Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero

Chapter 26 – The Rightful Heir

To be with her again I will have the
perseverance of a bulldog, but it seems to
me the training is unnecessarily hard.

~~Odd Thomas

August 14th

Lord Voldemort stood with a quiet fury in what remained of the ruins of his mighty fortress. Dust, ash, and scattered rubble that had once been a towering monolith a mile high. He had returned here just ten minutes ago, after Potter had forced him to flee on the 11th.

That had been an embarrassment.

For the moment the eternal storm the Dark Lord had created some time ago had abated over the smouldering valley and the gushing Loch Leven.

Voldemort had commanded it so. Those furious clouds were slowly spreading across the island of the United Kingdom, and would soon reach beyond it. In time, the storm would coat the entire planet in a sheet of impenetrable darkness.

In time.

Voldemort had returned to this valley in order to bring the five thousand Inferi, as well as a fair amount of other dark creatures, to his new fortress. An old castle long since forgotten by the world. Another relic of Salazar Slytherin, though nowhere near as impressive or impenetrable as his main fortress had been.

He had returned – and found the valley scoured of all life, in his service or not. Just parched and blistered ground that still burnt from whatever had happened here. A pale mist hung in an inversion just overhead, and the light bounced across it casting pale shadows for miles around.

His anger barely tempered, Voldemort's presence had a negative effect on the light under the low clouds. Instead of highlighting him for the world to

see, the light was sucked into him – in a way – it faded around him, destroyed in the blanket of darkness that shrouded him.

"Potter….?" he mused, glancing around at the devastation in the valley. A grim smile marked the snarling face of the Dark Lord. "It has your flare,

Potter, but perhaps it wasn't you… You had a hand in it, I think, but an indirect one. Well…"

The thunder returned, as did the bulging purple storm clouds, all with a thought and the light of the sun was washed away. Voldemort revelled in the darkness, as the clouds began to shine crimson with the waiting lightning.

"An eye for an eye, Potter – an eye for an eye," Voldemort continued, to himself and to Harry. "I think it time to call the demons out from their eternal

prison. See how you fair against them, Potter, wherever you're hiding. See how this world fairs…."

Voldemort raised a skeletal hand to touch his forehead, and ran a thin finger down it in the spot where, on Harry's head, his infamous scar burned.

There was no connection to Potter now, however, and that was cause for concern.

He wasn't dead – Voldemort could be certain of that much, for only he could truly kill him. But it seemed as if the boy had found someway of… numbing their connection, hiding it. Voldemort could no more see into the boy's head than Harry could see into his.

Interesting… concerning…

No matter – the Darkslayer­ would show himself when the sky above this planet was torn open into the void, and the swarm of demons from between all worlds began to flood in. Potter would show himself then. He was too much a hero not to.

*~*~*~*

August 19th

"You've a keen mind for this, Ronald," Godric Gryffindor smiled, clapping the young Weasley on the shoulder. "A natural talent – better than some life-long campaigners I've known."

Ron nodded, accepting the praise with more than a faint blush. He and Gryffindor, and Dumbledore and Hermione, as well as a group of other Order

members, stood and sat around the meeting room at Grimmauld Place. Ron and Gryffindor were pouring over maps and planning future battles, as they could play out.

Scenario practice.

"Harry thought the same," Ron shrugged, more than a little awed that Godric Gryffindor, one of the greatest wizards ever, thought that he was doing a good job. "Gave me a couple of books to read on tactics and logistics, planning for war."

"The Darkslayer…" Gryffindor mused, his eyes flickering away across all of the space between time and universes, and back into memory. "The greatest warrior that ever lived, in any realm. Countless billions would march under your leadership if they knew that Harry Potter valued your planning so much."

"Well… don't know about that…." Ron mumbled. "I'd rather be on the front lines, fighting, than anywhere else. That is where I'll be, in the end, next to Harry."

Gryffindor sighed. "We've all parts to play – mayhap it will end how you wish, Ron."

"I hope so," Ron said, scratching the back of his neck, and gazing across the room at Hermione. "I get this feeling that… maybe… it's all going to end in tears. What do you reckon?"

A thin smile appeared on Gryffindor's face and then was gone a heartbeat later. "If there aren't tears, then it won't be the end. Nothing ever ends with happiness. A sad truth, but an unchangeable one. It is the way of the universe."

Ron ran his hand down a long map of empty land, the hills around the Lake District in the north of England. Having a battle in there would be like getting lost in a maze. The ground was so hilly and broken that two armies could miss each other entirely at a quarter of a mile.

"Is it? Well… there's something wrong with that. But I can't change it… Harry though, if he set his mind to it, could probably do something about that."

Across the room, Hermione was speaking quickly and quietly with Dumbledore. Like Ron, she had half spread sheets of parchment and paraphernalia littering the tables before her. Some of it was resource forms, order forms, and whatnot. Others were written in Harry's short and cramped script, covering several feet of parchment.

Written in Harry's hand hastily… and containing the most advanced knowledge in the world.

