Bab 9: The end
Deep under the Himalayan mountain range. Year 2034.
There was a dome-shaped cave with walls so smooth that it could be nothing but man-made. The walls were inlaid with glowing blue lines. These lines were not the only things on the walls, there were also intricate symbols made of the same glowing material, connected by thinner lines, forming complex arrays.
One knowledgeable in Ancient Runes and Wards would recognize them as defensive formations, created to reinforce the dome itself against outside forces.
The floor was covered with even more of the blue lines, some of them as thick as an arm. They all ended up in massive solid devices with even more runes covering them. There were various people behind each of those devices, most of them wearing various scars from battles long past.
Some of the people even wore prosthetics, something that wasn't easy to notice, as they were made with the use of magic and could seamlessly connect to the skin and bone.
Harry was standing on a high platform overlooking the entire area. He was wearing an eyepatch on his right eye and there was a faded lightning-like scar on his forehead.
For years, they had been finding places to hide, gaps in time, blind spots in the search grids to find a way to overturn the situation. Hermione was one of the lead researchers, her knowledge and skills with Ancient Runes giving them the edge they needed to build this very facility, the last bastion of free Wizardkind.
The rest of Wizardkind had been turned to livestock, raised to levels of power that made Dumbledore in his heyday look like a novice wizard, only to be consumed like one would a delectable dish.
At first, they had looked into ways of defeating the enemy in frontal combat, but each time they had failed, they ended up using the Malfoy Time-Turner to get back to the point where the plan was derailed.
Somehow, the Pantheon had caught on to their tricks and wards were set up all around the globe that blocked off the use of time-turners, leaving only a few gaps, a few anomalies that could be used, but even those weren't all safe, often leading to unstable time phenomena that lead to the death of those that attempted to use them.
That was when a seemingly crazy idea was put forward by Hermione: If they couldn't change the time they were in, they should instead try to change the time before Prometheus arrived and simply erase the entire timeline where the Titans had invaded from existence.
The plan was a big maybe but that was the best shot they had, so they went with it. That was when they had found the largest anomaly yet, the current location of the base.
Years of hard work and determination with so much sleepless nights that nobody dared to count them had brought them to this point. The project was close to completion.
There was just a tiny sliver of excitement and hope in Harry's heart, a hope that it would all work out, that everything they had done up to this point was not for naught.
He spoke softly, but his tired voice could be heard across the entire facility. He asked: "What's the status?"
An energetic male voice, belonging to one of the former rescues spoke: "Null-point generators are online, production holding at fifteen Terawatts. The unicorns are keeping up with the drain."
Null-point generators were a type of magic power generator, developed and built by the man that was speaking. They used Unicorn blood that had been energized with another device that used a magic feedback loop for the purpose. The generators used the energized Unicorn blood as fuel to output ungodly amounts of magic. The Unicorns themselves were fed a constant stream of nutrients and Unicorn Blood Replenishment potions, something that Snape had created out of boredom a long time ago. They had been turned from pure and noble creatures into blood factories. All for the greater good, as Dumbledore would put it.
It was soon followed by the soft voice of Lily Luna Potter, Harry's own daughter: "Meta-dimensional tether is online, waiting for link."
While Lily wasn't the one to create the device, she was adequate at handling it, since Hermione simply didn't have enough bodies nor hands to keep track of each of the devices at once.
An older female voice, belonging to Fleur Delacour took over: "Reality-wave synchronization is at 98% and holding."
A cold and mechanical voice spoke next: "Mad Eye online. Awaiting input."
Mad Eye wasn't a person, never had been. Mad Eye was an artificial intelligent magical construct. It had been named so in honor of Moody that had perished in simpler times, in a solo battle against ten top-ranking Death Eaters. There was no need to mention that he gave as good as he got, killing eight of them.
A grandfatherly voice, belonging to Albus Dumbledore said: "Soul hooks are ready for deployment. Awaiting further orders."
While most people had their prosthetics skin-colored, Albus had opted for the 'transparent skin'. Due to that, the arm that had once been riddled by the withering curse once he had mishandled a Horcrux was now replaced with one that had blue muscle fibers visible, pulsing with light. One could also see a metal lattice frame that the artificial muscles attached to. Dumbledore had said that leaving it all visible would act as a reminder for him.
Another mechanical voice, this time with the warmth of a human behind it spoke: "Archmage system is ready for upload. Running final diagnostic."
