The Lord of the Eclipse

by Ace reaper

Magic is eldritch and grand in nature but men who fancy themselves its master have dulled its true majesty. Soon a conflict will come that will require one who can be a true practitioner of magic. A boy of prophecy, who exists on the precipice of life and death, who wields magic like no other. It is he who will en devour on this grand venture and arise to the mantle of the Eclipse

11. Chapter 11 Departed Details

Disclaimer Harry Potter and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling

Chapter 11 – Departed Details

"Speak, use your restored body and humour me and mine with the tale of your arrival to this rotting place." Obarhurr pressed as a flurry of movement behind it showed its many hands forming a seat that the colossal entity proceeded to lazily recline in.

Harry gave a heavy gulp his hands clutching his gift to his body, it's form that of a small bundle of soft warmth that curled up to him like a kitten. He let his body rise but kept his eyes low, endeavouring to put into practice years' worth of deference and appeasement. He felt his skin prickle and squirm under their observation but knew that the three entities would most likely not care for his discomfort, so with a quick inhale he readied to regale them with his tale.

"I'm not entirely sure where to begin?" Harry croaked his throat tight from nerves as he felt his knees shake in fear.

"… From the beginning of your demise, that should cover the salient details sufficiently corpse thing." Lodium instructed his voice an echoing cacophony that whispered in Harry's mind, as his own form began to get comfortable the lower portions of its shadowy form coiling like a snake while its four arms rested upon said coils.

"Be succinct, my siblings may wish to hear your rambling, but I will be satisfied with ending this… recess." Tzazulquizha hissed sounding like steam escaping a pipe, her visage seeming to lower its position as the lightning that cackled within her form became static and her lights began to blur and slide around one another like orbiting moons.

"… of course, well you see it started with my family…" and so Harry disclosed to them the entirety of the events surrounding his death, from him being chased to the burning of his hideout. He had to pause when he began telling them about the time he spent with Roselyn in the library, he could not help it when grief leaked its way into his voice and tears threatened to pool in his eyes. The three entities remained silent and impassive their visages unmoving as they gazed at him waiting for the rest of the tale. So, Harry continued discussing the police officers and how Roselyn saved him from the truck, all the way to the confrontation with his uncle Vernon, to how he somehow bested him and then one of the entities interjected.

"Pardon you, but did you not speak of this familial member as not liking the fact that you can manipulate magic, but at the same time you speak as if he somehow was not affected by your command over it… this is not possible, the only reason for your magic to not somehow affect him would be for a nullifying factor or the use of magic to counter yours." Tzazulquizha cut in, frustration apparent with her explanation as the lightning began to dance between the light in her form once more. "We are paying you the courtesy of listening to your story so please spare us any lies or I will simply tear the knowledge from your mind and end this infantile farce."

Obarhurr was quick to hover a cloud of arms in front of her frustrated form and speak with the most emotion Harry had heard from it yet. "Sister, I understand you care not for this 'distraction', but I will remind you that it is, I, who requested this and as such, I will reiterate what I thought was obvious. I want to hear his story." Obarhurr spoke and once again Harry's mind was assaulted with the mental image of giant clouds of celestial dust collapsing upon one another and a creature of light and energy rising from the destroyed wonder.

"It is far more likely the child is simply unaware of the truth… Boy does your world have an incarnate god, a set of known natural laws or rules that fabricate reality to a set regulated state?" Lodium inquired with his voice of many speaking as one.

"… I don't understand the question Mr Lodium." Harry shamefully replied he was sure his cheeks gained a blush and he wished he hadn't stopped trying in school. A few flicks through the dictionary to find useful Commands was proving to be an insufficient way to gather knowledge.

"…brother, or should I refer to you by the title you gifted the boy with?" A gesture from a cloud of hands must have meant yes. "Obarhurr if I promise to only take knowledge pertaining to his world, would you allow me to access the boys mind?" Lodium requested patiently, one of his chitinous arms looming before Harry, a single finger covering the entirety of his face.

"Why yes that might be for the best, you will surely be able to make the most sense of it while taking the least invasive search," Obarhurr responded returning to its summoned seat from its relatively relaxed confrontation with Tzazulquizha, who also seemed to have settled back into a comfortable quiet.

With permission given Lodium place his colossal finger upon Harry's head and the young boy experience what it was like to watch his life from a third-person perspective. The images and feeling came fast and heavy, when it was done Harry felt itchy all over with a strange tautness to his skin. A quick look down showed that all his scars had reappeared all across his body and that he was naked… not that he could really find that to be of any importance when he had three terrifying beings before him who could kill him with a thought. Something else had happened when Lodium had laid a finger upon Harry it was like from that brief contact Harry could understand him better. To say this was startling was an understatement, Harry saw Lodium in a new light like looking at a sculpture from another angle. Lodium was worshipped, hated, feared, loved, dreamed of, and tributed to.

The Scourge of Pantheons

"… what did you just say?" The shadowy gods head was suddenly inches from Harry, its colossal face but a breath from coming directly into contact with the small boy. A sound like the swinging of a blade through the air began to slowly echo around the both of them.

"I didn't say anything!" Harry was quick to defend, his body shaking in fear as the looming abyssal nightmare stared inquisitively. Harry's gift was coiled around his body like vines, petrified to move but still doing its best to be of aid.

"Your magic… speak the title boy, preach what you have learned, or else," Lodium commanded his voice the shattering of cities and the desolation of mountains.

"T-the Scourge o-of Pantheons." Harry stuttered out cursing his dry mouth for making him nearly cough on the infuriated visage looming so close to him.

"… your magic is strong, but you would do well to keep it to yourself corpse child. Do not use that title, not while I am with my family." Lodium ordered, his body pulling away and returning to its relaxed position, while Harry collapsed to his knees and gulped in air to settle his panicked heart. Lodium raised a hand at some unknown signal the gesture imparting a desire for silence upon its sibling. "Leave it alone Obarhurr I am aware that the corpse thing is interesting… His world does not have any natural set rigidity or natural law that would prohibit the boy's power in any such way. Outside interference is the only explanation to why its uncle was able to overcome his magic. Also, before you ask it has Planar's but none that could impose set rigidity." Lodium explained to his fellow gods.

They are gods, actual gods, those images I keep seeing, Harry's mind came to a startling halt and blanked entirely only for his gift to quickly take its place and impart some more alien knowledge.

The Unborn

"It seems the corpse has realised what we are, curious how long it took… but then undead are not usually known for their ability to grasp concepts," Tzazulquizha stated offhandedly her voice as a matter of fact as it could be for a god enduring the whims of its siblings.

"I must say I find this little corpse to be so amusing, now shall we resume with the story with the knowledge that the little corpse was not lying dear sister?" Obarhurr enquired with its sibling, a flash of multicoloured lightning was their response before it returned to giving Harry its undivided attention.

"… Well after I was knocked out by my uncle…" Harry continued with his story, his fear did not abate but he felt more able to talk to the three gods before him, whether that was due to having their undivided attention, or the fear at what they might do to him if he stopped Harry did not wish to discover. So, he regaled them with the tragic end of his last day, the plan he formulated, the dashing of his hope, how he fought through his pain to try and save Roselyn. His gift unknown to him had begun to react to his emotions, his fear being overshadowed once more by a bloodthirsty rage. As he went into details of the events that happened in the clearing his gift began to claw at the ground turning the surrounding stone to rubble and dust. By the time Harry got to his actual death via lynching, the stone at his feet was a hot bubbling mess of molten rock and the air about him had razor blades of ice spinning about him.

