Chapter Text
Magic’s Immortal
Harry Potter/Highlander XOver
by Corwalch
Loprogue
July 31, 1980, 11pm
All in all it has been a busy day at St. Mungos, Medi-witch Cara Mulberry reflected as she moved back and forth between the two rooms containing patients she was currently helping the senior staff with.
The day had started early that morning with a major Deatheater raid that had included a large number of Dark creatures like werewolves and vampires. As a result there had been a large number of injuries and at least fifteen Auror killed trying to defend the magical portions of Avebury. Two of those killed had been former housemates with Cara in Hufflepuff; David Tambour and Brian Kenneson. Both of them had barely been Aurors for a year before they were killed.
There had also been a large number of witches and wizards with spell related injuries that Cara personally suspected had been self-inflicted so that they could find out what happened and be ahead of the latest gossip.
And on top of all that chaos at least half dozen babies had decided today would be a good day to be born.
This had insured that the staff at St. Mungos had been run ragged, but at least all they had to worry about now that Lady Longbottom had finally given birth about fifteen minutes ago to a healthy baby boy, were the two women who were still in labour. The two muggleborn witches still in labour were also causing the healers taking care of them a great deal of worry though it was for very different reasons.
In one of the birthing rooms was a witch named Angela Kaelin, who had been a classmate of Cara’s while at Hogwarts. They probably would have been really good friends, Cara reflected, if they had been in the same house, but with Angie being in Ravenclaw, the best they had managed was a casual acquaintance.
Cara knew from the hospital grapevine that Angie had been brought in nine months ago, an apparent victim of rape. She had been found unconscious as well as bruised and battered by Aurors near the entrance that went from Diagon Alley to Knockturn Alley.
It had been a widely held belief at the time among those who had found and then treated her that the attack had been done by Deatheaters, but no one had been able to figure out why she had been left alive. It was a well-known fact that Deatheaters wanted all muggleborns dead. Especially those who fought openly against the Dark Lord as Angie did as a member of the DMLE, not to mention she was in the habit of publicly giving him insulting nicknames like Moldy Voldie and a Darth Vader wannabe, whatever that was. Cara suspected that this Darth Vader was a muggle thing, since Angie kept in close contact with her family and her muggle roots. The only thing they had all been sure of was that her attacker was a wizard and one who was very good at memory charms, given Angie had no memory of the event or her attacker.
Personally Cara had doubts that Angie’s attacker being a wizard, Deatheater or any other, given what was happening to Angie’s magical core as she fought to give birth to her child. With every contraction, Angie’s magical core was shrinking and no one at St. Mungos knew why. None of the healers had ever heard of a spell or ritual that could cause this to happen. The Head of the hospital had even contacted Dumbledore and the Unspeakables and even they knew of no spell, ritual, or creature that could do that, not even a Dementor.
The medi-wizard’s level of concern over saving the life of mother and child had risen to the point where he had called in a squib friend of his who was a muggle doctor. The medi-wizards and witches working on Angie had all agreed that no matter how barbaric it might seem, they were going to have to use muggle methods if they were to have even a remote chance of saving them both.
Cara finished double-checking to make sure all the potions they would need once Dr. Andrews arrived were in Angie’s room and then she went to check on the other mother; Lily Potter.
The reason that the healer in charge of Mrs. Potter’s case was worried was because her baby was three months early. According to all the diagnostic spells, her son was not due to be born until around the 31st of October. It was too soon for her son to be born, but all attempts to stop the early labour had failed and as a result there was serious doubt the baby would survive once it was born. It was a well-established fact in the field of medical magic that an infant’s magical core was unstable and dependant upon its mother’s magical core to help keep it in check until the baby reached the seventh month of its development in the womb. It was considered miraculous if a magical baby born before they had passed into the final trimester managed to live and that wasn’t even taking into account whether or not the child would be magical or not. They had not even told Mr or Mrs Potter that their child might be a squib yet. Mrs. Potter was far more worried about the fact that he was early and there might be other complications once he was born.
Setting the stabilising, strengthening, and energy potions on the table nearest the cot that the baby would put on, Cara double-checked to make sure that everything that would be needed to check the Potter’s child over was there before heading back out of the room.
As Cara stepped out into the hall, Jessie Grey stopped her. “Healer Pallas is looking for you. Dr. Andrews is here and he wants your help with Miss Kaelin.”
Cara hurried to the room Angie was in.
“Nurse Mulberry?” The stranger who Cara assumed was Dr. Andrews asked, stopping her just outside the door to Angie’s room.
Cara nodded.
“Good. Nurse, what I need you to do is keep Miss Kaelin calm and keep her attention focused on you.” Dr. Andrews instructed. “We cannot risk sedating her, given how her magical core is currently behaving, not to mention how unstable her heart rate and blood pressure are.” Cara had no idea what those terms meant, but the doctor went on in a much lower and more emphatic voice. “I cannot stress this enough: Keep her calm, without using magic to do it!””
Cara responded instinctively to the serious tone in the squib doctor’s voice, “Yes, Dr. Andrews.”
When Cara entered Angie’s room, she was surprised to see a white sheet raised halfway above Angie’s swollen belly, hiding it from her view.
“What’s going on?” Angela Kaelin demanded weakly as soon as she saw Cara.
“Your healer is going to be doing something to try and deliver your baby a little quicker.” Cara spoke soothingly.
“Why? Is something wrong?” Angela wanted to know.
Cara knew the former Ravenclaw would accept nothing but the truth, no matter how unpleasant it might be. Angela had also been very well known for being able to spot a lie almost as fast a Slytherin.
“Angie, you need to stay calm,” Cara told her bluntly. “Your life and your son’s are at stake. They are going to have to use muggle methods to deliver you baby and try and keep you both alive. The reason they have to use this method is because something is affecting your magical core and threatening both of your lives.”
Cara noticed that Angie had calmly accepted that news, which surprised her. Had Angie already figured out that she might not survive the birth of her son?
Angela reached out and gripped Cara’s wrist tightly and begged in a low voice, “Promise me something.”
“What?” Cara refused to commit herself until she knew what Angie wanted.
“There is a small brown wooden box covered in celtic knotwork in my bag. In it you will find two vials. One is a vial of blood held under a stay fresh charm. David Tambour agreed to blood adopt my son.”
“And the other is the potion the blood needs to be added to.” Cara concluded, quickly concealing her dismay. She had a feeling that she knew what Angie was about to ask her to do. The problem was that David would not be able to take care of her son since he had died earlier that day.
“Yes. If something happens to me…” Angie gasped as another contraction hit her then suddenly vanished. “Make sure David knows what happened to me. He swore on his magic to raise my son if something happened to me.”
Cara took a deep breath. There was no way David would be able to keep that pledge now, but she could not tell Angela that, because she had to keep her calm. Choosing her words with care, Cara told her. “I will make sure your son gets the potion… if and only if something happens to you.”
Angela Kaelin relaxed, her last worry dealt with.
###
Shortly after midnight, a much weaker Angela Kaelin held her dark haired son for the first and only time. She weakly stoked the dark hair and stared into his emerald eyes so like her own. The baby stared at his mother and was very quiet. To Cara it seemed almost as if he knew there was something very wrong with his mother.
“His name is… Adam.” She told Cara. “Make sure David knows the name I chose for him.”
Cara nodded, not saying a word.
Angela closed her eyes, sighed and slipped away.
Cara took the baby to the nursery, the small case Angie had entrusted to her weighing heavily in her pocket. She had not figured out what she was going to do with the potion. She could not use Tambour’s blood, because he was no longer around to assume responsibility for baby Adam and she definitely was not ready to be a mother.
As she settled the still strangely silent baby on the nearest cot in the nursery, Jessie came in carrying a weakly crying baby.
“The Potter’s child?” Cara asked.
“Yes, he was born about 3 minutes before midnight.” Jessie confirmed. “And if he manages to survive until morning, it will be because magic wanted it that way.”
“Have the Potters been told yet?” Cara wondered. It couldn’t be easy hearing that your child had just been born and might soon die.
“Not yet,” Jessie told her. “It was a hard birth for Mrs. Potter. We had to sedate her after the birth and Mr. Potter is with her. He saw his son before we took him out of the room. I feel for the poor dear man, I do not think he knows who to worry about more, his wife or his son.”
“I would think he would be worried about his son.” Cara commented.
“Healer Armitage had to tell him that because of some damage done to her uterus during the delivery, Mrs. Potter will never be able to have another child.” Jessie told her.
“Oh,” Cara did not know what to say to that.
Gesturing to the silent baby watching them both with a strange intensity, Jessie asked, “Is that Kaelin’s child?
Cara nodded. “He was born just before the clock struck midnight. Angela got to hold and name him before she died.”
“Oh the poor thing, an orphan on his birthday. I hope the orphanage can find him a good home. He looks like a lovely child.” Jessie sounded sad at the news then looked at her watch. “I need to do my rounds. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to help with the feedings.”
Cara nodded.
####
The next morning was both joyful and sad at St. Mungos. In one part of the hospital the Potters and Longbottoms were surrounded by family and friends, celebrating the birth of their sons. However in another part of St. Mungos Angela Kaelin and her son were being readied for transport to a funeral home.
And when Cara Mulberry finally made it home, she made sure she destroyed the box that Angie had given her. It was safer that way.
###
On October 31, 1981, Voldemort stood beside the body of Lily Potter, staring into the emerald eyes of one of the two children that a partially heard prophecy had said would pose a threat to his plans of ruling over the whole of the Magical world and ridding it of muggles and the muggleborn filth inhabiting it. With the Potter brat out of the way he would be able to devote all of his attention to locating the Longbottom brat. He considered himself fortunate that the Potter’s change of secret keepers had been to one of his well-hidden agents.
“Life as an orphan shall not burden you long, young Potter. And the world will be better without filth like you in it.” Voldemort hissed.
The child met his gaze fearlessly as if unconcerned that his death stood less than a meter away as his tiny hand reached out through the bars of his crib to his mother lying on the floor as if begging her to get up.
