The Last
by Polydicta
Summary:
He was the last of his kind, and she was the only survivor the apocalypse.
Crossover:
Harry Potter, Entrada (short SF film)
This story may be continued in the future, but for now, here's the first (un-named) chapter
Disclaimer:
All fiction is derivative and fan fiction doubly so. I make no claim to own any part of any of the following, all I have done is an attempt to put together the elements in a novel fashion, using words and ideas like Lego™ bricks.
There is no money involved – all I do is to share what I do for my own amusement.
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The Last - Chapter One
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Awakening
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It was with a groan that Harry Potter awoke. He ached abominably and his mouth felt as though something large and noisome had passed away in there.
It was dark and it was quiet, the air was cool and he could hear his breathing being reflected off of walls close to his ears.
For a moment, he thought that he was back in his cupboard at Privet Drive, but then his nose caught a whiff of something strange. Something coppery, like old knuts in his hand.
He moved and caught his elbows on the walls of wherever he was.
"Lumos nebulimo," he whispered, and was rewarded by a faint witchfire glow. His eyes crossed as he tried to focus on the roof just three inches from his nose. A roof that was encrusted with green ... verdigris, his memory supplied.
A moment of panic. He had been buried alive ...
... or something.
He manoeuvred his hands up and gave a push. The metal gave way, a bit, at least, while he was showered with flakes of the green encrustation.
He pushed again, channelling his magic into his muscles and was rewarded by a splintering sound that reminded him of the ancient books in the Hogwarts library. The lid of the coffin gave way, proving itself to have corroded completely, leaving nothing but a crust of brittle carbonates.
The chamber was a stone vault, a mausoleum containing about a dozen coffins, or their remains, at least. The other residents were most certainly beyond recall. Even the stone caskets near the back wall of the chamber seemed to have suffered the ravages of entropy.
He approached the doorway, a massive slab of granite. As he reached out to touch it, it simply faded away, and Harry stepped through. Once clear of the arch, the stone reasserted its presence with a thump causing Harry to turn suddenly. Above the door was a family crest, and on the door was engraved the word "POTTER".
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Desolation
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Harry found his way out of the family crypt and into the remains of Castle Crochyn. He had already found his belongings, stored under a powerful but failing stasis charm that he recognised as having been Hermione's work. There was also a message for him engraved on a sheet of electrum.
Harry,
If you are reading this, then you should know that there was another prophesy after you 'died'. For not one moment did I believe that you were actually dead, but we could find no way to revive you.
I do not know when you will awaken, but I am going to try to put your personal belongings under a preservation spell.
You should know that you managed to take down 'Lord Beezelmoth', who was actually Draco Malfoy's grandson Lucifuge Malfoy. The Ministry wanted you interred at Hogwarts, but I managed to convince them that the family plot would be better.
You might like to know that in the sixty years since your supposed death, the Ministry of Magic has fallen and we are once more integrated with the mundane world – a world that has become much smaller. We are a dying race, Harry, and nowhere we can reach, even with generation ships, is capable of sustaining human life.
The letter continued in Hermione's small, neat script, bringing him as up to date as she could manage. After she signed off, she had appended the text of the prophesy:
Death's master shall linger until he shall be the last and then shall he journey forth until he discovers the last also, only then shall life prevail unto the end.
Harry was struck by the fact that, unlike a previous prophesy, this one was fairly clear in its meaning. Well, only somewhat vague.
.
Grabbing his belongings from the shelf on which they were stored, he felt his connection with both his own wand and the Elder Wand. He also found the resurrection stone and his cloak along with the combat gear he wore as a hit wizard – certainly the clothes he woke in were not as well preserved – unless you considered that they had outlasted a bronze casket.
Prepared for whatever he would find, he left the dubious comfort of his family seat in Wales.
.
Harry's first sight of Wales in however long told him much. The fidelius charm that he had hidden the liveable section of the castle was still intact, and the ruins of the ancient fortress were beyond crumbling.
The walls were little more than rounded hummocks of greenery and the lawns that the general public had picnicked on were overgrown with semi-mature trees. The car park was all but indistinguishable from the lawns.
