Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter Twenty-Four – The Endlands of Time

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

~ David Brooks

The green light of death burst into a shower of blinding white light. I winced and glared against the pain from the magic, black spots dancing before my eyes.

Around me stood thirteen tall and resplendent figures in robes of the finest old-world silk. Sporting staffs a head taller than the tallest man at seven feet, the High Lords and Ladies of Atlantis formed a protective ring around me. They had dispelled—with ease—the Killing Curses, and their counterwave of attack had left a dozen Death Eaters crumpled on the rock.

"Warrior of Time," High Lord Astaroth, Supreme-Infernal and King of Atlantis said, inclining his head toward me.

"I thought you were standing aside," I growled, and limped past him towards Voldemort, waving away his words. The Dark Lord hadn't moved, though he held his wand warily, suspecting a trap. I had no trap to spring. Just one last toss of the dice.

"Yes, well… what happens next must be your own doing. The choice must be yours, or a thousand years of planning go up in smoke."

"I don't miss that damned captain's hat…" I muttered. "You'll take care of his followers?"

Astaroth's eyes hardened. "We shall."

"So be it then."

Spellfire lit up the vast plateau as the ruling council of Atlantis went to war. They were vastly outnumbered, but it didn't seem to matter. The Death Eaters were as children to them, which is perhaps why they aimed to disarm, to capture, instead of kill. Personally, I'd have burned the whole lot of them where they stood. No matter—I had a bigger egg to fry.

A few of the Death Eaters took shots at me, but again, I was always just a step ahead, a step to the right, or something got in their way.

At about fifty feet away, I nodded at Voldemort and he opened his arms, gestured me forward, invited me to come and die—or, in this case, be placed in a living death. A stasis while he unravelled me from time's web. I'd meant it when I said I'd rather the world end on my terms than survive under his rule.

Guess I've never really been the hero.

Quick as a snake, his wand flicked and a lashing of fetid yellow light rippled through the air toward me.

I countered with a thought, deflecting the light above us where it exploded in a million stabbing needles of magic, infinitely sharp, that would have torn me—and his followers—to shreds.

In response, I tested the waters with a blue net designed to blind Voldemort. He didn't even attempt to block it, just let the magic disperse against his armour. That magical carapace could and would absorb anything I could throw at it. I'd learned that time and time again, usually moments before I died.

Death Eaters fell to the High Council of Atlantis, though the numbers were in their favour. I saw one old lord misstep and lose his head, a gout of blood spurting up like a fountain. He stepped on, once, before crumpling.

The summit was too crowded.

Voldemort took a step toward me, then another, waves of immense, hot magic shooting from his wand. The time magic protected me to some extent, allowing me to sidestep where a sidestep should have been impossible. I moved as a blur, even limping in agony. My headache, that eternal pain behind my eyes, throbbed in beat to my heart, which pounded a drum of pure adrenalin and resolve.

The air hung heavy with the stink of magic and blood, a burnt copper smell akin to electricity. I crinkled my nose against it, disgusted, and gestured once with my wand.

Between me and Voldemort a portal opened in the air, dual-sided, we saw the same thing. A familiar place, the resting place… of the Infernal Clock. In unspoken consent we stepped through the portal, left behind the maelstrom, to settle our long overdue account alone.

From the mountains of Hogwarts we stepped to the summit of the Vale Crystalis in Atlantis, along the western coast of England, the tomb of the Infernal Clock. The tallest tower in the city.

I flicked my wand and closed the portal behind us—making this an intimate affair. Below, the vast city of Atlantis disappeared into the sea to the west. Against the scent of salt on the air, the cool, brisk taste of the ocean, we stood alone save for the light of the plateau.

"A fine place to die, Har—" the Dark Lord said.

I grunted and fired off a spell before he could finish talking. No need for last minute speeches, or bravado. Talk was done. We'd said all we could ever say to each other thousands of times over.

I sent a barrage of spells, digging gouges in the mythril-inlaid marble at our feet, decimating the plinth upon which the Infernal Clock had and would sit. Time was a fickle thing, much maligned, never forgiving, and entirely relative.

My quick spell work put Voldemort on the defensive, but only for the time it took to allow some distance between us under that full-mooned sky. He let his spell-armour absorb some of the blows, grunting from the impact, then unleashed a barrage of his own.

I was forced back, using every ounce of luck and skill, as I had always done, when facing him. It was never enough. One curse drew close enough to open a deep slash in my arm, tearing my suit, and blood dripped from my hand. The head of my cane grew slick and I cast it aside, limping as best I could.

"Give in, Harry," Voldemort hissed, his eyes flaring red against the night.

A powerful spell erupted into the stone parapet on my left, loud enough to deafen me in that ear. I let the ringing carry me over, stumbling, and thought… why not?

Why not give in, Harry?

I did the last thing I ever thought I could do—the one thing I had never done.

I threw down my wand. I fell to my knees.

I stopped fighting.

Voldemort stepped forward and placed his wand between my eyes. He was close enough to feel the dark, cold waves emanating from his form, the corrupted magic that kept him tethered to this world like an infected tooth, and to see the flint of golden magic protecting him from all attack.

"Let us see if Time will serve you now." He paused as I sighed and closed my eyes, only a moment, and then in whisper, "Tempus…"

He thought to use such weak time magic against you? Against you?

He was a blind fool. Arrogance, ever his undoing.

I lunged forward before Voldemort could finish the spell. My hands blazed with cerulean blue light, the gemstone around my neck flaring the same, the time magic granted by Lady Fae in Riau, her promise to me that—one day—I would be allowed to die, surged up my arms, turned my eyes to glowing, and I grasped the Dark Lord's head between my hands.

Touching him caused every nerve in my body to scream, but pain was easy. We were old friends.

Voldemort froze, locked in place, and his wand clattered away before the last syllable of the stasis spell, to bind me while he sought to undo my curse and subjugate the planet, could cross his tongue.

After a thousand years, twenty-thousand deaths, it all came down to this moment. Damned if I hadn't taken my time in getting here.

My face turned into a fierce snarl and I pressed my forehead against Voldemort's, amplifying the pain to a point of near-ecstasy. "Immortality," I growled. "That's what you want, isn't it? Time."

I squeezed, forcing the burning blue fire in my hands against cold and clammy skin.

"A thousand years—would that satisfy you, Tom? Would that sate you?"

A certain horror blinked across the Dark Lord's red eyes. A knowing. An understanding.

I had shown him once before—shown him the thousand years I had lived. There was a difference between seeing and understanding. One the snake-faced bastard (…just get your hands on him) was about to learn the long way.

I stopped fighting… and I gave the Dark Lord Voldemort all the motherfuckin' time he could ever want.

In a blinding surge atop the highest point of the highest tower in the world, I poured a thousand years into Voldemort's mind.

I gave him the wastelands of time.

Not just showing them, but making him live them, as I had lived them. Every moment I had fought, every moment I had struggled, loved, lost… died. And died again. I made him understand.

In what was only moments for me I watched Voldemort live a thousand of my years. A thousand years without the safety net of the reset, the time loop. His mind aged, his eyes glazed over, and a long, ugly spittle of drool dangled from his lips.

Held in place by my magic, my will, still Voldemort slackened like a puppet between my hands. I did not let him fall.

"Please…" he whispered. "Please…"

I began to laugh. Time… time knew no mercy. It was inevitable.

I forced him to live it, again and again, as I had been forced. I ground what was left of his soul to dust against the infernal clock.

In the end, his mind unraveled. The thread simply… spun loose.

If there's one thing I want you to take away from this, Harry, it's that any life worth living is one that ends with an understanding that you got better than you deserved.

The moon swam across the sky as I knelt in the ash of Voldemort. I don't know how long I knelt there, long enough to see the moon swim away, the stars fade, and the first light of dawn stretch across the horizon.

Sunrise, on a new day.

I took a deep breath and, for a wonder, felt no pain in my side. I felt… lighter. I began to come back to myself.

Soft heels, the swish of a form-fitting red dress, clipped the summit of the Vale Crystalis behind me.

Saturnia ran a flawless hand, perfectly manicured nails, through my hair, scratching the back of my head softly. I leaned into the sensation, the affection, to lift the loneliness.

"You told me I'd never see you again," I said softly. "Was that a lie?"

"No, no lie, dear Harry," she whispered. "I told the Warrior of Time we would never meet again. You are no longer him. You are… freed."

I scoffed at that, but leaned into her hand just the same. "I'll see you again, but not as I am."

"I look forward to it. Live a good life, Harry, as good as you know how."

She disappeared.

And I was truly alone. For the first time in a thousand years, gods and demons and all.

The whistling wind whipped the ash of the Dark Lord Voldemort away—and I felt no connection to him anymore. He was truly gone, truly dead. I felt no satisfaction in that, just a wearied sort of relief that the job was finally done.

No, my loneliness came from the fact that I had lost something… something that had been a part of me since all of this began.

Something… was different.

My headache was gone.

A sound was missing. A sound that had followed me across a thousand years… stuck in the back of my mind like a jagged, rusted fish hook. I could no longer hear time ticking away. The spell was broken. The magic lifted.

The wastelands ended.

I had won.