Chapter Text
Standard Disclaimer: I own nothing in regards to Harry Potter, Warhammer 40K, or Warhammer Rogue Trader. All properties herein are those of their creators. I am only a writer working on my skills with worlds and characters that I love.
Note: Ironically enough, this idea came to me while working on a crossover between Harry Potter and Mistborn. Hopefully this will be as enjoyable to read as it was to write.
Chapter One - The Imperium Comes To Man
Fourteen year-old Rose Potter was something of a nervous wreck. Every year since she’d first started Hogwarts something horrible had happened on or near Halloween like clockwork. First year the troll found its way into the school and attacked her best friend. Second year the petrifications started and that fiasco had led to her having to fight a giant snake with nothing but a sword and her wits. Third year a supposed mass murderer had entered the grounds and the ministry had responded by sending in a hoard of demonic monsters to try and catch him. Now in her fourth year the champions were being chosen for a magical tournament with a legendary death toll. What could possibly go wrong?
Beside her her best friend Hermione squeezed her hand under the table. “Relax. Dumbledore drew that age line himself. I’m sure your name couldn’t have been entered. And your mother would never allow it to happen anyway.”
At those words, Rose looked up to the staff table where her mother sat, as the professor of muggle studies, giving her a supporting smile. The woman well knew her daughter’s phobia of this particular holiday and she’d been keeping her eye out for trouble all night. It warmed the girl’s heart that her mother cared that much for her, even if that care had become somewhat smothering since they’d learned what had happened to her big brother. That terrible night when Rose had come home from elementary school to find her father passed out drunk and her mother bawling her eyes out at the dining room table. It was there that she’d finally learned the truth.
It had all started that horrible night thirteen years ago. Rose had been one, her brother five. Her parents had been off at an Order meeting regarding some matter that they still wouldn’t discuss with her, and Voldemort had somehow made his way to their home. (It had later been revealed that Peter Pettigrew had betrayed them and Sirius had taken his head years later, after he escaped from Azkaban, as a result. Apparently the Potter parents had obliviated the name of their own secret keeper from their minds in case one of them was ever captured by the enemy so they’d been unable to prove Sirius’ innocence for years.) What happened next, no one was exactly sure, but the end result was assured. A killing curse had been cast from Voldemort’s wand at the siblings, an explosion had taken out the entire right side of their home, and the dark lord had disappeared leaving only his wand and robe behind. The monster had not been seen since… until Rose’s first year on the back of Professor Quirrel’s head.
Headmaster Dumbledore had been the first on the scene at the Potter home and declared, based on the resultant magical energy, and the V shaped scar on her neck, that it had been her that had vanquished the dark lord and named her the Girl Who Lived. A title that had immediately taken off in the papers and forever altered the course of her life.
After the attack the Potters had moved to a new home, thinking the war was over, and tried to live their lives as peacefully as possible. That had not turned out to be realistic. They hadn’t been in their new house for two weeks before a masked group of evildoers had apparated onto their front lawn and tried to burn the building to the ground with them inside.
They’d moved three more times after that before it became apparent to the adults that they’d have to hide once more from the public eye behind a fidelius charm. They’d need to cut themselves off from the world entirely to avoid any mail being traced until they received word that the last violent remnants of Voldemort’s forces had been dealt with. However, the question became what if the worst should happen and their fidelius was breached once more.
They’d chosen Professor McGonagoll, a mentor for the both of them, a family friend, and her brother’s godmother as the new secret keeper.
They were all set to move for the last time when Dumbledore came to their door. He’d pointed to all the previous attacks and convinced her parents that if they were found again, and help could not arrive in time, then at least one of their children should have a chance to survive. He’d said that he’d lined up a safe location away from the wizarding world with heavy wards to hide their son. Rose, he argued, as the Girl Who Lived, needed to stay with her parents where she could be trained to deal with the challenges that could come her way in the future.
Her parents had argued of course. They didn’t even want to consider the idea of leaving one of their children behind, but the headmaster had pointed out how corrupt their society was, how many times their homes had been attacked, and how long it would likely take to make the magical world safe enough for them to come out of hiding. He promised that Harry would be protected, but that her parents needed to focus on Rose’s safety first.
It was when Rose had demanded of her mother to know why her safety mattered so much more than being parents to her brother that Lily had divulged the last bit of news the old man had given them that night before taking Harry away. A prophecy relating to Voldemort and the one with the power to destroy him. Dumbledore was convinced it was her. Thus, she needed the most attention and protection in both his and her parents’ estimation.
It took five years to safely come out of hiding. Five years before the last death eater that could be charged without buying their way out was removed from the streets and the Potters could return to the public eye. That was the day that Dumbledore came once more to their door, this time with the news that Harry had been missing, presumed dead, for four years.
