Languages: English, Na'vi
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
2nd Genre: Romance
Character A: Harry J. Potter
Character B: Tsu'tey
Summary: When they went to sleep, they hoped of a better future. But with Gaia insane and Magic as dead as his friends, Harry has no reason to stay. Escape and exist was all he had in mind when he stowed away on a ship to Pandora. Not another war. Slash.
WARNING: Slash, Character Death, AU, OCs, Dark Themes.
Last time:
He did not move from his place until Neytiri finally came to his side, looking upset and yet curious about what happened to the Sky Person. He couldn't even find it in himself to be frustrated with her inappropriate fascination with their species, too stunned and confused by what he had witnessed.
Later he would convince himself that Eywa wished the Demon's escape so that he may die alone and in agony.
For some reason, the thought did not help him sleep later in the night.
And Now:
Harry passed out half way back to the Den.
Zeus crawled into the den with him still sprawled across his back and gently curled up on his bed of leaves, wriggling until Harry rolled gently to the floor beside him where he kept watchful golden eyes on his Rider, crooning in concern as the human became feverish and began to pant. The next three days he suffered from fevers and nightmares, the slash on his side oozing pus and scabbing over only to be pulled open as he thrashed in his sleep, allowing more pus to ooze out.
The Basilisk blood saved his life, it prevented the poison from killing him but it was in no way strong enough to completely neutralise it, his own immune system had to do that. Thankfully, his immune system had been one of those things that Eywa had tweaked while modifying his body to survive in the Pandorian wilderness.
As punishment for his actions, Eywa sent dreams and visions to the Hunter who harmed her New Life, her Little Life whom she had grown so fond of. She did not accept individuals into her heart often, often, her favourites were selected to become Tsahik of the People, these people were the ones she chose to contact. Little Life, New Life, so hurt and scared, so different appearing at her doorstep. She had done what any mother would have done, she tried to sooth him, discover his hurts and heal them over. Little Life had been so frightened of her it would have broken her heart had she possessed one. She favoured him, yes, perhaps more than her other Children because he favoured her so.
She could feel it every time he set foot outside his den, his eyes were not blind to the beauty of her children, he fell in love with them time and time again, with such childlike enthusiasm and excitement as he compared what he found to the wonders of children from his birth Mother. She felt her affection grow with each new discovery he showed her, like a mother watching a newborn learn how to walk and talk, his accomplishments seemed so much dearer than those of the People, than her Blessed, because they no longer took such simple delight in her.
They loved her and worshipped her, they respected all that she was, but the People were old, they were no longer children in her eyes, they no longer needed her guidance. They knew the Way.
Well, most of them, she would be reminding those who had forgotten.
Harry woke on the fourth day, exhausted, hungry, thirsty and needing a piss desperately, Zeus had been so excited that he had nearly trampled Harry and destroyed the den with pure glee. For the next few days, Harry alternated between long bouts of sleep with drinking water and eating bananas as they were the only things he could keep down.
Zeus finally felt comfortable to leave him to go and hunt for himself, he occasionally brought something back for Harry who couldn't keep it down – so inevitably the Wyvern would eat it anyway. The silver female who he had taken a shine to also showed up on occasion, keeping her distance from Harry but she could croon in confused concern when he stumbled or threw up. Two weeks or so after he was poisoned, he finally felt well enough to eat real foods. Most of what he had stored was mouldy, rancid or rotten by this point so he merely tossed them, the insects would live of them or some scavenger who had a stronger stomach than Harry would gladly partake in the free food.
Harry decided to put all thoughts of contact with the Natives firmly out of his mind.
If they had contact with Muggles that wasn't hostile, chances were that if they knew of the Magi and realised he was the last survivor, he would have a lot more to worry about than the Muggles who couldn't navigate their way through a paper bag without some form of technology, let alone a jungle like this. The Natives though... they could. And if all of them used poisoned Arrows, Harry didn't rate his chances of survival very high.
He went back to life as it was before, all desire of exploring further than the Valley effectively culled.
Grace was beside herself, she knew it, everyone else knew it – hell, she completely blanked Quaritch when he made his typical 'Limp-dicked Science Major' comments, hadn't even noticed him opening his mouth she was so absorbed in her thoughts.
The Marines were stumped, the Scientists concerned, Selfridge ecstatic... Grace was completely brain locked.
Muggle.
The boy had called her a Muggle, the word rolled off his tongue without hesitation, without stutter or stumble, without awkwardness, as if he had been saying it his whole life. He called her Muggle while she wore the skin of an Avatar. He knew what she was without ever laying eyes on her real body.
She didn't know what to think. How to react.
Then Neytiri and her mother, Mo'at the Tsahik, began to question her about the boy, about the people he came from. And Grace hadn't been able to give them the answers they wanted, she was too shocked, too confused, too much of many things, N'deh had to physically support her back to Trudy's Pick Up Point.
