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Chapter Text

Author note and acknowledgement:

This story is based on and adapted from the story by the same name by Spartanr981 with his express permission. Some elements were changed from the original in order to accommodate the direction I would like to take the story in. Please check out his page to read the original first chapter. 2nd chapter and any future ones are all mine.

And don't worry folks, I'm posting an update to my other stories too :)

Milky Way Galaxy, Segmentum Solar, Solar Sector, Sol System, Terra, Imperial Palace

Late Forty Second Millennium CE.

The Imperial Palace shook as the Greater Daemon charged at the Lion's Gate, forcing the massive but badly battered Adamantium-wrought doors open. Despite their superior construction, they bent and shattered under the force of the Daemon's physical strength, as it attempted to push its way into the Inner Sanctum of the Palace.

The last major defense of the sprawling Imperial Place outside of the Sanctum Imperialis itself had been broken for the first time in history.

The single largest physical structure in the great Imperium of Man burnt, its beautiful, towering spires and great domes lay in ruins as the forces of Chaos ran amok through the last bastion of humanity in the Galaxy, destroying everything in their path. No mercy was given to any of the brave defenders who guarded the Holy World of Terra and the body of the Emperor himself. The Chaos hordes cut down everything in their path, consumed by their unending need to devour the material realm in the name of their twisted masters.

The massive Bloodthirster known to the Imperium as Anarkh'ad'nron, the physical embodiment of the Blood God's corrupted wish for murder and blood given form, let out a roar as it saw the last bastion of the one its God called the Anathema. Victory was practically in sight as The Lesser Daemons of its horde surrounded the Bloodthirster rallying for the final assault on the Palace in order to destroy the last remnants of the Imperium and sacrifice their souls to the Ruinous Powers.

The massive Daemon, surrounded by its vast horde, was given no warning as the entire host suddenly paused in mid-action. A nanosecond later, their physical forms began to collapse in on themselves like a black hole had formed in the centre of their being, destroying them utterly, and leaving not even a grain of ash behind. The bodies, minds and even corrupted souls of thousands of twisted horrors born from the depths of the Immaterium were completely erased from existence. Leaving an empty gate as the sound of fighting echoed in the distance of the last remaining pockets of resistance fought the unending tide of Chaos.

Deep within the Imperial Palace, in the very Sanctum Imperialis itself and past the Eternity Gate, the God-Emperor of Mankind sat dying upon his Golden Throne. He had just removed the insignificant Greater Daemon banging on his front door but it mattered not. There were numerous more such Daemons approaching the palace and in the long run it didn't matter, it was all over. The Golden Throne was failing and he could feel it with his Galaxy-spanning telepathic senses. The Imperium was dying and Humanity along with it.

It had been thousands of years since he had been entombed permanently upon his Golden Throne. Since he had lost the ability to respond to external stimuli. His vast Psychic ability however, meant that he was still able to guide humanity through the Warp with the Astronomican, and defend them from the ever-encroaching forces of the Ruinous Powers. This husk of continued existence came with a price though, thousands of Psykers sacrificed daily to keep him functioning as he sat wasting away on his Golden Throne. The Throne, which after thousands of years of constant operation was slowly but surely breaking apart.

He had despaired over the last 10 millennia, as he watched the once great bastion of Humanity descend onto its dark path away from his once great vision. A human race free from the concept of faith and belief in higher powers. For just a moment, he felt doubt in himself, as he realized that all those years ago when he fought the Unification Wars for Terra, that Uriah had been right. Humanity now worshipped him as a God and there was nothing he could do about it. The moment passed, and he told himself that he wasn't wrong. The problem was that he wasn't here to lead them. The Imperium of Man had descended into an empire of oppression and brutality with countless atrocities carried out in his name by organizations like the Inquisition. Yet ironically, it was Humanity's collective belief in him which strengthened his presence in the Warp enough to fight off the combined might of the Ruinous Powers and safeguard Humanity.

It was the last thousand years though, which had been the worst of his long existence, even worse than the years when his favoured son had turned on him and declared the Ruinous Powers his masters. The Thirteenth Black Crusade and the onslaught of Tyrannid Hive Fleet Leviathan had done great damage to the Imperium but it was the Great Rift that split the Galaxy in two that crippled the Imperium and shook it to its very core. The Imperium was split with those systems caught on the other side of Holy Terra facing constant onslaught from all sides. Cut off from the light of the Emperor these systems were beset at all sides fighting desperate battles to survive against overwhelming odds, and for a time, it seemed like Humanity's unwillingness to be extinguished allowed the embers of hope to burn bright, as many worlds were able to force back the Xenos threat and Chaos excursions despite the heavy losses they endured in doing so. These victories were not to last.

Late into the Forty Second Millennium the 14th Black Crusade spilled forth from the Eye of Terror and began its attack on the Imperium at the same time that Hive Fleet Hydra made its presence known to the Galaxy. The combined onslaught of the two massive invasions crippled the 'Dark Imperium' snuffing out hundreds of worlds as nearly half of the entire Imperium was swept away by the seemingly endless tides of Chaos and Xenos horrors.

And it was then that the Chaos Gods sprung their trap.

They had managed to infiltrate the ancient Webways, and reactivated a portion of the Portal that went to Holy Terra itself. With the Emperor's attention diverted to the Black Crusade and the Hive Fleet incursion, he completely missed the Daemons until they had arrived in real-space and begun their invasion of the planet itself. Their focus seemed to be the Imperial Palace, and their onslaught was as vicious as it was overwhelming. The Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor's personal bodyguards and guardians of the Imperial Palace fought bravely, their noble sacrifice great as they gave no quarter to the enemy, defending the Palace with their lives. Yet despite their sacrifice, the overwhelming number of Daemons that had managed to pour through the portal before the Emperor was able to concentrate enough of his energy to close it was simply too great and the local forces were simply overwhelmed despite how powerful the Adeptus Custodes were, and now only the Inner Palace remained under human control.

The Chaos Gods' plan was masterful in its execution, and if the Emperor had to guess, Tzeentch was the mastermind. There were no reinforcements that could be brought in from the immediate vicinity, the majority having been sent to combat the Black Crusade and the Hive Fleet. The Emperor couldn't even just use his immense Psychic abilities and wipe out the Daemons on the planet as the Chaos Gods had launched an all-out attack on him in the Warp, forcing him to focus the majority of his power to fend them off. There was nothing he could do, and despite his immense power the God Emperor of Mankind was forced to watch as the very heart of Humanity itself was defiled by the forces of the Ruinous Powers. Not since the Heresy itself had such an incursion taken place!

In front of the Golden Throne itself, knelt a near ten-foot tall figure that radiated a powerful sense of martial might. He was encased in golden armour that looked like it weighed tons, yet he appeared as if he was able to move freely with it despite its weight. On one of the massive shoulders of the man was a lion's head and flowing freely down his massive back was a cloak threaded with Adamantium. He held in one hand a massive Castellan Axe that crackled with golden lightning along its blade and the haft incorporated what looked like a Bolter gun that enabled him to engage at range. A ferocious looking weapon, for a ferocious-looking man. He was Trajann Valoris. Chief Custodian and Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, and the single greatest warrior of the entire Imperium of Man.

Next to him also kneeling, was a woman. She seemed diminutive next to his massive bulk, yet her presence shone in equal measure. Long flowing black hair flowed down onto shoulders clad in form-fitting golden armour. Her pale skin glowed faintly, and her eyes burned with an inner fire, but it was the shining golden halo behind her head and pair of pure white wings that extended from her back, that made her look like the Avenging Angel sent from the Heavens. Saint Celestine, the Living Saint, cut a beautiful and intimidating figure, yet exuded an aura of calm, as a pure white dove sat calmly on her shoulder as she held her flame encased sword in one hand as she knelt before her Emperor.

Behind Valoris and St. Celestine, also kneeling, were the seven silver-haired members of the Daughters of the Emperor who had accompanied Saint Celestine on her return to Terra. They were all Seraphim, members of the Adepta Sororitas who had managed to distinguish themselves through battle and their devotion to the God-Emperor, and have been trained in the use of jump packs and the coordination needed to use twin Bolters in battle. They were amongst some of the Imperium's finest warriors.

None of them moved even as the battle outside the Eternity Gate intensified, being the strongest soldiers of the Imperium on the planet they all should have probably moved out to protect the Palace but their unwavering loyalty to the Emperor would not allow them to do so. In the deepest parts of their being, they could hear Him. His will, a torrent of determination and power, told them that they were needed there.

