Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Wizard on the Edge of Forever
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Star Trek. For that matter, I don't own much of anything except a lot of debt. If I could claim the two series and all their spin-offs, I would. So please don't sic the law demons on me ok?
Chapter 2: Stranger in a Strange Land
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
These were the first things that Harry heard as he slowly regained consciousness. Before attempting to move or open his eyes, he took stock of his situation. Okay, I'm alive and nothing seems to be broken.
If nothing else, living with the Dursleys had taught him to be vigilant when waking, and his time in the Wizarding world had done nothing to change that. While the Dursleys had always been verbally abusive and worked him into the dirt, Vernon and Petunia hadn't hurt him physically since he was about six. The hospital trip resulting from that last incident, and the fast talking that Vernon had had to do to convince the authorities that Harry's broken arm was nothing more than an accident, seemed to have curbed that tendency. After all, a Walrus and a Giraffe kicking the bloody hell out of a little boy wasn't "normal," And the Dursleys craved the appearance of normality above all else.
Encouraging Dudley to go after Harry, however... that could be passed off as "roughhousing" and no one would be the wiser. Needless to say, Harry had become very cautious when waking up.
However, coming to in an unfamiliar bed that, while comfortable, was clearly neither his four-poster in Gryffindor Tower, nor his usual bed in Madame Pomfrey's hospital wing, made him doubly wary. The strange electronic pulsing sound that seemed to match pace with his heartbeat was completely outside of his experience.
Having to deal with Tommy I-Have-Abandonment-Issues-And-An-Oedipus-Complex Riddle or his flunkies on a yearly basis usually ended with Harry spending time in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, but someday, he was sure, he'd wake up in a dungeon straight out of Dante's Inferno or Frankenstein. Had it finally happened?
He quickly went over his most recent memories. The last thing that seemed to be really clear was the Department of Mysteries, being chased by Death Eaters. He'd tried to fire off a spell. There was a bluish-white glow, and that's where things went weird. Beyond that, nothing until just now. Even then he realized he had no clue as to what happened to himself or his friends.
Suddenly Harry's eyes snapped open and he rolled off the bed and into a crouch. Death Eaters! Did we get captured? This is not good. These thoughts ran through his mind as he quickly took stock of his situation.
He looked around for his wand and glasses; to his surprise, they were on the table right next to the bed. Quickly, he put his glasses back on and gripped his wand tightly, prepared to curse anything that moved.
When he looked around, what he saw was not what he expected. It certainly didn't look like a Death Eater dungeon, which was somewhat comforting. Initially he thought he might be in St. Mungo's, but he had been there and the rooms he'd seen looked nothing like this.
The room was painted in a light blue color that seemed to try and present a peaceful feeling. The bed he was behind was nothing like anything he had seen before. There were no legs to speak of, just a thick pedestal that the mattress and pillow were on. The mattress looked like it was made of hard black leather, but when he touched it; it gave easily to his finger's pressure. Mounted on the wall behind the mattress, there was a rectangular box that had several gauges set within it, all currently reading zero. He also noticed that the odd rhythmic sound he had been hearing had stopped.
Harry noted that there were several other empty beds around the room, as well as what appeared to be desks that were built into dividers that sectioned off the room into several smaller areas. The oddly shaped chairs that were at each "desk" seemed to be made of some kind of metal, but he wasn't sure of that. On the desk nearest to him he could see an odd shaped box on the desk, but beyond that no clue as to where he was.
A door at the end of the room slid open with a soft whoosh, and a man dressed in a blue shirt and black pants walked into the room. He was speaking to someone behind him as he entered. "--get it right after I check up on our guest, Doctor."
The man stopped short when he saw that the empty bed where Harry had been. He took two steps forward before Harry popped up from behind the bed and pointed his wand across the surface.
"Hold it!" Harry snapped.
The man in blue, seeing nothing but a stick pointing at him, continued to move forward, reaching towards him with one arm. "Hey there young man. You need to get back into bed so w--"
He got no further that that as Harry yelled out, "STUPEFY!"
The beam of red light caught the man right in the center of his chest, causing him to drop to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, as Harry had intended.
What had not been intended was the effect of the magical backwash on the mechanisms in and around the bed he'd used to brace his arm. Every gauge lit up and spiked at their maximum reading, before blowing out in a shower of sparks. More sparks and an electrical arc came out of the bed itself for a moment, before smoke began to drift up and the room filled with the smell of burnt electrical insulation.
A light on the wall that had previously been white shifted to a red color while a whirring noise from a hidden fan started and sucked the tendrils of smoke that were hanging in the air away from the fried bed.
Harry backed away from the bed and tried to take cover as best he could beside the nightstand. All the while he was thinking frantically to himself, What the Bloody Hell is going on here? That guy isn't dressed like a wizard. For that matter I haven't seen anyone dressed like that before. And what's with the muggle electronics? I've never even heard of electro-beds! Voldemort hates muggles; he'd never use any of this stuff!