The boy called her a Muggle, he was running around Pandora without an Exo-pack, he was physically powerful enough to give a Na'vi some difficulties, if what Tsu'tey told her he was also somewhat immune to the Neuro-toxins they tipped their arrows in. If what she gathered from Neytiri and her mother, Eywa favoured him, or at least, his power was somehow sending them visions of his past, of the Purges – oh gods, the Na'vi knew about the Purges but how? How did they know? Neytiri said Eywa sent them dreams of the Blessed dying, Grace wasn't sure how to react to that.
Everyone had always assumed that Humanity was Blessed, that the 'Muggles' were Blessed because they had won the War – if it could even be called a War, they had outnumbered the Wizards by five thousand to one! But the Na'vi called the Magic users the Blessed. Grace... Grace was a botanist, her knowledge of History was shaky but she had always had an interest in the Purges because her Great Grandfather had an Aunt who was once one of the Magic Folk before her death. She was perhaps one of the few people who realised, who even noticed that the sudden decline of the Planet's biodiversity correlated with the Purges almost perfectly.
It was almost like... The death of the Magic Folk caused the Planet to wither as well.
The abject terror in the boy's eyes couldn't have been faked. He looked at her as though she were Death incarnate, as if Satan himself were approaching him with arms outstretched and the promise of eternal pain and damnation in his eyes. The Scientist closed her eyes and hid her face in her folded arms, ignoring the looks of concern exchanged between the Scientists around her. She couldn't blame him for that fear if he was a survivor – who was she kidding? Of course he was! Her Inner-Scientist could demand evidence all it wanted, solid hard proof, but every fibre of her being told her that he was Magic, that he was responsible for the dreams the Tsahik were experiencing, that he was undeniably alive regardless of what Tsu'tey told her and himself.
The question now was, did she tell Selfridge and Quaritch they had a Purge Survivor running around the jungles of Pandora? She pursed her lips and sat up, barking for a cigarette and a bottle of whiskey.
She really, really wanted to be drunk right now.
It had been almost a year since Harry had arrived on Pandora.
Today was a day of reflection, mourning and thoughts of friends long departed. Harry had made his way to the Mother's Willow Tree and sat with her, in between the roots, until darkness fell and her tendrils glowed in the night, swaying in the slight breeze. Little drifting white seeds floated across the air, upon and around him.
Today was a day to remember his friends and all that he and Gaia had lost.
Hermione would have loved Pandora, probably more than him, the plants, the animals, the sheer differences between here and home and the similarities that persisted anyway. Her brown eyes would be alight with curiosity, fascination and determination to discover everything she could, not even the threat of death, dismemberment and consumption would have prevented her from discovering everything that she could.
Ron would have been torn between horror at the lack of comfortable amenities, the fact that he would have to hunt and kill his own food, live off meat and fruit and vegetables – no more Chocolate, or Quidditch, unless they could somehow modify the game to work while riding Wyverns. Speaking of, no doubt his bestfriend and brother in all but blood would be right alongside him trying to tame one of them to ride on. He would have loved to ride one, all the weird things around them, he would have watched Harry's back as Harry watched his – they would go back to the old days of the War, fighting back to back, hand in hand, knowing the other's mind and what they planned to do before they did it. They moved as one.
Luna... his sweet Luna, she would have loved it here as well. Naming all the animals she could find, digging her hands into the earth and marvelling at the Mother's presence, the peace and warmth she gave them. She would have danced with the floating white seeds, called them something improbable like... Willothewhisps or Faeries, or Sky Seeds, maybe even Angels. He didn't know. For all he knew she would have named them as just 'Seeds'. He smiled wryly, she would probably use them as hair accessories – he felt the Mother's bemusement at that thought and chuckled quietly, gently blowing one of the Seeds in his hands away. Watching it dance upon the wind.
A year already on Pandora.
He wondered if Gaia was still alive, still suffering under the Muggles. His heart twisted at the thought of abandoning her like that but... he physically could not stay. Not with the Muggles, not with the constant Mind Rape, not with the echoes of insanity growing ever stronger in the back of his mind as Gaia screamed and whispered and tried to twist at him, unknowingly leaving shreds of her consciousness and insanity behind as she desperately tried to get at his magic. He couldn't remain.
He felt warmth flare within him, a phantom sensation but he smiled none the less at the Mother's attempt at comfort, it felt almost as if she were trying to hug him from the inside. At least she was pleased to have him.
Harry was hunting.
It was five months after his 'remembrance' day and life was the same as it always had been, save now with the addition of a small clutch of eggs which were lovingly being looked after by both Zeus and his mate – Hera, the silver female. Hence why Harry was hunting more than usual, neither of them were willing to leave the clutch for prolonged periods of time and hunting took both time and effort, so Harry picked up some of the slack while Zeus hunted to provide for himself and for Hera. He didn't eat much meat compared to them anyway, he could live off fruits and nuts and tree bark if he had to.
