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Chapter One
The Overman

Published 3/16/2014

Author's Note: I'm working on the Wizengamot chapter of Mr. Potter Goes to Smallville, the confrontation between Harry and Lucius Malfoy, but this story popped into my head over the weekend and I decided to write it before continuing work on the Smallville story. Now I can go back and concentrate on that.

=ooo=

He appeared outside the great stone citadel, a building that had been raised in the name of tyranny and intolerance many years ago, and where thousands of witches and wizards from Europe, Britain and Scandinavia had been sent to perish, but was now prison to a single being, someone who had shut himself away over a decade ago, allowing mere mortals to cage and hold him. The world had marveled at the time, for the Overman had seemed invincible, unstoppable; he had held Europe in a grip of steel for over 50 years since the end of the second Muggle World War. That he surrendered that power, and his position as Reichskanzler of the European Union of Nations, had stunned the world. And it had all come about because of one man — a man the world knew as Harry Potter.

But Harry knew that was all a lie.

He walked slowly toward the building, a towering jet-black edifice, stopping at the entrance to look at the words carved over the iron doors of its entrance.

Für das Höchste Gut

the words read. "For the Highest Good," along with the Overman's symbol carved above them, an irregular pentagram with a stylized snake symbol inside. Harry looked away, thinking of the many lives lost inside these walls, and of the potential for real good that could be done in the world that was now being wasted.

He pulled his Cloak of Invisibility over himself. The men who guarded the Overman would never allow him to see the man, nor would the Overman willingly meet with him — he had refused all of Harry's attempts, through regular channels, to have a dialog with him. For a decade Harry had gone along with the Overman's self-imposed exile. Now, he had finally decided that he must hear for himself why the Overman had surrendered to him, and why they had both deceived the world into the thinking Harry had defeated him.

He moved forward cautiously, unlocking doors with a flick of his wand, and crept soundlessly through the corridors, climbing staircases of gray stone to the top of the tallest tower, where he knew the Overman sat, silent and brooding, as he had since he had entered this building 10 years ago after his "capture" by the great hero, Harry Potter.

To the world, Harry Potter was the Savior, the champion who had somehow defeated the Overman in battle in a remote section of Scotland after the Overman had flown there to kill him. He had managed to keep his wizarding heritage from the public, which had ironically made him even more renowned, for if the public knew that he could perform magic, or that there were more people like him, how they perceived him might be radically different. Though thousands of wizards had died under the Overman's hands, part of his effort to wipe them and other beings considered a threat to his rule off the face of the earth, the Muggles would not have accepted the idea of wizards among them. Just as they had feared the Overman, a being from the stars sent to Earth to rule over them, they would not have accepted wizardkind either. Muggles feared what they did not understand. That was why Harry had kept his true nature a secret.

He arrived at the top floor of Nurmengard Tower, with its single cell and lone occupant. There were no guards on this level; it hardly mattered, since the being inside the cell could leave at any time if he chose to. No mortal on Earth could stop him or stand against him — he had proven that countless times in the past, standing on the corpses of any and all who tried to defeat him. Harry pointed his wand at the door and the lock fell away, the bolt slid aside, and the door slowly opened.

"Ah, little wizard," a strong, deep voice inside the cell said to him. "I wondered when you would finally get tired of my rebuffs."

Harry stepped into the prison cell. It was nearly barren, with only a rude wooden table and chairs placed in its center, a cot in the corner, and an open toilet and shower in another. In one wall was a bare slit of a window, too small for even a child to crawl through, though that would have made no difference to this man. He could rip the entire wall apart if he wanted.

The man at the table looked up at him, a smile curling a corner of his mouth. He was black-haired like Harry a lock of which curled down over his forehead, with bright blue eyes that had not dimmed over the years. Dressed in drab prison grays, he nevertheless emanated a power and strength that Harry had immediately felt again upon entering his cell. Incongruously, he was wearing black horn-rimmed glasses, giving himself the appearance of a normal man. He put down the paper he was reading and gestured to the other side of the table. "Won't you join me for some breakfast?" His English was very good, with only a bit of German accent in his words.

Harry walked slowly to the table. There were two skillets in the middle, a large one that held several fried eggs, and one with sausages and cooked bacon in it. In front of the Overman a plate sat, nearly empty except for a few bits of egg and a half-piece of toast. The Overman gestured to an empty plate next to the skillet. "There's no more toast but you can use the plate if you want some eggs or sausage."

"I've had breakfast," Harry said shortly. He really hadn't, but the notion of sharing food with this man was repulsive to him.

"As you wish," the Overman shrugged. He scooped two more eggs and some bacon onto his plate, then took a few bites. "How have you been?" he asked between mouthfuls.

"Can't complain," Harry replied, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. This wasn't how he had expected this meeting to begin. He thought the Overman would be upset to see him — in fact he had hoped he would be. That the man had hardly seemed to notice his presence here in his cell, in the prison he himself had built to imprison and exterminate the wizards of Europe, was intolerable.

The man unexpectedly chuckled, then held up the newspaper. "Garfield is funny this morning," he said, pointing to the comic with his fork.

"Why did you surrender to me?" Harry asked suddenly.

The man across from him folded the paper and dropped it on the table, taking another bite of eggs before he said anything. "Right to it, then," he murmured, not looking at Harry. "Ah, little wizard, you were never a very happy person, were you?"

"Happiness was never very easy to come by while you were trying to take over the world," Harry retorted. "Answer my question."

The Overman didn't immediately respond, however; he sat absently bending and unbending the metal fork he was holding until the metal snapped in two. Dropping the pieces on his plate, he looked up at Harry. "I suppose, after all this time," he mused. "I should tell you why. Perhaps you deserve to know."

The man stood. He was an imposing height, over 190 centimeters, and the wrinkled gray prison clothes did nothing to hide his muscular physique. He began to pace, rubbing his square jaw as if trying to decide how to begin. Harry watched him carefully. If the man suddenly decided to attack him, there was nothing Harry could do to stop him — he could move with amazing speed. Harry had seen him dart across battlefields, covering dozens of meters in the blink of an eye. He could catch artillery rounds in his bare hands, and had torn apart tanks with no more effort the ripping a cardboard box. Even his eyes could destroy, like the gaze of the Basilisk, though instead of petrifying his victims the Overman's gaze burned them.

"I was an orphan, you know." Harry nodded; he had heard those stories.

"You made me one as well," Harry said, anger beginning to well up inside him at the thought of his parents, James and Lily, dead at the hands of this visitor from another world.

"Your parents opposed me," the man said, dismissing their lives as if they were of no consequence. "I honored them by executing them personally. And you were spared because you were a child."

Harry closed his eyes, saying nothing. What could he say to someone, some monster like this?

"My own foster parents, Johan and Marta Klein, were simple folk," the Overman continued. "When they found me inside the ship I came here in, they had no idea what they had come upon, a monumental event in the history of the Earth — its first extraterrestrial visitor! To them I was just a small child that had been abandoned inside an unusual metal container." He smiled at Harry. "They named me Curt, after a son of theirs that had died during the Great War, a son they missed terribly."

"I know all of this," Harry said, impatiently. "What I want to know is why you gave up."

"Patience," Curt Klein said. "After all, you are imposing on my hospitality, little wizard. It is only fitting that I should be allowed to tell this story at my own pace."

Harry shrugged, waving a hand as if to say, do it however you want.

"Thank you," Klein gave a small, mocking bow. "As I said, my parents were simple folk. When they discovered me they thought I was the answer to their prayers for another son. But they soon found that I was more of a nightmare, especially after I broke my father's arm when he tried to beat me for disobedience.

"By the time I was ten," Klein continued, "my parents were so afraid of me they broke their silence and reported me to the German authorities. I was taken from them and, once the Nazis learned of my abilities I was hailed as a wunderkind, an Aryan child prodigy worthy of the master race." Klein laughed hollowly. "Little did they know at the time just what I really was! I competed in the 1936 Olympics, little wizard. Did you know that?"

Harry nodded. "You were undefeated, as I remember."

"I was Hitler's pride and joy," Klein said, almost boastfully. "I beat Jesse Owens, demonstrating Aryan racial superiority. I lifted 500 kilograms in the weightlifting competition, a record that stands to this day!"

