into the room less she risk contaminating herself by walking through the yet-to-be-cleansed Aura still lingering around the ward. Casting as many purification spells as he could Harry had her backed her up until he could shove her into an empty examination room. He and the other staff were protected by their uniforms and had the necessary training that meant they could protect themselves now that they knew the threat of a possession was a very real possibility but Ginny… "DIDN'T YOU SEE THE QUARANTINE SIGNS?!"

"I'M NOT STUPID HARRY! OF COURSE I SAW THE SIGNS!" she roared back, flipping her flaming red hair out of her face and jerking her arm free from the abrupt grip he had on her, she took a deep breath and visibly forced herself to moderate her tone. "I'm following procedure! Aurors are allowed to cross into a quarantined area! I suppose this time isn't another drill?" she laughed guiltily, looking faintly ashamed of herself.

All that did was fire up Harry's temper even more.

"AURORS ARE ONLY SUPPOSED TO COME THOUGH IF THEY'RE SUMMONED INTO THE AREA BY A SENIOR HEALER!" He corrected at a yell, fear bringing his temper to the fore. She should have 'followed procedure' properly! "AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN WEARING ANY PROTECTION!"

Ginny had broken through quarantine, it didn't matter that she'd thought it was 'just a drill'. Drills were supposed to be treated like the real thing anyway! She'd already been possessed once at age of eleven, an age where her Magical Core had only just entered into its first magical maturity! She was thus FAR more vulnerable to it again, especially since she'd never really gotten any Occlumency training, or had been properly Exorcised to remove the taint!

"I'm not a little girl anymore Harry!" she continued, further moderating her tone. Her eyes softened, a smile kicked up at the corner of her lips and he could read the fondness on her face. "I'm a fully-fledged Auror! You don't need to protect ME anymore, I can protect myself! Also, for your information, Auror's robes protect against more than healers robes do!"

"NOT AGAINST THE SAME THINGS—"

Screams and the sound of breaking rock and wood echoed down the corridor, cutting off his argument. Harry felt every individual hair on his body stand on end as an unearthly howl echoed through the ward and a deep pulse of now-familiar hatred rippled through the air.

"Oh shit." Harry breathed, as the sensation washed over them in a sickening wave. Ginny pulled her wand at the same time he did. "It must have broken through the ritual chambers!"

Casting a spell that triggered the Alarm Spells into BLARING though the hospital, complete with flashing lights, Harry ran to the nurses desk and slapped his hand into the rune-circle on the wall. He closed his eyes and had the wards lock down all areas. If he had to Exorcise this damned spirit room-to-room then that was what he was going to do. He was keyed into the wards, and free to move as he liked without being hindered by them. The spirit might have been able to break through shields with its corruption but it wouldn't be able to do so with THESE wards!

"The ritual chambers? I know where those are! Don't worry Harry, I'll have this thing taken care of in no time! I'll be the one that protects you this time!"

"GINNY NO!" Harry protested, ripping his hand free from the wards, only his protest came too late. Ginny was gone in a whirl of scarlet hair and red and gold robes, vanishing into the vortex of her apparition before he could stop her. Belatedly Harry realized that Aurors enjoyed the same freedom of movement Healers did when the hospital was on lock-down.

He cursed even as he followed behind her trail, Disapparating with his heart beating a mad staccato in his chest. He very-nearly ended up on his ass; his foot skidded upon landing on something wet. He didn't need the missing lights to know what he'd just stepped in, he could identify it by scent alone. The metallic tang of blood was unmistakable.

"What— Harry? What is this?" Ginny asked, her voice shaking with the words as she backed up, a Protego springing up around her as she reeled away from the horror of the fleshy creature in front of them, the one that was wearing the torn remains of a Healer's green robes.

"THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T BARGE INTO QUARANTINE AREAS WITHOUT BEING BRIEFED FIRST!" Harry howled, whipping his wand out to cast the triple-layered shield charm all Healers were taught, meaning to cover for her. Protego wouldn't last a minute against the spirit's spit-trick and— Something slammed into him from behind. Had that been the possessed Nurse? Harry was sent crashing into the wall head-first before he could identify the creature and the spell he'd been meaning to cast on Ginny settled over him instead, a breath too late to protect him from the impacting with the wall.

His vision turned grey and faded to black as he slumped to the floor and Ginny's scream reverberated through his skull.

It was the last thing he heard before he slipped into unconsciousness.

"HARRY! NOOOO!"

OoO

When Carson Beckett first opened his eyes, he mistook his surroundings and circumstances. He couldn't count the number of times he'd been knocked unconscious during a mission and woke up afterwards to find himself neck-deep in an awful situation; it happened more often than not. The last thing he remembered was admiring the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Atlantis, safe in the knowledge that they had all managed to survive the trip from the Pegasus galaxy to Earth.

He didn't remember what had knocked him unconscious and, alarmingly, didn't remember going on a mission OR leaving Earth. That was never a good sign. Yet here he was, in an unfamiliar room, on a very old-fashioned bed and wearing what looked to be hand-sewn sleep-wear. There was also something else he noticed when he went to sit up that had his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.

Sitting over his bed was a dome made up of three perfect spheres of light, stacked one on top of the other. Spheres of light that allowed his hand to pass through when he pushed his hand through them. It almost looked like Shield Technology! There was no sign of a shield generator anywhere, not even a small one of the likes Rodney had found in when they'd first discovered Atlantis. Carson slipped from the bed and cautiously admired the stacked domes of light as he gingerly stepped through them. There was a similar shield sitting in the frame of the doorway, a single flat shield that cast a faint green glow into the room. Testing it with a tentative hand he sighed in relief as that barrier also let him out into the corridor.

He found himself standing barefoot underneath the gaping maw of a great bloody nightmare wearing what looked suspiciously similar to his sister's favourite locket.

Scrabbling backwards he recognized the sheer idiocy of getting too distracted by the shield's pretty colours to check what he was walking into. He'd practically walked into the monster's arms just then and then bounced off the shield when he tried retreating.

The barrier wouldn't allow him back into the room.

He was a dead man.

He had to wonder why his mind wasn't gibbering in terror. He instead noticed how the hallway looked like a very old-fashioned hospital. He noted the flashing lights and the siren he really should have heard before stepping out of the room, but hadn't. There were dead women wearing green-edged black robes on the far side of the hall. The fleshy, bloated, pale, blue-white and vaguely human-shaped monster breathing down his neck was wearing his sister's locket.

The thing's fish-like bulging eyes were cornflower blue.

Dread crawled up his throat and lodged itself there as the thing stared down at him from a height that was at least a half again as tall as he was.

It was wearing Julia's locket.

Carson's knees turned to rubber and he felt the faint ripple of the shield through his pajamas's shirt as he pressed bodily back into it. It really was true that your life flashed before your eyes right before you died! He started remembering where he was, bits and pieces were coming back to him now, funny that.

Atlantis had been brought to Earth and everyone had been so delighted to both have her there and welcome her people back home. There had been all the usual checks of staff before anyone was allowed off base to visit their loved ones, he'd been the one to clear most of them.

