[Emissary] Chapter 31 - Fidelius

“How did he escape from you?” Power Girl asked, the tone of her voice betraying how surprised she was. 

“I couldn’t infiltrate their base undetected. The place was protected by many spells. I had to break them, so I lost the element of surprise. Just when I was about to get to him, he teleported away.”

“. . . this is bad.”

Not only was the fact that the CIA had other sorcerers working for them terrible news but Roger Williams's escape was bound to kick up another storm. 

“I don’t want to suspect her, but I can’t help it. Could Zatanna be working with Cadmus now? She was awfully hostile yesterday.”

“That would be the worst. But let’s not jump to the worst conclusions right away,” Power Girl said. “Did you get the Cypher with you?”

At his nod of confirmation, she said:

“Head towards the control room of the facility. Insert that chip into the computer, and I’ll hack into their database. Maybe we can salvage some information from there.”

⁂

Once he returned to Paradise Island, while Astrid was still sleeping, Harry sat next to Kara and watched how she went through the data she had hacked and downloaded from the CIA’s base. 

“So far, it looks like Nightwing wasn’t lying about ARGUS. They’re really planning on making a public organisation like a police force of metahumans. They got the Vice President on board, and they already received government funding. . .” Power Girl said. 

Her fingers were like a blur over the keyboard of her laptop, and the screen was flashing so quickly that Harry couldn’t understand a thing from what she was doing. 

‘Kryptonians really are something else, huh?’ he inwardly mused. 

“I found some footage from the base where they used to hold Doomsday,” Kara suddenly said.

She clicked on a program, and the screen was split into 20 smaller screens, each showing different parts of the facility. If that wasn’t already hard enough to keep track of, she also sped the video up to the maximum speed that her software allowed her. 

It was to the point where things were moving so fast that Harry could not understand what was going on on one screen, much less 20. But Kara’s eye did not miss a thing. Her brain’s ability to process things was superhuman. Proof of that was that 25 minutes into watching the CCTV footage, Kara suddenly stopped and said:

“Found it.”

She clicked on the video playing on the left part of the screen and played it in fullscreen at a regular speed for Harry to see it. 

Four men dressed in black futuristic-looking combat suits appeared in the hallway and entered the door where Doomsday’s body was being kept. 

“They never left that room,” she said and she increased the playback speed to the maximum again. 

“Did they teleport away?” Harry asked.

It made sense. After all, the head of the CIA himself had teleported that night too. 

“We have to warn the rest of the Justice League,” said Kara. “Doomsday is already highly resistant to magic and immune to Heat Vision, and putting a beating on him won't work anymore either after his fight against Superman. If the government somehow finds a way to control him and sics him on the Justice League, we’ll be in deep trouble. We have to come up with a plan and prepare for it.”

A pensive look appeared on Harry’s face. 

“At worst, I could always portkey him into the deep space,” he said. “But that won’t solve the problem.”

“Could you throw him in the Sun maybe?” she asked. 

“I’ve never been there, so I doubt I can make a portkey to send him there. . . no, wait, you may be onto something. It’s not safe to teleport via Appariton or Portkey to places I’ve never been to before. But we don’t care about safety here. If his body gets splinched by the faulty teleportation, that’s perfect. . . Something wrong with what I said?” Harry asked when he noticed a strange look appearing on Kara’s face.

She left her laptop on the table and stood up, her entire demeanour oozing anxiety. 

“No, it’s not you. Rao, please don’t let this be true!”

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t understand what had suddenly gotten her to act like that. 

“They took Doomsday's body and hid it away. . . but what if they took Superman’s body too?” Power Girl said.

Harry jumped up to his feet as though electrocuted. 

“Let’s go there right away.”

He pointed his wand at her, transforming her black dolphin shorts and her sleeveless tank top into her usual Power Girl costume. Then he picked up a pencil from the table and turned it into a portkey. 

A second later, the two of them teleported to the other side of the planet, in the middle of Metropolis City, in front of the monument that was raised as a homage to Superman and the place where his coffin lay. 

Considering that in Europe it was well past midnight, it was 6 pm in Metropolis. Only a few days passed since the Man of Steel’s death, and the Mausoleum erected in his honour was still crowded with people from all over the world who came to pay their last respects at his grave or simply wanted to visit the place and admire the enormous, golden statue of Superman as tourists. 

