Here is the fifth and final book in my 5 book Avatar: The Tale of Harry series. I had initially planned this series as a trilogy before the idea for Book 4 hit me but I had wanted the subtitle for Book 4 to be Duty and not Family but it didn't fit. As such I decided that there would be a Book 5 to wrap everything up, feature old man Harry, and serve as Harry's last great challenge and one unlike any he has faced before. This time though, the Duty subtitle works given what happened at the end of Book 4. As with all Books but Book 3, Book 5 will deal with some political philosophy issue though naturally that will be for y'all to figure out as I won't spoil it. However, like Book 3, Book 5 will feature a prologue to set it up and I will mention more at the end on that front. The last thing to mention here is that Book 5 is fully drafted so it will be out weekly, or at least an average of one a week, and is the same length in terms of chapters as Book 3 (including prologue and epilogue) so that should give you a rough idea for how long it will be. Anyway, enough rambling, without further adieu, here is the final Book in the Avatar: The Tale of Harry series.

Disclaimer: I own nothing from either the Harry Potter or the Avatar: The Last Airbender or the Avatar: The Legend of Korra universes.

Avatar: The Tale of Harry

Book 5: Duty

Prologue

Two old figures, one male and one female, arrived at the open topped observatory platform at the peak of the Temple and made their way to the younger man seated in the lotus position in the center of the carved floor, one on foot the other airborne having unlocked flight decades prior. He was in the middle of meditation, communing with their bending element, so the two figures took a moment to enjoy the peak of their Temple.

Unlike other Temples, this Temple, known to them as the Temple of Exiles or the Exile Temple, did not have a roof on top. Instead, it was open to the elements, though surrounded by high walls that had 4 archways in that represented the 4 cardinal directions and the 4 other Temples. There was a walkway around it, only accessible by bending or flight that allowed the members of the Temple to enter the platform.

The Exile Temple was a long lost, forgotten, Air Temple built to be the last refuge for the Air Nomads and still housed the descendants of the final refugees who had sought it out centuries prior. It was the very lost nature of the Temple that had allowed the first leader, a monk on the Eastern Air Temple Council of Elders, to use it as a safe refuge for the survivors, at least the ones who could be saved that is.

The monk was a scholar and a historian who had found out about the legendary lost Temple located on a small island in the middle of the vast ocean between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation but near the arctic circle through his research. The precise location was not recorded other than that it was on an island and had been built millennia before. That was why it was perfect.

The monk had been charged with leading the young airbenders and trainees, as well as enough men and women to protect them and maintain the gene pool, away from the Eastern Air Temple on the day of Sozin's comet. They could only do this because the other Elders and a handful of volunteers stayed behind and sacrificed themselves to let them escape.

At the time over 100 airbenders had fled but only 66 would remain with the monk on his journey to find the Temple and the safety it offered them. Though a few died or left the group along the way, they found it and began restoring it as a safe refuge for survivors of Sozin's surprise attack upon their peaceful nation.

Some volunteered to find other survivors and bring them back to the Temple. Thus, the Order of Searchers was created by the monk who had become their leader and tasked with finding as many airbenders as possible. Those who did took suicide capsules made from poisoned berries found on the island with them so as to never reveal the location of the Temple to the Fire Nation.

Only a handful of the Searchers returned but brought with them an additional 149 survivors from the other Temples that had managed to flee them and follow hunts by the Royal Fire Army. With around 200 survivors of the Air Nation Genocide now in the Temple the monk named it the Exile Temple to mark their status as exiles from the world due to the Fire Nation's persecution of them and closed it off for good.

The plan was to hole up in the Temple, restore it and cultivate the natural resources of the island they were on and wait the Fire Nation out. They knew that the Avatar had to be an Air Nomad as Avatar Roku, a firebender by birth, had died some 12 years prior to the genocide so the cycle would pass to them. There was no way that the threat the Fire Nation posed them wouldn't be defeated by an air Avatar in their minds.

While they waited, they were to maintain the traditions and beliefs of the Air Nomads as best they could. They had saved what they carry from the Temples, but the rest was resurrected from memory that the monk and others had of their customs and culture. They would cut themselves off from the world until the world was ready for them to return and rebuild what was left of the Air Nomads from their ranks.

