[The Nexus] Chapter 7 - Temple

Devola glanced in awe at her reflection in the mirror. Her wavy red hair had become long, straight, and black, her green eyes had turned brown, her pale skin had become tan, and the shape of her nose and cheekbones had changed, too. 

“This is amazing. I can’t recognise myself,” she said. 

Popola, who was next to her, looked like she was a good decade older than before. Moreover, her shoulder-length straight red hair was blonde now, falling in waves to the middle of her back. Her green eyes were blue, and her body was far more developed than it used to be. 

“I’m the elder sister now!” Popola laughed. 

Obviously, she was very pleased with the changes. 

“I have to ask, Harry, was there a need for you to make Popola’s chest this big?” Devola asked, giving him a pointed look.

“I just tried to make you look as different as possible. . .” Harry muttered. 

“Or maybe you did it on purpose!” Devola insisted. 

At her words, Popola started touching her now large breasts, feeling herself up as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. 

“Popola, stop it!” Devola raised her voice, a tint of red appearing on her cheeks. 

But Popola giggled, not stopping her actions. 

“Heh~ so humans like them big like this, huh? Or maybe that's just how Harry likes them? What do you say, Harry?”

He would have never imagined that the girls who used to bow and apologise for the smallest things when they first met would one day come out of their shells enough to actually tease him in such a manner. 

Before Devola could reprimand her for it again, Harry quickly pointed his wand at her sister’s chest and cast a Shrinking Charm on them. 

“Hey, not fair! You made them even smaller than they were before!” Popola whined. 

“Well, sorry, it’s not as if I measured your exact size!”

“Just bear with it, Popola. We’ll go back to our original appearance after we return,” Devola said. 

“Fiiine.”

Harry grabbed a large and heavy backpack from the ground and put it on with surprising ease, given its size, thanks to a weight-reducing charm he had cast on it. 

“Did you check the windows?” Harry asked. 

“I did,” Devola answered. “They’re all locked.”

“What about the backdoor?” 

“I locked it myself,” Popola said. 

“Alright. Are you girls ready to go?” 

“Yes!” they answered at the same time. 

⁂

Even through Apparition, it took Harry a few minutes and several stops to travel from Switzerland to Egypt. 

He did not teleport straight to the entrance of the android city. Instead, he Apparated with the girls three kilometres away from it. When he arrived in the desert, Harry cancelled the Bubblehead Charm. 

Having transfigured his appearance, Harry had made himself dark-skinned and given himself an afro. He looked completely unrecognisable. 

‘Luckily, there are no manual checks at the entrance,’ Harry thought when he was allowed entry by the androids guarding the elevator that served as Memory Hold’s entrance.

He and the girls had been afraid that, after his disappearing stunt a month ago, the androids would do anything in their power to catch him next time. 

Once they came out of the elevator, Harry found himself smiling. The underground city was as bustling as ever, with thousands of androids swarming the place. 

‘No, it feels even busier than I remember. Did something happen?’

Memory Hold had always been crowded, but the streets were literally packed with people now. 

“Popola and I will head to the data centre,” Devola said. 

“We’ll meet again here, at the elevator, in one hour,” he said.

The girls nodded and separated from him. But after making three steps, Popola turned.

“Harry,” she called out to him. 

“What’s the matter? Did you forget something?” he asked.

“No, I did not forget anything. I just—” Popola trailed off. She bit her lower lip, hesitating. “...You won’t leave us behind and disappear, will you?”

Harry’s eyes widened. After living together with Devola and Popola over the last month, it never even crossed his mind that the sisters would still be worried about him abandoning them. 

“My god, of course not!” he said, as he walked to them. “Look, if you want, we can go together everywhere. It was your idea to split up, no?”

Popola was about to say something, but Devola spoke before her:

“No, we’re good to go alone!”

The two sisters exchanged a look, seemingly communicating with their eyes. 

“Sorry for doubting you, Harry,” Popola said, scratching her cheek awkwardly. 

“I was serious; I don’t mind tagging along.”

“N-No, it’s better we go by ourselves to the data centre,” Popola said, becoming flustered.

“Yeah, you don’t have to come with us. We’ll be fine, promise!” Devola also said, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

Harry let out a “hmm” sound. 

“Fine… Meet you here again in one hour?” he reiterated. 

