Author responses to reviews of the second chapter of Immortality in the Verse posted on either this site, Harry Potter FanFic Archive or Archive of Our Own.
Emperor Of Pandemonium:
Pretty good second chapter if still a little unbelievable that Harry didn't notice any of this happening. Update again soon :D
Author Response:
I know it is implausible but I couldn't have had Harry sticking his nose in the environmental stuff, because he would have fixed it and I need him to go to outer space which could only happen if the Earth essentially dies. Harry's lack of knowledge will be expanded upon in later chapters.
Lerianis:
A good story but the eco-freak nonsense in it turned me off very quickly. No, we will never 'outuse our resources' since when we start recycling everything which is coming the earth will have enough for a population of nearly 500 billion. It is unlikely that we will get to that level even in the next 400 years.
Author Response:
I agree that the environmental stuff is implausible, but even as a fanfiction I tried to stick to the Firefly timeline that states the first ships departed in 2097. Keeping to that date, the boring research and political stuff would have happened roughly in my timeframe.
Chapter 3
Posters plastered all across the walls of Diagon Alley, they read "Exodus - Humanities Only Chance of Survival is Across the Stars."
"Shit" was all Harry managed to say, Fawkes warbled in agreement.
They were going to leave, humankind was abandoning the Earth. Harry scrambled up and down the once bustling, but now deserted Diagon Alley. Literature was peeling off the walls and windows of the stores as if the posters had been hung long ago and forgotten. The posters were not United Kingdom Magical Government issued, the top-right corner was printed with a logo Harry had never seen, for an organisation he hadn't heard of "The United Magical Coalition".
Harry gathered as much information as he could from the posters, but it didn't add up. The posters detailed Earth's instability due to exhausted resources and pollution. Harry would have known, he would have noticed if the Earth was in danger. The posters recommended the permanent use of the Bubble Head charm when in populated urban areas. If it was so bad that people needed a permanent supply of fresh oxygen, why didn't Harry notice before this and why didn't he need one. Even as he was standing in Diagon Alley which the posters described as a "Code 08 - Oxygen Lacking Area Zone", Harry only felt slightly out of breath. Harry's mind began to drift to paranoia, the least faded posters detailed an evacuation operation headed by a muggle governing organisation that again Harry hadn't heard of. Harry paranoia began to manifest in fear, had the world left him behind. Diagon Alley was deserted, even during Voldemort's regime there was still wizards and witches within the Alley. Had the wizards all left? Left him alone on a dying world. A deranged laughter began to emanate from Harry's lips, a dying planet's only resident was an immortal. In Harry's panic this seemed to be the more hilarious thing he had ever thought, unable to collect himself he was expressing his emotions in the completely wrong way.
Fawkes had had enough of Harry's dip into insanity, from his perch atop of boarded up wizarding shop he dive bombed Harry. Harry began haphazardly firing an assortment of spells irrationally thinking he was being attacked. After firing six full body-bind curses in succession at an old apple crate, he finally began to calm down. Fawkes happy that Harry wasn't going to do something stupid nuzzled against Harry's legs with his neck. Think clearly, Harry realised how foolish he had acted apologised to his phoenix companion. Calmly walking with purpose he exited through the enchanted brick wall into the Leaky Cauldron he saw signs that confirmed there were other wizards and witches still around, but it still wasn't right. Like Diagon Alley, the once bustling pub now only had within it seven or so enchanted mugs that were merrily cleaning and stacking themselves behind the bar. Harry and Fawkes opened to door onto what should have been Charing Cross Road. While vaguely resembling the once staple of London's culture, it was now sparse and bare. There were muggles, but they wore devices that strongly resembled scuba tanks while quickly navigating the rubbish laden street. Steeling his reserve Harry apparated away to find the answer to his question, "What the bloody hell happened in just eighteen years?"
There were no wizards or witches in the location that used to house the United Kingdom Magical Government, but while there he again saw the posters that Diagon Alley had been repainted with, it seemed the wizarding world hadn't progress to the use of social media during his exile. Harry decided that this place was as good as any to find his answers. The posters detailed that in the face of magical population drop, the wizarding governments from around the world had merged into one global magical government. Harry didn't buy this, the entire magical world being government by a single multicultural body. It just wouldn't work, every magical nation like in the muggle world, had their own agenda and prejudices. It was impossible that they could band together and work peacefully for the good of the world's witches and wizards.