Finally shaken from his emotional state, Harry witnessed the damage his gift had inflicted to the surrounding area and felt a chill race down his spine. "I am so sorry, I will fix-"

Before Harry could finish his sentence one of Obarhurr's hands made a gesture and the air was clear of ice razors and the ground was like it was before. There was no uttering of a Command, no visible effect, no transformation over time, Obarhurr flicked one of its numerous hands and the world bent to its will. All Harry could do was gulp and once again raise his head to lay his eyes on the three gods before him. Obarhurr was the first to speak its empty voice clinical and straightforward, "but that was not the end… otherwise we would not have such a talkative corpse before us, would we? So, tell me after your demise where did you awaken little corpse?"

Harry was quick to respond the memory of the beautiful otherworldly beach still seared into his mind. "I was on a beach… it was amazing, the sand was this beautiful black like the night sky between the stars, the ocean looked like liquid gold and it was so warm. When I looked up the entire sky was filled with stars and space clouds, oh! Planets there were these planets to like giant pictures painted on the sky itself. Umm and the clouds they looked like those statues carved out of white stone and seemed to surround the whole sea."

"But that sounds like-"

"Let him speak," Obarhurr demanded their voice cutting off Lodium succinctly even though it was neither shouted nor spoken with any emotion.

"There was some weird stuff though, a tower, like a really tall one, that went all the way up to the sky but it was strange and seemed broken but it was still pretty I guess with its spiral look… then there were three holes in the sky…" Harry felt his voice become trapped in his throat, the memory of those black holes that spewed out that strange black liquid seemed to sear itself onto his brain again.

"Anything else?" Obarhurr pressed calmly, but its form seemed to be on the edge of its self-made throne made of arms, it didn't have eyes, but Harry felt that he was locked in an inescapable gaze.

"… yes, the holes were spewing out this weird black substance that seemed to splash into the ocean, but I didn't see much else because I went into the building at the base of the tower."

"By all the realms I rule… its Ya'vana, he loved those beaches and the boy's description while crude and given from the point of view of a mortal, it's too much a coincidence to be fake. But HOW!?" Tzazulquizha roared her question displaying her frustration and confusion through the destruction she wreaked on the structure around them, Harry watched as drill shaped lightning speared into the walls of the structure causing them to bubble and liquefy, the temple walls dribbling down to show the world outside. "Brother how can this be, how is it untouched, our sibling destroyed all his core worlds I mean just look outside!" Tzazulquizha's form seemed to expand for a second and the entire structure around them was blown away to reveal the landscape surrounding the former temple.

Harry was too busy to see this as he had his hands clutched to his ears and was kneeling on the stone floor as the explosion caused by the enraged god had left his ears ringing painfully. A thrum of some Command had the painful ringing stop allowing him to raise himself once again up to his feet. Tzazulquizha was in the middle of some type of conversation with Obarhurr, a glance at Lodium revealed that it was he who had fixed the painful ringing in his ears.

"Thank you very much," Harry spoke while his body instinctively bowed at the waist again.

"… Excuse my sibling her rage, she probably did not even mean to rupture your eardrums, she is just upset," Lodium explained his voice strangely lacking its usual echo as he softly explained the situation to Harry.

"It is fine I get the feeling that she doesn't really like me anyway… I'm used to it." Harry responded his voice monotone as memories of the past flared in his mind.

"Do not be pretentious corpse thing, my sibling does not care enough about you to dislike you," Lodium explained in a very matter of fact way, his tone hinting at something Harry couldn't pick up on. "It's actually somewhat amusing, but I think if anything she is just happy that this has distracted our brother from his grief… if only for the moment."

"Human corpse, tell me did you go anywhere else, see anything else, speak with haste or I will rend your mind asunder and scavenge what I need from the remnants." Tzazulquizha was suddenly much smaller, no larger than Harry in fact and was directly in front of him her lightning arcing around them both searing the floor black.

"I-I went inside the building, there were stairs an-and a pool, a pitch-black pool of like oil or something." Harry quickly stammered out his gift reacting to the power the god was giving off by cloaking harry like a thick woollen jacket, insulating him from the energised air.

"Wait, did you touch it?" Lodium questioned suddenly his voice almost sounding concerned, or interested, it was hard to tell with the echo back and the fact that Harry still wasn't sure if they were talking with sound or some other method.

