Battlestar/Harry Potter Crossover Fic: "After the War"
I'll be posting a round-up of my prompts from yesterday's meme thing come Monday, I think. Assuming no one else wants to add more. (I know, I know: I've already got four and mustn't be greedy. But there are a lot of interesting characters on the list I'd kind of like an excuse to write for.)
In the meantime, here's something I owed from an older challenge.
Title: After the War
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica/Harry Potter
Genre: General, Crossover, FutureFic
Characters: Felix Gaeta, Harry Potter, the whole goddamn extended Weasley family
Rating: PG for quirky domestic cheerfulness
Spoilers: set post-series for BSG, post-Book 7 for HP (sorry if you didn't like the Deathly Hallows epilogue, but this uses it)
Length: 1,403 words
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his magical world belong to the incomparable J.K. Rowling. Battlestar Galactica property of the SciFi Channel and Misters Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.
Summary: The war had ended. For both of them.
Notes: For aella_irene, who asked for a BSG/HP crossover and gave the prompt of "Felix Gaeta, family". I've had the idea for this ever since I got the prompt in October; it just took forever to get it down. This was totally supposed to be a drabble. Ever noticed how I can't shut up?
Felix had just about had his fill of wizardry.
It’d been thirty-seven days since he’d arrived on Earth, and he’d spent all but five of them being shuffled from one room in the Ministry Offices to the next. Having test after test run and question after question asked.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d said “no”: no, there weren’t wizards where he came from. No, he had never displayed any abilities before now. No, he didn’t know how that might be explained.
Science was his field of expertise. Not magic.
“It must seem like a real pain,” said the Ministry agent assigned as his guardian, “but can’t blame them for wanting answers, right?”
“I guess not.” Felix didn’t mind this man too much. It almost seemed like he understood, what it was like being a spectacle when all you wanted was to be left alone.
They passed two men going the other direction who nearly bumped into one another in their hurry to stop and say hello.
“You’re quite popular, aren’t you?” Felix observed.
“Never mind that,” Harry said, somewhat hurriedly. “Say, how’d you like to come home with me for dinner? Meet the family?”
“I don’t-”
“I’d think it’d do you some real good.” Harry smiled encouragingly. “Better than another lonely supper at the Leaky Cauldron before getting dragged back here, right?”
Felix had a very good suspicion that Harry’s main concern was more with the fact that as long as he was stuck with Felix, he couldn’t go home to his family.
But he decided he didn’t see the harm. If the rest of the Potters were anything like their patriarch, they were probably quite nice.
“Yeah, okay. Sure.”
“Great! Chimneys are this way; have to go by Floo since…I don’t suppose anyone’s taught you to Apparate yet? No?”
One coughing, smoke-filled, violently green ride later, they arrived in the living room of what appeared to be a typical middle-class home.
“Harry!” A woman with red hair rushed to embrace him. She brushed soot off Harry’s coat absently as she glanced at Felix. “Oh, hello. Who’s this?”
“Felix, I’d like you to meet my wife, Ginny.” They shook hands, and Harry rounded the corner towards where the dining room probably was. “And this is…Merlin’s whiskers!”
“HARRY!” was the chorus of about two dozen voices.
Felix had never seen so much red hair in one room in his entire life.
“I, ah…” Harry stared. “I see your family decided to join us tonight.”
“I was going to warn you,” Ginny replied, a mischievous glint in her eye. “But you seemed in such a hurry.”
“There you are, Harry.” An especially lanky man grinned at him. “Wondered when you’d turn up. Who’s your friend?”
“Oy! Is this the bloke from outer space you’ve been stuck baby-sitting?” A young man with purple spiked hair looked at him curiously. “The Colo-neel?”
“I think it’s pronounced ‘Colonial’, Ted.” The oldest man peered at Felix most brightly over his spectacles. “Came here in those, what do you call them? ‘Spaceships’? Why, it must be simply fascinating, how those things work!”
“Grandpa,” a girl with bushy brown hair said exasperatedly. “Leave him alone!”
