23 Chapter 23 Time Travelers and Necromancers

Amy and Rory were restored from stone and the Doctor asked if he could have some of that and the antidote. Being able to turn someone to and from stone could save from injury, poison, and even the vacuum of space. Unfortunately Harry had to apologize and explain that he couldn't. The potion would expire in a day and a time locked storage cabinet would fry if it was placed inside.

Harry was moderately surprised that Exotic energy was bad with frozen time considering his pause feature. This meant no one could freeze Harry in time.

Amy and Rory weren't completely happy with being knocked out and petrified but they understood the need. As a consolation prize Harry let them keep the swords and a list of the command phrases. He wasn't going to tell them their original swords also broke due to the Carrionite's spells so Harry had to pull out two more.

Once Harry stepped out of the Tardis, he noticed something rather depressing. The method of Block Transfer Computation he just learned was almost completely ineffective with dimensional energy of this universe. It worked in the Tardis because the math matched the universe the Tardis was a pocket dimension of. Harry would have to calculate Block Transfer Computation for this universe on his own from scratch. He wasn't exactly happy about that but at least it would be a good way to grind the Scholar Path.

Amy said, "So, marathon time."

Harry smiled but said, "Sorry, no marathon, I need to get you guys home."

Rory picked up on that and said, "You can get us home?"

"Yeah. The path you traveled should still be open but will close in a few hours. The faster we get you back, the safer the ride." Now that Harry understood how the Tardis worked, he knew how to get them home.

The Doctor asked, "How are you going to get us back though, my Tardis is still dead."

Harry held up the Sonic Screwdriver and said, "With this." He may not have Block Transfer Computation in this universe, but he did fully comprehend how the screwdriver worked. It gave him some ideas.

Harry went to his computer and wrote up some very complex programs and loaded them onto some predesigned transmitters he had. Harry used the screwdriver to alter the materials slightly on each to give them the properties he needed.

Rory and Amy were doing their own thing and the Doctor was trying to figure out what Harry was doing.

Once finished, Harry opened several very small portals and attached the transmitters to what appeared to be metal towers on the other end, though he didn't let the Doctor peak as he was still trying to guess what Harry was up to.

Once done, he sent the Tardis back to where it was after casting a simple Notice-Me-Not spell on the area preventing people from realizing it wasn't always there.

When the Doctor saw it he said, "Ah, perception filter. Very retro."

Amy said, "So what's the plan?"

Harry smiled and said, "Well, did you notice how today is Christmas?"

Rory pointed out all the decorations around the street and said, "Yes, yes we did."

Harry held his hand to his ear and the rest did the same.

'Hark how the bells,

Sweet silver bells,

All seem to say,

Throw cares away.'

Rory said, "Christmas music."

The Doctor started looking around and said, "But where is the music coming from?"

Amy said, "I don't know."

The Doctor cried out, "Resonance! Oh! That's genius!" he was smiling ear to ear.

Rory asked, "What's happening?"

Before Harry could answer the Doctor said, "Harry turned the radio towers around here into Sonic Screwdrivers and had them all play the same song at the same time! Each is playing with a specific tone but here at the point where they all meet, the resonance achieved will-"

The Tardis started making a wheezing noise and the lights within started going on one after another.

Harry picked up where the Doctor left off, "I widened the door and this spot now has energy from your own dimension. Your Tardis should be able to get you back now."

Amy hugged Harry and said, "Thank you Harry."

Harry hugged her back and said, "You're welcome. Best be off though, the song will end soon."

Rory patted Harry's shoulder in thanks and entered the Tardis followed by the Doctor. Rory told the Doctor, "Too bad we couldn't meet Shakespeare right?"

Amy slugged his shoulder in jest and said, "Harry was fine."

The wheezing sound of the Tardis started up again and the blue box began to fade. Harry said, "Sorry Rory for just being Harry Potter."

Amy looked shocked at that statement and shouted, "Harry Potter?!" just as the sound faded and the Tardis vanished.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Rescue the Time Lord]

Reward: Ring of Recovery.]

Harry was pleased that his quest was over but he did wonder why she reacted to his name like that. He hoped they hadn't heard of him. He had enough problems remaining low profile in his own dimension.

The ring that appeared in his inventory would remove one status ailment from himself or someone he touched once a day. It would also automatically cure him of an ailment if he was incapable of choosing not to use it. That meant if someone got him with a sleep dart or instantly petrified him this would help. Very useful. It was also bound to him so it could not be stolen or lost through death.

He returned home and found out what Rory and Amy had been doing. There was a pile of wrapped presents on his table. Harry couldn't keep himself from grinning at the six DVDs titled Star Wars.

Harry spent the next two days enjoying the marathon which seemed to have different actors than the ones he was familiar with and when finished he returned to Kamar-Taj just before New Years.

The Ancient One asked for a meeting and Harry was more than happy to comply. She didn't think Harry would have such a normal boring mission and Harry was slightly embarrassed to give a 100% confirmation of that.

Since Harry was involved she didn't see the hole made in space by the Doctor's arrival nor the closing of the hole when he left. One reason Harry sent them home the way he did was to force the hole completely shut after being wrenched open. The Ancient One confirmed through her own means there was no issue with it now.

She was interested in Block Transfer Computation but insisted Harry not write down any progress he made on getting it to work in this dimension. Even should he master it, it was not something this Universe was ready for, or perhaps would ever be ready for.

Neither felt the details of Harry's adventures should be spread though she did show interest in Star Wars as she never watched it before. She organized a movie night over the next few weekends where one movie would be played a week. Some hadn't even seen their universe's version of it and almost everyone liked it. Only Kaecelius left a few minutes into Phantom Menace saying he wasn't interested. Harry wasn't surprised a few scenes with Jar Jar Binks drove him off. No one liked Jar Jar.

Winter passed and spring began and Harry continued training. Harry successfully acquired and synchronized with a source of energy from Valtorr's realm as well as Krakkan's giving Harry easy access to cloud, lightning, binding, and unlocking magic.

As long as Harry was not in an isolated or pocket dimension, all forms of energy existed in nearly all dimensions, they were simply hidden beneath the layers of the more obvious energies. That meant Harry could use binding energy to invoke chains capable of locking a target's movement or suppressing their abilities almost anywhere. Apparently Krakkan was known for keys and chains. The energy under his command could not only bind things, but it could also unlock things by conjuring a replica of the Kestrel Key of Krakkan. He was very glad he wouldn't have to shout that aloud to conjure the thing or people would definitely stare at him.

Harry spent much of his time building this universe's version of Block Transfer Computation but hit a long series of snags. The largest of which was that he couldn't confirm if he was going in the right direction without a test or experiment. On a cloudy spring evening Harry reached a roadblock he was unable to get past without confirming if a specific theory he had on how the system worked was functional or not. If he went further without confirming it he could be wasting his time if he was wrong.

In order to test this theory, Harry was going to see if he could build a bridge that sent an item one second into the future. He used magic to construct several dozen pillars intricately inscribed with five dimensional math which would calculate the process of moving a small piece of matter a moment into the future in the center of the formation.

Once Harry was done, he tossed a rock into the space he created. If it worked, it would vanish for a second and reappear. He was almost certain it would, the test was just to make sure.

He was wrong.

Once the rock reached the focal point the physical space shattered as if the rock had shattered glass. The crack collapsed the local space time and swallowed everything in the area before reforming. The pillars had shattered from the strain of the calculation and Harry was gone.

If Harry's body was normal, he would have been ripped apart by the tidal forces of space itself but Harry had been so focused on getting his defense up he had increased his STR more than needed which allowed him to survive being swallowed by a fissure in reality. Had he died, he would have reappeared in his room. He was not so fortunate this time.

The feeling of being thrown through space could not be accurately described, but the closest approximation would be being tossed through the air by a category twenty hurricane that was filled with hammers and bowling balls while every limb was tied to a rope connecting to massive weights thrown about by the storm threatening to at any moment tear him to pieces.

After an unknown period of being stretched, crushed, and thrown through the tides of reality, Harry was finally ejected from the space between spaces and shot into a hill. The angle was low enough to prevent Harry from getting flattened and the hill was soft enough to give way and make a nice Harry shaped dent. In other words, Harry wasn't instantly killed.

Harry could feel his so-called health bar was near depletion but it wasn't getting worse. After being chewed up and spit out by space itself Harry had only one thing to say. "Owwww."

Harry waited a few moments for the damage to return to normal and got out his strongest potion. It was stronger than Skele Gro, Nerve Restoration, and Blood Replenishing Potion together and in a normal person could heal any injury except a severed limb or deadly poison. It was appropriately disgusting but Harry could use his settings to turn dull or remove his sense of taste which was very useful.

Used on Harry, the potion would restore most of his health while increasing his health regeneration to take care of the rest later. It was practically pure healing energy.

Sure, he could have used healing magic, but magic had too many risks and he didn't want to make a bad habit of it.

The first thing Harry noticed was that it was sunny. That meant he was no longer in the practice area he made near the Potter Manor of Highrock. Was it a different place or a different time?

Harry gathered the dimensional energy into a mandala before him and had it spin and expand. It changed as it did so, automatically adjusting to the time and place he found himself in. Once done, Harry let the mandala scatter and let himself fall back into the grass.

Good news. He was still in Britain. Bad news. It was June of 623 A.D.

The only good side he could think of in this whole mess was that he could see exactly where he went wrong in his setup for the time folding array. He was paying very close attention to how the cracks emerged and propagated so he could infer how it happened and why.

After taking a moment to admire how good and bad his luck was, Harry transformed into an owl and flew south where he figured he'd find people. Before coming up with a plan he needed to figure out what he had to work with, so he needed to get the lay of the land.

Most people would be worried about affecting the past and changing the future, but Harry understood Time better than any physicist on earth. Most agreed that when you looked at the future, it would change simply from looking at it. What few knew was that the past was the same. Why do history texts change? Is it because someone made a mistake and it was corrected? Is it because it was formerly a guess and now there was evidence? Yes and no.

The past itself did in fact change. It was possible to find evidence the past was one way then a few hundred years later new evidence would be discovered that proved the past was a completely different way. Then further down the line more evidence would conclude the past was different than either of the first two theories predicted. Just like the future, the past could in fact change just by looking at it.

It was possible that Harry could greatly change the past and when he returned, new evidence would show that the history books of this time were all lies to cover up the truth and further evidence would show a completely different history. So no, Harry wasn't concerned about changing the past. He wasn't going to actively try to mess with things but as long as he didn't remain in the past for too long, the future would still be there when he returned.

With Harry's stats he could fly very fast as an owl and it didn't take him long to find a farm. He observed the peasant clothes and flew a distance away before returning to normal and transfiguring his clothes into a similar style of serf wardrobe. One benefit of the past was no tech and since his Exotic energy couldn't be detected he could use wizard magic as he pleased.

As it was spring there wasn't much to stand behind so once Harry was close enough for the farmer to spot him, Harry shouted, "Morning, do you know a place I could find work?"

"Town's that way son, heard the Lord's looking for young backs," he answered amiably.

"Bless you sir," Harry replied and headed off. He didn't know how people of the day conversed outside of books so until he got the hang of it he wanted to keep his sentences short.

Once out of sight he returned to owl form and flew off for the town.

Harry first thought the wind would be fresher and more pleasant in the past but there was an ominous taint that lingered in the air. It made Harry doubt his stay in the past would be peaceful.

From a distance the town seemed stereotypical. Homes of wooden walls with thatch covered roofs to keep in the heat littered the outskirts and further in the center were some sturdier, partially elevated homes with some made of stone. Harry saw a gathering of people and landed on a nearby rooftop as the crowd grew larger.

A man in a somewhat finer quality of clothing shouted, "Gather round, gather round. We have a summons from Lord Morigon's Army. All healthy males above the age of twelve are required to enlist. Failure to do so is punishable by execution for yourself and your family."

The one standing next to the one shouting wore dark tinted armor which, combined with the whole, enlist or die thing they had gave the general tone of what was going on.

Harry gave a loud 'Hoot' in owl form which got a few stares including the attention of the black knight character. When he met Harry's eyes, Harry used Legilimency to read the man's mind.

Once Harry understood why these men were here, he only had one opinion on the guy. 'What a dick.'

Harry flew to an empty area and shifted back to normal before he took out an Aging Potion. Harry took five drops which changed his age from fourteen and a half to seventeen. It wouldn't last longer than a day but he could take it again once the effect wore off.

He used a few more transfigurations on his clothes and hair to make himself look suitably plain looking and walked out from behind the corner to where the group of adults and barely adults were gathering.

Some of the others noticed the stranger but under the gaze of the black knight no one was in the mood to raise any questions.

Once the crowd was gathered they were marched out of the village and south to where the battle would take place. They were told they would be given weapons on arrival but none were asked if they had experience with them. They didn't give food or rest or water to those that asked for it and after the better part of the day, they arrived at the field where the battle would occur the following morning. Dozens if not more of similar looking groups were marched to the field by others and all converged together.

The reason they had no intention of giving food or water was because they fully expected everyone to die. The field itself had been prepared for a massive Undead Raising spell. Once most of the drafted peasants were dead, the field would activate and turn their peasant army into an undead army.

Yeah, they were the bad guys.

Once they were taken to the section they were told they would have to defend from the invaders arriving the next day, Harry vanished without anyone noticing him. He wandered around the camp while invisible and used Legilimency on the important looking ones to find out the details of the battle. There were in fact about a dozen weak wizards following the orders of three stronger wizards. They were the ones in charge though they used a lot of runners for messages and orders who all had specific uniforms.

Each section of the peasants was to be led by an armored commander, one of those men who gathered the groups from their homes.

After thinking over a few plans, Harry decided on a plan to change the outcome of the battle.

Harry walked through the whole group of peasants, about four hundred of them and found a few leader types and their names.

Once it was dark he knocked out a message runner and took some of his blood for a polyjuice potion. It was a variant of the type he made with Snape before and was even better. Still tasted horrible of course, but it could hold a transformation for a full day.

Once he looked like the runner and took as much knowledge from his mind as he could to play the part, he went from peasant group to peasant group stating he had orders to collect specific people and gather them together for a secret project. They came nervously over one by one and Harry lead them off to another area.

Once together he said, "Alright guys, who here knows why we are here?"

One of the more clever ones said, "To hold back the forces of Lord Johnsborn."

Harry nodded and said, "Yup, but the guys giving the orders are evil. Turns out they want everyone to die and get resurrected as an undead to make an undead army."

Harry cast an invisible calming charm on them as a few of the smarter ones seemed like they were likely to keel over from such an admission.

The best way to get people to follow you is to sound like you know where you're going even if you're completely lost. So Harry continued with a tone that was filled with 100% confidence, "But there is a way to stop them. Here's the plan."

Of course even after explaining his plan with confidence, no one believed Harry's plan would actually work. He had to call over one of the armored knights to where they were gathered for a demonstration. Harry had to use a few compulsion charms to ensure they would actually follow the plan but he eventually got the kinks worked out and before the sun rose everything was set.

Harry set himself up in an invisible chair next to the three strong wizards and the dozen or so weaker ones ready to activate the Undead Raising Field. For something that only took a few moments of prep, he was quite pleased with himself. This would likely be the best prank pulled off in a thousand years.

The black knight commanders had been instructed to distribute weapons at first light and call all peasants to march into the center of the Undead Raising Field once the other army was spotted and hold that position.

First light's arrival set in motion the distribution of weapons. The menacing armored knights prevented any groups from getting any funny ideas which pleased the wizards watching from afar.

Harry tried not to pay attention to the conversation of the wizards as it made him nearly forgo his plan and crush them all then and there. In addition to the men, they each took a woman from the villages they went to and were sharing the details of how they spent the night with them. Harry knew he couldn't save everyone but such a thing still greatly enraged him.

Once the enemy army was seen coming over, orders were shouted and the mass of untrained peasants were marched to the field. The other army didn't exactly look like they were the best of the best either but at least they had swords and shields and somewhat matching uniforms.

The peasants gathered in the field and the incoming army marched closer, swords drawn. The wizards were shouting commands and preparing the rituals required to activate the Undead Raising Field.

Then, the entire peasant army dropped their weapons, sat down, and laid face down on the ground.

The wizards noticed this and one shouted, "What are they doing?!"

A group of runners was heading up to the wizards and once within earshot they shouted, "My Lords!, The Commanders have ordered the filth to lay down their arms and surrender!"

Several other runners arrived with the same message. The general response of the wizards amounted to a flabbergasted, "What?!" Most looked like they had just be slapped with a fish.

From the stain of Death Energy over their flesh and the overall feel of these wizards, Harry sensed that they seemed to specialize in Necromancy and pain magic. Death Energy wasn't something the living could use without cost and each of them looked to be withered husks of skin and bone. They really couldn't do much in a situation without people to threaten with pain or corpses to turn into undead.

The latter problem however the wizards decided to fix when they saw the arrival of the other runners.

Before they could kill anyone though, several red flashes of light shot out from Harry's invisible position and stunned the wizards about to strike. The remaining wizards turned and started chanting their spells but before the first one could finish their chant all fifteen wizards had fallen. Harry then shot his stunners at the runners which made for amusing moving targets. Too bad Harry was very accurate and Stunners were the second fastest moving spell behind the disarming charm.

Harry got out some thick iron bands and attached them to the wizard's necks. They required a drop of their target's blood to activate and when they did, they would saturate the body with Anti Magic. This was an alternative use of one of Harry's training tools as practicing magic when saturated with Anti Magic energy was like physical exercise with weights. Though Harry only put a small amount of Anti Magic in them when he used them and he placed them on his wrists. For these wizards, he had the saturation at max level and set them on their necks so they couldn't just cut off their hands to free their magic.

It was somewhat cruel but this was already the limit of Harry's mercy for them. The best part was that if the bands weren't removed, any children they sired while wearing the bands would be guaranteed squibs, though the descendants of those squibs may eventually get magic back.

The bands themselves weren't that complicated as they simply an artifact version of a spell called Rings of Raggadorr which called Anti Magic energy from Raggadorr's realm to disable the magic of those bound by it. It worked on Wizard Magic just as easily as it did Sorcerer Magic so it was very useful. It couldn't be used on someone stronger than him but the strongest of these guys were only a little stronger than Cedric Diggory meaning the bands would work just fine. A security feature he built into them was that if they were removed from the one they were tied to by blood, the enchantment would collapse meaning they couldn't be removed and studied once placed unless the absorbed blood within the band belonging to the person they were bound to vanished.

A leader of the very confused army which just witnessed the peasants surrender was heading over to Harry's location where he spotted Harry sitting down and the evil wizards unconscious and bound in chains Harry conjured.

Putting two and two together the man said, "Friend Wizard, I understand it was you who set this stage and prevented the needless shedding of innocent blood. For this I thank thee."

A small use of Legilimency on the field leader's surface thoughts gave Harry a summary of the situation which led to this war. Merlin had been captured by Morgan Le Fay and was being held prisoner, guarded by something called the Black Dragon.