“Yes.”

⁂

‘Years of abuse and neglect won’t disappear after just one month,’ Harry thought as he watched Devola and Popola walk away.

Living together with them over the past month, he never even considered the option of abandoning them now. But he couldn’t blame them for their fears. 

‘Still, what was with that? They’re hiding something, aren’t they?’ he thought. The girls were acting a bit too shifty-eyed for him not to notice. 

‘. . . Don’t tell me, are they going to snitch on me to the other androids?’

That thought made him freeze in his tracks. 

‘They wouldn’t do that, would they?’ he thought hopefully. 

He shook his head. 

‘No. . . I’ll choose to believe them, just like they put their trust in me.’

Having put his mind to rest, he started walking through the city, heading towards the bazaar, the most densely populated area of the underground city. 

He found himself smiling as he took in the sights of the Memory Hold. It was the first and only city he had found after arriving in this post-apocalyptic world. 

He saw couples walking hand in hand, stall owners and customers haggling over the price of items, and he even saw some new sights: Androids painting and showing off their work by the side of the road. 

‘Wait a minute, what the hell?!’

Having noticed the black man with afro hair stopping and staring at his work, the painter smiled and waved at him. 

“Hello, might I tempt you with some art?”

Harry swallowed dryly before replying.

“Who might that be?”

The painter made a surprised face. 

“You must be new around here. It’s a human called James. He visited the city about a month ago.”

“No way!” he pretended to be shocked. “You’ve got to be pulling my leg!”

“I’m not, dude, I’ve seen him with my own eyes! You can also ask anyone else, and they’ll tell you the same.”

“But weren’t humans supposed to be on the moon? Why would they endanger themselves by coming down?”

“How would I know what goes through a human’s head?” the painter said, shrugging his shoulders. “But because of him, we’ve been getting lots of new faces around lately. I think more than two thousand Androids transferred to this city after hearing rumours about the human.”

Harry took a second look at the Android’s paintings. He was not well-versed in art, but, to his uneducated eyes, the paintings looked stunning, like a masterpiece. They depicted his appearance perfectly, almost as though it were a photograph. 

“Who are the two girls?” Harry asked. “Are they humans too?”

The painter shook his head. 

“No, they’re Androids. Their names were Devola and Popola. . . actually, these five paintings are part of a set. They tell a story.”

The first painting showed a group of wounded Androids waiting in line for two red-haired twin girls to heal them. The second painting showed a man with an injured leg grabbing the girl with wavy red hair roughly by the hem of her clothes and shouting.

“But then, the human stood up for them!” the painter narrated his tale in excitement. “Are you blind to what is going on? How can you just sit and watch that dirtbag treat them like that? - is what he said.”

The fourth painting showed the violent android’s retreating silhouette and Harry sitting down while Devola and Popola healed him. 

“And in the last one, when Devola and Popola used their maso to heal him, his appearance changed!”

[...]

⁂

In the end, Harry found himself unable to turn down the android after how much effort and emotion he put into telling the tale of how he met Devola and Popola. He ended up paying for half a dozen paintings and asked the man to pack them and safeguard them for him for one hour. 

‘They were surprisingly cheap,’ he thought. He had spent less than 1000 G for all of them. ‘I thought paper was not common?’

But as he continued walking down the main boulevard of the underground city, Harry understood why the paintings had been so cheap. The side of the road was littered with Androids trying to sell portraits of him. 

And that wasn’t the only thing. It took him a few minutes to finally notice it, but when he did, he couldn’t help stopping and staring again.

Small metallic tables had been installed all over the place, with dozens of androids gathered around each one of them. . . they were playing chess. 

‘Jesus Christ!’

He had always known that the androids worshipped humans. His first encounter with them had freaked the hell out of him, and his experience with Devola and Popola and the looks of devotion they directed at him every day made him aware of how highly they looked up to him, but it was only now that he fully realised just how important he truly was.

It genuinely scared him to think that every single one of his actions could have such a powerful impact on the society of the Androids. Even his status as the “Boy Who Lived” in the Wizarding World could not be compared to this.

⁂

Walking towards the periphery of the city, where the Barracks were located, Harry was quiet, deep in thought. 

‘I was right, after all.’

