A Call to the Dark City (Delve/Mother of Learning/HPMoR/Mage Errant Multicross)
- Thread starter Berix
- Start date
- Crossover
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
As a result of this fanfic I have now devoured the entirety of Delve. =0
Though, after reading Delve I'm not entirely sure if inverted Immolate should extinguish Dream Fire. Dream Fire is supposed to be closer to a fire shaped targeting reticule than actual fire in how it actually works.
Though, after reading Delve I'm not entirely sure if inverted Immolate should extinguish Dream Fire. Dream Fire is supposed to be closer to a fire shaped targeting reticule than actual fire in how it actually works.
The entire reason she uses dream fire is because she has fire magic enhancing tattoos. if fire enhancement interacts with it, then why would fire suppression not also do so?
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A little bit from both sides.
For Mage Errant, Talia's tattoos force her to try and fit a square peg through a round hole, or rather a dream shaped peg through a fire shaped hole. She manages it, but it's still inherently dream mana.
For Delve the offensive auras work by exciting the ambient mana. Heat mana for Immolate. While never spelled out right, presumably the inverted form suppresses the ambient mana.
I'm not sure that Dream Fire would create Heat mana or Fire mana to suppress.
Back in chapter 13 there was something that confused me.
Is Zorian now a parsiltouge, did the soul marker make him a parsiltouge? Can erestu mind mages cheat the system and grant themselves parsiltouge like this?
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
To my understanding, he's not one himself, but when he's mind controlling the snake anything the snake hears and / or anything he has the snake say is subjected to the truth telling requirement.
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Typical GPS devices don't actually communicate anything to the satellites - instead, they use the signals from the satellites to triangulate their position. So there's not really an idea of 'connecting' to GPS, and (unless the device your using has some other connectivity) it wouldn't be visible to anyone that you were using it.
MIT School of Engineering | » Could a GPS device reveal my location to others?
engineering.mit.edu
That's awesome! I'm happy to be able to spread some of my favourite stories.
I won't weigh in on the other questions, but I will note that inverted Immolate has not actually been used to put out dreamfire in the story - all we know is that Rain believes it would be able to.
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That makes sense. My other question is can he give this to other pepoeple. Like if a mind mage did what he did with Harry with him, can they proliferate that marker.
Also, can Zorian use mage erent mana? I know that his souls produces only basic mana, but if like Talia's dream mana if she gave it to him?
GPS doesn't "connect" in that sense.
I forgot how Phinoes in HPOMOR chose their champions, but Zorion Kasiski might fiit. He may think of himself as a little antisocial, but he wouldn't really turn down the chance to help in a lot of situations if you were his friend or even associate. He may not try to solve society's problems without prompting, but when push came to shove, he put all of his effort into stopping the invasion. 'But he's a mind mage, well what he didn't do counts to, he may use it on his enemies, but he never did any deep modifications, even when it might be crucial to stopping the invasion, and he didn't even steal magical secrets from experts that were not his enemies.
17 - Suspicion
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Harry
"Hold it right there, lad."
Harry stopped walking, and looked across the dewey grass of the Quidditch pitch at the two figures standing a dozen metres away.
Alastor Moody looked old.
Even less of his scar-ravaged flesh was visible than the first time Harry had met him. Well-worn body armour covered his body and limbs, leaving only his weathered face exposed.
Sensing his environment with his carbon-affinity was slowly becoming second nature to Harry. He wasn't quite at 'MRI-on-demand' level, but he could 'feel' a shocking amount of detail about most organics. Moody's body was far from ordinary - aside from the brutal scarring and the chunk of his nose that looked like it had been carved away, he was missing an eye, and both his left foot and a good part of his left arm were entirely gone, replaced by prosthetics.
The phoenix called out once more from its perch on the woman's shoulder. The song pierced the dawn air, warm like the morning rays of sun that were just visible over the nearby hills. It cut through Harry's pent-up emotions, through his fatigue (for he hadn't been able to sleep since passing Jupiter's orbit), and a resolute strength began to spread through his limbs.
I don't know you yet, phoenix, but you're right. I've been gone far too long. There are things I need to do, to make up for lost time.
With the courage the bird-song lent him, he raised his head and looked the one place he hadn't looked yet - into the eyes of the woman on whose shoulder the phoenix rested.
Hermione Granger looked back at him. Her face had changed in the intervening twenty-eight years, but not as much as it ought to have. She was an adult now, but beyond that, Harry couldn't see any clear markers of age. Her thick, dark hair was loosely bound into a ponytail, and her robes were a plain black, without mark of status or station.
Her expression reminded him a little of Dumbledore - calm, steady, with the smallest hint of a smile - yet somehow also grave, as if the weight of the world's failings rested on her shoulders.
Before he could say anything, she spoke, in a terribly familiar voice that almost brought Harry to tears. "What was the first question you asked me?"
Harry answered, almost on autopilot. "The types of quarks. And where I could find a first-year girl named Hermione Granger. Up, down, strange, charm, truth and beauty, and right in front of me."
A half-smile flickered across the woman's face, and she continued.
"What was the last thing you gave to me?"
"The true cloak of invisibility, the Deathly Hallow passed down from Ignotus Peverell to his heirs, first me, then you. And this," he paused, fumbling for the bag at his side, and withdrawing a wand of dark-grey wood, "is its brother, the Elder Wand, once Dumbledore's, now mine. It should go some way toward proving my identity, which I presume is the purpose of these questions."
There was enough carbon in the wood of the wand, and it was just barely light enough for him to gently float it across the gap between him and Hermione, with no movement or spoken incantation on his part.
Hermione caught it out of the air, and examined it closely before passing it to Moody. The auror touched it gently with his own wand, and a shower of red sparks emerged from the tip. He glanced at Hermione, and nodded once.
"This isn't the first time 'Harry Potter' has returned, then?"
Moody grunted in assent. "None of the others came in a spaceship, though. That part is new." He tucked the wand back into his own robes rather than returning it.
"Is this space secure and quarantined? We've been offworld."
The woman nodded. "The quidditch pitch is shielded, as are we." She gestured with her wand, and a collection of what looked like small badges floated out of her robes and across to Harry and the visitors. "Please wear these devices. They're enchanted to create an impermeable barrier and prevent cross-contamination."
Harry clipped it to his robes. An almost imperceptible barrier sprung up just outside his clothes and skin, and he breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't going to unwittingly introduce some virulent plague to his homeworld. Behind him, the others followed suit. Mackerel, for his part, swallowed his badge immediately, but it seemed to function regardless, because a slightly shimmering shield came into being around the crystal spellbook.
Harry took a deep breath. "No-one with a phoenix on her shoulder could ever truly be my enemy, so even if you're not who I think you are, you're still a friend. But I should make sure. Who was responsible for the cleansing of Azkaban, and how was it done?"
"Officially?" Hermione took a step back. "The perpetrator of the attack on a secure Ministry facility remains unidentified." Her hand slipped smoothly along the wood of her wand. "Unofficially? The chief suspect is Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, acting from beyond the Veil. Expecto Patronum!"
A humanoid figure of light appeared before them, and silvery light spread out across the quidditch pitch. Harry couldn't hold himself back anymore. He ran forward, and wrapped his arms around Hermione Granger, who gently embraced him in turn.
Hermione was tall now - Harry found himself hugging her torso, although he couldn't quite feel her through the barrier surrounding his skin. There was a moment of silence, then she bent down to whisper into his ear.
"Harry, why are you still twelve?"
He let out a shaky half-laugh. "Uh, that's a bit of a complicated story. We have a lot to catch up on, although I have a bit of an advantage on that front - I've read a bit of what I've missed about your life in some books and newspapers." He stepped back and looked across toward Moody. "I don't expect you to be convinced of my identity yet - in fact, if you were, that would be a reason for me to distrust your identity. That being said, there are some wheels that need to start moving as quickly as possible. First, we-"
Moody cut him off. "Who are they?"
Harry blinked. "Oh, right."
Behind him were (he had to quickly re-count, since Zorian rarely had the same number of simulacra) eleven people, and a flying crystal spellbook.
"These are some aliens I met along the way. Well, he's not an alien, I suppose, I think he's originally from Canada. Is that right?"
Rain waved a hand, his bearded face visible due to his current lack of helmet. "It's good to meet you both. I'm Rain, Captain of Ascension. I prefer to think of myself as aligned with Ascension now, rather than any Earth nation. I hope we can work together to improve both of our worlds."
Hermione's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. "And the others?"
One of the simulacra stepped forward and raised a hand in greeting. "I'm Kael, this is Xvim, that's Alanic, and that's Benisek."
Harry raised his eyebrows. That was the first time he'd heard Zorian speak English. Some words were a little oddly pronounced, but it was still quite clear and understandable. His accent was a curious mixture of Harry's English accent, Rain's North American one and Zorian's native Ikosian.
Harry went on. "This is Artur, Alustin, Godrick, Hugh, Sabae and Talia. And the spellbook is Mackerel - don't leave books unattended around him, he has a habit of eating them." One by one, the Anastans smiled and waved in greeting - although they couldn't understand English themselves, they had clearly put together what was happening, and knew what to do when they heard Harry say their names.
He looked up at Hermione. "They're all good friends of mine, and a few of them I'd trust with my life." Glancing across at Moody again, he went on. "That being said, I expect you to require some degree of tactical report on the unknowns. As far as I'm aware, no-one here has the capacity to seriously threaten the existence of magical civilization on Earth, at least not within a timespan of less than a day. Rain has the most raw power, and he could destroy a city in a matter of minutes. However, what I know of his morality suggests that this is extremely unlikely to occur. The others are capable combatants in their own right, but are largely likewise also held in check by their sense of morality. I don't expect them to be staying on this world for longer than a few days."
Moody's combat-ready stance shifted slightly, his wand still held pointing loosely in their direction.
Harry continued. "I realise our arrival likely comes as quite a shock. You must have a lot of questions, and they will be answered soon. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity, and has the potential to reshape many worlds for the better."
"Now, we need to act quickly. First, I need to see Amelia Bones and my parents, and an expert in medical transfiguration - were you able to cryonically preserve McGonnagall's body? Then, I also want to speak with the foremost experts on Portkeys and magical teleportation you can find on short notice."
Moody began muttering into a small communications mirror he'd produced from his armour, and the words Harry could hear sounded like they related to the requests he had made.
In the momentary pause, Rain stepped forward, and spoke directly to Hermione. "I need to understand something. Your civilization has medical magic far ahead of what non-magical Earth has access to. Is that right?"
Hermione stepped forward and offered Rain a hand to shake, which he took. "I'm Hermione Granger, Head of Magical Law Enforcement. This is Alastor Moody, my second-in-command. Yes, medical magic tends to be superior to Muggle techniques."
Rain's expression had cooled, and was now blank and unreadable. "Then why are there still more than seventy thousand deaths a day from heart disease and cancer alone?"
A sudden chill fell across the gathering, and Harry turned to look up at Rain. He hadn't mentioned this in the Inconceivable, why now?
Moody was the first to respond, having stowed his communication mirror again. "It's not that simple, boy."
Rain narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head toward Moody. Something imperceptible changed, and a wave of pressure spread out from Rain - not physical pressure, it was something else Harry hadn't felt before. His heart felt like it was being crushed, as if a great weight was pressing down on his chest and stealing the air from his lungs.
Harry was suddenly aware that Rain looked very physically imposing in his solid-metal plate armour.
"Why not?" There was a dangerous edge to Rain's voice now, and Harry had an urge to back away before something bad happened.
Hermione sighed, seemingly unaffected. "We do what we can. The Statute of Secrecy prevents us from making magical techniques publicly available, and beyond that, our resources are simply spread too thin." She looked down at Harry. "We've made a lot of progress since your time, but there's still considerable pushback in the Wizengamot at suggestions of allocating magical resources to Muggle causes."
Rain's eyes flickered between Hermione and Moody. "Harry seems to think that you're good people. If he hasn't been misled, then there must be something I'm missing here. In what world is keeping magic a secret that important?"
Hermione's back was straight, and her voice was calm. "This one, I'm afraid. Even the crude modelling my Department can do suggests that dismantling the Statue of Secrecy leads to a sixty-five percent chance of a magically-caused apocalypse within the year. And we don't know half of what magic can do, not yet."
There was a pause, then Rain continued, changing tack:
"With the magic you seem to be capable of, you could still massively advance non-magical technology without revealing any secrets. You could prevent famines, stop wars, come up with cures for diseases…" Rain trailed off, and there was an almost pleading look in his eyes. It contrasted oddly with the urge Harry still had to flee from his presence.
The phoenix on Hermione's shoulder made a sound - a single, mournful call that slowly faded into silence. Hermione flinched a little at the sound. "Annual famine deaths are down to a fraction of what they were in the fifties and sixties. Past that point, logistics are the main problem, not food supply - it's hard for us to figure out where the people in need of food are, and we lack the capacity to deliver it with that precision. Vaccines are harder than they might seem. I had a combined magical and non-magical team working on the malaria vaccine for nearly a decade before we got anywhere. We try to jump on and contain any potential pandemics, and there haven't been any major ones since I was appointed. Some Muggle wars are easy to prevent, and we do - but in general, wars are complex. We're not the only magical country in the world, and avoiding a new wizarding war is the primary goal of our foreign policy."
The pressure emanating from Rain abated, and Harry sucked in a shaky breath.
Rain nodded slowly. "Alright. You're good people, working with limited tools. Regardless, like Harry said, we need to move quickly - there are thousands of people dying every day."
He started pacing. "I have access to a spell that can heal people in a broad radius. I don't know how it would work on things like cancer, but it should take care of any infections, and injuries and things like that. We need someone who's sick, to test it. If you insist on keeping magic a secret - which I'm not happy about, but we can discuss that more later - we can probably figure out a workaround. Maybe we pretend the aura is some kind of made up new medical tech, like nanobots or something. I'll make aura anchors, and we can spread them out across the planet, put them in the largest hospitals around the world."
Hermione was speaking into a communication mirror now, her voice low and urgent.
Harry looked up at Rain. "Will your aura stop old age?"
Rain shook his head. "It won't stop ageing, but it will forestall it to some extent. People die of old age on Ameliah's world just like they do here. But this is better than nothing."
Harry's chest was tight again, for an entirely different reason. There were eight billion people on this planet (according to Wikipedia, the number had gone up by about three billion in his absence). How many would they be able to save with Rain's magic from another world?
And what would this world look like if they did?
The air nearby cracked, and a trio of what must be aurors apparated in. They weren't in the flowing robes Harry remembered, instead favouring body armour, like Moody.
Hermione gestured to the newcomers. "Alastor, take Rain to St Mungos and get started on verifying his claims. Make sure he doesn't leave your sight or remove his quarantine charm. I'll take Harry to my office at the Ministry to debrief further. We'll meet Bones and his parents there. Aurors Bogdanov, Davies, and Shacklebolt, take the remainder of the visitors to Holding Area C in the Ministry. They are to be treated well, but not allowed to leave."
Harry frowned. Hermione was taking the situation appropriately seriously, but splitting up their group was not trivially a good decision.
It seemed Zorian had the same thought, because one of the simulacra raised a hand - the one that had claimed his name was Kael. "Actually, I'd like to come with Rain. I believe I may have some medical insights worth sharing."
Moody nodded, stepped forward. He roughly grasped Rain and 'Kael' by the arms, and with a loud cracking sound, they were gone.
Harry gestured toward another simulacrum - the one that had been called 'Xvim' by the simulacrum that had introduced them. "Actually, you should probably come with me. I think you have some information that's important for Hermione to hear."
Harry hadn't thought of what information that might be, yet. The important thing was that at least one version of Zorian was with each group, so that they could communicate easily, and, if it became necessary, teleport to safety. Hermione's Earth seemed like a better one than the one he'd left in 1992, but it was by no means guaranteed to be safe.
Hermione took him by the arm, and the simulacrum stepped forward to join them. Harry noted that 'Xvim' had Zach the snake tucked into his sleeve, good. There was a loud crack, and the world changed.
Rain
After experiencing Zorian's near-seamless teleportations, Alastor Moody's version left Rain briefly disoriented. There was a sound like a firecracker, and then the three of them (Rain, Moody and a simulacrum) were in what looked like an empty hospital waiting room.
Moody released his grip on Rain's forearm, and gestured with his wand toward a set of double doors. "In there. It's the St. Mungo's reception. We'll test you on the rats and the flies first."
He gave Rain an appraising look as they started walking. "Destroy a city, eh? You don't look like you have it in you."
Rain shook his head in disbelief. This situation was already bordering on the ridiculous, and now he was being told by a war-veteran wizard that he didn't look like he could commit atrocities.
"You're absolutely right. I don't have it in me to destroy a city."
Moody snorted. "Either way, I'm not about to take my eye off you. If there's one thing I trust a returned 'Harry Potter' about, it's about what might cause a massive catastrophe."
The Zorian-simulacrum pushed open the double doors, and they walked into a sterile-looking hospital corridor. A witch and a wizard stood guard just inside, and had their wands trained on them. Moody barked out an authorization code, and the pair of them lowered their wands.
Moody led them on a left turn and down a set of stairs. Pulsing Detection, it looked like they were in a hospital-complex, albeit one unlike Rain had ever seen. There were large rooms that looked like they were dedicated to some odd kind of non-human animal, and Detection failed to return anything coherent at all for whole swathes of the building.
The patch of his soul Rain had purged on the Hogwarts lawn was long gone, now, and the spells the wizards must have cast to keep 'Muggles' out of their world no longer had any effect on him. Even so, Detection struggled to cope with the non-Euclidean spaces that seemed to be so common on Earth. If he focused, he could force the skill to make out the whole rooms that were folded into a fraction of the space they ought to occupy - but it was clear the System's usual interface hadn't been designed with space-folding in mind.
A thought came through from the simulacrum: <I don't trust this man at all.>
Rain kept his eyes straight ahead. <Me neither. Harry seems to think he's a friend, but Harry hasn't seen this guy in thirty years, so his information is a bit out of date. Besides, Harry has his own stuff going on. He's not exactly normal, though I suppose none of us are. Regardless, their government seems to be cooperating. Thanks for coming with me, by the way - I feel a lot better knowing you're here.>
Moody pushed open a final set of double doors. The room they'd entered looked a bit like an animal shelter, except almost all the creatures in the cages were rats - with pure, white fur. Lab rats.
Moody gestured with his wand, and one of the cage doors slammed open. A single rat was levitated onto a stainless steel table, where it squirmed and squealed, clearly trying to escape the magic that held it in place.
Moody grasped the rat's leg with his hand, and jerked it abruptly to one side. The rat's bones snapped, a sickening noise. The creature was still held in place by Moody's magic, but its squeals of confusion became squeals of terror and pain. The rats still in their cages shrank back in fear, and the sound of their collective panic increased in volume.
Rain had to hold back the instinctive response to punch Moody in the face. The grizzled veteran looked up at him with a twisted grin. "Alright, let's see what you've got, boy."
Summer didn't at first look like a particularly impressive skill, let alone one that it made sense to spend his final saved skill point on. Boosting natural health regeneration by a few percentage points didn't sound like the sort of thing that could stand between life and death.
That was before Rain's modifiers started being applied. Stacking his rings and passive bonuses left him with a comfortable 1,020% boost.
What would it look like, if an injured earthling suddenly could heal at more than ten times their natural rate?
And that was before the active buffs started adding their effects. Without entering Aura Focus, Rain's calculations suggested that he could multiply a human's natural healing by a factor of 269.
Normally, pouring vast quantities of health and mana into someone came with its own risks - soulstrain. If the recipient wasn't strong enough in their own right, then the additional energy would begin to supplant the energy they could supply from within, and problems would begin to set in.
That meant he probably wouldn't be able to heal the most serious and chronic injuries. Cancer, for example, was one he was going to have to test carefully. Poorly applied healing might even make the situation worse.
But that was a thought for later. Now, there was an injured creature in front of him. And Rain could do something to ease its pain.
He focused, and spent his final skill point to unlock Summer. Since he'd just unlocked it, it was at the lowest possible rank, and would grow in strength with time. Still, he activated the aura and felt his mana flow through it.
Nothing was happening, at least nothing visible. The rat was still squealing, its leg twisted at an angle that looked viscerally wrong.
Rain gritted his teeth. He compressed the aura's range until it just barely covered the rat, and the world went dark for a moment as he sacrificed his senses to force more mana through the skill.
Thirty seconds later, Rain opened his eyes.
The rat's leg had healed, and its breathing had calmed. Moody was looking at him with a calculating stare.
"Where did Harry find you, I wonder?"
The simulacrum was giving him an odd look too, for that matter.
Rain breathed out, and held out a palm by his side. A light sparked there, and the seed of a crystal began to grow. "I'll start creating aura anchors now, since we'll need a lot. That was a pretty basic test, and we should try more complex cases before rolling this out at any scale. In particular, I don't want to test this on anyone with cancer or anything similar unless we have someone on standby with a cure cancer spell, or something - I have a hunch that this might make the cancer grow uncontrollably."
Moody nodded curtly, and gestured toward the door with his wand. "There are humans in the next wing we can test on."
Rain moved to block Moody's path out of the room, and looked him square in his bizarre rotating eye. "Before we go anywhere else, I want to make something very clear. I'm warning you. If you break someone's arm, or personally injure them for the purposes of testing out the healing on them, there will be consequences."
Moody grunted, but seemed to nod in agreement. He was muttering under his breath as they left the room: "Seems the people Potter brought back aren't as practical as he is. Pity."
After a minute of walking through corridors, they found themselves in a more familiar looking hospital ward, with rows of beds holding half-a-dozen confused-looking people. As they entered, the patients started speaking, but Rain could barely hear their words - it seemed there was some kind of muffling charm on the hospital beds. They all looked terribly sick, almost too weak to move. Even so, it was clear there were magical restraints on the beds, holding them in place somehow. As Rain watched, a sickly-pale man with curly black hair tried to step out onto the floor, and was gently but firmly rebuffed by some invisible barrier, and forced back into the bed.
Most of them were adults, but on the far side of the room a young girl looked almost comically small on the adult-sized hospital bed. Beads of sweat were running down her forehead, and she was clearly trying to speak to him - but the words weren't making it past the quieting charm.
"What is this place?"
Moody barked out a response, as if pausing between words was a waste of valuable time. "The waiting room for Muggle-treatment. We have contacts in some of the major Muggle hospitals who send us their most difficult cases. They'll be dead in a day or so without treatment. Our medi-witches deal with them when they get a spare moment. Granger's idea."
"Why are they restrained?"
Moody laughed at that, a short and humourless sound. "Can't just let 'em wander around, can we? We have to obliviate them afterwards, regardless, but it's less work if they stay in one place."
Rain's arms were shaking a little.
"What diseases do these people have?"
Moody summoned the charts from the wall, and passed them to Rain. He scanned the list: diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure… no cancer patients in the room. Good.
A strange haze was settling over Rain's eyes. The way Moody talked about these people - these 'Muggles' - put him on edge. It reminded him of how people on Ameliah's world talked about the unawakened. Or the way Alustin talked about the people who were crushed underfoot as armies clashed and cities fell to siege. Like they weren't people at all.
It seemed that no matter where he went, there were always those with power, and those without. Those with power shaped the world, and those without power were lucky if they could survive in it.
That wasn't the only way the world could be. Ascension was already changing things, on Ameliah's world. And even though he wasn't going to stay on Earth forever, he was still going to try to change things while he was here…
Rain shut his eyes, and let the healing warmth of Summer spread outwards, covering the room. He held the aura for almost thirty seconds, at full power - any longer, and he'd be worried about serious soul-strain for the humans.
When he opened his eyes, the room was quiet.
The six patients were sitting up in their beds now, and were staring at him. Colour had returned to their cheeks, and the closest one stretched out a hand toward him with what looked like gratitude in his eyes.
The hand was deflected downwards by the magical restraints, and Rain almost snarled at the reminder of their situation. He turned to Moody. "Test these people however you can. MRIs, magical diagnosis spells, whatever you have. I want to know how well the healing aura works before we deploy it more widely, and if there are any issues we need to know about."
He looked back up at the six pleading faces. "And then get these people back to their families - get them home."
Harry
The three of them (Hermione, Harry, and a simulacrum) found themselves in an austere-looking office. Silvery plaques dotted the walls, and there were three sources of dim light - a softly glowing enchanted square tile in the ceiling, a crackling fireplace set into the wall, and the sparks flickering from the phoenix still resting on Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione gestured toward the simulacrum. "Xvim, right?" She looked back at Harry. "Do you trust him? Can we speak freely?"
"You're a perfect occlumens, right?" Hermione nodded. Harry took a deep breath, and hissed in Parseltongue.
"Will you and yourss keep this meeting sssecret, unlesss you believe I would endorsse the indissscretion?"
Zach quietly hissed back, from where he was nestled into the simulacrum's sleeve:
"Yesss."
He turned back to Hermione. "I trust him with my life, and this conversation will stay private."
"Alright." She eased herself back onto her desk and rubbed a hand over her forehead. "Is he Voldemort?"
Harry blinked. "What? No! Oh, the snake-speech, right. No, Xvim is a friend, and is entirely unrelated to Voldemort."
She nodded. "Is Voldemort still bound?"
Harry held out his hand, and gestured to the gemstone set into his ring. "Securely as ever. More securely than ever, actually, now that Xvim is here to help keep watch. I assume Moody told you?"
Hermione nodded, cast a series of charms on the ring, then nodded again, satisfied.
"Any other potential catastrophes I should be aware of?"
Harry frowned. "More than I can safely list, unfortunately. There is more outside of this reality than I had previously assumed. None that I am aware of are likely to be able to pierce Earth's defences anytime soon. That being said, if there is a counter-charm to fiendfyre, I'd like to know it, because it would help close off one vector of attack."
Hermione spoke into her communications mirror again. "I don't know one personally, but my people are looking now. Now, in five sentences or less, what happened to you?"
Harry took a deep breath, and sat down into one of the armchairs opposite Hermione's desk. "The current theory is that several of us were torn from our home realities due to a misfiring energy-gathering process of a city-killing exile machine. Somewhere along the way, I was trapped in a timeless void for nearly thirty years, so only about three weeks have elapsed for me since I last saw you. In those three weeks, we escaped the void-exiled city, made some allies on Anastis - that's the world we arrived in - and fought our way through the labyrinths that connect the worlds to get back here. The others agreed to help me get home first since I'm the weakest."
Hermione had picked up a small electrical device from her desk and was tapping at the screen. "A timeless void? Like Dumbledore?"
"I didn't see him, if that's what you mean - it was timeless, after all, so I didn't see anything at all. But I think it's something similar to what happened to Dumbledore, yes."
"Why did you want to see Bones urgently?"
"Several reasons, actually. First, I need to formalise the inheritance process for the Line of Merlin. That's something I really really should have done immediately upon receiving it. Second, I imagine you would know most of the goings on at the Ministry, but she is the Chief Warlock, so there might be some things she needs to tell me about the time I've missed. Third, I need to give her a new body - that's why I need an expert in medical transfiguration."
Hermione pulled her wand from her robes, and the motion dislodged the phoenix, which flew to what looked like its usual perch behind her desk. "As far as I know, since the disappearance of Dumbledore, and Minerva's death, I'm our most skilled expert in that area. It helps that I can run experiments on myself, since my body is constantly transfiguring itself back into its natural form. Much like a mountain troll." She gave him a pointed look. "I've put together a lot of the pieces, but when we get a chance, you still need to explain exactly what happened the night that I returned from the dead."
Then, a curious look crossed her face as she thought through what he'd said.
"A new body - you mean with the Philosopher's Stone? You still have it? How does that work?"
A week ago, letting Zorian know about the Stone would have been a terrible security breach. Now that Zorian had personally looked through each nook and cranny of Harry's mind already, it wasn't anything new to him.
"Yes. The Stone functions by making transfigurations permanent. If you can transfigure Bones into a younger version of her body, I can stop the change from ever reverting."
Hermione's eyes widened. "But that means you could -"
Harry let out a frustrated breath. "It means we could have done almost anything! I really wasn't planning on getting stuck in a timeless void for thirty years, I promise. Moody's right - you really can't be too paranoid."
A voice sounded from the communications mirror resting on the desk, and Hermione briefly responded. "Bones is ready. Your parents have been contacted, and are standing by at a Floo station. We haven't told them what's happened yet, but we think they've guessed."
Harry sighed. "Right, we'll see Bones first," he said.
Hermione gestured toward the door, and it soundlessly slid open. On the other side was Amelia Bones, clutching the arm of the young auror next to her for stability. Harry remembered meeting her for the first time - he'd thought she looked like beef jerky given human form.
Now, she looked like a light breeze might blow her away.
"Potter." She sounded bitter. Harry couldn't find it in himself to blame her.
"Amelia. It's been too long."
She shook her head irritably. "Not for you, apparently - just for the rest of us." After settling into one of the chairs, she nodded curtly at the auror who'd helped her in, and he left, closing the door behind him.
"You brought the Line of Merlin?" Harry asked.
Madam Bones kept her eyes trained on Harry, but it was clear she was asking Hermione: "It's really him?"
Hermione nodded, and Amelia withdrew a short rod of dark stone from her sleeve, and passed it over to Harry.
Given that the Mirror-conjured empty Earth had seen fit to replicate the Line of Merlin, Harry had idly toyed with the idea of bringing the replica rod along to the real Earth. He'd discarded that thought pretty much immediately though - the sheer number of catastrophes that might follow was too long for Harry to easily think through. So he'd left it behind as they'd departed that reality for this one.
He held the real rod loosely in one hand. "Are you still willing to be regent? Note that regardless of whether or not you agree, Hermione and I can give you back a younger body."
Her voice was softer than he remembered, but still strong. "I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin. And I'd like to see how you plan to do that."
Harry held the rod back out to the wizened old witch. "I hereby re-designate Amelia Bones as my regent for Wizengamot-related functions. Should I fail to return to the Wizengamot at least once in any given year, or at any time that Amelia Bones chooses, the Line of Merlin will pass to Hermione Granger."
There was an intake of breath from nearly everyone in the room. (Zorian's simulacrum was stoic, as usual, his face impassive.)
Bones was holding the rod again, looking at Harry with an odd expression. "It acknowledges you as the rightful Bearer." She squinted her eyes. "It's really you. After all this time"
"At least as far as I can tell, yes. I suppose I could be a conjured copy, identical in every way and with all the memories of the original. Not much point in making a distinction in that case." Harry dusted off his hands and stood up. "Alright, that's dealt with. Let's get this done quickly. Hermione, are you confident you can hold a medical transfiguration for at least thirty seconds?"
Hermione idly twirled her wand in her fingers. "I could hold it for days, if necessary, but I'm not sure if the accompanying changes will negatively affect the mind or the brain. I've only experimented transfiguration on myself and inanimate objects - it's usually lethal for living beings. Have you tested this procedure on humans before?"
Harry hummed thoughtfully. "No, we've avoided transfiguring anything organic so far. Do you remember the spell we experimented with in first year? Oogely boogely was the incantation, I believe?"
Hermione snorted. "As fitting a test as any. Oogely boogely!" A small glowing green bat appeared at the end of her wand, and fluttered up toward the ceiling.
Harry noted that the duration of the oo, eh and ee sounds had the ratio he remembered of 3 to 1 to 2, as bizarrely required by the laws of magic. At least that was one mystery he had made progress on - the original creator of the spell must have had those sounds in mind, and the functions that had grown on their soul shell simply required them to be said for the mana to be able to flow out of them into the world beyond in the desired way. Then, those functions - and the corresponding requirements for their activation - had leapt from one person's soul to the next, passed on when one wizard taught the spell to another, as required by the Interdict of Merlin.
That was Harry's current hypothesis, at least. To falsify or verify it would require a number of experiments, and he didn't have time for them right now, as much as he wished he did.
The tiny green bat had no meaningful magical strength of its own, and so Harry's carbon affinity could freely act upon it. Still, even at around a hundred grams, it was heavier than anything Harry had tried to manipulate so far. With some effort, he visualised one of the simpler spellforms Hugh had taught him - one which would pull an object toward him - and poured mana through it.
The bat's wings faltered and failed, and it dropped downward into Harry's hand.
Hermione raised her eyebrows. "How did you do that? It took me until I was about seventeen to pick up my first wandless magic."
"I'm a double witch."
"A double witch." Hermione's voice was flat.
Harry shrugged. "Working on triple, but that might take some time." He laid the bat down on the table. "This is conjured matter, so under normal circumstances, it would vanish in a few hours at most." He withdrew the Philosopher's Stone from his robes, and placed it atop the tiny bat, still taking most of the weight with his fingers so the bat wouldn't be injured.
Harry took a deep breath and concentrated.
The Stone rotated slightly, and then was still.
Hermione blinked. "Is… that all? I was expecting something more dramatic."
Harry stepped back, placing the Stone once again securely in his robes. "That's it. Can you verify that the creature is now permanent?"
Hermione touched the bat with the tip of her wand, and began to mutter diagnostic spells under her breath. A minute later, she looked up at Harry with awe in her eyes. "Extraordinary. It's as you said, the transient has become permanent."
Harry nodded. It's what he'd anticipated, but it was nice to have confirmation. "Xvim, can you see the creature's mind? How about its soul?"
Zorian's simulacrum tilted his head slightly, and frowned in concentration. "The mind appears to be intact and fully functional. The soul… if there is one, it's very, very faint, even for a creature this size. Perhaps it would approach the usual strength with time, perhaps not. If I were you, I would not create a human this way without careful thought as to what you would do if the results are not what you intended."
Harry paced around the room, and leant on the back of the armchair he'd been sitting in. "A point well taken. I don't think that's likely to be an issue if we're recreating a body but leaving the brain and soul intact."
Hermione looked a little incredulously between Harry and the simulacrum. "Souls exist?"
Harry tapped his fingers on the back of the armchair. "We're fairly certain, yes. I'll give you a full update soon, but for now, there are a few things of higher priority. Xvim, if Amelia lowers her occlumency barriers, can you keep an eye on her mind and soul and ensure she doesn't experience pain throughout this procedure?"
The simulacrum nodded, face still grave.
Hermione knelt down at the foot of Amelia's armchair and placed her hand on top of Amelia's. "I'll be doing the transfiguration myself, and I trust Harry to make it permanent. That being said, this is the first time this procedure will have been done on a human. It's your decision - do you want to go ahead with this?"
Amelia's eyes were almost closed, and Harry could hardly tell she was even awake. Still, she mumbled quietly, the same phrase she'd said earlier: "I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin."
Hermione stood up, and gestured with her wand. Harry's chair morphed and twisted in place before it became a sterile looking hospital bed. That, more than anything else, provoked a reaction from Zorian's simulacrum, who jumped back in surprise.
With Hermione's help, Amelia got up onto the hospital bed, groaning slightly with the motion. Hermione put a tender hand on the old witch's forehead. "Are you ready?"
She nodded weakly, and sighed. "Granger dear, one last thing."
"Yes?"
"Give me muscles. Slightly more than you have." With the hint of a grin, she closed her eyes and rested her head back onto the pillow.
Harry reached out and tapped the simulacrum. "Might be best to put her to sleep now."
The three of them gathered around the edge of the bed, and Hermione touched her wand to the centre of Amelia's chest.
"Try not to say anything while I'm working. This requires substantial concentration."
Starting slowly at first, then accelerating, flesh crept like ooze, transforming and sliding in a way that looked bizarrely inhuman. The wrinkles on Amelia's face didn't smooth out - instead, they were slurped back into the skull underneath with a wet sucking sound. Amelia's clothes melted into her form, absorbed into the oblong fleshy blob, presumably acting as a source of additional mass.
Over the next minute, new features became clear in the misshapen form on the table. Harry had never seen a young Amelia Bones, but it seemed Hermione had at least seen photographs, because the person taking shape on the bed in front of them had clear and distinctive facial features. Harry was reminded of his classmate Susan Bones - Amelia's grand-niece - and remembered with a start that she would now be in her early forties.
A minute later, it was clear that Hermione was making the final touches. The form on the bed in front of them was fully naked, and well proportioned. Harry couldn't stop himself from blushing a little, and he noticed the simulacrum likewise awkwardly averting his eyes.
As requested, the figure looked strong - not inhumanly so, but strong enough that it looked like it could lift Harry with one hand, if it was required.
A minute later, Hermione let out a relieved breath. "The body is complete. Is the mind intact?"
The simulacrum nodded. "She's resting, and there are no changes to her mind. Her nervous system seems to be fully functional as well. The soul is unchanged, so there shouldn't be any change to her magical abilities. I'm impressed."
Almost as an afterthought, Hermione gestured with her wand, and some of the bedsheets wrapped themselves around Amelia's new body, changing colour and taking the form of simple robes. "Your turn, Harry."
Harry stepped forward, and placed the Philosopher's Stone on the centre of the new body's chest. It was slowly rising and falling in rhythm with the figure's calm breaths.
He concentrated for a moment, and the Stone rotated slightly. He retrieved it, and stepped back.
"Can you wake her up, Xvim?" Harry asked.
The figure's eyes stirred, but before she fully awoke, the door crashed open, and Moody stormed in.
He jabbed a finger at the simulacrum. "You. Out."
Hermione blinked. "What is it, Alastor?"
His face could have been carved from stone. "Now."
The simulacrum looked at Harry questioningly.
Harry's pulse was quickening. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I don't think Alastor would try to hurt me, and if he does, I'll dismember him first."
Moody didn't react, and the half-joke half-threat fell flat. Harry didn't intend anyone any harm, but he was holding a number of looped carbon nanotube strings aloft with his carbon affinity throughout the room (as was becoming habit, in case sudden action was necessary). Moody's reaction time was legendary, but even so, Harry gave himself decent odds of being able to lop off his arm before anything dangerous was cast.
<I'll be in mental contact regardless. Let me know if you need help.>
With that, 'Xvim' nodded, and walked out the door, closing it behind him.
Moody began muttering, gesturing at the door and the floor with his wand. Harry recognised some of the charms from his time at Mary's Room with Quirrell - they were privacy and security spells. As the fourth charm took hold, Harry felt the mental connection with Zorian's simulacrum flicker and fade. Six more charms followed.
Once Moody had finished, he spoke, low and urgent. "It's a skin-puppet."
Harry and Hermione responded in unison. "What?"
"Half the friends you brought back are skin-puppets. Shadow replicas. Servants of a greater master. Whatever you want to call them. The one outside this room included. I haven't narrowed down the puppet master yet, but it could be Voldie. My other suspect is one of the other people you brought back, one of the ones in the holding cells. It's only a matter of time before it steals more bodies. We have to purge them immediately before the infestation gets out of control. It might already be too late."
Harry barked out a short laugh. "I knew that, actually. And it's not Voldemort. He's still neutralised, trapped in my ring - you can verify that for yourself, if you'd like. The copies are conjured bodies, not stolen ones, and he can only maintain around a dozen at a time."
There was a long silence, and Moody leant forward to cast some of the same diagnostic spells on the ring that Hermione had done earlier. A full minute later, he stepped back.
"I suppose you also know that one of your pals in the holding cells is running around in a stolen body then?" Moody growled.
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
"As soon as I noticed the puppetted forms, I checked to see if any of the other bodies were stolen. And one was. Whatever your friend Benisek says, the body he's walking around in is not the one he was born into. It's one he's taken from someone else, and by force."
That was interesting. Why was Zorian's flesh-and-blood body not his original one? Then again, a similar accusation could be levelled at Harry, from a certain point of view. On the 31st of October, 1981, Voldemort had overridden the mind and cognitive patterns of the baby Harry Potter, replacing them with his own. So in a sense, Harry supposed he was also possessing a body he wasn't born into. Whoever the original Harry Potter might have become was destroyed that night, and replaced by someone else.
"That part is news to me, actually. But I'm sure he has a good explanation. I trust him a good deal."
"Why?" Moody was holding his wand half-threateningly pointed in Harry's direction, but still covering the door.
"Parseltongue guarantees of future collaboration."
"I've never seen a guarantee that couldn't be somehow broken."
Harry stood firm. "I have some faith in this particular one."
Moody held his wand stationary for a moment, then lowered it. "And what have you done with Bones?"
Hermione reached out and gently touched Amelia's new body on the cheek. She awoke with a shock, and shot upright. "Potter." Her voice was stronger now, the voice of the early-thirties woman she visually seemed to be. Her eyes roved around the room, landing on Harry. Then, she touched her arm, and caught a glimpse of herself in a reflection. "Is this permanent?"
"Yes," Harry responded. "We haven't done longer term testing - you're the first subject. But I figured you'd waited long enough."
Moody leant forward, and whispered what sounded like a series of authorisation codes into her ear. She responded absent-mindedly, and ran her hand through her flowing brown hair.
She held up a hand, and rotated it, looking at it from every angle. Then, in an almost automatic motion, she curled it into a fist.
Amelia Bones looked up at Harry with a grin that showed quite a lot of teeth. "Alright Potter, what's next?"
Hugh Stormward
'Holding Area C', as Zorian had translated for them, was a pleasantly furnished stone chamber, set deep within the Ministry.
They'd been teleported here in dribs and drabs, but a simulacrum had gone in the first group, and Zorian in the last, so the parties at either end had been in communication at all times.
Even if he couldn't speak their language, these friends of Harry's seemed nice enough, so far. Hugh wasn't sure Zorian's paranoia was quite warranted.
After settling in, they found themselves seated in a rough semi-circle around a roaring fireplace. Plush carpets and cushions covered the stone floors, and a simple ward-like structure prevented the smoke from blowing back into the room. They'd been brought refreshments, too - some of the delicacies Hugh had grown fond of in the reflected Earth. Tomato juice, quince pies, chocolate frogs - things like that. Their treasure chest of loot (all hundreds of tons of it, recursively stored in bags of holding inside a vastly expanded suitcase) was sitting by Hugh's side - it would be a bit of a pain if they lost it, after going to so much trouble to collect all the materials inside. Fortunately, thanks to some bizarre magic from this world, it tended to follow them around on foot-like appendages when necessary, waddling at an approximate walking pace.
All in all, it was a pleasant break. There was no navigation to be done, no labyrinth monsters to be evaded, and no arcane mysteries to be unravelled. Honestly, after their time in Hogwarts, and now the sitting around today, he could see himself getting used to this lifestyle.
Hugh sank back into his armchair, and Talia nestled her head into his shoulder. "Another world, huh?"
Hugh cocked his head. "Well, it's sort of the same world we were just in, I guess? It does seem more interesting with people in it, though."
"Pshh. I'm counting it. That's… three worlds we've been on, so far. Plus a labyrinth."
He grinned at her. "Two more to go, I guess?"
Talia sat up a bit, and spoke up a little louder so the rest of the group could hear her. "We're going to Zorian's world when we're done here, right? Then Rain's?"
Alustin wasn't paying attention, and didn't notice the question. He'd collected a bunch of books on the reflected Earth, and he and Sabae were sitting with one of Zorian's simulacra, trying to learn the native language of this country as quickly as possible. Spread out on a low table in front of them were half a dozen books - Hugh gathered they were mostly about the rise and fall of various empires on this world. Zorian had translated some of the titles for them: 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', 'The End of Grindelwald', and 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. Sabae was engrossed in her own book - about the founding of something called the 'United Nations'. Both of them had been asking the group hypothetical questions for a while. They were clearly trying to draw analogies between the political systems described in the books and the ones from home. In the end, with so many books present, Hugh had resorted to giving Mackerel a few of the less important ones to play with. The crystal spellbook was resting on a low table, and looked to be in a satisfied stupor as it digested the foreign books.
Hugh looked across to Artur instead. He and Godrick had retrieved a game board from the stash of loot, and were playing an odd Earth-game - one involving alternately placed black and white stones on a grid.
Artur looked up. "Aye, I think that's the plan. Rain seems to have some business here, this being his original world and all, so at most I think we can give him a few days or so. Then it's time to move on."
Alustin did prick up his ears at that. "Kanderon sends updates via my communications diary about the situation on Anastis every day. It sounds like things are going fine back there, but I'd still like to get back as soon as possible."
Talia sniffled a little and settled back down. Her calm breath on his neck and her arm around his shoulder were really comfortable, and he didn't want to move too much in case it dislodged her.
There were a few minutes of relaxed silence. After a while, Alustin paused while turning a page in one of his books. "Zorian, could you please ask one of our chaperones if they think the Roman Empire would have fallen sooner if it lost access to grain-transports from across the Mediterranean Ocean?"
Zorian exchanged a few sentences with the aurors at the door in the guttural local language, then started quietly laughing to himself. He turned back to Alustin: "He says it's against Department policy to answer hypothetical questions about history from entities that seem to have come from another world. I can't really tell if he's joking or not."
Hugh closed his eyes and basked in the warmth from both the fireplace in front of them, and his girlfriend nestled into his side. If he had to spend a week waiting for Harry and Rain to finish their business, then this was the way to do it.
Harry
Even after so many strange occurrences, seeing his parents again was strange in a way nothing else had been.
His mother and father had stepped out of Hermione's fireplace into her office in the centre of the Ministry, dazed and confused by the process. And then they'd seen Harry.
Harry had expected a moment of disbelief or incredulity. If your son has been gone for thirty years, then he's either dead, or he's an adult who you know nothing about. He is categorically not the same age as the last time you saw him, wearing slightly-tattered versions of the same clothes.
But they just rushed over to him, and in an instant he was smothered in hugs and kisses.
A flurry of affection later, the three of them were seated in a trio of armchairs Hermione had summoned out of a recess in the wall. She'd left the room - ostensibly to give them some privacy, but also to coordinate the processes of finding Britain's foremost expert on Portkey-magic, as Harry had requested, and corralling the people who would most benefit from renewed youth.
Petunia had tears streaking her cheeks, and so did Harry and Michael. "We looked," his mother was saying now that her breathing had calmed a little, "so hard, and for so long. Your father and I couldn't do much to help, but we tried. And Hermione…" she shuddered a little in her armchair. "She frightened me, with what she was willing to do to find you."
"I'm sorry," Harry said in a small voice. "I should have been better prepared, I should have… I don't know, thought of something sooner…"
His father reached out to touch Harry's knee, and his hand lingered there for a moment. "It doesn't matter. We're just glad you're back. We're just glad you're back."
His mother let out a slightly shaky breath. "So what happens now? I know you well enough to know that this doesn't end with us going home together."
Harry felt sick. "I'm sorry. You're right. There are things I have to do. I've already missed so much, and there are people I need to help. But I can help you first! Hermione and I can give you younger bodies, if you want."
Both Petunia and Michael had aged gracefully. Michael's beard and hair were silvery-grey, which suited his tweed jacket and general professorial aesthetic very well, in Harry's opinion. And whether it was related to the potions Lily Evans had given her sister years ago, or something else, Petunia didn't look a day over forty. At his suggestion, both of them looked sceptically at him, then at each other, then back to Harry.
"Thank you for the offer," said his father, "but we won't take you up on that right now. I have a conference coming up in a week, and it would be a little confusing for everyone if I showed up in my twenties."
Harry half-laughed at that. "You could pretend you're your own younger assistant?"
Michael and Petunia both laughed at that too. His mother put her hand on Harry's knee. "We're not saying no forever. There will come a time when we will say yes, and gladly. Hermione has done similar things for us before - Michael had a scare with melanoma last year that she dealt with handily. But for now, we're happy in 'these forms', as you and Michael would put it."
Harry nodded. It wasn't the ideal reaction, but it was far better than the outright refusal he'd feared. Wherever possible, he was trying to let people make their own decisions these days, and sometimes that meant watching them make the wrong ones.
There was a knock on the door - Hermione, presumably.
Harry stood up. "You have some means of communicating with Hermione, right? A magic mirror, or something like that?"
Petunia nodded. "We have her email address."
"Huh, that works too, I guess." Hermione must have figured out how to bypass the electricity-meddling effects of Earth-magic somehow. That was something to ask her about later, if they had time. "It's time for you to go, I think. I'll stay in contact - you can reach me through Hermione if you need. We'll talk more soon."
Harry opened the door, and Hermione walked in. After a last tight hug from each of them, his parents stepped back into the fireplace, and were gone.
Zorian - Simulacrum 'Xvim'
With the original Zorian convalescing in a cosy chamber back in the Ministry, it was left to 'Xvim' to represent their interests at this meeting. And this meeting had the potential to be very important indeed.
Harry and Rain sat by his side, leaning back into armchairs. Rain had one armoured palm out, and was conjuring yet another aura anchor for the spell he called 'Summer' - he'd been doing that almost constantly since they'd arrived on this world. Hermione Granger sat behind her desk with her phoenix on her shoulder, and Amelia Bones was leaning against the wall beside her, occasionally flexing her various muscles. She was clearly revelling in her new, younger form. The two women who seemed to be in charge of this world had formidable mind shields, but from what his empathy could glean, they seemed to view him fairly positively.
The same could not be said of the grizzled auror who stood next to the fireplace. Despite the artificial eye rolling around to look at random directions, the simulacrum knew that the auror's attention was focused squarely on him.
Zorian wasn't quite sure how, but Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had figured out that Zorian's simulacra were all parts of the same larger entity. Then, he'd somehow also managed to puzzle out that Zorian's body had not always belonged to him. Given that Zorian's soul perfectly matched the body he was in, even Silverlake or Quatach-Ichl would have been hard pressed to deduce that, and Zorian didn't have a clue how the strange old wizard had put it together. Moody's mind-shield was somewhat less well constructed than Harry's, but backed by far more magical strength, and Zorian didn't want to provoke a conflict by testing it.
All in all, the simulacrum had to admit that the suspicion currently being levelled at him wasn't entirely unfair. So it was to Moody's credit that he was willing to attend this meeting peacefully.
With one final glance at the simulacrum for confirmation, Harry began.
"We think we might be able to construct a more rapid way to pass between worlds."
The idea had been brewing in Harry's mind for a while, and Zorian had ripped it out (along with almost everything else) when he'd seized control of Harry's mind above the Forbidden Forest. Since then, they'd been working on the idea together, but had kept it quiet from the rest of the group. Something like this had the potential to go very well, or very, very badly.
Rain shot them a querying look. "Then why aren't we using it? I want to get home as soon as I can, and I'm sure you feel the same way, Zorian."
The simulacrum spoke up. "It's not that simple. We haven't done any of the requisite testing yet, and we don't think it would let us easily reach worlds without visiting them first."
Bones turned around to face them. "Hold it. We need a debrief on these 'other worlds' first."
Harry nodded. "First things first, none of this information should leave this room without extremely careful vetting - it could be extremely dangerous. I trust everyone in this room understands that."
There was a chorus of nods, and from what the simulacrum's natural empathy could tell him, everyone seemed genuine in their agreement. <They either mean it, or they're deliberately hiding their intentions,> he passed on to Harry and Rain.
<You want to do this part? An illusory visual aid might help the explanation.>
<Alright,> the simulacrum responded. <But my English is still fairly rusty. Correct me if I make any mistakes.>
He gestured with an open palm, and a collection of interconnected points of light spread out across the room.
"As we understand it, there are many worlds, each with their own inhabitants and natural magics. Rain and I are from different worlds, and like you, were mostly unaware of the rest of the multiverse until recently."
"Over the last thirty years, a weapon from Anastis," he gestured at a particular point of light sitting at a dense nexus of connections, "tore the three of us from our homes, and brought us into another world. Although Harry left his world long before we did, we all arrived at the same time - at this point, we're not quite certain why. I think it's because the weapon that brought us there wanted us to kill each other so it could feed on the burst of magical energy produced by our deaths. Anyway, Anastis is where we met our other companions. There, we learned that world-travel typically happens through labyrinths."
A single node of the interconnected web expanded in size, and he pointed out the web of connections between it and the nearby points. "Labyrinths are vast and complex structures stretching across several realities. They harbour immensely dangerous creatures, escapees from other worlds, usually. That's how we got here, with a few caveats."
He glanced at Harry, then continued.
"Most magic seems to be unable to function across these world-boundaries. My connections to my simulacra, for example, were aggressively torn apart by the labyrinth, and teleportation and similar magics cease to function. That being said, there are some forms of magic which seem to be able to traverse the boundaries between worlds."
He paused, and looked at Rain. The bearded man's eyes widened. "My aura anchors - their signal gets through, for some reason. You want to, what, piggy-back off that connection, and just portal straight through!"
The simulacrum nodded, and sat back into his chair. There was silence as everyone digested the implications.
One of Moody's hands was rubbing his temple, although the simulacrum noted that the other hand still lingered by his wand-holster. "This would light up our world like a beacon. Anyone could waltz right in."
Harry grimaced. "I don't think a beacon is the right analogy - the connections would be specific, and if signals crossing through world-boundaries was a risk on that scale, then these modified aura anchors wouldn't present more risk than Rain's existing aura anchors already do, or than Kanderon's communication diaries, for that matter. That being said, risks of that nature are our main concern. From what we've been told, there's some kind of ancient, arcane protection on the labyrinths that prevents some of the more dangerous entities out there from travelling through them. If we bypass those constraints, then we might be creating alternate pathways for the void eaters or cold minds or who-knows-what to come to destroy our reality."
Hermione was deep in thought. "Leaving the risks aside for a moment, the benefits would be vast. I know very little of what our guests can do, and they're already revolutionising healthcare and magical theory. If we can have longer-term collaboration between worlds, a great deal more might be possible…"
"Exactly!" Harry leant forward, and there was a spark in his eyes. He looked more animated than Zorian had ever seen him. "If we can mitigate these risks, then this could be the most important event that's ever happened on any of our worlds."
Amelia Bones scowled and crossed her arms. "That's a great big 'if'. We know virtually nothing about these dangers, and it sounds to me like you don't know a lot more."
Harry raised his hands, conceding the point. "You're absolutely right. We don't. And this doesn't need to happen immediately, or even soon. For that matter, given the current lack of information, there's no chance I would be willing to work on any project that might involve weakening or bypassing this world's protections. That being said, even disregarding these potential portals, my chief goal right now is understanding what those multiversal threats are and learning how to defend against them. Once we have a better understanding of what they are, wouldn't we stand a better chance of defeating them as three worlds united?"
Moody put his hand on the back of Harry's armchair. "You're playing with forces you don't understand."
Harry nodded. "Acknowledged. But that doesn't mean I won't understand them in a month."
Rain stroked his beard. "Being able to call for aid if Ascension is threatened would certainly ease my mind. And Ascension would answer such a call in kind, if we could. But there are others on my world who are far more dangerous than I am, and if they found their way here, I don't think anyone here could stand against them."
The simulacrum vanished the illusion of the connected worlds, and all eyes turned to him, as he'd intended. "We need to be careful about this, and we need to move slowly. I propose the following timeline. First, we stay here long enough to learn what your world knows of dimensionalism and teleportation techniques - I'm particularly interested in the forms that seem to be anchored to objects, since Harry tells me they appear to be virtually unlimited in the distance they can cover."
"Portkeys." Hermione supplied the unfamiliar word, and the simulacrum nodded gratefully.
"We will make no attempts to create inter-reality portals while we're on this world, and will do only basic research while we're here. Then, when Rain has completed his… hospital project, we move on, and travel to my world. The labyrinth there is older and far larger, and should have other connected worlds we can reach - ideally, at least two that are devoid of sentient life. That's where we run the first experiments. If things go well, then given time, we can prove the technique safe, and deploy it more widely."
Hermione looked him in the eyes. "Promise me. No experimentation with unknown techniques that might breach the boundaries of this world. Nothing that might put the people of Earth in danger."
The simulacrum raised his left arm, until it was just above her desk. Then, obeying a gentle mental nudge, Zach the snake slithered out of his sleeve and onto the desk. No-one reacted - apparently, having a snake in your sleeve was fairly normal in this reality.
The little snake turned to Harry, and began to hiss.
"I ssswear not to breach the protectionsss of this world, nor to experiment in waysss which cause undue risssk. In matterss which concern the sssafety of this world, I will consult with the leader-woman of this world, and proceed only if she permitsss."
Despite the unpleasant manner in which Harry had introduced him to Parseltongue, Zorian had to admit he was growing fond of the ability to speak something which others would recognise as truth. Try as he might, he still hadn't found a way to deceive the odd soul-marker.
Harry nodded to Hermione. "He swears. It's the truth - you can't lie in Parseltongue."
Amelia grunted. "This would be a lot more compelling if we had any ability to understand what he's saying, or any reason - beyond your word - to believe that it's true."
Harry absent-mindedly chewed on his fingernail for a moment. "That is admittedly a drawback of this approach. None of you happen to be snake-animaguses, do you? Or know any trustworthy ones? Wait, I think I have an idea."
The simulacrum felt a momentary wavering in Harry's emotions, as if he wasn't quite sure about what he was about to say next.
Harry looked up at Hermione. "Do you think Draco would be willing to see me?"
"Hold it right there, lad."
Harry stopped walking, and looked across the dewey grass of the Quidditch pitch at the two figures standing a dozen metres away.
Alastor Moody looked old.
Even less of his scar-ravaged flesh was visible than the first time Harry had met him. Well-worn body armour covered his body and limbs, leaving only his weathered face exposed.
Sensing his environment with his carbon-affinity was slowly becoming second nature to Harry. He wasn't quite at 'MRI-on-demand' level, but he could 'feel' a shocking amount of detail about most organics. Moody's body was far from ordinary - aside from the brutal scarring and the chunk of his nose that looked like it had been carved away, he was missing an eye, and both his left foot and a good part of his left arm were entirely gone, replaced by prosthetics.
The phoenix called out once more from its perch on the woman's shoulder. The song pierced the dawn air, warm like the morning rays of sun that were just visible over the nearby hills. It cut through Harry's pent-up emotions, through his fatigue (for he hadn't been able to sleep since passing Jupiter's orbit), and a resolute strength began to spread through his limbs.
I don't know you yet, phoenix, but you're right. I've been gone far too long. There are things I need to do, to make up for lost time.
With the courage the bird-song lent him, he raised his head and looked the one place he hadn't looked yet - into the eyes of the woman on whose shoulder the phoenix rested.
Hermione Granger looked back at him. Her face had changed in the intervening twenty-eight years, but not as much as it ought to have. She was an adult now, but beyond that, Harry couldn't see any clear markers of age. Her thick, dark hair was loosely bound into a ponytail, and her robes were a plain black, without mark of status or station.
Her expression reminded him a little of Dumbledore - calm, steady, with the smallest hint of a smile - yet somehow also grave, as if the weight of the world's failings rested on her shoulders.
Before he could say anything, she spoke, in a terribly familiar voice that almost brought Harry to tears. "What was the first question you asked me?"
Harry answered, almost on autopilot. "The types of quarks. And where I could find a first-year girl named Hermione Granger. Up, down, strange, charm, truth and beauty, and right in front of me."
A half-smile flickered across the woman's face, and she continued.
"What was the last thing you gave to me?"
"The true cloak of invisibility, the Deathly Hallow passed down from Ignotus Peverell to his heirs, first me, then you. And this," he paused, fumbling for the bag at his side, and withdrawing a wand of dark-grey wood, "is its brother, the Elder Wand, once Dumbledore's, now mine. It should go some way toward proving my identity, which I presume is the purpose of these questions."
There was enough carbon in the wood of the wand, and it was just barely light enough for him to gently float it across the gap between him and Hermione, with no movement or spoken incantation on his part.
Hermione caught it out of the air, and examined it closely before passing it to Moody. The auror touched it gently with his own wand, and a shower of red sparks emerged from the tip. He glanced at Hermione, and nodded once.
"This isn't the first time 'Harry Potter' has returned, then?"
Moody grunted in assent. "None of the others came in a spaceship, though. That part is new." He tucked the wand back into his own robes rather than returning it.
"Is this space secure and quarantined? We've been offworld."
The woman nodded. "The quidditch pitch is shielded, as are we." She gestured with her wand, and a collection of what looked like small badges floated out of her robes and across to Harry and the visitors. "Please wear these devices. They're enchanted to create an impermeable barrier and prevent cross-contamination."
Harry clipped it to his robes. An almost imperceptible barrier sprung up just outside his clothes and skin, and he breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't going to unwittingly introduce some virulent plague to his homeworld. Behind him, the others followed suit. Mackerel, for his part, swallowed his badge immediately, but it seemed to function regardless, because a slightly shimmering shield came into being around the crystal spellbook.
Harry took a deep breath. "No-one with a phoenix on her shoulder could ever truly be my enemy, so even if you're not who I think you are, you're still a friend. But I should make sure. Who was responsible for the cleansing of Azkaban, and how was it done?"
"Officially?" Hermione took a step back. "The perpetrator of the attack on a secure Ministry facility remains unidentified." Her hand slipped smoothly along the wood of her wand. "Unofficially? The chief suspect is Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, acting from beyond the Veil. Expecto Patronum!"
A humanoid figure of light appeared before them, and silvery light spread out across the quidditch pitch. Harry couldn't hold himself back anymore. He ran forward, and wrapped his arms around Hermione Granger, who gently embraced him in turn.
Hermione was tall now - Harry found himself hugging her torso, although he couldn't quite feel her through the barrier surrounding his skin. There was a moment of silence, then she bent down to whisper into his ear.
"Harry, why are you still twelve?"
He let out a shaky half-laugh. "Uh, that's a bit of a complicated story. We have a lot to catch up on, although I have a bit of an advantage on that front - I've read a bit of what I've missed about your life in some books and newspapers." He stepped back and looked across toward Moody. "I don't expect you to be convinced of my identity yet - in fact, if you were, that would be a reason for me to distrust your identity. That being said, there are some wheels that need to start moving as quickly as possible. First, we-"
Moody cut him off. "Who are they?"
Harry blinked. "Oh, right."
Behind him were (he had to quickly re-count, since Zorian rarely had the same number of simulacra) eleven people, and a flying crystal spellbook.
"These are some aliens I met along the way. Well, he's not an alien, I suppose, I think he's originally from Canada. Is that right?"
Rain waved a hand, his bearded face visible due to his current lack of helmet. "It's good to meet you both. I'm Rain, Captain of Ascension. I prefer to think of myself as aligned with Ascension now, rather than any Earth nation. I hope we can work together to improve both of our worlds."
Hermione's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. "And the others?"
One of the simulacra stepped forward and raised a hand in greeting. "I'm Kael, this is Xvim, that's Alanic, and that's Benisek."
Harry raised his eyebrows. That was the first time he'd heard Zorian speak English. Some words were a little oddly pronounced, but it was still quite clear and understandable. His accent was a curious mixture of Harry's English accent, Rain's North American one and Zorian's native Ikosian.
Harry went on. "This is Artur, Alustin, Godrick, Hugh, Sabae and Talia. And the spellbook is Mackerel - don't leave books unattended around him, he has a habit of eating them." One by one, the Anastans smiled and waved in greeting - although they couldn't understand English themselves, they had clearly put together what was happening, and knew what to do when they heard Harry say their names.
He looked up at Hermione. "They're all good friends of mine, and a few of them I'd trust with my life." Glancing across at Moody again, he went on. "That being said, I expect you to require some degree of tactical report on the unknowns. As far as I'm aware, no-one here has the capacity to seriously threaten the existence of magical civilization on Earth, at least not within a timespan of less than a day. Rain has the most raw power, and he could destroy a city in a matter of minutes. However, what I know of his morality suggests that this is extremely unlikely to occur. The others are capable combatants in their own right, but are largely likewise also held in check by their sense of morality. I don't expect them to be staying on this world for longer than a few days."
Moody's combat-ready stance shifted slightly, his wand still held pointing loosely in their direction.
Harry continued. "I realise our arrival likely comes as quite a shock. You must have a lot of questions, and they will be answered soon. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity, and has the potential to reshape many worlds for the better."
"Now, we need to act quickly. First, I need to see Amelia Bones and my parents, and an expert in medical transfiguration - were you able to cryonically preserve McGonnagall's body? Then, I also want to speak with the foremost experts on Portkeys and magical teleportation you can find on short notice."
Moody began muttering into a small communications mirror he'd produced from his armour, and the words Harry could hear sounded like they related to the requests he had made.
In the momentary pause, Rain stepped forward, and spoke directly to Hermione. "I need to understand something. Your civilization has medical magic far ahead of what non-magical Earth has access to. Is that right?"
Hermione stepped forward and offered Rain a hand to shake, which he took. "I'm Hermione Granger, Head of Magical Law Enforcement. This is Alastor Moody, my second-in-command. Yes, medical magic tends to be superior to Muggle techniques."
Rain's expression had cooled, and was now blank and unreadable. "Then why are there still more than seventy thousand deaths a day from heart disease and cancer alone?"
A sudden chill fell across the gathering, and Harry turned to look up at Rain. He hadn't mentioned this in the Inconceivable, why now?
Moody was the first to respond, having stowed his communication mirror again. "It's not that simple, boy."
Rain narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head toward Moody. Something imperceptible changed, and a wave of pressure spread out from Rain - not physical pressure, it was something else Harry hadn't felt before. His heart felt like it was being crushed, as if a great weight was pressing down on his chest and stealing the air from his lungs.
Harry was suddenly aware that Rain looked very physically imposing in his solid-metal plate armour.
"Why not?" There was a dangerous edge to Rain's voice now, and Harry had an urge to back away before something bad happened.
Hermione sighed, seemingly unaffected. "We do what we can. The Statute of Secrecy prevents us from making magical techniques publicly available, and beyond that, our resources are simply spread too thin." She looked down at Harry. "We've made a lot of progress since your time, but there's still considerable pushback in the Wizengamot at suggestions of allocating magical resources to Muggle causes."
Rain's eyes flickered between Hermione and Moody. "Harry seems to think that you're good people. If he hasn't been misled, then there must be something I'm missing here. In what world is keeping magic a secret that important?"
Hermione's back was straight, and her voice was calm. "This one, I'm afraid. Even the crude modelling my Department can do suggests that dismantling the Statue of Secrecy leads to a sixty-five percent chance of a magically-caused apocalypse within the year. And we don't know half of what magic can do, not yet."
There was a pause, then Rain continued, changing tack:
"With the magic you seem to be capable of, you could still massively advance non-magical technology without revealing any secrets. You could prevent famines, stop wars, come up with cures for diseases…" Rain trailed off, and there was an almost pleading look in his eyes. It contrasted oddly with the urge Harry still had to flee from his presence.
The phoenix on Hermione's shoulder made a sound - a single, mournful call that slowly faded into silence. Hermione flinched a little at the sound. "Annual famine deaths are down to a fraction of what they were in the fifties and sixties. Past that point, logistics are the main problem, not food supply - it's hard for us to figure out where the people in need of food are, and we lack the capacity to deliver it with that precision. Vaccines are harder than they might seem. I had a combined magical and non-magical team working on the malaria vaccine for nearly a decade before we got anywhere. We try to jump on and contain any potential pandemics, and there haven't been any major ones since I was appointed. Some Muggle wars are easy to prevent, and we do - but in general, wars are complex. We're not the only magical country in the world, and avoiding a new wizarding war is the primary goal of our foreign policy."
The pressure emanating from Rain abated, and Harry sucked in a shaky breath.
Rain nodded slowly. "Alright. You're good people, working with limited tools. Regardless, like Harry said, we need to move quickly - there are thousands of people dying every day."
He started pacing. "I have access to a spell that can heal people in a broad radius. I don't know how it would work on things like cancer, but it should take care of any infections, and injuries and things like that. We need someone who's sick, to test it. If you insist on keeping magic a secret - which I'm not happy about, but we can discuss that more later - we can probably figure out a workaround. Maybe we pretend the aura is some kind of made up new medical tech, like nanobots or something. I'll make aura anchors, and we can spread them out across the planet, put them in the largest hospitals around the world."
Hermione was speaking into a communication mirror now, her voice low and urgent.
Harry looked up at Rain. "Will your aura stop old age?"
Rain shook his head. "It won't stop ageing, but it will forestall it to some extent. People die of old age on Ameliah's world just like they do here. But this is better than nothing."
Harry's chest was tight again, for an entirely different reason. There were eight billion people on this planet (according to Wikipedia, the number had gone up by about three billion in his absence). How many would they be able to save with Rain's magic from another world?
And what would this world look like if they did?
The air nearby cracked, and a trio of what must be aurors apparated in. They weren't in the flowing robes Harry remembered, instead favouring body armour, like Moody.
Hermione gestured to the newcomers. "Alastor, take Rain to St Mungos and get started on verifying his claims. Make sure he doesn't leave your sight or remove his quarantine charm. I'll take Harry to my office at the Ministry to debrief further. We'll meet Bones and his parents there. Aurors Bogdanov, Davies, and Shacklebolt, take the remainder of the visitors to Holding Area C in the Ministry. They are to be treated well, but not allowed to leave."
Harry frowned. Hermione was taking the situation appropriately seriously, but splitting up their group was not trivially a good decision.
It seemed Zorian had the same thought, because one of the simulacra raised a hand - the one that had claimed his name was Kael. "Actually, I'd like to come with Rain. I believe I may have some medical insights worth sharing."
Moody nodded, stepped forward. He roughly grasped Rain and 'Kael' by the arms, and with a loud cracking sound, they were gone.
Harry gestured toward another simulacrum - the one that had been called 'Xvim' by the simulacrum that had introduced them. "Actually, you should probably come with me. I think you have some information that's important for Hermione to hear."
Harry hadn't thought of what information that might be, yet. The important thing was that at least one version of Zorian was with each group, so that they could communicate easily, and, if it became necessary, teleport to safety. Hermione's Earth seemed like a better one than the one he'd left in 1992, but it was by no means guaranteed to be safe.
Hermione took him by the arm, and the simulacrum stepped forward to join them. Harry noted that 'Xvim' had Zach the snake tucked into his sleeve, good. There was a loud crack, and the world changed.
Rain
After experiencing Zorian's near-seamless teleportations, Alastor Moody's version left Rain briefly disoriented. There was a sound like a firecracker, and then the three of them (Rain, Moody and a simulacrum) were in what looked like an empty hospital waiting room.
Moody released his grip on Rain's forearm, and gestured with his wand toward a set of double doors. "In there. It's the St. Mungo's reception. We'll test you on the rats and the flies first."
He gave Rain an appraising look as they started walking. "Destroy a city, eh? You don't look like you have it in you."
Rain shook his head in disbelief. This situation was already bordering on the ridiculous, and now he was being told by a war-veteran wizard that he didn't look like he could commit atrocities.
"You're absolutely right. I don't have it in me to destroy a city."
Moody snorted. "Either way, I'm not about to take my eye off you. If there's one thing I trust a returned 'Harry Potter' about, it's about what might cause a massive catastrophe."
The Zorian-simulacrum pushed open the double doors, and they walked into a sterile-looking hospital corridor. A witch and a wizard stood guard just inside, and had their wands trained on them. Moody barked out an authorization code, and the pair of them lowered their wands.
Moody led them on a left turn and down a set of stairs. Pulsing Detection, it looked like they were in a hospital-complex, albeit one unlike Rain had ever seen. There were large rooms that looked like they were dedicated to some odd kind of non-human animal, and Detection failed to return anything coherent at all for whole swathes of the building.
The patch of his soul Rain had purged on the Hogwarts lawn was long gone, now, and the spells the wizards must have cast to keep 'Muggles' out of their world no longer had any effect on him. Even so, Detection struggled to cope with the non-Euclidean spaces that seemed to be so common on Earth. If he focused, he could force the skill to make out the whole rooms that were folded into a fraction of the space they ought to occupy - but it was clear the System's usual interface hadn't been designed with space-folding in mind.
A thought came through from the simulacrum: <I don't trust this man at all.>
Rain kept his eyes straight ahead. <Me neither. Harry seems to think he's a friend, but Harry hasn't seen this guy in thirty years, so his information is a bit out of date. Besides, Harry has his own stuff going on. He's not exactly normal, though I suppose none of us are. Regardless, their government seems to be cooperating. Thanks for coming with me, by the way - I feel a lot better knowing you're here.>
Moody pushed open a final set of double doors. The room they'd entered looked a bit like an animal shelter, except almost all the creatures in the cages were rats - with pure, white fur. Lab rats.
Moody gestured with his wand, and one of the cage doors slammed open. A single rat was levitated onto a stainless steel table, where it squirmed and squealed, clearly trying to escape the magic that held it in place.
Moody grasped the rat's leg with his hand, and jerked it abruptly to one side. The rat's bones snapped, a sickening noise. The creature was still held in place by Moody's magic, but its squeals of confusion became squeals of terror and pain. The rats still in their cages shrank back in fear, and the sound of their collective panic increased in volume.
Rain had to hold back the instinctive response to punch Moody in the face. The grizzled veteran looked up at him with a twisted grin. "Alright, let's see what you've got, boy."
Summer didn't at first look like a particularly impressive skill, let alone one that it made sense to spend his final saved skill point on. Boosting natural health regeneration by a few percentage points didn't sound like the sort of thing that could stand between life and death.
That was before Rain's modifiers started being applied. Stacking his rings and passive bonuses left him with a comfortable 1,020% boost.
What would it look like, if an injured earthling suddenly could heal at more than ten times their natural rate?
And that was before the active buffs started adding their effects. Without entering Aura Focus, Rain's calculations suggested that he could multiply a human's natural healing by a factor of 269.
Normally, pouring vast quantities of health and mana into someone came with its own risks - soulstrain. If the recipient wasn't strong enough in their own right, then the additional energy would begin to supplant the energy they could supply from within, and problems would begin to set in.
That meant he probably wouldn't be able to heal the most serious and chronic injuries. Cancer, for example, was one he was going to have to test carefully. Poorly applied healing might even make the situation worse.
But that was a thought for later. Now, there was an injured creature in front of him. And Rain could do something to ease its pain.
He focused, and spent his final skill point to unlock Summer. Since he'd just unlocked it, it was at the lowest possible rank, and would grow in strength with time. Still, he activated the aura and felt his mana flow through it.
Nothing was happening, at least nothing visible. The rat was still squealing, its leg twisted at an angle that looked viscerally wrong.
Rain gritted his teeth. He compressed the aura's range until it just barely covered the rat, and the world went dark for a moment as he sacrificed his senses to force more mana through the skill.
Thirty seconds later, Rain opened his eyes.
The rat's leg had healed, and its breathing had calmed. Moody was looking at him with a calculating stare.
"Where did Harry find you, I wonder?"
The simulacrum was giving him an odd look too, for that matter.
Rain breathed out, and held out a palm by his side. A light sparked there, and the seed of a crystal began to grow. "I'll start creating aura anchors now, since we'll need a lot. That was a pretty basic test, and we should try more complex cases before rolling this out at any scale. In particular, I don't want to test this on anyone with cancer or anything similar unless we have someone on standby with a cure cancer spell, or something - I have a hunch that this might make the cancer grow uncontrollably."
Moody nodded curtly, and gestured toward the door with his wand. "There are humans in the next wing we can test on."
Rain moved to block Moody's path out of the room, and looked him square in his bizarre rotating eye. "Before we go anywhere else, I want to make something very clear. I'm warning you. If you break someone's arm, or personally injure them for the purposes of testing out the healing on them, there will be consequences."
Moody grunted, but seemed to nod in agreement. He was muttering under his breath as they left the room: "Seems the people Potter brought back aren't as practical as he is. Pity."
After a minute of walking through corridors, they found themselves in a more familiar looking hospital ward, with rows of beds holding half-a-dozen confused-looking people. As they entered, the patients started speaking, but Rain could barely hear their words - it seemed there was some kind of muffling charm on the hospital beds. They all looked terribly sick, almost too weak to move. Even so, it was clear there were magical restraints on the beds, holding them in place somehow. As Rain watched, a sickly-pale man with curly black hair tried to step out onto the floor, and was gently but firmly rebuffed by some invisible barrier, and forced back into the bed.
Most of them were adults, but on the far side of the room a young girl looked almost comically small on the adult-sized hospital bed. Beads of sweat were running down her forehead, and she was clearly trying to speak to him - but the words weren't making it past the quieting charm.
"What is this place?"
Moody barked out a response, as if pausing between words was a waste of valuable time. "The waiting room for Muggle-treatment. We have contacts in some of the major Muggle hospitals who send us their most difficult cases. They'll be dead in a day or so without treatment. Our medi-witches deal with them when they get a spare moment. Granger's idea."
"Why are they restrained?"
Moody laughed at that, a short and humourless sound. "Can't just let 'em wander around, can we? We have to obliviate them afterwards, regardless, but it's less work if they stay in one place."
Rain's arms were shaking a little.
"What diseases do these people have?"
Moody summoned the charts from the wall, and passed them to Rain. He scanned the list: diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure… no cancer patients in the room. Good.
A strange haze was settling over Rain's eyes. The way Moody talked about these people - these 'Muggles' - put him on edge. It reminded him of how people on Ameliah's world talked about the unawakened. Or the way Alustin talked about the people who were crushed underfoot as armies clashed and cities fell to siege. Like they weren't people at all.
It seemed that no matter where he went, there were always those with power, and those without. Those with power shaped the world, and those without power were lucky if they could survive in it.
That wasn't the only way the world could be. Ascension was already changing things, on Ameliah's world. And even though he wasn't going to stay on Earth forever, he was still going to try to change things while he was here…
Rain shut his eyes, and let the healing warmth of Summer spread outwards, covering the room. He held the aura for almost thirty seconds, at full power - any longer, and he'd be worried about serious soul-strain for the humans.
When he opened his eyes, the room was quiet.
The six patients were sitting up in their beds now, and were staring at him. Colour had returned to their cheeks, and the closest one stretched out a hand toward him with what looked like gratitude in his eyes.
The hand was deflected downwards by the magical restraints, and Rain almost snarled at the reminder of their situation. He turned to Moody. "Test these people however you can. MRIs, magical diagnosis spells, whatever you have. I want to know how well the healing aura works before we deploy it more widely, and if there are any issues we need to know about."
He looked back up at the six pleading faces. "And then get these people back to their families - get them home."
Harry
The three of them (Hermione, Harry, and a simulacrum) found themselves in an austere-looking office. Silvery plaques dotted the walls, and there were three sources of dim light - a softly glowing enchanted square tile in the ceiling, a crackling fireplace set into the wall, and the sparks flickering from the phoenix still resting on Hermione's shoulder.
Hermione gestured toward the simulacrum. "Xvim, right?" She looked back at Harry. "Do you trust him? Can we speak freely?"
"You're a perfect occlumens, right?" Hermione nodded. Harry took a deep breath, and hissed in Parseltongue.
"Will you and yourss keep this meeting sssecret, unlesss you believe I would endorsse the indissscretion?"
Zach quietly hissed back, from where he was nestled into the simulacrum's sleeve:
"Yesss."
He turned back to Hermione. "I trust him with my life, and this conversation will stay private."
"Alright." She eased herself back onto her desk and rubbed a hand over her forehead. "Is he Voldemort?"
Harry blinked. "What? No! Oh, the snake-speech, right. No, Xvim is a friend, and is entirely unrelated to Voldemort."
She nodded. "Is Voldemort still bound?"
Harry held out his hand, and gestured to the gemstone set into his ring. "Securely as ever. More securely than ever, actually, now that Xvim is here to help keep watch. I assume Moody told you?"
Hermione nodded, cast a series of charms on the ring, then nodded again, satisfied.
"Any other potential catastrophes I should be aware of?"
Harry frowned. "More than I can safely list, unfortunately. There is more outside of this reality than I had previously assumed. None that I am aware of are likely to be able to pierce Earth's defences anytime soon. That being said, if there is a counter-charm to fiendfyre, I'd like to know it, because it would help close off one vector of attack."
Hermione spoke into her communications mirror again. "I don't know one personally, but my people are looking now. Now, in five sentences or less, what happened to you?"
Harry took a deep breath, and sat down into one of the armchairs opposite Hermione's desk. "The current theory is that several of us were torn from our home realities due to a misfiring energy-gathering process of a city-killing exile machine. Somewhere along the way, I was trapped in a timeless void for nearly thirty years, so only about three weeks have elapsed for me since I last saw you. In those three weeks, we escaped the void-exiled city, made some allies on Anastis - that's the world we arrived in - and fought our way through the labyrinths that connect the worlds to get back here. The others agreed to help me get home first since I'm the weakest."
Hermione had picked up a small electrical device from her desk and was tapping at the screen. "A timeless void? Like Dumbledore?"
"I didn't see him, if that's what you mean - it was timeless, after all, so I didn't see anything at all. But I think it's something similar to what happened to Dumbledore, yes."
"Why did you want to see Bones urgently?"
"Several reasons, actually. First, I need to formalise the inheritance process for the Line of Merlin. That's something I really really should have done immediately upon receiving it. Second, I imagine you would know most of the goings on at the Ministry, but she is the Chief Warlock, so there might be some things she needs to tell me about the time I've missed. Third, I need to give her a new body - that's why I need an expert in medical transfiguration."
Hermione pulled her wand from her robes, and the motion dislodged the phoenix, which flew to what looked like its usual perch behind her desk. "As far as I know, since the disappearance of Dumbledore, and Minerva's death, I'm our most skilled expert in that area. It helps that I can run experiments on myself, since my body is constantly transfiguring itself back into its natural form. Much like a mountain troll." She gave him a pointed look. "I've put together a lot of the pieces, but when we get a chance, you still need to explain exactly what happened the night that I returned from the dead."
Then, a curious look crossed her face as she thought through what he'd said.
"A new body - you mean with the Philosopher's Stone? You still have it? How does that work?"
A week ago, letting Zorian know about the Stone would have been a terrible security breach. Now that Zorian had personally looked through each nook and cranny of Harry's mind already, it wasn't anything new to him.
"Yes. The Stone functions by making transfigurations permanent. If you can transfigure Bones into a younger version of her body, I can stop the change from ever reverting."
Hermione's eyes widened. "But that means you could -"
Harry let out a frustrated breath. "It means we could have done almost anything! I really wasn't planning on getting stuck in a timeless void for thirty years, I promise. Moody's right - you really can't be too paranoid."
A voice sounded from the communications mirror resting on the desk, and Hermione briefly responded. "Bones is ready. Your parents have been contacted, and are standing by at a Floo station. We haven't told them what's happened yet, but we think they've guessed."
Harry sighed. "Right, we'll see Bones first," he said.
Hermione gestured toward the door, and it soundlessly slid open. On the other side was Amelia Bones, clutching the arm of the young auror next to her for stability. Harry remembered meeting her for the first time - he'd thought she looked like beef jerky given human form.
Now, she looked like a light breeze might blow her away.
"Potter." She sounded bitter. Harry couldn't find it in himself to blame her.
"Amelia. It's been too long."
She shook her head irritably. "Not for you, apparently - just for the rest of us." After settling into one of the chairs, she nodded curtly at the auror who'd helped her in, and he left, closing the door behind him.
"You brought the Line of Merlin?" Harry asked.
Madam Bones kept her eyes trained on Harry, but it was clear she was asking Hermione: "It's really him?"
Hermione nodded, and Amelia withdrew a short rod of dark stone from her sleeve, and passed it over to Harry.
Given that the Mirror-conjured empty Earth had seen fit to replicate the Line of Merlin, Harry had idly toyed with the idea of bringing the replica rod along to the real Earth. He'd discarded that thought pretty much immediately though - the sheer number of catastrophes that might follow was too long for Harry to easily think through. So he'd left it behind as they'd departed that reality for this one.
He held the real rod loosely in one hand. "Are you still willing to be regent? Note that regardless of whether or not you agree, Hermione and I can give you back a younger body."
Her voice was softer than he remembered, but still strong. "I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin. And I'd like to see how you plan to do that."
Harry held the rod back out to the wizened old witch. "I hereby re-designate Amelia Bones as my regent for Wizengamot-related functions. Should I fail to return to the Wizengamot at least once in any given year, or at any time that Amelia Bones chooses, the Line of Merlin will pass to Hermione Granger."
There was an intake of breath from nearly everyone in the room. (Zorian's simulacrum was stoic, as usual, his face impassive.)
Bones was holding the rod again, looking at Harry with an odd expression. "It acknowledges you as the rightful Bearer." She squinted her eyes. "It's really you. After all this time"
"At least as far as I can tell, yes. I suppose I could be a conjured copy, identical in every way and with all the memories of the original. Not much point in making a distinction in that case." Harry dusted off his hands and stood up. "Alright, that's dealt with. Let's get this done quickly. Hermione, are you confident you can hold a medical transfiguration for at least thirty seconds?"
Hermione idly twirled her wand in her fingers. "I could hold it for days, if necessary, but I'm not sure if the accompanying changes will negatively affect the mind or the brain. I've only experimented transfiguration on myself and inanimate objects - it's usually lethal for living beings. Have you tested this procedure on humans before?"
Harry hummed thoughtfully. "No, we've avoided transfiguring anything organic so far. Do you remember the spell we experimented with in first year? Oogely boogely was the incantation, I believe?"
Hermione snorted. "As fitting a test as any. Oogely boogely!" A small glowing green bat appeared at the end of her wand, and fluttered up toward the ceiling.
Harry noted that the duration of the oo, eh and ee sounds had the ratio he remembered of 3 to 1 to 2, as bizarrely required by the laws of magic. At least that was one mystery he had made progress on - the original creator of the spell must have had those sounds in mind, and the functions that had grown on their soul shell simply required them to be said for the mana to be able to flow out of them into the world beyond in the desired way. Then, those functions - and the corresponding requirements for their activation - had leapt from one person's soul to the next, passed on when one wizard taught the spell to another, as required by the Interdict of Merlin.
That was Harry's current hypothesis, at least. To falsify or verify it would require a number of experiments, and he didn't have time for them right now, as much as he wished he did.
The tiny green bat had no meaningful magical strength of its own, and so Harry's carbon affinity could freely act upon it. Still, even at around a hundred grams, it was heavier than anything Harry had tried to manipulate so far. With some effort, he visualised one of the simpler spellforms Hugh had taught him - one which would pull an object toward him - and poured mana through it.
The bat's wings faltered and failed, and it dropped downward into Harry's hand.
Hermione raised her eyebrows. "How did you do that? It took me until I was about seventeen to pick up my first wandless magic."
"I'm a double witch."
"A double witch." Hermione's voice was flat.
Harry shrugged. "Working on triple, but that might take some time." He laid the bat down on the table. "This is conjured matter, so under normal circumstances, it would vanish in a few hours at most." He withdrew the Philosopher's Stone from his robes, and placed it atop the tiny bat, still taking most of the weight with his fingers so the bat wouldn't be injured.
Harry took a deep breath and concentrated.
The Stone rotated slightly, and then was still.
Hermione blinked. "Is… that all? I was expecting something more dramatic."
Harry stepped back, placing the Stone once again securely in his robes. "That's it. Can you verify that the creature is now permanent?"
Hermione touched the bat with the tip of her wand, and began to mutter diagnostic spells under her breath. A minute later, she looked up at Harry with awe in her eyes. "Extraordinary. It's as you said, the transient has become permanent."
Harry nodded. It's what he'd anticipated, but it was nice to have confirmation. "Xvim, can you see the creature's mind? How about its soul?"
Zorian's simulacrum tilted his head slightly, and frowned in concentration. "The mind appears to be intact and fully functional. The soul… if there is one, it's very, very faint, even for a creature this size. Perhaps it would approach the usual strength with time, perhaps not. If I were you, I would not create a human this way without careful thought as to what you would do if the results are not what you intended."
Harry paced around the room, and leant on the back of the armchair he'd been sitting in. "A point well taken. I don't think that's likely to be an issue if we're recreating a body but leaving the brain and soul intact."
Hermione looked a little incredulously between Harry and the simulacrum. "Souls exist?"
Harry tapped his fingers on the back of the armchair. "We're fairly certain, yes. I'll give you a full update soon, but for now, there are a few things of higher priority. Xvim, if Amelia lowers her occlumency barriers, can you keep an eye on her mind and soul and ensure she doesn't experience pain throughout this procedure?"
The simulacrum nodded, face still grave.
Hermione knelt down at the foot of Amelia's armchair and placed her hand on top of Amelia's. "I'll be doing the transfiguration myself, and I trust Harry to make it permanent. That being said, this is the first time this procedure will have been done on a human. It's your decision - do you want to go ahead with this?"
Amelia's eyes were almost closed, and Harry could hardly tell she was even awake. Still, she mumbled quietly, the same phrase she'd said earlier: "I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin."
Hermione stood up, and gestured with her wand. Harry's chair morphed and twisted in place before it became a sterile looking hospital bed. That, more than anything else, provoked a reaction from Zorian's simulacrum, who jumped back in surprise.
With Hermione's help, Amelia got up onto the hospital bed, groaning slightly with the motion. Hermione put a tender hand on the old witch's forehead. "Are you ready?"
She nodded weakly, and sighed. "Granger dear, one last thing."
"Yes?"
"Give me muscles. Slightly more than you have." With the hint of a grin, she closed her eyes and rested her head back onto the pillow.
Harry reached out and tapped the simulacrum. "Might be best to put her to sleep now."
The three of them gathered around the edge of the bed, and Hermione touched her wand to the centre of Amelia's chest.
"Try not to say anything while I'm working. This requires substantial concentration."
Starting slowly at first, then accelerating, flesh crept like ooze, transforming and sliding in a way that looked bizarrely inhuman. The wrinkles on Amelia's face didn't smooth out - instead, they were slurped back into the skull underneath with a wet sucking sound. Amelia's clothes melted into her form, absorbed into the oblong fleshy blob, presumably acting as a source of additional mass.
Over the next minute, new features became clear in the misshapen form on the table. Harry had never seen a young Amelia Bones, but it seemed Hermione had at least seen photographs, because the person taking shape on the bed in front of them had clear and distinctive facial features. Harry was reminded of his classmate Susan Bones - Amelia's grand-niece - and remembered with a start that she would now be in her early forties.
A minute later, it was clear that Hermione was making the final touches. The form on the bed in front of them was fully naked, and well proportioned. Harry couldn't stop himself from blushing a little, and he noticed the simulacrum likewise awkwardly averting his eyes.
As requested, the figure looked strong - not inhumanly so, but strong enough that it looked like it could lift Harry with one hand, if it was required.
A minute later, Hermione let out a relieved breath. "The body is complete. Is the mind intact?"
The simulacrum nodded. "She's resting, and there are no changes to her mind. Her nervous system seems to be fully functional as well. The soul is unchanged, so there shouldn't be any change to her magical abilities. I'm impressed."
Almost as an afterthought, Hermione gestured with her wand, and some of the bedsheets wrapped themselves around Amelia's new body, changing colour and taking the form of simple robes. "Your turn, Harry."
Harry stepped forward, and placed the Philosopher's Stone on the centre of the new body's chest. It was slowly rising and falling in rhythm with the figure's calm breaths.
He concentrated for a moment, and the Stone rotated slightly. He retrieved it, and stepped back.
"Can you wake her up, Xvim?" Harry asked.
The figure's eyes stirred, but before she fully awoke, the door crashed open, and Moody stormed in.
He jabbed a finger at the simulacrum. "You. Out."
Hermione blinked. "What is it, Alastor?"
His face could have been carved from stone. "Now."
The simulacrum looked at Harry questioningly.
Harry's pulse was quickening. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I don't think Alastor would try to hurt me, and if he does, I'll dismember him first."
Moody didn't react, and the half-joke half-threat fell flat. Harry didn't intend anyone any harm, but he was holding a number of looped carbon nanotube strings aloft with his carbon affinity throughout the room (as was becoming habit, in case sudden action was necessary). Moody's reaction time was legendary, but even so, Harry gave himself decent odds of being able to lop off his arm before anything dangerous was cast.
<I'll be in mental contact regardless. Let me know if you need help.>
With that, 'Xvim' nodded, and walked out the door, closing it behind him.
Moody began muttering, gesturing at the door and the floor with his wand. Harry recognised some of the charms from his time at Mary's Room with Quirrell - they were privacy and security spells. As the fourth charm took hold, Harry felt the mental connection with Zorian's simulacrum flicker and fade. Six more charms followed.
Once Moody had finished, he spoke, low and urgent. "It's a skin-puppet."
Harry and Hermione responded in unison. "What?"
"Half the friends you brought back are skin-puppets. Shadow replicas. Servants of a greater master. Whatever you want to call them. The one outside this room included. I haven't narrowed down the puppet master yet, but it could be Voldie. My other suspect is one of the other people you brought back, one of the ones in the holding cells. It's only a matter of time before it steals more bodies. We have to purge them immediately before the infestation gets out of control. It might already be too late."
Harry barked out a short laugh. "I knew that, actually. And it's not Voldemort. He's still neutralised, trapped in my ring - you can verify that for yourself, if you'd like. The copies are conjured bodies, not stolen ones, and he can only maintain around a dozen at a time."
There was a long silence, and Moody leant forward to cast some of the same diagnostic spells on the ring that Hermione had done earlier. A full minute later, he stepped back.
"I suppose you also know that one of your pals in the holding cells is running around in a stolen body then?" Moody growled.
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
"As soon as I noticed the puppetted forms, I checked to see if any of the other bodies were stolen. And one was. Whatever your friend Benisek says, the body he's walking around in is not the one he was born into. It's one he's taken from someone else, and by force."
That was interesting. Why was Zorian's flesh-and-blood body not his original one? Then again, a similar accusation could be levelled at Harry, from a certain point of view. On the 31st of October, 1981, Voldemort had overridden the mind and cognitive patterns of the baby Harry Potter, replacing them with his own. So in a sense, Harry supposed he was also possessing a body he wasn't born into. Whoever the original Harry Potter might have become was destroyed that night, and replaced by someone else.
"That part is news to me, actually. But I'm sure he has a good explanation. I trust him a good deal."
"Why?" Moody was holding his wand half-threateningly pointed in Harry's direction, but still covering the door.
"Parseltongue guarantees of future collaboration."
"I've never seen a guarantee that couldn't be somehow broken."
Harry stood firm. "I have some faith in this particular one."
Moody held his wand stationary for a moment, then lowered it. "And what have you done with Bones?"
Hermione reached out and gently touched Amelia's new body on the cheek. She awoke with a shock, and shot upright. "Potter." Her voice was stronger now, the voice of the early-thirties woman she visually seemed to be. Her eyes roved around the room, landing on Harry. Then, she touched her arm, and caught a glimpse of herself in a reflection. "Is this permanent?"
"Yes," Harry responded. "We haven't done longer term testing - you're the first subject. But I figured you'd waited long enough."
Moody leant forward, and whispered what sounded like a series of authorisation codes into her ear. She responded absent-mindedly, and ran her hand through her flowing brown hair.
She held up a hand, and rotated it, looking at it from every angle. Then, in an almost automatic motion, she curled it into a fist.
Amelia Bones looked up at Harry with a grin that showed quite a lot of teeth. "Alright Potter, what's next?"
Hugh Stormward
'Holding Area C', as Zorian had translated for them, was a pleasantly furnished stone chamber, set deep within the Ministry.
They'd been teleported here in dribs and drabs, but a simulacrum had gone in the first group, and Zorian in the last, so the parties at either end had been in communication at all times.
Even if he couldn't speak their language, these friends of Harry's seemed nice enough, so far. Hugh wasn't sure Zorian's paranoia was quite warranted.
After settling in, they found themselves seated in a rough semi-circle around a roaring fireplace. Plush carpets and cushions covered the stone floors, and a simple ward-like structure prevented the smoke from blowing back into the room. They'd been brought refreshments, too - some of the delicacies Hugh had grown fond of in the reflected Earth. Tomato juice, quince pies, chocolate frogs - things like that. Their treasure chest of loot (all hundreds of tons of it, recursively stored in bags of holding inside a vastly expanded suitcase) was sitting by Hugh's side - it would be a bit of a pain if they lost it, after going to so much trouble to collect all the materials inside. Fortunately, thanks to some bizarre magic from this world, it tended to follow them around on foot-like appendages when necessary, waddling at an approximate walking pace.
All in all, it was a pleasant break. There was no navigation to be done, no labyrinth monsters to be evaded, and no arcane mysteries to be unravelled. Honestly, after their time in Hogwarts, and now the sitting around today, he could see himself getting used to this lifestyle.
Hugh sank back into his armchair, and Talia nestled her head into his shoulder. "Another world, huh?"
Hugh cocked his head. "Well, it's sort of the same world we were just in, I guess? It does seem more interesting with people in it, though."
"Pshh. I'm counting it. That's… three worlds we've been on, so far. Plus a labyrinth."
He grinned at her. "Two more to go, I guess?"
Talia sat up a bit, and spoke up a little louder so the rest of the group could hear her. "We're going to Zorian's world when we're done here, right? Then Rain's?"
Alustin wasn't paying attention, and didn't notice the question. He'd collected a bunch of books on the reflected Earth, and he and Sabae were sitting with one of Zorian's simulacra, trying to learn the native language of this country as quickly as possible. Spread out on a low table in front of them were half a dozen books - Hugh gathered they were mostly about the rise and fall of various empires on this world. Zorian had translated some of the titles for them: 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', 'The End of Grindelwald', and 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. Sabae was engrossed in her own book - about the founding of something called the 'United Nations'. Both of them had been asking the group hypothetical questions for a while. They were clearly trying to draw analogies between the political systems described in the books and the ones from home. In the end, with so many books present, Hugh had resorted to giving Mackerel a few of the less important ones to play with. The crystal spellbook was resting on a low table, and looked to be in a satisfied stupor as it digested the foreign books.
Hugh looked across to Artur instead. He and Godrick had retrieved a game board from the stash of loot, and were playing an odd Earth-game - one involving alternately placed black and white stones on a grid.
Artur looked up. "Aye, I think that's the plan. Rain seems to have some business here, this being his original world and all, so at most I think we can give him a few days or so. Then it's time to move on."
Alustin did prick up his ears at that. "Kanderon sends updates via my communications diary about the situation on Anastis every day. It sounds like things are going fine back there, but I'd still like to get back as soon as possible."
Talia sniffled a little and settled back down. Her calm breath on his neck and her arm around his shoulder were really comfortable, and he didn't want to move too much in case it dislodged her.
There were a few minutes of relaxed silence. After a while, Alustin paused while turning a page in one of his books. "Zorian, could you please ask one of our chaperones if they think the Roman Empire would have fallen sooner if it lost access to grain-transports from across the Mediterranean Ocean?"
Zorian exchanged a few sentences with the aurors at the door in the guttural local language, then started quietly laughing to himself. He turned back to Alustin: "He says it's against Department policy to answer hypothetical questions about history from entities that seem to have come from another world. I can't really tell if he's joking or not."
Hugh closed his eyes and basked in the warmth from both the fireplace in front of them, and his girlfriend nestled into his side. If he had to spend a week waiting for Harry and Rain to finish their business, then this was the way to do it.
Harry
Even after so many strange occurrences, seeing his parents again was strange in a way nothing else had been.
His mother and father had stepped out of Hermione's fireplace into her office in the centre of the Ministry, dazed and confused by the process. And then they'd seen Harry.
Harry had expected a moment of disbelief or incredulity. If your son has been gone for thirty years, then he's either dead, or he's an adult who you know nothing about. He is categorically not the same age as the last time you saw him, wearing slightly-tattered versions of the same clothes.
But they just rushed over to him, and in an instant he was smothered in hugs and kisses.
A flurry of affection later, the three of them were seated in a trio of armchairs Hermione had summoned out of a recess in the wall. She'd left the room - ostensibly to give them some privacy, but also to coordinate the processes of finding Britain's foremost expert on Portkey-magic, as Harry had requested, and corralling the people who would most benefit from renewed youth.
Petunia had tears streaking her cheeks, and so did Harry and Michael. "We looked," his mother was saying now that her breathing had calmed a little, "so hard, and for so long. Your father and I couldn't do much to help, but we tried. And Hermione…" she shuddered a little in her armchair. "She frightened me, with what she was willing to do to find you."
"I'm sorry," Harry said in a small voice. "I should have been better prepared, I should have… I don't know, thought of something sooner…"
His father reached out to touch Harry's knee, and his hand lingered there for a moment. "It doesn't matter. We're just glad you're back. We're just glad you're back."
His mother let out a slightly shaky breath. "So what happens now? I know you well enough to know that this doesn't end with us going home together."
Harry felt sick. "I'm sorry. You're right. There are things I have to do. I've already missed so much, and there are people I need to help. But I can help you first! Hermione and I can give you younger bodies, if you want."
Both Petunia and Michael had aged gracefully. Michael's beard and hair were silvery-grey, which suited his tweed jacket and general professorial aesthetic very well, in Harry's opinion. And whether it was related to the potions Lily Evans had given her sister years ago, or something else, Petunia didn't look a day over forty. At his suggestion, both of them looked sceptically at him, then at each other, then back to Harry.
"Thank you for the offer," said his father, "but we won't take you up on that right now. I have a conference coming up in a week, and it would be a little confusing for everyone if I showed up in my twenties."
Harry half-laughed at that. "You could pretend you're your own younger assistant?"
Michael and Petunia both laughed at that too. His mother put her hand on Harry's knee. "We're not saying no forever. There will come a time when we will say yes, and gladly. Hermione has done similar things for us before - Michael had a scare with melanoma last year that she dealt with handily. But for now, we're happy in 'these forms', as you and Michael would put it."
Harry nodded. It wasn't the ideal reaction, but it was far better than the outright refusal he'd feared. Wherever possible, he was trying to let people make their own decisions these days, and sometimes that meant watching them make the wrong ones.
There was a knock on the door - Hermione, presumably.
Harry stood up. "You have some means of communicating with Hermione, right? A magic mirror, or something like that?"
Petunia nodded. "We have her email address."
"Huh, that works too, I guess." Hermione must have figured out how to bypass the electricity-meddling effects of Earth-magic somehow. That was something to ask her about later, if they had time. "It's time for you to go, I think. I'll stay in contact - you can reach me through Hermione if you need. We'll talk more soon."
Harry opened the door, and Hermione walked in. After a last tight hug from each of them, his parents stepped back into the fireplace, and were gone.
Zorian - Simulacrum 'Xvim'
With the original Zorian convalescing in a cosy chamber back in the Ministry, it was left to 'Xvim' to represent their interests at this meeting. And this meeting had the potential to be very important indeed.
Harry and Rain sat by his side, leaning back into armchairs. Rain had one armoured palm out, and was conjuring yet another aura anchor for the spell he called 'Summer' - he'd been doing that almost constantly since they'd arrived on this world. Hermione Granger sat behind her desk with her phoenix on her shoulder, and Amelia Bones was leaning against the wall beside her, occasionally flexing her various muscles. She was clearly revelling in her new, younger form. The two women who seemed to be in charge of this world had formidable mind shields, but from what his empathy could glean, they seemed to view him fairly positively.
The same could not be said of the grizzled auror who stood next to the fireplace. Despite the artificial eye rolling around to look at random directions, the simulacrum knew that the auror's attention was focused squarely on him.
Zorian wasn't quite sure how, but Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had figured out that Zorian's simulacra were all parts of the same larger entity. Then, he'd somehow also managed to puzzle out that Zorian's body had not always belonged to him. Given that Zorian's soul perfectly matched the body he was in, even Silverlake or Quatach-Ichl would have been hard pressed to deduce that, and Zorian didn't have a clue how the strange old wizard had put it together. Moody's mind-shield was somewhat less well constructed than Harry's, but backed by far more magical strength, and Zorian didn't want to provoke a conflict by testing it.
All in all, the simulacrum had to admit that the suspicion currently being levelled at him wasn't entirely unfair. So it was to Moody's credit that he was willing to attend this meeting peacefully.
With one final glance at the simulacrum for confirmation, Harry began.
"We think we might be able to construct a more rapid way to pass between worlds."
The idea had been brewing in Harry's mind for a while, and Zorian had ripped it out (along with almost everything else) when he'd seized control of Harry's mind above the Forbidden Forest. Since then, they'd been working on the idea together, but had kept it quiet from the rest of the group. Something like this had the potential to go very well, or very, very badly.
Rain shot them a querying look. "Then why aren't we using it? I want to get home as soon as I can, and I'm sure you feel the same way, Zorian."
The simulacrum spoke up. "It's not that simple. We haven't done any of the requisite testing yet, and we don't think it would let us easily reach worlds without visiting them first."
Bones turned around to face them. "Hold it. We need a debrief on these 'other worlds' first."
Harry nodded. "First things first, none of this information should leave this room without extremely careful vetting - it could be extremely dangerous. I trust everyone in this room understands that."
There was a chorus of nods, and from what the simulacrum's natural empathy could tell him, everyone seemed genuine in their agreement. <They either mean it, or they're deliberately hiding their intentions,> he passed on to Harry and Rain.
<You want to do this part? An illusory visual aid might help the explanation.>
<Alright,> the simulacrum responded. <But my English is still fairly rusty. Correct me if I make any mistakes.>
He gestured with an open palm, and a collection of interconnected points of light spread out across the room.
"As we understand it, there are many worlds, each with their own inhabitants and natural magics. Rain and I are from different worlds, and like you, were mostly unaware of the rest of the multiverse until recently."
"Over the last thirty years, a weapon from Anastis," he gestured at a particular point of light sitting at a dense nexus of connections, "tore the three of us from our homes, and brought us into another world. Although Harry left his world long before we did, we all arrived at the same time - at this point, we're not quite certain why. I think it's because the weapon that brought us there wanted us to kill each other so it could feed on the burst of magical energy produced by our deaths. Anyway, Anastis is where we met our other companions. There, we learned that world-travel typically happens through labyrinths."
A single node of the interconnected web expanded in size, and he pointed out the web of connections between it and the nearby points. "Labyrinths are vast and complex structures stretching across several realities. They harbour immensely dangerous creatures, escapees from other worlds, usually. That's how we got here, with a few caveats."
He glanced at Harry, then continued.
"Most magic seems to be unable to function across these world-boundaries. My connections to my simulacra, for example, were aggressively torn apart by the labyrinth, and teleportation and similar magics cease to function. That being said, there are some forms of magic which seem to be able to traverse the boundaries between worlds."
He paused, and looked at Rain. The bearded man's eyes widened. "My aura anchors - their signal gets through, for some reason. You want to, what, piggy-back off that connection, and just portal straight through!"
The simulacrum nodded, and sat back into his chair. There was silence as everyone digested the implications.
One of Moody's hands was rubbing his temple, although the simulacrum noted that the other hand still lingered by his wand-holster. "This would light up our world like a beacon. Anyone could waltz right in."
Harry grimaced. "I don't think a beacon is the right analogy - the connections would be specific, and if signals crossing through world-boundaries was a risk on that scale, then these modified aura anchors wouldn't present more risk than Rain's existing aura anchors already do, or than Kanderon's communication diaries, for that matter. That being said, risks of that nature are our main concern. From what we've been told, there's some kind of ancient, arcane protection on the labyrinths that prevents some of the more dangerous entities out there from travelling through them. If we bypass those constraints, then we might be creating alternate pathways for the void eaters or cold minds or who-knows-what to come to destroy our reality."
Hermione was deep in thought. "Leaving the risks aside for a moment, the benefits would be vast. I know very little of what our guests can do, and they're already revolutionising healthcare and magical theory. If we can have longer-term collaboration between worlds, a great deal more might be possible…"
"Exactly!" Harry leant forward, and there was a spark in his eyes. He looked more animated than Zorian had ever seen him. "If we can mitigate these risks, then this could be the most important event that's ever happened on any of our worlds."
Amelia Bones scowled and crossed her arms. "That's a great big 'if'. We know virtually nothing about these dangers, and it sounds to me like you don't know a lot more."
Harry raised his hands, conceding the point. "You're absolutely right. We don't. And this doesn't need to happen immediately, or even soon. For that matter, given the current lack of information, there's no chance I would be willing to work on any project that might involve weakening or bypassing this world's protections. That being said, even disregarding these potential portals, my chief goal right now is understanding what those multiversal threats are and learning how to defend against them. Once we have a better understanding of what they are, wouldn't we stand a better chance of defeating them as three worlds united?"
Moody put his hand on the back of Harry's armchair. "You're playing with forces you don't understand."
Harry nodded. "Acknowledged. But that doesn't mean I won't understand them in a month."
Rain stroked his beard. "Being able to call for aid if Ascension is threatened would certainly ease my mind. And Ascension would answer such a call in kind, if we could. But there are others on my world who are far more dangerous than I am, and if they found their way here, I don't think anyone here could stand against them."
The simulacrum vanished the illusion of the connected worlds, and all eyes turned to him, as he'd intended. "We need to be careful about this, and we need to move slowly. I propose the following timeline. First, we stay here long enough to learn what your world knows of dimensionalism and teleportation techniques - I'm particularly interested in the forms that seem to be anchored to objects, since Harry tells me they appear to be virtually unlimited in the distance they can cover."
"Portkeys." Hermione supplied the unfamiliar word, and the simulacrum nodded gratefully.
"We will make no attempts to create inter-reality portals while we're on this world, and will do only basic research while we're here. Then, when Rain has completed his… hospital project, we move on, and travel to my world. The labyrinth there is older and far larger, and should have other connected worlds we can reach - ideally, at least two that are devoid of sentient life. That's where we run the first experiments. If things go well, then given time, we can prove the technique safe, and deploy it more widely."
Hermione looked him in the eyes. "Promise me. No experimentation with unknown techniques that might breach the boundaries of this world. Nothing that might put the people of Earth in danger."
The simulacrum raised his left arm, until it was just above her desk. Then, obeying a gentle mental nudge, Zach the snake slithered out of his sleeve and onto the desk. No-one reacted - apparently, having a snake in your sleeve was fairly normal in this reality.
The little snake turned to Harry, and began to hiss.
"I ssswear not to breach the protectionsss of this world, nor to experiment in waysss which cause undue risssk. In matterss which concern the sssafety of this world, I will consult with the leader-woman of this world, and proceed only if she permitsss."
Despite the unpleasant manner in which Harry had introduced him to Parseltongue, Zorian had to admit he was growing fond of the ability to speak something which others would recognise as truth. Try as he might, he still hadn't found a way to deceive the odd soul-marker.
Harry nodded to Hermione. "He swears. It's the truth - you can't lie in Parseltongue."
Amelia grunted. "This would be a lot more compelling if we had any ability to understand what he's saying, or any reason - beyond your word - to believe that it's true."
Harry absent-mindedly chewed on his fingernail for a moment. "That is admittedly a drawback of this approach. None of you happen to be snake-animaguses, do you? Or know any trustworthy ones? Wait, I think I have an idea."
The simulacrum felt a momentary wavering in Harry's emotions, as if he wasn't quite sure about what he was about to say next.
Harry looked up at Hermione. "Do you think Draco would be willing to see me?"
First of great chapter excited to read it. Don't mind my nitpicks, these are just my thoughts as i read the chapter.
Wizards won't change the fact that 8 billion will have deaths no matter whatever your actual treatment is.
Rain sounds like a fucking idot right now.
What the fuck is he talking about. Most of those aren't even the uncurable ones. Most of those die because it cost too many resources to treat them.
Wizards won't change the fact that 8 billion will have deaths no matter whatever your actual treatment is.
The problems is the people that need medicine dont have access to hospitals.
Rain sounds like a fucking idot right now.
The world is fine. Harry loves to fucking catastrophize. Dude is like the person that has learned about climate change for the first time and panicking.
All of those books are actually wrong lmao. Like out dated to say the least and well outside current academic consensus of history.
I won't comment on this, except to note that one of the main constraints on hospitals is generally the number of beds - if patients only need to stay there for a few minutes, things could change quite a bit.
I think you'll find that 'The End of Grindelwald' actually agrees with most consensus views among modern historians /s
Jokes aside, that was on purpose - Alustin can't read the language, so it makes sense that he'd pick the most widely available books on whatever topic, rather than being able to discern which ones are the most factually accurate. Rain and Harry wouldn't really be able to help him much here either, at least not without putting in some time to do research, since neither of them know a huge amount about history, and Harry hasn't read any of the books published since 1990 anyway.
18 - Compulsion
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Rain
Rain was no stranger to ambitious goals.
With Ameliah and Tallheart by his side, he'd forged the remnants of a shattered city into the beginnings of Ascension, and seen it grow beyond his wildest dreams.
When his strength had proven insufficient to keep his friends safe, they'd journeyed deep below ground, hunting in the depths for creatures that could crush him in an instant. And yet they'd prevailed, returning to the light of the sun with power that few would ever know.
With help from Staavo and Tallheart, Ascension had brought the beginnings of Earth-science to a new world. Starting from dust and ore, they'd fabricated the first light bulbs and flown the first heavier-than-air flying machines that their world had ever seen. Before he'd been taken by the Exile Splinter, new advances were coming almost every day as Ascension worked to combine their world's esoteric magic and Earth's industrial designs into wholly original creations.
Even so, looking at the blueprints and plans laid out on the table in front of him, Rain thought he might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew.
The engineer-witch who had introduced herself as Padma Patil gestured with her wand at one of the designs.
"The tricky thing," she said, "is passing sixty million people - that's roughly the number that we expect to need serious medical care each year - through such a small space while preserving the illusion of standard medical procedure. Eventually we might be able to get additional support from other wizarding nations, but until then, we're constrained by the number of guards we can allocate to each Muggle hospital. We probably can't supply more than two per site at any given time, if we're going to try to maintain the fifteen sites you've said should be possible."
Sixty million people.
Rain shook his head incredulously. As far as he knew, no-one had successfully held a global census on Ameliah's world, but at a rough guess, he'd have said it had about a hundredth of Earth's population. In more ways than one, the two worlds seemed to operate on completely different scales.
Padma tapped on the laptop set up next to her, and the screen shifted. After a moment, she withdrew her hands from the keyboard and gestured at the papers next to it with her wand. She muttered some vaguely latin-sounding syllables, and the surface of the parchment flickered, hand-written numbers cascading through various columns. After ten seconds or so, it eventually settled into a series of neatly-organised and colour categorised summary fields, which she typed back into the computer.
What was that? Some kind of… automatic parchment computation?
"How did you do that?"
Padma didn't look away from the screen. "Magic."
"Right, right. Of course."
Seemingly satisfied with the spreadsheet, the middle-aged witch turned back to Rain.
"These 'aura anchors' you've made are tiny. We could move them around far more easily than we could move the patients - but if we did that, maintaining security around each aura anchor would become far more complex, since we wouldn't be able to set up permanent enchantments."
Rain leant forward in his chair, resting one elbow on the table. His other hand stayed steadily palm up as the seed of yet another crystal formed from raw mana. "And it's easier to explain the effects as some kind of legitimate advance in medical technology if it's centred on a hospital, rather than moving around."
Padma bit her lip and looked into space thoughtfully. "Exactly. So we're probably stuck with keeping the aura anchors in one place, and trying to move the patients through the aura. How long is it safe to keep someone within the range of Summer?"
Rain exhaled. "Honestly, I can't give a confident answer to that yet. The longest we've kept someone in the aura at full power is around three minutes, for a man with a case of total organ failure that Moody brought in from Australia. He seemed healthier afterwards, and initial diagnostic scans looked good. He's only partially healed, but he also complained about massive oversensitivity all over his body, and could barely move because of the pain. We think that's soulstrain, and that it'll wear off - at least, effects like that would wear off on Ameliah's world. Moody's got him in a cage with 'the rats and the flies' for now, to keep observing him."
Rain couldn't quite suppress a scowl as he thought of the old auror. If the display with the rat hadn't been enough to sour his first impression, apparently Moody had almost tried to kill Zorian on the spot when he'd discovered that Zorian was controlling multiple bodies. Rain glanced across at the simulacrum in this room. It was physically identical to the original (unlike the various simulacra which took other forms), but seemed to be resting now. His attention must have been elsewhere, because his eyes were closed, and his head was resting against the wall. Despite everything he'd seen the young mage accomplish, Zorian still looked awfully young to Rain, and it was hard to suppress the instinct to cover his resting body with a blanket, or something. For all he knew, the simulacrum's ectoplasmic bodies probably couldn't even feel the cold.
Padma scribbled down some figures on a piece of parchment, then nodded. "Right. In that case, this design might be our best shot." She slid a schematic over to him. "You've said the range is shared across the anchors, so that means we don't have a lot of space to work with at each site, pretty much just a ten-metre sphere. This design places people in a sort of isolated space-efficient 'pod' and cycles them through the region closest to the anchor. For now, I've allocated one minute per person. The design I've mocked up here," she tabbed through the windows on her computer until the screen showed a 3D model, "is deliberately reminiscent of an MRI machine."
"Why?"
Padma rotated the model on the screen, and tossed her long black hair over one shoulder. "So people think it's medical tech rather than magic."
"Right."
Gotta keep up the ruse for the Muggles, of course. One problem at a time, Rain.
She went on, apparently oblivious to his furrowed eyebrows. "Conservatively, a minute allocated to inserting and removing the pods, and letting each pod sit in the aura for a minute. And each site should be able to handle ten or so pods within aura range at a time. That's two hundred people being healed each hour. Across all the sites, that's…"
She reached back over for the laptop, but Rain got there first, accessing the terminal-based calculator he'd managed to construct out of the basic operations that could be performed in his soul. "Twenty-six million, two hundred and eighty thousand people a year, assuming we can operate overnight and with no delays or breakdowns, which is pretty much impossible at that scale. But I think we can do better. I can only run the same aura through fifteen anchors at a time, but we can sort of bypass that limit by running the aura half the time at twice as many sites. The healing will be slower at any individual site, but the logistics should be easier."
Padma tilted her head to the side, and thought about it for a moment. "You mean, like a microwave on low power? Pulsing the full-power aura periodically, in order to reduce the average power output to the desired level?" She absent-mindedly started chewing on the end of one of her strands of hair. "Could we also use that to increase the effective area around the anchors?"
Rain scratched at his beard. "Yeah, that should work - by rotating through each of the anchors rapidly. I wouldn't have thought wizards would use microwaves. Isn't there some kind of food-heating spell?"
Padma grinned, and flicked the edge of her laptop's screen with a finger. "Engineer, remember? I took apart the first microwave I came across pretty much immediately. Gave myself a nasty electric shock too, actually."
Rain laughed and winced simultaneously. Danger aside, the mental image of Padma as a teenage witch, dressed in black robes probably, poking around the interior of a microwave with her wand, was a fairly amusing one.
Rain squinted at the schematic. "Why did you arrange the pods like… hold on, I need to think about this for a second."
Half-an-hour of accelerated thinking in his soul later, and thirty real-time seconds later, he grabbed a pen and flipped the schematic onto its blank rear side. Normally at this point, if he was working with Ascension, he'd leave the construction and specifics to others after sharing the concept so that they could get a feel for the engineering process. For a project on this scale, though, he was going to stick with it till it was done.
"How's something like this? We mount the pods on a series of concentric rails so that they can rotate constantly…" Moving quicker than humanly possible, he started sketching.
Padma leant over to look closer. "Wouldn't that run into issues with collisions at this- oh, right, the tracks cross vertically, rather than merging. Hmm, I think that should work."
Minutes blurred into hours, and their design went through dozens of iterations. Rain's scepticism was slowly displaced, and as he and Padma worked side by side, a feeling started to settle in:
We might actually be able to do this.
Harry sat, nervous and alone, in Hermione's office, with his hands folded in his lap.
He really had no idea what to expect from this meeting. Seeing Hermione again, well, that made sense on some level. The phoenix on her shoulder meant that she was driven by the same things he was. And so even though so much time had passed - half a lifetime, although he wasn't sure Hermione even had a mortal lifespan anymore - he had enough faith in their common goals that it wasn't hard to slip back into smooth collaboration.
Draco, on the other hand… What did he want?
And how would he react to finding Harry alive and un-aged, after thirty years?
He'd found some reasonably up-to-date newspapers in the empty copy of Hogwarts, and in the course of their scavenging in the Mirror-created world, he'd kept an eye out for anything he could find about the lives his friends had lived in his absence. The notes he'd made on Draco were spread out loosely across the desk. There wasn't much point in leafing through them, since Harry had memorised them all as they'd travelled from the probe to Earth, but there wasn't much else he could do while he waited.
The door swung open. Tall, white-haird and coldly elegant in robes of the finest quality, one hand gripping a silver-handled cane, a man swept into the room. In a single, precise motion, he took the seat opposite Harry.
"Harry."
Harry swallowed, and looked into his friend's eyes. They were cool and calm, betraying no hint of emotion.
"Draco," he said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.
"I suppose I should clear the air," Draco said. "They made me swear an Unbreakable Vow, but in the end, Minerva unlocked the final memory you left me with. It was one of the last things she did before she died, actually."
Almost involuntarily, Harry gripped the arm-rests of his chair tighter.
In their last conversation, Harry had confessed to killing Draco's father, and given him a choice - whether or not to remain Harry's friend. He'd wanted to let Draco make that decision for himself, at least. For reasons of national security, he'd then had Professor McGonagall seal that memory away for Draco, hidden and inaccessible.
It seemed that they'd seen fit to unseal it, in his long absence.
"Don't worry," Draco drawled, leaning back in his chair and seeming to enjoy Harry's momentary discomfort. "I haven't come here seeking revenge, or anything like that. Lady Granger would tear me limb from limb if I so much as ruffled your hair, and she knows I know that."
Draco squinted at Harry for a moment, seeming to look through him. "Even with those memories, none of us are quite sure how you did it. And seeing you again, you really are very young. I notice myself falling into similar patterns that my father once walked - seeing a child, and failing to realise the nature of the threat they might pose. I will endeavour to avoid making the same mistakes he did."
Harry kept his eyes and voice steady. "I don't intend to pose you any threat, Draco. I wanted to meet with you because there are things we can accomplish together that would be out of reach for either of us alone."
Draco raised his eyebrows in mock incredulity. "What could the Boy Who Lived need from House Malfoy? A loan could be arranged, if necessary - on favourable terms, of course."
Harry brushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes. "No, my finances are fine for now, actually. I might ask you for help with global logistics later, but for now what I need is much more on the human scale. I need to know if you can still cast the Patronus charm."
There was a flicker across Draco's face at that, a hint of something bitter in the lines of his face before they smoothed out, replaced by a deliberately blank expression.
"Why?" The playful tone was gone, now. Draco's voice was as silky and foreboding as Lucius' ever had been.
"My allies - and I count you among their number, given what you've done for non-wizard sapients in the years I've been gone - have done exceedingly well in guiding Earth for the last thirty years. I'm no forensic accountant, but even disregarding your more well-hidden assets, a superficial reading of land holdings in Britain and Europe puts you comfortably in the running for the wealthiest person in history. I'm not quite sure how you managed that, but given that live-updating market listings are now printed in the Prophet, I'd bet my last Sickle that it has something to do with some form of quantitative trading or other magical engagement with the Muggle economy."
Harry shuffled around the paper on Hermione's desk until he found the page he wanted. "That alone wouldn't be particularly notable, but I made a crude attempt at estimating your expenses from figures I found in your correspondence with Flitwick and Hermione. I think you're responsible for about a third of all charitable giving worldwide, and probably more like half of the funds allocated toward global development."
Draco's mouth was a thin line, and he offered no response, so Harry went on.
"This world, I think, is proceeding on a reasonable trajectory - provided certain issues are taken care of, and Hermione has told me she has contingencies in place for those. I'm now concerned with what lies outside this world. With those that have returned to Earth with me, and those who would still aid me here - there is no shortage of magical strength, nor of the will to do what is right. The dangers posed by this new multiverse are great, but I believe we will rise to meet them."
Harry leant forward on the desk, a challenging manoeuvre given that it was designed for someone more than six feet tall. "What we need is trust. Unless things have changed since I first saw you cast the spell, your snake-patronus can understand Parseltongue, which in turn means you can hear the meaning of words through it. It's my current belief that it is impossible to speak anything but the truth in the snake-tongue. With your patronus, my allies and I could establish real trust between a number of very disparate - and powerful - groups."
In a single fluid movement, Draco stood, and turned to face the door. At first Harry was worried he was moving to leave the room, but the man simply stood there, his back to his childhood friend.
When he spoke again after a minute of silence, Draco's voice was low and deadly. "You know, I expected to walk into this room and have my beliefs shaken somehow. I tried to prepare myself in advance, but I expected to be surprised anyway - I was going to speak with Harry Potter, after all. And here we are. My father's killer, asking me to use my love for my father to serve as a tool to further his ambitions - which have grown from the merely universal to something beyond that."
Harry's hands were tensed where they rested on Hermione's desk. He needed to be very careful now, he knew. Draco had been a careful and calculating child, and he was no doubt a careful and calculating man. But in one of his lowest moments, when Draco had been torn loose from his father's blood-purist ideology and prejudice by a series of scientific experiments, and left untethered - there had been a moment where Harry had feared for his life, and thought that Draco might kill him. In the end, his friend had left him alive - but with a torture-hex sending screaming agony coursing through his limbs, and locked in a room without help for hours. Harry had come close to cutting off his own hand to escape the pain.
"Draco," he said, his voice soft. "I don't mean this as a threat, it's just a statement of fact. I consider you my friend, and from what I've read about your life thus far in books, I truly believe that our values are very close to aligned. But if you try to hurt me, you should know that I can stop you - but it will not be without causing you significant pain. Please don't make me do that."
Draco grimaced, and turned back around. "The last time people crossed Harry Potter - on this planet, at least - their heads were removed from their bodies in a fraction of a second, all thirty-seven of them. I'm not fool enough to raise my wand against you, not anymore."
The white-haired man glanced at Harry's left hand, subtly enough that Harry wasn't sure if it was supposed to be noticed or not.
"I'll help, of course." Draco's voice sounded weary now. "From what Hermione's said, this matter is important enough to warrant my full attention."
"So you can still…"
If looks could kill, then Harry would have been dead three times over after the glare Draco shot him then. Slowly, Draco withdrew his wand from his immaculate robes, and his hands twitched with the gestures of the spell.
"Expecto Patronum."
Light formed at the tip of his wand, and flowed out onto the oaken desk. It was a snake, a little over twice the size of the Scottish adder Zorian had brought with him from the reflected Earth.
Speaking to the snake rather than Harry, Draco's words were spoken with a cold intensity. "Tell Harry that no matter what else changes in this world, no matter who returns to this world and who is taken from it and remains gone, that I will always love my father."
The snake uncoiled itself, and drifted across the surface to stop in front of Harry. It repeated the words in Draco's voice.
"Hsssss ssss sshsshssss, hsss ssss shshssss," said Harry to the snake.
The snake turned and slithered across the table to deliver the return message to Draco:
"Harry says that he's glad to see his friend again."
Zorian - Simulacrum 'Xvim'
With the help of Harry's silvery-haired companion, and his equally silvery snake-patronus, the necessary long-term commitments were made to Bones' and Hermione's satisfaction. Watching the ghostly snake hold a hissing conversation with the corporeal snake Zach was oddly amusing.
After some cross-examination from Moody, and the corresponding Parseltongue statements in response, even the old auror seemed to relax a little. There was some internal discussion among the Earthlings about the extent to which they ought to trust Parseltongue, but in the end, Moody stowed his wand. His part complete, Draco Malfoy excused himself, claiming he had some business dealings to attend to. The claim was transparently false, and everyone in the room seemed to know it, but the simulacrum couldn't discern the real reason without diving past the man's formidable occlumency barriers.
"Time for some Portkey experimentation." Harry looked up at him expectantly. "How many bodies are you willing to allocate to this?"
Zorian had been patient so far. His new allies had made the crossing through the labyrinth far safer than it would have been alone. Without Hugh and Mackerel to guide them, and the additional senses granted by Rain's Detection aura and the Anastan affinities, there was a decent chance of running into some unknown creature before he managed to find his way home. He thought of the eye-beast he'd encountered on one of his first forays into his world's dungeon, and grimaced slightly.
That didn't mean he was going to wait around forever while Harry and Rain pursued research experiments. Zorian had been gone from Eldemar for a few weeks now. And unless they'd managed to put together what had happened (his friends were tenacious, but the scale of Exile Splinter's machinations were a little different to what they'd previously experienced), they probably thought he was dead.
No version of Zorian - ectoplasmic or flesh-and-blood - liked picturing Kiri's face as she slowly lost hope that her brother would return. So despite the undeniable research potential in these other worlds, magical research was a solid third priority for Zorian and his simulacra - behind staying alive, and getting home as soon as possible.
"Any kind of research done on this planet is an unnecessary risk. My simulacrum with Rain tells me he's close to the point where he can leave anchors behind and guide the project from offworld. I leave tonight, along with whoever will come with me. Portkey research will continue on my world."
There was a momentary flash of anxiety from Harry.
<Is everything alright?>
<Yeah,> came the response, sounding tired and tense - which made sense, Harry had been in non-stop meetings since they'd returned. <I didn't expect you to want to leave so soon.>
Out loud, the boy went on: "We need to start healing people as soon as possible, and I should learn how to do the procedure myself."
Hermione nodded. "I've set up a space in the high-security wing of St. Mungos. There's a backlog of thirty-five witches and wizards who are more than a hundred years old waiting for us there, and more are arriving fast."
Harry asked a series of questions about the intended security measures, and between them, Moody and Hermione answered them to his satisfaction. Still, he could still sense some level of anxiety from the boy.
"I'll come to St. Mungos as well," the simulacrum said in response to the implicit mental request, "I think Harry would prefer that."