The Emperor felt the Golden Throne begin to collapse and shut down. His Psychic presence in the Warp flickering allowing the Chaos Gods to press their attack. Knowing these would be his final moments, the Master of Mankind prepared himself for his final attack. Gathering his considerable might, he lashed out with all his Psychic power towards the Four Chaos Gods who were besieging him. The sacrificial move tore through the Immaterium like an unstoppable tidal wave, throwing the Four Gods back, and crashing into the Realm of Chaos itself. The very domain of the Chaos Gods. The armies of uncounted Daemons that inhabited the Realm of Chaos were ripped apart as the light of the Emperor's sacrifice ripped into them apart with all its holy might.

The actions of the Emperor had effects on real-space as well. The space around the Golden Throne was flooded with so much Psychic energy that the fabric of spacetime… twisted… and then shattered. Catapulting the soul of the Emperor and those few around him out of Time and Space and hurtling through the void itself. Meanwhile as the Psychic blast radiated outwards from the Golden Throne, it consumed everything in its path, the Imperial Palace, the Daemons coming through the Portal, the land, the air and the sea until all of Terra was annihilated by the pure Psychic blast which continued to radiate outwards until it had consumed the entire Sol System leaving nothing behind.

Many battle fleets of the Imperial Navy suddenly found themselves adrift and torn apart in the Warp as the light of the Astronomican went out. Meanwhile, those Imperial Worlds still fighting back against the forces that threatened them, cried out with a trillion voices as their guardian in the darkness finally succumbed. The Emperor could protect them no longer. The Imperium of Man and any hope of humanity's survival in the galaxy at war died with the Emperor. The Gods of Chaos had finally won, the candle of hope that burned bright in the hearts of men and women flickered and died.

But the story of the Emperor was not over that day, as his soul and few remaining followers hurtled through Time and Space traveling both forwards and backwards in a place where the concept of Time was meaningless.

But it was in that place, that a miracle occurred, s fate and destiny combined to create a new hope for humanity.

In the white expanse of nothingness, he slammed into another individual who had appeared in the void and with that event, everything would change.

Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries, London, England, Terra (Earth).

Late 2nd Millennium CE.

Harry Potter dodged to the side as a curse from Lucius Malfoy sailed by. This day had not been a good one. Merlin! This entire year had been decidedly awful. First Voldemort had been reborn in all his vile glory on the same night as his friend/fellow competitor Cedric Diggory had been brutally cut down during the Third Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Then when he had told the Minister he had been called a liar and the Ministry had spent the whole summer vilifying him for telling the truth. He had been annoyed to be left out to dry by his friends and angry to be attacked by Dementors but learning that there was a group out there fighting the Dark Lord had risen his spirits despite the fact that they wouldn't let him join. Going back to school with everyone looking at him with suspicion had been har,d but having Ron and Hermione at his side had been a godsend. Leading a group against the Ministry stooge, Delores Umbridge, had certainly done much to distract him from his increasingly dark thoughts. But all the events of the year had culminated in tonight's events. He had received a vision during his history O.W.L that had him running out the room, flunking the exam. Apparently, Voldemort had Sirius in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic and he had been determined to rescue his Godfather. Harry's friends wouldn't let him go by himself, and thus he led them to the ministry.

The entire thing had been a ruse. Hermione had been right. Hermione… Harry hoped she was alright.

Sirius had never been there at all and it was a trap to get a Prophecy that concerned the Dark Lord and Harry. That was what had led them to fight in this strange room deep beneath London, with a peculiar arch standing in the middle of it. Harry dodged to the side as another curse from Malfoy flew by. Next to him Sirius growled out a series of curses forcing the Death Eater to dodge to the side whilst shielding himself. Unfortunately as the battle raged around them neither Harry nor Sirius noticed Bellatrix moving to the side until the Banishing Charm was heading straight for Sirius.

Harry saw it first before even before Sirius did and using his honed Seeker reflexes he dove towards him. Sirius only had time to open his eyes in shock as Harry pushed him to the side, knocking Sirius to the floor. Unfortunately, that meant Harry took the full force of the Banisher and he was sent flying through the air and straight into the Veil of Death.

"Harry!" Sirius screamed out in despair as everyone else, Order member, student, and Death Eater alike, stopped to stare at the Veil in shock.

Harry floated in the endless expanse of white that formed what only could be called Limbo, a space between the Materium and the Immaterium. A place that was inbetween reality and non-reality, life and death.

He could see nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing, hear nothing and touch nothing. The only reason he knew he still existed at all was because he was thinking. He floated in that space for what seemed like simultaneously an eternity and a nanosecond, before he suddenly collided with something, and Harry's consciousness winked out.

—

Everyone was watching the portal that the Boy-Who-Lived had just been thrown through. The Veil of Death was an obsolete object, previously used to execute prisoners of the Ministry, and it was well known that none who stepped through it ever returned. Sirius felt his mind shut down as he sank to his knees whilst staring listlessly at the Veil. 'NoNoNoNoNo! Harry was gone! How could he be gone?! What was he supposed to live for now!?' he thought as what was left of his world crashed around him.

Then, he heard her. He heard the manic laughter as his demented cousin screeched in the background. "I killed Harry Potter! I killed Harry Potter!"

"Shut your bloody mouth Lestrange!" He roared as he shot to his feet.

"What you going to do to me cousin!? Think you can make me?!" She just cackled in response, as she turned and ran off, her mad laughter echoing in the room.

Just as he was about to give in to his rage and despair, and chase after the deranged bitch, the Veil rippled violently as if it had been shaken and an irrational hope grew in his heart. Perhaps Harry would do the impossible once more!

Out of the Veil exploded a group of golden lights which formed into humanoid shapes in front of the Veil. Sirius along with everyone else in the now silent Chamber watched as the golden shapes coalesced into the forms of ten people by Sirius's reckoning.

The most imposing was the massive man standing in the centre of the group, he stood as tall as Hagrid and yet felt far more intimidating than the friendly half giant. He had sharp rugged features and sported short, grey hair and a grey beard, his gaze sharp and full of intelligence as well as a wariness that watched everyone in the room. He was covered in some strange looking metal armour which looked immensely heavy. It looked like it was made of solid gold. Hanging off of one of his shoulders was the pelt of a lion, its head hanging off his massive shoulder plate. In his hand was massive frightening looking golden pole-axe, its blade sparking with golden bolts of lightning.

Standing next to the man was the most beautiful woman Sirius had ever seen. Which was saying something, as he'd known Veela. She was wearing a strange form fitting golden armour and had pure white wings extending from her back. Sirius thought that those wings looked to be part of her very being. Alabaster skin, bright eyes, and a flawless face, framed by a cascade of pitch black hair flowing down her back was the picture of a dark Angel, and to complete the picture, she was carrying an ornate looking sword which was wreathed in flame.

Standing behind them were seven women, all wearing pitch black armour and had bleached white bob cuts. Their faces were different than the golden woman. They were of varying ages, and all save one, had at least one scar on their faces. Some of them were pretty, but not all. All of them, however, looked every inch the warriors Sirius could tell they were. All of them sported what looked like oversized muggle handguns in their hands.

But what drew Sirius's attention the most was the prone figure of his godson sprawled out on the floor, unconscious in the centre of the group. Before he could call out to his godson and the new group, and warn them about the Death Eaters, he heard the intimidating looking man bark out a sentence in a language he didn't understand, before raising the pole-axe in his hand until it was pointed at one of the Death Eaters, Mulciber if he was correct. All he heard next was a loud bang as the Death Eaters head exploded into tiny pieces and the world around him exploded into action.

The seven women clad in black formed a tight ring around his godson's body, their weapons raised in a defensive stance as the winged woman raised her arms and what looked like a golden Shield Charm formed into existence around them all defending them from attacks. Meanwhile the golden armoured man charged forward faster than Sirius would have thought possible in the clunky armour he was wearing. In fact the man looked more like he was floating as he moved at great speed towards Jugson who raised his wand to fire a spell at the armoured giant but he was too slow and the Death Eater was cut in two by the axe. As Jugson's body fell to the floor in two pieces. Sirius realized that the man was attacking Death Eaters not them and he shouted out the other members of the Order. "They seem to be allies, help them mop up the rest of the Death Eaters!"

