Summary: Continues right after HBP (including spoilers). Harry is about to leave Hogwarts for good by himself against the will of his friends when a memory of something Dumbledore said before pops into his mind. Deciding to take action based on this memory, Harry decides to remain at Hogwarts for a while longer and train a bit more before going into the world on his own. What he discovers afterwards about himself and the world marks the beginning of a war of unimaginable proportions. This is a story inspired by Warcraft 3, Reign of Chaos. Also, a bit of other shows and books are involved such as Magic the Gathering, and Naruto (not enough to actually make it a crossover) is used.
Disclaimer: Do not own Harry Potter
Arthur's Note: It appears that I have some very disturbing problems with punctuality, but I'll say all of my pitiful excuses after this chapter. Also, there's some important things that I want to address at the end, so please read the note there, unless you're not reading this either… Oh well, the next chapter is more important at the moment.
Added Note: I tried to get this up all day yesterday since the afternoon! Sorry everyone, it seems that there were some problems online too.
The Gathering Series Book One
The Gathering Twilight
Chapter Ten:
No Fear No Pain No GainHarry looked around, starting to panic. This really wasn't good. Not only was he stuck in a place with hundreds of little skeleton-like beings that were probably going to kill him as soon as they get the chance, he was stuck without any real weapon to defend himself and he didn't know where he was. He calmed himself before he did anything that he might really regret later. If there was anything his last battle with the deatheaters had taught him, it was that while skill and power won duels, intelligence dominated massive battles. It was a shame that snuffles wasn't here to help him, as a map as well as information on the current scenario with regards to his creepy little enemies.
He quickly thought about what was available to him. He tried to use his two arms for any sign of special skills available to him. To his dismay, he couldn't feel any of the usual powers from them, as they only appeared to have the functions of normal arms, despite (he had lifted up his sleeves) their visual difference to normal arms. His Eye of Erised was still unable to be opened, which left him with whatever meager amounts of hand-to-hand combat skills he had along with his normal eye.
He guessed that if he tried hard enough, he could probably see the Mana around him as well as the source the skeletons. However, he might also cause an accident and lose his only available eye at the moment, and thus loose all sight. That wasn't a good idea. The fountains around him emanated traces of magical power that he could feel, but knowing his luck, the liquid in the fountains would do him more harm than good. He was snapped out of his thoughts from a jerking pain from his head.
It appeared that Harry had forgotten something. His hair. He could finally understand why most pureblood wizards didn't fight physically as much as magically when he saw that one of the skeletal creatures near him had grabbed his hair by the small spearheaded tip and was trying to drag itself out with it. Harry clenched his teeth and swooped down quickly before landing a punch to its head with his Un-Arm.
Surprisingly, the creature showed no signs of being damaged or in pain, though it did let go of Harry's hair. The other surprise from what just happened was that Harry felt a shattering pain where his chest was attached to his metallic (it had reverted from its stone form) arm. Harry quickly took his braided hair in his other hand, holding the spear tip like a dagger, before he got up and began to run towards the surrounding forest.
That was his only choice at the moment. There wasn't anything that he could do right now since if even his punches with his Un-Arm were ineffective, there was no chance that he could do anything else to effectively hurt the skeletons. Before long, Harry was deep into the forest, and he could hear that he was being followed through the rustling behind him.
From the sounds of it, those critters were pretty fast. In fact, they were faster than him. Applying logic, this meant they were catching up. Pumping all the energy he could into his legs, he ran faster and faster, before he came to what he thought was a cliff of some sort. It was too late to stop, as by that time he could side glance some of the skeletal creatures that were now flanking him. The moment he saw them, he wished he hadn't, as he saw strips of decomposed flesh as well as organs in their white shell-like bodies.
When he noticed the edge, and tried to stop, his enemies behind him didn't and resulted in pushing him along with a few of them into the giant-sized fissure. Before he knew it, he was falling faster than any broom or dragon into what he thought would be his end. It was then that he felt the most fear that he had ever experienced in his life. It was worse than Dudley and his bullies, worse than dementors, and even worse than Voldemort.
He mind briefly thought about the prophecy protecting him, but somehow it brought him more fear. Something wasn't right. It was almost like the crevice itself was telling Harry that he was going to dies, as it that was the entire purpose of everything so far in his short-lived life. His eye widened, and he almost felt the magic pulsing out of him in his fear, as if responding to the situation and trying to get out of his body to escape the inevitable result of this scenario.