Harry began to realize that, wherever he was, it sure wasn't the Department of Mysteries or any other place he'd ever heard of before.
Dr. M'Benga came running around the corner and into the room. He had heard someone shout just before the alarms sounded. Usually, a shout coming from the sickbay meant one of two things: either something serious had happened to a patient, or something had gone seriously wrong with the equipment. Since the latter rarely happened, he was betting on the first.
What he didn't expect to see was his physician's assistant out cold on the floor, a smoking biobed, and no immediate sign of the teenaged patient that had been unconscious on the bed less than an hour ago.
M'Benga immediately went to Davids and began checking him out. Seeing that the young man was just unconscious and not injured, he looked at the bed for a moment and tried to figure out what happened.
"Mama wei, must have been a power surge. That's going to drive Mr. Scott mad tracking it down," he muttered as he began to move around the bed to try to find his patient.
"FREEZE!" Harry cried out as the dark-skinned man came into view. His shaking voice betrayed the adrenaline and fear that he was feeling.
M'Benga stopped in his tracks. He saw the boy, partially hidden beside the nightstand, with a stick pointed at him. A stick whose tip was glowing an ominous red. Okay, maybe not just a stick, then.
"Alright, young man. I'm stopped. Is there something I can do for you? You're the one in charge here," M'Benga said in a pleasant voice. He'd been through hostage training a few months ago and learned that usually the hostage takers tended to be either young and scared or stone-cold killers. He was betting on young and scared. If that was the case, then he needed to calm this kid down, and everything would be alright.
"Yeah. Where am I? How'd I get here? Where are my friends? And who the hell are you?" Harry snapped out a rapid fire series of questions.
"Okay. I'll tell you everything that I can, though I don't know all of the answers. If it's okay with you, I'll just sit down right here with my hands visible so you can see that I'm not going to hurt you. Is that alright?" M'Benga asked in a mild tone.
Harry shakily nodded his head. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but he was scared and the events of the last few minutes were catching up to him.
M'Benga sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Harry, being very careful to keep his hands on his knees. "Well, to answer your last question first, I am Doctor Keme M'Benga. You are aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. May I ask your name? It is only polite after all."
After a few moments, Harry replied, "It's Harry, Harry Potter." He was slightly surprised at the question. If this man was a wizard, then he should have known who he was by the scar on his forehead at a minimum.
"Nice to meet you, Harry. Is it okay if I call you Harry?" asked M'Benga politely. Harry nodded his head. Dr. M'Benga's accent sounded odd to Harry; it was cultured and had a definite Oxford quality to it, but it wasn't quite like any accent he'd heard before. Not to mention the fact that Dr. M'Benga was dressed oddly, even for a wizard, in clothes very nearly identical to those worn by the first man who came in. It was almost like it was a uniform, or something, but it wasn't one he'd ever seen before.
M'Benga mentally noted that Harry seemed to be calming down and had been lost in thought for half a moment. "Well Harry, as for how you got here, all I know is that we found you on that rock we're going around out there and brought you aboard. Unfortunately, you were the only one we found, so I can't tell you anything about your friends. I'm sorry," he said sympathetically.
Harry flinched at this news and asked. "You're sure you didn't find anyone? There were five more people with me."
M'Benga shook his head.
A surprised look crossed Harry's face as he asked. "Half a mo, you said U.S.S. Enterprise, right?"
"That's correct." replied M'Benga wondering what this kid was thinking.
"How the bloody hell did I get onto a rock in the middle of the bloody ocean and get picked up by a Yank aircraft carrier? Where the hell are we?" exclaimed Harry. He remembered hearing over the previous summer the news on the telly one evening that an American carrier called the Enterprise had docked in Southampton and they were giving tours. Dudley had begged Uncle Vernon to go see it but was unable to for some reason or another.
M'Benga looked at Harry oddly for a second before responding. "Aircraft carrier? Harry, there hasn't been an aircraft carrier on Earth for over two hundred years, and we're a long way from Earth."
"Two hundred-- Hang on, what do you mean two hundred years? Away from Earth? You're joking, right?" Harry insisted in a slightly disbelieving tone. He was getting a bad feeling about this.
Dr. M'Benga looked Harry straight in the eye and asked in a serious tone that demanded a truthful answer. "What year do you think it is, Harry?"
An icy ball formed itself in Harry's stomach as he said, "It's 1996."
"Harry, by the old Earth calendar, the year is 2266," was M'Benga's reply.
Harry suddenly remembered the room that Hermione, Neville and himself had been in just before he woke up here. The time turners, the bell jar with the phoenix. The dust the Death Eater had scattered onto his skin. Hermione had said something about Time. Time. Time.
"Oh Bloody Hell" Harry said in a whisper as he lowered his wand to the floor.
A few hours later, Harry found himself seated at conference table with several other people. Harry was only familiar with one of them.