That seemed to enough to get the rest of the order going and they began to engage the Death Eaters in battle. The Death Eaters who had expected to be dealing with Order members who would never resort to killing were suddenly afraid. None of them wanted to die and Lucius, the one with the Portkey, grabbed Rodolphus and Rabastan before Portkeying out whilst the others were either captured by the Order or killed by the armoured giant. As the golden man cut down the last Death Eater with the blade of his weapon, many of the Order and all the conscious students were looking queasy at the brutality with which he'd dispatched his opponents.

In the distance, a mad cackle could be heard, as Bellatrix, who clearly wasn't aware of the reversal of the last few moments, kept calling "I killed Harry Potter!".

Spinning his blade in his hand the man looked upwards towards the Atrium before he seemed to blur and disappear. Sirius was left gaping, there were Anti-Apparition wards in place! He shouldn't be able to Apparate!

He looked back towards where his godson was surrounded by hot looking women who were eyeing everyone in the room, even the students, with great hostility and suspicion.

Sirius asked no one in particular. "So… what do we do now?"

Chapter Text

Somewhere… Somewhen…

Harry's senses told him something was off. He opened his eyes to see himself in a huge open area that resembled… "It resembles King's Cross" he thought "How weird."

It did indeed look like King's Cross, except completely white. Although it was a strange sort of white… Rather blurry and unfocused, and not at all bright.

"How curious" muttered Harry, channeling his inner Mr. Olivander.

"How curious indeed…" spoke a voice from behind Harry.

Harry spun around to face the speaker, only to feel his jaw dropping. The man he was looking at looked like no one he had ever seen before.

This man was tall. Taller than Hagrid. Taller than any person Harry had ever heard of. He was clad in golden armor, and was cradling a truly enormous sword in his arms. There was a glow to him, as if there was a light source behind him that created a sort of halo around the man's entire form.

Harry blinked, and the tall man disappeared, replaced with a man of more normal stature. In fact, this man looked like the most normal person he could imagine. Not tall or short, not fat or thin, not skinny yet not buff. Not handsome yet not at all ugly. Not pale or dark. He appeared to wear an unremarkable white coat, kind of like the ones Harry could remember seeing on the doctors on the tele.

He looked like the most average man ever, almost like a representation of any man who ever lived.

Harry blinked again and the average man disappeared again, replaced with the golden warrior.

"Who… What are you?" asked Harry in astonishment.

"I am the Emperor of Mankind" responded the man, and Harry could definitely hear the capitals in the name… Harry felt a strength in the words… A power in the way the man expressed himself. He felt a deep sense of awe build within him, threatening to overwhelm him. The sheer authority in the man's voice was almost unbearable.

"The more interesting question though, is who you are, young one, and where we are…" mused the man.

"My name is Harry Potter, and I honestly don't know where we are… It looks like King's Cross Station in London, but the colors aren't right." answered Harry.

"London? King's Cross Station? Those are names I have not heard or thought about in a very long time… But I think you're wrong. We are not anywhere physical, and I seem to be a guest in your space, wherever this is." replied the man.

"What d'you mean you haven't heard of London?" asked Harry incredulously. The man's accent was certainly not British, but Harry couldn't place it. Regardless, even people from other countries should know of London. "And what'd you mean by 'not physical'? Are you telling me this is all in my head? That this isn't real?"

The man laughed, and Harry got a sense that this was the first laugh the man had had in a while. It sounded weird, like the man wasn't used to the emotion of joy.

"Yes, I believe we are in your head, but this is perhaps the most real place you'll ever find. As to London, as far as I remember, the city was wiped out 39 millennia ago by my reckoning." He explained, a look of curiosity tinged with a hint of astonishment on the man's regal face.

"Wiped out?! 39 millennia? You mean like 39,000 years? Are you from the future?! I didn't know someone could travel back that far! Aren't there restrictions on Time-Turners like that?" blurted Harry quickly, doing a fair impression of Hermione on overdrive.

"Time-Turners? I gather that these are devices for time manipulation and you are not new to time-travel then? What period time are you in?" asked the man.

"Umm… It's 1996… And yeah, I've travelled through time, but it was only a few hours…" answered a befuddled Harry.

"Fascinating…" replied the man, his face showing an expression of curiosity like the one Harry was used to seeing on Hermione's face during a particularly interesting lecture.

"Spacetime was broken in my time, and it seems like we collided when my servants and I were ejected from spacetime into the void between the Materium and Immaterium. Our patterns of being have no home to return to, and so we seem to owe our survival to you, young Harry."

"Spacetime was broken?! What does that mean? Does that mean that all's lost? My friends? My godfather?" asked Harry in a panic.

"No, I don't think so. Time came to an end at the point of time I was in, but the past wasn't affected. I think that maybe Time threw me back to your time to correct the problem." said the man, with a tone that seemed to be trying to reassure Harry, but again was slightly off. As if the man had not had any practice doing so.

"Why me? Why now?" asked Harry incredulously.

The man paused for a moment, looking down as his face showed a sense of uncertainty. "I… I do not know". The words seemed to pain the man as he said them. "But I will find out."

He raised his eyes and looked directly at Harry's eyes. Dark eyes met bright green and Harry could feel the aura of power burst out of the man as he commanded "You will open your mind to me."

Harry's mind was assaulted by a wave of power that made Snape's legilimency attacks feel like a light, loving caress.

The sheer will engulfed Harry's awareness of anything and everything, and he felt himself swept up as the man examined every aspect of Harry's mind.

The man… No. Not the man… The Emperor examined every memory and Harry watched in helpless fascination as he pulled up memories that Harry didn't even know he had. He watched as the Emperor examined his entire life, and Harry felt a rush of emotions as he got to consciously relive every moment since he opened his eyes as a newborn.

Harry saw his mother, sweaty, red faced and tired, yet her face shone with love as she looked down at her new born boy and told him she loved him.

He saw through his infant eyes as his father, Sirius, Remus and Peter were all playing with Harry on a miniature broomstick. Harry's heart felt like it would explode from the simultaneous joy and pain.

Harry suddenly realized what was coming… The Emperor went through every moment, and 15 year old Harry could watch through his infant self's eyes as his parents' faces looked more and more worried by the day. Then the day came, and Harry could tell because his mother had decorated their home for Halloween. He could hear shouts and high pitched laughter downstairs. His mother runs through the door, shutting and locking it behind her as she kneels next to his crib. 15 year old Harry can tell she is terrified but she smiles at infant Harry.

"It'll be alright sweetheart" she tells the infant Harry. "I'll always protect you."

She then draws her wand out and gently holds his face, whispering an incantation he cannot make out. The tip of the wand glows, and she presses it to Harry's forehead, and Harry feels her trace the shape of his scar.

Wait… he doesn't have the scar yet… She… She MADE the scar, Harry realizes. The warmth on his forehead is hot enough to burn, yet he feels no pain.

"I love you Harry, and you will live, no matter what." She kisses his forehead and turns around right as the door to the room is banished off of its hinges and into the wall. Voldemort stands there, not the twisted snake-like creature Harry saw rise from the cauldron, but as the man he was. A handsome face, dark haired with slightly graying temples, and eyes shining red with malevolent power. Harry watches his mother hold her wand with both hands in front of her, before spreading her arms wide to shield Harry in his crib. "Take me! But not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please — I'll do anything!" she pleaded.

Voldemort orders her to move, yet she does not listen, and the sickly green flash of the Avada Kedavra takes her. In that moment, Harry feels the scar on his forehead heat up, as if the sun itself was warming him in the middle of a cold winter's day, and he feels a sense of comfort as his whole body is enveloped in that feeling. Baby Harry looks calmly at the man that just took his mother. Strangely, it doesn't feel like she's gone. Baby Harry still feels like his mother is hugging him tight.

Voldemort approaches his crib and looks at him with a mild curiosity written on his face. "The girl put a charm on you to protect you, eh? How quaint... and futile." he laughed derisively. "Nothing blocks the Killing Curse!… Avada Kedavra!"

The green of the killing curse rushes towards Harry, and when it fills his entire field of vision, a stronger light bursts out of Harry, evaporating the sickly green and rushing towards Voldemort, who only has a moment to yell "NO!" before his physical form is incinerated, his cloak and wand falling to the ground. Harry sees a hazy black smoke gather from where Voldemort stood, swirling for a moment, most of it flying off through the hole in the roof, except a smaller portion that rushes toward Harry's face, and baby Harry blacks out.

