Hello, everyone, and welcome the "Power of Eclipse" story.

This is an old idea of mine, originally inspired by Lupine Horror's "Reinforced Magic". It went through several iterations, before finally blossoming into a full story, which is being written in a collaboration between greysongarr and yours truly. This is a crossover with "Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha: Force" and, therefore, it WILL NOT be a nice story. Please be mindful of that. Now, without further ado:

Title: Power of Eclipse
Authors: NHunter, greysongarr
Beta: Remilia - The Scarlet Moon, Skelekitty
Genre: General, Adventure
Rating: M = NC-17
Warnings: AU; Crossover; extreme violence with gore; other not-nice stuff; not-so-sane authors.

Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" and "Mahou Shoujou Lyrical Nanoha" belong to their respective owners. No profit is being made. The same goes for any other media that might be used as the sources of ideas and inspiration.

"speaking"
"telepathy"
「Devices speaking」
'thinking'
"spells"

Power of Eclipse
Chapter I: The Beginning

A pretty but otherwise forgettable young woman shifted from one foot to the other nervously as she stood before her boss's office, scared of approaching him right now, even if normally he was a secretary's dream: kind, friendly, patient and understanding. Handsome too. Why was she scared? That was actually pretty simple: she was about to deliver him some really bad news. And that wasn't something anyone could do without feeling at least a little nervous and frightened. Still, keeping her boss informed about the things happening in the world was her job so, taking deep breath to steel her nerves, the secretary knocked on the door.

"S-Sir!" She called, before stepping inside the office. "You have a p-priority message from Faurus's traffic control. I think, you s-should hear this." Her boss – a tall and athletic man in his late twenties with dark hair and piercing steely-gray eyes – let out a deep sigh, already guessing what kind of news he was about to hear.

"Go on." He commanded as he leaned forwards over his large mahogany table.

"They've lost all contact w-with MSV Athabasca around fifteen minutes ago. The cause of this is unknown right now, b-but the evidence they have points towards a malfunction in the r-reactor core, which caused the ship to fall into the Imaginary Space as it was entering the Dimension Sea." The secretary said. Then, after pausing for a moment to pull together, she continued: "The Prototype and the Book were aboard that ship and..."

"And you believe them to be lost forever." Her boss finished for her. This was followed a long and uneasy silence. "This is indeed very unfortunate." He said finally. "And while the loss of the Book is of no consequence to our plans, losing Zero sets us back several months, if not a full year..." Standing up from his armchair, he walked up to a floor-to-ceiling window that served as the side wall of his office. "That said,..." He continued. "We still possess both the Seed of Origin and Zero's blueprints. It can be rebuilt." He said, his voice now full of determination. "Contact the fifth laboratory here on Liberta ASAP. Tell them to drop whatever projects they are working on right now and begin building Zero's replacement."

"Y-Yes, sir!" His secretary replied, already forwarding the orders to the laboratory through her device.

"Also." He continued. "Have the staff from the Faurus's laboratory, as well as the entire maintenance crew of Athabasca rounded up. If the ship's disappearance was the result of a deliberate sabotage and not an accident, I want the culprits to be dealt with. Permanently."

"O-Of course." The young woman replied. "Anything else, sir?" She asked then.

"Keep me posted on the progress of the official investigation." Her boss said. When she nodded, he added. "And, please, leave me alone for now. I have... things to contemplate." Nodding respectfully, the secretary backed out of the office. Once the door behind her sealed shut, the man let out an angry roar as he punched the nearest concrete wall hard. While he hasn't lied and the artifacts lost today weren't irreplaceable, their loss still was a major blow for his long-term plans and recovering from it would require great amounts of resources, something that his corporation could barely spare at the moment…

Letting out a deep sigh, he returned to his table and, retaking his seat, began sifting through various documents stored on his computer: if he wanted to minimize his losses from the today's disaster he needed to act fast.

~/ *** \~

"Morning, guys!" Gordon, one of Dudley's friends said loudly as he joined the rest of the friends in the classroom. "Wanna see something totally cool?" He asked then while raising his bag a little to indicate that the 'totally cool' thing he was talking about was in there. Once the gang assembled around his desk, he opened his bag. And, whatever was in there had the other four boys staring at it in awe.

