It all started with the death of loved ones.
It continued with the resurrection of evil.
It ended with the death of a foe.
It all started on Christmas Eve with a present.
It continued with catching a golden snitch.
It ended disarming his nemesis.
Invisibility cloak, Resurrection stone, Elder wand.
Triangle, circle, straight line.
Three marks that make one Master of Death.
When Voldemort died that day by the hand of Harry Potter, the war wasn't won, but instead, it got much, much worse.
'If I cannot live forever, then no one will live!'
oooOOOooo
That idiot of the so-called Dark Lord cursed his body so that upon his death, it would release a toxin into the air. At first, no one knew what was amiss. I certainly didn't. People around me got sick. It started as some form of cold. At first, we thought it was a form of Wizarding flu, which can prove deadly if not treated in a certain way. But we were wrong. So, so wrong.
First to be affected were those present at Hogwarts, students, teachers, Aurors, and brave civilians that fought bravely to save this country from the tyranny of the Dark Lord. It spared not even the remaining Death Eaters.
As more and more people exhibited signs of the illness, mediwitches and healers were swarming with patients. They placed Hogwarts in quarantine. But the sickness already spread far into the magical population and with muggle-born students that visited their relatives into the muggle world.
Nothing that healers used to ease the effect of illness after a mild cold headache persevered and, after that, muscle atrophy. One week after the first recorded patient, death occurred.
Those affected ran to their highly warded homes hoping to ride off the sickness, but their hopes dwindled as the entire families got sick. And soon after, they died in their homes.
I didn't get infected for some unknown reason. And with those discoveries, healers poked and experimented with my blood and other bodily fluids.
It was uncomfortable for sure, but if I could help, I would give everything I got.
The first most significant blow for me was the death of Hermione. She was like a sister to me, and to lose her after so many deaths in the war almost brought me to a breaking point. Next was Ron, and soon after, more followed. Luna, Neville, Professor McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, Arthur and Molly Weaselly…
The problem was that there were no bodies to bury. Twelve hours after the passing of the soul, flesh crumbled to dust. I wanted to die just so the pain would go away. How could something like this happen after all we went through? I was not the only one affected. Those family members that didn't get in contact with the infected mourned the hardest. They just got free from the madman, and now this happened.
One by one, they all died. Panic all over the World ensued. People built bomb shelters, robbery was at its highest, murders for resources persisted, and other crime skyrocketed.
After being exposed to infected patients, not even the Healers were spared. The first to fall was Britain. France was next. Soon all of Europe crumbled to the ground.
Witches, wizards, goblins, centaurs, werewolves, giants, vampires, fairies, ghoul, merpeople, and many other sentient creatures were also wiped out. For some reason, house-elves were not affected.
Muggles tried to bomb themselves in other ways to stop the spread of the virus. I was so happy when I found out that wizards disabled the nuclear missiles not long after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was a magical town in each of those locations. Wizards didn't take kindly to that.
As illness spread more and more magicals tried to hide from this contagion by erecting the most potent wards with no avail. They died in their homes, streets, and even the most remote places they could find.
Soon, Planet Earth was a ghost town. I was the only living human in the entire world!
I tried to kill myself several times but with no success. I would just come back to the land of the living—nothing I did work. I shot myself with the muggle gun, drown myself in the Black Lake, I even decapitated myself. And I still lived. I would wake several hours later like nothing ever happened.
House-elves were coming by the hundreds each month as more and more families died out. They were lured, as they told me, by the most powerful magical being. It didn't help that they wanted to bond with me. I know that they would die if they remained unbonded for a lengthy period, so I made a compromise after the fiftieth bonded elf. I bonded them to the castle, more precisely, to the most potent magical ley-line intersection on the entire planet.
Soon there were over three thousand House-elves cleaning, sorting, and what not around Hogwarts.
Hey, at least I have someone to talk to as all the wizarding portraits lost their magic as no family magic remained in them after the last of the family line died out. Not even a portrait of House Potter remained for some unknown reason. Even the ghosts moved on as there was nothing that tied them to this world, as the families that cursed them were no more.
oooOOOooo
After some time, I finally noticed that my first wand stopped working for me. I tried to find a suitable wand, but it would not even produce a tiny spark. I must have tried over thousands of sticks with no luck. I got fed up with the search and decided to cast wandless. To my astonishment, it worked even better than with the wand.
