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ACT4CH4 - Among The Deathless
🕑 Added 2024-01-10 19:24:39 +0000 UTCThe Room was getting destroyed.
The entire place shook as if it was the epicentre of the greatest of earthquakes. Explosions fired off so rapidly that it was easier to consider the chain of them to be one massive phenomena, than try to recognize each one as an individual event. Nothing could remain in place or intact. All fell to the ground, either as projectiles or makeshift shields to defend against projectiles, or transfigured and retransfigured into objects to attack, bind, neuter the enemy or simply serve as distractions.
The illusory creations, rendered real by the power permeating within the Room, were no longer playing. No, they were lashing out madly, a font of rage and hate so deep it was hard to even look at. There was nothing human about them anymore, all that surrounded Harry were faceless attackers filled with madness born of something so dark and vicious that it made even the darkest of his thoughts seem calm and placid in comparison. Here in its centre of power, the curse was starting to lose all its calmness and replacing it with unthinking hate for the Defence professor that was killing magic.
Harry spun through the air, his wand and sword in either hand, meeting the obstacles without judgement or hesitation. He felt this might actually be making the curse angrier, and somewhere deep within, pictured the curse as something similar to that fragment of Tom Riddle preserved in that diary. One that was capable of thought and action, and twisted with delusions of grandeur and purpose. Now that he didn’t have the lightning scar on his forehead, he could no longer feel the connection to Voldemort, even if it was mostly limited to debilitating headaches in the past.
On the other hand, he was still looking out for something out of the ordinary, something so steeped in darkness that to his Death-vision, it would be as bright as neon lights. So he channelled Death-energy through Gryffindor’s blade, while rapidly firing spells using his wand. The latter caused things to explode, freeze, slash or blow apart. The former would just cause things to disintegrate, just with a single strike.
And he was, he had to admit, doing a lot of striking.
It wasn’t really a battle, what was happening. No tactics, no planned offence or defence. The faceless creations, now a disorganised mass of hastily crafted witches, wizards and all sorts of monstrous creatures — striking at Harry madly, randomly from all directions. And in return, Harry’s spells leapt out of his wand, the power of Death ringing madly in them, as the spells rushed out in scores and hundreds, both standard and Abstract magic answering his will far more readily than they ever had, meeting the storm of the faceless and tearing into them, dissolving them into dust as the Room provided more to start anew.
Then he noticed that his black-shaded spells were tearing down men and monsters crafted out of white magic, realised he was casting himself as a Dark Lord and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said to a faux-group of Draco’s gang that he had only just dismembered. “I was really trying to make it painless for you by nicking this blade through your heart and destroying you in a single blow. But you just moved away at the last minute, so I couldn’t get all the way in. I'll try harder. Hold still, please.”
Why in the hell the Room thought that Malfoy’s gang would make for a good replacement for Grindelwald’s Acolytes when there were actual Death Eaters available was anybody’s guess. Obviously the idea behind that creation was not stolen from his mind, and definitely not Dumbledore’s, or else Voldemort would’ve definitely shown up.
So why was the Room conjuring them?
Either way, Dumbledore was right. The junk-covered walls, these illusory spectres, faux-Grindelwald and everything else — it was essentially one single concept — Creation at its fundamental level, even if it was a temporary construction existing within the domain of this Room. A power that had limitless uses, and able to serve simultaneously as weapon and shield. Only powerful, destructive magic had been proven able to damage it, or in Death’s case, destroy it. To destroy it altogether was an impossible task, and neither was beating it down in a straight fight viable.
So it wasn’t the target.
Harry had worked out rather quickly that there would be no victory here through strength. Within this Room, the ability of the curse to conjure opponents against him was limitless. Death’s power rushed through his veins, and what he knew… or rather, felt, with such fervour it had to be the truth… to be another presence bolstering him like it always had whenever he had felt truly desperate.
He had felt it during times he was at his lowest. Times when he had needed power and power had answered him. Not the magic-consuming, endlessly devouring, cold, wintry power of Death, but warm, fiery power that answered from the deepest depths of his soul. An intangible energy that came from life, from his positive emotions. One that was made up of the good, the bad, the crazy, a power that kept him fighting and warring, kept him shoving more and more magic out of his wand, even though he should have crossed his limits a long time ago.
