Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Know Thyself
Best Laid Plans
6 reviewsCrossover with the Matrix, sequel to KT: the Prelude. When Harry returns on a mission to his native England, he finds himself pulled into a world he never imagined existed... again.
2Original
-=-=-=-
A week to the day from their previous meeting, though only a couple of hours after noon, Severus settled into his transfigured chair, this time prepared for the wait with a journal in hand. There'd been no possibility of using the ingredient excuse this time, so the professor had been forced to admit to his employer that he was attempting to convince a recalcitrant student to attend Hogwarts.
Not that Albus hadn't been terribly suspicious anyway, but he'd patted Severus congenially on the back and wished him well with that irritating twinkle in his eye. The wizard made sure to remove the tracking charm the older wizard had deposited before he left the country.
Today, though, he had barely any time to wait at all before he heard footsteps crunching across the gravel. "It's about time," he said nevertheless, scowling as he turned to face Morpheus. The first time he could have been excused for not seeing the other man approaching, off-balance as he was from the events of the previous day, but to have it happen a second time stung his pride.
Morpheus only smiled coolly in return. "Harry has permission to attend your school. I'm here to coordinate how to make that possible."
"I don't know what all the bloody fuss is about. It's not as if Hogwarts hasn't hosted international students before." Rarely, yes, but any obstacles involved in those cases had been easily overcome.
"Harry's circumstances are... very unusual. It took a great many minds several days to figure out a plan that might be feasible." Morpheus raised an eyebrow pointedly at the lack of a second chair, but Severus was feeling more than irritated enough to ignore the hint and leave him standing.
"What, exactly, is it you need from me, then?" he bit out. "My firstborn child?"
Morpheus' lips twisted with a touch of humor. "Hardly. This school of yours. It has a landline?"
Severus frowned. "Landline?"
"I'll take that as a 'no,' then... Damn. That makes things much more difficult..." Morpheus looked out over the rooftop, furrowing his brows in thought. "Is there any way that Harry can quickly leave the school, to get to a city and a landline? We can arrange for one to be in place, so long as he can reach it in an emergency."
"...There is a floo system in place in Hogwarts, but it's strictly forbidden to students without express permission." So long as no one ever found out... Portkeys were also a possibility, but illegal to make, and had to be set to a precise destination anyway. While the oath might require Severus to give his aid, he would chew off a limb before he'd put himself back in Azkaban for a /Potter/. "He could use the floo in my office."
And weren't those words like pulling teeth. The damn brat had better appreciate this, or Severus would see how far the oath stretched as he did his best to strangle the boy.
"And this 'floo' is a magical form of transportation, I take it." Morpheus' face was impassive as the wizard inclined his head. "Very well. Should everything work out as planned, where would Harry meet you to prepare for school?"
Severus narrowed his eyes. "That's all you need from me?" From the dramatics they'd all been going through about this, he'd been expecting his tasks to be, if not impossible, at the very least Herculanean.
"It was our main concern on your part. It's much more complicated than that, of course, but the rest-"
-=-=-=-
Daemon pressed his back against the condensation-covered wall as the DocBot passed by, less than five meters from where he and his team were hiding. He held his breath, sure that this time, they'd be caught, but it continued on without pausing.
/Forward, two by two/, he ordered with hand signals. They leapfrogged through the mindless machinery, searching each space until at last, they found their objective. The operative waved his hand, and each of them covered her with their weapons as the last member of their team came forward, pulling the low, broad cart behind her.
It was the work of only a few minutes to unhook and load the decommissioned pod onto the cart, and then the team had vanished into the gloom, the machines none the wiser for their presence.
-=-=-=-
The programmer hardly dared to breathe as he slipped the Cuckoo virus into the hardline. It was more than a bit slapdash, but still a brilliant piece of work, considering they'd come up with and implemented the concept in less than a week. The soldiers standing guard over him were equally tense, their eyes endlessly scanning the debilitated tunnels for any sign of a Sentinel.
