SO! Warnings! This first chapter of this story is much…darker than you may have expected if you've read The Great Sage. I'm fairly certain many of you will find it disturbing. I'm fairly sure I've already earned the M rating with this one. I will of course, ease up, even starting as early as the later portions of this chapter. I don't think I could keep the dark up for too long in one chapter.
Now, since I know questions will be asked:
The Great Sage: I'm currently 8k words into chapter 2, so it's in progress. It also takes a decidedly darker tone for the first portion of the chapter. Take note that I usually switch in between HP and Naruto moods, and I'm currently on an HP mood. It may take a little while to get finished.
The Dragon Pilot: Responses on the pilot were really positive. In fact, it had far more responses than this one did. But I'm honestly having a bit of trouble picking a direction for it. It was put out because it was a concept I really enjoyed, and I still do. I'm just having trouble getting an actual story out of it. I have events loosely tied together and a possible ending path, but beyond that nothing concrete. Especially since I'm far more interested in this Marauder's era time travel piece so I can somewhat avoid the same tired old seven year cycle. I want to try catching Voldemort before he went completely off the deep end, back when he was an actual threat instead of Expelliarmus bait. Have no fear, I am still trying to find motivation to go through a full seven year and beyond cycle. When I do, that will be the story I do it on, with any luck. For now, the concepts I either introduced or was planning on introducing will live on in this story.
Now for THIS story: The wizards in this one are stronger in general than Canon. I'll find myself repeating that a lot, but again, I am an anime and big blockbuster fan. The setting has a lot of potential that I've often found didn't really match up to my personal expectations, what with Voldemort being a one-killing-curse-pony. I know he supposedly was the greatest dark lord who ever lived, but I never felt that oomph in the books. The only fight in the canon series that was truly awesome was in the 5th book, Dumbledore vs Voldemort. Where the hell was that when he was fighting Harry? Where was he after Dumbledore died? Why was his brain seemingly just switched off? Why did he not wait outside the castle boundaries watching for the Dark Mark so he could swoop in to kill Harry once his only threat was dead? No, can't have that. We still have a book to go through. Instead, the Super Wand^(TM) just instagibbed him with a god damn Expelliarmus. We know Grindlewald had the Wand and was beaten by Dumbledore, so why the hell did Voldemort just roll over? The movie did a much better job than the books, because at least there he died from the feedback of his last Horcrux being destroyed.
That's what happens when you make your Hero a loser and never have him lose that status (and your villain is so far out of his league). You get a totally unsatisfying ending. Naruto started out as an utter idiot in canon and by the end the manga, he was easily in the top ten badass list for Naruto. He had help, of course, but he was strong in his own right. Harry? He won not off his own merit, but because Dumbledore had the stupid blind luck to be disarmed by Draco Malfoy – who knew exactly where he would be for some reason but not the fact that Harry would be with him – who Harry could beat.
Now, the wizards are stronger in general. In this one, the strongest of wizards are flat out super humans, for lack of a better description.
As such, AU. Like pretty much all my fics.
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"HARRY!" Neville pounded on his superior's door as he visibly trembled in excitement. Exasperated at the lack of response, he used the override spell to cancel the locking charm, and opened the door.
Immediately, loud music pumped through the doorway, causing him to grind his teeth a bit as he edged in, "Only the strongest will survive! Lead me to heaven, when we die!" He snarled and cast a bolt of energy from his finger, shutting off the player.
"Couldn't you have better taste in music?" He glared at one of his oldest friends, who was lounging with his feet up on his desk. The man in question was dark haired, strongly muscled and lithe. He had piercing green eyes and sharp scar running down the length of his right eye. Another of his friends was seemingly sleeping curled up on top of him. She was a blonde, pixie-like woman.
At that, Harry Potter lazily raised his head with an arched eyebrow, "Better taste in music? Thats rich, mister J-pop." The flush on Neville's face made him chuckle, "So, what was so important that you barged your way in here? Perhaps you wanted to annoy us by turning our music off?" The gray eyes of Luna Lovegood were glaring at him for that as well, causing him to start sweating a bit. Harry pacified her by continuing to lightly stroke her hair.
Neville gulped, but steeled himself anyway, "Not exactly." He grinned viciously, and said three simple words, "We found them."
Instantly, Luna sprang up, teeth bared, while Harry stiffened and actually sat correctly. "We WHAT?"
His eyes were burning as he addressed his superior, "We found those sons of bitches. Siberia. They've been in Siberia this whole time. Tunguska."
Harry snorted, "Tunguska eh? Yeah, that sounds like good old Tom alright. That is right up his ego's alley."
Tunguska. The site of an asteroid impact in 1908, and also where Voldemort had discovered his greatest weapon.
Luna's gleeful voice cut through the air, "We really found them? YAY! We get to kill things!" She was jumping up and down and clapping, causing both men to turn sorrowful eyes at her. Luna hadn't been the cute little pixie they remembered for a long time. Too many lost friends and loved ones. Too many horrors experienced during her captivity at Malfoy Manor. "Do we really get to kill things Harry? Pretty please?"
