Rating: Mature
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.
She was going to get gray hair before her time.
Grace growled in frustration, chewing aggressively on her cigarette filter as she examined the results from the kid's samples on her computer screen. She'd been able to gather some blood, hair and body scans when he first came in, out like a light with a bloody knot on the back of his head from where one of those Jarheads cracked him with the butt of his rifle.
Currently he was sat shivering from both cold and hunger in one of her lab-bays because it was one of the only locations in the facility that had air vents that filtered Pandorian atmosphere and oxygen respectively. Quaritch was having himself a bloody fanfare of a time messing with those controls to torment the poor kid but at least now he had opted to leave him alone, the only downside now was that he was using the old starvation and sleep deprivation techniques to try and get answers from him. She doubted it would work – his bones showed signs of extensive childhood malnutrition along with something that was both fascinating and frightening.
Carbon fibre. His bones had been reinforced with the same naturally occurring carbon fibre that the Na'vi had, not to mention that his muscle fibres had changed as well, become stronger and more capable. The kid barely topped a rather diminutive 5'5" in height but still remained very thin and lean with hard wiry muscle cording his body. His skin was slightly tanned but he also had freckles, they were hardly noticeable, just tiny pinpoints of skin that were lighter than the rest of his body, they ran in complicated patterns up his chest, stomach and down his arms, on his feet as well. The same freckled markings that the Na'vi had on their bodies. His hair was black and longer than the last time she saw him but at least it was somewhat behaved, hanging down and just brushing his shoulders in wild locks. Neytiri would love to get her hands on that, she adored braiding hair. His eyes were unique as well, the same shape as a Na'vi's but smaller, still fairly big but not overly noticeable as inhuman. He had quite the collection of scars as well, some so old they had completely dissolved save for just a thin pale line on his skin, like the ones that patterned his arms, chest and forehead, barely visible. The newer ones, like the slash on his stomach where Tsu'tey's arrow caught him, the scars that patterned his leg from where he had been mauled by a Thanator – how the hell he survived she would never know (He stabbed his knife to its eye. There was now a three eyed Thanator running around with a taste for human flesh and a healthy respect for their weapons). And the new addition of two burns on the small of his back where the Tazer wires hit him.
The kid had been through the wars, but his body had adapted to life on Pandora. The carbon fibre in his bones, the mutation of his muscles, the beginnings of Bioluminescent patterns evolving on his skin, the shape of his eyes and the elongation of his canines. It was as if the longer he stayed on the planet, ate its food, drank its water and breathed its air, he became a part of it and slowly but surely changed to better fit.
Whatever had happened to him had changed him on the genetic level.
It was like he was a stepping stone between humanity and Na'vi, the missing link similar to the one between Man and Ape. Afterall, Doctor Lovecraft the creator of the AVATAR programme – the Dark Dreamer project – had once rather famously said:
"Humanity is far more closely related genetically to a garden slug than a Na'vi."
He would eat his boots to see this impossibility sat in front of him now, Grace mused, a small smile curling onto her lips at the thought of the old bastard frothing at the mouth and trying to get into the labs. The mental image made her laugh outright before a more sobering thought came to mind.
Lovecraft developed the Dark Dreamer project and the AVATAR programme on information gleaned from old Magic books regarding Possession, Horcrux and Mind Arts, he applied what he learned from them onto Death Row Convicts through a process of Trial and Error. She remembered him lamenting the fact he had never been able to get his hands on a Witch or a Wizard for his project, he claimed that they already possessed a symbiotic resonance with all other Witches and Wizards and even other forms of life. He had raged more than once after a bottle of something potent found its way into his hands that those Military and Religious fools had destroyed what had perhaps been the greatest treasure trove of knowledge and discovery to ever grace humanity since they learned of fucking Gravity. Then he would sob about never having got his greasy fingers on a Werewolf because they would have been perfect research specimens for his project.
There was a reason why Cordell Lovecraft's awards for his work were being contested and quite viciously so by Animal Rights Activists and the UN-Pan Faith Council.
Brilliant man, but a sociopath dedicated solely to science and discovery. No, if he was here, Grace wouldn't allow him within three hundred yards of the Wizard trapped within their lock up, if she did, no doubt he would be strapped down on a gurney and dissected like so many of his ancestors back on Earth.
