Chapter 42: Chapter 42 Exposure and Fallout
Something Harry used to distinguish Wizard magic from every other form of magic is the fact that Wizard magic is inherently emotional. The difference between Chaos Magic and Wizard Magic was that Wizard Magic synchronizes its emotion with the caster while Chaos Magic does not. This means Chaos Magic can be used even when the user lacks the specific emotions required to cast the same magics with Wizard Magic while Wizard Magic could be considered far more controlled, though there were exceptions to these generalizations.
Because of the emotional component of Wizard Magic, a degree of emotional strength is required for each spell. When emotions are high enough, magic effects could be cast with ease or even without intention, as is the case with accidental magics. This is also the reason that those incapable of casting nonverbally must state their spell name aloud and are incapable of whispering it below hearing level as whispering cannot project the strength of emotion require to cast spells for those lacking in practice.
Harry's magic was not an exception to this rule, though due to the mental aspects of his abilities initially provided by the Phoenix Force, he rarely showed off the depths of his emotions.
The inherent cohesion keeping the Obscurus Particles that composed Harry's cells together had remained throughout his life after his revival. They even retained partial cohesion during the respawn process. Though Sinister's ability released the ability his body had to keep them together, the passive cohesion remained in place making Harry similar to a sand castle that stood upright even after completely drying in the sun.
Sinister's tight grip on his arm however broke the bonds between his cells and in the next moment, like a bubble bursting, the dam broke and the hundreds of Obscurus Magic Particles that composed each and every one of his cells broke apart and separated at speeds no slower than the ignition of a stick of dynamite into gas.
The force of the expanding volume of Obscurus Particle partially collapsed Sinister's chest cavity before hurling the man into the far wall. However the moment before impact his body vanished in a screen of light. He was unaware of how lucky he had been. The Teleportation system tied to his health monitor would have failed to lock on his position even an instant later due to the interference of the Obscurus Particles that immediately saturated the room.
At the moment of detonation, Harry's emotional limiter failed. He had done his best to suppress his rage at what had happened to Jean and had even done his best to keep each and every death quick and relatively painless. Now however Harry's mind was a sea of red. Instead of thinking with logic and concepts, he processed information with emotions and instinct.
The pillars holding up the room of the Throne room were shattered but before the room collapsed the mass of black mist like particles within were drawn out into the hallway.
A Obscrurs's size is determined by a number of factors, but it mostly boiled down to the magical strength of the Obscurial. Historically, the most common Obscurus that appeared centuries ago would be about as large as a car or as small as a shopping cart and was born of witches and wizards between the ages of seven and ten. However these Obscuri were separate entities from the Obscurials they formed from. The most notable exception to this was the Obscurial Credence Barebone who suppressed his magic so long, his own body became an Obscurus partially under his control and had a volume measured to be four to six times larger than a double decker bus.
Harry's cells however contained multiple times more particles than Mr. Barebone's could have due to the nature of Harry's mutant ability. The shockwave of his detonation spread through the entire underground complex and nearly half of the upper rooms were saturated in black mist.
At the moment Harry regained consciousness, though emotional consciousness, every spec of black mist started to churn and every location saturated with it was ripped to shreds and torn asunder. His fury at the location and what they had done was without filter or limitation. Like a massive swarm of insects he destroyed each facilitated, room by room. The heavily armored doors that stood against the rabbits held no longer than a breath of time against his might which rammed through the door with a force so hard the wall the door was fastened into shattered and exploded out.
Harry's emotional state did not differentiate between what to destroy and what not to destroy so even the rabbits remaining in the various rooms were smeared into dust as if they had been clawed at a million times in a single moment.
Eventually his form struck even the Reality bomb in the basement which then went off prematurely.
The reason the Reality bomb was so unstable was that it contained Harry's version of a frozen explosion within which when released would power the reaction required to expand a point of empty space at the center. The only real means to stop it from going off was quick disassembly to allow the stored energy to be released correctly.
As the suitcase exploded out, a wave appearing to be a ripple of space expanded instantly out from the room and in a fraction of a second the entire complex was within the bubble.
