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(Enchanting Melodies) Chapter 412: Semblance of a Plan
🕑 Added 2025-01-19 14:00:35 +0000 UTCChapter 412: Semblance of a Plan
18 May 1995, Hogwarts, Scotland
The moment Harry looked at it, he felt drawn to it. He spoke up in a reverent tone, “I think that this is the World Serpent’s fang, and it’s the reason why I decided to come here. After all, if it works like I think it does, then I think that it might be the final piece of the puzzle I need.”
Harry was relatively optimistic when he visited the Chamber. For over a year, it had niggled at him, the fang that grew out of the ground like a weed, and it was for a very simple reason, the way World Serpent was bound just didn’t make sense.
The assumption he had made in previous years was wrong. He had always assumed that the world serpent, at its core, was a creature, a living breathing being, that was so dangerous that someone bound it in fear of the destruction it could be capable of, which was how the Chamber was born.
Now that he had a good understanding of dimensional magic, he understood one fundamental fact. Jörmungandr wasn’t a material being. He wasn’t even a living thing, but something that reminded him eerily of Nidhogg. The World Serpent was a realm of its own, much like Lily’s own, which manifested some form of consciousness. Its size defied understanding for the simple reason that it had no size. It had no beginning or end.
Maybe the beast was artificially created, maybe someone discovered it by accident, maybe it was left there by the gods before they left the material plane, but something had bound the consciousness by folding the dimension into itself so densely that it acted like a shackle.
What Harry killed with the Colt was the source of the dimension, the consciousness that had been imprisoned, which had been the centre of the bindings. The Chamber wasn’t shrinking, not really. It was more like it was untangling, and the fake imitation of a material realm was slowly overwhelmed by the remaining energy, with the bindings slowly being destroyed.
It had been his theory when he entered the room, and now with his basic grasp of Solomon’s magic and his Arcane Hearing, he knew that it was a confirmation.
The magic was horrific on so many levels, but it was also beautiful.
Whoever made this prison was beyond a genius. They had literally contained the infinite, by using itself as a fuel. They had taken a multidimensional being and twisted it into a mockery of three-dimensional space, turned it into a fucking room of all things.
If he had to guess, Harry would say that it was made to be used as a weapon, ready to be released and cause as much damage as possible, probably bound to a bloodline or forced to obey Parseltongue somehow. A prison and a leash. What a miserable existence it must have had, passed down from one generation to another like some sort of pet.
The fang that was growing from the ground wasn’t really one. This realm was obviously meant to act like a weapon, and this was the material expression of that role, its three-dimensional representation. If Harry’s theory was correct, whoever bound the beast was more than powerful enough to deal with any material threat. The magic was just that impressive. The obvious knowledge of dimensional magic meant that Jörmungandr was probably meant to attack rogue realms.
And if the fangs were a three-dimensional expression of the serpent’s weapon, then it should be meant to pierce into realms, hurt them, and by extension, a very valuable tool against the Light and Dark.
It was a bit of a shot in the dark, one built of hundreds of assumptions, but there was no reason why he shouldn’t try to figure it out. And as he approached the fang, he was getting a headache trying to understand what he was hearing.
It was like a resonance that kept shifting between realms, a pincer, which shifted between the material and immaterial. The magic itself was changing, adapting over time, like a knife cutting through the air. Yes, he was right. The fang was obviously a method to pierce the protection of anything it could touch, even dimensions. Harry could barely understand how it worked, how it shifted without any consciousness behind it.
Without even meaning to, Harry was walking closer and closer, almost reaching to touch the fang, only to freeze as he saw some black liquid slowly seeping from the top, making almost imperceptibly thin veins in its path.
Venom.
Harry had never really thought much about the Jörmungandr’s venom. If the fangs were the breach, maybe the venom would act like a poison, infecting the target dimension somehow.
He needed to study it. It took a single flick of his wand to conjure a small crystal vial to examine it further, only for the conjuration to disappear the moment it touched the venom.
Magical negation then? Very interesting.
He turned towards Daphne and asked, “Do you have a vial? One without any charms or enchantments, please.”
Yeah, he was lucky that the blonde asked him to expand her coat’s pockets to always have access to her school materials, which thankfully also included potion vials.
She tossed one to Harry and he grabbed it in mid-air and made sure that the liquid didn’t touch anything else. It took a couple of minutes, but a small amount of the venom was now inside the liquid, thankfully, not eating through it.
After a few minutes of trying to analyse the venom, with his Arcane Hearing, he muttered, “Curious.”
“What’s curious?” Daphne asked.
“This is the work of two people. Their skills were obviously very different. There was the original venom, which is absolutely made with a specific purpose. I can’t really tell what it was. It’s somehow detecting the fact that I’m trying to understand it. However, there’s a constant part, one that someone with far less skill was trying to experiment with it. The magic is something I can only properly analyse with Solomon’s system. If I had done it normally, it would have seemed… constant… Holy shit.”
Harry cast a quick spell at the vial while carefully monitoring it with his Arcane Hearing, only for it to unravel. It wasn’t exactly being absorbed or destroyed but unravelled. Whatever structure the spell had dissipated. It was very familiar, and it was done by the magic that was added near the end.
It didn’t negate magic; it just removed the structure, and Harry finally understood why he felt like he was missing something. Oh, how did he not recognize it from the start?
The Dark. That was what was being added in the end. That was why it was so familiar. It behaved very similarly to Grindelwald’s magic. It introduced chaos into any form of structured spell and destroyed it completely. The venom held a fragment of the essence of the Dark, for the lack of a better description.
And it wasn’t hard to understand who had done it, “Salazar Slytherin, you magnificent bastard.”
Daphne spoke up behind him, “What is it, Harry?”
His smile widened at the question, “Salazar Slytherin. He’s the reason I’m going to win. Oh, that madman. Absolutely brilliant but mad nonetheless.”
“Harry, I swear if you’re not going to explain, I’m going to hit you.”
He smiled at her, “Salazar Slytherin was probably the last Champion of the Dark that had access to the World Serpent. He didn’t want to cause Ragnarök, of course, but instead of ignoring it like whatever predecessor might have had, he decided to study it. Now, it’ll take me time to properly understand how the World Serpent’s venom works. It’s quite a marvel of magic. But obviously Slytherin didn’t either. But given its nature, I think it was made as a weapon against gods and Eldritch entities. It doesn’t matter, really. What’s important is what Slytherin did.”
“And what did he do?”
“He somehow was able to add the Dark’s essence in the venom.”
Daphne gave him an unimpressed look, “And how does that change anything?”
Harry could understand why the blonde wouldn’t get why this was such a big deal. She had witnessed Grindelwald destroying the realm of Olympus on his own and vaporising an entire mountain. She had witnessed the Olympians and the might they held and knew that they were barely a threat compared to the Light and Dark. What was some venom compared to that?
Honestly, it was the Dark’s essence that was extremely pertinent. He now had a sample of the entity, a proper sample, made by a Dark Champion, and that alone made returning to Hogwarts worth it.
As for the World Serpent’s original venom, it would probably take Harry a lifetime to study it. It wasn’t that he was incapable of doing so, or didn’t have the tools to understand it, but he had a feeling that the magical theory that currently existed would just be not enough. This was essentially like trying to understand quantum mechanics in the Middle Ages. The gap in knowledge and theory was just that large. He would do so eventually when Ragnarök was over and done with. At least he hoped it would.
Harry responded with a smug smile, “Oh, Daph. This changes everything.”
Daphne threw a hex at him, angry at him for not explaining, which he blocked effortlessly with an amused smile on his face, “Fine! I’ll explain. I came here because I thought the ivory from the fangs could have let me break through dimensional barriers far easier for my plan. But this… Salazar Slytherin was planning the same thing as I am now, only just against the Light. He was planning on using the World Serpent as a weapon, hoping to attack the Light directly. If I had to guess, Gryffindor found out about it and it was why they fought, with Slytherin being banished from the castle. It’s so funny. Voldemort had craved a weapon against the Light and Dark, and yet, he had one completely at his mercy, bound to his bloodline, without even knowing it. It’s sort of sad, really.”
“So, you’re planning on using the venom against the Light and Dark somehow?”
Harry grinned, “Of course, I am. The plan was to build a dimensional weapon that could attack the Light and Dark in their own dimensions. The fang was a good way to act as an entry point, a way to pierce through the dimensions, whose location I knew thanks to Solomon. My biggest problem was finding something that could act like a weapon. How do you kill something that’s so large, so powerful, that you can’t even comprehend? That was the problem, the final problem. I needed a silver bullet, something that could hurt even gods. I had ideas, of course, but this… This has potential.”
Slowly he walked towards the gigantic fang, and let himself be embraced by the magic, through his Arcane Hearing. Slowly but surely, he found himself singing, matching its tune. He didn’t even know how he did what he did, but he could feel his family crest slowly burning slightly, somehow translating his desire into song, and the previously indestructible fang moved around as if it was made of mud, shrinking into itself, or it was more like crystalizing into a single item of condensed power.
If he had been anyone else, even with the same skillset, it wouldn’t have worked. Harry’s authority over the beast was as absolute as its slayer. He wasn’t really going to lie and say that he researched the matter extensively, but the spoils of war were a thing.
It was why making an artefact with a creature that you had killed personally was so much easier, and tended to be more potent, than with any other thing. To be completely honest, Harry never really cared for the practice. The boost was minor at best, and Harry tended to prefer efficiency over raw power when he made any enchantments. Even then, he rarely used magical creatures as the core to any of them. If he had to guess, it would be that the act of slaying a creature in single combat was some sort of established ritual, with certain conditions. It wasn’t that powerful, really, and it didn’t translate to possessions. It was more like winning the allegiance of a wand than anything.
It seemed like this principle translated with the World Serpent somehow. It allowed Harry to ask the realm to be shaped, and it agreed. After all, there was no consciousness to resist him, and the energy saw him have a sliver of authority over it.
Whatever the reason, Harry was too preoccupied to really worry about it. What mattered was that it worked. Minutes later, all that remained was a small white dagger made of bone on the ground. The weapon had small black veins, that were akin to cracks than anything, which glowed chaotically. Harry smiled to himself, “A fragment of the Dark, in the palm of my hands.”
Daphne was struck speechless by the act, staring at the dagger in shock, awe, and most of all, hope, before schooling her expression, “Harry, how are you planning on using a dagger to hurt an entire dimension?”
“Looks can be very deceiving, Daph. And who said that this was all there was to it?” Harry answered with a mysterious grin, “But now, I have a proper plan in place, something workable that might actually work. All I need now is a fragment of the Light.”
“I’m sure Dumbledore will be more than happy to help you,” she replied with a sarcastic tone, which didn’t hide the hope and pride that he could sense through his Arcane Hearing.
“Well, lucky for us, we don’t have to. Long ago, a desperate alchemist used a ritual to save his dying wife. It was a horrific act, the lives of thousands of people were lost, one of them being a child, a future champion of the Light. His very life force, filled to the brim of the Light was absorbed in the ritual, crystalized in an artefact that he used to live far past what was natural.”
He relished the look of shock on the blonde’s face, “Nicholas Flamel. You’re looking for the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“Of course, my dear. And thankfully, the alchemist hid the stone before his untimely demise, stopping Dumbledore from getting his hand on it.”
If Perenelle Flamel was as good a seer as she seemed to be, she should have foreseen this. She would have found a way to help, to put him on the path to find the stone. And he knew where exactly to look to find the clues.
After all, there had to be more to the diary they left him other than lessons in Alchemy, which he barely got the opportunity to use.
AN: Again, sorry if this feels rushed; I'm still trying to deal with the work mess. I'm hoping to resolve the whole thing before the end of the week, but I really don't know. That said, I know that this chapter was a bit lore-heavy, but it’s very important for the rest of the story. I haven’t done one of those in a while, so I don’t know if I addressed everything I meant to do properly and I hope it didn't end up being a dry read. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting the chapter depending on your feedback, so, as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
Comments
athass_prkr
I am thinking about it, but I still haven't decided on anything yet. I'll probably make a poll or something. Although I'm really happy you like the story so far.
Abe 7
Is it weird that I don't want this story to end at all? Maybe have this version of Harry(along with Daph) go dimension hopping to other interesting multiverse options, crossovers like Ice & Fire, Marvel, DC, some other game worlds like mass-effect, etc. Its been a long journey, but I don't want it to end anytime soon. Please give it a thought @athass_prkr
athass_prkr
I'm honestly not sure. There are things that I don't know if I should keep, certain loose ends that I might resolve, and whatnot. It's very hard to estimate the end of a story, not specific arcs. Things become pretty hard the further I get into a story. Sorry if this sounds like a non-answer, but I genuinely need to finalize a few things before I can give an estimate. Weirdly enough, I have the first arc of my next story planned out, and it was far easier.
athass_prkr
Yeah, a million words seems insane, now that I'm thinking about it.
Chris Cyrus
I really like this chapter, Daphne and Harry have really grown on me in the last arc…plus this story gotta be close to 1 million words! Right?!!
ProfoundMagician
Nice chapter, story feels like it winding down. How many more chapters do you think it’ll be?
Afterdark230
I liked this a lot, it’s nice to see the two of them interact even if Daphne is just admiring what Harry is doing.