The Atlantis Expedition was a roaring success and the Lost City was finally returned! She was finally able to be given the care and attention she rightfully deserved. Enough people to repair the broken parts, more to explore the undiscovered areas. Scientists, technicians, researchers, doctors, soldiers and more had poured into the city. Atlantis was the crowning glory of Atlantean technology and under the care of Earth her shine and lustre started to return. When it was discovered that the Atlantis Stargate superseded the one already on earth the Stargate Program was relocated. There HAD been plans to move the city from San Francisco Bay to the Moon in the works, (with the idea of turning her into a space-station), but then—

One of the new scientist brought into the fold had discovered something in one of the labs and had released what, at the time, had seemed like a harmless black sludge that promptly evaporated into gas— and THAT had sounded all too much like the start of a horror to anyone who'd been on Atlantis for longer than a few months. But… the health-checks had all come back clean. On everyone who'd been exposed. Atlantis hadn't reacted to the gas. They'd put up a quarantine, and they'd all watched and waited.

Nothing had come of it.

Carson, after being checked by Dr Keller, had been given leave to go visit his mother and the seven sisters he'd left behind on Earth. Julia had picked him up at the airport and he'd been so leery of letting her take the wheel, knowing just how bad a driver she made, that he'd immediately confiscated the keys of the rental car off of her. They'd been arguing good-naturedly all the way back to their mother's house, where apparently the whole bloody family was waiting for him to give him an earful over his 'death' with Julia saving her breath on that subject for when she had the rest of his sisters and his mother behind her.

He hadn't been looking forward to it.

In fact he'd wanted to put it off for as long as possible. He remembered stopping by every convenience store along the way with a different excuse each time. He wanted to use the bathroom. He needed to wash his face and no, that bottle of water wasn't good enough. He was hungry, he needed something to tide him over. Gosh, wouldn't their mother like some of those flowers?

One moment he'd been talking with Julia, catching up on what the rest of the family had gotten up to in his absence, and then— he'd felt a blinding pain in his side. The sensation was comparable to a knife to the kidneys. He'd jerked the steering wheel sideways by accident and then he'd gone and wrapped the bloody car around a tree!

After… Julia was dragging him out of the wreck, swearing up a blue streak and wrenching up the side of his shirt to check his side. She'd screamed at him, something about corruption, and gave him a royal telling off for whatever he'd 'gotten into'. She'd said… that she was going to take him to a Healer and damn the rest of the family for keeping secrets! This is what happened when one kept secrets!

Then she'd grabbed his shoulder, hauled him up for what he thought was going to be a hug that instead turned into— well given where they'd ended up it was probably some sort of teleportation ability. His sister explained to him the family secret, in between screaming at the poor confused nurses for attention in the hospital she'd brought him to. Their mother and five of his other sisters where what Julia called 'Magical' and lived as part of a society that was hidden from the human populace at large.

Carson wasn't on a mission or on some unknown world. He was on planet Earth and he'd just been party to the destruction of what had probably been a happily hidden pocket of Alterans until he'd come along.

What had he done!

The medical clearance he'd given to everyone who'd come into contact with the thing that had been released from the lab was now in question. The people who'd left Atlantis carrying this pathogen had gone home to their families. This outbreak wouldn't be localized to this little pocket of Alterans, tragic as that was; this would spread globally. No. Not just globally.

Every planet with a Stargate was in danger.

This was his every nightmare put in a mixer and blended on high. He should have noticed something was wrong with himself before this! He had been feeling a touch faint, but he'd blamed that on the upcoming meeting with all seven of his sisters and mother put together!

The world was suffering for it now, Julia was suffering for it.

Feeling his legs lose the strength he needed to stay on his feet, Carson let himself slip to his knees and swallowed around the painful lump in his throat when the bloated monstrosity his poor innocent sister had become loomed over him.

"Oh Julia… I'm so sorry!" he choked out. There was nothing he could do for her. He was barefoot and alone in an Alteran hospital with no idea how to use any of the equipment, or even where to find it and no help forthcoming. He may have a naturally occurring ATA gene but there was nothing around him he could use that on. Or anything aside from the force-field at his back that suggested there was anything familiar enough to Atlantis technology to use. Carson felt paralysed with grief. Uncaring now that the thing wearing his sister's locket was now reaching for him.

He deserved the death that was coming to him!

The sound of a grenade exploding and a wraith stunner-blast combined was, at that moment, the most unwelcome noise he'd ever heard. Soldiers poured into the room wearing hazmat gear and they had broken the wall down to get to him. They must have located him via the subcutaneous tracker all of the more prominent members of Stargate Command were implanted with.

They had shot the thing that had been Julia with a Wraith Weapon.

Rescue had come for him, but it had come too late.

"Are you well, Carson?" Teyla asked, voice steady and even as she approached, soldiers fanning out behind her to search for other survivors. She took a stance a good distance away from him and kept her weapon warily trained on him.

"Aye," he grimaced as she tucked the wraith spear under her arm. "Getting there." He was shaking like a leaf.

"On your feet then, my friend." She acknowledged, reaching out to hand him something. "We have much to do."

A com-unit.

Taking a deep breath he took it from her and forced himself to his feet.

Yeah, he had work to do. They needed to find a sample to bring back to Atlantis so he could start analysing the sickness, see how much he could get done while he was still so blessedly calm. He knew it wouldn't last for long. "Oi! You lot!" Carson barked at a new team that had just come in through the hole in the wall. "I want this poor soul brought back to the infirmary. The rest of you come with me! We're searching the rest of this place for survivors!"

Briefing everyone was as simple as turning the com on. He explained what happened to him as if he were in a mission briefing, it was the only way he was able to keep moving. He'd been through tough missions before. He'd been in situations he'd previously thought he was never going to come back from. This was simply another one of those times. He didn't have the luxury to fall apart right now. Not when the rest of the world was doing that for him.

"H—hey guys! The guy that cured Carson, w…we're looking for a kid with dark hair wearing green robes and armour right?" Mckay stuttered over the com, voice cracking with stress. "I think I found him, but he… he's got company and— I think she's trying to kill him! I don't think she's noticed me ye— OH GOD! NEVER MIND! SHE NOTICED ME! SHE NOTICED ME! HELP! HELP!"

"Damn it, Mckay! HEY UGLY! PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!" Sheppard yelled and the sound of rapid-fire wraith-weapon blasts sounded through the com.

There was a beat of silence before…

"Uh… actually, now that I'm seeing you from this angle you're not so ugly after-all." Sheppard corrected himself, sounding highly unnerved. "I don't suppose we could talk about thi—"

The sounds of an explosion cut off the rest.

"SHEPPARD! MCKAY!"

"Oof~! We're fine guys! Just a few bruises! Seems like the lady didn't like my apology. Tough crowd~! Also by the by, looks like stunners don't do much with this one!"

"WAY TO STATE THE OBVIOUS, SHEPPARD! IF A ZAT WASN'T GOING TO WORK WHY DID YOU THINK A WRAITH STUNNER WOULD?!"

"It was worth a shot? Brought it all the way here, would've been a shame not to use it. Hostile is wearing red and gold robes, guys. Looks like a Wraith Queen, blue-white skin with platinum red hair. Be on the lookout."

"Be on the lookout, he says." Mckay ranted, "SAYS THE ONE FLIRTING WITH THE UNDEAD WRAITH QUEEN!"

"It's a great way to distract people~!" Sheppard defended, sounding far too light-hearted for the situation they were in. "In fact, I think I'll go distract her some more while you go rescue Sleeping Beauty over there."

"SHEPPARD!"

