章節 375: Chapter 375: A Broken Heart
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20 April 1995, Mount Olympus, Greece
Without any prompting, Harry just decided to lie down on the snow, which slowly started to soothe his burning magic circuits. He's been burning himself spare doing some frankly insane shit ever since the day began. From fighting demigods to destroying fucking Olympus, he deserved his rest.
The snow melted around him, from the sheer heat of his magic circuits, wetting his clothes, not that he cared too much about it. With the intensity of the fight finally being gone, he started to feel his body ache. Thankfully, Daphne was doing her best to heal him, slowly mending his broken ribs and the dozens of gashes all over his body.
A few minutes later, he felt well enough to stand up and have a proper conversation. Harry started with, "Is anyone else hurt?"
They all shook their heads in denial and Harry breathed a bit easier at the thought, before finding himself at a loss on what to say next.
Thankfully, Perseus was the one who spoke up, "Aren't you worried? You went through a lot of hoops to make sure that no one knows you're still alive. The observation charms should be back now that we left the Labyrinth."
Harry shook his head, "I dispelled those charms while we were still in the Labyrinth. And there's really no need to hide, not anymore. What I did here left a mark, one that a few skilled people will be able to figure out easily, which also happens to be the people I wanted to fool in the first place. I made too much noise for hiding to be an easy way out. I'll probably still use the disguise when we get back to the Academy, if only for Carmichael's sake. There's really no reason to screw him over so much."
Harry knew for a fact that the kind of magic he used, especially when he destroyed the connection between Olympus and the Labyrinth, that anyone with a shred of divination would be able to sense. He hadn't really been exactly subtle. Grindelwald was definitely going to recognize it, due to how similar it was to the Colt, which Harry used on him a year prior.
Now that he was a bit more experienced, Harry had a few ideas on how Grindelwald dealt with the Colt. Somehow, the Dark Lord used some sort of conceptual destruction to shield himself against the bullets, which was terrifying since it had to be something that destroyed souls, something that Harry didn't think was even possible. There was also his use of divination to predict Harry's next move, but the fact remained that he tanked a hit from the damn thing.
If he had to guess, it would be that powerful Champions of the Light and Dark could theoretically bind their souls to their patrons. The Colt's bullet hit every single possible dimension, and it did kill him, but Grindelwald's soul was quickly anchored back to the material world, possessing his own body, until the connection rematerialized it.
It would theoretically take something of similar strength to permanently destroy that connection, something like a Champion of the Light. Now, that had to be very troublesome to deal with. Harry had some ideas, but they really were out there.
Nevertheless, Grindelwald was most likely already informed of his survival, which meant that Dumbledore likely knew as well, and that meant that it was pretty useless to keep up the charade.
Still, having rested a bit, Harry finally decided to get up, "We still need to get out of here. This entire place is unstable, and it's bound to be destroyed anyway. The mountain is technically still one of the Labyrinth's realms. Until we leave the threshold, we won't be safe from the consequences of the breaches."
Harry wasn't exactly sure about that. It was likely that Grindelwald and Dumbledore would have made sure to prevent any breaches from reaching this realm, but there had to be some kind of consequences to the Labyrinth's destruction since 'Mount Olympus' was technically one of its realms, one that was seamlessly connected to the material plane.
As if it had been waiting for his proclamation, the ground started to shake, and an avalanche of snow came down barrelling towards them. Harry was about to handle it, but thankfully Perseus did it himself. He melted the snow into water and turned it into a floating water platform, stopping it from being washed away.
The endless mountain was slowly crumbling piece by piece, while they watched in awe, as the impossible place fell away. However, Harry looked at Daphne and saw that she didn't care about the mountain in any way. Instead, she was staring at the golden apple that they had procured before.
The apple's light pulsing, no, it was better to say that it was flickering. Daphne's breath hitched as the apple's radiant glow began to wane, each flicker dimming her hope further. Her usually steady hands hovered uncertainly above it, trembling with a mix of fear and desperation. "No, please," she murmured, her voice cracking under the weight of her anguish. Tears welled in her eyes, reflecting the fading light as the apple struggled to maintain its brilliance.
Harry reached out, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away, unable to mask the pain etched across her face. "I needed this," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the sounds of the collapsing mountain.
"The apple is connected to Olympus, and it's falling. The Olympians are failing at containing the breaches, and that means that the apple has nothing really powering it."
Harry didn't mention how he thought that the apple was how they bound people to their realm, using them to fend off the Light's influence. Each bite would be a connection between a soul and Olympus, and eating a full apple would make a person one of them, their entire soul bound to this plane as theirs were. Maybe it was how Zeus offered them immortality, while also securing his hold on them. Whoever ruled Olympus would control every soul bound to the realm, after all.
Still, this information would have done nothing to help Daphne, and instead, he chose to remain silent, watching as the last flicker died out, leaving the golden apple dark and lifeless in her palm. Daphne sank to her knees, clutching the now powerless artefact, her anguish a stark contrast to the awe-inspiring destruction around them.
This time, she let Harry finally get closer to her and he murmured, "This is just another setback. I spent enough time to get an idea of how the apple worked. It'll take some time, but I think I'll be able to replicate the feat."
For some reason, that made her sob even harder, "I don't have time, Harry."
"What do you mean? Astoria still has a few years left before the curse starts to seriously affect her. And she's been doing better, you said so yourself. We still have more than enough time to research the apple properly and try to find a proper cure."
"The Golden Apple wasn't for Astoria. It was for me," she simply uttered, and just like that everything became clearer and something in Harry just broke.
The world became greyer, as he finally understood the implications of what she was saying, "You didn't!"
"I'm sorry. You were gone and I was alone. I thought you died. No one could find you, not even Lily. I had nothing left, nothing but my sister. I found a ritual, a druidic one from a long time ago, meant to temporarily share life force between two trees, to heal them. I modified it using blood magic and made the exchange permanent. I put my sister to sleep one night performed the ritual and took her curse for myself. While you were gone, watching her run around the house, full of so much energy was the highlight of my day."
"And then I came back," Harry uttered.
"And then you came back, and just swept me away."
"You could have said something. We didn't have to come to Greece. We could have tried to find a way to cure you."
Her laugh was bitter at that, "We couldn't find anything to help my sister for years, what would you have been able to do in just a handful of months? No, this was like the old days, us being over our heads, you pulling some kind of bullshit manoeuvre out of your ass and somehow pulling off something ridiculous. I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I just never expected to hope that I would live and to have that hope to just disappear."
"A handful of months," Harry asked, "That's what you have left?"
"Astoria spent years adapting to the curse, her magic slowing it down, even if it would have lost. I don't have that privilege."
Harry could feel it with his Arcane Hearing, now that he looked at her far deeply. It was some kind of rot, some kind of leach that was eating at Daphne's very life force, her very magic. He loved this girl. He loved everything about her. The way she smiled, her cheeky sense of humour, the way she obsessed over things… He loved her and she was dying.
Finally, the Golden Apple became completely black, devoid of all magic, and at that time, the mountain's trembling became even stronger. Olympus had officially fallen, the prophecy was broken, and the world held its breath.
It was a very old prophecy, one that was at least a thousand years old, and that magical release was going to be insane. They were still in the middle of it, in Mount Olympus, and he knew it was coming. But he didn't care.
He didn't care about Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's plans. He didn't care about the consequences of the broken prophecy. Instead, he looked at the wonderful girl next to him, trying to memorise her face. Harry had never seen her look so defeated, without even a shred of hope in her eyes, and he couldn't take it.
He refused.
He would not let her die.
A mad idea came into his mind, something that was so insane, especially with such little preparation to pull it off, but he didn't care. The entire world slowed down as Harry decided to pull off something impossible.
Ignoring his strained magic circuits, he created a gigantic magic circle, surrounding the circumference of the entire mountain. Its role wasn't exactly complex, it simply routed any form of violent magical release to a certain point, specifically where Harry was. It was very difficult to keep up if only because of the sheer scale of it, the control needed to keep it together was very draining, but as he looked at Daphne, he could stop. He just couldn't do it.
As the magical release came, the circle glowed and destabilized slightly, but Harry held it. Instead of absorbing the magic, he simply routed it towards his wand, specifically the Elder Wand he had picked up from the other universe.
He had done something similar to make a rip between worlds, but this prophecy was far more significant than one that was barely a few decades old. The Elder Wand thrummed in his grip, resonating with the magic being funnelled into it.
The ground beneath them trembled violently, cracks spider-webbing across the surface as the mountain's core destabilized further. The prophecy's culmination was imminent, and the magical release intensified, threatening to tear the very fabric of reality apart. Harry could feel the Elder Wand nearing its limit, and finally re-routing the energy, satisfied with what he had already achieved.
He then quickly followed by pointing the Elder Wand at Daphne. He didn't exactly know how he wanted to achieve it. What did the Olympians say again? They wanted him to sing them a new realm, and he looked back at the teary blonde, and he started to do as they said. He started to sing.
It was instinct more than anything. He was singing along the magic itself. What came out of his mouth couldn't exactly be described in words. The air shimmered with his voice, harmonizing with the chaotic energies swirling through the mountain.
As he sang, the Elder Wand responded, its light intertwining with the sound waves, amplifying his song into a force that reached deep into Daphne's being, and finding the rot in there.
It was obvious now, like an annoying ringing in the back of his mind. It was far clearer than it ever was before. Everything was, really. Had he done the same with Olympus? No, it wasn't the time to think about any of this.
Instead, he wished for the rot to disappear, as if he hated it with a passion and in a way it did. A gigantic beam of white light appeared from the Elder Wand, slowly starting to overwhelm the curse, to burn it. It took almost all of the energy stored in the wand, but finally, it was over. The curse was gone, and he cut off his magic.
Suddenly, Daphne fell down, as if her strings were cut, and Harry ran towards her and sighed in relief as he felt her still breathing. She gasped and opened her eyes suddenly, before murmuring, "I can't feel it anymore. It's gone."
Harry gave her a faint smile and nodded. She just ran at him and pulled him into a kiss.
Their lips barely met when they heard a familiar voice, "Well, isn't that sweet?"
Harry shivered as he turned towards a sight that still gave him nightmares, "Gellert Grindelwald."
"Harry Potter," the younger wizard gulped as he heard the hidden anger in the Dark Lord's tone, "It seems that you've made a nuisance of yourself."
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AN: I liked writing this chapter, it sort of flowed pretty naturally, at least on my end. I wasn't sure about dealing with the curse right now, but I couldn't really find another way to do it that would have been as satisfying, at least not to me. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
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-- 推薦票
榜單 
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