Right now he was stalking one of the alien blue Deer outside of the valley. He was worried about overhunting a certain area so he had widened his horizons and ventured out of the Valley and further into the forest. Yes, it meant further to travel back with his kill but Feather Light charms went a long way for ease of transport, it was just cumbersome.
The forest had been eerily quiet for a while now, it was making all the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand straight as he quietly crept through the undergrowth like a shadow. It was really starting to get to him. Harry swallowed tightly and shifted his grip on his knife, he needed to head back and head back now.
He flipped the knife and threw it, silver edge catching the light and striking the Hexapede in the side of the head with a satisfying meaty 'thunk'. Harry's mouth twitched slightly and he shot out of the bushes to retrieve his kill. She, for it was a Doe, had died instantly and without pain, never even knowing he was there. He yanked the knife from her skull and cleaned the blade on a clump of grass, already drawing up the magic for a Feather Light charm as he did so.
Two hundred yards away, several SecOps Soldiers stared.
Harry paused, all his muscles tensing as he crouched over his kill. He turned, slowly, to face them. Feeling all the blood drain from his face as he took in the group of sixteen soldiers, all older than him, clad in green camouflage, faces obscured by the reflected sun glaring off their breathing masks, glinting off black metal guns. His mouth went dry and his stomach tensed.
Muggles, armed Muggles.
The world seemed to come to a stop as the group stood off.
Then someone's radio crackled and all hell broke loose.
Corporal Lyle Wainfleet(1) thought he had seen it all, seen everything Pandora had ready throw at them.
Barely a year ago their formerly somewhat troublesome location in the forest suddenly became a hellhole, the wildlife and plants suddenly going nutso and attacking them at all hours of the day. Pretty soon it became an unofficial motto that warm guns, sharp eyes and quick fingers meant a longer life span. The Scientists were busy jacking off and squirming with prepubescent excitement over the sight of real tits for the first time about the sudden change in the animals change in behaviour to be of much use. They wanted to study what was happening, not fucking stop it.
After seeing a bloody Forest Banshee carry a fucking Slinth into the compound, Lyle had genuinely thought he had seen it all. (The term 'when pigs fly' was no longer even uttered on Pandora. Because guaranteed the moment it was said, Babe would be winging his pink butt overhead.)
Then, during a routine patrol some five miles out of the Kill Zone at Hell's Gate, they catch a human – kid running around without an Exo-pack, without fucking shoes and actually killing a Hexapede with just a throwing knife! Honestly, if this weren't Pandora, Lyle would have wondered what freaky Drugs the Scientists were sneaking into the bloody food – crack pot, basement freaks.
His radio crackled, Quaritch demanding to know why everything had gone quiet, and then suddenly everyone was moving, shouting at the kid to get down on the ground and drop his weapon and put his hands up at the same time. The kid bolted, probably scared out of his fucking mind of Lyle though about it – he didn't. Instead he took out a tazer from his pocket and took careful aim as he crashed through the undergrowth after the kid with the rest of his unit. He'd brought the thing for amusement mainly, shoot one of those blue monkey bastards in the back of the head with it and watch 'em twitch and flop around.
The kid jumped, trying to climb into one of the trees and Lyle fired.
Curly green ribbons shooting out from the end of his gun and stabbing the kid in the small of his back. He shrieked as the electrical current struck, hitting the ground and writhing as the current continued to course through his body, Lyle let it, smirking in amusement as the kid began to tear up. Aw, did it hurt little baby?
"Winfleet, cut it off," one of the other Marines snapped, glaring at him. Sucking on his teeth, Lyle grunted but did as he was told, cutting off the juice.
The kid groaned, twitching on the forest floor, eyes open and unseeing as he tried to breathe with paralysed lungs, eventually his body obeying him and drawing in great shuddering gasps of the poisonous air.
"What is happening out there? Report!" Quaritch barked through their radios.
"Sir," their CO began, "We..." he trailed off, not entirely sure how to explain the situation, "We've found a human, Sir. Not one of ours. A kid." A glance was exchanged between the Soldiers. "He's not wearing an Exo-pack. And he's alive. Sir."
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
"Can you say that pile of bullshit again, Captain?" the Security Head sneered angrily down the line. No doubt furious at the thought they were playing him.
"It's true, sir," another one of the Team piped up, "Human male, Caucasian, roughly 5'5" in height, black hair, green eyes. He isn't wearing an Exo-pack and he isn't suffering any negative affects from the atmosphere."