This voice belonged to Hermione, who had been struck by a nasty, slightly off-aim curse and as a consequence, her entire throat had been torn out. It had been a struggle to even keep her alive. As it was impossible to completely heal curse wounds, she had designed herself an artificial throat, complete with a voice synthesizer.
Neville, standing on two seemingly ordinary legs reported: "Trans-temporal couplings have reached 75% conformity and still climbing."
A dreamy voice spoke: "Soulsearcher is free of Wrakspurts."
Naturally, the beauty with platinum-blonde hair and even more eccentric clothing than Dumbledore could only be Luna.
…
Harry, with his heart rate picking up with each positive report spoke: "All systems are green, begin operation oversoul on my mark."
"Three…"
"Two…"
"One…"
"Mark!"
Suddenly, all the lines running across the walls and into the devices on the floor stared glowing with ten times the intensity of the light nodes, and a moment later, the devices began glowing and humming as well.
A few minutes of electrified silence later, the dreamy voice from before spoke: "Suitable soul detected. It is sixty-three percent compatible with requirements. No magical ability detected. No other souls with high enough compatibility found. Permission to attach hooks and begin reconstruction."
Harry was clenching his fists. The first phase had been a success. The facility had been tested only once, and that had been to bring back Hermione just minutes after she had died. He spoke with voice that had no trace left of his previous tiredness: "Permission granted. Mad Eye, find a suitable entry point and a vessel!"
"Searching."
Lily: "I have lock on hooks. Tethering."
Another voice, belonging to another rescue soon followed: "Setting source for tunnel at hook. Ready to receive coordinates of destination."
The mechanical voice of Mad Eye: "Entry point with highest success probability found at February fourteenth 1978. Locking on. Vessel with minimum impact on the timeline detected. Transmitting data to tether and hook."
"Hooks are secured, ready for tethering.", came the grandfatherly voice of Dumbledore.
"Tether is connected. Ready to pull."
"Tunnel destination set. Energizing."
Suddenly, all the lights in the facility dimmed.
Harry shouted: "Status report!"
The voice of the same rescue that was in charge of the generators spoke: "We just lost G fifty-three. Backup should kick in any moment."
The lights returned to the previous brightness, a sure sign that the backup generator block had indeed kicked in.
"Harry, I have bad news!", a whiny shout by Ronald Weasley suddenly came from a door behind the platform.
"What is it?", Harry asked, fearing the worst. It was never good news when Ron started shouting like that.
The next thing that Ron yelled only confirmed his suspicions: "The Fidelius is down!"
Harry wasn't sure how Ron hadn't been captured yet, but he had still put the man to good use, keeping watch of the less important systems that didn't need any action from him.
Harry shouted towards a group of three, Bill Weasley and two other Wards Masters: "Find a way to get around the jammers! We're running on borrowed time as it is!"
"I lost lock on source side!", Dumbledore shouted, his voice trembling in fear of losing their last hope. "He's fighting back and fighting hard! Are we sure he doesn't have any magic?"
A voice shouted: "One unit of magic was detected passing into him when the tether was connected!"
Harry's face got a manic grin on it. They had found more than what they were looking for. "One unit?", Harry said. "Helga's short and curlies, he's a monster! Get him back even if it costs your life!"
Harry had known it was going to be a Hail Mary to give humanity a shot, but he didn't expect it to be this bad. They had lost 20 people to unbeing just trying to find a gap in time to prepare. Now everything they had fought to build was tearing at the seams. Had they overlooked something? There was no second chance for them, even time had become their enemy. There were no more gaps left to exploit, no matter how they modified the hour-reversal charm.
He decided that one more Hail Mary wouldn't hurt.
"Begin Archmage upload.", he ordered.
"But Harry, it's too soon! What if the tether fails?", the concern in the mechanical voice of Hermione sounding unnatural.
Harry's nails had dug so deep into the palms of his hand that there was blood dripping on the floor. "Just do it. We might not have time for it later."
"Upload started."
"We have incoming.", the cold voice of Mad Eye stated. "Radiation levels indicate at least two strikes. Calculating breach time. Breach probability at ninety-five percent in three minutes."
"Fucking Muggles. Nuking everything they don't understand!", Harry swore in justified anger. Trying to kill it with nukes was as good an idea as trying to kill a wizard with Vitamix potions. The only way they could kill it like that would be to cause it to explode from having too much magic contained within its body, but the entire world's population would be wiped out long before that.
