Disclaimer: This is a cross between JLA (Season 5) and Rorscharch’s Blot’s Make A Wish Story. Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling and various publishers. Henchgirl, The Professor, and other such objects are Rorscharch’s creation. DC Comics own the Justice League and associated characters/plot devices. The lack of plot, however, can be attributed to me.
New Beginnings
Superman, who was anxiously standing watch over the training room as Steel scanned the energy signatures, immediately charged over when the strange bubble appeared again. Within a fraction of a second, he inventoried the new arrivals and discovered the shortage.
“Where’s Kara?” he demanded.
The three time travelers looked at each other confusedly before Oliver took off his cap and scratched his head. “Uhm… about that…” he began.
“Okay, Ollie,” Clark said in a deceptively mild tone once the emerald archer finished debriefing the Man of Steel, “let me see if I got this straight. You were all taken a thousand years into the future by a new group called the Legion of Superheroes, who were all but defeated by a small group of villains. You defeat these Fatal Five and start back home—but lose Kara in the process?! And, to make matters even worse, this group of future heroes explicitly stated that Kara never returned?!”
“Relax, Blue,” Galatea interrupted, “Joe’s with her. I’m sure they’ll make their way back here—eventually.”
“Eventually?” the last son of Krypton echoed. “Why eventually?”
The Argosian clone looked to the two green-clad men next to her. “I’ll let you boys field this one, shall I?” she quipped. “I have to get ready for our night out tonight, Robin Hood,” Galatea exclaimed as she sauntered back to her quarters, leaving the two Leaguers to explain just why Kara might want to spend extra time with the absent mystic.
Fortunately for the two suddenly nervous men, the individuals in question suddenly reappeared before them—along with an unexpected addition.
“Are you alright, Kara?” Clark demanded as he crossed the slight distance between the groups. “Where did you go? And who is that?” he asked, pointing at the youth in Harry’s arms.
The blonde girl nodded. “We’re all fine,” Kara reassured him. “Joe and I just had to go to the end of time and save our son from a nut job. Sorry it took so long.”
Superman’s eyes bugged, and the other two heroes present were not doing much better. “S-son?” he clarified.
“Yeah,” she confirmed while looking at the still unconscious wizard. “Clark, guys, meet Tim. He’s still out of it, Joe. You’d better get him to the med bay.”
Harry nodded. “Well, you would be, too, if you had a large chunk of wood thrust through your heart,” he commented as he shifted the child in his arms. “I’ll catch up with you later?”
“You know it,” the girl agreed. “Now go,” she ordered.
The wizard smiled. “I’m going! I’m going!” he protested before Apparating away to the medical facility.
Kara shook her head. “Crazy goofball,” she muttered good-naturedly. “One of the most powerful beings in existence, with nearly unlimited resources – and he still has the maturity level of a five-year-old.”
Dismissing the issue, Kara focused on the three silent figures in front of her. “Listen, I’ve got to check with Mr. Terrific about getting Tim a room. What time did you and Dinah have in mind, Ollie?”
“How about two hours from now?” the archer suggested. “Dinah’s still getting a few things planned out, and Tea just left to get ready.”
“Sounds good,” Supergirl nodded in agreement. “Meet you two at your place, then?” The man nodded in agreement. “Thanks again for the offer, Ollie. Bye, John, Clark. I’ll see you back home later tonight.”
The blonde girl flew off in the direction of the control booth, missing Clark’s strangled, “S-son?”
How was he going to explain this to his folks?
After Kara procured a room for Tim from Mr. Terrific, she met up with Harry and the pair discussed the ramifications of their last mission. In the young woman’s case, she also reminisced fondly of her technological birth world, and how she regretted that it was now frozen solid and lifeless. Her commentary sparked the beginnings of an idea in her partner’s mind, who continued to speculate even as the recumbent youth began stirring from his unconscious state.
The pair stayed by Tim’s bed until the youth finally woke completely, and took turns answering the plethora of questions that the newly immortal Argosian wizard issued. After receiving an explanation as to what had happened in the far future—and the rather far-reaching consequences of the pair’s intervention—Harry offered to introduce the boy to his new stepsister. The former only-child’s interest peaked at the suggestion so, after ensuring that he had recovered from his ordeal, Harry Apparated the two to Titan’s Tower in Jump City.
Once the small family was reunited and introductions were made, Harry explained to his daughter about the advantages of training on Avalon. After listening to a disconnected encounter on the mystic isle between Tim and a few of its denizens, Harry was very eager to… settle accounts. Gaining the former half-demon’s approval, Harry escorted the group to the hidden island and spent an endless second retraining the girl in general magical theory.
She was initially concerned at having lost her jeweled power focus, but Harry was thankfully able to provide a compatible substitute in the late Morgan le Fay’s emerald broach. Additionally, Henchgirl and the Doctor had the foresight to include a couple of spare wands similar to his own for the new additions to the Black family, and Harry helped the young witch learn to use both foci to achieve her former level of training.
Interspersed with these tutoring sessions, Harry also initiated Tim into wizardry. Armed with one of the Black Ink wands, the elder wizard brought the boy up to the levels of his year mates at Hogwarts. Having shared several stories of his own childhood at the castle, the younger magician was eager to see the magical academy for himself.
In between the frequent mothering – and training—sessions with Nem, Harry also taught his eldest child Occlumency, rather than the emotionally stunting mental training that the monks of Azarath had employed. During their time together, the two developed an understanding of one another, and ultimately formed strong family ties. Raven, he learned, had a great affection for books—much like a bushy-haired acquaintance of his—and got along smashingly with Thena when she visited. While the purple-haired witch certainly had his flair for destruction when angered, the witch’s greatest talents lay in Charms—much like his long-deceased mother.
Tim’s inclinations, on the other hand, seemed to lean towards Transfiguration, reminiscent of Harry’s own paternal progenitor. The child’s interest in the art of changing things was only bolstered when his new father demonstrated shape shifting for him, assuming the form of a black wolf, a falcon, and finally, a small midnight-hued dragon.
Both father and son were surprised when dragon Harry pretended to breathe fire—and it worked. The elder wizard knew that he cast no flame spell—he had no more than visualized the fiery effects than they manifested. He ultimately concluded that his new elemental abilities could be attributed to Etrigan’s ‘gift’—much like the wintry powers from a certain Japanese yuki onna.
Harry also took the opportunity one afternoon to slip away from the group to complete his own private agenda, namely an unannounced visit to the so-called Queen of Avalon. ‘It was amazing,’ he later decided, ‘how reasonable a monarch could be once you started pulling her palace down around her ears.’ The Lady Titania was most conciliatory after the incident, offering the strange little egg back, with her most sincere apologies for her behavior. Content with the knowledge that she would never again harm his new family, Harry bid the faerie queen goodbye and returned to Ray and Nem’s house.
An indeterminate time later, when Harry was satisfied that his children could fend for themselves – and Raven managed to memorize or duplicate most of Avalon’s central library—the family returned to the real world. Tim, to whom Raven had recounted several of the Teen Titans’ adventures, decided to visit Jump City for a short while before returning to the Hunter residence in Ravenknoll. With the boy’s older stepsister offering to Side-Along Apparate him back to England after his visit, Harry and Kara found themselves alone.
With plenty of time to prepare before meeting up with Oliver and Dinah, Kara and Harry went their separate ways. The wizard had spent considerable time while on Avalon finalizing his plans for the girls’ birthday present so, while the Argosian was on her way to change clothes, Harry paused time before putting his strategy into motion.
Once the wizard met up with the group, the three women—unsurprisingly—dragged him along on another shopping expedition. Despite Oliver’s attempts at an explanation, Harry was still unclear on why the fairer sex persisted in browsing the displays when they had no plans of purchasing the goods.
Fortunately for the two males, however, this eventually came to an end and the out-of-uniform Leaguers set out for an afternoon of skiing. While Harry eventually mastered traditional skiing, he found the sport of snowboarding to be much more to his liking. In fact, it was with some regret that he returned his apparel and accompanied the group to their vehicle.
After Oliver and Dinah left to attend to business, the girls—chiefly Kara—invited Harry to the Kent farm for the family’s private celebration. Having heard Kara’s many glowing comments regarding the Weasley-ish farming couple, he quickly acquiesced and Apparated the two women to the location he memorized from the League Inner Council’s private reports. The wizard soon learned firsthand the veracity of Kara’s gossip as the aging couple welcomed them into their small but comfortable home. As Martha led Kara and Galatea away for one reason or another, Jonathan began discussing a wide range of topics with him, culminating in a rather lengthy speculation on the weather.
Thankfully, Harry was soon rescued by the noisy arrival of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. More specifically, the arrival itself was not loud—Clark had flown the woman to the farmhouse—but rather the discussion between the pair had grown raucous.
“I hope you’re happy, Lois,” Clark admonished the slight figure in his arms, unaware of his father and Harry observing them amusedly from the porch’s rockers. “Thanks to you having to wait around for the museum staff to make that rubbing, now we’re late!”
“Well, if you were so worried about being prompt, maybe you should have flown faster, Smallville!” the world famous journalist argued while waving a rolled up piece of paper at him. “Besides, the sooner we translate this mish-mash, the sooner I can get back to writing real news.”
The not-so-mild-mannered reporter rolled his eyes in response. “Lois, the writing is in a formal dialect of ancient Aztec glyphs, dating back over eight centuries!” he protested. “Why didn’t you just let the experts translate this thing?”
“Because Perry sent me to get the story, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do – and no dead language is going to stop me!”
