Title: Side Effects
Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VIII or Harry Potter
Summary: After killing Voldemort, Harry had planned on taking a long overdue vacation. However, Harry is Fate’s favorite toy, and she has plans. Two hexes and an accidental portal later, Harry finds himself dropped in the middle of another reality where people fear magic, and a Sorceress is intent on taking over the world.
Pairings: eventual Squall/Harry; currently mild Squall/Rinoa
Warnings: Swearing, death, and eventual slash as the main pairing.
Author’s notes: I don’t like Rinoa, but I don’t like bashing either. I’m doing my best not to slip into it here, but if I slip, please let me know. Like always, if you spot something that needs correcting, please let me know
Author’s Notes 2: Sorry this took so long, but I was halfway through typing up what I had written when the characters suddenly switched gears on me. There were two little voices in the back of my mind that kept saying what I had was not how it had played out.
Chapter Three
Harry took a big gulp of his hot chocolate and savored the wonderful, rich flavor. The drink was slightly bitter, like it had been made with dark chocolate instead of the rich Honeydukes’ milk chocolate Dobby used, but other than that, it was good. He started sipping at it, intending to make it last as long as possible.
Then Rinoa smiled a secretive, little smile that set off almost every alarm Harry had.
Harry looked down at his mug of hot chocolate and scowled. He hadn’t been happy, but most definitely a little more cheerful when he had seen the mugs of hot chocolate the woman had included on the trays she had made for him and Squall. Sure, Squall had rolled his eyes at the treat, but to Harry it had been a Godsend. Hot chocolate was what Madam Pomfrey had given him every time he had graced her infirmary during a meal, and he had been looking forward to pretending, for a short while anyway, that he was back at Hogwarts. He had even saved the mug until he had finished everything else so it would be like a dessert, and they had to go and ruin it. Why couldn’t they have spiked his food?
“Only the truly evil mess with chocolate,” Harry grumbled quietly as he sat the mug down. Unfortunately, Squall heard him.
Squall grabbed the mug off of Harry’s tray, sniffed it, and then took a tiny sip. He immediately spat the liquid back into the mug, sat it back down on the tray with a loud clink, grabbed his ice water, and took a big gulp of ice water, only to swish it around in his mouth and spit it into the mug as well. He fixed the two people sitting on the bed across from them with an icy glare. “Do either of you want to tell me why you thought it would be a good idea to spike his food with a truth serum that was made illegal twenty years ago because it kills almost half of the people it’s used on?” he demanded, looking from Rinoa to Irvine and back again as he waited for an answer.
“I had nothing to do with that!” Irvine declared, scooting away from Rinoa, as Harry blanched and scooted back on the bed to get away from the tray, and thus, the hot chocolate. Harry honestly didn’t know what was scarier: that he could die by hot chocolate or that Squall could tell it was spiked from taking one tiny sip. What the hell did Squall do that he knew how to identify it from taste alone? Even though Veritaserum had no discernable taste, Harry knew there were other truth potions out there that did, and not even Moody could tell the difference between them by taste alone. And Harry should know, because Moody, Kingsley and Tonks had spent a week drilling him, Ron, and Hermione on all the symptoms of various potions and poisons and two weeks spiking their food, before eventually telling them all to buy magical eyes or glasses just to be safe. Moody had even given each of them a personal flask so nothing could be snuck into their drinks. Harry was seriously missing that flask right now.
“You said it would be a good idea,” Rinoa said, almost yelling as she swung around to face Irvine, and he shook his head, saying, “No, I said I wished we could because he was hiding something. I didn’t tell you to do it!”
Harry looked up from the tray and stared at Rinoa and Irvine in horror, because after all those suspicious looks and glances Harry didn’t believe Irvine was completely innocent, no matter how loudly he protested. He wanted to include Squall in that look too, but for all his strangeness, Squall hadn’t been the one to spike his chocolate. For that, Harry could ignore almost any odd quirk. “What is wrong with you?” he asked, and at least Rinoa had the grace to look a little guilty. “Squall’s suspicious as hell, but you don’t see him spiking my chocolate. My reality just got done with a really huge war, but if you had landed there, I wouldn’t have spiked your chocolate.”
“But you wouldn’t have a problem if she had spiked your food?” Irvine asked sarcastically, and he, Rinoa, and Squall were visibly shocked when Harry nodded, although Squall’s shock was limited to raising a single eyebrow at him as he pushed the trays away from the bed.
