Part Seven - The Unknown
The Source
It took Harry a moment to realise he was floating in darkness. He moved his arms and felt no resistance, just emptiness. There was no air to breathe, there was no sound. His mind was calm, curious.
It could have been a second or it could have been an eternity, Time was absent from absolute emptiness.
Was this the source?
His thoughts felt slow, sluggish. What was life without time? he wondered. He had travelled through time but how could his mind survive without time to take it forward?
A floor began to materialise and he felt his feet on a cold stone floor. A room shimmered around him and suddenly, Harry found himself facing the very familiar back wall of a Hogwarts classroom.
There was a light behind him, which returned the gift of sight to his mind and he turned around slowly. He felt another person in the room.
There was a woman seated behind the teacher's desk, wearing the robes of a Hogwarts Professor and she seemed engrossed in a book she was reading.
There was a pencil in her hand which she was idly tapping against the desk and Harry felt sound return to him.
He breathed fresh air with a gasp and the professor noticed his presence.
She frowned, seeming confused. She looked around surprised by her surroundings.
Her face came into focus, under the mystical light, glowing around the ceiling and Harry was awash with aching familiarity.
Her red hair had paled with age and had haphazard grey streaks. Lines of age had made inroads on her skin and her emerald eyes shone with warmth and dawning comprehension.
Harry goggled. She may be older but there was no way he could fail to recognise her.
"Mom," he whispered.
Lily stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. She closed the gap between them in a blur and she hugged him tightly. "Harry," she whispered.
Harry was limp in her grip. She was soft and warm and he felt safe in her arms.
She let go of him and looked into his wide eyes with her hands on his shoulders. "It's good to see you."
Her words didn't register. He just absorbed her voice, memorising it forever.
The surreality of his situation didn't escape his attention and a part of him questioned his perspective.
"Where are we?" he asked. He felt like he could talk to her. He didn't need to beat around the bush. She was his mother, almost alive and well, except that she did look a bit astral.
"Where is an interesting question," she chuckled. "Why, is what you should be asking."
Lily let go of his shoulder and gently grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the table. "Take a seat," she said. "You're here for a reason and that reason is why I'm here I suppose."
She sat behind the desk and Harry pulled up a chair from one of the desks.
He felt like he was in a bizarre detention.
"Were you this cryptic when you were alive?"
Lily pursed her lip and hummed in deep thought. "I never liked straight answers," she said after a moment with a grin.
Harry laughed and Lily giggled.
"I feel like the reason doesn't matter anymore," Harry admitted. "But, if you must know, I was looking for the source."
"The what?"
"The Source," Harry repeated. "You know, the source of magic, the pure truth behind the slime of society?"
"Merlin, Harry. What kind of stories did you grow up with?"
His mood darkened. "So you don't know."
"I'm dead Harry. The last thing I remember from life is saving yours. You brought me here and for that I'm grateful. Being part of a universal consciousness is not fun at all."
It was a wonderful fantasy. Reunited with a sane, loving mother. But it was not real, Harry knew that from the moment he saw her. This was just temporary. In a moment, he would be back in the Badlands or dead and gone, never to be heard from again.
"I didn't grow up with stories," Harry said finally. He had to let go. "I was beaten and tortured for the better part of my childhood and I did what I had to do to survive."
"I see," she said quietly. "Must have been tough."
"It was alright," Harry said with a shrug. "People kept getting in my way though. They pissed me off to the point where I destroyed the country just to stop them from bugging me all the time. And to teach them a lesson."
"What kind of lesson?"
"Magic is all that matters. Being one with magic should be the sole purpose of humanity. Magic is truth without the mucked up heap of flawed reasoning and hidden agendas with which our society is built!"
"So you set off in a quest to find the source of magic. To understand the simple truth of life and existence."
"That's right."
"And now that you've found it, are you satisfied and whole?"
Harry looked into her eyes and smiled. "I found you."