Harry Potter sighed in exhaustion, "Yes little moon, you get to play." Luna 'squee'd' and gave him a bone crushing – literally, due to the absolutely ridiculous amount of strength Body Enhancement Magic afforded her tiny frame – and ran out of the room to prepare.
Neville stared after her in sadness, remembering the cheerful – if strange – girl they used to know. They saw glimpses of her old friend every once in a while, and especially when she was with Harry, but those moments were few and far between. It had taken a long time for her to heal after the first time she'd been held captive, and the deaths of so many loved ones in the initial shots of the third war had broken her.
Now, she lived for the battle. The adrenaline. The sight of their enemy's corpses.
Not that they were much too different. They were all shells of their former selves. Corrupted by war as only war can. They all had rivers of red on their ledgers. Only difference between the two men and the tired, broken girl was that they kept their minds. Sometimes, they wondered if they pitied or envied her nowadays.
"Is this really it? Are we really going to end it Harry?" He asked tiredly. He looked exhausted. His body looked rather emaciated, and his dark brown hair hung limply, lifelessly. The war had sapped him of his strength, as the world was slowly ruined.
His superior, his commander smirked lightly, "Yeah. Let's go fight us a war." He unleashed his aura, causing even an extremely powerful magical like Neville to feel an immense pressure over his entire body. "Go and prepare Neville. This is the last stand. Either he dies...or the world ends."
Neville regained enough of himself to snort back as he walked out of the room, "The world ends? Not like it has much left to go on..."
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The year was 2020. Ten years had passed since the beginning of Voldemort's third rise to power. The Darkest Lord in history had fled the battlefield in 1997 upon the death of his Familiar Nagini. Terrified that he had been rendered mortal, the coward fled.
For thirteen long years, the world seemed to return to normal. Voldemort's army had been routed; his staunchest supporters jailed or sent through the veil, and the world seemed on the mend. The Golden Trio had won, and for a time, people began to hope that the dark times were over.
Harry Potter knew better. Every time there was even a hint, a whisper of Voldemort, he and his best friends had been on the trail like silvertip grizzlies. Every time, they hit dead ends. Voldemort was smoke. Vapor.
So they rested. They prepared. They trained. They researched. All in preparation for the Dark Lord's return. For a long time, they were thought of as eccentrics. As people who couldn't let go of their glory days. As people who just hoped for things to go bad again. "The Dark Lord is gone!" They claimed. "He won't come back!"
And for thirteen years, they were right. Voldemort, coward that he was, stayed hidden, cowering at his own mortality. But he was always planning. Growing stronger. He was preparing to deal a death blow to the world, for if he couldn't own it then nobody could.
That death blow came on Halloween of 2010. On the 29th anniversary of his first fall, the skies were lit with fire. The first launches came from Russia, and through magic they remained unnoticed by muggle defense grids. Instantly, London and major portions of the United States fell. Nuclear fire scorched the Earth and poisoned the remains for centuries. Over half of the children at Hogwarts were orphaned in a matter of seconds. Ron Weasley, one of Harry Potter's closest friends, left only a burn silhouette on the floor. The responses from the other Nuclear Nations of the world completed the job, scorching Russia and much of Asia.
And finally, when the dust had settled, Voldemort appeared, leading an Army of Dark Creatures and an abnormal number of extremely powerful High Mages and Arch Mages. Hogwarts fell within hours, and the children who did not swear allegiance were sacrificed to either his creatures or in abhorrent rituals meant to give him their life forces.
Instantly, the remainder of the enraged and gutted Golden Trio – along with every other member of what became known as "The Resistance" – responded. The hatred that brewed between the two sides became legendary. Purebloods and Dark Creatures were massacred in droves on the streets, while muggleborn were beaten and sometimes cannibalized by the Dark Army in return. The clashes between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort eclipsed every legendary battle in memory, and each time they faced each other, the Earth felt it. Each time, one of them escaped with a mortal injury, and each time, their powers only grew as they recovered.
But they weren't the only players. The white marble facade and face of Gringotts had been destroyed in the blasts, and Goblin blood had been spilled. Just as they had many times before, the Goblins burst from their caves and holes in droves, slaughtering both sides of the conflict indiscriminately. They cared not for who had fired the first shot. They only wanted blood. Human blood.
Gallons of it.
They were the first to fall. Despite their superior numbers and somewhat effective magic and weapons, the humans would not fall to them. After three months of bloody warfare, Harry Potter and his strongest remaining friends descended into the depths of the Goblin mines, slaughtering every Goblin they could find. The Goblin nation burned that day
It soon became clear that the magical humans in the Dark Army weren't naturally powerful. Slowly, their outer appearances – sometimes those who had been quite beautiful in the past – slowly began to resemble dilapidated husks. Their skin turned pale – sometimes even blue – while almost black veins crawled up and down their necks and into their faces and bodies. Slowly, they lost the ability to think rationally, and became hammers where once they had been swords. Eventually, they became known as the appropriately named Husks. They had the numbers at the start, as well as the power, and three Arch Mages on Voldemort's side managed to overwhelm Hermione Granger
When Harry discovered her naked, defiled, drawn and quartered corpse, the heavens raged. Lightning storms blasted the entire planet for a week straight. Three weeks later, Madagascar, the country that Voldemort had been hiding in at the time, disappeared from the map. Not a trace of it was left, completely obliterated in Harry's rage.
For ten long, drawn out and painful years, the war stalemated. Each side won major victories, each time denying a powerful combatant, artifact, or locale to the enemy. None of which actually mattered, for the two leaders always survived by a hair, only growing more powerful from their defeat. They never forgave, and they never forgot. And as long as one of them lived, the war wouldn't end in victory.
The world was already dead. Radiation, pollution, rage, and human stupidity had killed it long ago. All that was left was to see who would live long enough to regret winning its husk.
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Tunguska was an area that had seen a fair bit of forestation years ago. After the Tunguska Event, the area had mostly recovered. Now, it was a barren wasteland. Any trees left standing were petrified husks, and all manners of dark creatures roamed through the remains. Where once wild grasses had grown, only dust and grit reminiscent of the Great Dust Bowl in the '30s remained.
The dusty, red sky and full moon seemed a perfect backdrop to the site of a final battle.
At 8 PM, the quiet burst as a tear in what appeared to be the air appeared and out stepped Harry Potter and his two last lieutenants. "Well, here we are." Harry announced unnecessarily. "Now, if I were a genocidal, ego-maniacal Dark Lord with daddy issues, where would I hide?" He asked his friends rhetorically.
Neville rolled his eyes, "I wonder. It couldn't possibly be the site of a historic event like that meteor could it?" He shot back sarcastically.
Luna, taking that as her cue, raised her right hand with her fingers splayed out, and then inverted it and made a fist. Instantly, the entire area in front of them started cracking and breaking as though it were made of glass. With a light snarl, she yanked, and the entire area in front of them began glowing a light blue before shattering entirely. The crumbling pieces of ward did nothing to hide the fact that they had hit the jackpot.
There he was. The big man himself, sitting regally on a floating, high-backed, jewel-encrusted golden throne as though he was a king. He was as pallid and disgusting as Harry remembered, what with his missing nose, forked tongue, sickly red eyes and veiny, scale-like skin. Behind him was what Harry knew to be his greatest weapon, and the entire reason he began his third campaign. It was a massive, blue stone that radiated its own energy. It pulsated every few seconds and gave off a very faint humming sound.
But Voldemort wasn't alone. Sitting like dogs – chained to the throne – were two people he used know. One was Gregory Goyle, though not even his own mother would recognize the thing that sat there for the fat and thuggish boy he spent 6 years at Hogwarts with. He was bald, and black veins crept all along his gaunt face and skull. The veins seemed to pulse in time with the Stone behind them. His eyes, once a dark brown, had been replaced by glowing blue pits against black sclera. He was skeletal, with all ribs clearly visible - some even exposed – with his skin cracked and glowing blue in places. He was currently snarling, and straining against his chains to attack his master's enemies.
The other was Pansy Parkinson. Once considered fairly good looking, except for her upturned nose, she was as visceral and disgusting as the other husk. Her hair – what remained of it at any rate – was wispy and caked with dirt and twigs. Her features were much like Goyle's; skeletal, and blue where there shouldn't be any.
But it was the big man who spoke first, "POTTER!" Came the expected snarl. Harry almost rolled his eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that Voldemort was so powerful, he could almost be written off as a 2-bit whack job nowadays. Nothing remained of the intelligent, handsome, and charismatic young man who first broke records at Hogwarts and later started and was inches away from winning a blood war against the entire world.
And Harry knew that the best way to deal with him was to keep him stupid. "Evening Tom!" He chirped back cheerfully, getting an inarticulate roar of rage back. Immediately, the passive Pansy and snarling Goyle sprang forward with ear-piercing screeches, straining against their bonds and not caring for their constricted windpipes or bloody, tearing skin.
"Ooh, is the little bitch angry?" Luna cooed at Pansy, driving her further into a rage, "I'm going to enjoy tearing you apart for what you did to Hermione, you dirty whore!"
Voldemort had somewhat calmed himself, and smirked. Snapping his fingers, the collars around his two slaves' necks snapped open, allowing them to spring forward at ludicrous speed. Pansy reached Luna and dove at her, trying to grasp her neck and squeeze so tightly the blonde's head would have popped right off. Luna back stepped nonchalantly, a hole in the very air ripping open behind her. She vanished into the portal and Pansy tumbled on through, right on her heels. The rip closed up, leaving no trace of its existence. Goyle reached Neville and tried to swipe at him. The last Longbottom caught the tearing blow with his left and his enemy's throat with his right. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." And then, he was off in the opposite direction, whizzing with his target past Voldemort so quickly that a sonic boom would have ruffled Voldemort's hair, if he had any. Many miles away, an explosion of dust and debris erupted from where he had slammed the husk into the ground, far past the horizon.
