[Fic]: Gwen and Ken's Hogwarts Adventure, part two (3000 words)
Gwen and Ken's Hogwarts Adventure
a Draka series-Harry Potter crossover fanfiction by Andrew yclept Aelfwine
****
The characters and situations of the Draka series are copyright S.M. Stirling. The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
Warnings: Yours truly. Hints of het and femmeslash. Gender change. Confused Samothracians. Cute Draka. The Archangel Michael has an odd sense of humour. Gwen Ingolfsson ships Harry/Hermione.
No former Draka archons or Samothracian cyberwarriors were harmed during the making of this fanfic.
****
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson woke suddenly. Thor and Odin, what a strange dream! Glad to be awake, so I can know it was one. I didn't die fighting a Yankee after living more than four hundred years. But maybe some of the good things from that dream will happen, after all. I got to kiss Winnie Makers, and more! Maybe today's the day that happens for real.
But the ceiling above her wasn't the one from her quarters at Baiae Senior School, with the lovely soft relief of ancient Spartan girls running a footrace. It was plain plaster. Which meant...
"Frigg. All of that did happen, didn't it? So how am I in any position to think about it? Oh, Freya and the White Christ... I died. And found out it wasn't the end, after all."
#
She'd been falling, into the quantum hell of a failing molehole generator. Glad she'd managed to take the damnyank Samothracian with her, at least. But in her last moments of consciousness, she'd thought not of her triumph, but of her mother and her tantie-ma, and of dear lost Alois, her husband who'd died at the age of three hundred in a hunting accident, and Winnie, her first girlfriend, who'd died much younger, in the Final War, when an Alliance parasite bomb made an expanding gas cloud of her little stingfighter.
And then she was standing, side by side with that very damnyank. She was wearing a school tunic. Her hair was loose down her back. She felt as if she were only a child again. The damnyank--Lafarge, that was his name--looked years younger as well, and strangely handsome, at least for an enemy. For a second she felt an absurd fluttering in her stomach, something like she'd felt meeting Alois, and Winnie. But that was ridiculous. She pushed it aside with her Will.
Lafarge was trying to ignore her, but kept glancing over all the same. She caught his eye, raised her brow. "Well, Yank, yo' got any notion what in Loki's name is gon' on heah? I ain't ashamed to admit I've got flat nothing."
He didn't respond. Just when she was contemplating her next move, she saw two people she'd never expected to see again, and one person she'd never seen in the flesh in all her days. Not even taking the time to think about it, or even stop herself squealing like a child or weeping actual tears, she ran forward into the arms of three women: her mother, Yolande Ingolfsson, Marya, the serf who'd been her tantie-ma, her surrogate mother, and, perhaps most remarkably of all, Myfwany Venders, her mother's lost lover, the woman from whom she'd been cloned.
She was caught tight in their embrace before she realised what was so strange about the scene. Not only were they all here, despite being long dead, they were treating each other as equals. And there was no orange number tattooed on Marya's neck. She was overcome with a wave of emotion that she couldn't will aside. My mothers love each other! They really love each other!
And then there was a flood of lost relatives. Great-Uncle Eric and Great-Aunt Sophie, looking far younger than she'd ever seen them, younger even than they'd looked in the old photographs from their wedding, with a red-haired Circassian girl who was always between them or beside them. Grandma and Grandpa and Tantie Rahkhsan were much the same, always touching each other, with no formality at all between them. There was no serf or master here, only family. She was surprised at how natural it felt.
The only sadness was the absence of Alois and Winnie. She tried to ask about that, in the midst of all the reunions. At last, Tantie-ma whispered in her ear. "Everyone has their own path. You'll see them again in time, honeybunch. Sooner than you think, I expect."
#
She'd never know how long the reunion with her family had lasted. She had the feeling that time didn't mean the same thing there, in that place. But somehow, somewhen, she at last found herself alone again, and facing... someone.
"The Archangel Michael, I presume?" Gwen didn't know how the knowledge came into her mind. "Mind explaining me why, if all that Christianity stuff is true, I ain't burning in everlasting hellfire with all of my kin?"
