Amid the Star's Light

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This chapter is dedicated to Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon-the seven brave astronauts who perished on the shuttle Columbia on February 1^st, 2003.

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"Hermione?" Harry looked up from where he had landed. "Is that you?"

She looked down in surprise. "Harry?" Hermione looked around her with a slightly confused look on her face. "Harry, where... where are we?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm not quite sure exactly where, but I can say this much-"

"Mr. Potter...?" Janeway half-said, half-asked as she stopped next to both of them. Chakotay came up behind her and the two of them helped Harry out of the fallen chair.

"Who is this?" she asked. There was a slight pause, and then she added, "Do you know her?"

Harry nodded, and introduced Hermione to Janeway and Chakotay.

Janeway looked puzzled at this revelation. "Another one?" Harry couldn't tell whether it was a question to Chakotay or to herself, but in either case, she seemed to be in much thought. She walked a small distance away to talk to Chakotay privately.

Looking back at Hermione, Harry scratched his head. "I'm not quite sure where to start..." But, he noticed, her eyes were not on him; rather, they were on the stars that floated passed the windows of the mess hall. He tried to wave his hand in front of her eyes, but she seemed almost hypnotized by them.

Was I like this when I first saw them? he wondered.

In one quick motion, the captain reached up and hit the silver button/badge she wore on the left side of her uniform. "Janeway to Tuvok," she called out to no one in particular.

"Tuvok here," answered a voice that came from no one in the room (which caused Hermione to come out of her trance).

"Did the internal scanners pick up any...strange readings?"

A pause, then, "No, everything is at normal levels..."

"Are you sure, Tuvok?"

"Positive."

Again, another pause, but this time no one spoke. If there hadn't been a small buzz in the room (which Harry took to be from the operation of the ship itself), then it would have been as quiet as Hogwarts in the middle of the night.

Then, there was a tremor that ran beneath their feet; it was small, but they could still feel it. Shortly afterwards it was followed by another one, slightly bigger than the last.

"Correction, Captain," came the voice that have belonged to the one the captain had called 'Tuvok'.

No one, not even Janeway, had any time to ponder the source of these tremors (or even wonder what it was that Tuvok saw at his station on the bridge) before the third one hit, violently rocking the ship.

After the ship had stopped moving, Janeway turned to Chakotay. "Go to the bridge and help Tuvok figure out what's going on..."

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Tom stared dully at the ceiling. He had nothing else to do, and staring at the ceiling had lost its appeal many hours ago. If only he could be up and moving! The could be working on the Delta Flyer, or playing Captain Proton with Harry Kim, or any of his responsibilities of being the ship's helmsmen. There were so many other things that he could have been doing instead of lying on an uncomfortable biobed.

And... And it was that boy's fault. Not that he really blamed him - he was probably scared. But that was still no excuse to freeze Tom in the first place.

The doctor was shuffling around somewhere on the other side of sick bay, running tests on some new molecular compound that might be a cure for something they might run into. "Might come in handy as a counter-agent to the next bio weapon that the captain might threaten some species with..." he'd told Tom. Soon, the shuffling stopped, and the doctor approached Tom with another tricorder, which he opened and used to start scanning Paris with. He hummed along with a classical song that was playing in the background as he waved the tricorder's extension over Tom.

"Janeway to Sick Bay."

Hitting his silver combadge, the doctor replied, "Go ahead, Captain."

Without a pause: "How's Tom doing?"

The doctor looked at Paris and replied, "I can say this: his condition hasn't worsened, but it hasn't improved either. At least, not from what I can tell. Every time I try to scan him with a tricorder, it malfunctions."

"Are you sure it's not just the tricorder?"

"I have used at least sixteen different tricorders."

Pause. "At any rate, that might not matter. I think we've found someone who knows a cure for it-"

Tom Paris's mental state of mind jumped. A cure?! If he could have moved, he would have danced.

"-Is now a good time?"

The doctor hesitated. "Can you give me a bit longer to run a few more tests? I'd like to know a little more about what's going on, and perhaps an interview with our guest?"

Paris's heart sank. How could he? Does he not know anything? Where's that bedside manner all doctors are supposed to have anyway? Just wait, doc, just wait... Oh, if only deactivating you wasn't like letting you sleep...

"Make that "guests". We have two now. I'll bring both by later, after we make a stop in Astrometrics . . . Janeway out."

Tom's mood had never really went from high to low as fast as it had just done. He felt sort of depressed, and as the doctor leaned over him to run those tests he'd wanted to, thoughts of revenge came into his mind...

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Ron thought that this must have been one of stranger sights he had ever seen. McGonagall had thought that with the odd disappearances of two students, who were both "replaced" by inanimate objects, the situation should be brought up before the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore; Snape, and even Filch, agreed.

As for the strange sight Ron thought he'd never seen before, it seemed that this little gathering slightly looked like a pajama party. Although, he didn't think Snape or Filch were the type who'd even think about going to such events; nor did he think that this gathering would consist of much fun and games. But it was highly amusing to think of the two attending the sort of pajama party that the Gryffindor girls were rumored to throw.

They marched along the stony hallways, going towards the headmaster's office with the table and the bowl of soup magically floating behind them. These hallways were empty, as they should be in the middle of the night.

But, this foursome would become a threesome before they reached the headmaster's office. Before they turned that last corner, Ron disappeared in a blink of the eye. A large, silver chair appeared in his spot, clattering to the floor with a noise that was louder than even Peeves made.

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Upon entering a new room as he followed Janeway, Harry found it to be darker than the rest of the ship he'd seen. But it was still gray. Is there any other color in this place? There was a large screen directly in front of him as he entered that reminded him of a screen at a Muggle cinema, only it was filled with little white dots and lines and such. It only took one glance at Hermione to tell him that her curiosity was running wild inside of her head (she looked very fascinated by all of the blinking lights and screens).