Seconds later, the sound from the new crater being formed hit the two remaining men. "Jeez, so eager to fight, those four." He cracked his neck and threw off the beige cloak he had around him, revealing a decently muscled upper body. He wore a simple black tank top and loose jeans. He laughed at his enemy as he began to float off the ground, "Well, I suppose we're all idiots then, aren't we, Tom."
He was rewarded with a roar from his enemy as well as a mass of shadowy, wispy black ichor began forming into a ball of pure hate above the Dark Lord. With the sound of screaming souls, the mass was fired at him. He avoided it – and the follow up shot – quite easily. He didn't have to look back to know that the ground the balls touched had corroded and withered even more than they had previously. "That wasn't nice, Tom. Whatever happened to needing to follow the niceties, hmm?"
Voldemort spat at him as he turned party to vapor and shadow, floating off of the throne he's claimed for himself, "The dead do not need niceties Potter. Your soul will make me immortal forever!" And then he started glowing red with black lightning surrounding him. Instantly, the power in the area skyrocketed. The blue stone behind him began pulsing at a quicker rate and the humming sound turned into a high pitched drone. Veins reaching all around the area the stone sat in began to light up and pulse as well. Even further behind, a massive, glowing red magical seal resembling a 29-pointed star appeared. A massive, hairy leg burst forth from it, followed by another, and then another, before an absolutely gargantuan set of pincers followed.
Even Harry had to stop and stare for a moment at the monstrous arachnid demon that Voldemort had summoned. It was as black as the void with eight pulsing, evil red eyes. It was massive. At least a hundred meters tall, if not two hundred. He could smell the evil wafting off of it. It let out a horrible, terrifying screech and Harry's eyes widened in horror as he could feel his spirit and strength leaving him. Luckily, Voldemort had underestimated his summon, and overestimated his own evil. The screech had affected him as well, though less than Harry.
Acting quickly, he summoned his own magical seal, and from it burst an equally giant hand made of stone. A stone giant followed the hand, and it immediately attacked the shrieking spider. It grabbed it by the pincers and then tore them off. Black, diseased blood burst from the wounds, bubbling and melting part of the giant's chest. It reared back, but persevered and grabbed the defanged head and rammed it into the ground. A plume of grit and dust rose around them before the enraged spider attacked back. One of its legs speared forward, breaking through the stone giant's right shoulder. Chunks of rock burst backwards, crushing the petrified trees they landed on. The right arm of the giant lost animation, falling uselessly to the ground with a tremendous crack, instantly forming a decent crater.
Acting quickly, it lifted a giant foot and punted the beast, launching it backwards, seemingly in slow motion due to the enormous size of the its body. The spider's armored underside cracked from the impact and it rolled, screeching in pain all the while. It found its footing before spitting a mass of black, ominous web at its enemy. Every bit that touched stone began to bubble, corroding the rock and stealing the magic powering it. The rock giant crumbled. Each impacting stone shaking the earth as it impacted.
The spider screeched in victory and looked towards Harry with hatred in its beady red eyes. It took a massive step forward and a lesser man would have run in terror. Harry merely smirked. He's had enough time to finish his next spell.
He clapped his hands and immediately, a glowing golden magical seal appeared in the air high above them. The spider had only time to look up with a questioning look on its face before a yellow, almost electric-like beam of energy fired down from the sky, piercing it easily. The beam continued through it, digging through the earth and throwing up plumes of dust and burnt arachnid into the air. The beam petered out and left the spider standing there, wheezing. A massive, sizzling hole was smoking it the center of its cephalothorax. It took one more teetering step forward before collapsing forward. It landed on its face and didn't as much as twitch as it began decomposing rapidly. A cloud of dust covered the area, obscuring vision. Harry was forced to split his attention to cast a spell to clear the air.
Immediately after, Harry was forced to dodge another series of death magic blasts from Voldemort. The man hadn't been idle while the spider and the giant were fighting, once the unholy screech had been silenced by the giant. He had been casting streams of acid and poison at Harry the entire time. Finally, Harry responded directly, casting a spear of fire at his nemesis. It raced forward and just barely missed Voldemort, piercing the ground behind him. It exploded spectacularly in a great plume of flame, before shrinking back down, as if being drawn back to a central point. With a grin, made a pulling motion and the lance reformed entirely screaming back towards Harry and striking Voldemort in the back.
The smell of burning flesh assaulted Harry's nostrils as Voldemort howled in pain. The Infernal Spear had burned his back, but had not pierced through. Instead, it impacted explosively, launching Voldemort forward. He landed on the ground face first, scraping along and gouging the dirt before pushing himself back up to his feet with a sliding front flip. His face was all bloody, but it healed instantly, rock fragments popping out and landing in front of him. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do, Potter!" His aura skyrocketed again, but was met this time by Harry's own emerald aura.
Harry's easy-going smirk was gone, replaced by cold hatred, "It's been 39 years since you first tried, Tom. And guess what? I'M STILL HERE!" He roared back. His power surged even higher than Voldemort's for a moment. All was still for a moment, besides the cracking of rock where their auras met and the increasingly powerful pulses from the Stone. Then, both sprang forward, arcane bolts and ancient magicks flying.