"Mercy. Forgiveness. The sort of thing yo' Domination wasn't never too good at. But, fortunately for yo' and all yo' people, my Boss happens to be right perfect at it. Fo' that matter, Mistah Lafarge and his Samothracians would be right there in the hellfire with yo' and yo' people, did the Boss not forgive mo' than any of His Fallen creation deserves. Ain't nobody goes away from Him, in the end, but them as don't love any but their own selves, child. And fo' all yo' numerous, an' typically Draka, faults, most all of yo' Von Shrakenbergs love yo' children an' yo parents an' yo' sisters and yo' brothers an' even yo' serfs, at least some of them, at least some of y'all, too much fo' that." The shining winged figure--man? woman? other?--spoke in a perfect Archona Province accent, a gutteral drawl, sounding alarmingly like Uncle Eric or Gwen's grandparents. "Mind, yo' got a big job of good work yo' needs to do, yo'self, but it ain't a balance sheet, honey. To use yo' people's terminology, the universe doesn't work in such a distressingly bourgeois fashion."
"Well, thank yo'. I suppose that's what a body says, right?"
"It all part of my job, child, but yo' welcome to say it if it makes yo' feel better. And here's a look might be a bit more comfortable on yo' eyes." The shining form shifted, and somehow became a woman wearing a Draka Merarch's black dress uniform from the time of the Final War. She might have been one of Gwen's old commanding officers. Well, except for the fact that she looked a little too young and far too cheerful, and that her hair, honey blonde with streaks of red and purple, fell down almost to her knees instead of being worn in the functional crop Draka officers on active service had favoured in those days. And then there were the wings... Aren't enough to support her weight, not unless the gravity's well less than Luna's, but damn, they look... charming.
"Well, Merarch, that's right impressive. Mind, I'm not sure why yo' aren't a Strategos, but I suppose yo' got reasons."
"Did yo' ever trust a Strategos in all yo' days, Ingolfsson? At least before yo' was one?"
She couldn't help but laugh. "And not even then, really. You've got me there, Merarch Archangel Ma'am. Well played."
"Thank yo' kindly. Mind, I could be Odin One-Eye, if'n yo'd rather, but I don't gather yo' was ever Asatru." An eyepatch suddenly appeared over her left eye. "Does yo' like the look? I have to confess I rather do, myself."
"Yo' looks a bit like a character in one of these animated shows from Japan that one of my tame scientists had a taste fo'. She was cuddly, and I wish I'd done better by her, and I really hope Lafarge's Yankee partners don't hurt her... but I digress. A few of us New Race were Asatru, almost, when we were young, but it didn't... well, in the end, none of us could really convince ourselves there was anything at all like gods or spirits or angels, no offence to present company intended, of course. Although there was a time or two, when I was little, when I thought I saw... something. A red-haired woman who looked like Auntie Myfwany from Ma's pictures... wait, did I?"
"Yes, yo' did. Yo' first set of neurons wasn't quite so good at making yo' completely an' utterly head-and-heart-blind as the set yo' got the first time yo' went in the tank for a revision. Then again, your Ma just had the ones she was born with, and Myfwany never managed to get through to her, either, not until the day Yolande died. She always convinced herself it was just her poetic imagination, or words to that effect."
"Oh."
"The sad thing, Gwen, is that yo' could've had real, actual, magic if yo'd just been tweaked a touch different. Or at least yo' could've if yo' entire world hadn't been nearly dead to magic. Well, that's neither here nor there, and it's just as well. But yo' gon' have plenty of magic where yo' goin' next. Yo' and ouah friend Lafarge is gon' have yo'selves some right interesting times, honey."
"What?"
"Yo' and dear Ken have got a job to do. In a world that's a little bit like the one y'all were fighting over, there's a very evil man who needs stopping. Granted, there's lots of those, in lots of worlds. But this one is a wizard. And he's done some particular nasty sort of magic, split his soul and bound himself to the physical world."
"Oh."
"And what's worse is the fact that the man that's in charge of the fight against him is an incompetent fool of a goatfucking idiot. Old fucker ain't quite self-centred enough to put himself in the Adversary's camp, but he's damn close to it."
