A New Purpose
Daphne Greengrass had come a long way from being the icy Slytherin whose sole purpose was vengeance on those who had wronged her. It had been a simple vision until the day fate cursed her to meet Harry Potter in a bookstore.
She should have realised back then, that that crazy look in his eyes coupled with an obsession with solitude meant nothing but trouble.
"It was the crazy that drew you in, Daph," her subconscious mocked. "It was the same as yours!"
"Shut up," Daphne muttered.
"What?" Hermione asked, startled. Her journey from Hogwarts to being back in the desert out of her free will was quite an adventure. Ever since Hogwarts had been cut off from communication, she had noticed her mind and morals evolving noticeably until she shed the skin of transition and emerged a stronger person.
She was the only other who had chosen to go with Daphne. No one else dared to face the brutal desert for a quest Daphne had made quite clear was about finding Harry. Face the psychopath who had created the Desert in a fit of rage? they had thought in bewilderment. They were thankful to Daphne for creating the settlement, but accompanying her into the desert without any real aim was suicide.
"Nothing," Daphne muttered, staring ahead at the endless desert, letting memories wash over her.
"Don't sully yourself with those with intelligence below yours Daph. Find those whose quality and intelligence is above yours. Stay in their radius and strive to match them until you're looking down on them. There will always be someone above you Daph. You need to rise above them all."
Daphne had known it was a suicidal ask when she proposed her flimsy idea and she hadn't expected anyone to join her but knowing it for real pinched her ego.
"The way you're scowling suggests it's more than nothing," Hermione commented dryly.
Daphne rolled her eyes. It had been maybe five sunrises since they had left the camp and so far it had been relatively easy finding an oasis and scattered vegetation. It was almost as if the desert sensed their firm will and was bending toward it.
"I was just wondering why I never saw this coming," Daphne said. "I sure spent enough time around him."
Hermione laughed; amused. "No one could have predicted this Daphne."
Hermione had survived in the Desert thanks to Snape. And in the Settlement, she lost all hope of a revival of her world. Now, her worldview was centred around one thought, that gave her power. The Desert was uncharted land. She was going to learn all that she could about it and she needed a way to get Harry Potter talking about it. She didn't care if he lived or died. She knew it didn't matter anymore.
Daphne sighed. Maybe it was time to confess. "Partly," she said, "All this is my fault. I put the wheels in motion when I blew up Malfoy Manor. Things just sort of snowballed from there. It's funny how a few murders can cascade into a natural disaster."
Hermione stopped in her tracks and goggled at Daphne. "What? It was you?" Hermione was surprised. "Huh, I had no idea you were capable of that." She resumed her walk and increased her pace showing she was mildly affected by that revelation.
Daphne jogged to step into pace. It was nearing the afternoon and their cooling spells were losing their cohesion. Sweat began to pour down their necks and they adjusted their hats and renewed the cooling charms. The yellow Desert burned unforgivingly and yet the two women continued to steady walk, heading towards not a location but a purpose held together by similar wills.
They were armed with Madam Barb's all-weather grey pants and shirt with additional pocket dimensions carved into their pockets. It was where they kept their supplies to survive the inhospitable desert.
"I had expected a more bitter reaction you know."
"Will it change anything?" Hermione asked pointedly.
"No, I guess not," Daphne replied thoughtfully. "Although the fact that I told Harry and he reacted with amusement was the clearest warning I should have heeded."
Daphne felt a slap on the back of her head hard. "Ow!" she cried indignantly. "Really? You react to that?"
"You had that big a crush on him?!"
"I did not!" Daphne defended. Hermione's glare grew more pointed. "Alright, fine, I might have, but that's all in the past now. Now I just want to find him because I'm sick of being a leader for a fucking settlement to help people to survive with the bare minimum! I want out and all that I can think of doing is find Harry and decide if I want to…!" Her voice trailed into nothingness as his soft voice echoed through her memories.
"Only the strong survive. The weak are erased by the strong. Are you weak or are you strong, Daphne?"
Hermione stopped dead in her tracks and shook her head disappointingly. "All this for a psychopath."
"He's not!" Daphne began in a raised voice and she immediately cooled herself. This was no reason to get worked up. They were just remnants of buried emotions. "He's not a psychopath. That I know for a fact," she finished quietly.
Hermione's eyes softened. It was more than a crush. It was a bond that was broken without an explanation. Her mind drifted to her own with Cedric. "I'm sorry," she apologised.
"It's," Daphne struggled for words. "I had wanted to use him for my own goals," she admitted. Her subconscious drew up the picture of her in front of her mirror, dreaming about ruling over the magical world with the blood purists grovelling at her heel. It was a juvenile dream. "And instead he tore it all down without warning," Hermione said, finishing Daphne's sentence.