Carson and Teyla found them by following the sounds of destruction, leaving the soldiers to ferry away the few surviving people and gather up the unconscious mutations they met along the way. The 'Wraith Queen' they found was exactly as Sheppard had described and, unfortunately, also matched Mckay's description. It looked Undead. Like someone had crossed a wraith with a zombie, dipped the result in oil and then blow-dried it.

"Oh no…" Carson whispered to himself as he got his first glimpse, already wracking his mind trying to figure out how on earth he'd missed this. This wasn't just a foreign contagion; this was likely a retrovirus that transformed the infected into Wraith. If he had to venture a guess, depending on the amount of human DNA present, people would either present as Julia had and the others would end up like this poor young lady. Was this how the Wraith had started?

The woman moved jerkily as if unused to her own body and, given the amount of mutated tissue hindering her movements, that could very well likely be the case. Her skin was the stale blue-white typical of the Wraith and the hair hanging around her face was leeching colour even as he watched. Fleshy red extraneous lumps of flesh had burst out of her back, staining her robes with blood and black discharge. They looked like raw, freshly skinned and still-bleeding wings.

Dragging along the floor behind her as she moved, connected to her waist and pouring out the back of the ragged tear in her robes that her wings had burst out of, was another lump of bleeding flesh roughly the size of a medium-sized dog. Carson had to swallow back his bile when he realized what it reminded him of when the thing pulsated. Now that the thought had occurred to him he could identify how it was connected to the woman. Aorta. Pulmonary trunk. Atrium veins, both left and right. Superior and inferior vena cava. It even had right and left ventricles.

She was dragging an over-sized, anatomically correct heart behind her.

Her breathing was wet, laboured and hitched. It sounded like her lungs were drowning in fluid. She could barely move without tripping over her mutations, but she didn't need to be able to move. As malformed and changed as she was, she had access to her original Alteran abilities. Explosions rocked the room. Balls of fire ripped apart against the walls and veins of ice frosted pathways her targets dived away from. Likely her state of health, or lack thereof, was the only reason Sheppard and Mckay had survived meeting her.

"CARSON! A LITTLE HELP HERE!" Mckay called desperately from where he was hiding crouched on his heels behind a broken piece of wall.

"I wiLL hAvE mY rEVenGe."

"You will not." Teyla challenged, "For there is no one here for which to exact your revenge upon. Those who created you passed long ago." Deliberately stepping in her way, the Athosian nodded at him to go and fired her weapon directly into the mutated Wraith's face to get its attention.

Even hampered by the hazmat suit Teyla made dodging the wraith's attacks look like child-play. "GO NOW, CARSON!"

He didn't need to be told twice.

"Carson! Carson! Over here!" Rodney beckoned needlessly, as if his bright yellow hazmat suit was somehow hard to miss. "Is this who we're looking for? Tell me this is who we're looking for because I don't think there's anyone else that fits the description you gave us and—"

"Mckay! If you could keep the babbling down to a minimum?" Sheppard chided lightly through the coms. "You're putting me off my groove."

"P.. putting you off your groove?!" Mckay spluttered, popping up ram-rod straight on his knees from where he'd been worrying over one of the few sources of light in the room. Jolted out of his babbling fear the scientist sent a blistering glare across the room to where Sheppard was working in tandem with Teyla to buy them the time they needed, it was lost to the fact John never took his eyes off of the threat.

"Dance with the devil, don't be shy~"

"REALLY!?"

"Sheppard." Telya scolded.

"What? He needed a kick in the pants so I gave him one. It's not like she's giving us much trouble, she's not even moving that fast!"

"That is hardly any reason to bait—"

Ignoring the banter Carson knelt down next to Mckay and looked down at the scientist's find. The young man Rodney had found was in his late teens. He was wearing green robes with silver runes sewn everywhere but most noticeable on the black cuffs and lapels. The robes were belted shut over a pair of black pants and a green tunic that were covered in more silver runes. Simple grey leather gloves and facial mask. Black, grey and silver armour on his arms and legs. Tousled black hair.

"Aye, this is him."

"Alright! Hurry up, grab him and let's go!"

"EASIER SAID THAN DONE! HE'S UNDER A FORCE-FIELD!"

"Of course he is; when are things ever that simple?" John asked rhetorically, ducking under a spear of ice headed his way. "Figure it out!"

Realizing that the edge of one of the lad's sleeves was trailing outside the force-field and knowing that it was a one-way shield Carson took a gamble and grabbed for it. He started using the fabric to pull the boy out from under the triple-layered shield and grimly worked at it until he got a good hold.

"Oh my god Carson, you're a genius! How did I not see that?! Quick, quick! Pull him out!"

They'd barely managed to get his hand through when the hand itself twitched; it was the first sign of awareness they'd seen from him. Startled into dropping the sleeve Rodney yelped, threw himself backwards, and ended up rolling as the bulky suit he was wearing tripped him up. Carson didn't startled though; for once he wasn't the one losing his head in the middle of a crisis. He had no idea what was keeping him so calm, but he was blessing it now.

Green eyes snapped open just in time to witness Teyla reverse her grip on the Wraith Spear weapon and use it to stab the mutated woman through the mid-section.

"GINNY! NO!" The boy screamed, scrabbling to his own knees to push them away and lash out with a weapon of some sort in hand, bright white light arching out to lasso the monster in place.

Teyla let go of her weapon, relinquishing her grip on it in favour of dropping into a roll that had her ducking under the light and avoiding a fireball to the face. The weapon exploded in place of the Athosian, the creature having unintentionally incinerated that instead of her target.

"I wiLL … hAvE … mY reVEnGe!" the Wraith choked out around a mouth-full of black and red sludge.

A shock-wave rippled through the room, knocking everyone off their feet. A spiraling vortex of pure black smoke streaked in through every available opening and coalesced around the misshapen Alteran. "tHis… wOrLD… wiLL TAsTe… mY wraTh!"

A sharp crack sounded and suddenly the only thing that was left of the female Wraith was a splattering of blue, black and red blood, and frayed pieces of the robe she'd been wearing.

"This…" The green eyed teenager whispered into the silent room. "Can't be happening."

OoO

Harry understood exactly how things had gone wrong in the weeks that followed.

In the meanwhile, Atlantis became host to the surviving witches and wizards of the world. Blood status lost all meaning. Purebloods lived cheek-to-cheek with muggles and Muggleborn without complaint. Prejudice was put aside. Though peace among all of Earth's children came at the cost of a large percentage of the world's population. To the last of them, they were all under the mistaken impression that the creature that had taken over Ginny's body had fallen from the gigantic 'meteor' that had been spotted just months before the world went to hell.

They weren't completely wrong, they were just misinformed and no one was correcting them. What would correcting them do? At the moment all the truth would do was light the powder-keg of emotion everyone was suppressing. It would do more harm than good.

You couldn't hide secrets from a Legilimens though, especially not one who was put to work exorcising the original members of the Atlantis Expedition. Harry mined for information under the guise of healing and scoured the Atlantean database for information when he was supposed to be resting. He was allowed access to the archives and chair-room when he expressed interest in them and used the system to gather more intel. It was child's-play for him, especially when he discovered the city breathed like it was a living thing and its database felt like another person's mind to him.

The 'meteor' that had fallen to Earth had been Atlantis itself, landing on Earth after a trip from the Pegasus Galaxy.

The spirit took to styling itself 'Jehovah' now, and it was the latest in an unbelievably long-line of ancient, self-proclaimed 'Gods' the SGC had dealt with in the past. As the first to claim the title 'Jehovah', people actually started using the name in reference to her. They then went on to specify that they meant the thing wearing Ginny's body and not the actual Hebrew god.