"Yeah, actually it touched me… and then this creepy, skinny monster attacked me. It was gross and thin, its skin was all icky and white it kind of looked human, but it was too disport-disproportioned." Harry explained stumbling over the last word his voice a frantic mess as his memory tried to recall that strange period when he awoke after his death. "We fought in the pool… oh and I found my gift, actually some strange voices taught me a Command to kill it with and then yeah… it died, I think."

"What a wonderful description and how exactly does one lose their magic?" Lodium queried from behind the Tzazulquizha who was still small and pinning Harry in place with her lightning.

"Counterpoint how does a mortal from an entirely different world die and end up on the favoured throne world of our missing brother," Obarhurr spoke up voicing the rhetorical question with a mirthful enthusiasm, emphasised by a swirl of gestures from three large arms that were around its body.

"You raise a fair point, but I do believe that your quips will not result in us gaining answers any quicker, I recommend we actually have this discussion with more of our collective attention," Lodium suggested to the two gods it called its siblings two of its arms crossed while another two seemed to be gesturing in a shrug.

"Agreed." Both of the sibling gods responded, their forms seemed to waver for a second before with no visual cue the three were once again positioned in the centre of the room but something else changed. They were far more present if that made sense, it was like Harry could feel more of them, they were all around him, within him it was overwhelming.

"Obarhurr, the pleasure is yours," Lodium spoke teasingly his form seeming to bow slightly.

"You are too kind." Obarhurr nodded its mirth obvious, as they raised numerous hands to the sky, each one of the appendages looked like blooming flowers with how they all spread open in different ways.

"Finally, let us rid ourselves of some needless bugs, a shame we will miss the biggest one, but this is a good step in the right direction." Tzazulquizha snidely remarked off to the right her voice obviously hinting at some jab directed to Lodium.

"Yes, well all the 'bugs' in your numerous systems would take far too long to clean out my poor sibling." Lodium sassed back in equal measure, an image of a cackling mouth filled with more laughing mouths, making Harry stumble in place.

"Oblivion." Harry was launched back as a wave of magic crashed into him and sent his body rag dolling as he rolled across the stone floor. By the time Harry came to a halt, he had a few bruises but lucky the smooth floor had spared him any cuts or abrasions. Harry was about to ask why he was attacked when he saw the sky above the former pyramid, the stunning realisation that he wasn't the target of the attack was dwarfed by the carnage he saw above him.

There was a massive hole in the sky above the ruined building and it was growing bigger. Gone were the sickly clouds that looked like rotting flesh, they had been disappeared to reveal an aqua tinged sky that was alien and wonderful to look at. The part where the horror began was the raining corpses of some strange colossal grubs that fell from the sky like macabre balloons with some strange invisible force eating them. Their screeches made Harry's brain itch, for a moment he swore it sounded like prayers being whispered but a swift slap to his own face courtesy of his gift dispersed any obscure sounds. Harry watched on in horrific interest as with a single Command from one of these gods the entire sky began to rain partially ruined corpses.

"There, that shall clear the sky and allow for us to have an easier time giving this situation the attention it so obviously deserves," Obarhurr stated, its hands all reforming into a throne and as it took its seat a litany of tiny stars began to pop into existence in the cleared sky above.

"Agreed, well-done brother, now shall we resume?" Lodium stated its form once again coiling like a serpent, but it was the shadows turning into pools of darkness that caught Harry's attention.

"Yes, let us speak, corpse thing what happened next?" Tzazulquizha questioned her form of lightning and light seeming to slow and settle. But Harry was distracted by the visible shock waves he could see on the distant horizon. "Corpse?"

"What was that?" Harry timidly asked of the three gods before him, a symphony of destruction coming to a dreadfully quiet end as the sky emptied the final grub impacting the ground in the distance with a terrible wet thump.