Harry felt the fear overcoming him, as if begging him to yell, cry, or anything to show his desperation to live. It was as if there was something to be proved by giving in, giving in to how much he feared death, giving in to all that he doubted or worried over. There seemed to be no hope, nothing. And then, it happened. He felt his magic pulse once more, this time more like reacting to some kind of stimulant in a chemical process. There were voices in his head, muttering incoherent nothings into his ears. Then time seemed to slow down as Harry kept staring at the bottom of the crevice, covered in darkness so as to taunt him as to what he would find there.
As time finally seemed to come to a halt, Harry felt a force fighting his fear. It was himself, he knew. It was some small part of him that had been dormant all these years. While everything right now was trying to get Harry to admit how much he feared death, this inner version of himself fought passionately and proclaimed how much he valued life. It was then that Harry seemed to understand his greatest fear. It wasn't death it self as much as the fact that Harry couldn't fulfill his goals for living.
What his goals were and what they meant were lost to Harry at the moment, but he understood one thing about himself more now than ever before. Death can come, and death can torment him, but it will not beat him while he had a reason (which he doesn't know, but that was trivial) to live. He though of all of his friends, and those dear to him who had died so he didn't have to. This caused a sudden thump in his heart as he felt the newly awakened part of him merge with him completely.
Along with this feeling, time seemed to resume, and he was falling once more. However, this time, instead of dread, hopelessness, and fear, Harry felt calm, whole, and an overwhelming desire for power to prove that he deserved to live. Then he felt the new changes to his body. It, unlike in Dumbledore's office, was an internal change. He could feel what seemed like a second heart next to his, and he became almost painfully aware of pathways similar to his blood veins and arteries that circulated throughout his body.
He understood. He didn't know how, but he did. These were pathways for his magic and Mana. It was probably how some people did wandless magic, or did any magic for that matter, by channeling their magic through these pathways. He thought that most people probably didn't feel them like he did, but it didn't matter. This was helpful to him. This helped him control and channel his magic, and he would not waste such a gift.
Turning around in the air so that he was facing the rocky wall of the cliff he fell from, he took a deep breath and concentrated within his "second heart", his magical core. He felt around for the magic, hoping to find something that felt would save him right now. He felt the blue controlled Mana coming to his command, but it didn't feel like what he needed. He felt the almost venomous black Mana trying to dominate him and be released, but he didn't feel they would help either. Then he felt the red Mana. It went perfectly with how he felt at the moment, how he wanted to prove himself - his endless desire and passion.
Channeling the red Mana into his Un-Arm, he smashed his fist into the wall as he kept falling down. There was a great red explosion and Harry was dragged downwards as his gathered momentum kept on forcing him to fall. This resulted in his Un-Arm cleaving a gigantic gash on the rocky surface, with debris falling all around him. This kept on for a while, with Harry keeping up with channeling red Mana and the occasional dose of raw magic if there wasn't enough Mana into his arm. Unlike when he had punched the skeleton before, he didn't feel any pain from the Un-Arm.
When Harry finally stopped falling and was just hanging with his arm stuck in the rock, he took a minute to gather his bearings. Panting, Harry felt the earlier adrenalin had faded, and he was calmer now. Harry saw a small nearby ledge, just big enough for him to lie down on. It was luckily under him, a bit to the left. Harry worked his arm out a bit, and then with precision he didn't know he had, he swung himself onto the ledge, panting. Harry realised that it was foolish for him to jump, as the ledge could have given away and break off, but it thankfully didn't.
Finally feeling all of the earlier adrenalin disappear into nothing, Harry soon found himself drowsy with an incredible urge to close his eyes. He was just about to nod off into sleep when a strong cold gust of wind come from above and effectively ended any sleepiness in his system. The wind also brought something else though. That is, Harry caught the sound of harsh scraping sounds from above him.
Squinting with his only available eye, Harry nearly swore at what he was. The army of skeleton creature was crawling down the sides of the crevice that he was in and approaching him. It was like they were casually walking vertically. Not understanding what was going on, and knowing that this had at least something to do with magic, Harry willed himself to see the Mana that these creatures used. After all, they definitely weren't natural creatures, so they had to use magic… right?
To Harry's relief, he was indeed right, as his vision changed such that instead of being white, the skeletons' bodies appeared black with small wisps of blue and red hovering about them. What really caught Harry's attention, however, were the concentrations of blue around the claws and feet of the critters. It appeared that they were using blue Mana to hang on to the rocky surface. He was about to study them some more, when he realized that they were nearing him at a very fast pace.
