บท 3: Puny Goblet
31 October 2004, Hogwarts Grand Hall
Hogwarts students mingled with dignitaries from Dumstrung and Beauxbatons, trying to contain the excitement and nervous energy about the impeding selection for the Triwizard tournament. Dumbledore watched all this but his mind was somewhere else, thinking of a puzzle that was baffling him for months; the disappearance of Harry Potter.
After months he had mobilized every resource at his disposal, looking for the boy-who-lived, even going as far as demanding Muggles for help but everything was in vain. He was not even sure Harry Potter was even alive, all blood tracing rituals came up empty but he can not be sure. He had only one last way left to confirm whether he was alive or not.
Just then Barty Crouch Sr elbowed him, pointing it was time to began the selection. With a grandfatherly smile, he rose up from his throne and addressed the Great Hall.
The selection began and Goblet selected the three champions without any problem. As the hall quietened down, the goblet lit up once more and spat one more name slip. Dumbledore caught the slip in his hand and read the name on it with a frown.
"Hary Potter" and the entire hall burst into pandemonium. Student's cries and yells filled the great Hall and adults were no better, arguing with each other. Dumbledore observed the drama unfold, instead opting to focus on the slip in his hand.
'So Harry is still alive huh. Good, now with his magic gone, killing him will be easier. He was getting too powerful, too out of control', Headmaster mused to himself, glancing towards the forbidden forest that has been filled with white fog since that night.
Just then the entire Hall quietened down, looking towards the flaming goblet as it spat out new slip. Dumbledore could barely keep himself from smiling as a new name slip floated down into his hand.
"Neville Longbottom"
'Good thing I always have a backup plan, and a new chosen one.'
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"Kyle, um...can you do me a favor." Harry looked at Kyle, who raised his head to look at him with a smile. In the few months they had spent together, Kyle had always treated him with kindness and respect, it was because of that Harry was able to gather enough courage for this simple request.
"Could you cover for me this night?"
Kyle just smiled and replied, "Ok, just go do your thing."
Harry nodded with a smile and took Hedwig from the front table. Reaching the back alley, he appeared next to a small camping tent in the middle of desolate Scottish grasslands. Laying down Hedwig, he conjured a small bonfire and a burning campfire materialized in front of him, uncaring how many laws of Magic he was breaking.
He sat on a small rock, with only the company of Hedwig staring into the bonfire. Halloween, his parents death anniversary, even if more than a decade passed, he still felt their loss on this day clearer than ever.
Just them he felt something striking his magic, trying to hook it. Frowning, he focused inwards, immersing himself into his magic.
There he felt it, a tiny (comparatively) tendril of magic trying to latch onto his magic, attempting to bind it. Harry's first instinct was to immediately destroy it. Gathering his magic, he was about to destroy it before he stopped himself.
Rashly agting against an unknown entity could be dangerous, it is prudent to first examine the situation. Under the puzzled glance of Hedwig, he crossed his legs and completely pulled his focus inwards.
When he got the complete picture, he barely stopped himself from laughing. The tendril of foreign magic was trying to hook into his magic, again and again attacking his core and magic but it was so puny and week, its efforts bore no fruit. Harry was wondering why he even felt such a small irritation, his magic was autonomous enough to take care of small things on its own.
The closest parallel he could paint was if an ant tries to bite a dragon, it was just so small, so inconsequential that dragon would not feel it even if ant by some miracle was able to bite through the thick scales of a dragon.
With a lazy shrug, Harry forced the tendril to dislodge. But the foreign magic did not give up, again attacking him with all the zealous enthusiasm of a possessed madman.
Every time the tendril came near his magic, Harry would slap it off. It was fun for some time but Harry got more and more annoyed as whoever was attempting to bind him did not relent. Idly he also noticed tendril of magic will only try to bind a specific part of the magic. Cataloging this piece of information for the future, he finally decided enough was enough.
Waking up from his meditation, he pushed magic into his eyes and allowed it to fill, activating what he likes to call Mage sight, a subset of one of the abilities he got that night, Cosmic Awareness.
Cosmic Awareness shows its users things that are meant to be unseen, to understand, to simultaneously observe anything and everything at the cosmic and quantum scale. It is without a doubt, one of the most powerful abilities in his arsenal.
The first time he activated Cosmic Awareness, he did so accidentally. He was vexed about a particularly difficult Transfiguration problem when it activated, and he observed the entire universe and all its magic simultaneously. It was so surreal and disorienting that his mind was not able to comprehend what he was seeing. But beyond he saw thing, terrible and frightening truths that should not be seen.
The moment he saw the universe, he also saw every cosmic being in there. The elder lich elder gods, the terrifying Hell lords, the cosmic entities hard at work maintaining the balance of the universes, the living tribunal judging a felon celestial, death entertaining herself at antics of Thanos, even Geia calmly watching her chosen water her plants, Galactus trying to find his next planet to sate his appetite, Galacta desperately trying to find ways to sate her hunger, Pheonix waiting for her host to be ready to yield her, Pheonix looking at him.
Suddenly he was in eyes of the phoenix force and it morphed into a woman of pure fire and hair redder than blood.
Firehair, his cosmic awareness has immediately supplied, the first Earthian Host of Pheonix force. She smiled at him and he heard her voice straight in his mind.
[If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.]
Just then he felt the attention of many cosmic entities start to shift.
His shock immediately cut off the ability, ending his experience. In reality, barely a fraction of a second had passed but to him, it felt like decades had passed. THe sheer amount of information that he observed was monumental, even if his brain and magic could hold onto every small fraction of it.
When he came to it, he suddenly understood magic much deeper than before, and suddenly all his problems with magic vanished. His magic now had no limits, the laws that wizards had were mere guidelines to him, to read and ignore. His skills in magic, especially transfiguration grew beyond the level any wizard ever achieved, whether living or dead.
But he never used it again, instead using the newly gained enlightenment to nerf it down to just being able to see all hidden and unseen in front of his vision, making it Mage sight. He understood what Firehair meant by her words, when is cosmic awareness sees others cosmic beings, other beings cosmic awareness also sees him.
Harry shook his head, ending his reminiscence, activated his Magesight. His vision changed and now he could see everything, in every spectrum of radiation and every form of magic. He dialed down the magic behind his eyes, returning his vision back to normal but retaining the ability to see magic.
Harry then focused his vision on the annoying tendril of magic and traced it outwards.
"Huh, it leaves towards Hogwarts. Hedwig who do you think should be trying to harm me?"
Hedwig looked at him, her eyes saying, 'What are you yammering about?'
Harry bowed his head in embarrassment, remembering Hedwig cannot see the parasitic tendril of magic. He then explained it to Hedwig, who did not take it well that some were trying to bind the magic of her Harry.
Shaking his head at furious fussing Hedwig, he decided to end the annoyance once and for all. Extending his hand, he clamped on the tendril and give a Harsh tug, and threw it away like trash.
At Hogwarts, in the Great Hall, the goblet immediately extinguished, its magic gone and enchantment in ruins, never to be lit again.
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