Divine Beasts…

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Harry looked at Neville and the basilisk – apparently whose name was Jyava – with confused eyes. "I still don't understand any of this," he said. "What is a divine beast?"

"Divine beasts were the supreme beings that came to this world to breathe life into it," Neville said. "They came from another plane of existent known as the spirit realm. It exists on to the other side of the same plane that this world is on and is hidden by an invisible barrier so that it can remain undiscovered by any and all life forms." He paused to look at Harry who realized he was expected to say something.

"Continue?" Harry said or rather questioned as he realized that he would ask questions once Neville or rather Ethel was done speaking.

Ethel/Neville nodded before continuing. "The divine beasts brought life to this world and for centuries, they gave this world their own power so that the life would be able to grow and develop here. Eventually the first intelligent race of species was born that in time learned to do many remarkable things. They called themselves humans. However, not all humans were alike. Because the divine beasts had used their own powers to bring life to this world, some creatures absorbed this power and developed the ability to manipulate matter. You all know it as magic.

"The first of all the creatures to develop the divine beasts' powers was a man known as Merlin. To you magicals he is known as the first wizard of humankind but in reality he wasn't just the first human with magical powers but rather the first creature of this world. Because of that, he was also the strongest and soon he had a band of followers – both magical and mundane alike – who treated him as their leader. In time he realized that his power came from the divine beasts and so he went to meet them because he wanted to be more powerful.

"We divine beasts lived a life of peace amongst humans. At that time our existence wasn't a secret to them. We wanted to spend as much time as possible with our creations before returning to our world. When Merlin approached us with his wish to make him more powerful we realized that he had become corrupted and greedy and so we denied him his wish and that made him angry.

"Fuelled by the desire to become more powerful, he used his powers to make a creation of his own that could challenge us so that he could take our powers for himself. He attacked us time and time again and every time he lost. However, we divine beasts remained oblivious to the fact that Merlin learnt from his loss that he suffered when attacking us.

"With each fight that he lost against us divine beasts he learned more and more about us and he used that learning to make his creation more and more powerful until his final creation had the ability of all the divine beasts combined. We never realized this side of Merlin and were ignorant of the fact that he was much more intelligent than the rest of the humans. This time when he attacked us we weren't prepared of how strong his creation has become.

"His creation was so powerful that we divine beasts had to work together to bring it down and even then we won barely. Merlin's creation almost killed one of us while it corrupted another one's soul. We wouldn't have won against him without the help from magicals and non-magicals alike, who fought beside us against Merlin. Countless lives were lost. Defeating Merlin came at a huge cost. He tired and wounded us so much that we couldn't open the passage to go back to the spirit realm. It closed on us forever." He paused as Harry kept looking at him with a look of curiosity and interest. "Jyava and I, along with the rest of our companions have been stuck on this world ever since. Our fight with Merlin tired and wounded us so much that we still haven't been able to recuperate completely."

Harry looked from Neville to the basilisk. "Is that how it was in my previous life as well?" he asked. While he had so many questions about what Neville, or rather Ethel had just said he had even more pressing matters to clear for himself. "Weren't you brought here by Salazar Slytherin?" he asked Jyava.

"After my fight with Merlin I was very much wounded and weak, just like all the other divine beasts," she said. "In order to save myself I underwent the cycle of what you humans call rebirth. I left my original body and formed a new one. However, my recovery was very slow. It took me centuries just to heal a little bit of myself when about a thousand years ago I was found by Salazar. I was still the size of a baby python but my peculiar appearance caught his attention. He took me in, was very careful with me after he realized what I was and what I had been through. He nurtured me and brought me here where with the help of this castle's magic he sped up my recovery."

"And what about the students that you attacked almost fifty years ago?" Harry asked.

Jyava looked away in guilt and regret. "Because of how much Salazar did for me I became his familiar," she said. "For divine beasts, when they choose someone as their familiar it's not just a word of mouth. We connect ourselves with our familiars on a magical level that runs deep into their generational line. Becoming Salazar's familiar made me a familiar to all of the upcoming generations of his blood family. This familiarity also caused me to be vulnerable around him and his blood relatives that forced me to listen to them and never attack them even if they tried to hurt me or made me do things that I didn't like.

"Salazar knew about this vulnerability of mine which is why he never exploited it and kept it a secret from his kids," Jyava continued. "However, about fifty years ago a boy named Tom figured it out after he realized that he was a long descendant of Salazar and while he didn't know that I was a divine beast he exploited my familiarity with his family line and forced me to attack those kids and even kill one. I was forced to comply with his wishes even though it killed me on the inside."

"Can't you just break this familiarity?" Harry asked.

"I wish I could but it could've only been done through Salazar himself – the original person whom I chose as my familiar," Jyava said. "I am now tied to my promise to a man who is no longer in this world. Because of my injuries and recuperation it never came to my mind that humans could be corrupted…except for Merlin. I was too blinded by Salazar's kindness that I thought all of his upcoming generations would be like him. It was foolish of me to presume something like that."

"Then why are you still here?" Harry asked. "Voldemort is still alive and he can control you anytime he wants; letting you lose on the students to get his way. You are nothing but a weapon for him."

"Salazar used this place to heal me," Jyava said. "He knew that it would take a lot of magical power to heal me which is why he needed Hogwarts' magic and the magic of the students who came here to study. However, to make sure that that the magic worked properly on me he needed my own to link with Hogwarts'. He sealed my magic with this place's so that I would heal more quickly. However, he died before he could undo his magic to free me from this place. I am imprisoned here for the rest of the eternity. Unless someone from Salazar's bloodline frees me I can't get out of this place."

Harry looked at her. From her way of speaking he thought that maybe she was telling the truth. "There's no other way?" he asked.

"There is one," Neville/Ethel said, "but it requires her to have a host like Neville is mine. However, being a host for a divine beast is not easy. It takes a heavy toll on the person's magic, especially if it is instantaneous or the merging of the divine beast and the host's magic is new."

"But isn't Neville a host?" Harry asked.

Neville/Ethel looked at Harry for a moment before speaking, "I have been in Neville's family for tens of generations. Each family line has a magical recognition of their own which is why it was easy for me and Neville to accept each other's magic. The same is with you and your father."

"My father?" Harry asked confused. "What…do you mean? Do I also have a divine beast inside me?"

Neville and Jyava exchanged looks before Jyava spoke. "You don't have a divine beast, Harry," she said. "You have a part of Merlin's creation inside of you."

"What?" Harry looked at them completely shocked.

"Merlin called it Yayu," Jyava said. "When we said that we barely defeated it, we actually meant that we somehow managed to imprison it."

"Imprison it where?" Harry asked although he had an idea as to where this was going.

"It was one of your ancestors," Neville/Ethel said. "A powerful witch by the name of Nerilla, she became the vessel of the Yayu, trapping it inside her body and sealing it with a bloodline curse which would ensure that it never got out and would automatically pass on to the future generations of hers after she died."

"So…you mean to say that…that I have this Yayu now?" Harry asked.

"Not entirely," Neville said. "Your father has it. As long as he is alive the Yayu will remain inside of him and won't pass on to you."

"However," Jyava said having Harry's attention, "you also have a piece of Yayu inside of you, too."

Harry looked at her in bewilderment. "How?" he asked.

"We can think of only one thing," Neville said as he and Jyava exchanged look before he sighed. "It was Sven who sent you here with a part of the Yayu's soul that he had managed to break from it when he fought it. He often said that we should use Merlin's creation against him but there never was a scenario where that was ever possible and despite being the cleverest of us all we didn't listen to him because we knew that his plan would never work."

"He suffered the most when he fought with the Yayu," Jyava said. "During his last moments he managed to break off a piece of the Yayu's soul."

"During his last moments?" Harry asked. "He's dead?"

"Not actually," said Neville. "Sven's power allows him to send souls back in time including his own. This allows him to change or correct something that went wrong somewhere in time."

"But wouldn't it change the reality overall?" Harry asked. "What about the laws of time?"

"Those don't work when Sven's power is involved," Neville said. "He is a divine beast and his power to manipulate souls through time is above the laws of time itself. Unfortunately, it was his power that led to his demise when fighting with the Yayu."

"What happened?" Harry asked.

Neville said nothing for a while before finally continuing. "Sven was about to die," he said. He was the first of us divine beasts to face the Yayu and he was defeated badly. By the time we arrived he was on the brink of death. In his final attempt to save everyone he decided to send his soul back in time so that he could warn us about Yayu and Merlin altogether but because of his injuries and near-death conditions we think his powers didn't work like they were supposed to. It sent him to a non-existent plane of reality which you people call limbo. Ever since then he is stuck there. He can't come back. He can't exist in another reality or past. He just exists, if you can understand that as limbo is out of the approach of time. Time doesn't flow in that plane."

"He can still use his powers though but it has reduced to almost nothing," Jyava said. "He is too weak to get out of that place just like we are all stuck in this world. I think he has accepted his defeat which is why he has stopped trying to get out of there."

"But that hasn't stopped him from testing his theory apparently," Neville said sounding annoyed as Harry looked at him confused. "He wants to use the Yayu's power from another reality to defeat the one that is in this one"

"But I thought you said you took care of the Yayu," Harry said.

"We imprisoned it," Neville said, "inside your family line. However, the curse only holds as long as your family has a future generation to pass the Yayu on to in case its current vessel dies."

"And if there is no one to pass the Yayu on to then…"

"Then the Yayu will become free," Neville said finishing Harry's sentence.

"So, does that mean…?" Harry looked at him as he thought about what Neville had just said.

Neville nodded. "When you died in your previous life the Yayu that was inside of you became free," he said. "You are better off forgetting about everyone from that world because no one exists in that world anymore because of the Yayu."

"So Sven wants the Yayu inside me and my father to fight each other?" Harry asked.

Neville sighed. "We never knew what went inside Sven's mind," he said. "He often kept busy with himself and rarely talked to us. Even after coming to this world he lived away from us. He was the most selfish of us all. He never once cared about us and now to prove a silly point he has endangered us all by sending a piece of the Yayu's soul with you to this world as if one wasn't enough for us to deal with!"

Harry could feel Neville's frustration but he still barely had any idea about these divine beasts and Merlin and the Yayu which was inside of him. As he thought about it he remembered what he needed to ask and looked at Neville and Jyava. It was still hard to believe that the basilisk had a name. Was it the same last time and if it was had Harry actually killed a divine beast when he killed the basilisk in his second year?

"What happened to me a few minutes ago?" Harry asked. "It was as if I could feel and see everything but I couldn't control myself."

"That was the Yayu trying to get out," Neville said.

"But that didn't happen before," Harry said, "I mean in my previous life. If according to you I had the Yayu inside me in my past life as well then why didn't it try to get out before?"

"That is because the Yayu that you had before had been passed down to you after your father's death," Neville said. "It was sealed inside of you because of the bloodline curse. The curse keeps a full bind on the Yayu, making it almost non-existent inside its vessel's body. It cannot – in any way – get out or take control over its vessel because of the bloodline curse. When you were killed in your previous life the Yayu inside of you broke out because you didn't have anyone in your bloodline after you to pass it on to. When Sven sent you here he sent a piece of the Yayu's soul with you but unlike before that piece of soul isn't bound by the bloodline curse which is why we think it managed to take control of you. It also makes sense why we divine beasts can sense it and that it can sense us. I could feel your rage when we all arrived at Hogwarts that night and were on the boat."

"I felt angry for some reason that night and I didn't know why," Harry said realizing. "Whenever I was near you I felt angry and even right now I can't stop feeling angry on you and…Jyava."

"That is the Yayu inside of you," Neville said. "It is not bound by the bloodline curse because that part of the Yayu's soul was never sealed. Sven broke it off from the Yayu before Nerilla sealed that monster inside of her."

"Will this happen again?" Harry asked. He was genuinely scared about hurting the people he cared for because of this Yayu.

"It is possible," said Jyava. "With the way we see it the Yayu inside of you is capable of 'seeping out' so I would say yes. I think if you get too emotional about anything in a negative sense like sadness or anger…it might allow him to take control over you."

Harry knew that could be a problem. His temper was one thing he wasn't proud of in his past life. He didn't know how well he could handle it this time. It genuinely scared him. It was like that comic book that he had once read where the main character changed into a raging green monster when he became angry. Harry did not want to end up like that.

"What do I do to stop it?" Harry asked.

"The only thing that comes to mind is for you to suppress it down," Neville said as Harry looked at him in bewilderment.

"I couldn't even control myself a few minutes ago!" Harry said. "How do you expect me to suppress it?"

"Work on your thoughts and emotions," Neville said. "We could see how stable you were with your temper in your past life's memories. I'd suggest you start working on it as soon as possible because otherwise it not only will put innocent people in danger, it will also risk letting them know about the Yayu, about Merlin and about us divine beasts. The only good thing that happened to us divine beasts after Merlin's defeat was that the human race forgot about our existence with time."

"You said there were more," Harry said after a moment's pause. "How many?"