“Chocolate is used to counter the effect of Dementors. Tampering with my chocolate is like giving someone with a deadly infection a sugar pill instead of antibiotics,” Harry explained in a fast babble, vaguely relieved he hadn’t given into the urge to explain exactly what Dementors did and why it was taboo to tamper with his chocolate. It should have been impossible, but Harry’s face managed to go even paler when Irvine and Rinoa’s faces seemed to light up at how fast he was talking. Then he realized they weren’t only happy he was talking, but the room was actually getting brighter, just like when the Healer Hermione had forced him to see to get his prescription updated had put in the potion to dilate his eyes. He turned to Squall with wide, panicked eyes, and squinted at the light coming from the lamp behind the other teen. What had been a fairly dim lamp a few minutes ago was starting to look brighter than the sun. Harry turned away from the light and closed his eyes.
“What did you two give him?” Squall demanded, and Harry felt someone’s hand touch his neck. Harry flinched from the touch, and the hand grabbed his wrist, two fingers sitting over the pulse point. No one said anything while Squall checked his pulse, and Harry did his best to stay calm. Judging by the fact no one was freaking out about accidental magic, Harry thought he was doing pretty good, but the whimpers Carbuncle was making in the back of his mind were not helping. “It’s affecting him faster than it should, and his pulse is going too fast for it to be real Kystalace. If you two don’t tell me what you gave him right now…” Squall let his voice trail off, leaving the threat unspoken.
“I only put two crystals of Kystar in his mug,” Rinoa said. Harry wanted to give her points for taking all the blame, but the world was beginning to rock. He cracked his eyes open to check if it really was moving and groaned weakly as he collapsed on the bed. The world wasn’t just rocking; it was swirling! If it didn’t stop soon, he was going to throw up. “It’s not lethal in this form,” she pointed out softly, sounding a whole lot closer than Harry wanted her at the moment.
“No, it just happens to have hallucinations as a side effect. It’s sold on the streets for a reason, Rinoa,” Squall snapped, dropping Harry’s wrist. “We’re lucky he didn’t drink the whole mug.”
“I was listening at the door during your talk, Squall,” Irvine said. “You had no intention of telling us, and if we’re going to take the risk of him attracting Edea’s attention, we deserve an honest-” Squall cut him off.
“If you were listening for the whole time, then you should have known better than to even suggest giving him something like this. Even if you aren’t a SeeD, Irvine, you’ve had the training.” Squall made a disappointed sound that wasn’t quite a sigh. “And if he didn’t think of it, you should have, Rinoa. Watts might be the one to normally collect the Forest Owls information, but as your group’s leader, you should be aware of the side effects of the drugs he uses to interrogate people,” he said in an icy voice, and Harry blinked dazedly. He could barely make out the girl’s expression in the ultra bright light, but the squiggles that made up her expression looked hurt. Why did she look like that? He was the one who was going to…
Harry tasted bile in the back of his throat and gagged. He needed the rubbish bin, and he needed it now!
Rinoa let out a tiny shriek, and someone cocked a gun, but Harry didn’t care; the rubbish bin was floating by the end of the bed. Harry dived towards it, and sometime during his worship of the porcelain god’s second cousin, he swore he heard Squall mutter something he and Carbuncle emphatically agreed with.
He should have aimed for Rinoa and Irvine.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Staring down at Irvine’s prone form, Squall barely resisted the urge to forcefully kick the man out of his bed and take it for himself. In between dealing with Harry’s nightmares (caused by the Kystar), dry heaving (also caused by the Kystar), Rinoa’s panic attack (caused by the floating trash can and Angelo’s attempts to eat the contents), Rinoa and Irvine’s half assed explanation for why they had done what they had (Squall still didn’t understand their reasons, but he had a feeling Rinoa’s impatience had a lot to do with it), and the actual planning session they had originally met for, he had gotten a grand total of one hour and twenty seven minutes of sleep. After Harry’s kicking woke him up for the eighth time and seeing it was already seven in the morning, he had completely given up on getting any decent amount of sleep until Irvine and Rinoa were both on the train to the next town to pick up the blue prints. Odd though it was, Squall trusted Rinoa enough to know she would make sure Irvine came back; he just didn’t trust either of them alone with Harry.
Squall glanced back at the still sleeping Sorcerer, then looked at Irvine again, and yawned. He didn’t want to leave them alone and awake in the same room, and that meant getting Rinoa up first. So after making sure he had Zell’s lock pick set in his pocket front pocket and a knife in his boot since it would look odd to carry his gunblade until he was leaving, he made his way to Rinoa’s room, doing his best not to limp along the way. The sheath for his knife wasn’t meant to be stuck down his boot, and it was uncomfortable at best. Combined with the bruises he had from Harry’s kicking, it was out right painful. Squall wasn’t sure who to blame for that, instinct said Harry since they were his nightmares, but logic dictated Rinoa and Irvine were to blame since the spiked drink was the reason Harry had had the nightmares in the first place.
Not bothering to hide his irritation at the world in general, he banged on the door to Rinoa’s room. There was a muffled noise that could have been a groan, and Squall knocked again, a touch quieter this time but not by much. He knew Rinoa hadn’t meant her order for him to treat her like SeeD to last beyond leaving Galbadian Garden, but after last night’s catastrophe of a meeting, he was going to pretend she had and being a SeeD included crappy wake up calls. Someone else deserved to share his bad mood, and Rinoa’s admission to dumping the drug in the hot chocolate made her prime candidate.
Squall’s was lifting his fist to bang on the door for a third time, and Rinoa opened the door, blinking at him sleepily. “Squall, it’s only seven,” she mumbled around a yawn. “Irvine hasn’t even left yet.”
“You’re going with him,” Squall said. He waited for this to sink in, but Rinoa kept staring at him stupidly. Squall pinched the bridge of his nose and used his hand to hide his scowl. Was he the only person besides Zell and Selphie who could function on less than three hours of sleep without coffee? “I don’t trust him. I want you to go with him to make sure he comes back.”
“But you trust me?” Rinoa asked quickly, smiling brightly as she met his eyes for the first time.
Squall suddenly realized Rinoa’s previous daze had nothing to do with a lack of caffeine, and everything to do with his lack of a shirt. He stomped down his urge to take a step away from the doorway. Now was not the time for this, and it most definitely wasn’t his place for him to lecture her about crushing on her employees. Trying to think of something to say in response, Squall shifted his stance slightly, and the movement caused his knife to dig into the bruise on his calf, instantly bringing back his bad mood.
And the urge to share it.
Squall smiled coldly, letting Shiva come to the forefront of his mind. Seifer or Quistis would have immediately noticed the way his eyes turned icy, but Rinoa wasn’t a SeeD and people who weren’t often missed the subtle changes GFs made to human eyes when they were called on. “I was going to ask you to stay with Harry, but since I can’t trust you to watch him…” Squall let his voice trail off, and Rinoa’s smile dimmed. “I do, however, trust you don’t want to waste the money you and your friends came up with, so I know you’ll bring Irvine back.”
Rinoa’s lower lip trembled and her eyes shimmered like she was going to cry, but Selphie wasn’t here this time and Squall was determined to ignore the tiny speck of guilt he felt. Compared to what he had said in Timber, this was tame. He was not going to feel guilty.
Expecting Rinoa to start crying or sniffle a little before slamming the door in his face, Squall was surprised when Rinoa simply clenched her fists and took a deep breath to calm down. “You made it clear last night Harry’s presence has to do with the orders you received at Galbadia to take out Edea, and I can’t order you to leave him behind,” she said softly. “But as your client, I would like to know why you don’t want to know anything about him, and why you seem to trust him. You have to admit nothing about him makes sense, and if you had let us question him before the nausea kicked in, we could have found out enough to run a decent search on him,” she added hastily when Squall’s hand right hand reflexively twitched.
Squall studied her for a minute. Rinoa wasn’t a SeeD, nor was she a soldier, but she was the leader of a resistance group. She might have some idea what kind of trust it took to ask someone to kill you…
“They’re fine. They’re good at escaping.”
Squall sighed, remembering the way Rinoa had giggled out those words. If her entire group was good enough at running from danger that she could laugh about it, it was almost guaranteed she had never been in a situation where she had been forced to even consider asking that, let alone promising to kill one of her comrades. No, Rinoa wouldn’t understand. Time to bullshit.
“Can I come in?” Squall asked, and Rinoa nodded and stood back so he could walk past her. Once he was inside, she closed the door and said, “I’m waiting.”
“He’s not some creation of Edea’s like you and Irvine think,” Squall said as he turned to face Rinoa. The ever cautious SeeD in him twitched irritably when he saw she was leaning against the door, cutting off a possible escape route, but he soothed it with the knowledge that there was a large window behind him and he was only on the second floor. If it had been the third, he would have given in to its urgings to make her move. “I spent over five hours with him, and all of his reactions were real, not faked. He’s completely human, Rinoa, and he’s definitely not from here.”
“Squall, I stopped worrying about that when I saw the trash can fly across the room.” Squall stared at her blankly, and Rinoa made a frustrated sound and ran a hand through her hair. “Okay, I’m going to come right out and say it. He’s a Sorceress. What makes you think him being here won’t attract Edea to us?”