He had met Dr. McCoy not long after his confrontation with M'Benga, when the Chief Medical Officer came back on duty for his morning shift, after several days of enforced rest following an accident with something called a 'hypospray'. Harry hadn't really understood the details.
McCoy had given Harry a more thorough exam, just to make sure that he was okay and that there were no hidden injuries. Harry had been glad to discover the exam was nothing like the ones Muggle doctors or Madam Pomfrey usually gave. All he had to do was lay down on a diagnostic biobed for a few minutes, and there were no pokes, prods, or foul tasting potions. The remainder of the exam was just some questions about his health and lifestyle.
Since then, Harry had been given breakfast and a general overview of the ship, but all the while, Harry had been trying to come up with a good cover story. After all, this starship might be a long way from Earth, but he still didn't want to get hauled in front of the Wizengamot for violating the Statute of Secrecy once he got home.
Or...well, at least back to Earth.
Dr. McCoy also didn't press Harry for any answers, about how he had gotten to the planet they were orbiting, or how he was able to stun Davids or how he managed to fry the biobed. All he has said in that soft Southern accent of his was, "Son, if I was in your shoes, I'd only want to tell it one time. I can wait a spell to ask my questions. Also, don't fret none about the people that'll be there. Their good people and ain't gonna bite. Alright?"
That statement somehow comforted Harry and he felt that the doctor was someone he could talk too if he wanted to, without being judged.
Harry turned his attention to a man in a gold tunic as he began to speak.
"Sorry about that, I should have given the go ahead on that addition earlier. Good to see you back on your feet, Bones. No lasting affects, I hope?" he asked Dr. McCoy in a friendly tone.
"Nope. I'm fully cleared for duty sir," replied McCoy.
"Excellent." The man in gold turned his attention to Harry. "Young man, my name is Captain James T. Kirk. I'm the Captain of the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise. To my right is Mr. Spock and to my left is Lt. Uhura. You already know Dr. McCoy."
As Captain Kirk introduced himself and each officer, Harry took a good look at each one. Kirk was an athletic looking man with brown hair. If Harry had had to guess, he'd say the man was in his 30's. Though his manner bore no trace of it, his eyes seemed to hold a lot of pain. They reminded Harry of Cho's eyes in the months after Cedric died, though without the tears.
Mr. Spock was tall and dressed in a blue tunic, much like Dr. McCoy's. Harry almost did a double-take when he first saw him; Mr. Spock had a definite green cast to his skin, and his ears, they were pointed. Harry wondered for half a moment if Mr. Spock would be what a house elf looked like if they somehow got crossed with a human. Yet despite the satanic look, the man's presence seemed to radiate calm and intelligence. Harry felt Mr. Spock would have been just as at home in a classroom as on a starship.
Harry then looked at Lt. Uhura. She was an exotic beauty who seemed concerned for Harry. She had a look on her face that while business-like, gave him the feeling she would like nothing better than to come over and give him a Molly Weasley style hug. He only hoped that when he got back to Hogwarts he wouldn't make a fool of himself by trying to compare Katie, Angelina, and Alicia with this lady.
"To begin with, would you introduce yourself and if possible try to explain how you got out here?" asked Captain Kirk in a friendly tone.
Harry began his tale. He hoped that it would be good enough to go with and not cause him to get into any more trouble than he was sure to be in when he got back to Earth. "Sir, my name is Harry James Potter and I'm 15. I am...I mean I was...a student at the Hogarth Academy in Scotland. Dr. M'Benga tells me that was over 250 years ago. I'm not really sure how I got here, sir. Some of the students and I were on a field trip down in London. We'd decided to go out and see what some of the London kids did for fun at night. We were walking around London near Parliament when there was this big explosion. I didn't see what it was, but Hermione, she's one of my friends, yelled out "Terrorists!" and we took off. Anyway, I guess she was right because we ran into a couple of them and tried to fight them off. All I can really remember after that was a big flash of light and feeling really weird. Then, well, I woke up in your sickbay."
"Interesting," responded Kirk. "So you don't know how you got to the planet?"
"No sir. I really don't." Harry replied honestly. He wondered why they were interested in that piece of information.
Mr. Spock spoke up for the first time, his rich baritone surprising Harry a bit. "Mr. Potter, while we were exploring the surface of the planet below us, an ancient artifact activated and deposited you on the ground in front of us. It also made a statement about you when it did so. We were hoping that you would have some insight as to how the artifact functioned."
"I'm sorry Mr. Spock, I wish I could help. You did say that the artifact said something? Could that help?" asked Harry.
Mr. Spock replied, "I do not believe so; the message was somewhat cryptic. However we do have a recording of the event. Lt. Uhura, would you please play the recording?"
"Certainly, Mr. Spock." Uhura looked at Harry for a moment and then pressed several buttons on the small console in front of her.