“Very commendable,” Harry praised, startling the pair of journalists and drawing their gazes. “If you would like, I can translate the document for you.”
“Mr. Black!” Clark blurted. “What are you doing here?”
“Kara invited me here to celebrate her and Tea’s birthday with her family,” the wizard answered. “And I believe that I’ve permitted you to call me Joe.”
“You can read Aztec script?” Lois asked in a surprised tone.
Harry smiled. “I can read just about any language any sentient creature has ever written, Lois,” he replied. “It’s sort of a quirk of my particular… position. How about we go inside where it’s lighter, and I can read through it for you right quick?”
“Of course, right this way,” the elder Kent offered. “You know something, Joe? I can’t place it right now, but you remind me of someone I knew once. Just out of curiosity, what sort of business are you in?”
Harry thought for a moment how best to summarize his position. “I’m something of a business major,” the wizard admitted, “specializing in acquisitions. It requires a lot of international travel. I also do the occasional security job.”
“That sounds interesting,” Jonathan called back, missing his son’s frantic motions for silence. “Business is good, then?”
The magician nodded ruefully. “I never seem to get a break, to be honest. There always seems to be some detail that I have to oversee.”
“None of that for me, thank you very much,” the farmer professed. “I don’t care much for the rat race you young folks get up to these days, no Sirree Bob. Give me a nice quiet farm any day. You kids can use the table here,” he beckoned. “I’ll go see what’s keeping the girls.”
Harry sat down in one of the chairs closest to the Kent’s floor lamp. “I like your father, Clark,” the wizard commented as he unfurled Lois’s paper. “Very down to Earth.”
“Umm… thanks… Joe,” the Kryptonian replied slowly.
The wizard just nodded in response and retrieved his glasses and dictation quill from his coat pocket. With the translating lenses perched atop the tip of his nose, Harry began reading the document aloud, the enchanted writing instrument jotting down the English translation on conjured parchment as he progressed.
“Done,” he announced a few moments later. “Here’s your copy in English. It’s just their old rituals book for the underworld gods and, let me tell you; those Aztecs were one crazy bunch!”
“Thanks, Mr. B… Joe,” Lois replied, accepting both the original and translated documents. “I like your… quill. I suppose one of those is easier to carry around than a voice-controlled word processor.”
Harry smiled. “Quite. This little jewel was a present from a friend of mine. I’ve never been all that studious on a topic unless I had to know about it right then, and I think she planned for the Dictation Quill to somehow motivate me to research more.” He shrugged in a ‘what can you do?’ manner. “Anyway, if that’s everything, I’m going to go see if the others need any help.”
“Yeah, thanks,” the violet-eyed woman answered distractedly as she re-read the translated paper.
The wizard just shook his head at her work ethic and left the two to their business. After all, it was not exactly against all reason that the Kents kept a coffee pot brewing, now was it?
Once Harry had left, Lois handed Clark the parchment. “Take a look at this,” she ordered, pointing to a particular section.
“Let’s see…,” he muttered. “Mictlantecuhtli… god of the dead and King of Mictlan, the lowest and northernmost section of the Aztec underworld… most prominent of several gods and goddesses of death and the underworld. Depicted as a blood-spattered skeleton or a person wearing a toothy skull.”
“Not that. Read the next part,” she instructed with a shudder.
Clark skipped ahead. “The worship of Mictlantecuhtli sometimes involved… ritual cannibalism? And he was depicted as wearing a necklace of human eyeballs?”
“Yeah, morbid much?” the world-famous reporter demanded.
“Well, in the Aztec world, skeletal imagery was a symbol of fertility, health and abundance,” the Kryptonian reluctantly admitted. “They supposedly alluded to the close symbolic links between death and life.”
The violet-eyed woman looked at her boyfriend askance. “You’re just full of useless information, aren’t you, Smallville? Where’d you pick up that little tidbit? Backpack across Mesoamerica?”
“Well, as a matter of fact-” Clark began, only for his partner to interrupt his reply.
“Never mind,” she interjected, “I really don’t want to know. Listen, you don’t think that Mictel-something is-?”
“Stop right there!” Clark ordered firmly. “Don’t even suggest it.”
“But he translated it like it was old news to him,” Lois insisted. “Don’t you think it odd?”
“Yes, it is, and I don’t care,” he professed. “I’m not looking into Mr. Black’s life any more than I already have.”
“What if-”
“No, Lois,” the Kryptonian said with a note of finality.
Just as he was finishing his nightly patrol and preparing to fly to his and Mari’s apartment, John Stewart spotted a burglary. Sighing resignedly, the Green Lantern took up the chase. After a few minutes of pursuit, John finally got in front of the fleeing Gentleman Ghost and projected a giant catcher’s mitt in front of the thieving spirit.
“I like it,” the intangible thief commented, “very imaginative.” He swung his cane around and easily sliced the construct in half. “But your ring is useless against me, Lantern,” the ghost boasted as he resumed his flight.
The Green Lantern narrowed his eyes in frustration. “Then why are you running from it?” he demanded as he pursued the dead burglar.
He followed as best he could as the spook phased through buildings and vehicles. He suddenly got a mischievous idea and, as the ghost completely entered a moving truck, spun the vehicle around with a giant green hand. The criminal dazedly stumbled out of the truck’s side, and John easily recovered the stolen property from the disoriented ghost.
“Mind the ion drive!” the British specter cautioned. “It’s delicate equipment!” Regaining his feet, he rushed forward and sent a suddenly solid fist into John’s chin.
“Right,” the other man muttered, “I took you lightly. I won’t make that mistake again!” He quickly captured the gray figure in a solid green bubble.
“I think you might,” the spirit smugly disagreed as he again used his cane to disrupt the Lantern’s construct with an influx of energy, sending the dark-skinned man once more to the ground. Stalking closer, he added, “If I were to give you another chance, I mean.”
He raised the sharpened cane above his head in preparation to spear the downed Leaguer—only to have his weapon cut in half by a thrown axe. Both the living and dead man looked up to find the winged Carter Hall hovering above them. Before the gray felon could recover, the artificial Thanagarian ensnared the ghost in an energy net.
“He’s all yours, GL,” Hawkman offered as he touched down next to the other man. “The nth metal in this net-”
“-Has properties that interfere with dimensional shifting. I know,” the other man interrupted shortly as he enveloped the figure with another energy bubble.
“Next time, Green Lantern,” the Gentleman Ghost vowed, “I’ll do you proper!”
John frowned at the captured fugitive and bounced the bubble a couple times. “Quite down in there!” he ordered gruffly.
“I’ve fought our Gentleman Ghost before,” Carter mentioned in passing. “These intangible types can be tricky.”
“Uh huh,” the other man acknowledged disinterestedly.
“But he didn’t stand a chance against the two of us,” Hawkman finished smilingly.
“Look, Hawkman, I appreciate the help. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Well,” the other man’s demeanor seemed to dim, “give Shayera my regards.” Turning around, he flew away, leaving John to transport the captured crook to a sufficient holding facility.
As the trio went their separate ways, none noticed that another ‘intangible type’ had witnessed their exchange.
After the Kent family plus two finished dinner, the two girls were presented with their gifts. After the elder Kents, Clark, and Lois had distributed their contributions, Harry produced the items he ordered from the Black Ink staff. “Happy birthday, you two,” he wished as he passed each blonde girl a wrapped parcel. Smirking at their annoyance that he had the contents enveloped in lead before wrapping, he watched the last two Argosians tear the packages apart, revealing two nondescript, pale white outfits.
Seeing the several confused gazes such an unassuming present garnered, Harry took mercy on the group and instructed the pair to touch the outfits and envision what they were currently wearing. They did as he suggested and discovered that the contents could mimic any outfit they could imagine.
“Aside from conforming to your desires, those outfits are as invulnerable as you are and will provide at least some magical protection,” Harry informed the group. “I recommend that you still work on your shields, though. I also added a few extra precautions for Kryptonite, red sun light… stuff like that.”
After accepting their gratitude and watching as the outfits cycled through a wide range of colors and styles, the wizard announced, “I also have one other present I’ve been working on, though it’s more for the whole family.” He pulled a miniature door out of his pocket and enlarged it before sticking it to a vacant wall. Harry opened the new door to reveal a brightly lit landscape.
“If you’ll follow me?” he beckoned the others, jarring them out of their dazes at having a magically linked door suddenly added to the normal house.
“That door’s a portal?” Kara hazarded a guess. At the wizard’s nod, she asked, “To where?”
Harry smiled mischievously. “That’s part of the surprise. If you want to find out, you’ll have to go through it, won’t you?” he asked before doing just that.
“Well, I’m certainly curious!” Lois blurted before charging through the opened door. Her gasp of surprise quickly brought the five Kents to stand upon a rocky terrace overlooking a futuristic city.
Harry watched the other six stare in disbelief at the revealed scene.
“I-it’s Argo!” Kara gasped, and Galatea looked nearly as perplexed.
“But that’s impossible!” Clark protested. “Argo was frozen completely solid, and was spiraling out of the Krypton system altogether. Not to mention that the sun is supposed to be red.”
The group looked to Harry, who nodding in confirmation. “You’re right, Clark, things were that way. I had been racking my brain trying to decide what to get ‘the girls who have everything’ when Kara started reminiscing about life on Argo. I knew that she missed her first home, which was far more technologically advanced than Earth and… well, one thing led to another, and I considered bringing a few mementos back from Argo, but any of you could have done that, so…” he hesitated for a moment, “I decided to restore the planet—well, Argo City at least. I figured that the rest could be done later.”