"It's an engine," Hermione said, speaking to Dumbledore, who stoked his beard thoughtfully. "A magical engine, powered by pure magic and those larger crystals. It can be used to make things fly."

"Fly?"

Hermione nodded. "Muggles use a very, very primitive form of this design here on their airplanes. The big jumbo jets. What Harry has here are those engines… a century or two down the line. Clean, efficient, light weight, maintenance-free… they're powerful enough to pull something as heavy as

Hogwarts, too. This," Hermione tapped the parchment. "This is the future."

"What do you suggest we do with it? Dumbledore asked.

"Why, build it!" Hermione exclaimed. "We could reverse engineer it, create it from a reserve of light metals. Harry's written down the incantations, and we have some of his power stored in dozens of those crystals. We can do this, put it on our own airships… The Twilight Air Force. Look, Harry had it all planned."

"I can see…." Dumbledore mused, still stroking his beard. "The cost would be extraordinary. Even for just one of these…" He read one of Harry's notes and grinned. "…flying fortresses."

"It will be worth it," Hermione assured the headmaster. "We can take basic designs from the muggles, make them better, and add Harry's engines in place of whatever propulsion they had before. The best minds in the world would pay to work on something like this. Pioneering the future of modern technology."

"It all comes back to time," Dumbledore chuckled. "How little we have, how to use it, and what to do when the end comes. Ah, Harry, we need you now more than ever."

Hermione sniffed at that, even though she knew it to be right and true. They could do a lot without Harry's help, however. It didn't always have to be

Harry – that wasn't fair on him. No, Voldemort wasn't as powerful as he'd have everyone believe, and his servants were still only human… most of them… Yes, there was definitely plenty to be getting on with without Harry.

"We'll come back to the air force," Hermione said, distracted, leafing through her folders and files. "What we need to talk about next is the politics of the war. Harry wanted ambassadors sent to the governments worldwide that are either wavering, or haven't declared themselves against him. I think this is best handled by our Ministry, and not the Australians."

"That is… wise," Dumbledore said, thinking deeply. Half his life had been spent working the intricacies of politics, both wizard and muggle, and he knew that the Australian Ministry wasn't looked upon with friendliness these days, since it had been overrun by Harry and the Twilight Guardians.

"No, you are right, Miss Granger. The British Ministry had best approach the international community with missives from Harry's… faction."

Was what Harry had rightly called a faction? Hermione wondered, once again leafing through her file for the next item on the agenda. Her eyes were puffy and red around the whites. She wasn't getting enough sleep, she knew, not by half. Harry never sleeps more than an hour or two…

Well, if he could do it.

Ah, but he's Harry, a voice in her head, that sounded a lot like Ron, told her calmly. All bets are off when it's Harry.

Hermione swatted away the voice angrily and stifled a yawn. "Next," she said. "Food rations for the encampment of Harry's… faction… in the Australian desert. He's feeding ten thousand people three times a day down there. Now, that number is more than manageable, but I've also seen what's being built there."

"Oh?" Dumbledore raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Homes to house thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe. Perhaps even millions, if the contactors keep building and magically expanding the

buildings as they have been doing. There are enough resources to feed ten thousand, but a hundred thousand? A million? This is a problem that needs to be solved now… because…."

Dumbledore nodded his understanding. "Because when it happens, there is going to be a surge of people suddenly finding themselves housed in

Harry's city. Refugees from many countries, no doubt. Those from Ministries he can get on his side at the very least. A lot of people, magical and muggle, and they will need feeding."

Hermione shook her head. "I just don't see where we're going to get the money for all of this. Harry's nearly bankrupt himself as it is, and that's also using the funds he's in control of at the Australian Ministry. Probably very soon the money won't even matter, but it does now – and we need to be prepared for when it goes down the drain…."

Hermione's voice trembled at the end there and she cursed her own fear. Dumbledore gently placed a hand on her shoulder, in that grandfatherly way he did things, and laughed softly.

"As with most things in life, Hermione," he said, "there is a simple answer to the problem, should we be patient enough to look for it."

Hermione nodded, taking a calming breath. "What do you suggest… Albus?"

The twinkle flared in Dumbledore's eyes. "What would Harry do?"

"I wish I could ask him," Hermione whispered. "But I don't know where he is."

There was a lot to do, and very little time to do it in. It seemed for years they had had nothing but time in which to prepare in, but now that it came down to the last move the players realised that they didn't even know how to play the game, and the only one that had any idea was off… hunting the dead.

Chess – war could always be likened to chess. The only difference was that the playing pieces actually possessed souls. They were real people, with real hopes and dreams, fears and regrets. Each had led a life, thought their own thoughts – were the main character in their own damn story.

And now war, on a scale the likes of which had never been known, was threatening every story ever written, and those still in production. Would be that the heroes rise up to win the fight, and save Creation?

Was it worth saving? No, not at the moment.

But there was good there, perhaps, and that would shine before the end. It would grow so dark that the thin film of light that was hope would be seen before the end, and that hope was Harry. Death was a world away, connected always to mortality and then again nowhere at all. Harry was in Death, had duelled with Death, was Death.

Perception, reality, of death, was no more real than anything else. And all that was, perhaps, real – or had been once – was melting as the fabric of existence rotted at the seams.

But still, the story will out. The theme and the morals might be so many, or none at all, that it has ceased to matter. It was all about survival now – not of the fittest, but of the deserving. And the deserving would be the side that wanted it more. Good or Evil, it didn't matter, it was all Destiny.

*~*~*~*

A whirlwind of tempestuous fire.... that was Harry as he entered the Veil, the Final Gateway between life and death. A calm, but utterly violent and terrified storm of raw and furious emotion that shook the very foundations of whatever realm he now stood in.

A threnody – a lamentation for, or maybe of, the dead – was playing in his ears, behind his eyes and deep inside of him. A slow, bitter wail that was at once perfect and broken.

Harry had entered the world of the dead, and it was dark – maybe that's how he wanted to see it – and there was nothing.

Nothing but darkness and a rising feeling of potential, of power, and of greatness. He had done what no other had ever done, and he'd done it for love – for the right choice. There was an ethereal glow in this place, in the darkness, and Harry realised it was coming from him.

He was the light… only Harry, only ever Harry.

His footsteps left ghostly imprints on ground that had never been trodden by the living, and there was a rising light in the east, a pale stretch of dawn

across some vast unknowable horizon. Harry walked towards it, not caring if it took him a thousand years to reach it. And it might, or it might only be seconds.

Wraiths, ghosts, souls of the dead and of the dying walked alongside him. Half glimpsed out of the corners of his eyes but disappearing when he turned his head to try and stare at them. They were staring at him, at his life force and the shining, blinding radiance of his aura, which would have paled the very sun.

The dead knew him, saw the Darkslayer, and were awed by his presence. For the dead are given special insight into the workings of creation and time upon their entry into this realm, and Harry Potter was a key player in the workings of life and death, both sides of the coin of existence.

Besides the genuinely dead, there was a corrupt stalking the lands of this world, this realm. And being drawn by Harry's aura, and by a connection to an old enemy, the destroyers of all things arose before the Darkslayer.

Harry felt them on the back of his neck first. A tingling, freezing sensation that rushed down his neck and through his spine. The eyes of the dead… no, the pain of the living. The Suffering of Creation.

Out of the shadows furious crimson eyes were born, created from shadow. Millions of tiny pinpricks of that red light appeared, dotting the landscape as far as the rising horizon, which had stopped rising for Harry when he stopped moving.

For the way was barred against such as he.

Is there no place these creatures haven't infested…? Harry wondered, cracking his knuckles and calling forth the only sword of Gryffindor he had

left. The blade shimmered in the air, reflecting the glare of over three million pairs of eyes.

Eyes of the Destroyers.

"You're all going to die," Harry whispered, and his voice rippled across the many thousands of miles of time and space that warped this realm. "Die beyond death. As I did to you once before, and will again, you will be blasted out of existence. This time, this time there is no coming back."

Although millions of Destroyers heard him, here on the edge of the realm of the dead, this was only a handful of their true number. Billions more, countless billions, were merging into an army bigger than any that currently habited existence within the Boundary, outside of the main access point to

Harry's real world. These, these creatures were just one unit of that army… just one.

But what were they doing here? Harry wondered.

Why else would they be here? Ethan said, speaking for the first time since Harry entered the veil. That seemed like forever ago… and forever didn't exist, or did it? They're conquering even Death. The dead, the Destroyers, are not bound by the rules of the living. They will enslave even those that have earned eternal rest.

"Well, I've been looking for something to kill," Harry mused. "These things will do nicely."

Standing alone against millions of blood-thirsty demons, with the souls of the recently dead at his back – cowering in fear and pain – Harry didn't even blink. He'd had worse odds.

Allarius was a worse odd... he had been an incarnation of every single Destroyer in the form of one demon. This… this rabble, wasn't even one per cent of Allarius.

"Flee or fight," Harry said, his voice again echoing over the aching miles. "You're all dead either way."

He grasped his sword with both hands and that marvellous destructive power flared up the shining steel. Blue light, pure and untouched, right to the tip where it burnt like the flames of a fire.

From within the shadows ahead came a long, slow round of applause, and another pair of eyes – sickly green and yellow – appeared. They began to take a few steps towards Harry, the form of the creature still hidden in shadow.

There was something familiar about those eyes.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," rang a jovial voice. Still clapping, the creature stepped into the light cast by the sword and grinned his old grin. "I brought you a flower, Darkslayer, for our reunion."

Harry was neither surprised nor calm. He had been expecting something. Why not this?

"Hello, Allarius," Harry inclined his head, and accepted the bleeding black rose from the demon's cold dead hand.

"Lord Darkslayer," Allarius laughed. "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. How many titles did the weak and strong of creation give you over the years, the decades, the whole century?"

The rose turned in the light that jumped between Harry's fingers and across his hand, and the black faded to white, proving once again that Harry was the stronger of the two of them.

