Chapter 15 The Post Game Hidden Boss

Harry had no idea how long he remained paused coming up with one strategy after another. The first strategy would be to buy more time and reduce the enemy's number. Harry already had a means to achieve this but it would take three seconds to work. He should have it though. The illusion he left of himself at his original position should draw the attention of the other party for at least a second and a half and Harry didn't think they'd be able to find him within the following two seconds.

The next step would be to remove the noncombatants. Amelia Bones and the other three stunned aurors would have to be summoned over to where he was. That would take six to seven seconds but the distraction from the first step should provide enough time.

The plans diverged from there. Harry could unload all the toys from his inventory such as magic shields, magic shotguns, and magic bombs and wake the Aurors. If they took the stuff he gave them they'd have a good fighting chance. The problem though was that it was far too likely they would ask questions when they were woken which was a problem for someone under the effects of Veritaserum. Worst case scenario was that they wouldn't believe Harry when he told them the truth instead of something more believable. He could get around this by stabbing himself with a knife, waking them, then dramatically pulling it out in front of the awakened aurors and say, 'They're trying to kill me.' But was all that worth the effort?

Next plan was to send them back. The so called Knights didn't bother setting up any blocks against teleportation so Harry could attach some portkeys he made to the aurors and send them to a space he designated just outside the Hogwarts wards.

If Harry sent them back, Harry was cleared to leave as without hostages, there was nothing to keep him there. He could also fight back, go all out. Worst case he'd die but without hostages that'd be fine. Painful, but fine.

Fighting them would not be easy no matter what he tried. Since one of them had brought Veritaserum, Harry had to consider that they had other things as well.

Harry went through plan after plan, but none worked easily without relying on luck and cheap shots.

A while longer than Harry would ever admit, he found a solution to the group's teamwork that should weaken them. Splitting them up. These guys were a strike force, the ultimate weapon that could handle any situation. But what if that situation was the end of the world?

After finalizing the plan and thinking up a dozen more contingencies and going over each a few more times, Harry felt he was ready.

Once unpaused Harry took out three items from his inventory and Banished them into the sky. The sound of spell fire quickly died from where he had been and Harry had already taken a sphere from his inventory about the size of a large medicine ball. It was the reality bomb. Harry initiated a reaction that would cause the magic to build up and go critical soon and banished it lightly in the direction of the Knights.

The items he'd banished into the sky where unstable spell grenades. Or so he called them. The same way Harry could freeze magic to prevent exotic energy from getting into muggle tech, he could also use it to prevent exotic energy from getting out. Using some materials made with alchemy, he made an item that could store the magic from a spell. For a moment anyways. His sealing wasn't perfect. But if Harry cast the same spell on the item over and over, it would eventually accumulate enough exotic energy to reach critical mass and detonate with the power of the accumulated spells once the shell was overpowered. However from the point of critical mass to the explosion itself was only about five seconds. Luckily Harry's inventory stopped time, so Harry would make them and place them inside after two seconds.

The items Harry took out were Patronus Grenades.

Three back-to-back detonations occurred in the sky followed by three blinding flashes of silver light.

Harry used the summoning spell on the five Aurors to quickly drag their bodies to him while the sky distracted the others. The Knights who looked up saw three massive silver dragons, each even larger than a Ukrainian Ironbelly. The wingspan of the silver beasts covered more of the sky than the horde of the hundred Dementors.

Harry hadn't bothered looking up and removed six portkey galleons from his inventory and placed them on each Auror and the unconscious Ravenclaw he initially apparated next to faster than a normal human could move before saying aloud, "Activate," and sending them all away. Harry couldn't hear his own voice as he turned the Dialog Audio down to zero in his settings as if he heard a question he'd still have to answer it, but now he couldn't hear any dialog.

Luckily the sound of spells cast and the sound of a dragon roaring were both considered Battle Sounds which he didn't touch. Harry didn't have time to look up so he just paused and took a moment to admire his work. Harry's standard Patronus was a van sized dragon. The grenades could accumulate twenty Patronus charms before detonating and the spell was one of the few that could be amplified beyond the power than was put in to cast it once it reached critical mass. The Patroni dragons were exhaling silver flames at the groups of Dementors which seemed to burn them to dust.

Harry unpaused and took out four rune tokens and activated them all before banishing them north, south, east, and west. Harry made sure the knights hadn't left and at least for now they wouldn't be able to. With the ward he just enabled, no one could safely teleport in or out of the area within two kilometers of the location, not even elves. They could force it of course, but the barrier would sling shot them into space if they used enough power to break through. The tokens would burn themselves out in ten minutes which was three minutes longer than the reality bomb had.

Spells started flying at Harry from the Knights of Walpurgis but they were much further than they had been so Harry had more time to dodge. Harry couldn't hear what they were shouting at him besides spell names so Harry used Sonorus on himself and yelled out, "The trap is set, the bomb will blow in six minutes, you're all going to die and there is nothing you can do!" All true of course.

Harry saw a few yelling at him but Harry couldn't lip read so he said while still amplified, "I can't hear what you're saying so don't bother asking me anything!"

Harry really wanted to say he obliviated himself of english so they had to ask all their questions in French, that unfortunately was a lie.

The reality bomb was sparking with magic and impossible to ignore. Harry was pleased that none of the opponents was stupid enough to fire a spell at it. Harry continued to dodge spells and hide behind things. He used just enough speed to dodge but not his max speed.

Two of the Knights finally relented and moved to diagnose the bomb. There were a few ways to disable it before it went off but they wouldn't be easy.

*Ping*

[No Lies Debuff has been resisted.]

Harry paused and changed the setting to turn the voices back on and unpaused.

One of the men shouted while maintaining spell fire at Harry, "The port keys have failed, can you disable that thing Don?"

"Yes sir!"

Harry took out another magic grenade and banished it at the group. One of them spotted it and fired a spell at it, causing a small explosion. Harry pulled out two more and banished them together at the same person. Two spells fired from two of them at the grenades, but this time it caused a massive explosion. It threw three of the Knights back but didn't kill them.

That had been one of Snape's ideas, a variation on the Erumpent potion. The first he threw was an empty distraction but the second and third grenades were actually metal cans filled with a very special mixture of ingredients. It would do nothing if ignored but if mixed with magic, it created an absolutely massive explosion. There was a reason Snape didn't want wands in his potions classroom. Some ingredients just didn't respond well to excess magic.

The silver dragons had killed over half the Dementors and the rest were scattering. The dragons gave chase and intended to destroy every last one.

Though the explosions didn't kill any of the knights, it did have the effect Harry wanted. The one working on Harry's reality bomb loudly swore and said, "Kill him sir! That brat's toys are making this blasted contraption even more unstable! We're only got three minute now!"

The one who seemed in charge shouted, "Brenton, help Don. Initiate Thunderfall!"

Two were now working on the device and the boss maintained lookout while the remaining four ran towards Harry while casting nonverbal stunners over and over to prevent him from running far and seeking cover. Every third or forth spell cast was a Reducto ahead of Harry to blow apart the ground in front of him to slow him down.

Harry could sense the spells without looking and it wouldn't be difficult to outrun them, but he needed them on his heels for just a little longer.

Once Harry had enough distance he turned around and dashed forward. Harry cast a flying spell orb that looked like a ball of wiggling strings that untangled and spread larger and larger as it got further from Harry. By the time it reached them it was three meters in diameter and every string was in fact a cutting curse.

Though unfamiliar with the spell, the knights who saw it understood what it was and moved to dodge rather than block or counter. Countering such a spell would cause the condensed weave of cutting curses to explode out instantly.

Harry used the opening and shot a stream of condensed cutting curses as if it were a flamethrower from his hand. Anything the stream faced would end up looking as if it had been cut a hundred times with a sword. It was not the flashiest spell or the strongest, but it was the simplest and cleanest. It could overcome a shield in short order so staying in place to cast one was not a smart idea.

Harry felt the build up of magic in two of them and he said aloud, "Specular Argentum," at the same moment the two knights said, "Bombarda Maxima!"

A silver mirror-like disk appeared in front of Harry's left and right hands. The overpowered explosion spells did not detonate on contact but were reflected back at the casters. One of the knights cast a shield while the other cast a stunner at Harry. The shield protected one of the pair of knights from the reflected spell but the other pair had no protection and the spell blew apart the caster's chest.

*Ping*

[Stunner Resisted.]

The stunner had no effect on Harry as none of these men were stronger than him one on one so he would have to get hit by at least two near consecutive stunners to go down.

Before the other pair's shield dropped, Harry had cast his own stunner on the man who failed to shield his partner from the explosion and had been knocked aside himself.

Harry rushed to the downed man dodging the spell fire of the other pair and before either could revive their colleague Harry used his abundant strength to stab his knife into the man's chest and left it there before ducking further spell fire and retaliating.

Two more Bombarda Maximas converged at Harry's location forcing him to jump into the air to avoid the damage from the explosion at his feet. The knights took aim shouted "Crucio," but Harry suddenly dropped faster than possible by summoning an immovable headstone, dragging himself to it instead and dodging the torture curses. Harry threw another expanding cutter sphere at the pair forcing them to dodge once more while Harry ducked behind another headstone.

Harry quietly said, "Invers Gemini Evanesce," and got up to run to the pair's left. What they saw however was Harry getting up and running to their right. This spell made his image appear to do the reverse of what he was actually doing while hiding his original but didn't work on large groups. The pair fired at his reflection while Harry moved behind them and cast two more stunners. The reflection wouldn't show Harry casting spells so they didn't see a spell to dodge and the pair was dropped before they could understand what had happened.

Harry summoned his knife from the other man's chest and stabbed each in the chest as well.

The fight had only taken a minute so Harry ran back to the group attempting to disable his reality bomb. The boss was still on the lookout but Harry had taken ten seconds to quickly run around the group and cast another expanding cutter sphere from behind the reality bomb while lying on the ground. From their perspective the sphere would cover Harry's position so they wouldn't see him directly.

The lookout had the same talent as Dumbledore for sensing magic though not as good. This proved to be a disadvantage as Harry's magic was undetectable and he only saw the spell when it was about half way to his position.

The man grabbed his nearest partner and dragged him back just as the sphere passed through the reality bomb and the knight working on it out of arm's reach.

Two seconds before contact Harry had pulled out another unstable spell grenade and banished it at the group just as the reality bomb and the other knight got chopped into fine pieces.

Harry's cutting sphere's cutting spells were condensed enough to cut the parts of the reality bomb without further destabilizing it, thus was one of the ways to safely disarm it. Though that was specifically because Harry built it that way. It had to be chopped into multiple pieces near instantaneously to stop the reaction from going critical.

Harry's final grenade went off and sent forth a massive red wave, the result of thirty stunners reaching critical mass. Vinny, captain of the Knights of Walpurgis released the man he had just pulled back and apparated away with a loud pop as the red wave passed through his colleague. Harry didn't waste time and charged forth to stab the man in the heart, one last time.

The silver dragons above Harry roared victoriously and they each vanished one by one. Not a single Dementor could be found.

Harry paused and checked the immediate area. Pausing was great for scouting. Harry confirmed there was no eighth or ninth Knight of Walpurgis hiding around and Harry decided it was fine to collapse into the frozen landscape.

He couldn't recover while pausing but he could still mentally decompress and go over what had happened. Sirius told him that in a free for all, the most common spells used by professionals were stunners, cutting curses, and blasting curses or reductos. It wasn't due to preference. Stunners were some of the easiest spells to spam over and over and it was not difficult to cast nonverbally.

Someone at Sirius's level could cast three stunners in two seconds while a bombarda would take a second and a half. Stunners were also the second fastest travelling spell behind Expelliarmus while spells like Reducto and Bombarda traveled much slower.

Cutting curses were slower than a stunner but had a wider area of effect and were still faster than Bombarda and were easier to cast nonverbally.

Harry could cast his original cutting curse spells nonverbally but they traveled very slowly. Spells he was not as proficient like Magic Mirror and Reverse Run he could only cast through a proper incantation so he could only cast those with the right timing.

Harry unpaused and heard the sound he had been waiting for.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Survive Hogwarts

Reward: Philosopher's Stone, Right of Conquest Perk]

Next was the sensation Harry had been expecting since Voldemort got eaten. The exotic energy of every corpse converged onto Harry. However it was more than that. Energy Harry felt could only be Soul energy descended from the sky and Harry's body greedily devoured it all.

[You have gained a level.]

Harry figured the Soul Energy was from the slain Dementors. Harry didn't even know they had soul energy, but that may have been because it had been so tainted he couldn't feel it. After being purified through Patronus dragon fire however it was fine to absorb and very filling. Harry leveled up five times and was now at level 130!

Harry went to loot the bodies of the Knights of Walpurgis and the Death Eaters. The latter no longer looked like Harry even though they died under Polyjuice. The potion broke down in their corpse once Harry's blood vanished and they all returned to their normal appearances.

Once Harry moved to loot a corpse, a pop up appeared.

[Invoke Right of Conquest?

Yes | No]

Harry selected Yes and another pop up appeared of the man's items which Harry could select to take from. Harry could select Loot all, but that would take the man's robe too which would be a bit much.

Some of the corpses had something special in the Loot box. For example, when Harry looted from the elder Malfoy's corpse, he saw the Ring of the Head of the House of Malfoy.

When Harry selected it to take, he got another pop up.

[You have defeated the Head of the House of Malfoy in mortal combat initiated by the other party. You can take this ring to Gringotts to apply for Right of Conquest and take possession of the assets of the House of Malfoy.]

Now Harry understood the Right of Conquest Perk. In addition to the nice loot box, it also let Harry take the wealth of those he killed. If they tried to kill him first and were the head of a house anyways. Yup, Hell Mode had fabulous prizes.

While Harry was busy looting the riches of Britain from various corpses, the corpse of Vinny, the captain of the Knights of Walpurgis was floating in the vacuum of space. His body would eventually crash into the windshield of an alien ship on its way to earth, but that's a story for another time.

Harry took out another spell grenade and banished it into the air. He had no idea if this would actually work but it was worth a shot.

A blinding white light with the power of seventy Reparo Maxima spells filled the graveyard and the destroyed land moved as if time was reversing. After about ten seconds, the damaged ground, the destroyed headstones, and even the air itself returned back to how it was.

Although Voldemort had placed a muggle repelling charm in the graveyard and magic spells were mostly invisible to non-magicals, the sound of Harry's guns and the explosions of his grenades could still attract the wrong sort of attention so he wanted the place looking normal. Luckily the cold malevolence imposed on the air itself by the swarm of Dementors had been enough to convince the residents of Little Haggleton to stay in doors so though some noticed it, no one wanted to investigate and it would soon be forgotten by most.

Harry took a radio out his inventory and switched to a specific frequency before speaking, "Harry to Hermione, come in Hermione."

A moment later the radio almost shouted back, "Harry! What Happened! Madame Bones was ported here stunned and says no one has been able to get there!"

"Head over to Ms. Bones please, I don't want to have to repeat myself over and over. The anti-teleportation wards will be down in a minute or so."

A few moments later Hermione said, "She's here Harry." "Mr. Potter, what happened?"

"Some of your Aurors were swapped for Death Eaters who stunned you in the back and politely asked where did I misplace Voldemort. I don't know what happened to the men they swapped with."

"Are you alright?" asked Hermione this time.

"You know me Hermione, seven elite Death Eaters stronger than Professor Flitwick and a hundred Dementors is just another Friday for me. I am sorry to say however that Azkaban will need different guards in the future. Madame Bones, the Anti-teleportation wards are down now so you can come back to collect the bodies. The Muggle Repelling ward has another fifteen minutes or so before falling."

Ten seconds later Ms. Bones, her four Aurors, Hermione, Sirius Black, Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick apparated in. Harry figured five of those seconds consisted of Hermione convincing the others to take her.

Harry had already vanished the scrapped parts of his reality bomb so other than a pile of bodies and a large cauldron, the signs of the battle were completely gone. Dumbledore did several spells which reacted to the air and made him smile. He did not sense that the air was thick with Harry's magic as it was undetectable, but he used a few spells Harry recognized had different effects in magic rich environments so he was able to indirectly determine the scale of magics Harry cast. Though he'd never be able to identify the caster if he didn't already know.

Amelia bones found the four corpses of the Knights of Walpurgis and confirmed though wearing auror robes they were not the aurors she intended to bring with her. Only a few moments of careful introspection and knowing what to look for allowed her to identify the confundus charm that had been subtly cast on her preventing her from noticing earlier. No one had to tell her how skilled that meant these Knights had been.

She asked, "Potter, where is the seventh?"

Harry smiled, "The Anti-teleportation ward would allow someone to force their way through it if they didn't care where they were going. This however is a trap and anyone forcing their way through would be catapulted into space. I think the one who called himself the Captain said his name was Vinny. He's not coming back."

She asked a few more questions about the ward but Harry evaded them. He couldn't exactly tell her they were activated and powered by blood. One benefit to such a design was that the activator was the only one who could pass through the wards after they were set.

Once the corpses were taken away and the location swept to confirm there was no dangerous residue, Amelia's patience finally ended and said, "Ok Mr. Potter, now tell me what happened here."

Harry shrugged and said, "I can answer that question only if you leave it out of your report and preferably make something up."

"That is not for you to decide Mr. Potter."

Harry returned her glare with a calm demeanor and said, "In that case I was stunned when I arrived, woke up, got stunned again, and woke again. I have no idea what happened. Have a nice day."

Sirius had to hold himself back from laughing and the other teachers rolled their eyes at the obvious lies.

Amelia wasn't going to take no for an answer so easily and said, "There are hundreds of witnesses through that muggle glass that told a different story Mr. Potter."

Harry smiled that she intended on using that approach of all things. Harry retorted, "So you're saying that because someone saw someone who looked like me, it was definitely me? I suppose I'm guilty then unless there is some way for someone other than me to look like me."

A bark of laughter made their way through Sirius's covered mouth which earned another glare for Amelia.

Professor McGonagall had filled in Amelia of the details of the show up to the footage being cut so it didn't take a moment for Amelia to realize Harry's defense was at least as tight if not tighter than those who once claimed to be under the imperius curse.

Only the wind passing through the headstones broke the silence that followed and eventually the head of the DMLE relented. "Fine Mr. Potter. What happened here won't get out. So what did happen?"

Harry turned to Sirius and Hermione for a moment and smiled. "Simple, I stopped holding back."