Concurrent Existences

Chapter 36: Battle for Existence

Death is Here.

Without a second thought, Bellatrix willed Voldemort to be unborn.

Bellatrix smiled.

Time to even the odds.

Bellatrix dropped down on the ground after exiting the Time Vortex. The whole vortex began to move and was slowly absorbed within the dark witch. The Time Room was no relatively bare especially without the Time Vortex lingering in the middle of the room

There wasn't any time to waste. Bellatrix began moving to Hermione's last known location while trying to test out her newly acquired abilities.

The first thing she truly noticed was that she could shift her own time. She could freely age or de-age herself, but she never tried shifting her age forward with the baby, therefore, she stuck with her twenty year old self back in the past. Technically, she was immortal, but there would be time to test that once all this was over.

Her body began to propel itself faster, as if under a haste spell, charging towards the Brain Room. She still had no true grasp of the situation and she did not want a repeat of the defeat she suffered against Death.

She still tested out her powers while rushing towards the room. She began trying her new found time magic on objects that she passed. She could envelop small areas with time magic and could cause the time of the area to forward or reverse, that, itself, was already crazy enough. If her time magic could reverse people's ages... The possibilities were endless.

However, there was a limit, the range in which she could make these Time Areas were relatively small, but she had to start somewhere.

It seemed as if the fight with Death wouldn't be so hard after all.

Death was growing bored.

The girl was really interesting, but after several hours of getting bombarded by various spells, it was just getting boring. The girl was adept with elemental magics, general magics and experimental magics, but none of that would really affect him in his current state.

There was another reason Death chose this particular dimension to reside in. Dimensions and worlds all have different properties. There are some dimensions where magic is prevalent, there are other dimensions in where there is no magic at all, but what makes most dimensions different is the type of magic it is prevalent in. This current dimension had a significantly high attunement to elemental magics, but nearly zero attunement to soul magics and time magics.

Death had been to worlds with teeming with Shamans, Priests, Angels, Time Lords and a slew of other beings, each dimension having a different mix of each. The reason to stay here was because time and soul magics weren't strong in this dimension. Even if the inhabitants of the world would decide to start studying soul and time magic, their success would be very limited due to the world not having the Ley lines required for it.

Time and soul magics were a direct counter to his own power. More on soul magics, time magic was just annoying most of the time.

Even if the dimension wasn't attuned to time and soul magics, it didn't mean there wouldn't be those stray anomalies that could manipulate them. Hermione Granger and Bellatrix Black were two of the few that could possibly manipulate those kinds of magics with a high rate of success.

Death was by no means afraid of facing these types of magic though. If he was, he would have stuck a blade into every single anomaly he had encountered before they even realized their potential.

But, where was the fun in that?

Had Morgan le Fey not mastered soul magics and used it, his reformation would have been much earlier, but that was the whole point in letting them live.

Excitement and enjoyment.

Death may not be human, but he could at least understand how to enjoy and savor existence.

And, to enjoy ones existence, one mustn't stack all the odds in their favor.

Death smiled while thwarting another Obliteration spell thrown by the girl a few meters away from him. Her robes were in disarray from all the explosions caused by her own spells that she had been throwing for several hours now. Hermione Granger had really surprised him with her experimental magics. Death never imagined that a small seed placed by the tome would lead to this.

The girl sunk to the ground, but her head was still held up high even with the erratic white shifting glow that engulfed her veins. She was strong, there was no doubt about that, but her type of magic was just ineffective against him, especially in his current state. It did take quite a few millennia to get to this point after all.

Death allowed the girl to take a breath as he sensed what was already coming. It seems as if the Black heiress survived after all. The possibility that she survived from a self-contained Time Vortex was astronomically low, attuning to the said Time Vortex was even lower. Death had been to other worlds and dimensions that were attuned with time magics, and knew what to expect.

A real threat had just appeared.

Having a god-mode cheat was never really fun.

It was the battles and everything that lead up to it that actually made Death feel...

... alive.

The real fight was coming now. It was sad that Death could not persuade them to join him, but at least entertainment was coming.

If Death lost... well, that never stopped Death.

Hermione did wonder why had no one else had decided to check the ninth level of the Ministry. It had been over several hours with continuous spell barrages while she had been siphoning off magic from the air and people on the other floors. She assumed Ministry personnel would at least investigate the cause on all floors.

The battle was at a full stalemate, and the only reason it was at a stalemate was because Death had not once resorted into attacking seriously.

It was truly sad that the greatest battle of her life, of the world probably, was being done alone. Hermione still wondered if things had not gotten so convoluted that she would be here battling against Death with Harry and Ron, not technically against them.