“You… undestroyed a planet—just like that?” Lois questioned bewilderedly.
Harry shook his head. “Oh, I’ll admit that it was a lot of work. First, I had to get the planet back into orbit. I figured that, if one explosion could knock it out of alignment, another could put it back.”
He chuckled at the memory of the Professor’s unbridled joy at producing the first—and probably last—planet cleaner. The whole procedure was also something of a learning experience for him. While it may be true that conventional noises make no sound in a vacuum, Harry discovered quite accidentally that magically produced explosive forces great enough to redirect a planet are quite audible.
“But that would take years to shift back into position!” the female reporter protested. “Decades!”
Harry nodded in agreement before replying, “Longer than that, actually. That was another interesting challenge, but a little temporal manipulation fixed that right proper.” He shook his head to dispatch the thoughts.
“Anyway, as things I turned out,” the wizard continued, “I was right, and the second explosion put Argo back into its proper orbit. After that, I had to thaw the city and clear the rubble. Then, I started warding the city—like creating the reverse of what that inventor did in Metropolis a few years back and filtering the red sunlight into yellow. After that, I added the same wards that Merlin put up on Avalon.”
“Wait,” Kara interrupted, “you mean Argo’s outside of time now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it helped loads during the reconstruction, and I left it up so that you all could visit here as long as you like without missing anything on Earth. Anyway, after all of that, I started recruiting help. I got Pam Isley released from the hospital, and she was kind enough to come out here and get the plant life on the road to recovery. That’s her algae that’s replenishing the atmosphere, by the way. Then I conscripted Raven’s friend Cyborg to help me fix the computerized utilities and whatnot.”
“Well, that explains all of those golden look-a-likes,” Clark pointed out levelly while gesturing at the reprogrammed Cyborg drones.
“Yes, those were originally built by the HIVE academy as weapons,” Harry supplied. “When Cyborg found out the scale of the project, we pulled those out of storage and he reprogrammed them to help clear out the mess.” The wizard watched a small group of the autonomous workers for a few moments. “They’re not nearly as personable as the original but, with their help, Cyborg projects that the entire planet can be repaired inside of a year. With the recovered data from the city’s computerized central libraries, the workers should be able to put everything back exactly as it should be.”
“This is-” Kara started to speak, but stopped her self and rubbed her eyes. “This is surreal. I can’t believe you did all this.”
Harry looked at the girl intently. “Is that a good disbelief, or a bad disbelief?” he asked.
His answer was two metapowered hugs that would have presented serious issues to most living creatures. As it was, however, Harry returned Kara’s and Tea’s embraces as best he could and noted, “Ah, good disbelief.”
The original Argosian snorted at his antics before finally releasing him. “You rebuilt a planet from the ground up—just because I made an idle comment?” Kara asked quietly.
“Well, technically, a few friends and I only rebuilt a third of the planet for you,” Harry inserted dryly, “the rest is for Tea and Clark here.”
The shorter blonde-haired woman punched his shoulder before looking back over the city she thought existed only in her memories. “Thank you, Joe,” she finally said simply, her sister nodding in agreement.
He laid one arm around the girl’s shoulders and corralled Galatea with the other, feeling that every bit of the heavily glossed over effort was worth it.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, before turning to Clark. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for Krypton, but it was destroyed beyond repair. I’m afraid that you’re all that’s left from that planet.”
The Man of Steel smiled slightly before his expression changed, indicating that he was hard at thought. “You have the ability to shrink and enlarge items, correct?” he finally asked. At the wizard’s affirmative nod, Clark continued, “Is there a limit to how many items you can do at once, or how large you could make something?”
Harry considered the question for a few moments. “None that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?”
“Does the name Kandor mean anything to you?” he asked in reply.
The query temporarily diverted Kara’s interest from the rebuilt Argo City. “The capital city that Brainiac shrunk and stole before Krypton exploded?” she asked. “You found it?”
Clark nodded. “On our last trip out of the system,” he explained. “After we stopped that runaway supernova a week or so ago.”
“Ah, so you’re wanting to transplant the city here?” Harry theorized.
“And the animals that I rescued from the collector,” Superman added. Seeing the girls’—chiefly Kara’s—eagerness to explore, he continued, “You’d better start the tour before the girls become hostile. Would you mind stopping by the Fortress later and seeing if there’s anything you can do?”
“Not at all,” Harry managed to get out before two anxious blonde-haired women dragged him towards the unoccupied city.
“You might want to ease up a bit there,” Mari McCabe advised from her spot atop one of the Metrotower’s treadmills. “Most guys don’t go for the ripped, bulky look.”
Shayera Hol rolled her eyes and lowered the barbell. “Just trying to maintain my girlish figure,” she replied levelly. Looking over at the jogging Vixen, she clarified, “My girlish, girlish figure.” The Thanagarian performed another repetition before asking, “And why does it always have to be about the guys, anyway?”
“Honey, it’s always about the guys,” the world-famous model declared. She paused for a moment before adding, “And, since I’ll be away on that photo-shoot for a week…”
“Here we go,” the redhead muttered with another eye roll.
“Well, I’m just surprised that you haven’t made your move before now,” Mari finished before retrieving her water bottle.
Shayera crawled out from under the weight rack and admitted, “I’m still trying to figure out the proper Earth protocol for this situation.” Acting on a mischievous impulse, she continued, “It’s not like I can just assassinate you in your sleep, or poison your water.” She smiled dreamily. “I miss Thanagar.”
The African woman ignored the quip. “I’m just saying—you think you have a shot, take it. I’m not worried.”
“Mari, look. This isn’t-”
“There you are!” John Stewart’s voice interrupted Shayera’s reply.
“Hey, Stranger!” Vixen greeted her boyfriend. “I was thinking, maybe we could skip the concert tonight… just stay in and order take-out. What do you say?”
“That’d be fine, Mari, what ever you want,” the Green Lantern said distractedly. “Umm… I need to talk to Shayera for a sec.”
“Oh… okay. I’ll… see you tonight then,” Mari acquiesced, before grabbing her towel and heading for the gym’s exit.
“Hey, Mari,” Shayera called. As the other woman turned around, the Thanagarian tossed her the forgotten water bottle.
“Thanks,” Vixen said reflexively, before staring at the vessel suspiciously. She turned her gaze to the helpful redhead, who had crossed her arms and was smiling smugly.
Mari turned around and left the exercise room, throwing the bottle away as soon as she was out of sight. “Really not worried,” she muttered to herself.
Once John was alone with the Thanagarian, he admitted, “I just ran into your boyfriend, Carter Hall.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Shayera shot back as she fetched a towel from the rack.
“And he’s still talking about you,” he continued, unabated.
“Yeah, the whole ‘reincarnated lovers from Ancient Egypt’ bit,” Shayera grumbled before chuckling slightly. “Carter’s just a little… confused.”
“He’s an obsessed fanboy with wings and an axe,” the Galactic guardian corrected bluntly.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were-”
“Concerned,” he interrupted. “The guy’s a serious creep.”
“I’m a big girl, John. You know I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, I just… just wanted to give you a heads up.” He turned away and headed to the elevator. Stopping at the door, John added, “This isn’t about us, Shayera,” before entering the compartment and pressing the button for the ground floor. He quickly exited the building and made his way back to his apartment, and Mari.
Training in his formative years to rise before any other in the Dursley household ensured that Harry was awake many hours before even the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ Kent family. At least, that was the wizard’s private excuse to explain his insomnia. If that failed, he was more than ready to blame his unique physiology for requiring little to no actual sleep, as he could easily replenish any losses from a wide variety of energy sources.
If he were honest with himself, however, Harry would admit that the ring that Henchgirl had convinced him to wear was the root of his recent sleep troubles. In the meager hours that he could force his frame to rest, he was inundated with memories of the lives of random beings before their ends came and they passed on to the next state of being. He had tried removing the ring several times, but the nightmares continued unabated. Not to mention that, when he awoke, the bloody ring was back on his finger.
Thankfully, he remained detached and unobserved while viewing most of the nightmares… memories… whatever—a welcome departure from his previous connection to the late Tom Riddle. In some cases, however, he observed himself interacting with the other individuals—some of which displayed fatalistic humor, while others tended towards a more violent reaction. The children were the worst, Harry finally decided, as they were typically unable to comprehend what was happening. In each case, Harry witnessed himself addressing the individual’s concerns and assisting them in making the Transition.
‘Death did that!’ Harry mentally shook himself. ‘Not me! I’m not Death! Bloody pensieve ring!’
As the different aromas filtered through the dwelling, the slumbering people began appearing. The wizard’s culinary efforts drew several curious stares, but none of those gathered seemed compelled to voice any questions.
‘Perhaps,’ Harry silently mused, ‘they are still on information overload from last night.’
In any event, breakfast started off without a hitch as the group exchanged light banter. As usual when he was involved, however, things soon went awry. Jonathan reached for another omelet when he began complaining of heavy pressure on his chest. Immediately following, he exhibited signs of dizziness and profuse sweating.
Harry started to ask what was ailed the elder farmer before a small insight occurred to him and he nigh-instinctively cast the counter spell to the Triple Heart Attack curse. Thankfully, his intuition was correct, and the man began returning to normal almost immediately.
As he feared, his actions garnered the group’s attention once more, and this time they appeared ready to question him.
“W-what was that?” Martha Kent asked waveringly. “What’s wrong with Jonathan?”
‘Nothing… now,” the wizard replied. “Jonathan was having a heart attack,” he added at her non-verbal prompting for more information.