Emissary’s and Power Girl’s sudden arrival caused hundreds of people to gawk and point fingers at them. 

The two of them quickly took flight to avoid the crowd, but the people cheered for them enthusiastically nonetheless. 

Power Girl had always been eye-catching and immensely popular due to her strength, beauty, and relationship with Superman, but, after turning the time back over the entire New York City, Emissary had become a legendary figure in the minds of the American people too. 

“Emissary! Emissary!"

“Power Girl! Look here!”

“Emissary, you rock, man!”

Ignoring the loud shouts of the fans below, Power Girl used her X-ray vision to check the contents of Superman’s coffin inside the Mausoleum. 

“He’s not there. His body is not there, Harry!”

Despite her anxiety, she kept her voice low, not making a scene. 

⁂

A few hours later, after ample use of Invisibility and Confundus Spells, and after breaking half a dozen laws in the process, Harry and Kara broke into the closest police station and accessed the CCTV network, specifically, the footage of the surveillance cameras installed in the park holding Superman’s Mausoleum. 

Unfortunately, they couldn’t find the footage they were looking for. It had been deleted. 

Normally, the CCTV footage would be saved for at least 30 days or longer before it was removed. But Superman’s funeral took place not even a week ago. That made it clear to them: it had not been an automatic procedure. Someone had deleted the footage on purpose. 

Harry let out a cuss word, and Kara ran her hand through her hair, seemingly just barely holding in her frustration. 

Once they erased their tracks and left the police station, Power Girl flew to the rooftop of a tall building and sat down on the edge, taking a moment to breathe in the cool air of the night and calm herself down. Despite being late at night, the centre of Metropolis City was still bustling with life, with hundreds of cars and people moving about. 

Harry sat next to her, and, after a few seconds of silence, he said:

“Maybe it wasn’t Cadmus who took his body.”

She looked up at him, and Harry continued.

“If they had taken Superman, we would have definitely found mentions of it in the database you hacked.”

“That’s even worse. If Cadmus took him, at least we’d have an idea where to start looking for him. But if some other criminals kidnapped his body, we have no way of finding them until another clone pops out,” she said.

Harry put his hand on top of hers. 

“Like you told me earlier, let’s not jump to the worst conclusions straight away. What if it was someone else who took him away? What if it was one of the good guys who just wanted to keep him safe, out of the villains’ reach? It could have been someone like Doctor Fate. Or Aquaman. Or, I don’t know, even Supergirl.”

When Harry mentioned Supergirl, a sudden idea flashed in Power Girl’s mind. 

“The Fortress of Solitude!” she exclaimed. 

Having gone through Power Girl’s memories a few days ago, he understood what she was talking about. 

“Superman has a place like that in this world too?”

Kara stood up, flying now, looking as though she had been reinvigorated. 

“Yes, he does. I know it’s not much of a lead, but it’s a place to start. Let’s go there now!”

⁂

Seeing as the Fortress of Solitude was located at the South Pole, in Antarctica, Harry teleported with Power Girl to the Watchtower from where they took a Javelin to travel there. 

Power Girl herself did not need to travel by Javelin (she could’ve flown there by herself), but Harry did because his flying spell was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with her. As for teleporting himself, he could not do that since he had never been in that place before. 

That said, half an hour later, Kara landed the Javelin at the base of the Fortress of Solitude, and then she and Harry came out. 

It was minus 60 Celsius degrees outside, and Harry’s teeth started clattering mere seconds after coming out of the spaceship. He cast the most powerful Warming Charm he could on himself before running after Power Girl, who had walked ahead. 

Ahead of them, a pyramid of ice about the size of the Louvre Pyramid glinted blindingly in the sun, its brightness further enhanced by the snow-covered fields around. If not for how cold it was, Harry would have marvelled and spent a lot more time admiring its beauty.

Taking the lead, Power Girl was the first to enter through the strange gates which looked like they were made of ice. 

“I’ve never been in this fortress before, but it’s just like the one I know,” Kara said. 

Harry stared at his surroundings, quite impressed by the alien architecture of the place, its icy aesthetic, and the futuristic tech he could see everywhere around him.

The inside of the fortress was so much warmer than outside. It was actually a bit warmer than the room temperature. The extreme change in temperature gave him a runny nose as if he were a child.

