Chapter 34
Earth 38, DEO headquarters
Third person point of view:
Renesmee and Jacob were tying up a few loose ends with assisting the transportation of some of the prisoners to Deo cells.
They had just left one of the cell blocks together when right behind them a breach opened. Out of the breach came Cisco Ramon who was still mind-controlled by Loki's staff.
Without a word he fired a stream of vibe energy from his fist which opened up a breach right where they were standing and they were both pulled into it. Cisco then breached out of there.
Sierra Beifong was going to give a demonstration of Spiritbending which the witches and wizards were so curious and fascinated about.
The Magicians Alastor Moody and Arthur Haff walked into the room through a breach with a glass container with an odd looking creature in it.
"This creature is an energy-based entity of Darkness, hatred, and malevolence." said Arthur Haff.
"Will it suffice for your demonstration?" asked Alastor Moody.
"It will do." said Avatar Sierra.
They then presented a barrel full of water.
"Unfortunately we know nothing about this 'Spirit water' that you refer to." said Arthur Haff.
"Ordinary water will suffice." said Avatar Sierra.
Harry Potter and his friends stood and watched.
"Release the entity from its containment." said Sierra Beifong.
Alastor Moody waved his hand over the container vessel and it opened up.
The Entity floated out of it and started to react immediately.
Sierra Beifong then immediately went into the Avatar State. Her eyes began to Glow bright white with light.
She then immediately waterbended the water out of the barrel and surrounded the coil of water around the entity, the coil of bended water seemed to freeze the entity where was and it was not able to move out of the way. She continued to move her hands in a orderly stance. The coil of water surrounded The Entity for a while rotating in a orderly fashion until the water began to glow bright gold. Then the entity itself began to glow bright gold.
Sierra Beifong continued to do this for a few moments until the gold glowing entity dissolved into powder that blew away in the air.
"Go in peace." said Avatar Sierra.
She then came out of the Avatar State. And she then turned to the witches and wizards.
"Spiritbending. By using the healing power of water in combination with the magical power waterbending it allows me to turn evil spirits into spirits of light and then set their Spirit free."
"Fascinating." said Severus Snape. "There are always many branches of magic that we have always attempted to delve into and discover new things."
"And I assume that this is not a gift that we can learn." said Harry Potter.
"Not unless you are a waterbender. And with that a Spiritbender. And not just any waterbender can become a spiritbender."
They were about to go deeper into the conversation when Alice and Archie burst into the room looking very distressed.
"Guys." said Archie. "Alice and I just had a very disturbing vision."
"What is it?" asked Carlisle.
"We see this entire city being destroyed in a 10 Megaton nuclear explosion in approximately 4 hours."
Everyone looked at each other in shock, and worry.
"Do you see the source?"
They both had looks of confusion on their face.
"We can narrow it down to a 50 square block radius."
J'onn J'onzz turned to Winn Schott.
"Agent Schott, do a computer search." said J'onn J'onzz. "See if you can find anything about stolen or missing nuclear weapons."
After a quick computer search.
"Nothing. No stolen nuclear Warheads."
Before they could continue the discussion more though the visual feed on all of the televisions and monitors in the room began to flicker with static. Then Voldemort's face appeared.
"Greetings citizens of this world. I am calling to tell you all that I am extremely disappointed. You have refused to submit to my rule. For this I will lay waste to one city. After today I will lay waste to another city everyday until every world leader surrenders control of their weapons and armies to me. This is not a negotiation.
"Anyone who attempts to stand up to me or be brave in any way, they will die along with every member of their family."
"Trace that signal." said J'onn J'onzz.
"Working on it."
"I don't get it. What exactly does Voldemort hope to accomplish." said Captain America.
"He knows that no world leader will submit to him."
"Of course he knows."
"If he has to kill three-quarters of the world's population before the remaining one quarter submits to him finally, he needs to say that he at least gave them the choice."
Then Harry Potter held his hand to his forehead and sucked into his teeth.
"Are you alright Harry?"
Inside Harry's head he had a vision. He was walking through a corridor of some kind of building. He didn't know where exactly he was. He could feel in his mind a sense of fury, determination, and purpose. He then entered another room. There he then saw Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black. They were being contained by a spell.
"Harry Potter." he said in the slightly hissing serpent-like voice. "Come to the corner of 14th Street and 57th Avenue in National City. Come alone. Or else Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black will die."
Harry came out of the vision and was on the floor barely able to stand.
"No!" said Edward as he had clearly seen everything that was inside Harry's head.
"What happened?" asked Hermione.
"It was Voldemort. He tried to send me a message through our connection."
"He has Nessie and Jacob."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"When was the last time anyone saw them?"
"They were assisting the guards in transporting some of the captured prisoners to holding cells."
Edward then turned to their Magical friends.
"Is there a spell that can just snatch random people out of nowhere to a secure location?"
"There are all kinds of spells to teleport either people or inanimate objects." said Severus Snape. "Apparition, that is for teleporting yourself from one place to another or someone that you're touching. You can summon items through time and space if you already know where they are. Then there are Port Keys. And then there is a fire teleportation of the Phoenix. Or the flu Network. But for the Dark Lord to simply wave his wand and have Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black just wisked away like that. Why them and not anyone else?"
"I got some answers." said Agent Schott. "We got security footage."
Everyone went to the screen where it then showed video footage of Renesmee and Jacob in the Cell Block. It then showed a breach opening and out of it came Cisco Ramon.
"That's Cisco." said Barry Allen.
Footage then showed him without a word firing a stream of vibe energy from his fist at Jacob and Renesmee which opened a breach between them swallowing them both up instantly.
Then Cisco himself breached himself out.
"Well, there's your answer. I think they were just targets of opportunity. They weren't pre-selected or anything." said Beau Swan.
"Is there any way to unbrainwashed Cisco?"
"We've dealt with this before in our universe." said Captain Rogers. "Cognitive recalibration."
Everyone looked at him with confusion on their face.
"You got to hit him real hard in the head." The Captain clarified.
"How do you know?" asked Jasper Hale.
"Loki brainwashed Agent Barton in our universe." said The Captain. "It's what agent Romanoff needed to do in order to fix his brain."
"There is still the primary issue." said Bella with worry. "How do we save Jacob and Nessie?"
Harry Potter was still in deep thought. He then spoke up.
"I plan to meet Voldemort as he wishes." said Harry. "This was my destiny all along."
"Harry no." Hermione pleading.
"You don't understand. It was inevitable. This was supposed to happen all along."
"What are you talkin about?" asked Ron.
"There are some things that I never told you two." said Harry as he turned to Ron and Hermione.
"Dumbledore gave Professor Snape a message before he died."
Everyone looked at Harry with confusion.
"As you know, Voldemort created horcruxes in order to bind himself to life. Voldemort cannot be killed until all of the horcruxes are destroyed. There is one horcrux that Voldemort made by accident he never intended to make. Traditionally when a dark wizard creates a horcrux they only create one horcrux. On the day that he killed my mother he had already created five. That had rendered the remaining portion of his soul inside of his body extremely unstable."
Hermione looked at Harry with horror as she began to predict inside her mind what Harry meant by this.
"Professor Snape told me years ago, after Voldemort went missing, about the message that Dumbledore had given him."
Everyone then looked at Severus Snape with curiosity.
"On the day that Dumbledore destroyed Marvolo Gaunt's family ring with Gryffindor's Sword he told Professor Snape that on the night that Voldemort killed my parents he had rendered his soul so unstable by creating 5 horcruxes that when he turned his wand on me and cast the Avada Kedavra curse on me and then the curse rebounded off of me and on to him, Voldemort's Soul was so unstable that a portion broke off from the whole and latched itself onto the only living creature with in the house; me."
Hermione brought her hands up to her mouth and gasped at the realization of what it meant.
"As long as the portion of Voldemort's soul remains inside me, than Voldemort cannot die. I have to face Voldemort, I need the killing curse cast on me one more time, it must be Voldemort that does, and I must do nothing to defend myself."
"Harry, do you understand?" said Luna Lovegood with seriousness in her voice. "You will die. You'll be gone from us forever."
"But by doing this act I remove another one of his anchors to life and I make an easier job for someone else."
"Not if we put his soul back together." proposed Alastor Moody the magician.
"The only way to put a soul back together is remorse. Voldemort will need to feel for the crimes that he is committed. And Voldemort is an unfeeling sociopath. He is literally incapable of remorse."
"Only because of the Fiend Spectre." said Arthur Hoff.
"But you yourself said that removing the Fiend Spectre would not change that." said Severus Snape.