"Small wonder," Harry muttered. "Given what you are really capable of."

"True," Klein agreed, smiling. "But I was only 13 at the time."

"By the time I was 13 I had killed a Basilisk," Harry said. He unconsciously touched his right arm where the Basilisk's fang had punctured it. The Basilisk had almost killed him, he did not add.

"Yes, little wizard," Klein acknowledged with another mocking half-bow. "In that little school of yours up in Scotland, as I recall. I should have destroyed that place when Chamberlain acknowledged my rule of Europe."

"We would have fought you," Harry growled. He was becoming angry with the man's smugness. "Dumbledore would have beaten you just as he beat Grindelwald!"

"Ah, Gellert," Klein nodded. "He was the reason I first learned about your people. He had become one of Hitler's favorites, although at the time we did not know he was controlling der Führer through magic."

Harry knew Grindelwald's history, how he and Dumbledore had met each other in Godric's Hollow while Grindelwald was visiting his aunt Bathilda Bagshot, having been expelled from Durmstrang for excessive use of Dark magic. But between his time in Godric's Hollow and his duel in 1944 with Dumbledore there was almost no information on the notorious wizard. "So he joined the Nazis," Harry said. "That's interesting, considering what a wizard supremacist he was."

"Would it surprise you to know that his duel with your Dumbledore was the best thing that happened to me during the war?" Klein asked. When Harry looked at him inquiringly, he continued. "Until then the Führer had kept me away from the war, though I begged him to let me help fight the Americans who invading Normandy at the time. When Grindelwald was defeated his power over Hitler broke.

"As it turned out, Hitler was a much more disagreeable person when he was himself," Klein went on, wryly. "He was also not a very capable strategist or tactician, leading several German officers to attempt to assassinate him. The attempt failed, of course, but at that point I realized that Hitler was incompetent to control the Reich."

"That was when you decided to take over?" Harry asked.

"Of course," Klein nodded. "By then I understood that no one, no nation, could stand against my strength, my powers. No one in the High Command grieved Hitler's death — they understood that he had been a mere puppet for Grindelwald. The Reich would continue, but under a new Führer: me. By 1945 I had stopped the Allied advance, pushed the Russians back into Russia, and chased the Americans back across the ocean. When the Allies finally sued for peace, I had control of all of Europe again and had disposed of Mussolini, something Hitler should have done himself. I then became the ruler of all the peoples of a united Europe."

"With a new enemy added to the list of inferior species to be wiped out," Harry pointed out. "Wizards."

"Yes," Klein gave Harry a long, penetrating look; Harry wondered for a moment if he was planning to release heat beams from his eyes. But then Klein looked away. "I realized how dangerous you were, how much of a threat to the Reich you would pose if I allowed you to live in secret among humans. One wizard —" he held up a finger for emphasis. "One — had come close to controlling all of Germany, by controlling the Reich Chancellor! It was frightening, even to me." Klein resumed his pacing. "When I learned what Grindelwald had accomplished in secret, using German labor to build this —" he gestured to the room around them "— I realized I had to take up where he had left off."

"The destruction of all wizards," Harry said, his voice flat.

"Eventually," Klein said candidly. "I was not in the blind, mad rush Hitler — or perhaps Grindelwald, who was controlling him — was in to exterminate those who I saw as dangerous. But while Grindelwald had imprisoned those wizards he viewed as his political enemies, I viewed all of your kind as dangerous. Every wizard possessed the potential to control and manipulate entire governments. In fact, I was surprised your kind were not controlling most of the governments on Earth already!"

"Some wizards wished to rule over others," Harry agreed quietly. "Voldemort was one, for example — he was born about the same time you came to Earth, in fact, late in 1926."

"Yes, that Riddle fellow," Klein mused. "It was amusing to watch his efforts to overthrow your little shadow government in Britain." At Harry's inquiring look he added, "I am capable of seeing quite far, and my hearing is good enough that I could pick up your conversations even at this distance."

Harry looked shocked. "That information was never made public."

