16 Chapter 16 From Legend to Myth

Harry told them a story he had come up with long ago. When he awoke the prior year after his missing year, he had knowledge he didn't have before. One piece of knowledge was a spell that connected to a pocket space like a mokeskin pouch with an undetectable extension charm placed on it. Revealing his Inventory this way made the rest of the story much easier to tell.

He told them he'd memorized the Potter, the Black, and the Hogwarts Library. He also admitted to killing the Basilisk and finding Salazar Slytherin's study and with his ability to crunch information at impossible speeds, he quickly learned most of the magics in the world.

Sirius picked up from there and explained how he had spent every day sparring with Harry and every weekend prior to Easter Break sparring with him. He fully admitted that Harry was stronger than he was now and gave details into his godson's terrifying growth rate.

Hermione explained Harry's fascination with muggle tech and firearms and how he had been incorporating them into his magic to make himself stronger.

McGonagall and Flitwick were both astounded that Harry had been the one teaching Hermione and Neville as they both thought it was the other way around. Harry also told them of how Snape helped him with the Aerosol Polyjuice and the gunpowder as Harry would not have been able to get a perfectly working version of either before the third task without his help.

Dumbledore was a little skeptical at this until Harry told him that Snape Obliviated himself afterwards and left Harry a letter to give him. That brought back the twinkle in the headmaster's eyes and brought a lot of respect for the teacher from McGonagall and Flitwick.

The letter itself couldn't be opened without revealing it was opened as it was sealed with Snape's magic. But when Harry put it into his inventory, he could tell the content without opening it. Thankfully there were no details, even coded ones about Harry's abilities. Harry had told Snape he would leave the magical world after this year so Snape didn't care that much. The letter itself basically told Snape that he had a large part in the taking down of that monstrous bastard and with his assistance to the Potter brat, a certain debt had been repaid in full with interest.

Harry was instructed not to give the letter to him unless the Dark Mark was gone. He'd already confirmed on the bodies of the Death Eaters that the mark had in fact vanished.

Harry gave the details of the battle though told them the reality bomb was a fake. The lack of a twinkle in Dumbledore's eye and the fear in Hermione's told him neither believed that. Everyone was shocked at the power of the spell grenades and Harry's Patronus. He demonstrated his normal sized one when they doubted him that it was a dragon. Harry had decades of happy memories from his time spent on the other side so his Patronus was of course sufficiently powerful even before cramming twenty of them inside a grenade.

At the end, Amelia had two questions. "Mr. Potter, why does it sound like you have been preparing for this for the last year as if you knew about it and why don't you want anyone to know it happened?"

"To answer the first, I think someone told me a prophecy or something. I don't remember hearing it but I knew before attending classes I would have to face Voldemort, a basilisk, and Dementors. Once I heard about the Triwizard Cup I knew I'd be entered into that too as if I knew it all along and forgot about it until then."

Not exactly the most believable but it was a better answer than the truth.

Harry continued, "As for the anonymity thing, that's an easy one. I'm famous enough as it is. I'd prefer to be known for something other than magic which was why I used as little as possible in the tasks. Voldemort and the Knights of Walpurgis could have killed me if they didn't look down on me so much and that was intentional. I don't want people to know how powerful I am or I'll end up like Dumbledore and everyone will look to me to solve their problems instead of solving their own."

A few heads turned to Dumbledore who was nodding sagely.

"As long as people think I can't use strong magic they won't bother me and if they target me they won't get what they're expecting. That's why I want you to make up something for what happened. Maybe they tried another ritual which failed and they all died. Throw the word classified around like it's no one's business and write something half believable."

McGonagall spoke up at this point, "But Harry, even if you don't show your strength people will think you are powerful regardless. Wouldn't it be better if they knew the truth?"

Harry shook his head. That might make sense to her but she was missing a few points. Harry answered, "Professor, I'm not returning to Hogwarts after the summer. I intend to tell everyone the magic world is too dangerous for me so I'm leaving it."

Flitwick looked shocked at this and said, "But Mr. Potter, they'll snap your wand!"

Sirius couldn't take it anymore and burst out laughing.

McGonagall's reproachful glare only made him laugh harder.

Dumbledore said, "It was revealed during the Weighing of Wands that Harry's wand is an ordinary stick. He has been using wandless magic since school started while pretending otherwise. Other than myself, Olivander, Mr. Bagman and the other champions, no one else knows this."

Sirius held his laughter for a moment so he could catch the expression on the Professors' and Amelia's face before breaking out into another cackling fit.

Harry added over his godfather's laughter, "Due to my placement in the Triwizard Tournament, I've been an adult since Oct 31st. And due to the tournament, I am not required to sit for my exams this year. This means I can leave without doing any exams and not come back. On paper, it will look like I gave up magic and left."