"Is it, you know, real?" Piers Polkiss asked, causing Gordon to make a face as if he had been deeply insulted by this question.

"My father works in private security." He said dangerously. "Of course it's real." Making a small pause to calm down, he continued, now glaring towards a scrawny kid with messy black hair that was seated several desks away from them. "I wonder, how well it will work on the freak here?"

"Why don't we find out?" Dudley offered with a rather unpleasant grin threatening to split his ...large face into two. "We can ambush him after the classes and test you toy out." The rest of the gang quickly agreed with their boss's plan.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned freak – his name actually was Harry Potter – felt a cold shiver run up his spine. And it certainly wasn't because a stray gust of wind found its way under the rag he was calling his shirt. No, it was his sixth sense tingling. And, if his intuition was right, then his cousin and his little band of bullies were planning some new 'trick' they would like to subject him to. He needed to be extra careful today.

As the end of the classes that day approached, Harry's uneasiness only grew: not only Dudley and his friends haven't tried any new ways to torment him yet, but they actually seemed to lay off him with their usual insults and mischief as well. They were certainly planning something grand, and the young Potter most definitely didn't want to experience whatever new way way of agonizing him those five had come up with firsthand.

Thus, the green-eyed boy bolted out of the classroom as soon as the bell from the last lesson for the day rang. The band of five dashing right after him only made Harry even more determined to get as far away from them as he could. And while he could run pretty fast – faster than his chasers, actually – he didn't have as much stamina as the more 'sporty' members of his cousin's gang did. And their knowledge of his preferred escape routes also didn't help the bespectacled boy any…

Still, despite the proverbial cards being stacked against him, the young Potter managed to keep his lead for almost five blocks as he ran towards the edge of Little Whinging in hopes of losing his pursuers in the gardens there. Hell, he actually almost made it to his chosen destination!.. Alas, a small rock on the ground that he tripped over put a quick end on his escape plans: before he could get up and start running again, Malcolm and Dennis caught up with him and grabbed him by his arms and legs.

"You're not running away from us today, freak." Malcolm said with an evil smile as he tightened his iron grasp, causing Harry to let out a cry of pain.

"Nice work there, guys." Dudley, out of breath from a long scuttle, congratulated as he and the rest of the gang caught up. "Now, why don't we... get somewhere... we won't be disturbed... and test your new toy out, Gordon." Nodding in agreement with their boss, the boys carried their 'prey' to an underground passage connecting the two sides of the road encircling the town.

"Alright, freak." Gordon said as he pulled baton-style electric shock prod from his school bag. "Let's see how you would like this!" And with a bloodthirsty grin he thrust his 'weapon' into Harry's stomach.

"A-Argh-h-h!" The bespectacled boy cried out loudly as angry electricity coursed through his body. Too bad though, Dudley had actually thought this all out and picked up a spot no one would actually hear the young Potter's screams and come to the rescue.

"That looks fun." Big D remarked as he observed the freak of his cousin cry in pain as he futilely tried to squirm away from the prod. "Let me try it." And not even waiting for Gordon to agree, he took possession of the electric baton. Wasting no time, the young Mr. Dursley jabbed it into his cousin's chest, causing him to scream in pain again and again as more electricity was discharged into him... His over-eagerness to hear the freak's agonized cries soon caused Harry's body to reach its limits and shut down. "What? It broke already?" Dudley asked dumbly.

"No way!" Gordon cried out as he quickly took his (father's) electric baton back from the gang's boss. He then tested the prod on his own hand. And got shocked painfully. "What are you talking about, Big D? It works just fine." He managed after a minute of nursing his hurt hand.

"Hey, freak! What's going on?" Dudley demanded as he kicked Harry under the ribs. He got no answer, though. Not even a twitch to indicate that the bespectacled boy was still conscious. "Damn it. We broke the freak." He complained. "Let's go find something else to do, guys."

"What, are you going to just leave the freak here?" Piers asked. "What if someone gets hurt because they tripped over him?" That made Big D pause for a moment.

"You're right. We can't have that happening to the good people." He replied with a shrug. "Throw the freak into a ditch or something." Nodding, Malcolm and Dennis picked the unconscious victim of their latest escapade up and carried him out of tunnel. There, they followed their 'boss's' suggestion and threw the freak-boy into the ditch.

"Hey guys, what are we going to do now?" Piers asked, once the gang was back together.

"How about we hit the mall?" Malcolm suggested. "I heard that the arcade there just got a new and really cool game. We can totally try it out." This seemed to catch the other boys' interest. "Let's go! The last one there buys everyone a round!" He called, before darting towards the mall in question, the rest of the gang racing there with him.

~/ *** \~

Unnoticed by the people of Little Whinging, a lone figure was limping through the overgrown abandoned fields that made up the northern premises of the town. This figure looked like a girl in her mid-teens. She had pale skin, waist-long slightly-wavy light-gray hair and lifeless amber eyes with slightly slitted pupils. Her clothes consisted of just a single white gown that was something a hospital patient or a test subject in a laboratory might wear.

Said gown was all torn up and covered in soot and blood, the girl's own blood, if the heavy injuries and multiple still-bleeding wounds on her body – at least one of which should have been fatal as it went right through the left side of her stomach – were of any indication. Yet, while most certainly weakened and on her last legs, the girl was still pushing forwards, desperately clinging to a book. Admittedly, though, there was more to that book than its gray leather cover with a large silver Gothic cross on it might seem to imply…

As this mysterious girl got closer to the edge of Little Whinging, her amber eyes made out a small body lying in a ditch next to some road. Immediately, she began analyzing this body.

「Life signs confirmed.」 She whispered under her breath as she recognized that the human boy before her was still alive, despite looking like a body someone tried to dispose of carelessly. 「Active Linker Core detected.」 And, apparently, this boy was a mage, even if the readings of his magic were unlike anything the girl had seen before. And she had seen quite a few Linker Cores belonging to the users of both Mid-Childan and Belkan magic systems... Still, despite how abnormal the boy's magic was, it was still compatible with hers and, thus, could be used to fuel her recovery. It won't be as fast as it would have been, had his Linker Core being a more traditional one, but she couldn't afford to be picky about her host right now. 「Activating self-repair protocols. Commencing direct connection.」

Approaching the unconscious boy, the mysterious girl knelt before him and placed her free hand on his shoulder. For a moment nothing happened. Then, both she herself and the book she was holding dissolved into blobs of light which, after a moment, flowed into the boy's body, leaving no traces of the girl's existence in the real world beyond the blood stains on the ground.

Once able to access her current host's Linker Core and siphon his mana to heal her wounds, the girl manifested an avatar in his Internal Space. And she immediately discovered that she wasn't alone here: two more separate entities were contained in there.

One of those entities had the appearance of a very ugly undead toddler with slightly-glowing blood-red eyes and was surrounded by 'evil' aura of blackness. It also was at least partially-sentient, which only made it even more dangerous and repulsive. Opposing that monstrosity was some magical force that looked like a cloud of sparkling bluish mist. This force lacked sentience and was guided by some directions and instructions programmed into it when it was created.

「Analyzing foreign magic...」 And while so far neither of those two entities had even noticed her presence, the amber-eyed girl doubted that they would tolerate sharing their host with her. And, according to her analysis, these entities weren't harmless. 「Threat level assessment: moderately-high. Recommended course of action: preemptive extermination of potential hostiles.」 With the course of action clear, the girl activated her innate Anti-Magic Field – using the boy's mana to power it up, of course – and initiated her attack against these strange magical entities residing within her host…

And while the girl was unable to recognize the magic behind those entities – it matched neither Belkan nor Mid-Childan schools – her AMF was still able to destroy their spell matrices and suffocate them by denying them access to the boy's mana.

Once the potential threats to her were eliminated, the girl turned her attention to her host's Linker Core. It seemed to be attuned to the same abnormal magic that those two entities had been made of, but it also had a latent affinity towards the Belkan school of magic. Enhancing that affinity was a logical thing to do as it should reduce the chances of her host dying from complications during Eclipse's integration – the magic users appeared to be quite rare on this world, and if her host died before her wounds were healed, the things might become problematic for her. Thus, the amber-eyed girl began the necessary preparations for altering his Linker Core...