After her mother dutifully broke his nose past the point of even magic being able to mend it, he’d explained (through a mouthful of pooling blood) that he’d left the boy with Lily’s muggle sister, trusting in a set of blood wards to keep all manner of evil doers away. It had been the natural choice in his estimation, as placement with family was ideal, the Dursleys had a son of a similar age to Harry that the boy could play with, and who wouldn’t welcome an adorable new addition to their family? The thought had never even crossed his mind that the boy would be unwanted, nor had he counted on how badly Harry would be treated there. Never in his wildest dreams had he foreseen family treating one of their own in the ways that they’d clearly treated Harry if the notes from Arabella Figg and his own investigation could be believed.
James had promptly broken the bastard’s recently reset nose again after hearing all of that and demanded to know why Albus hadn’t kept a close eye on their son himself as he’d promised he would. (that had been the promise all those years ago that had finally convinced the parents to trust the headmaster with their boy.)
Dumbledore had looked away with shame and admitted that his duties at Hogwarts, the ICW, and the Wizengamont had kept him too busy, and that in the end he’d found no time to follow through on that promise.
Needless to say, the headmaster had found himself banned permanently from the Potter household. Rose knew her father had tried to have him removed from the wizengamot as well on several occasions but had never been successful. Their tragedy was only one of many for the aged wizard but he was still owed too many favors to make them matter in the course of his career.
Then came Rose’s Hogwarts letter. Since the law of the land stated that magical children born in England had to attend Hogwarts, Lily had immediately demanded a teaching position. She wasn’t about to trust Dumbledore with sole control of one of her children again. Her credentials were top of the line, her references ecstatic, and Minerva (who had grown to hate the headmaster with a passion for losing her godson) had hired her on the spot. The head of Gryffindor House had been looking for an excuse to sack the current teacher of muggle studies for years by then and a more qualified applicant gave her the perfect reason.
Now here they were years later, and the headmaster had had the bright idea to bring back a tournament that had been discontinued for very good reason, all in the name of greater inter-school cooperation.
The great hall grew still as Dumbledore took center stage in front of the staff table and dimmed the lights. When the tension grew to a high the goblet’s fire changed color from its natural blue to crimson and erupted with a single slip of paper.
“The champion for Beauxbatons,” the headmaster exclaimed, “Fleur Delacour.” The table hosting the French contingent burst into applause and a painfully beautiful older girl nearly seemed to waltz past the staff table to exit out the indicated back door.
The goblet erupted a second time. “The champion for Durmstrang, Victor Krum.” The applause was much louder this time as a gruff looking student, famous for his work on the Bulgarian quidditch team, nearly seemed to march out of the hall with military discipline coloring his stride.
A third time. “The champion for Hogwarts, Cedric Diggory.”
All of the tables containing the British students erupted into loud cheers, exclamations, and whistles as a gratefully smiling Hufflepuff boy walked steadily after his fellows.
Once he was gone, Dumbledore began to give some prepared speech about how the champions would work to claim something called a tri-wizard cup, but Rose couldn’t have cared less. Her eyes were glued to the still-burning goblet and, just as she’d feared, it suddenly burst once more into red flame, effectively shocking the headmaster into silence as one more name floated through the air to his hand.
“Rose Potter.” He muttered before looking right at her and exclaiming, “Rose Potter!”
Rose was frozen, terrified. How could this happen? She couldn’t compete against seventh years. People died in this tournament!
She was broken out of her petrification by her best friend squeezing her hand once more and pushing her slowly off of her bench. “Go, Rose. I know you didn’t enter yourself, and I’m sure we can sort this out, but this can’t be over until you join the others.”
The red-haired girl nodded that she understood and took off down the space between the tables, ducking her head and pretending not to hear the whispers accusing her of cheating. Why couldn’t the students recognize by now that bad things just seemed to happen to her sometimes. She never went looking for them!
However, just as she had her fingers closed on the knob of the door, it happened for the last time. The goblet lit in crimson flame, a paper discharged into the headmaster’s shaking hands, but this time the color didn’t change.
It was only because Rose and the staff were so close to the old man that they heard him mutter, “Harry Potter?” before the goblet literally exploded into the air expanding into hundreds of shards that rose in a circular pattern to form a ring of purple flame displaying a black void to nowhere. All sound ceased, and all movement was halted as all eyes became locked on the impossible sight before them.
For a while, the portal simply hovered in the air, an empty void of flame and the swirling abyss it contained within its shattered border. Then… it compressed. The never-ending spiral tightened its pattern before swirling out and up toward the ceiling, which proved to be for the best as a millisecond later the prow of an absolutely enormous ship of metal and stone came hurtling out of it to crash up through the enchanted ceiling and up, up, up, ever higher for nearly three minutes before the final end transferred clear of the portal and deposited its full load above. And with that, the portal that had birthed the cyclopean vessel receded back into the goblet form that repaired itself back on its podium as its customary blue flame at last faded from existence.