When he had been introduced to Fleur’s Mirror Room for the first time, Harry could hold it for eight to ten minutes maximum. And that was with all the former practice with the Auror equipment, and the mad bludger, all the while accelerating himself to double of his original speed and reflexes using the Supersensory charm, and pushing himself to his limits, It was impressive, even for a Hit-wizard — Sirius had said so, and his godfather didn’t joke around about that. Those ten minutes had passed fifteen or so minutes ago, and he was still going on full throttle. He shouldn’t have been able to improve his performance by this degree in so short a time.
Granted, part of it was because the Sword of Gryffindor was a horrifically overpowered tool for this fight. The goblin-enchanted blade could cut through dragonhide like a piece of piss. None of the illusions put up any resistance against its anti-magic effect, and the blade sliced through them at the slightest contact. How goblin-enchantment and Death could work in such sync was beyond him, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
No, there were only two options.
First, to find the source of the Curse, and obliterate it. That would solve the problem for good, and the Room would return into its default form.
Second, to give in to Death, transform into the Demon, and drain the entire power of the Room’s wardstone in one go. Just like how he had done back at Grimmauld Place.
The first required him to keep going and locate the Curse’s origin quickly, something he didn’t know how to do. The Curse was sentient, and in full control of the Room. It was child’s play for it to hide itself safely and keep shifting its location over and over again.
The second was potentially possible, and would instantly end it all, but the repercussions of that would be grave. He had drained the wards of Grimmauld Place down to zero, shutting down every single bit of enchantment within it. For all intents and purposes, the Black Manor had turned into a muggle home until Sirius had reactivated the wards all over again.
But if Harry did the same thing while at Hogwarts? If they were lucky, he’d only affect the Room’s wardstone. But if things got out of hand and somehow, he escaped this Room, then it could very well mean the End of Hogwarts, the slaughter of innocents, and potentially the unlocking of the Sunken Vault, unleashing the horrors within. Everything would be destroyed. Everything.
Neither was possible. That left a potential third option.
To keep fighting the Curse and all that the Room could pull up through the Wardstone connecting it to the Ley Lines. Having a ward-analyser as a girlfriend had taught him that every wardstone could only draw in a certain amount of power without being adversely affected by the energy coursing through it. And the longer you wanted the wardstone to function, the lesser the amount of energy it could drain.
It was why the Vaults had one simple function. For the Chamber of Secrets, it was the Sealing of Magics best left forgotten. Apt for something that was called the Sunken Vault.
So what was the simple thing that the Room of Requirement was tasked by Rowena Ravenclaw to accomplish?
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“That abomination is certainly something,” said faux-Grindelwald #11, because Albus Dumbledore was still keeping count. “I must admit I do regret not realising that sooner, Albus. I should have realised that you would not have brought him within my borders without insight.”
“You give me too much credit,” said Albus, manipulating fifty six flows of magic all at once. The rubble heaped everywhere in the destroyed chamber floated high into the air, rippling into intricate weapons, elemental forms and deadly creatures. “Much of what you have witnessed is novel for myself as well. That stunt against that conjured dragon was inspiring. If I had not cast the tracking charm on him, I’d not have believed it myself.”
“But not all,” noted faux-Grindelwald with a slight edge to his voice. He did not show the slightest degree of apprehension at Dumbledore’s magic. In fact he raised his wand in fierce joy. Dumbledore’s fiery whips came at him, and Grindelwald transformed them into dark shadowy tendrils of raw dark magic and further reform into actual elemental shadow forms and attacked Dumbledore back, only for the Headmaster to conjure a miniature Sun and burn them to ash.
“He wields the Blade of Gryffindor, something to be proud of, no doubt. But he channels a power that destroys Magic. How my old friend could ever bring such a Blight past the wards of Hogwarts is beyond me, Albus.”
Albus chuckled. “Now you are just being insulting. No thaumaturgy is banned at Hogwarts, only certainly practices are. And my real friend would know that I myself have dabbled in things dark if not darker than anything that boy is capable of.”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
A flying cupboard came rushing in, taking the curse head on.
“That illusion-destroying, magic-negating ability is not a Dark art, Albus.”
He deflected a wrath of pure force from faux-Grindelwald with a shield of raw magic, and like moths rushing to a flame, the hundreds of lethal weapons converged towards the illusory Dark Lord. The elemental creatures were hacked apart to shreds, while others simply disintegrated at the onslaught of lethal fire.
Neither of the duellists had been harmed in the slightest, in glaring contrast to the wasteland that was once a room filled with miles upon miles of endless junk. Somehow, the junk did not multiply, unlike everything else.