A few questions and another check through the graveyard later, the group left just as the muggle repelling charm fell. What no one knew and Harry wouldn't find out for many years was that his broadcast was not just received by Sirius Black's monitors. Another very discreet intelligence agency recorded all airwave transmissions and a certain man with an eyepatch would be watching the video a few weeks later and recognize a certain orange tabby cat. Harry hadn't thought to encrypt the transmission but that was a problem for another day.

The story they had come up with was thought up by Hermione and not too different from the truth. Hermione came up with the idea that Harry just used more tech toys to defeat the Knights of Walpurgis and didn't use any magic at all. Harry was fine with this as he didn't mind a reputation for magic tech.

Amelia gave a statement to the press that Voldemort had placed Harry in the tournament and that Harry defeated him with muggle tech and some clever potions. She then said that Harry will be withdrawing from the magical world to pursue his interest in muggle tech. She did however say that Harry's wand would not be snapped but taken into custody in case Harry ever wished to return to the magical world. The last part she added in humor as it would get a lot of politicians off her back.

The results of the scoring for the final round was almost funny to Harry. Most of the judges gave very few points to Cedric and the others and they hadn't done much before Harry ended the tournament. Igor Karkaroff, the former Death Eater and headmaster of Durmstrang Institute ended up giving Cedric 10 points which, with the other points given, was more than the 27 points Cedric needed to have the most points at the end, thus winning the Triwizard Cup.

Harry guessed Karkaroff just really didn't want a first year to beat his student.

In the end, Cedric only had two more points than Harry which caused a lot of controversy with Durmstrang as the Headmaster never awarded Harry a single point yet awarded his own student ten on each task and Cedric ten in the end which was the only reason Harry didn't win. This combined with many other large and small reasons including the manipulation of the betting polls to finally and once and for all retire the Goblet of Fire and the tournament for all time.

Using a few favors, Harry ended up being gifted the Goblet himself. He was going to enjoy playing with that. The Goblet was worth far more than the thousand Galleon prize money and with Cedric on paper as the tournament's winner, Harry would be able to fade from memory in time. Later many would even question his existence as Dumbledore would remove all records of Harry's schooling as a favor to him and without any test scores submitted to the Ministry, the legend of Harry Potter would eventually fade into myth.

Some would collect the evidence of his story in newspaper clippings but many of them made less sense than the rumors. They told a story of Harry dying, the world mourning, then Harry magically coming back to life and becoming the 4th champion of a tournament of three participants. Further clips told of Harry fighting a dragon without magic, defeating a village of merman in the bottom of a lake without magic, and defeating Voldemort who died a decade ago and all his death eaters without magic before Harry Potter himself vanished. Skeeter's articles and their later retractions and the firing of the woman herself made the story even more confusing and ridiculous. The end of the story had Harry winning the Tournament even though the records show Harry never attended Hogwarts and Cedric Diggory won the tournament.

Later someone would make a book out of it and it was the only one written about himself that Harry enjoyed reading.

After the tournament Harry confirmed with Snape that his Dark Mark was gone and gave the man his letter. Harry stayed there a few moments for the man to read it and after a short silence the Potions Professor gave a quiet, "Thank you," and left without another word.

Before the end of that day Harry secretly made his way to Gringotts with the Head of Family rings and requested to invoke Right of Conquest. The invocation would allow the family magic within the Vault to decide if the Conquest was approved. If not, the family magic would strike back and possibly kill Harry. If it worked, the vault would open without the key. The look on the Goblin's face when Harry opened vault after vault was priceless.

Harry then placed 40% of the gold of Greater Magical Britain in his inventory. Plenty of families also kept Grimoires and valuable relics in the vault and with a few exceptions, Harry took them all. To each family with an heir he left the family ring so it would not die out and a small amount of coin so they would not suffer that much but would have to work for a living.

When the Goblins learned Harry would not be transferring the gold into another vault but taking it and leaving Magical Britain, they started making their own arrangements. At first Harry thought they would be upset, but Harry wasn't taking gold that would ever really belong to them so it made little difference. What it would do was drastically increase the value of the remaining gold in Britain and the Goblins had quite a bit of that. A period of massive deflation would occur and many things that were not worth much would become more valuable soon while the price of purchasable items would decrease. Harry's taking of so much gold would actually benefit the economy over time. Even families like the Weaselys would soon find that their meager savings had far more spending power than it used to.

Not that he was parting from the Goblins forever, no, far from it. Harry intended to slowly convert much of the gold into non-magical currency and attach it to the non-magical identity he had the Goblins make for him some time ago. Eventually Harry would invest it and get a matching Path but he knew nothing of investing for now and would intended to slowly filter the money into his own non-magical accounts.