However, no eyes were tied to the magical object. No, they were all, to a student, locked on the extraordinary visage currently lodged in the rock over their heads. And as the hundreds of gathered youths began murmuring amongst themselves about what all it could mean, the teachers at the head table fired off several cannon-blast charms to try and regain some measure of control over the situation. A measure that fell off completely when a loud pneumatic hiss was heard on the air and from the bottom of the vessel a comparatively thin stretch of metal began descending down to the ground.
There was a dull thunk as the makeshift ramp made contact with the stone below, and then a hatch on the end of the vessel slid open to reveal a portal of pure white light. As everyone watched, the light became obstructed by a thin shape with feminine hips strutting down through it until at last the visage came out of a woman so pale that the veins beneath her skin stood out clearly on the surface as if there were no obstruction at all. She wore a fine dress of a flowing purple material that none present could readily name, bore a band of silk over her forehead, and carried a golden staff with an eagle mounted at its head.
Paying no mind to the audience staring, the strange woman called back behind her, “It appears to be a human world, Lord Inquisitor!”
The light was blocked again, and this time the new arrival was revealed to be an immensely muscular woman that stood over six feet in height and… left little to nothing to the imagination with her clothing choices. Indeed, her only shreds of clothing were a crimson hood, a thin silk red band over the curve of her breasts, and a red sash around her waist in the bearing of a loin cloth. But just as eye-catching as her ensemble was the absolutely massive sword that seemed to be edged with serrated teeth resting on her shoulder. It was nearly as big as she was!
The new woman looked around, hefted the enormous weapon in front of her with a single hand, and called behind her, “I sense a dark presence upon the air, Lord Inquisitor! Be ready at arms and call upon the Emperor’s Light that it may be ready to aid thee. I shall prepare the way and ensure your safety on the ground.”
As one, the two women continued descending the ramp until they reached the floor, and then… they moved. The pale woman leveled the eagle of her staff horizontally in front of her and turned in a circle. With her motion, a ring of purple lightning erupted into being, surrounding their position and the bottom of the ramp. Meanwhile, the muscular woman twisted her wrist on the grip of her massive weapon and those wicked serrated teeth began rotating along the blade like a chainsaw. She wandered the rim of the circular obstruction, pointing the horrid weapon at every pair of eyes she passed, and finally came to a stop at the bottom of the ramp.
“The message has been sent, Lord Inquisitor!” The scantily clad woman called. At her words, a horn blared through the air and a long line of men dressed in matching trench coats with trench shovels on their hips and face-concealing gas masks on their faces came marching down the ramp. They formed a perimeter of flesh just behind the lightning wall and pointed bayoneted rifles out at the crowd as a final obstruction blocked the light of the ship’s portal. And then ‘he’ came.
A fresh chorus of whispers and amazed ‘ahs!’ were heard as a young man, perhaps twenty-five, with a jet-black ponytail pulled back from a severe widows peak, a pointed goatee, and wearing a hardened black trenchcoat showing the wear of long use, came strutting down to join the others. As he drew closer to the ground more details came into the focus of all. For example, the man had one startling green eye and a red number opposite it that seemed to be robotic in nature. One of his hands seemed to be the same way as one was gloved in black and the other shone metallically in the light of the wall torches. Finally, there was a deep and jagged lightning bolt scar on his exposed forehead with a harsh line cut through the center of it, as if the wound had been ripped open at some point and stitched back together.
More than a few of the adults in the space grew very interested at that last item. Specifically one red-haired woman, a regal transfiguration mistress, and an old man with a broken nose.
The last stranger reached the ground, nodded to a masked man who saluted him, and then turned to the two women waiting patiently for him. “Report.” His word, while calmly spoken, was sharp enough to have been heard by all. As were the replies of the women.
The pale woman, with eyes completely purple in color, stated, “The fluctuations of the Warp have settled. The storm that sent us off course was fine-tuned, directed, and its source is that cup over there. Surely it must be an artifact of Chaos to have impacted our holy mission so.” Her gaze traveled back over the students once more. “And every person in this hall is an unregistered Psyker.”
At once the bolts on every one of the masked men's rifles were pulled back and rounds chambered in a clear motion of aggression; a motion doubled by the sudden revving on the hooded woman’s blade.
The man turned to the other woman. “Your report?”
The chain-blade stilled as she turned to face the man fully. “I feel not the draw of my battle sisters. No Adeptas Sororitas are on this world.”