He could not say that Devola and Popola’s pleas had had no effect on him. He had considered coming out in the open and returning to Reiner, Jim, Nadia, Joanna, and Malik. But after seeing the state of things in Memory Hold that his mere appearance had caused, he realised that it had been a good thing to escape and hide. 

"I can't bear this responsibility."

He wasn’t just a leader or a symbol for the androids. They treated him like something more. To them, he was almost like a god. They thought of him as their Creator. . . It was too much. He was just seventeen. The fact that his every word and action could influence an entire society to such a high degree was terrifying. 

‘Sooner or later, I’m bound to make a mistake, and when I do, the consequences will be devastating.’

After all, humans were far from the perfect beings that Androids thought they were. Humans could get angry, jealous, be impulsive, and act irrationally at times. To err was human.

Once he arrived at the barracks, Harry went to the reception area. 

“Hello, I’d like to leave a package for someone; is it possible?”

“Sure, what name should I leave it on?” asked the man working at the reception that day.

“Andrew,” Harry gave him a random name. 

“Who is it for?”

“It’s for Reiner.”

The Android took on a thinking posture, seemingly going through his memories for a few seconds before replying:

“Reiner from the 2nd floor or the one from the 5th floor?”

“Second floor.”

“Oh, that Reiner just came back from the battlefield. I could call him for you if you wanted,” the receptionist offered. 

“Ah, there’s no need,” Harry said quickly. “I’m just here to deliver a package from the bazaar. I don’t know him personally.”

“Alright then,” the android said as Harry took out a very large black plastic bag filled with things from his backpack. 

⁂

Having just finished his shower in the common-floor bathroom, Reiner dried his hair with a towel and glanced at his reflection in the mirror. A fresh, jagged scar marked his cheek. It was a mark left from a piece of shrapnel that had struck him earlier that day in the battle against the machines.

Taking a second look at the jagged scar on his cheek, Reiner’s mind went to the jagged scar he had seen on the forehead of ‘James’ when his disguise broke under the effects of Devola’s and Popola’s magic. 

‘Was he really a human?’

He couldn’t believe that one of the humans whom nobody had seen in centuries or even thousands of years would descend to Earth and blend in with the likes of him, becoming friends with him. 

But he couldn’t ignore the strangeness of the situation either. Captain Aine’s testimony and then the fact that “James” had vanished together with the twin sisters in front of his eyes made it hard for him to deny that he was not a regular Android. 

He let out a sigh as he patched his cheek with a big band-aid. Unlike Devola and Popola, who used to heal people for free, not asking for anything, the other healer types in Memory Hold were scalping the androids with their prices. He decided not to get his cheek healed just yet. He would go to the healer when he accumulated other, more serious injuries rather than only cosmetic ones.

Returning to the small bedroom that he shared with Malik and Jim, Reiner was surprised to see not only the two of them inside but also Nadia and Joanna. They were all huddled together, reading from a piece of paper. 

“What’s that?” he asked. 

“Man, you won’t believe it. It’s a letter from James!” Jim said, his voice betraying the mixture of shock and excitement he felt. 

Reiner rushed to their side and looked over their shoulders as he began to read the letter, too. 

“Dear friends,

I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been a while since I last saw you. . . I don’t think I’ll be able to return to Memory Hold and spend my days together with you again. But I will keep watching over you. 

You were the first friends I made since I arrived here. Especially you, Reiner. When you found me on the pyramid and told me to get down. . . I was at a loss, not knowing what to do. But you introduced me to Jim, Nadia, Malik, and Joanna. And for the next few weeks, I was happy again, for the first time in years. You gave me hope and a place to belong when I needed it the most. 

I saw you all today, from a distance. I’m glad to see that all five of you survived and that you are healthy. . . But you should get your scar looked at, Reiner. Don’t be a cheapskate, or Nadia might leave you for a more handsome guy. Haha, I’m kidding, Nadia, don’t get mad. I know you’re not that type of girl.

Speaking of, I’ll take advantage of this letter to tell Malik and Joanna to stop beating around the bush. You know what I’m talking about. If even an outsider like me could see it, I’m sure that Reiner, Jim, and Nadia could too. 

Jim, we once talked about how life would be without war. You told me that without war, Androids would not have been created and that you were afraid that if the war ended, humans would no longer need you anymore, and you would be discarded. 