The entire facility shook. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a single entity landing on the mountain above. If there was a mountain left after the landing. You never knew with an Outsider boosted by a few nukes.
"Hooks are slipping! Trying to re-establish. Connection re-established, but it's jittery."
Another quake passed through the facility.
"Tunnel fully energized, starting the pull."
There was a strange wave of energy rushing down from the ceiling.
"Tunnel destabilizing. Attempting to compensate. Creating secondary anchor at source."
"Archmage data corrupted. Replacing with Care Package."
"Commencing pull… Pull successful, implanting."
"Unable to disconnect tunnel. Secondary anchor failed to detach."
"Breach time recalculated. Predicted breach within twenty… nineteen…"
They had succeeded. Harry would've been jumping with joy if it wasn't for their imminent demise. There was no time for a feast to celebrate. Instead, it was time for a farewell. With a heart as heavy as if it was filled with lead, Harry straightened his back and cast Sonorous on his voice once more before speaking: "Everyone, it's been an honor serving with you all. May god have mercy on our souls for the one that's coming has none to give."
One of the people on the floor spoke up: "Sir, permission to go on night patrol?"
Night patrol was a code that had come to use after the most sinister of spells had been developed by Luna of all people. Nobody had seen it coming, yet they had been thankful for having a way to hurt the enemy, even if it cost their own life in the process. The problem was, they weren't able to take down more than three enemies before they adapted and learned to detect the spell and avoided those that had cast it, letting them suffer the consequences in vain.
Harry, with teardrops forming in the corner of his eyes, then getting forced back into his tear ducts by the sheer power of his will over magic alone, said: "Permission granted. To all of you."
Finally, it was time for Harry to be angry again. It was their last stand, their final battle. They were going to give the one coming the nastiest surprise they were capable of.
All the people on the floor pulled out their wands and cast a spell on themselves: "Animam Miam Fio Venenum!"
Harry knew their bodies would soon start rotting from the inside, unable to resist the poison that had been their soul.
Suddenly, the ceiling broke inwards and a 20 feet tall being fell in a rain of soil and rocks. The stone was disintegrated before it struck anything, the being was unaffected.
As soon as the being landed, it cast shadowy tendrils towards the people on the floor. It had become simply too careless in its amped up state.
Black spots soon appeared on the being's otherwise blue skin. It fell on its knees and hands, greatly weakened. Magic started rolling off of it in erratic waves, as if it was screaming in agony.
"Multiple portal signatures detected. Deploying countermeasures. Timeline disintegration detected. Estimated time until complete disintegration: twenty years. Congratulations. Commencing matrix purge."
As the artificial intelligence said that, a matrix made of the same blue material, complex and intricate, consisting of thousands of runes and tens of thousands of nodes started glowing brighter and brighter, turning from blue to white and then melting down into a puddle, destroying any data stored in it in the process.
Harry took the resurrection stone from his pocket and threw it at Luna, the only one that hadn't cast the spell on herself.
Then he pointed his wand at her. Harry wasn't going to let Luna be captured. She had a warm place in his heart with her innocence, that could turn to extreme cruelty towards their enemies. He spoke: "Have a safe trip."
Harry spoke something that couldn't be understood. It certainly wasn't Parseltongue. It was a language that could only be understood by one entity in the entire multiverse, and that entity was observing. The words were a contract. A soul for a soul. A long-lasting bolt was shot out of his wand and hit Luna. "Goodbye, Harry Potter.", she said. Then the stone touched her and she disappeared.
Harry had one last thing left to do to secure the chance they had created with their lives.
All the information about the project had been stored in his head only, for safe keeping. The rest had been connected to him through a Pensieve headband for as long as they had worked on the project, none of them retaining the memories once disconnected.
Now he had to make sure none of those memories could be taken from him. There was also the matter of fulfilling his part of the contract. The only way he know that could be accomplished was complete disintegration of his soul.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Yet, before the spell could strike Harry, time froze and a pitch-black hole appeared mid-air. A growling voice said from within: "You fucking bastard, I finally found you!"
Time continued and the killing curse Harry had cast struck a silvery, semi-transparent body that disintegrated completely once it was hit. Harry was nowhere to be seen.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
DemiLich
DemiLich There have been some minor adjustments to accommodate the prologue, however, there are enough info dumps to decompress into quite a few more chapters of prologue. That also means I'll be circling back to this chapter once I'm done with the prologue. However, as much as I'll keep clearing the info dumps, the main story will remain the same.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone