HP/Kuroinu concept. (Patreon)

{Sorry Ranma Only fans, I can’t choose to notify only a few patrons of the changes I made here, but I wanted to use that feature as I haven’t before}

Edited 11/17/21 So, Beleriond pointed out some things (constructive critiques feed the muses, apparently, they taste like Reese’s), So I decided to take half a day to go back over this when I ran into my first ‘wait the TB Zombies act like what again’ moment, and then took today to polish it up a bit along with the Stallionchapter before sending it off to Tomon. Yes the chapter is done and don’t get me wrong, I’m having fun with them, but their movements and the sheer number of them is annoying to keep track of. On the other hand, I think I’m doing a bang up job of spreading the chaos LOL.

Originally, the changes were in red but that didn’t carry over to Patreon, so I was forced to bold the changes. Ugh. I also added the concept on as an attachment just in case reading large bolded segments bothers you. Regardless, the changes should hopefully solve a few of the issues Beleriondand others pointed out and also includes a lot of my own changes. I didn’t mark all editing type changes unless they changed the meaning of the sentence.

Despite this, I still maintain that this crossover wouldn’t really allow me to play with much more in terms of magic than I’m looking forward to doing in Death’s Avenger. Indeed, it would take me a lot more work to build up the Eostian Magic school than it will to utilize the various types of magic in the Warcraft universe.

But I was willing to give it a go. And then the muse struck… Seriously, if I could figure out a way to harness my imagination, my family would never need to pay an electrical bill ever again. My ability to sleep would suffer immensely, which it did anyway due to a bout of insomnia, but hey once more, sleep is for the weak!

Again, this is going to be an idea that I probably won’t follow up on, unless I suddenly have a driving urge to write a story where lemons will constitute at least a fourth of its bulk after the initial chapters LOL.

Dream Walking Can Lead to Many Things!

Celestine dreamed. She dreamed of the forest that had been, the forest of An’vureiel. The land of the elves stretching from the mountains of the north to the center of her power here in Ken, or as she and the other elven inhabitants knew it of old, Ken’salacha. She dreamed of the past, when life was simple, and the forest free of anything that would endanger an elf, regardless of age.

And yet, as Celestine went, the dream started to change. The trees around her were still the trees that she remembered from her youth, when she and Olga were friends. The best of friends. Back before the human nations of the time began to expand, before the plagues and the coming of the Aberrants in the time of the Great Sundering.

Yet as she looked around, Celestine knew her memory wasn’t this good. Nowhere near. These trees are so detailed,it’s almost as if I am back in time, but that is impossible. No magic can… what was that?

Through the woods Celestine had spotted movement, which was also very strange. Never before in her dreams had she seen anything moving, save perhaps birds in the trees. Celestine wasn’t a hunter, and had never studied animals all that closely, so any dreams she had of them would be simple things. This dream was surely not simple. Oh dear, a vision then? But of what?

A second later as she moved as stealthily as she could (which wasn’t very much, Celestine might have lived in the woods most her life, but she was no woodswoman) through the woods, Celestine paused in shock. For the movement she had spotted was no animal.

Instead, it was a boy, a young human boy, perhaps eight, nine years old? Small, almost certainly malnourished, with clothes far too baggy for him, and somewhat ugly wire-frame glasses . His hair was dark brown, shaggy and wild. When she spotted it, Celestine instantly wanted to pat it or perhaps comb it, she wasn’t certain.

But more importantly than any of that, the boy was crying. The kind of raking sobs that would tear at the heart of all but the most evil of souls. And on his chest, there were several long welts, showing through slashes made on his shirt. Quickly moving forward, she knelt down in front of the boy.

That movement causing him to look up, only noticing her presence at that moment. The boy gaped at her, then scrambled away even as she held her hands up.

“I’m not going to hurt young one,” she said soothingly, grateful that in the land of dreams language was no barrier. “I was simply going to ask you why you were crying. And perhaps, heal your chest.”

Looking more closely at the young boy’s wounds, Celestine felt her inner anger, normally slow to rise, begin to boil like magma under the surface. Those looked almost like the strikes of a whip although not as deep, and wider too, being more welt than cut. Yet even so, it looked like the wounds a slave would have been given, and that was horrifying to her. Slaves, in this day and age? I, I thought I had dealt with that foul practice. But, but perhaps only here in Ken? Or, or have they just gotten better at hiding it over the decades?

The boy looked at her in fear then around at the woods wildly, and Celestine blinked in surprise at the amazing emerald color of the boy’s eyes, almost swooning at how amazing they looked. He looked almost as if he was going to bolt. Celestine suddenly knew that if he did, he would be lost to her and that such would be disastrous. Why that was important she didn’t know, but Celestine instantly acted on the idea and began to sing. It was just a wordless hum, comfort and grace merged into music, a trick she had learned upon first becoming the vessel of the Goddess Reborn and working with war orphans.

It seemed to sooth the boy, as she had hoped it would.

“You, you sing nice,” he murmured, slowly untensing. “Like some of the women I see on the tele sometimes. But, but what do you mean when you say when you want to heal me?”

“I mean I will heal your wounds,” Celestine kept her voices as calm and soothing as possible. “The marks on your chest.”

Harry the boy looked down at them, and then shrugged with a fatalism that wrenched at Celestine’s heart. No young boy his age should be so blasé about being hurt like that. “Tell me child, are you a slave? Did your master do this to you? If you can tell me where you live, I can send my knights and free you.”

The boy blinked in surprise, his brows burrowing. “There aren’t any knights around anymore,” he said finally, definitively. “I read about them at the library. They wore armor and fought with swords and stuff. People don’t fight like that anymore.”

“Then how do they fight?” Celestine blinked in confusion her thoughts derailed by that strange statement. “With magic?”

“Magic doesn’t exist,” the boy said, causing Celestine even more confusion and then, he seemed to notice her ears for the first time. “What the… you look like an elf!”

“That is because I am,” Celestine laughed.

The blonde woman’s laughter sounded like tinkling bells to the young boy, who visibly calmed down further, looking almost relieved. “Then this is a dream. Er, I’ve never dreamed of pretty women before, but some of the older kids around the neighborhood talk about those kinds of dreams a lot.”

“Perhaps,” Celestine laughed again, causing a tiny smile to appear on the boy’s face. “I assume it is, certainly that is how I wound up in this forest. But whose dream it is, that I do not know.”

The boy’s brows furrowed as he tried to work that out, and as he did, Celestine held up a hand. Holy light filled it, reaching out to touch the boy’s chest. He gasped shooting to his feet and was about to run away when he noticed that his wounds were slowly disappearing. He blinked in surprise staring at them, then shook his head. “I, I’ve never healed that fast! Oh..” his face fell. “I hope that doesn’t mean Uncle Vernon is going to beat me even more. That’s what happened the last time I healed fast.”

“Uncle Vernon?” Celestine asked knowing that anything she could do to find this boy wasimportant. She knew that now, she knew that with a steel-like certainty, which Celestine could tell came from her goddess-side. “The, the man who did this to you, is your uncle?”

Celestine made her question as derisive and dismissive as she could, and it worked, as the young boy frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “That’s what he says he is. Vernon Dursley, my uncle. My Aunt Petunia married him, and I live with them,” The boy pouted now as he looked away, crossing his arms. Something about the extremely pretty elven woman had completely disarmed him by this point, and now he found himself saying things that he would never say in front of anyone else. “I, I heard that relatives are supposed to be family. But I, I…”

“Family is often what you make of it child. It sometimes has very little to do with who you grow up with, or even who you are related to. For my part, I do not think that anyone who would treat a young boy like you in such a manner is worth the term relative, much less the name family,” Celestine answered firmly.

“Oh.” The boy stared at her for a moment through his glasses, and then, after a silent moment, seemed to come to a decision, nodding his head once. There was a weight to that nod, like a decision reached.

Wanting to build on her success, Celestine moved back, sitting cross-legged as she sent the youth a smile. “What is your name?”

If the young boy in front of her had been of any age at all, He would’ve been blushing and stammering, perhaps unable to turn away, at the view that Celestine was accidentally giving him. But as it was, her smile was the only thing he concentrated on. That and her blonde Hair, so much longer than anything he had ever seen before were enough to make him blush and stammer. “I, I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”

Celestine frowned, cocking her head to one side as her goddess-senses told her something again. “That might be what you are called…” she said slowly. “But I do not think that is your actual name.”

What do you mean, what’s the difference?” Harry asked confused. “I, I’m mostly called Boy, or Brat.  But I learned when I first went to school that that’s not my name.”

Celestine’s inner anger came closer to the surface, but she kept it at bay with ease. “No young child should be called by such… silly names,” she said, scowling and shaking her head fiercely enough to set her hair to flowing this way and that. She giggled then as Harry’s eyes seemed to watch it his blush increasing, and she smiled as she saw those eyes gleaming now. They truly are like the color of fresh leaves, I can see his gaze being quite dangerous to any woman in the future.

“Um, h, how did you do that?” Harry asked, looking back down at his chest somewhat embarrassed at having been staring. But he slowly moved back towards Celestine, dropping into the same seating position she was in a comfortable speaking distance away.

“That is called Healing Palm. It is a spell, an enchantment really, that priests and others who can call upon the power of Light use to heal.”

“Do you think I could learn it? I don’t, I don’t like being hurt,” Harry mumbled the last part, looking far more mature for just a moment than his apparent age.

“Given that you are here in my dream, or vice versa, I believe that yes, you could learn it,” Celestine smiled once more, causing Harry to blush and look away again. “But I thought you said that magic didn’t exist. What changed your mind?” she went on teasingly.

“You’re an elf. Elves aren’t around in my world. At least I don’t think they are,” Harry said, frowning and tugging at his chin thoughtfully, again looking much older than he had first appeared, to Celestine’s amusement this time. It was obvious that he was trying to copy what he had seen someone else do while thinking. “I think that maybe they might once have lived, only now they’re only in fantasy stories and tales.”

Celestine nodded her head thoughtfully, tugging at her long locks. “I can see that happening all too easily unfortunately. My people do not procreate as fast as you humans do. There could be a realm, some hidden valley out there where elves no longer live and are no longer known, odd as that is to me.”

“What’s procreate mean mean?” Harry questioned innocently.

“It means we do not have as many children,” Celestine answered, blushing a bit herself at having to explain that to a young child. PLEASE don’t ask where children come from!

Thankfully for her, Harry just nodded thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I guess. Cats and dogs have more kids than humans do, though.”

“That’s true they do, and humans have more than elves,” Celestine laughed again.

“So that was magic…” Harry murmured, looking down at his chest again. “I wonder, could I already be using magic?”

“What makes you ask that?” Celestine asked, cocking her head to one side. It was highly unusual for anyone who could become a mage to be using it consciously at such a young age.

“When… when Petunia gave me a haircut before my first day at school,” Harry stammered over not calling her his aunt, but remembered Celestine’s earlier comments on family. “It looked horrible, it was so short and sticking out in places. But the next day, when we first went to school, it had grown back overnight. And, and whenever I’ve been hurt before, I always am back to normal within a week or so.”

Celestine laughed nodding her head. “I do not think humans grow their hair that quickly, nor is it normal for humans to heal as fast, so perhaps you are indeed capable of using healing magic. Can you think of anything else you might’ve done?”

“I think, I think I might have tried to get away from my cousin…”

“Ahhh…” Celestine held up a warning finger.

Harry smiled shyly, ducking his head and saying “Dudley,” and Celestine smiled and bade him continue. “He tried to chase me, but just as he was about to catch me, I suddenly was up on one of the roofs.”

Celestine blinked. “Truly? Can you remember what it felt like?”

“No. It was when I started school, that was months ago.”

He said that as if that was a long period of time, which, even for humans, it wasn’t. On the other hand, for a human his age, it might well be, Celestine thought, a bubble of laughter ringing out from her again at Harry’s serious expression, finding it remarkably cute.He blushed shyly again, looking down and Celestine smiled, then finally gave into the urge that she had been fighting for a while now. She reached over and moved her fingers through hair.

Harry stiffened, his eyes going wide, and he almost made to flinch away, but the gentle smile on Celestine’s face stopped him in his tracks. “MMm, your hair is amazingly silky, I’m almost jealous, as I doubt that you do anything special to it, Men seldom do,” Celestine teased, and watched with delight as Harry once again blushed, but still smiled back at her, his shoulders straightening in unconscious pride at being called a man. Beyond that, it was very, very clear to her that he was not used to someone touching him without hurting him.

It was even better, in Harry’s opinion, coming from someone as pretty as Celestine. Harry kept looking at her, knowing he had never seen someone as pretty, not in books or on the Tele before. Not even on the few times he had seen Vernon watching shows late at night when none of the others were supposed to be awake.

Eventually, she stopped, and looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, there are a few things that you could do to see if you truly have magic. When we are young, Elven children are given tiny balls, made of glass, we call them marbles…”

The conversation went on from there, with the young Harry lapping it up, tapping his fingers together excitedly as he listened, the idea of using magic driving out the strange delight Harry was feeling at just talking to someone else, let alone someone as pretty as Celestine.

However, he didn’t listen nearly as well after Celestine change the topic to nutrition. “Of course, a mage also needs to be aware of what he eats and has to have a fit body. Or else he’s just going to waste away, relying solely on magic. You need to eat more Harry.”

This caused a new flinch and Celestine once more fought back a wave of anger. If this boy was a slave and it was within her domain somewhere, Celestine vowed to free him. Although for the life of our she couldn’t think of anyplace which would act as if magic didn’t exist, not considering the bit about Knights or elves not being thought of as real.

She began to explain nutrition to the boy, and Harry began to ask questions in an effort to change the subject. Somehow her pleasure seemed to be conveyed to him as Harry began to ask more questions, mostly about Celestine herself and her world, wanting to know everything he could about the first person who had ever treated him with unvarnished kindness. Celestine answered his questions with delight, happy to just talk like this to someone without all the baggage that she had to deal with as the Goddess reborn getting in the way, no matter who .

A time that was, they both soon realized was much slower here in this dream world than it was in the real world. Harry noticed this after a few hours, but Celestine put his mind at ease, telling him that, “In the dream realm, time goes slow or fast as needed by the dream itself. Whatever else, this one night will seem much longer to you and I. And that is a good thing, is it not?”

Harry again smiled the shy little smile that made Celestine want to cuddle him, which she did. And after a few hugs scattered throughout who knew how long, Harry didn’t even flinch this time instead delighting in the touch.