“This is obviously a family thing,” Felix began, awkward. “I don’t want to interrupt-”
“Oh, nonsense, dear! Why, any friend of Harry’s is a friend of ours.” The slightly overweight woman, hair streaked with gray, rose to usher him to a chair near one end of what Felix supposed had to be a magically extended table. “You just sit right down…can I get you anything? Nice cup of tea, perhaps?”
“This is my house, Mum,” Ginny remarked.
“Well, I know that! But no need for you to take care of everything yourself, you’ve been on your feet all day; and just because I happen to be an old lady hardly makes me an invalid-”
“Harry.” Ginny gave him an elbow to the ribs: “introductions?”
“Oh! Ah, right.” He brushed his thick hair from his eyes and looked around, probably deciding where to start. “Everyone, this is Felix Gaeta, from work-”
“HULLO, FELIX.”
“Hi.” Felix’s voice was practically a squeak.
“Felix, this is Ginny’s older brother, Ron.” The lanky man waved. “And that’s his wife, Hermione-”
“You can just call her ‘Mrs. Weasley’,” Ron said playfully, patting her on the shoulder.
“I think that might be a little confusing with this crowd, Ron,” the brunette returned dryly.
“-and those two are their kids…”
Felix figured there was no way in the world he was going to remember all these names, and only half-listened.
Within seconds of both him and Harry finally sitting down the room was in a state of unending noise as various conversations took place at once, children yelled at each other across the table, Mrs. Potter tried unsuccessfully to chase her mother out of the kitchen, and Felix found himself attempting to explain how an FTL drive worked to a small but very captivated audience.
“But, I mean, what makes it go?” The oldest Mr. Weasley gazed at him in awestruck wonder. “There must be all sorts of gears and sprockets and what-have-yous inside, right?”
“Um, no, actually. You see, there’s a generation of propulsion-”
“Settle down, Rose, Victoire; I can hardly hear,” Hermione said somewhat testily. She strained in Felix’s direction. “Ron, what did he just say?”
“Something ‘bout expulsion,” her husband told her disinterestedly. “Could you pass the rolls?”
“You’re not going to have any room for dinner at this rate.”
“I’ve already got one mother, Hermione; I hardly need two…”
The rest of their argument was lost to the sound of giggles and applause from the younger children as Teddy morphed his ears into long furry ones similar to a donkey’s.
“Shame your boyfriend couldn’t make it, eh Albus?” Harry and Ginny’s oldest son needled, jokingly. His cousins tittered and he started making kissing sounds.
The younger boy’s face turned bright red.
“Shut up!”
“James, leave your brother alone.”
“Aw, Dad. He knows I was only kidding!”
Some of the Weasley cousins started flinging magic sparks at one another and their respective parents rushed to scold them.
“Is it always like this?” Felix had to ask.
“This is nothing. You should see us at holidays,” the man sitting next to him said glibly. He exchanged a knowing grin with the gorgeous pale-haired woman on his right and turned to offer Felix a glass. “Firewhiskey?”
Felix had no idea what that was but took it, figuring it was probably something like ambrosia.
He sipped his drink gingerly, giving the man he had received it from a considering eye. He didn’t appear much older than Felix, but his face was a mess: crisscrossed and mottled with scars, almost like something had been chewing on it.
He wasn’t the only one who had been marked, either. If Felix had to guess, he thought some of the oldest generation looked a little gray for their years. Another Weasley brother was missing an ear, and even Harry himself had a curious scar in the center of his forehead.
From what he had heard over the past days, it sounded like there had been some kind of war. So these were probably the survivors.
Something Felix was all too familiar with.
But looking around, he didn’t see anything like what he pictured when he thought of “survivors”. These were not strangers with vacant, frightened or wary expressions, huddled together for warmth and protection. No one was tired or pained or angry. No one looked like they had given up on hope.
This was just a family: mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, gathered in one place for recollections and an evening meal.
Not people who had merely survived, but people who had kept on living.
Felix hadn’t heard any numbers, any statistics: he didn’t know what they might have lost. But he figured if they could keep going, well, how hard could it be?
“Alright. George, start passing these potatoes. And Penelope, would you be a dear and help me with the salad? Felix, you’re our guest of honor, so we’ll start with you. What part of the turkey would you like? Drumstick? Breast? Speak up, now.”
“Um-”
“Mum, would you please just sit down and let me handle it?”