The first shots had been fired. The battle was on.
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A rip in the air burst open, and what used to be Pansy tumbled out. She howled in rage as she turned to her enemy, who was floating there and taunting her, "What's wrong, whore? Not having fun?" The blonde spat at her.
Pansy flared her magic, summoning three enormous white tigers. All three sped forward and tried to take chunks out of Luna, slashing and snapping at her with hilariously overgrown claws and fangs. Luna scoffed and bifurcated one with a blast of cutting energy before gripping the minds of the other two. The tables turned, as now her tigers were attacking her. She dispelled them and sprang forward herself, violent air currents shaping along her fingers. She brought them down on Luna, who simply vanished, and the air currents continued, ripping earth and rock and whatever was in the way, leaving deep claw-shaped trenches in the earth.
Luna hadn't been idle, and summoned a magical seal above her head. The five points on the star flared, before blasting cutting beams of energy forward. Pansy dodged, but the beams spun to keep up with her. The husk squealed in anguish as her left leg was burned off from the knee down. The smell of burning, semi-putrid flesh was horrific, and Pansy collapsed. "Mou, you're boring, whore." Pansy howled, and pure magic burst from the wound, forming a new leg made entirely of energy. She sprang up faster than ever, lightning surrounding her right claws and fire burning in her left. Every swipe of her hands launched jagged, claw-shaped fire or lightning claws at Luna.
Finally, one attack caught Luna on her right arm, and it was her time to howl in pain. Her flesh and arm hair sizzled under the onslaught, even as blood welled up and boiled. It was an attack meant to cause horrific pain and disable the area, cauterizing the wound to make healing it harder. But Luna was well versed in healing magic, and even as the burnt flesh was excised and new muscle and skin took its place, she was driven into a rage. After she blinked the tears from her eyes, she formed a fist, this one glowing bright yellow. She teleported right in front of her opponent and punched Pansy right in the jaw. The energy covering her hand burst, blasting Pansy away with force. Pansy's face warped, the bone bursting from his skin. "You'll pay for that, you damn walking corpse! TRICK ROOM!" She screamed, her gray eyes glowing pitch black.
This was it. Luna's specialty, and the one reason a mere Grand Mage could keep up with her hilariously more powerful compatriots and enemies. Luna had always been an odd one, even as a child. Her imagination ran wild and untamed, aided by the Quibbler and her father's own eccentricities. When called to fight, and later after experiencing all of the horrors that she did, she decided to turn it all against her enemies.
Black walls sprang up all around them, trapping them in a cube of energy. Everything inside the cube went greyscale, losing all color. A cute little girl's laughter sounded through the space, along with some twinkly bedtime music. Luna faded out entirely, leaving only Pansy in the area. She began spinning around wildly, throwing cutters and fire blasts at the walls and trying to escape through dimensional portals. None of them worked.
Then they began appearing. All of the creatures and abominations Luna had thought up as a child, a bullied, scared teenager, and especially as a tortured young woman began appearing from the ground, seemingly melting out of it. The first was a cute, white, fluffy bunny rabbit. Even as far gone as Pansy's mind was, she still had it in her to scoff at the non-threat. It hopped towards her in an unassuming fashion, and she screeched before punting it as it got too close.
Or trying too, at any rate. Her foot passed right through the small creature, throwing her off balance and causing her to fall. It stood up in response, and then howled. Its head grew massive, cartoonish even. Its eyes were jeweled and strange, much like an insect's eyes would have been. The it opened its mouth.
Now, husks were strange things. They had lost all sense of humanity and who they once were. They barely ate, and then it was usually only flesh, and they had the emotional ranges of teaspoons. One thing they still had in great quantities was rage. But terror? Yeah, terror still penetrated their lost minds.
And the only thing the husk known as Pansy Parkinson could feel as she stared at that gigantic, drooling mouth with teeth literally spinning around like what a muggle would have called a chainsaw was sheer, undiluted terror. She screamed and jumped to her feet, only to collapse. A sane person would have realized that her feet and hands had seemingly been switched, but Pansy only kept trying to no avail.
The monster crept closer and leapt at her, causing her screaming to double, but it passed harmlessly by her head. For a moment, the husk's terror decreased as she figured out that it was all a trick, only to shoot right back up as it felt something tear into her remaining leg. She screamed helplessly and spun around onto her back, aiding in the tearing of her leathery flesh in its teeth. Diseased blood spurted from the wound as she kicked right at the rabbit, but it was of no use, as her energy foot passed right through it, revealing that the monster was actually on the left side of her left leg, and not on the right as it had appeared.
With a last crunch and a grinding sound, it tore through her remaining leg and swallowed it whole before vanishing. The husk would have sobbed, had she had tear ducts. But her torment wasn't over. All of the beasts and monsters surrounding her began melting together. They combined into one massive, tentacled blob with a giant, gaping chainsaw mouth and many gaping, differently sized eyes.