“And you stopped it?” the matron hazarded a question.
Seeing no point in denying his obvious involvement, Harry turned his attention back to his breakfast and nodded once.
“Are you allowed to… intervene like that?” Lois questioned. “I mean, aren’t there rules against this sort of thing?”
He downed the rest of his orange juice before leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “Technically, yes, there are,” the wizard admitted. “Of course, the same rules say that none of you should have any concrete proof that I even exist.” He shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve never really gotten along with authority figures all that well. And… I must say that I’ve grown rather fond of all of you.”
“Well, I, for one, can’t thank you enough!” Martha Kent exclaimed. “You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you?”
Harry waved off her concern. “Eh, I’m pretty sure that they’ll have a difficult time finding someone willing to challenge me over it,” he admitted candidly. “I’m told that I can be a little intimidating. Besides, sometimes, good guys just need a break. You know what I mean?” the wizard asked, looking over at Jonathan who had suddenly paled.
The conversation petered out shortly following a flurry of expressed gratitude, finally culminating with Lois laying some subtle—and not so subtle—hints at gaining his ‘exclusive’. Harry managed to stall her until the group separated to begin their day, with Clark flying the woman back to Metropolis and away from him. Kara and Tea, it seemed, both had early morning appointments on the Watchtower, so the immortal magician exchanged farewells and set off on his motorbike to wherever the road took him.
The Green Lantern had no sooner fetched the morning paper and a cup of coffee than Mari swept into the apartment’s spacious bedroom/living area, arms loaded with clothes. “The photo shoot runs a week in Milan,” the model greeted her boyfriend as she completed packing another suitcase, “maybe another day in Rome.”
“Let me get that,” John offered, laying the paper on the table and lugging the luggage towards the door—after intimately greeting the smartly dressed Vixen, of course.
“You can kiss, you can schlep – I think men are just wonderful,” Mari McCabe purred.
The Lantern smiled slightly and replied, “I’ll miss you.”
“You better,” the totem-bearing woman ordered impishly.
Dropping the latest bag outside of the door, he asked, “Do you have time for breakfast?”
“The car’s downstairs,” she explained. “Just an English muffin.” The toaster suddenly ejected two of the aforementioned items. “Perfect!” she said happily.
With some difficulty, John cleared a way for his girlfriend to leave. “Sure you’ve got everything?” he asked sarcastically while pointing to the obscene amount of luggage now cluttering the hallway.
“You can let the driver up for those,” Mari informed her anxious beau, who was wondering how many trips it would take to ferry the parcels—even with a power ring. “I’ll call you every day,” she added, choosing to ignore his sigh of relief and kissing him goodbye.
“Checking up on me?” he asked bemusedly.
She rolled her eyes. “Go finish your coffee.” Devouring the muffins on her way to the elevator, Mari hesitated as she caught a flicker of movement in the hall’s shadows. Dismissing it as her imagination, she entered the elevator and selected the lobby. As the doors shut, however, she could plainly see a shadowy form coalesce outside of her apartment’s door.
A rhinoceros-powered charge made short work of the shut elevator doors. “Gotcha!” she cheered as she bulldozed the corporeal shadow through the wall and into her apartment.
“Get away!” the shadow man growled before phasing out from underneath her. “This doesn’t concern you!”
John, already shifted into his work uniform, used his ring to force the specter against a brick wall. “What do you want with Vixen?” he demanded.
“Guess again,” Shadow Thief smugly rejected as he slipped out of John’s construct. “And don’t bother shining a bright light on me,” he added upon reforming, “hasn’t worked in months.”
The two Leaguers made several attempts to capture the entity, all of which failed. After defeating Vixen’s latest attack, the shade grabbed her by one ankle and threw her into the couple’s television set, temporarily stunning her.
“You just bought yourself a world of hurt, Shadow Thief!” the Green Lantern yelled. He charged the invader recklessly and was finally stopped as the shadow suffocated him into nothingness.
Vixen recovered just as John fell. Crying out, she attempted to charge the pair as well, with equal success. This time, the shade stopped the woman by flinging a loaded bookcase upon her.
“Last warning, Zoo Candy!” the Shadow Thief cautioned. “This is between me, and the Green Lantern, and that Thanagarian harpy! Stay out of it!” Before Mari could free herself, the specter fled the apartment through the window, taking the unconscious Lantern with him.
Finally escaping the pile of books, she dashed to the window in a futile effort to track her kidnapped boyfriend—to no avail. Recalling the shade’s departing comment, Mari tapped her communicator.
“Shayera!” the African woman cried. “He’s got John!”
“What?” the Thanagarian replied confusedly. “Vixen, what’s happened?”
“The shadow thief attacked us!” Mari supplied in a more level tone. “He took John!”
Once the elder Kents were alone, Martha put her hands on either side of her immobile husband’s head. “Jonathan, what is it? Are you having another attack?”
He blinked and seemed to return to reality. “Did you say something, Martha?”
“What’s wrong, Sweetheart? You’ve been distracted ever since your attack earlier. Are you still having problems?”
He shook his head. “No, Martha, it’s not that. I knew when they first got here that Joe and I had met before; I just finally remembered where it was.”
“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense,” she urged.
“Back in ’43, when I was in the Pacific a bunch of us were on an extended recon mission,” Jonathan began. “It was just getting dark, and we had already set up camp for the night. Anyway, it turned out that we were closer to the enemy than we first believed, because a hostile expeditionary force fell upon us just as the light faded. They had us outnumbered four to one and outgunned to boot, but we were determined to make them earn it.”
The aging farmer shook his head in disbelief. “Martha, it’s been six decades, and I still can’t believe it. More than a few of us started praying about then, but just as they were about to take us out, the whole bunch was mowed over by a flurry of gunshots. This one soldier—a real hardcore, spec ops warrior – gunned down the entire contingent in a matter of seconds. When the dust settled, not even one of us had taken a hit. After the firefight, we approached the new arrival and exchanged IDs. He was a wiry one, dressed all in black with face paint to match, and was packin’ some serious hardware. Anyway, this guy told us that we were basically off course and surrounded by the enemy. It was after dark with almost no moonlight, the hostiles were sure to have heard the gunfire, and since this was before modern night vision goggles, we were pretty much stuck—or so I thought.”
Jonathan took another sip of his coffee before he continued the tale. “Our new friend said that he knew a way out, though, and we were desperate enough to trust him. He led us through the wilderness for hours while dodging every patrol—even carried our extra gear when it started to slow us down—and, just before dawn, we emerged from the woods about an eighth of a mile from our outpost. The others broke into a run for the base, but something made me stay. While I was helping him unload the extra gear, I asked him what made him stick his neck out for a bunch of idiots like us. And you know what he said?”
“No, Jonathan. What?”
“He said, ‘sometimes, good guys just need a break’.”
Martha struggled to make sense of this revelation. “Honey, that’s just a coincidence. There must be thousands of slender Englishmen with black hair and green eyes.”
He snorted. “Martha, when we first went out to meet him, do you know how he introduced himself?”
She shook her head negatively.
“He presented himself as Sergeant Black.”
“And he said I was next?” Shayera questioned after she and Mari exited the Javelin.
Vixen shrugged. “Unless you know any other Thanagarian harpies,” she admitted. “Anyway, I figured that since your boyfriend’s here-”
“Not my boyfriend!” Shayera interrupted firmly.
“Since Hawkman has tangled with this guy before,” the African model corrected her self, “he might be able to give us a lead.” The two women stopped at the suspiciously ajar door. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Shayera shrugged before pushing the door the rest of the way open and stepping inside. Vixen followed, and the pair made their way through the darkened.
“Hello?” Mari called after a few moments without sign of anyone.
There was still no answer, and the two Leaguers pressed forward, arriving in a spacious, sky-lit dinosaur exhibit. “Carter?” Shayera shouted in hopes of gaining the absent man’s attention.
A faint moan from the other side of the room responded, and the women rushed forward. Both Leaguers scanned the room but could find no source of the barely audible noise.
“Welcome, Shayera,” a smug voice announced from overhead. The women looked up to find an unconscious John Stewart suspended from the ceiling. The shadows next to the man coalesced into the form of his abductor.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the Shadow Thief added. “Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you down.”
Shayera took to the air and attempted to pummel the shade with her mace—which was rather unsuccessful due to her foe’s ability to become intangible.
While she was distracting the opposition, Vixen borrowed spider powers, climbed up to the restrained Lantern, and began cutting the captive Lantern free. Unfortunately for Mari, however, the Shadow Thief dealt Shayera a stunning blow and was now free to send the African superhero crashing into a freestanding dinosaur skeleton.
“I warned you before to stay out of this,” the specter informed Mari’s unconscious and buried form. Morphing his hand into a blade, he added, “See what happens to naughty girls?”
“Get away from her!” a male voice ordered as Carter Hall flew into the room and body-checked the now tangible shadow into the far wall.
“Hawkman!” the Shadow Thief nearly purred. “The cast is complete.” Morphing his arm into a full-fledged sword, he began exchanging blows with the transformed Thanagarian.
The ruckus woke Shayera, who joined in the fight. Unfortunately, even the combined efforts of the two winged Leaguers were unable to overcome their adversary, and the Shadow Thief rendered the pair unconscious yet again.
When they were once more cognizant, Shayera, John, and Carter found themselves bound in a circle, facing an Egyptian ankh.
Noticing his captives’ wakefulness, the shade announced, “Of course, you all recognize the Absorbicron. Despite your best efforts to bury me alive, I managed to retrieve it.”