He was in the middle of blowing his nose in a napkin he had conjured when Kara suddenly stopped in her tracks. 

“Harry, look at that!”

He Vanished the napkin and raised his head to see what she was pointing at. 

A spaceship was floating in mid-air, bathing in a sun beam protruding through an opening in the ceiling of the pyramid, and right below it was a man who was floating just the same. 

His black hair, tall and extremely muscular physique, and the red and blue suit with the large S he was wearing left both Kara and Harry frozen in stupefaction. 

“Kal? Is that you?” Kara asked as she slowly flew closer. 

The man’s face was slightly different from Superman’s. It was more angular and had sharper features. With her superhuman sight, Kara noticed those details too, and she also noticed the yellow visor-like glasses he was wearing. But her hope was making her ignore them.

The moment she arrived in front of the sun beam that the man and the spaceship were bathing in, a small, oddly shaped robot that looked a little similar to Earth’s pop culture’s traditional depiction of aliens flew in front of her and spoke in a clear female voice, in English: 

“Greetings. Kal-El is unavailable as he has just started his revitalisation cycle. Thank you for your patience.”

Harry looked at the robot and then at Kara. 

“Revitalisation cycle? What’s that about? Does it mean to say that Superman is still alive?”

Power Girl took on a pondering face. She had lived on Krypton for the first 16 years of her life, so she knew plenty about her homeworld’s tech and culture. 

“I’ve only heard about it before, never seen one. But I know there was a procedure through which soldiers and other military personnel wounded in battle were healed. . . I never imagined I would see it here, on Earth, or that Kal owned that sort of technology himself.”

She flew past the robot, intent on going to the spaceship above to check its contents when the man floating in the sun beam suddenly opened his eyes and aimed his hands at her. 

“Kara!” Harry shouted in warning, but if he could react to it, it goes without saying that she could too. 

A yellow energy blast formed in the Superman costumed man's hands but Kara smacked the beam away with the back of her hand. 

The Superman-lookalike flew at her, his face twisted with anger, and tackled her, slamming her into the slanted walls of the pyramid and making the entire place shake. 

But Power Girl grabbed him from the back of his neck and kneed him violently in the face. Having dazed him with the vicious knee strike, she slammed him down, making a crater with his body into the floor. 

She wasn’t content with that and flew down, intent on stomping on him from above. 

The Superman-lookalike quickly rolled aside, avoiding her stomp, and flew up, punching her in the chin and sending her flying into another wall, making the entire fortress shudder again. 

“A little help here?” she yelled at Harry. 

“I can barely follow you guys with my eyes,” Harry said while holding his wand and looking for a chance to intervene. 

The two of them were so fast that he couldn’t risk shooting. He didn’t want to hit Kara by mistake instead. 

“I won’t let you harm the data matrix!” the man shouted as he flew at Kara again to punch her head in, but her eyes glowed crimson and her heat vision nailed him in the shoulder, sending him flying back. 

He righted himself in the air before he could crash down, but that proved to be a mistake because the Kryptonian woman suddenly appeared above him and smashed both her hands down like a hammer, slamming him down again, this time even harder than before. 

Recognising an opportunity when he saw one, Harry threw a Stunning Charm at the man who was just about to get up from the crater. 

The spell hit the Superman-lookalike squarely in the back, and he started wobbling and stumbling as if he were drunk, his body becoming blurry, as though he were a ghost. 

“What the hell is that?” Harry asked and prepared to cast another spell. 

“Wait, stop. It’s a hologram,” she said and flew down in front of the man. 

The Superman lookalike tried to lunge at her again, but Harry’s spell had destabilised his focus/physical body.

Kara easily caught his fist and slapped his face hard with her other hand. 

“I’m not here to harm Kal-El. He’s my cousin, so stop attacking us or you’ll be the one to destroy this whole damn place.”

It was either her slap or her words, or maybe it was the combination of both, but it seemed to calm down the Superman-lookalike and he stopped attacking. 

“I am the Eradicator,” said the man. “I was programmed by Jor-El to keep Kal-El alive at any costs, all the more so because he is the last Son of Krypton.”

“Does that mean that Kal is alive?” she asked in a hopeful voice. 

“I have just started his revitalisation cycle. This is a lengthy process that will take at least 6 months, but he should make a full recovery.”