However, all good things had to end, and eventually, after what she felt had been several weeks’ worth of talking, Celestine detected a wavering occurring at the edge of her vision. The forest around them slowly disappearing into a miasma of bright yellow and green. “I believe that one of us, or perhaps both, are waking up.”

The look of shock and dismay on Harry’s face wrenched at her, and impulsively, Celestine pulled him into a hug, his head practically disappearing into her chest. Harry melted against her, smelling the flower and honeysuckle smell of the elven woman, the soft feel of Celestine’s skin against his thrilling in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. “Do not fear, Harry. Regardless of what happens out there, you have a friend in me. Whatever happens, you have that, and you have magic too. With that, you can never truly be defenseless, or alone.”

OOOOOOO

Celestine woke up, blinking away sleep, as Claudia Levantine touched her shoulder gently. “My lady, it’s time to get up. You wanted to have a few moments and some breakfast before your meeting with the Bishop this morning?” Celestine nodded, then raised her hands, stretching in a way that would’ve sent any man blushing or hiding a… reaction. That was partly why she had insisted that Claudia act as her personal bodyguard in the mornings. Celestine knew it was when she was at her most… vulnerable… was too strong a word, but defenseless perhaps.

Claudia too flushed a bit, a but not overmuch, and she helped her mistress out of her bed and then waited by the doorway while a few maids helped Celestine get ready for the day. “Did you sleep well, milady?”

“I slept well enough. I dreamed an interesting dream I think. Claudia, could you send a message to Grave?”

“My father-in-law? I can do so certainly, but might I ask why?” Claudia asked from where she stood nearby.

“I have a project for him. And I might eventually have a question for him as well, although before that I wish to make certain that my mind isn’t playing tricks on me. Last night, I had a… call it a vision I suppose. Or something of the sort, a sending perhaps from a young, magically powerful youth in dire straits. Regardless of which it is, there might still be slavery within the Seven Shields somewhere. And if there is, I wish to have it stamped out.”

Celestine’s voice became like iron at those words, and Claudia bowed from the waist, shocked at the tone of fury in Celestine’s voice. “Do you wish my Dawn Templars to do that stomping, my lady?” Claudia had been recently elevated to lead Celestine’s own guard force, the Dawn Templars, but had yet to prove herself in that capacity.

“No. You and yours are too obvious. That is your goal, to fight on the front lines, to rally those you lead in the defense of our nation. What I need, is someone, that could perhaps not be so well known. And someone who can do that stomping as hard as possible. Grave will do that nicely. Beyond that, if you could get a map? I need to see if a certain place exists. If Surry does exist in this world, it might not once I am done with it.”

That made Claudia blink in surprise, but she merely bowed her head as Celestine scowled. “And if it doesn’t exist, that too will tell me something.”

OOOOOOO

When Harry Potter awoke it was with a start because he didn’t feel any pain. He looked down at his chest, then pulled up his tattered shirt, running a hand up his scrawny stomach. There were no wounds there. That, that means… In the darkness of his cupboard under the stairs, Harry Potter began to smile, and then, it was all he could do to stop himself from laughing.

He looked around thoughtfully, muttering to himself, “Well, I might not have a marble, but…”

By the time the sun was up in the air and he could hear the thumping of Petunia on the stairs above, shouting at him to get ready to make breakfast, Harry had spent hours at his self-appointed task, and his concentration had paid off. Several of his textbooks were dancing around the cupboard at his command and even as they began to fall back to earth and he stood up, Harry was making plans for more experiments. The Dursleys might not like it, but I think it’s time for me to spend more time at the library. If magic is real, then maybe all those fantasy books could help me figure out some more?

OOOOOOO

When Harry Potter fell asleep the night after his confrontation with Quirrell and the spirit of Voldemort, he was very, very afraid of what he would dream. No one had talked to him about it bar Dumbledore telling him that Quirrell had died due to the charm which had slain Voldemort. But even so, Harry had seen the man’s face rotting away, turning to ash under his hands. Harry was smart enough to know that kind of thing could have an impact on a person.

When Harry opened his dream-self’s eyes, he was in a forest, and looking around himself he didn’t see any landmark or anything he recognized. For a moment, confusion reigned, but then he remembered a dream he once had more than two years before, well before Hagrid had introduced him to the Wizarding World. The dream which had sparked his interest in magic and started him down the road of self-discovery in magic, which had made his life so much easier, even if he couldn’t quite get away from the Dursleys.

When Hagrid had introduced him to it, Harry had hoped to discover more about magic, and about the woman from his dreams, the blonde elf Celestine. Yet, the WW itself was a bit of a letdown. The magic within it was kind of boring outside Charms and Transfiguration, and even that was less about imagination than the more instinctual stuff Harry had been able to do. He liked those classes at least, unlike the rest of his classes.

Worse, the WW didn’t have any records of elves either, outside of house-elves. And there was no comparison between those little creatures and the statuesque blonde woman whose features, alas, had started to disappear from Harry’s mind over the months and then years since their meeting.

Although, he had made friends here. Hermione, a few of the Ravenclaws from their year, and Ron and both sets of Twins, the Weasley and Patils. Hermione was his best friend, his fellow explorer of all things in magic, although Ron was way too lazy to be a close friend. Harry could understand laziness when it came to potions, herbology, and History of magic (BOOORING).  But not when it came to the actual magic classes or learning more about magic in general. After all, magic had helped him for years to protect himself against the Dursleys.

And yet, Harry thought to himself staring down at his hands, magic also killed Quirrell. He gulped then, feeling the same queasy feeling he had fallen asleep with filling him, drowning out the nature of his surroundings for a moment. But after who knew all long Harry shook himself a bit, as he heard a sound through the woods. A sound that he knew all too well: the sound of someone sobbing.

He looked around, then stood up, and began to move through the woods trying to find the source of the sound.

To his surprise, it wasn’t Celestine, the Elven woman whose blonde hair and smile Harry could still remember even as everything else about her had faded from his mind. Instead, it was a dark skinned elf this time. And once more, Harry stared, awestruck.

Her skin was the color of cocoa maybe? Not dark enough to be chocolate, but like coffee with a lot of cream added, like the kind of cocoa the Twins provided the Quidditch team during morning practice. Her hair was black, black as night almost, darker even than Professor Sinistra’s or Angelina’s.

The woman had long legs contained in a pair of high boots that came up to her knees, which looked much more practical than the small sandals that Celestine had worn. Strange that I can remember that along with the other bits and pieces but not everything all at once?

The rest of her clothing wasn’t nearly as practical though, as she seemed to be wearing something that Harry could only think of as a modified bathing suit, showing off a lot of the cream-coffee colored skin. But how is it staying in place? There didn’t seem to be anything holding the two sides of the swimsuit closed over her chest, which Harry found fascinating on many levels. And the size of her chest made even Professor Sinistra look like a teenager.

Where before Harry had been so young that he barely understood the difference between boys and girls and had been far more enamored of Celestine’s kindness than body, he had passed puberty by this point and looking at this woman caused him to blush even as he stared, unable to turn his eyes away, the woman’s beauty and curves depriving him of all his higher mental functions. Until, that was, the sound of her quiet sobbing penetrated and he shook his hormone-induced fascination off.

This motion caught the Elven woman’s attention and she shot to her feet, twisting around, the staff in her hand glowing suddenly with magical power. “Who… A human? What is human doing in my dream?” She said with a scowl, looking around her, her face firming under her tears into something almost imperious. “Unless this is the response to my prayers. But what could that signify…”

The elven woman seemed to go off in her own world at that but came back to the here and now when Harry spoke. “Why were you crying?”

“What?” The woman started at that, and Harry realized for the first time that her eyes were golden colored and found himself nearly mesmerized. They were narrowed now in suspicion as she stared at him, but still beautiful in their own right, if not as naturally warm seeming as Celestine’s.

Harry however simply held up his hands and knelt down on the ground in the same fashion that Celestine had done all those years ago with him. Seeing that, the woman calmed down a bit, rubbing at her face in an attempt to banish the tears that had still been falling there. “I, I was…”

Anger suddenly overtook her, and she reared up, a snarl on her purple-painted lips as she raised her hand. “None of my thoughts are any of your business human! Less than that you have no business being here at all! Only your age alone keeps me from striking you down!”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said softly, looking away. Half of that was because the woman obviously was in distress and not happy about showing it and in an effort to appease her sudden fury, having no desire at all to try and fight her. The other half of it was the fact that in her anger the dusky-skinned elven woman had moved closer to him, and this had simply made her beauty more apparent, especially since sitting down he had to look up at her, and from that angle, she had barely any modesty left to speak of, the interior of her breasts practically bare to his eyes. “I, I shouldn’t have asked. Erm, from what I remember, this place is well a place to come if your troubled or just need solitude, I guess, so I should have just assumed that.”

“It is a memory of a place where I have happy memories,” the woman answered, her anger draining away at this, looking more closely at Harry now. “But nowhere in that memory was a human ever involved. Certainly not a quite young human.”

The woman continued to stare at him with a frown, but Harry simply kept looking away, blushing slightly. This innocent reaction, and the fact he was looking away, allowed the woman to slowly regained control of her emotions. And as she did, the woman looked around, confusion and curiosity coming to the fore. What is a human doing here indeed? I questioned his being here before, but now I must do so even more, she thought, examining the human from head to toe. He was a scrawny fellow. the elven woman would estimate his age it around eleven, perhaps ten, if human bodies grew as elven bodies did. Although from his reaction to her, he might be a little older. Certainly, his body looked a little malnourished, although tough and wiry for all of that.

And on his forehead was… “Where did you get that?” the woman demanded, pointed at his forehead, her curiosity arrested by what she saw there.

(segment moved to here, segments changed in bold) Harry blinked, confusion making him turn back to lock eyes with the elven woman. “It, it’s what my people call a curse scar. I apparently got it on the same night my parents were murdered.”

“Rubbish.” the elven woman announced definitively, not commenting on the fact his parents were murdered. “That is a protection rune, an old style to be sure, one I haven’t seen in some three hundred years outside of books, but it would still suffice to protect you from evil in some fashion.”

The dusky-hued elven beauty was now looking at Harry even more closely, having moved close enough to touch him, leaning forward slightly to look more closely at the mark on his forehead, taking his head in her hands and turning it forcefully so she could look at his forehead from different angles. “Yes, I’m positive. That is protection rune. But it’s effect on a person that I do not know, and there is also some other kind of magic within it as well, as if someone layered another enchantment or perhaps tied it into larger working in some fashion? Fascinating, at least to my Mage Sight. Hmmm…”

“C, could you please back away, er, j, just a bit, Miss?” Harry had closed his eyes the moment she had leaned forward, and now simply scrunched them closed even tighter, unwilling to embarrass himself further by looking at the sight dangling right before his eyes.The smell of her skin and the sensation of the elf’s body being so near was more than enough for him. She smells of pine and cardamom! GAH!!

Looking at Harry’s face the dark elf saw his blush and closed eyes and leaned back, a faint color change visible on her own dark cheeks even as she laughed at Harry. “My, you are young, aren’t you? I know whole nations of people who would kill to have been in your position just now.”

“T, they’re not my age, and… they haven’t had the day I have had,” Harry sighed, becoming disconsolate once more.

At that, the elven woman frowned. For a moment, she fought with herself, still-strong curiosity warring with her normal anger at humans. A glance around them seemed to tilt the balance in favor of curiosity and she knelt down in front of him, taking the same lotus position Harry could vaguely remember Celestine used.

The view this gave Harry made him blush anew, and he had to concentrate on her face. With those gleaming yellow eyes that was easier done than he had feared, thankfully. They were so striking he could barely look away.

“What is your name, human?”

“Harry Potter. And um, can I ask your name?”

“Olga Discordia, Queen of the dark elves,” Olga declared, before cocking her head to one side as she looked at Harry, then looked around at the woods, her eyes narrowed in speculation once more before she sighed, gritting her teeth as she resolved to continue to be polite to this young human. “And it seems as if you too need to some solitude and time for reflection. But why would someone so young need such?”

Normally, Olga would not care about a human’s problems. Humans, in her opinion, were the problem. But not only was this human too young to have ever harmed one of her people, the fact that Harry Potter was here at all was telling. That is impossible to overstate, Olga! Olga thought to herself. I have had visions before, but this is all too real to be a simple vision. Nor is it a sending, Potter is too young and I doubt anyone that age, elven or human, could control such, now that I think of it calmly. No, this is some higher power interfering. But I thought all the gods were dead or had retreated from the realm…

Harry frowned, and now looked away for an entirely different reason. Eventually, he simply stated it bluntly. “I killed a man yesterday.”

“…One’s first kill is always a trial. I understand your need for solitude.” Olga answered simply, real sympathy worming it’s way through her enforced politeness. Harry looked at her and surprise, and Olga barked a laugh, harsh but still understanding. “I am queen of a people who are at war, Harry Potter. I have killed more people than I care to remember personally and have ordered the death of far more. Yet I still remember my first battle.”

“Why are you at war?” Harry asked, frowning at the idea of war.

“To defend my people from those who would ravish them, slay them, or enslave them,” Olga answered crisply, without any hesitation, and then leaning forward, eager to turn the conversation on the mystery of the boy in front of her. “And you? Why did you kill?” And why did a god or gods bring us both here to meet like this? I refuse to believe it is a sign I should make peace with the humans, curse it!

Harry flinched but seeing that this was his own question simply returned to him, knew he had to answer. “The man who killed my parents, he came back from the dead as a, a wraith. He possessed someone, willingly. They were after a, a magical item I guess, called the philosopher’s stone.”

Olga frowned, interrupting the tale in some confusion. “That name is known to me, but a stone that turns lead into gold? How is that something worth killing over? Gold is only valuable because of its rarity after all, and the moment more appear on the market without a known source, people will be looking into it.”

That comment went right over Harry’s head, and he shook his head. “Where I come from, it could do a lot more. The Philosopher’s Stone could create what is called the Elixir Of Life. It would give the user immortality. It could have brought back the shade back to life. I had to stop it from happening, and we fought.”

“And it fell on you, a young boy, to defend it?” Olga asked skeptically, keeping her derision from her face only by knowing that while one could prevaricate or embellish in the land of dreams, you couldn’t actually lie directly. Which meant that Harry’s tale was the simple truth, as far as he knew.

Harry retorted hotly, saying that he and his friends had been the ones to discover when the attempted theft was going to happen, but as he spoke, he paused, his anger leaving him, as he thought about it some more. “I, that is I… Before you said that, I would’ve said yes.”