The final days of school passed quicker than many liked and when Harry didn't show up to take the final exams, they knew he was not changing his mind about his decision to leave. Some tried to convince him otherwise but luckily the Slytherin students were more than happy to demonstrate why Harry wanted to leave by constantly trying to hex him in the back or call him out for what he did to their fathers, ect. When Draco Malfoy eventually got a letter from his mother stating that they were no longer rich, he tried to curse Harry in the Great Hall before the entire student body.

Harry blocked the spell with a certain plate he conveniently kept out during dinners and Draco was suspended for the rest of the year. Harry would later learn from Hermione he did not return to school as his house was sent thousands of Magically Howling Hate mail over the summer so it was sold and they left Britain. Draco's admission to Durmstrang was denied so he was homeschooled, but since those not attending school couldn't use a wand until they were seventeen, he was greatly lacking in magical education and did very little in his life in the years that followed.

The red headed twins had actually bet most of their savings on Harry winning the Tournament which Harry actually felt quite bad about. Especially when he learned they intended on opening a joke shop. Harry decided that he needed practice with the business thing before he went big and invested two thousand galleons into the pair but told them to wait a year before buying the property as deflation would soon make the gold worth a lot more. This was the pair's sixth year and they barely scratched the surface of the RoR so they had no problem using a year and all the funding they wanted to create and test new products.

Harry also introduced them to his godfather and told Sirius he would be their manager. Sirius at first refused responsibility like it was a plague infested rat, citing that a marauder never seeks responsibility. His tune changed when the twins started bowing at his feet at the recognition of the word. Turns out that the pair had the Marauder's map which was why they knew when Harry was coming and going. They had no problem giving it to Harry since he told them he wanted to figure out how it worked.

To Ronald Weasley, the redhead Harry would play chess with a few times a week, Harry gave him a young owl like he had promised to replace his rat. The redhead made a number of friends including Neville and Hermione so the owl would see a lot of use over the summer. Harry also gifted Hermione an owl he found in the store. It actually looked very much like his animagus form but for an owl was colored wrong. Male Snowy Owls are pure white while females have many brown patches. The owl Harry found was pure white but female. Harry chose this specific owl to give to Hermione because Harry felt it would always be able to find him meaning they would always be able to stay in touch. Hermione cried at the gift and named her Hedwig after a Saintess named in the History of Magic text.

A week after school ended Harry got a business proposition from the Goblins. They wanted to start a muggle bank using electronics and Harry's gold, but needed the means to protect electronics from magic. Harry immediately bought over a thousand British Pounds worth of business and business law books and spent a mind numbingly boring amount of time paused going over them all to make sure he wouldn't get screwed, on purpose or inadvertently.

A week later and the final papers were signed. The back story would be that Harry was adopted by a wealthy old family who died and Harry used the old money to open a bank. It would gain traction very slowly to avoid suspicion but after a few years would have a lot of power. Harry was pretty much the owner with the Goblins as partners and employees. Both would have to agree on anything to make a change. The Goblins intended to use their own mastery in enchantments to advance Harry's magic shielding arrays. One of the deals written in the contract was that Harry would never disclose or sell his method to anyone else in the future. In exchange for this, they would lend Harry all their books on Goblin enchanting and would pass on any advancements they made in his technique. Harry had already told them about Hermione and had gotten her to promise not to teach others as well.

Once the last signature was written, Harry finally got what he had been looking for.

*Ping*

[Business Path has risen to Rank 1]

Harry returned to the Potter home on Highrock with Goose and spent the next several weeks perfecting his current magic theory while exchanging letters between himself, Hermione, and Dumbledore who was delighted to exchange theories with. When Harry was bored he would shift into his owl form and fly around or visit Sirius who was enjoying his bachelor life. Harry still hadn't figured out how to make the ultimate broomstick so he stuck with his avian form.

One day while flying through London, Harry saw something that made very little sense. He heard the sound of battle coming from an alleyway yet the sound was muffled by a ward of some kind. When he flew through the ward, he saw magic he didn't recognize being used to fight. Considering he was now one of, if not the foremost expert on magic in Britain, that was odd.

The fight consisted of three martial artists wearing monk-like robes fighting another man in an eccentric outfit. All parties were using magic, but according to his energy sense which worked just fine in owl form, it was not Exotic Energy magic. The three monk-like fighters used what was clearly dimensional energy to form constructs, shields, weapons, and energy bolts. The one they fought used what seemed to be a mix of tainted soul energy and tainted natural energy powered magic.

The monk like ones were clearly not wizards as their combat had as much physical skill as it did energy manipulation. The other party seemed to be a textbook evil magic user and was so stereotypical Harry thought the outfit was a joke.

The evil looking one launched chains of lightning at the monks who were forced to block the attack. The stereotypical villain shouted, "You think you've trapped me, but it is you who are trapped!"

Harry sensed three points of dense tainted soul energy on the walls behind the man expanding out and witnessed three black animal-like monsters emerge from the walls. The closest description Harry could think of was an armored tiger with the head of a wolf. They looked quite vicious and Harry's senses would place them all at about level 100.