The Emperor continues to sift through Harry's memories. A glimpse of Hagrid's face against the night sky as the roar of a motorbike engine is drowned out by rushing wind. The years of Harry's time at the Dursleys. The neglect, the pain, the indifference and contempt. Harry's rescue by Hagrid on his 11th birthday. The first year at Hogwarts. Quirrell and the Stone. 2nd year, the Chamber, the Basilisk and a petrified Hermione. 3rd year and the Dementors, Sirius, Lupin and the revelation of the Patronus, and of course the Time Turner. 4th year and the Merlin-forsaken tournament. The resurrection of Voldemort. This last year and Umbridge. The flight to the ministry. The trap… The trap Hermione warned him about but he didn't listen. And then she was hit by Dolohov… Neville said she was alive, but for how long? Self-loathing welled in the small corner of his mind in which Harry still had control. He had been so stupid. His mother sacrificed herself for him, and he had nearly thrown it all away, and put his friends in mortal danger in the process. The Emperor examined everything, especially the last few moments of the fight as Harry fell into the Veil. Here the Emperor seemed to pause and examine the veil through Harry's eyes. Harry felt the Emperor's focus sharpen on the inscription and patterns on the arch itself.

"You died" the thought hangs there, the judgement of the Emperor seeming absolute.

Harry's consciousness is shocked out of its passivity. The weight of those two words rushing at him like an oncoming Hogwarts Express. "I've wasted my mother's sacrifice…" he thinks, a deep sense of shame building within. "Forgive me Mum…"

But then a thought occurs to him.

"If I'm dead, why are we here?!" he asks.

"The veil you fell through is designed to tear the soul of a mortal out of the body, and transport it to the Warp… But it appears that there were multiple souls in your body" said the Emperor "Maybe it's better to show you…"

In a rush, the Emperor's presence in his mind leaves, and Harry feels a sense of relief and emptiness at the same time. The weight of the Emperor's will was enormous and at the same time, it expanded his mind in ways he didn't quite understand. He felt like his own presence in his mind was like a small kid in an enormous cave… Like the ceiling was so high he couldn't even see it, even though he knew it was there.

He blinks and he and the Emperor are back at the not-quite-King's Cross. The Emperor looks at Harry with a look Harry can't quite decipher, before inclining his head towards one of the station benches.

Harry turns to look, and lets out an involuntary gasp. "What the bloody hell is that?!"

"If your memories are anything to go by, I'd say that this is a fragment of that pretentious Voldemort. The fragment you saw that embedded itself into you when his original form was destroyed." said the Emperor, sounding slightly impressed.

Under the bench lay a shriveled, decaying figure, reminiscent of the homunculus that Harry saw through the eyes of Nagini in Riddle Manor. The figure was drawing rattled breaths, each more laborious than the last. As Harry watched, it gave a long rattling gasp before stopping. As Harry watched, the figure dissolved into ash, and a wind that wasn't there before picked up the ashes and carried them down the tracks until Harry couldn't see them anymore.

He turned back to the Emperor, this time looking at the everyman form.

"So, I'm not dead? Because my soul is still attached to my body?"

"You are still attached, but I'm afraid that will soon no longer be the case" said the Emperor, sounding vaguely regretful. "You have survived much in your short life, but my need is greater than yours."

Harry tensed, and unconsciously went to his dueling stance. "I still don't know who you are, not really, and since I'm the one with a living body, I think I'll decide who gets to stay in it. And how do you know if your need is more than mine anyway?" replied Harry. He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. He felt what the Emperor's will was like… He didn't know if he could actually fight it off. But he has fought off the Imperius before, so maybe he had a chance.

The Emperor scoffed, then with a grudgingly respectful tone said "You are brave, I'll certainly grant you that, and if there was a way to keep you, you'd make an excellent Astartes… But the past, present and future of humanity depends on my consciousness surviving into the time you are in. Otherwise, my younger self will repeat the same mistakes, and Time itself will end in the 42nd millennium. I cannot allow that to happen, and you, brave as you are, can't stop me."

"I will survive. You will be erased, but humanity will survive with me! You will let me in!" he commanded.

Once more, the Emperor's presence washed over Harry, and he struggled to stay standing. His knees buckled. Then his hands fell to the floor, barely supporting him, as he struggled to maintain his sense of self against the Emperor's enormous presence. He realized then what he was facing. The Emperor was old. Harry's 15 years of life were nothing. The flicker of a candle compared to the Emperor's raging inferno of life and personality. "Let go!" the Emperor's will commanded, the force of it staggering Harry's will "Be at peace. You will find reunion with your mother and father, with your whole family. The Warp is not wholly corrupted, you will find your family there, waiting for you. Let go, and I will protect your friends. I will set things right. Your journey is done. You have done enough. Through me, humanity will see salvation. Salvation that you alone would never be able to bring about. Let go and know that your sacrifice is for the good of all."

Harry's will wavered. The tidal wave of the Emperor's command drowning it in the sheer certainty and truth of what the Emperor was saying. The Emperor had the knowledge, the experience and the power to save the world. Harry could see it. He could feel it deep within his soul. The certainty that the Emperor was right. That Harry's efforts would be nothing compared to His. Harry felt himself start to wash away. He would finally meet his mum and dad, and he'll be able to be with them. He'd be able to tell them how much he loved them, and how much he appreciated their sacrifice. The sacrifice that allowed him his 15 years of life. The sacrifice that allowed him to meet his friends. To find joy in life after a decade of joylessness with the Dursleys.

The sacrifice.

"NO!" rang out a voice from Harry. It was his own voice mixed with a clear ringing feminine voice.

"YOU WILL NOT ERASE ME/MY SON!" cried the dual voice. "MY/HIS TIME IS NOT OVER! HER/MY SACRIFICE WILL NOT BE SHORTCHANGED!"

The flickering candle of Harry's being flared, and pushed against the massive tidal wave that was the Emperor.

The shock was palpable. The Emperor didn't expect this. Before he knew what had happened, Harry was in His very being. In what felt like an infinitesimal moment, and as long as eternity, Harry saw the Emperor's entire life. From his birth in Anatolia in 8000 BCE to the the final moments of the Imperium. Harry's mind was in turmoil, as the sheer volume of memories and knowledge was nearly beyond comprehension, but his will stayed strong. Harry realized then that if the Emperor had not done the same to him earlier, Harry's mind would have snapped from the strain. Harry saw it all. The long years of life. The discreet, and overt attempts to guide humanity. The centuries of learning before humanity managed to reach the stars. The trials and tribulations that followed. The expansion and retraction. The highs of the "the dark age of technology", the lows of the "age of strife", the ruthlessness of the Unification Wars, Uriah Olathaire dying in the last church, the glory of the Great Crusade. Every moment of the Emperor's existence was laid bare to Harry. The betrayal of Horus, and the Emperor's time on the Golden Throne, 10,000 years spent holding back the Gods of Chaos. Through the Emperor's eyes, he saw into the Warp, and the demons that roamed there. The horrors of it all making dementors seem tame by comparison. The strength of humanity's belief in the Emperor fueling Him to stay steadfast against the terror and horror. To hold the darkness at bay.

In a flash, it was over. Harry pulled out of the Emperor's mind and returned to his own. Wearily, he looked up at the Emperor's form. The man in the white coat was there, leaning his arms on his thighs as he swayed. Wearily, the everyman raised his own head, and dark eyes met green once more.

With a mutual nod to one another, both collapsed to the ground.

"We are, it seems, at an impasse" said the everyman.

"If you mean that we are stuck… You're wrong. You're the one that's stuck. I've seen you. All of you now. I can go back and do what needs to be done. You can go away" replied Harry.

"You are being quite presumptuous… If I try again, I could overwhelm you."

"No, I don't think so. You are not what you were before the time rip… You are now in the void with me. In my head… You don't have a body of your own to go to. The Golden Throne is gone, and so is your body. There is no Warp energy of trillions of humans fueling you. You are powerful still, and you would probably always be. But the pieces that you're made of… the fragments of those shamans…. They are not a full person. I am. And if I learned anything from seeing your life, it's that the thing you most often underestimated is the value and power of an individual human life. In your arrogance and hubris, you've let go of humans, and of your own humanness, while claiming that you love humanity. That is a mistake."

"A 15 year old boy? Lecturing me on the meaning of my life? On the actions I've taken? " the everyman scoffed.

"YES! I am! I may be 15, but at least I'm not an arrogant prick! You're so blinded by what you think you know! All of your power, and it FAILED YOU! It failed humanity in the end! You were beaten! And because you were the only one with power, there was nothing more humanity could do! How can you sit there still thinking that POWER is the answer!? I saw it in you! You think that your mistakes were in how you exercised your powers over time! You think that you can come back to my time and 'fix' your mistakes by accumulating power earlier! All that will happen is that you'll make different mistakes, and things will fall apart again!"

"I will fight you again, and you will give in" threatened the Emperor.

"I will NEVER give in. I've seen your mind. I know what fuels us here. In this void between Materium and Immaterium, we only have the love of the people who are with us. In this time and place, I have my mum with me, and you have no one, but the shreds of the shamans in your soul, and they don't love you."

There was a long period of silence.

.

.

.

.

"All of my time, and I forgot what it was like to be human" said the everyman with a heavy sigh of resignation.

"Yes, you did." said Harry, after a moment adding with a chuckle "I guess, in your defense, immortality can have that effect on people."

"I guess it can. The reason I love humanity and want it to survive is that I think there is beauty and nobility in the drive we have to survive and succeed against any and all odds." said the everyman "But I think over time, I came to see it as the trait of the human race as a whole rather than the trait of humans as individual people that needs to be nurtured in every single one of us."

Harry shrugged. "Not every person I've met is good, but I think that from what I've seen, every one COULD be, if they chose to be."

"Yes, choice is both the problem and solution." said the everyman.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"The power I've exercised over people has had a tendency to erode choices, and it seems to me, that the more I restricted choices, the less likely the person was to choose correctly… People need to make the right choices, but they have to do so of their own free will, or otherwise it will not last." explained the everyman. He went on "What I've promoted in my Imperium was the Imperial Truth. The idea that logic and reason are the keys to humanity succeeding and surviving."

"My friend Hermione would strongly agree with that…" chuckled Harry.

"But she would be wrong, just as I was before seeing my life through your eyes. Like you said, I've forgotten what it means to be human. Temporary, fragile, and precious. The choices each human makes define them and their lives. Like your mother's choice defined the legacy of her life. If people aren't free to choose, then there is no point to any of my efforts to save humanity. As long as an individual's choices don't interfere with the legitimate choices of others, then they should be free… Otherwise, we are no better than automatons. And I would be no better than a slave driver. What I tried to do to you… Was the opposite of why I exist. The shamans sacrificed themselves so that I can prevent the enslavement of humanity by Chaos. But then I go, and in my righteous rationale enslave a human being for my own purposes." the everyman paused. "I will never let human beings be slaves again, not to me…. Not to anyone!" said the Emperor.

Harry felt the shift. The everyman was gone, and the golden warrior was back.

"I can get behind that" said Harry.

"So, young Harry, what is your choice?" asked the Emperor, staring into Harry's eyes, his eyes open and non-judgmental.

"Well, what are my choices? I know I want to live. To honor my parents' sacrifice by living my life to the fullest. But I want to help you, though I don't know how" explained Harry.

"My original intention was to commandeer your physical anchor… But you have been sharing that anchor with another until now. If you permit it, I will take its place." suggested the Emperor.

Harry looked at the Emperor for a while.

"How can I know if this is a trick?" asked Harry sincerely. "I want to believe you, but my life, and what I've seen of yours, has made me paranoid".

"You can't. You have to make the choice with imperfect information. Just like we all do, even me. It comes down to trust, hope and faith… Those aspects of human experience I've let fall by the wayside before… So Harry, what will you choose? You can return back on your own, or allow me to accompany you."

.

.

.

"…Let's do this!"

June 20th, 1996, the Execution Chamber, Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic, London, UK.

On the floor on the opposite side of the Veil, surrounded by the Seraphim squad and the Living Saint, Harry opened his eyes.

To Be Continued….

Chapter Text

Harry blinked a few times, as for a moment, he didn’t know where the hell he was, before he realized he was surrounded by a circle of armor clad women, all facing away from him.

‘Sisters of Battle, of the Adepta Sororitas. Specifically, a squad of Seraphim.’ The Voice reminded him.

In a flash, Harry’s mind reeled as his experience on the other side of the Veil came flooding back.

“Holy bollocks… that was real…” he mumbled to himself.

‘Yes, it was and still is… Now get up.’

Harry pushed himself up, and saw a golden clad woman standing in front of the Seraphim circle, her hands held up high and a translucent golden dome, like a massive Protego, extended all the way around them. Beyond the dome, he could see the Order, Sirius included, and Neville too. They were all staring at the group surrounding him. Clearly, the battle was over and there was no immediate danger. Harry couldn’t see any Death Eaters left standing, he only saw pieces of some, and a few death eaters slumped over where they fell to the Order’s incapacitating attacks. But he also couldn’t see the Weasley siblings, Hermione, or Luna… Where were they?

His movement got the attention of the women surrounding him, and as one, they turned around and knelt, their heads bowed.

‘You will need to let me speak. They know that I’m with you, but they need to hear me. Much of what I need to tell them will come as a shock, and it shall be better if it comes directly from me’ the Emperor thought to Harry.

’Sure, but please hurry… I need to know my friends are alright.’ Harry thought back, as he stood up and held his hand up and steady at the Order, signaling them not to come closer for a moment.

Harry looked down at the women kneeling before him and felt rather awkward, but any sense of awkwardness was wiped out in the following moment.

“Daughters, you may look at me.” spoke the Emperor.

Harry felt strange. He was hearing and feeling his mouth move, but it certainly wasn’t his voice coming through, but rather the voice of the Golden Warrior. In fact, though Harry understood what was being said, he realized that here in the Materium, the Emperor spoke a different language to the women, quite different than English.

‘A Mix of High and Low Gothic’ a stray thought of the Emperor’s supplied.

Harry watched as the Emperor turned his eyes to the kneeling women, watching as they slowly raised their eyes to him. The look they had in their eyes was something Harry had never seen before. Their eyes, all ablaze with a visible inner strength, also brimmed with unshed tears. A look of longing fulfilled, euphoria and… the only word Harry had in his vocabulary to describe it was… worship, evident on all of their faces. The part of Harry that always abhorred unearned attention recoiled at the look, but Harry wasn’t in charge at that moment.

“Rise daughters of humanity, for you have followed me from the end of our time, to a new beginning, and your service is not yet done.” He said, and the women immediately stood, sheathed or holstered their weapons, and as one bowed their heads and formed the sign of the Aquila with their arms.

Harry could see that some of them were trembling. It was bizarre to him. While Beyond the Veil, he saw the world they had come from, but Harry’s mind in the Materium was having trouble holding on to all of the memories. The absolute devotion the Emperor received from them boggled Harry’s mind. None of these women knew the Emperor in his non-Golden Throne-bound form. All had been born and raised way after the Horus Heresy. Harry couldn’t quite grasp how strong their belief in Him was. But then he remembered the Astronomican, and what it meant to humanity among the stars. To these women, the Emperor was everything.

“Look around you, daughters. We have travelled very far back through the river of time. Look around and see humanity’s childhood. The time we come from was a far cry from the heights of my rule before Horus’s betrayal… But in this time, humanity is still in its cradle, arms barely reaching out beyond. We are now 40,000 years ago.”

The women did as they were told, and examined everything, whatever shock they may have felt quickly suppressed, as they examined their surroundings anew. Harry watched the golden angel turn her face back towards him, and with a tentative look, (which looked really out of place on her face) gazed directly into Harry’s eyes.

“My Lord…” she whispered, in the most musical voice Harry had ever heard, even beyond Veela song, as her hand, almost involuntarily, reached out to him.

“Celestine, my little spark” The Emperor said, with what Harry felt was a rare sense of affection, as he reached back with Harry’s hands, and placed her hand in between them, holding it gently. Celestine was openly crying now. Her tears looked like little trails of diamond dust, scattering light everywhere. If anything, Harry thought she looked even more beautiful.

Harry then noticed something strange.

The hands that were holding Celestine’s were not his. He could see his own hands there, but overlaid on top of them was a translucent image of His hands. The hands of the Golden Warrior. As the Emperor was looking at Celestine, Harry could see his own reflection in her eyes. The image of Him, superimposed over Harry’s own 15 year old self. ‘Huh’ he thought absently.

“Gather closer, daughters, for I must share with you now what we must do, and it must be done with haste.” He said, one of His hands now moving to motion the rest to come closer. “Reach out, and hold onto my arm.” Harry could tell that though the Emperor didn’t need the physical contact to transmit the information, he chose to do it that way for the benefit of the women, to give them a tactile anchor for their uncertainty.

