Disclaimer – It has come to my attention recently that I unfortunately do not own any part of Harry Potter or the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the characters that belong to those entities. One can dream I suppose. Although I did buy a ticket to Disney World one time.
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This story is dedicated to Stephen Bartley, for his support.
Chapter 14: The Darkhold: Absolute Power …
When the muffled voice on the other end of the call finished talking, Harry watched the man in front of him nod, "This is Dr. Morrow, calling for the Big Man … he's expecting my call."
Harry watched as the man waited in silence for several seconds before an equally muffled but significantly deeper voice sounded over the phone.
If the man … Dr. Morrow, Harry mentally corrected, had been slightly nervous before he looked significantly more so now.
He waited for the deep voice over the phone to finish before he hesitantly replied, allowing Harry to listen in on the one-sided conversation.
"Yes … I know you were expecting my call a couple minutes ago … I couldn't get away, Dr. Bauer has increased security in the building to a ridiculous degree … yes, I know that's not an excuse … but I have news … Joseph was able to actually create matter … yes, I'm serious he actually created matter … no, I'm not sure exactly how he did it. He had locked himself in the control room by himself while everyone else watched from the observation room … I know, I know … it's just difficult to have discussions with him any more, he's becoming more and more withdrawn, even from his wife … and when I have had the chance to talk with him, he seems … distant.
Dr. Morrow paused listening to the voice, appearing to get angry, an observation which was supported as he basically yelled his next statement, surprising Harry. "I know what happened to my nephew …" Seeming to calm down a little, Harry watched the man's shoulders slump as he continued in a quieter voice, " … I know what's at stake, you don't need to remind me …"
He trailed off, closing his eyes and taking a couple of deep breathes to calm himself.
Eventually he reopened his eyes, still looking more than a little angry, although he managed a calm voice when he replied to whatever the other man had said, "I will make a move tonight to try and find out what I can and how he was capable of creating matter … its become more and more rare but I think Joseph and Lucy are both out of the building tonight … I'll see it done."
The person on the other end of the line seemingly heard enough as they abruptly hung up the phone, leaving a confused Dr. Morrow looking at his phone for several seconds before shaking his head in frustration and angrily muttering under his breathe.
Dr. Morrow looked up from his phone and glanced around the space before heading towards the entrance to the room, pausing to disable the electronic lock before exiting into the hallway, unaware of Harry sneaking out right behind him.
Harry watched the man walkdown the hallway and disappear around a corner that Harry had come around earlier, before looking in the opposite direction, the direction Dr. Morrow had come from, having an unexplainable feeling that whatever he was searching for was in that direction.
As he started down the hallway, Harry couldn't shake the feeling that the thing he had come here to search for just happened to be the same thing he had overheard Dr. Morrow talking about and somehow it had the ability to create matter and wondered whether the object was a magical artifact which would explain how the Ancient One was able to sense something weird about this location.
Less than thirty minutes later, Harry found himself standing infront of a door that he was positive would lead to what he was searching for. While the door looked exactly the same as the countless other lab doors he had passed so far there was something on the other side of the door that … just seemed … off. To Harry, it felt as if there was a void of energy … a darkness … on the other side and while he was unsure as to whether non-magical individuals could feel it, he was pretty confident there was indeed something magical on the other side of the door, something which would seem to be at odds with all the incredibly advanced technology Harry had seen since he had entered the building.
Taking a deep breath, Harry manually opened the door, seeing that it wasn't an electronic lock and carefully entered the room, which to his surprise was poorly lit … the current ambience lending itself to the mysterious feel of the room as a whole.
As Harry scanned the room, his eyes almost missed the figure in the centre of the room, having actually swept over him and then doubling back when he saw the pile of what he had assumed to be old lab coats rock back and forth.
Focusing on what Harry realized was actually a man, who was leaning over something and repeatedly mumbling, he couldn't help but remember one of Hermione's favorite books that she had been reading and telling him about while they had been on the hunt for the Horcruxes and compare the man in front of him to that of Gollum.
As Harry carefully walked around the man to get a look at what he was looking at two things happened. The first was that Harry saw the man was leaning over a book … and as soon as the book came into sight he felt a brief surge of power unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. The second thing he noticed was that the man turned around to face Harry, his eyes seeming to track his invisible movements. This unsettled Harry and caused him to freeze in surprise, an action that brought a smile to the man's face.
