Chapter 42:
Londonium
***
They must have been laying there in peaceful afterglow for at least an hour. He occupied himself listening to and feeling her heartbeat and breathing while she drew circles in his chest hair while humming.
It was still a bit early in the night and neither were sleepy, especially after that. When the magic of the event faded they’d go another round, as the second go of the night was always better than the first, and that ought to tire them out.
They didn’t talk at all. She was the rare woman who didn’t feel the need to ruin the moment with pointless chatter. It was wonderful, laying there with his arms wrapped around the warm body on top of him with nothing to see by but the bright light of the recently full moon.
Their perfect night was ruined when a much brighter white light exploded into the room. The shock of it sent both of them tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and linen as they both scrambled for their wands.
By the time they succeeded in this task, they identified the source of the light as a phoenix patronus. Only one person that could have come from.
“Everyone! Buckingham palace! Now!” Dumbledore’s voice said.
Harry’d never heard the man so panicked. This must be the big one. Just shy of midnight and November first. Another Halloween ruined, time to find out what fresh hell he was in for this time.
They both got up onto their feet and began rummaging through the wayward pieces of clothing for their respective property. They started putting them on the old-fashioned way before Bellatrix remembered she was a witch and flicked her wand. The remaining clothes slithered onto their bodies and gently wrapped around them until all limbs were put through the correct holes. They even buttoned themselves.
He look at Bella with a raised eyebrow. Fancy bit of household charms work, but he didn’t compliment her on it. She, like Dora, always put on such fronts pretending not to be any good at them.
“You apparate, I’ll side along.” She ordered.
He happily obliged the pretty lady. He held her against himself and with a twist and a hop he made them both vanish.
***
They reappeared in what he’d intended to be London, several blocks away from the palace. But it was so bright out it had to be daytime, but the light was not of the sun. It was too white, more akin to moonlight, and too bright, more akin to being surrounded by strobe lights.
It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust, and when they did they saw the utter pandemonium enveloping London.
Thin films of white light radiated from Big Ben, resembling visible wards breaking and reforming over and over again. They were like the pole of a magnet visualized with magic. Around them, where the fabric was visible from the side, glimpses of different places showed clearly like a moving being projected on plastic sheets.
He saw roman streets, wild grassland, wet fern forests, many natural disasters from forest fires to hurricanes and tsunamis, and much, much more.
“This is clearly some Department of Mysteries bullshit.” Harry identified immediately.
“What is this?” Bellatrix asked. “Is time in… flux?”
She got it right in one. Past, present and future were now confused. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why anybody would want to do that. It took every ounce of control he had not to release Ghillie Dhu and examine his own magical signature.
Of course, he didn’t need to. He could feel magics which had effected him the past take hold and release repeatedly. The power of the goblet falling over him when he was forced into that tournament, to his recent contract with Hogwarts. They kept re-applying themselves on him, before vanishing. He couldn’t feel it when they vanished, but he could when they reapplied themselves.
“All things magical are in a state of flux, namely our “aura.”” Harry explained. “Or more accurately, all magical effects which have hold on us or ever had.”
“Then why the windows into other times?” Bellatrix asked.
“Probably an unhappy side effect of whatever the caster of this insane magical feat was aiming to accomplish.” Harry told her.
One of the films near them broke, like a wave crashing, and things that had once been or would one day be spilled out. People, with animal-drawn wagons filled with goods, crashed here and there. Each was as disoriented and confused as one would expect a person from Roman Londonium to be when transported to the nineteen nineties.
They began babbling in what might have been Roman, but Harry quickly got to stunning.
“We cannot kill anything that bleeds through, or else risking an alteration to the timeline.” Harry told Bellatrix as she started to follow his example.
“Will they just pop back into their own time when this ends?” Bellatrix asked as they approached the unconscious figures.
Harry began casting a protective ward around them
“I sure hope so.” Harry said.
A loud ringing sound, like a bell cracking in half sounded to their right. They looked to see another film snapping like a taught chord reaching its payload limit. Harry and Bella looked each-other in the eye, and nodded to each other, signaling that they both knew what needed to be done and were willing.
They ran towards the danger, as both were born with the inclination to do.
***
Father Time stepped into the room of spinning doors. Space, Prophecy and Life joined them there moments later. All of them studiously ignored the Unspeakables in the rooms behind them, panicked and running about trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
The three of them had no need for investigating.
As one they advanced on the door to the department of Truth and entered.
Vials of truth serums, from scopolamine to veritasium, lined many sections of the shelves in labeled vials beside books of philosophy and theology, and all sorts of lie detecting machines covered the walls. Along with anti-cheating quills and similar contraptions.
Here too, Unspeakables ran around from station to station in a panic, but these too the quartet ignored. They proceeded through the long department, as wide as two hallways with the walls covered in bookshelves and two aisles of desks running down the length. Their goal was at the end, where the hall opened into a wide open stadium-like area. One exactly like the place where the veil of death sat in the Death chamber.
They were sibling artifacts, and had been here for untold eons before their discover in the sixteen hundreds. Two of the four in this underground facility that precipitated the need for a Department of Mysteries, and a magical government around them.
The oath obelisk. A spire of stone of the same make as that archway in the other room, and which can inflict upon people or the world itself binding contracts that make the unbreakable vow look like those worthless pieces of paper Muggles called contracts. A single spire or rough, poorly carved stone which was the bane of their existence, their shackles.
Truth, the Unspeakable in charge of the Truth sub-department, was running in circles around the structure. He prodded it with different measuring instruments only he would know the uses of while weaving complex analysis charms with his wand. It made for an impressive display of multitasking and hand-eye coordination.
He finally took notice of them and stopped, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Oh thank goodness! Exactly the people I need.” He said nodding to the four of them.
He then paused, staring at Life.
“Except for you. Time, Prophecy and Space I understand, but why are you here life?” Truth asked.
“Mostly a hunch that I needed to be here.” Life said. “And as you know, when one of us has a hunch, it tends to come true. Now, what is the state of the oath obelisk?”
Truth made a frustrated sound.
“It keeps changing it’s state of time, like we all are, but being so old its changes are far more radical.” Truth explained. “I can actively feel when its time signature changes to an age before I submitted my oath to it, only for it to then switch back reapplying the oath.”
So could all of them. And that was the point wasn’t it.
“Have you tried cast a freezing charm on it while in the state you want?” Prophecy asked.
She was referring to the sister of the impedimenta charm, the one that actually freezes an object in time instead of merely its momentum.
“That… actually could work.” Truth said thoughtfully. “Go get the newest member of our department, and bring them here. When they feel the oaths magic take effect over him he can cast the charm and we’ll know everybody is effected.”
“Or…” Said Prophecy, motioning towards Life. “We could bring along the oldest member of the department and have him cast the charm when he no longer feels its effects, and we will know everybody is freed.”
They couldn’t see the look of confusion on Truth’s face, but they could feel it. And it was surely frozen there forever when Time’s stunner took the man out. The alarms immediately went off, as flashing red lights signaled that a department head had just been attacked while in the Department of Mysteries.
Space, Time and Prophecy quickly formed a triangle around Life as he advanced on the obelisk. Together, they raised a hyper-aging ward around them and the stone, using an enchanted orb that Time had prepared ahead of time. They got it up none too soon, as the other department heads all appeared in the stands of the stadium, wands drawn and pointed at them.
“Then it was one of us. Or more accurately, several of us.” Said Death.
“And the three most obvious suspects to boot. Who would imagine Time, Space and Prophecy would be behind whatever that little Dark Lord thinks he’s doing.” Said Soul.
The seven department heads outside of the barrier circles around the room until they were evenly spaced. Meanwhile, the four within kept at their self-appointed roles.
“What do you all hope to accomplish with this little coup?” Asked Dream.
“Freedom, of course.” Said Space.
“Freedom?” Brain said.
They seemed a bit unimpressed by that answer.
Space rolled her eyes beneath her hood, not that they could see it.
“Aren’t you just a wee bit tired of weaklings like Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Riddle and the like thinking they’re actual powerhouses while all of us are bound to play the meek little researchers down here?” She asked.
Love, both of them, laughed mirthlessly beneath their hood.
“Oh yes, adding another twelve dark lords and ladies to the mix will make the world such a better place, wouldn’t it?” Said one head, before the other spoke. “And surely being able to break our oath against sharing or using magic that could threaten civilization, humanity, or all life on earth would make for a good time for everybody, wouldn’t it?”
“Could. Such a vague word to be chained by.” Said Prophecy. “How many spells, potions or alchemical monsters already out in the wild “could” lead to the destruction of humanity, civilization or life on earth? Fiendfire anybody? Basilisks? Dreamless sleep potions? Brew up enough of that and drop in into the worlds rivers and lakes and bye bye fauna. It wouldn’t even take that much. Yet here we are holding back such amazing things. All of us.”
“Not after today.” Said life as he flicked his wand and cast the freezing charm.
So it was done then. The oath no longer applied to anybody at all, so long as it remained frozen. Which it would not for long.
“And what now?” Asked Death. “Going to destroy the obelisk?”
“Of course not.” Said Time. “We are going to wait for the time shuffle to end, and when it does, the time signature we are all in at the time will become permanent. For anybody not struck with time freezing charms, that will be our original states. Like the obelisk.”
Their colleagues finally caught onto the fact that they, too, were unmoored by their oath to not harm their coworkers and began casting every curse they knew at the barrier. Which turned out to be a great many esoteric curses that nobody outside of them likely knew of, or could imagine. The barrier held, as it was less of a barrier than a contained dome of space within which time moved thousands of times faster. Light and sound could pass through, as they were not things which decayed. Curses, jinxes and charms? Those could not. Physical matter could, but that was easy enough for them to defend against.
All they had to do was hold out. Time anomalies never lasted long, for the universe abhorred such things.
***
By the time Harry reached the location of the snapping film it was still in the process of breaking. Like a cascade of a glass teardrop shattering in slow motion.
Around them was destruction, as the roads, buildings and vehicles had all been hyper-aged and de-aged in equal measures at different places. Wood beams s turned back into the trees from whence they came and steal rebar ages to red powder, glass windows reduced to sand and liquids freezing or evaporating in equal measure.
None of these effects were total nor consistent on the objects they attacked. To the point their areas of effect resembled veins of time anomalies in panes of glass, car doors, or single branches jutting from wooden support structures inside of houses. While at other times entire trees would burst upwards through roofs of homes while entire office buildings would collapse as their steel skeletons vaporized into rust, only to reform again without the building it was meant to support.
“Well this is fucked.” Bellatrix said, surprising Harry with her use of foul language.
No sooner did she say it than did the film finally finish breaking. Before it did, Harry caught a glimpse of a deluge of rain and ferns beyond number. After it did, a large shape of scales and sinew fell to the ground not fifty meters from them.
It crouched low to absorb the shock of the impact from its fall into its powerful legs, before slowly rising up to its full height. For a moment Harry thought it was a new type of dragon, only for its full image to surprise even him.
Bellatrix pointed at the creature.
“Dinosaur.” She said in a voice as if pleading for anybody to tell her she was seeing things.
It sure was. He didn’t know which type, but it resembled a t-rex if it were much larger and had a stouter neck a shorter teeth. He was never one of those children who were artistically obsessed with the age of extinct reptiles, but he was sure he could find one somewhere around here to tell him what it was(AN).
It opened its mouth and roared to the heavens, as it did so a great burst of flame erupted from its mouth.
“Huh. Well, I guess that confirms the magizoologist theories on dinosaurs all being proto-dragons.” Harry said aloud.
“That is not a thing!” A muffled, angry voice called out from nearby.
“That is abs-o-lute-ly a thing.” Harry said, grinning, before he recognized the voice. “Wait. Minerva?”
They checked on their time displaced lizard friend and saw that it was more interested in delicately taking apart an SUV like a child with a RC car and screwdriver. Deciding it wasn’t causing any real trouble, they began hunting for the source of the voice in the rubble of destroyed buildings around them.
They found a transfigured dome around what he suspected was an underground rail entrance. They removed the rubble covering it and Minerva did the rest from inside.
They saw, behind her, Muggles. Lots and lots of Muggles. They were packed in so tight they were shoulder to shoulder behind the witch who had clearly been protecting them.
Harry looked to Minerva. Then to Bella. Then to the normal city-goers of London. Then he addressed the two witches.
“I don’t supposed either of you see a way for us to save the statute of secrecy after all of this, do you?” He asked.
“No.” Minerva said, shortly.
“No.” Bellatrix said, so soon after Minerva it was almost in unison.
“Right, yeah, me neither.” He said with a sigh.
But on the bright side, he had the two baddest witches on the isles with him now, and if that wasn’t enough to make a young man feel ready to face the apocalypse, nothing was.
***
AN:
For those of you feeling personally attacked by this comment, don’t worry, I resemble the remark myself. And it’s a megalosaurus, first discovered in Britain. I somehow remembered that from my childhood 25 years back as I outlined this chapter. When I googled it I was surprised to find my memory correct. I thought I put megalosaurus in there as a placeholder until I had time to research what dinosaurs were actually discovered in the British Isles, but apparently childhood autism never leaves you.
Dinosaur Adventure 3D, anyone? Dino Crisis 2(1 sucked)? Walking with dinosaurs? God, our childhood was awesome.
More Notes:
This chapter probably makes no sense to people who didn’t read the original story before the rewrite, in which I thoroughly explored the magics being revealed here. But I could actively feel the readers falling off and showing zero interest in the magic of faith and the increasingly common hints at Unspeakables pulling shenanigans in the background. So, for new readers, this new arc probably seems like nonsense without that buildup. But the readers didn’t like the buildup, so it was thrown away.