But that was another thing. His age was unknown.
According to the Carbon dating she did on his bones, he should be well into his hundreds, but physically... Physically in everything from his bone structure, his teeth, his hair and finger nails, even the number of cell divisions he still had left. He was barely into his mid-twenties. Even then he hardly looked it, probably due to the Malnutrition but he looked as though he were eighteen.
In actuality, Harry was about twenty one, twenty two. Maybe, he wasn't sure. Time was a little skewed for him after sleeping for so long and never getting to see a calendar for the past seven years since he left Earth.
Grace sighed, she was undoubtedly looking at a Wizard, but something was off about him.
She needed a fuller more in-depth look into his body, something she wasn't going to get with Ranger Rick and his cowboys' cockblocking her at every turn. Fuckers, they asked her to find out everything she could about him even though she was no Biologist, and she was, but when she asks for a better look she may as well have been kicked up the ass and told to get back in the kitchen. Marines, not a braincell to share between the whole lot of them.
The red head leaned back in her chair and stubbed her cigarette out. Maybe she should try to talk to him?
Hm, his lip was still sore.
Harry sighed, leaning against the wall as he tried to catch his breath, he'd gotten into a fight with the Marine at the door again, got himself a split lip, a black eye and some bruising on his stomach for the ffort but he was proud to say the other guy was worse off. They had to cart him off to the Hospital Wing on a stretcher.
But now, after the first time Harry had managed to take the door guard unawares, they no longer posted them inside the room but rather outside the door, which was electronically locked at all times. Harry sucked with computers – he could break them with a concentrated burst of magic but that was about as far as his skill with technology went.
He frowned when he realised that someone was at the windows watching him, the woman with curly red hair and green eyes, she was an older woman who wore a labcoat and had a cigarette hanging from between her lips. She looked familiar now that he had a better look at her and Harry glowered at her from his corner. At least he wasn't looking at the Hard-Ass's pretty face anymore.
The two stared at each other for a time before the woman sighed and stubbed her cigarette out, "I know what you are," she said, freezing Harry's blood.
There was a moment of silence before Harry asked, "Gunna kill me?" raspily.
Another long silence stretched out before she shook her head, "... No."
To be honest, Grace hadn't thought the kid would speak to her, which was why she said what she had, trying to prompt a response out of him. It wasn't what she wanted but at least now they knew he spoke English and had an understanding of his people's History with theirs. He sounded like he hadn't spoken in months which was probably likely.
"What's your name?" she asked, leaning against the window ledge, she had to be careful here, Quaritch wouldn't let her talk to the kid alone so she had to deal with both him and Selfridge hovering just out of sight listening in. She was playing with fire and if she wasn't careful, everyone would get burned.
There was another stretch of silence, as if he were weighing the pros and cons of telling her before he finally shrugged, "Harry," he stated flatly, "You?"
"Grace," she admitted, her tone slightly relieved that he was at least willing to give her that. But still, Harry? That was a very old name, one that was hardly – scratch that, never used these days. "How old are you, you barely look old enough to have left school, let alone come to Pandora."
His mouth curled unpleasantly, as if he were enjoying a joke at everyone else's expense and he was the only one who could ever understand it, "Dunno. Never bothered checking."
How extremely unhelpful. She let that one go though, "How'd you get to be here anyway?"
"Magic," he told her, his voice mocking and his eyes glinting maliciously. It took everything she had not to turn and look at Selfridge and Quaritch to see if they were taking his words seriously, if they did, she didn't put his life expectancy into double digits of minutes let alone days.
When no order to kill him came, she knew they had taken it as some kind of mocking jibe, and she smirked at the kid, "Very funny. How did you really get here?"
"Why do you want to know?" he countered sharply, "And for that matter, why am I here? Is getting lunch suddenly a Crime on this Planet?" he sneered.
Grace nodded, "It's a good question. One I don't know the answer to. I'll look into it. As for why I want to know, you're breathing poison, I want to know how you do that. I want to know how you survived Pandora with nothing but a knife and a pair of pants!"