Knowing he had to do something, and to be honest he was curious about walking on the walls, he carefully placed his feet onto the wall (he was still lying down on the ledge) and reached within his blue Mana core to start channeling it to his feet. Walking upwards a few paces, but being careful not to get too close to the advancing army, Harry was happily surprised to find that he was walking up the wall. He was so happy, in fact, that he forgot what he was doing for a brief second and had a quick and brief fall back on the ledge.
'Guess I really should concentrate huh?' Harry thought to himself as he once more applied the Mana to his feet. This time, carefully going around the ledge until he was only holding it and was facing downwards towards the dark bottom of this giant hole, he took a quick look behind him at his approaching enemies before he let go and began to run down, away from the following army.
It was a few minutes after he started to run that he realized that he wasn't really in control of himself anymore. He was running faster and faster, so much that he wasn't sure if he could stop. He hoped putting a bit more Mana might slow him down, but when he did that his right foot (the one he tried this on) seemed to burst away from the wall and instead of sticking towards to wall seemed to repel it.
Readjusting his footing quickly, Harry began to run again and just go with the flow as he tried to figure out how to stop when he came to the bottom other than just crashing into the ground. The time passed quickly and before Harry knew what was happening, he found himself staring at the bottom of his descent. Knowing that he couldn't try to stop like he did last time, he tried what he knew worked.
Focusing on his red Mana core once more, Harry relived the adrenalin rush that had accompanied the Mana the first time and repeated his earlier action – he slammed his Mana enforced Un-Arm into the wall and forcefully stopped his fall just a feet or so away from the ground. Releasing his hold once more, Harry dropped ungracefully to the ground and promptly fell on his back to catch his breath.
Looking up, he was glad to not see any of the skeletons, but he knew that they were still coming for him. He surveyed his surroundings for anything that could help him but only found dry land and a few rocks around. There were also bones and the occasional skull (probably from the first skeletons that fell with him), but that wasn't really helping much. Taking a deep breath, he relived Dumbledore's instructions. He was supposed to fail whatever this was in order to teach himself something. He wasn't even sure what counts as fail and what counts as passing.
Seeing that he had no choice but to fight now, as there wasn't any place left for him to run to, he pondered about how to fight. The only thing different between now and when he first started was a bit more information, and the awakened ability to cast some form of wandless magic (that was what he thought he had been doing) through his body. Knowing that his only option was to fight with his Mana, Harry tried channeling different combinations and amount to see what would happen as well as increasing the amount of Mana he could channel. He was going to give it his best, and he'll be ready for whatever the old goat sends him.
Dumbledore reappeared where he left Harry a while before, and promptly cast a spell to see what happened before and what was happening now. After about two hour's worth of action compacted into 5 minutes entered his mind, Dumbledore vanished and reappeared behind a rock near where Harry was at the moment. The boy had been experimenting and was now in a self-taught meditative stance seeming to practice channeling Mana throughout his entire body without wasting a single bit by not expelling any. He had to admit, the amount of control Harry was displaying was most impressive, but the moment of truth had come as noises from above caught his attention, though apparently not Harry's. He waited to see what was going to happen.
Harry felt the calm in his body even when he heard the approaching enemy. He had spent the last hour and a half experimenting, training, and finally calming and focusing his mind to prepare himself for the battle that was to come. He knew he was going to be surrounded from all sides since that was the way the enemy was advancing. His best chance was to cleave a path through them and place himself so that he would be facing all of his opponents. With that said, he allowed himself to add more raw magic into his Mana core as well as add more Mana to what he was already channeling around his body, giving him a small golden aura as all five Mana were mixed.
He was ready, and those little bastards were going to pay. As soon as the skeletons came within a two-feet radius of him, he released all of the Mana he had been circulating around his body. The results were immediate, as several dozen seemed to completely dissolve into nothing.
Harry smirked a bit as he got into what he thought was a fighting stance and charged both his arms with red Mana and a touch of white. After all, Blue did tell him that white beat black Mana any day. Another happy note was that when he had experimented with the two colours before, he learned that a LOT of red plus just the right amount of white caused rather… explosive results.
With those thoughts in mind, Harry rushed towards one side before the skeletons could gather their bearings for another attack. With his Un-Arm, he bashed, smashed, and destroyed all that were in his way. He was glad that it was working so well. Knowing that his Un-Arm could take more damage and handle more force, Harry had channeled just enough red and white Mana into it to cut through the enemy like a hot knife through butter.
However, what pleasantly surprised Harry were his more human arm's results. Knowing that it couldn't take as much impact as his Un-Arm, Harry used the explosive red-white (he refused to call it pink) combination with that hand, wanting to cause damage more with Mana than with force. Harry had slipped his control a bit as he wasn't just like practicing before but was now in an actual combat situation. He had added a bit black into the mix by accident and the result… BAM!
A giant explosion followed by the sudden appearance of a giant white fireball was Harry's gift for his efforts. That explosion had to have taken at least a good hundred of the skeletons. Seeing an opening, Harry rushed past the skeletons around him and turned around to face all of the remaining opponents. He was satisfied with the destruction that he saw, as flesh and bone were everywhere along with wisps of his Sacred-Fire (what he had named the white flames he produced) burning merrily here and there.
He almost laughed when he saw what was happening to the survivors of his "Sacred-Fire" blast. It appeared that while physically strong and capable, the creatures didn't have much of a brain. The surviving ones had the white flames burning right on them and they were running around screeching in agony. This meant that the survivors bumped into other skeletons, and those skeletons caught fire, and so forth.
Harry almost thought that the fire would be enough to wipe out all of his enemies when he saw a second fire-less wave of skeletons approach him. Harry smiled a bit. His red and white (he never did have a lot of white to work with in the beginning so even a little bit like he had used was a bit straining) Mana reserves were slowly refilling, which meant that he couldn't pull off what he just did a while ago. However, that didn't mean he didn't experiment with his other colours of Mana.
Focusing black and green Mana into his lungs, he brought his hands around his mouth to direct the path of his next newly invented technique. Gathering the biggest breath of air, so much that his cheeks seemed like those of a frog's, Harry let out the breath, but instead of air, it was a dark green and purple cloud of gas that was directed to the approaching undead. Upon contact, the skeletons started to shriek even louder than those that were burned with the Sacred-Fire.
'Mix the right amount of black and green Mana, and through a fluid medium, and wham! You have instant acid. I learned that the hard way.' Harry thought with a smirk as he looked at a slight burn on his Un-Arm where he accidentally turned sweat into acid and burned himself.
Looking around, feeling magically exhausted but physically fine, Harry reassessed his situation. Things were looking good, there was probably only about half of the enemy left and they were busy running from the fire-infected undead as well as the remnants of his acid gas cloud. He was out of green and white Mana, probably only enough to a minor physical wound (something else he had discovered). He had around half of his red and black Mana, and a full reserve of blue. Victory was looking really good right about now.
That was until something caught his attention. On the other side of the battlegrounds, was a skeletal figure much unlike the rest. It was wearing a black mask, red robe, and holding a staff with a ram's skull at the top of it. With a swish of its staff, and a burst of black Mana (Harry could see), it extinguished his Sacred Fire and Acid Cloud before gathering all the remaining skeletons.
The figure said something in a rough language before a sudden white and black rune circle appeared beneath him and his army. After all, it was only logical to assume that this guy was the head. In a flash of dark silver light, instead of an army of skeletons, there was a giant skeletal creature armored with bones and armed with two giant white spears. The figure in red robes stood atop its creation before seemingly to melt into it as a red diamond shape appeared on the giant's forehead.
Moving surprisingly fast, the giant soon had Harry in its grasp and was soon choking him. At the same time, it brought one of the spears from its back to the front and held the spearhead towards a now suffocating Harry.
Knowing that he had to act fast, Harry forced all the red, white, and a bit of black Mana he had through his entire body. Making him effectively appear like a light bulb to the giant. As soon as he had gathered enough, he released it all in an explosion of Sacred Fire. The gigantic skeleton gave a bellowing roar as its entire left arm was decimated. Harry knew that he couldn't stay on the ground and had to quickly come up with a plan to deal with what he hoped was his final opponent in this little skirmish.
Directing the calm blue Mana that he seemed to have a lot left of, Harry quickly dashed up the walls channeling what he could of red and green Mana once in a while to empower his legs. Soon, he was running up the wall almost as fast as he was running down it not too long ago. As Harry expected, the giant applied its own Mana to its remaining three limbs and gave chase.
After about fifteen minutes, though it seemed like hours to Harry, he quickly turned around to face his approaching opponent. 'It's true that I can't beat you with what I have left,' Harry thought grimly before a small smile graced his lips, 'but that doesn't mean I can't use other forces to fight you!' By the time he had finished his thoughts he had gathered enough black Mana to make his left palm seem permanently black.
As the giant skeleton was reaching too close to him for comfort, Harry gave one quick and hard push with Mana-enhanced legs backwards (upwards) and brought his left palm down, releasing a calm wave of black death-like Mana towards his enemy. The giant opened its mouth and seemed to laugh before surprising Harry by actually speaking. "Foolish little boy, how can death harm the dead!"
Harry smirked at that; he wasn't planning on using a black Mana wave to hurt a black-Mana based creature. While each Mana is destructive in its own right, especially black and red, ha had guessed (and correctly at that) that they were almost useless against creatures of the same Mana colour. However, Harry was aiming for something else. "Sorry, I guess I forgot something." Harry said innocently as he then held up his right palm. 'Now, to make things go off with a bang!' He thought as he shot a small spark of white and red Mana towards the black wave. Harry had on purpose made the new colours travel much faster.
Upon contact with the black Mana, the wave began to pulsate violently as it continued to heard towards its target though with much more malicious intent than before. The giant seemed confident that it wouldn't hurt him. Thus, it didn't move as the wave struck not it, but the wall on which it had attached its limbs. Eye sockets apparently widening, the giant realized what was going on too lat as it was soon falling towards its doom. It didn't help when giant pieces of debris caused by the explosion fell surprisingly faster than the giant itself as they smashed into the undead being.
To make sure that the giant was really down for good, Harry gathered all the remaining Mana he had left and expelled a golden beam towards his enemy. Upon contact, there was another explosion, this time on the giant itself. Harry landed prematurely on one of the still falling rocks, hoping to use it as some kind of cushioning for his own fall. He didn't have enough Mana of any kind left to stop his fall like before.
Harry contented himself with a triumphant smile as he watched the giant fall in pieces below him before he saw another rock falling besides him. His eyes widened at the implication and he turned his head quickly to above and saw more debris towering over him. It appeared that the explosions were so great that the rock above Harry had dislodged from the walls as well. 'You have to be shitting me!' He cursed in his mind as his world was engulfed in pain as his body was literally squashed between a rock and a hard place (though both were technically rocks). Then all he could see was black as he fainted from the overexertion and pain.
A/N: There! I hope this chapter was much better. However, I've been thinking about some things. While SOME of my chapters might be good, I'd say the over all flow is pretty dismal. I don't want to abandon this story, as I've already had two failed ones and other on hold so I can concentrate on this one, but it might be a good idea for a re-write. I was debating this since I updated last time, which is one of the reasons this chapter's late. I also took to writing over a number of days instead all in one go like I did before. I found this really relaxing and I hope that shows in this chapter. I'm still not too sure about restarting, because I have so much of this planned out I don't want to forget anything if I choose to rewrite.
On a separate note, there's a new topic for discussion I'd like to ask whoever is reading. Do you people like more diverse plots and scenes or just focus on one person (Harry)? I'm asking this because some people have told me that the story is too confusing with everything going on at once and there are so many things to keep track of. But I don't want to make the entire story revolve around JUST Harry, which can tend to get a bit boring. I know personally that when I read I especially don't like it when authors write about sub-pairings when all I really care about is the main pairing.
That aside, there's been an anonymous review that said that he/she doesn't understand my characterization of the characters in my story. I can't really say anything to justify Ron or other "lesser" characters because I forgot my mindset when I wrote about them, but Harry's behaviour is something I thought very hard about. I'm not sure if anyone else felt this, but after reading so many fanfiction with Harry reacting so strongly towards Sirius' death and then the Sixth book came out with Harry not seemingly affected by it at all… I got this image in my head about a more unfeeling Harry. I guess I'm always deciding whether or not that should be it, so Harry seems to have split personalities a bit at the moment. But for now, I'm going to chalk it up to the different Mana affecting his thought processes.
I believe that's the most of what I wanted to say. I'm not going to set a date for the next update because that'll probably only give me added pressure while disappointing whoever wants to read the next chapter.
Anyways, thanks to everyone who've reviewed, and Fredryck, I'll be contacting you soon (if you're reading this) about your ideas and such. I really appreciate your inputs and ideas, and your idea really intrigued me and I'll be honest when I say I didn't think about it. Anyways, I wanted to get this chapter up first so I hope there are no hard feelings on that. TheIllusiveOne, I'd be really interested in your opinion on characterization of the Harry Potter characters, if you have the time. I would really appreciate others opinions. This invitation of course goes out to everyone, so feel free to give all your comments, good or bad.
That said, I've had a LOT of new ideas for fanfics, but I don't have the time to start any of them. So if you're either interested in: Inuyasha, Pokemon, Naruto or Golden Sun and need an idea to get you started, I have some challenge fic ideas for you (though you will have to write main character/many pairings though lemons are NOT necessary). I only ask you to mention me in the credits of the story, and then you have free reign other then my challenge requirements. So contact me about that if you're interested.
That should be all, thanks to everyone reading, and I'd appreciate a review on your thoughts, and it doesn't all have to be compliments.
U-T Signing off…