With all sorted, the monk became their leader and took the name Ekrizdis to symbolize his rank as the ultimate authority amongst the Exiles. The actual meaning of the name had long been lost but the name itself was uncovered at the Exile Temple as the name given to the leader of the monks who had lived there, and they chose to adopt it in honor of the man who had led them to safety.

The monk, who's birth name had been lost to history, would become known as Ekrizdis the Preserver or Ekrizdis I and all leaders since him took the same name upon elevation to the position regardless of gender. Their plan was going to span generations and with the gerontocratic nature of the Air Nomads, the leaders had shorter rules than most other nations who's monarchs tended to be in the 30–50-year-old age range when ascending to their throne.

Since then, the Temple's population had grown and thrived in their isolation. There had been some issues with crop yields over the years, worries over inbreeding that had to be carefully monitored, and many other growing pains but they had managed it. However, they had also become comfortable with their position, and it seemed that they had abandoned their planned return.

This seemed to be the case when they didn't reveal themselves to the wider world in the aftermath of the 100-year war that ended the Fire Nation's tyranny, and it would have been right to return. Even then, they could have returned in the wake of Harmonic Convergence when airbending returned to the world and reintegrated to help the new airbenders but again they didn't.

The reason had been that by that point they were self-sufficient, independent and had become distrustful of the outside. After all they had been through this was a natural defense mechanism, but they weren't blind to the world either.

They knew of the outside world through their Searchers that had been reformed by Ekrizdis IV to obtain information from around the world and keep them informed for their potential return. It was a high honor to be a Searcher, and several would later become the Ekrizdis, and it was their experiences as Searchers that informed their decisions. Despite all they had found out about the changing world, they had decided to remain put through all of this.

It wasn't until well after Harmonic Convergence when Ekrizdis X decided to begin the process of recruiting new blood to the Temple for the first time in almost 200 years. This was mainly done to broaden the pool of airbenders and avoid issues that normally affected close nit communities like theirs.

It was also useful as they were able to gather more airbenders who had been forgotten by the new Air Nation, been denied acceptance in the nation or expelled from it or who didn't agree with the corrupted philosophies of Tenzin and his successors. It was a small growth, but it had helped them immensely.

That was what both of the people now approaching the meditating man were, they were airbenders not born to the Exile Temple. However, they had in, their own ways, become exiles from the new Air Nation and been recruited by the Exiled Nomads.

Both were considered undesirable to the Air Nation and wider society for their past crimes and actions, but they had both seen the advantage of joining the true Air Nomads who had forgiven their past transgressions in keeping with traditional Air Nomad notions of forgiveness. They had both become close confidents and advisors to the man they were approaching in the years since their arrival, despite the concerns of the elders over their past.

Those concerns were justified. Both were convicted felons with lengthy criminal records, and both were wanted by various jurisdictions across the glove. However, the current policy was to accept any and all airbenders who agreed to come the Exile Temple and join, providing they didn't reveal the existence of the community to the wider world. Both had known this and had honored their pledges. It was also because of their pasts that they were currently advisors to the man.

"Welcome my brother and sister." The man said in a calm voice as they approached him, his eyes still closed. "Thank you for joining me today. Please, accompany me as I finish my meditations."

Both airbenders assumed the lotus position and joined the man. It took a few moments as both were in their early 80s, but they managed it. The woman took a seat while the man floated a few inches off the ground and looked at each other before looking at the man.

All three of them wore the traditional home spun robes of the Air Nomads and bore the tattoos of masters. However, the two newcomers had black tattoos symbolizing that they had been expelled form, or rejected by, the Air Nation, while the master in the center of the room had the normal gray tattoos. He also had a simple wooden pendant around his neck on a beaded chain that bore the symbol of the Air Nomads. It was also the symbol of the Ekrizdis.

"There is much to discuss for today is a day of great importance but first just think on how you got here." The 13th Ekrizdis said calmly to the other two. "It has been a long road for both of you so before we continue, take this moment to reflect upon that road Pansy and Insomnus."

"Ekrizdis?" Pansy asked confused. "You summoned us, surely you wish to discuss something with us."

"I do and there is a lot that we will discuss but first a moment of inner reflection." Ekrizdis said. "The pace and direction of the wind is always changing. For now, it is calm and therefore a moment of peace is needed to respect that calmness. Please, join me in this moment."

Pansy just nodded, still a little confused by the sage speak of the Ekrizdis, she had never gotten the philosophical side of airbending. Well, that and the fact that the wind certainly wasn't calm up on the top of the tower. It had been built to channel the wind and it whipped around them as they meditated.

However, as she looked, Pansy noticed that the wind seemed to part around Ekrizdis and not affect him in the slightest. His robes did not flutter, the pendant didn't move, and his perfectly trimmed and pointed goatee was untouched by it. Even after 3 years at the Exile Temple, Pansy was still taken aback by the level of skill and control the Ekrizdis had when it came to manipulating the air around him.

The man, the whole Temple and community in general as well, was still an enigma to Pansy. She was not one of them and never would, but they had offered her safety and sanctuary from the authorities, and she took that in a heartbeat. It also helped that the Ekrizdis took her under his wing and didn't care about her past, only her future and what she could do for him in service to the true Air Nomads.

For that and other reasons regarding the man's charisma and aura, had led Pansy to pledge her service and particular skills to him. Of course, the skills she had learned were from a life of crime and decades in the revolving door of the penal system.

Pansy had once been a young, in her mind beautiful, up and coming pureblood airbender and proud Purist. The daughter of the Air Nation Ambassador to the ISEK, she had the world ahead of her and a life of luxury at the top of society to look forward to. Her family was rich, she had the Crown Prince of the Northern Water Tribe wrapped around her little finger, and Voldemort was about to win the Purity War. She was going to be set. Then, overnight, her world changed forever.

Known the Global Raids to those who won the Purity War, Pansy knew it for what it really was, the Day of Treachery as it had been the treason of a Death Eater that had led to the raids. Pansy had been with her father when the Avatar and his friends personally came to arrest him on trumped up charges. She had defended him but against the Avatar, even one who wasn't fully realized at the time, she had no hope. She was defeated, arrested and charged with several felonies she didn't commit.

In the end her father had made a deal to save her from a long stint in prison, potentially life with parole if the espionage charge had stuck. She agreed to her end of the deal and told the authorities of all the Purist students at the Academy who offered support to the Dark Lord, several of whom would either spend time in prison or die in the war.

Because of her testimony and that of her father, she had served 5 years in the Eastern Air Temple prison before being let out on a 5-year probation. She never saw her father again as he died in prison not long after her own arrest.

From that point on Pansy had only one path ahead of her in life. She was an exile, expelled from the Air Nation and denied her tattoos for her alleged crimes and allegiances to the only true philosophy in the world. She was on probation in Republic City and had no one to turn to. The Purist Movement was dead, and she was not welcome in it anyway after her deal which got her out early. All that was left for her was prostitution or crime. She chose the latter.

Pansy joined one of the Triads that had reformed after the war and the breakup of the Unified Triad following Scabior's arrest. As a result, she ended up violating her parole 3 years later and spent 2 more years in prison in Republic City. When she got out a second time she got her black tattoos of an expelled master and embraced her new life.

It didn't hurt that she'd become a sadist who got sexual pleasure from inflicting pain and had no compunction killing by the time she was 22. Her ruthlessness and eagerness to torture people with her trusty scalpels made her an invaluable asset to the Triads. She was fully in them and still covered in their tattoos under her robes. It was from that point, after her second release, that Pansy fell into the prison cycle.

She would ultimate spend 49 of the next 53 years of her life in and out of prison thus missing basically all major world events because of her time incarcerated. She racked up long sentences for robbery, assault, resisting arrest, possession of stolen goods, possession of a weapon by a criminal, and ultimately a felony murder conviction. That said, she was only ever convicted for one of the murders she'd committed and not the other 66 people she'd murdered in her life.

It was the murder conviction that had led to her receiving her longest sentence, a 40-year stint United Republic Supermax Prison. She would ultimately only serve 32 years before being paroled for good behavior and her advanced age at the time.

In total Pansy had spent 56 years behind bars starting when she was 15 years old, longer than even Hermione spent and almost as long as Kuvira. As a result, Pansy had missed all of the world events since the Second Purity War.

By the time Pansy got out of prison the last time she was almost 80 years old and again she had nothing. Most of the people she had known were either dead or didn't care about her anymore after such a long stint behind bars. She had nowhere to go, and nothing left but to waste away her last few years as an ex-con in Republic City as she waited for death. Only her age and survival in the criminal underworld for so long granted her any shred of respect from that community.