It began to make more sense when Harry accessed the computer of the Welsh Magical Leader, despite the magical world embracing technology it seemed that they hadn't used it all that properly. You would think the member of a magical sovereign state leadership council would password protect his computer, alas not. While the premises was mainly abandoned, the Welsh offices seemed mostly untouched. With a little bit of magic to jump start the backup generators Harry started to make sense of things. Despite not being able to access any form of internet Harry was still able to see the Welsh leader's email that he had saved before the lack of electricity hit the offices and Harry was pleased to find various letters and radio transmissions inside the coincidently locked desk. With shock Harry learned that Earth's environment had been damaged due to population booms and the overuse of natural resources. The emails, letters and notes detailed that the muggle nations had all merged into a peaceful worldwide government alliance, Fawkes nudged Harry as he read aloud almost making fun of Harry scoffing at the idea of a united multicultural government. From what Harry had seen while making his way from the Alley to hear, it seemed that this government had declared martial law and plunged the people into sickness and poverty. What he was reading seemed like science-fiction, recognising this was important as Harry knew his world was like something out of fantasy novel. Under the Alliances rule it seemed that they took funds for the good of everyone and spent them on in-house policies. The further Harry read, the more it became clear that said in-house policies was research and development of space exploration and space travel technology. The Alliance had been planning Earth's evacuation long before its condition was publically known.
Reading the emails and notes it seemed clear to Harry that the Alliance had played the public as fools, but Harry also knew that the Alliance's motives were hidden from the public and if he had been in the publics position, he wouldn't have noticed until it was too late either. Grinding his teeth, Harry seethed in anger learning that the United Kingdom Magical Government hadn't even tried to stop the Alliance withholding food and medicine from the muggles while working them to the bone stockpiling crops and meats for them. It seemed that the wizards only felt the need to pull their heads out of their arses when the Alliance announced Earth's evacuation. It was only when trouble was at their front door the wizards and witches began to act in a way that Harry had strived the government to act during his tenure. They had copied the muggles and united their governments into "The United Magical Coalition" and began research into saving the Earth, for about five minutes. The wizards and witches were divided when the findings were presented to them, half agreed that they left their involvement too late and needed to evacuate. The other fell back into traditionalist values in their panic, they believed that their magic was superior to any muggle science and that they being smarter than the muggles didn't believe the facts and regarded them as childish ideas. They were no longer involved in the coalition's efforts.
The coalition started to persuade the magical public of the truth and researched ways of evacuating Earth's magical species when the time came. This proved difficult as the muggles had abandoned the use of telephones and internet technology, while these things had been integrated into the wizarding society and now used in everyday life, wizards and witches didn't understand them and so had no knowledge of how to manually or magically reboot the networks and were forced to abandon them also. The muggles had disbanded any and all forms of entertainment such as music and film, and dedicated radio as their main communication source. While the coalition had used the tried and true method of owl post as their main communication source, they were forced to switch to using the Wizarding Wireless Network because the found the owl's couldn't withstand travel due to the heavy pollution. The wizarding radio was also utilised by the coalition to inform what was left of the magical population, roughly twenty million as the Alliance had affected the magical population as well as the muggle, and also persuade them that participating the exodus evacuation was the only hope for not just wizardkind, but all of humankind's survival.
It was clear to Harry that it all went to shit when the Alliance broadcasted their date of the exodus' commencement and expected departure. Feeling the pressure to get through to the stubborn wizards, the coalition panicked. They couldn't figure out the ark technology and abandoned the idea of constructing their own. This was when the traditionalists reared their heads, the preached that the coalition didn't care about them anymore and that they needed to be stopped. The traditionalists took advantage of the fact that the coalition had regrettably declared that they could no longer facilitate the evacuation of magical creatures. Ironically the intelligent spectrum of magical creatures hadn't believed that the Earth was going to die and stated that they weren't going to participate in the exodus, but when the option was taken away from them they all of a sudden said that it was their right to leave Earth if the wanted to. The traditionalists banded together an army comprised of themselves and the intelligent spectrum of magical creatures, such as centaurs, acromantula and goblins. They declared war against the coalition. It was brief, but bloody affair. The coalition was forced to kill their opposition, but at a cost on both sides. The intelligent magical creatures were slaughtered into extinction and wizarding population was lower than ever.
Sick of playing nice and trying to persuade the stubborn, the coalition said what they were going to do, the witches and wizards could come along or they could sit with their thumbs up their arses until they burned alive when the ozone layer collapsed. While scientifically inaccurate, the statement was powerful. What the coalition said was basically that they couldn't construct any arks, so regrettably magical creatures couldn't be saved. The world's witches and wizards were going to have to participate in the exodus using the muggle arks. The muggles needed to construct 166667 arks to evacuate what was left of the population, which included witches and wizards. The muggles had almost reached their target and most certainly would exceed it before the exodus. The ones who went along with the exodus would sadly never see their new homes as the journey would be 125 years, but the human and magical race could survive beyond there generation or die within their lifetimes on Earth.
The coalition's blunt outlook turned off as many to the idea of exodus as it did persuade. That was the last bit of information Harry could find in the old offices, it was apparent the old Welsh stubbornness had been stronger than those of Britain, Scotland and Ireland as they had all packed up shop earlier, Harry wasn't condemning them though, actually he was glad because they had left the information that Harry had needed. Processing all that he had learnt, Harry wasn't sure what he should do. He contemplated consulting the Resurrection Stone, but quickly dismissed it. He couldn't go find the coalition as it seemed they had disbanded after their final effort and wouldn't resume communication until closer to the exodus, which would be in 2097, seventeen years from now. Harry looked over the emails, letters and radio transmissions again, he winced when he saw his name. The coalition had contemplated searching for him, hoping that The Chosen One could persuade the unconvinced. Harry felt anger at this, thinking back to when Fudge and Scrimgeour had tried the use him the same way. But the immortal began to feel guilty about his absence, the realised that the situation wasn't like Fudge and Scrimgeour's, he could used The Chosen One to save people, a noble cause. He was selfish, being emotionally distant to save himself pain. Well, this pain was worse than could've felt if he outlived his friends. His friends had all died, fighting for the good of wizarding king alongside the coalition while he was shuffling around with Fawkes feeling sorry for himself. He had been worried that he would have to watch them die, but now all he had was a list of casualties that had died fighting the traditionalists, he had hoped that in his absence they would just go on and be happy, but in his absence he outlived them sooner than if he had stayed.
Fawkes was forced to sing his phoenix song to calm Harry, in his pain Harry had attacked the office. For the past five minutes he had been assaulting a literal brick wall, collapsing in a heap in response to Fawkes' tune with blood dripping from his hands. He came to a realisation that didn't seem important in the light of what he had learned. As his hands slowly healed themselves, he realised why he hadn't noticed everything happening around him. While he attributed his ignorance in part to his depressed state while in exile, he also recognised that while being the Master of Death guaranteed his immortality it didn't ensure his invulnerability, only strengthened his durability. His hands were the perfect example, while the Master of Death be injured, they were so durable and could heal themselves quickly so that they couldn't be mortally wounded. During his time as an Auror he discovered that he could survive a gunshot to the chest and still experience the pain, but was unable to be wounded fatally. Harry guessed that during his exile in various non-populated areas he had experienced the pollution, but due to his abilities his body could heal fast enough that Harry didn't register he was breathing polluted air. That was why in Diagon Alley, an area which required permanent oxygen, Harry only felt short of breath. It was only when his body was experiencing what was highly dangerous to a mortal, that it showed signs of distress. His depression and his abilities had enabled Harry to block out to direness of his surroundings, if Harry and Fawkes hadn't become aware of the death and low numbers of the magical creatures and animals he might not have noticed that the Earth was in trouble for years. But with the knowledge that his friends and their descendants had perished, he pushed the thoughts of animals and his insignificant revelation to the back of his mind.
He sat up with a jolt, it wasn't insignificant. While there wasn't anything he could about the people he had lost and the wizards and witches who had scattered in preparation of integrating themselves into the muggle exodus, he could still help the magical creatures. Fawkes had noticed that Harry was thinking feverishly and waddled in an anticipatory fashion for Harry to spring into action. Harry grabbed Fawkes' tail, perhaps a little too roughly and apparated with a new purpose leading the way.
Harry was going to save the magical creatures of the world. Big and small. Dangerous and docile. They were coming with him on the exodus. Harry had returned to Hogwarts, and to his sorrow it had been abandoned. Harry guessed that when what was left of the wizarding world scattered they abandoned populated wizarding areas and placed themselves in the best position to integrate themselves in preparation for the exodus. Harry felt no trepidation breaking into the tomb of Albus Dumbledore, all those years ago he had wondered if would have done it, now he didn't stop to wonder, Harry had a job to do. The century old immortal had a mission, he was going to save the creatures that could save themselves. Harry's Phoenix wand and the Elder Wand worked in conjunction to help Harry achieve his goal. Harry put all of his magic into it, he enchanted his mokeskin pouch that Hagrid had given him on his seventeenth birthday to create an environment that could sustain life and enable life to thrive within it. Harry planned to store all the magical creatures he could find in his mokeskin pouch and take them with him on the journey. The mokeskin pouch had the potential to expand itself when needed, Harry could keep all the magical creatures and they would just live like they would in the real world.
