May I present Arrival, 2.0. Be on the lookout for references to canon divergence regarding Harry's life back in his old world! There will also be some worldbuilding, because that aspect of the MCU needs more attention.
I own nothing. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.
By the time the Ancient One had recovered from the effects of her shattered future-vision, she knew it was too late to completely hide all evidence of the Phoenix's arrival. The only way to do that would be to risk invoking the Runes of Kof-Kol, and that spell was forbidden for very good reason. With quick gestures, she reopened the Eye of Agamotto and conjured a gateway to the site of the Phoenix's arrival.
The first thing she saw when she stepped through was the aftermath of an explosion. A huge swath of forest had been reduced to ash, creating a scar that resembled a black, circular flower. Its edges still burned with lingering flames, beyond which the ground had become a mire of steaming mud. The mud formed a moat of sorts between the burn scar and the snow-covered forest beyond. The lingering heat of the initial blast kept the air warm, while the relative humidity indicated that there hadn't been enough time for the Siberian winds to blow away all of the moisture created by vaporized snow and plant life.
Ignoring the strong smell of charred wood, the Ancient One focused on the unconscious figure lying on his back five meters away, at the center of the blast site. He was still wrapped in a rose-gold mist, making it impossible to gauge his exact height, build, or coloring, but the Ancient One had no need. She knew he was a young Englishman on the tall side, with an untamable thicket of black hair, vivid green eyes, and a scar on his forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning. Ten meters beyond him lay a modest looking tent, its entrance flap dark. Even as the Ancient One watched, the tent lit up from the inside.
To the north lay the Russian city of Irkutsk, one of the few large settlements in Siberia. To the south was Baikal, the world's deepest lake. There was no point trying to hide the burned swath of forest. Even if she used the Eye of Agamotto to undo the damage, there was no way the people of Irkutsk and the surrounding towns hadn't seen the explosion. The Russian army would be here at any moment.
With a sharp gesture of both arms, the Ancient One enveloped the unconscious man, the tent, and herself in the fractal walls of the Mirror Dimension. A split second later, a woman in a deep purple nightgown adorned with white swan patterns emerged from the tent, her expression frantic. She was tall and strong jawed, with a thin mouth, long eyelashes, dark gray eyes, and a cascade of thick, shiny brown hair. In her right hand she clutched a slim wooden stick that the Ancient One immediately recognized as a magic wand.
At the sight of the Ancient One, the woman's face darkened, and she pointed the wand straight at her face. "Don't come any closer," she hissed.
The Ancient One slowly lowered her hands to her sides, keeping the Eye of Agamotto open. She'd seen the woman in her visions, but her jagged recollections made it almost impossible to remember the details beyond her appearance. "You have nothing to fear from me. I mean you no harm," the Ancient One said.
The witch, for she could be nothing else, did not relax. "You expect me to believe that? We were nearly swallowed by some abomination from hell, then we're transported here by some thing I don't even have a name for, and now here you are telling me there's nothing to be afraid of?" She had the characteristic accent of a British patrician, if less pronounced than was typical. Despite her attempts to look intimidating, her voice shook slightly, and there was a flicker of barely contained panic in her eyes.
The Ancient One's heart climbed into her throat. "Abomination from hell? What did it call itself?"
The witch looked confused. "Are you daft? Surely you heard that voice? Deep as the void of space, evil enough to make my sister blush, very large ham?"
"I heard nothing of the sort," the Ancient One said. "Your world may be lost, but mine survives, and I will defend it with my last breath if necessary. What demon is responsible for your displacement in the multiverse?"
"You really don't know," the witch marveled. "I never put much stock in the theory of the multiverse, but this doesn't feel like an alien planet either. Honestly, I don't understand how we're alive."
"His name," the Ancient One insisted.
"Dormammu. He called himself Dormammu."
Allmother's tits. This was bad. This was quite bad.
Between them, the prone figure of the new Phoenix Host, Harry Potter, stirred. The visible aura around him had dissipated, but the Ancient One could feel him. His presence in her third eye's sight was like a dying campfire, but she knew better than to think it would stay that way. The power of the Phoenix Force was the very essence of fire; under the right conditions, the smallest spark could and would expand into an inferno. That would take time, though. Right now, the man was as raw and wild as a novice trying to conjure the Flames of the Faltine.
"What is going on here?" the witch demanded. What was her name? A— Tonks? Andromeda Tonks, that was it.
"You have been transported across the multiverse to an alternate version of Earth, a distorted reflection of the world you called home," the Ancient One explained, taking a slow step forward despite Andromeda's earlier admonition to keep her distance.
Andromeda raised her wand, and the Ancient One paused, half expecting a curse to erupt from the tip at any moment. "I can't dispute that, given the evidence. Keep talking."
