Starlight

AN: I'm stuck on chapter six of the Butterfly effect, because I've reached a point where there's just nothing happening for a while. For those of you who are interested, there's a spoilerific one-shot in the male/male section called Final Haven.

***

My life
You electrify my life
Let's conspire to re-ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive

*

"It is my firm belief that this project will advance the race of mankind throughout not only our own solar system, but in time, the entire galaxy."

Hermione Granger smiled proffessionally, and replaced the microphone into it's stand in the podium before her. She reorganized her notes, and allowed the applause to die down before continuing.

"I'd really like to introduce my friend and the pilot of the Phoenix Project's baby, Ophiuchus. Everyone, Harry Potter!"

The applause raged again as the famous fighter pilot-turned-astronaut took the stand. Hermione stepped back, smiling proudly. They'd worked hard to get where they were, and she wouldn't have traded it for the world.

"Uh, first of all I'd like to thank you all for coming out here on a day like today. It's perfect for a launch, but I can't imagine that it'd be very comfortable standing out there in this heat. Secondly, I'm very honoured to have been chosen for pilot of the Ophiuchus. There's not a whole lot I can tell you that Hermione couldn't do ten times better, so I just want to close by saying thanks for the support!"

The crowd roared it's approval; it was public knowledge that Potter wasn't much of a public speaker. He was, however, motivational when he chose to be, and people flocked to him. Ron Weasley, long-time boyfriend of Hermione, and Harry's second-in-command for the Ophiuchus mission, handed him a bottle of water after he'd stepped down to allow other people to explore the art of speech-making.

"Thanks, mate," he said gratefully, and emptied half of it over his hair. "Reckon we'll be able to get into the air? Or will these Mother Earth nuts keep us grounded?"

The Mother Earth Association was a group of people who despised the idea of Space Colonization beyond the Moon, and Mars, and the few of Jupiter's moons that had stations on them. They argued that humanity had been born on Earth for a reason, and that to extend farther than that was over-reaching beyond their grasp.

The Ophiuchus Project had had some trouble from them in the early stages, but they'd been mostly quiet; Harry saw this as suspect, and wondered what they were planning for the launch.

"Mate, you're making things up. Nothing's going to go wrong; there's so much security on this thing that I'm surprised the crew got in, much less these fools in the audience."

"Point," Harry said, nodding in Ron's direction. "Alright, so there's not a whole lot that can go wrong. Murphy's Law, though, applies directly to my life. Anything that can go wrong, will. And it will go wrong in the worst possible way."

"At the worst possible moment," Ron added, scowling darkly as the Quantum Physicist for the trip beamed brightly at him. Draco Malfoy, the only son of a prestigious family, was a reported prodigy, who'd graduated from Oxford at the age of sixteen. He and Harry weren't on the best of terms, but his family and Ron's were old enemies.

"Hello Doctor Malfoy," Harry said politely. Ron said nothing, which under the circumstances, was probably wisest.

"Hello Potter," Malfoy returned, politely distant. He cast a sneer in Ron's direction, and then ignored him completely. "Are you ready for the trip?"

"As I can be, I suppose," Harry answered honestly. Truthfully, the idea scared the hell out him. He'd never been out of the System before, and the thought of Inter-System travel through unexplored star regions was terrifying. Anything could go wrong, and with his luck, most of it would.

Still, the technological and scientific advances that could be made on this trip were astounding.

They were scheduled to return ten years to the day, Earth Time. They would actually be spending hundreds of years aboard the ship, but would only age by a few, themselves; the magic of the light-speed regulator, and the positronic gravitational-distortion drive twisting time around them.
*

Settling into the ship was like coming home; he'd been training for nearly five solid years for this trip. Malfoy was strapped into the seat nearest his, with Ron in the seat farthest from Malfoy, and there were additional scientists scattered at computer consoles on either side of the trio.

"Harry, can you read me?" Hermione's voice rang out through the speaker system, and Harry connected the video feed to the message. Hermione sat in her chair at Central Control, smiling.

"Loud and clear, Hermione. All systems clear."

"Launch zone is empty, you're clear for take-off. T-minus ten minutes, boys. Buckle up!" She flashed them a thumbs up, to which Malfoy rolled his eyes but made no comment. Harry grinned back at her, and set the video controls to the ships log. Everything that went on would be recorded, then sent back and analyzed. After checking that the power guages and pressure meters were still running smooth, he began feeding power to the engine, feeling the smooth purring under his feet as the ship readied itself for take-off.

"Launch in five minutes, Harry," Hermione called through the radio, and a countdown began in earnest. Harry leaned back in his seat, sighing.

Please let this go well, he prayed, directing it to no one in particular. Anyone who would listen, he usually claimed, when asked to whom he prayed.

Five minutes passed quickly, and he pushed the large spacecraft into the air.

"Godspeed, Harry," Hermione whispered, and the radio connection switched to one of her underlings.

Confident in his abilities as a pilot, Harry smoothly guided the Ophiuchus through the dense atmosphere of Earth, and into orbit. They would circle once, to ensure that there were no leaks or anything that would create problems in deeper space, and then slingshot around the sun, using its gravity to gather enough speed and force for the light-speed jump they'd need to make in order to get into hyper-space. Once in hyper-space, they could cross dozens of light-years in a relatively short period of time. Also, at light-speed, their gravity would be distorted into itself, creating a paradox in which time would stop entirely for them inside the ship. Outside the ship, months would fly by in minutes, and then the return to Earth would be made in ten standard years.

Harry didn't understand the mechanics of it; he knew which buttons to push to keep it moving, and which levers to shove to get out of the way of space debris and sudden astroids. The flight itself would be no more difficult than driving a car, and that was something Harry felt fairly proficient in.

"Captain, the atmosphere has been breached, and we're clear of Earth. Maintain speed until our altitude minimum of 175k has been reached." Ron reported, grinning at Harry. Harry grinned back, nodding.

"Will do, mate," he said, coaxing the enormous craft into the proper position to continue the journey. It was smooth sailing.

Piece of cake, Harry thought confidently.

*

The jump into hyper-space was made without problems, but it was shortly after they'd entered into the wildly unpredictable "zero" space that alarms began going off. Harry could find nothing wrong, and he and Ron were the only ones still left on the bridge; most of the crew had retired to their cryogenic tubes, to sleep away the worst of the voyage.

"Ron, what's going on?" Harry was frantic, checking everything he could reach and trying to figure out where the leak was. "Ron?"

There was a strangled noise following a solid but muted 'thump' and Harry turned to his best mate and second in command. The red-head was slumped over the panels he'd been working on, unconscious or dead. There was a small tube protruding from his neck and Harry's eyes widened before focusing on the doorway, where the dart must have originated. For one horrible moment, he was afraid he'd see Malfoy, but the blond doctor was nowhere in sight; instead it was one of the MEA, the Mother Earth Association. Harry put a name to his face a moment later.

"Blaise Zabini!" He shouted, angrily. "What the hell do you think you're doing here? You'll be sent to prison for the rest of your life when we get back to Earth."

Zabini laughed, a high, maniacal noise. "We're never going back to Earth, Potter," he threatened, waving a small handgun menacingly. Harry supposed that this was where the dart had originated, and hoped to hell that it wasn't loaded with anything more dangerous than a tranquilizer. "Your crew is dead, your ship is broken, and you're stuck in hyper-space until it shoves you out, or else you'll die too."

A gas flooded the bridge, and Zabini pulled a gas-mask over his face. Harry tried to hold his breath, but to no avail; he needed to breathe, and when he did, the gas pulled him down into unconsciousness, his last thought for his ship and the men and women who'd left their friends and families to join him on the Phoenix Project.

*

The next time he opened his eyes, he felt violently ill. He didn't immediately recognize his surroundings, but the presence of a urinal was enough to motivate him off whatever he'd been laying on to vomit into it. After emptying the contents of his stomach into the basin, he sat back and looked around.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Potter," came a quiet drawl. A door shifted open to his right, and light flooded the small cubicle. "I was afraid you'd never wake up, and then I'd never get home."

"Mal-" His voice cracked, and he found a bottle of water shoved into his hands. "Malfoy?" he tried again, taking a slow sip.

"He did a lot of damage," Malfoy said dispassionately. There was sadness in his eyes, however stony his face and cold his voice. "Not many people survived, and a lot of the ones who made it aren't fit to do anything."

"What did he do?" Harry rubbed the back of his head, feeling a knot there the size of an orange. He winced, and Malfoy frowned, gesturing him to lean forward.

"You may have a concussion," he said, in the same tone that one might hear from someone explaining the presence of dog vomit. "That's bad, I need you to fly this metal monstrosity. We've got to abort the mission, and get back to Earth. No one expected an attack like this, and we just don't have the medical facilities to care for everyone, especially if you and I are the only two who are well enough to do anything."

"What did he do?!" Harry demanded again, hauling himself to his feet by grasping the pipes on the urinal. He realized that he was in one of the holding cells in the bowels of the ship. They had been added to make sure there were no problems, the threat of being confined enough of a deterrant to most of the crew without actually punishing them.

"He ripped out most of the navigational equipment. The power system's still on, but only just. I think we may be running on a generator, but no one prepared for this, and I'm not very technical anyway. All of the cryo-tubes were destroyed; upwards of fifty people dead. Weasley, Weasley, and Lovegood are in the medical bay, but are just near worthless - it seems he used a slow-acting poison in the three of them."

Ron, his brother Charlie, and Luna Lovegood were Harry's 'underlings' Ron, as Commander, fell right beneath him in rank, with Charlie following as Lieutenant Commander. Harry felt pain in his chest just thinking about them being dead. He'd hand-picked the three of them from the ranks of Air Pilots that he'd risen from, and they'd been granted rank status as a special favour to him.

"That's it?" he asked. "Everyone's dead except for you and I, and Ron, Charlie, and Luna?"

"That's it," Malfoy said, and turned half-way away. After a short pause, he turned back and put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Potter... I'm sorry. I know you're close to them. We have to get them back to Earth and proper medical treatment."

Harry gripped his hand, grateful for the support. "I can't fly this thing alone, Malfoy. I need your help."

Malfoy looked a little bit wan, but agreed. "Just tell me what to do," he said.

*

The first thing that needed to be done was to clear the damage. Harry and Malfoy carefully took the cryo-pods from their casings and dragged them into the cargo bay on stretchers. The glass showing their faces was still frosted over, but the names were etched into the metal above it, and Harry noted each one.

Once the morbid task of turning the cargo bay into a morgue was complete, the two men set about clearing the debris from the halls and bridge where Zabini had simply hacked into the plastic and metal computer system and cut cords and ripped out equipment.

The task took nearly all of one day. Malfoy went to check on the three in the infirmary, while Harry raided the well-stocked pantry. It had been stocked to feed fifty-five people for years, and it wasn't likely that they'd run out any time soon. There were more than a few things that were meant to be part of bigger meals, and Harry looked at it sadly. Dean Thomas had been the cook, and he was damned good at it. Harry spared a small moment of silence for his memory, and that of the rest of his friends.

The two mobile bodies on the ship met on the bridge for a meal.

"It's so hard to believe..." Harry said, looking out into the inky blackness before them. "I just don't understand, why are you and I ... alright?"

Malfoy sighed, taking a sip of his tea. "I believe - and this is just a personal theory, so don't quote me - that he kept you in good shape so that you could pilot the ship if you were needed to. I have no doubt that he would have coerced you at gunpoint. As to myself, well... we were old friends in school. Before he became mad with this MEA thing, and long before I joined with the Phoenix Project. I'd like to think that our old friendship is what lead him to spare my life."

"Oh." Harry stared moodily into his tea, unsure of what else to say. After a long silence, he added, "Where do you think he's got to, anyway?"

"The ships log, what's left of it, said that just after the attacks, a life-pod was launched. I believe he may have set himself out into space for some reason."

"But you don't know? So he could still be on the ship somewhere?"

Malfoy shook his head, and turned to the computer console a few feet away. He tapped a few keys, and a three-dimensional holograph appeared, showing the ship as a wire model. Inside were five dots, three in the infirmary and two in the bridge.

"This shows living things on the ship. It was supposed to have been checked before we left Earth's orbit, but I suppose that whoever did it didn't bother to count. Fifty-five small orange dots can be confusing, I suppose, especially in close quarters."

Harry nodded mutely. "Well, I'm going to bed," he offered, and rose, dropping his dishes and the remains of his meal into the trash chute nearby.

"I'll be right across the hall from Captain's quarters, Potter," Malfoy offered, turning his chair to look out into space again. Harry nodded, despite the fact that Draco could no longer see him, and left.

*

Three weeks into their voyage, Harry found himself laying under the navigational console, trying not to bash it into submission.

"Can you hand me some sort of twisty-thing-" Harry's vague request was cut off by Malfoy shoving a wrench onto his chest. "Thanks," he said, and continued trying to pry the seal off of the delicate electronics in order to fix them. They'd been drifting aimlessly, although without thrust or gravity to act upon them, Draco insisted that they were probably not moving more than a few feet a day, if that.

Harry wasn't quite sure when Doctor Malfoy had become Draco, but he thought it was sometime after Luna's death. Ron and Charlie were hanging onto life by a thin thread, and Draco was afraid it would break at any moment. They'd been made as comfortable as possible, and for the two left alive and in good health, life went on.

Harry made a disturbing discovery nearly a week after the Disaster, however, as they discovered the location of Zabini. He'd been found in the cargo bay, hanging by the neck; he'd been there a while.

Finally, the panel fell loose into his hand, and he crowed in triumph. "Aha! Gotcha, sucker." Finally inside, he could see where the damage had been done, and knew almost immediately what could be done to fix it. He set about doing so, and became immersed in his work.

It wasn't until a tap on his leg came that he realized that he'd been entirely too focused on his task.

"Are you almost done in there, Potter? Lunch has passed, and it's nearing supper time, and you don't seem to be slowing down."

"Well," Harry said, pulling himself out from under the console. "I made some progress, at least. It's no longer completely unsalvageable."

"How comforting," Malfoy said dryly.

*

Weeks passed. The ship drifted onwards slowly, while progress in the repairs were made much quicker. Harry smiled more, and he was even able to coax a real grin out of Draco every so often. The only black spots in the time they spent drifting aimlessly through space were the deaths of the two remaining passengers, Ron and Charlie Weasley. Harry was thrust into a depression that not even Malfoy could shake him out of, and nearly gave up repairing the ship altogether.

"Potter -- Harry -- You've got to fix this thing. We've got to bring them back to the others, and bury them." He coughed then, and it shook him. Harry looked up into storm-grey eyes, and nodded once.

"Alright," he said, and work continued.

*
Starlight
I will be chasing a starlight
Until the end of my life
I don't know if it's worth it anymore
*

Harry had nightmares sometimes, great screaming ordeals that woke Draco from across the hall, and sent him climbing into Harry's bed to soothe them.

It wasn't long after this that they began sleeping together full time, and neither was surprised when sleeping in the same bed transformed into spending a lot more time in bed without doing much sleeping.

*

"God, Harry! There.. uagh... Again!" Harry twisted his fingers against Draco's skin, smirking through his hair.

"I told you you'd like it," he said smugly. Draco gasped.

"Bastard... Stop talking!" The blonde scientist rolled him over, and began convincing him that talking was over-rated after all.

*

The ship had seen enough repairs to make the journey back towards Earth, and the two passengers piloted it happily, spending their days exploring the empty expanses of space and their nights exploring each other.

They maybe fell a little bit in love, during those long hours with no one but themselves, and it became something of an oasis. The trip was completely uneventful, but Draco's cough became worse almost daily. Finally, when he began coughing up blood, Harry was told how serious it really was.

"Without medical attention, my lungs will begin to collapse in on themselves and will eventually cease to function," Draco explained, the lofty 'scientist' tone back in his voice, replacing the 'lovers' tone he'd been using.

"But... you can't die, Draco, we have respirators, we'll just keep you on them until we reach Earth. The sensors, Draco... Draco, we'll arrive within the month! You can't just give up now!"

The blond shook his head, and coughed. "I can't, Harry, I'm sorry."

*

The fight that occurred after this conversation sent the two of them to opposite ends of the ship for the next two weeks. It wasn't until Harry, sick with grief and apologies, went to reconcile, that they spoke again, and by then it was nearly too late.

Draco was barely able to talk, and his breath wheezed in his throat. "Harry, 'M sorry. Sorry. Loved you."

"Shh, Draco, don't talk. It's alright. I love you, too. It's alright, we'll make it. Just take this, breath into it."

He shook his head. "too late. i'll... wait....for you..." he whispered, and Harry watched the light fading from his eyes. "Good bye."

"No!" The pilot slammed his hands down on the bed. "Not good bye! DRACO, Don't you dare! Don't leave me..."

He coughed once, violently, and was still.

"No..."

Harry spent countless hours simply sitting next to him, numb to everything. An alarm sounded throughout the ship, and the mechanical voice of the computer sent fresh waves of sorrow through him; in a fit of mischieviousness, the two of them had reprogrammed the computer to sound like Draco.

"Milky Way Galaxy Approaching," his lover's voice rang out in the empty halls. "Please return to the bridge for manual piloting."

*
Far away
The ship has taken me far away
Far away from the memories
Of the people who care if I live or die
*

Harry sat down in front of the camera, Draco's body behind him on the stretcher. He turned it on to record, and watched an image of himself flicker to life on the screen in front of him. Draco's hair was visible behind the chair.

"My name is Captain Harry J. Potter, Pilot of the HMSS Opiuchus, for the Phoenix Project. My crew and I set out on the journey into Uncharted Space for the Advancement of the Human Race into the Universe, or AHRU. Shortly after leaving the orbit of Sol 3, we were attacked from within by a MEA agent by the name of Blaise Zabini. The majority of the crew were killed in their cryo-tubes."

He sat back, closing his eyes as he remembered those months past. When he opened them again, he could see the pain swimming just beneath the surface of his green irises, and wondered if they'd see what a toll had been taken on him in the video recording.

"The survivors of the first attack were Luna Lovegood, Ron Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and myself. Luna, Ron, and Charlie were incapacitated by poison, and died shortly afterwards. Zabini was discovered hanged in the cargo pit. The ship, which had sustained damage at Zabini's hands, was unfliable, and we spent many weeks repairing enough of the damage to return to Earth. We had come within five lightyears of Sol, when Malfoy succumbed to an infection in his lungs."

Harry couldn't suppress a quiet sob, catching his breath in his throat. "With Malfoy.. gone... my will to carry on has left me. I leave the ship, and everything on it, in your capable hands.

"Godspeed, Hermione."

He flicked off the recording device with a push of a button, and buried his head in his hands. Draco looked pale and peaceful, even in death. There was no sign of the wracking cough or muscle tremors that had plagued him in the last few days of his life.

Harry programmed the autopilot to land the ship in Heathrow Space Port, the same one they'd left from however long ago it had been. Stroking Draco's face, he smiled softly.

"You said you'd wait for me, love. You'd best keep your word."

