[The Nexus] Chapter 2 - A Ruined World

It was eerily quiet. Other than the sound of wind blowing, only the crackling of a campfire could be heard. There were no birds, no animals, no people, nor any man-made objects and structures anywhere around. He was in the desert. 

Three months had passed since the fateful night when Harry and his friends broke into the Ministry of Magic. 

Three months since he had last seen a fellow human. 

Three months since he had last spoken to anyone other than himself. 

His Hogwarts uniform was now wrinkled and discoloured, his messy hair had grown longer and wilder, almost reaching his shoulders, there were dark bags under his eyes, and he looked like he had lost around 10 kilograms. 

‘Am I even in the same world anymore?’ 

He was not being overdramatic. He was truly questioning whether he was on the same Earth he had been born on or not.

First of all, there were no nights. There were no sunrises. There were no sunsets. The sun was always in the same position in the sky. For 3 months, he had yet to see the sky darken even once. 

Second, there were no humans. He had Apparated in all the major cities in the UK whose rough locations he could remember. He had not stopped at Great Britain either; he had also Apparated all over the Western, Southern, and Central parts of the European continent. However, he had yet to meet any people. Other than wild animals, the occasional ruins of a human settlement, and groups of hostile robots that tried to kill him, there was nothing else.

Due to the fact that he did not have a map or any precise knowledge of geography and landmarks, the best he could do was Apparate to the very end of his line of sight, following the coast. Once in a while, he would Apparate several hundred kilometres opposite the coast, towards the centre of the continent, in search of human settlements. Currently, he was at the foot of a mountain range that he assumed to be the Alps, somewhere in Italy.

‘Why the hell is there a desert at the foot of the Alps?' Harry thought absent-mindedly while staring at the campfire. 

And that brought him to the third point. The climate was all messed up. It was not like he had been taught in school. For example, Great Britain was so hot that crocodiles could live in it, lions and elephants could be seen all over the place in France, and he had nearly been killed by a hippopotamus while taking a bath in a river, somewhere in southern Germany (or so he believed).

Moreover, it turned out that it was not just London’s swamp air that made it hard to breathe. No matter in what part of the continent he Apparated to, the air was thin everywhere. He needed a Bubblehead Charm to breathe 24/7, even while sleeping. 

‘What is going on with the world? Why is the climate all screwed up?’

‘Why are there no nights?’

‘Where are all the people? Where are the Muggles? Where is the Wizarding World?’

‘Am I perhaps caught in some trap at the Department of Mysteries? Yes. . . it has to be an illusion spell or something. . . I’m sure of it. Someone will realize I’m trapped and come to rescue me.’

He had lost count of how many times he asked those questions and told himself those words. Alas, as time passed, his optimism and hopes that everything he was experiencing was the result of an illusion spell gradually vanished. Denial gave way to frustration and despair. 

‘This isn’t an illusion spell. This is the real world. . . it’s the real world, Merlin knows how many centuries in the future.’

It was the only logical explanation as to why most cities had vanished completely, buried in swamps or covered by forests. As for the human settlements still visible, they were all in ruins. 

Once that thought came to his mind, he could not stop thinking about it. 

‘We were in the Time Room when that cabinet exploded, weren’t we?’

The Department of Mysteries’ Time Room and a cabinet filled with hourglasses exploding. . . Putting those two together with the state of the world, even a troll would be able to deduce what had most likely happened. 

Sitting on a piece of rock with his elbows on his knees, Harry buried his face into his palms. He stood like that for a long while, losing track of time. What was even the point of keeping track of time? 

He was in a lost, post-apocalyptic world. He might as well have been the last human left alive. 

‘How did the world get to this point? Was there a World War III? Did the Russians and the Americans nuke the Earth into oblivion?’

His train of thought was halted when a sizzling sound reached his ears. He stood up and went to flip the haphazardly cut pieces of meat on the metallic grill hanging above the fire. 

He had not randomly found that metallic grill lying around; he had Transfigured it himself from the remains of a robot he had destroyed. It had not been easy due to lacking an incantation for this particular transfiguration, but focusing intensely on casting spells and experimenting with his magic was a welcome distraction from his thoughts of death and doom.

‘What am I to do now?’