The thing was the product of horrific scientific experimentation. Harry's 'ancestors' had captured and tortured a Wraith Queen under the guise of 'research' when they discovered they had created a whole new species by accidentally 'seeding life' on an already inhabited planet. The Wraith Queen had bided its time, learned from its captors and tricked them into thinking it had 'reformed'. They had, in their idiocy, been complacent enough to leak the secrets of Ascension to it. The Wraith had been too far gone into insanity to ascend all the way but she'd gotten far enough to abandon her physical body and gain a good chunk of her captor's abilities. She had all but wiped them out before they figured out how to lock her away.

It seemed common sense was a thing that had been lacking in his ancestors since the dawn of time itself. Pity that had to be the trait they passed down to their Magical descendants rather than their intelligence.

The trapped Wraith Queen had been kept in a laboratory that had remained undisturbed until a few inexperienced scientists and soldiers from the Stargate Command started poking around. They, as well as a handful of others, had been Jehovah's first victims. They had looked, acted and sounded normal… right up until they'd mutated.

There wasn't a country on Earth that hadn't been touched by Jehovah and there were precious few that survived her initial attack.

Of the ones he heard about...

Japan practically shrugged the attack off, being a country where every magical practitioner had SOME experience in exorcism. Jehovah trying to take over the world had practically been another day of the week for them. After Japan, China and Malaysia still had the resources to fight back as even though their countries had been caught by surprise, they hadn't been caught with their pants down like the rest of the world had been. The three joined forces in their retaliation and it had been swift, but even they had to be running out of things to throw at her by now.

He pieced this all together in under a day after he'd been 'rescued', but hadn't known what to do with the information he'd gathered. He knew what to do now though; it just took a while to implement his plan. He needed time, at least eight hours of uninterrupted alone-time and to do that he needed to plan and prepare a long time in advance.

To start with, Harry rooted the knowledge of Exorcism and Healing into every witch and wizard that approached him wishing to help, so he could now afford the 'break' he was taking now. Atlantis now had enough Exorcists and Healers around that he didn't constantly have to physically be there anymore, his medical skills and knowledge were present in each and every new Healer.

From those new Healers he extracted key points of knowledge from them. Spell-crafting, curse-breaking, ward-smithing and seal creation were tucked into his skill-set, all of it granted to him with enthusiastic permission. He copied Carson Beckett's medical knowledge when the man offered it up and tried to look like he was settling into the new rhythm of life.

What Carson didn't know was that his medical knowledge wasn't the only thing he'd copied from the man, and Harry took shameless advantage of the access granted to him into the man's mind.

The thing that took the longest for Harry to figure out was a way to distract everyone who'd made it their mission in life to make sure he didn't over-stress himself. The surviving members of the DA. Daniel Jackson, always in the thick of things and asking leading and insightful questions. The remaining Weasleys, of whom he'd been mostly avoiding. Hermione. Julia Beckett's family, including Carson himself. The sarcastic Jack O'Neill. The stubborn Ronan, who had been the first patient he'd Exorcised in Atlantis, he was hard to dodge without Apparating away from and then there was the sharp-eyed Teyla. Samantha Carter would sometimes watched him through the newly installed CCTV set up all over Atlantis and the ever-twitchy Rodney Mckay dogged his footsteps. Lastly, there was the wise-cracking John Sheppard with his all too knowing eyes.

They all watched him like hawks and he could hardly blame him. He'd been numb since being brought to Atlantis. Even being presented with a healthy and alive Andromeda and Teddy hadn't been enough to break through the Occluding walls he'd thrown up to protect himself.

Most of the witches and wizards watching him came to the conclusion that he was self-dosing on Calming Potions. It was amazing how useful that assumption was. People had yet to realize that Harry was using said potions on McKay and Carson to save his fraying sanity. A few drops in their respective coffee mugs went a long way. The two of them together in a stressful situation with nowhere to escape to was like locking oneself in a room with two House-Elves before giving them clothes. If that hadn't stopped them from constantly getting under his feet and hovering uselessly over his shoulder, he might have resorted to more drastic measures.

The potion affected even the poor lost souls transformed by Jehovah's taint; Julia Beckett credited her survival to the potion Harry had given her prior to her transformation and it was also what Carson credited his, comparably level head during the disaster to. The calming potion in the correct dosage worked for the Muggles watching over him, but the witches and wizards had been another story.

It had taken explaining to a thoroughly confused Carson how he could be Teddy's godfather when he was also genetically the boy's father to come up with an idea to distract everyone hit him in a flash of inspiration.

He'd adopted Teddy via Blood Adoption. Teddy had slept for a solid twelve hours and his metamorphmagus abilities had temporarily been brought down to a base that slowly transformed. Curly caramel-brown hair turned black and when he'd woken up, Teddy's amber eyes changed to green before his natural metamorph gift re-emerged.

That wasn't the cause for his flash of inspiration though; it was what happened afterwards that gave him an idea of what to do to distract the magical half of his watchers. The whole affair had, at the time, surprised him by ending up a complete fiasco. The newspapers had caught wind of it and people had thrown parties over Harry gaining an 'heir' like he'd defeated Voldemort all over again.

Hermione had always felt like a sister to him, hadn't she? Adopting her into the Potter family would just be making official what they already felt. He broached the idea to Hermione with an audience and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of the ensuing celebrations that sprung up before the ceremony even began. The people stuck in Atlantis needed the morale boost and, should his plan go smoothly, this would be the last time he ever saw her again. He wanted the memory to be a warm one regardless of what would happen afterwards.

"You could have asked me in private you know." Hermione huffed, having finally succeeded in escaping the ecstatic attentions of every witch and wizard who'd been there. She hadn't done so unscathed though; her button-down shirt and cardigan, pleated skirt and leggings had been transformed into a maroon robe with a purple sash. She was now sporting the Potter family colours.

"Would you have turned me down?"

"Of course not Harry, but—"

"But, nothing. Now are we going to do this or are you going to complain about it some more?"

The actual ceremony itself took a good four days to set up; it wouldn't have taken half so long if the spectators had let it be the simple affair Hermione wanted it to be. For once though, Harry didn't mind all the fuss. He got a lot done in the background under the guise of preparing for it.

A lot of his Muggle watchers were invited, actually… it looked like they were all present, which suited his plans perfectly. They were all curious to a fault, and more than a little interested in what they'd overheard about the ceremony. McKay and Carson wanted to observe the 'physiological changes' Hermione would undergo and convinced her to apply health monitors to her person. Not that she'd needed much convincing, Harry was starting to think she'd agree to anything in the name of 'science'. She'd taken to life in Atlantis like a fish to water, or rather like she'd been a fish gasping for the water that was the Lost City.

"Why does this remind me remind me of a wedding ceremony?" Harry heard John Sheppard mutter under his breath as he took his place in the center of Atlantis's largest gathering hall.

"Shut up, don't care. Carson, are you seeing this? These readings are—"

"Aye, Rodney. I'm not blind, of course I can see them—"

"Hush now, they're starting!" Teyla warned.

"… personally I'm waiting for the celebration afterwards. I hear they have this drink that they're breaking out for this, something called Fire Whiskey."

"Ronan!"