After that, Harry got lost in the conversation as Kara started asking all sorts of tech-related questions and the Eradictor answered in kind. 

But, as far as he could tell, the gist of it was that Superman was in that small spaceship and he wasn’t truly dead but in a sort of coma. Also, the Eradicator was a super-advanced Kryptonian program that was feeding ion radiation to the comatose Superman to heal him. 

It sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie, but Harry shrugged his shoulders. At least his girlfriend knew what was going on and seemed okay with it. That was good enough for him. 

⁂

After getting the Eradicator’s promise that he would not leave the Fortress of Solitude and that he would inform Power Girl immediately if anything were to go wrong, Harry and Kara prepared to leave. 

Before going out into the cruel cold, Harry stopped and asked:

“What will you do? Will you let the others know that Superman is still alive?”

She didn’t reply right away, thinking deeply about it. 

“I’d love nothing more than to tell them but I’d rather not risk the secret getting out. Big mouths like Hal Jordan or the Flash could let the bird slip by accident and then it would be a disaster.”

Harry frowned. 

“Shouldn’t we at least tell Supergirl about it? And maybe Superman’s parents too?” he asked. 

He knew better than anyone what it felt like for people to keep important secrets away from him. It did not sit well with him to let the young girl remain oblivious to the fact that the sole blood relative she had in this world was actually alive, not dead as she thought. 

When Kara hesitated, Harry pressed on. 

“Imagine if you were in Supergirl’s shoes-”

“Alright. . . ” Kara said with a sigh. “You’re right, we should let Kal’s family know.”

“If you’re worried about the secret getting out, I have a solution,” he said. “There is a spell, a powerful concealing charm that would make this place vanish as if it had never existed. The government and their satellites won’t be able to find it. Not even other magicians like Zatanna or Constantine will be able to find it. So even if they do find out that Superman is alive, they won’t be able to mess with him.”

“That sounds amazing. What’s the drawback? I don’t know much about magic, but I do know that such powerful spells usually have a downside, a price that you have to pay.”

“There are no real downsides to it. If you become the Secret Keeper, you will be the only person who can find this place and let others know of its location. Nobody can tear the secret from you through force, regardless of whether they tried to read your mind or torture you.”

The Fidelius Charm required a very powerful wizard to cast and some serious mental focus, but it wasn’t a real challenge for Harry. A few minutes after talking it over with Kara, he cast the spell and the pyramid of ice seemed to vanish from his sight.

Now, only Power Girl knew its location. Nonetheless, she was quick to share the Secret with him. After Harry had read her mind and helped her regain her memories and go over the trauma of her past, Kara trusted him almost more than she trusted herself. 

⁂

Days passed and, eventually, Harry, Astrid, and Kara had to leave Paradise Island. 

Kara’s holiday came to an end, and she returned to her company. Furthermore, now that she had regained her Kryptonian abilities, Kara was part of the Justice League once again. Other than her day job, she also had to fight crime in her free time. 

Fortunately, Wonder Woman was quite considerate of her circumstances and tried to call Power Girl only when the League needed some serious muscle or when they were understaffed. 

In the meantime, Harry was just as busy as Kara, if not more. 

In order to keep the Justice League functioning until Cyborg and Mr Terrific finalised their teleportation system, Harry had to create dozens of Portkeys every day. 

Moreover, he had to tutor Astrid in all sorts of subjects such as ethics, geography, and maths. He also had to teach her good manners and the common sense of the society she was going to be a part of. Normally, children would learn such things gradually, over the course of many years, but Astrid did not have the luxury of taking things slow. 

Aside from supporting the Justice League and educating his little daughter, Harry was also busy working on the magical artefacts, the charmed jewellery he wanted to enchant for Kara and Astrid. Coming up with the Arithmancy formulae that would satisfy the numerous activation conditions for the spells was a real headache, not something that could be achieved in a day or two. Every day, he was busy from the moment he woke up until he went back to sleep. 

‘At least the CIA didn’t reveal to the public the fact that I had broken into their base. . .’ he thought absent-mindedly while taking a small break from his research and sipping on a mug of green tea. 

In truth, it was a big relief not to deal with another PR mess. But on the other hand, worry was gnawing at his mind. 

‘Just why is Roger Williams keeping my attack on their facility secret? Is he scared that the Justice League will reveal to the public that the CIA lost Doomsday’s body? Or does he have something else to hide?’

He didn’t like being in the dark about his enemies, especially when it looked like they had some considerably skilled magical users on their side. 

⁂

While Harry was taking a small break from his Enchanting research, little Astrid was watching a cartoon on Kara’s laptop. It was an animated series about 5 girls who transformed into witch fairies and used elemental magic to fight against an evil king. 

The old, one-eyed orange cat was curled up in her lap and purring like a little engine while the little girl was stroking his fur gently. Unlike his dislike for Harry or Kara’s coworkers who had taken care of him while they were all away, Stinky adored Astrid. 

Naturally, Kara had restricted Astrid’s access to the internet, but she did not forbid her from watching cartoons because she knew that the little girl needed an occupation. Her parents could not be with her the entire day, not even Harry, who was, pretty much, a stay-at-home dad. 

With little Astrid not having any friends other than the Amazons, who never left their island, she was bound to get bored. Watching cartoons was a nice little activity for her to pass the time. 

The episode suddenly paused without Astrid doing anything, and a chat bubble appeared from the bottom right corner of the screen. 

“Hello. Are you there?”

Intrigued by the unusual chat bubble (she did not have a social media account or any sort of messaging application), Astrid clicked on it. 

“Who are you?” she typed and sent the message. 

Three dots appeared at the bottom of the window, signalling that the other person was typing. 

“I am your friend.”

“Are you from Paradise Island?” she typed quickly, excited at the prospect of talking to her Amazon friends.

“No, I am your friend, Eugene. I used to work in the place you were born.”

Astrid’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. She did not know what to type for a while. 

“I don’t remember meeting anyone there other than my father.”

“. . . What father are you talking about? You don’t have a father.”

"I definitely have a father! My father is Harry Potter! He told me that bad people stole me when I was born. If you worked at that place, then you must be one of the bad people too!”

Three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen again, and Astrid had to wait for a few very long seconds before the other person replied. 

“Is that what they told you? Hahaha!”

Whoever was texting her also sent 3 emotes of a laughing with tears face. 

“Why are you laughing?” Astrid sent. “Nevermind, I’ll just stop talking to you!”

“No, wait.” 
“Don’t you want to hear the truth?” 
“And I mean the real truth, not whatever lies they’ve been feeding you.”

“My dad would never lie to me!”

“Oh really? Is he really your father though?”

Before Astrid could type an angry response, the other person quickly sent another message. 

“If he’s your father, why do the two of you look nothing alike?”

“Mum told me that children don’t always look like both parents.”

It was a question that Astrid had asked Kara too while they were on Paradise Island and Harry was not around. 

“Really now? Not even a single trait? Eye colour, skin tone, facial features, personality traits, hair. . . there is nothing of Harry Potter in you.”
“He is not your father.”
“In the first place, you don’t have any parents at all.”

Angry to the point where she was almost tearing up, Astrid wrote furiously, with caps:

“YOU’RE LYING! I DON’T KNOW YOU WHO ARE, BUT IF I FIND YOU, I’LL BEAT YOU TO A PULP!”

“Your reaction proves that, deep down, you must’ve suspected it too. Don’t tell me you’ve never asked yourself why you have no memories from before the moment when you woke up in that pod at Cadmus?”

Although Astrid did not type anything in return, the other person kept sending her messages:

“If bad people really kidnapped you as your so-called parents told you, should you not at least remember something from your life before that?”

“Hey, Astrid, are you still on? Are you still seeing this?”

“You know, ignoring me won’t change the truth.”

“The truth is that you are not who you think you are.”

“What do you mean? Who am I?” Astrid typed, but she hesitated to press the Enter key to send the message. 

She was afraid. She was afraid of what the other person might tell her next. Afraid of finding out something that she did not want to be true. 

In a corner of her mind, a voice told her to close the chat bubble and go back to watching the cartoon from before, but something was keeping her from actually doing it. 

In the end, she pressed the Enter key, and the other person’s answer came instantly as if they had been writing it beforehand. 

“You are not the daughter of Harry Potter and Kara Zor-L. You have no parents. You weren’t born from the union of two people. You were created in a laboratory.”

“You are not Power Girl’s daughter. You are her clone.”