A large triangular shaped box rose out of the center of the table. On each face was a flat panel that Harry recognized as a television monitor. The screen facing him lit up and displayed a desolate wasteland of grey rocks and dirt. In the center of the screen was a very large single piece of rock. In the center of the rock was an oblong shaped hole that Hagrid could have easily walked through with plenty of room to spare. To Harry the whole formation resembled a giant stone doughnut. Suddenly the rock formation lit up from some internal source and a mist began falling from the top of the hole with a faint hissing sound. In the background he heard Lt. Uhura call out. "Captain, the Guardian! It's activating again."
Captain Kirk replied from somewhere out of the field of view. "Are you recording this?"
"Yes Captain, on all available spectra."
Suddenly a deep voice spoke and almost seemed to drip with age. The light that was coming from the rock formation flashed in concert with the voice. "Cast adrift through the sands of time, the chosen one is returned to you." No sooner had the voice stopped, than the mist flowing from the top of the hole began glowing a bluish white color. Harry saw himself tumble through the mist, still with the same faint glow surrounding him that he remembered from those last seconds in the Department of Mysteries. He immediately collapsed on the ground and the glow surrounding him faded a moment later. Harry watched as Mr. Spock came over and scanned him with a box that he now knew to be a tricorder. "Captain, he is saturated with chronometric particles. The saturation percentage is dropping exponentially and I calculate that he will be free of the particles in less than two minutes."
At this point the screen faded to black and Harry had a shocked look on his face. Bloody Hell, so that's what happened. My magic must have reacted to with the sand from the phoenix jar and sent me into the future. How am I going to explain this?
As the display monitors lowered back into the table, Captain Kirk spoke. "It's pretty obvious based on what you told us that you don't have anything to do with the artifact. However, there is another matter. Can you explain how you knocked out Physician's Assistant Davids and shorted out a biobed?"
"I think so sir. But if you will bear with me, this may take a bit to explain," Harry said. He closed his eyes for a moment and prayed to any higher power that might be listening that this piece of his story would work.
"Well sir, my parents were killed when I was just over a year old, and I was sent to my aunt and uncle to live. They didn't like me very much, but it's not really important; it's just to give you some background on what my home life was like. Anyway, ever since I can remember, strange things have happened around me. I'd get angry and things would break. One time I got my head shaved and hated it but the next morning all my hair had grown back. I was getting chased by bullies at school and somehow ended up on the roof without climbing anything. Things like that. When I was little, I started calling that weird stuff 'magic'.
"One day I was out shopping and found this stick on sale in an antique store. It just seemed to hum when I picked it up, and it let off some sparks, so I bought it. Since then the 'magic' seems a lot more controlled."
Mr. Spock spoke up. "So you have the ability to control these events at will since acquiring your...'magic wand' for lack of a better term?"
Harry took a breath and though for a second, trying to come up with a plausible response. "Not really, sir. I can knock people out if I'm feeling threatened, but not always. I've been able to do other things from time to time, but not consistently. Stuff like causing the tip to light up like a torch, occasionally being able to cause things to float in the air. Wake someone up from a few feet away. Little things mostly. One thing that I have noticed is if my magic hits something electrical, it causes it to short out or just stop working."
Dr. McCoy looked at Harry with the look of someone that was in deep thought and asked. "Harry, would you say that your magic seems to respond better in a stressful situation or if you're feeling some pretty strong emotions?"
Harry closed his eyes for a second, as if he was trying to remember past events, though he was actually just relieved that they were buying his story. "Now that you mention it, yeah, it does seem like that."
McCoy sat back in his seat with a look of extreme concentration on his face. He started to mutter under his breath, but not so quietly as to not be heard "Possible DNA mutation causing an advanced fight-or-flight response...possible evolutionary step...."
Captain Kirk looked around the table, when his gaze settled on Harry, a flash of something, possibly regret, crossed his face for just moment before he spoke. "Mr. Potter, since you are our guest for the foreseeable future, we will arrange for quarters for you. However, seeing as your talents could pose a danger to this ship, you will undergo a thorough evaluation on the extent of your abilities. Your 'wand' as Mr. Spock so quaintly put it, will remain locked up in the Medical office unless you are being evaluated or a situation arises to require its use to...prevent any uncontrolled outbursts. In addition, you will undergo an assessment of your educational status and any deficiencies will be addressed. We will get you back Earth as soon as possible, but in the meantime, can you abide by these rules?"
Harry hated giving up his wand, but it wasn't like he didn't spend his summers without it every year anyway. And he didn't want to blow up the ship accidentally, either. He responded with a happy, "Yes, sir."
Kirk then continued. "Dr. McCoy, your department will oversee the testing and educational evaluation. Co-ordinate your evaluation of Mr. Potter's talents with Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott. I'd like a preliminary report with 72 hours. Lt. Uhura, please arrange quarters for Mr. Potter. Thank you everyone, that is all."
