Chapter Text
Harry felt as if Devil’s Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn’t move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell’s head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.
Harry would have screamed, but he couldn’t make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.
“Harry Potter …” it whispered.
Harry tried to take a step backwards but his legs wouldn’t move.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
…
He drew himself up a little bit, trying not to shake. The stone was heavy in his pocket, but it was his wand he held onto tightly, the handle already damp with sweat in his hand. “What- What-” he stuttered out and the face smiled mirthlessly.
“What am I, Harry Potter?” it murmured. “A wraith, a mere shadow of what I once was. Hunted for years… but never gone. A person of my glory can never truly be gone.”
“Voldemort,” Harry said. He took a stumbling step backwards and another – until he was backed up against the Mirror. Stupid he realised. Stupid, stupid! His only chance was to run but he felt like a mouse under the gaze of a cobra.
“Yesss,” Voldemort hissed. “Are you going to be smart now, boy? I can see that Stone in your pocket.”
Harry was shaking now desperately. “You killed my parents,” he said, and Voldemort hissed a laugh.
“Your parents, yes. They died bravely, boy. But there’s no need for you to die – all you need is to hand that stone over.”
Spells were tumbling through his head – how to make a pineapple tap dance and a mouse transform and why, oh why hadn’t he learnt anything useful? Maybe, if he-
His wand snapped out before he’d even finished thinking, a wingardium leviosa lifting Quirrell briefly off his feet. Harry tried to run but was blown backwards with a sharp gesture of a hand, knocking his head against the frame of the mirror.
“So be it,” Voldemort snarled. “Quirrell, kill him.”
“Master,” Quirrell cried, but he was already turning obediently, his wand in hand. Harry tried to move, his head spinning – a green jet of light sprung out and he twisted – the mirror exploded – and then.
Nothing.
…
Harry hadn’t got around to expecting much when he opened his eyes again. His head was throbbing with a sickly kind of beat and when he raised his hand to his scar he found that it had split open, blood spilling down his face. He blinked blurrily a few times and patted around a little bit to find his glasses on his chest. Putting them back on he looked around slowly.
He wasn’t in the chamber any more, was the single thought that pierced his confusion. There was no Quirrell or Voldemort and no mirror either, so all in all he was probably in a better place than he had been. He patted at his pocket and withdrew a handful of red shards – all that was remaining of the Philosopher’s Stone. Well, he supposed. At least that meant Quirrell hadn’t got hold of it?
He wasn’t in the chamber, but he hadn’t the slightest idea of where he was. Great crystalline stones covered the ground and sharp shards of towers grew out of nowhere, towering up higher than the highest building he’d ever seen. A moon hung in the air, far bigger than he thought it should be, and the light reflecting off it was a deep blue. Was this some kind of – other realm? Some kind of fairy tale?
He scrabbled for his wand and was grateful to have it tip into his hand, unharmed by the whole – situation. He swallowed a little desperately. Was he by himself? He pushed himself onto his feet and staggered against a nearby wall, surprised at the sharp tilt in his head. Perhaps – perhaps he wasn’t perfectly well, then. He suddenly wished for Madam Pomfrey to be nearby, a brisk scolding ready on her tongue.
He crept forward slowly, tucked away in the shadows. There were streets – he could tell he was in a city, if not any city he’d ever heard of before. Everything looked undeniably alien and he wondered morbidly if he’d see banshees or werewolves or other creatures come creeping at him. It was with undeniable caution that he poked his head around a corner and froze.
It looked as though there’d been a battle here. The streets were cratered and splashes of char were streaked across walls. Metal things lay on the ground, hacked apart and near to them – Harry gulped – near to them were figures in white armour sprawled out on the ground, blood trickling out from various spots. Harry fought back a whimper. Where was he?
There were little round metal things hovering in the air, floating up and down the streets. Every so often there would be a beeping sound and then a flash of light would hit one of the white figures on the ground, and the smell of burning would go up again. It took Harry a moment, but he nearly vomited when he realised that the – that some of the white figures were still alive and the metal floating things were – were-
Don’t see me, he begged silently. Please don’t see me.
A metal thing floated closer and beeped inquisitively near him. Harry raised a shaking hand with his wand in it. There’s nothing here, there’s nothing here, he repeated silently. It felt like there was a pressure building up in his head, the same way it had felt sometimes when he was younger before he ended up on the roof or when his hair had grown out after Aunt Petunia had cut it all off. There was another beeping sound, and then all at once the thing lost interest and floated off. Harry breathed out shakily.
It seemed like the metal things had finished their deadly inspection and they floated off into another street. Harry sat down in a rush, trembling overtaking his limbs. He’d almost died twice today. He wanted to be back in Hogwarts, back in his dorm room tucked up in his bed. He almost wanted to be back in his cupboard.
There was a soft, abbreviated moan and Harry started silently. Where had that come from? He looked around wildly and there – again, a panted breath and the slightest twitch of movement from one of the bodies nearest to him. It had a hole burnt into the side of its waist and another on its leg. Harry debated for a moment. Why hadn’t the floating things killed that one? He glanced around again but there weren’t any in sight, and another pained sound decided him.
He darted over to the body silently and tried to pull at it but it was much too heavy. All he succeeded in doing was driving a decidedly human-sounding whimper out from the mouthpiece of the figure and Harry chewed at his lip briefly. He could maybe hide in one of the buildings – there were several with the doors blown off. But to do that he needed to be able to move the stupidly heavy person.
“ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?” Ron shouted in his head and Harry paused. He was a wizard. A quick wingardium leviosa and the person was hovering beside him. From there it was only a few moments’ work to be tucked away in a building. Harry wasn’t quite distracted enough not to spend a moment gawping at the impossible architecture, crystal pillars twisting up and up and up and delicate fountains that sent bright chiming liquid splashing down into deep pools. He’d never seen anything like it. He shook his head firmly and regretted it almost immediately, the spinning sending him lurching forward with a sharp bite of bile on his tongue.
He wanted – he wanted walls and doors in between him and whatever was out there though. He couldn’t find any door knobs, but a quick alohomora had the doors sliding open without a murmur of complaint. He went deeper and deeper into the building, the floating body accompanying him almost silently. Four doors in he found and bed and with a breath of relief he set the body down. It tossed a little on the impact.
“Sorry, sorry,” Harry muttered. “I guess – I guess your armour needs to come off. Wounds need to be clean I think.” He hovered closer and looked at the weirdly shaped helmet. Did he just – pull it off? After a moment of hesitation he did so and was relieved to find a very human looking face beneath it. “Don’t know what I expected,” he breathed out. At least it wasn’t another snake face staring at him. He didn’t think he could have dealt with that.
Brown eyes blinked at him but didn’t seem to comprehend anything, and Harry moved to looking at the rest of the armour. It took him long moments to figure out the clasps and longer moments to actually manage to pry it off the man but in time he was facing nothing but a black body suit that had Harry frowning at it. It didn’t look easy to get off – perhaps if he just cut around the material near the wounds? They were big gaping marks that had him cringing in sympathy, but little blood was oozing from them – as if they’d been cauterised.
What now? He’d seen Madam Pomfrey waving her wand over little things – broken noses and scratches, “Episkey,” falling from her mouth in steady chant. Would that work on something like this? Harry supposed it couldn’t do much more harm now. He frowned at the wounds and clenched his wand.
“Episkey,” he said firmly. Nothing happened. He wanted to cry. “Episkey,” he repeated determinedly. Had there been a little creeping of healthy skin there? “Episkey, episkey, episkey,” he repeated desperately, over and over again. It felt like there was magic in the air – like the wounds were slowly creeping back together, a healthier colour sneaking onto the man’s face. Maybe he was imagining it, but he kept on chanting the word until finally, exhaustion creeping over him, he fell flat onto his face next to the man. His eyes slowly closed themselves and he thought – just a brief moment, just a quick nap and then he could get up and try again.
…
Clone Trooper CT-4387 came to consciousness abruptly. Unarmoured, he categorised first, and then unarmed. Problematic. Bed, not ground. Body in – decent working order? Infirmary perhaps. Objective ambush at Christophsis – failed? Droid army anticipated strike. Commanding officer down. Commanding Jedi down. Retreat to base ordered. Hit twice, compromised. Triage in place. Injured to be abandoned.
He hadn’t been abandoned though. He allowed himself a careful frown. This what not what they’d been trained to do.
The bed he was lying on was soft though, and he allowed himself another few second to collapse into it. Sit-rep necessary though. There was something warm curled up against him and he moved his head slowly to look down at it. The frown came back onto his face.
It was a little human – a male child. Much too young to be present in a warzone. The capital had been evacuated though. Had the boy been left behind? He looked a mess with blood covering half his face from an open wound on his head, wearing an oddly designed set of clothes. Civilians did always wear the oddest things. Why would the medics leave him with an injury though, when they’d patched CT-4387 up – he spared a glance to where he’d been shot and let his eyebrows fly into his hairline at the smooth skin. When they’d patched CT-4387 up impressively well?
He shifted, and the boy’s eyes flew open to reveal the brightest green he’d ever seen. They stared at each other for a long moment and then the boy’s face crumpled in relief. He opened his mouth and an incomprehensible stream of babble came out.
“Uh,” CT-4387 said. “You speak Basic there, kid?”
The kid did not, it seemed, speak Basic. CT-4387’s training had not covered this.