"I thought you angels wasn't allowed to say 'fuck'."
"We're allowed to say whatever we needs to say, honey. And there's no other appropriate words, leastways not in yo' language, for Albus Dumbledore and the mess he's made of the fight against the self-styled Lord Voldemort. Which is threatening not only to wreck they whole society, but to dump this nice boy name of Harry Potter, and his very best friend, lovely girl name of Hermione Granger, into some deep elephant kaak. They deserves better, those two. I think yo' gon' to like them very much, as a matter of fact."
Those names made something in Gwen's midsection do a funny little flip. Sort of like when I met Alois and Winnie? But wait, I'm dead, how does that work? Same way as yo' talking and breathing does, Ingolfsson, she told herself as she dismissed the entire train of thought in favour of what she could deal with right now. "Wait? I thought y'all weren't supposed to... interfere in things of Earthly nature. Free will and all of that. Or is my knowledge of theology even poorer than I realise?"
"Ah, clever as always, yo' is, Ingolfsson. Yah, the Bossman don't interfere. And yah, we cain't just say 'make it so' and change what mortals does with themselves. But we can... encourage mortals to... do the right thing, let's say. In yo' particular case, I've got yo'self and Lafarge. Two people that could've been great friends, but fo' the circumstances of they births, who ended up killing each other instead. An' I got me a situation where yaz can help out, and maybe, in the process, figure something important out. To put it crudely, y'all are the parts that might make a botched machine work. Once y'all are there, it's up to yaz own efforts to succeed or fail. Y'all still got free will. Incidentally, does yo' know ouah friend Lafarge used to believe yo' didn't have any free will at all?"
"What? That... I'll show him proper, I will."
"I said 'used to'. Seein' yo' reuniting with yo' parents put him well on the way to changing his mind. And I thought yaz Draka didn't have any concern fo' the opinions of yo' enemies an' other lesser beings? 'Free from pathetic passion to be liked, we wake/ Rise, reach out our dragon hands to rule and take', am I right?"
"With respect, Merarch, don' quote somethin' my Ma wrote when she was seeing an alienist five times a week and thinking about eating her sidearm every night. Not even to mention she was torturing my Tantie-ma. She didn't even want that poem reprinted. Felt ashamed of it, I think."
"Well, she did come round in the end, didn't she? And I'm thinking yo' doing likewise, ain't yo, Ingolfsson?"
"Ah, Hells, Merarch, call me Gwen, won't yo? We off duty, aren't we?"
"An' I thought yo'd never ask! Learnin' something, are we, Gwen?"
"Even an old Snake can learn a new trick, Merarch. Besides, yo' makes one awful nice looking Draka. And I ain't had a proper wrestle and cuddle with one of my own Race in years, at least as far as my personal clock goes."
"I'm flattered, but mah resemblence to yo' kind can only go so far. Contrary to rumour, angels don't fuck. If'n my basic fundamental being worked that way, yo'd be very tempting, but..."
Gwen felt her face heating as it hadn't done since she was a youngster. "My apologies, Merarch. Ma'am. Sir. Archangel."
"No harm done, Gwen. And call me... hells, call me Michael. I'd say Mike, but I don't reckon it fits so well with this look of mine, does it?"
"Wotan, no. So, Michael, should we ought to get on with this briefing or what?"
"Well, I'm in no rush, Gwen, but sho', we can do that. We'll get yo' personal part out the way, and then we can meet up with Lafarge for the rest."
#
"Wotan. That's got to be the strangest briefing I ever did experience; even the one about the frozen purple dinosaur on Mars doesn't come close. So, I'm here. No Domination, again, and this time I don't reckon I miss it. So, who am I?" Gwen closed her eyes and thought for a moment. A flood of memories, just as real as any she'd known before, ran through her mind.
She was Gwendolyn Marya Ingolfsdottir. She'd been born in Italy, of an Icelandic-Afrikaner father and an American mother, both of whom were ICW hit wizards and troubleshooters, and orphaned young, in the last battles of the Voldemort War. She'd been raised by relatives in South Africa, the Carolinas, and Tuscany. She was fluent in Italian, English, and Afrikaans, with a decent command of Latin, Spanish, and Ancient Greek and a basic knowledge of Icelandic. She knew how to ride and shoot, she was competent at a couple of martial arts styles, and she was good with her wand. She was a pretty fair painter and musician as well.