Every spell I knew, I could perform flawlessly.
So here I am, the only living human on the entire planet. I have grieved for the lost souls for almost five years. I traveled all over the Earth, from the hottest of deserts to the coldest corners. To be honest, I was bored.
Something tingled in the back of my mind for the reason I did not age, that I could perform magic without a wand. Then I remembered. The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Of three brothers that cheated the Death. I tried to summon the dead, but it didn't work. So, I become The Master of Death and I could not summon the dead ones. Figures.
So here I am, a twenty-two-year-old wizard with nothing to do. With nagging from the House-elves, I made myself busy.
I started to teach the elves to speak correctly. They were ecstatic to have something to do. In small groups, over the next few months, I thought proper English to every House-elf, and, in turn, they taught each other. At least it was fun as not every elf knew English.
I made myself comfortable inside the halls of Hogwarts as it was my real home for my entire life. I was thankful to Elves, who cleaned it from the ground to the roof. All the dust that accumulated over the years was gone, the same as all the research materials left by doctors and healers. It was all stored in one of the many rooms of the castle.
For my part, I decided to study at an enormous school library. It had been years since I learned anything new. Starting with the art of occlumency to center myself and burn unwanted emotions left after the death of everyone I knew. For the next three months, I explored my memories, from the earliest I could remember to newly formed.
Some memories were too painful to relive, but I occluded them with durable anty-emotion shields so they wouldn't bother me anymore. These which brought positive emotions I strengthened in hopes I wouldn't go 'dark.'
When I finally completed my meditation, I was a changed man. No longer did dark thoughts enter my conscious mind, and no longer did I feel like a failure. A new chapter of existence had begun.
oooOOOooo
Soon, I learned that I could keep every bit of knowledge presented to me. So with a newfound love of learning, I devoured every book inside the library. Spells of every kind were easy to perform. I could erect wards and break them with never before seen effectiveness.
As the Hogwarts library didn't possess every magical book written, I asked House-Elves to loot their former homes and magical districts hoping to find new avenues of occult knowledge. They were happy to assist in this task as they were getting a little jumpy with nothing to do.
Soon, more and more magical books were being brought to the ever-expanding library. And with that, I jumped into a learning frenzy.
With many Foreign books and languages, I decided to learn those languages instead of using translation charms. French, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Latin, and many other languages became as easy to read and speak as English.
With new magics flowing in my head, I had so many ideas to experiment with. One of the ideas came from the journals of Rowena Ravenclaw. She documented everything that went into the creation of the Room of Requirements. As the original was destroyed when Ron, Hermione, and I went searching for the Horcrux, I decided to rebuild it and hopefully improve on the idea.
In the journals, I discovered that because the castle was constructed at the most powerful intersection of ley-lines, there was nothing that the room could not do as long as the person entering it could imagine it.
I started on new plans on how to do the same as Founders did, but with more finesse. The old room could not provide edible food, nothing could be brought out of it without it disappearing, and it was limited to what it could create. The new room could do all of the above and much more. Literally, imagination will be the limit.
In the meantime, I had to relocate some creatures to more suitable locations. Among them were dragons, acromantula, thestrals, a few basilisks. They were fighting each other for the terrain. Dragons were moved to South America in a warded area covering around fifty thousand hectares. I prepared similar areas for other creatures. Phoenixes did their own thing, mostly annoying me, but that's neither here nor there.
With the plans for the new Room of Requirements nearing completion, I tasked Elves to start searching for more books that were left behind in unwarded areas and places with other magical signatures. Muggle books were also included in this search.
Soon, Hogwarts was home to the biggest collection of books. The books were also sorted by topic and type by ever so hopeful House-elves. Each magical and non-magical book had at least four copies, rare and books of more questionable origins were stored separately for their and my protection until I could examine if curses were placed on them.
When I started the project to recreate the RoR, I didn't think it would take so much time and patience to carve and charge all the runes required for it to function correctly. It took me a little over a year for everything to be engraved and charged. I included even more protection so that the disaster that destroyed the original room was not repeated.