"Come on, come on," he muttered, watching the download bar on his handheld screen. Seventy percent... eighty... ninety... "All right, it's in."
A hand under his arm pulled him to his feet, and the programmer came within a hair's breadth of breaking his neck as he ran for the relative safety of the hovership over the debris-covered ground.
-=-=-=-
"Has there been any reaction yet?" Trinity asked two days later, peering at the monitors. "If they've noticed the pod, or the virus program..."
"Nothing yet, ma'am," the young man seated in front of the bank of computers answered. If he noticed the worry and stress that were heavy in her voice, he was kind enough not to mention it. "Sentinel patrols haven't varied beyond the expected parameters, and there's been a little activity inside the code, but it's all just basic maintenance garbage."
The woman stared at the screens a moment longer, her lips thin and jaw tight, and then she nodded. "Thank you," she murmured, and turned to leave, unsure of her feelings about the news.
Everything seemed to be going according to the plan... so why did she feel like crying?
-=-=-=-
"-the rest has already been taken care of."
Severus studied the other man's impassive face with great care, and at last came to the conclusion that Morpheus wasn't nearly as confident as he appeared to be. While a small part of him felt vindicated by the realization, the rest only grew even more worried.
Whatever trouble the Boy-Who-Lived had landed himself in, it seemed to be far deeper, and more dangerous, than even the usual run of Potter antics. Had it not been completely out of character for the snarky git of Hogwarts' dungeons, Severus would have sighed, deeply.
He had a feeling it was time to dust off all those skills he'd garnered, running with the old crowd...
"What day would be best?" Morpheus repeated, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"Is tomorrow at all possible?" Severus found himself asking. He was not a patient man without good cause, and without any kind of satisfactory explanation being offered, what little patience he had was being strained to the breaking point. From what he'd seen of the other man, it would be difficult to get real answers out of him, but Potter...?
The day he couldn't get at least some information out of an eleven-year-old boy, Severus would declare himself a disgrace to Slytherin House.
A flash of unhappiness crossed Morpheus' face, so brief that the professor had to wonder if he'd imagined it. "Yes," he said shortly. "Where?"
Severus named the intersection nearest to the Leaky Cauldron, and the man nodded. "He will be there at noon. Be ready."
As Morpheus began to walk away over the rooftop, Severus stood and gave his chair a vicious jab with his wand, transfiguring it back into a pebble as he grumbled to himself about asinine conspiracies, ungrateful brats and shopping trips.
"You're the one who wants him at your Hogwarts," the potions master heard, and looked up to see Morpheus had stopped and was staring back at him. "I should think you'd be grateful?"
A thrill of rage ran through him, and his dark eyes flashed as he drew himself to his full height. "And just why should I be grateful that Harry Potter will be gracing us with his presence?" he hissed, his grip on his wand tightening until it whitened his knuckles.
Morpheus' next words doused that ire as thoroughly as a bucket of ice water would have. "Because Harry will be putting his own life at risk to do so."
Only practice kept Severus from dropping his wand in shock. "What do you mean?" he asked, his mouth dry.
"What we are doing has never been done before. We don't even know that it can be done, or what effect it will have on Harry, even if it does work." Their gazes seemed locked together, and for a time every emotion in the muggle's eyes was laid bare to see: worry, resignation, fear...
"Then why...?"
"Desperate times, Professor. Desperate times, and desperate men. I can see you understand..." Severus had to look away from the understanding in that gaze. "Tomorrow. Please... take care of him."
When the wizard looked up again only a bare moment later, he scowled when he realized Morpheus had already vanished, again without answering the question of just how he was getting to the roof in the first place...
-=-=-=-
"Ready, kid?"
Harry looked up at the man standing next to him and scowled. "Don't call me a kid."
Tank grinned back at him, reaching out and running a hand over the boy's newly-shaved head. "Sorry. So are you ready, then, Mr. All-Powerful Wizard?"
