Chapter 313: The Scattering Flames

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

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4 January 1995, Durmstrang

As she swung her sword, Harry channelled his family crest, asking it for anything to stop the dagger. A beam of pure darkness, pure entropy, flew towards Lily and hit her dagger right as she was swinging it. Unfortunately, it was too late, the dagger hit Gram and shattered it to pieces. And in response, the world screamed.

Time was a funny thing. Harry was probably one of the few mages who understood time the most and he would agree with that. The way someone experienced time was always different. Sometimes hours could feel like minutes and sometimes a single second could last a lifetime.

For Harry, that second that lasted an eternity, the one that felt like it would never end, was the one right after Gram was destroyed. He felt the world hold its breath as if it was gasping at the transgression that occurred before it, the sheer blasphemy...

Prophecies were just as wild, just as unpredictable. Sometimes, they sort of faded away in time, forgotten. Sometimes, they were even fulfilled without anyone even knowing about them. It was rare for them to be specific because it was in the nature of the world to fulfil it. The universe was chaotic, in its natural state, and prophecy tried to order this chaos, give it purpose, and guide it like a stream of water to a certain destination. And to do that, it literally pruned events in their track, blocked them from happening and used its potential energy to force reality itself to accept its guidance. And to break a prophecy, one had to go against the world itself.

For a prophecy to be specific was to use an insane amount of energy. Sigurd's heir was something old, something the universe had invested a lot of energy to make happen. Gram was supposed to be wielded. A new hero was supposed to be born.

And yet, the shattered remains of the legendary sword said otherwise. The world looked at the travesty before it and screamed in agony.

Harry was always sensitive to the magic around him and magic was how the world communicated. His Arcane Hearing was more than just understanding magic but comprehending the will of the world itself.

He wanted to flinch at the sound – he really did; music was a very vague way of communication, and yet there was no distinction that the world mourned the loss of the prophecy, and then it roared in anger.

The magical release expanded as quickly as possible, probably powering Dumbledore's ritual. It was far more violent than the one in Rome, far more violent. It was funny, really. The world cared more about an old sword than the life of an innocent child.

Still, the magical release spread around Harry's spell, his beam of darkness that almost destroyed her dagger. It wasn't something he had ever used before. There was a reason why he rarely relied on his family crest and that was that he knew he wouldn't grow if he used them regularly.

That was a mistake. He should have practised them more, mastered them even. He had essentially let the crest take over near the end of the fight out of desperation, and he shouldn't have.

The darkness was akin to a disease, a way to destroy magic and matter by infecting them. He didn't really understand the theory, just some guideline from his crest, but it had a chance at destroying the dagger, but he didn't honestly know. He might have gone overboard by casting it, or it might have done nothing. He honestly had no clue what the properties of the magical dagger were and how its interaction with the spell would be, especially since it was one, he never actually cast in his life.

This was also why he was completely baffled when the magic release condensed around the spell and assimilated its properties. Somehow, the pulse of magic became visible, destroying everything in sight. The size of the earlier magical release and an estimation from the one during the previous tasks made it easy for Harry to realize the scale of what could happen.

Durmstrang would have definitely been wiped off the map, that was for certain, but there was a chance that countless settlements in the area would die as well. The range went far beyond the mountains, maybe even the entire region.

All of that, in just a single moment, a single event.

He had a hand in this. He might not have broken the blade, but he was the one who cast a spell that he did not understand.

It was only right that he fixed his own mistakes.

The dark pulse of magic was growing wider and wider, ready to swallow the world whole.

Or at least, it would have, had it not been for the hundreds of magic circles surrounding it and stopping it in its track.

As he said before, time was funny. It was hard to believe that Gram was destroyed less than a second prior. He never experienced something like this, before, a moment frozen in an eternity.

Space and Time went hand in hand. They were a mighty force that was fundamental to reality itself. Harry used them to imprison the pulse of destruction. He had frozen it in time, bound it to a moment that became an eternity, and expanded the space around it into a fraction of infinity itself.

It was hard. It was agonizing. The universe itself fought to make its anger known and yet Harry was holding it back. But he didn't know how long he could keep doing so.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked from behind him.

Ah, Lily Evans. It was funny how much one would forget when things look from a different perspective. He didn't have the energy to hate her, not anymore. She was such a loathsome individual, selfish and self-serving.

He turned at her, trying to suppress his anger, "Holding it back..."

"The energy was released. You're just holding back its physical manifestation. Just shield yourself and leave."

Harry didn't answer her and instead asked a question of his own, "Was it worth it?"

"Was what worth it?"

"What you just did. Betraying my trust. working with Dumbledore. Fighting me. Are you happy?"

She looked honestly flabbergasted at this and was actively gaping at him. It took a few seconds for her to answer, "Yes. I never worked with Dumbledore. I told you that."

"But you still fought me here for a reason. Why is that then?"

"My realm, the dimension I was tied to. The connection broke when I came back and faded away as I used it. It was a part of me for over a decade, and I needed it back. I came here to see if Dumbledore had any designs in Britain, to understand why he went to such lengths for the European tournament. I had planned on killing a prophecy in Britain and making a connection to my realm there. And since Dumbledore was already doing my work for me here, there was no need for me to interfere, really. It was me being resourceful and merciful; after all, it was unlikely that there would have been no bloodshed if I had to destroy another prophecy."

Harry couldn't help but snort at that, "That was what it was all about, wasn't it? You wanted to use another broken prophecy to open a gate once more, a more controlled one, and make a connection to your dimension. You essentially copied Dumbledore, huh."

Lily didn't answer and Harry just burst into laughter, "You wanted power. That was all it was about, wasn't it? That's all that mattered. You betrayed me, your only child, for a realm of fire and ash. What a fucking joke."

"I don't expect you to understand. This realm was just as part of me, as magic is a part of you. Losing it was like losing a limb. What would you do if you lost your magic? Would you not do anything just to get it back, even make a deal with the devil?"

Harry calmed down slightly, "I don't know what I would have done, to be honest. And yet, that doesn't change anything. We're still here, alone in this place and you know what the funny thing is, even if you're the one who did this, even if you're the one who was selfish enough to do something like this, I'll be the one who ends up paying the consequences."

"What consequences?" she retorted with a confused tone.

Harry didn't answer her and just kept speaking, "You know, the funny thing was that I once would have craved to have a mother. I would have loved to have someone take care of me for once, to help me without asking anything in return. I look at you and I can't help but think that I dodged a bullet. Then again, maybe if I was there, you wouldn't have become such a spiteful power-hungry loathsome bitch that you are now. You're such a fucking disappointment."

He was actually channelling his past life in this moment. He was always alone, always had to take care of people and rarely had anyone do the same to him. He had loved his mother, in his past life, but she had always been busy taking care of his brother to pay any attention to him, and when he grew up, he ended up taking care of them both.

He honestly didn't know if he could have considered anyone else to be his mother. Maybe he would have. He didn't exactly remember his previous life until he was eleven years old, so it was possible. But Harry didn't really need a mother, he just wanted someone that he could rely on, someone that would have his back and give him advice.

Lily was never that. But she was more similar to him than anyone he had ever met before. It was pretty telling that he was similar to a woman who had killed her own husband in cold blood, massacred an entire village, and took over half of Magical Britain in the span of a few months.

Lily actually flinched at his words, "Look, Harry, I know I hurt you. I know I wasn't the perfect mother. But I'm done. This is it. I'm whole again. We don't need to stay here; you could come with me in Britain. I now have the power to finally bring order to this place, to make it prosper. We could do that together."

Harry let out a bitter chuckle, "No, we can't. That's the funny part."

"What are you talking about? Is this about the magical release? It's done, you're wasting your magic on nothing."

He decided to just rip off the bandage, "It interacted with my spell. It will unravel everything in the entire fortress in seconds and will go even further. I honestly don't know."

And just like that, Lily Evans, the infamous Red Witch, paled as she quickly made the arithmancy in her head, "You're stopping a magic pulse of this size from spreading. How?"

"A ball of space and time. I'm expanding the very fabric of space around it as it moves, and I'm slowing them down as much as I can while doing so."

"You could just leave, apparate out."

"The moment I do anything, the spell will be broken and Durmstrang will fall in a blink of an eye. I refuse to do something like this, especially since Daphne is still in the fortress somewhere."

She protested, "The spell will break eventually. Your body will shut down at some point."

"I know," he stated.

"You're killing yourself for nothing. They're all dead anyway!"

He yelled at her, "I KNOW!"

He took a deep breath, "I know. All I'm doing is buying them moments at best. But it's the best I can do. Unless."

"Unless what?" Lily asked hopefully.

"Unless someone else took my place, and contained the singularity until I got out."

He was absolutely bullshitting this, to be honest. There was no way Lily could stop this. Harry was constantly dealing with alterations of the magical release as it tried to escape and spread. He wasn't using a spell, but actively manipulated space and time to achieve this. Lily had no knowledge of these concepts, and she would never learn if he had any say in it.

However, he still wanted to make a point, and it was something that he achieved when Lily practically jumped back in panic with small tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry, Harry."

The last Potter nodded at her with disappointed eyes, "I expected as much. Can I ask you something before you leave?"

She hesitantly nodded and he continued, "Can you get Daphne out of here? Take her with you back to Britain."

She looked surer this time, "I will."

He gave her a slight smile, "Thank you. Can you get one with it? I'm sort of running on fumes here and I don't know how long I can hold on."

The redhead walked out of the cave but gave him a sad look as she left, "Goodbye, Harry. I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Lily."

And when she left, he murmured, "And I'm sorry, too."

Because he wasn't going to let Lily Evans' mistakes kill an entire generation of mages. A small plan had formed in the middle of their conversation. It was mad. That was actually understanding things. It was absolutely insane. But it could work.

He hoped Lily would forgive him one day, then again, it was her fault. He couldn't really deny the sense of vindictiveness he felt as he was planning this.

He had kept her talking for as long as possible, tracking her magic, understanding her connection with her dimension. He hadn't really gotten much, but it was enough to trace it back. A connection was a portal of some sort. And since Lily opened a door, other people could technically go through as well, especially as she still hadn't gotten a handle on it.

Harry slowly yelled as he slowly shrank down the sphere before him. He, of course, had to compensate by making the internal dimensions even larger as he did so. He pushed and pushed with all his mind, warping time and space in ways that he never did before.

Until he quickly traced back the rift that Lily made and threw it inside. It was a Hail Mary at best, but Harry pushed it into the rift. It resisted. The world itself resisted as he did so. But he kept pushing and pushing even further.

He realized that he was screaming in exertion. but it was working. Somehow, the plan was working.

When the sphere finally entered the rift, he felt another explosion coming, one without the darkness he had cast. Harry quickly created a portal to protect himself from the blast, trying to redirect it. There was a blast of white, and then, nothing.

Well, there was nothing for a fraction of a second until he found himself thrown into a bunch of mud and grass. This definitely wasn't Durmstrang anymore.

Now, where the fuck was he?

That was Harry's last thought before everything turned black.

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AN: I rewrote this chapter three times until I was satisfied with it. I don't know if it came out exactly like I wanted it to, but I hope it did... As for what's next, I have an idea that idk if you'll all like it or not, but I'll go with it and in the worst case I'll scrap it and go with my backup. Anyway, you'll see it in the next chapter, and I'll make the decision depending on your feedback. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions...

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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.