"The much-needed genocide of the spawn of some pathetic planar rot god, for it to dare and desecrate this worlds corpse… its punishment should have been more severe," Tzazulquizha explained the anger she displayed appearing in Harry's mind as the burning of some far-off planet's surface. "No more questions, what happened after you killed this strange thing in the pool of black?"

"… The pool receded, and I found myself in a room of giant corpses." Harry spoke his voice quiet and muffled by fear at the sheer power and destruction he had just witnessed from a single god and the fact that there were three of said beings in front of him.

"How big is a giant, small corpse?" Obarhurr enquired its voice making Harry think of a smirk.

"Umm like three meters tall maybe more," Harry explained using his arm and standing on his toes to try and describe how big they were.

"What did they look like?" Lodium was quick to question its eight eyes flaring slightly within its shadowy head.

"Oh umm they had like… no head, but they had horns growing out of their necks that they called-"

"Spires… his High Acolytes, it has to be, I made them for him… I heard their pleas for our assistance when he was torn from their sight." Lodium explained to his other siblings, his voice showing a tinge of what Harry thought to be sorrow or grief perhaps. "That most assuredly settles it, he was on Ya'vana, now the real questions are how did he get there and the equally important question of how he got here." Lodium continued his voice gaining a serious edge that left no room for argument. His questions left Harry's brain sputtering again, a series of images assaulting him, pictures of a colossal hall, three bleeding holes in the sky, a retinue of forsaken dead and finally two colossal doors.

Harry spoke before his brain caught up to his mouth, "The gates of Eternity, I opened them… well we opened them." His statement was met with silence and a strange white noise slowly building in the empty air.

This silence continued until Obarhurr rose from its throne of arms and glided over to Harry, as they got closer its form seemed to shrink until it was just under two meters tall. They softly laid two hands on Harry's shoulders, one was a skeletal claw while the other was a fat paw-like thing. Its pyramid head leaned forward, and Harry was petrified to the spot as he felt such intense scrutiny that he was sure his soul was even on display before the piercing gaze of this god.

"… It's true… oh brother, poor lost brother, are these your machinations, have you sent onto us this corpse thing. But why brother… why indeed?" Without any sign Obarhurr was suddenly positioned back between its siblings, size once again confusingly large but smaller than its sibling despite their roughly same height. "Corpse what did you mean we?"

"Oh, oh! Umm well the people without heads, the high people, there were these whispers in the air of the hall and this one floating ghost with really pretty robes who talked to me. They seemed to help a lot and they gave me their will to direct at the door."

"This goes beyond our lost brother's usual madness, it's bad enough with this ridiculous dispersion he has suffered as well as concealing his favourite throne world from us. But on top of all this absurdity, he retrieves some corpse thing from its homeworld and throws it on Ya'vana where it successfully manages to open up The Gates of Eternity." Tzazulquizha sounded exasperated, a strange tone for a god to take but Harry was sure he would have to change his definition of strange after everything he had been through.

"Agreed sibling, there is only one explanation and I dread the hope it may grant me. Our sibling has sent this thing to us as some kind of message, what that message is though I cannot even begin to comprehend. Once again his damnable madness draws my ire in ways that should not be possible!" Lodium raged his arms splaying out while the landscape behind him became a decimated mess. Waves of force turned what was once a dead swamp, littered with barren trees into an open fielded marsh that extended all the way to some distant mountains which had their sides gouged out. Harry merely cringed at the shouting, glad that he managed to avoid the destruction caused by the infuriated god's ire.

"… How did he survive our brother's desolation?" Obarhurr voiced its question in the echoing silence left behind after Lodium's godly outburst.

"What, what do you mean, he is a corpse." Lodium lanced back, his statement spoken as if it answered his brother's question.

"Wait no Obarhurr is right brother, our lost sibling's desolation leaves even my subjects utterly destroyed in its wake, corpse or not he should be truly well and gone," Tzazulquizha explained her tones of colour shifting rapidly, causing Harry to have to look away as his mind began to ache from the display.