New runes were added so that any conjured or transfigured item inside the room became permanent. The majority of the planning was taken by designing rune clusters that would search the library in other to recreate anything described in the books. Now I could request the room to make me a nuclear bomb, and it would make it perfect. Of course, I don't want to make the bombs, but you get the idea.
With literally millions of books to search through, I can start with my next project—a magical computer. Pacing three times in front of the room, I began to imagine what I need, or in better terms, what I want the machine to be capable of.
This computer would be something like muggle laptops. It would have a crystalline screen for information display. An infinite amount of storage is the priority, as I also imagined for all the information contained in the books to be copied to the storage. Powerful scanner to be able to input additional information from any source desired. An adaptable keyboard which can be converted to a flat surface to draw on. For power, I decided on the most straightforward option. The runic array would charge a small crystal battery from magic in the area, or if there was no magic in the area, for some unseen reason, from me. The processor was the hardest to imagine. It should be able to read my thoughts and create programs to do with a given task. In other words, if I want to write something, it will create a program to write and edit information written in it.
When I entered the RoR, in the middle of the compact room on the desk, there was my new M-Laptop, which stands for Magical Laptop (I know I'm not good with the naming). I tested it, and it worked as imagined. Now for the moment of truth. I exited the room and went for a walk outside the castle. It appeared that permanent conjuration worked as intended. With the information in one place, once again, I started to read more. From fictional works to science theses, mathematics, biology, chemistry, geography, astronomy, and everything in between.
oooOOOooo
On the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, House-elves and I created a large memorial near the Black Lake. On it, we carved all the names that we could remember. It was a somber experience for all of us.
This entire year was spent remembering all that was lost. We would gather around the monument every day at the exact time I killed Tom, and tell stories about how it was before the Fall.
My studying was progressing at a fast pace. The way I was learning was through a mental connection with the M-laptop. I still needed to go through the information, but no longer do I need to display it on the screen to read it. It was as if I was within the storage device. As I was mentally connected to storage, information became second nature to navigate through.
After some time, I decided to travel around the world to see what could be salvaged. I instructed House-elves to go to every magical home, village, or any such places that have traces of magic and bring everything to the newly created storage room inside the castle. It will expand accordingly. If the current configuration is full, it would further expand its dimension. It was a mini dimension by itself.
I almost kicked myself for not thinking about muggle museums and galleries, private home collections, and similar places. So now, half of the elves were searching for anything magical, and the other half, muggle art and related artifacts. Nothing was left behind.
As I had 99.99% of every magical and muggle book stored in the castle, I created a scanning ward which would scan every item brought inside a storage area and create a small information package describing what it was, what function it served, where it was initially found and similar details.
For magical artifacts, it also scanned any magical effect it has, if harmful curses were present, what they would do, who had created it if the information was somewhere inside the books. If curses were malevolent in any way, small or big, the next ward would catalog the magical signature of the curse and dismantle it with utmost care.
One of the magical artifacts brought to the storage was a Philosopher stone. When I asked where it was found, one of the elves informed me it was at the home of Nicolas and Parenelle Flamel. I instructed the elves to bring everything that belonged to Flamels to a special research area inside the storage area. Books, tomes, artifacts, perfectly preserved potions, and ingredients to make more. When I saw how good the preservation spells held for all this time, I asked the elves if they brought similar vials from other magical areas. It turned out they did. Same as for the artifacts, they were sorted and cataloged on shelves constructed by the elves. When I asked them why they did it, if I didn't order them, they just shrugged and told me that for the past several years, they were no longer obligated to follow my every command.
This leads me to more research. It turned out that House-elves were cursed long ago by first mages. They were the first sentient species to develop on Earth. In one ancient tome, I found a brief history of House-elves. Long ago, Elves lived peaceful lives. They were nomadic species that traveled all around the world in order to find a permanent settlement. When they stumbled on the doorsteps of First Egyptians, they were ostracized and in the commotion that followed cursed with their current body.
I decided to get rid of the curse. It was easy to find contra-curse with all available data collected over the years. When I cast the contra curse, all the House-elves began to change physically. Now they looked more like elves from Lord of the Rings.
They were thankful for getting rid of the curse. It was this curse that kept them alive when the 'death' virus eradicated every other form of life. They decided to build a town where once was Hogsmeade and promised me to help if I ever need something. Their magic became much more powerful than before. No wands are required. I was happy for them.
They continued to search the planet for anything exciting or eye-catching as a hobby. I allowed them to take anything from storage, which I renamed 'The Vault.' Their homes soon became decorated with muggle paintings and furniture, glassware, and eating utensils. I provided them with several M-laptops which had the same information on them. I even connected them so that any discoveries could be shared. As they used them, more and more programs were created. I was happy because they were happy to live a free life.
On one of my expeditions, I found a muggle server farm. It was not in bad shape, but it started to overgrow with plant life. Fixing it was not a problem, as I already knew how it functioned. Providing power to restart all the servers was easy with a conjured generator. I downloaded everything that was not corrupted, and with that, new information became available for me to study. Even the Elves were enjoying new information. I went from the server farm to the server farm and repeated the process.
oooOOOooo
Two hundred years have passed since the battle of Hogwarts. For the majority of this time, I spent learning and exploring the world. Elves spread all over Britain. They had small communities in which they lived a peaceful life. They started to farm magical and regular plants. Discoveries were made in potions. Now every potion ever created could be turned into a pill with the same effects. The process of creating the potions was refined, side effects were eliminated, and everything was recorded and cataloged.
Several years ago, there was a shift in the magnetic frequencies of the planet. We enjoyed watching all the muggle satellites burn up in the atmosphere. It was a sight to behold.
Most of the muggle infrastructure decayed over time. What was left will soon be overgrown by plant life. A few decades ago, I was alerted to spikes of radiation aminating from an old nuclear reactor in France. As soon as the information was delivered to me, I went and secured all of the radioactive material in every nuclear plant and bunkers that housed radioactive material. As I could not die, I decided to store every bit of uranium, plutonium, and other byproducts of nuclear reactions into a warded trunk and secure it with a blood lock just to be safe.
My studies brought me into the Department of Mysteries. There, in one of the chambers, placed in the middle and slightly raised laid 'Veil of Death.' What information I collected over the years was contradictory, to say the least. In one of the tomes, this arch was described as "The portal to the Underground." In another, it stated That "It was a complicated ward that sucks souls out of everybody that makes contact with the arch." But what got my hopes up was a small article written by the first conglomerate of mages that studied the arch.
"It is believed that this arch was placed here long before magicals even existed. Unknown markings were found on the backside of the arch. We were unable to translate the language written, or if the markings were runes, we are unable to determine their nature."
After this revelation, I started to examine the arch carefully. What was interesting was a small prickle in my ability to connect with the technology.
It was as if the arch wanted to connect with me. I filed this for later and continued to examine the writing on the backside of the arch.
What I found shocked me to the core. The arch was indeed a portal, but it had two functions. First, it stored matter in a buffer. Second, it should be able to send this matter to an alternate reality.
But it was missing a key of some kind.
My hope was that Sirius was still alive, although stored in the buffer.
As Bellatrix only stunned Sirius in front of the Veil, I was confident that he was still alive inside of it.
While studying the backside of the 'Veil,' I found mentioned writing on one side of the arch. It was unlike any language, magical or muggle. Translation charm revealed nothing specific. Only one line was able to be translated. "I came here to start anew, but here I found nothing but barren land."
Searching the 'online' library for similar writing, I found two hits. One was in the goblin made book. In it was a description of the small artifact found several kilometers south of the 'Veil. The other was the arch itself.
This artifact was found inside the biggest vault belonging to the Goblin Nation. It was pyramid-shaped with the same type of writing as a message left on the arch. Translation charm did nothing to reveal what is written on it. I concluded that writing was probably the first-ever recorded example of the runic language.
This theory proved to be true. As soon as I brought the pyramid-shaped artifact near the arch, it began to glow. A Pedestal rose from the ground in front of the arch and scanned the 'key' and me.
It appeared that the scan found what it was looking for, and immediately hologram sprang to life above the pedestal.
Words, or what I suspected were words, started to scroll on the 'screen.' It was comprised of the same symbols inscribed on the arch and the 'key.'
With a wider example of the language, I was able to apply a translation program when I interfaced my laptop with the crystal beneath the pedestal.
Inside the pedestal, I found a rudimentary interface that would allow the user to modify the purpose of the arch and to see what is stored inside.
Apparently, five hundred and seven people were stored inside, along with countless artifacts with an unknown purpose.
Of all the people stored inside, only one was alive. Apparently, to be cataloged as being alive, the 'soul' of the person should be attached to the body. I strongly hoped that the only living person stored would be Sirius. Reading the log that presented itself in the same language as 'runes' inscribed on the 'key,' I established that the last person that was 'saved' entered the arch at the same time Sirius was sucked inside.
Before I did something foolish, like a Gryffindor, I went through everything that was stored in the crystal.
The person who created the arch got here through an unstable reality portal in hopes of a new beginning far away from the controlling government and prejudices of his homeworld. What he didn't know was that life on this planet only started to develop. By the estimate, he got here fifty-five million years ago. No wonder he wanted to go back to wherever he came.
At the time of his arrival, Earth's continents were splitting, and tremors must have been enormous.
This person tried to recreate what he called a 'Reality portal' so he could at least go to a different reality in hopes he would have more luck next time. But he got old, and his dreams of ever completing the portal died with him.
He lived a long life and programed the 'key' to provide instructions on how the portal should work and what was needed to complete it. He died, never finishing it.
Presented with new information, I started to build a new portal inside Hogwarts in hopes that I could fix the flaws and hopefully make it work how it was intended.
I instructed the Room of Requirements to construct a 'Bio-bed,' which would fix all the flaws of the human body, make it more durable, and regenerate old cells in hopes of making someone younger. I did this in preparation for bringing Sirius back from the crystal buffer.
This Bio-bed came to be by studying the effects of Philosopher stone left by the Flamels inside their home along with their research notes. Dumbledore thought that he destroyed the only stone, but Flamel made one more, and he and his wife faked their deaths, but they succumbed to the virus nevertheless.
Before I tried to bring Sirius back, I tested the bio-bed. Now I no longer require glasses, my height increased several inches, old scars disappeared, even my lightning bolt scar. The test lasted for a few days, but I was healthy. Who knows how long would Sirius be trapped inside.
So, two hundred and twenty years after the Battle of Hogwarts, I was ready to bring Sirius back to the land of the living.
oooOOOooo
With preparation completed, I initiated the program from the pedestal to revive the last person who entered. When Sirius exited the 'Veil of Death,' he was stiff as a board. I placed him inside Bio-bed to heal.
I spend two weeks waiting for healing to be done. In the meantime, I meditated on everything that happened to me over the last two centuries.
From my horrid childhood, my time in Hogwarts as a student, to years spent in misery and depression. My inventions, time spent roaming around the world and seeing everything that was left after the Fall of civilization.
When the Bio-bed finished healing Sirius, I was still in a meditation trance, so I didn't notice Sirius looking at me with curiosity.
"Hey, Pup! Wake up."
With a start, I got up and smacked Sirius with my head.
"Merlin's saggy balls!" Exclaimed Sirius.
"Sirius, you're alive!" I shouted as I launched myself onto Sirius' welcoming embrace.
"It's good to see you too, Pup. One question, what in Morganas' tits is going on?" Asked bewildered Sirius.
But I didn't hear him, just started crying. "You have no idea how lonely I was. Everyone is dead; they left me all alone."
"Pup, just calm down and tell me everything that is going on, but I bet it can't all be that bad since you are alive," Sirius said with significant confusion on his face.
As I started to calm down, I began to explain how everything went down the drain the moment he fell through the Veil. How Ron, Hermione, and I hunted Horcruxes in order to kill Moldyshorts. How once that monster died, everything went to hell. Death of the loved ones, the pain I felt when I couldn't do anything to stop the death of millions. How I tried to kill myself when it was apparent that I couldn't die, my years spent studying books and other materials found by House-elves, how I wanted someone to be with me, to speak to me about anything and everything, how I freed House-elves from a curse. And finally, how I found out that I could bring him back from the accursed Veil of Death.
For the entire rant, Sirius just listened and held me close to his chest. At first, he didn't understand what I was talking about. But as I explained more and more, he began to pice the information provided.
For my part, it didn't matter that I was two-hundred and thirty-seven years old. I started to cry again after finishing my story.
When I managed to calm myself, Sirius started to ask all kinds of questions. And I answered all of them—questions about the war and death, to my studies and explorations around the world. When I informed him that I found a way to travel to different dimensions, he immediately agreed to follow me wherever I go.
I know that I have companionship with the Elves, but it is not the same. I need human interaction to center myself.
oooOOOooo
Over the next couple of years, Sirius and I bonded like we should have before we were separated. I showed him the Elves, Hogwarts extended library, the new Room of Requirements, the Vault, and everything Elves and I managed to do. He was impressed with everything but was saddened that I had to burden everything alone. I told him that the work I did, managed to curve my apparent immortality to the backside of my mind.
He even agreed to take Elixir of Life. But it was not the same as the one Flamels created. This new and modified elixir would de-age him to twenty-five years old. It would also extend his life significantly, but he would not be truly immortal. He could still die by injury or something similar.
Now that Sirius was up to date on everything and anything he wanted to know, he and I jumped into work studying everything left on the pedestal and the 'key.'
It took us almost a year to figure out the mechanics, mostly my work, of how the Reality portal should function. I didn't want to jump the gun and ask the RoR to create one, as Gods knows how that would end up.
With the finishing touches on a new and improved portal, we were almost ready to travel wherever it would take us.
I decided that if we were to travel, Gods knows where, we should bring living necessities with us.
Pacing three times in front of the RoR, I started to imagine a trunk. My goal was to create a living space filled with every possible amenity – from sleeping quarters, bathrooms, a copy of the entire Hogwarts library, kitchen with an eating area, and area to prepare food along with every possible tool and machine required to do so. Big area to train in the muggle and magical ways, laboratory to make potions and other concoctions, big storage area filled with every possible ingredient stored inside The Vault alongside saplings, seeds, and cuttings of every possible type – from grass seeds to magical trees, from unicorn hair to dragon hearts and other ingredients collected over the years. I also decided to transfer a big amount of gold, silver, iron, copper, platinum, steel, and other types of metal in form of ingots from The Vault, even the trunk with all the radioactive material just in case. Diamonds, emeralds, and other types of gems were also included.
Room with every possible type of entertainment – from card games to cinemas and other forms of fun activities. This was suggested by Sirius. Copy of Room of Requirement was a must, it wouldn't be as powerful as the one inside the Hogwarts but it could provide other types of entertainment and scenarios.
I decided to include the Hospital just in case. It would have several Bio-beds, regular beds, other types of machines that I found in muggle hospitals. It would be stocked with every possible cure for every disease ever discovered so far. Elves were very productive over the decades with making those just in case some disease decides to resurface.
The armory was also included just in case. With every type of firearm, swords, armors, daggers, and other close combat weapons.
A room filled with fertile dirt, artificial Sun, climate system, and other necessities required for farming.
When I finished pacing in front of the RoR, an enormous amount of magic started to gather around the room. It was almost suffocating. It took almost five minutes for the door to appear. When I, along with Sirius and several Elves opened the door, we saw ornate looking trunk in the middle of the room. It was radiating with magic. Slowly, over a couple of minutes, the aura surrounding the trunk started to diminish. It was made out of some kind of metal, covered with runic arrays, with a golden shine to it.
Stepping inside, we inspected every corner of this unique creation. It was exactly how I imagined it. While creating stuff it took everything it could from The Vault, and what was missing was created by RoR itself. Even food ingredients and prepared meals were stored inside the kitchen and storage area. From the estimate, I and Sirius could live ten years without needing to harvest anything.
Sirius stored several wands that reacted to him just in case. Anything else I could conjure or transfigure as needed.
Everything else was left in Hogwarts and with the elves to use as they wish.
With all of the preparations completed, Elves decided to throw a big goodbye party. It lasted several days and almost every Elf attended. They were saddened that I was leaving but they understood my reasoning. I decided that if Sirius and I managed to connect the destination portal to this one we would stay in touch and interchange any discoveries made.
After last-minute checks and goodbyes, Sirius and I stepped through the Reality portal in hopes of a better future.
oooOOOooo
EDIT: 2020 – Minor mistakes and spelling.
EDIT: 4 Dec 2020 - by beta ElAnuKosh