Ron was slowly made into a monster and now Harry was being controlled by one, she wasn't even sure if Harry had already passed on if Death took full control of the host body.

Hermione felt her magics charge back up, but knew it would be the last time. She couldn't detect any viable source of magic power from the floors below. It seems as if the Ministry was smart enough to start evacuating the premises, which was bad for her. It only meant that the battle against Death would come to an end much sooner and most likely not in her favor.

It was worth a try.

Nothing worked against her foe, but there was one more thing she hadn't tried yet because she would only have one chance at it.

Ancient Obliteration magic was highly effective and highly destructive, but every time she used it, the spell would be dispelled before she got it off. She had tried numerous maneuvers and deceptions, but every single one failed.

There was one spell however that would not be dispelled since she would be able to trigger it within herself. The spell actually had a watered down version in which some used it for suicide bombings.

It was regrettable that it was the only solution she could come up with, but she had already made peace with herself when Bellatrix fell through the Vortex. There really was nothing to live for.

Hermione felt her magic power well up and she felt great. Having all the magic power at her fingers disposal was a high she did not even know how to describe, even at the face of an unbeatable enemy. She would never give up this power up for anything, well, aside from Bellatrix, but Hermione knew she was lost.

Omnia. The spell would feed on what was left of her magic gauge, which was still considerably high and make the obliteration range much larger. The glowing lines strewn across her whole body began glowing brighter than before.

In. She had some misgivings and remorse that everything within a five mile radius would be completely disintegrated, but it was for the greater good, right Dumbledore? Well, she estimated five miles or was it ten times that?

Nihilum. Hermione could feel the spell form, the trigger to the spell were her thoughts. She would be unable to cast any other spell while holding the Self-Destruction spell.

Omnia In Nihilum. Everything to Nothing. The name was appropriate for the spell. She did wonder what kind of madman would create so many of these ancient spells that could wreck pure devastation on the world itself, but she was probably one of them for actually using it. There were actually very few recorded uses of Obliteration spell used on a large scale and it was actually funny that she had pretty much cast two Obliteration spells within one week.

"That isn't going to work Miss Granger. You will only be destroying part of Magical Britain as well as expose the Wizarding World to the muggles." She was pretty sure Death didn't give a flying fuck about the 'Wizarding World', but she knew he could be right.

But, who cares?

Hermione spent years of caring how others felt. Years of trying to conform to the 'light' side trying to get along with the Order of the Phoenix, many of whom she actually slightly detested for racist and misogynistic views.

And, what did she get from it?

Absolutely nothing.

Her dying out conscience was trying to dissuade her from committing what could amount to almost genocide, but her mind could only keep thinking about Bellatrix's death and her heart could only feel the pain in losing her.

She had nothing to live for.

Hermione's body had been getting continuous supply of magic from around her, keeping her revitalized and her body fresh and energetic, but her brain?

Tired.

Her brain was tired.

Her heart was tired.

It was time to rest.

Hermione released the spell and was prepared to be disintegrated along with it. Her eyes slowly dimmed and all the glowing lines across her body died out as every single ounce of her magical power focused on the self-destruction spell within her.

...

...

Nothing.

What?

The spell should have been impossible to stop!

Instead of feeling her magic implode on herself then destroy everything in sight, she felt a smack to the back of her head.

"Hey, you. No committing suicide just yet."

Hermione's eyes opened wide at the familiar voice, not even noticing that the magic she had just poured into her self-destruction spell was now flowing through the embedded magical threads again.

counted it as a success as she locally reversed the time around Hermione to before she cast the self-destruct spell.

Just in... time. Bellatrix was glad she didn't say that out loud.

"... How?" Bellatrix glanced back down to her side where Hermione was looking up to her in wonder. A bit of Legilimency and Bellatrix could see all the questions run through her mind. Bellatrix used a small burst of magic to send a type of reverse Legilimency that could update Hermione with the base information. There wasn't much time to talk around at the moment. As long as she had the gist, it would be fine.

Time. Magic. Immortality. Alive.

Hermione's eyes widened at the impossibility that had just occurred, but it seems as impossibilities were starting to be impossible when around them.

Hold him still.

Hermione didn't hesitate to lash out with her magic as the thought came to her from Bellatrix.

Expecto Patronum! Regular magic wouldn't work, but if what Death was saying was right, then this should have some type of effect. Hermione's body surged with magic, a huge amount being directed into the Patronus spell.

Death didn't bother to counter their last attempt.

A giant Patronus in the form of an Otter engulfed Death's body.

"A giant otter? That's new." Death tested the bonds and was surprised that they actually held strong.