The Ancient One suppressed a sigh. "We are safe for the moment because I have moved us all into the Mirror Dimension. No one outside will be able to perceive us, and our actions will not affect the real world."
Andromeda raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed against her will. "Handy trick. And who are you who possesses the power to accomplish this?"
"My title is Sorceress Supreme, for I am the leader of the most eminent organization of magic practitioners on this earth. I am called the Ancient One by my disciples. I answer to the name because my thoughts are orders of magnitude older than my body, and because my true name has been lost to the ages."
Andromeda's eyebrow climbed higher. "Interesting. How did you manage that? Philosopher's Stone? Body regenerating potion? Chugging phoenix tears?"
It was the Ancient One's turn to look dubious. "The only true phoenix I am familiar with is a cosmic entity of near-incomprehensible power with a volatile disposition and an affinity for psionics. An entity which has bonded itself to your friend there on the ground."
Andromeda's face hardened. "Do you think this is a joke, Ancient One?" she demanded in a voice like acid, making the epithet sound like an insult.
"She's not joking," a weak male voice croaked. Both women looked down at the space between them. Harry Potter's eyes had slid halfway open, and golden flames danced feebly around his splayed hands.
:::::
Harry forced his eyes to blink open and shut, trying to clear the haze across his vision. He'd been drifting in and out of consciousness for an indeterminable length of time. If not for the voices, he probably would have slipped back into darkness. It had taken far too much of his strength to speak, which meant that Andy was on her own against the strange woman who called herself the Ancient One. He forced himself to ignore the stab of guilt that brought him and focused on performing the checks that Moody—the real Moody, rather than the fake from his fourth year—had taught him to perform after coming into contact with unknown enchantments or magical substances.
He felt no nausea, pain, or cold emptiness in his stomach, no itching or numbness or odd heat or cold in his skin, no tingling of the lips or strange tastes in his mouth. His muscles felt weak, but there was no pain or sensation of distended or contracted tissue, and his head….
Harry detected no surges of emotions he didn't recognize, heard no strange voices in his mind's ear. His thoughts were clear, unobstructed by the echoey floatiness of the Imperius Curse or the disorientation of a Confundus Charm, but something had changed. In the back of his mind, where he could barely sense its presence, was a new fire, little more than an ember.
It took him a moment to remember exactly what had happened, and when he did, a wave of grief and fear propelled him to his feet. The ember had grown into a fireball, sending surges of strength down his limbs, and his wand leaped from its sleeve holster into his hand.
The strange sorceress, this "Ancient One," was rather androgynous in appearance; tall for a woman, with pale skin, a shaved head, thin eyebrows, a narrow nose, and gray-green eyes. She wore a rather extravagant set of gold robes cut to reveal her black leggings and boots, a modification likely meant to allow for easy acrobatic movement. On her right hand glinted a strange two-fingered ring. On her right hand glinted a strange two-fingered ring. A heavy bronze-gold amulet hung around her neck, opened to reveal a brilliant green glow at its center, like a magical third eye.
Harry's magical senses had been blasted into numbness by his encounter with Dormammu, but he could sense the immense power contained in the amulet, a beacon in a starless night.
The Ancient One's eyes immediately fixed on him, as if he posed a threat. That was fine. Better him than Andromeda, in case a fight broke out.
Harry pointed his wand at the Ancient One's stomach, uncertain whether any curses he fired would be affected by her amulet. Despite the burning energies flooding his body, he doubted his chances of victory here. Something fundamental had changed inside him. His magic was different; it had been elevated too much, too quickly. Where before, its flow had been too steady and too deep for him to feel it except under very specific conditions, like when he'd used the Imperius Curse, now it flickered just beneath his skin, as volatile and intense as a bonfire. His wand felt cold in his hand.
His phoenix feather wand. Felt. Cold. No, not cold—its warmth was being drowned out by the heat he carried within.
There was a look in the Ancient One's eye that told Harry she knew exactly what was going on in his head, no Legilimency necessary.
"Harry," Andromeda said from somewhere behind him and to his right, her voice echoing strangely, "what are you talking about? What have you done?"
He wasn't sure he knew himself. "I made a bargain," he said faintly. His own voice echoed as well. Was that a side effect of being in the Mirror Dimension?
"What bargain?!"
"You have bonded yourself to something whose nature is beyond human comprehension," the Ancient One interrupted, "and it has irrevocably changed your magic on a fundamental level. But right now, you have no control, which makes that power more danger than asset. Try casting a spell you consider simple if you don't believe me."