"Welcome child. I can see you. There is no need to hide."
Harry stared hard at the man, realizing that he somehow was able to see through the invisibility. Shaking his head Harry ended the spell and took a step towards the man who stood up to look at Harry face to face, his hands protectively holding the book to his chest.
"Are you Dr. Bauer?" Harry asked cautiously.
The man slowly nodded, staring at Harry, a suspicious look on his face, before he replied, "So you must be who I was warned about?"
Harry stared for a second in confusion, "What do you mean?"
The man unconsciously glanced down at the book for a second before looking up at Harry, "You've come for this book haven't you? You want to steal it for yourself? You can't take it … with the power I have access to through this book … the things I'll be able to do … I'll stop human reliance on dirty energy sources, I'll stop pollution, I'll be able to save humanity …"
As he listened to the man ramble on, he watched as the way he seemed to tighten his grip on the book as he spoke. Watching his behaviors Harry noticed that he was acting similarly to how muggles acted when they found a cursed object, how the magical object would feed on their desires … slowly corrupting them and influencing their actions.
Realizing that he needed to separate the man from the book, Harry took another step forwards towards the man, holding his hands up trying to put the man at ease … at the same time he silently cast Accio Book.
However, … Harry watched surprised as the spell seemed to dissipate about one foot in front of the man … as if it collided with a magical shield … although Harry had not been able to see any distinct shimmering light flair that almost always accompanied a spell hitting a magical shield.
The spell had barely finished dissipating before the man jumped backwards, clutching the book to his chest, even tighter than before.
"I knew it! It was right!" He shouted out. "You want this power for yourself … you want to stop me from what I am trying to do. Well, it won't work, this book will protect me. I will not let you take it from me."
As he said this Harry watched the man pull a gun from behind his back, swinging it in Harry's direction.
Frozen for a second, not having expected this escalation of events, he watched as the gun swung towards him before managing to shake off his surprise and dived behind one of the lab benches, moments before Dr. Bauer fired the gun at the spot he had been standing in, narrowly missing him.
Harry crept along the floor of the lab, thankful this was the largest lab he had seen so far, firing spells at the man every time he found a hole and thought he could catch the man unaware. However, … no matter what spell Harry used, from stunners to bonebreakers, summoning to disarming … nothing got close to the man, everything dissipating harmlessly before connecting with him.
In fact, it wasn't until in an act of desperation when the man had almost cornered Harry between two large desks, that Harry had desperately propelled a beaker almost full of a clear liquid towards the man, that he actually made contact, apparently not being stopped by the shield, allowing Harry to watch as the beaker bounced off the side of the mans head, drawing blood just below his eye and splashing him with the liquid which seemed to burn for a second.
Harry almost let out a shout of joy, that the shield wasn't fully impenetrable, before having to jump behind one of the desks avoiding the man's reactionary return attack.
However, the next time Harry managed to find an opening in the high-stakes game of cat and mouse he was involved in and launched another heavier piece of lab equipment at the man, he could only stare in shock as this time, the piece of equipment, appeared to hit the same barrier his spells had been hitting before falling to the floor with a crash. Smiling, the man turned towards where Harry had just jumped behind a large filing cabinet.
"I won't fall for the same trick twice … we are learning." Harry head the man exclaim before he let out a haunted sounded laugh.
Harry ducked to the ground and hurriedly scampered around the next corner, getting to another piece of cover at almost the same moment he heard Dr. Bauer jump over the desk and fired at the spot Harry was just standing in.
Realizing He needed to buy himself a little more time, in order to come up with a plan or at least allow him to put some distance between them, Harry conjured up an illusion of himself which he directed to stand up and run right past Dr. Bauer and head towards the entrance of the room.
No sooner than the illusion had stood up and started running than Dr. Bauer started laughing the same creepy laugh he had before.
"Your invisibility didn't work, what makes you think I would be fooled by an illusion."
Cursing silently to himself at the ineffectiveness of his plan, Harry turned to start crawling away from where he had heard Dr. Bauer's voice … only to come face to face with the man.
Harry almost fell back in shock, but recovering in a second Harry began casting every spell he could think of … but nothing had any effect.
Finally, the man held up his own hand, clenching his fist and Harry's mouth dropped open … finding himself unable to cast anymore spells … he could still feel his magic but as he stared at Dr. Bauer he just couldn't cast anything.
