Harry Potter: Humanity Lost

Author's Note: Snow day! Specifically, ice day. Meaning, I'm trapped at home with nothing to do, so I decided to go ahead and get started on the second story in my Harry Potter/DC crossover series.

On that note, if you haven't read the first story in my series you're going to need to read it before you read this one. That story is Harry Potter: A Brave Beginning. So, I hope you continue to enjoy this series! Enjoy!

Homeward Bound

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore," said Harry Potter, leaning out the window of his temporary bedroom and looking down at the luminous green glow of the planet below. Unlike most boys in his position, Harry hadn't been having the best of summers.

For one thing, he had had more fun in school that he thought he had ever had in his entire life. He couldn't wait to get back to school, and the rest of his friends. In addition to that, he had been forced to spend his summer in the most unusual place that he could possibly imagine - not in Texas, or Kansas, or even someplace weird like Uzbekistan.

Harry was someplace like nowhere on earth - because, as a matter of fact, he wasn't on earth. He had spent the better part of a month on the planet of Oa (as far as he could tell - time was measured differently there.)

"What is Toto?" Dean sat on the edge of Harry's bed, picking cookies out of the tin that Mrs. Weasley had sent along with him at the end of the school term. Harry turned around, feeling the familiar sense of shock he usually did when he saw his old friend in his usual form.

Although Harry had known for a while that green skinned, bug-eyed aliens existed, it was another thing entirely to turn around and see one sitting on his bed. And competing for the last chocolate-chip cookie. He couldn't exactly call Dean bug-eyed, but out of his human form Dean was approximately the color of Kermit the Frog.

"It's just a phrase, from a movie," said Harry, crossing the room. "Remind me to show you the Wizard of Oz when we get back to the Academy."

"Ah, yes. The Wizard of Oz. I had forgotten," said Dean. A strange look crossed his alien face, one that Harry recognized as his friend entering a deep thought. "Are you a wizard, Harry?"

"Something like that," he said, throwing himself down on the bed and snatching the last cookie in the tin away from Dean's grasp.

From the bed, he continued to stare out the window at Oa. It was strange - just a year ago, being able to spend any amount of time in such a strange and wonderful place would have been the subject of his wildest dreams. Now all he wanted was to get back to his friends, Ron and Hermione.

There were so many things he wanted to ask. Hermione had promised him, before going home, that she would think about telling her parents about her entry into the Academy. He wanted to know if she'd gone through with it - to be there to talk to her, if things hadn't gone so well.

And Ron had told him about the hundreds of fun things that he and his brothers and sisters always had planned for summers in Smallville. The wonders of Oa somehow paled in comparison to the idea of fishing trips with Artie and the other Weasley boys. And nothing could seem as exciting as playing football or baseball with a whole gang of metahumans.

After a few moments Dean extracted himself from Harry's bed, standing. "I have a training session in the Pleiades soon. I should go," he said.

"Talk to you later," said Harry. He watched as Dean left the room and then, after a few more moments, he moved to his bed and pulled out the scrapbook that Mrs. Weasley had given him for Christmas the year before. He flipped to the last page, where he had been marking the days ever since he had arrived on Oa. He counted out on his fingers the number of days it had been since he last made any marks in the book. Five, he thought, scribbling several small x's on the makeshift calendar.

And then it hit him. He hadn't even considered his birthday - had almost completely forgotten about it, as a matter of fact. And all of a sudden there it was, staring him straight in the face.

July 31st. It was Harry's thirteenth birthday. A small chuckle escaped him at the thought that he was officially a teenager now - his aunt and uncle would be more afraid of him than ever, if he was still living with them.

"Happy birthday to me," he said morosely. He flipped the book closed just in time to hear a knocking at his door. It opened slightly and his guardian for the summer, the Green Lantern Hal Jordon, poked his head into the room.

"Did I hear somebody say it was their birthday?" he said. He pulled open the door fully and strode into the room.

"Uh…yeah," said Harry.

"Here. Thought you might be feeling a little homesick. And, judging by the tin, Dean's been stealing all your earth snacks." He tossed a handful of candy bars onto the bed. Harry caught one of them, gratefully tearing open the wrapping and taking his first bite of a Snickers in weeks.

"Thanks," he mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate and caramel.

"I decided to pop in for a visit. I was on earth yesterday and Artie reminded me it was your birthday. Your friend Ron also sent a little something along." He pulled out a crudely wrapped package and tossed it beside the candy bars, grinning when Harry exclaimed in amazement.

"Wow! Thanks, Mr. Jordon!'

"Ah. Your enthusiasm makes the fact that I just turned into an intergalactic delivery boy almost worth it," he said with an amused chuckle.

Harry tore into the paper and found several bags of potato chips, a six pack of cola, and more candy bars in addition to the ones that Hal had smuggled in. There was also two cards included inside; one with Ron's hasty scribble on the front, and the other marked with Hermione's neat handwriting.

He opened Ron's first, to find a simple greeting card with at least a dozen scrawled messages from all the members of the Weasley family. He laughed at all their messages, most heartily at the twins', and was grinning by the time he moved on to Hermione's.

When he opened hers, a blue light immediately flooded out from the seam of the envelope. A holograph projected itself out on the floor.

"Hey, neat trick," said Hal, leaning in for a look.

"Hermione is a genius," he said. He leaned in to see the holograph better, just as the image erupted into a bunch of balloons and confetti that floated up around him and seemingly up into the ceiling. Then Hermione's face appeared.

"Happy birthday, Harry!" she said. "Greetings from Texas. It's been a boring summer here, except there was this really interesting series on quantum physics that I managed to get into…oh, you probably don't want to hear about that, although I did take notes on the new theory by Hanai Kanasaga…I'll let you look over them when we get back to the Academy. Oops…the time loop on the holograph is running out. I'll see you soon, Harry."

The image faded. Harry slowly picked up the envelope, glancing for a moment at the thin microchip inside before bundling it away with Ron's card and the treats he'd sent along.

"Thanks for bringing this," said Harry, glancing back to see Hal still standing by the doorway.

"No problem. Hey, would you like to grab some lunch with me?" he asked.

"Er…sure," said Harry. He put his things away and, after a moment, followed Hal out into the long corridor and down to the dining hall of Green Lantern Headquarters. "You know, I was worried that this was going to be the worst birthday ever," he said.

"Well…don't count it out yet," mused Hal. He reached forward for the door and pushed it open. To Harry's surprise he heard a loud cheer as a doorway opened to reveal dozens of aliens, some humanoid and others definitely not humanoid, standing around a long table that was laden with food - a handful of which looked vaguely like the sort of things you might have found on earth.

"The Green Lantern Corps decided to throw together a little celebration for you. Have fun," he said with a wink as he led Harry into the room. "And…don't touch the green stuff," he added, patting him on the back.

Harry sat down at the table next to Dean. "I'd like you to meet Arisia. She will be joining us at the Academy this year."

A young girl grinned at Harry from across the table, waving her fingers mischievously at him. "Hi, Harry," she said. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah…er…same here," said Harry. Unlike most of the aliens he had met, Arisia looked mostly human - except for having bright orange skin and yellowish hair. She was very pretty - either despite her strange appearance or because of it, Harry couldn't be sure.

"Are all the earth boys as cute as you?" she said with a wink. Harry choked and ducked his head down, stammering out a string of random words. He turned his attention to the array of foods on the table and choosing something that almost resembled a plate of pancakes.

He watched as the various Lanterns interacted with each other, joining in the conversation only sporadically. It was very interesting to him how so many people, of different abilities and different backgrounds, were able to join together so well. It surprised him to realize that that was precisely the reason he enjoyed being at the Academy - so many people were different from each other, but mostly they got along.

Harry, for example, was a magic user. He had learned how to do a large number of spells in his last year at school. Because of a number of strange incidents Harry had also learned that he was a shapeshifter, with at least five different forms in addition to his human shape. The five forms were linked to the elements.

The first form, representing earth, was a stag, something that he had obviously inherited from his father. His water form was a water dragon, his air form a giant golden eagle, and his fire form was a dragon. In addition to those four forms he had also discovered that he could become a thunderbird.

His best friend Hermione was able to use and understand incredibly complicated math and science stuff just like it was nothing. She was a genius, and had given up going to one of the best universities un the United States (at the age of 12) to attend the Academy.

His other best friend, Ron, who was also his roommate, was a metahuman who could control water and understand all aquatic life. Although it didn't seem like much of a power, and Ron often got teased for it, on more than one occasion he had managed to save the day with his unique superpowers.

Of Harry's other friends, Luna was his magic teacher's niece and like Harry had a strong mastery of magic and Neville had no powers at all but had been chosen by Batman, otherwise known as Bruce Wayne, to attend the Academy while working as the newest Robin.

Harry had never spent much time with Dean, apart from eating lunch with him or playing on the X-Box in Neville's room. Of all the students at the Academy Dean was the hardest to understand, simply because he was quite literally an alien from another planet.

"Please, Harry, help yourself to some bread from my home planet," offered his newest friend, holding out a basket of some strange material that almost seemed like layered fabric spun from grain. Harry glanced at Dean and, afraid of being impolite, tore a small piece and nibbled at it thoughtfully. To his surprise, it didn't taste bad - good in fact. Almost like the cornbread he had often eaten growing up, except a lot smoother and lighter.

They finished up the luncheon, topped off with at least a dozen different renditions of Happy Birthday from a dozen different planets (as well as the full chanting of the Green Lantern oath, repeated by all the lanterns in unison) and a large, lopsided birthday cake that almost looked appealing but tasted something like sawdust and marshmallows.

"Just how many aliens are there on earth, anyway?" Harry finally asked Hal, once the celebration had ended and the various members of his birthday party finally started disbursing and going there separate ways.

"There's no way to know really. Not as many as the conspiracy theorists think, but a lot more than you probably ever imagined," he said. "A handful at the Academy. Some, like Arisia, who are only going to train for a little while. Some who have immigrated to earth for a better life. And a few, like Superman, whose home worlds are gone forever."

Harry glanced up quickly, just in time to see Hal react to the fact that he had just let a very important piece of information about one of earth's most important heroes slip. "So Superman really is an alien?" said Harry. "I'd always heard rumors, but…"

Hal put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "There's a lot of things you'll learn, given enough time in this world," he said.

In the weeks that passed following his birthday, Harry continued to spend most of his time with Dean, who was joined occasionally by Arisia. Arisia surprised Harry by reminding him in many ways of Ginny, his friend Ron's younger brother, who would be joining them at the Academy in the coming year. He was surprised to find that, despite his early boredom on the planet Oa, Harry came to enjoy himself in his final days on the planet.

On the evening that Hal Jordon was scheduled to retrieve him, as well as Dean and Arisia, Harry threw away what remained of the packages that Ron and Hermione had sent him (which didn't amount to much - he polished off his last half-eaten Snicker's bar just as Dean arrived to tell him that it was time to leave).

Like Mr. Jordon, both Dean and Arisia were dressed in the traditional Green Lantern attire as they prepared to leave the alien planet. Harry felt strangely out of place in a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt that fit a little more snugly than it had a few months before.

"Are you ready, kids?" asked Mr. Jordon.

"I'm not a kid," sniffed Arisia, turning up her nose slightly. Mr. Jordon laughed, shaking his head slightly.

"Right. Whatever you say. Harry, you're going to be traveling with me. Dean, Arisia, keep close behind me. I wouldn't want to lose one of you along the way."

Dean and Arisia nodded, and Mr. Jordon put his hands out to envelop both himself and Harry in the light of the ring that he wore on his hand. They were immediately off, jetting into the deep black vacuum of space as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Harry had experienced the sensation of space travel once before, when he had been taken to Oa for the first place, but the first time he had been so terrified that he'd been unable to focus much on what was taking place around him. Now he kept his eyes wide open, taking in the stars that sailed past and the planets that appeared and disappeared around him with the sort of wonder that he hadn't experienced since his first time meeting other superheroes at the Academy.

If he had ever been shy about asking questions before, now wasn't the time. He found himself asking question after question about the things he was seeing, committing as many of them to memory as he could, knowing that Hermione would want to know all about the trip.

They passed great red giant stars that seemed to fill up the entire sky and small white dwarfs that spun so quickly he could see the gases and vapors that surrounded them whipping through space like a vast whirlpool. Asteroids glittered and danced in the light of the stars, banding together in large belts that spun around other solar systems.

He saw space ships, some like the ones he had seen in movies and others like nothing he had ever seen before. But, as wonderful as everything was that he was seeing - as amazing as the planet Oa had been - one thought occupied his mind. The thought of the Academy, the one place in the universe that truly felt like home.

"We're coming up on the Betelgeuse system right now," said Mr. Jordon. "Hold on. This can sometimes get a bit tricky." Harry nodded, and no sooner had Mr. Jordan spoken than all of a sudden there came an enormous cracking sound that seemed louder than anything Harry had ever heard before.

All of a sudden he was falling. Endlessly into the darkness, the light of the green lantern's ring having disappeared. Harry tried to scream, and despite feeling the vibration of it in his throat no sound came out. He gasped, but nothing was there to rush into his lungs.

Everything was going black, and cold, when the sensation of falling stopped and Harry suddenly became aware of something solid beneath his feet.

"Wh-what happened?" he stammered.

"Dobby is sorry, sir," came a small, timid voice. Harry sat up quickly, realizing that he could see - and breath- again. He was sitting on a small, rocky surface that he recognized after a few moments to be an asteroid. He quickly spotted the creature that had spoken. Sitting across from him was a small creature with large ears and enormous eyes.

"Who are you?" said Harry, quickly scrambling to his feet.

"Dobby is an elf sir…from another dimension. I come to warn Mr. Potter, sir. You are in danger…"

"Of course I'm in danger! I'm on some asteroid in the middle of outer space!" he snapped. Then all of a sudden it dawned on him - he caught the guilty look in the creature's eyes. "You did this!" he shouted.

"It is for your own good! The Academy is not safe. I am here to take Mr. Potter to a safe place."

"There isn't anywhere safer than the Academy! Besides, I protected myself well enough last year," said Harry.

The elf quickly shook his head. "Much safer in my dimension. I can take you there, Mr. Potter…"

"I just want to go home. What have you done to the Green Lantern?" asked Harry.

"I have sent him away," said Dobby simply.

Harry grimaced. He ran his hand through his hair, shaking out the gray dust that had settled there when he landed. And then, what the elf had said hit home. He had said he sent the Green Lantern away. He hadn't said anything about Dean and Arisia. No sooner had Harry thought it than he spun around, lifting his head up to see two green orbs moving quickly through the space around him.

"Lumos!" shouted Harry. All of a sudden a bright white light filled the air around him. The elf trembled, blinking into the light.

"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, sir," he said simply, and with another loud crack he was gone. The two green orbs began to move in closer, and Dean and Arisia landed on the asteroid within moments.

"What just happened?" asked Arisia.

"I don't have a clue," said Harry. "There was this thing, he called himself an elf…"

"An elf?" said Arisia, eyes widening slightly.

"I'm serious. And he said he sent Mr. Jordan away. I don't even know where."

"So, what should we do?" said Dean. "Just wait here, or…"

"Why don't we just head on to earth?" said Arisia. "Dean knows the way. And it'd be a lot safer than hanging around on this rock."

Harry thought for a long moment, then nodded. "I guess that's what we'll have to do then. But it's going to be a longer trip without Hal here - neither of you are strong enough to carry me for too long, so you'll have to take turns."

"Oh, poo, you're acting like this isn't going to be any fun," said Arisia, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Come on, live a little."

"Yeah. Right." He sighed. "Well, school starts tomorrow. So I guess we'd better get started."