“Sorcerer,” Squall corrected. He honestly didn’t care about the proper term, but the correction was bound to annoy her. “Sorceress is the feminine term.”
“Squall…” Rinoa whined, pouting at him, and Squall smirked. He hadn’t put her in as bad of a mood as he was, but he had certainly made her grumpy. It was a start.
“It doesn’t matter if he attracts Edea here, because we have to fight her no matter what, and he could be an advantage to have around if he learns how to work magic here. Our attacks barely fazed her, Rinoa, even before that shield appeared; you saw that. I fired my gunblade in her face, and she didn’t flinch. I didn’t even mess up her make-up!” Squall said, some of his frustration leaking into his voice, and he walked over to the window.
Leaning his forehead against the cool glass, Squall took a deep breath and let it out in an explosive sigh. “Edea might come after Harry because that portal he fell out of stopped her from stopping to us. She might come after him for his power.” Squall turned to face Rinoa again, and saw she was actually listening instead of ignoring him like she had last night. “But he might be able to help us kill her. He might be able to figure out how to break through her shields or stop whatever regenerating spell she has on her body. Nothing about this is a sure thing, but keeping him around is better than letting him loose and having Edea find him.”
“So we need him?” Rinoa asked, and Squall, after a moment, nodded. She threw her hands up into the air in frustration and stalked towards the bed Angelo was still sleeping on, not noticing how Squall started edging towards the door. “You can’t really believe that, Squall. You can’t honestly believe Cid or Martine would send you against someone who you can’t kill. They wouldn’t throw away your-”
“We’re mercenaries, Rinoa,” Squall scoffed, giving up any attempt to be stealthy and quickly walking towards the door. He knew what he was, and he was sick of her trying to romanticize it. Cid and Martine would have no problem sending him or any other SeeD into any fight; it’s what they had trained them to do. “We might take years to train, but we are disposable.”
“Squall…”
“Whatever. Just get ready to meet Irvine downstairs in,” Squall glanced at the clock on her bedside table as he pulled the door open, “fifteen minutes.”
“In what clothes?” Rinoa demanded, following him to the door.
Squall waved a hand at the pile of clean blue and black clothes sitting on the hallway floor by the door, and walked back to his room, picking up the stack of clothes by his door before going in. It was a childish thing to do, but he heard Rinoa calling after him, and he kicked the door shut, slamming it. He didn’t know if she was following him, but he felt slightly better at the idea he might have shut it in her face.
He tossed the clothes on the chair by the door, annoyed by his own behavior. He was a SeeD, a highly trained mercenary, and he was acting like a five year old. Yes, Rinoa was being annoying, and yes, Harry’s presence was complicating things, but he shouldn’t let two tiny problems bother him so much. Rinoa was his client, and that meant he had to put up with her no matter what. And Harry…
Squall frowned as he bent down and pulled the knife out of his boot. He had promised to kill Harry if his magic drove him insane, and that meant keeping him around so he would know if Harry lost control of his magic, making the Sorcerer his responsibility.
A self inflicted responsibility.
Squall hadn’t thought much of it at the time, nor had he when he began making plans to help him learn control, but now that he was seeing how Harry’s presence alone was affecting his life, he was beginning to realize how big of a job he had taken on. The only consolation was that Harry said he hated being dependant on others. Squall could only hope that drove the Sorcerer towards learning control quickly so he could leave him alone for long periods of time. He, himself, would go insane if he had to spend every waking hour with someone else. There was an annoyed huff in the back of his mind, and Squall amended his previous thought as he put on his belts and attached the knife sheath to them. He would go insane if he had to spend too long with someone besides Shiva.
“Squall?”
Squall spun around, one hand going to his knife, but he dropped it when he saw it was only Harry. He had hoped Irvine would have woken up when he slammed the door, but it was a small consolation to see Harry was somewhat alert and not too badly affect by the night before. If Squall had been in a better mood and Harry’s skin didn’t have the slightly grey tinge it currently had, Squall would have said the sight of Harry sitting in the middle of the twisted sheets and sleepily rubbing his eyes was almost cute. But with the way things were, Squall only felt relief that Harry looked like he wouldn’t need much more than a Cure spell or two to function later.
“Go back to sleep,” Squall ordered, walking towards Irvine’s prone form, and even in his current bad mood, he found the scowl, which looked more like a pout, Harry directed at him cute. Promising himself he’d get some sleep and get rid of his mood as soon as Irvine and Rinoa were gone, Squall reached out to shake Irvine awake, only to have Irvine grab his wrist in a tight grip.