A Patronus was a type of manifestation of the soul, so it made sense that it would somehow affect Death.

Death was about to break through the Patronus when a shudder went through his body. He could feel it try to rebel, he could feel it try to separate. His eyes quickly went to the dark witch that held a hand towards him and realized what she was doing.

"You're attempting to use a Time-Reversal on me?" That was actually bad. Done correctly, they just might be able to weaken his hold on the boy's body.

Play time was over.

Darkness could be seen starting to spark from Potter's body. The otter Patronus was slowly being devoured and extinguished trying to hold him in place.

"Support them!" A new voice shouted out causing, Bellatrix, Hermione and Death to look towards the origins.

Ten wizards and witches had appeared out of nowhere surrounding Death, all casting their own Patronus to support Hermione's giant otter.

Bellatrix didn't bother to say anything as she continued to concentrate on the Time-Reversal Singularity she was creating around Death. The longer she had, the more effective it would be.

Hermione looked to the newcomers while maintaining her Patronus.

Unspeakables?

"We're here to assist you, Hermione Granger, despite almost escaping earlier." One of the Unspeakables said.

It seems as if there were some people that at least knew what was going on. No wonder Hermione hadn't seen the Unspeakables in a while, they must have been planning an attack. She had no detect any of them, these Unspeakables must have been using some type of artifact or magic to conceal their presence

Hermione directed her attention back to death. A scowl marred his face, probably not accounting for the fact that mortal magic might actually hold him down.

"ENOUGH!" Darkness blasted out as he ripped apart the Patronuses attached on him at the same time launching bursts of magic everywhere. The magic he was using seemed almost like Bella's magic as beams and spears of darkness were thrown out.

Hermione looked straight into the glowing black eyes of Harry Potter as he began destroying all the Unspeakables that had tried to aid them.

"Need more time!" Bellatrix shouted while being shrouded by her own magics, unable to move while manifesting her spell.

The brunette saw the black beam about to fire off from Death's palm that was aimed straight for Bellatrix and knew that she would have to intervene.

Sorry, Bella!

One dark and one light beam of magic, one from Death and one from Hermione headed straight for Bellatrix. Luckily, Hermione was closer and was able to blast her girlfriend out of Death's magical beam that pierced straight through the floors.

Bellatrix ended up slamming into a wall and Death suddenly got down to his knees, all his magic dissipating.

"Fucking shite! What a love tap!" Bellatrix knew it was a close call, she still wished that Hermione hadn't blasted her out of the way though. The time given to her wasn't enough. She would have survived the disintegration beam, but now the Time-Reversal was only half-baked.

"GET OUT! GET OUT!" Death... no, it was Harry that was screaming. Hermione could see the Singularity that the dark witch made have an effect.

"It's working!" Hermione could see the dark outline slowly shift slightly outwards. She held her spells back, not wanting to destroy or kill Harry if her lover's spell was going to work.

"It wasn't enough!" Bellatrix used a haste spell to quickly get to Hermione. There were only two out of the ten Unspeakables still standing, so much for waiting for the right time to help. They barely did anything.

Both witches started erecting a Protego Maxima for themselves as the Singularity was dispersing magic all over the place. It was as if any spell that was cast within the area or by Harry's body was being recast and uncast at random. A few more explosions of darkness had made both witches cover their eyes.

"Harry?" The Brain Room was a mess. The whole room was totaled along with a few holes that seemed to now lead to other floors.

So much for the enchantments in between floors.

Hermione pushed the smoke away with a gust of wind, but what met her wasn't a sight she wanted to see.

"Very, very well played. To think that it would actually work against me." The voice was doubled over. On one hand it was Harry's voice, on the other it was... female.

Hermione gasped.

Harry was still where he was originally, but the dark outline was halfway out of his body. It seems as if there was another dark shadowy body that was being yanked out of him. The arms of the shadowy silhouette were wrapped around his arms piercing straight into his body and a obviously female shadowy head was just above Harry's head.

It wasn't what caused Hermione's surprised though.

It was the Sword of Gryffindor that was impaled straight through his heart.

"I must admit. You almost succeeded in making me dormant within the boy's body since I'm not truly attuned to him." The double voice was creepy as it chuckled. "Reversing time for me was a tricky thing though..." Several things suddenly fell near Harry's shoes.

Sorting Hat. Elder Wand. Resurrection Stone.

"Ah, the last four Deathly Hallows, not including the cloak of course. It seems as if you have managed to dislodge them from me. You almost removed my control reversing Harry Potter's coma-like state, at least it was easy repeating it." Death laughed while indicating the Sword of Gryffindor that Death had ran through Harry's body in order for the boy to relapse into a coma or near death state.

Death was aware that even if the Time-Reversal Singularity spell wasn't complete, it had the desired effect. He was vulnerable due to the nearly severed connection to the body. Repairing and absorbing magic would be much harder, but the two witches didn't need to know that.

"You do know that both of you just wasted over two centuries for me right? These Deathly Hallows were the worst to get rid of. Much too powerful to be easily destroyed." Death grasped the sword sticking out from its host body and pulled it out causing blood to spill.

Death could see the surprise, horror and questions on both witches faces. There were two other living beings within the room, but were of no consequence.

"Wondering why the female silhouette and voice? And why these Deathly Hallows were so annoying? Both of you just wasted two centuries, what's a few more minutes?"

Observe!

Both witches were suddenly thrust into the Pensieve-like state again when Death first showed a part of his past.

"You've lost." An elderly man in wizard robes slowly walked towards a beautiful young woman that was on the ground, bleeding. Ebony black hair, pale features and black soulful eyes, but drenched in blood. There were a few arrows in her leg and arm, a spear thrust through her stomach and multiple gashes everywhere on her body.

"At what cost, Merlin?" The woman coughed blood out while indicating her surroundings that was littered with hundreds of bodies.

"Apparently at the cost of King Arthur and his armies." Such a waste, all to destroy one anomaly. "You can still join me Morgan le Fay." Merlin held a wand in his left hand and Excalibur in his right.

Merlin raised Excalibur and pressed the wand on the blade. The wand slowly entered the blade until the blade started looking more sinister.

"You've corrupted Excalibur. Kill me."

"Corrupted? Excalibur was mine in the first place before I let Arthur borrow it, witch. It was an enjoyable fight, Morgan le Fay." The body was so easy to control that manipulating the Deathly Hallows states was entirely possible.

Merlin brought the blade down and thrust it forward straight through Morgan le Fay's heart.

Instead of instantly dying, a hand was placed on Excalibur.

"Die, monster. Anima Auream." Soul Chain. Darkness exploded from Merlin's body and began entering the Excalibur that was still impaled through her heart. It seems as if Morgan's last gambit worked. Soul magic that she created herself.

Morgan could feel Death try to break free of the bonds, but she shrugged it off and pulled out Excalibur. She was supposed to be dead already, but her soul was now suppressing Death which in turn connected her to Death, but she knew her body was going to fade away in a couple of moments.

She extracted the pieces from inside of Excalibur, separating its full potential before launching it into the air and blasting it to the corners of Great Britain. It should have been the corners of the world, but her magic was exhausted.

"I'm sorry, Gwen..." Her soul would meld and battle with the soul of Death as long as she could to keep Britain safe.

Death already had the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand with the three other Deathly Hallows floating around it.

The Resurrection Stone slowly began to enter the hilt as the Elder Wand began to sink into the blade. The sword's form began to waver as Death plunged it inside the Sorting Hat just like where Harry first found it.

Only the hilt could be seen outside of the Sorting Hat as the shape began to slowly change. A few seconds later and the Sorting Hat was now a scabbard. The shape almost a duplicate of the sword they had just seen in the memory.

"Meet the last of the Deathly Hallows that required you to destroy." Death pulled the blade out.

"Meet Excalibur." Death swiped the air and launched a magical slice going towards the still living Unspeakables.

"Ready for round two?"

Anima Auream - Soul Chain - Soul magic. Enables the caster to chain their soul to another. In Morgan le Fay's case, she was able to disrupt Death for a few centuries before her soul passed on. Death retained Morgan le Fay's form due to the amount of time she was chained to Death. Death is still technically sexless.

Omnia in Nihilum - Everything to Nothing - Ancient Suicide Obliteration spell that causes the main caster to be a walking Obliteration spell. The spell requires several wizards and witches focusing on the main caster. Once cast, the spell cannot be stopped. Everything in the radius of the caster will be disintegrated along with the caster.

AN: If it wasn't obvious enough, Death really is bored and doesn't care if he wins or loses, nor if his enemies join him or not. The being has done this for eons in thousands of dimensions. Wonder what will happen to this dimension?

Death's old rules about not being able to destroy his own stuff still applies to a lesser extent since they were technically already destroyed. Don't look too in depth into it!

I've always envisioned the Sword of Gryffindor something like Excalibur especially when I saw it being pulled out of the Sorting Hat making me think of a scabbard.

These last few chapters have so much damn plot in them, maybe I should have spread it all out to make more fluffy stuff. Oh well, too late~

Second to the last chapter. One more chapter left and most likely an Epilogue.

Updated my Jane/Bella Twilight story, Abductor's Torment, yesterday if anyone is interested!