"What was the expression that they used on those Internet forums I read through? A Mary Sue? I sound like one, don't I?"
"Yes, yo' does, Gwen. But it's better than having yo' do all the things yo' well able to do after four hundred years of living without any explanation at all. Lafarge gon' come off much the same. Yo' two can bond over it, I reckon." The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, a little bit like her transducer, but different.
"Michael?"
"None other. I just thought I'd stop by. Reassure you that you've not gone clear out of your mind, that sort of thing."
"Well, thanks kindly. But I'm drakensis, remember? We don't go mad. Well, any madder than we already are by definition of being what we are, hey?"
"Yo' got quite the charming sense of humour, child. But does you think on it..."
"Right. I'm an unmodified human here, ain't I?"
"That yo' are. Mind, of course, yo' a witch, and that means you're a bit harder to damage than the norm. And yo' family was known for some slightly... unusual modifications, so you're noticeable faster and stronger than normal. It's not quite the same level of physical ability as yo' had when yo' was fourteen the first time round, but not so much less, either."
"That's good. S'pose I'll have to work out and see what I can do, hey?"
"Not a bad thought. Just don't go trying to outrun the local cars or climbing they skyscrapers barehanded."
"Got it."
"Oh, and Gwen? By the standards of this world's literature, yo' was pretty much a Mary Sue back when yo' was a drakensis. In fact, a number of literary critics have said something to that effect."
"What?" She felt her face get hot, remembering, as Gwen Ingolfsdottir, some slight awkwardness at school with a couple of Muggleborns who'd read a certain novel. "Oh, Wotan's prick! They have a novel about somebody like, well, what I used to be, do they?"
"Yes, they does. If it's any consolation, there was a series of seven novels, back in that other Earth that yo' was trying to take over, about some people here who, I think, yo' going to rather like."
"I thought those names sounded a mite bit familiar... you mean, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are the same people as Harry Sawyer and Hermione Fielding? Oh, Freya, I really hope she isn't going to end up with Ronald Wetherby. Oh, stop laughin' at me, Michael, that was such a waste. I very nearly invited Jean Bowling to visit me on Andros Island just so's I could talk her into writing an eighth book where Guinevere and Harry rescued Hermione from that moron and the three of them lived happy ever after together. And don't look at me like that, I wasn't gon' to hurt her. Very much the opposite--she was rather pretty."
"I'm not even manifested, so how does yo' know I'm looking at yo' 'like that'? And don't worry, Gwen. Yo' friends'll be just fine. Yo' just has to meet them, and get to know them. Just you mind yo' don't come over too much the fangirl."
"A-kay, Merarch Michael Ma'am." She sketched a salute, which might have gone better if she'd not been lying flat on her back and she'd not got her hand tangled in the bedclothes in the process.
"Right, youngling. Get yo' up, get yo' limber, get yo' bathed, and get yo' down for breakfast. Once yo' done with that, time to meet up with Miss Lafarge and get ready fo' Hogwarts."
"Wait. Miss Lafarge?"
"Yes. I think yo' and Ken gon' be the best of friends. And this makes it easier to share quarters without gettin' too many dirty looks. That gon' be important, later on."
"Well, if'n yo' says so. I know it's old fashioned of me, but I always did think it was a bit strange to be sleeping with boys before yo' was eighteen... Not that I'm planning on sleeping with Lafarge, of course."
"Of course not. Now get moving, soldier. Daylight's burnin'."
