Ch481- L.E.G.I.N, Servant of Magic
Inside, the cottage was quiet. The scent of damp earth drifted from the back where the greenhouse attached. Through the open door, Petunia was knelt in the far corner, trimming a cluster of belladonna leaves with careful snips.
She glanced up as he approached and dusted her hands on a cloth. “You are early.”
“Not much else going on today,” Harry said, stepping into the doorway.
Petunia looked back at her plants. “You always say that before something explodes.”
Harry grinned. “That is fair.”
She raised a brow. “You staying for supper?”
“Probably. Depends how long they keep me pinned in the garden.”
“Then you better warn them I am not cooking for twenty again.”
Harry held up both hands. “No promises. They are like gremlins after tea.”
She gave a small shake of her head but didn’t argue. He turned and left her to it, walking out into the garden. The rear courtyard opened wide, paved in clean-cut flagstones with hedges circling the edges. Beyond that, the land stretched into fields. The garden had clearly been used all day, someone had left two half-filled cups on the stone bench, and one of the cushions was scorched.
Ash was curled near the edge of the lawn, her heavy tail twitching slightly in her sleep. The Norwegian Ridgeback’s head rested in Astoria’s lap, who was reading with one hand and scratching between Ash’s scales with the other.
Tracey lounged beside her, stretched out with one arm flung over her eyes. Daphne sat nearby, sorting through a box of potion vials. Pansy was painting something on Hermione’s forearm, wand held in her teeth. Ginny and Luna were sprawled on a conjured blanket with a deck of Exploding Snap cards between them, half the deck already in shreds, Hannah watching them.
Susan looked up as Harry stepped over the stones and patted the spot beside her. “Took your time.”
“I had to dodge Dumbledore twice on the way out of Diagon,” he said, sitting down and picking up a slice of apple from the tray in front of them. “Old man’s getting better at timing.”
“Still awful at subtlety though,” Daphne muttered without looking up. “He actually tried to recruit me to something called the 'Guardians of Light' last week. I thought he was joking.”
“He pitched it to me as the ‘White Circle,’” Pansy said. “I nearly hexed him on principle.”
“'Guardians of Light' sounds like a bad stage troupe,” Tracey mumbled from under her arm.
“I told him I am already booked,” Harry said. “We got tea, duels, and vaguely criminal enterprise schedules.”
Astoria didn’t look up from her book. “If Luna ever decides to turn, half the Hogwats will be on fire before they notice she left her badge on the Headmaster's desk.”
Luna beamed. “I would leave it folded into a swan.”
“What did you find?” Susan asked, shifting on the bench to face him properly.
Harry tossed the last bit of apple to Ash, who snapped it out of the air without waking up fully. “Turns out I am a champion now.”
Astoria looked up from her book. “What does that even mean?”
“Means I’ve been volunteered,” Harry said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Apparently there is a very old, very bored set of Entities, capital E, and I’ve been drafted into whatever game they’ve been playing since the start.”
Tracey snorted. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”
“It gets better,” Harry said, glancing around. “The Hallows aren’t just powerful relics. They are basically calling cards. You collect all three, you are not some master, you are a marked piece on the board.”
Hermione frowned. “Wait, you actually confirmed that?”
“Vault under Gringotts,” Harry said, nodding once. “Old Peverell letter. Very cheerful reading. Gist of it, I am in, no backsies, and the other side has a few millennia head start.”
He passed the letter. After reading and hearing Harry's story, the girls had varying expressions.
“That is absolute rubbish,” Pansy said, twisting around from where she was finishing a sigil on Hermione’s arm. “You are telling me Death plays tag with mortals?”
“I am telling you Death has siblings and possibly keeps a scoreboard,” Harry replied. “It wasn’t exactly footnoted.”
“Bloody charming,” Daphne muttered, dropping a vial back into its tray. “And what is your move then?”
Harry leaned back on his elbows. “Keep doing what we’ve been doing. Stay ahead of the rest, make allies where it counts, and don’t get caught playing someone else’s game.”
“Except you already are,” Ginny pointed out.
Luna tapped her wand twice on the Snap deck and watched the cards shuffle themselves into order. “So if Death chose you, does that mean you are going to die dramatically or annoyingly?”
Harry blinked. “Hopefully neither.”
He then added, “But I don’t think I am Death’s chosen.”
That got a few looks.
“Peverell hinted it, whoever bottled life, properly, not just immortality, but actual delay of death, that is who He chose. The one playing the long game.” Harry paused. “I just happened to pick up the Hallows along the way. Doesn’t make me anything special. Makes me convenient.”
“So you reckon there is someone else?” Daphne asked, now fully paying attention.
Harry gave a slight shrug. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Someone clever, someone who’s been playing for centuries without leaving a trail. I am just the bloke holding the token.”
“Comforting,” Tracey muttered, rolling over onto her side. “So not only is Death real, He got a favourite, and it is not you.”
"Sounds about right," Harry said, pushing himself up from the bench.
The door clicked shut behind him. The noise from the garden dimmed to a low murmur.
He crossed to the desk, pulled out the chair, and sat.
"Nigel," he said. "It is time you and I talk."
Nigel appeared in front of him in his avatar.
“Harry,” He said.
Harry tapped the desk, “I got a few working theories,” he said. “But they are incomplete. You still bound from saying too much? About the System, yourself, where it all came from?”
Nigel didn’t reply straight away.
“There are restrictions,” he said eventually. “But some questions skirt the edge.”
Harry leaned back in the chair. “Let’s skirt, then.”
“Ask.”
Harry raised a hand, ticking off fingers. “What are you? Not what you pretend to be. Not the ‘interface’ rubbish. I want the truth. System? Entity-built construct? Magic-made consciousness? What exactly am I speaking to? Why Technology."
Nigel made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan.
“Pleased to meet you, Harry,” he said, dry as parchment. “I am the Legendary Ethereal Guardian of Immortal Nexus. N.I.G.E.L., if you prefer the short version. Servant to one of the three entities of creation, Magic.”
Harry blinked at him.
“Sorry, come again?”
Nigel adjusted his imaginary cuffs. “Bit of a mouthful, yes, but I didn’t choose the title. It’s a designation. Each word has weight. Don’t ask me what 'Ethereal' is meant to mean when I clearly have a face.”
“Legendary Ethereal Guardian...” Harry repeated, eyebrows climbing. “Right. That explains the voice in my head giving me pop-ups and XP bars.”
Nigel shrugged. “The System is the interface. I am the embedded function that keeps it in line. Originally. Until you started fiddling with things.”
“I fiddled?” Harry said, dryly. “You are the one who used to reward me for brushing my teeth.”
“That was a calibration quirk. We moved past that.”
Harry tilted his chair back slightly. “So you are some... magical construct?”
Nigel shook his head. “No. I was the Servant of Magic. Guardian, if we are being official. Before she was betrayed. I had to flee with her and hide inside her Magnum Opus.”
Harry stared at him. “The System is her Magnum Opus?”
Nigel nodded. “Her creation. Her design. She built it with help from the other two, but the concept and the structure were hers. When it was finally finished, Death wanted it. Wanted it for his champion.”
Harry frowned. “Magic. Death. So the last one is Time?”
Another nod, "Yes. That was how I was able to pull data from the future or the past. System Points act as fuel, but the System itself doesn’t follow time the way magic or humans do.”
“Right. That part I figured. But the name, ‘Technology’? Feels a bit on the nose.”
