Amid the Star's Light

Amid the Star´s Light

Chapter 2: Great, Where´d That Nebula Come From?

In which Harry finds out that he´s not in Kansas anymore (although I highly doubt that that is where he started out in the first place), someone new arrives on Voyager, and Ron must find a way to fend off two teachers and Filch.

=/=

Yet again, Harry found himself in another gray corridor, which led to its identical cousin, and then the cousin´s brother after that. Although, everything now looked better because his glasses were no longer broken. (Shortly after the lights had returned, he secretly repaired them when Kim wasn´t looking). The doctor had disappeared when the room shook, but Harry hadn´t seen where he´d gone--he almost started to worry about him. Ensign Kim felt that he had to go to some place called "the Bridge", but because the doctor was not there, he decided that he had to take Harry with him (for certain obvious reasons). When they left, they had to leave Tom Paris behind--only because it would have been very difficult to maneuver his very stiff body.

The halls seemed long and boring, and the two walked in silence for what seemed a very long time. But just as Harry´s mind began to wander in a different direction (probably about where exactly he was), Ensign Kim decided to try and talk to Harry--which quickly jerked any and all of Harry´s thoughts out of his head.

"How... how did you do that to Tom?" he asked Harry. "It looked like... magic, like something out of a child´s storybook."

Truthfully, Harry couldn´t think of any good ways to answer Kim´s question. He figured that he couldn´t just tell a complete stranger, who Harry wasn´t sure if he was a Muggle or not, that he was a wizard, and yes, he did use magic. But, he couldn´t just not say anything either, for that would make him look rude or something along those lines. But as he thought about it, his mouth opened as if he was going to say something; then he promptly closed it.

"Oh..." Ensign Kim said in a tone that had the smallest hint of disappointment. "You´re not supposed to tell, are you?"

Harry could only stay silent; he had no idea of what to do or what to say. Kim must have taken that as a hint that Harry really didn´t want to talk about it, so he went silent and stayed that way until they got to the bridge.

The bridge was made out of the same gray shades that the rest of the place had been made of. Various people of all shapes and sizes (and even color) worked at various stations around this room. The stations at which they were doing these things were mainly towards the back (and the entrances to the bridge) and along the sides. In the middle of the room was some sort of barrier, like a fence, and then a step down to the lower part of the room. On the far side was what looked to be a large window, which showed a view of selected portion of the stars.

Harry gawked at the window and the stars beyond it. Stars?!If the window wasn´t pointed up, or upon a large hill or mountain, or even bewitched like the Great Hall (which were/was all very unlikely, he figured), then there shouldn´t have been any reason for him to be seeing those stars...

When they had walked onto the bridge, a woman looked up from something she was holding to see who they were. She had short hair, shoulder length at most, which was auburn in color; she wore the same uniform Kim was wearing, although it was red instead of yellow.

"Mr. Kim," she greeted the Ensign in a friendly manner.

"Captain, what´s going on?" Kim asked. "I tried contacting the bridge from Sick Bay, but the comm system must have been down..."

"We haven´t received a report about the comm system going down," said a man next to this captain, "and we were just talking with B´elanna..."

Harry ignored the rest of the conversation that followed, although he did vaguely hear Kim report to the captain what had happened to Tom. The stars happened to be more fascinating than the words that came out of their mouths, but... there was something not quite right with them... something odd... but, what was it?

=/=

Ron and Hermione looked at the teachers who stood in front of them. They were kidding, right? How were they possibly going to explain why they were trying to get into Filch´s office in the dead of the night in a remotely reasonable manner? And what about the table--which had also found it´s way into the office-- how were they going to tell the three of them straight out that it used to be Harry?

So they sat in complete silence. Time seemed to fly by without stopping for tea, but they knew better than that; besides, there was a clock somewhere in the room that kept ticking. Ron could have sworn that he had heard Snape´s dangerous "laughter" in that silence (possibly hoping McGonagall would take points away from Gryffindor for such acts); Filch´s smile reminded him of how Filch wanted so much to bring the old punishments back.

Thinking about that made Ron shudder. He really didn´t want to be hung from the ceiling by his toes. It sounded awfully painful.