Olga shook her head, putting forth her own opinion. “This magnificent item might well have been fake. Or, more likely, there were other defenses in place that you, limited as you are by your magical knowledge, did not see. Describe the defenses,” she ordered crisply. If this boy has been sent here, I must discover all I can about him, and how he might be of use to me.

When Harry described all the traps, Olga listened intently, then shook her head once more. “And how dangerous would those traps have been against a fully grown magic user? I can tell you that even an apprentice wizard in my army would be able to get through all of those traps on his own.”

“So… you saying maybe it was just meant to slow him down? Or as a… test of some kind? A test of what?” Harry questioned, some of his good feelings towards the headmaster evaporating, just as it had the day Harry had requested to stay in Hogwarts during the summer. Not only had that been rejected, any attempt to find someplace else to live had been blocked. According to the headmaster, the only place Harry was safe was with the Dursleys, the place he always felt least safe.

“That is something you will have to discover. He could simply be testing you and your friends, for further training” Olga answered with a shrug, coming to the end of her patience with the human’s concerns. “Although, it would be a rather odd way to do so. Especially if this prize was the real thing. Something I cannot bring myself to believe from your brief description.”

Harry frowned, wishing he was as good strategy as Ron was at chess, before shaking his head. “I, I don’t have enough information I don’t think to figure out if I was being tested, or if something else is going on. But you’re right, it wasa little too easy.”

“Knowing that you have to ask questions is half the battle,” Olga nodded. Then she sighed faintly, looking away, her long elven ears drooping as mind went back to her own troubles. “It is asking the right questions which becomes difficult.”

Looking at her troubled expression, Harry asked hesitantly, “What, what about you? What questions were you wrestling with? What questions were making you cry?”

Having helped Harry through his moment, Olga was almost disarmed as he turned the conversation back to her. Almost. But after a brief second, Harry’s round ears reminded her that Harry wasn’t a young elf, but a human, and she barked out, “It’s none of your business! You are a human, you would never understand! I do not even know I am talking to you at all.”

Harry let Olga’s anger wash over him. He was used to adults being angry at him, and she had nothing on Snape. “Maybe I wouldn’t. But I can tell it’s bothering you, or else you wouldn’t be here at all. So maybe talking to me can give you some new perspective? I can already tell you that your world isn’t like mine. We don’t have elves at all, and never have. So even if you tell me a secret or something, I can’t act on it.”

Again Olga snarled, but at Harry’s disarmingly honest look, Olga let out that anger in a hiss, looking around them once more, reminding herself that this human boy had been sent here for a reason. And it will be a reason that goes both ways. As capricious as some of them were, I cannot see any of the old gods bringing us together to help Potter alone. So perhaps he has a point. “Very well, you have a point on that, and it would behoove me to see if you can repay the aid I have given you in widening your world view.”

Harry nodded then simply waited, knowing that trying to hurry Olga along would not help matters right now. She’s just like Hermione when I perfect a spell first. I bet I just need to give Olga a hint too, and she’ll get it right away without getting all… what was the term Wood used? Stroppy? Something like that, anyway. Although it’s obvious whatever problems she’s got are way bigger than just not being able to figure out a spell.

“My people are stuck in the middle between two aggressively expansionist races,” Olga began, seeing no reason to say that one of those races was human, not wanting to open that particular can of worms. “I have been able to broker an agreement with one of them to ally against the other. Put the price is very high. So high, that my people will suffer horribly, and many of my people may die.”

Harry frowned at that, cocking his head to one side. It was weird Olga wasn’t going into details, but if she didn’t want to Harry wasn’t about to push. She had given him enough information anyway.  “You are sacrificing something. Like, like we had to sacrifice Ron’s chess piece to get past the chess set.”

“When you lacked the power to just blast through it. Despite my disdain for that, the analogy does, much to my distress, work, as I lack the strength to blast through this problem,” Olga grumbled before standing up abruptly. Why am I even sharing this! He’s only twelve, not exactly steeped in learning either. “This is a waste of my time, a, a farce! I am done speaking to you human. Be grateful that I am letting you go without violence.”

She was about to walk away when Harry asked, “What exactly are you sacrificing?”

Olga licked her lips and did not turn to look back at Harry staring ahead of her, her spine rigid. All of her earlier hauteur and anger vanished, leaving Olga feeling vulnerable as she faced once more the cost of her decisions, a cost her people would pay, but not her, which, quixotically, made it even more painful, and she refused to let anyone, let alone a human, see her anguish. “A city. The largest city of my people. The group, the orcs, that I have made that deal with, they want the city.”

Harry didn’t see the problem with that, although he was concerned about the mention of orcs who he’d seen a lot of in the fantasy books he read. “So let them have it. A city isn’t worth anything in comparison to the people within, right? Move the people away.”

“The people are the point,” Olga grumbled, waving a hand dismissively at the boy’s words. But a small, angry part of her wanted to destroy this boy’s innocence further, and so she turned back, watching his face avidly as she explained, “The orcs want to ravage, to rape my womenfolk, and either enslave or kill all the men.”

Harry recoiled, looking green and, for the first time since Olga saw him, looking scared of her. “And you’re willing to let that happen?”

That look touched Olga’s simmering anger and she exploded with fury bellowing her words as she rounded on Harry, her golden eyes flashing. “Do you think that I would if I had any choice!? A city is small change to what the other races are doing to my people! I have lost thousands fighting this war, fighting to defend our borders, fighting to make certain my people do not live as slaves! Whole clans have been wiped out by slavers, their women taken, their men left for the crows!”

“The orcs and the other Aberrants offer a fighting force that I can use to fight the other races. Without them, my people will lose this war and we will only continue to live as chained pets!” Olga growled, biting back the ‘to your race’ portion of that line with difficulty.

Harry stared at her, the mention of slavery having hit him hard as that was how he felt the Dursleys had always treated them. And seeing the grief, the knowledge that she was making a deal with the devil in Olga’s face, the tears once more flowing from her eyes even as they flashed with anger, although he wasn’t stupid enough to point the tears out to her since she seemed unaware of them, showed Olga wasn’t happy about this either. “But you said these orcs were also fighting you? If you could remove them instead, what would that do?”

“It would give me a reprieve, and allow me to reorganize my borders,” Olga answered instantly. “But the orcs and clans are too spread out, and their lands too inhospitable to sustain my people on a campaign into them. Worse, my people are not natural warriors as they are. In open conflict we fare poorly against the orcs.”

Harry’s eyes widened as an idea came to him. “But your deal is with the orcs as a whole right? Could you somehow get them to fight over maybe taking the city, turn them against one another?”

“No, that is not possible. The orcs all answer to a single orc war chieftain, and although he’s bringing their war tribes together to pillage the city I’m going to be sacrificing to them, I…” Olga paused, staring at Harry, her golden eyes widening followed by the curve of her lips.

Seeing the sudden smile blossoming on the elven woman’s face Harry too smiled. “You thought of something.”

“Yes. It, it would still require sacrifice. But it would be the sacrifice of a baited trap, rather than on the altar,” Olga announced, smiling now for the first time since Harry had seen her. “That could work! I’ll give them the city, but tell them the inhabitants have turned on me, so they will have to fight their way inside. And then when the majority of their forces are inside…”

Olga began to laugh, and though the sound wasn’t the tinkling bells Harry could remember Celestine’s laugh was like, it still thrilled Harry, in an entirely different way.“Yes! That works! It will pair back the Orcish numbers enough so that I might be able to push them entirely into the Northwestern mountains! Give me time to prepare magical defenses that they will never be able to pass in the more fertile areas to the northeast. It will take a lot out of magic and preparation, but it can be done.”

She crossed the intervening distance between them, kneeling down and enveloping Harry into a sudden, exuberant hug, putting aside her animosity to her race entirely for the moment. “Thank you, Harry Potter. Talking to you has given me a real solution to my problems. They won’t last long but it is a solution that will give my people some peace on one front, at least for a time.”

This wasn’t the first time Harry had found his head imbedded in the bosom of an older and very voluptuous woman and just like the first time Celestine had done it to him, Harry had to stop himself from stiffening. Although not in exactly the same manner… “Gu, um, I, I’m happy for you,” He stuttered, looking up at her from between Olga’s breasts with a blush on his face that felt like someone had just hit his face with one of the tanning charms Lavender and Parvati were always talking about.

Seeing that blush, Olga was almost tempted to tease him, but decided against it, instead ended the hug before sitting next to him, twisting slightly to look at Harry thoughtfully. Now I believe Harry Potter was brought here to help me and vice versa. There must be some way I can help him beyond making him ask questions of the world around him.

“Now that you have helped me solve my problems, it is time to go back to yours. This shade that you had to deal with, do you know why it is after you? It cannot just be because you escaped when your parents died. Unless is it some kind of rival of your family? Are you the scion of a powerful house perhaps?” At Harry’s confused look, Olga amended, “Are you the heir or only remaining member of a powerful house? The Prince of a kingdom?”

“I… I know my father came from a powerful magical house, but no, I’m not anything like that. I asked the headmaster of my school the same question, he was famous for fighting the shade when it was alive. The shade is that of a Dark Lord, who was bent on conquering my people. I, guess I’m a memory of how he was defeated. He, he died when he tried to attack me after killing my parents.”

Hearing that, Olga was about to scowl, wondering if this was the case of the winners writing the history, or some other kind of pro-human thing, her anger rising to the surface again. But looking into Harry’s honest eyes, Olga found some of her anger disappearing as she remembered what he had said about coming from another world. That, and his eyes reminded her of green leaves in the sunlight. “No doubt due to that oddly-used protection rune, yes, I can see that catching the unwary. Yet this shade still lives? For a given value that is.”

“I, I think so, yes. That’s what the headmaster told me. My, my touch, it, it killed Qu, Er, the body the shade had taken over. It, it turned him into ash. But the shade then escaped,” Harry stammered his way through that explanation, remembering that moment and shuddering.

Staring at the human youth, Olga found herself fighting two sets of instincts once more. On the one hand, she wanted to let this human stew in his own self-recrimination and loathing. But on the other hand, he was a young warrior, and before she was a queen, Olga had been in a somewhat similar situation, trembling over her first kill, her first battle, and needing advice. And Harry had already helped her tremendously. It would be churlish in the extreme to not do the same.

Really, her anger and hatred of humans only slowed her reaction down a bit, and Olga slowly reached out, taking one of the young boy’s hands in her larger one, noting absently there wasn’t much difference in their sizes as she did. “The ritual your mother embedded in that protection rune did that, not you, Harry. But it would not have mattered in the long run. Once a person has willingly been possessed, there is little an outside force can do to free the possessed of the creature taking him over. He was dead already. Everything after this man gave his body over willingly to the shade was just waiting for the inevitable end.”

“I, I know that. It’s what Dumbledore said. And it helps, some. So does knowing he was killing and drinking unicorn blood to sustain himself,” Harry answered, causing Olga’s eyes to widen in shock and horror. “But I, I still wish there had been another way.”

“There occasionally isn’t one, Harry,” Olga answered still shaken by the mention of killing unicorns. That was an act most Aberrants would think twice about, even if they could catch the magnificent creatures in the first place. “Not every problem can be solved as you helped me do earlier. Sometimes it boils down to either you or them. Best to make sure it’s them, whatever you have to do. And… I would say if this shade still lives, it might not be the first time you are forced to kill.”

Harry flinched at that, but Olga went on, squeezing his hand again to make certain her words got through. This, she knew somehow, was why Harry was here, he had to face this shade, and the gods themselves wanted him to win, just as they wanted her to listen to his unbiased new perspective. “If it lives and comes after you again, Harry Potter, it won’t be playing a child’s game. You must be prepared to meet this shade’s challenge. Because it seems that your adults might not be up to the task. Always be prepared to look after yourself and your own.”

She waited, watching as Harry first stiffened looking as if he was about to argue, but then looked away. As she watched his shoulders shifted back and he sat a little taller, then nodded. He didn’t like it, but it was evident he couldn’t argue with her words.

Seeing that, Olga went on, building on her earlier thoughts. “I suggest that you look into self-defense in some form. If you were forced to rely on the charm that was placed on you by your mother, it is obvious that you need more training.”

Then she poked Harry in the arm, before taking his arm, and pulling it out, looking at it critically. “And more muscle. Being wiry and quick is all well and good, but you look as built as a goblin.”

Harry winced, shaking his head. “I do not! I’ve seen goblins, they’re taller than me, and their faces are all pointy!”

“Where I come from, they are short, green and wiry. Although, yes, they also have pointed heads and ears,” Olga shot back.

Not for nothing had Harry spent most of this year paling around with the Weasley twins. “So elves and goblins have the same ears then? Are you related?”

Growling, Olga shook her head, glaring at him until Harry quailed sufficiently, pulling her hand away from his. There was a frosty moment then, and Harry coughed realizing he had crossed a line, before asking about Olga about her people, their magic and society. Olga was willing to answer these questions although if Harry could remember more from his meeting with Celestine, he might have realized Olga was answering his questions in far broader terms, still not entirely trusting a human, even a human from another world.

Soon though, Olga turned the conversation back to the Wizarding World as Harry had seen it. Here, Harry spoke first about the goblins in his world hoping to both get it over with and to apologize for his earlier remark. The nature of the odd creatures shocked Olga as beyond their height they had nothing in common with the goblins she knew all too well.

The tale of Harry’s time in the bank interested her though. Olga had always been a bit of a thriller-seeker before taking up the mantle of Queen among her people, and the ride interested her immensely. That led to Quidditch, and the knowledge Harry was a Seeker and could fly on broomsticks. That ability wasn’t known in her world, and the idea of it finished the destruction of her distrust in Harry. To Olga, he was now not really human any longer, he was simply a being from another realm which had nothing to do with her own.

The fact Harry promised to bring Olga flying if he ever figured out how to bring his broomstick along on these strange, shared dreams was merely icing on the cake. Really.

However, when it came to Harry’s time at Hogwarts, there were still several issues, and unlike Harry, Olga wasn’t willing to let the fact he’d been ostracized and blamed by his own house for losing points slide. She pointed out that simply forgiving such was stupid and foolish, and that caring about the opinion of the public would eventually drive Harry crazy. “You cannot be responsible for the thoughts and opinions of others, Harry Potter so don’t even try. Especially when the adults in your world seem at best to be part of the problem.”