"What? Just saying… I heard that even the littlest bit knocks a Wizard on his ass, but considering how skinny they all are—"

Rolling his eyes Harry snorted and wondered what the hell they were all expecting. This had more in common with a magically binding vow than it did with a wedding ceremony.

"… Mione, you mind if I get this started before it gets any crazier?" Harry huffed to her, getting a little impatient.

"I thought you'd never ask!" Hermione snorted, and that was enough for him.

He began the ritual by slicing his wand across his palm and opening up a shallow cut, he coated his fingers with blood and held out his hand, palm forward. Instantly the entire hall fell silent.

"I, Harry James Potter, Inheritor of the Will of Peverell, Lord of Houses Black and Potter, do hereby invite Dame Hermione Jane Granger into my House as kin. Will you accept allow me to accept you as my own? Flesh, blood, and magic?"

"Let Magic be my witness…" Hermione answered in kind, opening up a matching wound with which she covered with own blood, she then reached forward to braid her blood-slick fingers together with his waiting ones. "Harry James Potter, I accept your invitation and greet you as kin. Flesh, blood and magic!"

A ripple of soft gold light enveloped them and Harry, having already been through this with Teddy, just with a different ceremony suited to a child, caught his new sister as she slumped and lowered her gently to the decorated gurney that had been set up for her to rest on. "I welcome you to the Houses Potter and Black and as your Lord, hereby bestow upon you Heirship of the house Potter. Let all who stand here be witness and welcome Lady Hermione Potter when she awakens."

The witches and wizards watching gasped.

"What? Wait! What does that mean?!" Daniel Jackson abruptly asked into the resounding silence. Harry ignored the question, threaded the Potter heir ring onto his sister's ring finger and watched it expectantly.

The heir ring glowed and then settled.

The hall burst out into cheers.

"LADY POTTER!"

"Lady Potter!"

"Golly me, should have seen THAT coming~!"

"You realize she's going to kill you for that when she wakes up!" Andromeda guffawed, bent over nearly double and wheezing with hilarity.

"She'll have to catch me first." Harry snorted, checking his clean and healed palm as he got up to his feet. "Excuse me while I go play a bit of 'least in sight' for a while, I'm going to need all the head-start I'm going to get. Give this to her when she wakes up!" Harry instructed, thrusting the leather pouch (one of the spares from his Healer's kit) containing the Lord Rings for both the Potter and Black Houses into Andromeda's hand.

Andy, not knowing what he'd given her, just laughed harder.

Harry let the shallow smirk stay on his face as he turned and kept it up till he was out of sight, leaving a crowd of laughing and cheering witches and wizards behind him. Whipping his invisibility cloak out, he wrapped it around himself and headed straight for the Puddle Jumper bay, calling on the cloak's famed ability to keep him undetected even from the city's sensors.

He let himself into the one he'd been preparing since he'd decided on a course of action and took a moment to sift through the necessary knowledge to override the city's safety protocols. Soon he had the Puddle Jumper running and was flying it up to the roof that was opening at his mental command. The SGC really should have thought twice about letting him have such free access to the Control Chair. He didn't need to be physically sitting in it to control the city anymore, and he barely had to think to stop the digital alerts of the bay doors opening and the Puddle Jumper being taken from reaching McKay and Carter.

A mental nudge and the ship's cloaking feature activated, he moved the ship up to the highest point and aimed an illusion spell out the still open door. The image of a Puddle Jumper settled over where he'd taken the one he'd stolen and he was free to leave. Sealing the Puddle Jumper doors, Harry urged the ship to fly out and had Atlantis close the hanger bay doors behind him.

Hermione would be awake somewhere between twelve to twenty-four hours.

He wanted to reach the Atlantean outpost in the Antarctic before then.

OoO

Harry didn't bother with hiding once he got close enough. He didn't have to. Didn't want to. He wanted Jehovah to know he was coming.

He landed the Puddle Jumper a ways away from the barrier the bitch had erected in a dome over the area with Ginny's magic and surveyed his surroundings as he pulled on his gloves. He absent-mindedly shielded himself from the cold with a flick of his wand and grimaced at the perpetually overcast sky and the pock-marked, cratered ground. How many people had wasted lives and resources throwing themselves at the barrier? There was debris everywhere and not a single dent in the shield to show for it.

Shrapnel from rockets and bits of missiles. Broken pieces of planes and helicopters. Remnants of spell-banners, Oriental in design, littered the landscape and the occasional chipped weapons and broken gear told the tale of previous attempts against the barrier. Walking the circumference of the crackling and opaque wall that obscured his vision, Harry wondered if his plan would work. If such a simple trick would actually break the barrier when so many before him had tried and failed.

Unsealing the vial of corruption that had once infected Carson Beckett Harry flicked the thing at the barrier and held his breath as he watched the ooze dripped down the surface. If this didn't work then he'd just go back to Atlantis with no one the wiser, Jehovah had probably corrected for the weakness of her own barrier breaking properties by now—

The barrier shattered like glass.

"—arry! Harry! Where are you!" The com-unit still tucked into his ear suddenly crackled to life, making him jump a little. He'd honestly forgotten he'd been wearing it. "The barrier around Jehovah just broke!"

"Yeah, Dr McKay I know." Harry hissed in satisfaction, casting an Anti-Apparition ward as he surged forward. "I'm the one that BROKE it!"

"What?! Wait, where ARE you?! Oh no. No. Nononono! Don't tell me you're doing what I think you're doing!"

"Tell Hermione something for me? Tell her to go talk to the purple haired portrait in Grimmauld Place. She has a few things to learn about the family she just became part of, we're built a bit differently from regular witches and wizards."

"NO! I'M NOT TELLING HER ANYTHING! YOU COME BACK HERE AND TELL HER YOURSELF!" the scientist bellowed through the com unit.

"I guess the one thing I have the time to pass on right now is that select members of the family, once safely past their first magical maturity at age eleven, are capable of flying without brooms. Just tell her to wait until her core stabilizes or she'll hurt herself. It's the reason Ginny grew those mutated wings, her Magical Core was injured so they came out all wrong. Which, now that I think of it, is probably the reason I never realized I could fly until after Voldemort, we did have a bit of a skill-swap going on—"

"I'M NOT GOING TO REMEMBER ANY OF THIS! AT LEAST WAIT FOR BACKUP!"

Harry allowed his magic to boost himself into the air and briefly shut his eyes to enjoy the sense of freedom he gained from allowing his wings to manifest. Pulling the spell-matrix he'd building since he'd been 'rescued' out of one of the pouches on his belt, Harry started charging it with every drop of magic that wasn't going into keeping him aloft.

"HARRY, NO! HARRY, DON'T DO THIS! HAARRRYYY!"

Arrowing across the distance to the outpost, he dived down into the hollowed-out structure Jehovah had holed herself up in and sensed for the center of the corruption now boiling out into the landscape. He found her, let his wings dissolve in a flurry of pitch-black feathers mid-drop to the ground, and fed the scattering remnants of his magic into his creation.

Blitzing forward barely a second after his feet touched the floor he speared the glowing white sphere into her abdomen.

Jehovah screamed.

"Tell everyone I'm sorry." Harry whispered, voice shaking as glowing green crystal expanded from the wound, engulfing Ginny's misshapen form. Good, the locking-spell he'd woven into the spell-matrix's structure was working! Now he just had to activate the primary spell! Desperately, he reached for every scrap of magic around him, pulling from his robes and clothes. "This is the only thing I could think of to do, with the way things were going she'd have taken over the world sooner rather than later."