It reached a massive tentacle forward towards her new bleeding stump, and she scrambled backwards desperately. Her terror reached new heights as she felt something slimy wrap around her right wrist and yank. Her shoulder almost dislocated as the tentacle pulled her backwards, towards the real monster rather than the illusion she had seen. Another appendage – this time a clawed hand – grappled with her left hand as she squirmed and struggled to get free. Then, they both pulled, leaving her floating in the air for a brief moment as her arms were both torn from her body.
She cried, scared out of her mind, even without the capability of producing tears as she fell to the ground. What little of her humanity remained begged for it to be over and the real first word she'd said in half a decade escaped her lips, "P-plea-"
But the... thing had no sympathy. She was cut off by a stinger-clad tentacle wrapping around her throat. She shook, urgently trying to free herself as it brought her closer to the gaping, teeth filled hole in the blob. Each eye was staring directly at her and moving with each inch that she came closer, even as she shook her head and kicked and flailed and ohgodIdon'twanttodi-
-]|[-
The black box broke, revealing Luna Lovegood and Pansy Parkinson. Except for her burned leg, from which the energy foot had evaporated from, all of the cuts, tears, and injuries she'd suffered had disappeared. Luna casually walked towards her most hated enemy and kicked her onto her back, "So, did you like you playtime, whore?"
But there was no answer. There would never be an answer ever again. Pansy's shuddering, spasming form stared blankly at the sky. The lights were on, but there was nobody home. Luna grinned darkly in satisfaction. Finally, finally, the last person responsible for defiling her sweet, precious Hermione was gone. She waved her hand and with a spurt of blood, Pansy's head rolled away from them. Luna turned and walked away, whistling a jaunty tune, never guessing what was about to happen.
A rune appeared on Pansy's unmoving chest, before it burst open with the force of a cannon, spewing scarabs and spiders and centipedes and all sorts of disgusting, crawling creatures at her. Luna spun in shock, but had no time at all to react. The scarabs reached her first, and began ripping into her face and draining her magic.
She flailed and kicked and screamed, trying to get away, but everywhere she teleported to brought her assailants with her. For every one she destroyed with her rapidly draining magic, two more took their place. A putrid miasma surrounded her, assaulting her sense of smell and making her throw up, even as a centipede tried to force itself into her mouth. They ripped and burrowed into her, and her terrified and horror filled screams were the last thing that ever escaped her.
-]|[-
Neville had fared much worse than Luna did against his opponent. He was a powerful combatant, but much of his abilities relied on nature. The world was already dead, or at least in the process of dying. Neville's former strength turned into a weakness. Every root he grew to ensnare Goyle was burned through. Every time he tried caging him with gigantic tree trunks, they were too nutrient poor to have any real strength, and the husk broke out with brute force. Every sharpened spike simply shattered against the husk's tough hide. Every poisonous spore bomb barely slowed Goyle down. Even his Golem failed to have any effect.
"Well, ain't this a bitch?" He chuckled morbidly as he clutched the stump of what used to be an arm. Voldemort's Planetary Withering curse had done more damage to Neville than any actual fight ever had. Goyle appeared again, screaming incoherently as he fired yet another blast of arcane energy at his opponent. This time, Neville wasn't quite quick enough to move and howled as a thin, Knut sized hole was burned into his abdomen above his right hip. The aroma of sizzling hairs and flesh was just dreadful. "Sorry Harry. Looks like we won't be having that celebration after all." Tears leaked from his eyes as he made his decision.
Determination welled up in his gaze, as he was kicked onto his back by the husk. He snapped a leg forward and shattered Goyle's right kneecap. The crunch of bone was oh so satisfying. The husk went down and scrambled away, trying to force it's knee back into working order.
Reaching to the bloody stump that used to be his left arm, he allowed blood to well on his fingers and began painting runes on himself. He still had a final card to play. Quickly, his trembling fingers traced the runes on his skin, purposely making as many mistakes as could. As he did so, he began chanting the words to a blood ritual that he knew had to be performed absolutely perfectly. One mistake in this ritual would, at best, kill you.
Goyle forced his leg back into to place with magic and roared out a challenge. He blasted forward, lightning crackling along his form as he closed in on his meal. He would definitely enjoy the flesh of this weakling. Just as he reached his adversary and reared back to deliver the death blow, Neville began to glow an ominous, poisonous green. "I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO KILL YOU ANYMORE, BUT I'M SURE AS HELL TAKING YOU WITH ME!"
The light expanded, and expanded, and kept expanding. There was no sound really. Just that bright flash of light. Then, the light collapsed on itself, sending all of the displaced air rushing back to fill the vacuum that had formed. A thunderous boom was the only testament of the sacrifice of one of the bravest men that ever lived.
Well, that and the twenty mile wide, glassed over crater.
-]|[-
The land in which Harry and Voldemort were battling was even more of a hellscape than it had been upon his arrival. The earth was cracked and glowing. What organic material still around was rotting and oozing. Magma started to break through cracks in the earth, spewing out with intensity.
The planet itself was warping under the strain of the two titans doing their damndest to completely annihilate the other. Both were panting, under immense strain. Even magical users of their level got tired when it combat with one another. Harry winced as he felt Luna's life force vanish from his senses. Voldemort's mad cackling told him that he had felt it too. He clenched his fist and reared up, right arm glowing blue. With a scream of anguish, the punched forward and the blue escaped him, travelling forward at insane speeds.
Voldemort tried to dodge, but was too slow. The blue pellet burst and expanded, turning into a dark, large, ringed, pulsing sphere. Immediately, loose rocks and dirt started levitating, flying towards the center. Voldemort's arm was right in the center and it started bubbling. Warping. Skin started peeling and muscles started separating, all trying to force itself towards the center of the sphere. His face and shoulder seemed to warp as well, as though hidden by a heat haze. Voldemort cried in agony as he forced himself to apparate and leaving behind his arm. It didn't fall to the floor. Instead, it was slowly peeled and grated into the sphere, vanishing entirely with disgusting noise.
He reappeared, howling madly. Ribs were exposed and black, diseased blood was gushing from the wound. "How'd you like my Singularity you sick fuck?" Harry hissed victoriously. His response was more howling and a sick noise filled with cracking, popping, and squelching as the wound began to close, slowly forming the bones and muscles of a new arm. Harry cursed and fired another blast off, this one a much faster purple color. Voldemort howled as his regeneration seemed to stop, and if anything seemed to reverse. The new material started looking diseased, rotten. It started falling apart.
But this spell was a direct line-of-sight spell, and Harry had to maintain it. An apparition and a summons of fiendfyre quickly took Harry's attention away. The beasts made of cursed flame was easy to take care of if you knew how and it had nothing to burn. A giant made solely of ice cold water rose up, meeting the snakes and dragons in battle. Steam hissed and cried as the titans battled to destroy the other.
Harry turned his attention once more to Voldemort, but he was already healed. His Molecular Destabilization spell was a nasty piece of work, literally ripping apart the target – any target – atom by atom. But it required his attention, and the truly skilled could heal its effects after the spell stopped.
Voldemort was practically frothing at the mouth by now. Pain and rage had blanked his mind and all semblance of rationality had fled. He truly was just a monster now. And a monster does as a monster does. He started gathering his black magic, runes cutting into his skin by invisible scalpels. His clothes shredded and practically exploded from his form, leaving the man-turned-beast starkers. A lesser man would have retched or averted their eyes at the sight.
Harry on the other hand recognized the ritual. Voldemort was going to use his very body to summon a Greater Demon. And interrupting the ritual would cause an enormous magical explosion as the runes overloaded and released the energy.
A blinding light hit his eyes seconds before the thunderous explosion rammed into his ears, making them bleed. He turned and squinted, tears leaking from his eyes, "Neville!" He cried mournfully.
That was it. He was alone. No one left alive. No one to celebrate with. No one to mourn with.
No one to die with. No one but the monster in front of him.
Gritting his teeth, Harry charged forward, magic pulsing through his body, pushing him to speeds far greater than even the fastest jets muggles had come up with. It was only the insane amount of power strengthening his body that kept him together. That kept his body from simply breaking apart and turning to mush.
He reached Voldemort and with a scream of rage, rammed his foot as hard as he could into Voldemort's chest. The air cracked as it rushed to fill the void Voldemort's flying body had left behind, the sonic boom battering Harry and knocking him back a tad.
Voldemort flew, already cut runes glowing an angry red. His back impacted the glowing blue rock with a crash, shattering parts of it slightly. His left arm and both legs exploded off his body, almost completely quartering him upon impact. He fell to the dirt moaning, as the ritual was completely interrupted. Immediately, Voldemort felt a giant influx of power, more than he ever had as shards of pulsing material entered his bloodstream in conjunction with the runes hissing angrily. The runes overloaded and started leaking power.
But rather than an explosion, Voldemort started feeling drained. Weak. The pulsing blue rock was no longer pulsing. Or if it was, it was pulsing so quickly the human eye couldn't tell individual beats apart.
Voldemort used his one arm to tiredly lift his torso up to face his nemesis, rage and terror warring upon his pallid visage. Harry came closer and spat in his eye, "What was it all for Tom!" He yelled angrily, fists glowing with magic. "There's nothing left!" He roared, "Nothing left to rule! Everything is dead! And for WHAT?"
"Go…to…hell!" Voldemort grunted tiredly, throwing his arm up. His body and head began to fall back to the dirt with nothing holding them up, "Avada-"
"SINGULARITY!" Harry roared as the power he was just barely leashing exploded forward.
The world went white.
-]|[-
The International Space Station had once been a marvel of human ingenuity and cooperation. It was a platform for research and a location where many nationalities had come forward in one common interest.
It was now a ghost town. What astronauts and cosmonauts that had been living on it were long dead. The nuclear explosions and wars had stopped any hope of supplying it. The lack of transport back home meant they couldn't even return to the planet to see if their families were safe. The men and women aboard were forced to watch in muted horror as their beautiful world cannibalized itself.
Now, years later, only their bones were left as a stark reminder that it had once been thriving with like-minded scientists hoping to improve the world. So with all of them dead, there was no one left to witness the Earth's final cry.