"What we meant was, Voldemort would not spontaneously just revert back to being good the moment that it was removed. Nor will he just gradually become good over time. But now that the Fiend Spectre is out of him he may be capable of rehabilitation."
"We don't have time for this." said Harry firmly. "I have done all I can and now it's time for me to do this. For Renesmee and Jacob."
"We could use Harry as bait. Lure Voldemort into a trap."
"The Dark Lord will suspect a trap." said Severus Snape. "He grows stronger with every defeat. Wiser. Countermeasures to make sure that a past failure will not happen to him again. Not to mention he would be even more put out if Potter didn't come alone. He might even kill Jacob Black and Renesmee Cullen in retaliation. In fact I'm almost certain that he would."
"If we can find out exactly where Nessie and Jacob are, maybe we could melt some kind of a rescue."
"If Jacob Black switches to his wolf form, me and my pack sisters might be able to connect to his mind telepathically." said Julie Black.
She then turned to Martian Manhunter.
"Then you could use your telepathy maybe to localize Jacob Black's exact position."
"It is possible." said J'onn J'onzz.
Harry then pulled an envelope out of his pocket and then handed it to Ron.
"Give this to your sister." said Harry.
And then Harry disapparated.
"Quickly." said Alastor Moody. "We haven't got much time."
Harry approached the designated coordinates within National City. He walked with calm assurity. He feared for his own life. The natural human instinct for one to preserve their own existence was fighting him. But he knew that the lives of others were at stake. He had to remove this one additional anchor that was binding Voldemort to life.
He then did something that he had been unable to do before. He pulled out the Golden Snitch that Dumbledore had left him in his will.
"I am about to die." he whispered to the ball with the fluttering wings.
He then put the Golden Snitch to his mouth. At that moment it split in two like an egg to reveal Marvolo Gaunt's ring of the Peverell family.
He held the ring in his hand and looked it over. He placed the two halves of the golden snitch in his pocket. He then turned the ring over in his hand three times. He had wished for his loved ones to appear before him. His mother, his father, and Sirius Black.
But instead another man appeared before him. A man that he did not recognize. But he did wear glasses and he had straight black hair much like himself.
Suddenly time stopped. It was as though someone had chosen to hit the pause button on reality of time itself. There were people that he saw in the streets in the distance that suddenly stopped in mid stop. There was a pigeon that was frozen in mid-air with its wings outstretched. A drop of water falling from the roof of a building had also stopped but he was still moving at normal speed.
"Hello Harry Potter." said the mysterious person.
He didn't look completely solid. It seemed as though the colour of his skin and clothing was slightly faded.
"Who are you?"
"I am Ignotus Peverell." said the man. "I am your ancestor, about 13 generations ago."
"Why are you here?"
"I was the original owner of the Cloak of Invisibility of the Deathly Hallows."
"That doesn't answer my question." Harry pressed.
"You hold the Resurrection Stone Deathly Hallow in your very hand this very second."
"Still doesn't answer my question." Harry continued to press.
"You have the Cloak of Invisibility wadded up in your pocket right now."
"Yes?" Harry continued.
"And?" Ignotus Peverell pressed.
Harry pause to think about that for a moment and then his eyes widened.
"I have the Elder Wand in my pocket as well?"
"You have done what no other in history has ever done. You have united the Deathly Hallows."
"Does that mean...that...I am...immortal?"
"Immortal? No. Master Of Death? That depends. The three items together at once has not granted you immortality. To be master of death is another story."
"But I need to die." said Harry. "Otherwise I can't stop Voldemort.
"Voldemort is not invincible Harry Potter. He can be stopped without killing him."
"How?" asked Harry perplexed.
"You could do what was done to him before. You can destroy his body."
"But he'll just come back." said Harry.
"Perhaps not." said Ignotus. "It was only by mere luck that he came back last time. If his body is destroyed again it is unlikely that he may ever come back again. You have other options Harry Potter.
"Your death will not make the world a better place. Your death will not stop the evil that needs to be fought. You were able to unite the Deathly Hallows because you weren't trying to. You acquired the Elder Wand because you felt that it was necessary to fight the Death Eaters. You felt that Dumbledore wanted you to have it. You wanted to use it, not for personal gain, no, but to fight the evil that you so eagerly wished to stop. As for the ring, you didn't even know if the ring was in the Snitch, and you had long since believed that you would never be able to open it. You united the Deathly Hallows unintentionally which is what makes you the best choice to wield them.