The man nodded. “So it is a world with at least hundreds of unregistered Psykers living without oversight, and no established Imperium presence. Completely unacceptable.” He turned to the same officer that had saluted him. “We shall enact Protocol Zeta.”
“At once, my lord.” The man saluted with a smashed fist to his chest and raised a vox comm unit on his wrist to the approximate location that his mouth would have been. “Procedure Zeta is a go.”
A deep hum was heard on the air, and the students closest to the windows of the hall shrieked with fright as they beheld a green dome of light descending from on high to slam into the grass and the surface of the Black Lake.
The teachers shot to their feet to say something about it, or perhaps to try to calm the students, but found themselves forcefully pushed back into their chairs by a sudden onset of physical power pulsing off of the strange man that the women had called a Lord as he held a silver medallion with a capital ‘I’ in the air. A moment later his voice rang out with strength enough to encompass every inch of the hall, filling everyone within it with both awe and fear alike.
“Denizens of this strange world, hear my words and tremble!” He roared with a voice of thunder. “I, Lord Inquisitor Potter, of the God Emperor’s Most Holy Inquisition, Imperator of the Ordo Hereticus, do hereby declare this land under quarantine by my authority. Until such time as I can determine no trace of Heresy or Chaotic influence is present, the barrier shall stay in effect. Know that any attempt to breach the barrier will be met with death. Any attempt to usurp my authority in this matter will be met with death. Any attempt to gainsay the will of the God Emperor will be met with death. As of now, you all exist by merit of my will, and you will cease to exist by the same. So say I, and so mote it be.”
At the end of his declaration, the man lowered his medallion and slung it over his neck. Then he turned to the head table. “Am I right in assuming that the leaders of this rabble sit amongst you?”
Albus took severe umbrage with anyone referring to his precious students as ‘rabble ', but he still had no idea what that strange power was that had knocked him down, and nor did he have an answer for the barrier that had sprung up outside. The moment he’d seen it the headmaster had attempted to apparate outside it to send a patronus to the Ministry for aid, but his magic hadn’t even twitched to activate to his call.
The only reason that the aged man could come up with for that reaction was that he’d subconsciously known that it wouldn’t work. Whatever that barrier was, magic would not let them escape it. And the young man’s words about what would happen should anyone attempt to breach it were even more worrisome.
So, Dumbledore stood back up and nodded to his fellows at the table. “We are not the government, but we do speak for these students.”
“Good. Then at least we have a start.” The man stood at attention with his hands clasped behind his back. “I am Lord Inquisitor Potter, and I require you to attend me aboard my vessel. There are… details of my occupation of these lands that should be seen to. And your acquiescence to those details will go a long way toward determining my final decision of who can be trusted to live once all is said and done.”
Potter looked to the chain-sword wielder and said, “I entrust their passage to you. See that none of them get lost on the journey.” And with that, he turned on his heel and marched back up the ramp with his masked soldiers marching in perfect formation and unity up after him.
Meanwhile, the hooded woman walked up to the edge of the lightning barrier and drove the tip of her sword into the stone before her. “Be honored. You stand before Sister Argenta of the Ordo Repentia, aspirant of Lord Inquisitor Potter. From this moment forth, my honor demands your transport to the Imperial Meeting Chamber. You will follow my directions without question. Any deviation will be met with extreme force.”
Albus headed the group of elders who rounded their table and stood in formation ahead of the crackling obstruction. “My lady, we wish not for trouble from you or your… master.” He was trying manfully to avoid mentioning how utterly horrid the woman’s state of dress was. “We wish only for answers to this outlandish situation, and to provide some of our own in kind.”
Meanwhile, the redhead behind him hurried to push forward and ask the other woman, “That Inquisitor. Is his first name Harry?”
Argenta’s keen eyes locked onto those of the speaker with barely concealed rage. “You presume much to mention his first name so easily. Furthermore, I will require answers for how you seem to know it at all.” She pulled her blade free of the stone and held it point-first toward the woman.
Only the slightly clawed hand of her compatriot on her arm stopped the warrior woman from escalating things further. The pale woman’s lavender gaze was locked on the redhead. “Her aura is the same color as our Lord. Somehow they are connected. Do not rush to violence before answers have a chance to be provided.”
Argenta slowly lowered her sword and nodded. “Again you speak wisdom, Cassia. Very well. Lower the barrier.”
The newly named Cassia waved her staff and the lightning obstruction was quickly sucked back into it as if the implement were a vacuum. Then she addressed the redhead directly. “Know that you live only because I saved your life. Do not make me regret it.”
Lily Potter hurried to say, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good. Because if you did, then I’d be forced to tear your soul apart into atoms so small that not even the energy of the Warp could mold you back together. My curiosity is your friend right now. Do not betray it.”
Both strange women turned halfway toward the ramp and gestured to it. “Let’s begin.”