Unimpressed, John demanded, “Where’s Vixen?”
“Out of the way,” their captor informed. “She’s not part of this.” Sending out three tendrils, the Shadow Thief grabbed one arm from each prisoner and drew them towards the jeweled artifact.
“That machine is Thanagarian technology,” Shayera grunted as she found her captor’s hold. “It’s a telepathic database, more advanced than anything on Earth—and it’s broken!”
“She might be right,” Carter agreed. “When I touched it before… the feedback…”
“Hush now,” the specter ordered before yanking their limbs into contact with the device. “Watch and learn.”
The minds of the four connected individuals were instantly drawn into the device, as the Shadow Thief selected the device’s recollection of the first Thanagarians to visit Earth, eight millennia previous.
Harry was riding along the freeway when his newly awakened trouble intuition—which the Sunnydale set jokingly referred to as ‘Slay-dar’—urged him to take the next exit. He did so, and found himself riding through Midway City’s downtown district. Everything seemed perfectly normal, however, and he was prepared to chalk it up to a fluke—until he passed the city’s museum and caught sight of a League Javelin parked out front.
Pulling up underneath the jet, the wizard disembarked the motorbike and entered the building. The dark interior posing no difficulty to his vision, Harry followed Shayera and Mari’s recent scents to a Jurassic exhibit. There, he found an unconscious Vixen trapped beneath a collapsed dinosaur skeleton. A brief exertion of inhuman strength had the orange-suited woman free, and an Ennervate had her awake and demanding what had happened.
“It appears that you impacted this skeleton, the collision knocked you out, and then the pile of bones fell on top of you,” Harry speculated.
“Where’s John?” Vixen asked anxiously.
Taking another sniff and detecting another scent reminiscent of Shayera’s, he answered, “John, Shayera, and I believe Carter Hall went that way,” he gestured further down into the museum.
“The Shadow Thief attacked us,” she explained. “We have to help them.” The dark-skinned woman attempted to suit actions to words, but she wavered dangerously and nearly fell before Harry could catch her.
“I will assist the others,” Harry promised. “You are in no condition to get into another fight.”
“I’m not sitting this one out,” she informed. “I’ll be fine.”
Harry rolled his eyes before sweeping the woman into his arms. “I swear, you bloody stubborn women will be the end of me. Hold on,” he ordered as he ran in the direction his nose indicated.
The two arrived in another spacious exhibit, where they found the three Leaguers and one corporeal shadow staring unblinkingly at a golden Egyptian artifact.
“Why aren’t they moving?” Mari questioned.
“That relic,” Harry supplied. “Your shadowy friend is using it to entrance them somehow. Let’s intervene, shall we?” Sending a binding spell to deal with the opposition, Harry Vanished the Leaguers’ bonds and—shifting Vixen to one arm— Summoned the object of their apparent fascination out of their reach.
His breath hitched as the strange device dragged his mind into a nighttime scene. Recognizing the device as a type of pensieve—except that he was bodiless and subject to a foreign point-of-view—Harry relaxed a little, now understanding why he was no longer supporting Vixen or standing in a museum in Midway City. No sooner had this realization dawned on him than his awareness moved to an oddly familiar dwelling in the distance—just as a robed figure blasted its door into oblivion.
His involuntary viewpoint moved forward as the invader dropped its hood, revealing the aged countenance of a pre-resurrection Tom Riddle. Harry had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly where and when the device was displaying, a feeling that was confirmed as he was brought face-to-face with no other than James Potter.
As if watching a choreographed movie, Harry was powerless to stop the reenactment of the scene he first recalled during exposure to Dementors. His father and Voldemort faced off and, after a brief exchange of spells, the self-styled dark lord stepped over James Potter’s corpse and pursued the redheaded witch up the small home’s staircase.
Just as he dreaded, the intangible television view changed again, this time showing Lily Potter standing in what appeared to be a nursery, while holding an infant version of himself in one arm. Moments later, the younger version of the so-called Dark Lord appeared in the doorway and accosted his mother. After a brief exchange—which the Dementors assured would remain ever seared into his conscious memory—a Killing Curse struck his mother down, leaving his infant self to Voldemort’s less-than-tender mercies.
All of this, Harry expected. What he did not anticipate, however, was the arrival of another robed figure. The latest entrant was both extremely tall and thin and, Harry presumed, male—though neither face nor hands were visible. Strolling almost casually through the suddenly frozen scene, the almost wraith-like being approached his mother and stretched out one skeletal hand.
Harry was quick to note that, unlike most applications of the term ‘skeletal’ in regards to anatomy, this particular instance referred to the presence of bone only. He watched morbidly as the apparent personification of Death seemingly plucked a shining silvery mist out of his mother’s body and, after a moment of thought, released it to float upwards out of sight. The voyeuristic mage was so shocked at the graphic transition that he nearly missed Death’s approach towards his infant self.
The world jumped back into motion, and the dark wizard gloated for a few moments before casting the same Unforgivable on the baby that had extinguished the parents. As Harry expected, the green curse bounced off the child’s forehead, leaving nothing more than a glowing green lightning bolt upon his brow. What he did not expect, however, was for the reflected death curse to ricochet through Death as he was attempting to collect Harry’s infant soul. The robed figure glowed green momentarily before the aura surrounded the baby as well. An instant later, the tall figure disappeared.
The reflected Unforgivable—which was apparently altered as it passed through the former Death Incarnate—struck the so-called Dark Lord right in the face and—for lack of a better word—vaporized him. The magical backlash created an explosion sufficient to level most of the house, leaving the dwelling nothing more than flaming rubble of its former self.
The grown Harry suddenly found himself standing in the Midway City Museum once more. He was still holding Vixen in his left arm and the alien memory device in his right hand. Blinking rapidly, he turned his head to apologize to the woman for his inattention and noticed that she was completely unmoving. In fact, he quickly noticed that nothing was moving aside from himself.
Groaning, he muttered, “That’s just great! This bloody thing doesn’t just give hallucinations, but it bloody well messes with time, too!”
“Actually,” a cheerful voice said from beside him, “that would be my doing.”
He spun to look at the one who had somehow managed to sneak right next to him without him being aware.
The wizard found next to him a pale skinned, black haired girl, who looked to be in her late teens. Her short hair was in disarray, and Harry momentarily wondered if he was somehow related to her. Rather, he did until he noticed that the girl’s eyes were completely black. In fact, her right eye was even surrounded by a strange symbol—the ‘Eye of Horus’, a memory that was not his supplied. The slight, pale form was dressed in Muggle clothing, wearing an abbreviated black top and matching black denim jeans. The only color to be seen on her person was the silver belt around her waist and the silver ankh hanging from a chain around her neck.
Harry squinted at the cute girl for a moment before another buried memory rose to his conscious mind. “Tel?” he asked. “Teleute?”
The gothic girl smiled. “Ah, so you do remember. That’s really peachy keen, makes my job a lot easier!”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Harry cautiously admitted to the primary incarnation of Death for their present universe. “Am I dead or something? Does this have anything to do with this ring I received?” he asked, pointing to the article.
The girl cocked her head to one side. “You’re still not accepting it, are you?” she stated more than asked. “Let me put it simply. You are Death—or, at least, one of them. I’m the Chief Death for this universe, and you are my opposite number in your home dimension, more or less. I’m here to do your… let’s call it a re-initiation—since, apparently, everybody else is happy to ignore the situation.”
“Wait a minute!” Harry protested. “There’s got to be some mistake! I’m not Death! Err… a Death. I mean, sure, a whole bunch of people seem to think that I am for some weird reason, but I’m not! I’m just a wizard!” At the girl’s amused look, he grudgingly added, “And a few other things, but I’m pretty sure that ‘Grim Reaper’ isn’t one of them.”
“Hate to break it to ya, kiddo,” the female Death disagreed jovially, “but the previous bonehead in your universe apparently passed the buck to you when you were in nappies.”
“I’ve met the Death for my universe, though,” he protested. “Tall, skeletal, speaks with a Jamaican accent, substitute teaches at a public school—”
Teleute nodded. “That’s Grim,” she supplied. “He’s your number one, so to speak. His job is to help keep things running smoothly when you’re unavailable—you know, new souls in, old souls out, and there’s no such thing as immortality.”
“Come again?”
“Oh, sorry,” she smiled sheepishly. “I forgot that you’re playing catch-up. See, only a small percentage of people need our personal attention—mostly just those souls whose final destination are unclear for whatever reason. The vast majority handle the transition themselves—which, of course, is facilitated by Death’s Will.”
Seeing Harry’s blank look, the female Death tried a different method. “Think of it like breathing. When we attend to a client personally, it’s kinda like consciously breathing; when we just let a soul leave its host unattended, it’s more like the autonomous breathing you do when you’re asleep.”
Harry nodded. “Alright, I can understand that—but why didn’t anyone tell me about all this before now? I mean, if I really was a Death since I was a year old, shouldn’t someone have explained this before now?”
The gothic girl chuckled weakly. “Yeah… about that. It seems that there was a… miscommunication about the exchange. See, right after your predecessor… elected you, a soul was collected and the system resumed. I think everyone just assumed that it was business as usual and you had the 4-1-1. Sorry about the confusion.”
“But… this doesn’t make sense!” he protested. “You can’t just accidentally become Death… err, a Death! It just isn’t possible!”
She smiled. “Yeah, that’s what we thought. Turns out you were already predisposed towards this sort of thing. Orcus’s little… mishap just sort of jump-started things a bit.”