“I’m up,” Irvine said, letting go of Squall’s wrist as he sat up. “I’ve been awake since you slammed the door.”
“Then get up. The train leaves in twenty minutes,” Squall said, already going back to the chair. He tossed Irvine’s clothes and leather duster over his shoulder, blindly aiming for the bed, and grabbed his shirt. He was half tempted to throw Harry his clothes as well, but Squall knew from personal experience sleeping in leather sucked, and no matter what anyone else said, they were going back to sleep once the others were gone. Pulling his shirt on, he said, “Rinoa’s going with you.”
“It wouldn’t help if I apologized for last night, would it?” Irvine asked rhetorically, and even though he knew the other man wasn’t expecting anything, Squall went ahead and answered.
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” he snapped, spinning around, grateful he finally had someone he could safely vent his mood on. “Harry asked me to kill him if he lost control of his magic, Irvine. You making it sound like a good idea for Rinoa to spike his drink with a hallucinogenic drug practically forced me to do that! And you know what worst part is? You two morons could have gotten all of us killed if he had finished that damn thing. I don’t know what part of our talk you overheard, but almost all of it involved magic of some sort, so you had to know he is a Sorcerer. Maybe I’m the only one here who learned anything during training, but if para-magic plus alcohol equals bad, then it shouldn’t be too big of a leap to assume drugs plus Sorcery equals dead.”
Irvine was sitting on his bed, frozen in the act of buttoning up his purple shirt, and Squall took a moment to enjoy his stunned expression. It was rare he let his emotions loose outside of a fight with Seifer, but when he did, it was always nice to sit back and watch people’s reactions. It didn’t matter if he smiled instead of smirked or yelled at someone like he had Irvine, no one ever saw it coming, and Squall always made time to enjoy the results.
But when Irvine didn’t start moving again, just continued to stare at him, Squall glanced at Harry to see what his reaction was and snorted. Harry was huddled down, trying to hide in the sheets, and looking at both of them with wide green eyes. Not feeling any magic in the air, Squall assumed it was shock, not fear, and turned his gaze back to Irvine. “You’re meeting Rinoa downstairs in three minutes. You might want to get dressed.”
Irvine slowly nodded and finished buttoning his shirt, before standing up to tuck it into his pants. He was still staring at Squall, but now he was shooting glances at Harry as well, a thoughtful expression on his face. Squall didn’t know what about his impromptu lecture had prompted the look, but it was obvious something had hit home. He didn’t really care what it was though. As long as Irvine didn’t do something that stupid again and left soon so Squall could pass out for an hour or two in a bed that didn’t smell like sweat, he wasn’t going to ask.
Irvine pulled on his boots and stood up, picking up his duster and hat as he did. He was almost to the door before Squall remembered to ask if he needed money for the train.
“Nah, I’m good,” Irvine said, opening the door. But instead of walking out, he turned around to face Harry. “I’m sorry for giving her the idea, kid.”
Squall’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and judging by how fast Harry sat up, he was just as shocked by the apology. “But you’re not sorry you didn’t stop her?” Harry asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.
“No, we deserve to know if you're a threat to us,” Irvine said. “I wouldn’t have found out you weren’t if we hadn’t.”
Harry nodded and smiled tentatively at Irvine. “Apology accepted.”
Squall frowned as he watched Irvine walk out of the room. What did he mean Harry wasn’t a threat? Until Harry learned some form of control or got a Knight strong enough to resist the pull of his magic and shut his powers down when necessary, Harry was a walking stack of explosives waiting for the right trigger.
“What does he mean I’m not a threat?” Harry asked, sounding complemented yet insulted at the same time. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s not going to do something like that again, but…”
“I don’t know,” Squall said, locking the door, and he walked over to the empty bed. He fell down on it with a relieved sigh and closed his eyes. “But do you really care?”
“I…I guess not. At least not right now,” Harry murmured. There was the sound of rustling sheets, and Squall cracked one eye open to see what Harry was doing. He rolled his eyes when he saw Harry was moving around on the other bed, trying to find someplace that didn’t stink of sweat.
“You can sleep over here,” Squall muttered, already moving to the other side of the bed, automatically putting himself between Harry and the door.
“You don’t mind?” Harry asked as he stood up. “I’m pretty sure I stink too.”
“It’s probably better if you sleep here in case someone comes in,” Squall replied, closing his eyes. He felt the bed dip down as Harry climbed in. “If you start floating again, I can hold you down.”
“I do not float in my sleep!”
“You did on the train.”
Tags: crossover, ffviii, hp, side effects, squall/harry