Magic Knows No Boundaries But Those We Believe In (Harry Potter)

[Lindipthian]

Aside from the butterfly being found in the Triassic (lepidopterans trace their origins to the Jurassic, and butterflies in particular evolved alongside the first flowers in the Cretaceous, damn wizards not paying attention to Palaeontology smh) that whole piece about time travel and sins was rather thought provoking. Excellent work!

 

[NonsensicalRants]

Chapter 45: Unspeakables Revealed​

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"Tom!" He heard Hadrian yell out as soon as he and Albus appeared before him.

Voldemort did not look up from the time keeper to address them.

"What did you do?!" Dumbledore demanded.

"I don't know!" Voldemort said honestly.

"What. Did. You. Do!" Morrigan repeated.

" 't. Know!" Voldemort answered just as emphatically. "Ask that asshole!"

He indicated the former Unspeakable on the other side of the barrier of white light surrounding the trio.

The two turned to Marchbanks.

"Alastor?" Dumbledore asked in a disappointed voice.

"You have your ambitions, I have mine." Alastor's voice, muffled into a ringing sound by the barrier of light.

"Ambitions which have you working with Voldemort here?" Morrigan asked, comprehending the situation immediately. "Which I'm guessing you did just to spite my prophecy?"

"Prophecy?!" Him and Dumbledore both asked at once.

Voldemort's lapse in concentration was catastrophic. A thirteenth film erupted from the top of the timekeeper. This one flew straight up as a pillar of light, forming a tower instead of a dome as the others had.

"It was not a prophecy, it was merely a vision through a crystal ball. A true prediction, I might add." Said Marchbanks. "And as I'm sure you all know, aside from prophecies, all predictions have the potential to be self-defeating if told to the subject. The opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

That's right. Minor predictions can serve more as warnings to avoid disaster than as an immutable portent of it. Unlike prophecies, which were immutable. As good as the word of God himself both to men like Alastor who believed in such, and just as equally to men like Voldemort who did not.

"I saw your fight with him, Tom. And that he would not join you." Morrigan explained.

Ah. And out of pure spite and scientific curiosity he went against the prediction. Voldemort could respect that.

"Well, seeing as we are separated by a full-blown time anomaly, we are at an ends." Said Marchbanks. "I cannot interfere with what you do in there, and you cannot harm me out here. I think I'll go ahead and hit the old, dusty road before you three remedy that problem."

"You must know I will be coming for you." Said Voldemort.

"Get a ticket and get in line." Said Marchbanks. "I do believe me and mine just declared war on the whole of the world. So don't flatter yourself. We aren't worried about you."

With that ominous warning, he apparated away.

"We?" Morrigan asked.

"I think you know the answer already." Albus said. "For a multitude of reasons."

Morrigan had the gall to wear an innocent expression as if he had no idea what Albus was talking about.

"So, what are you thinking?" Morrigan asked. "Impedimenta charm then flee before it blows up?"

"I would prefer to prevent the blowing up entirely. We shall do the vanishing charm trick again." Said Albus.

"Surely it's protected from the vanishing charm." Morrigan offered.

"Not well enough that the two of us together cannot overpower such enchantments." Albus countered.

"But we would wind up destroying Big Ben, and possibly some of the surrounding landmarks. I'm quite fond of the bridge." Morrigan argued. "And of having clothes on."

"What's all this abound destroying London's most famous landmarks and going on a public streaking trip?" Voldemort asked through the precipitous sweat going down his brow.

"Oh, we can create giant, overpowered vanishing charms through a brother wand effect." Morrigan explained. "Which should deal with both the time keeper and the central areas of the films, leaving us living creatures unharmed."

Their clothes and the ground they were standing on, however, would be another story. And it was a long fall to the ground.

"We ought to be able to charm our clothes to be unvanishable." Albus offered. "And pre-emptively cast arresto momentum on ourselves with a delay."

"That ought to work. I don't have confidence in our clothes surviving regardless, and I'm not looking forward to the indecent exposure charge, but it's a sacrifice I guess we'll just have to make." Morrigan said.

"Do charm mine as well, if you would both be so kind." Voldemort asked his new frenemies politely. "And yes, I realize we will have a reckoning once this disaster is dealt with, but we can do it with clothes on. I would prefer not to sexually arouse our headmaster here."

Dumbledore was not amused by the insinuation. Neither was Morrigan, who spoke up in his defense.

"A homophilia joke? Really? In this day and age?" Morrigan asked.

"I do believe it is nineteen ninety-six. I assume in the time you traveled from it is not an acceptable target of humor?" Dumbledore challenged him.

Morrigan laughed.

"Oh right. You're all still under the impression that I'm a time traveler. Well, I will dissuade you of that notion soon enough, but when I have the time to explain in detail. For now, let's skin this cat." Morrigan said.

Voldemort knew he was lying. He had to be. Voldemort needed to believe he was lying. Problem was, Alastor Marchbanks just confirmed his nature as a seer. Could it be he had been telling the truth this entire time and he was just as truly a gifted seer as he seemed? Word had gotten to him that he had some form of telemetry. A lot of his seemingly impossible knowledge could be explained through that. He just didn't want to believe it. There were too many impossibilities.

Hell, he still suspected Morrigan was his son, which made every interaction with him especially awkward. Voldemort was never the most socially savvy, despite what people claimed about his sociopathic charm. As such, he genuinely hated every one of their encounters.

This one less than most. So far, very straightforward.

"So… What exactly is the process here?" Voldemort asked

"We cast the vanishing charm at the object, together, then the vanishing charm goes boom." Morrigan explained. "It has a big enough radius to take out half a city block. So, it should take both the time keeper and the center point of the field."

Sounded like the best plan they were going to come up with to Voldemort. He nodded his agreement to the plan.

"My hands are a little full, but if I can help, let me know how." Voldemort offered.

Morrigan and Dumbledore shared a look before shrugging. The former then considered Voldemort again.

"Speaking of hands, could you shift yours a bit?" Morrigan asked.

Voldemort glanced between his now shaking hands and Morrigan.

"Not without great risk." Voldemort admitted in a great blow to his pride.

"Hmm. Okay, let me grasp it from below." Morrigan said.

Then, to Voldemort's abject horror, Morrigan reached beneath the time keeper and grasped it from the bottom. Then he felt it. Like being bodily tackled and then embraced by somebody else' magical aura. Morrigan enveloped him and the timekeeper with his own internal magic.

That wasn't telemetry. That was something entirely new to the study of magic. This man was a prodigy to rival, nay, surpass both him and Albus.

He really ought to kill the guy before he did so. Surpassing them, that is.

"Okay. I got it. Vanishing ought to work." Morrigan said.

He just did to the device what the sorting hat regularly did to eleven-year-olds. He completely read it, as if it had a mind. He understood its past, present, future and nature. Telemetry wasn't strong enough of a word to describe the ability he just felt Morrigan use. It was beyond anything Voldemort had ever experienced. It was new, it was powerful, and he wanted it.

Morrigan could be completely average, or useless, in every other regard, then with this ability alone surpass Voldemort. He was noticeably above average in most things.

His mind was already running through scenarios on how to end him as soon as the timekeeper crisis was averted, but he was certain they would both have reactions prepared ahead of time. He would need to flee and plan for that. He was too great a threat. Both to Voldemort personally and the world.

"Okay. Vanishing charm. Pick ourselves up. And then the real work begins." Morrigan said gazing out upon the destroyed capital city.

Oh yeah. That was still a thing that needed to be done. Goodbye statute of secrecy! And everybody was going to blame Voldemort for it. He was definitely responsible, but he didn't have to like the fact.

"Okay. Anti-vanishing charms?" Voldemort asked.

They cast the spells, both on their own clothes and on his.

"On three?" Morrigan asked.

"On three." Dumbledore confirmed.

"One." Said Morrigan.

"Two." Said Dumbledore.

"Three!" They said in unison.

Two vanishing charms collided between his and Morrigan's fingers. The man cast the spell with the hand he wasn't using to hold the sphere, and both men hit a bullseye.

The spells went boom, just like Morrigan promised, but he understated the gravity of said boom.

Voldemort felt the entire universe around him, air, stone beneath his feat and magical device in his hand, all disappear. He reached out for support and found Morrigan's hand reaching to grasp him for the same purpose. The man he had, just moments before, conspired to assassinate was now his lifeline and he his.

They held each other like allies instead of as enemies, and together they faded into nothing. They were nowhere. They were everywhere. They had never been and always were.

Simply put, they severely underestimated what the time keeper would do to them both by holding onto it and were both absolute morons for holding onto it.

---

Prophecy ducked beneath the marble pillar flung at her from the corner of the chamber.

This was a particularly difficult dodge, as gravity had decided to cease working as of late. Somebody, she suspected Life, whoever he or she was, had somehow turned the entire chamber of truth into an antigravity field. One in which they could all swim through the air as if it were water. It was impossible for any of them to fight in. Save for space who swam through it as if it were second nature.

Father time had significantly more difficulty in this unexpected terrain, but less than Prophecy did.

The hyperdecay barrier had long since been torn down, only to be rebuilt in a smaller form around father time while the rest of them got to fighting.

She once again felt the cutting curse remove her head from her shoulders, felt the blood drain from her body and death take her. So she ducked before the spell hit, averting yet another fated death.

"You two really have it out for me." Prophecy mocked.

Love had been gunning for her and solely her this entire time. Probably because of the two on one advantage and because they didn't want to tangle with Time. That and their domain, being the least predictable of all of the domains, made them a pretty bad matchup in theory. Prophecy had the advantage of not only battle precognition – which yes, was a thing, and she was eminently pissed off that Potter had revealed its existence to the world on a lark – and because they weren't breaking their oath.

The 'blue' magic(AN) as people called it, spells fueled by the lust, of the love of a man for his wife, of the devotion and deference of a wife to her husband. These were all terrifying things that these two delved in. And yet they weren't using it. Why? The oath stone was no longer holding them to their neutered state.

Maybe a sense of fair play? Since Prophecy's only abilities in combat really were stock standard spells.

And then they split apart into two like a bacterium. Man and wife were separated, and both bore down on her from either side.

Oh. So, they were trying to capture her. She was definitely the logical choice for capture between her, Space and Time. But they forgot who her friends were.

It was an impressive scissor attack they threw her way. With one on either side of her, even with her foresight telling her the conjured, animated rope of barbed wire was coming from one side and an incendiary sludge curse was coming from the other she couldn't dodge it.

Thankfully, gravity reasserted it's dominance just then and so both of their spells missed the mark as they all tumbled to the ground. They would have missed anyways because Space used one of their infamous switching charms. Switching charms were not supposed to work on human beings. Theirs did. Welcome to the department of mysteries! Here, the rules of magic need not apply.

Prophecy oomphed in a very unladylike way as she swapped places with somebody else.

She saw Life, bleeding profusely from a chest wound. Their unexpected ally, with that even more unexpected antigravity ward, was down to a knee.

What was taking Alastor so long!

No sooner did the complaint enter her mind than did she get her answer. Fright white waves of light flooded through them all. Like an absurdly overpowered patronus. They brought with them not feelings of joy and peace, but feelings of being stretched in all directions, of aging a thousand years and being a child again all at once.

It floored all of them, and Death proved to be an epileptic as he fell into a seizure from it. Was it weird that she actually felt worse about that than the whole trying to kill each other thing? Deliberately harming somebody she could live with, but accidentally? Heartbreaking.

When it was over, Prophecy knew their trial was over.

She felt the weight of the oath stone completely lifted. Not lifted and reapplied over and over again but gone.

Space was the first to get up, and when they removed their hood it was to reveal herself. Something that if she had done while the oath was still in place might have killed her. The woman breathed a deep, freeing breath and ruffled her shocking white hair.

"Well? I showed you mine, won't you show me yours?" Rolanda challenged, looking at her with those sharp, yellow eyes.

Georgia Shunpike removed her hood too and looked to Life and Time.

"Tofty?" Hooch said, surprised at Life's identity.

"I suppose I'm not much of a surprise?" Asked Mrs Marchbanks.

Actually yeah, she was. It seemed a little nepotistic for Alastor to pass the reigns onto his wife like that. She then quickly reapplied the hyperdecay barrier and the quartet of ladies retreated behind it just in time to avoid being incinerated.

"Hooch, how long until you can warp us out of here?" Shunpike asked the woman formerly known as Space.

"Right now." She whispered back.

Rolanda grasped her, Tofty and Marchbanks tightly.

"We will come for you! You have to know that!" The female half of Love yelled at them as she crouched over her unconscious partner.

"Get in line!" Tofty yelled back before reality faded away.

As much as she hated traveling through whatever warping technique it was Hooch invented, it was preferable to getting a South African necklace down here. So, she braced herself as they all ceased to exist, hopefully to reappear later. But that was never a guarantee.

---

Angus McKinnon picked himself up off of the cold hard ground to find the chamber of Truth full of less-than-faceless unspeakables.

Everybody had removed their hoods. And he did mean everybody. What's more, the cavalry had finally arrived. The remaining staff on site, those who hadn't fled when the oath stone was finally reverted, were there.

He was instantly overcome with a deep suspicion that any one of them could still be traitors.

Two people helped him to his feet.

"Up. Onto your feet songbird." A woman with shocking red hair told him as she helped him to his feet from his left shoulder as a man with an appearance more ancient than Albus Dumbledore took him up on his right.

He stared at the latter, trying to place his face.

"Barry Winkle." He introduced himself. "I'm in charge of the department of Happiness."

Ah. That ever elusive mystery. He turned to the woman with red hair. This one he recognized.

"Muriel Prewitt?" He asked.

She tapped her nose and smiled.

"But you died?" He said.

"So did you and your wife, supposedly, and yet here we all are. And please, call me Death." She insisted.

His wife! He felt so naked without her flesh bound to his. Without embracing her with every fiber of his being and her doing the same to him.

Before he could call out to her, she called out to the room.

"War!" Elspeth McKinnon declared.

Everyone turned to her.

She stood over the oath stone, a conjured knife in her hand.

"Our former colleagues have declared war. Not just on us, but on the world." His wife explained, and she slashed open her palm.

He felt every molecule of her skin separate through their connection.

"I will not rest, I will not dawdle, and I will not slow until I hunt them down. I swear it!" She said, pouring her life liquid onto the oath stone. "To war!"

The oath stone took it and bound both he and her.

God, did he ever love that woman.

---

AN) I recommend Counter Monkey, full stop. But to understand this reference check out the video "The OTHER Dirtiest Book in the Game".

Also, with this chapter we are all caught up with the patron exclusive chapters. You'll get another one in a month, unless somebody commissions me to make extra chapters for this story. And yes, I take commissions. About 25 dollars per one thousand words for fanfiction. 50 for original works or lewd fanfics. You can also become a patron for as low as zero dollars to get chapters early.

I also offer tutoring or consultation work for anything you're writing. 25 per hour.

To contact me about any of these services become a free patron and message me there.

NonsensicalRants

 

[Dur'id the Druid]

I have no idea who these people are, or what importance their history is.

 

[Womgi]

I have no idea who was on what side in the unspeakable civil war

 

[NonsensicalRants]

I have no idea who was on what side in the unspeakable civil war

Click to shrink...

The entire departments of Prophecy, Life, Time and Space are turncoats. Love, Death, Truth, Mind, Happiness, Dreams and Soul are still with the Department.

 

[NonsensicalRants]

I have no idea who these people are, or what importance their history is.

Click to shrink...

They're all canon. One of them is Ron's aunt. The mckinins were members of the Order of the Phoenix that died. So on and so forth.

Edit: Wait, you don't recognize Madame Hooch, Mrs Shunpike, Professor Tofty and Alastor Marchbanks wife? I mean, they've all featured in this very story.

 

[Dur'id the Druid]

They're all canon. One of them is Ron's aunt. The mckinins were members of the Order of the Phoenix that died. So on and so forth.

Edit: Wait, you don't recognize Madame Hooch, Mrs Shunpike, Professor Tofty and Alastor Marchbanks wife? I mean, they've all featured in this very story.

Click to shrink...

And that is the downside of reading 25+ stories with diffrent update rates. You lose track of details.

 

[NonsensicalRants]

And that is the downside of reading 25+ stories with diffrent update rates. You lose track of details.

Click to shrink...

But... madame hooch? She's a pretty important Harry Potter character. Teaches broom riding? Referees Quidditch matches?

 

[FTR2017]

Well, finished reading this tale to the last chapter, and got to admit that I look forward as to Canon Harry's reason to exist within this bizarro universe.

Was it Magic? Fate? Or perhaps something deeper, older, wiser, and distinctly non-human that saw shit coming down their collective way and sought to remedy that situation with a dimensionally displaced alternate version of a deceased boy?

I will admit that some terms coming from the pureblood cast clash somewhat, but they are explained in-universe so they don't stretch out my disbelief that badly. In fact, they enriched it.

It was also quite the good bit of world-building you pulled off there with the pureblood/muggleborn cultural divide, and managed to write something that would offend many readers of different backgrounds equally--like a pro!

So, I tip my hat to your work!

That said, thanks for writing this and for sharing it with us readers.