The former temple was a sight. The blackened stone was glossy in places from where it'd been melted by the heat of the explosion, pocketed by holes in others where it'd been straight up vaporised.
To clarify: not a good sight.
Smog hung in the air like a stain, and the sky hadn't been seen since they reached the mountaintop. It wasn't as dark as he'd expected. The rift glowed, as did strange distorted white-green patterns on the rocks.
"That is the Fade taking root," Solas said, when he saw Harry watching their mesmerising configurations.
Harry sighed. He'd been, unsuccessfully, trying to forget about that. Harry almost felt like he was in it. Rocks were suspended in the air, not from a spell, but because they wanted to listen to something other than gravity today.
It was unsettling.
Warm too, enough to melt the snow. Harry felt what might be the heat source when he passed too close to a red crystal of some kind. It stretched through the cracks in the rocks like inflammation around a wound.
Cullen caught his arm and pulled him away. "Don't touch the lyrium," he warned seriously.
Harry gaped. "Wait, that's what lyrium looks like before they bottle it!"
"The stuff you've been taking is bluer, I hope," the Commander muttered humourlessly. "But essentially, yes. This is ore."
He'd worked with the distilled stuff, but Orzammar guarded their raw supplies closely. Honestly they probably worried about his motives more than his safety, but still. "It's that bad?"
"I'm not an expert." Varric was gruff, but even hearsay can be useful. "The normal type is toxic when ingested. Makes mages tranquil on contact. It's addictive. But the red kind will get you from across a room."
"That's… disturbing." It wasn't iridescent, it didn't appear to reflecting or filtering light at all. It was actually glowing.
Harry didn't know of many things that glowed naturally, and he didn't like any of them.
Later. Right, reality tear now.
…
They'd all been briefed, then waited for the signal. Harry stood between Sirius and Anders. They were in arms reach if anything went wrong. He didn't know if that would make a difference.
His hands were clammy.
"Focus past the Herald!" Solas called.
They knelt and tried not to brace themselves.
The Herald lit up in green, there was a hissing crackle and the smell of ozone reached him. The mark caught and pulled something. It felt dry and potent. It was a wave drawing him out over the sand.
His muscles locked. His breath quickened, and part of that was fear. He bowed his head, against his instincts, and surrendered.
Things got fuzzy, after that point.
He felt Sirius's fierce-protect and Anders's calm-troubled. He identified Cassandra in the faith-resolve and Vivienne in the strange conviction-control. He felt every person in the temple; their energy loose and swirling endlessly between them, funnelling past Solas and through the Herald, into a vicious battle against the Veil tear.
The power built; it pooled and flailed against the void, until the threshold was reached, and then the damn burst.
Bright flashes filled his vision. He felt the rubble strike his back and heard Anders swear.
He tried to role, brace himself to sit up, but upon moving his arms he felt every one of his six centuries, and he wondered just how long he'd been holding that pose.
"Bad idea," he muttered deliriously. He lay still, feeling raw to his bones. It felt like he'd been hit with a smite. The shaking and exhaustion associated with magic loss kicked in as expected.
But the world came back into focus, and it was more beautiful than before. The sky was back, and that was always a plus. The green remained, but it looked better now, more like an unpleasant storm than a gaping pit. They'd succeeded.
"Huzzah," he groaned, with as much enthusiasm as he could manage. Which was not much, really, it flat-lined at sarcastic.
Sirius chuckled.
"Shut it. I don't see you skipping around."
He got up eventually. People were starting to get concerned for the prone wizard, and their attention was grating. They were looking at him stranger than he thought was warranted.
"Lyrium?" a soldier was handing out small vials, giving mages and Templars enough of a boost to get back down the mountain.
Harry felt sick at the prospect, "Thanks." It didn't do much, but it gave him the energy to walk over to Solas.
The elf sat in the centre of the cratered building, eyes closed, presumably examining the Fade.
Harry waited there until Solas opened his eyes with a smile, "So, did we win?"
"We did."