~/ *** \~

When Harry woke up, it was late afternoon. Possibly even dinner time already. He could only imagine what aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon would do to him for missing out on his chores. And he was reasonably sure that his punishment would only get worse if he didn't return to #4, Privet drive as soon as possible. Thus, mustering up his strength, the young Potter tried to stand up.

That turned out to be a much harder task than he expected: his entire body felt like it was made from lead and sharp pain shooting through his head every step wasn't helping any. He was also shivering badly as if he was running a fever – though it likely was nothing more than the result of him lying on cold ground for several hours. Strange tar-like and mildly-caustic substance that seemed to be leaking out of the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, though, wasn't as easy to explain... Scratch that, Harry had no idea what it was and how it came to be. Still, he was reasonably sure that he didn't want it anywhere near himself, so he proceeded to clumsily wipe it off his forehead as fast as possible.

And while he was doing that, he noticed a few large bloodstains next to himself. A quick inspection of his body – which, surprisingly, wasn't hurting anywhere as much as Harry was expecting it to, given the torment the Dudley's gang had subjected him to – revealed that this blood wasn't his: there were no wounds anywhere on his body and his clothes, while really dirty, weren't dirty with blood…

In his current state, however, the bespectacled boy could only idly wonder about what had happened to the mysterious person that left this bloodstain; then his thoughts bounced back to himself as he wondered how he will pull through the current crisis: he was going to be punished really bad by his aunt and uncle for his 'sloth'.

And since this punishment was only going to get worse if he continued to hang about – er... wherever he was – the young Potter mustered all the strength that was left in his body and, rising to his feet, began the long journey 'home'...

"Hey, boy! Where have you been? Because of your tardiness I had to cook dinner myself!" Aunt Petunia attacked as soon as Harry stepped inside #4, Privet drive. A moment later, though, the woman paused her tirade when she saw that her nephew could hardly stand on his feet. "Boy?" She asked with a surprising amount of concern in her voice. "What's going on?" Harry, however, couldn't answer her; having completely exhausted all of his strength, he lost his consciousness and fell onto the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. "Boy?"

"What's going on, Pet?" Vernon asked, peeking from the living room.

"Dunno." Mrs. Dursley replied. "The brat has returned just now. And then he collapsed and..." Kneeling next to Harry, Petunia placed her hand on his forehead. "Oh my God!" She exclaimed just a moment later "It's like he's on fire!"

"Good." Vernon replied. "Maybe he will finally die and stop subjecting us to his freakishness." This earned him a hard glare from his wife.

"We can't let him die!" She protested unhesitatingly.

"And why is that?" The walrus-like man asked, clearly in disagreement with that statement.

"If the boy dies, more freaks will come. And they all will start snooping around our house." Petunia explained. "Do you really want that, Vernon?" Mr. Dursley shook his head.

"I guess, you're right, Pet." He said. "But won't have him sullying our living room or – God forbid – any of our bedrooms." He delivered an ultimatum. Petunia thought about it for a few seconds: she most definitely had no desire to be treating Harry in his cupboard under the stairs.

"We can put him in the attic." She said finally. "Actually." She added a couple of moments later. "We should probably move him there permanently; he's getting too big for the cupboard and it's not like we're using our attic for anything important." Thinking about this for a bit, Vernon agreed with the idea.

"Fine." He grumbled. "I'll clear the attic and move freak's things there. And you make sure that other freaks have no reason to meddle with our lives." Nodding, Petunia began treating her nephew. And now that she was really paying attention to him, she noticed a strange purplish-blue tattoo that looked like a tribal fire drawing on his right wrist. It most definitely wasn't there in the morning, and it didn't look like something the boy could have gotten through normal means. More freakishness? Her fears were soon confirmed when this 'tattoo' expanded a little as it slowly crept up Harry's hand. And, somehow, her intuition was telling her that this marking was magical and had something to do with the boy's sudden 'illness'...

What the hell was going on here?

That's all, folks!
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