Captain Kirk stood and exited the conference room, followed by Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. Uhura came over to Harry and guided him out the door. As they left the room, she said "Don't worry Harry, we'll take good care of you while you're here."
Chapter 2: Stranger in a Strange Land
Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.
These were the first things that Harry heard as he slowly regained consciousness. Before attempting to move or open his eyes, he took stock of his situation. Okay, I'm alive and nothing seems to be broken.
If nothing else, living with the Dursleys had taught him to be vigilant when waking, and his time in the Wizarding world had done nothing to change that. While the Dursleys had always been verbally abusive and worked him into the dirt, Vernon and Petunia hadn't hurt him physically since he was about six. The hospital trip resulting from that last incident, and the fast talking that Vernon had had to do to convince the authorities that Harry's broken arm was nothing more than an accident, seemed to have curbed that tendency. After all, a Walrus and a Giraffe kicking the bloody hell out of a little boy wasn't "normal," And the Dursleys craved the appearance of normality above all else.
Encouraging Dudley to go after Harry, however... that could be passed off as "roughhousing" and no one would be the wiser. Needless to say, Harry had become very cautious when waking up.
However, coming to in an unfamiliar bed that, while comfortable, was clearly neither his four-poster in Gryffindor Tower, nor his usual bed in Madame Pomfrey's hospital wing, made him doubly wary. The strange electronic pulsing sound that seemed to match pace with his heartbeat was completely outside of his experience.
Having to deal with Tommy I-Have-Abandonment-Issues-And-An-Oedipus-Complex Riddle or his flunkies on a yearly basis usually ended with Harry spending time in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, but someday, he was sure, he'd wake up in a dungeon straight out of Dante's Inferno or Frankenstein. Had it finally happened?
He quickly went over his most recent memories. The last thing that seemed to be really clear was the Department of Mysteries, being chased by Death Eaters. He'd tried to fire off a spell. There was a bluish-white glow, and that's where things went weird. Beyond that, nothing until just now. Even then he realized he had no clue as to what happened to himself or his friends.
Suddenly Harry's eyes snapped open and he rolled off the bed and into a crouch. Death Eaters! Did we get captured? This is not good. These thoughts ran through his mind as he quickly took stock of his situation.
He looked around for his wand and glasses; to his surprise, they were on the table right next to the bed. Quickly, he put his glasses back on and gripped his wand tightly, prepared to curse anything that moved.
When he looked around, what he saw was not what he expected. It certainly didn't look like a Death Eater dungeon, which was somewhat comforting. Initially he thought he might be in St. Mungo's, but he had been there and the rooms he'd seen looked nothing like this.
The room was painted in a light blue color that seemed to try and present a peaceful feeling. The bed he was behind was nothing like anything he had seen before. There were no legs to speak of, just a thick pedestal that the mattress and pillow were on. The mattress looked like it was made of hard black leather, but when he touched it; it gave easily to his finger's pressure. Mounted on the wall behind the mattress, there was a rectangular box that had several gauges set within it, all currently reading zero. He also noticed that the odd rhythmic sound he had been hearing had stopped.
Harry noted that there were several other empty beds around the room, as well as what appeared to be desks that were built into dividers that sectioned off the room into several smaller areas. The oddly shaped chairs that were at each "desk" seemed to be made of some kind of metal, but he wasn't sure of that. On the desk nearest to him he could see an odd shaped box on the desk, but beyond that no clue as to where he was.
A door at the end of the room slid open with a soft whoosh, and a man dressed in a blue shirt and black pants walked into the room. He was speaking to someone behind him as he entered. "--get it right after I check up on our guest, Doctor."
The man stopped short when he saw that the empty bed where Harry had been. He took two steps forward before Harry popped up from behind the bed and pointed his wand across the surface.
"Hold it!" Harry snapped.
The man in blue, seeing nothing but a stick pointing at him, continued to move forward, reaching towards him with one arm. "Hey there young man. You need to get back into bed so w--"
He got no further that that as Harry yelled out, "STUPEFY!"
The beam of red light caught the man right in the center of his chest, causing him to drop to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, as Harry had intended.
What had not been intended was the effect of the magical backwash on the mechanisms in and around the bed he'd used to brace his arm. Every gauge lit up and spiked at their maximum reading, before blowing out in a shower of sparks. More sparks and an electrical arc came out of the bed itself for a moment, before smoke began to drift up and the room filled with the smell of burnt electrical insulation.
A light on the wall that had previously been white shifted to a red color while a whirring noise from a hidden fan started and sucked the tendrils of smoke that were hanging in the air away from the fried bed.
Harry backed away from the bed and tried to take cover as best he could beside the nightstand. All the while he was thinking frantically to himself, What the Bloody Hell is going on here? That guy isn't dressed like a wizard. For that matter I haven't seen anyone dressed like that before. And what's with the muggle electronics? I've never even heard of electro-beds! Voldemort hates muggles; he'd never use any of this stuff!
