trans_9 | Hearth and Home [Open]

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Hearth and Home [Open]

The world had ended. Worlds, plural, had ended, and there was a war on, a war to save all of existence. It was a war Harry'd been recruited for, apparently, just when he'd finished fighting the last one.

It was quite a bit to take in, and Harry Potter wasn't exactly taking it well. It certainly helped that some of the people he knew were awake and had been saved by the talking ship, but he would have felt much better if all the people he cared about were, so he was sure they'd even been saved.

Still, in the end, there was another war to fight. Another one. He was "Chosen" twice over. How could someone have such rotten luck? How could he lose parents, be raised by people like the Dursleys, be a marked man, spend all that time fighting, and then lose his whole world? A world was not the sort of thing you lost, in general. It wasn't as if you could go out for the day, have a hole in your pocket and have the world fall out. A world was an awfully large thing to lose.

The only thing that had offset the despair shock he was currently going through was the fact that Harry Potter had found a magic room on the ship. First day there, no map and he'd found it--how was that for luck? It was clearly some sort of Room of Requirement--all you had to do was walk outside, think very hard about what you wanted on the inside, and there it was, just like that. Unlike the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, it got around the limitations on magic that existed back home for Harry and even did food.

This remarkable room could even duplicate other places perfectly. This was how Harry found himself in the Gryffindor Common Room, eating chocolate frogs, and playing wizard's chess against the board itself. The opposing pieces were floundering without a player to call the shots, and because of it, it wasn't really fun at all.

Then again, he wasn't sure if he was even allowed to have fun.

Ever again.

After all, Harry though, shouldn't he be grieving? For all the people lost? It was difficult, though, to wrap his head around the numbers, around a loss of that magnitude, and part of him didn't even want to try. As a result, he spent his day holed away in the past, pretending Ron and Hermione would come bounding in through the entrance to the Common Room any minute, and trying his best to quell that tiny voice in the back of his head that told him that what he was doing wasn't healthy at all.

Chess, anyone?

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Harry sacrificed his castle.

"Oh, I'm sure all of you are," Harry said amused tones to Marco's proclamation of their awesome good-looking-ness. "Whole country full of movie stars. And just about, yeah. Though the charms are more complicated than that, and we don't say abracadabra."

There was something almost exhilarating about talking to a muggle about magic and not worrying about being reprimanded for once, but then that was probably because he'd almost had his wand broken over breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

In any case, he'd decided almost immediately not to keep it a secret. There were aliens here, and wizards going about in robes and talking unicorns. There was absolutely no point in adhering to laws that came from a world that didn't exist any longer.

"It's strange telling you this. Wizards are s'posed to keep magic a secret from muggles--er, non-wizards. There's laws against it, but I reckon they don't matter anymore."

Edited 2011-10-07 05:21 (UTC)

And hey, you can't doubt the awesome good-looking-ness of America, Harry. Just look at Marco! What other proof do you need? But instead of continuing to hammer the point home, Marco instead stared at Harry like he'd grown an extra head. When he'd talked about wands, he hadn't really expected a confirmation. "Wait, you guys actually use wands? Seriously? Like fairy godmother wands?"

At the mention of secret laws though, Marco moved another piece, watching Harry sidelong out of the corner of his eye. Marco definitely wasn't a stranger to having to keep things secret - although he hadn't needed to keep his own abilities secret because of any law. Except why exactly would they even need a law against telling people about magic in the first place? "You actually have laws against that? What, you worried that we're all going to come after you with pitchforks?" he asked, probing.

"Not like a fairy godmother, no," Harry said with some mild irritation.

He took out his own wand, the one that'd been broken that had been on the ship as whole and perfectly his as it had been the day he'd gotten it from Ollivander's.

"There's no little star or bobble on the top or anything like that. See?"

It wasn't a fairy godmother wand. Not in the least bit. He put it away.

"With the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy that was the big fear." Harry hadn't actually paid much intention in History of Magic class but he'd paid enough to know all this.

"There was persecution of wizards, muggles trying to get them to solve all their problems with magic, and there were all the witch-burnings in the 1600's--usually muggles just killed other poor muggles with that. Most wizards just did a bunk out of situations like that with magic. Er, then, if I'm remembering history class right, I think wizards tried to get protection under muggle law and couldn't, so wizards passed the Statue of Secrecy and went underground. It was like wizards were never there at all."

The chess pieces started to heckle him with every move he tried to make. He settled for sacrificing a bishop rather than his queen.

"Dude, it's still a wand," Marco said, snorting. "At least if you a magic staff or something you'd look somewhat more impressive."

Still, he eyed it carefully, taking note of what it looked like. He didn't know a thing about magic, but he was betting it could be pretty dangerous. And it did occur to him that having a weapon which didn't look at all threatening or dangerous was pretty darn useful.