A single mental nudge had the explosive-packed Puddle Jumper arrowing in his direction; if the spell didn't kill her, then the explosion would.

"HARRY!"

Shoving what he'd scraped together into the core of his spell matrix Harry closed his eyes as it pulsed.

The world around him dissolved in a wave of bright green.

OoO

Harry took a while to process what he was seeing.

He was no longer deep inside the Atlantean base in the Antarctic, he was miles above it instead with no idea how he'd gotten there and he was viewing the massive crater he'd created by crashing the explosive-laden Puddle Jumper into Jehovah's face. Patting himself down, he realized with confusion that he was completely intact and, oddly enough, his robes and armour and his unknowingly-manifested, previously pitch black wings were bleached a perfect and pristine white… the only thing about him that hadn't changed in colour was his hair.

He was glowing with pure power.

Bringing his hands up, he stared at the white leather of his gloves and admired the play of light licking off his hands like flames. He'd drained himself right down to the core and had pulled everything he possibly could out of his surroundings at the same time to activate that last spell. Even the wings he'd manifested to get close enough to Jehovah had gone into it… He'd gone in with a month's worth of hoarded magic, pulled in from every source he had access to, for the sole purpose of taking out Jehovah. He'd expected to die. He'd wanted to die.

This wasn't death. Harry knew death, knew it more intimately than anyone else. He'd mastered death. This… this was life. Life at its most concentrated.

"Correct, Mr Potter." A strong, female voice answered his unspoken thought, making Harry whirl around in a flurry of white feathers and robes to see who'd spoken to him. Floating behind him was a woman with curling dark brown hair that brushed her shoulders, she was wearing clothing dyed the same pure white as his clothes were and her warm brown eyes were soft and welcoming. "You have attained something that not a single one of your ancestors have ever, in the tens of thousands of years it has been since they split apart from our people, managed to reach even with all their years of striving. What amazes me is that you not only accomplished it once, but twice. Had you not been interrupted that first time you would have joined our ranks much earlier than this."

"You're… one of the ancient Alterans."

"My name is Ganos Lal." The woman agreed softly, "I've been sent to welcome you and to make sure you don't do anything… foolish." She nodded down to indicate the world below them.

"What do you mean fooli—" Harry felt the words die mid-sentence as he sensed what she was talking about. Namely the seed of unmistakable hate buried under the tomb of crystal, ice, rock and magic he'd created. His senses stretched out to all corners of the globe and in an instant he could see the taint that was still spread out across the world. His senses didn't stop there but stretched even further, impossibly tracing the path the Stargate had carved through the stars and expanded to the other worlds touched by Jehovah's taint.

"… no." Harry breathed, "I thought I stopped her! Why haven't they turned back to normal?!"

"But you did stop her." Ganos corrected. "The spell you cast worked and she is now completely unable to affect the living world. Your duty to your people has been accomplished. The rest will simply have to be left up to them. We must not interfere."

"I wanted to kill her, not immobilize her! This solves nothing! There are still how many people suffering because of her taint!"

"I will warn you that should you interfere in any way to with natural development and free will of even one lesser being you will be held accountable by the highest laws of our people and punished all the same for it regardless of your ignorance."

"Free will? Natural development? Where is there free will and natural development in this?!" he pointed at the ravaged world beneath them. "YOUR PEOPLE CREATED JEHOVAH AND NOW YOU WON'T EVEN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY?!"

Ganos Lal was silent for a long moment before she finally spoke again, looking like she was choosing each of her words very carefully. "If you chose to interfere your punishment would fit the crime. Hypothetically speaking, should you choose to cleanse this and the other worlds of her taint… you would be bound to that mission until there was nothing left of her. Such a decision could tie you to her for an eternity."

Harry felt the anger abruptly drain out of him as he stared at her, hearing what she was trying to convey between the lines and suddenly, he remembered where he'd heard Ganos Lal's name before.

"You… you're the Alteran Daniel Jackson calls 'Morgan Le Fay', aren't you?"

"Indeed." Morgan Le Fay tilted her head in agreement and smiled in fond remembrance. "Daniel Jackson was a man that lived and spoke with the whole of his heart, and in the end he was ill-suited to our company. He… was very much like yourself."

Harry searched her expressive brown eyes and read the meaning behind her words as clearly as if he'd plucked them straight from her mind.

"The consequences seem light right now, because you are ignorant and so very young. Aeons could pass before your punishment ends." She warned further and Harry felt the depth of her apprehension at sentencing such a 'young soul' to what she perceived as an eternity of suffering and pain.

"That… hardly seems like a punishment at all." He told her frankly, looking away from her and down to where Jehovah was trapped. "My goal here was to destroy her and even though I put everything I had into it, it wasn't enough. I left the job half done and— that doesn't sit right with me. This world has everything I care for and love living on it, punish me all you want! But first…"

Gripping the power he wore around him like a heavy cloak Harry abruptly flung it wide, stretched his senses and let it wash over the sands, seas and skies of Earth and every other world Jehovah's taint reached in a healing wave. Possessed Witches, Wizards and Muggles who were trapped in their own bodies as the magic was drained from them were freed and washed clean. These worlds were forever transformed by what had occurred but now there was a chance that life could continue.

Waiting until every last scrap of taint was washed away from the worlds Jehovah had reached, Harry pulled himself back and focused on the source. Appearing before Jehovah, he pressed his hand to the cool surface of the crystal she was trapped in and used it as a channel.

The taint resisted Harry's new powers, even combined with his magic. She used the magic she'd stolen from her numerous victims to fight him, of which she had a lot of and her ancient experience with exorcists outmatched his ability to finish her. At the moment she was simply too strong for him to destroy, he was exhausted and drained from cleansing her victims, which meant that he would have to wait and recover from the strain. Aside from Ginny's magical core and the power she'd pulled from outside sources she had no other access to magic, no magical core of her own, he'd managed to at least cut her supply. For now, the only way he could defeat her that he could see was to wait for her to exhaust her stolen cache of magic. She was not the only one who knew how to bide her time.

"She will never be as she was before." Ganos advised, alluding to Ginny, appearing beside him to peer over his proverbial shoulder. "She will die even if you remove Jehovah from her body."

"I know." Harry murmured as he pulled his power back. "But at the very least her soul will be free."

White light reflected in the crystal Jehovah was trapped in and Harry felt his heart clench. Without turning, he used the reflective surface of the crystal he'd created to watch as several glowing white spheres of light, more than he could count, stopped a ways away from him before brightening into the form of people. Soon he was surrounded on all sides by white-robed beings of both genders and in all shapes and sizes, the lot of them glowing with the same white fire of life that he was.

"You were warned." One of them said and Harry ignored him in favour of searching Jehovah's pink eyes, caught open and glaring, for any trace of Ginny.

"I'm so sorry." He apologized to the hint of her that he could only just feel over Jehovah's hate, he brushed his hand over where he could feel the younger Witch and wished with all of his heart that he could just reach in past the crystal and hate to release her.

"You are not now…" Ganos Lal observed. "But you will be."

OoO

The Ascended as a collective had the emotional intelligence and capacity of a brick wall and as a whole they were very short sighted. It became obvious where the old fuss-pots of his time had gotten it from; they were very much like older and more polished members of the Wizengamot.