Harry began to realize that, wherever he was, it sure wasn't the Department of Mysteries or any other place he'd ever heard of before.
Dr. M'Benga came running around the corner and into the room. He had heard someone shout just before the alarms sounded. Usually, a shout coming from the sickbay meant one of two things: either something serious had happened to a patient, or something had gone seriously wrong with the equipment. Since the latter rarely happened, he was betting on the first.
What he didn't expect to see was his physician's assistant out cold on the floor, a smoking biobed, and no immediate sign of the teenaged patient that had been unconscious on the bed less than an hour ago.
M'Benga immediately went to Davids and began checking him out. Seeing that the young man was just unconscious and not injured, he looked at the bed for a moment and tried to figure out what happened.
"Mama wei, must have been a power surge. That's going to drive Mr. Scott mad tracking it down," he muttered as he began to move around the bed to try to find his patient.
"FREEZE!" Harry cried out as the dark-skinned man came into view. His shaking voice betrayed the adrenaline and fear that he was feeling.
M'Benga stopped in his tracks. He saw the boy, partially hidden beside the nightstand, with a stick pointed at him. A stick whose tip was glowing an ominous red. Okay, maybe not just a stick, then.
"Alright, young man. I'm stopped. Is there something I can do for you? You're the one in charge here," M'Benga said in a pleasant voice. He'd been through hostage training a few months ago and learned that usually the hostage takers tended to be either young and scared or stone-cold killers. He was betting on young and scared. If that was the case, then he needed to calm this kid down, and everything would be alright.
"Yeah. Where am I? How'd I get here? Where are my friends? And who the hell are you?" Harry snapped out a rapid fire series of questions.
"Okay. I'll tell you everything that I can, though I don't know all of the answers. If it's okay with you, I'll just sit down right here with my hands visible so you can see that I'm not going to hurt you. Is that alright?" M'Benga asked in a mild tone.
Harry shakily nodded his head. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but he was scared and the events of the last few minutes were catching up to him.
M'Benga sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Harry, being very careful to keep his hands on his knees. "Well, to answer your last question first, I am Doctor Keme M'Benga. You are aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. May I ask your name? It is only polite after all."
After a few moments, Harry replied, "It's Harry, Harry Potter." He was slightly surprised at the question. If this man was a wizard, then he should have known who he was by the scar on his forehead at a minimum.
"Nice to meet you, Harry. Is it okay if I call you Harry?" asked M'Benga politely. Harry nodded his head. Dr. M'Benga's accent sounded odd to Harry; it was cultured and had a definite Oxford quality to it, but it wasn't quite like any accent he'd heard before. Not to mention the fact that Dr. M'Benga was dressed oddly, even for a wizard, in clothes very nearly identical to those worn by the first man who came in. It was almost like it was a uniform, or something, but it wasn't one he'd ever seen before.
M'Benga mentally noted that Harry seemed to be calming down and had been lost in thought for half a moment. "Well Harry, as for how you got here, all I know is that we found you on that rock we're going around out there and brought you aboard. Unfortunately, you were the only one we found, so I can't tell you anything about your friends. I'm sorry," he said sympathetically.
Harry flinched at this news and asked. "You're sure you didn't find anyone? There were five more people with me."
M'Benga shook his head.
A surprised look crossed Harry's face as he asked. "Half a mo, you said U.S.S. Enterprise, right?"
"That's correct." replied M'Benga wondering what this kid was thinking.
"How the bloody hell did I get onto a rock in the middle of the bloody ocean and get picked up by a Yank aircraft carrier? Where the hell are we?" exclaimed Harry. He remembered hearing over the previous summer the news on the telly one evening that an American carrier called the Enterprise had docked in Southampton and they were giving tours. Dudley had begged Uncle Vernon to go see it but was unable to for some reason or another.
M'Benga looked at Harry oddly for a second before responding. "Aircraft carrier? Harry, there hasn't been an aircraft carrier on Earth for over two hundred years, and we're a long way from Earth."
"Two hundred-- Hang on, what do you mean two hundred years? Away from Earth? You're joking, right?" Harry insisted in a slightly disbelieving tone. He was getting a bad feeling about this.
Dr. M'Benga looked Harry straight in the eye and asked in a serious tone that demanded a truthful answer. "What year do you think it is, Harry?"
An icy ball formed itself in Harry's stomach as he said, "It's 1996."
"Harry, by the old Earth calendar, the year is 2266," was M'Benga's reply.
Harry suddenly remembered the room that Hermione, Neville and himself had been in just before he woke up here. The time turners, the bell jar with the phoenix. The dust the Death Eater had scattered onto his skin. Hermione had said something about Time. Time. Time.
"Oh Bloody Hell" Harry said in a whisper as he lowered his wand to the floor.
A few hours later, Harry found himself seated at conference table with several other people. Harry was only familiar with one of them.