The ribbon of road connecting the castle to the main road was gone, lost in woodlands that seemed to have overrun the entire landscape. Travel was going to be ... interesting.
.
Harry's arrival in Cardiff's magical sector startled a number of birds, mainly owls. The street was deserted and overgrown with weeds poking through the cobblestones. The small branch of Gringott's was likewise devoid of life.
Diagon Alley was similar, but the doors of the goblin bank were still intact, bound with powerful protections. On the door was a message formed of beaten gold.
VISITOR BEWARE
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Caerlyon Crochennydd wgah'nagl fhtagn
K'rach Ke'ynngkokt kachkent'ich ysk klac'ken Hakke'kyk Crochen ka'kach'haktekk.
Gakken kie Hak'kaken'ark klac'ken.
Harry's bark of laughter sent up flocks of birds. This was a joke that he and the goblins had held between them: In his house at Caerlyon, dead Potter waits dreaming – The goblins had recognised his possession of the hallows for what they were, and warned him that they had a prophesy about him.
The words in Low Kobbalkk, the tongue of the Deep Goblins, those that lived and worked in Kr'ynnkalt (Gringalt), the goblin city beneath the bank, essentially said that only Harry Potter was allowed in, now that the bank was closed for business, and that he needed to go to Hogwarts.
He read out the goblin words and the sound of a language rarely heard above ground echoed about the decaying remains of the magical alley, a sound not unlike the noise made by pebbles falling deep underground.
"Yk'ac'kn Hakke'kyk Krokken! I am Harry Potter."
There was a deep thump and the great door of the bank swung inwards a foot. Harry squeezed through.
In the centre of the banking hall stood a shimmering block, a goblin stasis ward, still whole, still fully active and armed.
As he approached the ward, he heard the voice of a goblin speaking in highly accented English.
"Master of Death, we, those who have gone before greet you. In this werk vault are the items that legend states you will require. This, our last duty, is our gift to a Goblin Friend and fellow warrior. Go with our blessings and our eternal friendship until we meet in Alk'kesh."
The ward collapsed to reveal a ship – a mere foot long and a small stack of paperback-sized boxes, all resting on a desk. A book bearing the title 'READ ME FIRST' on the front cover sat in pride of place.
Harry did so, and found himself reading an instruction manual for the ship. The shrunken ship. The shrunken ship named Nekronos – Of Death.
Taking his goods outside, he enlarged the ship and put the shrunken trunks aboard. The ship, a three-master galleon (that must have amused the goblins no end) lifted into the sky, and Harry travelled northwards.
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Smoke Rises from Isengard
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As Harry travelled northward, he crossed a landscape filled with trees, overgrown farmland and cities in the midst of being reclaimed by nature. The office buildings, not much different from those he remembered, were stained with greenery and festooned with ivy, the lines blurred by trees and shrubs that had gained a foothold where the glass of the windows had been lost.
Passing over Derbyshire, he spied a lone tower standing in a long valley, its single, tapered tower topping the local hilltops by fully their height again. This was the first place he had seen that looked like a building of the future, the vast tower glinting in the afternoon light.
Approaching, he saw that there was smoke rising from the eastern side. He slowed his craft and looked. A fire was smouldering in an outdoor hearth atop one of the lesser pinnacles of the tower complex, a bundle of blankets nearby.
Apparating to the rooftop garden, he saw that the blankets wrapped an elderly woman, her features blank in death, her flesh still whole.
He buried her atop a nearby limestone hill, transfiguring stone into a vast monument. The words carved into the stone simply read, "ECCE HOMO SAPIENS, THE LAST".
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Subdued, Harry continued northwards in the hope that Hogwarts was still standing.
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A Long Homecoming, a Last farewell.
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His ship rode the valley of Haughsdale, finally arriving at Hogsmead and Hogwarts.
The village was unrecognisable, the remains of a tarmac road to the village was the most surprising find, along with the large car park outside the village proper.
Hogsmead had obviously been abandoned a long time, the shops and houses reduced to little more than piles of stones covered in weeds and already being colonised by scrubby trees and heather.
Hogwarts had fared better. Setting down in the Black Lake, Harry made his way across the now wild lawns toward the main entrance. He could feel the wards, faint as they now were, acknowledging him and welcoming him home.
The great doors were closed, but the wicket gate in the doors sprang ajar at his approach.
As he entered, his eyes filled with tears, for Hogwarts was in her final stages of her existence. The main staircase no longer moved, the few remaining paintings had long lost their animation and the echoing silence of the school was filled with the ghosts of memories – even if the ghosts of past wizards and witches had now moved on to their next great adventure.
Damp patches on the walls, floors and ceilings told a story of the toll that years of neglect had exacted on the castle. The armour was rusty, and mostly toppled.
Looking into the Great Hall, he saw that the ceiling had failed, and was no more than an ancient, wooden-raftered roof. He made his way to the Headmaster's Office.
The griffin was already to one side, and the stairs were not moving. He climbed, finally entering the office, he was amazed to find that it was much as he remembered. The former headmasters still lined the walls, most now frozen through lack of magical energy. One, however, he saw was fully aware.
"Hermione?"
"Harry! I was right! How are you? How long have you been awake? Do you know what year it is? ..."
Harry waited for his best friend, his wife and lover to finally run out of questions, which he than answered in order.
They talked long into the night.
.
The following morning, Harry was busy. Hermione had been the last headmistress of Hogwarts, and had seen to the sealing of the various magics in order to ensure that Harry would find something other than ruin when he finally woke.
The library had been packed up along with the Ministry Library, and had been sealed in a warded chamber alongside the Hogwarts Wardstone. Harry was told, in no uncertain terms, to save the books, to take the wardstone and to leave.
What he actually did was the first two. After levitating the twelve-foot tall lodestone encrusted with runes into a cradle in the hold of his ship, he was exhausted. In the morning, he removed the headmasters from the office, putting them on the walls of the mess room of the Nekronos. Hermione's portrait was hung in Harry's study, next to his stateroom.
The magical ship's binnacle that had held pride of place next to Albus Dumbledore's telescope in the study above his office was moved to the chartroom on board. It was, apparently, a Founders' relic, a joint project between Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw, and had provided the navigational centre of the flying ship that they had used to collect the muggleborn students early in the school's history.
The sorting hat, now no longer at all talkative, the Sword of Gryffindor and Harry's Fang, recovered from the Chamber of Secrets, as well as Fawkes' perch were moved to Harry's study. He had no idea why the perch was still in Hogwarts, nor why he took it.
The school's penseive was placed on a stand in his study, too.
He spent the third day wandering the school, visiting the classrooms that he had studied in, and wandering the grounds. The Forbidden Forest was devoid of magical life – there were no unicorns, acromantulas, bowtruckles, thestrals or centaurs, just mundane birds and beasts. He also visited Dumbledore's tomb.
At last, as the sun was hanging low in the sky, Harry said his last farewell to his former home, the place of his long-past childhood and possibly the last magical site on Earth.
Turning his ship to the setting sun, he departed Hogwarts for the very last time. Tears dripped from his cheeks as he watched Hogwarts and his life disappear into the distance, and he said goodbye to all that he had known.
The year was 3355 and, had he but known it, he was not only the last human, but the last sentient being in the cosmos.
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Voyages
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For three years Harry Potter, Master of Death and captain of the Nekronos sailed the seas and skies of planet Earth. Wherever he went, he saw that the land was healing the scars inflicted upon it by mankind's depredations.
It was obvious which lands had been depopulated first; the cities were more thoroughly overrun where the hand of man had been absent longest.
He visited the pyramids of Egypt and South America, the natural sights of North America, making a particular pilgrimage to Lance aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the site of a Viking settlement in the New World.
He visited Mount Fujiama, Uluru (Ayer's Rock), The Great Wall, The Parthanon, Sugarloaf Mountain and anywhere else he happened to think of. Nowhere was there any sign of living beings, just the places they had been.
He returned to London, and took the opportunity to visit The Tower of London (forest), Trafalgar Square (now Trafalgar Woods), Buckingham Palace (little more than an overgrown heap of stones) and once more into Diagon Alley.
A final visit to Gringotts, where he found only emptiness and echoing, yawning vaults, and then into Muggle London. He took his pick of artefacts and books from the British Museum (now a bat-haunted cave under a canopy of trees), and the same from the British Library.