TBC
Yes, Gwen ships Harry/Hermione, with or without other girls in the mix. And yes, I know that Drakon ended in 2000, whereas Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997 and Chamber of Secrets in 1998. But the Earth/2 of Drakon isn't our Earth, so it's all good. Their Harry Sawyer books, written by Jean Bowling, came out earlier did than our Harry Potter books, written by J.K. Rowling. And I'd like to think that Jean Bowling did eventually write that eighth book, even without Gwen to talk her into it. ;-)
a Draka series-Harry Potter crossover fanfiction by Andrew yclept Aelfwine
****
The characters and situations of the Draka series are copyright S.M. Stirling. The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
Warnings: Yours truly. Hints of het and femmeslash. Gender change. Confused Samothracians. Cute Draka. The Archangel Michael has an odd sense of humour. Gwen Ingolfsson ships Harry/Hermione.
No former Draka archons or Samothracian cyberwarriors were harmed during the making of this fanfic.
****
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson woke suddenly. Thor and Odin, what a strange dream! Glad to be awake, so I can know it was one. I didn't die fighting a Yankee after living more than four hundred years. But maybe some of the good things from that dream will happen, after all. I got to kiss Winnie Makers, and more! Maybe today's the day that happens for real.
But the ceiling above her wasn't the one from her quarters at Baiae Senior School, with the lovely soft relief of ancient Spartan girls running a footrace. It was plain plaster. Which meant...
"Frigg. All of that did happen, didn't it? So how am I in any position to think about it? Oh, Freya and the White Christ... I died. And found out it wasn't the end, after all."
#
She'd been falling, into the quantum hell of a failing molehole generator. Glad she'd managed to take the damnyank Samothracian with her, at least. But in her last moments of consciousness, she'd thought not of her triumph, but of her mother and her tantie-ma, and of dear lost Alois, her husband who'd died at the age of three hundred in a hunting accident, and Winnie, her first girlfriend, who'd died much younger, in the Final War, when an Alliance parasite bomb made an expanding gas cloud of her little stingfighter.
And then she was standing, side by side with that very damnyank. She was wearing a school tunic. Her hair was loose down her back. She felt as if she were only a child again. The damnyank--Lafarge, that was his name--looked years younger as well, and strangely handsome, at least for an enemy. For a second she felt an absurd fluttering in her stomach, something like she'd felt meeting Alois, and Winnie. But that was ridiculous. She pushed it aside with her Will.
Lafarge was trying to ignore her, but kept glancing over all the same. She caught his eye, raised her brow. "Well, Yank, yo' got any notion what in Loki's name is gon' on heah? I ain't ashamed to admit I've got flat nothing."
He didn't respond. Just when she was contemplating her next move, she saw two people she'd never expected to see again, and one person she'd never seen in the flesh in all her days. Not even taking the time to think about it, or even stop herself squealing like a child or weeping actual tears, she ran forward into the arms of three women: her mother, Yolande Ingolfsson, Marya, the serf who'd been her tantie-ma, her surrogate mother, and, perhaps most remarkably of all, Myfwany Venders, her mother's lost lover, the woman from whom she'd been cloned.
She was caught tight in their embrace before she realised what was so strange about the scene. Not only were they all here, despite being long dead, they were treating each other as equals. And there was no orange number tattooed on Marya's neck. She was overcome with a wave of emotion that she couldn't will aside. My mothers love each other! They really love each other!
And then there was a flood of lost relatives. Great-Uncle Eric and Great-Aunt Sophie, looking far younger than she'd ever seen them, younger even than they'd looked in the old photographs from their wedding, with a red-haired Circassian girl who was always between them or beside them. Grandma and Grandpa and Tantie Rahkhsan were much the same, always touching each other, with no formality at all between them. There was no serf or master here, only family. She was surprised at how natural it felt.
The only sadness was the absence of Alois and Winnie. She tried to ask about that, in the midst of all the reunions. At last, Tantie-ma whispered in her ear. "Everyone has their own path. You'll see them again in time, honeybunch. Sooner than you think, I expect."
#
She'd never know how long the reunion with her family had lasted. She had the feeling that time didn't mean the same thing there, in that place. But somehow, somewhen, she at last found herself alone again, and facing... someone.
"The Archangel Michael, I presume?" Gwen didn't know how the knowledge came into her mind. "Mind explaining me why, if all that Christianity stuff is true, I ain't burning in everlasting hellfire with all of my kin?"
