Rating:: T

Warning:: Bodies, aliens, Master Chief, sadness

Disclaimer:: Own Halo? More like I get pwned by Halo! I equal n00b. Also, it should be obvious by now that I don't own HP.

Note:: As everyone has probably realized from my disclaimers, I've been playing Halo and other video games a lot recently. So I ended up making a theory as to the floods origins and this appeared in my head.

BETA'D BY THE AMAZING LEMO. WORSHIP HER, DO IT! She will also be beta'ing OWAS and another story that hasn't been posted yet. 8D

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Prologue

Harry lifted his head from it's hanging position as the air lock hissed open. He had felt the distress of the ship as it was hit by energy blasts, had done his best to console the primitive AI that had run to hide in his mind. The AI was merely a child, one born from desperation and put in charge of the ships operations. It didn't know how to deal with an attack such as this.

"Seeker, I have been ordered to see you safely to a pick up point. Brutes have attacked our ship and it's no longer safe for you to stay here." The deep voice had Harry smiling. He remembered when it was cracking with puberty.

"What, no 'Hello' soldier boy?" The raven haired man asked dryly, shifting in his wired prison. "Well, if you're going to take me out, you have to disengage the ports. Do it properly, please."

Green eyes closed as the man began putting in pass codes. Then the wires screeched as they pulled viciously out of him. Harry didn't cry out, merely stepped from the grav-chamber that kept him suspended in mid air. "You haven't been to visit me lately soldier boy, you been to busy?"

The armored man turned his head to look at Harry, but didn't answer.

"Alright then, be silent. Now, come here and let me show you why your scientists are so keen to study me." Harry held up his hands, fingers splayed, and watched with a sharp smile as his escort approached cautiously.

Gently, almost timidly, the pale hands settled over green armor. Then, much to the soldier's horror, Harry dissolved.

"Seeker?!"

"Here, soldier boy. You haven't lost me yet."

The soldier whirled around, but the slightly hollow quality of the voice didn't give away Harry's location.

"Oh? They call you Master Chief now? Well, you're still a little snot nosed cadet to me." There was brief feeling of warmth in the soldier's suit. "And they've improved the shields since they stole them from me. How nice."

"Where are you?"

"I'm in here, with you. Think of it as installing an AI into your helmet. I see you've done it before. The only difference is, I can do this-" the soldiers whole suit began to walk calmly towards the door, despite his attempts to stop it, "-and an AI can't. But don't worry, I won't do that unless you are about to die."

The suit was suddenly under Master Chief's control again. The man didn't say anything, though he was terribly unnerved with this latest oddity. The ship rocked as another blast hit it and he decided that it didn't matter as much as getting out did.

"Oh, and John? I hope you played with my babies nicely. They were only searching for their Daddy."

Chapter One

Master Chief grunted as the shots from a Spiker hit his shield. It had been nearly a month since he'd retrieved The Seeker from the now fallen Phoenix-class ship, The Hold. The Seeker rarely spoke and had only taken over his suit once when they'd nearly been killed by a Hunter pair. The spirit, as he'd taken to thinking of the other person inhabiting his suit, had saved their lives with his incredible aim.

Dropping his empty submachine gun, Master Chief picked up a Needler that one of the dead Grunts had dropped. Jumping out from behind the crate he'd been using for cover, he shot at the Flood infested Brutes swarming toward himself.

The Needler ran out of ammo as well and he desperately searched for a weapon. Nothing. The Arbiter had vanished, likely held up by his own pack of Flood.

"You're being foolish."

"Not now." Master Chief growled, jumping away from a flailing limb.

"Hold still and I can help you."

"If I hold still I'll die." Another dodge and he punched the creature, grimacing as it exploded all over his suit.

"Have you forgotten that I am with you? Would I kill myself simply to see you dead?"

Master Chief didn't answer, busy trying to evade the growing number of Flood.

"This is ridiculous. Freeze."

The suit seized up, frozen in a fighting stance. The surface of the metal began to shimmer as Harry extracted himself from it. Eyeing the Flood, which was hesitating in it's attack, he sniffed in disdain. "Unruly children, going against me like this." He raised a hand and all of the weapons in the area, even the empty ones, rose into the air.

"Naughty things must be punished." He intoned, his voice deep and final. The weapons opened fire, decimating the Flood forces and clearing the way into the Flood infected Covenant cruiser. Harry turned and slipped back into the suit, unfreezing it.

"There now, wasn't that easier than smashing them with your fists?"

"How did you do that?" Master Chief asked, dropping into the ship and cautiously making his way through the biomass covered halls.

"I am energy, Spartan. Anything which it touches I also touch. I am life, I am death. Grave and Bed."