It was meant to be teasing, but it still prompted a flinch from his adopted nephew. "No, not really," Harry whispered, looking over at where his parents were hovering over the three technicians who were making a few final adjustments to their hijacked sustenance pod, which had been spliced into the pipe network that fed the great energy farms a hundred meters over their heads. "I... I'm not so sure I want to go, now."
Tank pulled him against his side in a half-hug, staring hard at his fellow crewmembers until Neo looked up and caught his eye. The operator nodded pointedly down at Harry, and the other man nodded back, reaching out to catch his wife's sleeve. "I know you don't, but this is somethin' you feel like you have to do. And just think, you'll be learning mojo! The real stuff! You'll have fun!"
Harry snorted quietly, then stilled as his parents approached. They hadn't been angry with him, not like he'd been afraid they would be, but their hurt that he hadn't trusted him, and his guilt about the same, had left their time together filled with awkward silences that Harry hated, but didn't know how to break.
"Hey," he whispered through the lump that had appeared in his throat, and gave them an uncertain smile as Tank nudged him forward.
Trinity didn't answer; instead, she swept her little boy up into a tight hug, and Neo wrapped his arms around them both. "Promise me you'll be careful," she demanded with tears threatening her eyes.
"I promise, Mum." Harry could feel himself tearing up, but made no attempt to stop them from flowing. He wouldn't get to see his family again for months, maybe even most of a year if they couldn't figure out some way for him to take a break, and it seemed like he was losing a part of his life he'd only just come to accept as his.
Neo said nothing, only looked down at him with dark eyes that teemed with his own anxieties and then brushed a kiss across his forehead. Then the technicians were calling for them, and they led Harry over to the pod. Connecting all the leads and tubes that would keep the eleven-year-old alive and aware inside the Matrix was the work of only a few, painful minutes.
Then the pod began to fill with the rose-tinted nutrient solution, and no one said anything at all when, as the liquid covered the boy's slack face, his mother turned her face to her husband's shoulder and quietly began to sob.
A week to the day from their previous meeting, though only a couple of hours after noon, Severus settled into his transfigured chair, this time prepared for the wait with a journal in hand. There'd been no possibility of using the ingredient excuse this time, so the professor had been forced to admit to his employer that he was attempting to convince a recalcitrant student to attend Hogwarts.
Not that Albus hadn't been terribly suspicious anyway, but he'd patted Severus congenially on the back and wished him well with that irritating twinkle in his eye. The wizard made sure to remove the tracking charm the older wizard had deposited before he left the country.
Today, though, he had barely any time to wait at all before he heard footsteps crunching across the gravel. "It's about time," he said nevertheless, scowling as he turned to face Morpheus. The first time he could have been excused for not seeing the other man approaching, off-balance as he was from the events of the previous day, but to have it happen a second time stung his pride.
Morpheus only smiled coolly in return. "Harry has permission to attend your school. I'm here to coordinate how to make that possible."
"I don't know what all the bloody fuss is about. It's not as if Hogwarts hasn't hosted international students before." Rarely, yes, but any obstacles involved in those cases had been easily overcome.
"Harry's circumstances are... very unusual. It took a great many minds several days to figure out a plan that might be feasible." Morpheus raised an eyebrow pointedly at the lack of a second chair, but Severus was feeling more than irritated enough to ignore the hint and leave him standing.
"What, exactly, is it you need from me, then?" he bit out. "My firstborn child?"
Morpheus' lips twisted with a touch of humor. "Hardly. This school of yours. It has a landline?"
Severus frowned. "Landline?"
"I'll take that as a 'no,' then... Damn. That makes things much more difficult..." Morpheus looked out over the rooftop, furrowing his brows in thought. "Is there any way that Harry can quickly leave the school, to get to a city and a landline? We can arrange for one to be in place, so long as he can reach it in an emergency."
"...There is a floo system in place in Hogwarts, but it's strictly forbidden to students without express permission." So long as no one ever found out... Portkeys were also a possibility, but illegal to make, and had to be set to a precise destination anyway. While the oath might require Severus to give his aid, he would chew off a limb before he'd put himself back in Azkaban for a /Potter/. "He could use the floo in my office."
And weren't those words like pulling teeth. The damn brat had better appreciate this, or Severus would see how far the oath stretched as he did his best to strangle the boy.
"And this 'floo' is a magical form of transportation, I take it." Morpheus' face was impassive as the wizard inclined his head. "Very well. Should everything work out as planned, where would Harry meet you to prepare for school?"
Severus narrowed his eyes. "That's all you need from me?" From the dramatics they'd all been going through about this, he'd been expecting his tasks to be, if not impossible, at the very least Herculanean.
"It was our main concern on your part. It's much more complicated than that, of course, but the rest-"
-=-=-=-
Daemon pressed his back against the condensation-covered wall as the DocBot passed by, less than five meters from where he and his team were hiding. He held his breath, sure that this time, they'd be caught, but it continued on without pausing.
/Forward, two by two/, he ordered with hand signals. They leapfrogged through the mindless machinery, searching each space until at last, they found their objective. The operative waved his hand, and each of them covered her with their weapons as the last member of their team came forward, pulling the low, broad cart behind her.
It was the work of only a few minutes to unhook and load the decommissioned pod onto the cart, and then the team had vanished into the gloom, the machines none the wiser for their presence.
-=-=-=-
The programmer hardly dared to breathe as he slipped the Cuckoo virus into the hardline. It was more than a bit slapdash, but still a brilliant piece of work, considering they'd come up with and implemented the concept in less than a week. The soldiers standing guard over him were equally tense, their eyes endlessly scanning the debilitated tunnels for any sign of a Sentinel.
"Come on, come on," he muttered, watching the download bar on his handheld screen. Seventy percent... eighty... ninety... "All right, it's in."
A hand under his arm pulled him to his feet, and the programmer came within a hair's breadth of breaking his neck as he ran for the relative safety of the hovership over the debris-covered ground.
-=-=-=-
"Has there been any reaction yet?" Trinity asked two days later, peering at the monitors. "If they've noticed the pod, or the virus program..."
"Nothing yet, ma'am," the young man seated in front of the bank of computers answered. If he noticed the worry and stress that were heavy in her voice, he was kind enough not to mention it. "Sentinel patrols haven't varied beyond the expected parameters, and there's been a little activity inside the code, but it's all just basic maintenance garbage."
The woman stared at the screens a moment longer, her lips thin and jaw tight, and then she nodded. "Thank you," she murmured, and turned to leave, unsure of her feelings about the news.
Everything seemed to be going according to the plan... so why did she feel like crying?
-=-=-=-
"-the rest has already been taken care of."
Severus studied the other man's impassive face with great care, and at last came to the conclusion that Morpheus wasn't nearly as confident as he appeared to be. While a small part of him felt vindicated by the realization, the rest only grew even more worried.
Whatever trouble the Boy-Who-Lived had landed himself in, it seemed to be far deeper, and more dangerous, than even the usual run of Potter antics. Had it not been completely out of character for the snarky git of Hogwarts' dungeons, Severus would have sighed, deeply.
He had a feeling it was time to dust off all those skills he'd garnered, running with the old crowd...
"What day would be best?" Morpheus repeated, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"Is tomorrow at all possible?" Severus found himself asking. He was not a patient man without good cause, and without any kind of satisfactory explanation being offered, what little patience he had was being strained to the breaking point. From what he'd seen of the other man, it would be difficult to get real answers out of him, but Potter...?
The day he couldn't get at least some information out of an eleven-year-old boy, Severus would declare himself a disgrace to Slytherin House.
