','
An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
','
Chapter Thirty Three: The Hand of Prophecy
','
"Can you believe we actually won?"
Sirius looked over at Lily, an odd expression on his face. Like everyone else in the Forbidden Forest they were wandering off together, the groups of people fighting Death Eaters after the loss of Hogwarts Castle scattering to the four winds. The redhead and he had paired up, and once they crested a rise Sirius found himself 'snatch and side-alonged' to a pub in the West Country—the Fox and Hound.
"We haven't won yet," replied Sirius.
"Nah. A matter of time now," said Lily with confidence. "There was something different about this battle. Could you not feel it?"
"...Yeah, I could. Why are you so surprised though?"
"It's the way Harry did it. The ruthless sacrifice of resources to attain his goals. Hogwarts has never fallen in its thousand year history. Not once." Unlocking the back door with an iron key from her pocket, Lily continued, "I wouldn't have done that. On his own, Albus would not have even considered it... Seriously, the symbolism inherent in 'impenetrable castle Hogwarts' falling to an enemy. There's too much... gravity to an event like that."
"And Harry uses it as just one more step in his ridiculous plan..." Sirius chuckled.
Lily walked behind the bar, filched herself two glasses and began pouring a professional pint of dark ale, the head a flawless joint of her smallest finger. Taking a seat at the bar and a long draw from the offered drink, Sirius finally allowed himself to wonder why his friend's wife held a key to this place.
"You know Harry's lying right?" said the Animagus after a moment. "Or at the least, not telling us everything."
"Oh, of course. This plan with the Soul Trap, and what he intends to do with it has too many holes. He's got something tricky in mind."
"Not worried?"
"You kidding me? I'm terrified... but also, sort of resigned. Whatever's going to happen, is going to happen. And it'll work too... probably... I hope."
Bustling around behind the counter Lily dug out a bowl and massive packet of peanuts, scarfing them down shamelessly, as though she'd not eaten in days.
"So why are we here, in a bar, instead of preparing for... this upcoming thing."
"Ah, as to that—" Lily said, biting her bottom lip with a gracenote of nervousness. "This war will be over by sunrise... and once that happens our family will lose a lot of our... what's the word? Erm—, Roman generals had it. Carte blanche?"
"Imperium?" suggested Sirius.
"Yes. That!"
"..." Sirius did not speak for an extended period of time, stonily going back to his pint, but eventually sighed. "You're trying to recruit me into doing something super illegal, aren't you?"
"Nooooo," Lily drew out the word, long and unbelievable. "Well actually yes."
"Dammit!"
"Harry's going to do his thing in two hours, and I've swiped Albus' Time-Turner... so that gives us eight hours, free and clear, while the Dark Lord's people are all occupied elsewhere." She looked fretfully at his mutinous expression. "—and even if we did get caught… Imperium!"
"Why must you do this to me?" he whined. "Can't we just accept we won the war and move on with our lives."
"That's exactly what I'm trying to do," she insisted. "The world is changing. Am I honestly such a villain for suggesting we change it in our favour?"
"Yes," he immediately replied. "You absolutely are. You're plans are never pranks, and I am not getting dragged into another one of your dumb ideas. I still remember Nottingham!"
"That'd been James' fault not mine."
"And you're only saying that because he's not here to defend himself!"
"Forget Nottingham. You're eventually going to have to get over that, you know." Lily folded her hands into the small of her back. "Besides, this is a great idea. And it'll totally work."
"You always say 'it's totally gonna work,'" muttered Sirius, but as always, his curiosity vastly outweighed good sense and historical precedent. "Fine. What is it you plan to do...?
','
Lily picked up the other half of a Mirror she'd stashed on the observation deck of their airship, seeing her son pass by, his step determined but with a pensive expression across his face he wouldn't allow to show had he known anyone were watching. Over Harry's shoulder, and out one window, Lily could distantly see the shoreline of Northern England. Sirius and she had about fifteen minutes to get back to the meeting, and once the Time-Turner was looped around their necks they had a little over six hours.