"Welcome to Astrometrics," Janeway said, approaching a panel that existed in front of the giant screen.

There was another person standing there, Harry noticed. She was tall, with blonde hair that was pulled into a French Roll (Harry wasn't quite sure where he had gotten that term...). And . . . and there looked like some sort of growth above one of her eyes.

"Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger," the captain continued, "This is Seven of Nine." She, then, turned to Seven and asked if she could help her show their guests exactly where they were in the universe.

Harry pondered, just for a moment before his attention was shifted to the large screen, why anyone would be named after a number. Possibly weird parents ...?

Seven nodded and moved to a different part of the panel, where she began to press a lot of buttons. "This is Earth's present location," she said, indicating the swirling ball of green and blue on the screen. "Currently, we are approximately fifty thousand light years from Earth in the Delta Quadrant..."

Harry's mouth dropped, and he could tell that Hermione's had as well. Even if he hadn't had a basic physics course in his educational career, fifty thousand light years still sounded like an awfully large distance.

The pictures on the screen started to shrink; more lines appeared, as well as little solar systems. Far off in one corner of the screen, a little silver object appeared, as well as a circle that surrounded it and some numbers. A box formed around the object, zooming in on it.

"Our current location on Voyager..."

Oddly enough, the ship they were on reminded Harry of a spoon-a spoon with wings.

Without much of a pause, Hermione blurted out a bundle of questions, which included, "How'd we get here?", "How is this possible?", and the one Harry had been wondering, "If we're that far away from Earth, how are we going to get home?"

Captain Janeway chuckled at Hermione's last question. "We wondered that when we first arrived in the Delta Quadrant. Along the way, we've made friends... and enemies... and we have found things to make the trip faster. And," Harry saw that her eyes had suddenly gained a strange glitter to them, "when we figure out how you got here, we might be able to get all of us home..."

Seven: "Captain, there might be a problem with the time difference."

Janeway gave Seven a strange look, as if to ask her what in the world she was talking about; but she wasn't given a chance, for Tuvok's voice once again filled the room.

"Chakotay to Janeway."

The captain tapped her combadge, "Janeway here."

"We're being hailed," Tuvok stated, "The Trabakian leader demands to speak with you."

Even though Tuvok couldn't see her, Janeway nodded. "I'll take it in Astrometrics."

"Acknowledged."

Within seconds, the rather large screen changed from a map of the galaxy to a picture of a man, who made Harry's insides turn. To him, this man looked like a strange and impossible combination of Gilderoy Lockhart and Severus Snape-most noticeably, most of Lockhart's facial features and Snape's black eyes and greasy black hair. The only thing that set him apart from either one of them was that he had what looked like horns that lay back on his hair. Behind him existed a lab of sorts, with a bunch of shiny metal equipment. There was one thing that Harry noticed out of all that he could see, and that was a funny looking chair that didn't look very comfortable.

Lockhart/Snape's face gained a large smile when he caught sight of Janeway. "Ah, Captain Janeway, it is nice to see you again. How are you?" he asked as if it were a casual conversation.

"I'm fine, Tu'rum. I take it you're fine as well?"

"Positively perfect, my dear captain! So, how's the probing?"

Janeway replied, in a professional manner, that it was now finished, and they had found large quantities of "Dry Tears'um", whatever that was. This made Lockhart/Snape very happy. "That's exactly what I was looking for!" he exclaimed, and they launched into how they were going to mine it and what Voyager would be getting out of it. While he kept talking, the strange-combination-of-two-Hogwarts-professors kept eyeing Harry and Hermione.

Harry lost interest in that conversation quickly. Not that it was boring--the Tu'rum guy was very animated when he talked. His mind wandered around a bit, and then wandered around a little bit more... Then, something caught his eye.

Behind the guy on the screen, the funny chair that Harry had noticed suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by a very ruffled looking young man with red hair and black robes.

Ron Weasley.

Ron Weasley was in that man's lab.

Ron Weasley was being tied down by people in strange white outfits who'd just appeared in the room.

One thing was for sure--Ron Weasley was in trouble.

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The doctor squinted at the twentieth tricorder he'd gotten his hands on that day. Tom watched him do this, as least the best he could. It was hard not being about to move his head. As such, Tom really didn't have anything else to look at except the doctor's bald head.

After a minute, the doctor frowned at the reading he was getting. Either they were extremely erratic, or not there at all (Tom had already heard the lecture). He sighed, shook his head, and then took off for the other side of Sick Bay.

"Doctor to Captain Janeway," he heard the doctor say out loud. Apparently, he was trying to get a hold of Janeway via the comm system.

"Janeway here." She sounded a little stressed

"I have completed the tests I wanted to run, so you may bring our guests by..."

"That's good, doctor, but... we've got a bit of a situation..."

Great, Tom Paris thought to himself, just great...Now there's a problem with something... If it's not one thing, it's another... And with that, he knew that he'd be stuck there even longer...

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Captain's Log, Supplemental

...

The events of the last few days... well, we'll just say that they have stumped most of the senior staff. Tuvok is, as always, working hard to see if he can't figure it out. I believe that he was found something that might help--a connection between the three appearances and the nebula we've been probing for the Trabakian government.

As for our latest guest, we have a bit a situation. It seems that he appeared the Trabakian ambassador's ... office (for the lack of a better word). This happened the last time we spoke, and we haven't been able to contact any of the surrounding facilities. Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger told me that he was t heir friend, Ron Weasley; they are worried, as am I, about his safety.

I hope that we can at least contact Tu'rum or one of his assistants, or I'm afraid that we might have to take more desperate measures...

...

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