Ch482- Death’s Champion
"Why Technology System?"
Nigel gave a low chuckle. “Because it is. Magic created it, like she did with most things. But when humanity first came into the picture, it didn’t all go one way. Half leaned toward spellwork, runes, intuition. The other half built tools. Machinery. Systems.”
“So what, two paths, same origin?”
Nigel chuckled. “Technology, much like the magic you wield, was one of her gifts. When humans first showed up, half leaned into spells and rituals. The other half started building things. Machines. Tools. Eventually, they called it ‘technology.’ Same roots, different direction.”
Harry tapped his fingers against the side of the desk. “So both branches are just flavours of the same power.”
“In a sense, yes. They’re both expressions of creation. Magic shaped the world directly. Technology learned how to shape the world through rules.”
“That is poetic,” Harry said, tone dry. “You write greeting cards on the side?”
Nigel sniffed. “I would, but the market for interdimensional commentary is thin.”
Harry frowned, elbows resting on the edge of the desk. “Why me, then? Why am I even in this thing? No sign-ups, no ‘do you fancy dying for cosmic chess’ invitation. I just woke up with a pop-up menu and a sarcastic voice.”
Nigel shook his head. “Harry, this isn’t something forced on you. Do you remember the night I appeared? Vernon had slammed your head too hard. You were bleeding out.”
Harry didn’t reply, just watched him.
“You died that day,” Nigel continued, voice even. “But the Prophecy bound you to a different path. You were offered a chance. You said yes. You just don’t remember it.”
“Harry?”
A soft echo. Female.
Gentle.
He blinked.
The void thinned, then peeled away like mist. Not completely gone, but less pressing.
He was smaller now, ten, maybe. He knew it the way you know you’re dreaming, without needing to check.
He stood in an endless stretch of white. The ground beneath him wasn’t cold, but he could feel it under his feet. Like standing on very old stone.
A woman stood a few feet away. She looked human enough, dark robes, long sleeves, hair bound back in a braid that shimmered gold one moment and silver the next. Her face was hard to place. Not blurry, just not discernible.
“Harry Potter,” she said again. “You have a choice.”
He frowned. “I am dead.”
She smiled faintly. “Not quite. But close.”
He glanced down. No cuts. No blood. No pain.
Still, he felt... thin. Like one more step would unravel him completely.
“Who are you?”
The woman stepped forward, kneeling so she was eye-level with him. Her robes didn’t rustle, didn’t touch the ground. “A friend.”
“That is not an answer.”
She tilted her head, not offended. “No, it is not. But I am not here to give those.”
Harry didn’t look away. “Why me?”
“Because you were seen,” she said. “You were marked.”
“By who?”
“By me.”
“I don’t even know what I am agreeing to.”
The woman extended her hand.
“You are agreeing to live.” The woman smiled. “You’ve been overlooked your whole life. But you see the cracks. You know when something is wrong. You already learned how to hide, how to think before you speak.”
Harry looked at her hand one more time.
Then, without another word, he reached out and placed his small palm in hers.
Back in the present, he sat still, one hand resting against the edge of the desk.
“So I died,” he said flatly.
“Yes,” Nigel said. “But Magic intervened. That was the deal.”
Harry stood, pushing the chair back with his foot. “Do you know who Death’s champion is?”
Nigel vanished. His voice lingered in the air. “I couldn’t tell you, even for a crumpet.”
Harry froze mid-step. For a second, it felt like someone had just smacked him between the eyes.
“How can I be so bloody stupid,” he muttered, dropping back into the chair. His eyes stayed wide, staring past the desk as his mind ran ahead without him.
“It was obvious, wasn’t it?” He let out a short laugh, more disbelief than humour. “You’ve been trying to tell me the whole time, because you couldn’t just say it outright. Dropping hints like an old man feeding breadcrumbs to ducks.”
He sat forward, hands braced on his knees. “First day I meet Nicholas Flamel, you make that crack, ‘What is next, tea with Merlin?’ Then again at breakfast, ‘Merlin and crumpets.’ I thought you were just recycling bad jokes. But-”
The thought trailed off.
Pieces started locking into place in his head so fast it was almost dizzying. Nicholas Flamel. Bottled life. The Stone.
And Merlin.
The Peverell letter’s warning rang back, changing names and faces through history. That would mean ‘Merlin’ wasn’t even the man’s first skin. The great wizard of legend, the “god of magical people,” might’ve been just one mask he wore.
Harry leaned back, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Memories piled up one after another, the conversations with Nicholas about magic, always with that push to tame it, to bind it under control instead of working alongside it. Even then, something in him had recoiled from the idea without needing to think about it.
Then there’d been Nicholas’s apprentice, Ayo, the shaman priest. Priest of Death. A connection he had overlooked at the time.
And Nicholas knowing about the Inventory. Not just guessing, knowing. Watching him, weighing him.
Harry sat there for a long moment, feeling the picture come together.
“Of course,” he muttered under his breath. “Merlin, Flamel… it’s all the same bloke.”
He stood abruptly and paced once behind the chair, the floorboards creaking under his steps.
Nigel had joked about Merlin twice, and now it was clear, he hadn’t been joking at all.
Flamel hadn’t been some eccentric alchemist on the edge of wizarding history, he’d been the one Death had chosen long before Harry was even born. The original player in this game. The one who’d worked out how to stall the end, not just cling to life like some parasite.
The rest of the room felt too still.
Harry dropped back into the chair again, letting his head tip slightly to one side as he stared at the desk. “You’ve been sitting there for years, Nigel, biting your tongue. All this time.”
No answer came. Nigel had already gone, his voice still lingering faintly in memory, “I couldn’t tell you, even for a crumpet.”
Harry huffed out a breath. “And here I thought the bad jokes were just bad jokes.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly as another thread slotted into place.
That day, when he’d used Observe on Nicholas and Perenelle, both had a question mark next to their names. That wasn’t a glitch. It meant the names were covers.
If Nicholas’s identity was just one of many, then Perenelle’s was as well.
His gaze drifted to the bookshelf for a moment, but he wasn’t really seeing it.
The ring Nicholas had given him, the Portkey to his chateau, the Fairy Land. A gift, he’d called it. The recall phrase was The Circle of Fairy.
Fairy…
A name slid out of memory, sharp and certain. Morgana La Fey.
Harry let out a short breath through his nose. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Merlin and Morgana.”
The absurdity of it almost made him laugh, but it didn’t change the fact the pieces fit. Two people who’d supposedly been legends centuries apart, now walking around under different names, partnered up. And not just partnered, they’d been playing this game longer than he’d been alive. Longer than most of history had been written down.
