Chapter 98

A sharp ringing inside his skull snapped Harry awake. With a yawn, he blocked it out. "Want me awake particularly bad this morning, Loki?"

'It's not me.'

"Oh." Harry frowned. "Are we being attacked by a telepath?"

Before Loki could speak, he was interrupted by the ringing of a phone, about twenty-six times less loud than that in his head. Harry rolled around on his bed, grabbing around for it with no success. He summoned it and heard it bump against the bottom of the bed, before flying around the side and into his waiting hand.

"Hello, this is Dark Lord Harry. Can I ask who's speaking?"

"My Lord!" the voice on the other side cried. "The worldwide ward just activated in Greenwich—in London!"

"I know where Greenwich is, minion!" He hadn't. "Send me the address. I should probably get there as soon as possible."

The minion was silent for a moment. "Uh, there appears to be a problem."

"Is it your attitude? Because you're not sounding very optimistic right now.

"N-no, sir," he said. "The actual surge of alien energy appears to have happened… eight hours ago."

"Are you implying there was some kind of mistake in my warding?" There probably was, to be honest, whether by Harry's own hand or sabotage by the polar bears.

"No, it appears to have been a janitorial error."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"One of the janitors appears to have knocked the Tesseract out of place whilst cleaning."

"Did I not… secure it down?"

"He had to lift it up to clean under it. Accumulation of dust could've led to all kinds of problems."

"Like 8-hour delays in knowing of potential alien invasions?"

"Um, yes."

Harry sighed. While having an army of mind-controlled minions was useful, they weren't very good at following instructions—or rather, they were too good at following instructions. If you told them to clean everything, they cleaned everything, including the underside of incredibly powerful alien artefacts being used to power alien-detection wards.

"If I ask you to stop doing retarded things, can you follow that command?"

"I'm not sure, my lord."

"Can you try?"

There was a moment's hesitation. "Um, yes."

"Good minion," Harry said. "Pass the message on to all of your mind-controlled friends—especially the janitor who might've doomed the Earth. Now, I'm going to save the world."

A few minutes later, Harry arrived in Greenwich. To his surprise, it wasn't very green at all. The Vikings had probably named it Greenwich to confuse invaders, he thought. There was probably a very grassy place elsewhere called Stonewich, or Concretewich, or Mysterious-Appearance-Of-Alien-Energywich. Tracing down said alien energy led him to a decrepit warehouse that might've passed for one of his secret bases, if not for the lack of retarded minions milling about. Instead, there appeared to be a redheaded woman here, currently in the middle of a faceoff with some armed Muggle police officers.

Harry strolled up behind them, whistling merrily. "She's a redhead."

A police officer spun on him, his gun up. "What?"

"She's a redhead—not a ginger. I don't think you can arrest this one under the anti-ginger legislation that Dumbledore passed to finally defeat those dastardly unmanipulatable Weasleys."

Confusion flashed across the officer's face. "Step away, sir!"

"Rude." Harry strolled past him and backhanded him a few metres away when he tried to stop him. "Well, well, well, guvnor, what appears to be the issue here, then?"

The policemen all focused their guns on him now, yelling a barrage of things that he couldn't bring himself to bother listening to. One of them fired a taser at him and it bounced straight off. Harry flicked his hand and extended the wires, then set them winding about a group of five officers. They screamed and spasmed as it turned on, and the other officers opened fire.

Bullets peppered Harry and he stood there as they bounced off, tapping at an imaginary watch on his wrist. "Drop your guns," he said, when the thundering gunfire stopped, "or I'm going to eat all of you."

They appeared to be too busy reloading to listen to him, so Harry summoned all of their guns into a ball, then transfigured it into a single really, really big gun and aimed at the one who he judged to be their leader—he had the biggest hat.

"Run away, please."

They exchanged a few glances then legged it in various directions.

"You're welcome," Harry said, turning on where the woman had stood. She was gone. "Oh." He frowned, and set off following the energy signature once more.

He found the redhead cowering behind a car, her hands over her head. She looked quite human, for being an alien and all, and was dressed in normal clothes—not at all like the supergalactic space princess Harry had been hoping for.

"Hello," he said. "Do you come in peace?"

She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes.

"Me, Harry!" He pointed a finger at himself. "Me king of Earth." He feigned putting a crown on his head. "Do you"—he pointed at her—"come in peace?" He started to make finger guns and swords, but was interrupted as she spoke.

"Why are you speaking to me like that?" she asked, in an American accent.

Harry frowned. "Well, now I feel terribly racist. Your English is very good for an alien."

"I'm an American!"

He squinted. "An American human?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, sorry." He glanced around. "You just feel like an alien energy, you see. Are you sure you're not an alien with a very convincing disguise?"

She still looked very confused. "My name is Jane Foster. I came here to investigate an energy spike—and there were some weird gravity fluctuations. And—and I was teleported to another place. I know it sounds insane—but there was this black red thing and it rushed into me."

Harry hummed. "So you're like, half alien?"

"What?"

Harry reached out a hand to touch her head and a wave of blackness exploded outwards, catching him and flinging him backwards. He bounced eight and a half times against the concrete and slammed into a wall.

"Wow," he said, standing up. "That tastes like alien alright."