"Mercy. Forgiveness. The sort of thing yo' Domination wasn't never too good at. But, fortunately for yo' and all yo' people, my Boss happens to be right perfect at it. Fo' that matter, Mistah Lafarge and his Samothracians would be right there in the hellfire with yo' and yo' people, did the Boss not forgive mo' than any of His Fallen creation deserves. Ain't nobody goes away from Him, in the end, but them as don't love any but their own selves, child. And fo' all yo' numerous, an' typically Draka, faults, most all of yo' Von Shrakenbergs love yo' children an' yo parents an' yo' sisters and yo' brothers an' even yo' serfs, at least some of them, at least some of y'all, too much fo' that." The shining winged figure--man? woman? other?--spoke in a perfect Archona Province accent, a gutteral drawl, sounding alarmingly like Uncle Eric or Gwen's grandparents. "Mind, yo' got a big job of good work yo' needs to do, yo'self, but it ain't a balance sheet, honey. To use yo' people's terminology, the universe doesn't work in such a distressingly bourgeois fashion."
"Well, thank yo'. I suppose that's what a body says, right?"
"It all part of my job, child, but yo' welcome to say it if it makes yo' feel better. And here's a look might be a bit more comfortable on yo' eyes." The shining form shifted, and somehow became a woman wearing a Draka Merarch's black dress uniform from the time of the Final War. She might have been one of Gwen's old commanding officers. Well, except for the fact that she looked a little too young and far too cheerful, and that her hair, honey blonde with streaks of red and purple, fell down almost to her knees instead of being worn in the functional crop Draka officers on active service had favoured in those days. And then there were the wings... Aren't enough to support her weight, not unless the gravity's well less than Luna's, but damn, they look... charming.
"Well, Merarch, that's right impressive. Mind, I'm not sure why yo' aren't a Strategos, but I suppose yo' got reasons."
"Did yo' ever trust a Strategos in all yo' days, Ingolfsson? At least before yo' was one?"
She couldn't help but laugh. "And not even then, really. You've got me there, Merarch Archangel Ma'am. Well played."
"Thank yo' kindly. Mind, I could be Odin One-Eye, if'n yo'd rather, but I don't gather yo' was ever Asatru." An eyepatch suddenly appeared over her left eye. "Does yo' like the look? I have to confess I rather do, myself."
"Yo' looks a bit like a character in one of these animated shows from Japan that one of my tame scientists had a taste fo'. She was cuddly, and I wish I'd done better by her, and I really hope Lafarge's Yankee partners don't hurt her... but I digress. A few of us New Race were Asatru, almost, when we were young, but it didn't... well, in the end, none of us could really convince ourselves there was anything at all like gods or spirits or angels, no offence to present company intended, of course. Although there was a time or two, when I was little, when I thought I saw... something. A red-haired woman who looked like Auntie Myfwany from Ma's pictures... wait, did I?"
"Yes, yo' did. Yo' first set of neurons wasn't quite so good at making yo' completely an' utterly head-and-heart-blind as the set yo' got the first time yo' went in the tank for a revision. Then again, your Ma just had the ones she was born with, and Myfwany never managed to get through to her, either, not until the day Yolande died. She always convinced herself it was just her poetic imagination, or words to that effect."
"Oh."
"The sad thing, Gwen, is that yo' could've had real, actual, magic if yo'd just been tweaked a touch different. Or at least yo' could've if yo' entire world hadn't been nearly dead to magic. Well, that's neither here nor there, and it's just as well. But yo' gon' have plenty of magic where yo' goin' next. Yo' and ouah friend Lafarge is gon' have yo'selves some right interesting times, honey."
"What?"
"Yo' and dear Ken have got a job to do. In a world that's a little bit like the one y'all were fighting over, there's a very evil man who needs stopping. Granted, there's lots of those, in lots of worlds. But this one is a wizard. And he's done some particular nasty sort of magic, split his soul and bound himself to the physical world."
"Oh."
"And what's worse is the fact that the man that's in charge of the fight against him is an incompetent fool of a goatfucking idiot. Old fucker ain't quite self-centred enough to put himself in the Adversary's camp, but he's damn close to it."
"I thought you angels wasn't allowed to say 'fuck'."