"You're a pale shadow of your former self, Allarius," Harry mused. "As weak as any of the Destroyers marshalled here. Why show your face to me, of all people?"

Allarius was still smiling. He'd died with a smile on his face. "Recall that storm of rose petals that fluttered down under the twilight sky, Darkslayer."

Recall them, Harry, recall their meaning.

Harry, having lived a very long time, slowly understood what he was supposed to understand. He opened his hand and the white rose, still bleeding crimson over the petals, hovered in the space between himself and the demon.

He answered his own question.

"You're here to enslave the dead," he said. "To bind the souls of the departed. Oh, Allarius, haven't they suffered enough?"

"The dead don't suffer, Harry. No, no, no, no, no… the dead, they linger. The right magics can enslave weak souls, that is true, but it is not why I am here. I'm no Necromancer, not almost understood, but your mind was always slow."

An army stood behind Allarius, and behind Harry stood the souls of the recently dead, cowering in fear before the demons that barred their path into the worlds and universes of the truly dead and departed.

"Why are you here?" Harry asked again, and his sword surged with power.

"To end death, and break the binding of this book." Allarius's smile deepened and his eyes shone with the sickly yellow light of decay. "To tear the pages of the story asunder, and erase the words that made up existence over the aeons. We, the Destroyer, are here to destroy."

"Ah," Harry did understand. "Same old why, Allarius. You're here to annihilate. But not anymore."

Allarius nodded his agreement. "No, not anymore. I was chosen to lead the assault against the Dead Realm, Potter, for the collective of the Destroyer feared your meeting me in the living realms."

"They were right to be afraid," Harry nodded. "But they do not know fear yet." Harry's eyes scanned the long, seemingly endless, lines of enemies before him, and felt the growing number of departed souls behind him that could not move on. Something… had to give.

"You'll show them – show us, show me – fear, Harry?" Allarius asked. "I was the Destroyer, once, and now I am a Destroyer. A Destroyer in the service of the Dark Lord Voldemort – your Voldemort, the Last Demon."

"You've sworn to him then?"

"We have."

"You're coming for Earth, for my world." It wasn't a question.

"We are," Allarius smiled, and blood dripped between his teeth and over his lips. His pale yellow eyes were hardening, crusting over, and the colour was darkening now – into coal.

Two fiery coals of apocalyptic fury.

"You shan't have it," Harry said. "You won't have it."

"By hook or by crook, we will. Ha, ha, ha… didn't anyone tell you, Harry, it's over. Armageddon's been and gone – you missed it – your universe is just one of few left to be destroyed."

Harry shrugged. "Perhaps," he said. "But you've been known to lie before, demon."

"Oh, Harry, did I lie about killing Ginny that first time, one hundred years ago?"

Harry's grip on his blade tightened until the metal of the hilt dug deep furrows into his palm, almost bruising. He had nearly forgotten why he was here in the first place, in Death. He was here for her, always for her.

"You die now."

Allarius seemed resigned to his fate once again, for he didn't call his magic into being. He simply stood where he was, a sad smile on his face that could have been pitying. The coals of his eyes spun lazily in his sockets, grinding blackened skin away.

"You can always win another battle, Harry Potter – the Darkslayer, and Fate's Biggest Joke – but you'll never win the war. Do you know why? Do you see? A long dead Creator can't help you, and your power has only ever destroyed. You are both sides of the coin – good and evil – and you've done more damage that we Destroyers could ever hope to match."

"Am I supposed to care?" Harry growled.

Allarius sniffed dismissively, and turned away. He had a final parting shot, however.

"There is more human in me than there is left in you, Potter. It will never be over, not for you. Remember that, even if you remember nothing else. I have a new name for you, a new title. One more for the pile… The Soulless Hero."

Harry screamed and his power erupted.

Beams of furious blue light shot skywards out of his sword like bolts of lightning. So hot and so intense that Harry's skin burned. He turned the sword towards the swelling ranks before him – row upon row of crimson eyes – and cut into the heart of them.

Bolts of power went shearing off his blade, hissing across the ground and arcing wildly. These exploded with devastating force that washed over Harry harmlessly, but turned to dust the Destroyers.

Thrusting his sword down into the black stone at his feet, rivulets of power crackled across the ground, leapt in widening arcs over and through the lines of screaming Destroyers. Harry kept his head bowed; his arms wrapped around his sword, and poured nothing but raw energy into the blade – pushing it beyond limits of thought and reality.

The blade was hot, hotter than any sun or star. Harry felt the heat, but it did not hurt him.

Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of orbs and bolts of darker fire were fired back at him from the Destroyers. Pale, useless things that Harry's power singed out of existence. Thin tendrils of the calm, almost beautiful light, shot out and annihilated the Destroyer's strength.

Before it had begun, as soon as they had sensed the Darkslayer, these Destroyers knew they were damned.

Wherever he was in death, on the edge of the realm that we are all doomed to tread, Harry had lit up the world beyond anything that it had ever seen before.

And still, he poured more and more power into his sword.

He was power.