He raided a ships' chandlers at Canary Wharf for a ships' radio and a computer or two. He was pleasantly surprised to find that they were being touted as magically enhanced – something that Hermione had suggested would be available. Getting them started was an adventure in delicate magic, but Harry had magic in plenty, and a large stock of machines to practice on.
Remaining in London, Harry unpacked the various trunks he had been given into the magically expanded spaces of his ship, and spent his time studying, reading, listening to recorded music and chatting with Hermione. At last, Harry decided that there was nothing left for him on Earth.
"Hermione, I think that it is time. Time to move on ... to fulfil the prophesy."
Hermione nodded. "It is, Harry. It is time for you go go home."
Harry regarded her. The portrait had been painted when she was eighty, and she looked like the years had been kind to her.
"Home, Hermione?"
"Home, Harry. Where you will put down roots that will last forever."
Harry nodded, and rubbed his chin in thought.
Harry went to the binnacle, placed his hands on the two bronze panels on each side of the lodestone, and said, "Take us to where we need to be."
The ship lifted, and continued to rise. Higher and higher it went, until the sky darkened and Harry could see the curve of the Earth below. A bubble of air surrounded the ship as it left the pull of the world he had known.
He was privileged to see a direct view of the far side of the Moon as the wooden vessel accelerated into space. Soon, the Sun was receeding, little more than a dazzling star astern.
A few moments of speed, a Döppler shifted view of space and the wooden galleon streaked off leaving an ion trail of brightness.
A flash of light and it was gone, travelling between worlds, slipping between realities and universes, crossing space, time and probability to go to wherever Death's Master was required to go.
As the light of the Nekronos' ion trail faded, and without fanfare of ceremony, the stars began to go out one by one, galaxy by galaxy, nebula by nebula until there was just the star Sol hanging in empty space surrounded by her family of planets. And then it was gone, the entire universe had been returned whence it came, its sole purpose fulfilled with the departure of a single being.
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Entrada
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Her name was Kathryn Rowen, patient number zero-three-three-seven aboard the USS Santa Maria, and she was alone.
The planet below her, Earth, was dead, devoid of human life following a plague that swept through the population like the Judgement of God, although she wasn't aware of that fact.
She and her crewmates had been sent into space in the year 2197 in search of a new land in order to save the last of humanity.
Two hundred and thirty five years later, she was woken from cryostasis to find that they had never left. She was alone in the only airtight fragment of her destroyed starship. She was alone in space without any way to go anywhere, trapped in her cabin with a dysfunctional computer, a window with a great view of the earth and a stasis chamber.
After railing at the universe, she made a log entry and returned to her stasis chamber in the hope of either rescue or eternal sleep.
None of the other ships had left the ground and the plague had taken every living person on the planet. All that was left was a planet of ruins, a radio signal sending a plague warning eternally into empty space, and a single survivor trapped in a cryostasis chamber going round the world forever.
No one from this universe would ever hear the warning as there was no one to hear it.
.
In the darkness of space, there was a flash of light, and leaving a glittering ion trail, a sailing ship appeared in earth's orbit, reaching a suitable orbital velocity from transluminal in a couple of seconds.
The ship's radio sprang to life receiving two messages. One was a plague warning, the other a mayday. The plague warning was in English, amongst other languages. The mayday was just in English, the inflectionless english of a machine.
He ignored the planet below since the message was clear – stay away. He answered the mayday.
It took some time to convince the distressed vessel's computer that it wasn't malfunctioning, by which time Harry had thrown a conniption, three glasses at the cabin wall (well, it was actually the same glass repaired each time), and cursed out the alien computer.
Eventually he was able to navigate the debris field and approach the one pressurised section of the crippled ship. Twelve metres long and six metres high and deep, a tiny island of environmental conditions in which a person could survive.
.
She woke, as before, from her dreamless state. Several of the light panels in the chamber had failed since she went back into stasis. She wondered how long she had been under for.
"Computer? Why have you woken me?"
"Our distress call has been answered. Someone is coming to pick you up ..."
There was a fizzing noise and another light panel failed.
"Computer, what year is it?"
"Calculating ... the year is sixty-seven-fifty-seven ... earp ..."