What if he truly was all alone in the world? What if he truly was on a post-apocalyptic Earth? After all, he had not found any humans in more than 3 months, despite having Apparated all over the European continent, in hundreds of different places. 

‘Let’s look at the bright side. Voldemort and his Death Eaters aren’t around anymore either.’

A mirthless chuckle came out of his mouth, and he wiped his tears with the sleeve of his jumper. He was just a 16-year-old boy who had suddenly found himself lost, all alone, in an abandoned, empty world. 

“There are only killer robots and wild animals left.”

But as he said those words, it finally dawned on him:

‘Wait. . . if there are robots walking around, who is controlling them? There has to be someone who gives them orders and keeps them functional, right?’

Furthermore, the fact that the robots kept calling him an android and tried to kill him on sight meant that there was another faction who opposed the robots. 

That realisation was like a ray of sunlight piercing through the dark, gloomy sky. It gave him hope. It made him think that maybe the situation was not as desperate as he had thought before. Maybe he was not all alone.

⁂

Three more months passed. It was the beginning of December now. Although he had not spoken to a fellow human in 6 months already, Harry’s mental state was significantly better than three months ago, when he had been on the brink of giving in to despair. 

There were two main reasons for his improved state of mind and overall well-being. 

The first was that he found a purpose: every two or three days, he would go to one of the handful of ruined cities that he had discovered and try to interact with the robots in hopes of gleaning some information or encountering the so-called androids who the robots seemed to be enemies with. Unfortunately, the machines were not much for talking; they lunged at him the very moment he stepped into their line of sight, letting out their usual “Die, android!” screams. Then he would have to either destroy them or run for his life if they were too numerous.

The second reason was that he had stopped Apparating randomly, all over the place, and began taking care of himself more. Understanding that he might be stuck in his current situation for a longer period of time, he set up a camp and started eating and sleeping on time. He began making a life for himself in this new world. 

Harry was surprised by how much calmer and less anxious he had become since he started filling his time with manual labour. It took his mind off things and let him get a much-needed moment of mental rest. 

Now, after working on it for more than two months, Harry was the proud owner of a small but homely wooden cabin in the Alps. He did not know exactly where it was, but if he had to guess, it was probably Switzerland.

He was not a professional builder by any means, but where he lacked technical knowledge, his magic filled in the gaps for him. A Sticking Charm there, a Transfiguration here, a Conjuration every now and then, and, just like that, a wooden cabin with a simple layout came to be.

Continuously using his magic to conjure and transfigure all sorts of tools and construction materials led to Harry steadily improving his skills in those two fields of magic until he finally understood the most important principle behind them: it was imagination. Wizards and witches’ skill with Transfiguration and Conjuration was, in a large part, limited by their inability to clearly visualize in their minds the object they wished to conjure or transfigure. A mere image of the object was not enough. Its size, colour, texture, weight, level of flexibility and so on and so forth. The more detailed the mental image of the objective he was trying to conjure, the better and faster his spellwork turned out to be.

Back in the present, considering that Christmas was just around the corner, Harry went out into the forest, looking for the perfect fir tree to bring home. 

After suffering through nearly half a year of insanely hot and humid weather, the crunching noise made by the snow under his feet sounded like music to his ears. Unfortunately, the coming of winter did not improve the quality of the air. Being at a high altitude did not help matters either, but Harry had long since gotten used to living with a Bubblehead Charm on at all times. With practice also came expertise; nowadays, he could change its shape and make it so that only his mouth and nose were covered by the charm instead of his entire head.

It took him nearly one hour to finally find the perfect tree: an emerald, 2-metre-tall tree with beautiful, dense, and symmetrical branches. 

“Difindo.”

One simple Cutting Charm, and the tree was ready to be carried back home. Harry was even quick enough to also cast a Levitation Charm before the tree could fall on the ground and damage its branches. 

Humming the catchy tune of a happy-sounding Christmas carol, he was in a better-than-usual mood as he carried the fir tree home. The warm lights coming through the windows of his cabin appeared into view when, all of a sudden, he picked up on the sound of tree branches snapping, and he noticed the ground quaking.

‘Robots again?’

He put the fir tree down and cast a Shielding Charm around himself. Having fought against the machines dozens of times already, Harry was very quick to enter ‘battle mode’. 

‘No, it can’t be the robots. The closest ruined city I know of is hundreds of kilometres away.’