Harry felt them all, simultaneously trembling yet their grips vice-like, but painless. Then he felt the Emperor push, although rather more gently than he did with Harry in the Void. A flood of images and sounds flowed between the Emperor and his daughters, and when they let go of his arm, they all staggered back a couple of feet away from him, and their faces reflected such a sense of astonishment, that Harry started feeling bad for them. The seven Seraphim, and even Celestine herself, seemed to be shaken to their very core by what the Emperor had shown them. The Emperor kept the torrent of information away from Harry, so he didn’t catch it all, but he had a feeling that the “course correction” the Emperor was planning came as a serious shock to their entire worldview.

“There will be choices for each of you to make in the coming days, daughters. Choices that you should have been free to make from the beginning. Choices that you were robbed of because of my failures as a father. But for now, the choice I ask you to make is this: You can choose to disappear in this world… Live the life you could have had in an existence much more peaceful than where we come from… Live a life that could be as happy as you could make it… Or will you, of your own free will, stand with me against the dark?” asked the Emperor.

Shocked though they were, the women instantly refocused, and in one fluid motion stepped forward towards him once more. They formed a line in front of the Emperor and in one voice gave their reply.

“We are you with!” they answered in perfect English.

“Thank you, daughters. This boy’s body is young, and both acutely and chronically damaged. Too damaged for me to empower fully without ruining him. Time will be needed for me to build this boy’s body so I can act fully without burning out his physical form. But I am here, and I will guide him until he is ready to channel my power. In the meantime, follow his lead, is that understood?”

“Yes, my Lord!” they answered in unison.

“Believe in yourselves, daughters, as you have always believed in me, and our journey back to this time can create a better future for humanity than what I wrought the first time around. Follow and guide young Harry Potter, and we will find a new path for humanity amongst the stars.”

With that final command, the Emperor pulled back from the forefront of Harry’s mind, and Harry could feel himself in control again. He looked at his hands now and saw only himself. No translucent overlay of Him. Looking at the women again, he saw that they were all looking at him with anticipation.

“Hello.” he said, a bit awkwardly.

“Hello to you too” said Celestine first. Her face lit up in a smile that made Harry find it hard to look her in the eye. “Our Lord said to follow you… So what will you have us do?”

“We need to find my friends, they were injured, a couple of them badly… But first, how much did… He… show you? Can you recognize friend from enemy here in my time?” he replied, an urgent tone in his voice.

“Indeed we can, those dressed in black with silver masks are the enemy. Everyone else is to be protected, until their guilt is confessed.” answered Celestine. For some reason, Harry felt uneasy about that last part.

“That’s… ok. I have this… feeling… that you have healing abilities, is that right?” asked Harry uncertainly.

“It is His power, channeled through me, but yes… After a fashion.” she replied.

“Good. I have a feeling that we’ll need it. Let’s go, we’ll regroup with the Order and Neville, and then we’ll go find my other friends…” he said, as he started walking in that direction, before he stopped abruptly, a slightly puzzled look on his face.

“We’re missing someone…” he said before looking up and asking out loud “Where is Valoris?”

—————

Bellatrix was terrified.

The giant pursuing her was faster than anyone his size had a right to be, and though her Alacrity Charm allowed her to perceive him, it only barely allowed her to keep away from him fast enough. Every obstacle and barrier she tried to put between them was blown apart in fractions of a second, the end of the giant axe he carried smoking after every explosion.

‘He must be magical, and the wand is somehow part of that axe…’ she thought as she barely put another Shield in place quickly enough to prevent the debris from cutting her face.

The Alacrity Charm she had invented, and never shared with anyone, allowed her to always be the fastest draw in any duel she fought in. Coupled with her natural talent, and well honed dueling reflexes, Bellatrix was a terrifying opponent to most duelists. She had bested many in her time, sometimes even when outnumbered. Few knew that she had always been the vanguard of the Death Eaters, engaging the blood-traitors first and holding them at bay while the rest of her Lord’s forces surrounded them. She had held off The Longbottoms and Potters single handed on one memorable occasion, though unfortunately, they had managed to slip away through her reinforcements.

But here and now, she was outmatched and she knew it. She only hoped her Lord would be there soon. Her Lord, her Savior, was invincible, and would deal with this… this aberration.

Dodging back and forth, fractions of moments marking the difference between life and death, Bellatrix’s desperate flight through the corridors and hallways of the ministry continued until she reached the Atrium. Here, there was nowhere to hide.

She turned around and saw that the giant had stopped momentarily too, scanning his environment quickly before locking his gaze on her eyes. He pointed his axe at her, and then pointed to her feet, clearly communicating his demand for surrender. The look in his eyes was unwavering, and though the offer of surrender might have seemed to suggest mercy, his eyes only promised a painful interrogation followed by a quick death.

Despite herself, Bellatrix found a shiver of thrill run through her body. The power she saw in him was… intoxicating. A demented smile lit her face

with a strange sort of light, before she raised her wand and started firing curses as quickly as she could. Cutting, Severing, Bludgeoning and Killing curses flew from her wand in less than a second, her wand ending in downward slash.

And they were batted away in less than that, as the golden giant deflected(!) them all with the blade of his axe, lightning crackling every time a curse struck the surface of the blade.

And then he was on her, and Bellatrix tried to raise her wand, only to find that she couldn’t. She looked down at her wand, to find it lying on the ground, next to her whole right arm. She blinked, and her left arm was there too. And then her nerves caught up to what her eyes were telling her, and she screamed.

——

They could hear the scream all the way to the Veil chamber.

“Well, I guess we know where Valoris is now…” said Harry. “Celestine, would you be kind enough to get him and bring him back here? There’s things that… He… needs to tell him too.”

With a nod, she turned and became a blur as she sped towards the Atrium.

“Sisters, there are three girls and a boy in the other room, and they are hurt. Please find them and bring them here, and if any need first aid, please help them.” he told the Seraphim.

“Rules of engagement, Lord Potter, if we see an enemy?” One of the sisters, Katerina, who was the Sister-Superior, asked.

Harry blinked for a moment, surprised at the title, thought for a moment, and after a quick internal argument with the Emperor, said “Subdue if you can… If not, protect each other and my friends however you can.”

With a nod, she signaled her team, and they rocketed up, jetpacks flaring, towards the door that lead to the room Harry came from before arriving at the Veil chamber.

Harry turned his attention to the Order and Neville. They stood silently gaping. Tonks and Moody seemed to be the only ones hurt, although Lupin had managed to get both conscious. Neville’s face was still covered in blood, but the bleeding itself had stopped, and his legs were steady. Someone must have dispelled the Tarantallegra. They all had shocked looks on their faces, and seemed struck speechless. All of them but one.

“Harry! You lucky pup! You’re alright!” shouted Sirius, completely ignoring anything else, as he ran down the stairs towards Harry, as Harry raised his arms to hug Sirius, and they collided, each holding one another tightly.

A moment later, Sirius let go and said “I think I can honestly say that nothing could have prepared me for this day.”

“I’m so glad you’re alright Sirius… He fooled me… I thought he was torturing you. I… I led all my friends down here to save you, and now they’re hurt and you rescued me…” Harry said quietly, his voice thick with shame.

“I didn’t rescue you, pup… We were barely holding on before you pulled off another miracle! D’you want to tell me about all this? Who are these people?” replied Sirius, his voice astonished.

“Yeah… I will, but let’s get everyone out of here safely first.” said Harry “I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me.”

“Harry, it’s not your—” stated Sirius.

“YES! It is, Sirius. You don’t even know the half of it!” replied Harry vehemently.

“Alright, alright, we’ll talk about this later…” said Sirius in a soothing tone.

Suddenly, Harry felt a sense of alarm coming from Atrium. Celestine was calling.

“Celestine! We have to go! They’re in trouble.” Harry said and took off, all of the fatigue from the longest day he ever had washed away, as the Emperor gave him a small boost of energy.

Sirius, momentarily stunned, blinked then made to follow before Remus called to him. “Padfoot! Help me with them!” pointing to the still hurt Moody and Tonks. Harry stopped, and looked at the Order with a pained look, clearly struggling to figure out what to do. “Go on, Harry! We’ll catch up quickly.” Sirius said before rushing over to help levitate the injured, and Harry took off. The Order members started to move towards the dais when Sirius then noticed the blooded Neville, and for a moment had a bit of a flashback.