"What do you mean, Grave and Bed?" Master Chief didn't get an answer, as he came across Cortana's message.

Chapter Two

"Are you okay, Spartan?" The Arbiter asked, watching Master Chief jerkily adjust his suit.

"Yes, Spartan, are you okay?" The amused voice made Master Chief growl.

"Who's there?! Show yourself!" The Arbiter had drawn his sword and was searching the room, trusting Master Chief to take care of himself.

"Oh ho, how strange. A Sangheili hears me speak when your fellows are deaf to your plight." Harry laughed mockingly and stepped out of the shimmering suit. "Peace, Sangheili, I am a friend. I have been with you since the start of your unusual partnership."

"Who are you?" The Arbiter asked warily taking the cue from Master Chiefs lack of reaction and letting his sword hang at his side. He didn't put it away though.

"I am what the humans call The Seeker." Harry said. His airy clothing, appearing to be mere scraps of cloth used to cover the skin not surrounding the various ports that had been installed along his spine and chest, rippling strangely as he sat on one of the cramped bunks.

The Arbiter sucked in air, the closest to a gasp that Master Chief had ever heard. "You are the captured Forerunner?"

Harry smiled gently at him, shaking his head. "I am before the Forerunners, Sangheili. I am The Terrible Creator." Then he reached out and touched the metal wall of the Shadow of Intent and dissolved into it.

"Where did he go? Should I warn the Ship Master?" The Arbiter asked, recognizing Master Chief's greater knowledge of the entity he'd just met.

Master Chief shook his head and finished the modifications he'd been making to his suit. "Let him know that The Seeker has entered his ship, but don't worry too much about it. He doesn't have anything against Elites and doesn't really seem to mind humans even though we've imprisoned him for centuries."

The Arbiter stared at Master Chief for a moment, taken aback by the amount of talking he'd just done. He got over his shock, however, and followed him out of their small bunk.

Chapter Three

Harry stepped out of the insertion pod he'd bonded himself too and followed leisurely behind the Elites. He smiled as they fought with the flood, simply running ahead of some of it to get to their objective quicker. Collecting spores on his hand until they formed into a small, pulsing pod.

He deposited the pod onto a dead Elite's chest and watched as it dissolved into the body. The elite pulsed, signs of the Flood infection pushing through the skin, then settled. The body stood, stretching to make sure it had complete control, then knelt in front of Harry.

"Creator?" It whispered, hope in it's voice.

Harry smiled at it and reached out a hand to caress the uncovered head. It was a little deformed and the flesh had become the pale cream-gray of the flood, but it was still recognizable as an Elite. "Yes, but don't tell the Gravemind you have found me. I want it to be a surprise when I get there."

The Flood infected Elite nodded and stood. It took up a gun and followed Harry as he continued forward.

"You don't have to protect me here. I have nothing to fear on this installation." He said in amusement as his bodyguard stopped him from going around a corner in order to check for enemies.

"The Pre-Hosts have been killing the Imperfects. They are a threat to your safety." It replied, letting him continue forward once it was certain the coast was clear.

They continued on until the sounds of battle reached them. It moved in front of him again, but was forced to keep moving as Harry didn't stop.

Master Chief was killing off Combat Forms when his sensors alerted him to a threat from behind. He turned, found a more advanced form of the monsters he'd been desperately killing off, and fired his entire clip into it.

Strangely, the creature didn't attack back, though it had a Brute Shot in it's hand. Instead, it stumbled back and gave a distressed cry. Then, it spoke, called out in much the same way a Grunt would call for its commanding officers death.

"Creator! Help me, please!"

And, to Master Chiefs growing horror, Harry stepped out from behind the creature and petted it's chest. "Come now, it was barely anything. Look, your already healing. You were made from my spores; a little hit like that won't kill you."

It sniffled and crouched to cuddle under Harry's chin briefly, giving him a tight hug. "I'm sorry Creator. I'm not a good protector."

Harry smiled down at it, gently detached it from his body, then turned a disapproving frown on Master Chief. "Should I assume you weren't playing nice with them soldier boy? Shame on you, picking on them."

The Arbiter stepped up beside him "The Terrible Creator…you made the Flood, created it. And you set it on the Forerunners."

"They stole him!" The infected Elite shouted back, righteous anger coloring it's voice. "They took him from us and locked him away where we couldn't get to him!"

"I sent them out, told them to protect our galaxy as other races were beginning to get curious since our descendants had managed space travel and advanced technology." Harry explained, gathering spores on his hand again and walking over to a dead Brute. He let the resulting pod fall on it's chest and morph the alien into another guard.

It stared at him from the ground, then silently moved to stand beside it's brother. "They mistakenly attacked a new fleet of fighters that the descendants had kept hidden from the public. They looked much like the destroyer fleets of our enemies."

He sighed and brushed some hair out of his face. "Unfortunately, the only response that my spores could think of was to infect the descendants on board to keep them from dying. This, somehow, got back to the home world and they discovered that the Flood, as they called it, had been deployed by me."

"They went to his nest, stole him from the Gravemind. Hid him from our spores." The newly resurrected Brute growled.

"Because I wasn't there, the Gravemind decided that the only way to get me back was to wipe out the descendants. Over the years, the spores mutated and began to make imperfect forms. They deformed the host, could only latch onto baser instincts." Harry gently touched a dead Imperfect flood.

"And because the Flood was wiping them out trying to get to you, they created the Rings." The Arbiter said.

"Then they used the rings to wipe out the Gravemind." Master Chief finished.

Harry nodded. "Yes."

Master Chief raised his weapon, which had drooped to point at the ground during the conversation. "Then why did the Flood attack you before, when you helped me?"

"They are not able to distinguish anything but biomass. It is one of the defects of an Imperfect form. They do not feel pain, they do not comprehend danger, all they have is the urge to propagate the infection that feeds the Gravemind." Harry explained. "Now, let my Brute escort you to this Prophet. He will protect you, at all costs, until the rings are no longer a danger."

Master Chief and The Arbiter looked at each other, but didn't shoot at the infected Brute when it walked towards them. They followed it into the depths of the facility and Harry watched them go until they disappeared from view.

"Now then, let's visit the Gravemind." He said cheerfully, leading the way once more.

Chapter Four

Harry reached out to touch the Gravemind and smiled when it reacted to his presence by reaching several tentacles out to give him its version of a hug.

"Harry, you came. There were whispers, from the earth distraction, that you were coming." Harry petted the tentacles and laughed a truly joyous sound.

"Neville, you didn't think mere humans could hold me? Has your opinion of me fallen so far?" He asked playfully.

The Gravemind shook the entire High Charity with it's laughter. "No my friend, I was simply out of hope."

The ancient wizard nodded. "I can see that. Though, I don't really approve of you attacking the descendants like that. They scattered you terribly with their retaliation."

"I'm sorry, but I was desperate to get you back. Without you the spores were deteriorating and the Incubators were running out of power. I'm sorry, but the others…" The Gravemind trailed off and Harry hung his head briefly.

He'd been incubating seeds to plant over the graves of his other friends. They would have made various plant representation of them, given them the ability to interact with him once again. During the war with Voldemort the wizarding world's defenders had pretty much been wiped out.

Muggleborns had been enslaved, creatures had been hunted to near extinction, and the only two left had been Harry and Neville. It had been Neville's idea to transfer his consciousness to a specialized fungal infection that he and Harry had mutated to take over control of a person's mind. Harry had been partially merged with it as well, making it impossible for the fungus to infect him.

Later, once they'd defeated Voldemort, they'd found that the fungus also regenerated the deteriorating tissue in Harry's body. He'd been unable to age. Then, later, after the human kind they were used to had evolved, the fungus had evolved as well.

It had begun to scatter Neville's mind amongst the various organisms that it inhabited and had made Harry impervious to attack. It protected him and generated spores if an infected Host wasn't closed enough to protect him. The spores absorbed the energy of the attacks, morphing Harry's magic slowly to focus solely on energy manipulation and control.

His body had, essentially, become a construct of various energy particles and spores.

The ship rocked as Master Chief managed to overload the last engine. "We will be destroyed when they leave." The Gravemind said.

Harry smiled up at him. "We are old; it is not for us to watch over the next era of Earth. Are you all here?"

The Gravemind shimmied, the closest it could get to a movement of denial. "No, other parts of me are scattered. Should I call them back?"

"No, simply order their self destruction. They will carry out your wishes and we will finally be able to see everyone again." Harry turned to look at his infected Elite. "I am sorry that this had to happen this way. Would you like to rejoin the collective before the explosion takes place?"

It looked around, nodded, and the spores that had spread through the body condensed back into the fist sized pod. Harry plucked it from the Elite's chest and turned away from the body as it crumpled to the ground.

He dissolved the pod into individual spores, which rejoined with his body, and climbed up to sit atop the Gravemind. "Goodbye, old friend, see you on the other side." He dissolved himself, letting the individual molecules combust and destroy themselves.

The Gravemind let out a mournful cry that was abruptly cut off by the violent explosion of the ship and the Ring that had been activated prematurely. The Flood was gone, and with it an Era in Earth's history that would forever be forgotten.

The End

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Review and tell me what you think! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Taku