"It's called common sense and respect for the world around you. But then again, I wouldn't expect one of your kind to understand that. You've killed Earth, so like the Virus you were created to be, you're moving onto a new Planet."
The look on the kid's face was pure poison hate. It made Selfridge shiver slightly, he had never faced someone who hated like that before in his life. Oh sure he had come nose to nose with animal rights activists who treated him like some kind of terrorist or the second coming of Hitler, but that was always disgust and anger and self righteousness that reflected in their eyes. It was unreasoning, all consuming, justified hatred. Quaritch shifted his weight, recognising the look for what it was, it was the look of someone who hated with every fibre of their being, knew it, accepted it, embraced it and most frighteningly of all, controlled it.
Grace swallowed, "Created?" she asked, inhaling on her cigarette shakily.
Harry's smile was sharp and angry, "I have nothing more to say to you, bitch."
Grace sighed and stepped away from the glass, turning the communicator off.
"We're not getting anything else out of him," she told Selfridge and Quaritch, "Why are we keeping him here anyway? He's clearly not a member of the team and he can't even survive here."
The marine sneered at her, "We keep him here because he's human and he belongs with us."
She shook her head, "He hates our whole species and with damn good reason."
"And what might that reason be? What is he if he isn't human? He looks like us, walks like us, talks like is, then surely he'll want to get away from those fleabitten savages and rejoin with civilisation," Selfridge demanded, scowling and looking rather like a ruffled pomeranian if Grace could compare him to any kind of animal she was familiar with. He was clearly ignoring everything the kid said about not being a member of their species, apparently someone used to fall asleep during their History lessons. How typical.
She glared at him, "He's something we've got no business keeping locked up," she told him seriously before turning and marching away.
Selfridge frowned and glanced back into the room at the kid who was watching him with eyes as sharp as broken glass, he looked cold, and hungry. Was it really right of them to treat someone like that after they'd been living in the jungle of Pandora for god only knows how long? Maybe if they treated him with a little more kindness he would be more willing to speak to them? Quaritch's Stick method wasn't working at all. Augustine had treated him like a thinking, living being and actually got results.
He guessed the old adage of more bees with Honey than Vinegar held true even today.
Harry had been given food, a change of clothes and an actual bed, a soldier marched him out of the room and into a small shower room where he was told to wash up. The abrasive antiseptic soap burned his skin but in a good way – he had missed hot showers and good soap since arriving on Pandora. Maybe he should look into possibly making his own?
He refused to wear the boots and after being shirtless for so long the fabric felt restrictive across his shoulders, but at least he was warmer now with them on. He didn't touch the food though, he didn't trust these people not to drug him and that shit was the synthetic crap that almost killed him back on earth. That was back when he at least had a semi-Muggle like biology, now though, he couldn't even fucking breathe their air. He dreaded to think what would happen if he ate their food. He drank the water and left the cheap synthetic crap where it was.
And he waited.
He gathered his strength and he focused his magic and he waited.
Waited for the opportune moment.
Eywa
was angry, so very angry.
Neytiri shivered and curled against her mother, the young girl's ears folding back against her skull in distress as her mother tried to sooth her. She was brave for her age of thirteen, she was soon to be a Warrior of the People, but the Great Mother's fury was something to shake the earth beneath their feet as the sky in the distance where the Sky People made their home resounded in chaos.
She was angry with the Sky People.
The young Na'vi looked to her mother who nodded and looked to her Mate, the grim faced Warrior meeting their gaze and nodding before turning to his eldest Daughter, Sylwanin, his youngest daughter's Intended, Tsu'tey, and the current head of the Warriors, N'deh. The three nodded wordlessly and scampered off, long legs taking them up Hometree to where their Ikran roosted, ready for flight.
They were to go and see what was happening.
The walls trembled and alarms blared throughout the base.
Harry smiled as he felt the Mother's anger through the solid metal walls. Cold metal. He had forgotten how much it served to block out Magic and the Planet's influence, steel and iron more than anything. But their effects were stronger here as they were from Gaia and not the Mother. Steel and Iron were as alien to her as the Muggles were, she could not sense where the Muggles were on her surface because there was no piece of her within them as there now was within Harry. She could not reach through the foreign metals that had not come from her to him.