Harry sighed with relief. "That would be good, thank you. That way I can keep in touch and help with the portkey research between the healings. I want to quickly check in with the Anastans though - we need to discuss our overarching plans. Xvim, can you take us to them?"
The simulacrum shook his head. "There's some wards I'm not familiar with that have been laid across this complex. I'd need to punch through them to teleport us."
Hermione frowned at that. "If there are ways to bypass the security charms laid on the Ministry, I'd like to know them."
The simulacrum shrugged. "That would take a while, and it's only a short walk anyway."
Hermione grudgingly nodded.
Harry exhaled. "Alright, let's go."
The pair of them left the room and entered the broad black-marble hallway outside. Whether Hermione had deliberately cleared out this section of the Ministry, or something else was keeping the usual Ministry personnel away from here, there were very few people around.
Guided by his soul-connection to the original, the simulacrum led Harry through the bowels of the Ministry. The soul-connection only gave him a directional heading, and the twists and turns and dimensional distortions of the administrative complex meant they had to double back once after hitting a dead end.
The simulacrum could feel the tension in Harry before he said anything. To his empathy, Harry felt like a tightly coiled spring.
"You have to know leaving now is a mistake, Zorian. Crossing between worlds is extremely non-trivial, and there's obviously knowledge here that you don't yet have."
The simulacrum kept a straight face. "I've been away from home for a month now-"
Harry cut him off and finished the sentence for him: "... and people must think you're dead? Oh gosh, I can't imagine what that must be like. Zorian, I was gone from this world for thirty years. Compared to the magical possibilities at our fingertips, you have to admit that an anxious friend doesn't even register on the moral scales."
The simulacrum took a deep breath. It wasn't necessary of course, but it was a good way to avoid responding too hastily. "You and I seem to be different in quite a few ways, Harry. This is one of them."
"That's not an answer at all!" Harry spluttered as he struggled to keep up with the simulacrum's longer legs. "I don't know how many lives there are on your world, but Earth has eight billion people living on it. Rain is acting on his compassion for them, and you should already weigh the significance of that far more highly than you seem to, but what about the millions of people who probably live on your world? On Anastis? Or the trillions of happy lives that might exist in the future if we do what we can to guide these realities in whatever ways become necessary? We need knowledge, and leaving Earth to see friends more quickly does not seem to me to be the optimal action in this scenario. It's putting an awful lot in jeopardy."
He stopped to let Harry catch up to him, then looked down at the smaller boy. "They're not my responsibility. My little sister is."
Harry sighed. The simulacrum could tangibly feel Harry's frustration and disappointment, but at least he'd got the point across: there really wasn't anything Harry could say to keep Zorian on this world longer than was strictly necessary. The conversation stalled out, which the simulacrum didn't really mind. Harry was sometimes an interesting person to talk to, but having seen a good fraction of his memories, Zorian knew that there were some matters on which Harry was categorically incapable of taking others' perspectives seriously.
As they reached the bottom of a wood-panelled staircase, there was a small pop, and a piece of paper materialised in the air in front of them.
Both of them reacted immediately, stepping back and conjuring shields between them and the suspicious object. Having seen Alustin use frozen paper to slice through armoured bodies with ease, even an innocuous-seeming page was worthy of caution.
It seemed to be a small letter, which drifted slowly to the ground.
After a moment, Harry gestured at it with his wand and muttered some spells under his breath. "I think it's a portkey of some kind."
The simulacrum knelt down to get a closer look. The letter was written in English - the local tongue - and was enchanted with the strange teleportation magic that was widespread on this world. The magical structure was still fairly new to Zorian, but he was slowly putting together some of the basics.
"I don't think it's made to teleport anything but itself - the dimensional boundary it creates can't be projected beyond the surface of the paper. The spell is still active though, and there's enough mana for another teleportation."
Harry lowered his shield. "Some kind of returning letter, maybe?"
Harry squatted down, and the simulacrum felt the odd sensation of his Anastan affinity acting on the carbon in the paper. The letter slowly unfolded, and Harry began reading.
Zorian's English was still fairly rudimentary, but the simulacrum knelt down too and read alongside him. His eyes widened as he scanned down the hand-written lines:
You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.
If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been.
If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.
Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.
Rain was no stranger to ambitious goals.
With Ameliah and Tallheart by his side, he'd forged the remnants of a shattered city into the beginnings of Ascension, and seen it grow beyond his wildest dreams.
When his strength had proven insufficient to keep his friends safe, they'd journeyed deep below ground, hunting in the depths for creatures that could crush him in an instant. And yet they'd prevailed, returning to the light of the sun with power that few would ever know.
With help from Staavo and Tallheart, Ascension had brought the beginnings of Earth-science to a new world. Starting from dust and ore, they'd fabricated the first light bulbs and flown the first heavier-than-air flying machines that their world had ever seen. Before he'd been taken by the Exile Splinter, new advances were coming almost every day as Ascension worked to combine their world's esoteric magic and Earth's industrial designs into wholly original creations.
Even so, looking at the blueprints and plans laid out on the table in front of him, Rain thought he might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew.
The engineer-witch who had introduced herself as Padma Patil gestured with her wand at one of the designs.
"The tricky thing," she said, "is passing sixty million people - that's roughly the number that we expect to need serious medical care each year - through such a small space while preserving the illusion of standard medical procedure. Eventually we might be able to get additional support from other wizarding nations, but until then, we're constrained by the number of guards we can allocate to each Muggle hospital. We probably can't supply more than two per site at any given time, if we're going to try to maintain the fifteen sites you've said should be possible."
Sixty million people.
Rain shook his head incredulously. As far as he knew, no-one had successfully held a global census on Ameliah's world, but at a rough guess, he'd have said it had about a hundredth of Earth's population. In more ways than one, the two worlds seemed to operate on completely different scales.
Padma tapped on the laptop set up next to her, and the screen shifted. After a moment, she withdrew her hands from the keyboard and gestured at the papers next to it with her wand. She muttered some vaguely latin-sounding syllables, and the surface of the parchment flickered, hand-written numbers cascading through various columns. After ten seconds or so, it eventually settled into a series of neatly-organised and colour categorised summary fields, which she typed back into the computer.
What was that? Some kind of… automatic parchment computation?
"How did you do that?"
Padma didn't look away from the screen. "Magic."
"Right, right. Of course."
Seemingly satisfied with the spreadsheet, the middle-aged witch turned back to Rain.
"These 'aura anchors' you've made are tiny. We could move them around far more easily than we could move the patients - but if we did that, maintaining security around each aura anchor would become far more complex, since we wouldn't be able to set up permanent enchantments."
Rain leant forward in his chair, resting one elbow on the table. His other hand stayed steadily palm up as the seed of yet another crystal formed from raw mana. "And it's easier to explain the effects as some kind of legitimate advance in medical technology if it's centred on a hospital, rather than moving around."
Padma bit her lip and looked into space thoughtfully. "Exactly. So we're probably stuck with keeping the aura anchors in one place, and trying to move the patients through the aura. How long is it safe to keep someone within the range of Summer?"
Rain exhaled. "Honestly, I can't give a confident answer to that yet. The longest we've kept someone in the aura at full power is around three minutes, for a man with a case of total organ failure that Moody brought in from Australia. He seemed healthier afterwards, and initial diagnostic scans looked good. He's only partially healed, but he also complained about massive oversensitivity all over his body, and could barely move because of the pain. We think that's soulstrain, and that it'll wear off - at least, effects like that would wear off on Ameliah's world. Moody's got him in a cage with 'the rats and the flies' for now, to keep observing him."
Rain couldn't quite suppress a scowl as he thought of the old auror. If the display with the rat hadn't been enough to sour his first impression, apparently Moody had almost tried to kill Zorian on the spot when he'd discovered that Zorian was controlling multiple bodies. Rain glanced across at the simulacrum in this room. It was physically identical to the original (unlike the various simulacra which took other forms), but seemed to be resting now. His attention must have been elsewhere, because his eyes were closed, and his head was resting against the wall. Despite everything he'd seen the young mage accomplish, Zorian still looked awfully young to Rain, and it was hard to suppress the instinct to cover his resting body with a blanket, or something. For all he knew, the simulacrum's ectoplasmic bodies probably couldn't even feel the cold.
Padma scribbled down some figures on a piece of parchment, then nodded. "Right. In that case, this design might be our best shot." She slid a schematic over to him. "You've said the range is shared across the anchors, so that means we don't have a lot of space to work with at each site, pretty much just a ten-metre sphere. This design places people in a sort of isolated space-efficient 'pod' and cycles them through the region closest to the anchor. For now, I've allocated one minute per person. The design I've mocked up here," she tabbed through the windows on her computer until the screen showed a 3D model, "is deliberately reminiscent of an MRI machine."
"Why?"
Padma rotated the model on the screen, and tossed her long black hair over one shoulder. "So people think it's medical tech rather than magic."
"Right."
Gotta keep up the ruse for the Muggles, of course. One problem at a time, Rain.
She went on, apparently oblivious to his furrowed eyebrows. "Conservatively, a minute allocated to inserting and removing the pods, and letting each pod sit in the aura for a minute. And each site should be able to handle ten or so pods within aura range at a time. That's two hundred people being healed each hour. Across all the sites, that's…"
She reached back over for the laptop, but Rain got there first, accessing the terminal-based calculator he'd managed to construct out of the basic operations that could be performed in his soul. "Twenty-six million, two hundred and eighty thousand people a year, assuming we can operate overnight and with no delays or breakdowns, which is pretty much impossible at that scale. But I think we can do better. I can only run the same aura through fifteen anchors at a time, but we can sort of bypass that limit by running the aura half the time at twice as many sites. The healing will be slower at any individual site, but the logistics should be easier."
Padma tilted her head to the side, and thought about it for a moment. "You mean, like a microwave on low power? Pulsing the full-power aura periodically, in order to reduce the average power output to the desired level?" She absent-mindedly started chewing on the end of one of her strands of hair. "Could we also use that to increase the effective area around the anchors?"
Rain scratched at his beard. "Yeah, that should work - by rotating through each of the anchors rapidly. I wouldn't have thought wizards would use microwaves. Isn't there some kind of food-heating spell?"
Padma grinned, and flicked the edge of her laptop's screen with a finger. "Engineer, remember? I took apart the first microwave I came across pretty much immediately. Gave myself a nasty electric shock too, actually."
Rain laughed and winced simultaneously. Danger aside, the mental image of Padma as a teenage witch, dressed in black robes probably, poking around the interior of a microwave with her wand, was a fairly amusing one.
Rain squinted at the schematic. "Why did you arrange the pods like… hold on, I need to think about this for a second."
Half-an-hour of accelerated thinking in his soul later, and thirty real-time seconds later, he grabbed a pen and flipped the schematic onto its blank rear side. Normally at this point, if he was working with Ascension, he'd leave the construction and specifics to others after sharing the concept so that they could get a feel for the engineering process. For a project on this scale, though, he was going to stick with it till it was done.
"How's something like this? We mount the pods on a series of concentric rails so that they can rotate constantly…" Moving quicker than humanly possible, he started sketching.
Padma leant over to look closer. "Wouldn't that run into issues with collisions at this- oh, right, the tracks cross vertically, rather than merging. Hmm, I think that should work."
Minutes blurred into hours, and their design went through dozens of iterations. Rain's scepticism was slowly displaced, and as he and Padma worked side by side, a feeling started to settle in:
We might actually be able to do this.
Harry sat, nervous and alone, in Hermione's office, with his hands folded in his lap.
He really had no idea what to expect from this meeting. Seeing Hermione again, well, that made sense on some level. The phoenix on her shoulder meant that she was driven by the same things he was. And so even though so much time had passed - half a lifetime, although he wasn't sure Hermione even had a mortal lifespan anymore - he had enough faith in their common goals that it wasn't hard to slip back into smooth collaboration.
Draco, on the other hand… What did he want?
And how would he react to finding Harry alive and un-aged, after thirty years?
He'd found some reasonably up-to-date newspapers in the empty copy of Hogwarts, and in the course of their scavenging in the Mirror-created world, he'd kept an eye out for anything he could find about the lives his friends had lived in his absence. The notes he'd made on Draco were spread out loosely across the desk. There wasn't much point in leafing through them, since Harry had memorised them all as they'd travelled from the probe to Earth, but there wasn't much else he could do while he waited.
The door swung open. Tall, white-haird and coldly elegant in robes of the finest quality, one hand gripping a silver-handled cane, a man swept into the room. In a single, precise motion, he took the seat opposite Harry.
"Harry."
Harry swallowed, and looked into his friend's eyes. They were cool and calm, betraying no hint of emotion.
"Draco," he said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.
"I suppose I should clear the air," Draco said. "They made me swear an Unbreakable Vow, but in the end, Minerva unlocked the final memory you left me with. It was one of the last things she did before she died, actually."
Almost involuntarily, Harry gripped the arm-rests of his chair tighter.
In their last conversation, Harry had confessed to killing Draco's father, and given him a choice - whether or not to remain Harry's friend. He'd wanted to let Draco make that decision for himself, at least. For reasons of national security, he'd then had Professor McGonagall seal that memory away for Draco, hidden and inaccessible.
It seemed that they'd seen fit to unseal it, in his long absence.
"Don't worry," Draco drawled, leaning back in his chair and seeming to enjoy Harry's momentary discomfort. "I haven't come here seeking revenge, or anything like that. Lady Granger would tear me limb from limb if I so much as ruffled your hair, and she knows I know that."
Draco squinted at Harry for a moment, seeming to look through him. "Even with those memories, none of us are quite sure how you did it. And seeing you again, you really are very young. I notice myself falling into similar patterns that my father once walked - seeing a child, and failing to realise the nature of the threat they might pose. I will endeavour to avoid making the same mistakes he did."
Harry kept his eyes and voice steady. "I don't intend to pose you any threat, Draco. I wanted to meet with you because there are things we can accomplish together that would be out of reach for either of us alone."
Draco raised his eyebrows in mock incredulity. "What could the Boy Who Lived need from House Malfoy? A loan could be arranged, if necessary - on favourable terms, of course."
Harry brushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes. "No, my finances are fine for now, actually. I might ask you for help with global logistics later, but for now what I need is much more on the human scale. I need to know if you can still cast the Patronus charm."
There was a flicker across Draco's face at that, a hint of something bitter in the lines of his face before they smoothed out, replaced by a deliberately blank expression.
"Why?" The playful tone was gone, now. Draco's voice was as silky and foreboding as Lucius' ever had been.
"My allies - and I count you among their number, given what you've done for non-wizard sapients in the years I've been gone - have done exceedingly well in guiding Earth for the last thirty years. I'm no forensic accountant, but even disregarding your more well-hidden assets, a superficial reading of land holdings in Britain and Europe puts you comfortably in the running for the wealthiest person in history. I'm not quite sure how you managed that, but given that live-updating market listings are now printed in the Prophet, I'd bet my last Sickle that it has something to do with some form of quantitative trading or other magical engagement with the Muggle economy."
Harry shuffled around the paper on Hermione's desk until he found the page he wanted. "That alone wouldn't be particularly notable, but I made a crude attempt at estimating your expenses from figures I found in your correspondence with Flitwick and Hermione. I think you're responsible for about a third of all charitable giving worldwide, and probably more like half of the funds allocated toward global development."
Draco's mouth was a thin line, and he offered no response, so Harry went on.
"This world, I think, is proceeding on a reasonable trajectory - provided certain issues are taken care of, and Hermione has told me she has contingencies in place for those. I'm now concerned with what lies outside this world. With those that have returned to Earth with me, and those who would still aid me here - there is no shortage of magical strength, nor of the will to do what is right. The dangers posed by this new multiverse are great, but I believe we will rise to meet them."
Harry leant forward on the desk, a challenging manoeuvre given that it was designed for someone more than six feet tall. "What we need is trust. Unless things have changed since I first saw you cast the spell, your snake-patronus can understand Parseltongue, which in turn means you can hear the meaning of words through it. It's my current belief that it is impossible to speak anything but the truth in the snake-tongue. With your patronus, my allies and I could establish real trust between a number of very disparate - and powerful - groups."
In a single fluid movement, Draco stood, and turned to face the door. At first Harry was worried he was moving to leave the room, but the man simply stood there, his back to his childhood friend.
When he spoke again after a minute of silence, Draco's voice was low and deadly. "You know, I expected to walk into this room and have my beliefs shaken somehow. I tried to prepare myself in advance, but I expected to be surprised anyway - I was going to speak with Harry Potter, after all. And here we are. My father's killer, asking me to use my love for my father to serve as a tool to further his ambitions - which have grown from the merely universal to something beyond that."
Harry's hands were tensed where they rested on Hermione's desk. He needed to be very careful now, he knew. Draco had been a careful and calculating child, and he was no doubt a careful and calculating man. But in one of his lowest moments, when Draco had been torn loose from his father's blood-purist ideology and prejudice by a series of scientific experiments, and left untethered - there had been a moment where Harry had feared for his life, and thought that Draco might kill him. In the end, his friend had left him alive - but with a torture-hex sending screaming agony coursing through his limbs, and locked in a room without help for hours. Harry had come close to cutting off his own hand to escape the pain.
"Draco," he said, his voice soft. "I don't mean this as a threat, it's just a statement of fact. I consider you my friend, and from what I've read about your life thus far in books, I truly believe that our values are very close to aligned. But if you try to hurt me, you should know that I can stop you - but it will not be without causing you significant pain. Please don't make me do that."
Draco grimaced, and turned back around. "The last time people crossed Harry Potter - on this planet, at least - their heads were removed from their bodies in a fraction of a second, all thirty-seven of them. I'm not fool enough to raise my wand against you, not anymore."
The white-haired man glanced at Harry's left hand, subtly enough that Harry wasn't sure if it was supposed to be noticed or not.
"I'll help, of course." Draco's voice sounded weary now. "From what Hermione's said, this matter is important enough to warrant my full attention."
"So you can still…"
If looks could kill, then Harry would have been dead three times over after the glare Draco shot him then. Slowly, Draco withdrew his wand from his immaculate robes, and his hands twitched with the gestures of the spell.
"Expecto Patronum."
Light formed at the tip of his wand, and flowed out onto the oaken desk. It was a snake, a little over twice the size of the Scottish adder Zorian had brought with him from the reflected Earth.
Speaking to the snake rather than Harry, Draco's words were spoken with a cold intensity. "Tell Harry that no matter what else changes in this world, no matter who returns to this world and who is taken from it and remains gone, that I will always love my father."
The snake uncoiled itself, and drifted across the surface to stop in front of Harry. It repeated the words in Draco's voice.
"Hsssss ssss sshsshssss, hsss ssss shshssss," said Harry to the snake.
The snake turned and slithered across the table to deliver the return message to Draco:
"Harry says that he's glad to see his friend again."
Zorian - Simulacrum 'Xvim'
With the help of Harry's silvery-haired companion, and his equally silvery snake-patronus, the necessary long-term commitments were made to Bones' and Hermione's satisfaction. Watching the ghostly snake hold a hissing conversation with the corporeal snake Zach was oddly amusing.
After some cross-examination from Moody, and the corresponding Parseltongue statements in response, even the old auror seemed to relax a little. There was some internal discussion among the Earthlings about the extent to which they ought to trust Parseltongue, but in the end, Moody stowed his wand. His part complete, Draco Malfoy excused himself, claiming he had some business dealings to attend to. The claim was transparently false, and everyone in the room seemed to know it, but the simulacrum couldn't discern the real reason without diving past the man's formidable occlumency barriers.
"Time for some Portkey experimentation." Harry looked up at him expectantly. "How many bodies are you willing to allocate to this?"
Zorian had been patient so far. His new allies had made the crossing through the labyrinth far safer than it would have been alone. Without Hugh and Mackerel to guide them, and the additional senses granted by Rain's Detection aura and the Anastan affinities, there was a decent chance of running into some unknown creature before he managed to find his way home. He thought of the eye-beast he'd encountered on one of his first forays into his world's dungeon, and grimaced slightly.
That didn't mean he was going to wait around forever while Harry and Rain pursued research experiments. Zorian had been gone from Eldemar for a few weeks now. And unless they'd managed to put together what had happened (his friends were tenacious, but the scale of Exile Splinter's machinations were a little different to what they'd previously experienced), they probably thought he was dead.
No version of Zorian - ectoplasmic or flesh-and-blood - liked picturing Kiri's face as she slowly lost hope that her brother would return. So despite the undeniable research potential in these other worlds, magical research was a solid third priority for Zorian and his simulacra - behind staying alive, and getting home as soon as possible.
"Any kind of research done on this planet is an unnecessary risk. My simulacrum with Rain tells me he's close to the point where he can leave anchors behind and guide the project from offworld. I leave tonight, along with whoever will come with me. Portkey research will continue on my world."
There was a momentary flash of anxiety from Harry.
<Is everything alright?>
<Yeah,> came the response, sounding tired and tense - which made sense, Harry had been in non-stop meetings since they'd returned. <I didn't expect you to want to leave so soon.>
Out loud, the boy went on: "We need to start healing people as soon as possible, and I should learn how to do the procedure myself."
Hermione nodded. "I've set up a space in the high-security wing of St. Mungos. There's a backlog of thirty-five witches and wizards who are more than a hundred years old waiting for us there, and more are arriving fast."
Harry asked a series of questions about the intended security measures, and between them, Moody and Hermione answered them to his satisfaction. Still, he could still sense some level of anxiety from the boy.
"I'll come to St. Mungos as well," the simulacrum said in response to the implicit mental request, "I think Harry would prefer that."
Harry sighed with relief. "That would be good, thank you. That way I can keep in touch and help with the portkey research between the healings. I want to quickly check in with the Anastans though - we need to discuss our overarching plans. Xvim, can you take us to them?"
The simulacrum shook his head. "There's some wards I'm not familiar with that have been laid across this complex. I'd need to punch through them to teleport us."
Hermione frowned at that. "If there are ways to bypass the security charms laid on the Ministry, I'd like to know them."
The simulacrum shrugged. "That would take a while, and it's only a short walk anyway."
Hermione grudgingly nodded.
Harry exhaled. "Alright, let's go."
The pair of them left the room and entered the broad black-marble hallway outside. Whether Hermione had deliberately cleared out this section of the Ministry, or something else was keeping the usual Ministry personnel away from here, there were very few people around.
Guided by his soul-connection to the original, the simulacrum led Harry through the bowels of the Ministry. The soul-connection only gave him a directional heading, and the twists and turns and dimensional distortions of the administrative complex meant they had to double back once after hitting a dead end.
The simulacrum could feel the tension in Harry before he said anything. To his empathy, Harry felt like a tightly coiled spring.
"You have to know leaving now is a mistake, Zorian. Crossing between worlds is extremely non-trivial, and there's obviously knowledge here that you don't yet have."
The simulacrum kept a straight face. "I've been away from home for a month now-"
Harry cut him off and finished the sentence for him: "... and people must think you're dead? Oh gosh, I can't imagine what that must be like. Zorian, I was gone from this world for thirty years. Compared to the magical possibilities at our fingertips, you have to admit that an anxious friend doesn't even register on the moral scales."
The simulacrum took a deep breath. It wasn't necessary of course, but it was a good way to avoid responding too hastily. "You and I seem to be different in quite a few ways, Harry. This is one of them."
"That's not an answer at all!" Harry spluttered as he struggled to keep up with the simulacrum's longer legs. "I don't know how many lives there are on your world, but Earth has eight billion people living on it. Rain is acting on his compassion for them, and you should already weigh the significance of that far more highly than you seem to, but what about the millions of people who probably live on your world? On Anastis? Or the trillions of happy lives that might exist in the future if we do what we can to guide these realities in whatever ways become necessary? We need knowledge, and leaving Earth to see friends more quickly does not seem to me to be the optimal action in this scenario. It's putting an awful lot in jeopardy."
He stopped to let Harry catch up to him, then looked down at the smaller boy. "They're not my responsibility. My little sister is."
Harry sighed. The simulacrum could tangibly feel Harry's frustration and disappointment, but at least he'd got the point across: there really wasn't anything Harry could say to keep Zorian on this world longer than was strictly necessary. The conversation stalled out, which the simulacrum didn't really mind. Harry was sometimes an interesting person to talk to, but having seen a good fraction of his memories, Zorian knew that there were some matters on which Harry was categorically incapable of taking others' perspectives seriously.
As they reached the bottom of a wood-panelled staircase, there was a small pop, and a piece of paper materialised in the air in front of them.
Both of them reacted immediately, stepping back and conjuring shields between them and the suspicious object. Having seen Alustin use frozen paper to slice through armoured bodies with ease, even an innocuous-seeming page was worthy of caution.
It seemed to be a small letter, which drifted slowly to the ground.
After a moment, Harry gestured at it with his wand and muttered some spells under his breath. "I think it's a portkey of some kind."
The simulacrum knelt down to get a closer look. The letter was written in English - the local tongue - and was enchanted with the strange teleportation magic that was widespread on this world. The magical structure was still fairly new to Zorian, but he was slowly putting together some of the basics.
"I don't think it's made to teleport anything but itself - the dimensional boundary it creates can't be projected beyond the surface of the paper. The spell is still active though, and there's enough mana for another teleportation."
Harry lowered his shield. "Some kind of returning letter, maybe?"
Harry squatted down, and the simulacrum felt the odd sensation of his Anastan affinity acting on the carbon in the paper. The letter slowly unfolded, and Harry began reading.
Zorian's English was still fairly rudimentary, but the simulacrum knelt down too and read alongside him. His eyes widened as he scanned down the hand-written lines:
You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.
If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been.
If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.
Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.
Thanks everyone for your patience. I've been very busy at work recently, so I'm glad I found some time to do some writing on the side. More chapters to follow at an unspecified future date (I'm halfway through the next one actually, so hopefully not too big a break this time)
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Great chapter and good conflict.
Still continue to despise harry, he is a prime example of why people hate utilitarianism, fucking pleasure pumps or whatever they are called.
Also it would be so so funny to have a true universal threat appear on Harry's world. Like a multiversal galactus.
Still continue to despise harry, he is a prime example of why people hate utilitarianism, fucking pleasure pumps or whatever they are called.
Also it would be so so funny to have a true universal threat appear on Harry's world. Like a multiversal galactus.
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Glad to see this story back
Lesath Lestrange?
19 - Dispersal
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Harry
You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.
If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been.
If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.
Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.
Below the words, there was a line where the recipient was clearly intended to fill in the name of the sender. There were no other identifying marks as to their identity - aside from those lines of text, the parchment was completely blank.
The simulacrum raised his eyebrows. "You know who sent this? Someone calls you 'Lord'? Weren't you twelve when you left this world?"
Harry frowned. Apparently thirty years of absence wasn't long enough for Lesath Lestrange to lose faith.
Even from his external perspective, knowing the explanations for each bizarre happening, Harry had to admit that the years surrounding his departure from this world would have painted a very particular kind of picture from Lesath's point of view.
First, at Snape's instigation, he'd rescued Lesath from some older Gryffindor bullies. No particularly eldritch mysteries there. Lesath had reacted by pleading with him, begging on his knees, for Harry to use whatever inscrutable magic he had to get his mother out of Azkaban.
He'd felt powerless to help then, powerless to right the wrongs that were everywhere in the strange world that was wizarding Britain. Azkaban was a wizarding fortress, a prison from which no escape had ever been recorded.
That wasn't the first time Harry had felt like he ought to hurry up and become god, but he'd felt it more keenly then than he had before.
(A small voice in the back of Harry's head noted that that goal wasn't too far out of reach anymore - given the work he'd already done on his soul, the simulacrum spell and internal time-acceleration likely weren't far from his grasp. And then his work could begin in earnest.)
But then, with Professor Quirrell by his side, he'd done it. Bellatrix was freed from Azkaban, and as the only possible explanation, Harry was enshrined in Lesath's mind as the new Dark Lord, successor to Voldemort in his power and control. No denial from Harry could sway his first follower's mind.
But the story didn't end there, not anymore. Because a few months later, every surviving Death Eater had been summoned to Voldemort's resurrection, including several men who had tortured Bellatrix - every single Death Eater, that is, except Lesath's mother. And then every single one of them had been killed. Although Lesath might not have prayed for that outcome, from his perspective, it might have seemed like yet another interference by a grand puppet-master, interceding on behalf of his first follower.
And then Harry Potter had vanished, and the chief suspect for his disappearance was Bellatrix Lestrange, acting on behalf of her former master.
Harry could picture Lesath's indecision and rising panic as the Slytherin boy saw the world pit his mother against the one who he thought had saved her. He could only imagine Lesath's relief when, six months later, the ascended Hermione Granger attempted to extract a confession, and proved beyond doubt that Bellatrix Lestrange was innocent in the matter of Harry Potter's disappearance.
Followed immediately by mind-numbing shock as Lesath realised that his mother would be returned to Azkaban. For although she was innocent of that particular crime, she was guilty of many, many more.
It was too easy to imagine Lesath trying to fall asleep that night. He would have cried, and perhaps prayed to his vanished Lord. Anything, he would have whispered to his Lord when he thought no-one else could hear - 'I'll do anything, just don't let my mother be sent back to Azkaban.'
Sleep would not have come easily that night, if it came at all. And then Lesath would have read the next morning's papers. Azkaban had been destroyed by some unknown force, obliterated beyond repair, and his mother was being sent to a lower-security prison.
Harry knew the true cause, of course. It was the first sign - to those that were paying attention - that Hermione Granger was walking the path of a hero, and refusing to live in a world where a place like Azkaban could exist.
To Lesath, however, lacking the true explanation, it would have seemed that Harry Potter still had the strength to reshape the world despite no longer being a part of it. And now that his Lord had returned, there was probably nothing Lesath wouldn't do if his master requested it.
Harry picked up the letter. "It's a long story. I freed his mother from Azkaban, in a manner largely unrelated to his request that I do so, and I now have his undying loyalty - even thirty years later, apparently."
He fetched a mechanical pencil from his Bag of Useful Items, and carefully wrote Lesath Lestrange into the blank space on the page. He folded the letter again, and placed it back on the ground. With a small popping sound, it vanished, presumably returning to the sender, wherever he was.
Fifteen seconds later, there was another popping sound, and a loose scrap of paper appeared in the air in front of them. Zorian's simulacrum caught this one telekinetically, and unfolded it so they could both see. This time, the handwriting was far more ragged, as if the message had been scrawled hurriedly.
My Lord. I should never have doubted your return.
What is your will?
There was another empty line below that.
"Is this a returning letter too?"
The simulacrum nodded. "The enchantment seems to be identical to the first letter, if a little more hastily constructed."
Harry tucked the letter into one of his pockets. "You never know when something like this will come in handy." Responding to a questioning mental probe, he sent a brief summary of the relevant memories to Zorian. The simulacrum kept a surprisingly straight face, and merely raised his eyebrows. That expression was becoming increasingly familiar, despite the rotating cast of simulacrum faces on which he saw it.
"Shall we go on?"
The simulacrum nodded, and they continued through the administrative rabbit-warren. Before long, they found themselves facing a pair of aurors stationed outside Holding Area C. Hermione must have given them advance notice of their arrival, because they unbarred the door, and let the pair of them in.
The room was cosy, and the Anastans were in various stages of relaxation around the space. Zorian's flesh-and-blood form (although not his original one, apparently) was leafing through a book on a sofa.
Although Harry was slowly getting used to it, it was still a strange experience to enter a room with someone, and find them already there. He really needed to figure out how to cast the simulacrum spell.
Talia got up from where she was nestled with Hugh in front of the fireplace. "Harry! You've been busy. How long till you settle in and we can move on and get the others home?"
Harry sat down on a spare armchair. It was a welcome break, since they'd been walking for a while. It took only a slight mental effort to slip back into Talia's native Ithonian from English. "You're leaving tonight. But I'll remain in touch, assuming Rain's devices work as expected."
Alustin was reclined in an embroidered armchair, one leg lazily draped out to the side. Without lifting a finger, he turned a page in the book resting in his lap - presumably his paper-affinity at work. "Kanderon's debt to you is discharged. We've guided you home."
Harry nodded firmly. "Understood."
Godrick leant forward to grab a carrot stick from the table. "We'll miss ye, but I'm glad you're safe and home. So we leave tonight?"
Zorian spoke up then - the original, not the simulacrum that still stood by the entrance of the room. "Before that, we have some matters to discuss. Could everyone please gather around? Harry and I have a longer-term proposal."
Over the next few minutes, they summarised their multiversal portal plans to the Anastans. Alustin started humming and bouncing his knee, and Sabae looked quietly into space, but otherwise everyone seemed fairly calm.
"So," Zorian finished, "we have a few remaining questions. First, do any of you - or Kanderon, or the resources she can contact, know of any reason why attempting to create a simpler method of cross-reality transportation would cause a calamity?"
"And second," asked Harry, "is Kanderon willing to aid the project? We're likely to need to make extensive use of the Guide to Worlds, and Hugh tells me her planar knowledge is unmatched, at least on Anastis."
The apprentices stayed silent, but Alustin scratched his head, looking a little out of his depth. "None of us here can really comment on that, to be honest. This is the first time any of us have been outside Anastis. Artur, anything to add?"
The enormous man slid his armchair a little closer. His deep voice rumbled in response. "I would advise caution. I know of six incidents that have caused civilisations to fall. Three of 'em were the direct result of enterprising mages experimenting with enchantments beyond their ken."
Zorian nodded. "We intend to experiment slowly, and take as many precautions as reasonably possible."
Artur sat back grimly, and Harry noticed his hands brush against the scars that were just visible on his upper arm. Artur was a titan of a man, and his mastery over stone - in terms of both fine control and raw strength - meant he would be a formidable force in combat. Almost instinctively, Harry ran through the list of techniques that might still work against him. Fiendfyre had already proven itself effective against Artur's stone form, and although Harry himself didn't know the ritual to create the blackened flame, there was an existing pocket of fiendfyre in the labyrinth that he seemed to have some control over.
If the location of Artur's body could be identified in the monstrous armour - which wouldn't be an issue for Harry's carbon affinity - then a Killing Curse would pass through the tons of stone unhindered to reach the individual within. Harry couldn't cast that spell himself, he'd need to get an accomplice to do it for him. That wasn't too huge an obstacle - a willing accomplice could be summoned via returning letter, if necessary.
As much as Harry reviled even the idea of dementors, they could be used as weapons if the situation called for it. Artur might be able to bury the thing in stone for a time, but no material prison would hold a dementor for long. Getting a hold of a dementor at all might be difficult, actually. According to the debrief session with Hermione, there had been no sightings in magical Britain in the last fifteen years. Even in the broader world - where diplomacy permitted - the Girl Who Revived had a habit of showing up if the wounds in the world made their presence known. Every year, dementors edged closer to the extinction they deserved.
The simplest scenario, of course, was if Artur didn't have time to form his stone armour at all. Then, a single carefully placed carbon nanotube would be enough.
Alustin sat up, and withdrew a leather-bound book from his bag. Well, actually he withdrew it from the pocket dimension anchored to his arm, but the sleight of hand was convincing enough that Harry would have sworn the book had always been stored in the bag if he hadn't felt it suddenly appear with his carbon affinity. It was a neat piece of misdirection.
Alustin sat up, and withdrew a leather-bound book from his bag. Well, actually he withdrew it from the pocket dimension anchored to his arm, but the sleight of hand was convincing enough that Harry would have sworn the book had always been stored in the bag if he hadn't felt it suddenly appear with his carbon affinity. It was a neat piece of misdirection.
"I can't speak for Kanderon, but I'll transmit what you've said to her now. Things are fairly tense with Havath and Sica right now, so it might be a while before she can respond - but I can assure you she'll be open to collaboration. Kanderon recognises the potential of an alliance with the three of you - the 'Splintered', she's taken to calling you. She's instructed me to be helpful wherever possible."
The Splintered, hmm. The name suited Zorian well, given his habit of splitting his mind into a multitude of fragments in the form of simulacra. And there was a reasonable reference to the artefact that had brought them together in the first place. Harry's inner critic was fairly satisfied. The name was no General Chaos, but then again, it wasn't The Death Eaters either.
Alustin cleared his throat nervously, and looked away from Zorian. "Unfortunately, she also instructed me to keep the parts of Galvachren's Guide to Worlds that aren't directly relevant to our journey private until given explicit permission."
A short silence fell across the room. That was curious. Even leaving aside Rain and Harry entirely, Kanderon should have known enough about Zorian's capabilities to know that trying to hold him back from taking the Guide was a fool's errand. If Zorian wanted that book, he was going to get it. Kanderon didn't seem like a fool - anyone who had survived for five-hundred years on a world as brutal as Anastis must have had their fair share of cunning. It followed that this limitation was more of a test than anything else. If requested, would Zorian cooperate with Kanderon, or would he use his magic to tear the secrets he wanted from her servants' minds and hands?
In short: was he the type of person she could collaborate with, even when she wasn't here in person to force him to obey?
Harry lightly tapped Zorian's foot. The mage sent a questioning mental signal, and Harry dumped his thoughts through the connection in response. Zorian paused for a second to digest the ideas, then nodded, and leant over to grab a slice of apple from the snacks they'd been provided. "If it's what you want, we'll only view the book if given permission."
Alustin let out an audible breath, and Artur's shoulders visibly un-tensed.
It was odd to watch a pair of grown men - powerful mages, for that matter - listen avidly to every word from a lanky teenager who was reclined onto a sofa. Everyone in this room was aware of the danger Zorian posed, and only for some was that knowledge outweighed by the trust they had in the young mage. It wasn't Zorian's fault, really. So far, he'd largely proven a reliable ally, and in general an honest and kind person. It just came with the territory of being able to reach into others minds and bend them to your will.
Harry was reminded of his first meeting with Amelia Bones as Bearer of the Line of Merlin. Then, as many times before, he'd found it necessary to converse as an adult with people who would have preferred to see him as a child. Still, he had to admit that it was an odd thing to witness as an external observer.
"Anything else to cover here before I head out? I need to help Rain with some manufacturing, and then there's some people I need to restore to health and youth as a fairly urgent priority." Harry made sure to reach out and grab a handful of rice crackers and a bowl of hummus - he hadn't eaten much on this planet yet, and he didn't want low blood sugar to cost him valuable time later.
Simulacrum 'Xvim' stepped forward. "I don't think so." Harry felt the ectoplasmic hand on his shoulder pulling him toward the exit.
"Thanks all - I'll catch up with you before you leave!" Harry half mumbled through a full mouth. Then the simulacrum guided him through the door, and they were moving on.
Rain
In the end, Rain and Padma decided that backwards compatibility was more important than pure efficiency - at least for version 1.0. If vast new devices needed to be constructed and maintained in order to get the effects of his healing aura to as many people as possible, then those devices would inevitably have construction delays, breakdowns, and other design issues that would only become clear with implementation.
Fifty of their 'Healing Cores 1.0' lay spread out across the workshop tables in front of them. Each one was composed of a hollow tungsten rectangular prism, the surface smooth and unblemished except for a single lever on the top (Harry had paid them a short visit by Floo to help with the manufacturing).
The lever did nothing, really. Mounted onto a pivot near the centre of the base of the prism, it was attached to no wires, and had no other mechanical function either. It did however, make a very satisfying ka-chunk noise when shifted from one side to the other (Rain was very proud of that part of the design).
The purpose of the lever was simple. Inside each of the metal prisms, there were three aura anchors: One for Summer, one for Purify (since keeping a medical environment perfectly clean, as well as dealing with poison and infection, was absurdly useful), and one Detection. The three anchors were grouped into a unit in Rain's mental interface, and controlled by a macro that would run as long as he had mana and cognitive capacity to support it. The Detection anchor was set to register if a small glass ball embedded into the lever's haft was within ten centimetres of the anchor itself. If so, the Summer and Purify anchors would automatically be activated, blanketing the area within a hundred metres with healing energy.
The concept was that the prisms would be placed at the geographical centres of major hospitals, each running for a fraction of each second - like a microwave at partial power - as Padma had suggested. Because the auras would be on a lower power level, that meant there would be fewer issues with soulstrain. Correspondingly, the maximum healing rate was reduced, which made the aura less effective at dealing with serious injuries.
They'd come up with a solution for that, too.
The lever was there so Rain could avoid wasting mana on a device that was in transit, and so that it could be turned off if there was some kind of malfunction or soul-strain issue. If tilted slightly to the side, however, the lever could be pushed into the prism, sending the tiny glass ball in the lever's haft to within five centimetres of the Detection anchor. Then, for the next minute, Rain's macro would automatically redirect as much energy as possible toward that singular anchor, with a compressed range of ten metres. Although Padma was calling it the 'acute injury response setting', Rain privately thought of it as the turbo button.
A magical box that healed and cleaned everyone within range was pretty far from anything Earth-science had produced so far. To that end, at Hermione's direction, one of her wizarding research organisations with contacts in the media had put out a press release this morning. The headline was still open on Padma's laptop screen: 'AI-powered nano-bots revolutionise hospital care'. It sounded a little sensationalist, but Hermione had assured them that people would get used to that sort of thing quickly. "Remember what happened with the smart-watches?" she'd said, and Padma had nodded knowingly.
The last piece of the puzzle was in some sense the most important. Rain's communication with his friends in Ascension was happening via small objects moved about on a wooden board. Here on Earth, there were far more efficient options.
After he and Padma worked on finalising the prisms, they'd jumped onto this simpler piece of work with excitement. Detection seemed to have complex rules governing what showed up as 'objects' and could hence be registered as present or not-present by the information-gathering aura. For instance, 'shadow shaped as a cross' didn't seem to count, but a glowing red LED could be distinguished from a non-glowing LED, despite both objects being characterised in some sense by light. Then, once they'd found a way to turn electrical signals into something that could be registered by Detection, the other half of the problem was far simpler: a Radiance anchor in a small box with a light-sensing diode could passively receive a stream of around ten bits a second from Rain's mind, and probably more like fifty if he focused on it.
The resulting device was a small metallic box crudely welded onto the base of a laptop. The sensors and LEDs were wired into the computer, and a user could freely type onto the keyboard and have their messages sent directly into Rain's brain (via the Detection anchor picking up signals from an array of constantly flickering LEDs). Rain could send the response via the Radiance anchor, and the bits would be decoded by the laptop into a basic alphabet, which would be displayed on the screen immediately. All in all, it was a far easier mechanism to use than the shuffleboard-style approach Ascension was still using. Correspondingly, he was leaving behind a pair of the communication devices on Earth - one with Harry, and one with Padma at the Ministry. He was planning to bring along another three with him. The plan was beautifully simple: he was going to leave one behind at each world they visited. Even if the whole 'interdimensional Portkey' thing Zorian and Harry were working on didn't pan out, enabling a constant stream of communication between four different worlds was a worthy goal.
The flames in the fireplace to the side of the workshop flared a bright, burning, green. One after another, a pair of grim-faced men in robes stepped out. Padma introduced them:
"Aurors Adrian Karamazov and Kingsley Shacklebolt. They'll be taking their Healing Core to Mexico City. This is Rain, Captain of Ascension."
The two men extended their hands, and Rain shook them. Their grips were firm, at least for an ordinary human, but Rain couldn't shake the feeling that compared to Ameliah's world, everyone on Earth was made of paper. As a matter of basic security, since there was no damage limit here, he kept enough of the bonus attribute points from his Malleable Ring in Strength to ensure he could survive a bullet to the head even without wards active. A corollary was that he felt like he could bench-press a car, and he had to take care not to squeeze their hands too hard.
"Thank you. It's not everyday a stranger from another world arrives to reshape ours for the better."
Shacklebolt's voice was deep and sonorous, a bit like Tallheart's. Rain felt a spike of homesickness.
Just one more world, then I'm coming home.
He blinked, and looked back into their faces. "It's the least I can do. It's my world too - or at least it used to be, I guess."
Padma ran the aurors through the basic functionality, and handed over the first of the tungsten boxes. Kingsley accepted it gingerly, as if he was worried it would explode or bite off his hand, or something like that. Given the type of magic Rain had seen so far on Earth, that might have actually been a reasonable precaution. With a final nod to Rain, the aurors stepped back into the flames, and vanished.
A minute of waiting later, Rain felt the automatic processes in his mind shift and adjust in accordance with the macro he'd set up. Somewhere - presumably in Mexico City, since Rain could see all the other boxes arrayed in the room in front of him - someone had shifted the lever on their Healing Core into the 'active' position. Automatically, Rain felt the slightly increased mana draw as the Purify and Summer anchors activated, bathing their environment in healing energy.
Padma reached up to clap him on the shoulder. The middle-aged witch looked energised, probably because of the half-dozen energy drinks that were making up for her lack of sleep. "That's the first of many. I can handle the rest of the distribution - it'll take a while for us to wrangle the rest of the available aurors and prepare them for deployment."
She stepped over to the desk and powered up one of the communications laptops. Her fingers flitted on the keyboard, typing something Rain couldn't see, but the Detection anchor under the laptop flared in his mind, transmitting the basic alphabet-code from the flickering LED panel directly into his mind.
WE'LL BE IN TOUCH, RIGHT? GOOD LUCK ON THE NEXT WORLD
Rain smiled wryly. "We'll be in touch. Thank you, Padma."
The witch hugged him, stretching her arms around his torso despite his armour. Rain paused for a moment, then hugged her back. They hadn't known each other long, but they'd worked together well, and saying goodbye hurt.
He scooped the other four communications laptops into a bag of holding, and with a final nod to Padma, stepped across to the fireplace.
"Hogwarts."
The fireplace flared green, and the world vanished in a swirl of iridescent flames.
Zorian
Rain was the last to arrive, calmly stepping out of the Headmaster's fireplace. Zorian and the Anastans had been waiting a while, and Harry had arrived a few minutes ago from St. Mungo's.
Flitwick - the Headmaster of this school - and Hermione, were the only others in the room. The entire student body had been evacuated for this occasion, since no-one was quite sure how secure the connection to the labyrinth really was. The night was quiet, and the stars were gradually becoming visible outside as the last light of the sun receded.
Rain's first action on arrival was to withdraw a complex-looking device from his expanded pouch, and hand it across to Harry, who nodded gratefully. Then, it was time to move.
Hermione led the way through the spiralling corridors they all knew well, through the belly of Hogwarts toward the Mirror.
The room itself had changed dramatically in the days since their arrival. Now that the wizards knew the Mirror was a connection to a labyrinth, they'd vastly increased the security measures.
A dull grey icosahedron fully enclosed the golden Mirror itself, and outside that, the ground and ceiling glimmered with lines of mana. A pair of Zorian's simulacra had spent their time on Earth studying what Hogwarts textbooks called 'Ancient Runes', and even at a glance, Zorian knew to avoid stepping near the fragments of light.
Hermione's wand flared blue for a moment, and in response, the runes in the ceiling and ground faded. With another flick of her wand, the icosahedron began to move, triangles of dull grey material overlapping and merging into one another until the entire construct folded itself into a single triangle that hovered unobtrusively behind the Mirror.
And there it was. The golden Mirror, still looking just the way they'd seen it in two other realities.
Simulacrum Number Three stepped forward, and gently lifted his sleeve. Underneath, Zach the snake had just woken up, and was flickering his tongue in the dry air of the castle room.
Rain grabbed a crystal from the expanded satchel at his waist, and tossed it over. Zorian caught it telekinetically, and offered it gently to the snake.
In response to a gentle mental nudge, Zach coiled himself up, looking for all the world like he was trying to incubate the tiny crystal aura anchor.
"Shall we begin?"
There were nods from around the room, and the simulacrum levitated the snake forward until it came into contact with the surface of the Mirror. And then it vanished, not in a flash of activity, but rather in a rearrangement of how the world was.
"Rain?"
The bearded man focused for a moment, and nodded. "Zach and the Detection anchor are both intact, and from the environment I can sense near them, they seem like they're in the same part of the labyrinth from which we originally entered the Mirror." He grimaced. "But you know, with all the duplication and perfect mirror-images we've encountered, whether this is actually that labyrinth, or just a perfect copy or something is anyone's guess."
If this labyrinth journey took as long as the last one had, then it was two more days until he could see Kiri again.
Best to get started as soon as possible.
Zorian stepped forward, careful to avoid the runes on the floor, even though they were ostensibly inactive.
"Thank you for your hospitality during our time on Earth. I hope to see you again, in time."
Hermione inclined her head, and responded similarly.
And this last goodbye could be done mentally.
<Goodbye, Harry. I imagine we'll be in touch.>
Even though Zorian had spent a decent while scrutinising Harry's thoughts for dangers and hidden plans, it was still difficult to guess what the young wizard was thinking from the outside. Harry's eyes were glinting intently as they locked onto Zorian's.
<We will. Goodbye, Zorian.>
And with that, Zorian reached out and mentally nudged the Mirror. There was no feeling of translocation, no twisting or flames. One moment he was in Hogwarts, the next he was back in the labyrinth.
Zach the snake was resting on the ground, still tightly coiled around the crystal anchor. Zorian mentally instructed him to release it, then picked him up from the ground and slipped the snake into his sleeve. Without Harry around, there wasn't much practical point to keeping the pet snake, but it would have felt a little too callous to simply leave him behind. Besides, he was looking forward to seeing the human Zach's reaction.
One by one, Rain and the Anastans popped into existence by his side. Godrick stumbled slightly as he appeared, but his father caught his arm to steady him.
Upon appearing, Rain immediately tensed and barked out a warning. "The fiendfyre is close by. Three hundred metres in that direction, circling towards us." He gestured toward the far wall of their chamber. "ETA ninety seconds. Zorian, can you do that spherical gate thing again?"
Zorian's natural empathy was sufficient to keep tabs on most dangers that had a mind, but where mindless entities were concerned, Rain's divination was indisputably very useful.
Fortunately for their little group, spending so long in a time loop had left Zorian with a few good habits (and, admittedly, a few bad ones as well). First, he rarely forgot a useful trick, and he'd had a while to add a good number to his repertoire. Second, if he faced a threat once, he generally invested some time in figuring out how to handle it better the next time. To that end, he'd spent a while studying how Earth-wizard enchantments seemed to work without either constant magical reinforcement, or some form of power source like crystallised mana.
After some careful examination, Earth's long-term wards and enchantments turned out to slowly leech mana from their environment in a way Zorian hadn't really seen before, relying on the imbalance in mana levels inside and outside the device in a manner similar to a steam engine. As a result, it only worked properly at sites with particularly large quantities of ambient mana, like Hogwarts or the site of the Ministry in Britain's capital. Given that Earth seemed to have substantially higher quantities of ambient mana than his homeworld of Ersetu, the trick wouldn't really work outside the Dungeon or a labyrinth. That said, he was fairly sure it would serve as a partial replacement for crystallised mana while he was here.
A large metal cube flew out of one of his pocket dimensions. In response to a mental command, it positioned itself to shield the group in the direction Rain had pointed. This wasn't a perfect copy of the cube he'd constructed to protect himself alongside Mrva the golem, far from it. He didn't have the time to construct something like that, nor did he have the vast quantities of crystallised mana he'd used to power it - that's what had prevented him from completing it on Anastis. Studying the anti-apparition enchantments used by Earth-wizards in Hogwarts and the Ministry had proven very useful, and their techniques for harnessing especially high concentrations of ambient mana allowed the cube to imitate one or two of the functions of the original, at a cost of only being able to operate in constrained locations.
Still, he was hoping it would be fairly useful here.
The large metal cube unfolded into eight smaller cubes, each etched with near-invisible runes he'd copied from around Hogwarts and the Ministry. They arranged themselves into a ring-shape, about two metres across.
The others moved to stand behind him, which was probably a good move. Hugh's crystal wards seemed to be able to hold the fiendfyre in place, but without something else to help slow it down, it was unlikely he'd be able to set up a ward-trap in time.
After a brief period of waiting, there was a cracking sound, and a second later, the stone bricks ahead of them crumbled and burst apart. Without Harry's gem as a target, the darkened phoenix looked almost aimless, swerving through the air unpredictably as it flew across the chamber.
With a gesture from Zorian, the eight cubes rushed toward the phoenix. It didn't move to dodge, which made sense - as far as Zorian could tell, it was a spell-construct given form, more like an Anastan elemental or a particularly simple golem, and didn't have an intelligent mind.
As the phoenix got close, its motion seemed to slow as the temporal bubble built into the cubes took hold. A moment later, the ring of cubes passed over the flame, and the phoenix vanished, hidden in a pocket dimension and almost frozen in time.
The cubes returned to Zorian, and reformed into a single larger cube, which hovered by his side.
There was a long pause.
"Well, that was quicker than last time. Nice work Zorian." Godrick clapped him on the shoulder and started walking toward the room's exit. "Shall we get moving then?"
After a brief walk, Alustin called for a halt. His far-seeing affinity had detected an enormous snake, almost thirty metres long, lying in wait in an empty space next to their path ahead. Rather than blindly walking into a trap, they paused to examine the room. Hugh was the first to notice a series of divination wards that seemed to be designed to detect travellers. When triggered, the wall separating their tunnel from the massive snake would lower into the ground.
The wards themselves proved fairly difficult to disrupt safely, and in the end, Godrick and Artur simply jammed the stone mechanism so that it couldn't lower the wall. After that, they just walked straight through the tunnel. The wards triggered, of course, but the wall stayed in place, and the snake stayed safely on the other side. As they passed close by, Zorian got a sense of vague annoyance from the creature. It seemed not everything in the labyrinth was entirely unintelligent. That was strange, and definitely deserved further research later - if it could be done safely. Despite the protests of the simulacra by his side, Zorian resolved to send some copies deeper into the dungeon when he got a chance. If the labyrinth was somehow intelligently reforming itself, the way Alustin claimed it did, then there might be ways to influence the kinds of rooms and traps it produced - which might be a very efficient way to gather magical materials.
As they journeyed further on, it became clear that this trip through the labyrinth wouldn't be quite as smooth as their first one. Without Harry's carbon affinity, their ability to detect and neutralise nearby threats was somewhat diminished, and for whatever reason, Mackerel seemed to be guiding them along routes with more obstacles.
The next series of chambers were constructed from a rich white marble, speckled with darker flecks. Rivulets of water dripped down some of the walls, emerging from tiny cracks in the roof and seeping into patches of moss on the ground. For some reason, the air was so rich in mana that it felt almost heavy. Rain was on edge, and warned them to keep an eye out for 'metallic fish', whatever that meant. In the end, it wasn't a creature that posed the most serious threat.
Zorian was in the habit of casting periodic divination spells to scout out the chambers ahead of them. Alustin was doing the same with his far-seeing affinity, but after half an hour, there was an unfortunate but predictable coincidence - Alustin and Zorian's spells fired off at the same time.
Even though both spells used tiny quantities of mana, the interaction of the foreign spell with Zorian's mana-shaping created an instability. Normally, the miniscule ripple would dissipate almost immediately. In the mana-rich air here, however, the instability grew rapidly, cascading into a fist-sized explosion as the mana dumped its energy into the air in the form of heat.
Zorian immediately suppressed his own divination spell, but now that the instability had expanded somewhat, it was too late to cut it off at the source. Thankfully, Simulacrum number two had the bright idea of surrounding the explosion with a thin dimensional barrier. Although it did nothing to contain the physical energy released, it prevented the explosion from expanding to the mana outside the barrier, which would have almost certainly been lethal. That said, the resulting blast still knocked Zorian to the ground and left him short of breath.
A simulacrum moved to help him up, but Godrick was there first. The tall stone-mage offered a hand, and Zorian took it gratefully. After that, they avoided casting spells, and to be on the safe side, Rain deactivated his auras for the first time in what seemed like forever. Half-blind, they hurried through the remaining marble chambers as quickly as reasonably possible.
Ten or so minutes later, the moist marble walls gave way to rough-hewn stone, and the bizarrely mana-rich air petered out. Zorian breathed a sigh of relief, for a few reasons. With the return to the usual mana-density of a labyrinth, the risk of a cascading instability was practically zero.
That, and the black stone of the tunnel was starting to look somewhat familiar. Despite the danger, Zorian couldn't quite keep the smile from his face. Home was close.
You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.
If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been.
If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.
Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.
Below the words, there was a line where the recipient was clearly intended to fill in the name of the sender. There were no other identifying marks as to their identity - aside from those lines of text, the parchment was completely blank.
The simulacrum raised his eyebrows. "You know who sent this? Someone calls you 'Lord'? Weren't you twelve when you left this world?"
Harry frowned. Apparently thirty years of absence wasn't long enough for Lesath Lestrange to lose faith.
Even from his external perspective, knowing the explanations for each bizarre happening, Harry had to admit that the years surrounding his departure from this world would have painted a very particular kind of picture from Lesath's point of view.
First, at Snape's instigation, he'd rescued Lesath from some older Gryffindor bullies. No particularly eldritch mysteries there. Lesath had reacted by pleading with him, begging on his knees, for Harry to use whatever inscrutable magic he had to get his mother out of Azkaban.
He'd felt powerless to help then, powerless to right the wrongs that were everywhere in the strange world that was wizarding Britain. Azkaban was a wizarding fortress, a prison from which no escape had ever been recorded.
That wasn't the first time Harry had felt like he ought to hurry up and become god, but he'd felt it more keenly then than he had before.
(A small voice in the back of Harry's head noted that that goal wasn't too far out of reach anymore - given the work he'd already done on his soul, the simulacrum spell and internal time-acceleration likely weren't far from his grasp. And then his work could begin in earnest.)
But then, with Professor Quirrell by his side, he'd done it. Bellatrix was freed from Azkaban, and as the only possible explanation, Harry was enshrined in Lesath's mind as the new Dark Lord, successor to Voldemort in his power and control. No denial from Harry could sway his first follower's mind.
But the story didn't end there, not anymore. Because a few months later, every surviving Death Eater had been summoned to Voldemort's resurrection, including several men who had tortured Bellatrix - every single Death Eater, that is, except Lesath's mother. And then every single one of them had been killed. Although Lesath might not have prayed for that outcome, from his perspective, it might have seemed like yet another interference by a grand puppet-master, interceding on behalf of his first follower.
And then Harry Potter had vanished, and the chief suspect for his disappearance was Bellatrix Lestrange, acting on behalf of her former master.
Harry could picture Lesath's indecision and rising panic as the Slytherin boy saw the world pit his mother against the one who he thought had saved her. He could only imagine Lesath's relief when, six months later, the ascended Hermione Granger attempted to extract a confession, and proved beyond doubt that Bellatrix Lestrange was innocent in the matter of Harry Potter's disappearance.
Followed immediately by mind-numbing shock as Lesath realised that his mother would be returned to Azkaban. For although she was innocent of that particular crime, she was guilty of many, many more.
It was too easy to imagine Lesath trying to fall asleep that night. He would have cried, and perhaps prayed to his vanished Lord. Anything, he would have whispered to his Lord when he thought no-one else could hear - 'I'll do anything, just don't let my mother be sent back to Azkaban.'
Sleep would not have come easily that night, if it came at all. And then Lesath would have read the next morning's papers. Azkaban had been destroyed by some unknown force, obliterated beyond repair, and his mother was being sent to a lower-security prison.
Harry knew the true cause, of course. It was the first sign - to those that were paying attention - that Hermione Granger was walking the path of a hero, and refusing to live in a world where a place like Azkaban could exist.
To Lesath, however, lacking the true explanation, it would have seemed that Harry Potter still had the strength to reshape the world despite no longer being a part of it. And now that his Lord had returned, there was probably nothing Lesath wouldn't do if his master requested it.
Harry picked up the letter. "It's a long story. I freed his mother from Azkaban, in a manner largely unrelated to his request that I do so, and I now have his undying loyalty - even thirty years later, apparently."
He fetched a mechanical pencil from his Bag of Useful Items, and carefully wrote Lesath Lestrange into the blank space on the page. He folded the letter again, and placed it back on the ground. With a small popping sound, it vanished, presumably returning to the sender, wherever he was.
Fifteen seconds later, there was another popping sound, and a loose scrap of paper appeared in the air in front of them. Zorian's simulacrum caught this one telekinetically, and unfolded it so they could both see. This time, the handwriting was far more ragged, as if the message had been scrawled hurriedly.
My Lord. I should never have doubted your return.
What is your will?
There was another empty line below that.
"Is this a returning letter too?"
The simulacrum nodded. "The enchantment seems to be identical to the first letter, if a little more hastily constructed."
Harry tucked the letter into one of his pockets. "You never know when something like this will come in handy." Responding to a questioning mental probe, he sent a brief summary of the relevant memories to Zorian. The simulacrum kept a surprisingly straight face, and merely raised his eyebrows. That expression was becoming increasingly familiar, despite the rotating cast of simulacrum faces on which he saw it.
"Shall we go on?"
The simulacrum nodded, and they continued through the administrative rabbit-warren. Before long, they found themselves facing a pair of aurors stationed outside Holding Area C. Hermione must have given them advance notice of their arrival, because they unbarred the door, and let the pair of them in.
The room was cosy, and the Anastans were in various stages of relaxation around the space. Zorian's flesh-and-blood form (although not his original one, apparently) was leafing through a book on a sofa.
Although Harry was slowly getting used to it, it was still a strange experience to enter a room with someone, and find them already there. He really needed to figure out how to cast the simulacrum spell.
Talia got up from where she was nestled with Hugh in front of the fireplace. "Harry! You've been busy. How long till you settle in and we can move on and get the others home?"
Harry sat down on a spare armchair. It was a welcome break, since they'd been walking for a while. It took only a slight mental effort to slip back into Talia's native Ithonian from English. "You're leaving tonight. But I'll remain in touch, assuming Rain's devices work as expected."
Alustin was reclined in an embroidered armchair, one leg lazily draped out to the side. Without lifting a finger, he turned a page in the book resting in his lap - presumably his paper-affinity at work. "Kanderon's debt to you is discharged. We've guided you home."
Harry nodded firmly. "Understood."
Godrick leant forward to grab a carrot stick from the table. "We'll miss ye, but I'm glad you're safe and home. So we leave tonight?"
Zorian spoke up then - the original, not the simulacrum that still stood by the entrance of the room. "Before that, we have some matters to discuss. Could everyone please gather around? Harry and I have a longer-term proposal."
Over the next few minutes, they summarised their multiversal portal plans to the Anastans. Alustin started humming and bouncing his knee, and Sabae looked quietly into space, but otherwise everyone seemed fairly calm.
"So," Zorian finished, "we have a few remaining questions. First, do any of you - or Kanderon, or the resources she can contact, know of any reason why attempting to create a simpler method of cross-reality transportation would cause a calamity?"
"And second," asked Harry, "is Kanderon willing to aid the project? We're likely to need to make extensive use of the Guide to Worlds, and Hugh tells me her planar knowledge is unmatched, at least on Anastis."
The apprentices stayed silent, but Alustin scratched his head, looking a little out of his depth. "None of us here can really comment on that, to be honest. This is the first time any of us have been outside Anastis. Artur, anything to add?"
The enormous man slid his armchair a little closer. His deep voice rumbled in response. "I would advise caution. I know of six incidents that have caused civilisations to fall. Three of 'em were the direct result of enterprising mages experimenting with enchantments beyond their ken."
Zorian nodded. "We intend to experiment slowly, and take as many precautions as reasonably possible."
Artur sat back grimly, and Harry noticed his hands brush against the scars that were just visible on his upper arm. Artur was a titan of a man, and his mastery over stone - in terms of both fine control and raw strength - meant he would be a formidable force in combat. Almost instinctively, Harry ran through the list of techniques that might still work against him. Fiendfyre had already proven itself effective against Artur's stone form, and although Harry himself didn't know the ritual to create the blackened flame, there was an existing pocket of fiendfyre in the labyrinth that he seemed to have some control over.
If the location of Artur's body could be identified in the monstrous armour - which wouldn't be an issue for Harry's carbon affinity - then a Killing Curse would pass through the tons of stone unhindered to reach the individual within. Harry couldn't cast that spell himself, he'd need to get an accomplice to do it for him. That wasn't too huge an obstacle - a willing accomplice could be summoned via returning letter, if necessary.
As much as Harry reviled even the idea of dementors, they could be used as weapons if the situation called for it. Artur might be able to bury the thing in stone for a time, but no material prison would hold a dementor for long. Getting a hold of a dementor at all might be difficult, actually. According to the debrief session with Hermione, there had been no sightings in magical Britain in the last fifteen years. Even in the broader world - where diplomacy permitted - the Girl Who Revived had a habit of showing up if the wounds in the world made their presence known. Every year, dementors edged closer to the extinction they deserved.
The simplest scenario, of course, was if Artur didn't have time to form his stone armour at all. Then, a single carefully placed carbon nanotube would be enough.
Alustin sat up, and withdrew a leather-bound book from his bag. Well, actually he withdrew it from the pocket dimension anchored to his arm, but the sleight of hand was convincing enough that Harry would have sworn the book had always been stored in the bag if he hadn't felt it suddenly appear with his carbon affinity. It was a neat piece of misdirection.
Alustin sat up, and withdrew a leather-bound book from his bag. Well, actually he withdrew it from the pocket dimension anchored to his arm, but the sleight of hand was convincing enough that Harry would have sworn the book had always been stored in the bag if he hadn't felt it suddenly appear with his carbon affinity. It was a neat piece of misdirection.
"I can't speak for Kanderon, but I'll transmit what you've said to her now. Things are fairly tense with Havath and Sica right now, so it might be a while before she can respond - but I can assure you she'll be open to collaboration. Kanderon recognises the potential of an alliance with the three of you - the 'Splintered', she's taken to calling you. She's instructed me to be helpful wherever possible."
The Splintered, hmm. The name suited Zorian well, given his habit of splitting his mind into a multitude of fragments in the form of simulacra. And there was a reasonable reference to the artefact that had brought them together in the first place. Harry's inner critic was fairly satisfied. The name was no General Chaos, but then again, it wasn't The Death Eaters either.
Alustin cleared his throat nervously, and looked away from Zorian. "Unfortunately, she also instructed me to keep the parts of Galvachren's Guide to Worlds that aren't directly relevant to our journey private until given explicit permission."
A short silence fell across the room. That was curious. Even leaving aside Rain and Harry entirely, Kanderon should have known enough about Zorian's capabilities to know that trying to hold him back from taking the Guide was a fool's errand. If Zorian wanted that book, he was going to get it. Kanderon didn't seem like a fool - anyone who had survived for five-hundred years on a world as brutal as Anastis must have had their fair share of cunning. It followed that this limitation was more of a test than anything else. If requested, would Zorian cooperate with Kanderon, or would he use his magic to tear the secrets he wanted from her servants' minds and hands?
In short: was he the type of person she could collaborate with, even when she wasn't here in person to force him to obey?
Harry lightly tapped Zorian's foot. The mage sent a questioning mental signal, and Harry dumped his thoughts through the connection in response. Zorian paused for a second to digest the ideas, then nodded, and leant over to grab a slice of apple from the snacks they'd been provided. "If it's what you want, we'll only view the book if given permission."
Alustin let out an audible breath, and Artur's shoulders visibly un-tensed.
It was odd to watch a pair of grown men - powerful mages, for that matter - listen avidly to every word from a lanky teenager who was reclined onto a sofa. Everyone in this room was aware of the danger Zorian posed, and only for some was that knowledge outweighed by the trust they had in the young mage. It wasn't Zorian's fault, really. So far, he'd largely proven a reliable ally, and in general an honest and kind person. It just came with the territory of being able to reach into others minds and bend them to your will.
Harry was reminded of his first meeting with Amelia Bones as Bearer of the Line of Merlin. Then, as many times before, he'd found it necessary to converse as an adult with people who would have preferred to see him as a child. Still, he had to admit that it was an odd thing to witness as an external observer.
"Anything else to cover here before I head out? I need to help Rain with some manufacturing, and then there's some people I need to restore to health and youth as a fairly urgent priority." Harry made sure to reach out and grab a handful of rice crackers and a bowl of hummus - he hadn't eaten much on this planet yet, and he didn't want low blood sugar to cost him valuable time later.
Simulacrum 'Xvim' stepped forward. "I don't think so." Harry felt the ectoplasmic hand on his shoulder pulling him toward the exit.
"Thanks all - I'll catch up with you before you leave!" Harry half mumbled through a full mouth. Then the simulacrum guided him through the door, and they were moving on.
Rain
In the end, Rain and Padma decided that backwards compatibility was more important than pure efficiency - at least for version 1.0. If vast new devices needed to be constructed and maintained in order to get the effects of his healing aura to as many people as possible, then those devices would inevitably have construction delays, breakdowns, and other design issues that would only become clear with implementation.
Fifty of their 'Healing Cores 1.0' lay spread out across the workshop tables in front of them. Each one was composed of a hollow tungsten rectangular prism, the surface smooth and unblemished except for a single lever on the top (Harry had paid them a short visit by Floo to help with the manufacturing).
The lever did nothing, really. Mounted onto a pivot near the centre of the base of the prism, it was attached to no wires, and had no other mechanical function either. It did however, make a very satisfying ka-chunk noise when shifted from one side to the other (Rain was very proud of that part of the design).
The purpose of the lever was simple. Inside each of the metal prisms, there were three aura anchors: One for Summer, one for Purify (since keeping a medical environment perfectly clean, as well as dealing with poison and infection, was absurdly useful), and one Detection. The three anchors were grouped into a unit in Rain's mental interface, and controlled by a macro that would run as long as he had mana and cognitive capacity to support it. The Detection anchor was set to register if a small glass ball embedded into the lever's haft was within ten centimetres of the anchor itself. If so, the Summer and Purify anchors would automatically be activated, blanketing the area within a hundred metres with healing energy.
The concept was that the prisms would be placed at the geographical centres of major hospitals, each running for a fraction of each second - like a microwave at partial power - as Padma had suggested. Because the auras would be on a lower power level, that meant there would be fewer issues with soulstrain. Correspondingly, the maximum healing rate was reduced, which made the aura less effective at dealing with serious injuries.
They'd come up with a solution for that, too.
The lever was there so Rain could avoid wasting mana on a device that was in transit, and so that it could be turned off if there was some kind of malfunction or soul-strain issue. If tilted slightly to the side, however, the lever could be pushed into the prism, sending the tiny glass ball in the lever's haft to within five centimetres of the Detection anchor. Then, for the next minute, Rain's macro would automatically redirect as much energy as possible toward that singular anchor, with a compressed range of ten metres. Although Padma was calling it the 'acute injury response setting', Rain privately thought of it as the turbo button.
A magical box that healed and cleaned everyone within range was pretty far from anything Earth-science had produced so far. To that end, at Hermione's direction, one of her wizarding research organisations with contacts in the media had put out a press release this morning. The headline was still open on Padma's laptop screen: 'AI-powered nano-bots revolutionise hospital care'. It sounded a little sensationalist, but Hermione had assured them that people would get used to that sort of thing quickly. "Remember what happened with the smart-watches?" she'd said, and Padma had nodded knowingly.
The last piece of the puzzle was in some sense the most important. Rain's communication with his friends in Ascension was happening via small objects moved about on a wooden board. Here on Earth, there were far more efficient options.
After he and Padma worked on finalising the prisms, they'd jumped onto this simpler piece of work with excitement. Detection seemed to have complex rules governing what showed up as 'objects' and could hence be registered as present or not-present by the information-gathering aura. For instance, 'shadow shaped as a cross' didn't seem to count, but a glowing red LED could be distinguished from a non-glowing LED, despite both objects being characterised in some sense by light. Then, once they'd found a way to turn electrical signals into something that could be registered by Detection, the other half of the problem was far simpler: a Radiance anchor in a small box with a light-sensing diode could passively receive a stream of around ten bits a second from Rain's mind, and probably more like fifty if he focused on it.
The resulting device was a small metallic box crudely welded onto the base of a laptop. The sensors and LEDs were wired into the computer, and a user could freely type onto the keyboard and have their messages sent directly into Rain's brain (via the Detection anchor picking up signals from an array of constantly flickering LEDs). Rain could send the response via the Radiance anchor, and the bits would be decoded by the laptop into a basic alphabet, which would be displayed on the screen immediately. All in all, it was a far easier mechanism to use than the shuffleboard-style approach Ascension was still using. Correspondingly, he was leaving behind a pair of the communication devices on Earth - one with Harry, and one with Padma at the Ministry. He was planning to bring along another three with him. The plan was beautifully simple: he was going to leave one behind at each world they visited. Even if the whole 'interdimensional Portkey' thing Zorian and Harry were working on didn't pan out, enabling a constant stream of communication between four different worlds was a worthy goal.
The flames in the fireplace to the side of the workshop flared a bright, burning, green. One after another, a pair of grim-faced men in robes stepped out. Padma introduced them:
"Aurors Adrian Karamazov and Kingsley Shacklebolt. They'll be taking their Healing Core to Mexico City. This is Rain, Captain of Ascension."
The two men extended their hands, and Rain shook them. Their grips were firm, at least for an ordinary human, but Rain couldn't shake the feeling that compared to Ameliah's world, everyone on Earth was made of paper. As a matter of basic security, since there was no damage limit here, he kept enough of the bonus attribute points from his Malleable Ring in Strength to ensure he could survive a bullet to the head even without wards active. A corollary was that he felt like he could bench-press a car, and he had to take care not to squeeze their hands too hard.
"Thank you. It's not everyday a stranger from another world arrives to reshape ours for the better."
Shacklebolt's voice was deep and sonorous, a bit like Tallheart's. Rain felt a spike of homesickness.
Just one more world, then I'm coming home.
He blinked, and looked back into their faces. "It's the least I can do. It's my world too - or at least it used to be, I guess."
Padma ran the aurors through the basic functionality, and handed over the first of the tungsten boxes. Kingsley accepted it gingerly, as if he was worried it would explode or bite off his hand, or something like that. Given the type of magic Rain had seen so far on Earth, that might have actually been a reasonable precaution. With a final nod to Rain, the aurors stepped back into the flames, and vanished.
A minute of waiting later, Rain felt the automatic processes in his mind shift and adjust in accordance with the macro he'd set up. Somewhere - presumably in Mexico City, since Rain could see all the other boxes arrayed in the room in front of him - someone had shifted the lever on their Healing Core into the 'active' position. Automatically, Rain felt the slightly increased mana draw as the Purify and Summer anchors activated, bathing their environment in healing energy.
Padma reached up to clap him on the shoulder. The middle-aged witch looked energised, probably because of the half-dozen energy drinks that were making up for her lack of sleep. "That's the first of many. I can handle the rest of the distribution - it'll take a while for us to wrangle the rest of the available aurors and prepare them for deployment."
She stepped over to the desk and powered up one of the communications laptops. Her fingers flitted on the keyboard, typing something Rain couldn't see, but the Detection anchor under the laptop flared in his mind, transmitting the basic alphabet-code from the flickering LED panel directly into his mind.
WE'LL BE IN TOUCH, RIGHT? GOOD LUCK ON THE NEXT WORLD
Rain smiled wryly. "We'll be in touch. Thank you, Padma."
The witch hugged him, stretching her arms around his torso despite his armour. Rain paused for a moment, then hugged her back. They hadn't known each other long, but they'd worked together well, and saying goodbye hurt.
He scooped the other four communications laptops into a bag of holding, and with a final nod to Padma, stepped across to the fireplace.
"Hogwarts."
The fireplace flared green, and the world vanished in a swirl of iridescent flames.
Zorian
Rain was the last to arrive, calmly stepping out of the Headmaster's fireplace. Zorian and the Anastans had been waiting a while, and Harry had arrived a few minutes ago from St. Mungo's.
Flitwick - the Headmaster of this school - and Hermione, were the only others in the room. The entire student body had been evacuated for this occasion, since no-one was quite sure how secure the connection to the labyrinth really was. The night was quiet, and the stars were gradually becoming visible outside as the last light of the sun receded.
Rain's first action on arrival was to withdraw a complex-looking device from his expanded pouch, and hand it across to Harry, who nodded gratefully. Then, it was time to move.
Hermione led the way through the spiralling corridors they all knew well, through the belly of Hogwarts toward the Mirror.
The room itself had changed dramatically in the days since their arrival. Now that the wizards knew the Mirror was a connection to a labyrinth, they'd vastly increased the security measures.
A dull grey icosahedron fully enclosed the golden Mirror itself, and outside that, the ground and ceiling glimmered with lines of mana. A pair of Zorian's simulacra had spent their time on Earth studying what Hogwarts textbooks called 'Ancient Runes', and even at a glance, Zorian knew to avoid stepping near the fragments of light.
Hermione's wand flared blue for a moment, and in response, the runes in the ceiling and ground faded. With another flick of her wand, the icosahedron began to move, triangles of dull grey material overlapping and merging into one another until the entire construct folded itself into a single triangle that hovered unobtrusively behind the Mirror.
And there it was. The golden Mirror, still looking just the way they'd seen it in two other realities.
Simulacrum Number Three stepped forward, and gently lifted his sleeve. Underneath, Zach the snake had just woken up, and was flickering his tongue in the dry air of the castle room.
Rain grabbed a crystal from the expanded satchel at his waist, and tossed it over. Zorian caught it telekinetically, and offered it gently to the snake.
In response to a gentle mental nudge, Zach coiled himself up, looking for all the world like he was trying to incubate the tiny crystal aura anchor.
"Shall we begin?"
There were nods from around the room, and the simulacrum levitated the snake forward until it came into contact with the surface of the Mirror. And then it vanished, not in a flash of activity, but rather in a rearrangement of how the world was.
"Rain?"
The bearded man focused for a moment, and nodded. "Zach and the Detection anchor are both intact, and from the environment I can sense near them, they seem like they're in the same part of the labyrinth from which we originally entered the Mirror." He grimaced. "But you know, with all the duplication and perfect mirror-images we've encountered, whether this is actually that labyrinth, or just a perfect copy or something is anyone's guess."
If this labyrinth journey took as long as the last one had, then it was two more days until he could see Kiri again.
Best to get started as soon as possible.
Zorian stepped forward, careful to avoid the runes on the floor, even though they were ostensibly inactive.
"Thank you for your hospitality during our time on Earth. I hope to see you again, in time."
Hermione inclined her head, and responded similarly.
And this last goodbye could be done mentally.
<Goodbye, Harry. I imagine we'll be in touch.>
Even though Zorian had spent a decent while scrutinising Harry's thoughts for dangers and hidden plans, it was still difficult to guess what the young wizard was thinking from the outside. Harry's eyes were glinting intently as they locked onto Zorian's.
<We will. Goodbye, Zorian.>
And with that, Zorian reached out and mentally nudged the Mirror. There was no feeling of translocation, no twisting or flames. One moment he was in Hogwarts, the next he was back in the labyrinth.
Zach the snake was resting on the ground, still tightly coiled around the crystal anchor. Zorian mentally instructed him to release it, then picked him up from the ground and slipped the snake into his sleeve. Without Harry around, there wasn't much practical point to keeping the pet snake, but it would have felt a little too callous to simply leave him behind. Besides, he was looking forward to seeing the human Zach's reaction.
One by one, Rain and the Anastans popped into existence by his side. Godrick stumbled slightly as he appeared, but his father caught his arm to steady him.
Upon appearing, Rain immediately tensed and barked out a warning. "The fiendfyre is close by. Three hundred metres in that direction, circling towards us." He gestured toward the far wall of their chamber. "ETA ninety seconds. Zorian, can you do that spherical gate thing again?"
Zorian's natural empathy was sufficient to keep tabs on most dangers that had a mind, but where mindless entities were concerned, Rain's divination was indisputably very useful.
Fortunately for their little group, spending so long in a time loop had left Zorian with a few good habits (and, admittedly, a few bad ones as well). First, he rarely forgot a useful trick, and he'd had a while to add a good number to his repertoire. Second, if he faced a threat once, he generally invested some time in figuring out how to handle it better the next time. To that end, he'd spent a while studying how Earth-wizard enchantments seemed to work without either constant magical reinforcement, or some form of power source like crystallised mana.
After some careful examination, Earth's long-term wards and enchantments turned out to slowly leech mana from their environment in a way Zorian hadn't really seen before, relying on the imbalance in mana levels inside and outside the device in a manner similar to a steam engine. As a result, it only worked properly at sites with particularly large quantities of ambient mana, like Hogwarts or the site of the Ministry in Britain's capital. Given that Earth seemed to have substantially higher quantities of ambient mana than his homeworld of Ersetu, the trick wouldn't really work outside the Dungeon or a labyrinth. That said, he was fairly sure it would serve as a partial replacement for crystallised mana while he was here.
A large metal cube flew out of one of his pocket dimensions. In response to a mental command, it positioned itself to shield the group in the direction Rain had pointed. This wasn't a perfect copy of the cube he'd constructed to protect himself alongside Mrva the golem, far from it. He didn't have the time to construct something like that, nor did he have the vast quantities of crystallised mana he'd used to power it - that's what had prevented him from completing it on Anastis. Studying the anti-apparition enchantments used by Earth-wizards in Hogwarts and the Ministry had proven very useful, and their techniques for harnessing especially high concentrations of ambient mana allowed the cube to imitate one or two of the functions of the original, at a cost of only being able to operate in constrained locations.
Still, he was hoping it would be fairly useful here.
The large metal cube unfolded into eight smaller cubes, each etched with near-invisible runes he'd copied from around Hogwarts and the Ministry. They arranged themselves into a ring-shape, about two metres across.
The others moved to stand behind him, which was probably a good move. Hugh's crystal wards seemed to be able to hold the fiendfyre in place, but without something else to help slow it down, it was unlikely he'd be able to set up a ward-trap in time.
After a brief period of waiting, there was a cracking sound, and a second later, the stone bricks ahead of them crumbled and burst apart. Without Harry's gem as a target, the darkened phoenix looked almost aimless, swerving through the air unpredictably as it flew across the chamber.
With a gesture from Zorian, the eight cubes rushed toward the phoenix. It didn't move to dodge, which made sense - as far as Zorian could tell, it was a spell-construct given form, more like an Anastan elemental or a particularly simple golem, and didn't have an intelligent mind.
As the phoenix got close, its motion seemed to slow as the temporal bubble built into the cubes took hold. A moment later, the ring of cubes passed over the flame, and the phoenix vanished, hidden in a pocket dimension and almost frozen in time.
The cubes returned to Zorian, and reformed into a single larger cube, which hovered by his side.
There was a long pause.
"Well, that was quicker than last time. Nice work Zorian." Godrick clapped him on the shoulder and started walking toward the room's exit. "Shall we get moving then?"
After a brief walk, Alustin called for a halt. His far-seeing affinity had detected an enormous snake, almost thirty metres long, lying in wait in an empty space next to their path ahead. Rather than blindly walking into a trap, they paused to examine the room. Hugh was the first to notice a series of divination wards that seemed to be designed to detect travellers. When triggered, the wall separating their tunnel from the massive snake would lower into the ground.
The wards themselves proved fairly difficult to disrupt safely, and in the end, Godrick and Artur simply jammed the stone mechanism so that it couldn't lower the wall. After that, they just walked straight through the tunnel. The wards triggered, of course, but the wall stayed in place, and the snake stayed safely on the other side. As they passed close by, Zorian got a sense of vague annoyance from the creature. It seemed not everything in the labyrinth was entirely unintelligent. That was strange, and definitely deserved further research later - if it could be done safely. Despite the protests of the simulacra by his side, Zorian resolved to send some copies deeper into the dungeon when he got a chance. If the labyrinth was somehow intelligently reforming itself, the way Alustin claimed it did, then there might be ways to influence the kinds of rooms and traps it produced - which might be a very efficient way to gather magical materials.
As they journeyed further on, it became clear that this trip through the labyrinth wouldn't be quite as smooth as their first one. Without Harry's carbon affinity, their ability to detect and neutralise nearby threats was somewhat diminished, and for whatever reason, Mackerel seemed to be guiding them along routes with more obstacles.
The next series of chambers were constructed from a rich white marble, speckled with darker flecks. Rivulets of water dripped down some of the walls, emerging from tiny cracks in the roof and seeping into patches of moss on the ground. For some reason, the air was so rich in mana that it felt almost heavy. Rain was on edge, and warned them to keep an eye out for 'metallic fish', whatever that meant. In the end, it wasn't a creature that posed the most serious threat.
Zorian was in the habit of casting periodic divination spells to scout out the chambers ahead of them. Alustin was doing the same with his far-seeing affinity, but after half an hour, there was an unfortunate but predictable coincidence - Alustin and Zorian's spells fired off at the same time.
Even though both spells used tiny quantities of mana, the interaction of the foreign spell with Zorian's mana-shaping created an instability. Normally, the miniscule ripple would dissipate almost immediately. In the mana-rich air here, however, the instability grew rapidly, cascading into a fist-sized explosion as the mana dumped its energy into the air in the form of heat.
Zorian immediately suppressed his own divination spell, but now that the instability had expanded somewhat, it was too late to cut it off at the source. Thankfully, Simulacrum number two had the bright idea of surrounding the explosion with a thin dimensional barrier. Although it did nothing to contain the physical energy released, it prevented the explosion from expanding to the mana outside the barrier, which would have almost certainly been lethal. That said, the resulting blast still knocked Zorian to the ground and left him short of breath.
A simulacrum moved to help him up, but Godrick was there first. The tall stone-mage offered a hand, and Zorian took it gratefully. After that, they avoided casting spells, and to be on the safe side, Rain deactivated his auras for the first time in what seemed like forever. Half-blind, they hurried through the remaining marble chambers as quickly as reasonably possible.
Ten or so minutes later, the moist marble walls gave way to rough-hewn stone, and the bizarrely mana-rich air petered out. Zorian breathed a sigh of relief, for a few reasons. With the return to the usual mana-density of a labyrinth, the risk of a cascading instability was practically zero.
That, and the black stone of the tunnel was starting to look somewhat familiar. Despite the danger, Zorian couldn't quite keep the smile from his face. Home was close.
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20 - Mathematics
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Major Character Death. Also spiders.
Ameliah
Wet sand crunched under Ameliah's metal boots as she approached the arranged meeting site.
By her side were the other three members of Ascension who might live longer than a few seconds if this turned ugly.
Tallheart was closest, at her right hand. As they'd arranged in advance, the others were lagging slightly behind, giving the illusion of a singular leader with her followers. Much as they'd tried to disguise it, with Rain gone, most factions that mattered knew Ascension was functionally rudderless - a fact that would have irritated her partner, with all his attempts to delegate. Still, a unified group posed more of a threat than one in disarray. And so Ameliah was at the front, her bow slung across her back, and her jaw squared.
Velika was to her left. Given time, the ex-Citizen had eventually recovered from her brush with the Warden's mind, but she'd kept some habits from the weeks during which she'd struggled to even stand. Each step she took seemed deliberate, as if it demanded focus. One of Tallheart's monstrous swords was in a scabbard at her waist, and another was in a sheath slung over her shoulder. The weapons were a testament to Ascension's situation. In less desperate times, it wasn't likely Tallheart would risk arming Velika again, after what she'd done. But in times like these, there was no weapon Ascension could afford to leave unused.
A strange half-smile, half-snarl flickered across Velika's face, replaced quickly by a deliberately neutral blankness. It was too late for words of caution, and Ameliah could only hope that Velika kept her swords sheathed and her mouth shut unless it was truly necessary.
Behind the three of them, a hulking metallic form kept pace easily. Halgrave's living armour had only started growing minutes ago, and wasn't yet at its full extent, so he only stood a head taller than them - despite his feet sinking thirty centimetres into the ground.
Ahead of them, the delegation from the Bank waited, motionless. At the fore stood two figures, clad in resplendent, gargantuan armour, rivalling Halgrave in size. Behind them were eight Enforcers, arrayed in a line. The two at the ends held banners which fluttered in the ocean winds - one with an golden anvil, the other depicting an island ringed by golden walls.
The Enforcers alone would have been enough to threaten Ascension's very existence, if they'd come unannounced and with killing intent. They weren't the focus of Ameliah's gaze, which stayed squarely on the two men in front. Lord Director Jien Initi, and Lord Kenn Trell, two thirds of the triumvirate that de facto ruled the Bank. Embedded in the centre of Jien's breastplate was a monstrous blue gem that shone like a star. The man wore no helmet, his head more than sheltered by the armour's mountainous pauldrons.
There was a similar, albeit smaller, gem set in the brow of Trell's slitted helmet. By the Guild's scale, these two men were goldplates, and if their reputations were anything to go by, they were the kind of people that swept aside anything that stood in their way. If it came to blows, there was a decent chance Ameliah would be dead before she could raise her bow.
"Ascension."
Ameliah stopped. Lord Jien's voice was mocking and bitter.
"Ascension bids you welcome" she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. "If we'd had earlier notice of your arrival, we could have prepared a more fitting reception for guests such as yourselves."
Lord Trell turned to face the ocean, and removed his helmet, letting his shoulder-length hair blow in the wind. Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned to face them. Ameliah clenched her fist to stop herself reaching for her bow, and beside her, Tallheart sucked in a breath.
There was a brutal wound across half his face, a gash from the bridge of his nose almost to his ear, and his right eye socket was empty. There was something viscerally wrong about seeing someone of his level with any physical injury - he ought to have been able to heal something like that in minutes. Looking closer, there was a flicker of darkness, fragments of something still twisting through the wound.
Ameliah looked away.
Trell spoke, and his voice was hollow. "Splendor was attacked. Two members of the board are dead."
"Why? How?"
Trell turned to face the ocean, leaving only his unblemished skin visible to Ascension's delegation, and Jien spoke again.
"The Adamant Empire's forces are far more dangerous than we had been led to believe."
Velika shifted by her side, but didn't say anything. By the motion of the sand, Ameliah could tell that Halgrave was crossing his massive arms behind her.
"That doesn't add up. The Empire couldn't besiege Splendor, not if they marshalled every legion they have. They can barely hold their continent."
Jien's face twisted in a scowl. "Your intelligence is sorely lacking. Two new forces have joined the Adamant ranks, and led the raid on our stronghold. They may be familiar to you. That is why we are here."
She felt her stomach sink at the words. If the Bank had somehow mistakenly linked Ascension to the attack on Splendor, and was here for retribution…
"One, who fought by Lightbreaker's side, was a force mage of prodigious skill and strength. She breached the outer walls almost alone, and personally slew one of my attendants. She fled back under Lightbreaker's skirts before I could destroy her."
Lavarro is alive?
Behind her, Halgrave tensed at the mention of the disgraced former Guilder - and the mother of his daughter.
"The other," Trell said, and the strain was clear in his voice, "is a figure that - as yet - we have been unable to identify. It moved faster than even the keenest archer's eye can follow, and shrugged off every attempt we made to even slow it down. First, it found and killed Luna Olentu. Then, it sought me, and gave me this." He gestured at his face.
"It said something, before I escaped." Trell's remaining eye was intently fixed on Ameliah. "It asked about Ascension."
"Now," said Lord Jien smoothly. "We have a question for you. Where is Captain Rain?"
Zorian
There was something in the mana Zorian couldn't quite put his finger on. On Anastis, the ambient mana was more sluggish. There, the shaping techniques he'd honed to virtual perfection had felt somehow off, like drawing a diagram with chalk that was just a little too crumbly. Here, deep in the labyrinth he was guessing would lead them to Cyoria, it was starting to feel more familiar.
It was a welcome boon, because without it, his simulacra might not have been able to react in time.
The two simulacra that made up the rear-guard of their little party formed a simple vertical disc of force which closed off their section of the tunnel from the others, and pushed it forward. Godrick and Alustin were thrown off their feet when it collided with them, and slid along the smooth floor of the tunnel. An instant later, the disc reached Talia and Hugh, who were likewise thrown forward.
Behind the shimmering layer of force, the tunnel collapsed completely. The simulacra who had conjured the disc were swept away by the rock worm's passage through the space Godrick had just been in. For an instant, their golem bodies were shielded from its crushing jaws by Rain's magic. A moment later, Zorian felt them wink out of existence as the monstrous rock worm moved outside Rain's range, and they lost his protection.
With effort, Zorian and his remaining simulacrum took over the fraying magical disc before it could dissipate entirely. He reinforced it, and pulled it even further down the tunnel. A few seconds later, their entire group was knocked off their feet into an uncoordinated pile of tangled limbs, and had been pushed thirty metres forwards.
"What the hells was that?" spluttered Talia, scrambling to her feet.
"A rock worm, a far larger one than I've seen before. We need to move quickly."
Strangely, the worm didn't return, seemingly happy with the morsel the two simulacra had provided. Or maybe it hadn't enjoyed the taste of the carbon-nanotube laced metal skeletons Harry had built for them, and decided to leave the others alone, figuring they'd be equally stringy and tasteless.
It was deeply concerning that he hadn't been able to detect the monster earlier. While most creatures this deep in the Dungeon were formidable - they had to be, to survive at all - they usually still had a detectable mental signature. This one, Zorian hadn't noticed until it was only a few dozen metres away, a distance the worm could cover in a matter of seconds.
More concerning still - Rain hadn't noticed anything either. The armoured mage's hypothesis was that the rock worm had so much 'arcane resistance' that it didn't show up to his detection skill.
Artur promised he'd be on the lookout. Now that he was on his guard for burrowing threats, he said he would be able to feel the stone shifting, even if the worm itself could somehow evade detection. That didn't do all that much to inspire confidence, given he hadn't spotted this one in time.
The longer they spent here, the more danger there was of some threat he couldn't see coming sweeping them all away. So, without even staying still long enough to recreate more simulacra, they hurried along, following the dim greenish light emitted by Hugh's crystal spellbook as it let them through twists and turns.
A few minutes passed in silence, until Mackerel abruptly stopped, hovering in place. Ahead of them, the tunnel opened up into a vast space. Unlike the ones they'd seen before, this one didn't seem to have a roof - it just stretched upwards endlessly, culminating in a miniscule pinprick of light. It was so far above them that it barely lit the space at all. Still, compared to the complete darkness of the tunnels behind them, it was a welcome change.
Zorian scanned the floor of the cavern. It was a mess. Mountains of trash were heaped so high that some of them almost reached their tunnel, and parts were submerged in a disgusting-looking brown sludge. On the far side, a thin, polluted-looking waterfall snaked down the wall of the cavern, eventually becoming a spray of droplets that spread out across the space like some perverse rain. The air was hot, which made sense - they were still far below the surface, and on this world at least, the deeper you were, the hotter it got. Closer to the beating heart of the Dragon, or whatever.
After doing some reading on Earth, Zorian had a touch more scepticism for the Church's theories of how his world had come to be - and he hadn't been particularly religious to begin with. Then again, he had personally met angels, so maybe his world actually was built around the bones of a world-dragon slain by the gods. He really didn't have enough information to know for sure.
This was where unwanted things ended up, if someone high above in Cyoria decided to throw them away.
"Up there," Zorian pointed at the dot of light far above, "is where we're going. This is the bottom of the Hole, the largest mana well on this continent."
Zorian breathed deeply, despite the warm, rancid air, and stepped forward to the edge of the tunnel. As he did so, a tiny enhancement in his soul grabbed his attention.
He'd built this enhancement during the long wait on Earth, in preparation for the journey back to Cyoria. In exchange for a fraction of his mana reserves, it was continually tapping into the marker embedded in his soul, and reaching out, looking as far afield as possible for a duplicate. The Dungeon around him was suppressing most long-distance magic, and he could feel that teleporting further than a few metres would be unfeasible. Still, a dim signal had made its way through to him. It wasn't enough to know anything for sure, but it was enough to prompt the next action.
While the simulacrum by his side gathered the others onto a disc and started weaving shielding threads into a milky-white sphere, Zorian retrieved the necessary materials from a bag of holding. Bending down, he began to construct a simple ritual circle in the stone floor of the tunnel.
This ritual took a minute, and by the time he was halfway through, the others were waiting impatiently. He ignored them - time was precious, but this ritual had waited long enough.
Another thirty seconds, and the ritual finished, draining his mana reserves to punch through the dampening effects of the Dungeon. Information rushed into Zorian's mind. The second marker shone like a star in his mind, far brighter than the dot of light above.
Zach was alive.
Zorian breathed a shuddering, involuntary sigh of relief.
He hadn't fully acknowledged it, but until now, there had been a part of him that was grimly factoring in the possibility that he wouldn't be returning to his own time.
If Harry had returned to a world thirty years after the one he'd left, then what guarantees were there that the same thing couldn't happen to others? He couldn't discount that possibility completely yet. There was a chance that a hundred years had passed, or even more, if Zach had gone down the path of becoming a lich, rather than succumbing to natural old age. But at least one person he knew was still alive.
The ritual found a target, but didn't make contact on its own. Zorian sent a mental signal to Rain asking for more mana, and the mage obliged, sending a torrent of energy to replace what Zorian was burning to try to reach out. Without the identical markers connecting the two loopers, it would have been basically impossible to forge a channel through the Dungeon's obfuscating effects.
Then, he made contact, lightly brushing Zach's soul. For an instant, he could tell that Zach was awake, and alert. And, from what little he could glean through the connection, he had already started casting a teleportation spell.
Better not to distract him, then. Acting quickly, Zorian sent through a memory packet - not everything, just a quickly cobbled-together summary. Zach wouldn't be able to read it without help from someone like Spear of Resolve, but it was better than nothing. Then, he let the connection fade. As much as he wanted to tell Zach everything, that would have to wait. Even with Rain here, mana was too precious to spend it on sentimentalities.
He returned to his senses, and opened his eyes to an intense, whispered conversation between the others. His simulacrum had been listening, though, and helpfully sent him a short summary.
Apparently, Sabae's wind affinity was detecting some odd currents. By some quirk of her abilities, she couldn't sense or affect anything further than a few inches from her skin (which explained the swirling wind-armour she relied on for both mobility and combat, the simulacrum noted), but even within that range, the currents of air in this space were unusually chaotic.
"Every other space we've been in, if the air wasn't dead, it was because other creatures nearby," the wind-mage hissed quietly. "There's something here, I'm sure of it."
Alustin and Rain's eyes were turned outwards, roving across the mounds of detritus, but neither of them said anything.
Talia squinted outwards, and likewise kept her voice low. "If I try, I can sense a lot of bones out there, but as far as I can tell, they're all rotten garbage, not living creatures. So unless there are rotten garbage monsters on your world, I'd say we're fine. Zorian?"
He shook his head, and sent his response to the others mentally rather than whispering. <I don't know of any garbage monsters, although I suppose something could have wandered in from another world. The lack of bones doesn't mean there's no creatures. The rock worm from earlier, for example, wouldn't have any.>
He couldn't sense any minds nearby. He frowned. That was suspicious. As disgusting as this place was to human senses, there were many creatures that would have eagerly made this warm, nutrient-rich place their home. If this were in safer territory, it would be overflowing with rats or other vermin. As it was, down here, there were probably enough predators to keep rat populations low. But then those predators should have been detectable.
There were a few kinds of creatures that had sufficient natural immunity to telepathy to temporarily hide from his mind sense. The gargantuan rock worm they'd encountered earlier, for instance, had slipped past his notice thanks to a combination of immense natural resistance and a fundamentally very simple mind. Then again, rock worms wouldn't be capable of hunting across these piles of garbage. The teetering piles of detritus wouldn't be enough to even hold a rock worm's weight, let alone let them navigate easily.
As an offhand thought, he triggered a simple locator spell, with the target 'giant spider'.
The divination spell completed. There were more than fifty positive results spread out across the floor of the cavern, some within a few metres.
He didn't say anything, just poured mana into the shell that surrounded their group. It was a crude copy of the manoeuvrable flying sphere Zach had constructed for their first foray into the Hole, back inside the time loop. Zorian had used it a few times, but he wasn't as practised with it as Zach, and even his more experienced fellow looper struggled to maintain the spell for longer than a few minutes. Acting together, he and his single remaining simulacrum were just about able to hold it together.
The sphere shot upwards, accelerating rapidly in the direction of the entrance. The group remained suspended in the centre of the sphere, the spell ensuring they were unaffected by the sudden motion.
Below them, the surface of the trash heap began to undulate. Like a rolling wave, rippling outwards, dozens and dozens of spiders emerged from hiding places, and began to climb the walls.
Judging by their distinctly coloured fur and their size - approximately that of an adult man - these were grey hunters, but there was something odd about them. The grey hunter Zorian had fought was incredibly fast. Even so, it would have struggled to keep pace with their milky sphere as they rose, faster and faster every second. These creatures looked somehow stretched, with longer, spindlier limbs that still looked monstrously strong. They were keeping pace easily, and Zorian glanced to the side as one leaped at the side of their bubble.
Zorian threw the sphere to one side, and the spider fell back down, into the darkness below. Although it took a huge amount of mana to sustain the sphere, controlling it was easy - that was one of the main benefits of the spell. He brought it into the centre of the Hole, as far from any of the walls as possible. They were rising fast now, more than a dozen metres of stone rushing by in blur each second. All around them, the spiders were moving faster, rising like a tide of crawling limbs, pushing past one another in a mad scramble for fresh prey.
Around him, the others were springing into action. Hugh fired a beam at the side of the cavern, and for an instant, the nearby parts of the massive cavern lit up like daylight. A cluster of spiders were hit, but they were moving too fast for Zorian to see if the light had killed them or merely slowed them down.
<Rain?>
<This shield is blocking my auras. I can't act unless you dismiss them, or I overpower them, which would shut them down, I think.>
That was deeply inconvenient. The shields were woven into the movement spell, and he wouldn't be able to dismiss the shield without releasing the entire spell - which would let them all fall into the mass of hungry murder-spiders below.
It looked like Alustin, Sabae and Talia were likewise momentarily powerless. All of their skills were dependent on having certain materials present at the site of action, or on sending volleys or currents of something at their opponents. Separated from the outside world by the shield-bubble, there wasn't a lot they could do. Hugh's attack had probably only worked because rather than creating any magical effect at the destination, it only created light, and the shield-bubble was naturally somewhat transparent.
Despite himself, Zorian filed away the information. If bolts of conjured light could leave the shields, they might be able to enter as well. That was a vulnerability he'd need to address later.
To one side, the walls of the cavern cracked, shattering as the stones on the surface abruptly lost all cohesion. Artur and Godrick's work, presumably. Without anything solid to grip onto, half a dozen spiders fell into the darkness below, but what looked like more than five times that number were still keeping pace.
The tide around them continued to rise as the spiders proved faster than the bubble could fly. One of them threw itself through the air, toward the centre of the Hole, and impacted the shield from above. A second spider landed shortly afterwards, and their sixteen skittering legs almost completely obscured Zorian's view upwards.
<Hugh, get them off us!>
Beside him, Zorian felt the energy around Hugh build. For whatever reason, it felt like it was taking longer than usual. Above them, the grey hunters' mandibles - which looked bizarrely elongated relative to the creature Zorian remembered - were attacking the surface of the shield. Their venom was intensely powerful, and disrupted the victim's ability to shape mana, making any mage that was bitten functionally powerless. Fortunately, it was useless against magical constructs. Unfortunately, the mandibles were still immensely strong. With each bite, he felt a chunk of his mana reserves vanish. The vast and constant stream of energy from Rain - as much as the mage could supply - was barely enough to sustain the sphere-spell, so the mana lost to each bite was a permanent drain on his capacity until this crisis was over.
Hugh released his spell, and a pair of focused beams blasted upwards. Where they impacted, there was an intense burst of light. Where before there had only been grey fur, there was suddenly a thin, cylindrical hole, as if something had bored the whole way through each of the spiders' abdomens.
Bizarrely, the pair of grey hunters Hugh had struck kept up their attack, and Zorian watched with growing horror as the holes began to knit themselves closed. In a matter of seconds, the skin of the abdomen itself sealed up, and three more spiders landed atop their sphere.
At his direction, the sphere began to oscillate, throwing itself from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the spiders. Two fell off into the abyss below, unable to keep their grip on the sheer surface. The evasive motions took energy that could have been used for upward movement, and spiders that were still climbing the walls alongside them leapt at the opportunity to gain some ground. Once they reached a sufficient height, dozens of grey hunters threw themselves across the tunnel, toward the centre. The pinprick of sunlight had grown fractionally larger as they rose, but the mass of spider bodies now blocked it out completely. Most of them missed the jerkily moving sphere, but more than a few landed, and somehow managed to grip onto the outside.
It wasn't going to hold. The constant pressure from the spiders' attacks was too much, and there were really only two choices left - either wait until his mana reserves drained completely, or shut down the spell early.
A final quick glance upwards was all Zorian needed to confirm that there was no chance of reaching the surface before the sphere broke apart. That meant there was really only one path foward.
He cast a hasting spell on himself, the most powerful one he could manage without losing his grip on the shields.
<I'm going to dismiss the sphere in three seconds. Get ready.>
Hugh
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
His view of the cavern around them was almost completely obscured. Behind the thin, silvery lattice of Zorian's shield, the tangle of chitinous limbs and bodies was nearly too dense to see through.
Then, Zorian and his simulacrum closed their out-stretched fists in unison, and the protective sphere disappeared entirely. There was only the dark, and the clicking sound of mandibles opening and closing on empty air, less than a metre away.
The strange floating effect of the sphere was gone, now, and he was falling, but he had no idea how fast.
Something hit his arm, throwing him to the side, and he collided with something soft - Talia, judging by the dim glow of her blue tattoos and the dreamfire crystal he could sense on her forehead. He reached out and felt her grab his arm. He pulled her into his chest, wrapping his right arm around her. The spellform for a levitation cantrip was already in his mind's eye, but then -
The world was on fire. All around him, spiders burst into flame. The light cast bizarre shadows, flickering and twisting as the spiders contorted in pain.
There was a spider falling just in front of them. Its limbs burned, the grey fur on its forelegs disintegrating into ash. It squealed, a horrible noise, like steam escaping from a kettle crossed with a cat's wail.
But it didn't die. Its limbs kept scrabbling at the air, and moment by moment, it was making its way closer, tilting its legs to harness the air that was rushing by to push it towards him and Talia.
Hugh blinked in surprise, and forced mana into the levitation cantrip. The feeling of sudden deceleration made his stomach lurch, and he realised at the same time why he'd struggled to produce a starbolt earlier. This was a new world. Aether sickness was starting to set in.
The cantrip took hold. At once, the spider in front of him fell away, continuing to fall while he and Talia came to a stop. To their side, Artur plummeted headfirst through the air, an arms length away. A grim, focused expression was on his face.
Then, a burning mass of limbs collided with them from above, and Hugh cursed internally. There had been spiders above him, so if he slowed his fall, then of course they were going to land on him as they fell.
The smell was vile, and Hugh instinctively flinched away to avoid being burned.
Across the pact-link, there was a sudden burst of emotion from Mackerel, and he tore himself free from the strap on Hugh's back. Throwing himself upwards, he crashed into the burning arachnid with enough force to fling both the crystal spellbook and the spider outward, toward the edge of the cavern. It was only a brief respite, because while Mackerel had moved quickly, he was nowhere near as fast as the spider.
With impressive agility for a creature that was both on fire and in freefall, the spider rotated Mackerel like a fly in a web so that his pages were facing downward. Despite the flames flickering across its eight eyes, it somehow still seemed to be able to sense its environment. In less time than it took Hugh to blink, it braced its legs against the crystal hard-cover, and threw itself back toward him and Talia. Mackerel was propelled backwards by the force of the jump, and collided with the stone wall of the cavern with an awful scraping sound.
Talia threw out a hand, and a swarm of dreamfire wasps sprayed outward from her fingertips. They carved straight through the left side of the onrushing spider's head, and sheared off two of its legs. At the same time, Hugh felt Talia shudder in his arms. It didn't seem like she was having an easier time using her affinity on this world than he was.
The spider's body went limp. For once, it seemed like it might actually be dead.
That didn't mean the corpse had lost its momentum.
It slammed into them both with oddly less force than he expected - Rain's wards at work, probably - but Hugh still lost his grip on Talia completely. She went spinning off somewhere he couldn't see. The air was knocked out of Hugh's lungs by the impact, and he started to fall.
Around fifty metres above him, the cavern was lit by the eerie glow of a swarm of tiny, orange stars. At the centre stood Zorian, holding himself aloft with some magic Hugh didn't recognise. Hugh was spinning while he fell now, and in the instant before he rotated away, he saw a trio of the tiny stars collide with a spider. The projectiles detonated with a small but intense-looking explosion, and the spider's body disappeared in an orange flash that sent visible shockwaves through the air.
Then Hugh was facing downwards, and managed to stabilise himself with another cantrip. Because he'd caught himself fairly early in the fall, some of their group had fallen far further than he and Talia had. The action now stretched across a huge vertical distance.
Thirty metres below him, Godrick and Sabae had managed to find their way to a wall. Godrick was covered in a thin layer of stone armour which melded into the wall at his feet. It looked bizarre, as if he'd turned gravity on its side, and was standing on the wall as if it were the ground, like some kind of animated gargoyle. In his fists he gripped a long-handled hammer made of ice. He was fighting a vertical battle, fending off a pair of spiders - one above him on the wall, and one below. The spiders were wary, and only darted in and out of his hammer-range rather than attacking all-out, but they were clearly faster than he was.
Sabae was perched on top of his legs. Whenever a spider made its way past Godrick's sweeping blows, she blasted it away with a coil of wind.
Flitting around the two of them were a trio of head-sized metal balls - the bludgers Godrick had brought with them from Hogwarts. It didn't look like they were doing much damage to the spiders - as he watched, a bludger slammed into one of the spider's legs, which only buckled slightly. It did seem to be distracting them though - one of the spiders leapt at a bludger with inhuman speed and started tearing the steel ball into pieces with its fangs.
Involuntarily, Hugh clutched at his stomach. If the others were feeling the effects of aether sickness as keenly as he was, then they probably had a matter of minutes or less before they were functionally helpless.
Below Sabae and Godrick, Alustin had summoned his paper armour, and was frantically ducking and rolling to try to shake loose a flaming spider on his back. As Hugh watched, ribbons of paper rushed out of Alustin's storage tattoo, and sliced through the spider in a dozen different places. When the paper severed the spider's carapace, the creature flinched and recoiled, but the two pieces of its body melded back together almost immediately.
Then something incredibly fast slammed into the spider, managing to avoid Alustin entirely. The spider was thrown downward, and the blur stopped on a dime - it was Rain. The metal visor tilted upward, and then he was gone again, moving faster than Hugh could follow.
Another fifty metres below that, far enough that Hugh was struggling to make out the details, a massive bulge of stone was protruding from the walls. A spider tried to crawl past it, and a pillar of stone flicked outward, looking for all the world like the tongue of an enormous frog. The spider was pulled inward, and disappeared under the surface of the stone.
There were no spiders near him that he could see, so Hugh took a moment to breathe.
They needed to get out of here. Whatever these strange monsters were, they were too resilient to dispatch easily, and there were far too many of them to deal with quickly. On top of that, if his reaction to this world played out the same way as when he'd arrived on Earth, then within a few minutes, everyone except Zorian would be basically sitting ducks. Maybe Rain would be alright too, if he could figure out how to 'modify his essence intake scoops' during a battle, whatever that meant.
A burst of flame to his right caught his attention, and another spider corpse fell downward, all eight legs limp. Talia was braced with her feet against the wall. Her right hand was tightly gripping an enchanted dagger she'd stabbed into the stone. He shifted the direction of his cantrip, and moved to hover by her side.
"We need to get out!" she shouted. Even though she was right next to him, he could barely hear her over the sounds of combat coming from every direction. Before he could respond, a spider leapt out of the darkness above, and sank its fangs into Talia's forearm, where she was gripping the dagger.
Once again, time seemed to slow down.
Talia screamed soundlessly, and the spider dug its mandibles deeper.
Propelled by his affinity, a crystal wardstone flew out of his storage tattoo, and slammed into the spider. It detonated in the spider's face, throwing it away from them, up the cavern wall.
With half of Talia's arm still in its mouth.
Torn loose from the dagger she was using as her anchor point, Talia fell towards him. He caught her, and took a moment to realise that she was screaming a word, not just screaming in pain.
"Shield!"
Hugh redirected his levitation cantrip to push them into an alcove in the wall - barely large enough to fit both their bodies - and pressed his hand against the stone. Mana drained from his reservoirs as he crystallised a circle of stone into quartz, and poured as much energy as he could into a hastily constructed ward. The bile rose in his throat - this was the last spell he would be able to cast for a few hours.
Then the spider on the lip of their alcove, the one still holding Talia's bleeding hand in its jaws, simply evaporated.
Talia's dreamfire made her a powerful ally and dangerous enemy to face, no doubt. But dream was only one of her affinities. The other was bone. Different kinds of bones had different effects when she detonated them. Dragon bones expelled fire and burned with an intense heat rather than exploding. Whale bones produced a viscous mixture of burning oil. Sunmaw bones distorted the flow of the aether, a terrifying effect which could turn the spells other mages cast against them.
Until now, the question of what would happen if Talia detonated one of her own bones had been purely theoretical.
Overcome by aether sickness and unable to shield his eyes with magic, Hugh threw a hand over his face. He could feel the thrum of the explosion in the stone and the air around them, growing and growing until it seemed like the entire cavern ahead of them was a single white-hot inferno.
Hugh's ward held for a second, but failed just as the detonation was finally petering out. The last blast of superheated acrid air rushed into his face, and he couldn't hold it back anymore - he threw up. At the same time, he tried to keep his feet as securely placed as possible in their precarious alcove. Without magic, if he slipped, there was nothing to stop them from falling what was probably kilometres to the bottom of the Hole.
Clutched in his arms, Talia was shivering. The stump of her right arm - fully severed from just below the elbow - was bleeding onto her clothes, and a blotchy pattern of inflammation was already appearing on her upper arm.
Talia looked at Hugh, then at her own arm, then back up at Hugh.
"Giant spiders, huh?" Her lower lip was quivering as she spoke. "Where are the giant frogs when you need them?"
Then she went limp.
With one arm wrapped around her chest, and another trying to hold himself stable against the stone, he stuck his head out into the dark of the cavern. His throat was burned by vomit, and his voice was hoarse.
"Help! We need help!"
There was the distant sound of three smaller explosions in quick succession, and something hitting the wall of the cavern hard enough to shatter stone.
Close by, there was only the sound of skittering limbs.
Rain, moments earlier
This battle, Rain was quickly realising, was going to be about numbers.
Zorian really knew how to spend mana fast. Even drawing on the Magewell Amulet's reservoir, Rain hadn't been able to funnel across enough mana to sustain their magical vessel against the attacks from outside. His stored mana reserves were effectively at zero, and he was relying solely on newly regenerated mana.
At least now that Zorian's shield bubble was down, his auras were free to act on the mass of spiders.
The problem was that the damn things just wouldn't die.
Given how worried Zorian had seemed, it might have been optimistic to expect his initial Immolate nova to handle the situation entirely. But it ought to have done something beyond transforming their enemies from 'Terrifying Giant Spiders' into 'Flaming Terrifying Giant Spiders'.
Now that he'd supplied Detection with enough mana to overpower the spider's natural magic resistance, the remnants of his System interface helpfully identified the creatures as 'monsters' - but didn't give him much more information than that. Whatever they were, it seemed their health regeneration - or whatever the equivalent was on this world - was off the charts.
Quickly cycling through each of his other auras was similarly ineffective. While the spiders looked like they were taking damage, they seemed to be able to keep fighting regardless. And with the limited mana he had, he couldn't afford to sustain an aura-assault unless it was really worth it.
Latching onto the latent mental link that Zorian maintained as a matter of habit, Rain asked a question.
<Zorian, how the hell do we kill these things?>
The response was… not good.
<I'm not sure.>
Zorian sent a bundle of concepts along with the message - images of spiders being bodily vaporised, sucked into an extradimensional space, frozen in time… nothing that Rain could easily achieve.
I need time to think.
The world around him slowed until it was almost frozen, and then faded away as Rain sank into his soul.
Okay. What's the situation?
All he knew for sure was that last time Detection had pinged on each person, everyone was still alive.
Unfortunately, a matter of seconds had elapsed since then, and in that time, the battle had lost basically all cohesion.
Right now, Detection was set to a radius of a little over fifty metres - just enough to reach the edges of the massive vertical tunnel.
When Zorian had released his shielding sphere, he'd made the questionable decision to let everyone fall. It made sense, on some level. If Zorian had created a disc of force underneath them, then the nearby spiders would have immediately fallen on them from above. It would have been carnage. But as it was, some of their group had fallen far enough that they were already outside of the reach of Detection.
Activating Aura Focus, he doubled the range. He sighed internally with relief at the next returning ping - everyone was still alive. Artur had fallen the furthest - he was nearly a hundred metres below where Rain was hovering with Airwalk, and was fighting thirteen spiders on his own. He'd constructed some kind of trap, where instead of trying to kill the spiders, he sucked them under the surface of his blob of stone, and just… left them there. Given their ferocious strength, in time, they might be able to tear their way out. But in the short term, it was a brilliantly effective solution.
Fifty metres below Rain, Alustin was wrestling with a spider latched onto the back of his paper armour.
Forty metres below Rain, Sabae and Godrick were attached to the wall, fighting off a pair of spiders.
Just ten metres below him, Talia and Hugh were hovering in empty space - probably using a cantrip, or something.
Ten metres above Rain, Zorian hovered alone. His simulacrum had been thrown into the wall, and while it was currently still alive, a cluster of spiders were in the process tearing it apart.
There were eight spiders in Artur's stone-trap. Twenty-nine spiders were spread out across the walls of the Hole, with fourteen more currently falling through the air alongside his comrades.
Alright. Priorities. I'm basically running on empty, against a horde of functionally unkillable, ridiculously fast spiders that can hit like a truck. What do I do?
There were a few things draining his mana that could be turned off. With a bitter taste in his mouth, Rain temporarily deactivated the Purify and Summer auras in the Healing Cores he'd left behind on Earth. Based on some back-of-the-envelope calculations he'd done with Padma, the Cores were probably saving a life every couple of seconds. But if he and his friends died here, then the Cores would never work again. Padma and Harry would understand.
His wards came next. Given how spread out his allies were, he was forced to trade decreased efficiency for increased range. On top of that, running the auras at 100% protection was far more expensive than running it at lower percentages. Judging from the last few seconds of spider attacks, shielding his allies from bites and impacts alone would draw more than his entire mana regeneration could supply. That meant a single powerful strike had the possibility of tearing through his defences and killing someone outright.
Grimly, Rain was reminded of a phrase he'd said to Ameliah a long time ago:
I don't fight, he remembered saying. I either win, or I don't. It's just mathematics.
That wasn't quite accurate in the here and now.
Either we die, or we don't. It's just mathematics.
Safe for now in the accelerated time-zone of his soul, Rain's avatar swallowed, and he dialled both Heat and Force Ward down to eighty percent.
It meant some damage would get through to his allies, but the increased efficiency of the aura meant that he would be able to sustain it against more attacks, with less risk of a catastrophic failure when he ran out of mana entirely.
With his armour, Rain was probably safer from the spiders than anyone else. Now, there was the question of what he could physically do to keep the others safe. Artur's example was a good one. Just because he couldn't see a way to physically kill the spiders, that didn't mean he couldn't help keep his friends safe.
Rain's eyes snapped open.
For a moment he hung midair, barely having moved since descending into his soul. He took an instant to search the battlefield for his allies and cross-reference his eyesight with what Detection was telling him. Zorian floated above, frantically casting at a cluster of spiders on the burnt stone walls. They were tearing at the partially destroyed frame left behind by Zorian's now-dead simulacrum.
Alright. First things first. Even if he could get to his friends, there wasn't anywhere safe to put them. The spiders up top had to go.
Time resumed. Spiders frozen mid-leap rushed through the air, smoke spiralled up the Hole from burnt fur, and Rain moved.
First to Zorian, where he ripped the spiders away from the simulacrum corpse they were chewing on, before throwing them toward the murky darkness beneath. He did his best to aim away from his allies, but person-sized spiders are awkwardly-shaped projectiles, even if you're moving fast enough that they're barely able to react.
Once the immediate area around Zorian was clear, Rain was off. With another intense burst of Velocity, he travelled a hundred metres in a second to throw himself bodily into a spider that had hooked its claws around Alustin's paper armour. Thanks to gravity and the sheer weight of his armour, the spider was launched away from Alustin like a cannonball, and spiralled downwards into the dark. Before the paper mage could even react, Rain was reorienting himself, and kicking off air to head back toward Zorian.
"We need to get out of here," he said flatly upon his arrival.
A sharp glare was his response. <No shit. I didn't want to take this to the surface, but it might be our only chance. This terrain is too advantageous for the grey hunters. If you can get everyone up here quickly, we might be able to race them up with this headstart.> He gestured at the mostly clear area, before snapping off some magical ray toward a leaping spider. <Might.>
Alright, that's something to work with.
Deactivating Airwalk, he let himself drop. Another burst of Velocity served to accelerate him far faster than any object could naturally fall. A second later, Sabae and Godrick rushed by, with surprised expressions on their faces. Then Rain funnelled mana through Energy Well into Stamina for Airwalk again, and gritted his teeth as the sudden deceleration almost made his knees pop.
"Artur!" he yelled at the mass of stone that bulged out of the wall. "Come out. I'll lift you higher!"
At first, it was difficult to tell if the stone-mage could even hear him. Then the stone shifted like water, and Artur's face stuck itself out bizarrely.
"Take my son and Sabae first. I'll hold off tha spiders from here." As he said it, another spider dashing along the cavern walls sank into the rock up to its abdomen, and then vanished entirely under the rippling stone.
Rain nodded. It was inconvenient to have come down this low and need to ascend again, but he should have expected this - Artur was fiercely protective of the youngsters, and especially his son.
He ascended past Alustin quickly, and arrived by Godrick and Sabae just in time to knock loose a spider that was getting dangerously close, which tumbled fifteen metres before latching onto the wall again. Sabae flinched, and barely stopped herself from blasting him with a coiled current of air. Godrick wasn't visible under his stone armour, but there was an ashen look on Sabae's face, like she couldn't hold on for much longer.
"Grab on. I'll lift you out."
Sabae shot him a grateful look, and her white hair fanned out behind her as a quick burst of wind launched her onto Rain's shoulders.
"Shed your armour, Godrick. I don't have much mana. We need to stay light."
It took the teenager a moment to peel himself free of the dark stone. It was a bizarrely beautiful sight, like a butterfly shedding a solid cocoon. Where he released his control, the stone crumbled into the abyss below, falling far enough that there was no sound of it hitting the ground. Then Godrick was out, and only hesitated for an instant before jumping the metre to where Rain was hovering.
With one teenager perched on his shoulders, and another gripping onto him from the front, Rain started to ascend again. A regular Detection ping told him Alustin was rising just behind them, probably making use of Rain's slipstream to save energy. With so little mana to spare, the added strain from carrying two people was not insignificant. That said, it was a far cry from when he'd carried an entire jet across the false Atlantic, not that long ago.
Turns out holding off a legion of death-spiders isn't great for my weight lifting abilities. I'll keep that in mind for the next Olympics.
There was a ping from Force Ward - someone he was protecting had taken an enormous amount of damage. With only that instant of warning, his feet faltered as Airwalk failed to latch onto anything - both his stamina and his mana were completely drained.
There, thirty metres below them - Talia and Hugh, facing off against a trio of spiders. Talia's arm was missing from just below her elbow.
Do I go to help them? Or just try to get Sabae and Godrick out of here? I don't think I can safely carry four people…
The moment of indecision stretched on - for too long. Mana sight showed a tiny tendril of energy reaching out from Talia, spiralling out toward her severed arm.
The cavern was rocked with one of the largest explosions Rain had ever felt. In a sense, it was lucky they were in the air, because it meant the shockwave blasted them outwards and upwards, rather than pulverising them against the tunnel walls. Rain went spinning. With every possible dreg of mana going to protect his allies with Heat Ward and Force Ward, there was nothing left to funnel into Energy Well. Without stamina for Airwalk, he couldn't control his trajectory, and only stopped when he bodily collided with the wall. Tallheart's armour did its job, and he didn't take any physical damage, but he barely managed to grab onto a protruding rock to avoid falling.
A second later, the remnants of the explosion abated, and Rain paused to take stock of the situation.
Sabae, Alustin and Zorian must have ridden the shockwave, because they had been thrown the furthest, and were more than a hundred metres above where Rain was clutching the walls. Hugh and Talia were far below, near the epicentre of the explosion - but somehow mostly unharmed, apart from Talia's wounded arm. Godrick was-
Godrick.
According to Detection, almost all of the spiders must have been either evaporated by the blast, or otherwise knocked somewhere outside of Rain's range. Of the survivors, only three were still close enough to be a meaningful threat.
One of which was entangled with Godrick on a ledge on the opposite wall of the cavern.
The explosion had left the spider's body a broken mess, but it was gradually reforming, using whatever eldritch magic was keeping it intact to rearrange the bloodied limbs back into their original places. Godrick didn't look any better. He was clearly sick, and was barely managing to hold himself upright.
Rain's perception slowed to a crawl, burning through his prodigious essence stores. Once again he had to make a choice. With what little mana he had left, he could either convert it to stamina and attempt to rescue Godrick from the spider, or he could shunt it into Force Ward and change the parameters to achieve maximum efficiency while still covering Godrick - and hope that the injured spider wouldn't be able to batter its way past faster than his mana regenerated.
Hesitation was death. He made his choice. Shunting half his mana into Energy Well, Rain dropped the range on Force Ward down just far enough to barely reach Godrick, raising the efficiency as high as possible under those constraints. Then he kicked off. As the world sped up, so did Rain, dipping into his vital reserves to speed himself with Velocity. As he flew, his senses disappeared, dipping briefly into Aura Focus. Even a fraction of a second of accelerated regeneration might be what made the difference.
The spider pounced, and Rain felt his mana drain as Force Ward tried to protect Godrick. The first blow knocked the teenager into the wall, but the wards stopped the mandibles from piercing his skin.
Rain took another step, now halfway across the hole, and was forced to convert more mana to maintain his Airwalk. It was a balancing game between mana and stamina, Velocity and Force Ward. Too little stamina for Airwalk, and he'd fall out of Godrick's range, and be unable to help. Too little mana for Force Ward, and Godrick would be defenceless.
Then the spider was fully reformed, and redoubled its assault. The second blow drained what was left of Rain's mana - leaving him sluggishly Airwalking in the centre of the cavern - and the third blow tore through the wards entirely and pierced Godrick's skull.
Rain screamed.
There was a flash of light, and something blasted down the cavern. A raven-haired boy Rain didn't recognise, dressed in robes, with an ornate crown resting on his head. He was in the centre of the same kind of milky-white shield-sphere Zorian had conjured. The sphere came to an abrupt stop in front of Godrick, and then vanished. A blade of - not darkness, but what looked like a rift in reality itself - formed in the air, and sliced the spider in half with practically no resistance. Its corpse began to reform, but the boy gestured with a hand, and the blade became a lattice, which sheared the spider's body into hundreds of pieces, which fell individually into the darkness below.
The boy paused for a moment, looking at Godrick's broken body, then flew downwards, moving faster than humanly possible.
Rain's eyes were still locked on Godrick.
He wasn't registering as an entity to Detection.
A second later, Rain crashed into the ledge, next to where Godrick was lying prone.
There were two puncture wounds in the side of Godrick's skull. He wasn't breathing.
Rain redirected all his stat points into Clarity, and poured as much mana as physically possible into Summer. Anything, anything that might help. Rain felt his own minor injuries healing under the intense magical warmth - burnt lungs rejuvenated, strained biceps and knees relieved. Godrick's form didn't move.
A few seconds later, the shimmering sphere reappeared, and Rain felt some form of telekinesis lift both him and Godrick into the sphere. Dimly, he was aware of Talia, Hugh, Mackerel and Artur in the sphere as well, but his eyes didn't leave Godrick. A moment later, the others were pulled in too - Sabae, Zorian and Alustin.
Their sphere rocketed upward, accelerating even faster than Zorian's had. The tiny pinprick of light above them grew and grew. In less than a minute, they shot out of the top of the Hole. A city stretched out beneath them. It looked a little like the older parts of London, with ornate spires stretching toward the sky. Train lines criss-crossed the city.
The boy who'd saved them was talking with Zorian now. They were both speaking fast, in the flowing language Rain recognised from the first time he'd met Zorian and Harry in the dark of Ithos. But Rain couldn't hear anything except the clutching sobs of a father who had lost his son.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Are we heading in the direction of starting a multiversal war? I've only read MoL and HPMoR so I don't actually know who the Kryptonian wannabes are. But yikes if they show up on Earth.
Not to repeat myself, but I commented on Ao3 how Zach and Zorian could save Godrick by preserving his soul with necromancy and double back to Earth to have Harry restore his body with the Philosophers stone. A second, significantly more implausible, idea is to use blood magic, necromancy and the primordial essence from the spiders to grant him some form of ressurective regeneration.
Not to repeat myself, but I commented on Ao3 how Zach and Zorian could save Godrick by preserving his soul with necromancy and double back to Earth to have Harry restore his body with the Philosophers stone. A second, significantly more implausible, idea is to use blood magic, necromancy and the primordial essence from the spiders to grant him some form of ressurective regeneration.
I mean yeah necromancers make death a not a big deal but it doesn't seem to be viable if his soul fled this world to go back to its own afterlife.
It truly depends on what the transuniversal post life situation.