His consciousness was inside every tendril of light, every river of blue liquid magic and scaringly hot power. And he was inside the scarred and barely

breathing human body that still knelt hunched in the epicentre of the furious storm. Harry was everywhere, along all the power that fuelled his fires and

inside his own head, screaming for it to end.

God gave you a gift, Harry, Ethan said. And He also gave you free will. Do not mind Allarius – he's still bitter about that time you defeated him – but respect your power nevertheless. You do right and wrong with it… why, you're only human.

Am I? What are you?

Harry's thoughts there were felt, more than heard, and Ethan fell silent with no answer for one or the other.

In one fluid motion, Harry stood up, wrenched his sword from the stone and swung it before him with the calm, handled-ease of a blade master.

Bursts of power, half circles of rippling light, flew from the cuts in the air the sword made and rent asunder the long lines of devastated Destroyers.

Far off in the distance, a hundred miles, Harry's leaping and bounding power tore up the horizon, doing its dread work there, on the very sharp edge of the way into True Death.

He was stronger here than he had ever been back home, in the mortal worlds.

Stronger, and also less bound by the feelings of regret over the destruction he caused. What did it matter, everything good here had already died?

Still at the centre of the maelstrom, Harry wondered if Sirius Black had walked this way after falling through the veil. He would have been still alive, like he was, but with no means to get back. Harry had means – he could tear open the sky, rend a hole back. Sirius would be long dead now, though, having died in death.

This place would eventually destroy all things that arrived here living – that was its purpose.

It is an arm of the Ways of Twilight, Harry thought. A part of them, just like every level of existence is a part of them. Here, the rules are backwards – here being alive is death, opposite are switched… and the Ways are open.

Suddenly Harry had no doubt that he could follow this path through death and once again reach the rose-studded realm that was the keystone of all

Creation. Again, he could climb the stairs into the room with the doors of everything, and again he could feel the utter lack of a guiding hand – of a

Creation that had lost its Creator.

A feeling that, whether they recognised it or not, ever creature in existence felt. Some had belief, faith, but their prayers went unheard. They were praying to something that no longer existed, that had disappeared.

An acrid, black and oily smoke was rising from the mountain of corpses left behind by the departing Destroyers. Just like the Destroyers themselves, this cloud of greasy smoke was conscious, sentient – it hated Harry with every fibre of its being, and threw its power against him.

"Look out, Harry," he said to himself, as the cloud shot through the air towards him like an arrow – a thick, powerful arrow – and struck him in the chest.

Harry was hurtling backwards through the air, clutching his sword and watching the stars – for there were stars now – flicker by one after the other.

Alien constellations, lights that held souls and the forgotten. He was about to hit the ground very hard.

Only he didn't.

White light – that same soul light of the stars – caught him. The souls of the dead that had stood behind him as he decimated the Destroyers became one, a cloud of power in their own right, and caught Harry in their gentle arms.

Beings – not all human, not by far – from countless worlds and faiths, lives and universes – all recognised the Darkslayer for who and what he was.

The guiding light in the War for Creation. The Last Hero.

The vapour of the souls cushioned Harry's fall and he hung suspended in the air on the arms of the dead. Azure light, twilight, rippled through the long cloud and dew drops of crystal fell to the ground, where they became the petals of the white rose.

And like a wave surging towards the shore, the souls pushed forward, with Harry at their lead, against the black cloud of tainted evil rearing up before them. A monolith of hate and destruction, billowing poison furiously bent against the Darkslayer, against hope.

You're doing good, kid, Ethan said, and Harry thought he heard awe in his voice. The souls of the dead were helping him, fighting against the future – which belonged to the Destroyers at the moment.

Harry twirled his sword in his right hand, the blade cutting harmlessly through the azure cloud beneath him and trailing smoke from the same out into the air. The stars themselves were sending down light to aid Harry as he went for the killing blow.

"Slowly, so slowly, I came to war," Harry whispered. He was no longer concentrating on the sword, but caught beneath his own mind. The blade of the Darkslayer would do its own work. "Twilight roses broke my fall…. On my way to war, just like before. You've seen it all, now watch me fly."

The wave of souls crashed and hurled Harry up, spinning him through the air and into the black cloud. It was like a vacuum in the heart of the cloud, and Harry could no longer breathe. Unlike the soul light, the edge of his sword delivered powerful, fatal blows against the cloud.

Spiralling through the cloud, lost in darkness, pain stabbing his every nerve, Harry cut out its heart – or whatever passed for a heart in this thing – and broke out through the other side. From his sword more white rose petals fell from the drops of light that dripped from the blade. Whenever one of these petals touched the dark cloud, it sizzled and burned, overwhelmed the darkness and extinguished the mist from existence – blasting it beyond even death.

Still riding the thrust of the souls, Harry flew higher into the sky, towards the stars that shone in his eyes.

"Why white roses?" he wondered. "What are they? Why do they do what they do?"

There was no answer to his question from anyone or anything. Not even Ethan. He was strangely silent, but Harry sensed he knew something he wasn't saying.

Gravity still worked in death, and Harry arced back down towards the glowing ground. Ripples of light, like on water, covered the vast expanse of the soul plains – a residue of Harry's power. Superheated earth, broken stone and fused rock ran for miles in every direction, save back towards life – though that was all relative.

Screaming tendrils of debris, remnants of the dark cloud, shot by Harry as he slowly fell towards the ground. The wind howled in his ears, pushed his hair flat against his head, and he gripped his sword ever tighter for fear of losing it.

He'd won another battle, and now a light that wasn't his own was seeping across the field, sweeping across the trapped souls, healing the wounds inflicted by the Destroyers and yes, Harry's power.

All was light – darkness faded – and with the Destroyers gone he saw this road to death as it should be, as it always was, light and carefree – no demons guarding the path to eternal rest.

Harry blinked and he stood on the ground. Completely clean of sweat and grime, and wearing a silk white robe that was almost too bright to look at, he sensed the presence of another, of something he had met before. Something that wasn't his enemy, depending on how one looked at it.

All around him the souls of the dead surged onwards, free of the Destroyers, and seeking their way into True Death beyond the horizon, towards the twilight, and forever.

Greetings, Darkslayer

Harry spun… and then turned again, back the way he had been facing. There stood Death, that hooded figure in robes as dark as the darkest night, carrying a scythe that was coated in stardust, the long blade sparkling with the light of a million universes.

Once before had Harry met this figure – this embodiment of the end all mortals, all beings were doomed to face. A force of infinite patience, biding its time as all things faded away and entered its realm. Death himself, looking exactly like Harry expected him to. Of course, not everyone saw death as the Grim Reaper, but that was how he looked to Harry.

"Howdy, Death," Harry sighed, and offered a rough salute.

There will come a time, Darkslayer, when it will not only be wrong, but useless to resist me, Ethan whispered, a shadow in his mind. Be very, very careful, Harry.

You cleansed my realm of the Enemy. For that, I thank you. I myself cannot give death, merely shepherd it.

"Happy to do the grunt work," Harry said. "You can repay me by helping me find… someone important to me. A girl, 'bout so high, red hair. Name a' Ginny."

Last we met, your power tore my scythe from your chest – saved your life, barred you to death.

"I remember," Harry replied, rubbing his chest through the white robes.

You defied me – you have defied all the powers of Creation. You defy reason!

Harry grinned. "Did you just make a joke, Death?"

You had dreams on your quest, and felt chills across your spine since the time you defeated the demon Allarius. At the time, you suspected I was following you across existence towards the Ways of Twilight.

"Was I wrong?"

No, you were right. I was following, in the shadows. My attention was drawn to you after your power fought back the Enemy of the Creator. After you destroyed Evil itself, and rent a universe apart to do so.

Harry nodded. "In my dreams… I was playing chess against an unseen opponent. Shrouded in dark cloud… I never knew who or what it was."

It was I. Do you recall what I told you of the human race?"

Harry shook his head, absently rubbing his scar and casting his mind back. He didn't recall. "No… I'm afraid it was another reality ago, another time… before Twilight."

I said: 'That you, Harry Potter, that humans... if you were not so constantly challenged to merely survive, you would have died out billions of millennia ago. You excel when facing adversity, and would perish in this peace and comfort you long for.' I still believe that.

Be very careful, Ethan muttered. Be beyond very careful.

I promised you that one day I would guide you to the otherworld, but you have come here alive. Broken yet another rule, another foundation of creation. You are as much a Destroyer as those recently banished.

"I am nothing like them. I do what I do to survive, to help everything survive. Now, Death, answer me one question…." Harry paused, surveying the shadowy reaper with a thoughtful, pensive look upon his face. "What are you?"

Death laughed – Harry was sure of it. He didn't hear it, nor feel it, but it was there, hiding in the shadows just the same.

I am that which came After. A power not of Creation, but for it.

"After what?" Harry asked, although he thought he knew.

After the Beginning.

"Of… of Creation? You were the first thing created after Time and Space began?"

No. I came from before the universes, before this Creation. I was the Creator's emissary, his Right Hand in the war against the Enemy.

Harry took a deep breath. Here was a creature from beyond the beginning of Creation – from the Beginning of everything before Creation. In that vast nothing of the void, of nothingness, did creation ignite, at the hand of a Creator. But that meant….

"His enemy. The Enemy…." Harry whispered. "The Creator's enemy followed Him into this creation then, seeped in and mired through the bowels of every universe, every level of creation. Dear Merlin, we were doomed from the start."

NO! Death roared. No. You had hope from the start, from the first second of relative time you had choice, and the covenant of free will. The Creator gave you life, He gave you fate, and destiny. He gave His creation the Darkslayer!"

Harry clicked his teeth together, not trusting himself to respond to that just yet. He feared killing Death at that moment. Finally, after a long silence, he growled a few words… "I was never given a choice," he whispered.

You were—

"NO! You talk of giving creation choice, and free will, and then you speak of fate and destiny. If we're all bound by those two bastards then how can anything we do matter? How can anything we do be a free choice?"

You creations are not all bound by fate and destiny. Only the truly great….

"And where is the Creator now?" Harry spat, his anger deep and intolerable. "His enemy is here, ready to destroy His creation, so where is the great and powerful God?"

He is lost…. Death whispered, and there was unmistakable grief in his voice. At the moment of creation, when there was light, the Enemy rose up and struck Him down. Had He wavered and defended Himself, then creation would have failed from the start. He bore the blow and was lost for it.

"Then the Enemy won," Harry said. "There's no God, no higher being, to protect us. The Destroyer won."

There is the Darkslayer.

Harry sighed and looked down at his hands, at the scars that ran across his fingers and knuckles. He could still feel his old leg, even though a metal one was in its place now. It was a phantom limb.

"You say lost… but do you mean destroyed? Was the Creator destroyed?"

Ethan shivered in Harry's mind, and shied away from that question.

I… every second of existence that passes further convinces me that He was destroyed. That the Enemy struck Him down, and annihilated Him at the Beginning of Creation. But I wonder… always wonder. The Creator I knew was resilient. Mayhap He still lives, shattered across infinity and eternity, lost amongst white roses and twilight, unable to go on.

"And the Darkslayer," Harry said. "Why?" That one word said more than a million others ever could.

At the moment of His downfall, I believe the Creator devised of a warrior. Of an Heir. Not any one creature, but a belief, and an ideal, suited for one strong enough to bear it. He knew He would be cast down for Creation, and so created a protector. Death paused here, and appeared deep in thought. An element of power inside creation that, at the right time, would rise up to combat the Enemy in some final, unimaginable, battle.

"Well… shit," Harry stated. "And this power chose me? Again, why?"

For Defiance and Soul, Death said. You were never the Darkslayer before leaving your own world one hundred years ago. Up until then you were just another human, a survivor, and in every other world that exists your story did not diverge from your main world. You, Harry Potter, are the only man ever to survive constant universal travel. You awakened the Destroyer, Allarius, and in so doing awakened the power of the Darkslayer. It chose you. The Design of the Creator chose you as its host.

Harry recalled that Death had tried to kill him, tried to stop him at the Ways of Twilight. Why would he do that if, as Death said, he was destined to fight the Enemy?

"You wanted me dead."

I… did not know what I do now. You were called Darkslayer then, but there have been millions of false prophets over the aeons, human or not. Your command at Twilight, however, marked you as the true Darkslayer – and the fear the Enemy holds for you convinced me of your nobility. You are the Darkslayer, Harry Potter. Power of the Creator.

Worlds and wars were spinning in Harry's mind. Everything the Dark had ever thrown against him was making sense, everything that explained why he existed was slowly being revealed. He was chosen as the saviour of Creation, by a… a design, made by the Creator, who was struck down at the moment of Creation – when there was light.

"And…" Harry cleared his throat. "And where does Voldemort fit into all of this?"

Death shimmered in the twilight and Harry felt him turn away, although the image of the Reaper didn't move at all.

Voldemort has the power of the Darkslayer… you are his opposite in every way, and his equal. You have your power, and so does he. But twisted… unclean… outcast by the powers of the Grand Design. He cannot be killed. His existence has reached beyond Creation, and into that realm that never existed from I, the Creator, and the Enemy first came. He has become a being that wasn't in the Creator's Design, and he cannot be destroyed.

Harry blinked. "Why not?"

I have tried, Death whispered. Lord Voldemort know longer lives, and he no longer dies. He is a wrong, a curse, a blight to the will of the Creator. Such a creature would, of course, become the commanding force of the Enemy.

Harry had a thousand questions that needed answering. But at that moment, as a few solitary stars winked overhead in the twilight sky, none seemed more important than the one at the front of his mind. The stars that circled worlds long forgotten, that could have existed, in another time, another place, another creation, disappeared as he spoke.

"What is the Enemy?"

Death hesitated before speaking, Harry was sure of it. He sensed indecision, pain, and even fear from the Grim Reaper. But speak he did, A creature from the place before Time, before Creation. The Enemy, Harry Potter, your Enemy, is the opposite power to the Creator.

"Everything has an opposite." Harry and Death spoke as one.

Harry began to laugh. He couldn't help himself. Laughter soon turned to tears, tears he had been unable to shed for Ginny and the wars he fought.

Here he had discovered the Truth, the ultimate, unchangeable truth of Creation and Life, Death and Time, and he couldn't have cared less.

"Allarius…." he whispered. "All the pain and regret, anger and violence, in Creation is the work of the Enemy, of the Creator's opposite. I've been fighting a God for over a century!"

Death stabbed his scythe down into the white marble floor. What is a God? he asked. What is the measure of a God? A Creator, an Annihilator, or a greater power than one's own? If the last is true then you yourself are a God, Harry Potter. For your power matches that of the Enemy.

And at that, Harry had heard enough. He didn't want to know any more secrets of WHY! It was too much.

"I'm only human," he whispered.

Yes, human. Evolved into the Grand Design for one purpose – to combat the dark. No other race in this, or any world, was born with such defiance, with such soul. You humans are, in my opinion, the champions of Creation.