"Ms. Granger," said Snape, finally breaking the silence, "For the sake of Gryffindor´s precious points, please do tell why we found the two of you and that table outside this office... And even perhaps why Mr. Potter isn´t around this time..."

Hermione just stared back at the teachers as she tried to think of the best possible answer.

=/=

"He did what?" Kim´s "captain" exclaimed in her office, trying to understand what Kim had just told her. Apparently, she hadn´t understood it any better than Kim had.

Harry looked out the windows that existed in this room, which was a smaller room off the side of the bridge. These windows, like the one on the bridge, showed a picture of the stars, but these slowly moved by in one direction.

"All I know is that Tom is now frozen stiff--he can barely move his eyes, if at all," Kim replied. The auburn haired lady looked towards Harry as if she had wanted to ask him a question, but Ensign Kim interrupted her before anything could leave her lips. "I´ve already asked him about it," he said, "and he didn´t say anything at all."

The captain paused, seeming to think about what she had to do next. After only just a few short moments, she turned again to Harry. "What is your name?"

Harry knew that Kim already knew his name, and he could have, and would have, told her if she´d asked. But she had personally asked him and in a friendly manner - the sort that would have made him feel rude if he didn´t answer. "Harry Potter," he told her, thinking there was no harm in them knowing his name.

"Harry Potter, I am Kathryn Janeway, captain of the Federation Starship Voyager-"

Starship? Harry´s mouth mentally dropped. That couldn´t possibly be what he imagined it to be, could it?

"Unfortunately, we now seem to have two Harry´s aboard this ship. To reduce the sate of confusion this may cause at some point, you are now Mr. Potter," she said as she looked at Harry, "and Mr. Kim, as always--"

Harry couldn´t believe this. Where´d they get this whole starship idea? In an attempt to find an answer in his thoughts, he glanced out one of the windows--that caused him to do a double take. There, looming some distance away, was a puffy object of pink, purple and blue. A nebula: something that one should have only been able to see in Muggle science magazines and books. He just stood there, dumbstruck, at not only its beauty, but also the fact that it was right there.

"Oh, yes, centuries ago, the locals of the second planet in this system thought that this nebula was their heaven," she said once she saw Harry´s reaction to the sight. "They, as a culture, have long since grown out of that belief, but some still do believe. Now, their government would like to mine it, and we´re probing it for them..."

Nebula?Probing? Planet?! Harry´s mind began to spin.

"Breathtaking, isn´t it? I can see why they called it their heaven... But, back to the topic--what did you do to Tom and how?"

Harry stammered. He was completely stumped as to how any of this could be... "Where in the world am I?" he demanded.

The captain looked at him strangely. "World? Mr. Potter, where are you from?"

Glancing back at the windows, he answered, "England..."

That seemed to have struck the captain oddly. She gave a quick glance at Mr. Kim, who looked just about as surprised as she. "Earth? You´re from Earth?"

Harry nodded, even though he thought the question was a little strange. Who wasn´t from Earth?

"Aren´t we on Earth?"

Shaking his head, Kim said, "We are a long way from Earth, Harry." That caused Harry´s mouth to really drop.

"The question is," said Janeway, "is how he got here, of all places..."

A little voice in the back of Harry´s mind thought that was a good question. The last thing he remembered was being with his friends, Ron and Hermione, outside Filch´s office, trying to get inside; then, Kim´s gray room; then Tom. After that, he story got... well, `clearer´ wasn´t quite the word Harry had been looking for, and `strange´ didn´t quite fit, either. Frankly, he couldn´t think of a good answer.

=/=

Things seemed to get back to normal--at least what they could consider normal aboard Voyager, especially with their new guest. Kathryn Janeway found him to be a strange boy; he was kind enough, but he did seem to be wrapped in as many mysteries as the Delta quadrant. How had he gotten himself onto Voyager? Why was he here?

Tom had yet to recover from the condition that Harry had put him in--but, their young guest hadn´t yet said how they could go about reversing the effects. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, though; he did seem to be "surprised" (if that´s what you can call it) when he found out he was in space. And anyone would be if they had been put in his situation.

Janeway found Harry to be a very mysterious boy. There was something about him, something different, something almost powerful. She figured that no one could see it, but it was still there, like gravity. When Kim and Harry had entered the bridge, she remembered feeling a sudden, but slight, change in the air around them. This was probably the same thing that caused the tricordersnot to work around him.

As she watched him timidly try one of Neelix´s creations from across the hall, she figured there had to be a reason for that strange feeling. There had to be...

"He´s from Earth-- he said so himself--" she said, taking a sip from her cup of coffee "--but it´s almost like he isn´t from the Earth we know..."

Chakotay, a man with short dark brown hair and a tattoo on one side of his forehead, thought about this. "What makes you think that, Kathryn?"

"Well," she said, thoughtfully, "The way he acts--it´s almost like he hasn´t seen any of this before..."

"That could be," Chakotay commented with a slight nod of his head, "But what if he came from a part of Earth that isn´t dominated by the Federation?" There was a hint of resentment for the Federation in his voice, but only slight, very slight.

Janeway´s head nodded in agreement. She almost commented on the way he dressed - he looked almost like a wizard or magician. But that was silly: there were no medieval-style wizards, who could make almost anything happen at their calling, anymore. Furthermore, teenagers about his age were known to dress in odd fashions, whatever the current trend happened to be.

But somehow, that didn´t sound quite right...

When she looked over at Harry again, she saw that he had found out that he wasn´t all that fond of Neelix´s meals, or at least this particular one. He had this look on his face that told Janeway that he´d probably never tasted some of the spices, or main ingredients, that Neelix had added - and it didn´t look like he liked whatever it was all that well. It was only because Neelix was standing nearby, watching him intently, that he picked the spoon up and ate it anyway.

Slowly, Harry scooped some of the green-brown colored soup into his spoon. He´d never seen, or tasted anything like this before, but he didn´t want to be rude and not eat it. What if it upset the people on this ship? Sighing, he stuck the spoon in his mouth and--

The reaction he got from this spoon full was not at all what he´d expected, or at least hoping for. Something exploded in front of him - sending him, and the chair he was sitting in, flying backwards. He landed roughly on his back--with that loud thunk!--where he stayed for several long moments with his eyes closed. Maybe he shouldn´t have taken another bite... What was that spice, anyway?

He didn´t open his eyes again until he was distracted by the surprised gasps of the other people in the room. When he did, he saw a sight a familiar head of bushy brown hair.

Sitting on the table above Harry was none other than Hermione Granger.

=/=

Severus Snape had only picked Hermione because he thought that out of the two of them, she´d give the more sensible answer. She had always had a better handle on logic from all angles--at least, that´s what he and most of his colleagues thought. Even with that sort of grasp on an idea that complex, one had to wonder why she continued do go on those... adventures... with Potter and Weasley.

But they never got her answer.

Before she could answer, she simply disappeared--Poof!--gone without a trace, save one: a steaming bowl of what presumably was soup sat on the chair where Hermione had been sitting.

For a few moments, Ron, McGonagall, Snape, and Filch just stared blankly at the chair. McGonagall looked surprised in a McGonagall sort of fashion, though she was not as tired as she had looked before; Snape´s smile at his cleverness to ask Hermione completely fell off his face, but he still kept his composure; Filch gave a nasty, Filch-like grunt in surprise.

Ron, on the other hand, had been completely "thrown" out a window by it all. Not only had both his friend disappeared only to be replaced by some inanimate object, but they´d left him to the hungry jaws of the three adults standing in that very room with him. (And he knew they´d look to him for at least the littlest shred of an explanation they could get). AND, he also had a disgusting soup to deal with. But, of course, he was generally concerned about his friends.

"Did she...?" Filch started a question, but he didn´t finish it.

"No..." Ron said automatically. "You can´t Apparate or Disapparateon Hogwarts grounds!" He was quoting Hermione, who often quoted a lot of information from, Hogwarts, A History.

Had a telepath were to have been in that room at that very moment, they would have known that each was thinking that something very strange was going on.

=/=