Those still alive within would only be able to watch on in horror as straight lines within their field of vision began to wiggle around like living worms and colors began to bleed into each other as various points of space started twisting or shaking apart. Body parts of various individuals would stretch or pop off and noises unlike anything that could be comprehended echoed back and forth.
Any who moved found that whatever moved would twist or be pulled in an unpredictable direction as relative space lost meaning and function. Some solids could be seen behaving like liquids or gasses and every surface started shifting around like leaves against the breeze.
Harry's Obscurus form however actively fought against the effect of the collapsing reality and held itself together when there was no logical reason to do so. Harry had never survived exposure to a detonating reality bomb because once Harry's durability reached his limit it would always break a part, return to his inventory, and then emerge in a safe location and reconstitute itself.
Harry had set up Rogue's and Wanda's room as his safe zone with their permission so he was prepared to die if needed but had not expected this to happen.
This time however his Obscurus particles were active instead of passive. Although space and direction had lost meaning, Harry's particles instinctively pulled themselves together regardless of the space distorting effects of broken reality.
In what could have been minutes or seconds later, the bubble popped and a wave of reality passed through re-establishing the properties of logic to the space causing everything within to shatter, turn to dust or worse.
Thankfully for those within, there were no survivors as any alterations that occurred within would not have returned to normal once reality returned to normal.
Harry's Obscurus particles naturally survived but the facility around them did not. Every structure collapsed as the weight of the mountain above it crushed the support beams which had lost alignment during the logic free period and instantly gave way to the shuffled mass of stone above it which had lost cohesion within the bubble as well.
A familiar Ping was detected by Harry's senses but his emotion based consciousness ignored it and he instantly started pressing up against the ceiling and charging through the collapsed stone. As he moved higher his compressed body expanded forcing him to move more and more rock out of the way. As his form expanded he exerted more force upwards and upon reaching the top he instinctively pressed the whole of the mountainside above him far into the air as he reached the open air and faced the sky
*Ping*
[Dilate Power Debuff has been resisted.]
The black shadow floating in the sky immediately coalesced into a solid form and a moment later, Harry was reformed and falling out of the sky. The polyjuice potion had been burned through so he took his normal appearance.
He Paused.
The first thing that came to mind was the fact that although he was not thinking on the same level he usually did, he was still conscious and aware of everything that occurred and could recall it with crystal clarity, including the pop up he got for the completed Quest.
[Quest Complete: Sinister Takedown
Reward: Sinister's Backup Hard drives.]
The moment the quest was completed, several servers appeared in his inventory which at a quick glance seemed to contain all the data the base itself seemed to have stored and saved. Considering the degree of bioscience the man's lab appeared to possess, Harry knew he would get a lot of mileage from those files, especially since he chose Hell mode.
When he thought back to Sinister's vanishing act, he was partially confused, but only for a moment. Harry figured the man had teleported out but the teleportation signature did not originate from the man himself, meaning someone or something else targeted him and got him out. That wasn't much of a surprise as the Quest hinted at the fact that he was likely to escape and was the main reason Harry had not used direct magic in Sinister's presence.
Though even if he could, he'd still likely use his guns.
The bullets from Harry's guns contained far more power than his individually cast spells, they moved faster than the travel speed of his spells, and Harry could pull the trigger faster than his spell casting speed. Plus, he could fire his weapons while invisible as long as he cast spells to ensure the sound could not be pinpointed. Most spells look like beams of light so casting them while invisible would be pointless.
Harry's current guns were made of Adamantium and his bullets contained magic charged gemstones while the potion which acted gunpowder was multiple times more powerful than the erumpent potion as it contained crushed magic infused gemstones as well while leaving no trace of residue upon detonation. Harry had considered making a magic railgun system using Adamantium and Vibranium, but he hadn't been able to reduce the theoretical size to something shorter than a long barreled sniper when he preferred handguns. Long barreled snipers were tools of assassinations and if Harry needed to assassinate someone, a sniper would not be his first choice. He had no interest in making and selling such weapons either and at the moment such a weapon would only move marginally faster than his hand guns. Railguns only had real power when they had very long barrels and anything handheld he could make would not prove useful. For now anyways.