I don’t know about the humans on the moon. I can’t talk about them because I’ve never met them. . . But I will tell you that I will never discard you or any other Androids like a broken tool. 

I am too young. I cannot come out in the open because I am not the perfect being that the Androids think I am. I don’t think I will ever be good enough to live up to all your expectations. But I will strive to become a better person. I still have much to learn and a lot of maturing to do. . . I am just not strong enough to shoulder the responsibility that comes with being who I am. . . Not yet.

But I do wish to make the Androids’ lives better. I wish for you to become more than just weapons of war. You already are more than I thought you’d ever be. When I met the androids in person for the first time, I didn’t even know they were androids at first. I thought they were like me. 

I know I might not make much sense right now. But I promise, I’ll explain everything when the time is right. Until then, all I can do is watch over you from afar and hope that you all survive until we meet again.

Related to that, I have prepared some gifts for you. With Christmas just around the corner, I wanted to share a little tradition. Christmas was a time when humans offered gifts to their family and friends. There are five sets of gear that should help in keeping you safe. I have enchanted them with Unbreakable Charms, a magic spell that would make it hard, almost impossible, to destroy. I also left a package with food, things I have personally cooked for you. 

I hope you’ll forgive me for not meeting you in person. I trust you understand why it wouldn’t be a good idea. . . I hope that this letter and these gifts will make it easier for you to forgive me. 

Stay safe, 

Harry (James).

It was not an elegant handwriting. It looked haphazard, as though the letter had been written in a rush, but the Androids didn’t pay much attention to that. The contents of the letter left them speechless. 

Reiner and Jim suddenly ran out of the room, into the hallway, as if they thought Harry was just outside, watching over them. 

Unfortunately, the hallway was empty, save for a couple of their floor neighbours who happened to pass by. 

If they had paid more attention, however, they would have noticed a slight distortion in space towards the back of the corridor, not far from the laundry room. He had hidden himself with a Disillusionment Charm as he watched them from a distance, just like he said in the letter.

⁂

Luck had been on their side that day, and Harry, Devola, and Popola’s visit to Memory Hold ended with no incidents. 

Now, back to “The Hearth,” to their wooden cabin in the Alps, the twins talked to Harry about their findings at the data centre as they worked together on preparing their lunch.

Despite the cold and the snow, Harry started a campfire outside, and they began grilling fish on a stick above it. With thick winter clothes and Warming Charms protecting them from the cold, the -10 Celsius degrees temperature was not that difficult to bear. 

Devola and Popola watched the fire with barely contained excitement, occasionally bouncing on the spot like a pair of eager children.

"They really do love fish, don’t they?" Harry thought, chuckling at their enthusiasm.

Noticing his smile, the two sisters grinned shyly and stepped back from the fire, taking a seat on the wooden bench next to him. 

“So you haven’t found records of any magical creatures?” Harry asked and took a sip of tea from a thermos. 

The girls mirrored his actions, also drinking from their thermoses, before Popola replied:

“Other than fairy tales and other myths, none. . . sorry, Harry. We ended up making this trip for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing,” he replied. “I meant to check up on my friends anyway. And it was fun to go out, wasn’t it?”

Harry and the twins did meet in front of the elevator at the established time, but they did not leave Memory Hold right away. They walked around the bazaar, bought some things they were interested in, went to the painter for Harry to get his package, and the girls also played chess with other Androids. 

“That’s right, it was fun,” Devola said with a smile. “Maybe we can visit other Android cities in the future.”

“Sure, why not?”

“By the way, we didn’t find any records of magical creatures, but we did come across something unusual,” Devola added as if the thought had just occurred to her.

“You mean that monument in Asia?” Popola asked.

“Yes.”

“What monument?” Harry asked, his curiosity now piqued.

“It’s a human structure that has remained relatively untouched despite the passage of time. It’s not as old as the Pyramids of Giza, but it has been far better preserved.”

“Do you mean the Great Wall of China?”

“No, it looks more like a temple.”

Saying those words, Popola took out a small, spherical device from the inner pocket of her coat, and a hologram was projected from it. It was something she had bought earlier that day from Memory Hold’s bazaar.

Although he was rather fascinated by the hologram, he was far more interested in the pictures it showed. It was the statue of a winged dragon with a peculiar set of spikes growing around its head, almost like a mane. 

“That’s a Chinese Fireball!” Harry exclaimed. 