“A room where everything is hidden,” remarked Albus. “I suppose I made a mistake again, did I? It is not a contest of wills. The Room of Requirement fulfilled both of our wishes simultaneously. Yours, by allowing you to create opponents to best myself and Harry Potter. Mine, by revealing everything that was hidden away in this place. And no matter what you do, you cannot change that, can you?”
And just like that, faux-Grindelwald froze.
“That does bring me to a quandary,” Albus continued,his blue eyes gazing at faux-Grindelwald. “You called yourself a Purpose. A single function seeded into this very Room by Voldemort when he visited me that winter night in ‘67. All this time I was thinking that the Room itself was twisted by his curse, but it isn’t. Not if it is answering my requests in the same vein as it does yours.”
His smile widened. “You are not just a curse then, are you? No, you have way too much agency for that. The Room of Requirement makes Fantasy turn Reality within itself. But it considers you a fellow user, granted one that ranks higher in priority than myself to a degree. But a user, nonetheless. A soul.”
His fingers clenched tighter on the Elder Wand.
“Just how many of you are there, Tom?”
Faux-Grindelwald’s smile split his face almost literally, a corpse’s rictus grin pulling back to reveal his inhumanly sharp teeth, and a lethal red and awful shone behind the gaze in his eyes.
“Perceptive as ever, Dumbledore,” spoke Voldemort through Grindelwald’s lips.
“Mr. Riddle,” said Albus. “We meet again. I’d say it's a pleasure but then I’d be lying. I knew that there had to be more of you when I found out.”
Grindelwald’s form morphed, revealing the true form of Lord Voldemort, like he had been when he had approached him for the job of the Defence professor at Hogwarts. Tall, rugged, sharp features with an expression that bordered on inhuman with glowing red eyes.
“You mentioned more of us,” said Tom Riddle. “What can that possibly mean, Dumbledore?”
Albus smiled, and repeated the words that the Bloody Baron had said earlier, and found them suitably apt. “If you need to ask, you will never know. If you know, you need only ask.”
The entire room began to vibrate with an unearthly force as Voldemort thrust a palm at Dumbledore, and uttered something in Illyrian. The ground beneath Dumbledore’s feet burst outward with a violent explosion, and huge cracks spiderwebbed out of it, while the wizened Headmaster stood protected with a shell of raw magic.
“HOW?” Voldemort bellowed, as his fury caused the junk around them to explode into dust. “Which of them betrayed me?”
He chuckled. “Ah, so you did entrust it with your followers. I have to admit, I did not expect that. I had always believed that you operated alone and trusted no one.”
Voldemort’s response was to create massive walls of absolute blackness around him, the Room of Requirement supplying him with power to utilise the darkest of arts he had mastered all those decades ago.
“But I suppose it does make sense, given how the other one ended up with dear Lucius.”
Voldemort narrowed his eyes. “The Diary…”
“Ah, yes,” agreed Albus, who had absolutely no qualms about throwing Lucius Malfoy under the proverbial cart. “It was really quite silly of him, if I do say so myself. To use an object so steeped in dark magic, and finding a way to pass it past the Hogwarts wards, just to attempt to overthrow me as Headmaster.”
“Lucius….” Voldemort hissed. “He will pay for this.”
“Oh, but he already is paying for his sins,” said Dumbledore. If his theory was right, this was a shard of Tom Riddle with absolutely no memories or information about what transpired after his ‘conception’. That was why he did not recognize Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived, or his nemesis, and only referred to him as the Defence Professor and underestimated him.
Knowledge, as they said, was the best kind of currency there was. And Albus was a connoisseur of the art of exchanging information with information.
“How?” asked the Dark Lord.
“The last time you were here, Tom, I asked you to be candid with me, for once. I think we both know that you have absolutely no knowledge of what transpired between the moment when the other You brought you in this hallowed sanctum, and now. How about a little trade? Information for information.”
Voldemort gave him a murderous leer. “What good will it do, Dumbledore? Now that I know you know my deepest secret, what makes you think you will escape this place alive? The Reserata Carcerum is mine, and so long as we are here, I am God of this domain.”
“Do you even know the meaning of that word, Tom? God? You are merely in control of this Room, that’s all. Your current form, and your experience manipulating this space for decades magnify your control to a level that might seem impressive to the odd wizard, but not to me.”
He held up a Deluminator and clicked it open.
The light leapt forth in a sphere and exploded into sparks as it collided with Tom’s darkness that simply devoured it, swallowing it to nothingness as it streamed forth. The effect was odd-looking, from the inside, as light poured forth to be enveloped by the slithering darkness all around, something that recoiled from the sparks and then came surging back in their wake with frenzied agitation, but the darkness could not reach any further. And in that monochrome stood Albus Dumbledore facing Lord Voldemort, in a seemingly empty space, away from the wasteland they were standing mere moments ago.
“Your very own parallel dimension,” remarked Tom, looking around, impressed, like someone enjoying a good chess move. “It’s impressive. But I can already feel the matrix of your being, and I can see the holes in your weaving. This shell cannot contain me. Not for long.”
Albus smiled. Fortunately for him, not for long was exactly what he was planning for.
“It cannot,” he agreed amiably. “But so long as you are within this dimension, your control over the Room is lessened. It will give Harry the time to do what he wants.”
“Harry…. Harry Potter. I am not unaware of your irrational faith in love,” purred Voldemort. “But this boy must be a special case. A child, no more than sixteen, I’d imagine.”
“Fifteen, actually,” said Albus, his eyes twinkling from behind his half-moon glasses. “He’s about to sit for his OWLs come summer.”
Prodigious wizards were more often than not, a curious bunch, always on the lookout for new knowledge to assimilate into their repertoire. And if that wasn’t possible, they at least looked for possible holes in the technique,so that they could develop a counter against it in the future. So if someone were to stop in the middle of a battle and explain their plan of action or their spell technique, the wizard would in fact, pause and listen.
And Albus had a lot of unimportant facts to share.
“Such prowess for someone so young,” mused Voldemort. “Still, one wonders how pitiable things have become ever since you rejected my demand for the job, Dumbledore. Asking a greenhorn to teach how to defend against the Dark Arts…”
“Actually, hiring him has been one of my better decisions, lately. All seven years have been full of praise for his ability to teach Defence. Why, give or take a few years, his renown as a professor might just overtake his old fame for vanquishing Lord Voldemort all those years ago.”
Of all the things he had said to Voldemort so far, this one shocked him the most. He could even see the white in his eyes.
“I told you, Tom,” said Albus, drawing himself to his fullest height. “You will find that I have plenty to share. How about being candid with each other? We both know that you want to know what I know, and if you are so certain of my demise, why not be open for once? For old times, sake?”
“If you think that your meaningless trivia holds any relevance to me…”
“Trivial, perhaps, but not meaningless,” said Albus, smiling. “ You are a necromancer of the original vintage,but I too can keep fighting all day.”
It was one of the benefits to being a sorcerer. You became nigh undefeatable in your homeground.
There was of course, the Elder Wand to be considered, but the less attention he drew to it, the better. That Voldemort had plucked the knowledge from his mind using the Room was beyond dangerous already. Whatever happened, he had to stop Tom from escaping and releasing this knowledge to his resurrected form.
“It does not matter,” said Voldemort, gritting his teeth. “The boy is in the heart of my domain. You may have isolated me from the Room, but you have also removed yourself in the process. He is all alone there, and my Curse is still in control. No schoolboy, no matter how prodigious, can defeat my curse.”
The tiniest of cruel smiles played on Albus’s lips. “How do you think Harry does what he does? Tell me, Tom, how does one destroy magic?”
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The blade of Gryffindor swung in and struck faux-Draco in the neck.
He shattered.
Harry did not even bother to say anything.He was getting greatly tired and annoyed at these mindless Draco-spawn, as he had begun to call them in his mind. At least the curse was conjuring serpents and dragons and all sorts of deadly creatures he had faced over the last couple of years, but it was oddly fixated on the idea of Draco being his nemesis. Still, he was grateful that it hadn’t conjured a freaking basilisk of all things, small mercies and all that.
“I get it, you’re a pompous dolt, and impaling you is oddly therapeutic,” said Harry. “But as things stand, you’re just in the way.”
“Pompous?” asked yet another Draco-spawn, materialising out of the junk, his characteristic sneer making Harry groan. “Shows what you know, you filthy —”
“Sectumsempra!”
The head fell off.
“Honestly, this is getting tiring. But I see your message there. When in doubt, go for quantity. Perhaps I too should take a leaf out of that. It will be harder for the curse to conjure more of you if there is less of this junk.”
He raised his wand and yelled out to the heavens.
“MORS ANIMUS CONJURUS!”
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“What the hell is that boy doing?” Voldemort hissed, as a wave of discomfort seemed to echo through his very being.
Albus smiled. “While I originally treated him with caution, I came to realise that he was in every way, different from what I was, and yet, everything that I ever wanted to be. He is not the smartest, or the most prodigious, or the most intellectual… but he has valour, and the mental fortitude to come out standing despite overwhelming odds. I doubt there are many people who can face Voldemort and come out alive and express disappointment after the fact, much less guilt. Not because he sought glory, but because he could not protect something valuable from him. He is not without faults, but is perhaps one of the bravest and most honourable young men I have ever met.”
“A Gryffindor,” snorted Tom contemptuously. “So very like you to extoll the virtues of your house, old man. But it does not matter. Not anymore. Inside the Room, my curse is a Nameless God, and you will learn soon enough that no mortal can withstand the might of the divine.”
“Your curse is no God,” said Dumbledore with a sigh. “You see, you listen, but you do not understand, do you Tom? How do you think a child of no extraordinary talent managed to defeat Lord Voldemort when he was at his prime? Yes, the real, or perhaps I should say, the Other you, is out there somewhere. But he is weak, and he is afraid of him.”
“Lord Voldemort is not afraid of anybody,” boasted Tom. “I am immortal, Dumbledore, and not you, not that boy, and not all the love in the world can undo that.”
Albus beamed. “If not love, then perhaps… Death?”
Voldemort’s eyes went wide.
“Have you not heard the stories, Tom? The muggles know it as mere myths, but we wizards can track their presence even now. Do you not know about Death’s icy realm — Hel, according to the Norse. Ereshkigal, Mrityu, Thanatos, Anubis… their role as the great equaliser of the universe. Are you unaware of those tales, Tom?
“What nonsense are you blabbering, old man?”
“Death, Tom. Death,” said Dumbledore. “That is what Harry Potter wields. That which keeps the unimaginably powerful forces of the Universe itself in check. The might of Death is above all. Even within these halls, with everything you can use — Dark Arts, Necromancy, or Dunamancy even — they are all Magic, and no magic can survive Death.”
“Death —”
“Oh yes,” said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling madly. “The power of the End. It is rather serendipitous, Tom, that with all the power to alter causality and thus Fate, you inevitably lured in the Vessel of Death into your immortal coil — the very thing that even Rowena Ravenclaw’s Dunamancy cannot penetrate, an emptiness that you necromancers fear the most. In this Room, amidst these deathless illusions that lie between real and ethereal, the Vessel of Death has finally arrived at a place where Death has no meaning at all.”
Not yet.
If this wasn’t prophecy and fate acting out, Albus did not know what was.
“You… you lie,” Vodemort snarled, rearing back, as tendrils of darkness rose behind him, ready to tear Dumbledore to shreds. “Death… Death has no power over me. It has no power inside my domain.”
Albus’s lips twisted in wry amusement. Hubris was the reason why the great fell so often. When hubris was backed with arrogance, the Fall came faster. “I might not be able to hold you here for long, but out there, Death is within your domain. And I think she wants her due.”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!” snarled Voldemort.
Albus met the killing curse head on with a burst of raw magic, trapping the Dark Lord in a battle of wills.
“Never one to bend before cold, hard logic,” he lamented. “It is always this problem with Dark Lords. I understand you are irritated for things not going your way, but must you be this disagreeable, Tom? Being on opposite sides is no reason to not be polite.”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Albus just apparated out of the way.
“That was rude,” he said, frowning. “I thought your years at Hogwarts seeped away that irascibility. Alas, I have failed as a teacher, it seems. But a word to the wise, Tom. Surely the Room helps you recognize the power the boy wields? Providence of the Death Gods themselves.”
As if his words were a portent, a monstrous sound erupted out of nowhere, seeping past Albus’s dimensional walls, reverberating all over. Voldemort looked around frantically, trying to track the sound of this immense noise — the sound of hooves, that kept getting louder. Meanwhile the light and darkness around them began shifting in agitation.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…” said Albus Dumbledore. “Death has come for you, Lord Voldemort. Defend your immortality now!”
Close, and yet, a world away, the Room of Requirement began to vibrate in sheer horror as a magnificent thestral, black as the darkest night, erupted out of a swirling mandala of power above Harry Potter’s head.
Comments
Alex Robb
You guys make reading in to like an out of body experience
Darius Davis
Dude...this story is SO satisfying to read. Great Chapter and I am eagerly awaiting the next