"I found it useful to keep some of my powers secret, even from my own people," Klein smiled. "While your so-called 'Lord' Voldemort made his title so feared that your people would not even say it aloud, I was able to hear whatever was being said about me from literally anywhere on Earth. That is how I knew, for example, what your parents were saying about me."

Harry's expression went cold again. "It was enough that you killed my parents," he said, his voice flat. "Why you chose to do the thing you've done does not interest me."

"I thought you wanted to know why I surrendered to you," the Overman said, staring intently at Harry. "Is that no longer true?"

Harry looked away, trying to control his building rage at this man who had made the entire world tremble in fear over his domination of Europe for 50 years. That had ended a decade ago, but Harry's troubles had just begun by then. His celebrity since the day Klein turned himself in changed his life forever. "Yes, I want to know that," he finally said. "It made no sense — you were winning. You had won. After your attack of Hogwarts nearly everyone there was dead — Hermione, Ron and all of Weasleys. Many of my schoolmates and teachers."

"I also killed Voldemort and many of his followers who were attacking your school," Klein pointed out. "So there's something of a silver lining there."

The joke wasn't amusing. "It was mere luck that his last Horcrux had been destroyed only minutes earlier," Harry told him. "Otherwise he would be nearly as immortal as you seem to be." The Overman had fallen to Earth in 1926, over 80 years ago, yet he still appeared to be in his mid-30s.

"That was Riddle's obsession, wasn't it?" Klein mused. "He wanted to live forever, as I recall. But while that was his desire, a desire so twisted that he deformed his own body into some grotesque creature, more snake than human, it has been my curse."

"If you want to be cursed, I can oblige you," Harry muttered.

"You know what I mean, little wizard," Klein said sharply; there was no humor in his voice this time. "I have lost loved ones, too."

"How awful for you," Harry said, no compassion in his voice for the man. "Can someone like you, who murdered or allowed the murder of millions and condemned nearly the entire world to living in the shadow of your existence for a half-century really feel love?"

"Is it so unbelievable, little wizard?" Klein asked, his voice gentler than Harry had ever heard it. But when Harry's skeptical expression didn't change, he sighed. "I will tell you something, Harry." Harry blinked; it was the first time the Overman had ever called him anything other than "little wizard."

"Shortly before I came to Hogwarts to kill you, I lost someone," Klein said, his eyes growing distant, as if he were looking elsewhere. "Have you heard of Eloise Lang?"

"She was a reporter for Tages Welt, the Metropolis paper that was your propaganda mouthpiece," Harry recalled. "What about —" intuition suddenly put everything together for him. "She was the person you —" he could not bring himself to complete the sentence.

"In secret," Klein nodded. "I could not put her safety at risk by making our relationship public. She was also the reason I stopped being Curt Klein after the war ended. She despised that person — she considered him a coward and a traitor to his race, though his very existence was the Führer's idea. He wished for me to walk among the German people, to observe them as closely as I could, and my persona as a reporter for Tages Welt made that possible. Hitler arranged that job for me with Per Weiss, the editor of the paper. Weiss teamed me with Eloise. She was not happy about that, though I was instantly smitten with her. She was a courageous, dedicated Party member in the 30s and 40s, when the war began."

Klein sighed heavily. "She died a few days before I came to Scotland. After she was buries I felt grief — and anger. When I looked northward, I saw you and schoolmates preparing to deliver the final blow to Voldemort, to vanquish him forever. You were so confident you would succeed, Harry Potter. Your optimism, your impending triumph against Voldemort … enraged me. I came to Scotland to put a stop to it."

"I see…" Harry murmured. "That explains the anger, the — killing — when you first arrived. But then you… just… stopped."

"Yes." Klein returned to his chair, facing Harry across the table again. "I was determined to break you as Eloise's death had broken me. I killed your friends one by one, trying to evoke in you the same despair that I felt when she died, leaving me alone in this world once again."

"And then you stopped," Harry said. "What changed?"

"I suppose I did, in some way," Klein said. He picked up the two pieces of broken fork from his plate, holding the pieces together. His eyes glowed red for a moment. The broken ends of the fork melted and joined together again. Klein blew softly on the fork and Harry felt a gust of cold air wash over him.