“Are you a Longbottom?” he asked the bewildered boy.

“I… Yeah. I’m Neville. Neville Longbottom.” replied the boy, his back straightening a bit.

“Any relation to Alice and Frank?” asked Sirius.

“I… They’re my mum and dad… How’d you kn—?” asked a confused Neville.

“You have her face, and his bearing. I’m sorry about what happened to them, Neville. Kept hearing the Lestranges and Crouch Junior go on and on about it in Azkaban. Your parents deserved better.” Sirius said sympathetically.

“”Th… Thanks… Wait, you’re Sirius Black!”

“Of that, I am guilty, but not of anything else you might’ve heard about me.”

“Oh.”

“Now where’s everyone else that came with Harry?” asked the older man.

“Right up there” said Neville “Where those… umm… ladies went through”.

“I see… Alright Neville, you feel up to keeping watch over here until they return? I have a feeling Harry told them to get your friends and regroup here.”

“Ummm, yeah, sure…” answered Neville uncertainly.

“Chin up Longbottom, the fight might not be over yet.” said Sirius.

A look of determination formed on Neville’s face, and he nodded.

Sirius helped Moony get the wounded to the center of the chamber, below the dais of the Veil, and then turned to Order members standing.

Seeing the look of urgency on his face, Remus quickly said “I’ll stay with Neville and watch over our injured and the prisoners, you and Shack go and catch up to Harry.”

Sirius and Shack nodded and took off, Sirius hoping that they weren’t too late.

———

Trajan Valoris had seen much in his years as Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, and had read and learned even more. And though the being in front of him wasn’t as grotesque as some of the genestealer cultists, Tyrranids or Chaos aberrations, the feeling of wrongness still flowed off of it in waves. Valoris was fast, far faster than a human or even a space marine, and the proof lay on the floor in the form of the now armless dark haired witch. She had been fast too, but not fast enough.

This creature though, was something else. When it appeared in the middle of the open hall Valoris was in, Trajan could tell that he was different. Serpentine in both form, attitude and movement, it either dodged or threw up what looked like Psyker shielding, to neutralize the bolter rounds and bolts of lightning that Valoris fired at it. At the same time, it was firing what appeared to be energy attacks of different hues at Trajan, forcing him to deflect or dodge them himself. It was far faster than the woman, moving and dodging with dexterity and alacrity that Valoris has yet to encounter. When Valoris tried to attack it the way he handled the other one, it disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room. It then continued its barrage of energy attacks. A few even hit Trajan’s armour, but the Auramite plating held, though molten scorch marks held testament to the power behind these energy attacks.

A flash of gold, the beat of white wings, and the arc of a flaming sword sweeps from Valoris’s right side, as he sees Celestine fly at the creature. Her sword clangs on an energy field the creature erects in a split second, the flames of her sword appearing to pour down a green translucent surface. She tries to swing again, and the creature disappears and reappears again, this time in front of a fountain. Trajan vaguely notes the golden figures in it, statues of two humans and a few creatures that looked only vaguely humanoid, one of which he recognized as a mythological centaur. He didn’t let the strangeness of this to distract him though. As he was about to attack again, the creature did something unexpected.

The creature was now talking, though in a language Valoris didn’t understand. Though he was a scholar of warfare, and his access to the imperial records was almost unparalleled, this language sounded ancient beyond reckoning. He noted however, that Celestine seemed to understand it. ‘Must be a gift from the Emperor’ he thought. Celestine appeared to pause and listen, so Valoris followed her lead for the moment, but his posture and demeanor did not actually relax one iota.

———

“You are both impressive, I must admit.” said the serpent man. “I have not had this much fun in a very long time. I’d love to examine you and your abilities. You need only surrender and pledge yourselves to serve me, whoever you are.”

Celestine quirked an eyebrow. “Does your little servant appear like she’s having fun?” she said, completely ignoring his offer of service, and pointing at the bedraggled, armless woman, laying on the floor some distance away. She could see the cauterized areas where her shoulder sockets were, before Valoris disarmed her.

The man scoffed. “She is not me. There is no one like me. But if you and your brute do not lay down your weapons and kneel, I shall be forced to make your deaths long, drawn out, and torturous.” he finished with a hiss.

“I think I can speak for the both of us when I say that your threats, little wizard, mean absolutely nothing to us. Why should we, who fear no pain or death in the service of our Emperor, be afraid of one who named himself after his phobia? Vol de mort? Flight from death? What sort of cowardly creature are you?” rang out Celestine’s answer, her tone defiant and mocking.

“If you’re not afraid of death, then let me show you the door!” the serpent’s face contorted as he screamed in anger, and used the pale stick he was carrying to rip out giant segments out of the floor and fling them at both Celestine and Valoris.

Trajan smashed through the stone flying at him, and Celestine simply flew over it.

Only to be hit in the chest with a ball of greenish fire, that seemed to stick to her armor, and throw her back towards the entrance to the hall she had come in from.

She got up on her feet and saw that though it was struggling to do so, the greenish fire was holding on and beginning to melt the area on her armour it had hit. Celestine quickly dropped that portion of her armor, which now disconnected from her, was quickly consumed. She took flight again, but she couldn’t see what was happening with Valoris and the wizard, due to all of the debris that the serpent man was flinging around.

Celestine, despite herself, was impressed. She had seen psykers at work before, and they usually focused on one Discipline or another. This… aberration of a man, was using many Disciplines, all at the same time, and was as fast as she and Valoris were, which was saying something.

But he, like many others before, would be put down in the name of the Emperor, even if she and Trajan had to sacrifice themselves to do so. But she could see now, that it wouldn’t be easy.

She watched Valoris attempt to shoot the serpent man with the Eagle’s Scream but the rounds exploded harmlessly off of Voldemort’s shields. Valoris tried to use the explosions to cover a charge, but Voldemort was gone again, reappearing with a flourish some distance away again.

“You’re durable, that’s certain… And fast, but can you dodge Fiendfyre?” he snarled, before pointing his wand and creating a ball of flame that quickly expanded into a wall of fire. And out of the wall darted shapes of creatures, intent on targeting the two time travelers.

“Valoris!” she called to her ally, and he immediately withdrew and stood next to her as she raised her hands once more to form the golden shield dome. “I can only focus on the shield, you’ll need to defend me.”

He answers with a nod, stepping in front of her, his eyes watching the fire for any sign of attack, axe at the ready. In her mind, Celestine prayed.

———

Valoris was watching the fire, and saw openings appear in it, through which he could see the serpent man, before several pieces of statuary streaked through to impact Celestine’s shield with enough force to vibrate it. This was an opening that he knew he could exploit, though he knew he could only do it just once for now.

Trajan focused for a moment, and his most unusual piece of Wargear responded. The Moment Shackle thrummed, and last 2 seconds of time were extinguished, and he watched the openings appear again. This time, he stuck the end of his axe through Celestine’s shield, and fired Eagle’s Scream through the openings at the serpent man.

A look of utter disbelief appeared on the inhuman face, and the shield it conjured barely materialized before the bolter rounds exploded, throwing the serpent man back with the sheer force of it. The openings in the fire closed, and Valoris couldn’t see if he had done any permanent damage to the creature. He hoped however, that without the creature’s direction, the fire would dissipate…

The wall of fire, however, did not dissipate, and Valoris saw that Celestine was straining. The shapes in the fire seemed to form and slam into the shield, as though the fire itself was sentient and was trying to get at them. Each slam pushing the shield down and shrinking its radius.

“We need to get out of this fire” he says to her. “Can you maintain the shield as we move, if I carry you?”

Unable to speak, she nods slightly.

Wordlessly, he picks her up, as if she and her armour weighed nothing, and carries her to the hallway they entered from. Here, with only one direction to cover, Celestine reforms the shield into a wall of force, blocking the entrance into the Atrium. For a moment, it seems like the fire slows its assault, and Valoris can see that the fire seemed to turn towards its conjurer, and attempt to attack him.

The serpent man stands, and a vicious smile forms on its face as he raises his wooden stick, and with a flourish the fire stops advancing at him. The shapes in the fire turn around once more, and with an audible fiery roar, rush towards Celestine’s barrier. And Valoris isn’t sure if she’ll be able to stop the oncoming inferno.

———

Harry ran faster than he’d ever run before, the Emperor’s energy injection seemed to fuel him beyond what he thought he was capable of. As he ran, he felt a little round ball in his pocket. He still had it!