“Welcome to the family, Felix.” Old Mr. Weasley threw him a wink. He leaned across the table to whisper conspiratorially:
“Now, about those FTL thingies…”
In the meantime, here's something I owed from an older challenge.
Title: After the War
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica/Harry Potter
Genre: General, Crossover, FutureFic
Characters: Felix Gaeta, Harry Potter, the whole goddamn extended Weasley family
Rating: PG for quirky domestic cheerfulness
Spoilers: set post-series for BSG, post-Book 7 for HP (sorry if you didn't like the Deathly Hallows epilogue, but this uses it)
Length: 1,403 words
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his magical world belong to the incomparable J.K. Rowling. Battlestar Galactica property of the SciFi Channel and Misters Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.
Summary: The war had ended. For both of them.
Notes: For aella_irene, who asked for a BSG/HP crossover and gave the prompt of "Felix Gaeta, family". I've had the idea for this ever since I got the prompt in October; it just took forever to get it down. This was totally supposed to be a drabble. Ever noticed how I can't shut up?
Felix had just about had his fill of wizardry.
It’d been thirty-seven days since he’d arrived on Earth, and he’d spent all but five of them being shuffled from one room in the Ministry Offices to the next. Having test after test run and question after question asked.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d said “no”: no, there weren’t wizards where he came from. No, he had never displayed any abilities before now. No, he didn’t know how that might be explained.
Science was his field of expertise. Not magic.
“It must seem like a real pain,” said the Ministry agent assigned as his guardian, “but can’t blame them for wanting answers, right?”
“I guess not.” Felix didn’t mind this man too much. It almost seemed like he understood, what it was like being a spectacle when all you wanted was to be left alone.
They passed two men going the other direction who nearly bumped into one another in their hurry to stop and say hello.
“You’re quite popular, aren’t you?” Felix observed.
“Never mind that,” Harry said, somewhat hurriedly. “Say, how’d you like to come home with me for dinner? Meet the family?”
“I don’t-”
“I’d think it’d do you some real good.” Harry smiled encouragingly. “Better than another lonely supper at the Leaky Cauldron before getting dragged back here, right?”
Felix had a very good suspicion that Harry’s main concern was more with the fact that as long as he was stuck with Felix, he couldn’t go home to his family.
But he decided he didn’t see the harm. If the rest of the Potters were anything like their patriarch, they were probably quite nice.
“Yeah, okay. Sure.”
“Great! Chimneys are this way; have to go by Floo since…I don’t suppose anyone’s taught you to Apparate yet? No?”
One coughing, smoke-filled, violently green ride later, they arrived in the living room of what appeared to be a typical middle-class home.
“Harry!” A woman with red hair rushed to embrace him. She brushed soot off Harry’s coat absently as she glanced at Felix. “Oh, hello. Who’s this?”
“Felix, I’d like you to meet my wife, Ginny.” They shook hands, and Harry rounded the corner towards where the dining room probably was. “And this is…Merlin’s whiskers!”
“HARRY!” was the chorus of about two dozen voices.
Felix had never seen so much red hair in one room in his entire life.
“I, ah…” Harry stared. “I see your family decided to join us tonight.”
“I was going to warn you,” Ginny replied, a mischievous glint in her eye. “But you seemed in such a hurry.”
“There you are, Harry.” An especially lanky man grinned at him. “Wondered when you’d turn up. Who’s your friend?”
“Oy! Is this the bloke from outer space you’ve been stuck baby-sitting?” A young man with purple spiked hair looked at him curiously. “The Colo-neel?”
“I think it’s pronounced ‘Colonial’, Ted.” The oldest man peered at Felix most brightly over his spectacles. “Came here in those, what do you call them? ‘Spaceships’? Why, it must be simply fascinating, how those things work!”
“Grandpa,” a girl with bushy brown hair said exasperatedly. “Leave him alone!”
“This is obviously a family thing,” Felix began, awkward. “I don’t want to interrupt-”
“Oh, nonsense, dear! Why, any friend of Harry’s is a friend of ours.” The slightly overweight woman, hair streaked with gray, rose to usher him to a chair near one end of what Felix supposed had to be a magically extended table. “You just sit right down…can I get you anything? Nice cup of tea, perhaps?”