"We're allowed to say whatever we needs to say, honey. And there's no other appropriate words, leastways not in yo' language, for Albus Dumbledore and the mess he's made of the fight against the self-styled Lord Voldemort. Which is threatening not only to wreck they whole society, but to dump this nice boy name of Harry Potter, and his very best friend, lovely girl name of Hermione Granger, into some deep elephant kaak. They deserves better, those two. I think yo' gon' to like them very much, as a matter of fact."
Those names made something in Gwen's midsection do a funny little flip. Sort of like when I met Alois and Winnie? But wait, I'm dead, how does that work? Same way as yo' talking and breathing does, Ingolfsson, she told herself as she dismissed the entire train of thought in favour of what she could deal with right now. "Wait? I thought y'all weren't supposed to... interfere in things of Earthly nature. Free will and all of that. Or is my knowledge of theology even poorer than I realise?"
"Ah, clever as always, yo' is, Ingolfsson. Yah, the Bossman don't interfere. And yah, we cain't just say 'make it so' and change what mortals does with themselves. But we can... encourage mortals to... do the right thing, let's say. In yo' particular case, I've got yo'self and Lafarge. Two people that could've been great friends, but fo' the circumstances of they births, who ended up killing each other instead. An' I got me a situation where yaz can help out, and maybe, in the process, figure something important out. To put it crudely, y'all are the parts that might make a botched machine work. Once y'all are there, it's up to yaz own efforts to succeed or fail. Y'all still got free will. Incidentally, does yo' know ouah friend Lafarge used to believe yo' didn't have any free will at all?"
"What? That... I'll show him proper, I will."
"I said 'used to'. Seein' yo' reuniting with yo' parents put him well on the way to changing his mind. And I thought yaz Draka didn't have any concern fo' the opinions of yo' enemies an' other lesser beings? 'Free from pathetic passion to be liked, we wake/ Rise, reach out our dragon hands to rule and take', am I right?"
"With respect, Merarch, don' quote somethin' my Ma wrote when she was seeing an alienist five times a week and thinking about eating her sidearm every night. Not even to mention she was torturing my Tantie-ma. She didn't even want that poem reprinted. Felt ashamed of it, I think."
"Well, she did come round in the end, didn't she? And I'm thinking yo' doing likewise, ain't yo, Ingolfsson?"
"Ah, Hells, Merarch, call me Gwen, won't yo? We off duty, aren't we?"
"An' I thought yo'd never ask! Learnin' something, are we, Gwen?"
"Even an old Snake can learn a new trick, Merarch. Besides, yo' makes one awful nice looking Draka. And I ain't had a proper wrestle and cuddle with one of my own Race in years, at least as far as my personal clock goes."
"I'm flattered, but mah resemblence to yo' kind can only go so far. Contrary to rumour, angels don't fuck. If'n my basic fundamental being worked that way, yo'd be very tempting, but..."
Gwen felt her face heating as it hadn't done since she was a youngster. "My apologies, Merarch. Ma'am. Sir. Archangel."
"No harm done, Gwen. And call me... hells, call me Michael. I'd say Mike, but I don't reckon it fits so well with this look of mine, does it?"
"Wotan, no. So, Michael, should we ought to get on with this briefing or what?"
"Well, I'm in no rush, Gwen, but sho', we can do that. We'll get yo' personal part out the way, and then we can meet up with Lafarge for the rest."
#
"Wotan. That's got to be the strangest briefing I ever did experience; even the one about the frozen purple dinosaur on Mars doesn't come close. So, I'm here. No Domination, again, and this time I don't reckon I miss it. So, who am I?" Gwen closed her eyes and thought for a moment. A flood of memories, just as real as any she'd known before, ran through her mind.
She was Gwendolyn Marya Ingolfsdottir. She'd been born in Italy, of an Icelandic-Afrikaner father and an American mother, both of whom were ICW hit wizards and troubleshooters, and orphaned young, in the last battles of the Voldemort War. She'd been raised by relatives in South Africa, the Carolinas, and Tuscany. She was fluent in Italian, English, and Afrikaans, with a decent command of Latin, Spanish, and Ancient Greek and a basic knowledge of Icelandic. She knew how to ride and shoot, she was competent at a couple of martial arts styles, and she was good with her wand. She was a pretty fair painter and musician as well.