Harry wasn't chained to Jehovah in any physical or non-physical way. Instead he was left with warnings of dire punishment should he stray from his 'Mission' and was constantly made to feel the weight of their combined gazes. If they were a little less up themselves he could almost imagine them betting on the exact date he would 'give up' and try to leave his self-appointed task.

Harry wondered how the entire group could so painfully miss the obvious.

For all their so called wisdom and knowledge it was like they didn't understand him or his motivations and, after a while spent spitefully watching them back, Harry understood something. They were like children who'd been brought up in almost total isolation. Worse than that, they were incredibly selfish, extremely intelligent children brought up in near-total isolation with enough power to destroy galaxies by accident.

No wonder they policed themselves so strictly.

It was also no wonder they were so stunted emotionally, they had shunned social interaction with anyone but others of their kind when they'd still been mortal. Most of them had spent practically the entirety of their mortal lives in seclusion chasing Ascension to the exclusion of all else. Others had been helped by technology built to aid the process and more had been helped along by Ascended mentors.

They had Ascended the wrong way. They'd left their empathy behind and had let their souls wither under the weight of their own power.

There weren't any left who had naturally Ascended like he had. The last of them had died when they'd still been at war with the Ori. Harry was no longer surprised at the way they felt so dead to him, even so full-to-busting with life-force. Ganos Lal was the best of them but even she had trouble understanding him. She looked at him like he was speaking another language when he tried explaining himself on one of her rare visits and once again compared him to Daniel Jackson.

Daniel Jackson, the last person before him who had managed to KEEP his soul from shrivelling upon Ascending and had felt empathy just as keenly as he had when he'd been mortal. His mistake had been trying to fit in with the 'cool kids'.

To Harry, who'd spent his entire life bucking the machinations of those who would mould him to their ways… well. The Ascended could go ahead and go join the Wizarding World in their lemon-sucking. He joined hands with Magic to make sure everyone he loved and their loved ones would continue to live in the peace he'd created for them. What he could not do, she would in his stead and in return he would be her Champion against Jehovah.

Jehovah tried reaching past the crystal he had trapped her in, but couldn't penetrate past his guard. When she turned around to try her hand at absorbing the white-hot spell-matrix Harry had left buried in her abdomen he was quick yank it back out. Even if all it did was burn her now, he couldn't take the chance that she'd figure out how to drain it in the future. She already had more than enough stolen magic protecting her; he didn't want his creation extending her lifespan.

"Nice try…" Harry snarked at the wily bitch, leaving her to her screams of incoherent rage as he spread his wings. Phasing through miles of ice, crystal and rock Harry flew to the surface, hovered there facing the epicentre of the crater and rolled the crystal sphere around his palm as he thought. He couldn't leave it here, that would be too risky with Jehovah so close. He could keep it on his person, he was confident enough in his own abilities that he could smack her down from a repeat attempt… but, this could potentially be a neat solution to a problem he'd been having since he'd Ascended.

The people he'd left behind, his friends and family, the members of the SGC… he could feel their grief radiating from Atlantis like a physical sensation. If he could keep the spell-matrix away from Jehovah while soothing even just a little of that pain away…

"As long as you do not over-step the boundary-line of Interference and Free Will, that is not outside the bounds of your mission."

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I give a rat's arse." Harry replied tartly to Ganos Lal as she appeared next to him in a now familiar flash of brilliant white. "I took vows to Heal all those who came to me in pain long before I Ascended. Don't presume to think that I've abandoned those vows along with my mortal body."

Ganos Lal's face twitched like she was suppressing a laugh. "Do not forget that the Others are always watching." She warned, "The next level of punishment would take you away from your mission, stripped of all knowledge of Ascension and banished to mortal form. Please do be careful."

"How could I forget? Even if I were still capable of it I would feel them watching me in my sleep, they are that obvious. Thank you though, I'll be careful of the busy-body old perverts with nothing better to do than watch young men talk to their grieving friends."

OoO

It took all of three minutes of playing around with the power grid in the holo-room and creating power fluctuations to have a ranting Rodney McKay walk into the room. When the man took to the podium to test the interface Rodney dropped the computer tablet he'd brought with him and stared slack-jawed when he appeared before the man 'disguised' as the program interface.

"Hello," Harry greeted cheerfully, not bothering to hide his amusement. "You may enter your query verbally or by entering it manually on the console before you. For future reference, manual input is required for most system interaction."

Harry had changed nothing of his appearance so it was understandable when the man wheezed and tripped over his own feet. Harry dutifully vanished when the scientist's feet left the podium and waited for the man to regain his wits. Had Ganos Lal garnered this much amusement when she'd done this?

McKay, once finished gathering himself, dislodged the com unit from his ear and promptly broke it in his haste to turn it on. He then ran half-screaming, half babbling from the room. It wasn't very long before the room was full to occupancy and overflowing, with everyone wrestling over who would stand on the podium. In the end, a woman with wild, tumbling brown curls shouldered her way past everyone and Banished people out of her way using her wand until she was finally able to climb the podium.

"Hello," Harry repeated softly the second her feet hit the platform, appearing before the woman in the same intentionally terrible imitation of a real hologram as he had with Mckay. Shifting into the visible spectrum in a ripple of multi-coloured light he appeared as himself rather than Ganos Lal. He again didn't hide his white bleached robes and armour, nor did he bother with doing so with his purely-white wings. He simple swept the arching, graceful, full-feathered appendages behind him. "You may enter your query verbally or by entering it manually on the console before you."

"I— I'll choose verbally, thank you." Hermione answered in a choked voice, swiping tears threatening at the corners of her now bright green eyes with the edge of a sleeve.

"For future reference, manual input is required for most system interaction." Harry finished, rolling his eyes at the programmed script, he then tucked his hands into his sleeves to hide their shaking. He couldn't offer information freely but he was allowed to answer any question they asked him so long as none of it pertained to Ascension or technology beyond their scope. As far as loop-holes went, this one was a doozy. He sent a mental thanks to his Ascended 'mentor' for sharing with him her recollections of her meetings with Daniel Jackson. If she hadn't pushed the boundaries quite this far in the past this meeting would have been impossible.

Hermione was a vision. Her hair had lost all of its fizziness and had softened into curls that had taken on a burnished auburn gleam. Her once brown eyes now matched his and her face had lost a lot of its roundness, taking on a bit of the sharp, aristocratic lines of his own face. It was a good look on her and Harry was almost sorry he wouldn't be there to beat away unworthy suitors from her as a proper brother should do.

"Was the Blood Adoption ritual just to keep me out of the way?" Hermione asked, hands clenching the edges of the podium in a white-knuckled grip. She was getting straight to the point, but...

"Your search parameters are too broad, please rephrase your question."

Daniel Jackson pushed through the crowed and nudged Hermione until she gave him enough space to stand on the podium with him. "What she means to ask is what was Harry James Potter's plan when he adopted Hermione Granger into his family."

"On the day Healer Potter adopted Hermione Potter into his family he planned on using the time granted to Exorcise Jehovah's taint from the world. However, as you should be well aware, the ritual would have failed if his wish to accept you— her into his family weren't genuine."

"What happened to Harry Potter?" Daniel continued.

"Your search parameters are too broad, please Rephrase. Your. Question." Harry grit his teeth. Damn it, at the very least Daniel should know just how fine a line he was treading.

"… What happened to Harry Potter after he left the Blood Adoption Ritual." Hermione tried, having caught on rather quickly.