He had met Dr. McCoy not long after his confrontation with M'Benga, when the Chief Medical Officer came back on duty for his morning shift, after several days of enforced rest following an accident with something called a 'hypospray'. Harry hadn't really understood the details.
McCoy had given Harry a more thorough exam, just to make sure that he was okay and that there were no hidden injuries. Harry had been glad to discover the exam was nothing like the ones Muggle doctors or Madam Pomfrey usually gave. All he had to do was lay down on a diagnostic biobed for a few minutes, and there were no pokes, prods, or foul tasting potions. The remainder of the exam was just some questions about his health and lifestyle.
Since then, Harry had been given breakfast and a general overview of the ship, but all the while, Harry had been trying to come up with a good cover story. After all, this starship might be a long way from Earth, but he still didn't want to get hauled in front of the Wizengamot for violating the Statute of Secrecy once he got home.
Or...well, at least back to Earth.
Dr. McCoy also didn't press Harry for any answers, about how he had gotten to the planet they were orbiting, or how he was able to stun Davids or how he managed to fry the biobed. All he has said in that soft Southern accent of his was, "Son, if I was in your shoes, I'd only want to tell it one time. I can wait a spell to ask my questions. Also, don't fret none about the people that'll be there. Their good people and ain't gonna bite. Alright?"
That statement somehow comforted Harry and he felt that the doctor was someone he could talk too if he wanted to, without being judged.
Harry turned his attention to a man in a gold tunic as he began to speak.
"Sorry about that, I should have given the go ahead on that addition earlier. Good to see you back on your feet, Bones. No lasting affects, I hope?" he asked Dr. McCoy in a friendly tone.
"Nope. I'm fully cleared for duty sir," replied McCoy.
"Excellent." The man in gold turned his attention to Harry. "Young man, my name is Captain James T. Kirk. I'm the Captain of the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise. To my right is Mr. Spock and to my left is Lt. Uhura. You already know Dr. McCoy."
As Captain Kirk introduced himself and each officer, Harry took a good look at each one. Kirk was an athletic looking man with brown hair. If Harry had had to guess, he'd say the man was in his 30's. Though his manner bore no trace of it, his eyes seemed to hold a lot of pain. They reminded Harry of Cho's eyes in the months after Cedric died, though without the tears.
Mr. Spock was tall and dressed in a blue tunic, much like Dr. McCoy's. Harry almost did a double-take when he first saw him; Mr. Spock had a definite green cast to his skin, and his ears, they were pointed. Harry wondered for half a moment if Mr. Spock would be what a house elf looked like if they somehow got crossed with a human. Yet despite the satanic look, the man's presence seemed to radiate calm and intelligence. Harry felt Mr. Spock would have been just as at home in a classroom as on a starship.
Harry then looked at Lt. Uhura. She was an exotic beauty who seemed concerned for Harry. She had a look on her face that while business-like, gave him the feeling she would like nothing better than to come over and give him a Molly Weasley style hug. He only hoped that when he got back to Hogwarts he wouldn't make a fool of himself by trying to compare Katie, Angelina, and Alicia with this lady.
"To begin with, would you introduce yourself and if possible try to explain how you got out here?" asked Captain Kirk in a friendly tone.
Harry began his tale. He hoped that it would be good enough to go with and not cause him to get into any more trouble than he was sure to be in when he got back to Earth. "Sir, my name is Harry James Potter and I'm 15. I am...I mean I was...a student at the Hogarth Academy in Scotland. Dr. M'Benga tells me that was over 250 years ago. I'm not really sure how I got here, sir. Some of the students and I were on a field trip down in London. We'd decided to go out and see what some of the London kids did for fun at night. We were walking around London near Parliament when there was this big explosion. I didn't see what it was, but Hermione, she's one of my friends, yelled out "Terrorists!" and we took off. Anyway, I guess she was right because we ran into a couple of them and tried to fight them off. All I can really remember after that was a big flash of light and feeling really weird. Then, well, I woke up in your sickbay."
"Interesting," responded Kirk. "So you don't know how you got to the planet?"
"No sir. I really don't." Harry replied honestly. He wondered why they were interested in that piece of information.
Mr. Spock spoke up for the first time, his rich baritone surprising Harry a bit. "Mr. Potter, while we were exploring the surface of the planet below us, an ancient artifact activated and deposited you on the ground in front of us. It also made a statement about you when it did so. We were hoping that you would have some insight as to how the artifact functioned."
"I'm sorry Mr. Spock, I wish I could help. You did say that the artifact said something? Could that help?" asked Harry.
Mr. Spock replied, "I do not believe so; the message was somewhat cryptic. However we do have a recording of the event. Lt. Uhura, would you please play the recording?"
"Certainly, Mr. Spock." Uhura looked at Harry for a moment and then pressed several buttons on the small console in front of her.