“You mean my dumb luck?” Harry asked.
Teleute scratched her head for a minute. “Yeah, something like that,” she finally admitted, thinking it an odd way of referring to his heritage.
He just shook his head at his typical fortune. “But… I’ve never done any… Death-like things!”
“You know, I read over your file before I popped in,” she admitted, “real classic stuff. Didn’t you ever wonder how you kept surviving all those ordeals which would have killed a normal human, or how all those dark wizards and creatures died in suspicious ‘accidents’? How about the near-serendipitous way that events resolve themselves in your presence.”
Harry shrugged as best he could with the frozen burden in his arms. “I just accounted it to chance.”
“It was, in a roundabout way. We just… tilt the odds in our favor, some times. As near as we can figure, you’ve been unconsciously drawing on your powers for a while now, using them to… err… collect the ‘bad guys’—some of the time, anyway. Apparently, a few of them really were just dumb luck.”
“But, why now?” the wizard demanded. “Why not when I was younger? I mean, the whole accidental-death-aura thing has only been happening for a few months now. Before that, I was perfectly human—well, as far as wizards go, anyway.”
The young-looking woman nodded. “And, by any chance, did you happen to decide that you didn’t want to be human anymore?”
Harry frowned in concentration, before his mind recalled the climax of his misadventure in the Department of Mysteries.
“Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human—”
“THEN — I — DON’T — WANT — TO — BE — HUMAN!” he roared at the wizened headmaster.
He sighed. “Err… is that relevent?”
“’Fraid so,” Teleute confirmed. “I do the same thing whenever I finish one of my walkabouts among the mortals. When you get right down to it, most of our abilities are simply exertions of our will.”
“Are you sure this isn’t a really bad joke, or a case of mistaken identity, or something?” Harry pleaded.
“Sorry, Sport,” she negated, “you’re a card-carrying member of the Death Union. On behalf of all the boneheads, welcome to the club. Meetings are held every century or so.”
“Right,” Harry accepted resignedly. “So, what does that entail, precisely?”
“Like I said, it’s mostly instinct. We just make sure that souls can make their transition to their appropriate destination—you know, a particular afterlife or reincarnation. Unless it’s a special situation, we normally just farm those jobs out to whatever death god holds the most valid claim—like if the client worshiped a particular god’s pantheon or if there’s a contract in effect.”
She made a dismissing gesture. “Aside from that, you just have to come down hard on anyone who starts causing a mess—like that Thomas Riddle of yours. As far as how you should do that… well, we have the usual range of cosmic powers: exercising our wills directly on the universe, transitioning ourselves across time and space, altering our state of being, true Immortality—well, unless we manage to find a successor to take over for us. Let’s see, we can recall souls that have already made the Transition—although there’s a lot of red tape on the whole resurrection thing, take my word for it. Oh yeah, we can also ignore all those little inconveniences that prevent us from performing our duty—like walls, wards, dimensional boundaries, stuff like that.”
“Are you for real?” Harry demanded incredulously.
“Death came into existence when the first Life was created,” she replied with a grin. “We’re about as real as it gets.”
Harry snorted at the smug entity. “So, long story short; I’m in this mess because the previous Death was either clumsy or wanted to retire.”
“And because you decided that you didn’t want to be human,” Teleute confirmed cheerfully. “Yep, that’s about the size of it.”
“So, all those weird accidents with the Death Eaters really were my fault?” he asked incredulously.
“Well… you’re aware that belief is a powerful thing, right? Arguably the most powerful force in existence?”
He tilted his head to the side in contemplation. “Well, an exceedingly annoying old wizard that I know has always maintained that love was the single greatest force in the world.”
“They are sometimes interconnected,” she allowed. “In this case, aside from the incident when you were an infant, you’ve got quite a few beings around the multiverse convinced that ‘Mr. Black’ is a physical embodiment of Death. That much belief focused on one concept is bound to have an effect after a while.”
Harry blinked repeatedly as a vein on the side of his neck became rather well pronounced. Speaking carefully, he replied, “Do you mean to say that I started reaping evil souls without even realizing it—because people believed that I could?”
The girl-shaped entity at his side remained nonplussed. “Well, your desires certainly played a role, but… yeah, pretty much.”
He suddenly started as another worrisome thought crossed his mind. “What about all that other stuff that people have said about me?” Harry asked. “You know, all those other cases of mistaken identity?”
She shrugged. “I tried asking my brother Destiny about that before I dropped by,” Teleute admitted. “All he did was clutch that book of his tighter to his chest and laughed oddly. I think he’s a little miffed about that business with Trigon and his daughter—not to mention that young wizard Tim Hunter that you took off my books. Nice job, by the way—real classy stuff there.”
Harry smiled. “Thank you. I do my best,” he acknowledged modestly. “So… I’m pretty well stuck with this Death business then?”
“I’d think so,” she agreed. “At least until you managed to find a successor.”
“And you’re saying that, because of this, I can’t die?”
“Umm… sorta. See, you can’t really die like a mortal and go to the afterlife or anything like that. That body you inhabit can be destroyed, of course. You’d have to arrange for a new one if that happened and you wanted to socialize with the mortals again.”
“So… we can still do that?” Harry asked hopefully.
The girl nodded. “Yeah, I drop in for a day every century or so to live life as a human. I was called… Didi, I think, the last time. I got to eat a hot dog, and ride in a taxicab, and a friend and I even saw a concert. Bill did the same thing once, but I think he’s out of the mood now. I think being separated from the really cool Death powers turned him off to the whole ‘living as a human’ thing.”
“Huh?” Harry eloquently inquired.
“When we take on human form—or human-ish, in your case—we’re sort of… limited. It’s kinda difficult to explain,” she attempted to elaborate. “We’re still us, we just can’t do the big stuff.”
“Big stuff? Like what?”
“Well, most of the stuff I mentioned earlier. We keep our intuition, and we’ll always have some influence on a local area. Take what happened to you this morning. You could sense that nice farmer Jonathan Kent’s heart attack as it happened and then instinctively stop it—but you didn’t have any advance notice that there was a problem. Or that Mrs. Taylor who grew those lovely roses in her garden outside of Omaha died of the exact same thing two minutes later.”
“So… no sudden awareness of every living thing in the universe or being able to locate anyone instantly, then?”
“Now you got it!” Teleute said encouragingly. “That sort of thing just can’t be done from this plane.”
Harry grew increasingly worried. “So, does that mean I can’t stay in this… plane, anymore? Since I have this job to do, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” she finally replied. “Most of the time, things run smoothly without our intervention. If there was a problem, though, you would have to physically go resolve it.”
Teleute smiled. “I can understand why you want to stay amongst them,” she confided. “There’s more… awe from a human perspective, isn’t there? Life seems so much more interesting from the mortal point-of-view. Sure, we can ascend, or become ‘enlightened’, or transcorporeally migrate upstairs—whatever the appropriate term is for it these days—but things just seem to lose their wonder from there.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “you’ll eventually figure out the limitations. For now, just expect to keep the abilities you already had with some new insight occasionally thrown in for good measure.”
“Right…” Harry muttered distractedly. “So, our physical bodies can die, but we can’t… right?”
“Well, if you go far enough up the ladder, you’ll eventually find someone that could destroy you, I suppose,” the female Death allowed. “Though, you’d be surprised what you can live through.”
Deciding to blatantly change the topic, he asked, “Okay then… you said something about exercising our wills on the Universe? Is that good for whenever we want, or does that count as a big thing, too?”
Teleute smiled. “Sorry, kiddo, but we have rules, too. You can get away with transmigration or the occasional temporal manipulation down here, but we try to keep the rest to a minimum. You can’t use Union resources to, say, move a planet out of a decaying orbit or something.”
Harry scratched the back of his head. “Ahh… you heard about that, then?”
She laughed briefly. “It was kind of hard to miss, what with the debris from the blast that you sent flying. Did you know that a couple of the larger rocks actually hit a pirate star cruiser a few systems away just before it vaporized a passenger ship?”
The weary wizard groaned. “No, I didn’t. Please don’t tell me that the survivors know where the rock originated.”
“Look on the bright side—no one there knows any of the details… yet. Just between the two of us, how did you do it?”
Harry shrugged. “I just asked a friend of mine to scale up an explosive device that he’s fond of making. The rest was completely out of my hands.”
“You set off a giant bomb—in space—to move a planet?”
Harry looked off to the side. “Yeah, pretty much. Why?”
“No reason. Do you have any other questions?”
“One. Just out of curiosity, how would one try the time control or dimensional travel spell that you mentioned?”
“It’s really just an application of Will, rather than a Wizarding spell,” she corrected. “The basic idea is that you envision what you want to happen in your mind, and then Will it into being. No magic wands or incantations—just results. Travel between the living dimensions is a cinch, even with passengers. Now, if you wanted to traverse into one of the heavenly or hell realms, then the process is a little more complicated.”
Harry blinked. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that I could visit the Afterlife?!”
The girl shrugged. “We’re the custodians of the Universe, Harry. Joe. Which is it, anyway?”
“I haven’t really decided if ‘Harry’ will ever resurface,” Harry admitted.
“I’ll stick with ‘Joe’ then,” she decided. “I think that’s a really keen name. Now, where was I?”
“Custodians of the Universe,” he prompted.