"It's a bad joke," Daphne said dryly.
The air began to distort and Daphne and Hermione grabbed each other's arms. "Here it comes," Hermione said warily.
The distortion dislocated them from space and they stumbled into a ruined concrete jungle. Shadows of scattered ruins of skyscrapers crisscrossed on the desert floor and amid stable structures, thousands of makeshift homes and vendors selling wares that were being guarded by men and women armed to the teeth with stolen guns and knives.
It was noisy. Voices were raised and materials clanged. The heat was sweltering and everyone was covered with patched-up clothes with hoods or hats.
"Wow," Hermione summed up and Daphne nodded in agreement with wide eyes. "I haven't seen these many people in ages," she muttered. "Feels kinda stifling. Is this London?"
"Let's keep moving," Hermione muttered. They were gaping at it wasn't wise to attract attention.
They quietly transfigured their hats into hoods and drew them up.
Curious eyes were already on them, observing with caution, muttering amongst themselves, judging if they were prey or predators.
Harry counted himself among the impressed as he walked through the camp observing the method this camp had chosen for survival. He saw methods to harvest water, contractions pulling schools of fish into a pond to snatch out off, simple homes held firm by simple runes and his favourite, a place for the weak to die, an unwritten rule that said, if you don't meet the basic requirement of self-sustenance, you're not welcome here. It was a place governed by simplistic survival and harmony in human society.
"Brilliant," he whispered. It was neatly done.
In the middle of the camp, Muggles and Wizards lived together and that brought about a mixed feeling in Harry, particularly because of his violent experience in the muggle world. But he had learnt to let go of the past. He had travelled in a full circle, through the heart of consciousness and emerged in reality with the ability to feel and interpret his own emotions instead of learning from the colours of others.
The path forward was clear to him. He had to end what he had begun. The foundation stones of the next phase of evolution were set and he had to see the transition through.
He looked at the turbulent chaos of runes in the sky and focused on carefully interpreting what they were saying or doing. It was clearer to him than before and he found something peculiar.
"We're here," the Doc said. They had reached one of the larger huts that looked more like an image of a crudely constructed monastery roughly shaped like a pyramid. Beyond its physical form, Harry saw the runes that held it firm and those that seemed to influence the mind? He frowned and looked deeper.
The runes were those that guided logic and reason. Interesting, he mused. A temple to make rational decisions without the influence of aggressive emotions.
The Doc led him into a room with warm interiors. Three fireplaces were burning with low intensity. The flame was green and Harry noticed the runes and eternal warmth carved into the bottom of the hearth.
There was a round table made of crystallised sand placed roughly in the centre of the room and the remaining corners gathered dust.
The fractures and fissures in the table split the light into dim sharp-edged shapes on the ceiling.
There were two empty chairs at the table and Sirius waved at the Doc, inviting him to join them.
Above the table hung a chandelier, lit with a dozen powerful undying candles.
"Hey, Harry," Sirius began. His voice was empty of emotion.
"Is this how you greet newcomers to your camp?" Harry replied and took a seat. Next to him was a woman and he looked briefly at the colours that made them and smiled lightly. Their colours were strong. Even Sirius had changed from the wimp he remembered into a spirit determined to leave the past behind and move on.
"We saved your life. Isn't that the best greeting around these days?" said the woman with short brown hair, tied back into a neat pony. Her voice was young and her colours reflected intelligence and determination.
"Please don't pretend around me," Harry said sharply. "I can see the hostility clear as day inside you. "I am the one who destroyed your world. And yet, I am the one who destroyed Azkaban; the threat that was looming over you with a suffocating grip and thus, you're unsure of what to do with me."
Harry leaned forward and looked around the table, his eyes glittering with a newfound perspective. "I just have a few questions to ask and after that, we can part ways without restoring to bloodshed."
Silence reigned supreme in a moment dominated by the aura of Harry's power.
"Oh boy." Sirius barked a laugh and broke the tension that had choked the breath out of their lungs. "I think this is the first time you've spoken longer than a sentence around me!"
A sense of annoyance crept into Harry so he leaned back and waited. He had said what he wanted to say, the ball was in their court now.
"Daphne was right," said the young woman with awkward amusement. "He's direct."
"Why don't we start with an introduction, eh?" Arthur interrupted diplomatically. "Harry," he continued, "Meet the governors of this camp. Mrs Barb, our resident tailor, Oliver; he's a wandmaker, Jenna; she's an engineer, you know Sirius and you've already met the Doc. I'm Arthur; you might have met my son Ronald at Hogwarts." He pointed at each person as he spoke their names and Harry noticed an ache in his green when he spoke the name of his son.
Ronald, the name rang a bell. "Arthur Weasley?" he guessed.
Arthur nodded.
Fred and George Weasley's father, he connected. The famous twins of Gryffindor. He wondered what had become of them.
"And everyone," Sirius continued. "Please meet Harry Potter, the Disaster."
Harry raised an eyebrow in amusement. "You're calling me a disaster?"
"Aren't you?" Sirius retorted. "Disasters are usually accompanied by unparalleled death and destruction."
"Let's not get sidetracked, Sirius," Arthur interjected. "Harry, we know what you did and are not here to judge you for it. Not right now, anyway. What we want from you is a way out of this catacombed desert and a hope that there is a world that still exists outside somewhere."
Harry leaned back in his chair and drank their words in. The revulsion at being forced to ask him politely shone through their desperation to find a way out.
"When I first conceived the idea of turning this world into a desert. I imagined it as a place where Darwin's law held. I thought I would find…. something," he said softly. His eyes glazed as he thought back to the moment he had unleashed the spell and to the moment he came back through Azkaban.
"And did you find what you were looking for?" the brown-haired woman, whom he now identified as Jenna, asked with a bite of sarcasm.
"I wouldn't be back here if I didn't."
"Does that mean you'll help? Will you reverse this curse?" Oliver, the young wandmaker asked with annoyance. He hated stories. Ollivander had always bemoaned that fact.
"Why do you want me to? Compared to the world you left behind, this world is without bias, without the cynicism and racism of society. Here, you are free to live, if you are capable of it. And if you're not, death is a welcome escape. What is it, that you gain in the old world that you cannot gain in this one?"
"It's a fucking desert Harry," Sirius snapped.
"It's not a desert," Harry replied quietly and yet his words travelled. "It's a place that exposes your weaknesses and forces you to confront them. If you overcome it, you get to live and thrive if you choose to. It's a game of survival and you have the tools to play it."
Barb scoffed. "Forgive me boy, but life is not just about survival. Our lives are not yours to play with!"
"I never intended to make you its participants," Harry retorted. "It was a game designed for me. It was you people who forced me to trap you within it."
They knew what he was talking about - The Trial. Voldemort. Society's weakness for being manipulated.
"Your society was stuck in a loop. It was a disease spreading and eating away at the planet and its magical force. You would have run yourselves into extinction if not for a chance to start over." Harry took a deep breath. He could see it clearly now. "If you had any sense, you would be thanking me for ensuring the planet survives."
"The planet is dying boy," Barb interjected acidly. "You're so wrapped up in your delusions that you can't see past your ego. You're naive if you think you're the cure for the darkness of humanity. You're just a psychopath who was gifted with undeniable power."
"I earned my power," Harry retorted. "I earned my right to survive in your cruel world. And you're wrong if you think the planet is dying. I've seen the runes in the sky and they're not spelling out death. They are forcing evolution. I was just a vessel to channel the will of the source."
"The Source?" Jenna spoke up curiously. Hermione had given her the diary and she had seen that word scribbled repeated when she leafed through its contents. "What is it?"
Harry paused and gathered his thoughts for a moment. He had travelled far to find an answer to that question. Should he just give it away? he wondered.
"It's the metaphorical heart of the planet," he summarised. "It's the source of our life in a universe dominated by death. Everything that we perceive, from inanimate to animate, is a manifestation of its desire to experience life.
"The planet wants to be alive and human society was stupid enough to try and destroy it. Did you think it would not fight back? It did, through me."
"You're just crazy… Harry," Sirius laughed dryly.
Harry chuckled. "Maybe so, but the game is not over just yet. I started this and I'm going to end it," he said firmly. That thought was clear in his head.
There were a few gasps and whispers.
Arthur, with dread pooling in his gut, asked gently, "And how does it end?"
Harry laughed. "We won't know it until we get there."
"We?" Jenna caught on.
Harry looked into her eyes, reading her colours as they interpreted his words and tied them to her research. He could see the wheels turning, reaching one conclusion after another until her eyes widened in understanding.
"You're not in control anymore," she gasped.
Harry grinned. "Here's what I think," he said. There was a hint of passion driving his voice. "Based on what I could interpret. There's an engine driving this enchantment and it's getting stronger with the perception of time. There's also some kind of gap in the runes of the enchantment which indicates the spell is incomplete. Perhaps I had foreseen, in my subconscious, the need to leave a gap to complete the enchantment with an evolved perspective."
"Or we fill that gap with a spell to reverse its effects," Jenna countered. Her eyes shone with worry as they all finally understood what Harry was hinting at.
It was a race to the finish and if they let Harry get there first, with his insane ideas of evolution and survival, it probably wouldn't bode well for them.
"Now," Harry said with a deep breath, he had been quite accommodating so far. "Tell me about Daphne. I hear she built this place. Is it true?"