When Harry fought monsters during Battle Meditation, he could only use himself, his skills, and his powers. Basically fighting naked. When in the real world, his equipment raised his fighting abilities multiple times. If Harry could bring his equipment into Battle Meditation, he wouldn't be afraid of fighting level 250~300 monsters, even though he was still under level 200. That's how he was able to defeat the Immortal Black Dragon.
His reality bomb could also take care of anything that lacked ridiculously dense magic like immortal sorcerers, immortal dragons, or demigod level figures. With exceptions of course. He had no idea his Obscurus form could survive the reality bomb.
Harry was rather upset with himself for how he acted but he knew holding it against himself wouldn't do. He had no idea that not only could his mutant power be removed, but that it would transform him into a full fledged Obscurus.
Although Paused in midair, Harry was not falling, rather he was floating a bit in the air. He looked over the mountain he had just destroyed and gave a light sigh of relief that there appeared to be no settlements anywhere close by.
His original intention was for the reality bomb to simply make the location collapse which, although suspicious, wouldn't draw too much attention. When Harry looked up however, he knew that was no longer possible. Harry's emergence was so forceful, hundreds upon hundreds of massive boulders had been sent into the sky for all eyes and anything recording the situation to see. Thankfully Obscuri are invisible to nonmagicals and normal folk so they would not have been able to see or record him, but the rocks were very eye-catching and there was nothing he could do about it.
Even if no one sees the rocks shooting into the air and no one sees them fall, the massive impact each one causes when they land will change the landscape on a level that could not be ignored.
The main reason Harry kept his cards to himself was that in the afterlife, his father had told him time and time again not to draw attention to himself or to make people pay attention to the wrong thing. They'd watch TV and James would give his own little monologues during the commercials about why the villains or heroes lost and it was usually because their enemies got enough information to prepare to defeat them.
There had been many points where Harry felt he could not be defeated, but that was not the case.
First of all, Harry discovered a new weakness of his. His level which had been at 202 after absorbing the energy of all the slain foes had reduced to 201 after his time as an Obscurus. It wasn't a full level as he had barely reached 202 and now it seemed it was pretty close to reaching 202, but it was a fact that his Experience bar decreased.
It wasn't the same as a death and respawn, but it was still a level drop all the same.
In other words, the power of his Obscurus form had a cost of his Obscurus Particles permanent destruction. If he fought something powerful as an Obscurus, he'd risk permanent death because his respawn system didn't work as an Obscurus.
Of course, damaging him in that form wouldn't be easy. Severe blows may disperse him but they wouldn't injure him. He wasn't certain he could survive nuclear fire, but that too was more likely to blow him away than it would be to fully dust his particles into nothing.
Looking up at the destruction to come, Harry decided he needed a new plan. Laying low wouldn't work anymore. He needed a distraction.
Harry spent a long time going over various plans and ideas, but no matter how many he cycled through, he kept coming back to the same plan. He needed a perfect Alibi. A way to ensure he was cleared of suspicion even if he was caught red-handed. And there was only one real way to do so.
Harry unpaused and turned invisible. He was likely only visible for a single moment and as he was surrounded by massive rocks in the air, he doubted anyone noticed him. Harry then took his animagus form and flew around to dodge the incoming boulders and find a safe spot to land.
Harry needed to stick around for a while and was curious to see if anything would show up soon.
It took about fifteen minutes for something to show. Surprisingly, it was cloaked, just like Harry. A cloaked drone if Harry guessed right. Since Harry was already going to draw suspicion elsewhere, he decided to play around a bit. While invisible, Harry attacked the drone with his claws, alerting the drone it was being targeted. The drone moved fast but Harry was faster and caught up with it to deliver another midair attack, damaging one of the wings this time causing it to swerve and lose altitude.
Something Harry discovered a while back was that he could not drag something under someone else's control into his inventory. For example when he gave the Ancient One a remote control and had her control a remote helicopter, Harry could not place it into his inventory even if he grabbed it unless he broke it, turned it off, or if the Ancient One turned off the controller.
The drone in front of him was small enough to be taken into his inventory but it was under the control of another. Before it landed, Harry cast the Ebublio Jinx on the drone which caused an invisible bubble to appear around the drone. The bubble did not allow air to pass through it causing the drone to fall out of the sky as if its propulsion had failed. That wasn't all it did however. Moments before it reached the ground, Harry was able to snatch it and place it into his inventory. Since it was Wizard Magic, it was effective in scrambling signals and caused the drone to eventually lose contact with its controller.
The first thing Harry noticed when the drone was placed in his inventory was the presence of processed vibranium. Something to consider later.
Harry flew away since he had played enough and continued waiting while flying invisibly through the sky.
Eventually his waiting bore fruit. Travelling to him through the Astral Plane were a large assortment of monstrous creatures. These beings were the very same ones that had left Harry's mind and traveled into Mister Sinister's. Sinister had given up on active defending and went for passive defending under the impression his mental defenses would hold. However Harry's mental constructs included built-in Legilimency attacks which were undetectable just like the rest of Harry's wizard Magic. That had also been one of the other reasons Harry did not go in for the kill against Sinister when he did have some possible options. He didn't know if the man would somehow escape and the longer the fight, the more Harry's constructs would be able to dig out of the man.
After the constructs returned, Harry Paused once more and set aside the information to be assessed later. There was more he already needed to do.
Harry flew for the closest cloud and within he made a portal for London and flew directly for the Ministry of Magic. The building had many entrances for Post Owls allowing Harry easy access to some of the deeper areas without prior preparation.
Next Harry returned to human form, though still invisible and made his way for the elevator.
Harry wasn't sure how it worked, but his Obscurus transformation somehow stored his clothes so when he returned to human form he was not naked. He knew the clothes were not stored in his inventory though so for now it was a mystery how that worked. Still, he was grateful as he did not have to arrive as the Minister naked.
Once at the elevator, Harry made his way down to the Department of Mysteries and after dodging a number of Unspeakables to make sure he didn't run into anyone, he found his way over to a cabinet containing a neat display of fifteen necklaces bearing a pendant with a small hourglass inside.
There were several reasons Harry had never tried to get a Time Turner before this point even though they'd held his interest ever since he learned several were used to research his living conditions after he exploded.
First of all, Bones, Sirius, and Albus all knew he was powerful and if one were stolen, he'd be the first suspect had he gotten it during or shortly after Hogwarts. Especially after Hogwarts. Next, a majority of the things one normally used a Time Turner for were things he could do with his Inventory and Pause function. Namely taking extra time to study and read.
The following three years he'd held back because he knew he'd get scolded by the Ancient One who would certainly be able to sense any time travel shenanigans he's gone through.
Something the Ancient One told him about short period time travel usage was that you could get trapped in randomly generated time loops. One day you would see yourself walking up to you and then you would kick your own ass and leave and you would have no choice but to go back in time and kick your own ass or risk the destruction of reality. Such things have happened before and they can be considered the price of convenient time travel.
However now it was the best of the worst options he had.
There were only fifteen Time Turners total and to prevent the very Time loops the Ancient One warned Harry about, the Time Turners were always kept on this rack rather than in the possession of others. The rack itself included all manner of warding, security, and secrecy spells. Most wouldn't even be able to see the rack itself if you were standing near it.
Still, Harry had plenty of practice on magic based security. It took him no more than three minutes to figure out how to nab one without anyone the wiser. As Snape had once said, 'For a sufficiently powerful wizard, almost any security measure is little better than a delaying tactic.'
Harry placed one into his inventory and Paused to analyze the magic.
From what he understood, a ridiculously unstable spell called the Hour Reversal Charm had been made into a slightly less unstable enchantment and placed on the Time Turners. The turning of the Hourglass would allow consecutive uses of the charm, however from the Arithmancy Harry calculated and what he had heard, turning it more than five times was nearly fatal.
Time Travel using a Time Turner was basically boring a hole into the past from the present.
In this sense, the present was like a layer of sand and each second caused more sand to fall onto the top layer. A Time Turner could drill a hole into the deeper layers, into the past where the traveler would then slowly dig back into the present and reach the surface. If they went back further than five hours, the hole was likely to collapse and they could not of course go back further after already going back five hours.