He couldn't use or control his magic in this room, not in the way he should be able to in any case.
The ways of Magic were mysterious, not many knew of them. Hermione had been utterly fascinated by the whole thing and delved into a fanatical research hunt, this was only heightened when the Purges began as she desperately to look into a way of explaining to the Muggles that they weren't so different, they weren't demons, they just had a different kind of body.
Magic worked by taking in the natural energy from the world around them, they filtered it through their Magical Core, their Soul, converting it into Magic as humanity knows it and then it is pushed through channels in their bodies to create spells. The mind gives it direction, emotion power and the body produces it. Motive, Action and Outcome. They were essential in spell casting because they were what controlled and produced the spell.
On Earth, the younger Planet, already half dead with Muggles having torn her open and raped her time and time again. She was already dying when Harry was born. Compared to the Witches and Wizards of ages past, he was practically a Squib. He wouldn't have even been accepted into Hogwarts back in the Founder's Age, he would have been laughed out of the Great Hall for even suggesting it.
But Pandora... she was strong, fresh, older and vastly more powerful than Gaia. And it affected every spell Harry attempted to do.
He had to leash his power tightly, control it and filter it through his tiny core as best he could, it was hard, the power was so strong and thick that sometimes it was almost impossible to squeeze through his tiny magical channels. Hence why it took so long to call upon his Magic where as on earth, all he needed to do was wave his arm and summon the spell to see it done.
But this time, this time he didn't bother.
When the alarms went off, he waited just long enough to be certain that everyone had left before he got to his feet, waltzed to the door and slapped his palm against the metal keypad and called up his magic.
He gasped and fell to his knees, fingers gripping the pad as he felt the power he had stored within himself burn through his body and the keypad promptly bursting into flames with a shriek of feedback. The lights in the room all shattering as he did so.
Panting hard, Harry scrambled to his feet, shaking his burned hand out as he charged down the short corridor to the outside world. The Mother's mind filling him so suddenly that he stumbled and fell over, tumbling gracelessly to the floor as her presence overwhelmed him, drowning him, for all of a moment. He couldn't find it in himself to be frightened because it felt like one of Molly Weasleys' massive bear hugs after an adventure that was a bit too dangerous for her peace of mind. He almost expected a scolding from the Mother before she withdrew, but she didn't, he felt her nudging him forward and he climbed unsteadily to his feet and ran towards the Compound walls up ahead.
The ground was shaking and he could hear one of the automatic guns going off as it got louder and louder and louder.
The wall punched in and something roared on the other side of the wall before another punch appeared and the whole thing came down in an explosion of dust and brick and sheet metal. Revealing a trio of Hammer-head Rhinos who promptly took off through the compound, crushing and bashing and eating whatever they came across.
Harry didn't interfere with them; he took off running out of the gaping hole in the wall while the guns desperately tried to shoot through the thick armoured hide of the Hammer-heads. He ran until he reached the forest and kept running.
He stumbled and abruptly veered off in another direction as he saw a group of Marines come hurtling through the undergrowth, shooting everything that moved.
He had barely gone three hundred metres before something bowled into him from above with a feral snarl.
Harry and whatever it was that attacked him fell to the ground, whatever it was attempting to pin him down but he was having none of that and wrestled himself free, planting knees, elbows, fists and feet into anything that came within range before they were suddenly thrown apart.
It was then he realised it was the bastard who shot him with that arrow earlier in the year and he snarled at him. He was being restrained by the older blue guy who caught him outside the school with the Muggle woman, the one he probably hurt trying to escape he realised a little guiltily. There was another blue person, a woman, much older than the bastard but younger than the quiet guy who held him back.
They were all arguing about something and suddenly the bastard was pulling out a knife and gesturing angrily to Harry, who then saw far more of the blue woman than he ever wanted to see.
Sylwanin snarled at Tsu'tey, crouching over the Not Sky Person her mother and her little sister had been seeing in dreams sent from the Great Mother, her tail lashed from side to side as she bared her teeth in a warning to her little brother-to-be. Harry had a hand clapped over his eyes as his cheeks burned bright red.
N'deh then did something that shocked everyone, he started to laugh.
Chapter Fin...
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