He turned the corner, and saw Celestine and Valoris standing there, a translucent golden barrier holding back flaming creatures that were constantly attacking it. He sees the giant Custodes’s face harden in resolve, and Celestine’s face glistening with sweat as she fights to keep the barrier up. He reaches the two golden warriors and through the fire, he can see Voldemort, his face a gleeful mask of malice.

Harry reaches into his pocket, takes out the little round orb that has caused so much misery, and holds it up. He knows Voldemort can see him, because the Fiendfyre immediately ceases attacking the barrier. Voldemort appears to conduct the flames with his wand, and the fire contracts to form a ring around him, fiery serpents diving in and out of the circle, forming a shield of sorts.

“Give me the prophecy!” he hisses in a high clear voice, the Atrium’s openness magnifying it.

Harry turns to Celestine and nods his head. She understands, and drops the barrier she had been holding up, and as close as Harry is to her, he can see in her how much effort it took.

He steps forward slightly, his hand still holding the little orb up, and notices that Bellatrix, who had injured Tonks, almost killed Harry and Sirius, and tortured Neville’s parents, was lying on the floor seemingly unconscious. He did a double take as he saw her unarmed state, but then focused back on the real threat.

“Why? Why is it so important to you?” asks Harry.

“Have you never wondered why I came after you when you were a child?” replied Voldemort tauntingly.

“This? This is the reason you came after a 1 year old baby? Why you murdered my parents?” asked Harry incredulously.

“I’m surprised, Potter… I was surprised it took you so long to respond to my clues… I thought your natural curiosity would have led you to come here sooner… To discover the prophecy that has defined your life… What’s left of it. But never mind, you’re here now, and you’ll hand it over, or I’ll bathe this entire building in Fiendfyre. Even your impressive bodyguards cannot withstand it forever, and certainly none of the friends you brought with you to my trap will survive, if they’re still alive.”

Harry’s thoughts immediately went to Hermione and Ron. Hermione was alive, but he had no idea how badly hurt she was, and last he knew, Ron was fighting a brain… He hoped the Seraphim were able to get to them in time, but he needed to stall. Surely, Sirius called for more help before he came to Harry’s rescue.

“Why should I believe any promise you make? You haven’t exactly given me the impression of someone who would ever keep their word… And besides, if you let that fire loose, it’ll probably destroy this orb too. Who knows? Maybe that’s the very thing that will be the prophecy trigger that you were trying to avoid.” said Harry, his resolve strengthening with the Emperor’s subconscious guidance.

A long moment passes, as Voldemort and Harry stare at each other. Harry feels those red eyes bore into him, and before he knew it, he could feel Voldemort’s mental attack. Harry could feel him trying to pry open his mind, and insert himself into Harry! Compared to Snape’s legilimency attacks, Voldemort was insanely powerful.

But compared to the Emperor’s, Voldemort was but a novice telepath.

The triple layers of the Emperor’s will, Lily’s now-activated protection and Harry’s own defiant rejection was like an impenetrable wall, and Voldemort reeled back in shock as he felt the counter push.

“What are you? You are not the same boy I met last summer…” he hissed.

“Yes, I’ve learned a lot since then…” said Harry quietly.

“Well, you’ve still a lot to learn, boy… If you’re negotiating, never leave the opponent with nothing to gain” Voldemort said with a sneer.

With a quickness that even Harry’s seeker reflexes found difficult to follow, Voldemort waved his wand, and a wave after wave of fire emanated from the Fiendfyre shield at Harry and the time travelers.

It rushed towards them at breakneck speed, and Harry saw Celestine bring her arms up to form a new barrier, when a torrent of water intercepted the wave of fire, and they combined to form a steam cloud that blanketed everything for a moment before Voldemort blew out it with a gesture of his wand. The water formed a wall in front of them, but was completely clear, and Harry could see that it came from the Fountain of Magical Brethren, an unbroken wall of water, shielding them from the Fiendfyre. The Fiendfyre continuously boiled it away, but the water flow never ended, continuously replenishing itself.

“It was foolish of you to come here tonight Tom.” said a voice gravely. “The Aurors are on their way.”

Dumbledore.

“Oh I’ll be gone soon enough, and all of you will be dead!” replied Voldemort with vehemence, as he started firing curses at Dumbledore with unbelievable speed. Harry watched Dumbledore disappear and reappear half a dozen times, dodging the curses Voldemort had thrown at him.

“You can dodge! But can they?!” yelled Voldemort as he unleashed another barrage at Harry and his companions. The curses sliced through the water wall and continued to target Harry and the Imperials.

Harry was fast for a human being, and with the boost of energy of he received from the Emperor, even more so. But it was Valoris whose grip he felt, as Harry was jerked left and right, to avoid the oncoming curses.

Harry then felt the air turn electric, as Dumbledore released a spell at Voldemort that sent shivers up his spine. The sheer power Dumbledore channeled into the attack was such, that Harry could feel that even the Emperor was a tiny bit impressed by the mere mortal bearded human. It forced Voldemort to conjure an enormous solid silver shield in the way, and when Dumbledore’s spell collided with it, a deep gong like sound reverberated through the entire Atrium.

The duel continued, and Harry watched as the two most powerful wizards of the age used magic he had never seen or heard of before. Spells shot back and forth, the statues in the fountain came alive to aid Dumbledore, and Voldemort shot back with Fiendfyre and more spells that overflowed with a sense of wrongness. In the back of his mind, he could feel the Emperor observing the duel as well, cataloguing and evaluating every movement and countermovement. Harry glanced to his sides and saw Celestine and Valoris do the same.  Relatively safe behind the water wall, with Voldemort now solely focused on Dumbledore, the trio (plus the Emperor) observed the fight.

“Lord Valoris” called Harry, his speech shifting into Gothic.

The giant turned his face to look at Harry.

“I am Harry Potter, and I’m not sure if you can already tell, but I’m currently hosting your Emperor.”

“I understood as much when we arrived here… I will need to speak to Him.”

“Sure, as soon as we are out of this mess…”

At that moment, an unearthly song rang through the Atrium, and Harry felt his heart swell. It was a call he recognized from second year. The phoenix known as Fawkes appeared in a burst of flames, flying down to protect Dumbledore, and was right on time as Fawkes intercepted a Killing Curse by swallowing it whole; which caused Fawkes to burst into flames and ash, then fall to the ground, a flightless, helpless chick.

Celestine jerked forward, beat her wings once, and flew over the wall of water. Harry could see that she was going for the now baby Fawkes. Voldemort smirked and fired several curses at Dumbledore, but in such a way that if Dumbledore dodged, it would hit Celestine instead, and Harry felt himself tense, as there was nothing he could do at the moment but watch. Celestine flew like a quidditch player, dodging and weaving through the air and around the incoming curses, and scooped baby Fawkes up in her arms before flying back to Harry and Valoris.

Voldemort’s change in focus actually allowed Dumbledore to seize the initiative, and the water wall protecting Harry and the others suddenly shifted, then flowed away towards Voldemort, and before Voldemort could react, it encased him completely in a sphere of water that looked like frozen yet flowing glass.

Voldemort struggled for only a moment, and then disapparated from inside the sphere, causing it to implode from the sudden vacuum within.

He reappeared on the fountain dais that previously held the statues, soaked through, coughing up a bit of water.

And as he did, the fireplaces all around the Atrium roared with the green fire of Floo travel, and several CRACKS could be heard as several dozen wizards and witches appeared in the Atrium to gape at the scene. The sound of feet running behind him had Harry turn his head to see Sirius and Kingsley appear behind him too.

A look of rage appeared on Voldemort’s face, and with a flourish he disapparated, leaving all the newcomers gaping.

Harry looked at the newcomers and saw Fudge, his robe obviously hastily wrapped around his pajamas, staring at the spot Voldemort had disappeared from. Harry could see his mouth moving as he mumbled, and despite the commotion of all the people now there, Harry could swear that Fudge was saying “he’s back… Oh Merlin… He’s back…”

Harry looked at Dumbledore, who was looking back at him with a rather curious look on his face, obviously intrigued by Harry’s company. Harry  mouthed ‘later’, and inclined his head towards the now sputtering Fudge. Dumbledore nodded back, message understood.

As Dumbledore began to verbally dismantle Fudge, Harry turned to his companions and gestured for them to follow.

He needed to see his friends.