…
Those that hadn't been plodding up mountains and sealing Breaches all day looked like they'd be carrying on celebrating well into the night. Harry drank with the best of them without guilt, of course, because he made a point to save all alcohol related regret for the next morning, and the warmth did a bit to fill the emptiness his energy had left. A brief indulgence to acknowledge their accomplishment, but he really should leave. He needed to take advantage of the situation before someone else did and turned the Senate into political hell.
Harry forced himself to stay awake until the other energy-dead helpers started dropping, then he made sure to thank his friends and allies, and he handed out return portkeys so at least some people could get rest before dawn.
He offered the last to Sirius and received a tight hug in return, "You've got to come around for dinner this week. The girls will want to hear all about it. You know me, I didn't pay attention half the time."
Harry laughed. "I'll bring the little terror a souvenir. Maybe a spell book."
"Don't you dare."
"Go home, you dog." His grinning face was gone the next instant. Harry stretched; his whole body ached.
"That was your Godfather?" Cassandra. Brilliant. "The one you summoned into the body of a wolf?"
Harry was startled, for a moment. She'd been one of the lucky bastards to read through his diaries, then. "The one and only, so far as I'm aware."
"He looks well," she sounded… almost tolerant.
The wizard blinked. "Pardon?"
She glared, then sighed gruffly, and that was more like it. "I will not pick a fight with you tonight. You helped us, though you had no reason to do so."
"I have plenty of reasons," he said fondly. "I have a life you know. Friends. Family. I rather like the world." He sighed, "I should be getting back to it. The Senate will be in uproar by now."
He was packed and ready. He'd optimistically cleared out his cabin before they set out that morning, figuring that the world might end, but on the off chance it didn't, it was always better to be prepared and remove the tempting excuses.
"Just stay the night," she looked momentarily taken aback by her words, and narrowed her eyes at the tankard in her hand like it was responsible for making her tongue release them without first clueing in her mind. It probably was to blame, but she frowned and stuck with it. "Celebrate, now that world is not in immediate danger."
"What's this? The great Seeker telling me to take some time for myself?" he laughed delightedly, "But pandemonium!"
"Avoid it," she advised dryly.
Harry took a gulp of that horrible, watery ale just to occupy his hands. They'd get a head start, but oh what the hell, he liked a challenge. "I suppose… tonight the magisters will just be patting themselves on the back like they had a hand in saving the world."
She smiled victoriously and he was struck, as he often was, by how much prettier people became when they were happy.
"But this is my last drink," he declared.
It wasn't.
It would've been, but then the Iron Bull started toasting everything and Sera challenged him and then something about arrows?
It wasn't his second last, and probably not his third last, because he lost count and he could count past three even while plastered. So there.
He passed out at some point. Or maybe he retired? He knew he made it to his bed, at any rate, because that was where he woke up when Anders started shaking him.
"Harry! Get up, we're under attack!"
"Wha'?" he heard 'get up' and realised it was a horrible nightmare. There was a wretched clanging in his head that had him completely at a loss. It couldn't be a hangover, mainly because at most a few hours had passed and he was buzzed enough to be sure he was still fairly inebriated.
"What's going on?"
"Don't you hear the alarm? An army is almost upon us," Anders repeated.
That explained the bells. Harry squinted. Anders looked frazzled; his eyes wide, cheeks flushed and hair showing signs of having had hands rubbed vigorously through it but Amell wasn't here, so panic it was.
"Ah fuck." He jumped, stumbled. Amour. Where was armour? Attacking armies necessitated armour.
"You're still dressed, come on!" the mage took him by the hand and bodily dragged him from the cabin.
Harry suspected that Anders knew him too well.
The taller mage led the way, pushing past the running blur of people. Harry just tried the keep his feet under him and pay attention. They were headed for the gates, he thought.
He was right; the wooden doors were flanked by soldiers but open, and Anders sent them both barrelling through.
Cullen; sword drawn, Lavellan; wary but composed and armed with a blade that frankly looked too big to wield, a mage; Tevinter robes with more buckles than Harry would've known what to do with, and a teenager; so pale under his huge hat that Harry was sure he was imagining things. Behind them, the mountain was lit by countless torches.
"We're here to help, to warn you," a painfully young voice was saying. "An army of rebel mages, an army of Templars. They don't care who they hurt."
The mage wiped sweat off his forehead, depending on his staff to hold most of his weight. He mostly just panted. "Yes, exactly. What he said."
Cullen was stunned. "Mages and Templars?"
They're mortal enemies until they want to take over the world together. Harry sighed. That was just so typical.
"The woman is Calpernia, leader of the Venatori, and now your rebel mages," the mage turned, pointed to a rise.
He was joined by the boy, "The Red Templars went to the Elder One. He's very angry. You closed his Breach, he's not waiting anymore."
"That's Samson," Cullen said with surprise at the third figure on the rise. Harry couldn't take his eyes off the second; the stretched, misshapen being that looked a bit like a giant bowtruckle in a dress.
Anders gripped Harry's wrist tighter.
"Good, we know most of what we're dealing with." The Herald, as always, got to the point. "Plan, Cullen. Now."
They were facing the combined might of the Templar Order, zealous mages and Merlin knew what else, with a small force of green recruits, most of them on a spectrum from drunk to passed out. Their most powerful players had just had their energy drained to plug a hole in the sky, and of those, many had left for other parts of Thedas.
Harry didn't say they were doomed aloud, they had enough voices wailing already.
"Haven is no fortress. If they reach the walls the town is all but lost, and we have nowhere to fall back to. The mountains box us in."
As Cullen summarised, it was not much to work with.
There was a crack of apparition from behind; the enemy mages had a line of sight into the town. Harry growled. Arseholes. But he hadn't shared all his secrets. The Elder Wand fell into his hand with an air of finality.
"Tell our mages not to apparate to any place in this valley, Commander, it's about to become fatal."
He sat himself down and tuned out the world, with the Wand cushioned between his hands. He wasn't aware of time passing until he opened his eyes and noticed the scene had changed; The Herald was gone, Cullen was shouting orders, Anders hovered anxiously by his side, Buckles had sunk down in an exhausted heap against the gates.
The next Venatori hit their destination with a satisfying pop and explosion of gore. A veritable bug on a zapper.
A patchwork blue shield became visible, radiating outward from the impact point, for a few seconds. It caught Cullen's attention, he marched over. "Potter, are there any other protections you can give us?"
The front lines were halfway down the valley. "Not in time," he shook his head.
"Then we need to evacuate the villagers into the Chantry," Cullen informed them, and Harry managed a nod.
Then Anders was there with a hand, knowing Harry's limits better than he did himself. He levered the wizard upright and braced him against his shoulder. Harry spat out a feather and sent a bombarda in the general direction of the rise with the three creepers, for luck.
"Just like old times," Anders murmured, stubble scratching Harry's forehead as he spoke.
"Shame Sirius went to put his little one to bed. We could use a horde of unstoppable griffons right now." Harry said without conviction; he preferred Sirius home, safe.
"You could do it."
Harry grinned tiredly. "I don't think I've got anything as big as a griffon left in me." But a tried and tested method where one could become an endless supply was worth the cost.
Harry rolled the Wand between his fingers thoughtfully. Scary flying animals. The first thing that came to mind were pixies – nasty, spiteful little buggers.
Alcohol was bad for choices.
Hippogriff, thestral, occamy, cockatrice, strix, phoenix, roc, Australian magpie. A scattered combination of too much collateral damage and too complex.
Giant, man-eating owl it is, Harry forced his tired, drunk and disorderly mind to focus. Conjugation was too easy to get horribly wrong, and he wouldn't be able to try more than once.
The strix coalesced in front of him. Its head nearly sat level with his own, its eyes were luminous gold and far too big. Tufts that appeared to be ears or horns above its eyes gave it a severe expression. The feathers were sleek and black; it would've been hard to distinguish from the night if not for the torches throwing flickering patterns on it.
Before he could sic it on their quickly approaching enemies, there was one crucial step: "Geminio."
He smiled in satisfaction, even as his overtaxed system made its grievances known. Conjured things are literally pulled from nothing. You multiply nothing, you still have nothing. There was no extra effort required, even as one owl clawed a Templar, became two, became four. Each owl would last a few minutes at most, but until there was a shortage of enemies to hound and scare the bejeebers out of, that wouldn't be a problem.
"Ta-da." Harry found it necessary to invoke a bit of self denial because there was no way he could accept he sounded that pitiful.
"You know, it's just not as impressive the second time," Anders mused brightly.
"Aren't you hard to please," the wizard glared. "How do I top griffons, hmm? Dragons?"
"Weeell," Anders drew out with a shrug and a light grin that brought Harry abruptly back to another battlefield, where his friend was ten years younger and happier.
He shook the feeling off. The owls would thin the enemy ranks, maybe buy them more time, but they would not keep the armies from reaching Haven.
They approached the gate, where a guard cowered (understandable) and Buckles rested, looking both disturbed and fascinated. Harry longed to join him. A great ache inside him weighed him down, his body felt like mush, his head swam. The mage looked somewhat familiar, from up close, and the curiosity was enough of a distraction for Harry to focus past his nausea.
Harry offered his hand but instead of shaking, he grabbed Buckles by the wrist and added him to the train of exhausted mages. "Hello, I'm Harry Potter. Come along, unless you'd prefer to stay."
"Dorian Pavus, thanks kindly. I did not race all this way to die on the doorstep." And now Harry was being softly mocked by the son of a distant acquaintance. Great.
By unanimous decision, at the sight of the burning town they broke into a run. A painful, hobbled run, but a faster pace nonetheless. With Anders freezing the Venatori who'd apparated earlier and Pavus's barrier sheltering them, Harry siphoned the fire of the nearest building and hurled it back at the approaching army. Pavus ducked in, dragged out an elderly man and they were off to the next one.
Overhead, an owl dropped its cargo, letting the red Templar shatter on the ground. Harry winced. Bodies were not meant to break that way, it was unnatural.
Fight, shield, fire, repeat. They herded terrified people before them. The masses wouldn't stand a chance if the enemy caught them in the streets; the soldiers couldn't fight through the crowds, the civilians couldn't dodge. This panic would look benign in comparison to what would erupt.
And then Cullen was there, shouting in his big Commander voice. He brought order and it was the greatest magic trick Harry had seen in some time.
The town was cleared, the fires put out.
Harry gasped for breath. His reactions were dulled, his decision making compromised to say the least, and there was too much at stake. His friends, old and new; to think he risked losing them now, again…
Focus. That was what he needed most.
A glint caught his eye – red shards hurtled towards him in a wide arc, reflecting the light. Harry leapt back, dodging most by luck, the rest were deflected by an angry splutter of his magic. They blasted into a building.
Red Templars and the Venatori had reached the walls, and skipped over them without a cursory glance.
Lightning took care of the first. The smoking corpse fell to reveal some… thing. It was as tall as a qunari but crooked and toting a misshapen mass of bone and crystal all over its torso.
"What in Andraste's holy horror stories is that?" It had a face – a human face, human eyes that glowed a hateful red. It could have once been a man, but it roared like a beast and charged.
It was upon them in seconds, moving with a speed Harry would've thought impossible for a creature that lopsided. One moment it was at the walls, the next their position was overwhelmed. And there was more where that came from.
Harry ducked a slashed of claws once his brain engaged, rolled a little clumsily, and came up with his daggers. His hands remembered the grip but his feet fell into a light stance awkwardly. He probably should have kept in practice; he half expected Zevran to materialise and skewer him for letting his cushy job make him soft.
Enemies poured in from all sides; enemy mages hung back and rained spell fire on them and that was not an insignificant problem, but there was little that could be done to rectify it because barrelling toward them were all manner of lyrium monsters, erratic Templars and soldiers in Tevinter's god-awful pointy hats.
A coordinated resistance was off the table. Anders and Dorian resorted to using staves as bludgeons, spears, and desperate shields. Their movements took a desperate turn, purely defensive and clumsy with fear against the relentless close assault. It was all any of them could do to stay alive. They knew it was only a matter of time; they'd accepted it.
That was not on.
Harry lashed out and his blade sank deep into the monster's unguarded shoulder. It howled, but the wound merely opened muscle, too far from anything vital. Not ideal, but amendable. He twisted, the blade hummed in his palm and a cutting curse reverberated through the metal, through flesh, and even through a little dirt on the other end.
He pushed himself faster, further, and managed to ducked behind the next to sever its spine. He grinned; much more efficient.
"Anyone have lyrium?" Pavus called, manoeuvring himself into a break long enough to light the battlefield on fire, and yes, thank you they'd just put those out. "If you're saving it for a rainy day, now would be a good time."
Anders answered with a grunt, "Not carrying any." If there was any left, it would be in the Chantry.
A normal(er), pain in the ass kind of Templar in too large armour made easy pickings. Harry went for the weak spots, but he blocked a hit and his eyes widened in surprise; it was like catching a kick from a horse.
His arms were numb from his wrists to his elbows, but from there a tingling pain started to take over. "Expelliarmus!"
The longsword was flung backwards, over the Templar's helm and into a cluster of enemies. The man gave a startled yell and stumbled nicely into Harry's reach. He tried not to catch a gauntlet in the face, aware his pretty nose wouldn't take that well.
The battle haze descended, brightening the world in all its sensations: highlighting the glint of an incoming blade or the perfect place to sheath his own, the tell-tale roar of a monster or a spell. He wasn't aware of his frenzied breathing or shaking limbs; he wouldn't until the fatigue got bad enough to throw off his aim more than the drink already had.
He fired a blasting curse through the blades; the nearest pair of Venatori went flying, rubble rained down a second later, giving him some room. He crossed the area – cutting curse, cutting blades, then Anders was clear to fire on the mages – and kept going.
Pavus occupied a creature that required his full attention, which was problematic enough even without a Venatori trying to flank him, mace raised and ready to hit too-light armour.
Yellow light brought the soldier to the ground laughing uncontrollably. Harry gutted him as he stepped over the body, headed for the monster.
Pavus encased its legs in ice, rooting it nicely for Harry to duck under a swing and deal a blow to its back. Before he could there was a faint whistle on the wind and a shadow plucked the prone monster from the field. The legs remained behind.
That might've been the first strix to harass enemies within the walls, but that soon changed.
There was a grunt from behind; Harry turned to see Pavus step between him and a Templar, heaving against a sword that bit into the wooden staff shaft. It wouldn't take much more abuse. The blade shaved a layer as it slid until it hit a metal stud and the combatants parted. Pavus spun away with a flourish that buried the blade of his staff in the man's gut. His next attack melted the helm into the soldier's face.
Harry soon received the opportunity to return the favour, shielding them both behind a protego, returning a blast of ice to the caster.
It wasn't long after that he stopped keeping track.
They cleared the area, breathed, moved higher into the city and engaged the next lot. They gathered backup as they went; Inquisition soldiers and desperate people who'd armed themselves with crude weapons and prayers.
A dark shadowed swooped low, releasing a grating screeched that chilled his bones more effectively than the cold ever had: the owl dove, talons outstretched, and slammed a Templar into the ground. Harry blinked and two leapt into the sky, leaving punctured, crushed armour and the broken body within it behind.
They were winning. The Inquisition soldiers cheered and it could be heard above the screams of pain and anger; enemies fell more quickly, more often under their bolstered numbers. The flow was slowing, and –
There was a mighty rumble, starting with the air and trembling in the ground. Snow slid from the mountain tops and thundered down, gathering momentum. It funnelled downhill, the force of it sweeping the valley clean of trees and enemies alike.
Several of the strix had perched on roofs to scan the town balefully, but they took off with a call of alarm at the noise. Their creepy effect was washed out by the triumphant cheer.
Harry smiled at Anders and received a weary laugh in reply. "Avalanche. Unconventional, but appreciated."
A moment of peace, but a second roar shattered the air. This one didn't sound like the mountain dropping its load; it was far too primal for that. Harry shifted his grip, saw one of the trebuchets in the distance go up in fire and smoke, and an enormous silhouette passed overhead with the speed and sound of a fighter jet.
It started raining dragon fire.
"Oh come on!"