I'm pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction the first chapter got. I have to confess, though, I'm not sure whether this will become a full story, especially as it will pretty much boil down to Altera and possibly a bunch of Servants kicking Death Eater arse, and character interaction. Not much actual plot. That being said, there's still a possibility that it may become its own story. I'm also working, as mentioned before, on a Harry/Nero story, but whether that will get off the ground is another matter...

Anyway, enjoy the next chapter of Beautiful Destruction...

BEAUTIFUL DESTRUCTION

CHAPTER 2:

UNLEASHED

A little over two years later…

There is a legend known to those who study the arcane lore of prehistory. The legend of the Umbral Star, Velber, and its herald, the White Titan Sephyr. It's a legend surprisingly supported by science, if only because there was evidence for the mass extinctions that occurred about 14 millennia ago, albeit one of many such mass extinctions happening during the end of the Pleistocene Era. This extinction was chalked down by the scientific community (albeit not without reason: they were right about the reasons for other extinctions in the geological ballpark) to climate change caused by the end of the Ice Age, as well as other factors.

In truth, like more than a few harbingers of extinction, the cause came from space. But not in the form of a meteorite that struck with apocalyptic force. Rather, something landed, and then began spreading death and destruction in its wake.

When people speak of the fall of Atlantis, they usually think it was due to the hubris of its natives. However, Atlantis was but one of the ancient civilisations that was decimated by Sephyr. Mu, Hyperborea, Lemuria, all fell to Sephyr's rampage…though in truth, Sephyr was an entity bound to do its job. In truth, even as its body destroyed, its mind was asking of itself, Why? Why? Why?

Of course, this meant little to Sephyr's victims, who finally managed to band together and find a way to destroy it, or at least disable it. The body was struck down on an island off the coast of the country that would eventually become Great Britain. Part of the body, struck by the blast of the weapon fired at it, flew into the distance, eventually landing in a part of Western Europe that, one day, would be taken over by the Huns. About twelve and a half thousand years later, said Huns would stumble across it…and find a baby girl, whom their elders would name Attila. A name she would come to detest, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

The gathered people who had managed to fell Sephyr knew that killing it might not be possible in the limited time they had, so, using arcane magic that was soon forgotten to the world, they imprisoned Sephyr in another dimension, deep within the island that would later become known as Azkaban. To maintain this other dimension, a power source of sorts was created, but in order to try and prevent any attempt at a breakout, the power source was taken as far away from Britain as the bearers could.

They arrived in what is now called Egypt, where a culture was arising. There, a small group were recruited, to guard a tomb of sorts, a tomb that would later be the inspiration for the tombs of the pharaohs many thousands of years later. From generation to generation, these tomb-keepers kept the power source, which had been tastelessly dubbed the Heart of the Titan, secret and safe, even as the line of the pharaohs changed from Egyptian to Greek, the advent of the Romans, the Muslim Caliphate, and the Ottoman Empire, all the way to the modern day. Indeed, for the past century, Gringotts had cooperated with these tomb-keepers to keep the Heart of the Titan safe.

That being said, they grew complacent. Surely the legends about Sephyr were exaggerations? Surely Velber and its malign influence was gone for good? And even if they were true…surely nobody would be stupid enough to unleash an entity that was destruction embodied?

Well, there were people stupid or desperate enough to try. Not Gellert Grindlewald. Grindlewald wanted to rule the world, not its ashes, and he had at least a sense for the most part in determining whether he was biting off more than he could chew. Not that it stopped his downfall, but he at least tended to think things through, even at his most arrogant.

Voldemort, however, was another matter. When he read fragments of the legends of Velber and its herald, he decided that this was something that warranted further investigation. As long as he had a world to rule and subjects to dominate, he didn't care if much of the world was ashes. Indeed, he hoped to be Velber's hand on Earth. But to do that, he needed to get a hold of Sephyr…

While he never learned where Sephyr itself was, he did learn where the Heart of the Titan was kept. After his attempt to pilfer the prophecy Snape half-heard failed, Voldemort spent time considering his options. He suspected that Dumbledore was hunting down his Horcruxes, and Voldemort needed an edge. The Boy Who Lived's incarceration and subsequent disappearance had brought the morale of Magical Britain to an all-time low, and Fudge, within months, had found himself facing no-confidence motions, despite Malfoy et al's best efforts to keep him there. Amelia Bones ascended, with Rufus Scrimgeour taking her place as head of the DMLE, and together, they were rather vexingly competent, though he took some comfort in knowing that Dumbledore got short shrift with her for his secrecy. Indeed, the Order of the Phoenix had suffered a schism of some kind. One part had gotten considerably more militant, or at least had dropped using non-lethal spells almost all the time.

Which was why he, along with some of his trusted followers, were in Egypt. He had to admit, the tomb-keepers and their lackeys from Gringotts had fought well. It was both aggravating and yet admirable. But now, he was in the chamber with the Heart of the Titan, waiting for his own cursebreakers to finish unravelling the wards and curses surrounding it. It was painfully slow work, and he was sure the Egyptian Ministry had sent people to intercept him.

They would be too late, though. The fools in charge of this tomb had gotten complacent and hadn't renewed the wards as often as they should. And then, he sensed them break, so he advanced on the altar upon which the Heart of the Titan awaited.

Even in his twisted, mutilated soul, Voldemort felt that it looked beautiful. A crystalline structure, resembling a Fabergé Egg, glowing softly with blue light. The height of Atlantean thaumatology, created with the last of their resources, everything else having been shattered with the island nation. It drew upon the local leylines, and transmitted the power elsewhere. It would be a genuine shame to destroy it.

But, as the cliché went, you couldn't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

The expression Voldemort made as he cast Fiendfyre was surprisingly rueful. The Heart of the Titan lasted for a few minutes under the cursed fire, before finally melting down. The only noise it emitted as it finally died was a faint, mournful warble. This is the way the world ends, Voldemort thought, quoting from a poem he had rammed into his skull during his time at the orphanage. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Surprisingly, he didn't scream out in triumph. This was only part of his plan, and destroying the Heart of the Titan was only part of the plan. He needed to find Sephyr, though he reckoned the White Titan would be easy enough to find, given time. You couldn't keep such an entity of destruction secret for long. And he had followers ready back home, just in case he got lucky, and the White Titan was somewhere in Britain.

Still, the White Titan had been trapped for quite a long time. For all Voldemort knew, it was either dead (from starvation, from the injuries it sustained during the final battle, or, for all he knew, of boredom from being cooped up in a prison for so long). Or perhaps it was sleeping, waiting the day when its purpose came anew.

He didn't know how right he was, even if it was for the wrong reasons…

Those who had entered the cave of the White Titan, Sephyr, would have been mistaken for thinking that three people were present, instead of the two who actually were. Then again, considering that Sephyr could create an avatar body she could control, it shouldn't have been surprising to any who knew her. Then again, who would take the time to know her? Few who met her did. And she preferred to be called Altera rather than Sephyr or Attila the Hun.

Three figures reclined within the cave. The first gigantic one was the chosen form of Altera, based on her appearance in life as Attila the Hun, reclining on an altar in her usual clothing. An identical, but far smaller, figure was curled up, naked, next to an equally naked young man in his late teens, both on a bed of animal skins and other things.

It had been a long and somewhat bumpy road at times that led them to this point. Harry's reaction to being trapped with an entity of destruction hadn't been a good one, rather understandably. After all, leaving aside the fact that she was an entity of destruction, he was also trapped while Voldemort could be doing Merlin knew what to his friends. What followed were weeks of arguments and bitter, poisonous words. However, once the resignation crept in, and Harry resolved to make the best of the situation, things got gradually better. It helped that he realised that, while Altera was destruction embodied, she didn't want to destroy all the time.

And in truth, it would be a moot point. Her link to the Umbral Star had been severed, not due to her imprisonment, but rather, due to the destruction of Velber itself. It seemed impossible, and yet, it had happened, at about the time that a fragment of Sephyr was found by the Huns, and awoke as Attila. Harry got the impression from his fellow prisoner (Altera had called him this on more than one occasion, to the point it became an affectionate nickname rather than an insult) that she was actually relieved, due to the fact that she wouldn't be pestered by Velber into destroying. Destruction was her original purpose, built into her very nature…but perhaps there was hope now to change that.

They had grown close, their friendship surprisingly easy once the rancour between them had died down. Then again, they only had each other for company, and Harry found her far easier to deal with than the Dursleys. In her life as Attila, she had been surprisingly well-read for an infamous destroyer of civilisation, so they did speak on a number of subjects. And she wasn't ignorant. On occasion, she could, with an effort, project the very avatar Harry was embracing into the outside world, albeit only for a few hours at most, given the barrier. She dressed in appropriate clothing of course, her favoured outfit being dark shorts, a shirt and a dark jacket that made her look vaguely punkish, complete with a logo on the shirt that read 'GOOD OR BAD CIVILISATION(1)'.