Just as he told himself that, a massive silhouette burst out from the forest behind him and slammed violently into his shielding charm. 

Ever since he arrived in this lost, ruined world, Harry learned three very simple but undeniable truths:

1. Earth was tidally locked. There were no nights in the part of the planet that he was on. 

2. Europe’s climate was messed up beyond his understanding. 

3. Hippos, boars, and moose were dicks. Massive, unrepentant, hateful jerks with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They were a menace, even worse than the robots who confused him for an android and tried to kill him. 

“God damn it!” he swore in annoyance when the violent moose slammed with its massive antlers into his shielding charm. 

The stupid and vile creature had collided so hard with his protective spell that it rattled its own brain and fell on the ground, on its side, as stiff as a board, as if it had been paralyzed. 

Hippos in warm regions, and boars and moose in temperate and colder regions: three species of vermin who attacked anything that moved unprovoked, for no reason whatsoever. 

Moose, in particular, were just the worst. They weren’t even omnivorous. They were herbivores. They just wanted to kill shit for the heck of it. 

He had been attacked so many times that his hatred for these creatures grew so big over the past half a year that he started killing them on sight every time he saw them, the ecosystem be damned. 

Having gotten over its momentary brain freeze, the moose stood up, backed away a few steps, and charged at him again. However, Harry cancelled his Shielding Charm and formed a Z-shaped sign with his wand. 

“Confringo.”

The Blasting Curse nailed the moose straight in the head, blowing it up in a gory fashion. 

Leaving the dead moose behind him, Harry cast a Levitation Charm on the fir tree and went inside the cabin. 

⁂

Having already conjured the Christmas ornaments and globes before going out to find a tree, Harry did not take long to finish decorating. Now, he was sitting on a wooden armchair by the fireplace and sipping on a mug of dandelion tea. 

His Christmas tree was pretty enough, but it could not be compared to the majestic Christmas trees that were brought every year inside the Great Hall. The unmelting snow, the myriad glittery ornaments, and the real, living fairies taking residence on their branches painted an otherworldly image. 

Thinking of Hogwarts, his mind also went to his best friends, Ron and Hermione. 

‘I wonder, did she go back to her parents for Christmas? What about Ron? Is he at the Burrow with the rest of his family?’

He missed them. He missed them terribly. And not just Ron and Hermione but the other people he had grown close to as well. The other Wesleys, Tonks, and, above all, he missed Sirius. He was so starved for interaction with another fellow human being that even talking to the hateful Potions Professor would have filled him with joy in the present. 

Harry let out a shuddering breath and concentrated on clearing his mind. He had not shown much promise during his Occlumency lessons with Snape in the past, but now that Voldemort was not plaguing his mind anymore, it became a lot easier to keep his mental state in check. 

A welcome distraction appeared when he heard a chorus of bone-chilling howls in the distance. 

‘They’re finally here, eh?’

One of the nearby packs of wolves had discovered the moose’s corpse. 

Not long after that, the low growl of a bear was heard as well. 

‘That’s what Robinson Crusoe must’ve felt like.’

On one hand, his personal safety and comfort were well beyond that of Robinson Crusoe due to his magic. Unlike the stranded sailor, Harry did not have to worry about water or food. He did not get to experience the arduous effort of felling a large number of trees by hand to build his cabin. Furthermore, wild and ferocious beasts such as hippos, moose, bears, mountain lions, packs of wolves, and so on and so forth did not pose any real danger to him unless they ambushed him when he did not expect it. 

But on the flip side, his overall situation was far more dire than that of Robinson Crusoe because he was not merely stranded on an island. . . 

‘Am I a few centuries in the future? Or is it a different world altogether?’

Harry had not explicitly admitted it to himself, but, deep down, he was beginning to slowly get accustomed to the idea that he may never find a way back.

Done drinking his tea, he cast a Silencing Charm to deafen the howls and growls coming from outside when the large pack of wolves put the bear on the run. He killed the lights from the wax candles on the table and extinguished the fire in the hearth before heading to the bedroom. 

Getting in bed, Harry recast the Bubblehead Charm on himself to make sure it would last him until morning. Then he pulled the covers over his head and let the warmth of the thick and heavy blanket lull him to sleep. 

⁂

Harry had never expected to become stranded before, so it was not as though he had studied survival techniques and whatnot. However, just like many other people in Great Britain, he had read Robinson Crusoe. It was not the type of novel that most children enjoyed; many read it out of obligation due to school assignments. It was not the type of novel that had many amusing scenes or blood-pumping action, but Harry had enjoyed it despite being quite young at the time he had read it. 

The protagonist’s loneliness and his life, isolated from his peers, had resonated with Harry. Thanks to that, although 8 or 9 years passed since he had read that novel, some of the scenes in it stuck with him. For example, he could remember that the protagonist used to etch lines on a wooden cross to mark the passing of days, and Harry had followed his example by carving the date with his wand on a cliff. 

'Today I’m 17 years old.’

Glancing at his reflection in the mirror that he had conjured, it dawned on him that he had matured quite a bit. Maybe it was the hardships and loneliness that he had experienced over the past year, or maybe it was due to a lack of proper care for his appearance, but he no longer had the looks of a teenager but those of a young man. 

‘I’m an adult now.’

If he had been back home, his friends would have surely thrown him a party to celebrate. 

‘Knowing Sirius, he would have taken me to a pub. . . or to a strip club.’

He chuckled, imagining Mrs Weasley’s outraged face at finding out that Sirius had taken him to such a filthy place. But his laughter soon subsided. Before gloomy thoughts could take over, Harry stopped moping and clapped his hands once.

“Alright. No time for lazying around.”

The crack of Apparition was heard, and he vanished into thin air. 

When he reappeared, he found himself in the middle of a ruined city that was half buried in sand. 

‘How strange to see skyscrapers still standing.’

His thought was not without reason. After all, tall buildings were logically the ones that decayed and collapsed the fastest once a city was abandoned. 

It was not just the skyscrapers. Many other buildings were still in relatively good shape. 

‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d think people still lived here 20 or 30 years ago.’

This city was much better preserved than the other ruined cities he had seen until then. 

He Apparated once more, teleporting himself to the rooftop of a very tall apartment building, wanting to get a bird's-eye view of the city. Studying his surroundings for a few minutes, a question arose in his mind:

‘Where are all the robots? There were thousands of them last time I came here.’’

No sooner than he asked himself that, a series of powerful explosions boomed in the distance.


⁂

 

A man wearing desert camo clothes, a grey hood, a mask, and goggles reported:

“Captain! They’re almost out of the minefield!” 

The person in question, a woman whose body was just as tightly covered by her clothes, looked in the distance at the horizon. A massive sandstorm was coming. 

“We have to hold them back at least 15 more minutes!”

“Fifteen minutes?! We’ll run out of ammo long before that!” the man exclaimed in disbelief. 

“You think I don’t know that? But we cannot afford to lose! If they go past us, they’ll get to the pyramids! Even if we have to lay down our lives-”

“Why is a ruined building more important than our damn lives?” another woman, wearing the same get-up as the rest, asked in a voice filled with frustration. 

“We have our orders, soldier,” the captain said evenly. “Why is not important. It doesn’t matter why. All we have to do is follow the orders from above!"

At that moment, the sounds of explosions stopped. A feeling of tension washed over everyone, and they gripped their weapons. They knew what was coming. 

The captain glanced back towards the horizon, to the south, once again. The massive clouds of sand were only a few kilometres away. Even while they were outnumbered 100 to 1, they could scrape a win from the cover of darkness. All they had to do was survive until the sandstorm arrived.

“We can make it. Don’t falter. We’ll make it out of this alive!”

However, when the curtain of smoke covering the minefield started dissipating and they saw the sheer number of machines heading their way, even the captain was at a loss for words momentarily. 

“Damn machines. Damn. Damn it all!” one of the soldiers shouted, and, grabbing his RPG, he fired a rocket at the incoming army of robots. 

His comrades followed his example and started raining fire upon the enemy. RPGs, hand grenades, mounted machine guns, and so on and so forth; the few dozen soldiers used their entire arsenal, not sparing any ammo. It was their last stand against an army numbering thousands of robots. 

⁂

The moment he heard those explosions, Harry was stunned. So far, he had only ever encountered those violent, clunky-looking robots. But they were not fighting against each other. That could only mean one thing:

‘Are they fighting against androids? Or maybe even humans?’

Considering that the robots had never called him ‘human’, always shouting ‘Die, android!’, he had a feeling that humans were probably not fighting on the frontlines. Regardless, he could not help being excited because more than one year had passed since he had spoken to someone. 

‘Calm down, my heart. Calm down, me!’

Having spent such a long time without human interaction, he had gained the habit of talking to himself. 

‘I should be cautious. Just because they’re enemies with those robots doesn’t necessarily mean androids are the good guys.’

Despite the words he was telling himself, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the Apparating several kilometres towards the south, at the outskirts of the ruined city.

He teleported a few hundred metres to the west of the battlefield. 

‘Humans. .  . People! Actual people!’ 

The distance was quite big, but the appearance of the camo-wearing people was unmistakable. They looked like humans! Other than finding a way to get back home, there was no better present he could have gotten for his birthday.

Not spending a second longer to think, Harry broke into a run towards the flank of the army of robots. 

Mindful of getting hit by a stray rock or bullet, Harry stopped at a distance of 50 or 60 metres before starting firing spells with wild abandon, not caring about the possibility of those people being Muggles. 

“Bombarda! Confrigo!”

“Diffindo! Expulso!”

Each one of the spells he fired would either blast a robot to pieces or sever it in half. 

‘They’re too many!’ he thought, glancing anxiously at the shortening distance between the robots and the soldiers. 

It was in moments like these that Harry hated his complacent behaviour from the past. His arsenal of offensive spells was too limited. He did not know any spells with a large area of effect or spells that could harm multiple opponents. 

But then, an idea came to his mind, and he cast a Levitation Charm on one of the largest robots, those types that were as big as a mountain troll. 

Having used the Levitation Charm extensively while building his wooden cabin, Harry had become an expert with it. Despite levitating a robot weighing several tons, no signs of strain could be seen on his face. 

The large machine flailed its limbs in confusion as it was levitated, but it could do nothing to escape the spells’ hold.

He swung his wand up, down, and sideways almost like an orchestra conductor. Following the movement of his wand, the robot was slammed down and sideways, crushing all the smaller units under its enormous weight.

Taking note of the sudden attacker from their flank, two dozen flying-type robots broke off from the main body of the army and flew towards Harry. 

The flying robots’ guns lit up, and the sky was instantly covered by a swarm of red laser projectiles. 

“Oh, crap!”

Cancelling his Levitation Charm on the robot that he had used as a bowling ball until then, Harry quickly cast the strongest Shielding Charm he knew:

“Protego Maxima!”

A translucent sphere of blue light appeared around him, and he gritted his teeth as the laser bullets rained upon him from above. 

Right after the first hail of laser bullets ended, Harry dropped the Shielding Charm and aimed his wand at the sky:

“Immobulus!”

The flying machines were frozen in their tracks by the charm, but their guns were not taken out of commission and Harry broke into a run, doing his best to dodge the deadly projectiles. 

As he was running, he started concentrating intensely on Disapparating. He could Apparate with no problems when he was calm and stationary, but doing it during battle while running was difficult for him. 

The crack of Apparition was heard, and he reappeared on the opposite side of the battlefield. Although he was slightly dizzy from the imperfect Apparition, he was fortunate not to have splinched himself. 

Having regained his bearing, he cast another Levitation Charm on one of the bigger units and started slamming it against the other robots, using it as a sort of massive bowling ball to mow down all the smaller robots, just like before. 

Unfortunately for Harry, his actions proved to be too destructive, so the machines started treating him as a major threat now. A swarm of over 30 car-sized spider-type machines broke off from the main body of the army, skittering at a great speed over the sand. 

Thankfully, it was not only the army of machines that noticed his arrival and the massive impact his actions had had on the battle. The group of soldiers did too, and they took action, firing four rockets towards the swarm of spider-types. 

“I don’t know what sort of ability you used to wreak havoc in their ranks, but keep doing that! We’ll support you with our full strength! Hold on for 5 more minutes!” 

It was a very loud female voice, sounding as though it were coming from a megaphone. It was speaking in English, with a very clear RP accent. 

‘They really are humans!’ he thought, his heart filled with awe and anticipation.  

Bringing the tip of his wand under his chin, Harry cast a mental Sonorus Charm to reply:

“Understood! You can count on me!”

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

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