Chapter 94: Fire Storm

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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16 November 1992, Hogwarts

Before the young Potter could revel in his coming victory, Riddle did something unthinkable, something that Harry would describe later as the desperate actions of a mad teenager. Tom Riddle summoned Fiendfyre in the middle of Hogwarts.

Fiendfyre wasn't technically a fire spell. Its history was honestly easy to track since the ramification of the spell were pretty big. The entire thing started thousands of years back with an ancient Greek mage called Prometheus that was studying alternate dimensions. Honestly, the study of parallel worlds and dimensions was something that countless civilizations tried to explore, and it always ended in disaster in some way. This was no different.

Somehow Prometheus had discovered a dimension of darkness and flames and prepared to open a portal of sorts. Unfortunately, he didn't have a choice. Not many know what happened afterwards, only that one day, the mage vanished, with all his research with him. Hundreds of years later, when the mage known as Vulcan discovered a trace of the research and recreated Prometheus' research. Thankfully, he didn't open a portal to the other dimensions entirely, and only a connection of sorts to enhance his forging, as the dimension tended to have a purification aspect to them. This allowed Vulcan to create wonderous artefacts that were superior to any other artificer at that age, so much so, that he was known as the god of fire and the forges.

Years later, some descendant tried to recreate the spell but wasn't able to do it. Wands had started to become commonplace, and the ancient forms of magic were often disregarded. So, after decades of study, the wizard was able to create a wanded version of the spell, which acted like an unstable microscopic portal to the other side. Unfortunately, for all the man's intelligence, his magical circuits were subpar. As such, he chose to make the flames themselves help power the portal. What he didn't expect when he cast that spell was that the flames themselves had a basic consciousness that fought back.

The wizard was quickly overwhelmed, his name lost to history, but not before committing one of the biggest disasters in the magical world's history. His flames went out of control and burned Alexandria to ash, the library included. Countless tomes were lost, hell hundreds of experts perished in that fire, unprepared to fight something of this calibre, that's not to mention the artefacts destroyed.

And it was the magical world that lost the most. By nature, Fiendfyre targeted magical energy. Theorists claim that it was some kind of ascended consciousness that somehow absorbed the magic of its dimension, becoming the sole living entity. It literally feeds on magic, and when they realized this, a massive ritual was constructed to seal and drain the entirety of ambient magic from the city of Alexandria, and the fire winked itself out eventually. It took centuries for the magical community to recover, and the library of Alexandria was rebuilt. Unfortunately, it still remains a shadow of its very self.

Of course, after a lot of experimentation, it was determined that a strong will can override the consciousness of the flames and guide it, but not completely control it.

To be perfectly honest, Harry only learnt all of this because he was curious as to why Fiendfyre could destroy Horcruxes. Now, that was obvious, the soul shard was anchored with magic. What Fiendfyre does is consume the magic inside it and that releases the soul, allowing it to pass on, hence the destruction of the Horcrux. The soul itself is unharmed, well, it's already split since, you know, it's a Horcrux, but Fiendfyre doesn't affect souls.

But that didn't matter now. What did matter was the fact that Riddle just opened a gate to what was essentially hell and released magic consuming conscious flames in a magical school, that held practically the next generation of magic.

Now, Harry wasn't Dumbledore. He couldn't just transfigure an extradimensional fire with a wave of his wand, but for all his stupefaction at the move, Harry knew how to improvise enough to buy himself some time.

So, yeah, Harry did the best thing he could think of and just conjured what felt like hundreds of ice chains. The ice magic that held it was stopping it from melting at the sheer heat that came with it. The chains surrounded the entire flames in a dome and started linking. Harry used this to conjure hundreds of small magical circles in the knots, telekinetically pushing the fire down.

It was the most stressful and tasking thing Harry had ever done. The sheer scale of multitasking alone was ludicrous, but for now, the fire was somewhat contained. The heat was being countered by the ice magic, and the fire was contained by the countless telekinetic pushes that acted like some sort of prison.

Gritting his teeth at the exertion, the Potter scion exclaimed, "Are you out of your mind Riddle? You would risk destroying the entire school, destroying yourself, just to win, to prove a point?"

The older boy looked oddly sad at that, "No, not to prove a point. For a dream, my dream. You know when I was younger, I hoped to change the world. To make it a just place, where talent triumphs over hate. An eternal existence, where no one would ever die. Imagine a world where your parents were still alive. A world without pain, without Death. My counterpart lost his way, he became a monster, an abomination that destroyed everything in his path. He focused so much on Dumbledore, it's obvious. He found out that our dreams would never be possible with the old man around and so, he started a war to stop him, and he forgot why he had done so in the first place. But I refuse. I will succeed where my counterpart began."

The pressure was slowly getting to Harry. He couldn't hold on to the magic like that, especially since a giant snake tried to attack the dome, pushing him into putting more magic in the telekinetic magic circle.

He couldn't keep this up, but he needed Riddle to keep talking, "You want a body of your own."

"You think too small, Potter. But I have to say, I didn't expect you to be able to cast something like this. And you're a second year. This magic is even something I have never witnessed before. Your family crest, I assume?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, my crest."

That's right. Harry's crest. The answer could lie in the crest somehow. Harry pushed his irritation towards Riddle and pushed some magic into the crest, asking for help. The last Potter felt judged in a weird way, before a small confirmation. In return, he could a magical circle that was more complicated than anything he had ever seen before. Honestly, Harry didn't have the time to study it, properly, but that didn't mean that he couldn't cast it from the crest directly.

The energy requirements were too large for Harry to handle without passing out, but he could theoretically carve the circle into the ground and ask the room itself to put the magic into it. Harry growled, and discreetly, started to telekinetically carve his desired circle just outside the chain dome.

Harry had to scale down the chains and telekinetic protection slightly, and Riddle took that as a weakness of sorts. Honestly, the older boy didn't need to act clever. He obviously used this spell because he couldn't use a lot of magic, and the raw power of the Fiendfyre spell was a lot higher than the cost of casting it. It just required willpower, something that Riddle had in spades.

The older boy laughed in glee, taking Harry's struggles as signs of his victory, "You're losing, and you know it. Why don't you just give up, and make it easier on the both of us? You must realize by now that you're not getting out of this place alive. For all your skill and intelligence, Harry Potter, it took a shade of my power to defeat you."

The projection waved its wand and the giant snake of fire turned into a dome of sorts that exploded away, shredding Harry's defences. The magic circles were destabilized, and the ice chains started to melt. Harry could have reinforced them, but he was almost done with his trap.

It took seconds for Harry's defences to come crashing down. The sudden heat and waves of fire burned Harry's chest slightly and he was sent flying back, the impact taking his breath away. Harry could make up a figure through the fire, It was Riddle who had slowly walked towards Harry with a smug smile on his face, "If it's any consideration. You would have posed me a challenge if you had time to grow. Goodbye, Potter. Know that I do not do this out of hate or anger, only because I must. You will try to stop me, and I cannot allow that."

"And you need to stop talking all the time," Harry replied while grinning slightly, before activating his trap. When Riddle moved his wand to command the Fiendfyre to burn Harry to ashes, the fire just stopped inches in front of the younger wizard when he cast a larger telekinetic magical circle, that was far more powerful, blocking the fire entirely.

Harry coughed and let out a bloody grin. His trap was taking hold and it was a pretty obscure magic circle whose purpose was to destroy poltergeists. Since those were magical constructs that developed a consciousness, the entire circle simply absorbs magic and turns it into ambient magic outside the circle. Anything magical inside the circle will die if it's not tied to an object.

The older boy seemed to realize what was happening since he screamed out, "No! No!"

Before the Potter scion could react, the older boy waved the Fiendfyre in the final attempt to stop his opponent. Harry almost grinned at the futility of it and used another telekinetic shield to protect him. The Potter scion quickly disarmed Riddle with a telekinetic push on the wand itself and broke it. These magic circles were awfully handy, yet from the satisfied smile on Riddle's face, Harry couldn't help but feel like he lost somehow. His suspicions were confirmed when he realized that he wasn't even Riddle's target.

Down on the ground were the charred remains of the famed lost Diadem of Ravenclaw, with the sinister black ichor getting down from it. The absurdity of it stunned Harry. He never expected the older boy to do something like this, "You would destroy your own Horcrux."

The Fiendfyre had dissolved down to nothing, leaving nothing but some heated air, and two gasping combatants.

"I am not Lord Voldemort, Potter. Why should I care if he lives or dies? You might have won this round, but the war has yet to be decided. Why should I allow you to have another advantage in finding me again? After all, I'm going to start attacking again, and frequently. I will not stop until you catch me, or I catch you. The next time we meet, I'll have my pet with me, and I won't be so limited. We'll see how you manage then."

"What about Luna," Harry couldn't help but ask.

"I will miss her, but my mission will help her too. I guess I'll have a new wielder soon…"

Harry shook his head, "No, you won't. Why do you think you haven't been fading away yet? You're a projection and your existence is tied to the life force you have stolen from Luna. The life force that is being continuously drained from you is being turned into ambient magic. You will not be able to get another wielder, you won't have the energy to possess anyone for a while. All I have to do is collect the diary and destroy it. This is goodbye, Tom."

The projection shook its head in amusement, "No, it isn't. It's been fun though. I can't wait to do it again."

Slowly, the image of the older Slytherin had dissolved into nothing. Later, Harry realized what Riddle meant when he was on his way to sneak into Ravenclaw tower and saw an unconscious Luna Lovegood in the middle of the corridor. The issue was that she didn't have Riddle's diary with her.

Damn it; he was so close. This was really getting old.

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AN:

I know that some of you are burnt out on this cat and mouse game and I get it. To be honest, intellectual fights are pretty hard to write on my end as well. I wanted the rivalry to look more like Jane vs Red John or Sherlock vs Moriaty a bit, but I don't know if I pulled it off. Looking back, I was very ambitious when I planned this. But, yeah, after this chapter, Riddle will be gone for a while, to get some energy to mooch off his next victim. I'm planning on focusing on Harry's progress a bit, building himself up to become a powerhouse by himself, and getting close to Luna. I have already planned the ending for this arc, but I am flexible if you have any recommendations if you have any.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.