"Your search parameters are too broad, please rephrase your question." he urged. So close! Harry had 'attended' two blood adoption rituals. She had to specify or—

"What happened to Harry Potter after he left Hermione Potter's Blood Adoption Ritual." Daniel Jackson corrected quickly. "Didn't you tell me he adopted Teddy too?" The former Ascended asked his sister before anyone could answer. Yes! Finally! He could even answer that one because the man was standing on the podium with Hermione!

"Harry Potter appropriated a Puddle Jumper loaded with explosives stolen from Atlantis, flew it to the barrier Jehovah erected around the Atlantean outpost in Antarctic and used the barrier-breaking properties inherent in a sample of corrupted essence he'd previously exorcised from Dr Carson Beckett. Following that he used a spell matrix he designed to both trap Jehovah's host body and destroy her."

Harry ignored the questions popping up from all corners of the room. The "That was you!?" coming from Mckay about the stolen explosives and Puddle Jumper. The shocked and startled "What?! You kept that?" from Carson and the "Why didn't you tell anyone, we would've helped!" coming from Sheppard.

"What happened to Jehovah?" Jack O'Neill asked from the edges of the overly-crowded room, everyone fell silent as they waited for the answer. Harry, feeling the weight of the watching Ascended, didn't give it them. He flicked his eyes pointedly up to the ceiling until Daniel caught on again and sheepishly repeated O'Neill's question.

"Unfortunately, Jehovah remains intact, however she is fully encased within the grip of the spell matrix Healer Potter created and is unable to escape."

"And what happened to Healer Potter?" Daniel asked, eyes narrowing at him.

Nope, wrong direction! Harry didn't want to answer that question!

"Your search parameters are too broad, please rephrase your question." Okay, so being unable to answer questions unless worded exactly the right wasn't as annoying as he thought it would be. Yay for being able to duck unwanted questions~!

"What happened to Healer Potter after the spell matrix activated?" Hermione asked suddenly, also narrowing her own eyes at him, it was quite a bit more intimidating now than it had been when they were brown. Was that what it looked like when he glared at people? Damn it, she always knew when he was holding something back! Probably recognized the expression on his face.

"Healer Potter Ascended to a higher plane of existence." He answered easily, skipping over both his actions directly upon ascending and the subsequent 'punishment' that the Ascended had dealt. "As Ascending isn't recognized by Magic as death, he abdicated Lordship of the Houses Black and Potter and passed both titles down to his heirs. Heir Theodore Lupin-Black and Heir Hermione Jane Granger-Potter are now the Heads of their respective families… As a side-effect, Hermione Potter inherited his last possession."

"What last possession?" Hermione asked reflexively and Harry grinned.

A spiral of pure glowing green appeared before her and spat out the spell matrix he'd dug back out of Jehovah's abdomen. Magic had granted Harry's wish for him.

Immediately the weight of stares pressing down on his shoulders grew heavier until—

"PISS OFF! That clearly wasn't me and you know it!" Harry snarled, swearing up at the watching Ascended. He snapped his wings out and swatted away the weight of their accumulating power before it could tighten any further. "Like you lot were ever-so-subtle in dealing with the Ori!"

"Busted~!" a voice sang out and Harry looked down to a black haired woman that was lying across the floor of the hologram platform, grinning up at him with a Cheshire's smirk. "Yeah, hi~! I'm Vala, you don't know me 'cause I was out there lurching it up with the rest of the zombies, but who cares about that right? I'm just curious, it was you that healed everyone wasn't it? Also, you have to answer me because I have my feet on the pedestal!"

Harry coughed, smoothed his ruffled feathers back into place, checked that she really did have her feet on the pedestal and straightened. "Your search parameters are too broad, please rephrase your question."

"Oh, come on!"

"Your search parameters are too broad, please rephrase your question."

"Was it the Ascended known to the people of Earth as Harry James Potter that healed the world of Jehovah's taint?" Hermione cut through the near-banter.

"… Yes." Harry sighed, folding his arms back into his sleeves. He'd been hoping to spare her that piece of information.

"And what was his punishment for interfering?" Daniel followed up quickly, not allowing him to just leave it at that. Harry shot him a poisonous glare and wished he was at least allowed to kick the man, unfortunately holograms couldn't kick people.

"Healer Potter was 'punished' with the task of finishing what he started." Harry replied sarcastically, miming quotation marks. "They believe this to be sufficient enough for his infraction due to the fact that she is trapped on Earth and he can't gather enough strength to finish her after cleansing the worlds affected by her taint. He must 'suffer' Jehovah's company until such time as she is wiped from existence. They mistakenly believe he will give up before too long as he is very young and ignorant and that he will come to regret his choice…"

Harry paused, tilted his chin up and grinned fiercely.

"Harry Potter will buy the people of Earth as much time as he can. He will fight Jehovah to the last of his strength and promises, freely and without reservation, to protect this world against her. Further, should he be fortunate enough, he will look forward to meeting you all again in the Promised Land. Grow as strong as you can in his absence and prepare yourselves as much as you can for the worst-case scenario, for should he fail at defeating Jehovah the task will once again fall upon your collective shoulders."

He turned to Hermione and memorized the details of her new face, as this would be the last time the Ascended would allow him to contact her so directly.

"Good luck."

OoO

Appearing over Jehovah's jail, Harry hovered miles above it and stared down at the crater, watching the play of green flames flicker and dance around the edges of the deep wound he'd created on the planet's surface. It would take a millennia, perhaps more, before it would heal over even with Magic's active attention and he couldn't do anything about it.

He couldn't afford to do anything about it.

Re-positioning himself until he was directly over the center he dived, phasing through the layers of magic, rock, ice and crystal until he was once again staring Jehovah in the face.

"Hey there, did you miss me while I was gone?" He asked sarcastically, pooling the energy he'd collected during his trip to Atlantis and back. He shaped, aimed and released it between her hateful glare-locked pink eyes and glared right back at her continued resistance.

He supposed this would be the beginning of a not-so-beautiful relationship.

OoO

Chapter End!

So once upon a time, around about the time I wrote that really old FF7 fanfic of mine called Crossguard, I had a plot bunny. At the time I didn't have the inspiration, ability or patience to give the idea the attention it deserved and so I ignored it for a very long time…

Until it made me pay attention by biting me in the face a few days ago and refusing to let go. Holy mother of GOD did this plot bunny get its revenge by taking me for a ride. Thirty three pages in roughly four days later and I am utterly and completely SHATTERED. The worst part of it is, if I hadn't put my foot down and cut it off there? It would have demanded I take it even further. Which is completely ridiculous for a first chapter, and yes, this WILL be a chaptered fic because I've had WAY too many ideas in this verse over the years not to use them.

The things I took from the 'minor' crossover elements… Monster Hunter: The greaves and vambraces Harry wears as part of his Healer uniform as well as the medical mask and gloves he wore for part of the story. Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis: should be pretty obvious. Mermaid saga: the transformed and bloated Lost Souls like Julia Beckett turned into.

Speaking of Julia Beckett I was surprised when my Plot Bunny told me I didn't have to kill her off. "She was calm and not attacking because Harry gave her a Calming Potion! Don't kill her!" Said the plunny. Funny that, I totally planned on killing her! XP

Drop me a review if you liked my story and tell me what you liked about it! Your reviews feed inspiration like you have NO idea~ XD

Ima faceplant now because I've been 'burning the midnight oil' all week to get this story out. SO tired.