No wonder things were failing, she had been asleep for thousands of years.
She was looking out of the window at the Earth, a green planet that was no longer tenable to her species. Or may be it was once again?
She wondered if her rescuer was from down there, or if he? She? It? If her rescuer was even human.
"Computer, what is current life support status?"
"Cal ... culating ... life support is nominal. Oxygen levels normal."
She wondered if she was starting to fail because she could have sworn that she just saw a medieval sailing ship passing behind some debris.
Night came suddenly, as it does in orbit, and she could see the night side of the planet. Not a light, not a glimmer. Nothing. No signs of civilisation on the night side.
As the daylight terminator approached, she could see the Great Wall, one of the few man-made structures visible from space. Then she saw it. It was a three masted galleon. A wooden sailing ship from the past. It appeared to be surrounded by a faint bubble of ... air? A force field?
She watched the ship traversing the floating chunks of space ship that separated her from it. She had a moment of terror as it came close to her window. She was looking slightly down on the poop-deck.
A figure climbed up a ladder onto the deck and peered at her ship. He, yes, it was a he, had messy hair and appeared to be no older than herself. His brows were knitted and his fists were on his hips.
He pulled out a ... it was a mobile 'phone ... and spoke. A moment later a voice speaking accentless English was relayed to her.
"Hi, are you okay in there?"
"Yes ... who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Harry, and this is my ship Nekronos. I'm here to rescue you."
"How? You don't look as though you have any equipment ... ?"
"Are you from Earth?"
"Yes ... " Her breath hitched. Plague, she thought.
He continued, "but not the planet below us. Don't worry about equipment, I have my ways and means. I want to try to salvage some of your technology while I'm here, and after I get you on board my ship."
"O ... okay. How?"
"Try not to be alarmed, I intend to teleport into your cabin, if I may? I also need to take a look to make sure I'm not going to end up in any furniture."
He walked across the deck, and she found that he was able to look slightly upward into her cabin, and the empty space it represented.
"Are you weightless in there?"
She nodded as she replied that she was.
"Hot damn, I haven't doen freefall since Auror training. Here I come ..."
She saw him disappear just as there was a faint pop behind her. She felt him grab her and whisper, "hang on, this isn't going to be fun."
And then they were on the deck of the ship. Well, below decks, in a cabin.
"Welcome aboard the Nekronos. Do you have any luggage that you would like me to retrieve while you make yourself comfortable?"
She nodded dumbly. The green-eyed man seemed to be at home on a wooden sailing ship in space. Obviously technology had moved on somehere in the galaxy.
There was a faint pop and he was gone. A few minutes later, he arrived again carrying a small box that looked remarkably like a stasis pod. He put it on the floor, took out a wooden stick, and the stasis pod was full-sized, and filled with the contents of the storage lockers that were part of her cabin. Her former cabin, she corrected herself.
Her first meal in several thousand years (or since this morning, depending on your point of view), was a home-cooked, full English breakfast with real tea and toast. The gas range in the galley appeared to have been taken from a late twentieth century home, but there was a ... damn it, it was a microwave oven.
She followed Captain (call me Harry) Potter into one of the holds of his ship.
She paused at the sight of the vast, empty space that would have comfortably encompassed the whole ship, and several others like it. Spatial manipulation was a long-held dream. Laying on the deck was a hundred-metre section of the Santa Maria. The ends of the section looked as though they had been machine cut, but so quickly. Beyond her section were several others that had been exposed to space. A heap of smaller debris sat against one of the ship's bulkheads. A heap easily twenty metres high.
"It was sabotage. Someone blew up your ship by breaching an oxygen line in one of the third-stage boosters – and routing the LOX into what appears to have been the control axis of the ship. As soon as you were in orbit and about to leave, the ship was destroyed."
"How do you know?"
"I talked to several parts of the computer system that were still intact in the ship's axis. Most of the damage was caused by rotational stresses that ripped seams and separated sections of the ship. The crew died quickly, the passengers never knew that they were dead."
She looked at him blankly for a moment.
"I also had a chance to talk to some of the crew.."
"They are alive? They went into stasis?"
"No, you are the only survivor. I have some ... special abilities that I brought from home."
Kathryn fainted.
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