The following fic is a sequel of The Bigger Picture (my first ff), mostly born because I was unsatisfied with how things ended in there, and I realize that there was 0 characterization and proper plot-building in there, so I'll strive to do better here.

In any case, knowledge of my other works is not needed to enjoy this story, I foresee very little references that can't be explained with a small AN at the end of the chapter.

To sum it up, an SI that worked his way through the Potterverse and managed to ascend to a good approximation of godhood world-jumped without his consent.

I own nothing

MAD WORLD

The wind blew, causing the trees on the hills to shuffle. The tall oaks cast long shadows in the snow under the moonlight, reminding the old hermit of his home. He paced around in the tower, thinking, wondering, searching for the answer of yet another question. On the back of his mind, he was aware he had gone mad. He had known that the search for knowledge had long since had its way with his mind, causing his thoughts to fall in spiralling patterns that he had absolutely no control over, making his memories feel like dreams and his accomplishments look like badly drawn squares when he wanted to build a stone house instead.

The hermit wasn't that much opposed to forgetting things, after all, no only they were clearly unimportant (or he wouldn't have forgotten them), but having a mind always fresh and not clogged up with the strands of his previous researches was a boon that allowed him a more free approach to his endless questioning, searching, hoping, crafting.

Of course, with everything was so new, so different, other questions arose, and he looked for an answer to those too. Question after question after question, until he forgot what exactly he was looking for. He was happy, too, and often enough he came to wonder about the nature of the questions he looked to find an answer for. His memory, fluid and not shackled by the heavy constrictions that limited and shaped countless before him, allowed him just what was needed to resolve the impossible questions that he found roaming in his mind.

It was just another day on the decayed tower, or outpost, as he reminded himself in a sudden and clear spark of unadulterated genius. He had liked the place the moment he laid his eyes upon it: broken, ripped and moldy. Clearly, no one had lived there for ages, and given the imortal and eternal nature of his research, he found that it suited him just fine. So he moved in, cleaning up and preparing the insides of the tower along with the improvised garden that occupied a green patch of grass that was covered by the tower's shadow in the afternoons.

Without realizing it, over the years he collected knowledge in the shape of multiple compendiums and books, and slowly but surely, he finally settled down in the once-abandoned tower. He never mended and repaired the outside layers of the tower, not that much because of avoiding snoopers that would have distracted him from his research, but more because he... felt that, something about the tower reminded him of his own mind.

Oh, Tenga son of Ingvar knew that he was mad, the few people with whom he had interacted with in the years had confirmed it in countless little ways, and that was fine too, he also liked the ruin-ish feel of the place because he liked the scattered and apparently meaningless building that was his mind. It just felt right that way.

One night, the hermit woke up as his sleeping body was busy tending to some ones that needed recalibrating in order to better resonate with the phases of the moon when he woke up, his heart racing, his breath irregular. And, more importantly, his mind had found an answer, if not the answer, to a question that he remembered finding in his own mind decades before. With wide eyes and a rictus grin, he twisted the stone just so that the moon casted shadow would form a triangular shape that united his feet with the base of the tower before barking out a laugh.

The instant after he solved that answer, his focus was already on the question that he had almost lost with his laugh. It was a Question among questions, even for him, and the answer, obvious enough once he let himself feel it.

He chuckled merrily as he walked a couple of times around the ruins of his tower, not minding the fact that he was stark naked and that he could have scared off the moonlight itself.

Suddenly Tenga just turned back, his curiosity temporally satiated, and went off to look for another answer. That was not the only time he felt he should remember something. Once, he heard about elves in the woods to the north. He knew elves, didn't he? He was positive he had seen them before.

Now, in this brief moment of sanity caused by the random conflux of events both within and beyond his control, Tenga not only remembered his Question and its answer, but he thought about a way to prove that answer true. He found ironic that, through questioning everything, he had never focused his mind for a long time upon what could o could not be in other lands. No, no other lands, other worlds.

The hermit focused his thoughts and emotions to fuel his will. It was not an easy task, especially considering the particular magic that he was going to accomplish: logic dictated that there were countless living beings over countless worlds, several for each star, different and likely beyond whatever any human or elf or dwarf on Alagaësia could hope to dream of.

And so, his plan took shape, hammered in position by his unrelenting mind and kept lashed by his strangely focused will. Forcing his mind to recall memories that were already beginning to vanish, he fell into a meditative trance. Like countless times before, he accessed the well of energy inside of himself, linking it to the countless charged or half-charged gems scattered across the ruins of his tower, and willed a change.

He could no use words, since there were none to express what nobody had ever even dreamed of, since that even if there were, they would limit what his razor sharp will was capable of.

The first part of his Magic rolled across himself. Searching, forging, opening and declaring.

With a last spasm of consciousness, my heart lurched, and as the tether that tied me to the reality I had so deeply affected broke, I was no more.

He had opened a door linked to Alagaësia itself, now, he only had to make it so that a living being from another world that could live in his one would be selected by his magic.

The emptiness grew to the point of almost madness, and Tenga knew he had to be quick.

His will turned and expanded itself, twisting beyond what could be perceived in a net crossing galaxy after galaxy, time and distances so vast that they were no longer expressed with numbers that Tenga could recognize. Distances that were both a single step away and behind a veil that couldn't be torn.

The second part of his magic bloomed with every point of contact that his net made, testing the ties that the beings that he felt had with their worlds.

Like it happened to me before I was open to another grade of awareness and understanding, my Sight of what was and what could-be once more brightening and singing acoss my soul. My consciousness of everything rippled, turning from a vast tapestry that extended beyond me and with mechanics and colours and twists and nooks and whys into an ever-shifting desert. Yet the dunes that moved as waves without following any rhythm I could discern were composed by grains of multicoloured sand, each shining as the only Truth possible amongst the falsehoods, which were perhaps even more convincing as reality folded itself around knots I could somehow see as I was far away despite being one of such grains myself.

The third part of his magic thundered with finality, imposing an hard limit on those who could come across, and then erasing all but the closest. So the net that had travelled beyond the stars was cut apart, knot after knot, until there were only a few dozens ropes crossing through realities.

Then, the ropes tightened, few of them were snapped with an enraged flash of outrage as the ones that touched refused to comply to Tenga's will, while others simply unravelled, the chosen Beings not meeting the conditions set by Tenga's magic.

As I died, I didn't expect to keep my consciousness for long in the Evershifting Desert that was Everything.

I had surrendered willingly my link with the World-Soul, renouncing to my ability to channel it, I had lost my anchor, and it had been whimsical wishing on my part that had me pack away my stuff on my person, nothing more.

An existential pain, vaster than what mere words could express washed over me, all-encompassing, sharp and gargantuan, oceanic and searing. The grain of sand that I was/had-been/never-will-be shattered into a lower level of existence, and I found my self torn amongst the flowing threads, each an idea, each a river intersecting countless others.

And I was a falling leaf, I was the vibrant green that stole a smile with its brightness, I was a resounding echo, I was a memory, I was shade and rock, wood and wind, chalk and sadness, moon and rage. I was greed and shattered, tall and aflame, swinging and steam.

Again, pain.

And something that I couldn't see pulled.

The song was so loud now he couldn't hear anything else. The worlds spun without purpose, and when the what was and was-not clashed together without control: there was no fear, no tiredness, no lack of enthusiasm, because Tenga, son of Ingvar, was, at the end of the day, completely crazy.

I felt as if falling in every direction.

The ground-breaking emptiness took over Tenga and, for a moment, everything went black. When he opened his eyes, they laid upon a leaf – its delicate webbings were the first thing Tenga saw. They were so exquisite, so beautiful, it made him wonder what made them such. He noticed a weird feeling in his chest – a heartache of sorts.

Frowning, he touched the area, looking for a wound, but found nothing.

A voice screamed in the back of his mind, and he almost remembered something. Almost. But then his attention was diverted back to the leaf and its webbings. He wondered yet again why they were that way. Smiling, he took the leaf and went off to look for an answer to his newest question.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I rose to a sitting position and opened my eyes. It took a few seconds before my one eye could pick up anything from the surroundings, since it appeared to be night and the moon had chosen exactly that moment to hide behind a small cluster of clouds.

Rubbing my palms over my face I rose to my feet, and my hands on the ground more than my other senses informed me that I was in a vast grassland. Here or there, I could see a few trees, mostly oaks, on top of many short hills.

What the fuck? I thought with a heavy frown.

Of all the thing to happen when completing a ritual suicide, I had never expected to end up again on solid ground. Following my theories, My soul should have unravelled and be torn asunder in the greater soul of the World.

Whatever had happened to me, sure as hell I didn't expect nor conceived the possibility of... remaining alive. I frowned some more. Why in the nine hells dd I think that dying was a nice idea? Or an acceptable price to pay?

I felt as if my last years, especially since shortly after Fleur's last clash against Voldemort, were nothing more than a particularly vivid dream, one in which my emotions and hopes were muted, almost sluggish, no it wasn't the right word... everything that made me truly human, especially regarding the natural emotive reactions to the happenings in my life, had been... off colour, paler, almost as if, while I could recognize them, they didn't truly affect me.

I shook my head, trying to free it from its ringing before returning my eyes toward the vast grass planes around me. There was truly nothing in sight, so finding a reasonably tall hill in order to figure out where I was sounded... wise.

I turned on my heel and... stumbled.

What? I tried again.

And again.

Each attempt at Apparition was met with failure.

This is a problem. Was the thought sounding in the calmest part of my mind, while the rest of me was busy freaking out.

I opened my palm suddenly, willing a small fire orb to blossom over it, feeling the fire as a part of me, understanding it, feeling it... nothing.

I was stranded somewhere, the god-like connection to the planet's soul that I had grown used to was gone, and apparently, I couldn't even make use of magic in any way that I knew.

"I seem to have fucked up." I summarized my situation.