It was on Harry's 18th birthday, though, that they realised that they had grown beyond mere friendship. Harry could tell what the date and time was outside with a Tempus spell. They had celebrated with food Altera had summoned. Her abilities as Sephyr, oddly enough, allowed her to create things she had experienced in life, or as her avatar. Which was good, as Harry didn't particularly want to die of starvation or thirst, at least once the initial rancour between them fell away.

In any case, on his birthday, they realised what they meant to each other. There was the age difference, true, but Harry reckoned, given that he was now eighteen, and his paramour was a probably immortal Titaness, it seemed like a moot point. At least the size difference could be solved with the avatar, though he intended to see if there were any spells that could either shrink her, or else enlarge him.

Her eyes flickered open first, those on her Titaness form. Her avatar's eyes opened as well, a little groggily considered the previous night's activities, before she sat up, and crimson eyes, identical save for size, met each other. The avatar disappeared in a swirl of orange and black particles, even as Harry roused from his own post-coital slumber. He sat up, noting the absence of the avatar, and then looked up at Altera. "Good morning," he said.

"A very good morning, Harry," she said, with a radiant smile on her face, before holding out her hand. Draping one of the animal skins around him (he knew she was used to seeing him naked in the couple of weeks since his birthday, but still…), he stepped onto it, marvelling as she gently raised him to eye level. He noted that she seemed very happy today, even through her usual quiet, demure nature. "Harry…it seems that you have a belated birthday present, my fellow prisoner. Indeed, we both have."

Harry felt a bloom of hope in his chest. "…And what's that?" he asked, scarcely daring to hope.

"I feel it…the bindings on my person, this Oubliette…they're weakening." At this, Altera frowned. "Even in my bound state, I could hear the mages boasting of it lasting for so long. The Heart of the Titan may not be my real heart, but it would last as long as I did as long as it was coupled with the right leyline. Unless the leyline was drained somehow, the only way this could have happened is if the Heart of the Titan had been destroyed."

"…Does this mean we can escape?"

"What do you mean we, Prisoner?" Altera said with narrowed eyes, before smiling. "Sorry, I was trying a joke I've been working on for if we ever had the opportunity. In hindsight, it seems like the Bad Civilisation type of joke."

"Well, it certainly wasn't funny," Harry said, with an irritated look that was a little exaggerated. He knew Altera would never abandon him like that.

"Hmm. Well, we can certainly escape within a short period, an hour at most. I'll be honest, I've grown attached to this cave," Altera said. "A prison it may have been…but in a perverse way, it also has been the only home I've truly known. But…Azkaban is Bad Civilisation. To confine prisoners away from civilisation is Good Civilisation, true, but unless they truly are the worst of the worst, well, Dementors are rather excessive. To use one of my 'children' as guards…"

Harry nodded. Dementors, he had learned from Altera, were one of the possible outcomes of humans corrupted by her form as Sephyr. She had learned to control that corruption she exuded over the years, and now, even in her true form, could not corrupt or destroy unless she wanted to. He remembered his first sight of her true form, of the eerily elongated limbs and fingers, the holes in her hands and chest looking like portals to another universe, the pale blue skin, the eerie golden eyes…the face, so much like Altera herself. He found a profound fear stirring within him, partly due to a race memory of Sephyr's rampage across the world.

And yet, as frightening as Sephyr was, she was also utterly beautiful, albeit in an alien way. And she was actually part of Altera, after all.

"Well, I'd better get dressed, then," Harry said. "But where will we go?"

She obligingly let her hand down, and as he dressed, she continued. "I've been considering that for some time. My avatar has been on excursions to the world outside, picking out potential bases of operations should I ever be freed. With your arrival, I also had to ensure it would be appropriate for you. There is a cave chamber called the Frozen Deep in the Reservoir Hole in Somerset. My avatar has been making preparations to ensure the Muggles and wizards alike do not stumble across it. She has even managed to prepare a Portkey for this day. As much as I would love to be out in the open, I doubt the world would take kindly to a sixteen metre woman striding around with impunity. I'm not sure whether a nuclear weapon could harm me, but I wouldn't like to test it. I've come to enjoy living, though it has taken me time to do so. You've helped me enjoy it even more, Harry."

"Hmm. Well, hopefully, we can both find happiness without you having to fulfil your function, now that Velber no longer exists," Harry said. "So, are we going straight there?"