Once the traveler return to the moment they left from, the changes to the timeline would stabilize. However because it was not stable during the overlap, it was dangerous to use a Time Turner in the same location for the same period. That meant he could not use the Time Turner to go back to the same moment twice. That was a bit of a shame since if there was no limit, then he could create an army of himself simply by using the Time Turner to go back to the same location over and over.
After nabbing one, Harry used transmutation one some spare metal bits to perfectly recreate a copy and place it where the original was. However, Harry wasn't going to leave it like that.
Harry spent a few days Paused to calculate the effect he wanted and once finished, he went over to find an empty room.
The Department of Mysteries was filled with Researchers so it had many research rooms.
Harry found an unused one and placed several explosives. These explosives however were made from unstable potions instead of his magic so they would leave residue.
Harry placed a few spells on the room to prevent anyone from entering for a few minutes and returned to the cabinet and waited.
A moment later an explosion shook the floor and Harry used telekinesis to knock over the cabinet from a distance.
The moment the cabinet hit the ground, the space around it blurred and the cabinet was upright once more and started falling over once more.
It was in a time loop. Wizards, especially smart wizards, never touched time loops so that cabinet would fall over and over again for the rest of time. A random explosion was not uncommon in the Department of Mysteries according to a few journals he'd read and anyone monitoring what happened would conclude the cabinet was knocked over from the explosion. It was a fact that the cabinet didn't have any charms keeping it upright after all.
There were numerous reasons Harry wanted the Time Turners unusable. The main reason however was that Harry could detect that they were ridiculously unstable and their very existence was a threat to anyone around them. That was one of the two reasons he was only taking one. The second reason was that he calculated that an infinite time loop may not properly generate if there were not enough Time Turners breaking at the same time and he wasn't confident it would work with thirteen as he would fourteen. Fourteen is a far more magically capable number after all.
Harry was not worried they would make more. There were very few practical reasons to justify the use of one and many Witches and Wizards had lost their lives in their attempted creation so it was unlikely to be done.
As Harry left the floor, he thought back to Hogwarts and considered that if he stayed, this would have been his fifth year. Harry wondered what were the chances of him breaking that display in his fifth year if things had gone differently in his life. Oh well.
After clearing a certain amount of distance, Harry apparated to the London Sanctum Sanctorum and knocked on the door, visible this time.
Sol Rama answered and greeted Harry before ushering him inside. Harry made his way to Kamar-Taj and after a few moments, arranged for a meeting with the Ancient One.
Harry still considered himself the Ancient One's student and would not meddle with time lightly without her permission. The main reason for that was because if he messed up, it would likely be her responsibility as his teacher to clean up the mess so he wouldn't hide this from her.
The Ancient One was pleased to see him though when they spoke, she was not as pleased to hear what he had been up to during the last two hours. Still, she understood and after making a few suggestions and conditions, she gave her permission. Although she knew Harry would not exactly be responsible with its usage, he would at least be thoughtful with it which was good enough for her. Harry had already explained how there were no longer enough hours in the day for all his projects in the first place so it would prove invaluable to him outside of its use to give him airtight alibis.
The Ancient One still wished to see its use and they took a Portal to a remote location where Harry turned the Hourglass three times which when released, cast the Hour Reversal Charm three times on Harry causing him to flow backwards through time while remaining in place.
*Ping*
[Age Settings are now available. You may turn Aging while outside of the Present Flow of Time Off.]
Harry was more than a little shocked at that and immediately opened the new settings.
From what he could see, after he turned seventeen in two years he could disable Aging and manually change his age to anywhere from seventeen to thirty-five. He could also prevent himself from aging while using the Time Turner meaning he would only age while in the present.
Harry wondered why this was not available when he went back in time and freed Merlin but he figured it had to do with how Harry went to the past as he used Timelord Math that time instead of Wizard Magic.
Once the time was right, Harry made a portal back to the Institute moments after he left and found Wanda there, cleaning up the crystals and sand Harry had asked her to clean up.
She asked, "You're already back?"
Harry nodded and said, "I had someone else take care of it." The fact that he was now capable of Time Travel was not something he'd share for a while. Especially since they would in fact age with its use.
Harry collected the crystals back into the backpack he'd gotten out and Wanda vanished the remaining sand and the pair went into the infirmary to meet up with Jean and Rogue.
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