The man chuckled hollowly as he looked at Harry who was slowly backing away from him hoping to put space between them.
"That's enough of that now. Obviously, your magic doesn't have any effect on me while I'm holding this book and I'm tired of watching you fire little bits of light at me …"
Dr. Bauer carried on, but Harry found himself distracted when he noticed something unexpected. Although someone the man had managed to prevent Harry from casting new spells Harry had felt a slight draw on his magical reserves that had momentarily confused him until he saw the shimmer of the illusion he had previously cast in the corner of his vision. Apparently not having yet faded, the magical illusion was not subject to whatever the man had done to prevent him from casting new magical spells.
Focusing all his magic he could into the illusion, hoping to solidify it, in order to help him out, Harry looked back to the man and watched as Dr. Bauer slowly began approaching him, apparently finishing whatever he had planned to say.
Looking past the man, Harry watched as the illusion was approaching Dr. Bauer, still several paces away as he looked back to Dr. Bauer.
Perhaps it was him noticing Harry's eyes or perhaps he somehow had sensed something using some ability from the book, but he glanced over his shoulder, freezing for a second before turning back to Harry a clear look of confusion across his face as he mumbled out, "What …"
That was all he managed to get out before Harry's newly created and partially solidified illusion reached past the distracted man and knocked the book out of his hands, likely managed as the man had unfortunately loosened his grip on the book due to his surprise.
The man's confusion turned to horror as he cried out, "No! The Darkhold!" Attempting, but failing to reach for it as it fell.
Harry watched as the book had narrowly missed being grabbed by the man's outstretched fingertips before bouncing on the floor towards Harry and landing open on the ground. While the man reached forward to pick up the book Harry jumped forward and punched the man in the face as hard as he could, a punch he was sure that even Hermione would have been proud of, a punch that would definitely leave his knuckles bruised.
Harry let out a deep breath as he watched the man fall backwards apparently knocked unconscious by the punch.
Leaning over to collect himself, not having realized just how exhausting it would have been to solidify and continually manipulate an illusion, Harry noticed the book had fallen open to a page that he had initially assumed to have been German but as he stared, he realized that the page was actually written in English.
As his eyes scanned the page his eyes opened in shock, realizing that the page was explaining how to use magic to both cause and fix large scale damage on a scale that the city outside had experienced.
Unable to stop himself, Harry leaned over and picked up the book, realizing a couple things as he stood back up, safely protecting the book in his hands as he glanced around the room.
The first thing he noticed was that he had been sorely mistaken earlier, holding the book in his hands he could certainly feel the power emanating from the book but unlike the dark feeling he had thought had been coming from the book earlier he could only feel power, shaking his head Harry reasoned that the dark … almost evil feeling must have been coming from the man abusing the book. The second thing he realized was that … he had the power in his hands to do almost anything and the only one that could stop him was the man laying unconscious and helpless before him.
Turning to the man, Harry glared at him for a second wondering what he should do before he shrugged his shoulders and laughed, realizing that even if he tried the man was no threat to him.
Shaking his head in disappointment at the man, Harry turned away and walked around the room. Deciding there was nothing of value he started to return back to the man, pausing for a second when he saw a couple large containers labeled with the explosive symbol on them.
Harry smiled and made his way back to Dr. Bauer who was still lying unconscious on the ground.
Shaking his head again, Harry called out Enervate, watching as the man sat upright looking around himself confused. When his eyes settled on Harry … or more specifically the book Harry was holding possessively in his hands they opened in fear. "You don't know what …"
Harry shook his head, "I know exactly what this is. This is a way to doing everything that needs to get done. This is power."
Dr. Bauer opened his mouth, but Harry shook his head and wordlessly conjured a blue flame in his hand for show. "No … you don't understand. If you want to stay here in this room and talk that is up to you, but I'm going to be gone in a second either way."
Harry paused as he dropped the fire from his hand onto the floor, watching for a second as it began slowly heading towards the explosive containers which he pointed at as he looked back at the man. "Now I saw those giant explosive containers in the corner, and I admit I'm no scientist but I can't imagine they do well with fire. Magical or not."
The man's eyes opened even wider in fear, "You can't do that …"
"Actually …" Harry laughed, " …apparently I can. Now this is partially because of our fight earlier. I'll admit I didn't enjoy having you try to shoot at me. But this is mostly to serve as a reminder for you and you specifically, as to what might happen if you just happen to mention to anyone what happened down here, who was here, or …" he paused looking at the book in his hands, "… what went missing … I'd really hate having to visit you again."