Harry hesitated. She hadn't made any threatening moves, and she seemed sincere, but that meant little. After all, there was a chance she just wanted him to lower his guard. On the other hand, she knew about his transformation or fusion or whatever it was, which should have been impossible, yet she hadn't attacked while he was still helplessly splayed on the ground. His magic had changed… he didn't need her to tell him that, but if she was going to give him a free opportunity to test his new limits, it would have been foolish not to take it.
He pointed his wand carefully at a tree behind the Ancient One's left flank, a line of fire that wasn't near her, but which wasn't far either. He had heard her description of the Mirror Dimension while he'd been struggling back towards consciousness, so he ignored the strangely distorted images of approaching muggle vehicles. "Incendio," he said, giving his wand a wave.
He intended to ignite the branches of that single tree. Instead, a surge of energy raced down his arm and through his wand, instantly heating it until it was almost unbearable to touch, and a dozen snow-caked evergreens burst into flames. He yelled in surprise as his wand bucked in his hand, nearly dropping it. The holly was smoking.
For a long moment, no one spoke, the only sound, the crackling of the flames and the splintering of wood as the sap within the burning tree trunks vaporized. The Ancient One looked straight at Harry, a knowing if sympathetic look in her eyes. Harry avoided her gaze by looking back at Andromeda.
Andy's face, so similar yet so unlike her sister's, was stricken. "That wasn't supposed to happen," she said. It wasn't a question.
Harry shook his head. His legs felt like lead. "No, it wasn't." He turned to look back at the Ancient One. "You know what's going on, don't you?"
She nodded. "More or less. What I don't know is likely to be found in my order's library."
Fair enough. "Andy," he said in a low voice, wishing he could trust his magic enough to cast a Muffliato Charm, "go check on Teddy. There's no way he slept through what just happened, he's probably terrified." For a moment, he thought she would protest, but then he heard her huff resignedly and shuffle through the ash-strewn ground back to the tent.
"Thank you for not making this difficult," the Ancient One said.
Harry scowled at her and stowed his wand back in its holster. At least the spells he'd already cast seemed to be holding up. "Don't thank me yet. We're not going anywhere with you without answers, so start talking."
She nodded and raised her arms. With a pulling gesture of one arm and a push of the other, she fashioned a complex, dustbin lid-sized mandala out of fiery gold energy before her. Harry caught sight of various runes and symbols woven into the construct as it flared in response to the Ancient One's final gesture. It expanded and burst into gold sparks, which instantly traced several objects into existence: a square canopy of gray cloth mounted on a wooden frame, complete with a lit chandelier, a simple but elegant circular rug, two small yet plush couches with deep lavender cushions, and a coffee table.
Harry, despite himself, was impressed. Simultaneous conjuration of different types of objects was beyond the skill of anyone short of Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, and only Dumbledore could have done it with such ease, especially factoring in the functioning electrical lights. There didn't seem to be any spells for holding back the cold, but the burning trees emitted such heat that Harry felt oddly comfortable.
As her mandala dissolved, the Ancient One made another, more casual gesture with her ring-laden hand. A hoop of the same gold sparks swept over the top of the table, depositing a tray laden with a complete, if unfamiliar, tea setting. She sat down on the couch opposite him, poured a cup of tea for herself, added honey, and swirled the dark contents, all without physically touching anything.
She was showing off, though what she hoped to achieve by doing so was anyone's guess.
Seeing no other choice, Harry sat down across from her. Her seemingly limitless facility with wandless magic was disconcerting. Harry had worked hard to develop his own skills in that area, but he was no Dumbledore. He could apparate and cast various charms, primarily those with telekinetic effects, but wandless transfiguration, let alone conjuration, remained beyond his capabilities. He didn't touch the refreshments.
The Ancient One summoned her cup to her hand and took a sip. Harry continued to gaze at her with open suspicion, and she smiled wanly. "I haven't poisoned that tea, you know," she said.
He scowled at her. She sounded far too much like Remus insisting he eat chocolate after his first encounter with a Dementor. On the other hand, he knew better than to think she was lying. If she were hostile, she could have easily taken him and Andromeda down without having to go to all this trouble of making herself look friendly, which meant that she genuinely wanted him to trust her. Why? She reminded him of Dumbledore, a comparison that elicited as much distrust as hope. Dumbledore's manipulations had been motivated by necessity rather than malice, and they had doubtless led Harry to victory, but they still hurt.
They also had no bearing on his current citation. He poured himself tea. He drank it black, never having cared for sweetness in his caffeine, and was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the brew was. "This is good tea."
The Ancient One's smile became genuine. "Thank you. I've had centuries to perfect it."
Harry sipped his tea again, savoring the flavor for as long as he could while he braced himself for the conversation to come. Finally, he swallowed and asked point blank: "What do you know about the multiverse? What are the Phoenix and Dormammu?"
"You know, it's generally considered more polite to ask one question at a time."
"I'm running short of politeness right now. Almost getting devoured by an eldritch abomination and losing your entire world will do that to you."
"Fair enough," the Ancient One conceded, her smile vanishing. "The short answer is 'not as much as I would like.' The very term multiverse is equivocal. In one sense, our universe is splintered into different layers, as it were, an endless ocean of dimensional realities, all distinct from one another yet interconnected. Then there are alternate timelines, where the fate of one universe has been changed by this or that nexus event. Some universes are so distinct from their alternate timelines that they are well and truly different worlds with no connection to one another. Others are less definitively defined. The structure of the multiverse, or omniverse if you prefer, is neither parallel nor a grid. The closest analogy is a spiderweb, if spiderwebs are infinite and exist in three or five dimensions with endless chaotic, messy nodes and strands with ever-changing connections.
"In an infinite multiverse you will inevitably find infinite dangers. It is the duty of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, led by the Sorcerer Supreme, to protect our reality from both mystical and extradimensional threats, though the two are often one and the same. Some higher entities, like the Vishanti, are benevolent and helpful, lending us fractions of their power to strengthen our magic without demanding anything in return. Most are either indifferent or hostile. Of all the demons, dark gods, and monsters we have encountered, Dormammu is perhaps the worst. He is a multiversal conqueror who seeks to absorb all dimensional realities into his Dark Dimension.
"How he came to assume control of the Dark Dimension is not clear—he might have been a sorcerer of some sort who ascended to a higher plane of existence, or he might be the personification of the Dark Dimension itself. What we do know is that time and death as we understand them do not exist in the Dark Dimension. Past, present, and future are all one and the same there, which means that nothing new is ever born, and nothing that already exists ever dies. The Dark Dimension only ever changes during and as a response to Dormammu's consumption of other realities, which suggests to me that Dormammu's continued existence is essentially dependent on his endless conquests.
"As for the Phoenix Force… we know even less about it than we do about Dormammu. It's a primordial entity, like Dormammu but older—as much as that's possible when they're both beyond linear time—a sapient personification of the very essence of life, fire, and destruction. Its exact function in the greater workings of the multiverse is not fully understood, but our observations suggest that it can exist in multiple places at once. It has been sighted traveling the various planes of the multiverse as an indistinct mass of energy shaped like a bird, but it is either unable or unwilling to act directly by itself. It must have a host, a mortal being to whom it has bonded. No two hosts are ever exactly the same, much like how no flame is ever the same flame.
"Sometimes it takes absolute control of a host, using them only briefly as a focal point through which to act, while other times it bonds with a chosen person, transforming them into an extension of itself while leaving their individual selves intact. It only seems to employ the latter in cases where what mortals would consider long-term action is needed, though different degrees of both have occurred. I believe your bond with it most closely resembles that particular variation. As for why it chose you, for now we can only make educated guesses. The Phoenix Force defends and promotes life, but it is also volatile in the extreme. You can think of it as a guardian or as a trauma surgeon, as likely to destroy as it is to heal. The one thing all Phoenix Hosts have in common is that they have an incredibly strong mental balance and sense of self. They are almost inhumanly resilient in the face of trauma, and they have the sort of good judgment one hopes to see in those tasked with deciding the fates of others."
Harry thought of how he had been affected by his abusive childhood with the Dursleys, about the various traumas he experienced during his magical education, and winced. Research into how an unstable upbringing affected a child's psychological development had reached new heights in the years following Voldemort's death, and more and more, Harry was amazed at how well adjusted he was. Granted, he'd had Remus looking out for him since he was six, scaring the Dursleys into treating him better than they would have preferred, but still, he was technically a child soldier. There was no way that had been good for his mental balance, yet here he was.
Not for the first time, Harry wondered what he might have looked like if his parents had survived and raised him themselves, if there had been no Voldemort to destroy their lives. Would he still have become as good as he was in Defense Against the Dark Arts, or would his talents have matured elsewhere? Would his teenage self have been an airheaded Quidditch nut with a penchant for pranks, like his father had been? Or had he always been destined to be a quiet introvert who preferred to keep to himself?
He would never have his father's charisma or his mother's vivaciousness, but was that simply who he was, or had those traits been stomped out of him by the Dursleys? Remus had only been able to protect him so much….
"What happens to people who are swallowed by the Dark Dimension?"
The Ancient One frowned. "Scouting the Dark Dimension is no easy task, but what we have found is… not pretty. What light exists within it is cold, supplying illumination but no energy emissions. Every reality it has absorbed appears to have been corrupted to reflect Dormammu's own nature. What lifeforms he chooses to kill are the lucky ones. Those of sufficient will to preserve their own identity in the face of his power are tortured endlessly in ways beyond our understanding. Those who are unable to resist are transformed into Mindless Ones, immortal husks forever enslaved to Dormammu's will."
Harry's breathing grew ragged. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm. But how could he stay calm? Everyone he'd ever loved, everyone he'd ever known, his entire world, was worse than dead. There was fire behind his eyes and in his throat, threatening to consume him from the inside out. Abruptly he leaped to his feet, his teacup bursting into flames and falling to the floor. "How could this have happened?" he demanded, too upset to notice or care about the loss of control over his magic. "How?"
The Ancient One set her own teacup down on the table before her, but did not rise. She just gave him a stern look. "The thing that makes a dimensional reality most vulnerable to beings like Dormammu is knowledge of their existence, but that is far from the only possible angle of attack. Some universes have stronger natural defenses than most, but invaders powerful enough to rasp away at such barriers do not necessarily act alone. They often send lesser minions to pave the way for their arrival, or they enlist native magic wielders to summon them. I don't know enough about your universe to deduce exactly how Dormammu found and broke into it."
"And what about this reality?" Harry nearly screamed. The entire tea setting sparked and began to melt, like the wax of lit candles. The furnishings shook. "How do I know he won't follow us here and finish what he started? How do I know someone won't summon him?!"
The Ancient One's hands moved with blinding speed. Green light from her amulet traced itself into mandalas and rings around her hands and wrists, and Harry's world froze. When he could move again, he found himself sitting on the couch again, holding his intact teacup. The tea setting and the table it sat upon looked undamaged.
Harry blinked. His wand floated between the Ancient One's hands, which now held fiery gold mandalas once more. They emitted a hazy aura that flowed into the length of holly, which spun like a barber pole. The wood became solid gold, which moved and flowed like water, fashioning itself into the shape of a bird with a long tail and its wings spread, small enough to fit in the palm of a child's hand and dangling from a length of chain. The mandalas dissolved into sparks, and the Ancient One flicked her fingers, sending the amulet flying towards Harry.
He caught it reflexively. It felt warm and familiar in his hand, like an old friend. On closer examination, he realized the bird was a phoenix, so lifelike he half-expected it to start flapping its wings and zooming around like a snitch. The dying bonfire behind her seemed to cast her face into shadow. "What just happened?" he asked, unnerved.
"As I said, the Phoenix Force is quite volatile," the Ancient One said, as calm as the surface of a lake under a clear sky. "You will need to learn to control it, or it will consume you."
"I meant how did you stop me from going on a rampage."
The Ancient One tapped her amulet. "The Eye of Agamotto was created to house one of the six Infinity Stones, relics of immense power that date back to the creation of the universe itself. In theory the Eye could be used to contain and harness any one of the six, but since its creation it has held the Time Stone. I'm sure you can extrapolate from there."
He could. Time-turners were certainly impressive and dangerous, but the Ancient One was implying that she had stopped and rewound the flow of time itself, and the odd change in his perspective, from on the verge of a complete mental breakdown and a fiery rampage to sitting back down with tea in his hand, gave him no reason to disbelieve her. If anything, Harry was surprised he remembered the moments she'd rewound to begin with. Perhaps it was a Phoenix Host thing, being able to perceive things beyond mortal comprehension.
"I'm sorry," he said. There was still fire in his chest, a horrible, sick heat that made him want to claw his heart out. "I shouldn't have lost my temper. None of this is your fault."
"It's quite alright. You have every right to be upset, and you're bonded to a fragment of the Phoenix Force. I would have been surprised if you hadn't reacted that way when you did. Emotions are dangerous for Phoenix Hosts."
"Is that why you transfigured my wand into an amulet?" he asked, holding up the gold phoenix. "Very impressive magic, by the way. Where I come from, that's not supposed to be possible."
The Ancient One nodded. "While you were frozen in time, I used the Eye to look into possible futures. What I saw helped me piece together the best ways in which to help you."
She spoke of using a relic of unfathomable power to freeze time while simultaneously looking deep into the future so casually, as if she were discussing the weather. It was unsettling. What mad sort of world was this?
The Ancient One continued. "Your wand has the tail feather of a phoenix for a core—I confess I still do not fully understand that—but it helps you focus your magic. I suspect that if you were using a wand with any other type of core, it would have exploded in your hand when you tried to cast magic through it."
That drew a shudder from Harry. "How does turning it into an amulet help, then?"
"I have turned it from a focus into a regulator of sorts. It will not directly help your spellcasting, but it will help you stay in control of the Phoenix until you've mastered it."
Harry wasn't sure whether to smile or glare. "Training wheels," he said flatly.
She grinned at him.
"Alright," Harry sighed, fastening the amulet around his neck. Immediately he felt something inside him settle. The fire inside him hadn't died, but it was softer, less harsh. "Where were we?"
They resumed their discussion. The Ancient One's next piece of information chilled Harry to the bone. Though it was little more than a spark at the moment, his bond with the Phoenix Force would strengthen over time. It was part of him; even if he separated himself from it permanently, the effects of being its host would linger for the rest of his life.
Soon, he would reach a point where he would have to actively separate its volatile essence from his own feelings. The more he felt, the more energy he would release; if it grew past the threshold of his control, that process would reverse itself into a feedback loop, where the more energy he released, the stronger his emotions would grow. If that happened… no. He would not let it get that far.
The last thing the universe needed was another Dark Phoenix.
The other issue Harry would have to face was how this universe would react to his presence. He was not the first host of the Phoenix Force, and while past hosts had been heroes, those that became Dark Phoenixes had caused apocalyptic destruction before they were destroyed. In particular, the Shi'ar Empire had gone from worshiping the Phoenix Force as a deity to hating it with fanatical zeal. Once they found out about Harry's presence, they would come for him.
At this point, aliens didn't even make Harry bat an eye. What was alien life compared to the mind-numbing, nightmarish reality of the multiverse? On the bright side, it would take time for word of Harry's existence to spread, so he had plenty of time to prepare and master his powers.
Unfortunately, Earth had its own share of issues. For one, magic wasn't the only strange and powerful force out there. While their existence wasn't well known, many people around the world had the potential to develop superhuman powers and abilities unrelated to magic.
Some were the descendants of those who had been experimented on by aliens in the ancient past. Others possessed a rare, naturally occurring genetic pattern that caused their bodies to react to otherwise harmful chemicals or radiation by undergoing a complex series of (usually) beneficial, if dramatic, mutations. Most people in the latter category went undiscovered and lived perfectly normal lives, but many had been exposed to radioactive materials back in the early twentieth century. Many unscrupulous organizations, including sovereign governments and terrorist groups, had sought to control such people and their powers, leading to a nasty surge of human experimentation.
Most of the world remained oblivious to the full scope of the superhuman population, but persecution of "enhanced individuals" was still a problem. The so-called mutants had played a prominent role in the Cold War, but their efforts to secure the rights of non-standard humans had met with only limited success. While enhanced were protected from open discrimination in most countries, even the most open-minded governments tended to treat them like timebombs. SHIELD, an America-based intelligence/paramilitary organization sponsored by the United Nations to protect the world from "the weird stuff" was just as likely to kill or imprison people with powers as help them, depending on who was in charge and how they were feeling.
Since the Cold War ended, public interest in enhanced humans had waned, in large part because the superhuman community's numbers had been dwindling. Once the real dangers of radiation and chemical cocktails had become widely known, cases of exposure had dropped dramatically, leading to much fewer people having their genetic potential triggered. There had also been crackdowns on programs to artificially grant superpowers, prompting governments to focus more on technology and advanced weapon research. These days, the population of enhanced individuals was mostly made up of senior citizens, and therefore beneath notice.
Then there was the magical community. As the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One was the most powerful and influential magic-user in the world. Her order, the Masters of the Mystic Arts, was as old as human civilization and dominated Earth's supernatural underworld, but there were several independent covens and enclaves of magic users around the world, each with their own unique style and traditions. The Masters kept an eye on these practitioners, but never interfered in their affairs unless absolutely necessary; the magic-wielding population was simply too tiny and scattered to warrant a proper international government.
Unlike Harry's own world, anyone could learn this world's Mystic Arts to some degree, similar to how anyone could learn to play a musical instrument. No one was born magical—on rare occasions, someone might be born so naturally gifted that they'd subconsciously manifest magical abilities without any formal training, but there was no subrace of humanity with a physiological connection to magic.
Still, that wasn't enough to erase bigotry. Some mages held extremely rigid views on what constituted appropriate use of magic, while others were dangerously power-hungry and self-serving. Unlike in Harry's world, dark wizards here rarely had ambitions of world domination or mass murder, and those who did preferred to either rule from the shadows or call upon extradimensional forces to achieve their goals. As such, the Masters of the Mystic Arts only stepped in when rogue practitioners couldn't be dealt with by their own covens or enclaves.
"If I'm the host of a cosmic entity," Harry said slowly, "how will the Masters of the Mystic Arts react to my presence? Won't they see me as a threat to their mission or something?"
The Ancient One hesitated. "Some might. But you are a fledgling; less than a fledgling. But you are also a multiversal refugee. We don't see that very often, but it has happened, and we are obligated to help when it does."