It started as a bright light shining up on the windows of the ISS. The planet below had the brightest light ever observed by a human-made object up close expanding from a point in Asia. Siberia specifically. When the light was gone, it revealed a horrifying sight. The Earth. The beautiful planet that had once housed uncountable life forms…
It was cracked into hundreds of giant chunks of rock and molten material, ringed with smaller chunks of rock floating around it like a cloud. But that wasn't the end. Slowly, the chunks started falling inward, collapsing towards a single point. Not a piece escaped the hungry beast that had awoken in the wake of the explosion. Slowly, they were all sucked up until not even a speck of dirt marked the fact that there once had been eight planets in the Solar System.
The black hole went on for the rest of days, eagerly devouring first asteroids and then the sun itself after it blew up into Red Giant phase billions of years later.
-]|[-
September 14, 1943
Tom Marvolo Riddle was sitting in class. Not even a boy of his intellect could sit in Cuthberth Binns class without daydreaming a little. Tom had a little smile on his face as he envisioned what he could form into his next Horcrux. Who his next victim would be.
That daydreaming was cut short when a mental attack struck him with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. He jerked as if struck, hand flying towards his head in a futile attempt to stem the agony. For a moment, Tom didn't care for his image as he slouched, drawing worry from some of the others in the class. One even put their hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly, asking if he was alright.
But Tom was in his own little world, throwing every mental defense he could think of at the thing attacking his mind. But his defenses were all bypassed as if the attacker knew exactly what he would do before he did it. But that was impossible. Not even a man of Albus Dumbledore's stature would be capable of bypassing Occlumency like this.
Then, the presence stopped trying to borrow into his mind, exhausted of all power. It cried out before evaporating entirely, gone for eternity.
But the words it had spoken had left Tom trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. He didn't even need to fake being sick as both the relief from the end of the mental attack, the pain it had caused, and the stress of the words forced him to blow chunks all over his desk.
As the class stopped panicking and one of his 'friends' helped him up and to the Hospital Wing, he could not stop thinking about the voice's words. His own voice's words, tinged with panic and terror.
There had only been three of them, but they had a much larger impact than an entire book's worth could have.
Three little words, spoken in sheer panic, shouted out in a thunderous voice in his head.
DON'T MAKE HORCRUXES
-]|[-
May 13, 1975
Tunguska was a quiet land, but for the wildlife. The trees and wild grasses had returned to the impact site of the only modern witnessed meteor impact. A lake filled what was believed to be an impact crater. Almost 70 years later, life had returned.
But that quiet was disturbed as a jagged tear seemed to appear in the very air itself. It pulsed with blue energy as it tore the world asunder, revealing a kaleidoscope of lights and flashes. A body flew from the tear at great speed. It impacted the ground roughly, drawing yelps of pain from the individual. Dirt was upturned as a marker to his impacts as he lightly gouged the earth with his rolling, tumbling body. Finally, he rolled to a stop. It was a black haired man, muscular and brimming with magic. He managed to raise his head lightly, not really registering his surroundings, before collapsing into a dead faint.
Tunguska was quiet once more.
-]|[-
And there we have it. Not quite to the 10k word mark, but I actually felt this was a fairly decent place to end it off. It is just the prologue after all.
Now, it was never stated outright, but this IS a crossover. Those familiar with the source will definitely catch the more than numerous hints I put in. This crossover will not TRULY effect the story until much, much later. It is just there as foreshadowing and world building for now.
Some things to note: That message in Tom's head was literally all she wrote for the fragment of future-Voldemort. It won't be making a reappearance and Tom does not have future knowledge. That panicked message was it, and there will be reverberations from it. Tom already has two Horcruxes at that point; The Diary and the Ring.
Now, I am NOT sure if I'm going to make this story strictly Deathly Hallows compliant. As you can likely tell from my rant in the foreword, I really dislike the direction the story took, even as early as Half Blood Prince. But Deathly Hallows has the…honor… of being the ONLY Harry Potter book I only read once. With that said, I will also NOT be taking very many – if any – cues from Pottermore. If it wasn't in the main series books or movies, it is very likely to not be featured here.
The story will NOT be this dark all the way through. This was truly an end of the world scenario. The pyrrhic victory of pyrrhic victories. These combatants were battered and hammered and tired and long past the point where they thought the world was salvageable. This is truly a new start. He will do everything in his power to make sure the world does not end again. Not on his watch.
Also, Voldemort will be much more terrifying in this story than the one Harry had been squaring off with at home. No Horcruxes messing with his mind. No 13 years spent as a disembodied spirit. No madness. He'll be Voldemort, but he'll be an actual intelligent and charismatic Voldemort. I'm aiming for no Idiot/Villain Ball moments.
Finally, this last bit does not actually apply for this chapter, but it will apply for the next. Several people will not be their correct age. Some will be older and some will be younger. You can also likely expect some Anachronism Stew or perhaps more Artistic License: History. If you don't know what that is, you can equate it to Tyrannosaurus Rexes in F-14 fighter jets. Google it if you like. The image on TV Tropes is quite amusing.