“You will join her very soon,” Voldemort raised his wand and spoke the two most feared words in the wizarding world. “Avada Kedavra!”
A bolt of sickly green light shot from the wand and struck Harry Potter. The child collapsed without a sound, striking his forehead on one of the bars of his crib.
Voldemort looked around pleased with his night’s work. He had destroyed the first of Dumbledore’s prophesied saviours. All in all a good night’s work, given it would strike fear into the Light and the Dark Lord had no doubt that in their haste to protect the other child they would make a mistake and reveal his location so Voldemort could kill the other child as well.
As he turned to leave the scene of his triumph, Voldemort heard a crackling sound begin to emanate from the area near the Potter brat’s crib. His curiosity getting the better of him, the Dark Lord turned back to the crib and saw blue lightening dancing all over the dead child’s body.
And before he had a chance to react, a bolt of the blue lightening leapt from the child’s body to Voldemort’s wand hand, then engulfed him, binding the two together in a shared lightening storm that spread out to strike the ceiling and the walls. Before the roof collapsed a bolt of sickly green light flew from the child’s body back to Voldemort.
The combination of the lightening and the returned spell reduced Voldemort’s body to ash as the roof beams and other debris rained down, some of it striking the child. A small strand of oily black smoke moved toward Harry while the rest vanished from sight. However its attempt to join with the soul of the infant child failed when the blue lightening destroyed it as it tried to burrow in through the lightening bolt shaped scar that young Harry had gained as he died. The scar healed but it would remain since it had existed before Harry’s immortality awoke.
Harry woke with a scream and started crying.
####
Harry continued to cry as he held out his arms to his mother who was lying on the floor, not moving. He cried for her to come to him and hold him; to make the pain to go away. As fat tears ran down Harry's face, the dust and tiny motes of debris that were floating around in the air, began to gather and swirl around in one of the shafts of moonlight that was coming through the damaged roof. Suddenly the motes of dust and debris changed into a man but one who did not look like other men. The man was very handsome with dark brown hair and eyes. He was wore a snow white poet shirt and a leather vest but what made this man different from others was that he did not have human legs but legs like a goat and a set of small horns that curled back into his golden brown hair as well as a set of pointed ears. He was a faun, a creature out of myth legend. This particular faun had many names, one of them being Robin Goodfellow and he had been made famous by William Shakespeare as Puck the trickster.
Hearing the baby crying he moved over to the crib, stepping carefully over the debris and making sure not to step on the woman’s body. Picking up the child and rocking him, he crooned, “There, there, little one. Puck is here to make everything better.”
As he looked up into amber coloured eyes he had never seen before, the baby stopped crying. Even Uncle Mooey did not have eyes like these. They were oddly shaped.
“You have Angela’s eyes little one," Puck said fondly as he stroked the lightening bolt-shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. "I remember your birth mum well. When she was at Hogwarts she did Lord Oberon a great favour once though she didn’t know at the time she was doing him the favour.”
The stroking finger tickled so Harry reached up, grabbed it and pulled into his mouth to chew on so it wouldn’t go back to tickling him. Puck allowed the child to continue chewing on his finger with his baby teeth as he looked down the body of Lily Potter. "And now you are an orphan for the second time in your young life but you are a lucky one since I am here to repay the favour that Lord Oberon owed your mum. Though I probably would have come to help you anyway just to see what mischief it would cause given what the seers have said your life is prophesied to be like. Unfortunately for you my little Adam… Harry, you are needed to save magic itself from extinction. Life for you will be very hard because not only are you an immortal, but you are now a child of prophecy, not only do you have to fight to preserve the humans of the magical world, most of whom, both my Lord Oberon and I agree are not worth the effort of preserving, but magic itself must be preserved. Seers from all the magical races, fae and many other creature have agreed you will be necessary for that to happen."
Puck pulled his wet, well chewed upon finger out of Harry's mouth. "Luckily I see your immortality already taken care of the piece of the foul monster’s soul that tried to take up residence within you. That makes my task a little easier, since it is never fun to root out evil when it hides within an innocent. Though I see you did manage to keep the skills he had. That ability to speak to snakes will aid you well in the future. My task today is to insure that you are able to grow up so you have a chance to fulfil your destiny and to survive as an Immortal. You will also need a teacher one day, and I know the perfect one, though he will probably scream quite loudly when he realises what I have done.”
####
On November 1, 1981, the magical community of Britain celebrated the defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the survival of The-Boy-Who-Lived. What no human knew was that their survival was due solely to the actions of one witch, who in an act of kindness had assured that parents who wanted a child and had lost one were given a miracle that they never knew about and that one newly orphaned baby in desperate need of a home and family, got one.
And the witch who had done this act of kindness that led to the defeat of Voldemort would never be able to tell a living soul about it given she had been killed in a Deatheater raid on Diagon Alley three months before.
(Author’s Note: Before you start saying that Harry’s real Mom couldn’t have possibly known about Star Wars, according to the IMDB data base the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, so she could’ve seen it)