"There are eight of us," Neville said, "although of those eight three are somewhat gone in a manner of speaking. One of them is Sven, the one who sent you into this world with a part of the Yayu's soul. Another one is Atchen. He is the one whose soul was corrupted by Merlin. We don't know where he is and even if we could find him he's a lost cause. The third is Euryale. Her power allows her to sense any impending danger. It also makes her sensitive to all the death that would follow it. Following our war with Merlin there lay nothing but death everywhere we could see. She was hurt the most because of it as she could feel the death of every single person. She decided she didn't want to involve herself with this world anymore and left. Where, we don't know. She hasn't let us know of her location since then."

"You can't locate her?" Harry asked. "Seeing that you are these supreme beings I suppose it's easy for you to find one of your own."

"It only works if we want ourselves to be found by other divine beasts," Jyava said. "We don't blame her because we know how hard it was for her back then. All of us were left wounded and traumatized. It was only worse for her. That is why we decided to let her take as much time as she needs to recuperate from our last fight against Merlin."

"But from what you say it has been centuries since you fought Merlin," Harry said. "Wouldn't she have gotten better by now?"

"Time is different for us compared to you humans," Jyava said. "For us the time of this world flows a lot faster than the time on the spirit realm. That is why for us it has been around two centuries since we fought Merlin but for you humans it's hundreds of times more than that."

Harry nodded understanding. "So…what now?" he asked looking at them both. "I thought I had received a golden ticket to live a life I'd always wanted. Turns out it might actually be worse than my previous life."

"It all existed in your previous life too, Harry," Ethel/Neville said. "You just didn't know about it because you were never directly related to our problems. You were just a vessel for the Yayu just like thousands of your ancestors before you. All we did was, keep a close eye on you just in case you didn't die before having a child and set the Yayu free."

"But I did die," Harry said.

"And as annoying as that might sound," Neville/Ethel said, "Sven brought you back, only to a different reality where now there is a possibility of the Yayu to reunite with its broken soul, making it as powerful as it originally was."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. He saw Neville smile sadly.

"When we fought the Yayu last time we barely managed to defeat it," Jyava said. "With Sven taking off a piece of its soul he made it weaker which was the only reason why we could subdue the Yayu until Nerilla imprisoned it inside herself. Now that you are here with that broken piece of Yayu's soul, if it ever happens to combine with the original Yayu that is inside your father, I am afraid we won't be able to do anything to stop it. We could barely do it before and we are far weaker this time. We are still recuperating from our wounds that we sustained in our last fight against it and Merlin. You are a world-level impending danger waiting to happen. It may be possible that the piece of Yayu that is inside of you is much weaker than the one that is inside your father, but yours is far more volatile and free to take any action if it wants to and I think individually we divine beasts would hardly be able to sustain it."

"Isn't there a way to get it out of me?" Harry asked.

"There is but from what we saw just now," Neville said, "the way it controlled your body, it can only do that if it has bonded with your magic. If we try to remove it from inside of you then you will die. Once that happens, the Yayu's soul which is inside you will merge with the one that is in your father's."

"But he has that bloodline curse that you mentioned," Harry said. "It would keep the Yayu sealed, right?"

"We think it might not," Jyava said. Harry looked at her in confusion. "Like we said before, we imprisoned the Yayu after part of its soul was separated from it which means that the curse used to seal it can only handle an incomplete Yayu – the one that has been passed down in your father's family. We fear that if the Yayu's piece inside you merges with the one that is inside your father then the Yayu will become more powerful than the sealing curse itself and break out. I suppose I don't need to tell you what happens after that."

"So I can't kill myself to kill it," Harry said, "and god forbid if my dad dies…"

"Then as per the bloodline curse the Yayu inside him will be passed down to you," Neville said, "and it will be the same story as centuries ago. Either way we can't do anything."

"Well, there has to be something!" Harry said with his temper rising as both Jyava and Neville moved back a little. Harry realized that he was getting angry again and so he calmed down. He took in a deep breath. "You are divine beasts," he said slowly this time. "There has to be something that you can do. You can't just give up!"

"The Yayu is an abomination," Neville said, "created by one of our own creations. That makes it our responsibility to handle and unfortunately we have failed at that task." He ignored Harry's look of disbelief and continued. "I don't know what Sven has planned but I don't see a way out of it. We are all doomed any way so I'd suggest you forget all of this and start living the life that you were sent to live in this world. Enjoy it while it lasts and embrace the end when it arrives. On behalf of all the divine beasts I apologize to you because in some ways this is our fault. We never should've come to this world, trying to breathe new life into it. All of that has been for nothing. It will all end up in smoke and it will make this world what it was in the beginning – a ball of fire."

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Thanks for reading…