"Will they tolerate me going out into the muggle—er, non-magical world and using my powers to help out there?" Harry asked. "I mean, if the Phoenix Force is meant to be some cosmic guardian, and science in this universe is as advanced as you claim, I'm going to have to, if only to defend myself from the Shi'ar or anyone else with a chip on their shoulder."
She nodded. "That is true, but some sorcerers may be… reluctant to accept that. They will question your worthiness and criticize your decisions."
Harry allowed a nasty smile to bloom on his face. "Let them. I've been unjustly accused of being a monster before." He leaned forward. Now for the unpleasant bit. "My question is why I should trust you."
Her response was to raise her eyebrows.
Harry continued. "My entire life was defined by a civil war in the magical community. I was the subject of a prophecy that named me as the person destined to end it all, one way or another. Prophecies only have as much power as the people who believe in them, at least where I come from. Problem was, the darkest wizard in history was insane enough to believe a baby could pose a threat to him, and plenty of other wizards were daft enough to believe it as well, even when all they had to work with were rumors. Their belief that I was the Chosen One made it reality, and that cost me everything."
The fire in Harry's chest was starting to sear him from the inside out again.
"My mentor, Dumbledore, sincerely wanted what was best for me, but his priority was saving wizardkind from a bloodthirsty madman who would have driven us to extinction in his obsession with immortality and dominating others. I was a child, so I didn't fully understand how much danger I was in, except on the many occasions I was forced to fight for my life. I didn't understand what kind of sacrifices would be necessary. No teenager could ever be expected to win a war, let alone beat a magical terrorist with a body count in the thousands, but our government was useless, and Dumbledore could only do so much by himself.
"So he compromised. He controlled my life from the night my parents died, spied on me in the name of keeping me safe, hid important secrets from me to keep me focused on what he felt was important. He put pressure on me to develop into a soldier so that I could finish the job when he wasn't there to protect me. And you know what? As much as it hurt me to realize the truth, I can't even hate him for any of it, knowing he hated himself enough for both of us. Horrible as it was, if he hadn't done what he'd done, our side would have lost. I would have died. He did care about me, but that doesn't make it any less horrible, any less painful.
"I forgave him for it, sort of, but I also promised myself that I would never let myself be manipulated like that again. I swore that I would never follow someone else's lead until I was absolutely certain I knew I could trust them. So you're going to tell me something." Harry lowered his voice to a menacing growl. "Why do I sense the shadow of the Dark Dimension on your soul?"
The Ancient One became very still. She could have been a statue painted to replicate life, except for her short, even breathing. On her forehead, a symbol briefly flashed into existence, a scar in the shape of a sinister-looking rune. She blinked, then gave a long, weary sigh. "Your senses are most impressive. No one else has ever been able to detect my hypocrisy."
"Magic, especially dark magic, leaves traces. My people all have—had—a sixth sense for it. Mine happens to be particularly refined." It had taken several minutes for his psychic feelers to recover from the effects of bonding with the Phoenix Force, and several minutes more for him to identify the subtle taint on the Ancient One's soul. Had he not already been exposed to Dormammu's dark energies, he might never have recognized it.
The Ancient One's stoic facade crumpled into an expression of great weariness and regret. It struck Harry as the most genuine face she'd shown him yet. "I've had this conversation so many times," she tapped the still-open Eye of Agamotto, "and yet I feel as if you're confronting me for the very first time." She summoned her teacup back to her hands and took a sip before continuing. "I was born in the year 1300 after the birth of Christ. I joined the Masters of the Mystic Arts when I was sixteen years old. There were high hopes for the future of the order at the time. Our numbers were great, we had a competent Sorcerer Supreme.
"Then a cult of dark sorcerers attacked Kamar-Taj and the surrounding settlements. They were vicious. We repelled them, but not without casualties. Worse for us, the attack was a smokescreen; cultists stole a book of dark magic from one of our outposts and used it to attempt a ritual to summon Dormammu. That incursion cost us dearly, and when it was over, our numbers had been decimated, and Dormammu had left a parting gift in the form of a special strain of the bubonic plague. Perhaps you've heard of it in your universe? It caused the worst pandemic in human history."
Despite the fire in his chest, Harry felt a chill run down his spine. "The Black Death."
"Precisely."
"I'm guessing it was more widespread than Europe in your—this universe?"
"It affected the entire planet," the Ancient One said mournfully. "Millions died across all hemispheres. I was named Sorceress Supreme in the aftermath. The Masters of the Mystic Arts were at the weakest they'd been in millennia. Humanity had been devastated, and none of my students at the time showed the traits of a Sorcerer Supreme. I could not trust any of them to carry the mantle if I died. I did what I felt was necessary to keep our world from being overrun."
Harry understood. "You were trying to guarantee the future of your order when it was at its lowest point. To save the garden, you buried your hands in dirt. With the worms."