"No. Azkaban will be destroyed. That is why I have sent my avatar away. I am currently clearing out Azkaban of the inmates whose only sins were either petty ones, or else to fall afoul of Fudge and his cronies," Altera said. "The same for the guards. But those who are left that are marked Death Eaters…they will be the first to feel my wrath. Xenophobia is Bad Civilisation."

It was sort of a running gag for her, dubbing things as Good or Bad Civilisation. It was sort of a joke for her, these days. "And Azkaban and the Dementors?" Harry asked.

"Three words: Teardrop Photon Ray," Altera said with a smirk.

That smirk was answered by Harry's own. Oh, this was going to be good…

"…You people have been chosen to reveal my existence to the world. You will witness what happens today, and you will tell of it later," Altera's avatar said to the gathered Aurors and prisoners on the rocky shores of Azkaban, pausing briefly to smack down one unwise Dementor that hadn't seen the example she had made of its fellows. Then again, she was sure that her audience were staring as her Sword of Mars' rainbow-coloured blade suddenly elongated into a whip-like rope that slashed the Dementor in two.

In the silence that followed (well, filled only by the sound of the ocean and the shrieks of frustrated Dementors), a woman asked, "Wait, isn't that from The Boondock Saints?"

"…No it isn't," Altera lied. She had seen the film on a whim nearly a decade ago, and found some parts appealing. Including the lines. Continuing, she said, "It is your corrupt I claim, it is your evil that will be sought by me. With every breath…"

"No, that's definitely The Boondock Saints," the woman said. "Do you watch that movie religiously or something(2)?"

Altera stared at the woman flatly. Of all the Aurors sent here on assignment, she had to get one with a Muggleborn who watched movies. Then again, Muggleborns had frequently been assigned for the shitty jobs. Mentally, she thought, Fuck it. Out loud, she moved onto the climax of her speech. "Watch and learn." With that, she turned her backs to them, knowing none of them would lift a finger against her. The few who did, she knocked out, though one who fired Unforgivables at her…well, she sliced him in half and kicked him into the ocean for the sharks to feast on.

"Life I treasure, but civilisation, I destroy," she intoned in Hunnic, the tongue she had spoken in her life as Attila, before unleashing the full power of the Sword of Mars. She pointed its pommel at the stormy sky, and a ray of light lanced into the sky. As strange symbols appeared in the sky, she roared, "Sword of Mars, unleash your fury! TEARDROP PHOTON RAY!"

A blast of light smashed down through the symbols, spreading into a massive rain of light that smashed into Azkaban, annihilating it. Stone which had stood for centuries was turned to dust in an instant, the Dementors having time for one last shriek of fury and fear before they too were annihilated. She felt they deserved a slower demise, as did many of the inmates left inside the jail, but this was about making a statement. A declaration of war.

And for once, she actually revelled in the destruction she caused. It was a dangerous feeling. A seductive feeling. Just before she allowed herself to come back to her true body, she turned to the gathered people, and smiled. A few of them fainted. "What are you?" whispered one man.

"Destruction. Whether it comes for you all, or just the rot in your society, depends on you." She then allowed herself to fade, knowing that this was not the end, save of her imprisonment. It was the beginning of something new…

CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:

So, Voldemort's just unleashed a can of whoopass that has his name on it…not that he knows it yet. The whole power source/key being separate from the prison came from the Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars. That's a great story, and if anyone reading this is a Whovian who has only watched the new series, watch this story at least.

Also, Harry and Altera are now paired. I honestly don't have the patience at the moment to write a slow-burn romance, so take it as read that it happened gradually over the two years or so that Harry's been imprisoned with Altera. We might have some flashbacks. I'm of the mindset that, before the age of 18, the pairings should be of relatively equivalent ages, but when you've got somewhat larger gaps, as long as the youngest party is either over 18, or acts and looks like it and is artificial (Irisviel is one example), I'm okay with it. So we have an eighteen year old Harry paired with a millennia-old Titaness who happened to be Attila the Hun. Yikes.

Also, I don't have a thing for many of the more extreme fetishes around giantesses, so we're not seeing any of that. Harry's either going to sleep with her avatar, or else find a way to shrink her or grow himself. Please, no jokes. I don't want to ruin the sweetness of their relationship.

With the Boondock Saints gag, I've dated this story to about August 2008, eleven years ahead of Potterverse canon.

1. This is Altera's alternate costume from Fate/Extella. Quite frankly, while she might turn a few heads on the streets of London looking like that, she'd still look fairly normal.

2. I pinched this gag from the first episode of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged.