Chapter 19
It didn’t take a genius to realize that the moment the Headmaster came back, that the other two school Headmasters were clearly not pleased. However, it wasn’t over the fact that a fourth contestant was added to this tournament, no, it was over the fact that they hadn’t realized the goblet was a demon. Headmaster Park Hyun-seok looked at the remains of the former goblet before glancing at Headmaster Jonathan Whitmore. He then glanced over at the floating form of the famous “Boy-who-lived”, who was floating in the air above the stone floor in that unique armor with its floating armor pieces. Lightning silently arcing off the boy but leaving no scorch marks on the floor, as the South Korean Headmaster hummed.
“He attacked the demon before it could take more souls from our students.”
The American headmaster snorted, “Would have had trouble as the student picked wasn’t even a wizard. A non-magical like me, the gauntlets everyone wears has a built in magical disruption effect. For the Glamours used by the ticks back home, most people assume its simply a different magical focus. This gauntlet right here?” He lifted his right arm, the steampunk looking gauntlet with the triple blades, “built by Willaim Rentier and worn by Jesse Rentier, his son, throughout his career as a field operative. Passed from father to son until the Rentier-Cleveland University was built when the last Rentier, a daughter, gave it to the Headmaster of the time. It was worn as a legacy for each headmaster until me, the second non-magical to ever wear it in the role of Headmaster.”
“Interestingly, many of my non-magical students still outperform my magical students in hand-to-hand combat in the dojo I hold on the weekends.” Hyun-seok commented before flicking his wrist, causing a white ornate wand to come out of his robe sleeve as casually sent a spell at the floating boy.
A shield formed and dissipated the spell easily before fading as the wand disappeared back into the sleeve. “Thought as much, magic is swirling around him like a cloak around a warrior. He is meditating so deeply that magic has taken it upon itself to protect him. Its interesting.”
“Valuable information to know but what about his headmaster?”
“Headmistress, William, Headmistress Vasuki of Nāga-Kṣetra Vidyalaya,” The South Korean headmaster corrected, “The premiere school in India. The school is a self-sustaining city, which makes the schools in China, Japan and North Korea jealous and have tried and failed to replicate it. They were very unhappy.” The headmaster smirked at his counterpart.
“I stand corrected but even then, I do believe she has a temper to rival any angry mother.”
He floated in Aiur’s embrace was the calmest thing Harry knew how to do. Nagini had him practicing his meditation religiously after the first class. Of course, he had only meditated in his armor twice before and it was euphoric but this time, it was different. Like he was being pulled into something he didn’t understand.
Then, the vision took hold.
He was not Harry Potter anymore. No, he was someone else entirely. A warrior clad in regal golden armor, adorned with glowing blue gemstones, standing at the precipice of a battlefield bathed in ethereal light. The weight of the armor was familiar, the pulse of power coursing through him as natural as breath. He knew his name, though it was foreign to his own lips: Artanis.
Beside him, a woman moved with effortless grace, her deep emerald eyes gleaming with determination. Clad in dark violet and gold, her armor was far lighter, designed for agility and deadly precision. A curved weapon with an eerie green glow flickered in her hand, its energy pulsing as if it hungered for battle. She was Vorazun, and though he had no memories of her, an undeniable bond connected them. It was more than familiarity—it was trust, forged in war, tested by endless strife.
Earth was burning. The fires were visible from space and so were the vast swaths of smoke poisoning the air. The Protoss blockade surrounding the land was impervious and relentless. Observers weren't allowed in; refugees weren't allowed out. The only moving to and from the fortress were the armies of the Protoss. The sky above them churned with darkness, twisted and alive with demonic corruption. The ground beneath was scorched, littered with the remnants of fallen warriors. Their people, the Protoss, were fighting a war unlike any before, against creatures born of nightmare—demons unleashed by the mad Babylonian king who had sought dominion over magic itself. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and blood, the cries of the dying mingling with the roars of the unholy beasts that sought to tear their world asunder.
Artanis felt the weight of his Aiur blade as he carved through a monstrous fiend, its form an abomination of shadows and writhing limbs. The creature shrieked as it was cleaved in two, dissolving into nothingness. All around him, warriors clad in radiant armor battled against the encroaching tide, their weapons glowing with the power of Aiur, the very essence of magic. But even with their strength, they were being overwhelmed.
Vorazun spun, her blade a blur of motion as she dispatched another demon with lethal precision. "They keep coming," she muttered, her voice tinged with frustration, yet never fear. Another beast lunged, and she dodged effortlessly, severing its grotesque head in a single fluid motion.
Artanis drove his other aiur blade through another fiend before meeting her gaze. "The Aiur around us weakens with every death. The power of our world is fading." His voice was solemn, carrying the weight of their impending doom.
Vorazun exhaled sharply, slicing through another foe as she turned toward him. "Alarak will not stop until we are either conquered or erased from existence. He thrives on this war, feeds on it." She paused for only a fraction of a second, glancing at the distant battlefield where their warriors fell in droves. "He is playing a long game, and if we do not act soon, there will be nothing left to save."
Suddenly, a new horror descended upon them.
From the corrupted sky, figures cloaked in tattered black cloth and jagged, rusted steel emerged. Their presence was heralded by the deafening scream of air splitting apart, followed by the chilling whistle of falling doom. In their clawed hands, they bore massive, demonic bombs, their surfaces marred with pulsating crimson runes, their very essence reeking of infernal sorcery. One of the creatures, a towering specter of darkness and metal, raised a twisted, rune-covered bomb high above its head, cackling as it prepared to unleash destruction upon the Protoss ranks.
Artanis’s eyes burned with fury. "Witches," he snarled. "Alarak sends his harbingers of ruin."
The first bomb struck the ground, erupting in an explosion of shadow and flame. Protoss warriors were flung into the air, their armor disintegrating in the unholy fire. The creatures shrieked in eldritch tongues, hurling their cursed payloads with wicked glee, tearing through the valiant defenders with cruel efficiency.
One of the witches swooped low, locking its glowing crimson eyes on Artanis, its lips curling into a grotesque smile. With a flick of its clawed hand, another bomb spun through the air toward him. Time slowed. Artanis surged forward, his aiur blade reigniting in a burst of blue energy. He lunged, slicing cleanly through the air, intercepting the bomb mid-flight and cleaving it in two before it could detonate.
The witch shrieked in rage, its form twisting unnaturally as it recoiled. But before it could flee, another Protoss warrior emerged from the chaos, his blade a spectral extension of his magical will. In a single, precise stroke, he severed the creature’s head from its shoulders. The body convulsed before collapsing into the dirt, dissolving into a swirling mist of darkness and shattered metal.
Vorazun exhaled sharply. "One less abomination to plague us. But they will not stop."
Artanis tightened his grip on his weapon, watching as yet another wave of monstrosities emerged from the darkness, their unholy forms twisting reality itself. He knew she was right. Their enemy, Alarak, was not merely a warlord—he was a force of dominion, a nightmare given shape. He had orchestrated this entire war, seeking to drown their world in his monstrous creations. The longer they fought, the more power he drew from the carnage. They were being played like pawns on a vast, cruel board.
Artanis met Vorazun’s gaze once more. "I know," he said, his voice unwavering. "And by Tassadar, I will not let him win."
The vision shattered.
Harry was left floating in the white void, trying to parse together what had happened. Did he just see a vision…more like memory…imprinted within this armor? Probably but as of now, he felt a familiar presence trying to enter his mindscape, which he allowed in. His mother was so protective sometimes but he loved her like no other. He felt her coil her ethereal mental projection around him as he relaxed and just was. The vision could wait for another time.
Darkness. A pitiful, gasping thing clings to existence, teetering between life and the abyss. It is frail, grotesque—a wretched husk of what once was. And I watch. I am always watching. My voice is ever present, a whisper slithering through the shadows of his fractured mind, a specter lurking just beyond his reach.
How far you have fallen, little one. Once a name to inspire terror, now reduced to this... this abomination, a malformed scrap of what you once were. And yet, despite your pitiful state, you are still mine. My instrument. My vessel. My future.
"Do you tremble, Voldemort? Do you whimper? I do so enjoy the sound of your suffering." My words coil around his fragile psyche, insidious and unrelenting. "Do you regret? Do you despair? No, of course not. You are beyond such trivialities. You have always been mine, since the moment you first heard my voice whispering from the darkness of that wretched orphanage."
I remember it well. The lonely child, the outcast, the one who saw himself as something greater than the filth that surrounded him. A boy with the hunger of a god and the naivety of a mortal. It was simplicity itself to slip into his thoughts, to twist the blade of his fears and ambitions. They feared him, those pathetic creatures, and rightly so. I ensured it. I nurtured that fear, that resentment, that certainty that he was destined for more.
"You sought power, little one. You longed to be feared, to rise above the detritus of the weak. And I? I gave you the key. I whispered of the Horcrux, of a path forbidden even to your kind. How eagerly you listened. How beautifully you obeyed. You severed your soul piece by piece, stripping away the last remnants of your pathetic humanity, and you called it mastery. But I? I called it servitude."
I feel his feeble mind floundering, grasping at the void, pleading for strength, for purpose. He is loathsome in his desperation—and yet, how resilient. Even now, a tattered remnant of himself, he persists. I chose well. I have always chosen well.
"You see it now, do you not? The wizards, the fools, they cling to illusions of light and love, but in the end, they are nothing. You, however, are eternal. Even now, crippled and weak, you persist. Because of me. Because you heeded my wisdom. Because you understood the immutable truth of existence: war is eternal, and survival is for the ruthless."
A rattling breath. The flicker of his mind straining toward my presence. Ah, he knows. He has always known. Without me, he is nothing.
"And so, my dear Voldemort, the time draws near. Your devoted servants toil for your return, and your enemies remain blind to the inevitable. You will rise again, and when you do... you will owe me. You have always owed me. And do not think that I have given freely. No, little one, everything comes with a price. And soon... I will collect."
The darkness stirs. My whispers retreat, but I am never truly gone. I will remain, as I always have, as I always will. Watching. Waiting. Guiding. For as long as he exists, he is mine. And should he fall, should he falter... another will take his place.
After all, a god is nothing without his faithful.
Albus Dumbledore sat alone in his dimly lit office at Hogwarts, the flickering candlelight casting elongated, restless shadows across the ancient stone walls. A half-consumed goblet of mead rested beside him, long since neglected. His fingers, lined with age but steady as ever, idly traced the rim of the glass. Yet his thoughts drifted far from the familiar comfort of Hogwarts, beyond the intricacies of the Wizengamot, and away from the looming conflicts of the British magical world. His mind fixated on a single name.
Harry Potter.
Even now, the name carried weight. The boy who had eluded him for years, who had forged his own path in the distant lands of India, had once been the focus of Albus’ every consideration. There had been a time when he had been unwavering—perhaps even consumed—by the notion of reclaiming Harry, molding him into the figure destiny had seemingly dictated. But that had been before Nurmengard. Before his meeting with Gellert.
The memory surfaced unbidden, sharp and vivid as though no time had passed at all.
Nurmengard loomed, a monolithic fortress of cold, black stone nestled within the snow-laden peaks of the Austrian Alps. It stood as a testament to past ambitions, to visions of grandeur that had once sought to reshape the world. Now, it housed its architect, though Gellert Grindelwald did not wear his imprisonment as a burden. He resided within its walls not as a man broken by regret, but as one who had made peace with the consequences of his choices.
Dumbledore had not come seeking closure. He had not even come seeking counsel. And yet, as he stood within the oppressive stillness of that chamber, watching his old friend’s knowing eyes scrutinize him, he realized he had come seeking something.
Gellert regarded him with the quiet amusement of a man who had long since mastered the art of reading Albus’ every hesitation, every unspoken thought.
“You look tired, Albus,” Grindelwald mused, his voice retaining the same smooth, almost teasing cadence of their youth. “Burdened by the weight of the world, as always. What haunts you this time?”
Dumbledore hesitated, but Gellert had never been one to allow him the luxury of evasion.
“Harry Potter,” he admitted at last.
A slow, knowing smile tugged at the corners of Grindelwald’s lips. “Ah, the boy. I wondered when you would finally speak his name aloud.” He leaned forward, his fingers steepled together. “Still consumed by that prophecy of yours?”
Dumbledore’s frown deepened. “It is not my prophecy.”
“Oh, but you treat it as though it were gospel,” Gellert countered smoothly. “As though the child exists solely to fulfill the expectations you have placed upon him. Tell me, Albus, what is it you truly desire? To safeguard him? Or to possess control over his fate?”
The words struck with the precision of a blade, yet Dumbledore remained silent.
Grindelwald observed him carefully, then exhaled, shaking his head with something between disappointment and sympathy.
“I once revered your mind,” he continued. “Your ability to see beyond the immediate, to perceive the tapestry of the future with clarity. And yet here you are, fixated on a child, chasing him across continents in an attempt to shape him into your chosen champion.” His voice softened, edged with something dangerously close to pity. “Have you ever considered, my dear friend, that you might be wrong?”
Dumbledore’s gaze sharpened. “You believe Voldemort can be defeated without him?”
“I believe the world does not move in singular absolutes,” Grindelwald replied. “I believe that if you persist in sculpting this boy into the weapon you envision, you will destroy him before he ever reaches the battlefield.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with the weight of unspoken truths.
Then, barely above a whisper, Dumbledore murmured, “I do not wish to break him.”
“Then let him go.”
Simple words, yet they landed with the force of a revelation long suppressed. Albus felt the breath hitch in his throat, as if a great weight—one he had refused to acknowledge—had suddenly shifted.
Let him go.
Not as a failed contingency. Not as a piece lost from his strategy. But as a boy who had suffered enough, who deserved more than to be a mere instrument of prophecy.
For the first time in years, something within Dumbledore loosened.
The candle’s flickering drew him back to the present. Albus leaned back in his chair, exhaling deeply. He had ceased his pursuit of Harry after that day, though he had never spoken of his reasons. Not to Minerva. Not to Severus. And certainly not to the Order.
Harry was beyond his reach now. And perhaps that was exactly as it should be.
Lifting his goblet, he offered a quiet, solitary toast to the empty room, a wry smile ghosting his lips.
“Well played, Gellert.”
Dumbledore let his eyes drift toward the fire, watching as the flames twisted and curled in endless patterns. He had spent decades maneuvering, planning, sacrificing, believing himself the only one who could see the grand design. And yet, in the end, it had taken an imprisoned man to remind him of something so painfully simple: Harry was not a piece on his chessboard. He was a human being.
Perhaps, Dumbledore mused, that had been his greatest failing all along. The belief that he alone bore the responsibility of shaping the future, of ensuring that history followed the course he deemed necessary. It was an arrogance so deeply embedded within him that even now, in the quiet solitude of his office, he could still feel its ghost.
But he had chosen to let go. At last.
A soft sigh escaped him. With one final glance at the fire, he stood, his robes rustling softly as he made his way toward the towering shelves that lined his study. He reached for a book, but paused, his fingers hovering over the worn spine. Instead, he let his hand fall away.
For the first time in many years, there was nothing left to do but wait.
And trust that the world would turn without his hand guiding it.
That was until today and now, Albus had to decide his path going forward. And that choice was something he knew that was ready for, but could he not fall into the same fallacy? Maybe it was time to revisit Gellert again after he looked into this horrible demon cup business.