As they talked, time passed slowly, which once more Harry noticed, as did Olga. But neither commented on it, just enjoying talking. Sharing his impressions and concerns with Olga seemed to lift a weight from Harry’s shoulders, and for Olga, it was nice speaking with someone, even a young boy, who didn’t have any preconceived notions of her, demands, or thoughts about her as a Queen.

At that point, like Celestine before her, Olga became aware that the dream was about to end. “We are waking up Harry Potter, and we are both going to go back to our own worlds. I have a certain trap to plan, while you must do some planning of your own so that this Dark Lord of yours cannot take advantage of your weakness. I would be most displeased if this is the last time you walk in these forests, Harry Potter. Especially given your promise of a broomstick ride.”

If for no other reason than I believe there is still more to be learned here, Olga admitted. The boy had grown on her somewhat during their talk, but it was still only one meeting, and that didn’t matter nearly as much as the two of them seemingly meeting here as they had, with either of them being in control of it.

Harry nodded, looking up at Olga as she stood up once more, blushing again but this time not looking away. Instead, he was trying to memorize every inch of her, wishing he had been able to do the same thing when he’d first met Celestine. He didn’t want to forget any of this dream, not again.

Seeing the look on his face, Olga smiled, fighting back an inappropriate urge to blush, and took a single step back, nodding her head once to him. “Until we meet again, remember what I said, Harry Potter. Sometimes, it all comes down to you or them, and it’s always best it be you who survives, however you can contrive it.”

OOOOOOO

Olga woke up her bed in Garan Fortress, frowning as she felt the wet pillow under her head, drenched with her tears. For a moment, the details of her dream alluded her, then, she spotted a dragon on a green field hanging to one side of her bed. The sight of the green field reminded her of Harry Potter’s eyes, and with that, the rest of their conversation came flooding back to her. Including the plan she had devised.

Shifting out of bed, Olga threw the covers off and moving towards the doorway. There, she wrenched it open just as her aid, Cloe was about to knock. Cloe was a younger dark elf who Olga had saved from a life of slavery to humans eight years ago. Since then, Cloe had been one of her most devoted followers, her personal bodyguard and assassin.

“My lady, are you…”

Olga passed her by, tapping her on the shoulder. “Come with me, Cloe. I have a plan that will need your help. I will also need messengers sent to the city of Ragaan, and a discussion with my magical corps. The orcs want a city, I intend to give it to them. So hard they choke!”

Cloe stared at her, seeing the thrust back shoulders, the gleam in her queen’s eyes, and smiled for the first time in months ever since their army had lost the Battle of the Atton Fields against the humans. That had decimated their army so bad, that it had forced Olga to look for alliances among the hated orcs. But now, it seemed as if her queen had decided on another course.

And Cloe couldn’t be happier to see that determined, dangerous look back in Olga’s eyes. “Yes Mistress,” Olga almost squealed the words as she hurried after her queen.

OOOOOOO

For a few days after waking up, Harry couldn’t follow Olga’s advice. He was stuck in the infirmary, and despite his friend’s best efforts, nurse Pomphrey didn’t even let him read anything beyond the textbooks for another year. The moment they were out though, Harry became almost as bad as Hermione in terms of how much time he spent in the library. Olga was right, after all.

Harry confided his thoughts to Hermione as he poured over a defense book for the seventh years, noting down spells that could perhaps be used against spirits, and another spell that might be able to discover if someone was being possessed. “I don’t know why the shade of Voldemort is after me, but I know it is. Which means I need to start planning for it, maybe getting ready for the next time it shoes up.”

On the one hand Hermione was happy that Harry was taking magic so seriously. Before this, while he always practiced every spell he could get his hands on, and seemed determined to never take it for granted, he hadn’t really liked or enjoyed book learning so much. That made it somewhat frustrating that he was so much better at casting magic than her, although when it came to finer detail work, such as making a transfigured item have a design or something on it, Hermione did it much better.

And yet, the reasoning Harry gave… “Harry, surely Hogwarts is the safest place on earth! Especially with Headmaster Dumbledore here.”

Harry looked at her, one eyebrow rising. “Maybe, but that didn’t stop Voldemort, did it?”

To that, Hermione had no reply, and sighing, she began to help her friend research more spells. That they then practiced the spells afterward actually made it quite fun for both of them. It also meant that by the end of his first year in Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione were both performing third year Defense Against the Dark Arts spells, and coming away from the year with a certain jaundiced view of what was on offer for students. Even with the help of the Forbidden section thanks to Harry’s Invisibility Cloak the spells on offer seemed a bit lacking, even to Hermione who hadn’t delved into the fantasy section of her local library as much as gleefully as Harry had.

Several weeks later after the year school year ended, and the kids went home, Harry was back in the nonmagical world. But rather than waiting, he knew better than to expect the Dursleys to be there to pick them up, Harry made his way out of the train station with Hermione an her parents, both of whom looked like they weren’t quite sure what to make of him. Since he had begun to consciously use his magic, Dudley and Petunia had been far too afraid of him to anything beyond demand he keep cooking and weeding for his keep.  The two times that Vernon had tried something, Harry had taken great delight in using magic to bind him to the wall for hours.

Now that he had a wand, he had a greater repertoire of spells, of course. But Harry had heard about the trace from the twins and knew that if he used his wand to create magic, it could be traced to him. Better to keep using my own magic then.

After waving goodbye to Hermione and a few of the other students who lived in the non-magical world, Harry found a Yellow Pages, and looked for any place that could teach him some self-defense near Surrey. If I can’t get away from the Dursleys, I can at least use my time over the summer better...

OOOOOOO

Dreaming once more, Celestine found herself in the gardens of her youth and looked around, confusion reining in her mind for a moment. But then, she remembered how several years ago she had meant that interesting young slave boy, Harry Potter here. We never did find him, darn it. But I wonder…

With that in mind, Celestine began to move through the woods looking for young Harry, even calling his name occasionally, laughing as she did so, remembering the time when she was young and playing through these woods with her friends. “Harry, Harry Potter? Are you heereee~~?”

Instead of her strange young aquaintance, what Celestine found was danger. Summoned by her cries, orcs came out from behind the woods, snarling and slobbering, licking their chops as they stared at her their loin clothes stirring. “Orcs, here!?” Celestine was shocked, but quickly backed away, magic forming around her hands.

Retreating quickly, Celestine put her back against a tree, gesturing to either side. Glowing shields of gray energy appeared, creating a barricade to her flanks several feet removed, blocking the orcs from circling her as she then cupped her hands and thrust them out towards the charging orcs. Dozens died, but still more came, with goblins and other Aberrants appearing. Yet it struck her that there were no dark elves among them.

Yet as time went on, Celestine felt her shield spells weakening under the repeated blows of the orcs, and Celestine began to look around for some way to escape.

Then came a howl through the woods, and giant dogs, mongrels she thought, appeared out of the woods, charging towards the orcs. A ferocious battle occurred in front of her, and Celestine shifted her magical to support, using her healing energies on various dogs, keeping them in the fight even as she wondered where they came from.

Eventually, the dogs retreated, glaring and growling angrily at the orcs, who also paused, letting Celestine gather her magic for another large scale attack. But then, the worst thing happened. Both the Aberrants and the dogs turned toward Celestine. Gone was the looks of defensive protectiveness in the dog’s eyes. Instead, they gleamed with the same the lust and desire to dominate and corrupt as the orcs had when they looked at Celestine.

They all started to charge forwards, and Celestine screamed as her shields shattered under the weight of all the bodies attempting to attack her. Now thoroughly terrified, Celestine willed herself to try to wake up, willed for this nightmare to end as the orcs and Abberants raced toward her. And on each and every doggy face was the same kind of uncontrolled, violent lust and desire to dominate.

Then, a shout came from one side. “Get away from her!”

The youth she remembered from years back was there suddenly. He was much changed since then, having grown in the intervening years as humans were wont to do, but more importantly at the moment he was holding a sword in one hand which he used to cut and slash at the dogs several of whom died. One orc fell, screaming, another took a slice across arm, which seemed to poison him to the point where he fell with foam dribbling form his mouth ad then Harry Potter was holding out his hand, lashing out with spells.

One of them targeted the land beneath her, and Celestine rose up into the air on a pillar of stone which carried her away from the orcs and dogs. Given that reprieve, Celestine too began to use her magic once again, no longer frightened and determined that Harry too would survive whatever was going on here. Under her will, shield spells appeared around Harry occasionally, and any wound he took was healed instantly while energy filled his body and holy light and lightning struck their enemies.

How long they fought, Celestine had no idea, but eventually, the last of the dogs, a massive shaggy beast that looked part wolf and part pit bull was chased away with his tail between his legs, and the last orc died to one of her spells. For a moment, all they could do was gasp, then Harry leaned against his sword and stared up at Celestine. “This, I don’t I didn’t expect that! I thought this wood was peaceful!”

With a gesture, Celestine began to float down towards him, a beaming smile on her face, sweat stuck her loose white robe to her body, making it even more see-through than normal, although she didn’t notice. “Nor did I my young friend. And this wood should indeed be free of such strife. Thank you most immensely for your help!” With that Celestine threw her arms around Harry, drawing him into a hug. “And it is just as good to see you alive and well.”

Harry didn’t stiffen as she remembered he had the last time. Instead, he slowly, very hesitantly returned it with one arm., breathing in deeply, shuddering as the adrenaline of battle slowly began to leave him.

For his part, Harry was somewhat bemused. He had collapsed into sleep after killing the basilisk under Hogwarts and had fully expected to never wake up thanks to the beast’s poison. But here he was, once more in the forest of his dreams, and here, he was, holding Celestine. HOLY flipping, by Merlin’s hairy arse, she is so gorgeous! And soft, and ooh, wait, no, not the time for this, down boy!

Harry’s other hand still held his sword until Celestine’s hand lowered down his arm to gently touched his. At that touch, Harry released it to fall to the ground where it promptly disappeared. Even as his other arm when around her, both of them stared at the place where the sword had been.

“I hope that doesn’t mean it disintegrated in the real world, I would get into a lot of trouble,” Harry murmured, slowly nuzzling his head against Celestine’s breasts, shivering at the sensation of silk and skin that made the silk seem almost rough in comparison, fighting the disturbing desire to kiss it. Celestine still smelled like flowers and elderberries like Harry remembered, but everything else was, well, waaay more important than it had been. The feel of the breasts against his face, and the hint of something small and pink he could see through the sweat-soaked white shift was more than a little distracting, and the rest of Celestine was, well she had a body worthy of a dream. Ooh, now isn’t that ironic, heh.

Celestine slowly pulled away from the hug, realizing with a start that she had needed that just as much is Harry had, or perhaps more. “I doubt that will be a problem. This is a kind of dream-walking realm. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I’m not exactly in control of whatever is going on here between us either, Harry.”

The way she said that made Harry blushed, shaking his head, as he stood back, once more taking in Celestine’s body. And this time, he stared hard, willing himself to remember her as he could Olga. Not just her hair, not just her voice, or the smell of her, but everything.

Celestine stood about two feet taller than Harry was currently, putting her at around the same height as Angelina, making her, he thought anyway, a half foot shorter than Olga? They both seemed to half the same slim build in terms of waistline. Celestine was also a bit curvier in terms of her hip and rear, and her breasts were… well they were just amazing! They were bigger than Olga’s by a few inches, softer and fuller looking drooping ever so slightly on her frame, covered like the rest of her by a white silk shift of some kind tied loosely at her waist with a large gold ring, flowing from there, letting her legs free to be seen in all their glory.

“Merlin, you are so gorgeous!” He whispered, then blushed, both hands pulling away from Celestine to cover his mouth.

Celestine laughed, a faint blush appearing on her face, knowing that was the honest truth as far as Harry cared, and that he wasn’t saying that to get anything from her, to curry favor or because he was simply lusting after her body as a few noblemen had in the past. Or perhaps, not just because of that, anyway, Celestine thought, her blush deepening before she ruffled his hair noting that it was still as smooth and silky as ever. “Aren’t you a little charmer?” she teased.

She then cocked her head to one side, frowning a little as she took in Harry in turn. He had grown perhaps a foot or more since she had first seen him. Gone was his previous underfed, nearly emaciated appearance. On top of becoming taller, Harry had begun to bulk up a bit, his shoulders were much broader than they had been, far broader than an elven youth would have had. His hands, she recalled, were calloused, though not like those of a warrior like Claudia, not in a way that Celestine recognized at all. His glasses were smaller, better fitting, and his eyes somehow seemed deeper too.

Harry is no longer a boy, regardless of his age, Celestine thought with some sadness as she saw that look. “Has it really been that long? You look almost like what humans call a teenager now,” Celestine added, unwilling to just blurt out and ask what had caused his previous maturity to solidify into something else entirely.

“Barely,” Harry nodded. “I’m thirteen.”

Celestine nodded, and gently took his hand in hers, tugging him away from the battlefield, putting distance between them and the bodies and the wreckage of the forest, although she noted that none of the bodies had remained after the last dog had retreated. Even the blood splatters were disappearing. “And how are you doing Harry?” She inquired, setting aside the mystery of what the rest of this vision/dream/whatever might mean in order to talk to her young companion, interested in learning how he had come to change so quickly in what to her was a short period of time.

“I, I’m doing all right,” Harry answered slowly trying to figure out a way to summarize his life since he had seen Celestine that first time. “It turns out that magic does exist in my world. Thanks to you, I spent a long while training myself in magic. It, um, I used magic to make my life with the Dursleys better. But then, I learned two years ago that there’s an entire magical society hiding away, and they have a school. It’s been interesting, although most of the classes are kind of slow or just boring. And I could do without a Dark Lord after me. I mean come on, I’m just a kid, what’s he doing wasting his time on me for?”

Despite how lightly he spoke, Celestine could tell that it was but a shield against real shock, and a growing sense of perhaps fatalism or something like resigned anger? I think that once more pain or exhaustion, perhaps both, have brought Harry to me here once more. “This Dark Lord, you do not know why he is after you? Actually, why is he a Dark Lord?”

Harry sighed and related what he knew Lord Voldemort and how he had been after Harry’s parents for defying him in the past, and then Harry for somehow defeating him personally. Harry put that down to his mother’s protection in the form of the rune on his forehead, and, like Olga before her, although Harry hadn’t yet mentioned her, Celestine could now tell that the rune on his forehead was indeed a ancient rune of some kind.

YES!! Inside Celestine’s mind a chibi version of her hopped up and down thrusting a fist into the air. Hah, I was right! His family, his mother for certain, has some connection to our world. The question is, how? And where did they find information on this rune? I can only vaguely remember seeing the like before!

But that wasn’t all she could see. Celestine could also see there was some kind of darkness there. Not part of the rune, but, but caged within it. Drat it, why did it have to be runes? I never studied them before, nor since the Goddess decided to be reborn within me. “Hmm…”

“U, um, Celestine?” Harry squeaked, staring, unable to pull his eyes away from her cleavage which was right in front of his face right now. Pink, they’re pink, he thought dazedly, staring at the tips of the pale white orbs, longing to do…something. He wasn’t certain what, but the view called to him on a primordial level. “Wh, what’s wrong?”

“My old friend was right Harry, that is a rune, but I never studied them. Instead, what I can see there is a bit of darkness. So while Olga was right, so too were the people in your world who called it a curse scar. But unlike them, I have no intention of leaving it there.” With that, Celestine began to mutter under her breath, the secret name of her god along with a few words in the tongue of the Gods, which was called Caliath, as she prepared to perform a cleansing.

The next second Celestine leaned forward kissing Harry on the forehead. There was a splash of white magic that nearly blinded Harry as her lips touched the rune on Harry’s head, and he winced for a second as pain lanced through his head. He could almost hear a scream of some kind, but as the magic faded was like a hidden pressure he had never never noticed had disappeared. He blinked, then as Celestine pulled back to give him a bright smile, returned it.

Without further ado, Celestine turned away, putting an arm around Harry’s shoulders, and pulling him along as they continued through the woods. After a moment, Harry put aside the oddity of what had happened as Celestine seemed to and leaned against her, his arm around her waist, hand moving to Celestine’s hip before going back up like he had been electrocuted.

Celestine didn’t notice this, instead simply smiling as she continued to move through the woods beside her young friend. “I am sorry your life is so dangerous Harry. But I hope that you treasure the times that it is not.”

Harry shrugged that. “I’ve got friends, and I’ve got Quidditch, um, that’s a magical sport played on flying broomsticks.” Unlike Olga, Celestine didn’t seem interested in that, and he went on. “Magic is…the way they teach it anyway, is a little more constricting than I thought it would be. But if the Dark Lord just would stop coming after me in one form or another, I think I’d be a much happier person.”

He then paused, before blurting out, “Although, maybe not. Maybe then I wouldn’t be able to meet with you like this.” Harry gestured around them and then to Celestine, willing her to understand how important meeting her had been to him without having the words to do it.

Even as she smiled at that and even blushed a bit at the look in the young boy’s eyes, there was some kind of tension in Harry that Celestine could feel, and she gently squeezed his shoulders, leaning her head against his. “You know you can tell me everything. What would I do? We aren’t even in the same world with one another.”

That fact brought Harry out of his happiness at simply being hugged like this by Celestine, the original woman of his dreams, shaking his head sadly. It would be nice if that wasn’t the case, but Harry knew that was impossible. Elves didn’t exist in his world. He had looked for any information on them right away when Hagrid took him to Flourish and Blotts, and then again in the library of Hogwarts. Heck, he’d even asked Madam Pince after meeting Olga in his dreams once when Hermione was off helping Seamus and Ron, and the look Pince gave him was one he wasn’t going to forget anytime soon. There was no evidence he could find that elves like Celestine and Olga had ever existed in his world.

At Celestine’s repeated urging, Harry told her about how he had been ostracized for a specific magical talent, although it took some coaxing for him to explain what that was. When he told her about his ability to speak to snakes, Celestine didn’t seem at all bothered by his ability, instead finding fascinating, even going so far as to look around and see if they could find a snake so she could see him do it. Alas, the serpent summoning spell didn’t seem to do anything in this dream state.

From there, the tales of his first year also came out in a roundabout fashion when he mentioned that this wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with the Dark Lord’s shades. The fact he had to kill a possessed human startled and saddened Celestine, but also explained the hardness in Harry’s face. Beyond that, the fact that Harry was so ostracized, even by people who apparently lauded him as the slayer of the Dark Lord, when his ability to speak to snakes came out, saddened her greatly. Her advice on that score was to ignore them at best, to forgive, but to always be aware public opinion was fickle.

“One of my ministers put it as the mob mentality,” she said sadly. “A mob is only as bright as it’s loudest person, and they always follow the latest shouter for a time. I will not say to forgive them all, Harry, but do not let your heart harden totally against them. Instead, if your people are so quick to turn on you, perhaps some more distance is warranted.”

Seeing Harry no longer wanted to talk about himself, Celestine turned the discussion to herself and her lands, telling Harry about the great war, and about the Shield Maidens. In turn, she also asked Harry about his adventures, and if he had looked into his real family, and if so what he knew about them.

While his latest adventure made for interesting listening, the knowledge Harry had discovered about his past proved to be scant little. The Potter side was well known, but the Evans side wasn’t known at all beyond the Petunia connection, which Harry declared as “Probably being adopted, given how different Petunia and my Mum are supposed to be judging by the stories I’ve been able to wrench out of my teachers. I will try to look more in the nonmagical world when I get the chance. But why are you so interested?”

“I am wondering where your mother came by her knowledge of runes, Harry. That rune on your forehead is from our school of magic, and that is very strange. The odds of having two different worlds use the same runic language is beyond impossible. So in searching for your mother’s side of the family you might discover that connection.”

“Hmm, that is what Olga said too. About the rune I mean. She said it was linked to some kind of larger ritual,” Harry mused, a soft smile coming to his face that, for once in this dream realm, had nothing to do with Celestine or Olga. No, this smile had everything for the one memory he had of his mother: her smiling, crying face as she stooped over him, whispering words he couldn’t remember, before a green light flashed, and the light in her eyes faded. Then as she fell out of Harry’s sight, there was another green flash, and then pain, and the memory ended.

“I think that makes a lot of sense, really. Way more than a baby somehow surviving getting the killing curse to the face. I actually really like the idea that it was my Mum who took Voldemort down. Heh. Take that, ya pureblood wankers. It had nothing to do with my being a Potter, or both of us being halfbloods or anything like that, it was all my Mum knowing magic the rest of you had never learned.”

Hearing the name of her old friend turned enemy, Celestine nearly stumbled, and turned to look at Harry fully. The two of them had continued walking through the wood side by side as they talked. But she waited until Harry came back from his minor reverie, and had promised to look into the Evans side of his family before questioning, “You met Olga? Here, in this realm?”

Harry nodded. “Yes, I did. She, um, she was dealing with a problem of her own and I had… well it was right after I killed Professor Quirrell, who was possessed by Voldemort. We helped walk each other through our problems, and she gave me some advice. That was about a year ago, now.”

Hearing that shocked Celestine on many levels, but the content of the meeting also made her smile. Perhaps, perhaps there is yet hope for us to reconcile. Perhaps in some fashion Harry represents a chance at peace between her people and mine?

Shaking her head at that, Celestine smiled a trifle grimly as she moved a few paces away from Harry, indicating with a wave he should wait where he was. “Well, that is interesting, but let us turn back to your Dark Lordr problem. I think what you need to combat such is some Holy magic. Let us see if you can learn my brand of magic, Harry.”

With that, she began to teach Harry some light magic spells. Celestine found Harry to be an apt pupil, quick, with an intrinsic connection to his magical core that Celestine had rarely seen, for which she was very grateful. In turn, Harry began to teach Celestine some spells of his own world, although he cautioned her that it was difficult to use attack spells and more finicky spells without a wand to focus the spell. “I seem to be able to do it, but it takes me days for most spells, and longer for trickier ones.”

Celestine smiled at that, and then asked him to show her a spell before using the low-powered cutting spell he’d shown her to slice apart a log into six pieces, rather than the one Harry had done. Harry stared at that, then pouted a little. “Show off.”

“Hehehehe!” Celestine’s laughter rang out again, and Harry found himself staring at her, utterly smitten once more.

Catching the look in Harry’s eyes, Celestine felt herself blush again, before tapping him on the nose. “But tell me more about your school. Your friends. I’ve told you about mine, it is only fair you return the favor.”

Once more, Harry lost himself in simply walking and talking with Celestine, who was remarkably touchy-feely, something he wasn’t used to but which he lapped up like a drowning man, mush as he did with Hermione. The conversation went back and forth, with more time taken on magic and Celestine’s life than Harry had learned when talking about Olga, and Celestine touched on the war again, mentioning the Aberrants in particular. She didn’t mention Olga or the Dark elves, just mentioning that the Aberrants were not the only enemy of the dwarf/halfling/human/elven alliance. Harry also got to know Claudia and the other Shield Maidens through Celestine’s words.

When the dawn came, both of them were sad to see it, and Celestine would not let Harry go with the final hug. “Be well, Harry Potter. Remember to always enjoy the good times of life, no matter how dark it might seem.”

Harry nodded, hugging her back, trying to come up with some words of wisdom in turn, and no doubt making an arse of it while also trying not to put his hands on Celestine’s rear given their disparate heights despite his hands desires to gravitate in that direction. “The same to you. Don’t, don’t let your concerns about the war make you forget what you’re fighting for.”

They stayed like that until Celestine found herself back in her bed once more.

Her maid was opening the blinds to let in the light of day, and Celestine sighed and set up, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Could you please send a message to Grave and someone to find Claudia? I would like them to take breakfast with me this morning.”

Claudia was no longer the recently promoted leader of her Dawn Templar and thus free in the morning to personally guard Celestine. Three years had come and gone, and in the same time it had taken Harry to go from a boy to a young teen, so too had Claudia changed from an experienced and well-trained but not very well known commander to one of the most lauded Knights in the world, and reputedly the strongest female Knight living. So it was that Celestine had to wait for her breakfast before talking to her or Grave.

(shifted this bit) “You called for us your holiness,” Claudia and Grave said as one, although even from where she sat at her breakfast table, she could see that there was a distance between them that hadn’t been there a few years back when Grave had retired and promoted Claudia in his place. They were as always polite to one another, but there was a certain anger in the air. A certain resigned anger and despair coming from Grave, and anger and sadness on Claudia’s side.

And Celestine knew the cause of it. Klaus Levantine was Grave’s son, but unlike the rest of his family going back as far as anyone could remember, Klaus had no talent whatsoever for combat. Instead, he was a bit of a bookworm, with a weak disposition and body, one that made him look far older than his years. Indeed, looking at him, Klaus looked as old as his father, and certainly older than his wife, who was still only in her late twenties.

Yet Klaus was a perfectly good clerk and researcher. Indeed, Celestine employed him in that fashion. Klaus had become her agent in the world of numbers and bookkeeping. Several times when Celestine had pointed Klaus at this or that Lord, he had found corruption, and more than once it had been Klaus, not Grave or Celestine’s agents who had discovered evidence that allowed them to find slavers.

Three years since I began that investigation and slavery is still a problem, still hidden underneath the surface, Celestine thought, shaking her head internally. Indeed, most months it seems only to have driven the practice deeper underground!

But all that was beside the point to Grave. All he saw was that Klaus was no Knight and could not take up the mantle that his family had done for four generations. Indeed, to see his only son like this was a horrible stain on his personal honor. That was why he had adopted Claudia and had then instigated a marriage between Klaus and Claudia several years ago: so that hopefully their offspring would be strong enough to carry on the family name.

Yet in another bitter blow to Grave’s pride, no offspring had come from their union, and never would. The problem wasn’t with Claudia, and Celestine often wondered if perhaps it would’ve been better if it had been, some wound she had taken, or some family ailment on Claudia’s side. But no, along with his weak body, Klaus was unable to father offspring. He could perform the deed, but his seed was impotent.

Smiling at them both, Celestine gestured them to sit, then politely asked if either of them would like something to eat. When both had shaken their heads, she moved on to the business of why they were here, knowing both preferred to spend as little time as possible on niceties, preferring to get down to business.

“First, I want to talk to you about the possibility of enlarging the Dawn Templars, Claudia. Perhaps as much as twice over, while adding a magical company to it.”

“You mean an integrated arm of the Order, my lady?” Claudia asked, somewhat surprised. “We already have access to mages.”

“Yes, but those mages answer to their own schools and occasionally their Lords or are free mercenaries. Not you personally. Thus they are not held to the high standards that Grave and yourself have instilled in the Dawn Templars.”

Both of them nodded in acknowledgment of her words, while Grave looked intrigued at the idea, and Claudia did the same. But she was also frowning at Celestine. “May I ask what brought this on, milady?”

“That ties into why I want you here for, Lord Levantine. You see, I have had a vision. Two of them in point of fact. Both of them surrounding a young man. He called himself Harry Potter, and yet, looking at him, I could tell that was not his real name. Not the name of his soul.”

Both her listeners cocked her head, then nodded, as they recalled that elves had two names. One was a soul name, the name they used when they performed magic or when they were with family, a name that was tied to their very souls. Then they had a second name they used in public. There was a lot of history behind the two names being different that they, as humans didn’t know. Humans normally had only one name, obviously, but if Celestine saw Harry had a second name, then it was possible he had been given a different name at birth, only being given the Harry moniker later.

Or at least, that was what they assumed. Really, not even Celestine was certain as to what Harry having a soul name meant. She was certain he wasn’t Elvish though, which made it even more unusual.

Waving one hand, Celestine set that topic to one side. “But let me describe this latest vision before we get to Harry Potter and his mystery. Then you’ll understand my worries.”

Harry just Celestine described the latest vision from beginning to end, when the orcs attacked her, when the mongrels who had been fighting them turned on her. “It was as if their very nature had changed, becoming something horrible.”

Claudia and Grave both frowned, looking at one another. “Do you think these dogs represent the lords of a specific realm, or some kind of mercenary band? Or one of the Seven Kingdoms turning against you? All could be termed a proper interpretation of your vision, milady.”

“Perhaps, one, perhaps more. I, I think we should perhaps try to cut back on our reliance on mercenaries and also push to have our Knightly Orders become stronger over time. Hence my hopes concerning the Dawn Templars. I want to bring in mages and put them under military authority, and perhaps add other military arms as well over time.”

While Grave scowled at that now, the mention of mages reminding him about his son and his issues, Claudia frowned pensively, tapping her finger on the table in front of her. “I will see it done your Majesty. It won’t happen overnight, and I won’t promise miracles. But I think it can be done.”

“I am not asking for a miracle Claudia, simply progress,” Celestine answered with a smile and then turned to Lord Grave. “I would like you to be involved in the vetting process for new members, and to take up a position as the chief instructor at the training facility here in Ken. I realize now that I was not using your abilities to their fullest when I tried to make you my slave chaser. And yet, my reasoning for that comes back to Harry Potter, and the connection I feel he might have to you.”

Grave frowned confused. “While I quite enjoyed your tale of him saving your life in your vision, lady Celestine, I have to admit to some confusion. Why do you think he is connected to me?”

“You had a brother I recall, seven years your senior he was,” Celestine said softly. “A fine young knight named Evans…”

“Evansworth,” Grave said, suddenly becoming even sterner and more masklike than normal. “Yes. I remember him well, all these decades since. He was the family’s original heir, but we were both trained equally, and were close despite that, as is all too rarely the case. But why…”

“Harry Potter is the son of James Potter, and Lily Evans,” Celestine interrupted gently. “And also, I recall that your brother had emerald eyes, did he not? And that he disappeared due to a magical mishap? A teleportation spell gone wrong, transporting both himself and his magician friend elsewhere. Hence your disdain for the art.”

Grave slowly nodded and Celestine smiled seeing a small light entering his eyes, a light of hope perhaps. “You think that this Harry Potter is, is related to me by way of my brother?”

“I can sense something of the Levantine line’s willpower within him and his eyes, they are the same gorgeous emerald I remember your brother having, a gift of your mother, I believe,” Celestine said with a nod. Celestine had met both Levantine brothers decades past, as both had been brought to her court by their father, who was the commander of the Dawn Templars at the time, a position the Levantine line had held for more than five generations before Grave had been forced to adopt Claudia in order to keep the tradition going.

However, Grave shook his head, some of his delight at the idea visibly leaving his face. “And yet you say he is a magic user.”

“He used a sword as well,” Celestine chuckled. “And, I have yet to tell you how he last used that sword. That tale makes his and my adventure in our joint dream seem quite bland in comparison.”

Sharing the story about Harry’s battle with the basilisk, which she had forced Harry to tell to her in as much detail as he could, took the rest of Celestines meal, by the end of which Grave and Claudia were both in shock. A boy of thirteen, besting a basilisk? Such creatures took whole companies of knights and mages to deal with, and he killed it himself? Oh, he had help which removed the creature’s eyes, removing one of it’s deadliest weapons, and he fought it in an enclosed space, but still. Given any age to the beast, a basilisk’s scales was proof against nearly all spells, and so tough even a ballista bolt would bounce.

But to dare the snake, to take it’s bite in order to deliver your own? That was courage that any Knight would envy.

“There is potential there,” Grave answered, trying hard not to feel hope, knowing that if it was dashed, he would probably break. Then he scowled, shaking his head as the main issue occurred to him. “But what does all this matter? He is in that world, we are here. While I might be related to the boy, that doesn’t matter unless he is here to continue the line as my own son cannot!”

Claudia shifted angrily in her chair, but even she could not deny that Klaus couldn’t continue the Levantine Family’s legacy. She didn’t care, she loved Klaus despite that lack. After all, there was no end of desire in their marriage, even if she had to be kind of careful occasionally in her passions. But Grave was still right. The Levantine line, a family whose lineage stretched back to the first human nations, would die out with him if this boy… Her eyes widened. “You’re thinking of trying to bring him here, aren’t you?”

Celestine smiled and let loose a laugh. “I think that is part of this last vision of mine. I think, that come what may, Harry Potter is important to our world, and somehow, needs to be brought here, if not for his own safety, than because we, for whatever reason, need him here, above and beyond continuing the Levantine Family. As such, I’m going to start researching that, and I will put both Lulu and Kagura on it. Between the three of us, I am certain that something can be contrived. It won’t happen overnight,” she teased Claudia using the same term she had done a moment ago, “but I think we can do it.”

OOOOOOO

Before he could even open his mind his eyes, Harry knew what he would say. The Forest. Or rather, he would see the forest if he wasn’t lying face down in the loam. Yet Harry could feel it all around him, a kind of welcoming silence. Even now Harry didn’t quite have the words for it, but he knew this forest welcomed him, like it was home. More home than even Hogwarts, let alone the Dursleys place. Even during the fight with the orcs and dogs it had felt like that, although in that case it felt like he was being forced to remove someone out of his home.

Although being there definitely did not help with the pain in his head. “OWWWWWwwww….” He groaned.

How long Holding groaned to himself, holding a head that was practically erupting with pain, Harry didn’t know. But soon, a voice broke into his agony and a dainty foot flipped Harry’s unresponsive body over. “If you have come here to die human, could you at least do it quietly?”

Harry looked up, already knowing what he would see, but still feeling some shock at the view. I don’t know where Eostia is, but Merlin do they make them beautiful there!

From Harry’s current position, he could stare straight up at Olga’s long cocoa-colored legs, which today were not wearing long boots as previously. Instead, she wore slippers. The rest of her outfit too had changed, a kind of thick silk thing covering her chest and above more, but at the bottom, only a very thin pair of panties covered her modesty, allowing a strange mark on her stomach to be seen, a mark which hadn’t been there before.

Taking all of that in, Harry then looked past her legs, the odd mark, and her bust, which, despite being more constrained at the moment, was still quite large, to the face above. Then with as deadpan an expression as he could do in the present circumstances, Harry intoned “Oww,” again.

Olga scowled and she raised a hand to create an attack a spell, but then her golden eyes widened in recognition. “Harry Potter, correct? We met here once before two years ago. So it was not some strange fluke or trick of my mind. I had wondered.”

With that she knelt down, some of her animosity gone as she laid a hand on his forehead.

Oh, that feels nice. Her hand’s so softHarry thought, humming in delight as her touch took the pain away, although his body was still too exhausted to move.

“You have what is called magic exhaustion, to a far greater degree than I’ve ever seen in a human.” Olga frowned thoughtfully, the mystery of the boy’s presence once more disarming much of her normal anger.“Did you run into your Dark Lord again? And how long has it been in your world since we last saw one another?”

“Around two years I think,” Harry said, then smiled. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Olga’s lips twitched involuntarily at that. There was something very endearing about this young human boy, especially given how much his simple suggestions and just talking to him had helped Olga two years past from making what she now recognized as a tremendous mistake. He may be a human, but Harry Potter has certainly never hurt me or mine. I can set aside my hatred for his race in this realm, at least when it comes to him. And it isn’t as if I have discovered why the gods brought us together like this. Once was enough to help me, and through me my people two years ago. A second meeting like this, the reasons for it elude me at present, but there must be one.

Having rationalized her urge to be kind to Harry away enough for now, Olga looked down at Harry’s body, tapping his chest, as and nodded in something approaching approval before pulling Harry’s head into her lap, leaning her back against a tree. “I see you have taken my advice and gotten some training. You have some muscle on you now, Harry Potter.”

“I found a martial arts trainer who was willing to take me on,” Harry nodded. “I can’t go as often as I would like, but he gave me exercises to do every day, so I think I’m getting into pretty good shape.”

“Martial arts? An interesting turn of phrase, that.” She gently smacked his stomach, noting the muscles there with some approval. Young Harry looked to become quite the comely looking specimen for his race, not as soft and childish as a child his age would be of her own people. “Well, at least you don’t look entirely like a human-shaped goblin any longer. But tell me how you became so exhausted.”

Harry frowned, reaching up with one hand to gently touch the rune on his forehead. A rune that Olga decided she wanted to study in more depth before this dream/sending ended. If I can copy that and then somehow recreate the rest of the ritual it is a part of…

“I don’t know. It was really strange. I was on the Hogwarts Express, that’s a um, call it a mechanical construct that carries a lot of people from a gathering place to the magical school I’m a student at, when it was stopped. These weird shadow things invaded, and I used to spell I learned from Celestine….”

Olga reared back at that, nearly smacking her head against the tree behind her. “Celestine! You learned a spell from her!?”

“Actually, I met her before I met you,” Harry answered, somewhat surprised at her reaction, and wondering where it had come from. Still, neither woman had told him that their races were at war, and so he saw no reason not to tell Olga about his previous meetings with Celestine now that it had come up in conversation.

The odd event with the orcs and dogs attacking her confused Olga. First the dogs were protecting her, then they turned on Celestine? Strange. Very strange indeed, as was the fact none of my own people were involved in the assault.

“But you defended her then, just like a gallant knight,” Olga teased, having come too much the same conclusion that Celestine had now: that even beyond helping her personally, Harry Potter might be important for their world as a whole. How, and why he seemed important to both her and Celestine equally, was still beyond her, but she was willing to see where this led, for now.

Yet even setting that aside, Olga was grateful that he had helped her old friend. A few centuries might have passed since their childhood together, but Olga still called Celestine, as silly and airheaded as she was, as much an enemy as she was, a friend. As for Harry, he might represent a chance at something, perhaps, perhaps peace between our peoples?

Olga would have scoffed at the very notion if not for the help Harry had given her by helping her figure out a solution to her Aberrant conundrum and the sheer amount of time in the dream realm having made them something she could almost call friends the last time they had met. Being able to set aside her duties and concerns for what felt like a month the last time she had met Harry had been a delight, and one that Olga, fight it though she might, was looking forward to feeling again.

But despite her inner woman looking forward to a bit of downtime, the help he had given her in working out a new solution to the orcish problem mattered more. While Olga’s people didn’t inhabit as large a territory as they had and had lost a city, their defensive position was actually much stronger. Now for every raid that occurred into her lands, hundreds of orcs or humans died. Her own offensive operations were smaller, but Olga could live with that.

Harry blushed, looking up at her with a small, somewhat wry smile. “I don’t know about a Knight, but I certainly tried my best.”

A teasing smile still on her face, Olga ruffled Harry’s hair gently. “And would you do the same for me, Harry?”

“Yes,” Harry said instantly.

Seeing the faint blush on his face Olga smiled, winding her fingers through his hair but set aside any teasing for now. There would be time enough for that later. “That’s nice to hear. Although, your use of light magic annoys me. Surely fire or explosion magic would’ve worked just as well.”

“Well, where I come from, books always say that you have to combat shadow creatures with holy or light magic.” Harry tried to shrug but gave it up as a lost cause. His body just wasn’t moving. However long he stayed here, it was clear his body wasn’t going to get anything out of it. I wonder why, though. I mean, when I met Celestine, I had collapsed from physical exhaustion and the whole basilisk poison and phoenix tears fighting it out in my body thing. But my body here was unaffected. Now that my body’s fine I’m just magically… oh, of course. This whole thing is a magical sending. Should have realized that I guess. As er, real as things are, there’s still not going to be a full carryover I guess..

“Besides, it was the largest spell I knew that I could use without harming the area around me,” Harry said aloud, setting aside that realization for later.

“If they had a physical form, they were not simple shades and thus you could destroy that body,” Olga announced coldly, although Harry wasn’t certain if it was real or no, given the twitching he could see on her lips. “If you are going to do Celestine the pleasure of using her magic, then I demand similar treatment. You can tell me more about the magic of your world in turn.”

She smirked then, putting a coquettish pout on her face that had Harry stammering and blushing even as he couldn’t turn away. “And maybe I will even forgive you for forgetting to try and bring a broomstick here so that we can go flying.”

The night passed slowly in this manner, with Harry and Olga talking shop for what once more felt like weeks, uninterrupted by body issues of any kind. Olga learned several dozen new spells, both commonplace and combat based. Most of the commonplace ones Olga could already do. Levitation and summoning spells were just specialized Telekinetic-based spells after all.

But some of the others Harry had learned from the Hogwarts library were interesting, and not all of them were direct combat based. Indeed, a few of the ones that she was most interested in, such as the Bubblehead charm, didn’t seem to have any direct combat application. Olga had plans for them, which she detailed as she and Harry talked.

Eventually, the night ended, and as she saw the edge of their vision slowly coming apart and becoming like so much cloud, Olga sighed, staring down at where Harry’s head still lay in her lap. “It has been an interesting night Harry Potter, yet it is coming to an end. But I think I wish to give you something to remember me by…”

With that, as Harry’s eyes widened in shock, Olga leaned down and gave him a kiss on the lips. It was lingering, that kiss, firm, almost demanding, even if both of their mouths stayed close, and after a second Harry’s began to kiss back, making Olga smile. You might have met him first, Celestine, but I will have my own influence on this boy!

The kiss kept on, until with a start, Harry woke up, the dream ending in an instant as he found himself in a bed in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. The first thing that caught his bleary eyes was a plaque on the wall above his head with his name on it. “She really did it,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Really?”

“I told you I would put your name up there if you keep coming to see me, Mr. Potter. I like to be prepared like that,” a tart voice said from one side, and Madam Pomphrey moved into his line of vision. “Now take this and go back to sleep. You need your rest.”

That time, Harry had no dreams. He had no dreams over the next few weeks, as he got to know his new classes, Runes and Arithmancy. Arithmancy quickly proved pointless in his mind. He didn’t use it to or indeed anything else to create most of his own personal spells and didn’t really see the point to doing so. His new friend Luna explained this as Harry being a mage as well as wizard, which she and Hermione had a long discussion about. It wasn’t an argument, but it could’ve been called the debate, one Luna eventually won, with Hermione actually conceding the point.

Whereas other wizards needed wands or other foci and spells to control and shape their magic, Harry was unique in how he could connect to his magical core. It was a far more primal connection for him, which allowed Harry to use magic far more easily than most wizards. Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick, Grindlewald and a few others throughout history had the same connection.

The downside however was that whereas a normal wizard would become magically exhausted and then be fine in a few hours rest Harry could literally kill himself if he pushed himself too hard. And he would never have the fine control that wizards could develop. As an example, Harry could use Wingardium Leviosa to lift a ton of rock or send a feather hard enough into the ceiling to have it stick in the wood there. Hermione could sent the feather through a room of moving objects and small tunnels and never have it touch them or the ground.

Despite that point, it was good news for Harry. It meant that he could use the spells that Olga had taught him just like he had the ones from Celestine. During those few weeks Harry could see that Hermione was coming to a boil, questions popping up at the back of her eyes, questions about what he’d done on the Express when the Dementors appeared.

Apparently, Harry had done something that most thought was impossible: He had killed Dementors. Harry’s confusion on that point was the only reason why Hermione had not questioned him about where he came up the with the spell he’d used the moment he woke up. His lame excuse of “I saw it in a role-playing game,”

But the fact that he didn’t know what it did, had convinced her that perhaps he had been telling. It certainly sounded better than I learned it from an Elven woman I met in my dreams, and she’s the most gorgeous thing I could almost ever dream of, Harry reflected, staring out towards the rain-soaked Forbidden Forest.

“Hey, Potter, don’t space out on me.”

A light slap to his back brought Harry back to the here and now, and he twisted around to glare at Oliver. “What? Come on Oliver, you know there’s no point to this, Surely they’re calling the match even now.”

“Surely they are not!” The older student shot back, sounding horrified at the very idea. “Quidditch matches have happened in all kinds of weather weather, this is nothing in comparison to some of the historical matches!”

Harry stared at him, then slowly shook his head. “You know, Hermione keeps on trying to convince me that wizards are insane. That statement makes me think she’s right.”

“It’s Quidditch!” Oliver what shot back as if that was enough of an answer, and Harry rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s get a move on.”

Five minutes later, and Harry was really, really wishing that he was back inside, or that he knew a spell that would keep off the rain which wouldn’t continually drain his magic to do it. It was rainy, it was cold, visibility was practically. In other words, it was a typical Scottish autumn day, with the added benefit of it pushing evening and the horror of being in the air on a broomstick. Thank god for Warming charms!

He barely noticed when one of the Hufflepuff players went down injured, or when time was called and the two captains called in their teams. Leaning on his broom in front of the rest of the team in a tight circle around him, Oliver began, “All right, I know that this weathers bad, but we’re doing what we can and…”

“Oliver, I can barely feel my hands, and my arse feels like I’m going to slip off this bloody broom any second now. So don’t think me and the girls are going to be able to perform anything major out there,” Angelina barked back.

She was quietly furious with her captain, who took a very slight step back at the angry lioness. It was a general rule of thumb in the house of Gryffindor that the twins and Angelina were the three people that you did not want to cross. The fact that all three were thick as thieves and had the backing of the rest of the Quidditch team, including Oliver if he knew what was good for them, was merely icing on the cake.

“Find the snitch Potter,” Oliver said instead of replying going for a soft target in the still-tired looking younger wizard. “That’s the fastest way to end this.”

“Tell me something I don’t know Oliver, maybe, like oh I don’t know, how to see more than twelve paces away from where I’m flying!?” Harry barked back.

“I think I can help with that,” Hermione announced. How she got there, none of the others could tell, but suddenly, she was within the circle of players and tapping her wand against Harry’s glasses, her brows furrowed as she added yet another layer of magic to a few spells the two of them had already placed on the glasses. “We might have to replace these Harry, I’m afraid the physical structure isn’t going to be able to contain all that magic for long.”

Harry blinked, then blinked again as he saw Hermione and the rest of the team almost as if it was a clear day out, then sent his friend a beaming grin. “If they can last me for the rest of the game Hermione, I’ll buy another pair. And those books on enchanting you looked at when we were in Diagon Alley.”

She smiled at that, then wished him good luck, before disappearing between two of the girls, and Harry realized she had used his cloak to get close, and then the bodies of his fellow Quidditch players to remain invisible to the opposing team. Clever girl.

Soon, all of them were up in the air again, and not thirty minutes later, Harry saw the snitch. He bolted for it, but suddenly screams erupted from the crowd. Dark figures were moving across the school grounds in the distance, coming towards the Quidditch pitch. Creatures of darkness, with hoods who didn’t walk instead flying forward.

The Dementors from the train! Several of them were even below Harry now, reaching up with clawed hands. Already, Harry could feel his worst memories rising, draining his happiness and willpower away. But with the sight of the creatures came a fierce determination and an anger. Thrusting out his free hand, Harry brought to mind one of the spells that Olga had taught him.

“Chain fire!” He howled, and from his hand a thin beam of fire almost as bright as the sun shot out. It crashed into one of the Dementors below, and then jumped to another, even as its first victim began to scream and’s sizzle disappearing into nothing but greasy ash. The spell connected to another Dementor, then another, then another, until the survivors were fleeing, and Harry was roaring, grabbing at the snitch, even as the magic continued to leave him until he ended the spell, crashing to the ground, awake, but drained.

After the party Hermione again cornered him. “It was another RPG spell Hermione,” Harry said, even as he began to draw letters on his chest, the words ‘not here’ forming there. Seeing that Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and she looked around, then nodded slowly, as she saw the inquisitive faces of the rest of the crowd.

“Fine, I guess you’ve done it before,” Hermione muttered, shaking her head.

“What’s an RPG?” Fred/George asked.

As Hermione began to explain, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He knew he would have to tell Hermione everything eventually, but not right now.

OOOOOOO

When next Harry magically exhausted himself, it was to have held back the entire horde of Dementors. And he wasn’t nearly as happy as he could have been to see Olga standing above him. “And what did you do this time?” she asked in some amusement, pulling Harry’s head into her lap once more.

“Kind of the same problem as the last time,” Harry muttered, shaking his head. “Only a lot more Dementors this time, I found out their names since the last time.” Then he smiled grimly. “There won’t be so many more after what I’ve done with them though. I used one of your spells this time, and the time before that too.”

“Good,” Olga purred, the sound sending a very pleasant shiver down Harry’s spine and he found his eyes locking on Olga’s lips, remembering the kiss. “Very good indeed. “It’s always nice to crush one’s enemies, to break them in such a way that they can never harm you again. It’s a feeling I wish I could get used to rather than dream of.”

Harry slowly nodded, but didn’t ask any questions, somehow sensing that Olga wouldn’t answer him. He blinked then, staring at the mark on her body, which was once more visible thanks to the outfit she was wearing, the same as last time instead of in gold rather than purple. She had explained that the mark was a spell that should prevent anyone from attempting to molest her.

At the time he had almost quipped that maybe if she didn’t want so much attention from guys, Olga should dress more appropriately. But he hadn’t. That would have spoiled his view for one thing. Harry was chivalrous, he wasn’t stupid. For another, it had seemed to be in very bad taste.  After all, Harry came here in what he was wearing, so he had to assume Olga and Celestine were brought to this realm in whatever they had fallen asleep in.

“Tell me all about it,” Olga ordered.

When Harry was done explained the battle by the lake and all of its background, Ola scowled, and Harry knew she had some advice for him. Or rather command really. With Olga there was no line between those two things.

“Hmmf. It seems as if you fought well enough when it came to the battle. But as for this fool you call a minister… We talked about your fame and its double-edged nature when we first met, Harry Potter. Now we will talk about using it to your own advantage, as well as a most grey type of magic. It’s called politics. Unfortunately, if you use it once, you might have to continue using it, so we will need to talk about that too.”

Harry cringed and despite the lap pillow and the view felt like he wanted to escape at the cold look in Olga’s eyes. “Mercy? I, I promise to try and bring my broomstick here next time.”

“No,” the Queen of dark elves intoned coldly even as her lips twitched again. “Although I might be persuaded otherwise if you can figure out a way to bring your broomstick here as I explain how to use public opinion to your advantage…”

OOOOOOO

Again their time end with a kiss, a slightly longer one after Harry had indeed been able to conjure his broomstick into being in the dream realm, and Olga had gone flying on it while Harry, still dealing with magical exhaustion, lay there like a lump. Her delighted laughter was still ringing her his ears as the dream started to end, and Olga returned to initiate the kiss once more. Nor had he been a passive participant this time…

As he sat in the House of Black’s personal library weeks later, Harry stared at the far wall, shaking off that memory as he realized with something approaching despair that he had developed crushes on two women who probably existed only in another world, and who were also by the very distant definition, older, more experienced and out of reach of a human like him. And yet, Olga at least is interested. I can’t imagine a woman like her kissing me like that for any other reason.

But that only fueled his crush, and his despair. Will I ever see them in the real world?

His thoughts were interrupted by Sirius’s voice coming from the doorway of the library. “Hermione is here, Pup.”

Harry looked up at the older man, smirking at him. The man, man child really, he didn’t seem to have grown up at all since being put into prison, was now painted white, yellow, pink and purple. Heh, that should teach him to prank my bed and not barge in in the morning. God, that whole ‘The Talk’ bunk was horrible. And why, after only a few days living with him, do I think I’m going to be spending more time taking care of him than vice versa?

“Are you going to tell me how you did this?” Sirius demanded pointing at himself. “I could swear I didn’t eat anything, drink anything, I checked my bed, I know I don’t sleep soundly enough for you to have cast this on me.”

Harry smiled cheekily. “I am learning runes you know. And you have to actually walk along the floor like the rest of us.” Harry hoped that would convince Sirius it had been runes that he had used to color him in like that. It had actually been a prank spell he’d learned from Celestine the last time he had seen her.

A second later Hermione burst into the library. She stared at all the books, and Harry could almost see her rubbing her legs together for some reason at the sight of them. Then she concentrated on Harry once more, before looking at Sirius before back at Harry one eyebrow rising. The fact she didn’t even blink at Sirius’s colors was hilarious to Harry.
“Thanks Sirius, Hermione and I have some studying to do, so unless your volunteering to help with our nonmagical style math homework…”

Sirius shook his head mockingly. “Not subtle at all pup. If you two are going to spend time snogging up here, just say so. It’s not like I would ever tell you no. I’ll leave that to a responsible person like Moony.”

Watching as Harry’s smile failed faded instantly, Sirius beat a hasty retreat, and Hermione shook her head, sitting down alongside Harry to give him a hug, and then twisting around in place on the sofa, crossing her arms and glaring at him. She wasn’t going to question him again about why he had turned so cold towards Remus Lupin, the best defense against the dark arts teacher they’d had, considering how much she and her Harry learned outside of class that wasn’t saying much.

Nor was she going to bring up their old argument about authority figures. Harry had won that argument, much like she had won her argument about at least being polite and not responding to Malfoy’s instigations. No, she was here for bigger game, and by Harry’s small smile he knew it. “Talk.”

Harry leaned back in the sofa, staring at her, then holding up his hand intoning, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

Hermione snorted but nodded her head. Whatever Harry was going to say, was going to sound unbelievable, but he and Luna had begun using that oath when they were being serious instead of simply being themselves. And Harry, despite being far more somber than Luna most of the time, did have a whimsical side to him.

Seeing his friend nod, Harry began quickly. “Hogwarts wasn’t the first time I had magical instruction. I was eight, maybe nine at the time I think, when I first learned that I was a magical from a dream. That first dream’s the one I have the least memory of, unfortunately. You see, Vernon, you heard me talk about him before. He was particularly angry with me one time and…”

What followed was a fantastical tale as Harry explained his meetings with Celestine and Olga, how they occurred scattered throughout his life when Harry had been at his weakest or most injured. How those nights, with their time-enhanced, had proven so beneficial.

He never mentioned what they looked like or their clothing beyond simply saying they were elves and that the color of Olga’s skin was like Angelina’s and that Celestine’s hair was as blond as Luna’s. That brief description was nowhere close to the reality, but Harry knew that if he waxed on their looks as a part of him wanted to, he wouldn’t stop.

I’m certainly not going to bring up my other two crushes to the one possible crush that I might actually eventually be able to do something about. Once I, you know figure out how without wrecking our friendship, anyway. Kissing Olga was easy both times because she started things. Hugging Celestine was easy for the same reason and because she didn’t seem to think it meant much more than comfort, darn it. But how the heck am I supposed to initiate things with Hermione?

Hermione listened intently throughout, only asking a few questions about the various spells he learned, and what Olga told harry about the rune on his forehead when Harry accidentally mentioned it. When he finished, Hermione seemed to think abut things for a moment, then nodded. “I believe you. Which means we know what we’re researching first this summer, don’t we?”

Now it was his turn to nod. “The Evans family and ancestry.”

OOOOOOO

Celestine smiled as she woke up, shaking her head with a small giggle. “Tell me Claudia, is Grave free this morning? I saw my young friend again, and he had some information to pass on about his grandfather I think was most fascinating.”

“So you were correct, Your Holiness? Harry’s family has ties to our world? Whatever was Evansworth’s friend researching to mess up so badly?” Claudia asked, rolling her eyes as she looked at her lady, who had fallen asleep for an afternoon nap after using magic for most of the morning to update the map of Iris and Feoh.

“Large-scale, long-distance teleportation. My researchers found some notes about it and passed them on to Lulu. She seems to think that the wizard, his name was Delfindros, overpowered the spell by an area of magnitude, and seems to have used the term distance as one would for a summoning ritual. Still, Lulu thinks that with a bit of work she should be able to create the kind of large teleportation platform Delfindros was trying for,” Celestine answered.

Then her smile widened. “But yes, Harry has found several interesting things about his grandfather on his nonmagical side. For one, he wasn’t a native English speaker, instead speaking an ‘obscure unknown dialect’ before he learned English. He trained as a soldier in their realm and was known to have a ‘natural flare for leadership and close-combat skills, being deadly with a dagger and a bayonet’, which I understand is some kind of spear.”

Celestine paused, then smiled wildly. “He even found a picture, and was able to pull out a memory of it to show it to me. Beyond his emerald eyes and full head of red hair, Evansworth could have been a near-perfect copy of Grave.”

“That is excellent news, milady. Although what happened to Harry that brought him to you again? The last time it was a giant basilisk, so I am almost afraid to ask what it was this time,” Claudia questioned drolly.

“Fighting for his life against a band of wizards who apparently interrupted some kind of public sporting event. He took them in close combat and even punched one so hard he fell unconscious,” Celestine giggled. “I definitely can see a bit of the Levantine family in him there. And with the knowledge he is indeed the son of the Levantine family, I think we are but a few more steps away from being Harry, and I still don’t think that’s his real name, home to Eostia...”

Still going to cut things off here LOL.

Things this fanfiction will contain:

1. Waking World:So the first thing I would do in this fanfiction would be to create or enlarge segments between dreams to show Harry interacting with the regular HP canon world. I can show how different this Harry Potter is in comparison to the normal one and put in a lot more of his own interactions with the rest of the canon characters.

a. Points of interest would include:

i. Harry and Hermione meeting on the express. And it won’t be smooth sailing, oh no… Oh, and Malfoy too I suppose. Although he won’t appear much otherwise.

ii. Sorting. The conversation between Hat and Harry doesn’t go as it did in canon.

iii. A slice of Snape. One, maybe a few small blurbs as to how Harry and Snape interact. See below in the Levantine section for more info.

iv. A Dash of Luna. First meetings and friendships.

v. Basilisk slaying. This would be quite epic.

vi. Harry/Lucius confrontation in second year. Again, very different. With added Dobby.

vii. First meeting with the Dementors on the train. No Remus this time – it made little sense for a teacher to be on the train in canon, so not going to happen here.

viii. First runes lesson – this would be added to the new blurb above with the first meeting with the Dementors.

ix. Fourth year stuff and nonsense. Beyond the Quidditch game, which would be a blurb, there would be a few more, as I think this is the year that I would choose to have Harry and Hermione leave their world behind for Eostia.

b. Harmony! - Harry/Hermione.  I would truly like to write a story where they get together. Not exclusively, that I think would be a bit much, but Hermione can truly be a fun character if her bossiness and desire to please authority figures can be curtailed.

c. Doing what with the Dumbles? I would use the Manipulative Dumbledore trope, but how competent he is in it is the question. I think I would make him more proactive, but not necessarily placing all his efforts on controlling Harry, rather controlling the information he has access to, and the rest of the WW. Harry is but a passing fad to him, just like Riddle, and even the whole prophecy is but a minor mystery given the Horcrux is now gone.

d. Yes, that bit of Darkness in the rune that Celestine noticed in the second meeting was indeed the Horcrux. She killed it, and she didn’t even know it.

e. Keeping them small. I don’t want to spend more than a few chapters in the HP canon world. Say 2-3000 words foremost interactions. I would want to keep the pre-Eostia chapters to either two small chapters, or one large one.

2. Dreams, They Be Real. Celestine is supposed to have the power of precognition if only occasionally, and very poorly. Here, whilst it won’t be technically precognition, it will still be the same kind of magical school. Far scrying, long-distance telepathy, long range topography. She will have delved more into that kind of ability, which will have an impact on events and the world around her.

a. Olga to will also have some of the same powers, although she won’t be nearly as good at it. I hope I’ve already shown how different the two magical schools they follow are. Celestine, defense and mental, Olga, offense, runes, more technical kind of stuff.

b. Out of body experience. Harry will, eventually consciously, send his spirit out into the world to find specific people, or, perhaps eventually, to view specific events occurring in the rest of the world, so long as he knows the area or the individual well enough. He can even bring things with him, as shown in the changes above.

3. Gods Above. In the black dog so-called storyline (again, folks, the original is the worst kind of ‘fuck ‘em till they like it’ rape fest) the only deity still around for a given value was the goddess that had inhabited or given her powers to Celestine. In this fanfic, there are still God’s existing, good, evil and Lustful. And they all have different plans for the world. And little Harry is the pawn of the good guys. This will, obviously, put him in direct opposition to the others.

a. Sometimes his dreams will turn against him as the enemy gods reach out to try and influence Harry. This can mean a lot of different things, from being back in the Dursleys, to finding himself in Riddle’s place as a Dark Lord with the world bowing before him, to dominating the women around him like some lust fiend.

b. Olga will have been influenced by one hidden Dark God under Garan to go to war with the humans and the Elves, in direct contrast to the goddess reborn in Celestine. However, due to moving her capital away from Garan castle, that influence will have lessened, and that hidden Dark God will be looking for other creatures.

c. lust can be a weapon too. The other evil out there will be a goddess (not succubus) of lust. I saw a youtube vid which basically said that most that the gods of the Warhammer universe were all about excess in their chosen domains. She will be cut in the same kind of mold. Lust is the thing, the more the better. And Vult, will, having been the original Dark God’s plaything, switch to her side eventually when he begins his overthrow of the Seven Shield maidens.

d. Subtle influence.  Evil and Lust  don’t always have to be overt. Indeed, they can be deadlier being covert. Information can also be power, and in this fic, the god of Lust will have a major leg up on gathering information, even if He/She (think Slaanesh only less stabby/insane) won’t have as much overt power and fewer knowing tools. Worse, he/she will be able to piggyback almost on the Dark Gods creations/tools.

e. The world isn’t flat. Eventually other evils may present themselves. The Aberrants and Vult will not be the only enemies Harry and his allies will need to deal with. Others will come from beyond the sea (I like playing with the idea of the great foreign enemy LOL), empires and races who have fallen under the sway of the Evil or Lustful gods.

4. Eventual Exit, Stage Right. Once more being ostracized after reporting the truth about Riddle and his Happy Murder Hobos being back, Harry is more than happy to go through with a plan Celestine passed on the night after he collapses once more into magical exhaustion. Convincing Hermione is easy too: new world, new magic, new books. Harry and Hermione abscond before the summer is out in a very well-planned maneuver, leaving with what amounts to a giant Fuck you to the Wizarding World.

a. happy doctors? not so much. In Canon, we are never really showed Hermione’s parents much. Most of the time in fanfiction, they’re treated pretty well. Here, I wouldn’t go that route. They wouldn’t be abusive or anything like that, but they certainly will not have embraced the magic side. And that will have caused issues between themselves and their daughter. This will be exacerbated further here by Harry, and the fact that even by magical standards, he’s pretty out there so logic and their faith mean even less.

b. Gold and More. One thing that he and Hermione will do is to take every bit of gold and family heirloom that Harry can get his hands on. But Hermione will have hit on the idea of taking some modern things with them. Whether they survive or not, is up in the air, but music, books, history and otherwise could be an interesting resource. There will be an upper weight limit, as well as an additional magical limit so as to not interfere with the transfer, but still, that could provide Harry and his allies a major strategic resource.

c. What we leave behind: What would the WW be like after Harry leaves is still very much in the air. With Voldemort alive, the Boy Who Lived gone, what will Dumbledore do? What will the WW do without someone to come along and save them? How much will a very different Harry have impacted the WW before he left? Will it be enough? Regardless, Harry’s role is done: no Horcrux, and he will have dealt with two Horcruxes by this point. The least the rest of the WW can do is deal with the rest LOL.

5. A New Faction Has Appeared. Instead of being a two-way war, by the time Harry transfers into a universe, it will have become a three-way war. The Aberrants will be their own faction, the orcs, goblins and so forth, will rule the northwest and will have struck south, while the dark elves will be their own people, holding land to the northeast and along a coast. The reasoning for this is simple:

a. A bad decision reversed. In the second game - I’ve looked at the wiki page, that’s about all the research I’m going to be doing on this - apparently, Olga sacrificed a dark elf city to the orcs in order to gain their allegiance. In this fic, as I’ve shown in the blurbs, that didn’t happen LOL. Instead, she tricks them, and uses emplaced magical ordinance, runes for the win baby, to wipe out a majority of the Orcish army.

b. Where did they come from anyway? Questions will begin to be asked as to where orcs, goblins ETC. are actually coming from. They don’t have any females of their own, so how did they evolve and where did they originate from? What magic, vile or otherwise, brought them forth?

c. Dark Elves acting the part. This will tie into the whole idea of elves actually being different from humans in the Ranma Levantine outline, rather than simply humans with long years and a taste for fetish wear. The dark elves will actually fight like dark elves: ambush, magic, subterfuge, only very, very rarely full-on combat, and if that, they still specialize in speed and striking power over strength and armor.

d. A shield starting to fracture. Without a united enemy they can suborn, the mercenaries under Vult will have to make more subterfuge-type plan. They will be starting to work at the weaknesses in the Shield Alliance, and because of Celestine’s stance on slavery, there will be a lot of them. A stance that a lot of her loyalists will be calling soft, simply because she wants to either return the Dark Elves slaves to Olga, or just free them in general.

6. You’re A Lord Harry! Harry Potter will be related to the Levantine family. There will be quite a bit of back story to this, but essentially, Harry will become the new heir to the family, and will eventually be trained in the families martial style.

a. Sword mage Harry. Harry will be trained to fight both with magic and with sword and shield, and will start to specialize in wandless magic because of this, for small-scale battles, but will be able to shift to larger scale magic in the future via staffs

b. I will actually not have Harry use the sword of Gryffindor in this fanfiction. Instead, he will use the Levantine family blade, which I will have to create on my own. A few reviews mentioned how they couldn’t picture Harry as a two-handed sword user, and they were right.

c. New body, same mind. As in the above blurb, by the time Harry hits his third year, he will be going through a major growth spurt due to training, exercise, and simply better nutrition. So he is going to be quite a bit taller and broader in the shoulders and waist then he was in the original. Third-year would be the last year he would play for the as a seeker for example, instead, taking over as keeper perhaps. It’ll be kind of a funny thing to play with! Ron’s jealousy would be a legendary thing.

d. Being noble doesn’t just mean being rich. The Levantine line, along with a few others, have special powers that travel down familial lines. For the Levantine, it is a simple one: Willpower. This ability makes Harry naturally resistant to mental magics, so much so that passive abilities cannot work on him (Suck it Snape, Dumbles and Riddle!!), and he can also ignore wounds and injuries that would make anyone else regardless of age unable to concentrate on anything beyond the pain. It can also make him stubborn, unwilling to back down, and occasionally argumentative LOL.

7. Continuing The Family Line. Of course, as a noble house, and one that has been brought so close to disappearing and saved through the plans of the gods, Harry will have a duty to continue the family line. Whether or not that is with Hermione, or one of the Shield Maidens, I can’t say. Grave will not approve of a Witch or a magic user at all. In fact, he’s enough of an asshole to actually want to dissolve Klaus’s marriage to Claudia in favor of Harry. But despite the fact that I have him growing up much more normally in terms of hormones and knowing about girls and so forth, that doesn’t immediately mean he’s going to want to break up what amounts to a happy marriage, despite the lack of kids. In turn though, that could force Grave to look elsewhere, and there are several marriageable ladies among the shield maidens, or perhaps, it would be time for a completely new original character?

a. Multiple relationships aren’t always easy. In most of my fanfiction, I tiptoe around the idea of girls being okay with sharing, making harems into true multi-relationships and stuff like that. In this fanfiction, I’m not certain I would go that route. Hermione might be willing to share, but Olga and some of the other humans? That’s up in the air.

b. Possible ladies include Alicia. Unlike in my other outlines, here, I think I would actually make her as competent as her Shield Maiden status should indicate. A second coming of lady Claudia which would mean that Grave might push that forward if the whole Claudia divorcing Klaus thing proves to be more trouble than it’s worth. I might even make her into a fangirl, especially when she learns about the whole killed the basilisk with a hat and sword thing

c. Prim is probably not possible in this fanfiction. She’s much more of a long distance mage type fighter and that’s already covered. She and Hermione however would get along famously, and Hermione would certainly push for Prim to be more outgoing.

d. Olga. This is going to happen. Indeed, as shown in the blurbs, she is the first to become affectionate with Harry. Half of her quickness in doing so will be to try and control Harry. Half will not be. Olga will genuinely come to have affection towards him through their shared dreams which will slowly turn into love.

e. Celestine. Celestine is going to be the last girl to join. In many ways, she won’t be as willing Olga to see Harry as a man, having seen him basically grow up in stages through her dreams. But with the evidence both past and present that Harry is interested in her as a woman, and as one he wants to woo rather than conquer, she will also eventually get there.

f. In direct contrast to his relationship with Olga, Harry will be the one to make the first move with Celestine. She’s his first crush, and that crush will shift into admiration, attraction and friendship, and then into love, and unlike every other man around Celestine, he’s not going to be overawed by her powers or abilities, nor is he going to be a complete freaking animal like Vult and his ilk.

g. Harry the romantic. As mentioned above with Celestine, Harry is not going to be afraid of affection’s, in fact, you will instigate a lot of it. And it will be Harry who flirts and otherwise romances the girls, instead of them making their own interest plane first.

h. Of course, where Olga goes, Cloe often follows but in this fic I don’t think I would go that route. I think her attitude would be a little too grating for Hermione or Harry to want to be around much. When Cloe realizes that it was Harry’s influence that changed Olga, that will be the decision point. Either she’ll feel thankful and mellow out, or resentful and bitter that a human was able to help her Queen when she wasn’t.

8. World Building, World Building, I Say!This should be self-explanatory. In a world that is so two-dimensional, the world building will have to be immense to frankly solve the issues the original created.

a. Magic magic and more magic! Seriously, I would literally have to create rules, spells and limitations for magic in the Kuroinu universe which actually make sense, and is not based on ‘how can this powerful woman now be raped?’ Mix and matching various magical spells from Harry Potter’s world in this world will be fun, and I believe that I would probably have to look at RPG games and suchlike for spells and concepts for the Eostian school of magic.

i. Rune carving! Eventually, there will be shown a fusion between the various magical styles, much like I’ve already done in FILFy Teacher, mixing one style of runes with another.

ii. Secrets. Harry’s lightning bolt rune on his forehead isn’t nearly as simple as it first appears and becomes even more… interesting after Celestine cleanses his mind of the horcrux. And no, the scar isn’t connected to the horcrux, but it is involved in keeping a fully adult wizard’s brain/soul shard from conquering a young boy.

iii. Elemental. Somewhat like the Onmyouji, but without the whole controlling the fire after the spell is cast thing. And more wind and water and lightning than fire and steel.

iv. Magic is magic only not really. Magic will not obey the same rules in Eostia as they do on Earth. Some spells will work waaaay better, some worse. Hermione will be pulling her hair out about it, but there will be a method to the magic.

b. Clothing and armor. Oh my God, the clothing armor. I’m not going to try and explain it away, I’m just going to remake it better and close to normal. The exceptions will be the elves, who, despite being practically sex on wheels to humans, will not have any body modesty to speak up. They just don’t have much in the way of libido themselves, and so have no idea what they are doing to humans, since no one has actually figured out a way to tell them…

c. Connected to that, elves themselves will not be a very monogamous culture. Instead of being culturally like the Tolkien Elves, they will have more in common with Elfquest elves. Meaning, that while some of them will have a near permanent psychic connection to their loved ones, for the most part, they do not equate physical love with emotional connections. They won’t have as large a libido as humans do and won’t engage in sex as often. However, their libido can still be awakened to a certain degree, if not as broken and mindless and vapid due to pleasure as was in the original.

d. As I’ve mentioned dark elves before, I’ll mention the High elves here: archers, druids, BIG on magic, somewhat aloof but overall they loathe war and anyone who would resort to it. They like humans and the other races but are careful to keep a few hidden glades away from their influence, bending with the younger races need to expand instead of being a wall as the Dark Elves wish to be. Most High Elves specialize in illusion and mind-altering magic.

e. Battles, battles and more battles. There will be battles large and small, political issues that have to be addressed, although not many of those, as it will basically amounts to reminding Celestine that ‘you know what, you do have absolute power remember’ to get over many of those. The main threats will be noble uprisings or abuses in response to the political issues, discovering spies, and foreign invading armies. That and…

f. Give Peace a chance. Harry and Hermione will push for peace between Olga’s Night Elves, and the Seven Shields Alliance. Not the Abberrants because that would be impossible, but they will try to bring Celestine and Olga to the diplomatic table. This will cause friction, tensions, shouting, and issues, but it will be done.

And once more done. I hope you all liked these changes, and now it’s off to Semblance of Hope.