At the very least, humanity is all creation has now.... Ethan sighed.

From now on you see the world without rules, without boundaries or streams, Harry Potter. From this moment forth you are the single most important man in all of this burning magnificence. You have fought harder than any to survive, to save existence, and in so doing you truly became the Darkslayer. I bow to you, Potter. You are… the Rightful Heir to Creation.

"No," Harry said in response to that. "Hell, no."

Behind Death other beings appeared. Beings and creatures of all shapes and sizes, aliens, human-like species, forms of pure energy, small magical folk

and beasts that Harry considered monsters and animals. All behind Death, a representative of every race in Creation. Countless billions, stretching out over the horizon that didn't exist into twilight.

Beyond billions, beyond trillions, beyond count. Life from everywhere, and everything – even in its most basic form.

And as one, they fell to their knees before Harry, saluting the Darkslayer – the Hand of God, and the Rightful Heir to His Creation.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any bigger, Ethan said. Damn, Potter!

"I don't… don't want…." Harry struggled to speak. Death himself was bowing. "I just want Ginny back; nothing more, and nothing less."

You, Commander Potter, are being given leadership of the Dead Legion. Lord Darkslayer, you are given Creation. As steward for the Creator, I bequeath the Mark to the Rightful Heir.

"NO!" Harry roared, but it was too late.

The back of his hand was burning, the flesh sizzling, and a mark appeared there – a Light Mark. The Mark of Twilight.

It was a white rose, and it soon spread from his palm down his arm until the long, emerald stalk, dotted with thorns, wrapped itself around his entire limb up to the shoulder. The bud, the flower itself, bloomed on the back of his hand. Crystal white petals that glittered silver and sparkled with drops of white power. The Mark was weeping, feeling the pain of Creation.

It is done, my Creator, Death gasped. He spoke to the stars, to the being that had been struck down for His creation. Whether or not he still lived, in some way or form, didn't matter. Death had done his duty.

Harry was on his knees, his fist clenched before him in his lap. He held his Marked left arm with the hand of his right, staring with what could have been calm or disbelief at the tattoo of tremendous strength and power.

Ethan was awed into silence, fleeing to the vast far reaches of Harry's mind.

"I'm going to wake up," Harry said, to himself. His voice echoed with new power across the vast expanse of this realm. Heard by the countless beings before him, the souls of the dead from everywhere in Existence. "I'm going to wake up, and I'll be at the Dursley's, locked under the stairs – eleven years old and never going to Hogwarts. Ah, hell, I'm awake."

Creation is yours to command, Lord Darkslayer. You are needed more than ever as the Enemy rises.

"Shut up," Harry hissed. He still held his arm close to his chest. "Silence… I need… quiet."

Oh, but there was no peace for Harry now. He could feel the world, every world, in a way he had never before. His magic had, in the past, made him aware of the boundaries and the streams of time that ran through all of Creation. At times, he had felt the vastness, the utter incomprehensible size of Existence… but never like this.

He was one with the Creator's Dream, with the mind of it all. With Life, and with Death, and all that was in between.

And it hurt.

He could feel the pain that Existence laboured under at all times. It was massive, unbearable, he'd surely die – it would kill him and then Creation would fall because he wouldn't just die, no… no, no, no, no – He'd be blasted beyond even Death, erased from time and space, and Creation itself forever and—

Harry stood up, unconsciously shutting out the feelings of pain and misery that wracked his body and mind. Shut out Existence. It was still there, on

the edge of his mind. He could feel the Enemy in every aspect of his Creation. Could feel the Destroyers and every opposite force to Good, to the

White Rose, to Twilight, to the True God and Creator, who had paid with His existence for a dying Creation.

"When this is over," Harry spoke to Death – the Eternal, ever-lasting being that had followed the Creator so very long ago. "When this is over, you will undo this." He held up his glowing arm to the masses of Existence. "You will undo this…."

Perhaps… should you survive, Death whispered.

"What is the Dead Legion?" Harry asked, but he thought he knew.

Your mark – the White Rose – will draw the souls who serve the Twilight to fight for you, on one side of the abyss or the other. An army stronger and more powerful than any to have ever existed. To call them, you must enter True Death.

"I just came for one soul," Harry whispered, and his voice wavered. He felt drained – physically, mentally, emotionally. Only his magic remained strong, bolstered by the strength of Creation that now flowed through his veins. "You know, it ain't easy being me."

You are who you were born to be – the Darkslayer. Let the Enemy tremble before your might!

Harry cast his hand over the white robes and they changed, becoming leather pants and a tight fitting black shirt. Sturdy, steel-capped boots covered his feet. A sheath appeared strapped to a chest holster on his back, and into that Harry placed his sword. The Mark shone ever brighter on his arm, and power jumped between his eyes.

The lightning bolt scar upon his forehead burnt like a fiery brand.

Let the Enemy tremble before your might, Ethan said.

Harry clenched his fists. "It will," he whispered. "On the memory of the Lost Creator, I swear it will."

*~*~*~*