The monks and the other guy Harry couldn't get a feel for when it came to level as a person's level was basically energy density according to his senses. When not using dimensional energy actively, the monks had some stored in their bodies which would place them at about level 50. But when they actively used magic, they seemed to absorb and channel external dimensional energy and their level would spike to 70, 80, or 90 depending on the power of the spell.

Harry combed over the tens of thousands of pages of texts in the various Grimoires, journals, and historical documents he had.

He found three results. One referenced a muggle who could use magic and called himself a Sorcerer. Another referenced that the only Magical in the history of magic to be capable of using Dimensional Energy was Merlin who at one point was called the Sorcerer Supreme. Another entry Harry found referred to another branch of inferior magic users the entry didn't bother to name. It stated that they were weaker than Wizards and would avoid them.

It wasn't much, but at least it was something. The monk like guys could be Sorcerers. What would that make the villain?

The skill of the Sorcerers was apparent as they used impeccable teamwork to defeat the monsters and knock out the villain. The attack that decided it was cast at what looked like level 150. That was even stronger than Dumbledore. Harry couldn't get a feel for the magic rank as he wasn't familiar with it yet but it wasn't weak.

Harry considered a number of options but decided to go with the direct approach.

He flew down to a corner and returned to human form and 'badly' peaked around the corner while making noise.

The warrior-like magic users returned to battle stance and charged the corner until they saw it was just a child. Harry said, "That was so Cool! Can I learn to do that?"

The one of African descent who cast the final attack gave a very quick, "No."

Harry's smile instantly changed into horror.

The other monk's cracked a smile at how fast the kid was rejected and his reaction.

Harry asked, "But why?"

"Sorcery is not for children," was his answer.

One of the others said, "If the ward didn't keep you out you may be able to learn one day. Go home, study hard, listen to your parents, and eat your vegetables until then."

The other two looked like they were trying to not laugh at how responsible that sounded.

Harry scowled and said, "I've already read everything, I'm strong for my age, my parents are dead, and if you don't want to teach me, I'll teach myself."

The one who hadn't spoken said, "If your parents are dead, who do you live with?"

Harry pulled out his wallet which contained over six hundred pounds and showed the group. He said, "I live on my own and I take care of myself."

The one who first rejected him said, "The answer is still no."

The others seemed to want to say something but gave up. This one seemed to be their boss.

Harry felt the energy around him converge into this man and focused his senses on the man completely. Harry felt the external dimensional energy converge on this man's spiritual heart where there was already a small amount of dimensional energy stored which matched the biorhythm of the life and soul energy the man possessed. It was only because Harry absorbed so much purified soul energy from the slain Dementors he could sense the latter.

Once the dimensional energy reached this converging heart energy, it seemed to become controllable and was passed through the man's arm and molded with intent as it reached the man's hand.

In that moment Harry realized why he could never control Dimensional energy. Every person had dimensional energy inside them but weren't conscious of it. These men were. This man in particular awakened the energy and concentrated it into his heart. Within this man's spirit was a small amount of dimensional energy which matched the energy signature of the soul and life energy the man possessed.

Harry had lots of dimensional energy inside him as he often absorbed it during battle meditation to level up. However it was in fact out of sync with his life force and soul energy. Harry realized he was subconsciously fighting it which in turn prevented him from allowing dimensional energy to flow through him. He always thought of it as an external energy, something that was not a part of him. Of course he couldn't control something that was not a part of him.

Harry stopped fighting it, he surrendered to it like a fish surrendering to the flow of the river and in doing so the energy changed the very signature of his life and soul while he in turn changed it. Now the dimensional energy that had always been a part of Harry's body matched the signature of his life and soul energy. It was still out of sync with his exotic energy but that was a challenge for another day.

All of this happened in the moment the man was casting a spell which would block Harry's memories of this event.

When the spell had completed in his hand and shot at his head, Harry grabbed a small piece of the flow of dimensional energy around him and crafted a weak shield from it.

The shield shattered and barely managed to block it but it worked. Not that the spell would have had any effect but they didn't need to know that.

Harry felt elated that he finally had his first grasp of non exotic energy based magic. This was a magic that could be used in the non-magical world without frying every electronic device in the area.

Harry looked up to see the shocked faces of the monks and gave a pleased grin before saying, "I guess it's not that hard after all. Thanks for the demonstration. If you're not going to teach me, I'll figure it out myself. Have a nice day."

Harry then turned and left.

Harry heard behind him one of the monks say, "Umm, Mordo? What just happened?"

One of the others said, "I felt it. In that moment you were casting his body imitated your own, learning on its own. He now has a heart palace like yours."

The leader apparently called Mordo said, "I felt it too Wong. I will speak with the Ancient One about this."