AN: Samara uses her vow from Harry

Relaxation time. It was a strange concept, mused Harry as he walked casually along the street. It had been less than a week since the assault on the Collector vessel, and Shepard had decided that the crew needed some down time after the close call. Harry had been on the alien vessel, in the thick of the action, but the crew of the Normandy hadn't had an easy time either.

Joker had put the ship through it's paces trying to keep it near enough to the collector ship to successfully extract the team, and despite the engineering that had gone into the ship, it had struggled to stray in one piece. The crew had held it together despite the knowledge that the Collector ship had destroyed the previous Normandy, and they had all survived it in the end.

There had been one casualty of the battle, though. The knowledge had spread through the ship that the Illusive man had betrayed them. The signal which had led them to the Collector ship had been faked, and their so-called leader had known. For the majority of Shepard's team this hadn't come as a surprise as most of them had been primed to expect betrayal from Cerberus, however it was different for the crew.

They hadn't been recruited by Shepard, they had come through Cerberus directly. And for the man who had recruited them to throw them into the fire without even a word of warning... Harry knew how that could feel from his own experiences. It left you wondering who to trust. At least this crew had Shepard – she had saved the galaxy once already, and seemed primed to do it all over again.

Still, all the tension had to go somewhere, and the Commander had decided that the Asari garden world of Nevos was the best place. Harry had to admit, the place they had set down was one of the nicer tourist traps he'd visited in the few years he'd been around the galaxy.

He walked down by the waterfront, nodding at the occasional crew-member who wandered by, laughing at the drunken antics of a few as they attempted to teach another how to swim by throwing her into the ocean. Harry cast his eyes about, noting the peace, and decided that something was definitely going to happen soon. It would be about par for his luck.

He felt her before he saw her. The Asari Justicar was like a glowing ball of light to his senses, shimmering with some nameless colour as she moved towards him. She was both armed and armoured, moving through the throng of tourists like a shark through a school of fish. Harry took the few moments before she reached him to reflect on how he sometimes hated being right, and came to a halt as she did, facing each other in the sunlight.

"Y'know, I think this town is plenty big enough for both of us." Harry's attempt at humour seemed to fall flat as the Asari looked at him with a puzzled expression. He shook his head – apparently Westerns weren't a big thing for Asari.

"You swore to provide me with one instance of help." Samara could be circumspect, Harry thought, noting her interactions with the others on the ship. However, she never had been with him, and he had never felt the need to try. She wanted to kill him, after all.

Harry considered her words, then nodded.

"Yes, I did." The words hung in the air between them, his tone just as flat as hers. They stood there for a moment, both of them sizing the other up.

"Then you will help me now." She delivered the words evenly, though Harry could guess at how it must have galled her to ask for his help. Then again, Harry thought as he nodded, she might have put it behind her.

Samara turned and strode towards the end of the street, and Harry followed, if only to avoid having to run to catch her up. They walked like this for several minutes, till eventually Harry spoke up impatiently.

"Are you going to tell me why exactly you need my help? I presume it has to do with Morinth..." Harry trailed off with the look Samara gave him.

"Do not mention her name, unless you wish to damage my hunt as badly as you did before." The expression which accompanied the words was venomous, and Harry re-evaluated his thoughts on the Asari's opinion of him. Not over it, then, he thought ruefully.

He kept silent for the rest of the journey, following the woman through the twists of alleys as they moved away from the tourist front of the city. Eventually the Asari came to a stop around the corner from a club. Harry could feel the bass reverberating through the walls, and the general clamour of a crowd drifted round the corner. He looked over at Samara, eyebrow raised in a silent question.

She stared at him for a moment, before gesturing to the club and speaking softly enough that Harry had to strain to hear her.

"I have been informed that you are capable of subtly gaining information from people. I believe that the owner of this club has assisted the one I seek. If this is true they will be aware of me. Therefore, you will find the information I need from the owner." Her instructions given, she stepped back, leaning against the wall as Harry considered her orders.

Her words were true enough, he thought. His talent at leglimency, meagre as it would have been considered against either Snape or Voldemort, was more than enough to flick through untrained minds. The issue came in the form of Asari matriarchs, who were rarely mentally untrained. Though the odds of such an individual running a backwater club on a backwater world were rare, to say the least.

He nodded once, acknowledging the order, and gave himself a quick once-over before heading around the corner. It wouldn't do to be rejected for having sand all over his clothes, after all.

Getting into the club had been fairly simple, and Harry had refrained from using magic so early on. He was still wand-less, and while he could pull off most spells without it, those that affected the mind were... tricky... without something to focus on. Still, money made the world go round, and made the annoyance of a 'guest-list' vanish quite handily.

The insides of the club could have been pulled from any such place in any part of the Citadel. The club was lit with soft blue undertones shining from indented lights on the walls. The lights were just bright enough to let Harry see the furniture, but kept dark shadows in the booths scattered around the walls. Most had one or two people sat in them, draped far enough in the shadows that it was impossible to tell their species. The bar sat in the centre of the room, a smooth circle with the drinks in the centre, artfully lit so that the bottles were clear, but the light did not touch those standing at the bar.

The dance floor itself surrounded the bar, occupying most of the room. The dancers there were lit by flashing strobe lighting, giving their movements a stilted stop-motion feel. Harry blew the breath out of his lungs, and settled into the atmosphere. He moved towards the bar, sliding through the crowd of drunken revellers as he kept an eye out for the back door. He spotted it as he reached the bar, the door was hidden in a recess between two booths. Only the presence of a Krogan bouncer had tipped him off, they weren't exactly built for subtle.

He ordered a drink, and smiled at the dancers around him while he surveyed the rest of the club. The Asari seemed to build everything in preparation for a fire-fight, Harry thought as he looked round. The booths around the hidden door were placed to give defenders clear lines of fire, and strategically placed pillars through the dance floor gave easy fall-back points from the main door. Paranoia was such an ugly word, thought Harry, but it seemed to describe the design perfectly.

There were more guards than the Krogan, too. At least six, more likely eight, judging from what could be seen in the shadows at the edges of the club. Harry pulled his power to himself and began to walk towards the door, leaving his drink unfinished on the bar counter. He walked up to the Krogan and saw the guards he'd noticed earlier tense in preparation, while the Krogan simply grinned in anticipation.

"Bathrooms the other way." The statement was delivered deadpan by the Krogan as Harry got close enough to hear him, his expression practically begging Harry to keep walking.

Mental magic was complex, thought Harry as he readied his spell, made even worse due to the loss of his wand when he woke up in this time. But still, not impossible. All mental magic, from the simple to the complex, relied on will, and even at fourteen Harry had more willpower than most adults.

"Confundo." He whispered the word, shaping the magic to his will, and felt it take hold in the Krogan's mind. The bulky alien rocked slightly, his eyes momentarily becoming unfocussed as the spell twisted his mind to Harry's wishes.

The Krogan waved his hand in a quick gesture, and the other guards relaxed as they realised that the bouncer knew the human. Harry pointed at the door questioningly, and the Krogan waved him in, keying open the door as Harry walked towards it with a confident step. Here we go, Harry thought as he walked in, time to go to work.

The corridors behind the main club were built along the same lines as the dance floor, with recesses built to allow defenders to hide while preventing any attackers the same luxury. The lighting was the same shade of blue as the hall, though there were no handy shadows to skulk in. Harry noticed this as he walked, keeping his stride confident and his gaze clear as he moved through the corridors.

He passed several Asari who had stopped for a chat, nodding a greeting at them as he walked past them. Harry had to resist the urge to grin when they responded the same way. It didn't matter what species you were, if you acted like you had a right to be there no-one ever questioned you. Still, eventually someone would get suspicious if he kept walking around.

Harry stepped into an office space, quickly looking around for the best person to ask. There was a young Asari sitting on her own in the nearest corner, surrounded by abandoned drinks cups and stacks of datapads. Perfect, Harry thought to himself.

He walked up to her with a quick step, and cleared his throat to get her attention. She jumped, caught off guard by the sudden noise, and almost dropped the pad she was working on as she twisted round to see who had made it. Harry smiled politely as she met his gaze, then asked quietly,

"Is the boss in? She asked me to see her when I came in."

The Asari's mouth hung open for a moment as she switched from work to people, and Harry revised his estimate of her age down a few decades.

"Erm. Yes...Yes, she's in her office. At the end of the hall, on the right." She sounded as though she thought she was being graded on the answer, her voice trying to rise in question at the end. Harry nodded, smiling in gratitude at the woman before moving away toward the hall the Asari had indicated.

The others in the office had started to notice him now, and Harry moved a little quicker toward the end of the hall. There were no particularly strong biotics in the building from what he could feel, but a fire-fight would leave obvious traces, and Harry doubted that Samara wanted her prey to know whether she was close.

The door at the end of the hall was unlocked, and Harry could feel only one biotic inside, so he quickly slid the door open and stepped through. The blue-skinned woman looked up from her datapad in surprise at the intruder, her surprise quickly turning to confusion as she saw the block-haired human who had just walked in.

"I know I don't have any humans on staff," the Asari began cautiously. "So I hope you don't mind if I ask who you are?"

Harry smiled as the door slid shut behind him, and walked over to take the chair on his side of the desk.

"Not at all," he answered easily. "My name's Harry. What's yours?"

Her head tilted as she considered the question, obviously confused by the genial looking man's invasion of her office.

"Shanda." Her words had an odd undercurrent of both curiosity and annoyance. "And as you didn't know that, I presume you are not here to kill me." Her head shifted back to vertical as she considered the possibilities, and Harry kept a smile on his face as he kept his eyes on hers. The Asari continued, her tone turning contemplative. "So that means you want information. I own this club, so it could be something on a patron, but I think if it was that petty you would have planned ahead and known my name. Which means it's bigger than that... Ah." With that, her voice trailed away, and her fingers curled into fists on the desk.

Harry tilted his head now, considering her sudden silence.

"Looks like the game's up then," he said into the quiet. "This can be as easy or as hard as you make it."

Shanda drew in a breath, and prepared to give her life for the woman she had only known for a few days, helping her flee from the devil that chased her. She had sworn to help her, and protect her, and she would. She raised her eyes to the piercing green eyes opposite her, ready to tell him to do his worst, and stopped dead.

Her body felt like lead. She heard a word, whispered from his lips, but it was nothing compared to the feeling in her head. It was like a meld, and yet horrifyingly different. A meld was a joining, a sanctity. This was a piercing, a mental push of white noise that slid into her head, and memories skittered over the surface of her minds eye.

...

The Ardat-Yakshi was coming here! To her club. Shanda knew that she would not stay for long, all Ardat-Yakshi that were outside the monastery were pursued viciously. Still, she would provide for her.

...

She had chosen where she was going, a station near the terminus systems, Omega. The Justicar that stalked her would not follow there, so far outside of Asari space.

...

The white noise pushed again. The date.

It had been less than two months since Morinth had passed through, and now this human was asking questions. He must not survive this day. The goddess must be protected!

...

The noise receded slightly, Shanda's head ringing like a bell from the intrusion, and then stabbed back into her mind like a blade. The Asari's back arched, her eyes still haplessly locked onto the human's as her mouth opened into a soundless scream. The noise was scouring her mind, scratching over the last few minutes, tearing any knowledge of the intruder out of her head.

Shanda slumped onto the desk, her eyes blank as her mind shut down to heal itself. Harry convulsed slightly, pulling his hand to his head as the backlash from the forced leglimency made itself felt inside his mind. He shook himself once, then pulled himself to his feet. Harry pulled a small stick of electronics from his pocket, and ran through the thankfully simple arming sequence for the scrambler grenade, setting it for a one minute countdown.

He had made it back to the main dance floor when his mental countdown ran out, and the clubs lights died completely, before one of the bartenders had the sense to hit the manual switch for the main lights. The scrambler was probably overkill, and would be connected with the odd human, but they wouldn't link him to Morinth, and that was what mattered.

Harry joined the throng of people flooding outside, and walked casually back to the alley where Samara waited. She was stood in the exact same position as she was when he left, clearly willing to wait for him.

He stopped in front of her, and she looked at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Omega." Harry's voice was clipped, his mood still frayed from his trip through Shanda's head. "She's on Omega."

Samara nodded, and stayed silent. Harry waited a moment more, then turned and walked away, feeling the Asari follow after a moment.