He held up the fork for Harry to see. "I can repair this fork, but I could never bring Eloise back, or make her young again. Perhaps, if I had understood more about your kind, I might have found a way to make El more like myself. There were several attempts in eastern Europe, during my rule, to make someone capable of fighting me directly, with powers like my own."

Harry nodded. He had heard of those attempts to fight the Overman using powerful, even Dark magic. But it was difficult to obtain a bit of him to use in a Polyjuice Potion — he was invulnerable, after all — and it was unclear whether it would even work, as even though he appeared to be, Klein was not human. The planet he came from was a mystery even to him. The ship he had arrived in had been confiscated from the Kleins by the Nazis; its location was unknown, or even whether it still existed.

"Still," Klein continued. "I had enemies enough, both in Metropolis and throughout the European Union during my rule. Not all of them were wizards, either — there were other people who vowed to topple my rule.

"The German underworld, centered in Metropolis, had plagued Hitler since his rise to power in the early 1930s. One of my tasks after the 1936 Olympics was to put an end to the criminal activity in our cities. It took many years for me to determine its cause — a single, diabolical man named Doctor Mabuse. As far as I know he is still at large," Klein added, broodingly. "No matter how many times I killed him, he always returned somehow."

"That sounds familiar," Harry said, with irony. "Perhaps you should have been looking for a Horcrux."

Klein glanced up in surprise, then chagrin. "Of course," he muttered in vexation. "The same thing your Tom Riddle used to keep himself alive! I never considered that!"

Klein's finger traced an unconscious pattern on the table, gouging the wood. "At least Dr. Rotwang was easier to deal with — he sent his robots to devil me, including one he managed to place a man's brain inside, along with a mysterious green element he had found that emitted radiation harmful to me. I made sure that element would never harm me again — I threw it into the sun."

Harry had heard rumors of such an element, and had even spent time and money having his agents search for it across Europe, Russia, and America. But if any more samples of it existed they were well-hidden.

"But that still doesn't explain why you surrendered to me," he said, reminding the man once more why he was here.

Klein frowned at him. "I thought I had, little wizard," he muttered. "I can never bring back those I killed, just as I can never hold Eloise in my arms again." His eyes became distant once more. "She could never understand why I still loved her after all those decades, as she became old yet I remained the same. If only there had been a way…" He put his face in his hands, shaking it slowly.

Harry reconsidered something he had at first decided not to do. He removed his wand from its hidden pocket. "Perhaps there is a way you can see her again."

Klein looked up, hope on his face, and saw Harry's wand. "What are you thinking, little wizard?" he asked, eyeing the long wand in Harry's hand. It was not the wand Harry normally carried; it was longer and of a different type of wood.

"This is the Elder Wand," Harry said, holding it up for Klein to see. "It's the most powerful wand ever made — it was said to have been created by Death itself, though we know it was created by one of the Peverell brothers, probably Antioch Peverell. They were three powerful wizards who lived many centuries ago.

"Dumbledore let me take it just before he died," Harry went on. "He was about to succumb to a curse, a curse that had been cast on one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. He asked me —" Harry stopped for a second, shuddering as he remembered his final moments with the old wizard. "He asked me to h-help him on his way, and to take the wand to use against Voldemort."

"And you did this for him?" Klein surmised. "You killed the wizard who was your friend and mentor?" Harry nodded. "I am impressed, little wizard. It seems you are capable of hypocrisy after all."

Harry bristled. "He was going to die anyway! There was no stopping that curse!"

"So you say," Klein retorted. "How convenient for you, then. But are there not wizards who are trained in medical spells and potions? Perhaps that wand in their hands could have saved your Headmaster somehow?"

Harry shook his head firmly. "You have to be the true master of the Elder Wand before its full power can be used," he argued. "No healer, no matter how much training or skill they possessed, could just have taken up the wand and cured Dumbledore's cursed hand!"

"And how does one become the wand's true master?" Klein inquired, blandly.

"You have to defeat the current true master of the wand," Harry explained. "Dumbledore had me disarm him by taking the wand from his hand as he tried to stop me. He was weakened from the curse so it wasn't that difficult.

"I also have this." Harry thrust his left hand forward. On his middle finger was a ring set with a single black stone, a stone with a crack through its middle. Etched into the stone was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows: a circle enclosed in a triangle with a line bisecting the circle, representing the Resurrection Stone, the Invisibility Cloak and the Elder Wand, in that order. "This stone gives me the power to return the dead to our world. Together, with the Wand and my Cloak, they make me the Master of Death."

Klein sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He chuckled. "Very interesting, little wizard! How many of your old friends have you recalled from beyond the grave with that little stone of yours?"

Harry shook his head. "None," he said. "The dead do not wish to return to our world. They are happier where they are."

"If you have never brought anyone back," Klein wondered, "then how do you know this?"

"It is part of the legend," Harry said. "Cadmus Peverell supposedly received this stone from Death, but it's more likely that he created it himself in order to bring back his love, who had died some time before. When she appeared she seemed to be suffering, and Peverell could not truly be with her. He killed himself in grief shortly after, so he could be with her again."

"A touching story," Klein muttered, but he was clearly skeptical. "It sounds like a wizard's notion of true love. But as for me, I would rather see it work than take your word that I will be happier 'over there' than I am here, in this cell."

Without a word Harry rose to his feet. He stepped around the table, removing the ring from his finger and placing it in the palm of his hand. "Eloise Lang," he said, looking into Curt Klein's eyes. He then closed his own eyes and turned the ring over in his palm three times.

Something happened, he knew, because he felt a coolness wash over him as Klein softly gasped. "Oh, my…" the man said, awe in his voice. Harry opened his eyes.

A blonde woman, young and beautiful, stood before them, a sad, serious expression on her face. She was more than a ghost, but less than a living person, Harry thought. It was as if he were looking at her through a thin veil, a veil that gave her the appearance of being fuzzy, indistinct. "Why have you summoned me, Curt?" she asked in a soft, sorrowful voice.

"El?" Curt whispered. "Is it really you?" he reached out for her but his hand stopped before it touched her, as if he were afraid. "Is it really you?" he asked again.

"It's me, Curt," Eloise nodded. "I have been waiting for you."

Curt lurched to his feet, towering over the apparition of his one love. He took a step toward her, but stopped again before reaching her. "I — cannot," he said, anguish in his voice. "I'm not getting older. You knew that." He spun toward Harry, his eyes glowing red. "Stop this, Potter! This is not Eloise! It is a wizard's trick! Stop this or I —"

"Curt," Eloise put out a hand. "You asked for proof. I am proof. Do you remember the last thing you said to me? You said, 'I will never love anyone as I loved you, El.'"

Klein turned back to her, his eyes returning to their normal blue color. He nodded slowly. "I…" he seemed unable to say anything more.

"Let it be your decision to come to me, Curt," she said softly. "I will wait for you, however long it takes." She faded from view.

Klein turned back to Harry. A lone tear had streaked his cheek. "Can you?" he asked, then swallowed as he tried to frame his words more precisely. "Can you send me to her?"

Harry nodded. "I think I can, if that is your wish."

"It is," Curt said. He turned toward Harry and stood straighter, as if preparing himself. Harry raised his wand.

"Wait," Curt said suddenly. "One last time," he said, smiling, then grasped the lapels of his prison shirt in each hand. He tore the shirt open, revealing his bare chest. "I am ready, little wiz — no. I am ready, Harry."

Harry nodded. He took a deep breath and spoke the words. "Avada Kedavra!"

The green light flashed, illuminating Klein's face, and he slumped to the floor, dead. Strangely, there was a smile on his face as he lay there. Harry put his wand away then walked over to the cot, returning with the blanket from it and laying it over Klein's head and shoulders.

He left the cell, not bothering to lock it, and made his way out of Nurmengard, now a prison without a prisoner to hold. He had come here to confront a monster, a creature that had tortured and killed thousands, including his parents. A being who, if circumstances had been different, might have helped humanity immensely. A being who, in the final analysis, became a hero with his death.

=ooo=

Author's Note: This story was inspired by Kim Newman's 1991 short story Übermensch!