The clock was ticking.
They'd have had more time but it took her that long to convince "Mr. Padfoot" he really wanted to help. They apparated outside a manor house owned by Gerald Wilkes, immediately springing into action, striding swiftly in opposite directions, careful to stay just shy of the ward-boundary. The witch and wizard looped the property three times before meeting back up at their ingress point.
"Established it?" she asked.
"Yup." Sirius drew a silvery wisp of smoke from his temple, and seized it, absorbing the memory into the length of his wand. Then he fired the squirming energy through Lily Potter's eyes, detailed results of diagnostic charms slamming into her mental landscape.
"Yikes." Her whole body shuddered. "I've been here so many times over the last few months, but these damned wards modulate too quickly for one set of eyes alone."
"Are you okay?" he asked, she didn't look okay. Doing that kind of mind magic was generally considered... unwise.
"I will be. And just think, with luck, we get to do this three or four more times today."
Lily handed him a rough cloth sack and upon closer inspection the man realised there was some rune or sigil burned into the front... though casting his mind back as best he could Sirius was unable to dredge up its meaning from any syllabary he'd ever read. Sort of a large 'S' shape banded by a pair of vertical black bars. He'd ask about it later.
"This is bigger on the inside I assume?"
"We're only after the principle target, but while we're here I see no reason not to... liberate... anything else that looks valuable."
Keeping a sideways eye on a pocket watch as the minutes slid by, Lily walked the whole perimeter one final time, with meticulous detail, a passive observation of aggressive defences... then summoned up a truly terrifying expanse of power... and held it. She continued to hold it, her hair standing on end and the grass beneath her feet beginning to rapidly grow, rising to well above her bare ankles, and after the best part of a minute beneath the increased gravity of such dense and terrible magic—timed it perfectly, and released.
A lance of power smashing into the protection surrounding this ancient manor house. Shatterpoint. Collapsing wards a disintegrating flash of energy that might have been visible from orbit. Exactly the type of thing the Ministry of Magic was tasked to prevent, and had all the funding and monitoring devices necessary to do so. Heh. Under normal circumstances.
"Wow," said Sirius, sarcastic. "Subtle."
"Oh, bite me."
','
"What precisely do you wish to steal?" asked Sirius, resigned to the inevitable, tilting back the last of his drink, a little before they'd set off for Wilkes Manor.
"We've four, maybe five stops," replied Lily, smothering what was almost certainly a triumphant smirk. "A man named Gerald Wilkes stole something called the Hand of Magtherium, at the end of the Second World War. It was thought destroyed, or at the very least lost forever."
"What is it?"
"—Sort of an iron sceptre. Very dangerous."
"—And you don't want it to 'fall into the wrong hands.'" He was giving her a flat look. Lily rolled her eyes.
"Mine aren't the wrong hands."
"What does it do?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted. And she wasn't. Not really. Though it had something to do with unbinding electrons and molecular dispersion. That was off topic however, and likely to steal focus. "There is a stone tablet—the Kattegatt läsplatta—in the possession of Corban and Juliet Yaxley, which I believe holds a key to figuring out a method of Lay Line travel. Moving vast distances in a single step, as if from one room to another. So... maybe through a portal or something?"
"Wait, Lay Line travel? I've heard that one. Bifrost, right? You must know that's a myth."
"Maybe yes, maybe no." She tilted one hand in a rocking 'so-so' motion. "The Deathly Hallows were a myth, and look how that turned out... Once unified they 'Mastered my Death.'"
"That's two, what else?"
"The Delus Dal."
"Gah! Why would you even want—"
"—and Volumes One and Three of Madness and Intent by Koschej Bessmertnij. I already have Volume Two. But the last existing copies of the others are currently being held in a hidden room, behind the library of Nott's Nest."
