Chapter 26:
"Therefore, I, Merlinus Caledonensis, charge the finder of this journal to hunt down the splinters, of which there should be eight. Marilyn and I have returned one already, that leaves seven others. You must hurry. The longer time stretches, the weaker Equality gets, and the more violent the axial tilt will become. It may have already started by the time this reaches the outside. If we do not act, the entire world will be at risk. I cannot help you any further, trapped as I am in this prison beyond time. It must be you. Do not fail."
The last entry from the Secret Diary of Merlinus Caledonensis; Earth, 537 Common Era
It was midnight, the full moon soaring towards its zenith, when four sixteen-year-olds and seven faeries reached the foot of Glastonbury Tor.
"This is the place," Harry whispered, staring at the dome-like hill thrusting up from the otherwise entirely flat ground around them. Atop the hill was a single, roofless stone tower perhaps two stories high. The very air was vibrating with power. He could smell it, feel it sitting heavy on his shoulders. Hogs, Mak and Vel hadn't said anything since they arrived, and Emily's faerie had yet to utter a single word. She was sleeping in the pocket of Emily's jumper at the moment. Mak was floating beside Harry's head in a trance-like state.
The rustic town was completely quiet. Not a person or car to be seen. In the dead of night, only the streetlights provided any sort of evidence they remained in the modern world. Oh, he was sure that during the day, when he could see lights in stores and grocery shops and cars were driving on the roads, it would feel just as modern as everywhere else, but right now he could just enjoy the crisp air. The silence. The purity of it all.
Shouldering his backpack, he began walking up the cement path carved into the ridge of the hill. Gabrielle, Daphne and Emily followed silently behind him. Fleur and Sammy had set out to return to Hogwarts. Sammy was going to find Nylah and Sirius, and Fleur would talk to Gabrielle's parents, as well as Daphne's parents and Madame Maxine. Then the pair would go to Professor McGonagall and Amelia Bones and tell them what Harry and his friends intended to do. By the time McGonagall found out, it would be over. Hopefully.
As Harry and the others neared the top, the city below vanished. All the faeries – even Hogs in Harry's backpack and Emily's unnamed faerie – began humming softly to themselves. It was as if, with every step they took, time began to unwind. Enormous trees, elms and oaks, grew up from the ground, the cement was replaced by dirt, and the stars began blazing with a magnificence that took his breath away. The air became heavy with woods smell, and the faint sound of wind-chimes echoed on the wind. Fireflies emerged from the trees, and flowers bloomed from the dew-covered grass.
"It's beautiful," Gabrielle whispered. Harry glanced at her and gasped. Her hair – always silver and lustrous – had begun reflecting the moonlight. Her lips had taken on a sheen of perfection, and her eyes held a sparkle of magnificence unparalleled. Harry had to blink several times before he remembered to breathe. Gabrielle saw the reaction – which Harry was not alone in making, as Daphne and Emily were looking at her with the same awe. She looked down at herself, running a hand over her arm.
"It's so smooth, like… like Mum's…" She looked back up, a giant grin on her face. "Veela magic. This is what I'd look like if I was a full Veela!" Everyone was still staring at her, and she blushed scarlet.
"Sorry." Harry closed his eyes, counted to five, then pulled his gaze away. He could still smell her. A beckoning fragrance that both blended with and was distinct from the forest around them. He continued forward until they reached the summit.
The tower was gone. Instead, a shallow pool bordered by grass on all sides reflected the light from the full moon. Standing guard at each compass point was a human-sized faerie in silver armour, each one holding a large and painfully sharp-looking axe. They turned towards Harry and his friends, then bowed.
"Salutair, selrien de Tastheria. Illa manreront vo."
Before, Harry had never been able to understand the faerie language, but this time he just knew what the faerie had said.
Welcome, children of Imagination. He waits for you.
The faerie guardians stepped aside and the water in the pool began to bubble. Emily, Daphne and Gabrielle stood beside Harry, watching in awe as two tentacles of water rose up into the air, joining to form an archway of falling water. Harry took a deep breath, and stepped through.
