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trans_92011-10-05 04:37 am
head-heldhigh.livejournal.com) wrote in trans_92011-10-05 04:37 am
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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?
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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"Who?" he asked.
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"So is this place your house?" he asks, still marveling at it.
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That would take some explaining.
"Er, at my school, we're sorted into Houses. Four of them. This is my house's Common Room."
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"So what's with the board game and why's it angry at you?"
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He added, "Come to think of it, they just like to heckle in general."
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Then he gestured to the board. "D'you play, by any chance?"
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"Uh, no. If my games are going to talk to me I like them with flashing lights and plugged into a television." He leans forward, though, blinking at the little pieces fighting with each other. His face takes an intrigued expression that betrays that though he's never been the academic type, he does have an insatiable natural curiosity. "I could learn, though, right?"
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He held out a hand over the board.
"I'm Harry, by the way. Harry Potter."
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Howard doesn't take Harry's hand, instead folding his arms as if examining the chessboard, but he does try for a friendly smile. "Howard Bassem. I work in Medical."
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Harry pulled his hand back.
"I think I've got a good way to help you with figuring out how the pieces move," he said, and then each of the pieces on Howard's side had a little diagram at the base, showing how they moved, much like beginner's chess sets did.
"What's that like, working in Medical? I've got to find someplace to work on the ship myself. They suggested the Magical/Mystical Department on the comms, but I figure I can help in more than one place."
And dealing with magical threats didn't seem like a full-time thing.
He was half-considering doing something where he'd be in the thick of it and half-considering doing something that would involve slightly less fighting for his life.
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"It's pretty cool, actually, when you're not on the field. Keeps me busy. I learn a lot there." And he won't admit it, but he likes that he seems to have found his place there. He would never call the med bay 'family' because he doesn't like the word, but they may be as close as he'll ever get again.
He switches topics and babbles a little before he gets emotional any about the med bay. "You can totally do two jobs, too, as long as you aren't huge on sleeping. I do salvage on the side. Repurposing broken stuff and scavenging for abandoned stuff. The City's huge, so I figure no one will miss it. I never talked to anyone in the Magical department, but I'd guess they probably don't work you harder than Medical."
"White moves first," one of the bishops whispers to Howard. Howard bites his lip and inches an apprehensive pawn forward.
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So many nights worrying about every creak of a branch outside the tent hadn't done him good. Even when he hadn't been the one on watch, he hadn't slept well and now he'd gotten into a pattern of hardly sleeping and waking up multiple times a night in the middle of bouts of paranoia.
"With Magical, I just reckon it might be good to have something else that isn't fighting. Helping people who are hurt sounds like a nice change of pace. Or I could do with something else like it, at least."
He couldn't make up his mind about it. Should he fight because it was what he was used to or was being used to it a sign that he should step back?
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Howard bites his fingernail a bit nervously, waiting for Harry to make his first move. He's not expecting to win, but the rook is giving him a remarkably intimidating evil eye for a piece of animated carved wood. Or plastic. Or stone. Or whatever these are.
"So you use your magic for fighting? Cedric mentioned there was a war." And that he died, but even tactless as Howard can be, he figures that's probably not the sort of thing to just blurt out.
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There was something matter-of-fact with how he spoke about the war that was probably equal parts reassuring and unnerving. Either he was someone that had somehow just adjusted or who was so maladjusted from it, he could talk about it with ease.
He glanced up at Howard and that easy expression went away somewhat as he set his mouth into a thin line. "With dark wizards, it's pretty much fight, join them, or die. Only joining them means killing and hurting innocent muggles and wizards alike."
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"What about running? Not an option?" Because that would be Howard's first choice. He moves another pawn out, ignoring that the talkative bishop is chiding him for something or other.
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Harry moved another of his pieces.
"In my case, I've been running, me and my two best mates. In between fighting, at least."
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"So what's this war over, anyway? Did some dark wizards just wake up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decide to start killing all the unmagic people?"
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He moved his bishop.
"Pureblood supremacy's been a thing with with some wizards for a very long time. With others, blood status is nonsense, and they think, rightfully so, that nonmagical people should be left alone, that they're not inferior to wizards. Right now, though, there's a leader to rally around, a very dark wizard by the name of Voldemort. He's not even a pureblood himself, but none of his followers know it--they probably wouldn't believe it."
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Howard's really just feeling Harry out now; he doesn't think anyone owes any obligation to heal another group of people just because they can. But no matter what Harry says, Howard should be able to glean something of Harry's personality out of it. Harry's been remarkably good at not giving much away, despite talking about himself and the horror at the idea of killing innocents.
Howard listens to a recommendation from his queen and pulls his rook out.
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"To be honest, I never thought about it much. There was a war on and surviving it and stopping Voldemort was what had to come first. To even change any of that, the war would've had to be over and anyone who thought it was a good idea to coexist alongside muggles would have to get some sort of job at the Ministry and try to convince every other wizard in the world to do it. There were international laws in the way."
Was it a good idea in the first place?
"But if I really do think about it, I'm not sure wizards helping muggles is the best idea anyway. It's different here on the ship. There's a war we have to fight, and I saw people flying around at that big meeting--no one hides a thing here--and we've all got to work together to even have a chance. But I was raised by muggles and they couldn't stand magic. And in history, whenever there's a small group that's somehow different from the majority, they usually lose in some way. The world would have had to change in a major way for wizards to coexist alongside muggles and work together without any violence or prejudice from either side. I don't think, even if the world was still there, that I'd ever see that kind of world in my lifetime. It's a nice thought, wizards and muggles working together, but I'm not sure it'd have been possible."
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In a way what Harry's talking about makes perfect sense, and on the other hand it runs counter to everything Howard's been taught about race - the closest analog he can pull from his world. He still remembers his mother using the white-egg-brown-egg-but-they-still-got-yolk demonstration on him when he was little. Learning in the classroom that segregation was bad and then watching it happen naturally in the school cafeteria.
And how does it mesh with superpowers, the other comparison he can draw? He's not sure. His best friend back home was a mutant rock monster who could lift cars. His best friend here can throw dinosaurs one-handed. And yet he can't deny that there are feelings of resentment, being the weaker one, the one that needs protecting from enemies who inevitably have some sort of superpower. And he remembers how back home, unpowered kids feeling powerless formed lynch mobs to hang the 'freaks' they saw as threats.
"You said you were raised by people who can't stand magic. I thought the Muggles didn't know?" He ignores his king and moves a knight out instead. "Maybe you just needed a common enemy. Like Watchmen or something."
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Harry, by no means, thought all muggles were the same or thought they'd all be intolerant, nor did he feel that they were inferior, but he did think there was great potential for conflict, and that was on top of conflict that was already happening.
"As for a common enemy, think about how even contacting muggles to fight Voldemort would've gone over. 'Hullo there, muggles, this one evil wizard and his pureblood supremacists want to kill and subjugate you all--mind helping us out with fighting our war against them? By the way, we're a society living in secret underneath your own, and we've all got potential for incredible power like they do.' That's not even getting into the fact that with a war going on, our government was taken over by people that believed in hunting muggles for sport. Neither side was ready for the other, I don't think."
He finally moved his queen, taking one of Howard's knights.
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