“Oh, right. So anyways, we’re like the night crew. We come in, clean up the messes, and make sure that everything gets put away all nice and neat. That means that we have access to everywhere that might need cleaning, and the supply closets and whatnot—that’d be all those other planes like Heaven, Hell, Sheol, Olympus, Asgard, the Elysian Fields, Tartarus, yada yada yada. When everything’s over, we put the chairs up on the tables, turn out the lights, and lock the doors on our way out.”
“So I could really meet my parents and godfather, or take someone along to see them?”
“Eventually,” she admitted. “It’s one of the perks of the job. We can also hop over the Source Wall, or the Infinity Well—whatever they call it these days. Anyway, it’s a font of knowledge and can give a person all knowledge on a subject if she asks the right questions. Now, dimensional travel’s easy if you stay on the same plane—like the mortal plane, for instance. But like I said, it gets tricky when you try to cross over into the afterlife, and there’s a bunch of rules regarding stuff like that—but… yeah, you could do that.”
Harry looked contemplative. “Maybe this won’t be as bad as I first thought.”
“Most things aren’t,” Teleute commented. “Anyway, we good?”
“Yeah. We’re good.”
“Cool. So… check in with Grim once you go back home, and he’ll get you set up there. If you need one of us, we can all be summoned by our personal sigils—it’s a Death thing—which reminds me…” The girl reached into her jeans pocket and produced a silver bisected circle, inscribed in a triangle. “This belonged to your predecessor; now it’s yours. In case you didn’t know, supplicants can get your attention if they know the right procedure to use on one of these. You have any other questions?”
“Not at the moment,” Harry admitted while trying to gain some perspective from all the new information he had just learned. “Thank you for your time. If there’s something I can do for you sometime, just let me know.”
“Hey, it only took a second,” she joked. “Now that you mention it, though, there is a little something you can do for me.”
“Oh?” he asked, more than just a little suspiciously.
“Yeah. I need to go out of town for a bit, and the regular subs are busy,” Teleute explained. “Would you mind the shop for a few days?”
“Are you serious?” Harry demanded. “I’d love to help, but I don’t know how.”
She waved off his concern. “Oh, you’ll be fine. The job’s pretty much instinctual, anyway. Just don’t leave the dimension before I get back, and be sure to handle any situations that come up as quick as you can. Thanks, Cutie! Buh bye!”
Before Harry could speak, the diminutive Death had vanished, leaving him standing in the frozen moment with Vixen in his arms and a slew of conundrums on his mind.
“That’s right, folks, it’s just another day in the life of the universe’s spittoon,” Harry muttered. “Well, now would be a really good time to know how to cancel this Death Time Pause thing.” He snorted. “’Just will it’, she says. Yeah, right! Oh, Universe, be a dear and restart time, would you?”
He felt a brief pressure on his mental barriers, the cold sensation bringing back uncomfortable memories of sitting in Dr. Schlock’s machine. The impression quickly faded, leaving the newly initiated Death Incarnate comprehending precisely what Teleute had done to the temporal field as it suddenly collapsed.
The three kneeling Leaguers quickly discovered that the table had turned in their favor and scrambled to their feet, putting a healthy distance between the still-trapped Shadow Thief and themselves.
“You know something, John?” Harry rhetorically asked in a light tone, causing the three metahumans to spin towards him. “Here I am, involved in yet another bizarre League matter, and Kara is nowhere in sight. I do believe that you are my bad luck charm, after all.”
“Umm… sorry about that,” the resident Green Lantern offered, before noticing Harry’s passenger. “Mari, are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine, Boo,” Vixen answered. “I just got a little bump on the head, and Mr. Black here thinks that I can’t walk anymore.”
Harry glanced down at the woman. “Well, it’s not everyday a guy gets to carry around a supermodel, now is it?” Harry snickered at the term of endearment and shifted Vixen to her boyfriend’s supporting arms before walking right up to the bound shape shifter. “Interesting friend you lot have here,” he offered finally.
“Lord Osiris?” the shadow queried in a deferential tone. “However did you escape the Underworld and regain human form?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I snuck out the back door when nobody was looking, but don’t tell anyone,” he replied sarcastically before silently querying his ring for advice.
‘This entity is an artificial and malevolent construct,’ Hal replied. ‘I recommend obliteration by a sharp implement.’
‘Fair enough,’ Harry replied and summoned his new axe from his gauntlet. “Now, Chuck tells me that this weapon can cut through any substance or force, even intangible ones,” he mused aloud. “Let’s find out, shall we?” Gripping the haft by the far end, he swung the weapon overhead, neatly bisecting the Shadow Thief in two. As the halves separated, both pieces quickly dissolved into nothing.
Harry quirked an eyebrow. “Yep, definitely a keeper,” he noted to himself. Stowing the weapon away, Harry turned his attention to the four people staring at him with emotions ranging from amusement to disbelief.
“So, is everyone alright?” he prompted. “No ill affects from that gadget?”
“Just some weird memories,” Shayera answered. “That database really did a number on my skull.”
Harry nodded in reluctant agreement. “Tell me about it. I’ve found that trudging through the past is always awkward.”
His comment earned three pairs of bulging eyes. “You mean that wasn’t a hallucination?” John Stewart demanded. “That thing really shows… the past?”
“I’m afraid so,” the wizard confirmed. “It briefly accessed one of my hazy memories, from a lifetime ago.” Harry shook his head. “Ah, well. What’s done is done, and there’s nothing to do for it now but to learn from our mistakes and move on with our lives.”
The magician smiled ironically as he recalled another of Dumbledore’s fortune cookie sayings. “After all, the old man always said that it doesn’t do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Don’t you agree?”
“I think you have something there,” Carter Hall announced. “If I might ask, what became of the database after you freed us?”
Harry patted his coat pocket. “I’m going to put it where it won’t be such a nuisance,” he informed the group.
‘Besides,’ he added privately, ‘I’ve been looking for a pensieve of my own, and this one is much more appealing than Dumbledore’s old stone basin—or, it will be once Henchgirl fixes it, at least.’
Sketching a short bow, he concluded by saying, “Now, since you all appear to have escaped without harm, I believe that we are done here.” Turning to the curator, Harry continued, “Do you mind if I look around, Carter? Archaeology’s something of a hobby of mine.”
“Be my guest,” the man replied distractedly.
Harry nodded again and announced, “Thanks. Well, goodbye.”
“Wait!” Vixen called. “No pearls of wisdom for me?”
Harry shrugged. “Watch out for falling dinosaurs?” he offered tentatively.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered.
A barely audible electronic alarm sounded, drawing Harry’s attention. The noise was accompanied by a familiar scent. “Is that coffee?” he demanded of the winged curator.
“Probably,” Carter answered, “I have a pot brewing. Would you like—” a sudden gust of wind signaled the wizard’s super fast departure “—some?” he finished questioningly. Looking to the others, the man asked, “Who is he?”
The three more experienced League members looked at one another before silently electing John their spokesperson. “Trust me,” the Green Lantern advised, “you wouldn’t believe us even if we told you. We just call him Mr. Black. It doesn’t cause as many headaches that way.”
Harry’s Zippo started buzzing while he was taking pictures of the ancient Greece exhibit. Amongst the scattered artifacts, the wizard had found a series of statues of the Greek pantheon of gods. Strangely enough, a few of them vaguely resembled Thena, Artie, and a younger version of Nem. Making a mental note to show the women a photograph of the display some day, he flipped open the floo connection.
“Black here,” he stated.
“Umm… it’s Tim,” a seemingly emotionless male voice answered. “My house just caught on fire without warning; my dad… Bill Hunter was burned pretty badly. The fire disappeared a few moments ago, but he’s still badly hurt and unconscious.”
“I’ll be right there!” Harry said decisively. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” the youth replied. “I could barely even feel the heat, much less get burned. I don’t think the fire was natural, though; it disappeared too quickly.”
Hearing that, Harry Apparated outside to retrieve his motorbike before instantly transporting himself outside of Ravenknoll Estates. He quickly strode over to Tim’s side and gave the boy an once-over before turning his attention to the apparently intact dwelling.
“Yes, I can see definite traces of dark magic,” he confirmed. “Where’s Mr. Hunter?”
“The ambulance just picked him up,” Tim replied. “He’s really messed up. Is there anything you can do?
The arrival of a white-haired man with a ponytail and expensive suit interrupted the two. “Oh, Tim, I’m so sorry! Constantine trusted me to protect you and your father… but I arrived here too late.”
“John sent you?” the boy asked, even as Harry frowned at the man. “To take care of Dad and me?”
Feeling a little suspicious by both the man’s appearance and behavior, Harry inspected the newcomer thoroughly. A brief glimpse with Mage Sight, however, had the immortal-wizard-turned-Death hoisting the other man aloft in a chokehold. Smiling grimly, the dimension-traveling magician shook his head negatively. “No, Tim. I sincerely doubt that even John and his friends would be foolish enough to send a wizard this dark to look over you,” he informed the young man, “especially one with a taste for arson.”
Timothy’s eyes bulged. “You mean…?”
Harry nodded as the non-human smiled coldly. “And what brings the likes of you to this forsaken land, Death Bringer?” the other man demanded.
“I have taken Tim into my house,” Harry acknowledged as he stepped between the two. “He is to me as my own son, and I will allow no harm to befall him—especially from such wretched filth as you.”
“You did this?” Tim suddenly roared. “I’m going to kill you!” The shorter figure ducked around Harry and leaped at the suited man – but was seized by Harry’s superior reflexes and pulled just out of the way of a thrown fireball.