Steeling his resolve, he pushed the stretcher supporting the body of his lover into the tiny escape ship. He arranged Draco's limbs carefully in the seat, and kicked the stretcher back into the ship-main. He checked the auto-pilot one more time, and then settled into the escape ship to wait.

*

When at last he saw the familiar planets of Saturn and Jupiter on the horizon, he set the escape ship away from the Ophiuchus, and navigated it quickly towards the star at the center of the system. The pods were meant for quick get-aways from exploding ships, and it's small size allowed it faster motion. He saw it always behind them, but increasingly smaller. Soon, the gassy giants were behind them both, and he allowed the autopilot to avoid the asteroids in the thick ring of them between Mars and Jupiter. The red planet flew past, and soon Earth came into his view. Harry memorized the way the clouds looked against the blue of the oceans, and the way the sun dazzled him as it rose briefly above the curved horizon of the planet. He ignored hailings from the Earth as he sailed past it, headed unerringly towards his target.

As the monstrous ball of gas grew larger in the view-screen, he pulled Draco's body close.

"Together always," he whispered, and kissed his hair. "My life was blessed to have you in it, my love."

The searing heat became too much as the small ship plowed into the corona, and they'd been burned to ashes before it even reached the chromosphere.

***

Hermione waited as patiently as she could when the Ophiuchus began slowing in the atmosphere. She watched it on radar until it became visible in the sky, growing ever larger.

They were nearly five years earlier than the projected mission parameters, having been gone for only five years. It was a long five years, however, and Hermione was grateful to have it ended. She was the first one out onto the tarmac as the giant star-ship came to a halt, not far from where it originally took off from. The hull remained closed, however, and there were no joyous faces at the windows.

Worried, but trying to brush it off as nothing, Hermione called open the doors by remote, and donned the special suit that had been designed to withstand free space. Entering slowly, she left out meters to guage levels of poisons in the air.

To her surprise, they were higher than they ought to have been, and there was still no one in sight. The vidscreen was blinking, and she pressed play.

Harry's face, drawn and tight with anguish, appeared before her, and as he explained, she felt herself beginning to break down. They were all dead, every last one of them.

"Godspeed, Hermione," Harry breathed quietly, and she sobbed. When Molly and Arthur Weasley boarded after she didn't return to report, they found her crumpled in a heap on the floor.

"Hermione, dear, what's wrong?" Molly knelt beside her, putting a gloved hand on the shoulder of Hermione's suit. She looked up, and shook her head.

"I have to get off of this thing," she said, and climbed slowly to her feet. "Please continue the investigation without me." She pointed to the video screen, and fled.

Molly pressed play, and together with her husband, watched the terse report from their adopted son.

Molly, like Hermione, felt as though she was about to fall apart. Unlike Hermione, she kept it together. "Let's see what they've left," she said, and Arthur kissed her.

"Molly, you don't have to do this. We can get someone else."

"Arthur, I've lost nearly my entire family to this ship. I have to do it."

Charlie, Ron, Percy, and Ginny had all been crew-members who, according to Harry, had perished in-flight. She went through the ship with Arthur at her side, documenting everything. When they found the make-shift morgue in the cargo-bay, she nearly had to turn back. The faces were indistinguishable through the glass now, but the names remained untarnished. She found her children grouped together near the back with a small memorial set up, with some paper flowers laid across their glass coffins.

"God bless you, Harry Potter," she whispered, and they retreated from the abandoned ship.

***FIN***

Hmm.. My very first attempt at a sci-fi fic. I'm still working on Butterfly Effect, I promise. I do have some news, however, in that I'm moving from one state to another within a week of this being posted, and I don't know how long I'll be without internet. More updates probably to be posted in my profile.

The lyrics are from Starlight by Muse. (OMG DOWNLOAD THIS SONG!!) XDD If you can't, I'll be putting up a link to it from YouTube. GO LISTEN!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=q-c94VVU7zc (The music video. I haven't watched it all the way through - youtube hates my computer.)