He emerged into the eye of the storm.
The 'Vault' was inside the Tor. The walls were made from rippling water, but beyond the crystal sea was a raging torrent of silver energy. It was the unbridled power of creation. The dreams of every being in the cosmere condensed into a single shard of divine power. It spun around itself at the speed of light, a cyclone with this sphere of water in the centre. The others stepped through the portal with him, and Emily fell to her knees, pointing towards the centre of the watery shell.
A man hovered in the air, glowing with the same silver light as the energy outside. He wore a silver robe so long it brushed the floor several feet below, but otherwise, he shined too brightly to see any other detail in his clothes. His hair was shoulder-length brown, and his eyes blazed with the force of cosmic inspiration. His hands were held in front of his chest, inches apart. Clasped between them was a fixed point of power that refracted all colours of the rainbow.
"Teenagers!" another man shouted, standing up from beyond God. He rushed around the searing light and ran up to them. His hair was short and spiked, and he wore a leather jerkin and stockings. But it was the wooden staff he carried, and the faerie perched atop it, that gave away who he was.
"Holy Merlin," Daphne exclaimed.
"Yes, Imagination damn it!" he said sternly, looking them over as he approached.
"Tell me, what's the year? How long has it been? Did you find my journal?"
"Its…" Daphne blinked several times. "It's the 21st Century." Merlin jerked backwards as if struck.
"The 21st… the 21st Century! I've been stuck in here for 1500 YEARS!" he screamed. Harry couldn't help it. He laughed. Merlin sneered at him.
"At least tell me you brought the splinters like I asked?" he begged.
Harry rolled his eyes and slung the backpack off his shoulder.
"That's Merlin?" Emily asked Gabrielle in a soft voice.
"Apparently."
"I thought he'd … you know, have a long beard and a pointy hat or something."
"So did I."
"Oh, thank heavens," Merlin said, taking the bag and looking inside.
"What are these supposed to… what on Earth? Are they trapped!? Did you do this!?" He turned on them, lowering his staff, and Mak finally seemed to snap out of her dazed state. She flew between Harry and Merlin and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Watch it old guy. We've had a really fucking shitty day alright. You should be glad the guys who were going to come here didn't show up. Because they sucked."
Merlin frowned. "What's a fucking shitty day?" Harry facepalmed, then snatched the bag back from Merlin and strode towards God. Marilyn, Merlin's faerie, jumped from atop his staff and fluttered over to Mak. They seemed to be the same type of faerie. Same skin colour and blonde hair, and they both had insect-like wings.
"Mirobella?" Mak squeaked and almost fell out of the sky.
"That's my mother's name," she whispered, then gasped. "I remember my mother's name! I had a mother?!"
Marilyn laughed. "Your memories will come back now that we've transitioned into the Valley. But if Mirobella is your mother, that means that you're my niece." Mak squealed in glee, then hugged the other faerie. Harry glanced over his shoulder at Merlin.
"That satisfy you?"
He huffed in annoyance.
They stopped together before God and knelt. Then God looked at them.
"WHO ARE YOU?"
Harry swallowed sharply.
"My name is Harry Potter, and these are my friends, Daphne, Emily and Gabrielle. We… we brought the splinters of Equality." Imagination grinned.
"FINALLY. BRING THEM FORTH."
Harry opened the bag and pulled out the Philosophers Stone, the Sorting Hat, the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone. For once, Hogs had nothing to say. He simply stared upwards with that same daze. Mak landed beside the objects, and Emily and Gabrielle placed their faeries down beside her.
"THANK YOU."
He inhaled deeply, and flurries of rainbow light split from Mak, Vel and Emily's faerie. They shot up into the air and merged with the sphere in God's hands. Then, one by one, the objects arrayed on the ground shattered. As they did, another flurry escaped and soared up to merge with Equality's power, and a faerie formed on the rippling ocean floor. Finally, Hogs gasped and cast out his splinter, though he remained bound to the hat. It fluttered up, then synced with the rest of the power without a sound.
A shockwave blasted everyone backwards, and Imagination laughed with glee. Harry hit the ground, Mak beside him, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight before him. On either side, he grabbed Gabrielle and Emily's hands.
God rose up into the air as the sphere in his hands began to expand. Then he lost his human form and shot up through the roof as a bolt of energy. A resounding 'BOOM!' shook the Vault of Dreams, and the storm of power outside coalesced, before leaving the Vault and merging with the bolt of power in the sky.
The world began to tremble, and the walls of water exploded outwards.
"Amazing!" Merlin cried as winds like a hurricane whipped up around them.
The ocean did not spread as far as Harry had thought. It extended around them for several kilometres, then it was consumed by a thick layer of mud and slime. The sky, obscured by the water before, was revealed to be covered in dark clouds, the only illumination a small, cold sun in the far distance.
"What's happening?" Emily screamed.
"We're seeing into the Valley!" Merlin yelled through his cackling.
"This place has been poisoned since Equality was splintered!" Marilyn explained. "With no mind to guide it, Equality's power has been dormant and sickly, lying like a layer of filth over the world. The mud pulls away from beings of Imagination like us because we repulse it. It's the same reason you can't use Enchantment and Design at the same time!"
The sea of mud began to steam, bubbling like lava escaping a volcano. High above them, the storm of silver energy continued to swirl, kicking up a phantom wind that howled around them. Then, the mud began to evaporate. It turned to a thick rainbow steam, before being sucked towards the storm above. The storm parted, forming a giant ring around a sphere of rainbow energy as more and more of the steam was pulled in. It streamed towards that shining light from all directions, and as it was pulled in, the mud vanished, revealing more of the magnificent ocean. But now Harry could also see green fields that snaked like rivers across the planet below, and… and there were shimmering bubbles floating up out of the ocean. They didn't pop or float away. They just hovered where they emerged, pulsing.
"The souls of people and animals on the other side," Mak exclaimed, "This is a world of the mind, and so thoughts manifest here in this realm as bubbles of light." The bubbles had begun moving away from the ruins of the Vault. If Harry concentrated hard enough, he could just see a crater where Glastonbury Tor had once been.
The last of the rainbow steam was pulled into the sky, and a shockwave blasted out across the world, burning away the clouds. As it passed through them, the Valley fell away.
They were back in the mystical forest, the pool of water sitting tranquil and still in the heart of the grass clearing. The moon was still overhead, reflecting over the water. The wind was gone, and they were no longer atop a hill, but in a deep bowl.
Daphne let out a long breath, before lying on the ground and staring up at the sky.
"I don't think I'm ever going to be able to unsee that."
"Me neither," Harry muttered, eyes fixed on the pool.
"Wow!" said a new voice, feminine and chirpy, "Now that is what I call a light show!" Harry spun towards Emily, who was staring at the golden faerie in her hand.
"You can speak?!" Emily exclaimed.
"Now I can," she said, grinning, "That bloody Pact of Truth doesn't work near Imagination's Perpendicularity." She gestured towards the pool.
"What's your name?"
"Carellia," the faerie said proudly. She twirled around, golden dress flaring as she did so, then looked up at Emily, "And you're Emily Alvere, the girl I chose. Nice to meet you!"
"Hi," Emily said, clearly still stunned.
The moment was interrupted by a soft sigh in the air. The five humans turned back to the pool just in time to see a body condense from mist, lifeless. It fell from the air, then another man appeared and caught her.
"NOOOO!" he shouted in horror, dropping to his knees with her. The man… he no longer glowed like the sun, but Harry could tell it was Imagination. He wore the same robe, and his hair was the same. Very Aragorn-esque. His eyes were a deep silver. The woman… well, she was gorgeous. Long black hair and caramel skin, she wore a silk dress patterned in all colours of the rainbow. And she was dead.
Imagination laid the woman who had once been Equality down on the ground, then sobbed into her chest.
"I spent so long… I held you together for three thousand years… and you were dead the whole time." Merlin stepped up beside Harry.
"They loved each other," Harry said, "I didn't know gods could love."
"They were human once," Merlin said, "They all were. Then something happened, I don't know what, and creation was shattered into sixteen pieces. Ourans and Gaea, they were two of the people to pick up the shattered remains. They became Imagination and Equality, but they were still husband and wife."
Gabrielle came up on Harry's other side, still looking like an angel, though worry was etched on her face.
"Harry," she whispered as God continued to weep, "If she's… if the human is dead, what about the Shard? All that power? Where is it?"
Imagination lifted his head from Equality's corpse and let out a guttural scream. Her body melted away, and a grove of flowers that Harry had never seen before grew up around the pool. Then, trembling, he stood up and turned towards the gathered humans.
"Thank you for your help," he said, but his voice no longer sounded like that of a god. It just seemed… tired. "I have supercharged the Perpendicularity. That will ensure that my power is always drawn here, to this planet that Gaea cared so deeply for."
Harry frowned.
"You're leaving?" Gabrielle asked.
"Yes," Imagination answered. "I intend to discover what has occurred in the Cosmere during my absence. I can sense the others… some of them. Others are blind to me, though I know not why. I do not have the gifts of fortune or foresight; Imagination is about what you can do in the here and now. But my greatest strength is Connection, and I can use that to find Odium." His voice darkened, and though he didn't look it at that moment, Harry couldn't forget that this man was simply a façade. Imagination, truly, was that storm he had seen in the sky, not this broken man before them now.
"Rayse always thought he was so clever. That he was better than the rest of us. But smart as he was, he was never very careful. He showed me how to splinter a Shard, and now I will make him pay for what he has done to my friends." He turned towards the sky and vanished.
Daphne blinked. Then she blinked again. Had God just abandoned them?
"Well, that was not how I expected that to go," Merlin said. Because Merlin. Yes, she was having a very hard time processing this.
"What happens now?" Emily asked. The faeries looked to each other and shrugged.
"I don't know," Hogs said, still bound to the Sorting Hat and sitting on the ground, "But I don't think we're going to be alone for very long." He gestured with the point of his hat towards the place where Equality's body had melted away. The flowers there had started to steam, the same rainbow vapour that the mud had transformed into. Then the thumping began. A soft hum emanating from that very spot, pulsing out across the world.
"The Hat's right," Merlin said, "every witch and wizard on Earth is going to sense that fragment of divinity just sitting here like a piece of flotsam. A Shard of Heaven up for the taking."
The steam grew thicker, and the thumping in her mind louder. Her wand began to vibrate in her pocket.
"Not to mention the rest of the human race will be flocking here as well," Harry pointed out, "Scientists, cops, politicians. You name it. The Vault collapsing will have sent out a massive seismic event recorded across the globe, and who knows how many homes were caught in the blast? The police are going to surround this place like flies. If we don't do something, and the wizards and humans get into a fistfight, there's no going back."
"Which brings us back to what do we do?" Gabrielle said.
"One of us has to take up the power," Merlin said. The entire grove went silent.
"What?" Daphne asked eventually.
"That's exactly what Flamel and Dumbledore were going to do before we stopped them!" Harry exclaimed.
"Well someone has to do it," Merlin pointed out.
"And who gets to decide?" Harry snapped, rounding on the legendary wizard.
"There's no decision to be made," Emily said pointedly, drawing everyone's attention to her.
"Why?"
"Because there's only one person here who can pick it up," she said matter of factly, her faerie nodding emphatically in her palm. Daphne frowned.
"Again, why?" she asked.
Emily rolled her eyes. "Look, I might be new to all of this, but I've at least been paying attention. Imagination and Equality repulse one another remember." She made a gesture encircling everyone but Daphne. "Each one of us is connected to Imagination through our faeries, the thing won't let us pick it up. If you want proof, go ahead and try." Merlin did so immediately. He dropped his staff and reached for the steaming flowers. The mist instantly pulled away from his hand. He started, drawing it back.
"All except one of us."
Everyone turned towards Daphne.
"Me?" They nodded, and Daphne gulped. That's when the shouting started. Echoes of voices from beyond the grove, and then several cracks of Apparation.
"They're here," Harry growled, "Quickly, form a line. Daphne, you have to take the Shard." Daphne stood stiff, not comprehending.
"Daph!" She finally snapped out of it, and Gabrielle grabbed her arm, dragging her towards the top of the hill.
"Um, Harry, I don't know how to do this," Emily said from behind her.
"Just think about shooting people with lightning. There's no time to train you… YAGG! Don't shoot me!" The sound of a tree cracking like an egg thundered through the woods.
"Sorry!" They reached the side of the pool as the voices drew closer, and Gabrielle grabbed Daphne by the shoulders.
"I believe in you."
"Good luck Daphne," Vel said from her pocket. Gabrielle looked like she wanted to say something else, but Harry called her name, and she raced off, leaving Daphne staring at that patch of steaming grass beside the pool. She fell to her knees as spellfire began behind her. This was the power of a god! She couldn't do this. She had grown up in lush; rich and powerful; the product of corruption and cheating. She'd been horrified by what she'd seen in the Bunker, hadn't even known such poverty could exist. And those poor kids, thin as rakes and desperate. She was the definition of inequality. How could she take up a power counter to that?
The steam brushed at her knees, and Daphne felt at the enormity of it. It was cosmic balance. Eternal and never fading. It was love and hate, peace and violence, life and death. There was a balance to everything. Symmetry. Push and pull, open and close, good and evil. It was that force that ensured the universe played by its own rules. Not too much of one, but not too much of the other either. It was balance; eternal and forever.
The outside world faded away as the power reached out, licking at her fingers like tiny tendrils. The steam was merely a manifestation here in the physical world of that terrifying power. The tendrils connected to something vast and otherworldly. Most of the power actually existed in another place… a place Beyond the worlds of thought and matter. A Spiritual Realm. Heaven, in Daphne's language. All this energy, it was like a river of liquid magic flowing from an infinite ocean Beyond down into the real world, bound by its intent. Equality.
Whether it was the power expanding her mind the longer she stayed in its grasp, or her own mind coming to the conclusion on its own, she wasn't sure. But she finally understood something she hadn't before. One did not need to grow up destitute to understand Equality. It wasn't something only for the weak to strive for or the strong to give. Equality was the ability for people from completely different environments, rich and poor, male and female, young and old, white and black, magical and non-magical, to come together. To truly be equal. It was people standing side by side with their friends, their families, their communities to fight for justice and fairness and respect. This power, it was that idea, but on a cosmic scale.
The inequality that she had feared might be too deep in her bones wasn't the chain she had envisioned. It was a charge to do better. She had never hated muggle-borns or muggles, but she realised now that she had still seen them as slightly inferior. Then she'd met Harry, become friends with Ginny, and observed that strength wasn't something that came from blood or birth. It was something cultivated by courage and determination. She had met Harry's muggle friends, laughed with them, ate with them, joked with them, fought beside them. These people wizards had scorned for centuries? They were just people. They hoped, they loved, they hated, they dreamed. Just like everyone else.
Equality. Her friends had taught her the true meaning of that word without even really meaning to. The cosmere had groomed her for this moment. She had learned to be better than the environment that created her. Harry had put his faith in her. Ginny had trusted her. Now she earned it.
Daphne clasped the tendrils and pulled on the power. Her body burned, but her mind rode the lines of power. Her soul merged with the energy, and Daphne ascended.
Authors Notes:
There are only two chapters to go now. Next week we bring you the finale, including what the f just happened to Daphne, who the mysterious woman locked in Dumbledore's basement was, and the ultimate fate of Ginny Weasley.