It was then that she was approached by one of the Searchers. They had known of her having marked her as a potential recruit before her murder conviction delayed that. They also knew that she had nothing left, but they still wanted her to come with them. Knowing that it would be a parole violation, the least of the crimes she'd committed in her life, Pansy went with them and joined the Air Nomads.

Since then, she had met the Ekrizdis and for the first time since Voldemort she had met a man she could follow, a man who she knew would change the world for the best and was something more than the existence she'd known for 6 decades. It was a breath of fresh air for her, and Pansy took the opportunity as soon as it was offered to her.

She quickly worked her way into his inner circle and became a confident on outside matters, particularly on matters relating to her less than savory life in the Triads. He had understood and forgiven her, knowing that she had no choice because the Air Nation refused to forgive her as they should if they followed true Air Nomad philosophies.

That was why he had forgiven her past and welcomed her to her new home while also understanding her importance to the Exiles due to her connections to the underworld. It was this acceptance that had convinced Pansy to follow Ekrizdis until the end of her life.

Ekrizdis XIII was the only one she had ever known as he had already been the Ekrizdis for 9 years before her arrival but even she could tell that he was different from the other high ranking airbenders at the Temple. That was because he was young by the standards of Air Nomad leaders, being only 44 when elected to the position, a full 16 years younger than expected.

He had achieved his position at such an unprecedented age because he was energetic, charismatic, and loved by the other airbenders here. He had apparently been a Searcher and the mentee of Ekrizdis XII and had risen quickly through the ranks to the Council of Elders, the required position to be elected Ekrizdis.

The man had been an underdog for the role when his mentor died a year after naming him to the Council of Elders and was seen as a maverick, but he had been elected. Pansy had heard that there may have been some underhanded actions, bribes, and even blackmail to get Ekrizdis elected. If so, that made her respect him even more as she saw no problems with such tactics.

Regardless of how he was elected, under Ekrizdis XIII's watch the spread of the Searches, and other more shadowy groups the man personally ran, had grown and Pansy knew something big was coming. It had to be something the oldest Elders would not agree with, why else would Ekrizdis surround himself with people like her and Insomnus to assist him rather than the old sticklers that were supposed to help Ekrizdis run the Temple.

Insomnus was something else and had an even more checkered past then Pansy, from what she understood at least as there was little known about the floating man next to her. What was known was that he was abandoned by a mother who had wanted a daughter and not a son, and that he had been taken in by the Red Lotus.

Then, when his airbending manifested, the origins of which were still uncertain though the belief was that he was one of few the newborn airbenders that still occurred every year, the Red Lotus turned him into a killing machine. After all, an airbender assassin was the best kind of assassin and the Red Lotus had one in Insomnus.

That was because Insomnus was a talented airbender and exceptionally light on his feet. He was a master of stealth and silence. He was the perfect assassin for their cause, and he never questioned his orders, just executed them.

Trained in Zaheer's art of killing, a secret closely guarded by the Red Lotus, Insomnus began killing Red Lotus targets at the age of 15. By the age of 17 he had 8 confirmed kills in 6 nations before he was caught by Chief Scrimgeour trying to assassinate then presidential candidate Fudge.

Sentenced to life with parole for his crimes due to his age, Insomnus was expected to spend the rest of his life in the With Lotus Airbending Supermax Prison. Naturally, his arrest had led to him being automatically banned from ever joining the Air Nation.

However, that sentence only lasted 3 years before Voldemort broke out all the inmates from the 4 prisons in one glorious night of liberation for all falsely arrested benders. Insomnus had agreed to join Voldemort in exchange for freedom. That and it turned out he had no loyalties to the Red Lotus, they had made him into a killing machine and taken away his life, they were dead to him.

For the rest of the Second Purity War, Insomnus had served Voldemort in his Purist Army because he had to or else the Dark Lord would kill him. He had even been part of the Battle of the Elemental Academy. There he had even killed a handful of defenders in that battle. However, he fled the battle before Voldemort was defeated the moment he knew that the Dark Lord would lose and struck out on his own.

Hunted and chased for his crimes, Insomnus shaved his head, a style he still kept, and got the black tattoos to show his status as an undesirable in the eyes of the Air Nation. This helped keep him one step ahead of the law.

However, with nothing left to fall back on, Insomnus became a hire killer, after he destroyed what was left of the Red Lotus for what they had turned him into that is. Naturally, he became one of the best hired killers out there. He was tied to several murders in all 7 nations in the years after the Purity War but never caught.

Then, at some point he became fed up with the world and his place in it. Deciding to take a vow of silence and celibacy, Insomnus severed all earthly ties and entered the void. Willing to accept death for he had nothing to live for and with no more ties to the earth, not that he ever had any to begin with, he stepped off a bridge, according to the story he wrote down, and took flight.

That was 50 years ago, and he had not touched the ground since. At least that was how the story went but few knew the truth as Insomnus had been true to his word and had not spoken a word in over half a century.

Ekrizdis apparently found him back during his Searcher days and after learning of Insomnia's story had brought him back to the Exile Temple. Insomnus had joined the Exiles and that was it. He quickly became a confidant and advisor in certain matters to both the two former and now current Ekrizdis, though Pansy had no idea how he did that without saying a word.

There were rumors that he had continued killing at the orders of Ekrizdis XIII, but these had never been confirmed. Pansy personally didn't care; she would kill for the Ekrizdis even if Insomnus wouldn't because she was loyal to him. Well, that and she really liked killing people, especially nonbenders, mudbloods, and blood traitors.

That had been the path both of them had taken up until this moment when Ekrizdis had summoned both of them to the mediation circle atop the Temple for a word. However, he hadn't said anything yet and Pansy was starting to get stiff and cold, her body wasn't what it once was and she was feeling her age, so she just wanted this done with already. That was when she felt a shift in the wind and her hair fluttered slightly in it.

"Ah there it is, the shifting of the wind." Ekrizdis said as he opened his startlingly blue eyes and looked at them. "At last, the winds have shifted in our favor and the time has come. I have communed with the spirits and the winds, and they have confirmed this shift."

"What do you mean?" Pansy asked confused.

"After a little over 3 centuries, the time has at last come, I am sure of that." Ekrizdis said in his slightly cryptic fashion. "With the Air Nation National Conference occurring at the end of the summer in the Northern Air Temple, that is when it will happen. That is when the winds of change will blow in our favor."

"Ekrizdis, you know I am not the wisest person here." Pansy said with a hint of frustration, she'd never picked up an airbender's patience despite her pureblood bending pedigree in it. "I am a straight talker so spell it out to me, please. What is it time for?"

A wide, grin spread across Ekrizdis's handsome face. It was a look that would have been sinister to most but to Pansy it filled her with warmth and she knew that she had been right in following this man. That was when he spoke the words that would change the world in ways no one could have seen coming.

"Why it is time we final reveal ourselves to whole world."

Ah nothing beats a good, ominous, cliffhanger to leave a prologue off on. There is a lot to unpack here and I will do my best to address it all now so that y'all know what to expect going forward. Yes, I am going with an idea of surviving airbenders. There is some canon in the Lost Adventures comic as there is a chapter where Aang is almost caught by Zhao using a trick that had been used to kill airbenders who survived the attack during Sozin's comet so theoretically there is a chance that some survived, this is my theory for how they would have. More importantly, I think y'all can already tell right off the bat who the antagonist will be, Book 5, like Book 4, reveals it in the first chapter and naturally it will be the mysterious Ekrizdis. For those wondering, Ekrizdis is a canon Harry Potter character, he the dark wizard who built Azkaban. I needed a dark wizard character to serve as the antagonist for Book 5 and I wanted the antagonist to be an airbender to shake things up. The best I could find was Ekrizdis though there is nothing more on him other than what he did. As such, I have basically just taken the name and applied it to the leader of the Exiled Nomads so as to use a canon name and expand upon the character with my own interpretations of them similar to how I have done with many in the past like Pyrites, Johannes, James, and Dominique. As for the other two seen, they are the two of Ekrizdis's main followers in this story and those who remember Book 1 will notice both of them. Pansy is of course Pansy Parkinson who looked like she was gone after chapter 38 of Book 1 and Insomnus was a mysterious assassin freed when Voldemort broke open the prisons and then noted to have been the only one of them still at large after the Battle of the Elemental Academy so he's back. I had always planned to return these two characters and give them more page time in Book 5 when the idea for Book 5 came to my mind so now they're here and help with completing the whole full circle of this series. I think that is all I have for this long note after the prologue so I will leave it here. Any questions in PMs or reviews will be answered before the start of the next chapter (as well as replied to if possible). Please follow, favorite and review. Until next week.

Stringdog