It was when Harry and Fawkes were essentially tricking the Hogwarts unicorns and thestrals into evacuating themselves into his pouch that he saw a wizard. Sorta. The Hogwarts ghosts had glided down from the castle to see what the commotion in the forest was about. The ghosts had been abandoned when Hogwarts had, without the knowledge that young witches and wizards wouldn't be attending anymore that had stayed waiting to guide the new members of Hogwarts through their magical education.
"My word Harry, what on earth are you doing to those poor creatures?" exclaimed a voice behind Harry.
A startled Harry dropped the mokeskin pouch, its opening shrinking back to its normal size. "Nick" Harry yelped. "What – how – shouldn't you have," Harry stammered.
"I thought they said he was dead." Harry heard one ghost say to the Fat Friar. "No, no, they said he left." he heard another ghost whisper back.
"I'm not dead, and I am trying to save them," said Harry still quiet flustered pointing to the creatures.
"Why would you need to save them Harry, they are perfectly happy, even if not to the extent when Hagrid took care of them?" asked Nick.
"How much do you know Nick?" questioned Harry.
"I'd like to think I have compiled quite a bit knowledge in my life, and afterlife, thank you very much Harry" responded Nick in an affronted tone.
"No, not that. How much do you know about why there is no one is the castle anymore?" asked Harry a tad exasperated.
"Well, everybody went home at the end of the year, as usual," said ghost who's name escaped Harry.
"And Gryffindor won the house cup might I just add" interrupted Nick boastfully.
"Yes, thank you Nicholas" the now annoyed ghost continued, "Well, the just never came back, and that was … well, I guess we don't really remember how long ago that was." This statement caused the ghosts to started shuffling, while still hovering in an uncomfortable sort of way.
"Yes, well that is in the past now, isn't it. Harry is back now, aren't you Harry, you're back to signal the coming of a new flock of smiling youngsters. Hopefully some good Gryffindors among them," Nick said nodding confidently, while the others looked confused and displaced. Nick saw Harry's pained expression and deflated knowing that something was wrong.
Harry had been forced to explain the situation and tell the ghosts that there weren't going to be any new students. The conclusion of Harry's explanation was voiced with such things as, "Impossible" and "Utter nonsense" and even "No, no it's a trick. That isn't even the real Harry Potter. Harry Potter should be an old man by now," all the ghosts bar Nick looked at Harry expectantly as if he was going say he was joking or playing an elaborate trick.
"This is the truth Harry?" asked Nick. Harry nodded sadly. "No more children, no more classes, no more Hogwarts?" again Harry nodded sadly at Nick question.
"At least not on Earth, and even then it won't be the same. It won't be Hogwarts" croaked Harry.
"But, but … what do we do, we are charged to provide guidance and wisdom to all at Hogwarts whom need it," spoke a ghost whom Harry thought might the ghost was haunted the Muggle Studies corridor.
"We, go on. We cheated death with the promise that we would guide the children of Hogwarts. Our task is complete, there is no one left to teach. We have to face what comes next." replied Nick sorrowfully to the collection of ghost whom look scared while also proud. One by one they faded away, finally going on. Harry turned away pretending to be examining the mokeskin pouch unable to watch the ghost do what he never could.
When Harry thought enough time had passed and that all of the ghosts would have faded he turned around, "Nick" Harry exclaimed. "You were supposed to - you said that you had to - what, what are still doing here Nick?" said Harry semi-coherently.
"Why Harry, I am providing wisdom and guidance to my charge," said Nick as if this was obvious.
"But Nick, I am not a student. I don't need wisdom. You should have gone on with the others, it is probably not that bad on the other side, you never know," said Harry.
"Harry" sighed Nick, "There might not be a Hogwarts for too long, but you are a Gyriffindor, and you are braving the odds to what is right. It is my charge to help you Harry" Nick calmly stated. "And if a Gyriffindor wants to save the magical creatures of the world, I will help that Gyriffindor," stated Nick in a tone that clearly said that it wasn't up for discussion.
Harry was touched, he really was. "Okay, then you go around that way and … ah … spook the unicorns towards me and Fawkes will herd them into the pouch, okay." said Harry. Nick nodded, glad to be fulfilling his duty and helping out, he would never had said this back when Harry was at school, his favourite Gyriffindor.
