Ch491- Break!
In an unknown place where the walls of reality seemed thinner, Nicolas knelt on the stone floor. His palms pressed flat, his forehead bowed to the ground. Above him, on a throne that flickered between shadow and form, sat a presence no mortal tongue could name. Nicolas's eyes could not truly see it, but his soul knew who watched him.
“It is the final phase,” the being spoke, voice cutting through the silence. “Are you ready to ascend?”
“Yes, my lord,” Nicholas answered, voice low, steady.
“Then you know what lies ahead.”
Nicolas kept his head bowed. “The last war. The breaking of the wheel. The clash of champions.”
The throne stirred, faint outlines of movement sliding like smoke. “Not just champions, Nicolas. Fates. This is the board’s endgame. Every piece placed, every line drawn. You have sought this seat for longer than most can count. You crawled from one mask to the next, from boy to legend, from legend to recluse, all for this. But I will ask again. Are you ready?”
Nicolas pressed his forehead harder to the floor. “I am. I have played across centuries. I have waited while empires crumbled, while names turned to dust. I have cut myself deep enough into the stone that history could not wash me away. My legend holds. Merlin, Nicholas, a thousand names. All to reach this moment.”
The being leaned forward slightly. “And yet, one boy unsettles you.”
Nicolas’s jaw tightened. “Harry Potter.”
“Yes,” the being said. “Magic’s chosen. The wild card. You, Death’s champion, have always believed yourself inevitable. But Magic is chaos.”
Nicolas exhaled slowly. “The boy is clever. He learns fast. He has gathered allies stronger than armies. But he is still young. He does not yet grasp what he is.”
“Perhaps,” the being said. “But youth carries weight too. Where you walk with patience, he runs. Where you see centuries, he sees tomorrow. And sometimes, tomorrow cuts sharper than eternity.”
Nicolas finally raised his head, his eyes blazing in the dim light. “Then I will break tomorrow itself. I will teach the boy that centuries outweigh chance.”
The being’s voice rolled across the chamber like thunder. “See that you do. For if you falter, if the boy bends the wheel before you reach your seat, then all your legends, all your masks, all your centuries will mean nothing. You will be dust. Dust remembered only as a warning.”
Nicolas bared his teeth in a faint grin. “Then let him come. Let him stand with his friends, his tricks, his borrowed strength. Let him believe himself ready. I will end him, and when I stand at the edge of ascension, no one will question who Death favoured.”
The throne leaned back, the presence settling. “The board is set. Time moves her piece. Magic has hers. You are mine. This war will end the old balance, one way or another. Go. The wheel waits.”
Nicolas bowed low again. “Yes, my lord.”
The presence faded, leaving silence. Nicolas rose, brushing dust from his robes. His eyes narrowed, mind racing through centuries of plots, of names he had worn, of powers he had gathered. He thought of Arthur, of Salazar, of every king and lord who had looked at him and believed. He thought of Merlin, dead but never dead, echo carved into Britain’s stone.
And then he thought of Harry Potter, sharp-eyed, laughing with his friends, walking the path as though the world had been built to test him.
Then the boy appeared in his table. Shared magic with him. Laughter. Secrets. Trust.
Sighing, he stepped forward, and the chamber vanished into shadow.
---
In a space that didn’t obey shape or scale, Sybill Trelawney was on her knees, pressed flat to the shifting ground. Around her, there was no floor, no sky, only streams of colour and light that bent and folded, running one into another like water pouring in every direction at once. Time didn’t move here. It stretched, looped, snapped, and rejoined, endless threads of seconds and centuries all layered atop one another.
Before her stood the being she served. At one glance it was a woman cloaked in silver veils, her hair spilling backward into infinity. At the next, it was a tower of shifting lines, like a thousand hourglasses turned over and over in unison, sand falling upward as often as down. The voice that spoke was not bound by one sound. It overlapped, male and female, old and young, a dozen tones blending into one word.
“You have guided the weave long enough, Sybill. The final war comes.”
Her shawls pooled around her on the strange stone. She bowed lower, nose brushing the surface. “Yes, my lord. I have watched the threads, and I have pulled where needed. The boy has risen. The pieces are in place.”
“You meddled with the prophecy.”
The words rang like chimes that didn’t end.
Sybill shivered, but her voice stayed steady. “I placed it where it needed to be. In Albus’s hands. He saw it, spread it, let it spark the war. Without it, the chosen would not have been marked. Destiny requires a stage, my lord, and I built it.”
The threads that made up the figure rippled, as if in amusement. “And you hid the other?”
“Yes.” She pressed her palms harder to the ground. “Neville Longbottom. His path was strong, almost as strong as Potter’s. But I confounded him. Tilted his steps, muddled his choices, kept him in the shadows. I could not allow two possibilities. Only one could carry the mark of fate.”
“And so you let the world believe it was chance.”
“Yes, my lord. None questioned it. A slip of words in a smoky room, a prophecy whispered at the right ear. Albus thought it his victory. Tom thought it his doom. All of them blind.”
The form of Time shifted again, the veil falling away, replaced by endless clocks swinging like pendulums. “And the boy?”
“Harry Potter has become what you wished,” Sybill said quickly. “Sharp, resourceful, surrounded by allies he trusts. He has the Hallows, the mark, the weight of legend without even asking for it. He is chaos bound in human flesh. Magic’s chosen. He will clash with Death’s, as you foresaw.”
“Lesser gods are furious. You stole Fate’s chance. By marking the boy, you pulled the thread out of his hands. Fate had chosen two, merged them into one body, set their path for ascension. And you marked Potter instead.”
Sybill let out a high laugh that echoed oddly in the warped air. “Poor Albus. He truly thinks he’s clever. Wants to kill Potter and Riddle in one neat sweep, sacrifice himself, and rise from the ashes as Fate’s chosen. All that plotting, and he never saw me tugging the strings.”
The being rippled. “Fate does not forgive theft.”
“Fate doesn’t have the spine to stop me,” Sybill replied, her smile hidden behind the fall of her shawls. “He dangles promises and pulls the desperate into his net. I snipped the thread. Potter is mine.”
“Yours?” the voice asked, every syllable overlapping itself. “Or mine?”
Sybill pressed her palms harder to the shifting floor. “Yours, of course. I am but the hand that moves where you point.”
The air pulsed once, as if satisfied, then stilled. Time moved against her?
---
Harry stood tall on the crest of the hill, the wind tugging faintly at his coat. From up here he could see the field stretch wide and empty, three hills rising in a rough triangle with smaller rises between them. His friends and allies waited just behind the slope, hidden for now.
Across the way, Voldemort stood on one of the smaller hills, robes snapping around him. His red eyes flicked not at Harry but to the other rise where Dumbledore waited, stiff and watchful. Whatever had dragged Voldemort here hadn’t been choice.
Harry grinned.