"You are a skilled Auror Harry. You know how to duel a dark wizard hard-and-fast. Use the power of the Elder Wand. Go into battle against Lord Voldemort with no fear of dying, whether you die or not. And stop him."
Harry reached into his robes and pulled out the Elder Wand and looked it over. Immortality; he wished that he could not die. It was an interesting concept. But uniting the Deathly Hallows does not lead to immortality. But at Ignotus Peverell's urging he now he had a new plan, destroy Voldemort's body without worrying about destroying the horcruxes. Maybe one day he would destroy the horcruxes. But right now he had a new plan. A plan that just might work. But he was still curious about the wand and the ring that was in his hand as well as the wadded-up invisibility cloak in his pocket.
"Ignotus, I have some questions?" said Harry.
"I will do my best to answer them." he qualified.
"In the book 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard', is 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' true and everything in it?"
Ignotus Peverell smiled.
"Good question." said Ignotus. "There is some truth to it...from a certain point of view. Me and my brothers were just very skilled wizards back then. We were quite possibly the most talented wizards in the world at the time. And we were...afraid of death. So we did what Lord Voldemort did. We sought to...not cheat death, no, but merely to stave it off as much as possible. We worked together. We did everything we could. We delved into magic deeper than anyone else ever had. We felt that to increase our powers was the art of wandlore. We created a wand that would tap of wizard's magical talent more than any other one would. And in the end we successfully created 'The Elder Wand'; the most powerful magic wand in the entire world. What rumour and speculation would refer to as 'the unbeatable wand', the death stick', 'the rod of destiny'. A wand that a duelist could win any Wizards duel with.
"We studied 'Necromancy'. A very unorthodox branch of magic. The magical branch of magic to bring a person back to life. Most people say that it can't be done. And in essence...it can't. You cannot raise the dead, Harry Potter. You can heal a body that has been wounded. You can resuscitate someone whose heart has stopped. But we did make a breakthrough with the 'Resurrection Stone'. We learned by the mere fact that ghosts exist that the consciousness of a living person continues to exist after the brain shuts down. The afterlife. Heaven, or Hell, or some other Realm of existence outside of our normal space-time. After years all experimental station we managed to successfully put a powerful permanent enchantment on the stone in the ring that you hold in your hand that would allow us to extract a person's Consciousness from the afterlife and have them exist here in this world again, and that is what you are doing to me right now. But it was revealed that when a person dies and the Consciousness from their brain goes on, they do not want to be here anymore. They do not want to return. And that's how I feel right now. Don't get me wrong. I am happy to answer your summons by use of the Stone.
"Then we sought defenses. One defense was to hide in evade. We studied disillusionment charms, concealment, and other forms of invisibility cloaks, and then we enhanced on them, and enhanced on them, and enhanced on them, until we created 'The Cloak Of Invisibility', an invisibility cloak that would last forever, it would never be ripped apart by spells, or wear out from time, or have its power of invisibility fade.
"Then we sought a way to cheat death. We thought that with multiple powerful objects they could allow one person to stop aging, stay healthy forever, be immune to the killing curse, bleed, but not have the heart or brain shut down; short of having your body ripped apart. But it was impossible Hallows could not bring immortality. So we then each took our own Hallow and we went on our way.
"While the three Hallows could not grant a person immortality, it turned out that individually these objects kill whomever possesses one. The Elder Wand always drew attention and while its wielder could always win in a Wizards duel, the holder of the Elder Wand must always fear attack. The resurrection Stone was laughed at and became a silly legend that was just plain not true and of course only brought more grief rather than happiness with reuniting with loved ones and anyone who tried to bring back a loved one permanently ended up just committing suicide instead. The cloak on the other hand was just a clever tool that had passed a single useful function and makes you die of old age. The least dangerous of the three.
"In a sense we all attempted to evade death in its own way. There are more details, but that is a more clarified version of the story. Bottom line is, to be master of death is not to be immortal no but rather to not fear death. The true Master of Death truly accepts the fact that death is inevitable, and that there are other things much worse than death. Embrace that there are worse things in the world then dying. That is what it means to be the master of death Harry Potter.
"Go now Harry Potter. Fight the Dark Lord. Capture him alive and contain him, or destroy his body."
Harry with renewed determination put the Peverell ring back into his pocket and then proceeded forward.
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