"How do you know all of this?" asked Sirius, interested despite himself.
"Oh, I've been scouring the country for months. Side project." Lily eyed him frankly. "Think I didn't know about how much help you'd been giving Selene's daughter with her whole 'Salient Lines' campaign? What else was that if not a side project?"
"Hmm." Sirius remained noncommittal. "So, four burglaries in one evening?"
"—If we have time, Aloysius Jennings owns an Infernal Blade, a knife supposedly imbued with the soul—or at least life-energy, as they may not even have souls—of a pit fiend. This is the least important, but might come in useful... because of reasons."
"You just want it because it's shiny," he accused.
"It isn't shiny at all. The knife is alleged to be so black it can be seen clearly even in pitch darkness."
"Wonderful."
Lily grabbed his empty glass and began refilling it from the tap, flawless as always. "If it makes you feel better, every one of these... targets, are confirmed Death Eaters. That's why the Ministry won't do a thing, even in the unlikely event we get captured. Just keep our mouths shut and have a lawyer insist it to have been necessary in finishing the Dark Lord once and for all."
"Do you honestly think we can bypass the house wards on four ancient family homes, one after another?"
"Yes."
"Okay. How?"
"Shatterpoint."
"..." Sirius just stared. "BULLSHIT!"
Lily laughed and laughed.
','
Six hours later she and Sirius shuffled into the meeting room on Caerbannog, their bulging burlap sacks tossed casually into one corner. They'd smacked one another with a scent reducing variant of the Notice-Me-Not hex, burn salve and healing ointment had distinct odours after all, and they really didn't want to get into it right now.
"I doubt there are two people in the world who could have done that," said Sirius, referencing the five back-to-back ward-smitings.
As the first to arrive, the two of them were alone for the time being.
"In the world? I couldn't say. In the Isles it's literally two."
"Hmm," mused Sirius. "The other one is the Dark Lord isn't it?"
"Yeah," admitted Lily. "Although he doesn't. Volde uses a wardbreaking technique called Harmonic Resonance which is far more involved, but also way quieter."
"I've said it before, but you are one scary bitch."
"Thanks."
After a time every member of their extended friends and family trickled in, and each one looked tense beyond words.
"We all ready?" asked Hermione Granger.
There were various murmurs and nods, all seeming to be putting on a brave face.
"Then I guess it's time," Lily nodded at Sirius and smiled toward Albus. "Let's win a war."
','
Harry finished outlining the heroics of his fictional analogue to his young daughter as it faced off against the Jabberwock, and Rose was fast asleep, seeming happy and as innocent as—well, a newborn child actually. Little Rosie Black was fine, her aunt Sarah had been beneath the slumbering protection offered by the dream world for a while already. It was strange to think on the aunt/niece weirdness too much, or that of the two kids, Rose was the elder.
He made his way along the expansive promenades of his home, overlooking the rocky shores of North East England, bathed in the newly waning moonlight of fading summer. It was late but still the same day as Hermione's quote, unquote "Vanquishing" of the Dark Lord, and after a long and pleasant stroll through his airship Harry found himself in the main room.
"I see you've escaped from your adoring fans and admirers Hermione?" Harry asked with a wry smile.
The tangle and knot-haired brunette girl in question mulled over whether or not her friend was teasing her. "That was far and away the most difficult fight of my life," she told him. "I cannot imagine what he'd be like if I were not immune to his magic."
Everyone was present, tired but awake, they were all there. His mother, the youthful Lily Potter. His godfather, the aristocratic Sirius Black. Pretty and always innocent Bella, wise old Dumbledore, and the ever sumptuous Fleur Delacour. The redheaded Tamsyn Riddle, brother not sister, as perverse as that might sound.
"Luna should be here," said Harry after standing in silence for the longest time.
Most of the room grew uncomfortable, as they always did when he brought up the friend they all believed to have died. Harry ignored them as he always did.
"I wish she were here too." Hermione was beautiful, even if she didn't believe it herself, though her response held a patronising tone she likely believed came out as understanding.
Harry just ignored her words and took out the spherical Soul Trap containing a disembodied Dark Lord, moving as he did so to a table they'd prepared beforehand. He intended to enjoy a late repast, following a long and busy day.
Drunken Shrimp was a Chinese delicacy Luna Lovegood had pushed him to try long ago, informing him as she did so, that the crustaceans were "painstakingly harvested from Keanu Reeves' bellybutton." A disturbing mental image certainly, no doubt one of those references she occasionally threw around, taken from a song or more likely movie they'd not yet seen.
Damn time travel humour.
Anyway, marinated in a bowl of fairly strong alcohol—the bottle of Maotai swiped from the blonde's room had been sitting next to the golden fiddle Harry bought her—and then seasoned, the prawns were acting as meal of the day. Oh, and one more thing was kind of worth mentioning, seeing as it was quite important: the Drunken Shrimp were alive when you ate them... yeah.
"Charms in place?" asked Harry, placing the red and while ball next to his bowl, taking his seat.
"Yes Harry," Dumbledore sighed in resignation. The man had an aversion to stupid plans, so he wasn't all that happy. "Compulsions as powerful as I could cast them using the Elder Wand. In his shade form I doubt Voldemort would have strength of will enough to prevent himself attempting possession on your meal."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Fleur cried as he was about to crack open the Soul Trap. She glided over and offered a scorching kiss, enough to make his toes curl, before disengaging with a light flush. "Bon appétit, 'Arry."
The sphere broke open, in shade form the single most dangerous human being alive took control of an alcohol stunned shrimp, and Harry took a bite. This, much like a large number of things he'd gone through in his life, was probably going to hurt.
Bring it on Voldemort. Let the Lord of Chaos Rule!
','
"Hmm... Interesting," Harry mused looking around at the landscape, an unrealised reality, a mental construct, or even something of the soul. "And here I thought this would just be willpower, intent, and the oh-so-common screaming."
Harry was standing tall, older than her really was in formal robes, his dragonhide boots shining a greyish blue which shimmered in a way mundane leather simply couldn't approach. He was wearing his Hack Sunglasses and even though there was no sunlight, or any light at all, he could see perfectly fine, thanks mainly to the illumination that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Acromantula carapace armguards, family crest embossed on left shoulder, and had he been able to see it, a white rabbit crossed by a spanner ornamenting his back and shoulders. Harry had no wand, and could feel no magic, but in his right hand he held and tested the familiar weight of his broad bladed Vorpal Sword.
"Interesting." The well-recognised sibilant tone of Lord Voldemort came from behind him. Harry casually turned to face his opponent, bald and standing at a full seven feet, right in the centre of the Great Hall at Hogwarts School.
"Indeed..." said Harry James Potter, the imposing figure of legend. This was the most hated facet of Harry's personality, carefully repressed around the friendly faces of his closest allies. This was the aspect which took a beating for little Sally O'Connor when Dudley's pathetic friends wanted her juice box, and spurred him on to face a monster of venom and death to save a girl he didn't even know. It never promised he'd succeed, but forced him to try regardless. As there was nobody here save Voldemort, and for the first time in a long time, he let the foolish caricature used as misdirection to show its true form. "—It would appear we have a metaphor on our hands."
"May I ask, Harry Potter, where in the world we find ourselves?" Voldemort enquired with characteristic formality, the last vestiges of his sanity recognising this moment as important.
Harry taped his forehead with an empty left hand, flashing a dangerous smile. "I am going to eat your soul."
Then Harry was behind his prophesied foe, blade swinging down with tremendous power, connecting with Voldemort's thin, impossibly long katana.
There was a clash and the battle was on.
Someone was going to die.