The wizard raised a shield as a wall of flame rushed towards them. “He’s out of your League, Tim!” Harry said through gritted teeth. “I’ll deal with him. Mortis, get Tim out of here!” he ordered. The pooka appeared before his owner and, once Harry placed his son on the horse’s back, took off skyward—well out of range of the mystical pyromaniac.
Hoping that a combination of his coat’s protective spells, Etrigan’s flamboyant gift, and whatever Death abilities he could access would counter the unfamiliar fire-based shield, Harry dashed through the fiery barrier. His gambit worked, as he was completely unharmed by the mystical flame. Scanning the surrounding area, the wizard just caught sight of his target fleeing inside one of the apartments. He chased the dark magician through the residence and, upon trapping his prey in his own warded room, proceeded to dispatch the evil man in a rather painful manner.
Noticing the Dark Arts material present, Harry performed a quick packing spell on the paraphernalia and sending it to his trunk. Once his clean up was complete, the new Death went back outside to check on Tim. He found the youth standing in the front yard as Mortis looked on, talking to both a blonde and a brunette girl. “Mortis,” Harry chastised, “when I said to get him to safety, I meant further away than the edge of the property!”
“It’s not his fault, Joe,” Tim confessed. “I saw Molly and Leah coming by, and flew down to warn them.”
Harry just sighed, before wondering absently if Dumbledore ever felt this way regarding his own exploits.
Sensing no impending rebuke, Tim intently asked, “So, is Professor Shades going to be joining us?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Harry replied. “He’s a bit… strewn about at the moment. I didn’t even catch his name,” he mused. “So, who are your friends?” he asked, giving the two girls a cautious look.
“I’m Molly,” the black-haired girl answered. “Who’re you?”
“Joe Black,” he supplied, offering his hand to the young woman. “I’m Tim’s… guardian.”
“You’re Mr. Black?” the blonde girl queried. “The one who Master and his Flame Cult friends were hiding from?”
Harry nodded. “The same.” Noticing that the girl was giving out similar sensations as Veela women—though there were distinct variations, not to mention the ‘Master’ reference—he studied the youth more closely. Hal identified the girl’s heritage just as he came to the same conclusion himself.
“You know what I am, don’t you?” she asked, head tilted downward dejectedly.
He nodded again in confirmation. “I can only guess why the git came after Tim here with a succubus. So, now that you’re free, what are you going to do?”
“Wait for my next master to come along, I guess,” Leah admitted resignedly. “I’m not out to hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The younger wizard looked confused. “Why do you even need a master?” he asked. “Do you like being a slave or something?”
The deceptively young-looking girl explained to Tim exactly what she was, as well as what her heritage entailed.
“Isn’t there something you can do?” the boy asked his magical guardian.
Harry thought it over for a moment, before an idea began to form. Smiling, he asked, “Tim, you ever hear the story of Aladdin?”
The wizard-in-training blinked. “Will that actually work?”
“Will you two stop being so cryptic!” Molly demanded. “Will what work?”
“Taking possession of Leah, then ordering her to be free,” Tim explained.
The brunette’s eyes widened. “Oh! Well, that makes sense!”
Leah seemed to agree and, for reasons Harry preferred not to contemplate, chose Tim to be her temporary master. The plan went off without a hitch, and the succubus was shortly free to do as she pleased. After they completed the transaction, however, she pointed out a valid concern.
“But what if someone finds my box and knows my name?” the blonde girl asked. “Then they can just order me back into servitude.”
Harry thought the matter over for a few moments. “Not a problem,” he finally replied. “Tim, give me the box for a second.” The boy did as instructed, and his guardian conjured a simple golden locket. After placing a subdimension pocket charm inside the ornament, Harry proceeding to stuff the box inside its new home. To finish off the deception, he cast the Fidelius charm on the locket, before ensuring that only the person who put the locket on could remove it.
“Alrighty, then. Leah, if you’ll come here for a second…?” He slipped the pendant over the girl’s head. “There. That should take care of your problem nicely.”
“What problem is that?” she asked confusedly.
Harry scribbled the secret onto a conjured scrap of parchment. Once the girl had read the paper, he Vanished it.
“What did you do?” Leah asked as she stared at the golden trinket.
He smiled. “Hid the secret. Now, only the two of us know it, and I’m the only one who can ever remove the locket. You’re free now – for keeps. Go do what you want for a change. Have some fun, do some shopping… whatever it is that girls do for kicks these days.”
She smiled widely. “Thank you! Thank you both!” the fair-haired succubus exclaimed, hugging each wizard in turn. “I think I’ll head back to California, maybe take up modeling. It’s a lot warmer over there!”
Harry quirked a smile at her enthusiasm. “Sounds like a plan,” he admitted. “If you want, I can give you a lift to California after we visit Mr. Hunter. I own a nightclub in San Francisco so, if you need a job to get on your feet, I can help. I’m also friends with a professional model—Mari McCabe? She might be able to help you out as well.”
“Are you serious?” she asked disbelievingly.
The wizard shrugged in turn. “Why not? I’d imagine you’d get on well with Harley—she’s another recent hire at the club. Nice girl, but she’s going through a rough patch at the moment. Now that I think about it, you two actually have a lot in common.” Shaking his head to dismiss the thought, Harry continued, “Anyway, if modeling’s really your thing, Mari knows her stuff. If you’d like, we can work out the details after we finish up here. Deal?”
“Deal!” she accepted cheerfully.
“Excellent!” Harry concluded. “So, Molly, you coming along, too?”
“Well, somebody has to make sure that Tim’s okay!” the bushy-haired girl exclaimed in a tone strangely reminiscent of a certain book-loving Gryffindor of his acquaintance. “Umm… I don’t suppose that we could get some ice cream on the trip, could we?”
“I don’t see why not,” the elder mage agreed with a laugh. “Say, are either of you two girls afraid of heights by any chance?”
At seeing their uneasy expressions, Harry sighed. Since he had no idea where the hospital was located, Apparation, Portkeys, and Black Holes were all out of the question. He began racking his brain for an alternate means of traveling to the infirmary, before his gaze fell upon the late Martyn’s stylish red convertible.
Smiling widely, the immortal mage continued, “Never mind. It’s not an issue.”
Tim, who had spent enough time with the magician to hear tales of his occasional bouts of larceny, said, “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”
Harry, however, had already vaulted the car’s door and was in the process of searching for the ignition key on the ring he had… borrowed from the fallen dark wizard—along with the man’s wallet and Dark Arts equipment.
‘Waste not, want not’ and all that.
Pulling out his Zippo, he called the Doctor and explained the crisis with Bill Hunter. After extracting a promise for a speedy delivery on burn healing potions, Harry motioned the three into the car. “All right, everyone, let’s get this show on the road. Tim, do you know where your dad was taken?”
“St. Bartholomew’s,” he answered as he hopped into the front passenger seat, “but I don’t know where it is.”
Harry looked over at the boy. “Are you a wizard or aren’t you? Remember the ‘point me’ spell?”
Tim smacked himself. “Oh, right! Point Me St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.” His wand spun around on his palm before pointing in an eastern direction.
“There we go!” Harry said happily. “All aboard?” Once the two girls were situated, he started the car and floored the accelerator pedal. With a piercing squeal of laid rubber, the group was on their way to the hospital—a fact that the three passengers privately considered extremely convenient, considering the quality of their current chauffeur’s driving ability.
A/N: Thus concludes Chapter Twelve of Terminal Justice, weighing in at a decent 12,000 words. I drew several ideas straight from Rorscharchblot’s Belief omake, but the remaining verbose blather is all mine.
Many thanks to James for proofreading this chapter, and to Chris for his background information on the various DCverse fixtures. Additional, credit goes to Moshehim for pointing out an oversight when I defined a Death’s role in the Universe. That error has been corrected.
One concern I wish to address is whether Harry’s actually becoming a Death negates the concept of an ordinary—though terribly (un)lucky—guy being constantly mistaken for legendary figures, seeing as how he _is_ a Death.
I was of two minds regarding this issue—in fact, I discussed the possibility with RB months ago, before polling my betas and the group, and finally deciding to go ahead with it. Ultimately, I decided that a) Harry really isn’t all that ordinary anymore and, b) being a Death wouldn’t really change his modus operandi. Essentially, the only real difference is that he’s picked up a few new tricks to use on the bad guys.
As far as the pool for mistaken identity candidates is concerned, Harry is just _a_ Death, not an actual, easily recognized personage. In fact, he is now even more likely to be mistaken for culturally significant death gods such as Osiris, Anubis, Thanatos, etc. I’ve also got a few vague ideas for other non-Death IDs, including Thor, Pecos Bill, and Zorro. Whether any of the above will make it into a chapter is still undecided, but there you have it.
Rest assured that, despite the recent revelation, Harry _will_ still get misunderstood on a regular basis.
Now, another concern that has been raised is that Harry has become too super. As I’ve previously stated, Terminal Justice is a continuation of Make a Wish and Hunt for Harry Potter, not an attempt to recreate the original works. In the original MaW story, the concept of Mr. Black was introduced. The RB-written sequel proceeded to focus on Harry’s attempts to salvage his personal ’Harry Potter’ life. My intentions for this project, on the other hand, is to explore and develop the Mr. Black persona via exposure to the Justice League and its environs.
During his journey in the JLU universe, Harry will learn additional applications of his “superpowers” while continuing to develop as a frequently misunderstood person. As a result, the ’Mr. Black’ persona may grow and change from its initial conception in Make a Wish. Rest assured that any serious alterations will have first been approved by Rorscharch’s Blot, and will not require an extreme suspension of belief.
Thank you for your interest, and please remember to review.