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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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."

"Well it's either that or the giant can of bug spray," Marco said, mirroring Harry's seriousness.

"Maybe a giant fly swatter?"

Harry couldn't stop the grin from creeping to his lips again.

"I'm Harry, by the way. Harry Potter. I don't think we ever exchanged names."

He held out his hand over the chessboard.

"You can tell we've got our priorities straight."

Oh, right. Names.

"Marco," he said, reaching over to shake Harry's hand. "And hey, gossiping about evil wizards and space slugs is totally more important than introductions."

"I'm not really used to having to introduce myself," Harry said, before realizing that would take some explaining.

Marco raised an eyebrow. Yup, that definitely needed some explaining.

What was the pithiest way to sum up his entire existence?

Harry sighed.

"Back on my world, I was the 'Chosen One.'" That got quotey fingers.

He pushed his hair out of the way of the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

"Anyone who saw this knew my name before I ever knew theirs."

Where some might enjoy being lavished with such attention, it was obvious Harry couldn't stand it.

"People on this ship look at me and haven't the faintest who I am. It's pretty brilliant, actually."

Edited 2011-10-09 07:43 (UTC)

That made that eyebrow go up even further. "Chosen for what? And why just the scar - do you guys not have pictures or something?"

Well, Marco would have liked being lavished with attention. In fact he probably had been, in those three years he hadn't lived anymore.

He hated that stupid clock.

"I didn't get my picture into the newspapers much until my teens, because I was raised by my muggle aunt and uncle, so people mostly recognized me by the scar."

How exactly had he wound up explaining all this anyway? Oh right, because his entire existence was tangled up in it.

"Remember how I said only one person's survived the death curse when I explained how it worked?"

He'd also told him about Voldemort and the Death Eaters, in case they ever showed up on the ship.

"I survived it when I was a baby, after Voldemort killed my parents and tried to use it on me. It scarred me and destroyed his body, even though he couldn't be killed entirely. It wasn't until the end of my fourth year at school that he'd returned and started taking over the Wizarding World, like I said."

He waved a hand vaguely. That had a scar on it, too, though it was difficult to see that it was one that spelled out worlds if you didn't look closely enough.

"There's this...prophecy, and the whole thing is just--it's a bit--"

It was a lot to have to deal with, but it didn't matter now, did it?

"You can't imagine what it's like to be told you've got to go and stop a war, that you're the only one that can really do it. When you're not really all that bright, and not as brave as everyone thinks you are, when haven't the faintest idea how to even go about it--and all you have is that sometimes you're really very lucky."

He looked up from the chess set and then looked away, slightly embarrassed that he'd blurted all that out.

Edited 2011-10-09 08:09 (UTC)

Okay. That was one hell of a crazy story. For a moment, Marco just stared.

"Dude, that sucks," he said simply. He'd lost his mother, and in a way, his father as well for a while there - but he'd still had them. And he got them back. He couldn't really imagine what it would be liking having your parents murdered before you could even remember them, and then having to face the man that killed them when you were older.

But then Harry started talking about the prophecy. About how he couldn't imagine what it was like being the only one who had to stop a war. Except, Marco could, because he and the other Animorphs had gone through just that. For that Harry was...jeez, he was just like him, someone who'd had to fight an impossible war, who'd had to deal with innocent people that were being controlled by the enemy, Marco couldn't trust him. Not someone he'd just met.

"Right," he said, just a brief flicker of his eyes the only hint that there was something more to his reaction to Harry's words. "That's pretty insane, man."

That wasn't even getting into the Dursleys, which was something he generally just did not talk about, even with Ron and Hermione, and even then, it was matter-of-fact. 'The Dursleys are not letting me eat, send food please.'

"Well, I s'pose it doesn't matter now, does it? it At least that war's over. Hopefully, I'll never have to face him again."

Even if it was all fixed and they went back home, he'd be going back to his death and that meant no more fighting--or so he thought.

"Now I've got a whole new one to fight."

Hoooray for him.

"So you guys won then?" Marco asked, titling his head. He'd gotten the impression that Harry's war was still ongoing, but if that was was over...

Then he scowled. Harry wasn't the only one less than happy to get tossed into some other war. "Just our luck, huh?"

Hearth and Home [Open]

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