Her androgynous face wore an expression that did not suit her: shame.
Harry chose his next words carefully. "If you've managed to harness this power to extend your life for this long and not succumbed to Dormammu's influence, you must be doing something right."
They regarded one another, and the Ancient One suddenly looked familiar. He saw the compassion-concealed-by-sternness of Professor McGonagall, the ancient weariness of Dumbledore, the self-doubt of Remus. It was as if all three of his most important teachers had been distilled into a single strange, mysterious, unbelievably powerful woman. His insight into Voldemort's mind had allowed him to develop his own limited facility with Legilimency, but there was no way to peer into the Ancient One's mind in his current state.
And yet, Harry saw her, saw through her. He saw her shame, her determination to keep the world safe, her compassion, her strength, her pride. Her mind was unfathomably old, etched with the memories of countless possible futures. What she'd experienced on her journeys through time far outnumbered any number of years she'd physically lived, yet far from destroying her faith in humanity and her cause, her age had granted her a depth of wisdom that made celebrated gurus and sages look childlike in comparison.
She had opened herself to him, and for all his present weakness and instability, some instinct told him that it wasn't an act. Even if her only goal was gaining his trust, such vulnerability before a stranger was hard to fake.
She would not break him the way Dumbledore had.
Eventually, they came to an agreement. The Ancient One promised to do what she could to help Harry master the Phoenix Force, and to shelter his family—what was left of it—while they got their bearings in their new world. Harry in turn would become an honorary member of the Masters of the Mystic Arts. He would hold no authority, but none save the Ancient One herself would hold authority over him while he was a student there. He would have as much latitude as he needed to conduct his duties as a Phoenix Host, regardless of whether they fell under the purview of the Masters and their mandate.
After three years working for an Auror Office that held him in higher esteem than the actual head of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry had grown used to being an anomaly on the chain of command, so he had no issues with holding an invisible rank. If anything, that would make things easier.
Now, he had to convince Andromeda to go along with the plan.
Joy.
:::::
Andromeda, as it happened, was not pleased by any of this.
Though she had obeyed when Harry told her to stay in the tent with Teddy while he spoke with the Ancient One, she refused to let him deal with a strange witch of unknowable power by himself. If she couldn't stand by him directly, the least she could do was eavesdrop via a Supersensory Charm. It wasn't easy dealing with a distraught toddler when all your senses were dialed up to eleven, but she managed; resiliency was one of the few useful traits she'd inherited from her horror show of a family.
Her thoughts reeled with each stunning new fact. Being stuck in an alternate universe where her old home and culture didn't exist was bad, though not as bad as it could have been. With her husband, daughter, and son-in-law dead, and her one surviving sister not being on speaking terms, her only real family was her grandson and the remarkable young man who was his godfather. As long as she had them, she had something worth living for.
The thought did little to fill the new hollowness in her stomach. Be strong, she told herself. Be strong.
If half of what the Ancient One claimed was true, there was every chance that she'd lose Harry as well. A cosmic entity from which all phoenixes were descended had bound him to it, and his only chance of controlling its power was to hollow himself out. He'd already lost everything, and he was poised to lose still more. How could he stand it? She could hardly bear it herself.
Andromeda willed her tears not to well up. There would be time for that later. Be strong.
Teddy had been a terrified, crying mess earlier. Now, he slept fitfully in his tiny bed in the rear of the magically expanded tent. His hair had been stark white during the chaos of Dormammu's attack and the fiery vortex that had saved their lives. Now it was a deep, royal purple. His skin had turned chalk white. Knowing as she did what that meant, she wished for the umpteenth time that there was a spell to prevent nightmares.
The Mirror Dimension made sounds echo slightly, but not so much that Andromeda couldn't hear Harry returning from his conference with the Ancient One. The Dimension certainly didn't prevent her from feeling the way airflow changed around her, displaced by human beings moving and conjured objects being vanished. She canceled her Supersensory Charm and left Teddy's room to meet him.
They nearly collided with one another in the cozy living room. Harry stumbled, his movements slow and halting. She'd seen him like that before, in the weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts. His exhaustion was more mental than physical; like hers. Gray eyes met green.
"You heard everything, didn't you," Harry guessed.
Andromeda nodded wordlessly. She'd learned how to hide behind a stoic mask at an early age, a necessity for survival in the Black household, but there was no concealing her feelings now.
"I'm—"
"Don't you dare apologize, Harry Potter," she half sobbed, half snarled. "It's not your fault. It was never your fault."
She pulled him forward, and he collapsed, bawling into her shoulder. The last of her strength fled, and her own tears flowed like waterfalls.
And that's Chapter 2. Not a fun story beat, but a necessary one.