Chapter 3: Prologue: Master of Death
Yet, there didn't seem to be much to confirm. The dust was still settling, but Harry could already see that there wasn't any ground left inside the shields. It was as if someone had removed it with an ice-cream scoop, a perfectly smooth hemispherical hollow was in the ground.
Seeing that there was no way the being had survived it, Harry decided to dispel the defenses he had put in place so that the wind could blow the dust away.
What he had expected, quickly happened, and the dust was blown at him.
Suddenly, Harry felt his knees weakening and his arms felt as if they had been tied to a semi-truck, extremely heavy. An extreme wave of nausea hit him, and he couldn't help but throw up.
He lied there, unable to move at all.
Suddenly, Harry heard heavy footsteps approaching and a shadow was cast over him. He felt as if his soul was being drawn out of his body, yet at the same time, it was being held in place from a single point, the ring on his right hand.
A few moments later, the shadow covering him moved on and Harry felt just a bit better.
Through even more struggle than he had gone through to cast the spell in the first place, he managed to take hold of his left-side cufflink and managed to croak: "St. Mungo's!"
That was the last thing he remembered before blacking out.
Harry woke up in a hospital bed with Hermione and Ginny with red eyes and puffy faces, Ron, McGonagall and Dumbledore by his bedside.
"What- what's the occasion?", Harry asked, his voice barely audible.
A few drops of tears rolled down Hermione's cheeks as she almost shouted: "Harry James Potter! I warned you! I told you to protect yourself properly! Yet, what did you do? You ended up in here, with extreme radiation poisoning!
You're lucky you slammed right atop the reception desk, otherwise it might've been too late when somebody finally noticed you! Any normal wizard would've been dead a hundred times over with the amount of radioactive material you had in your system!"
Ginny gave Hermione a cautious glance before saying: "What she said! Don't you ever do something like that again!" She was keeping up a stiff façade, but Harry and anyone else could see that she was actually a hair away from breaking down completely.
A healer rushed over and spoke in a toned-down voice: "Please speak quietly. The patient mustn't be disturbed so much. It's a miracle already that we brought him back and even a greater miracle that he's awake now."
Harry smiled weakly. Both the women might've been scolding him, but he knew they did it because they cared about him. He struggled to lift his right hand, displaying the ring on his finger before saying: "Master of Death, remember?"
McGonagall looked Harry in the eye and he could see she had put on her strict face #0, the one that made a Dementor about to give you the kiss look like an angel.
She said: "Harry, explain yourself."
Harry looked at her, then at Dumbledore, before saying: "Get the memory. See if- see if I got it."
Harry tried to gesture towards his head with his left hand but heard the sound of metal clattering and felt that he couldn't move his arm all that much. It was only then that he noticed that his left wrist was cuffed to the bed with magic-suppressing handcuffs.
Harry looked at Hermione with his eyebrows furrowed and asked: "Why am I…"
Hermione took out a Daily Prophet from her Mokeskin pouch and held it so that Harry could see the front page.
'Harry Potter shows his true colors!
I have just gotten word from a reliable source in the Ministry of Magic that the massive explosion in the heart of London was caused by 'The Boy-who-Lived'. Not only did he cause the explosion with some sort of extremely powerful spell, but it left a large area completely uninhabitable due to extreme levels of radiation.
Fortunately, the Ministry's personnel have erected multiple wards and contained the fallout, otherwise the entirety of London may have become uninhabitable. The Minister's foresight also allowed the uncorrupted Auror department to evacuate the citizens and the amount of casualties remained much lower than would've been expected from such an unprovoked attack.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: Harry Potter is a terrorist, a dark lord in the making. His attack on the properties of innocent civilians can only be a way to announce to the world his arrival, to attract those inclined to chaos and destruction. He even chose the time of a global crisis to begin his ascension.
For now, he's been admitted into St. Mungo's due to suffering the consequences of the very spell he had cast, but for how long? What is the Ministry going to do about him? Why haven't they sent him off to Azkaban yet?
-Rita Skeeter, seeker of truth.'
Harry stared at the page blankly for a while before saying: "Thanks for protecting the people, Hermione. I thought- I thought it was only dust. Looks like- like evil really dies hard."
Hermione's tears intensified once again as she sniffled while speaking: "I had to, Harry. I had to report it to the ICW that you'd used that spell. Someone must've leaked it.
After that, there was public outrage and the only way to calm them was to have you treated like a criminal."
As the two were speaking, Dumbledore had taken out the Elder Wand and placed it against Harry's temple briefly before retracting it. He then placed it in a crystal phial.
Finally, Dumbledore took his turn to speak up: "Harry, my boy. I'll get you out of this, there's no need to worry."
Finally, the rest of the group made some room around his bed. Ginny sat on the edge and took his hand. She spoke softly while glancing at his cuffed wrist: "I told the kids not to come. I didn't want them to see you like this."
She was left sitting there by the others who quietly left the ward.
During the entire time, Ron hadn't said a word. Harry suspected he was there only because Hermione and Ginny had insisted.
"Visiting hours are over.", a healer's voice said after a while, and Ginny left as well. Harry had fallen asleep long ago, courtesy of multiple potions geared towards such a result.
---
A few days later, Harry woke up to Hermione and Ginny by his bedside once again.
Hermione was smiling with pride visible on her face as she said: "Dumbledore's done it! I just wanted you to be awake for this."
She then took out a strange multi-colored gemstone with runes and patterns carved into it and touched the magic-suppressing cuffs that had been chaining Harry to his bed. The cuffs opened and Hermione managed to catch them before they managed to fall on the floor and wake up anyone that wasn't dead in the ward.
As soon as he had been uncuffed, Ginny opened the ward's door and said: "You can come on in now."
Not a moment later, Lily rushed over and hugged him tightly while Albus and James were standing at a bit of a distance.
"Hey, kids.", Harry said with a warm smile.
He then looked at James and asked: "How's the department been treating you while I was away?"
His eldest son replied: "It's been alright, but for some reason, I've been tasked with a lot more paperwork than usual, some of it has been marked for DMLE, not the Auror department specifically."
Harry then looked at his second son, unconsciously reached for his neck, where the time-turner normally hung and said: "Albus, I hope you haven't gotten into any more trouble recently."
Albus Severus replied: "Not really. I was considering stopping you from casting that spell, but mom said it's the only way to get you to take a break."
Finally, Harry looked at Lily Luna clinging to him as if she was still ten. "Lily, how was the Hogsmeade weekend?", he asked.
Lily blushed at that, not getting a word out.
Harry smirked at that, and said: "Hermione, tell Dumbledore I'll need the Elder Wand again."
Hearing his words, Lily blurted out: "Peter's very nice, he wouldn't do anything bad to me!"
There was a dangerous gleam in Harry's eyes as he said: "Oh, so it's Peter, is it. I'll just make sure he doesn't get any ideas."
Finally, Harry once again took the time to speak to his wife: "Gin, do you have a paper on you? I'm somewhat curious about what's been going on outside."
Harry noticed only now that Ginny had been throwing him more glances than usual, as if she couldn't get enough of him.
She handed him a newspaper and Harry found the most breaking news on the front page as usual.
'The Boy Who Lived is all grown up!
Harry Potter has gone and done it again. Due to some new information being revealed by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, it has become clear that our regular hero had risked his life to test out a spell that had been specifically designed by our very own Minister for Magic, Hermione Granger for the purpose of dealing with extremely dangerous individuals.
In the process of testing the spell, which has become known worldwide as Granger Ultra, Mr. Potter suffered from severe radiation poisoning that was an unintended side-effect of the spell. While he was struggling to keep his life, his target, the creature that is currently referred to as the Invader, cast its shadow on him.
To this day, Harry Potter is the only person who has come out alive from such a close encounter. Not only that, the memory that he had given to Albus Dumbledore for reviewing revealed that the Invader had actually been severely injured by the spell, the right side of its chest had been completely caved in.
Currently, there are heated debates going on in every wizarding government and the International Confederation of Wizards whether Granger Ultra should be considered to deal with the most recent and greatest threat since Voldemort's defeat.
So far, the majority's opinion is that it's just not worth rendering large portions of population centers uninhabitable for unknown amounts of time. Everyone is highly encouraged to find an alternative to Granger Ultra that is just as effective. To ease the research, Minister Granger has agreed to freely share the matrix of the spell.
I will keep you posted of any further developments.
-Rita Skeeter, seeker of truth.'
As soon as he finished reading, Harry looked at Hermione with a smirk and said: "Granger Ultra, huh? It's not too bad of a name. Too bad there's only one Elder Wand or we'd have that crisis in the bag."
Hermione's eyes didn't meet Harry's as she replied: "I wasn't the one that came up with the name. I proposed it to be called 'nuclear explosion simulated through magic', a properly descriptive name for it."
"That's way too long.", Harry said.
Ginny had been glancing at her wristwatch and the four 'extras' for a while now. Finally, she spoke: "Hermione, children, I have some private grown-up matters to discuss with Harry, regarding him becoming known as the 'man-who-lived' and a hero of the Wizardkind once more."
The children left none the wiser while Hermione smirked and left as well. She knew quite well that Ginny had a thing for heroes, big time. For that reason, Hermione cast a silencing charm around Harry's bed after the curtains around it had been closed.
---
As soon as Harry returned to office, he called in his assistant as well.
"Report.", he said.
"Sir, it's not good and only getting worse. There have been reports of Muggle cities being sealed with never-before-seen wards. The Muggles, or unregistered Wizardkind within have been seen performing Accidental Magic, but any means of trying to get in or out has proven to be impossible."
Harry looked at his assistant as if he was drunk and asked: "What do you mean? Are they giving magic to Muggles? What for?"
The assistant gave Harry a helpless look and replied: "If I had a Knut for every time somebody asks that question, I'd have enough savings to retire, Sir."
Harry pondered for a few minutes before he said: "Send every free Auror to observe and gather intelligence from the outside. I want to know anything and everything about the Invaders, even whether they use giant rolls of toilet paper to wipe their asses and if so, where do they get those."
Next, Harry wrote up the after-action report he had promised, even though anything in it was already redundant. After that, he despaired for ten minutes over the pile of paperwork that was waiting for him. It had grown taller than he was.
Half a day later, Harry's assistant arrived once again and said: "Sir, there's someone to see you specifically. He didn't give a name, but he said you'd be extremely interested in meeting him."
"Put a team of Hitwizards in position and I'll see what he has to say."
Harry completed another document before he went to the Atrium.
As he exited the elevator, he could see Hitwizards hidden by the Disillusionment charm ducking behind pillars and even the fountains. He also saw a man in hooded black robes, with his face rather well concealed.
"You are Harry Potter.", a muffled voice stated matter-of-factly.
Harry felt a bit displeased with such rudeness, but brushed it off and said: "Yes, and you are?"
The man that was completely hidden by his robes stood absolutely still as he spoke: "My name no longer holds any meaning. You can call me Chronos. The only thing that still holds value is what I have to tell you."
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