"What was the expression that they used on those Internet forums I read through? A Mary Sue? I sound like one, don't I?"
"Yes, yo' does, Gwen. But it's better than having yo' do all the things yo' well able to do after four hundred years of living without any explanation at all. Lafarge gon' come off much the same. Yo' two can bond over it, I reckon." The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, a little bit like her transducer, but different.
"Michael?"
"None other. I just thought I'd stop by. Reassure you that you've not gone clear out of your mind, that sort of thing."
"Well, thanks kindly. But I'm drakensis, remember? We don't go mad. Well, any madder than we already are by definition of being what we are, hey?"
"Yo' got quite the charming sense of humour, child. But does you think on it..."
"Right. I'm an unmodified human here, ain't I?"
"That yo' are. Mind, of course, yo' a witch, and that means you're a bit harder to damage than the norm. And yo' family was known for some slightly... unusual modifications, so you're noticeable faster and stronger than normal. It's not quite the same level of physical ability as yo' had when yo' was fourteen the first time round, but not so much less, either."
"That's good. S'pose I'll have to work out and see what I can do, hey?"
"Not a bad thought. Just don't go trying to outrun the local cars or climbing they skyscrapers barehanded."
"Got it."
"Oh, and Gwen? By the standards of this world's literature, yo' was pretty much a Mary Sue back when yo' was a drakensis. In fact, a number of literary critics have said something to that effect."
"What?" She felt her face get hot, remembering, as Gwen Ingolfsdottir, some slight awkwardness at school with a couple of Muggleborns who'd read a certain novel. "Oh, Wotan's prick! They have a novel about somebody like, well, what I used to be, do they?"
"Yes, they does. If it's any consolation, there was a series of seven novels, back in that other Earth that yo' was trying to take over, about some people here who, I think, yo' going to rather like."
"I thought those names sounded a mite bit familiar... you mean, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are the same people as Harry Sawyer and Hermione Fielding? Oh, Freya, I really hope she isn't going to end up with Ronald Wetherby. Oh, stop laughin' at me, Michael, that was such a waste. I very nearly invited Jean Bowling to visit me on Andros Island just so's I could talk her into writing an eighth book where Guinevere and Harry rescued Hermione from that moron and the three of them lived happy ever after together. And don't look at me like that, I wasn't gon' to hurt her. Very much the opposite--she was rather pretty."
"I'm not even manifested, so how does yo' know I'm looking at yo' 'like that'? And don't worry, Gwen. Yo' friends'll be just fine. Yo' just has to meet them, and get to know them. Just you mind yo' don't come over too much the fangirl."
"A-kay, Merarch Michael Ma'am." She sketched a salute, which might have gone better if she'd not been lying flat on her back and she'd not got her hand tangled in the bedclothes in the process.
"Right, youngling. Get yo' up, get yo' limber, get yo' bathed, and get yo' down for breakfast. Once yo' done with that, time to meet up with Miss Lafarge and get ready fo' Hogwarts."
"Wait. Miss Lafarge?"
"Yes. I think yo' and Ken gon' be the best of friends. And this makes it easier to share quarters without gettin' too many dirty looks. That gon' be important, later on."
"Well, if'n yo' says so. I know it's old fashioned of me, but I always did think it was a bit strange to be sleeping with boys before yo' was eighteen... Not that I'm planning on sleeping with Lafarge, of course."
"Of course not. Now get moving, soldier. Daylight's burnin'."
TBC
Yes, Gwen ships Harry/Hermione, with or without other girls in the mix. And yes, I know that Drakon ended in 2000, whereas Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997 and Chamber of Secrets in 1998. But the Earth/2 of Drakon isn't our Earth, so it's all good. Their Harry Sawyer books, written by Jean Bowling, came out earlier did than our Harry Potter books, written by J.K. Rowling. And I'd like to think that Jean Bowling did eventually write that eighth book, even without Gwen to talk her into it. ;-)