','
It wasn't real. That much was obvious. It couldn't be real for a start. Nevertheless it was the weaving of unreality and impossibility that made it real. Which of course made no sense whatsoever. What was happening both was and was not happening, and once Harry got his head around that, it all kind of fell into place.
The scene the two were standing on shifted with each swing and crash of the combatants' blades. The first connection ripped them from the Great Hall of Hogwarts, and they found themselves standing in a snow bank at a time, or place, or country Harry had never been, visited, nor remembered.
Meaning the battle for body and soul was being waged in a construct created by both villain and hero, dragged from the depths of memory and crafted from Harry and Voldemort in twain.
Dragging his broad blade in a high guard Harry defended against a hammerstroke of force, his opponent leaping from the heights of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, in the Atrium of the Ministry itself. His grip buckled and he twisted sword over and under, a deep gash slashing Voldemort's thigh.
That was another thing.
They could be hurt, here in this world of fancy and make believe.
The wounds they took, they caused real damage, and did not heal. As could be shown by the absent left eye, and doubly scared face of Harry Potter. With a roar of fury at Harry's first connection, the Dark Lord leapt back, forcing most of his weight on his rear foot, standing tall in the lobby of Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
Lord Voldemort lifted his offhand, and charging a green ball over the span of a few brief heartbeats, letting loose a sphere of deadly magical fire at his teenaged adversary.
Diving to the ground and turtling behind broad blade, Harry avoided the wash of heat, and while doing so he released a growl of frustration.
Bastard can use magic too? Fantastic!
','
Okay, this isn't looking good Harry. He was legging it with all his strength throughout the winding corridors of his floating home, his clothes battered and scorched from the fighting. Those one handed fireballs of his are really tipping the balance.
And they were, Harry had managed to separate the Dark Lord from his left hand, but that seemed to do less than nothing to prevent the casually tossed balls of flame. The one piece of potentially good news was that they seemed to be the limit of what magic Voldemort could cast. Harry could cast none at all, but at least he wouldn't have to face some of the nastiness well known to be in the man's arsenal.
Vanishing and reappearing behind the tall snake-like figure, Harry found himself standing in an obsidian throne room, Vorpal Sword swishing to the horizontal, an attempt to cut his upper half from the lower, right in the centre of what was presumably Voldemort's main base.
The Dark Lord was quick, faster than a snakebite, and the long curving blade held in Voldemort's single useful hand managed to block and parry before digging in more than half an inch. With a second twist the two handed grip was torn from Harry's hand, and the blade itself tumbled end over end, impaling deeply into the Heelstone of long broken Stonehenge.
With triumph in his eyes and a smirk on his lips, Voldemort's Vorpal Katana crashed down to end the life of his most troublesome foe.
','
"Get another Blood Replenisher down his throat," Sirius barked in command. His godson's scar had cracked open worse than he'd ever seen, lifeblood pouring down Harry's face. It wasn't letting up, clotting, or being staunched in the least, and the flow rate was becoming dangerous.
With a funnel jammed down Harry's throat Hermione steadily poured the red liquid, Bellatrix holding his head in her arms, blood matted cloth pressed firmly to the gushing wound.
Varied states of worry were on the face of all those in the room, some well hidden, others far less so. Albus Dumbledore was feigning unconcern, the Wand of Destiny held tightly in his strong elderly grip. He was no fool, and neither was Harry when he'd ordered lethal force should Voldemort win, and his body ended up under the control of their enemy.
If Harry did not win, this would be no simple changeover they could reverse. This was all or nothing, life and maybe soul itself at stake.
Five, maybe ten minutes after he began, Harry's body began to convulse. Shaken by fits and thrashing in seizure. This was not a good sign.
"He is losing," said Tamsyn, regrettable confidence lacing her tone. "Bollocks, I am going in."
"You're going what?" Hermione screeched, still careful not to touch her girlfriend.
Tam ignored her, instead pealing back her brother's unseeing eyes, locking brown to green.
The redhead slumped to the ground, heart barely beating, lungs hardly drawing breath.
','
There was an echoing clang, and Harry swiftly came to the conclusion he wasn't dead. Eye cracking open he saw an exasperated Tamsyn Riddle, locking serpentine rapier with her other self, crouching over him with blade high behind her back.
"What took you so long?" Harry asked with a roll of his single eye.
"You mean you expected me to try and possess you?" Tam asked incredulously, anchoring with her legs and jettisoning the Dark Lord across the field, Stonehenge remaining steady as battleground for the first time.
"Well of course," Harry shrugged indifferently, slowly getting to his feet and rubbing the hole where his right ear used to be. "You didn't expect me to do this on my own did you?"
The Dark Lord was back, and the older and younger version of the same soul began fighting in earnest. Harry ignored them for the time being, sauntering over to the Heelstone and his only weapon. Casually propping his right dragonhide boot onto the pale grey rock and gripping the hilt in both hands, Harry pulled with all his strength.
"King bloody Arthur had to do this, it can't be that hard," Harry muttered, clashes and yelps of pain in the distance seeming unimportant.
It came free after worrying at it for an annoying length of time, and Harry fell on his arse, bruising his tailbone. Luckily no one saw, so it didn't count. Spinning around he caught sight of Tam getting her firm little ass handed to her. Left, right, diagonally slashing downwards, each chopping blow barely being deflected as the redhead steadily backed up. She was taking some minor cuts each time, but nothing life threatening.
Harry skulked around the two fighters and came to a startling conclusion. Neither Tam nor Voldemort, and definitely not Harry himself, had any idea how to use a sword! The three had just been wailing on each other like a trio of total amateurs.
"Well, whatever," Harry mused, carefully dropping into a trot toward the Dark Lord's back, jumping high into the air, and both hands bringing down his massive blade with gravity aided momentum... Of course Voldemort spun at the last instant and deflected. "Gods damn it!"
','
"Hey!" Harry laughed at his friend. "I've just noticed something."
Lord Voldemort seemed to be getting better, which was kind of irritating, and they were both sporting some pretty impressive burns.
"What?" Tam asked, dropping into a roll, and nearly falling off the cliff-face they were fighting upon. The location jumping began anew once Harry got his sword back. "And can it wait?"
"Well, it's just that this is a mindscape, a metaphor battle right?"
Swoosh, twist, upward slash, duck behind a tree, they were near the acromantula's clearing in the Forbidden Forest.
"Right, okay. So what?"
"In here you should be able to manifest however you want, correct?" Harry said as if it were obvious, losing a couple of fingers in the process. "Yet you appear to still be in the body of little Ginny Weasley. You really are a girl!"
"You are the only person in the world who would notice something like that at a time like this."
Breathing heavily atop the Astronomy Tower, the pair seemed to be getting the hang of it. They just had to coordinate attacks, using Harry's broad blade defence at every opportunity to minimise the effectiveness of his fire blasts.
"I'm getting tired… Let's just kill this bastard!"
"Yeah," Tam agreed, setting her feet, and reappearing as she did so in the Hangelton Graveyard. "Hey, ugly self! You are going down. I have better things to do, and a girlfriend to fuck. Getting in the way of that is starting to piss me off."
The three ducked, dived, slashed, swung, and stabbed. Taking injuries which should have bled more than they did, losing limbs which should as hurt more than they seemed to, and taking gashes which by all rights ought to be fatal.
Eventually, standing in the Chamber of Secrets, slain Basilisk curled around them, Tamsyn rapier pierced Voldemort's chest, and Harry's Vorpal Sword took his head from its shoulders.
The broken man had no last words, his faux body, metaphor, both real and unreal, dissolved in a shimmer of a thousand specks of colour, beams of light hitting him from every direction. The mist which was left leaped toward the brothers of nigh identical magic, lancing through the eyes, and blocking out all sight.
It was the last either of them knew.