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Harry Potter In The Witcher [51]
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 15:20:51 +0000 UTC"Other world?" Dandelion repeated, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and sheer, unadulterated curiosity. "You're… you're really from another world?"
Harry nodded. "I am. But I don't have the time to get into all the specific, nitty-gritty details of it right now. Ask Geralt after, if he's willing to talk about it."
"I still don't get it," Geralt interjected, his voice a low, skeptical rumble. "If you really came from a different world, how did you even know of Ciri in the first place? And more importantly, how did you get to this world?"
"I know about Ciri," Harry explained, his expression softening slightly at the mention of her name, "because I met her before. We were… we were good friends. Very good friends. She… she came to my world, for a time. I can't tell you exactly why, or how. That's her story to tell, not mine. She left after around six months. And I… well, I actually didn't mean to come to this world. It was pure, dumb luck… well, not really luck, I suppose, but more of a series of chaotic situations that were completely outside of my control. But when I finally realized what world I had landed in, whose world it was… I decided I would wait around for Ciri to be born, to grow up."
He took a long swig of his ale, his gaze distant. "Unfortunately, I can't just go up and meet her, or talk to her. Not until she meets me, originally, for the first time, in my own world. It's a… a temporal paradox, a very delicate one. This leaves me in an incredibly annoying, and often frustrating, predicament of trying to subtly, almost invisibly, change the world around her, to make it just a little bit more… friendly, I suppose? Without, of course, really changing too much, to the point where she somehow no longer meets me in the first place. This… this is why I'm here now, with you. And god," he said, a genuine, weary smile finally breaking through his serious demeanor, "does it feel good to finally tell someone, anyone, what the hell has been going on in my life!" He took another big, long chug of his drink, as if a massive weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.
"I… I probably shouldn't have told you all of that, now that I think about it," Harry said, a moment later, as he looked at their completely, utterly stunned faces. Or, at least, at Geralt's version of a stunned face, which was mostly just a slight widening of his golden eyes and a very still expression.
"So…" Geralt said slowly, his mind clearly working to process the insane information he'd just been given. "You know Ciri… because she somehow, at some point in the future, ends up in your world for a time?"
"Well, yes," Harry confirmed with a nod. "That's the gist of it."
"And then, you somehow, accidentally, came to our world, but a long, long time before Ciri was even born?" Geralt continued, trying to piece it all together.
"Right again," Harry said.
"And now, you can't let Ciri know you even exist, until she meets you, sometime in her future, for the very first time?" Geralt asked, his voice a low rumble of disbelief.
"Also correct," Harry said, taking another sip of ale.
"Hmmm," Geralt grunted, just looking at him, his yellow eyes filled with a mixture of skepticism and something that looked suspiciously like belief.
Dandelion, meanwhile, seemed to be doing a rather convincing fish impression, his mouth opening and closing silently.
"You don't believe me, do you?" Harry asked Geralt directly.
"I do," Geralt said, surprising Harry slightly. "You've never lied to me before. Though, granted, we have only met a few times. But I feel like you're leaving something important out, though. It seems to me like you're going through a whole lot of work, a whole lot of trouble, for a girl you were only with for six months." Geralt said, as he looked pointedly at Harry, his gaze sharp and piercing.
"Ciri…" Harry began, his voice softening, a deep, genuine emotion entering his tone. "Ciri was… something special. She was not only a true friend to me, at a time when I needed one the most, but she… she helped me get through one of the most difficult, darkest points of my entire life. Despite not being in my life for very long, she played a significant, absolutely crucial role in helping to develop the man you see sitting before you today. Were it not for her… hmm," he paused, a shadow passing over his face. "I'd rather not think about it, actually. The point is, Geralt, she was someone who I considered to be very, very important to me."
"I see," Geralt said, his expression unreadable. "So, just friends then?"
Harry rolled his eyes at the man's bluntness. "We were close," he said evasively. "If you're asking if I was in love with her, then I honestly can't answer that. I have never truly experienced a romantic love that I could safely, definitively identify as such. So, I'm not sure if what I feel for Ciri is actually love, nor am I going to say that I plan to suddenly become her suitor or anything like that. But I can say that in the few months that I was with her, Ciri was closer to me than any other person on the planet, and I would have, without hesitation, done anything for her." He purposefully, and very wisely, left out the part where she had kissed him goodbye, because that, he knew, would have ended… well, very badly.
"Hmmm," Geralt grunted again. "If I ever find out that you're taking advantage of her, Harry, dragon or not, you'll end up just like Rience. You know that, right?"
Harry nodded, his expression serious. "I do. And it would be kind of pointless for me to do so, considering all the incredible, painstaking work I have put into making sure that she will be happy, and that she will have a long, fulfilling life."
"Regardless," Geralt said, his voice a low warning, "the threat remains."
Harry nodded again in acknowledgement. "With that all cleared up, I suppose I really should be leaving now," Harry said, though he made no immediate move to get up.
"Where will you go now?" Geralt asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
Harry smiled, that enigmatic, slightly mischievous smile returning. "Oh, don't you worry about that, Geralt. For now, you both look incredibly tired. Why don't you just… take a little nap?" Harry said, and as he spoke, he silently, with an almost imperceptible wave of his hand, cast a powerful, fast-acting sleeping charm on both of them.
Geralt looked surprised for a brief moment, his witcher senses clearly trying to fight off the magical compulsion, but he had no success with it.
The charm was simply too strong, too subtle. He quickly, and rather unceremoniously, slumped over on the table and didn't move. Dandelion was already snoring softly beside him.
"I'm sorry, Geralt," Harry said softly, looking at his sleeping friend. "I trust you not to reveal my secrets, I really do. But that won't stop a powerful mage from picking through your mind and discovering it all by chance. Especially not your dear, inquisitive Yennefer. But I thank you, sincerely, for giving me someone to talk to, even for a little while. The stress recently has been… quite the hindrance." He paused. "Still, perhaps a small gift, to apologize with."
Harry took out Geralt's twin swords, the steel and the silver, from their scabbards on the witcher's back.
He gently laid them on the table and, with his eyes glowing faintly with a soft, green light, he imbued them both with a powerful, permanent sharpening and strengthening charm, a bit of his own world's magic.
"There," Harry said, satisfied. "That should help, the next time you need an extra edge on cutting someone, or something, up."
He carefully put the swords back in their sheaths and then, closing his eyes, he began the delicate, complex process of removing the recent memories of their conversation, and planting false, mundane ones in both of the men's heads.
He withdrew from their minds a few moments later and looked at them both with a bit of sadness in his eyes.
He took one last, long gulp of his ale and then, silently, apparated away, leaving the two sleeping men to be found by the innkeeper, as he simultaneously, and from a great distance, tore down the privacy charms he had erected around their table.
….
1264, Thanedd Island
Harry's POV:
Harry flew through the air, a streak of black against the stormy night sky. He couldn't remember the last time he had flown this fast, this desperately, as a dragon, but now, he was on a strict, terrifyingly short time limit.
He had just returned from Nazir, the heart of the Nilfgaardian empire, where he had finally, after much debate with himself, decided to see if anything could be done, permanently, about the threat of Emperor Emhyr var Emreis.
He had even, in his darker moments, seriously considered just… killing the man, ending his reign of terror once and for all.
However, meeting the man in person, albeit from a safe, magically concealed distance, had changed all that.
Because Emhyr var Emreis, the ruthless, ambitious Emperor of Nilfgaard… was also Duny, the Urcheon of Erlenwald. Ciri's biological father.
Harry still did not know how the man had managed to live through that terrible storm at sea all those years ago, the one that had supposedly claimed the lives of both him and Princess Pavetta.
Even Harry, who had been following them at the time, trying to find a way to possibly do something to help them, had been forced to leave, to retreat, when the storm had hit.
Even in his immensely powerful dragon form, he could not stop the sheer, raw forces of nature from tossing him around like a child's forgotten doll.
But it mattered little how the man had survived. All that mattered now was that the sick fuck, Ciri's own father, wanted to marry her, to use her to legitimize his claim to the Cintran throne, and he had a powerful, ruthless, and incredibly ambitious sorcerer named Vilgefortz of Roggeveen in charge of getting her for him.
And this Vilgefortz character, Harry had learned, was planning to take out the entire Chapter of Sorcerers of the Northern Kingdoms, in one single, bloody night, during a little get-together they were having, a grand conclave.
A get-together that he happened to know, with a cold, sinking dread, that Yennefer, Geralt, and, most importantly, Ciri, were currently attending.