"Then how… its part of the message, the boy overcame the desolation, the boy overcame an example of our brothers' pain and fury," Lodium concluded his eyes displaying a sheen like quality that made them appear as if a light had been forged into an impossible metal. "Quest, it's a quest our brother gave it a quest, its quest law!" Lodium shouted with excitement evident his voice raised but his power began to make Harry feel alive and elated in tandem. Pain shed from his body and Harry felt euphoric as he got caught up in the god's excitement but kept enough of his sense to keep it to himself.

"Your right! The awakening in some strange place, the tower was a dungeon, the strange thing that attacked him was some monster, a hall of treasure in the form of his acolytes whom he treasured and finally the gate… what is the gate?" Tzazulquizha questioned her voice accusing as she directed the point towards her siblings.

"Things to come," Lodium spoke simply, his voice lost its echoing quality and it was easily the first time Harry was almost sure that it was actually spoken verbally. "Metaphorical meets metaphysical, brother… the boy is the answer, sent from our brother's favourite place with a message disguised by quest law." Lodium expressed its form writhing, the darkness that made its body flickering like ravenous energised flames.

"Why can't we see!" Tzazulquizha bellowed, her question like an explosion for the effect it had on the ground below her which cratered from the ferocity. Harry was grateful his ears were spared for some reason, but the sight of a very frustrated god was enough to make him backpedal still as the lightning on her body disintegrated the surrounding earth.

"Because we are not actually here… but it is time to rectify that, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" Obarhurr roared with what was a startling level of anger from what Harry had considered the calm god. The sound of the air distorting with energy as light fizzled about the three siblings force Harry to divert his eyes but the small child was still forced onto his back from yet another shockwave that rocked him to his core. The force of the wave was so strong that Harry was pretty sure his bones had creaked under the strain, it was with laborious breaths that the boy raised his head and let his eyes blink away the burning light that was trapped in them.

His vision clear Harry gazed upon an empty destroyed room, the floor was decimated to match the rest of the surrounding building, but the siblings were gone. Where are they? Harry questioned in his mind, slowly getting to his feet, his joints aching under the strain. Once on his feet Harry was quick to look around but saw no trace of the three gods he had been talking to. "Oh, please don't let this be yet another dream-like thing to add to the mix of baffling madness I have had to go through. Because if it is, I might just lay down and not move." His bones seemed to be creaking in agreement at that but that could just be his depleting sanity talking. Harry continued to spin around on the spot but failed to see anything that could be one of the three gods, his gift however quickly snapped him out of it and dragged his/its vision upwards.

Harry felt every word and thought rapidly leave him as he stared captivated at the heavens above and witnessed something beyond his minds ability to both understand and functionally think at the same time. The aqua tinged sky began to fade as splotches of the colour bled away to reveal the celestial starlit heavens above in all their wondrous splendour. A sun with a wonderful deep red glow, new planets with exotic colours and thousands of new stars that glittered like gems in the sky. Harry felt his awe only increase as he finally located the three gods, he had been talking to but a moment ago. He watched as eight stars seemed to glow brightly before moving to form two vertical lines of four, with their position set it was as if the darkness of space seemed to condense until Harry was gazing at a planet-size Lodium who was staring right back. Gone were the humble whispers that niggled at the back of his mind, now Harry heard roaring echoes shouted by voices eager to bloody their throats from strain preach of the grand nature of their god and the titles he bore in this singular form.

The absolute Abyss, The Scourge of Pantheons, God Killer, Hunger of the Void, Consumer of the Diseased Light, Breaker of Dominion, Piercer of the Dreamed Veil.

Both Harry and his gift simultaneously tore their gaze away and spun on the spot to gaze at the second of the missing three. Harry watched a planet with colossal pink stains begin to blister, as red-hot pockmarks appeared on its surface, in a calamitous crack that Harry felt rather than heard the planet seemed to split in two and an explosion of red gas filtered out with lightning crackling in it like a storm cloud. It coalesced into a single form before the stars it covered seemed to grow brighter in intensity their light piercing the red cloud, when they grew to a sufficient brightness it was like they erupted into balls of colour that quickly bounced around in the electrified cloud. Before Harry was Tzazulquizha scaled up to match her brother and made it all the more terrifying for it as the devastated planet behind her continued to burn. She was joined by a series of screaming titles that echoed off of her presences and struck Harry in his very being, each voice a mechanical siren call that made his gift quiver and himself want to retch.

The Calamitous Dream, The Progress Unmade, The Cancer of Creation, Progresses Driving Malignance, The Unspoken Design, The Nightmare Forged True, Wrathful Forge Queen.

Harry was coated in sweat at this point, his skin felt pallid, and his heart was hammering fitfully in his chest as his legs began to feel week. It was with trepidation that he turned his body so that he faced the middle of the two planet-sized gods and witnessed the arrival of the third. With a horrid screech that should not have been at all audible the picturesque image of a distant cosmos littered with stars was rent apart forcefully to reveal for a brief eternal instant a screaming place filled with the dreams of a thousand butchered gods. There in all its glory was a throne of unimaginable power upon which was a figure that enacted the will of such power who rose from its seat and began to approach the screaming rift. It glided out of the tear in space, and it hovered there, skirt billowing in a wind that couldn't possibly exist in space, its Pyramid head forged from scales glimmered like fire and metal while a swarm of arms phased into existence behind it, each one large enough to loom over a mountain. Obarhurr larger than anything Harry had ever seen, floated in space a figure of intimidating grandeur just like its siblings and with it a booming voice pronouncing the titles of which its form rules with.

The Throne of Reality, He That Watches, The Enforcer, Laws Design, Bastion of Break, Monolith, Icon of Rule, Emperor of the End, The Beloved Chaos, The Dreaded Order, Sire of Anathema.

Harry collapsed to his knees, his body felt cold, but a sweat persisted to drip from his head despite the fact. He saw all of them, knew they were talking but about what he couldn't perceive. It was too loud, his gift was flattened literally, the pressure the three were giving off had sent it into the floor and made it all but impossible for it to rise again. Harry let tears fall from his eyes he didn't want to hold them back, the stress and aching pressure in his head matched only by a mysterious itch on his forehead that he did not possess the energy to scratch. Each of the three was a towering celestial titan of screaming madness and contradiction, their power was like an ocean made of lead and it made his entire body ache to be in their presence. So, he let his small frame collapse to the painfully cool stone and clenched his eyes shut, it did nothing to the constant flow of fear and agony for he still knew for a fact that they were here.

"…Harry…" one of the three gods spoke his name, its voice like a wave of might crashing upon his prone form and made him tense as it crushed his body into the ground. "… The suffering can cease, but you need to be the one to do it." The voice explained, it was so loud, so overbearing that it made Harry's brain feel bloated in his own head.

"You are a precious gift little corpse thing, a gift from our dearest lost sibling… You are a message in a bottle sent on little more than faith and hope." Harry was unable to differentiate if this was the same voice or a different one, its tone was too loud for any type of detail to be distinguishable.

"What will it be, will you lay there and simper… wait for your soul to be crushed by our might? Or will you realise that this is on you?"

"Finish the quest, deliver onto us our message and be freed from this existence of suffering."

"It's up to you, corpse child, now choose."

Harry felt overwhelmed, confused, hurt, and terrified beyond all belief, but the worst part is that those feelings just continued to swell and none of them was grander than this alien pain that was eating him. It was like his mind was filled with a freezing shard of ice that sliced his thoughts and burnt his brain, the ground he laid on may as well have been made of nails for each convulsing twitch sent lances of agony racing across his bare body. But the worst inescapable pain was the one deep within him, deeper than his body, deeper than even his flattened gift. Somewhere deep a part of him was screaming for the pain to stop and yet the torment only seemed to grow.