It was one of the four species that had been used in the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year at Hogwarts. Other than the Hungarian Horntail he had faced, the Chinese Fireball was the most memorable due to its appearance and its nickname; it was also known as the Liondragon. 

The girls were surprised by his outburst. 

“It was one of the 10 species of Dragons that lived during my time!” Harry explained, speaking quickly. “It was native to China, but it lived all over the Asian continent. I’m sure of it! Do you have any other pictures?”

Devola started scrolling through the pictures she had retrieved from the data centre, showing Harry what appeared to be a temple carved within a mountain. 

“And this is a Phoenix!” Harry said, amazed at how accurate and well-preserved the statue of the majestic bird was. “Where is this place?”

Preoccupied with the pictures, Harry forgot about the fish being grilled over the fire, but that couldn’t be said about the girls. They quickly flipped the fish to the other side, not letting them get burnt, before answering his question. 

“It’s on the Indian Subcontinent, in the Aravalli Mountains. It was discovered a few decades ago, but we have not managed to go inside.”

Now that surprised Harry greatly. 

“How come?” he asked. “With your technology, it should be a piece of cake to dig it up.”

“According to our data, digging operations failed because the entire mountain appeared to shake when the Androids tried using heavier machinery. The sonar probes revealed that the mountain had been hollowed out. Afraid of destroying it, all operations ceased after that. After all, our purpose is to preserve what was left of humanity, not destroy it.”

Eventually, they finished cooking and went inside the cabin to eat their lunch.

Time passed, and evening came. Harry had spent the afternoon playing the muggle version of the Snap card game (he had not figured out the Charm to create an Exploding Snap set of cards just yet), cooking, and chatting with the twins, but the girls could tell that Harry’s mind was preoccupied.

As they were sitting on the sofa, basking in the warmth coming from the fireplace and chatting, Harry brought up the thing that had been on his mind the entire day:

“Devola, Popola, I want to visit that place from the hologram.”

“Do you think you may have a way inside?” Devola asked. 

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “But the statues of the Chinese Fireball and the Phoenix make me think that my people might be related to that temple somehow.”

The twins exchanged a glance, and Popola placed her hand on his forearm before saying:

“I don’t want to sound like a downer, but I think that it would be wise to temper your expectations. According to our data, Dragons and Phoenixes were famous creatures in the myths and religion of the humans who lived in Asia.”

Harry shook his head. 

“The Asian muggles’ myths had different dragons. They looked more like giant snakes with legs or multiple heads, and they didn’t have wings. That statue was definitely a Liondragon, a Chinese Fireball. I know it’s a long shot, but I have to give it a try. It’s the only lead I’ve got.”

⁂

Apparition, the wizards’ and witches’ form of teleportation, had two main limitations: first, one could only Apparate in places they had been before. Second, there was a distance limit of five to eight hundred kilometres. One could probably push the limits of that distance, but it would be draining and mentally tiring, something that anyone would wish to avoid when Apparating. After all, a lapse in concentration could lead to instant death via splinching. Harry was definitely not willing to risk that. 

Thanks to Devola and Popola and their GPS, Harry knew for sure now that he had built his cabin in the Alps of Switzerland. That being said, there was a distance of over 6000 kilometres between his location and the Aravalli Mountain Range in the northwestern part of the Indian Subcontinent. Even with his ability to teleport, it took Harry nearly a week to cover that distance. 

First off, the twins tagged along with him. Apparating two other people with him was more exhausting than doing it alone, but, due to their GPS, Devole and Popola were invaluable to Harry. Thanks to them, he wouldn’t need to fumble along the coastline blindly like he used to do in the past. With them around, he would not get lost. He could just Apparate continuously until he got exhausted, leaving the navigation matters to them.

The second and most time-consuming thing was that, due to never being in those places, he was limited to teleporting to the edge of the horizon. He had to apparate hundreds of times, something that he could not do in a single day.

Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth day, the three of them found themselves standing in front of the mysterious temple in the Aravalli Mountain Range. It was not only Harry who looked pale and exhausted, but even Devola and Popola seemed ragged after camping in the wild for nearly a week and being squeezed by the Apparition travel so many times. 

“There’s no doubt about it. This is a Chinese Fireball,” Harry said as he gazed at the large, life-sized statue of the beautiful Liondragon. 

He took a few moments to appreciate the majestic and detailed appearance of the large statue. 

“How did it not crumble after so many years?” he muttered when he saw the date sculpted in the statue’s pedestal: 2185 AD. It was 11,939 AD in the present.

If the statue were to be made of bronze, he would understand. Bronze did not rust or erode. It could last forever if left alone. But the statue was made from marble, if the twins’ data were to be believed. Harry was not an expert in the field, but even he knew that spending +9700 years exposed to the elements should have ground that statue to dust.

‘Magic,’ he thought. 

It was the only explanation. 

Hope bloomed in his heart. 

“There is no entrance to the temple. None that we could find,” Devola said. 

Harry, too, could see the traces of the digging that the Androids had made around the mountain, but they had been unsuccessful in locating the doorway to the temple, reaching nothing but walls. 

Harry took his wand out and said:

“Revelio!”

He had not needed to chant the incantation out loud, but he felt the urge to do so.

A wave of magic pulsed from him, spreading out in a radius of 50 meters around him. The spell did not reveal anything, but he did not give up. 

The twins were surprised when Harry Disapparated without them, teleporting 100 meters away. 

“Hey, don’t leave us behind!” they whined as they broke into a sprint towards him. 

“Try to keep up, girls,” Harry laughed before casting another Revelio Charm at the base of the mountain. 

It was after his fifth Apparition and fifth cast of the Revelio Charm when the foot of the mountain started shimmering and the entire slope began glowing with a red light. 

Devola and Popola, who had just arrived at his location and were about to give him an earful, froze in their tracks when the verdant mountain slope vanished and a massive, stone double gate seemed to appear out of nowhere. 

“How?!”

“Unbelievable!”

Harry ran up the mountain, his breathing laborious not only from tiredness but also from enthusiasm. His heart rate shot up as he sprinted at his fastest speed towards the newly revealed gates. They were over five meters tall and wide, and they seemed to be sculpted out of marble as well. Intricate figures of various magical creatures were carved into the gate’s surface, giving it a beautiful, almost sacred appearance.

“Alohomora!” he said, raising his wand at the doors of the temple. 

He felt his magic react, and the spell did go out but it had no effect on the gates. He tried it a second and a third time, but to no avail. 

“Girls, can you give me a hand?” he asked the twins as he walked to the gates and tried pushing them with his hands. “You’re a lot stronger than I am.”

Despite their slender and cute appearance, and although they weren’t even battle-type androids, Devola and Popola could still lift and push a few hundred kilograms with relative ease.

The three of them pushed against the gates with all their might, but they could not budge them. 

“Maybe they open outwards? Accio! Accio!”

He frowned, feeling like a dog staring at a treat just out of reach.

“Depulso!”

The Banishing Charm slammed into the gates, but then it bounced back straight at him. 

“Fuck!” he cried out as his own spell blasted him backwards before he could react, sending him flying off the slope of the mountain. 

“Harry!” Devola and Popola cried out in worry, running down the mountain to catch him.

They didn’t make it in time, but whether wizards were made of tougher stuff than muggles or it was just a Harry Potter thing, he did not get seriously injured. 

“Are you okay?!”

“Oh, no! You’re bleeding!” 

“It’s alright, I’m okay,” Harry said, groaning as he picked himself up from the ground. 

Luckily, he hadn’t fallen on his wand or broken it. He hadn’t broken any limbs either. Aside from a bleeding scratch along his right palm, wrist, and forearm, he was mostly fine.

Despite his reassurance, the girls gazed at him worriedly.

“I’m fine, really,” he said with a chuckle as Devola and Popola reached for his arms, ready to support him.

Walking back to the large and heavy marble gates, Harry fruitlessly tried using his meagre physical strength to push them again, too afraid of casting another spell and suffering from it.

To his shock—and Devola's and Popola’s as well—the moment his hand touched the doors, the entire mountain trembled as if struck by an earthquake. With a deep, creaking groan, the massive doors slowly swung open, and a strong, stale gust of dust blasted him in the face, taking his breath away. 

“. . .It was the blood!” Harry said, realisation dawning on him. 

It was a Blood Ward! He had never seen or interacted with one, but he had heard about it a few times, especially when talks about Gringotts happened in the Common Room. 

It was a temple of the Wizarding World.