A large triangular shaped box rose out of the center of the table. On each face was a flat panel that Harry recognized as a television monitor. The screen facing him lit up and displayed a desolate wasteland of grey rocks and dirt. In the center of the screen was a very large single piece of rock. In the center of the rock was an oblong shaped hole that Hagrid could have easily walked through with plenty of room to spare. To Harry the whole formation resembled a giant stone doughnut. Suddenly the rock formation lit up from some internal source and a mist began falling from the top of the hole with a faint hissing sound. In the background he heard Lt. Uhura call out. "Captain, the Guardian! It's activating again."
Captain Kirk replied from somewhere out of the field of view. "Are you recording this?"
"Yes Captain, on all available spectra."
Suddenly a deep voice spoke and almost seemed to drip with age. The light that was coming from the rock formation flashed in concert with the voice. "Cast adrift through the sands of time, the chosen one is returned to you." No sooner had the voice stopped, than the mist flowing from the top of the hole began glowing a bluish white color. Harry saw himself tumble through the mist, still with the same faint glow surrounding him that he remembered from those last seconds in the Department of Mysteries. He immediately collapsed on the ground and the glow surrounding him faded a moment later. Harry watched as Mr. Spock came over and scanned him with a box that he now knew to be a tricorder. "Captain, he is saturated with chronometric particles. The saturation percentage is dropping exponentially and I calculate that he will be free of the particles in less than two minutes."
At this point the screen faded to black and Harry had a shocked look on his face. Bloody Hell, so that's what happened. My magic must have reacted to with the sand from the phoenix jar and sent me into the future. How am I going to explain this?
As the display monitors lowered back into the table, Captain Kirk spoke. "It's pretty obvious based on what you told us that you don't have anything to do with the artifact. However, there is another matter. Can you explain how you knocked out Physician's Assistant Davids and shorted out a biobed?"
"I think so sir. But if you will bear with me, this may take a bit to explain," Harry said. He closed his eyes for a moment and prayed to any higher power that might be listening that this piece of his story would work.
"Well sir, my parents were killed when I was just over a year old, and I was sent to my aunt and uncle to live. They didn't like me very much, but it's not really important; it's just to give you some background on what my home life was like. Anyway, ever since I can remember, strange things have happened around me. I'd get angry and things would break. One time I got my head shaved and hated it but the next morning all my hair had grown back. I was getting chased by bullies at school and somehow ended up on the roof without climbing anything. Things like that. When I was little, I started calling that weird stuff 'magic'.
"One day I was out shopping and found this stick on sale in an antique store. It just seemed to hum when I picked it up, and it let off some sparks, so I bought it. Since then the 'magic' seems a lot more controlled."
Mr. Spock spoke up. "So you have the ability to control these events at will since acquiring your...'magic wand' for lack of a better term?"
Harry took a breath and though for a second, trying to come up with a plausible response. "Not really, sir. I can knock people out if I'm feeling threatened, but not always. I've been able to do other things from time to time, but not consistently. Stuff like causing the tip to light up like a torch, occasionally being able to cause things to float in the air. Wake someone up from a few feet away. Little things mostly. One thing that I have noticed is if my magic hits something electrical, it causes it to short out or just stop working."
Dr. McCoy looked at Harry with the look of someone that was in deep thought and asked. "Harry, would you say that your magic seems to respond better in a stressful situation or if you're feeling some pretty strong emotions?"
Harry closed his eyes for a second, as if he was trying to remember past events, though he was actually just relieved that they were buying his story. "Now that you mention it, yeah, it does seem like that."
McCoy sat back in his seat with a look of extreme concentration on his face. He started to mutter under his breath, but not so quietly as to not be heard "Possible DNA mutation causing an advanced fight-or-flight response...possible evolutionary step...."
Captain Kirk looked around the table, when his gaze settled on Harry, a flash of something, possibly regret, crossed his face for just moment before he spoke. "Mr. Potter, since you are our guest for the foreseeable future, we will arrange for quarters for you. However, seeing as your talents could pose a danger to this ship, you will undergo a thorough evaluation on the extent of your abilities. Your 'wand' as Mr. Spock so quaintly put it, will remain locked up in the Medical office unless you are being evaluated or a situation arises to require its use to...prevent any uncontrolled outbursts. In addition, you will undergo an assessment of your educational status and any deficiencies will be addressed. We will get you back Earth as soon as possible, but in the meantime, can you abide by these rules?"
Harry hated giving up his wand, but it wasn't like he didn't spend his summers without it every year anyway. And he didn't want to blow up the ship accidentally, either. He responded with a happy, "Yes, sir."
Kirk then continued. "Dr. McCoy, your department will oversee the testing and educational evaluation. Co-ordinate your evaluation of Mr. Potter's talents with Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott. I'd like a preliminary report with 72 hours. Lt. Uhura, please arrange quarters for Mr. Potter. Thank you everyone, that is all."
Captain Kirk stood and exited the conference room, followed by Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. Uhura came over to Harry and guided him out the door. As they left the room, she said "Don't worry Harry, we'll take good care of you while you're here."
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