Harry continued to squirm and writhe on the floor as his fingers scraped themselves bloody, and his teeth bit through something fleshy as he clenched his jaw. Beneath the gazes of uncaring gods, Harry felt the pain of fresh death throes warp his mind and body while dread dripped into his… my soul. The deep pain, that agony he couldn't describe was something attacking his very soul and Harry could feel it. Something was stabbing a part of him, a part of his soul was being brutally attacked and whatever it was, was causing the rest of his soul to suffer.

Stop, stop, please stop… cut it out I beg you. Somehow Harry was able to form thoughts through the piercing white-hot pain that was enveloping his mind, as if the more he focused on the deep pain the less he was able to focus on the external parts.

Cut? Cut what… Cut it, cut it out. Harry was on the brink of an epiphany he could feel it, like an alluring scent it dragged him in, the crowning of an idea yet to be born but was just waiting for some solid grasp of genius.

That's it! Cut it! CUT IT OUT! A half-baked mad plan of action in his mind Harry felt for his gift and tried to activate a Command, only for a surge of blood and a hunk of flesh to flush themselves out of his mouth. A serene feeling cut its way to the front of his mind distracting him from his plan, the realisation that he had bit through his tongue drawing his tormented focus. Focus!

The pain was beginning to creep its way back as Harry was no longer focusing on the deep feeling of his soul, that building agony snapped him back to the reality of his crazy plan and how he couldn't do it without a Command. He could feel his gift, hell he knew exactly where it was, but even if he could command it the damn thing was still pinned to the ground from the pressure of three celestial beings looming over them. How can I do this! I want to live! I will not die again! Please just bloody move! Why won't you do what I say you're my gift, you're my magic, you always help me!

Despair and that ever-present dread seemed to swirl forth like the swell of a grim ocean that sought to devour him with its cold finality. The looming shadow of death which he had already suffered once, threatening to collapse on him and shunt him into that unknowable void. It was the knowledge that he would die again that spurned on Harrys next action. Fine! You're my gift, my magic and if you are not going to save me, THEN I WILL DO IT MY SELF… REND!

Harry with spasmodic movements that struggled against the convulsions of pain racking his body plunged his hand into his gift, the Rend Command in his mind as he stuffed his bloody fingertips into his own magic and rent them backwards. He watched with grim satisfaction as the blood and exposed bone became shaped into razor-sharp talons as his Rend Command warped them, his body shifted by his will and magic. With a bloodied scream he rolled onto his back and tried to ignore the fact that he kneed the ground so hard that his patella clearly shattered. His stomach exposed, Harry ran his hand across his abdomen with the twitchy sharpened appendage, little cuts being left in its trail. He moved his arm until it was just under his diaphragm, where the majority of his magic was currently pooled and where the source of that deep pain was located. With a gurgled grunt from the pooling blood in his throat, Harry began the process of forcing his sharpened fingers deep into his own flesh and towards that bubbling deep pain.

He was grateful that the agony of his soul actually made the physical pain he felt from pawing open his own gut feel a little less overwhelming. His eyes closed as he relied on feeling, letting his sense of magic lead his arm deeper into his very being. Finally, he found the part of his soul that was punishing him, letting loose the storm of frightful suffering, its tortured flailing distorting his very being. Harry grabbed it, his razor-sharp claws pinning the slippery fragment of his very self, strangely as he did the itch in his head finally abated but the pain Harry felt intensified as he mutilated his own soul. With a feeling of truly indescribable agony and wrongness, Harry pulled with all his might and tore that worming, pain fraught section of his self out and into the strange air of the alien world.

The pain stopped, his body ceased in convulsing and his mind cleared. The dull throb of his self-inflicted injuries felt light-years away as his bloodshot eyes gazed upon the bloody grasped hand, he had used to rend apart his own soul. In its grasp was a strange combination of magic, concepts, and pulped viscera that he had crushed in his efforts to remove it. But by gazing upon its gruesome form Harry knew exactly what it was and what he had just done. Why it had felt so wrong to do it and why he now felt a hole in himself that gaped open leaving him hollow inside.

Harry Potter had just ripped out his own humanity.