The man looked from the fire to Harry and opened his mouth again to say something, to which Harry shook his head. "I guess your stubbornness might be impressive to some people, but you have about twenty minutes until the flame reaches that containers and then you'll have about ten seconds before it melts its way inside and I imagine you will need every one of those seconds to get people out of the building."
The man looked panickily towards the door before looking back at the flame, which caused Harry to laugh.
"I guess you could try to put the fire out but number one you'd very quickly find that useless, number two you will find that you speed up the flame, making evacuation even more difficult, and number three … I'll be alerted … meaning that if you still do manage to escape the fire after trying that … well I'll find you."
Harry looked at the door before casting Bombarda Maxima smiling at the door exploding across the hallway embedding itself most of the way through the wall on the other side.
"Thought I'd give you just a little help … no need to thank me … now you might want to get a start on it. I saw how large this building was when I was looking for you … when I was looking for this." Harry said, holding up the book.
Harry let out a smile seeing the man back up a step in fear, before letting out a laugh. A laugh that sounded nothing like his usual laugh … a laugh that sounded hollow … and if there had been a third person in the room from the time the fight had started until that moment, they would have likely noticed the similarity between Harry's new laugh and the previous laughter from Dr. Bauer.
Finishing the laugh, Harry looked back to Dr. Bauer and smiled, "I'd run now if I were you, Joseph."
And with a crack Harry apparated out of the lab.
Kind Regards,
FavoriteAuthor
Up Next: The Darkhold: … Corrupts …
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Thanks to those of you out to those of you who enjoy my stories, I promise to keep updating the stories as long as you enjoy them, and a special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to leave feedback or reach out to me directly. All feedback is welcome (hopefully constructive!) Looking forward to hearing what you think!
Story Note – Congrats to anyone who managed to remember Momentum Labs and who might be inside it! Hope you all enjoyed the story, this was a smaller chapter setting up what will be one of the main sources of conflict in this story.
Story Note 2 – Well … that sure ended with Harry acting a little out of character … hmmm … I wonder why …
Story Note 3 – While the Darkhold itself was a giant spellbook that corrupts based on the evil-ness contained, I thought I would give it a little more power which evened the fight between Dr. Bauer and Harry
Story Note 4 - Have started on some of the arcs I had planned these will last anywhere between 3-8 chapters depending on what is happening and what needs to get done and while most of them will be dealt with by the end … some of them will be used to set up future events.
Story Note 5 - I usually don't like to answer questions that deal with the plot but if there are any questions dealing with how the Darkhold of this universe works ask away.
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Red Death - Thanks for the feedback - I have done away with the recaps and the author notes, will keep story notes if they are to answer general questions that might be asked
alex prevett- Thanks! I'm glad you liked the chapter!
TigerWolf - No worries this is will obviously mostly be concerning Harry, but ran into a block on how to introduce other characters/plot points. But no worries those chapters are few and far between.
miguel puentadejesus- Thanks for all the reviews!
Face Yourself - I appreciate the feedback and as mentioned in a previous comment. I am doing away with recaps and unnecessary author notes.
Zilvero - While part of the reasons I drop some characters is to make some people smile and show how interconnected certain areas might be. Every character who gets mentioned will pop back up to some degree again.
NCC1701D USS Enterprise - Well thanks! I'm a big fan of your reviews!
MrScorch - Hope this chapter was enjoyable!
nealrm - Most welcome!
Crywolf178 - Huh well now that's just a crazy idea ... haha hmmm ...
CMdkelley - I think in reality the way I saw it was that even the Avengers had little chats in their battles and thought the convos were just brief little things. Although I am reworking some of the battles to include more fighting.
beserkerbeast - Well here is another one! Hope you enjoy it!
keyzulu - Hopefully its something to get out of all the trouble!
ImaginativeFury - That's a fair point. There are just so many characters that have entire backgrounds to explore
TheRazgrizDragon - Well hope you enjoyed this one as well!
starboy454 - Hope you liked this one!
KingSayan - I'm glad you liked it! The battle was more to set up the universe and once he starts on everything. Things will pick up! As for it being abandoned. There is no risk of that.
cameron1812 - Thanks, I appreciate that point of view. While certainly Harry was trying to be careful that was a new skill that he had hardly mastered.