“This is my house, Mum,” Ginny remarked.
“Well, I know that! But no need for you to take care of everything yourself, you’ve been on your feet all day; and just because I happen to be an old lady hardly makes me an invalid-”
“Harry.” Ginny gave him an elbow to the ribs: “introductions?”
“Oh! Ah, right.” He brushed his thick hair from his eyes and looked around, probably deciding where to start. “Everyone, this is Felix Gaeta, from work-”
“HULLO, FELIX.”
“Hi.” Felix’s voice was practically a squeak.
“Felix, this is Ginny’s older brother, Ron.” The lanky man waved. “And that’s his wife, Hermione-”
“You can just call her ‘Mrs. Weasley’,” Ron said playfully, patting her on the shoulder.
“I think that might be a little confusing with this crowd, Ron,” the brunette returned dryly.
“-and those two are their kids…”
Felix figured there was no way in the world he was going to remember all these names, and only half-listened.
Within seconds of both him and Harry finally sitting down the room was in a state of unending noise as various conversations took place at once, children yelled at each other across the table, Mrs. Potter tried unsuccessfully to chase her mother out of the kitchen, and Felix found himself attempting to explain how an FTL drive worked to a small but very captivated audience.
“But, I mean, what makes it go?” The oldest Mr. Weasley gazed at him in awestruck wonder. “There must be all sorts of gears and sprockets and what-have-yous inside, right?”
“Um, no, actually. You see, there’s a generation of propulsion-”
“Settle down, Rose, Victoire; I can hardly hear,” Hermione said somewhat testily. She strained in Felix’s direction. “Ron, what did he just say?”
“Something ‘bout expulsion,” her husband told her disinterestedly. “Could you pass the rolls?”
“You’re not going to have any room for dinner at this rate.”
“I’ve already got one mother, Hermione; I hardly need two…”
The rest of their argument was lost to the sound of giggles and applause from the younger children as Teddy morphed his ears into long furry ones similar to a donkey’s.
“Shame your boyfriend couldn’t make it, eh Albus?” Harry and Ginny’s oldest son needled, jokingly. His cousins tittered and he started making kissing sounds.
The younger boy’s face turned bright red.
“Shut up!”
“James, leave your brother alone.”
“Aw, Dad. He knows I was only kidding!”
Some of the Weasley cousins started flinging magic sparks at one another and their respective parents rushed to scold them.
“Is it always like this?” Felix had to ask.
“This is nothing. You should see us at holidays,” the man sitting next to him said glibly. He exchanged a knowing grin with the gorgeous pale-haired woman on his right and turned to offer Felix a glass. “Firewhiskey?”
Felix had no idea what that was but took it, figuring it was probably something like ambrosia.
He sipped his drink gingerly, giving the man he had received it from a considering eye. He didn’t appear much older than Felix, but his face was a mess: crisscrossed and mottled with scars, almost like something had been chewing on it.
He wasn’t the only one who had been marked, either. If Felix had to guess, he thought some of the oldest generation looked a little gray for their years. Another Weasley brother was missing an ear, and even Harry himself had a curious scar in the center of his forehead.
From what he had heard over the past days, it sounded like there had been some kind of war. So these were probably the survivors.
Something Felix was all too familiar with.
But looking around, he didn’t see anything like what he pictured when he thought of “survivors”. These were not strangers with vacant, frightened or wary expressions, huddled together for warmth and protection. No one was tired or pained or angry. No one looked like they had given up on hope.
This was just a family: mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, gathered in one place for recollections and an evening meal.
Not people who had merely survived, but people who had kept on living.
Felix hadn’t heard any numbers, any statistics: he didn’t know what they might have lost. But he figured if they could keep going, well, how hard could it be?
“Alright. George, start passing these potatoes. And Penelope, would you be a dear and help me with the salad? Felix, you’re our guest of honor, so we’ll start with you. What part of the turkey would you like? Drumstick? Breast? Speak up, now.”
“Um-”
“Mum, would you please just sit down and let me handle it?”
“Welcome to the family, Felix.” Old Mr. Weasley threw him a wink. He leaned across the table to whisper conspiratorially:
“Now, about those FTL thingies…”