His hand was on the table and Lily took it in hers and squeezed gently. "You see Harry, the source as you call it, is not something that has an answer. It's the question that drives it, powers it, and guides it. Questions that are born from the minds of conscious material life. Your question happened to be in resonance with the question that drove the source to reach out to you and you to it. Do you understand?"
"It's not a straight line," Harry said dryly. "It still doesn't explain what the source is."
Lily thought about how best to explain it and got an idea.
She peered behind Harry, looking past his ear and the classroom disappeared. He was floating in emptiness again, but this time the light from a beautiful blue planet, illumined by a distant star took over his horizon and wonder.
A space station zipped past them. It was on a collision course with the planet in a desperate attempt to get their data to their headquarters. They were running on blind fate, praying for an answer, a solution. An end to the nightmare.
"Wow," Lily said. "You did all that?"
"Yea," Harry breathed in awe. The Desert had taken over a fifth of the planet. Catastrophic climate change was wreaking havoc all over the planet.
Magic crackled menacingly in the atmosphere, making thunder and lightning look tame.
"What do you see?" she asked.
Harry looked closely and found the subtext projected through Lily's voice. It was the magic. It was being turbulent but very clearly had a source from where it was erupting.
"It's coming from within the Earth," Harry said in surprise.
"Look closer," Lily whispered.
It was a white light, pulsing from the centre of the Earth. The closer Harry looked at it, the further it got until he was looking at a galaxy with white light linking planets and stars, stretching onto the far ends of the universe where there was nothing but pure light, bursting with consciousness looking for material forms. Through the light, Harry saw infinite probabilities being created faster than the speed of light. Life and magic was a small part of its wonder and mystery.
There was no I. If the absence of time made life empty, what was it without an identity? It was just drifting unidentifiable consciousness and the next question that arose was, what was its purpose? He had circled back to the origin of the question behind his quest.
"Come back, Harry." Lily's warm voice filtered through his blinded eyes and he sprang back into the classroom with a gasp. He was sweating and trembling.
The truth, Harry. Is not pure," Lily said with a hush. "Underneath that pure hypnotic light, lies the most desperate subconscious need to feel alive. To breathe in life. To flourish and prosper against all odds in a harsh universe. And that is the desire that is common to all life, Organic life is the material manifestation of the subconscious energy that happens to exist in our galaxy.
"Your identity is just a perspective born through an external stimulus which is along for a ride through life before you return to the source by the grace of death."
Harry was silent for a while. It was difficult to process. Magic, Lily was saying, in essence, was insignificant in the scheme of the source. It didn't matter if he mastered it or even understood it. It was just a tool created for life to feel alive. It was a wonderful blanket meant to further shield the eyes of humanity against the cold hard truth.
Their identities didn't matter. Their conquests and achievements didn't matter. Whether they felt gratitude for being alive and contributed to the growth of nature didn't matter. Even if the planet was destroyed it wouldn't matter.
Life was just a battle against eventual Death. Even for him. He remembered his ideals. Judging people by the way they used magic and deciding their worth. And now he had to learn that even that, didn't matter. He didn't matter at all.
"Don't feel so down Harry," Lily chided. "You need to see the positives."
Harry scoffed. "What positives?"
"That you're still alive and have the power to explore the infinite probabilities of your galaxy that will challenge and defy your imagination. You're a three-dimensional being in a multi-dimensional universe Harry. All you need to do now is make a choice. Your Power and Will brought you here and me to you. It will be your Power and Will that will take you back and send me back to the source to exist as part of the single universal subconscious energy."
Harry wanted to say something. Some words of comfort, but they were all choked up in his heart.
"What if I decide to destroy this world to aim for the stars?" Harry burst out. He felt tears build up in his eyes. He didn't want to say goodbye.
"Do what you think is right Harry," Lily said gently. "That's all that matters. The Universe has a way of maintaining balance. It's that aspect of the universe that Seer's attempt to read into and interpret. Just don't forget to think with your heart at times. It's important for you to be whole you know. Maybe get yourself a girlfriend!" she joked.
She was fading away. The walls of the classroom were turning into mist.
"I'm the most wanted man on the planet right now," Harry said sarcastically. "I…" Harry woke up on the cold stone of the cave filled with the mist from the valley.
He lifted his head and look out with bleary eyes at the mist, illuminated only by the starlight in the absence of a moon.
"Rest in peace, Mom," he said and closed in eyes in silent gratitude.
Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed. The mist no longer affected him and he pushed himself to his feet with a groan. He had to move. He needed to feel something real.
Harry stumbled out on the hillside and fumbled for his wand. He needed light and the Void needed some rest. The smoother, more calm and focused power of his wand would be enough for now.
Light streamed out of his wand and Harry was quick to notice the lack of sound or breeze. There was no moon, just a star-speckled sky with a faint luminosity whose source he could not detect.
He took measured steps and levitated with precise movements up the rugged terrain. He wanted a view. He felt like he was in an alien world. There was no life, no sound and yet he knew he was being watched in the dark.
Had his dip into the source changed the Badlands? A smile brightened his mood as he replayed meeting his mom in the most sacred place in the verse of magic.
As he navigated the surprisingly high peak, his perception of magic began to change. There wasn't any hidden meaning or source to magic. It was, just as the name meant, an energy that created magic in the lives of the conscious. And what Harry hated about society was that they used that beautiful energy to do more harm than continue to evolve to better understand, appreciate and elongate their short stay on the planet.
He reached the peak and finally found the moon. It was low and red on the other side of the mountain and calmly illuminated a dead, crooked forest stretching before him up to what vaguely looked like a black mountain blotting out the stars in the sky.
He took a step forward onto the water-starved land and felt the Void return to him, alert and more powerful than ever.
Confidence built in him like an awakening deep-sea tsunami and he began to walk, his eyes fixed on the black mountain.
The Void floated quietly beside him, watching out for possible predators.
All this time, he didn't feel anything from the Badlands. But now, it felt pure alien. He couldn't describe the feeling except that it put all his defences up and alert to the possibility of death.
His Mind went into overdrive. First the Mist and now a Graveyard of dead trees. No, it was a concept of death.
Harry then realised there was still no sound.
Apart from the soft sounds of his footsteps over the dusty earth and his breathe, sound was still completely absent from the Badlands. The air seemed to exist just around him.
The Moon continued to climb in the sky, becoming brighter as it glided in total Vacuum.
Harry teleported towards the mountain and covered far more distance than he ever had before. He felt stronger than he had ever felt before. He felt whole and silently thanked his mom again. That encounter had been real. It was not an illusion. He began to build faith around it.
The ground ahead steeped into a few more hillocks and Harry noticed a house tucked away on one of the cliffs.
A few leaps more through space and Harry was facing two towering stone monoliths holding between them two metal gates bound together with a locked chain.
Harry looked to either side of the entrance as saw open space through which the dead trees continued their grim perception unabated. He couldn't see far ahead except for the massive shadow of the house under the moonlight. He entertained the idea of breaking in but immediately felt that was unwise. He was in an alien land, a bubble burst away from being exposed to the deathly environment.
So, like any other guest, he made a fist and knocked, hoping for a response.
There was no sound and instead, a noticeable pulse of light formed around his first and were absorbed by the monoliths.
A light turned on in the house.
Harry's heart quickened. Looked like someone was home. He couldn't help but smile in excitement. He loved these kinds of situations.
The chain unlocked itself and the gates opened silently.
Harry walked in, trying to imagine what the being in the house was like.
Once inside, a path was illuminated by glowing lines of blue along the pathway edges. The way itself was made of marble.
The five-minute walk up to the entrance of the house turned the dead forest into one that seemed to have the beginning of life and when he reached the oak door of the quaint three-storey house made out of carved rocks and wood, did the forest transform into a garden of snoozing fruit trees and vast expanses of soft grass.
Yet there was still no sound.
He knocked on the door. And at his first touch, it opened smoothly.
A rush of warm air and the smell of cinnamon hit with a refreshing blast.
He heard the faint sound of music playing and walked into a room, its floor covered with soft carpet and walls adorned with hooks and sinks. The edges at the bottom of the walls adjacent to the entrance had a sort of drain with steel taps fixed close to the floor.
The door behind him closed with a soft thud and he noticed a sign behind it.
Freshen up, it read.
The wall on the opposite end had an opening covered by a curtain.
Harry smiled. Someone was home and seemed to be of the welcoming variety. He sighed in relief. He was in no mood for conflict. He had lost the appetite for it.
He washed his feet and face and cast a spell to freshen up his clothes. There were no mirrors to check his appearance and he ran his wet hands through his hair.
He went through the curtain and walked into a dining room brightly lit with floating candles. A table was placed near the windows facing the black mountain and was adorned with fruits and bread.
There was still no one around and Harry, with some caution, walked over and picked out a banana. He was feeling a bit peckish.
He then turned his gaze from the sight of the black mountain and observed the room.
The stone walls were covered with tapestries showing lineages and neatly lined up tables and shelves contained artefacts and books.
In the clean and seemingly untouched environment, the gap in one of the books on a shelf near the doorway leading into the interiors of the house stood out.
Harry's eyes widened.
He reached into his pockets and removed the book he had found in Avalon's library. It fit into the gap perfectly and now Harry felt goosebumps of excitement. Could this be the home of the author?
The white curtain leading inside fluttered and a woman walked inside.
Harry blinked twice to make sure he was seeing right.
She was wearing a sleeveless casual gown that ended above her ankles with had a white hood that was up and shadowing her face. A white pearl rope was tied around her waist that accentuated her figure. What surprised Harry was her light blue skin and murky green eyes.
She faced him and pulled down her hood, revealing long black hair, left loose and lightly floating as if cheekily defying gravity.
"Thank you for returning my book," she said warmly in an accent Harry found hard to place.
"You're welcome," Harry replied. "Thanks for letting me in."
She nodded. Harry noted her angular features. It felt like she wasn't really seeing him and was just acknowledging his presence.
"It's been a while since a human has reached this dimension."
Harry looked at her curiously and she smiled. Her murky eyes began to clear and she looked at him deeply, as if reading him.
"Let's go to the terrace and talk," she said. "Do you want something to drink?"
"Tea," Harry replied.
She snapped her fingers and led him to a door near the dining table which he hadn't noticed before and through it, they walked into a large balcony whose corners were lined with exotic succulents and flowering plants.
A white orb hung above the doorway, adding light to the glow of the red moon, now high up in the sky.
There was a high table and a couple of chairs near the railings that showed a spectacular view of the valley below, peppered with dead trees, their crooked branches creating strange shadows under the moonlight.
"My name's Harry Potter," Harry said, taking a seat and picked up the steaming teacup. He sipped it and sighed in bliss.
"Morrigan MacFusty," she acknowledged in return. "I'm the Gatekeeper."
"What is this place?" Harry asked. "Is it real or metaphysical?"
"Well," she said. "It's not all in your mind if that's what you mean. You're in an alternate dimension. Why you're here is a question you need to ask yourself."
"I was looking for the source of magic."
"Ah," Morrigan exhaled. She leaned forward and summoned a cup of tea for herself. "You're a wizard. Hmm, that makes sense. I must admire your persistence in reaching here. Is Gaia everything you hoped it was?"
"Gaia?"
"The name of this plane of existence."
"I'm undecided," Harry said dryly. "I don't understand the laws governing this place. When you say this an alternate dimension, do you mean displaced in time and space on Earth or is it displaced by distance through space?" What he was asking was, was he in an alien world?
"Well that's a tricky question," she said. She looked towards the black mountain and frowned. "Firstly, you need to stop thinking like a Wizard. Secondly, regardless of time, space or distance, to exist, there needs to be matter. And matter needs time, space and distance. Thirdly, for matter to be perceived, life is required. Where you are is the point where it can be understood by those seeking knowledge and meaning.
"Did you come through the mist or the sea?"
"The Mist," Harry murmured, as he pondered over her words.
Morrigan leaned back in her chair. "What did you learn?"
Harry sighed. "I'm not sure. I have a feeling I'll know when I return."
"Well, It's not my business," she said with a small smile. "What you should know is that there's no easy way leaving this dimension. There have been many who have explored Gaia and found nothing. They chose to turn back the way they came and had to endure terrible hardships to find an exit. The rare few that make it here, have a choice. One, turn back the way you came, endure hardships and find an exit. Or keep moving forward and face certain death."
"Er… What?"
She laughed and pointed at the black mountain. "Do you know what that is?"
"A Mountain?"
"That's the Guardian, a black dragon. He feeds off the energy of the gateway."
Harry gasped. "That's a dragon?!" The ones he had been around were much smaller. "Is it friendly?"
Morrigan grinned. "He doesn't like to be disturbed. The MacFusty Clan is tasked with the duty of warning travellers from going that way. "
"Where does the gateway lead?" Harry asked.
"It takes you exactly where you need to go," she said. "Don't try to understand it. It just is."
"So you welcome travellers, feed them and warn them not to go past the dragon and instead, to return home the way they came, satisfied with the answers they have gained, without reaching the ultimate goal which is to travel through the gateway."
"Did you notice the vacuum-like nature of the land around you when you came up here?"
"Yes."
"That's because of the Guardian's breathing."
"Impressive," Harry said. He had already made up his mind. The challenge was far too tempting to resist.
"You have a powerful spirit. I have no doubt you'll succeed in going through."
"Thanks," Harry muttered. He gazed at the black dragon thoughtfully. Now that he knew it was a dragon, he realised he was looking at its tail. Its body rose into the clouds which hung close to the ground.
"Are you human Morrigan?" he asked suddenly. The question had been scratching the back of his mind.
"Human?" Morrigan laughed. "I exist by the strength of my will and purpose of my clan. What you see, is the form I am comfortable with."
Harry had learned by now, beings of great strength and knowledge were annoyingly cryptic. "Did you write your books when you were alive?" he quizzed. He wanted as many answers as he could get.
"The books are a culmination of the knowledge gathered by my clan over aeons of existence. Their pages are continuously filled. I imagine I'll be adding a chapter about your arrival and departure soon enough.
"Anyway, you're welcome to stay here for a moon cycle. After that, you have to leave. You may use the guest room on the third floor and are welcome to browse through the library."
"Wait," Harry said. "I have many more questions."
"Well, you're welcome to devour the library if you have the time. I have places to be and lost travellers to guide out of this dimension. We'll meet again when it's time for you to depart and if you still have questions, ask me then."
Harry nodded his acceptance and spent some time, in her company, in silence and deep thought. He wondered if time flowed in the same manner as back on Earth and when he looked at her to ask she was gone.
Harry spent the rest of the moon cycle browsing through all he could find about the source, magic, existence and the universe. He read about alternative realities, time travel, death and rebirth, evolution, creation, destruction… the list was long.
He wished he could stay longer, but soon, time ran out, distorted though it was.
The moon had risen and fallen three times and maintained darkness throughout. Today, it didn't rise and instead, the sky just kept getting brighter and gentle life returned to the gardens.
Morrigan entered the library and smiled at him. "It's time," Morrigan said. "Follow me."
She led him to the floor of meditation and pushed one of the stones in the wall. It smoothly opened and revealed a softly lit tunnel leading downward. "It will take you close to the Guardian. From there be on your guard and try not to die. The trauma will make it difficult for you to have a chance to hold on to your identity after death."
Harry nodded. "Thank you for your hospitality."
"Do you have any more questions?" she asked lightly. She knew he wouldn't.
Harry laughed.
"Good luck," she said with a smile and the door closed.
Harry was grateful. He had learned so much. If ever, he had to reflect on his journey through the Source, it would be with complete satisfaction.
Even if he died now, he knew not to be afraid. It was not the end.