"So you guys don't want to tell anyone about magic because then they'd want you to do magic for them," he said, his voice deceptively neutral. The situation reminded him eerily of Andalites, and Seerow's Kindness; helping went bad once, so they decided they never would again. Except the Andalites took not giving out technology to other species further than just that. They were convinced that they were better, that they couldn't ever listen to anyone else even when those people were actually on their side. "That, and they'd persecute you. Or at least, people they thought were you, since it sounds like you guys were more than capable of defending yourself against people who couldn't do things like turn you into frogs."

He moved again, taking the bishop. Harry had made the wrong move though - he should have sacrificed the queen instead, because in loosing the bishop he'd opened up the way for Marco to start attacking his King.

"Being able to defend ourselves only goes so far. We're only a small part of the population, wizards. Muggles have things like guns. Nuclear weapons."

Harry shrugged. He'd never really put much thought to it, since he'd found out he was a wizard.

"None of it matters now, I s'pose."

It really was oddly liberating.

"I reckon I like it more this way. We've all got to fight in this war, yeah? There's things threatening all of us--it seems like it'll be easier to fight them when everyone knows about them and what everyone else can do."

Marco nodded. That, at least, made more sense. Of all people, Marco could definitely understand what it was like, when there was only a few of you and lots of them.

He laughs, but it's a little bit hollow. "Easier? Oh, sure. If you count the fact that we're all from wildly different worlds and that Stacy's been known to pick up psychos and nutjobs who want to take over the ship as easier. Facing the same threat as you doesn't necessarily mean that someone's on your side - or that you can trust them."

He was mostly down to pawns now.

"'Course not," said Harry as if that was completely obvious. "People will still have one over on you and trick you for their own benefit and sometimes they'll choose the wrong side." And sometimes you had to trick someone else to survive, to have a chance of winning, not that he'd admit that aloud. "War still has a funny way of getting people fighting with someone else rather than each other, though."

He was either speaking from experience or speaking disrespectfully where he had no experience. It was up for Marco to decide which he thought it was.

Considering the kind of people the had on the ship, Marco was inclined to think he was speaking from experience. And even if the guy wasn't, assuming he was was still the safer option. Better to assume that someone had experience and was potentially dangerous, and find out that they weren't, then to assume they were harmless and find out otherwise instead.

"They like to talk a lot of big words here, about how everyone should just trust each other and be one big happy family, blah blah blah. But it's not going to happen. Not when there are people here who would screw over the rest of us to save their own asses, you can find that it's your own worst enemy that wakes up one podpop. And that's not even getting into the Daligig, our 'allies'."

Marco moved his rook, leaned back, and smirked. "Checkmate," he said.

Harry looked at the board and then idly flicked over his king.

"What happens if your worst enemy wakes up on the ship?" he asked. "Wouldn't everyone fight against people that were dangerous?"

"Oh, but as far as the Council is concerned, no one should pay any attention to what people did before they woke up here," he said, his voice bitter. "No one can be tried for prior crimes, and if people step up and say that someone is dangerous...well, they'll pretty much just sit on their heels and let them scurry around as much as they like. And when you complain, they'll just tell you that you're biased so anything you say means jack shit."

"...What?"

So if Voldemort himself showed up, they wouldn't do a thing?

Marco was silent for a moment. "On my world, there's the guys - Yeerks," he said quietly. It was weird, in a way, actually bringing up Yeerks without something without them already knowing they were from his world. But what did he get from not saying anything? Nothing. At least this way, the guy would know to be on guard. "They're these alien slugs. They crawl into your ear, and take over your brain. Control everything you do. They make you a slave in your own body. My friends brother, he was one of them. And when his Yeerk," Marco spat out the word, like it was filth, "coerced him into agreeing to let the slug keep using him as a his own personal meat body, they just said 'oh, it's his decision' and ignored us when we tried to tell them just exactly just exactly was wrong with letting someone who'd been a slave for years stay infested. They didn't even get him a psych eval."

"We have the Imperius Curse in my world. A wizard can control another person with their magic. Everything they do, every thought they have."

Brilliant.

"Why would they let someone who'd done that get away with it? I read the things on the omnicom or whatever the thing is, and aren't there laws here?"

Marco's clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. Great. Another thing that could control people and make them into slaves. "Can you tell if someone's had it cast on them?" he asked, not wanting to have no information on this thing.

"Because they don't apply the laws to the stuff people did before they got here, and they seem to think that 'not convicting people for past crimes' equals 'ignoring their past crimes altogether'. Course, these are the guys who have someone who calls himself an evil demon overlord sitting on the Council with them, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's some selective self-interest going on there."

Harry facepalmed.

"Brilliant. Just brilliant. Why did I think for a second there'd be government here that was actually competent, when there's no government anywhere that is?"