A flash of unhappiness crossed Morpheus' face, so brief that the professor had to wonder if he'd imagined it. "Yes," he said shortly. "Where?"
Severus named the intersection nearest to the Leaky Cauldron, and the man nodded. "He will be there at noon. Be ready."
As Morpheus began to walk away over the rooftop, Severus stood and gave his chair a vicious jab with his wand, transfiguring it back into a pebble as he grumbled to himself about asinine conspiracies, ungrateful brats and shopping trips.
"You're the one who wants him at your Hogwarts," the potions master heard, and looked up to see Morpheus had stopped and was staring back at him. "I should think you'd be grateful?"
A thrill of rage ran through him, and his dark eyes flashed as he drew himself to his full height. "And just why should I be grateful that Harry Potter will be gracing us with his presence?" he hissed, his grip on his wand tightening until it whitened his knuckles.
Morpheus' next words doused that ire as thoroughly as a bucket of ice water would have. "Because Harry will be putting his own life at risk to do so."
Only practice kept Severus from dropping his wand in shock. "What do you mean?" he asked, his mouth dry.
"What we are doing has never been done before. We don't even know that it can be done, or what effect it will have on Harry, even if it does work." Their gazes seemed locked together, and for a time every emotion in the muggle's eyes was laid bare to see: worry, resignation, fear...
"Then why...?"
"Desperate times, Professor. Desperate times, and desperate men. I can see you understand..." Severus had to look away from the understanding in that gaze. "Tomorrow. Please... take care of him."
When the wizard looked up again only a bare moment later, he scowled when he realized Morpheus had already vanished, again without answering the question of just how he was getting to the roof in the first place...
-=-=-=-
"Ready, kid?"
Harry looked up at the man standing next to him and scowled. "Don't call me a kid."
Tank grinned back at him, reaching out and running a hand over the boy's newly-shaved head. "Sorry. So are you ready, then, Mr. All-Powerful Wizard?"
It was meant to be teasing, but it still prompted a flinch from his adopted nephew. "No, not really," Harry whispered, looking over at where his parents were hovering over the three technicians who were making a few final adjustments to their hijacked sustenance pod, which had been spliced into the pipe network that fed the great energy farms a hundred meters over their heads. "I... I'm not so sure I want to go, now."
Tank pulled him against his side in a half-hug, staring hard at his fellow crewmembers until Neo looked up and caught his eye. The operator nodded pointedly down at Harry, and the other man nodded back, reaching out to catch his wife's sleeve. "I know you don't, but this is somethin' you feel like you have to do. And just think, you'll be learning mojo! The real stuff! You'll have fun!"
Harry snorted quietly, then stilled as his parents approached. They hadn't been angry with him, not like he'd been afraid they would be, but their hurt that he hadn't trusted him, and his guilt about the same, had left their time together filled with awkward silences that Harry hated, but didn't know how to break.
"Hey," he whispered through the lump that had appeared in his throat, and gave them an uncertain smile as Tank nudged him forward.
Trinity didn't answer; instead, she swept her little boy up into a tight hug, and Neo wrapped his arms around them both. "Promise me you'll be careful," she demanded with tears threatening her eyes.
"I promise, Mum." Harry could feel himself tearing up, but made no attempt to stop them from flowing. He wouldn't get to see his family again for months, maybe even most of a year if they couldn't figure out some way for him to take a break, and it seemed like he was losing a part of his life he'd only just come to accept as his.
Neo said nothing, only looked down at him with dark eyes that teemed with his own anxieties and then brushed a kiss across his forehead. Then the technicians were calling for them, and they led Harry over to the pod. Connecting all the leads and tubes that would keep the eleven-year-old alive and aware inside the Matrix was the work of only a few, painful minutes.
Then the pod began to fill with the rose-tinted nutrient solution, and no one said anything at all when, as the liquid covered the boy's slack face, his mother turned her face to her husband's shoulder and quietly began to sob.
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