There was a growl on the other end, "By all means, bring in this mystery brat. But if you're fucking with me..." he left the threat hanging; they could imagine what Quaritch would make them do if this turned out to be a hoax. Quaritch was a good guy, loyal, his career in the Army was his life, his men were his responsibility and he refused to allow them to come to harm – hence his never ending war against Pandora, but he refused to tolerate slackers, liars or timewasters.
"Sir, yes, Sir," the team chorused.
"Over and out."
"Wainfleet, bind his hands and feet. Behind his back. Jenkins, carry him," their CO commanded, nodding to the biggest and most physically strong member of the team.
Grinning, Lyle pulled a couple of cable ties from his pocket and crouched down beside the kid who tried to roll away from him, his body still twitching and jerking sporadically against his will. He roughly hauled the kid up and fixed his hands behind his back, swiftly followed by his disgustingly filthy feet. The kid had some muscle on him surprisingly and he smelt like cut grass and spices to Lyle's nose.
He shoved the kid backwards, off him, when he had made sure his feet were secure.
"Careful Wainfleet," the CO snarled when the kid's head smacked into the ground. Lyle merely shrugged lazily with a smirk as Jenkins frowned darkly at him and gently scooped the kid up in a fireman's lift, "Let's go. Colonel Quaritch'll have our asses in a sling if we don't make doubletime."
"Sir!" the group barked in tandem, saluting before turning as one and beginning the long jog back to the base, their precious cargo bouncing on Jenkins's shoulder uncomfortably, his whole body filled with stabbing pains. Especially his back where the flesh was no doubt burned and slightly charred from the use of the Tazer.
In the trees above, N'deh frowned, watching the departing group.
When Harry woke – because he had been knocked unconscious when he finally managed to regain enough control of his limbs to plant a foot into the groin of the guy who was carrying him – he was in a sealed tank, cold metal and glass surrounding him.
If he had been standing, he was fairly certain his legs would have given out on him. As it was, he moved a shaking arm and covered his eyes, hiding from the fluorescent glare above.
"I see Pocahontas is awake," a baritone voice came in over the intercom. Harry flinched but otherwise didn't acknowledge the Muggle who spoke to him, his heart had already sank down into the floor and he felt tired, so very, very tired. He was going to die here. Die by the hand of an enemy he thought he had escaped long ago. How ironic.
"Back the fuck off, Quaritch, you've got no clue what you're dealing with," another voice, female this time, snarled.
Harry sighed and slowly pushed himself upright, staring at the glass screen that kept him separated from a ginger haired woman who looked so similar to how he would have imagined Ginny had she ever lived long enough to reach the age, and a silver haired man with scars on almost every inch of flesh. He gave them both a long hard look before turning his attention to the room.
Square, nothing to look at, three windows looking into what seemed to be some kind of high-tech lab, air vents which pumped in the Pandorian air – thankfully, Harry wasn't sure if he could even breathe oxygen anymore. There was one door, but a Soldier in a breathing mask with a gun was in front of it, his finger resting not so innocently on the trigger. Harry felt his shoulders raise and his lip curl slightly at the perceived threat.
He ignored the argument that broke out between the Soldier and the Scientist as he calculated his chances of taking out the soldier and getting through the door or the vent to the outside world. They were slim and also rather grim. He didn't fancy the idea of getting dissected.
"Who do you work for?" the Soldier barked, apparently having won the argument against the ginger haired woman. Harry glanced at him before pointedly ignoring him, not even opening his mouth as he stared at the Soldier blocking his only means of freedom. Inside he was a gibbering mess of panic, terror and the left over echoes of Gaia.
Outside, Quaritch seethed at the blatant disrespect he'd been forced to deal with today, at least his Soldiers weren't wasting his time though, thank God for small mercies. But this kid, appearing out of nowhere, breathing Pandorian air, ignoring him and no doubt plotting a way of getting back to those fucking Mud Monkies that Augustine was fucking around with. Time for a little persuasion.
Keying in a few commands, he watched in satisfaction as the vents closed and changed, instead of the heavy atmosphere of Pandora, Oxygen began to be pumped into the room. The kid didn't notice at first but soon a frown began to come to his face as the air got thinner and he began to pant, unable to draw enough air in as he coughed.
"I'll say again," the Soldier growled as he reversed the command and allowed the Pandorian poison to filter back into the room, allowing the kid to breathe, "Who do you work for?"
The kid jerked his middle finger up at him with an angry snarl and Quaritch chuckled, it looked like someone had never been taught any manners. He replaced the air again and waited even longer this time as the kid slowly asphyxiated. "I can do this all day kid. You're the only one who's going to suffer."
Harry glared at him hatefully from his spot on the floor.
(1) Corporal Lyle Wainfleet, one of the original Marines featured in the Project 880 script. He was the one who killed Tsu'tey by cutting off his Queue after he fell from the ship. He is killed literally 30 seconds later by Neytiri's Thanator – or rather, Zuleika's Manticore as they were both previously known.
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