The more he learned about this place, the more he wanted to stay here in the simulated Common Room and not leave.

Pushing his hand up through his hair, he said, "And to answer your question, it's nearly impossible to tell and very difficult to throw off. That's why the Imperius Curse is an Unforgivable."

Edited 2011-10-09 05:38 (UTC)

"You expected a competent government? Dude, did you go temporarily insane?" Marco said, rolling his eyes. Although really, in a way he'd been the same, at first. Sure, he hadn't expected the Council to be great, but he had at least expected them to not let Yeerks go running around controlling people. So much for that idea.

"But you can throw it off?" Marco said, seizing on that piece of information. If it could be thrown off, it meant there was a way out. "How?"

"I dunno, a very basic level of competence would be nice one of these days," Harry commented sarcastically.

"And sheer force of will, basically. Not everyone can do it, or if they can, it takes them years."

He neglected to mention that he was someone that could, with great effort, throw it off.

Marco shuddered a little at the idea of being under that thing for years. Like his mother had been a host for years. It had changed her, he knew, as the recent event with the terrorist had proved beyond all doubt. She was still his mother, but she was...different.

"How exactly does 'sheer force of will' work though?" Was it like how hosts could cain control for a few precious moments sometimes? Like Chapman, and his wife? "And what if you found out someone else was under it - could you take the spell off?"

There was a pause and then the slightest smile that curved over Harry's lips.

"So you came from a war then, too?" he asked.

He quickly clarified. "You come from somewhere with brain-controlling slugs, don't trust governments, and right now, you're scouting out what possible threats there are from someone new on the ship."

He hadn't guessed the morphing, or that Marco had fought in one, but clearly, he'd come from one. A world at war.

"It's what I'd do is the thing. It's what I plan to do. Soon as I deal with the fact my world is gone and stop hiding from everything. Only you really have got to be more subtle about it. You're lucky I'm not someone that's fussed over being questioned and doesn't really have anything to hide."

Marco paused, then scowled a little, annoyed at being dissected like that. By now he knew that he couldn't really hide what he was, and his involvement in the Yeerk war - but that didn't mean that he liked having people pick up on it.

It was eerily like back when he'd had that psych eval with Samson, and no matter how much he'd tried to hide, Samson has still managed to get past all of his defences.

"Parasitic slugs who want to enslave people aren't exactly peaceful," he said shortly, giving up on any attempt to refute Harry's assertions. "If there's someone else out there that control me, my friends, my family? You bet I want to know about it." It was the one thing that Marco feared more than anything else. To see his mother a slave again, to end up a slave himself, unable to control his own body...he didn't think he'd be able to deal with that.

He leaned back, watching Harry through narrowed eyes. "If you want to know about who's a possible threat though, I'll make you a deal - you tell me anything you know about how to fight this curse, and how else they guys you're fighting in your world could be a thread, and I'll tell you what I know about who's potentially dangerous on the ship."

That was...valuable. That was a very valuable exchange of information.

"Deal."

Harry told Marco about more than the Imperius Curse, however. He also covered the Killing Curse--though he didn't mention he'd survived it when he was a baby, the Cruciatus Curse, and other hexes and curses that he knew about, as well as information about Voldemort and the Death Eaters and how they were organized and operated (though he left off the exact details of how he knew all that).

Edited 2011-10-09 06:35 (UTC)

Marco paid the closest attention to the Imperious Curse, but he took note of everything Harry told him. The more he heard, the more it confirmed that these wizards were dangerous. Definitely someone Marco wanted working with him rather than against him.

In return, Marco told Harry what he knew about everyone on the ship who could be dangerous, as crewmembers who had become enemies in the past. The Yeerks, Lex Luthor, Azula, Kang - even the fact that the Doctor had a (supposedly) no longer functioning Time Machine. And he definitely went into detail about all he knew about the GIA and the Daligig.

But like Harry, he left out any mention of how he knew all this, and his ability to morph. Maybe that information was public knowledge by now, but Marco wasn't going to just hand that out to anyone who didn't already know it yet.

To his credit, Harry didn't ask how Marco knew, mostly because he was grateful that Marco didn't ask about the specifics of the war.

"So this entire thing--it's all that complicated," Harry said in a dull sort of voice, as if he was quite tired of complicated things and wars in general. "It's not just fighting bug...things."

He made a halfhearted little pincer gesture near his mouth.

Edited 2011-10-09 06:50 (UTC)

"Dude, just fighting bugs would be easy. Well, except for the fact that these are incredibly powerful bugs that can destroy entire universes and kill people like Superman and we're ridiculously outgunned. Obviously all we'd need to do is find a big enough foot to squish them with."

"Oh no, trust me, you don't want giants," Harry said, with complete seriousness. "It's hard to win their loyalty, and they can get quite bloodthirsty."

Hearth and Home [Open]

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