HP/LOTM: Visionary - 422

Chapter 422: A Brewing Plot, A Search Through the Past

While Ethan and the others were talking with Dumbledore, Tom was in Germany and in a foul mood.

Her plans in the material world had taken a hit. Once again, she turned her gaze to the Deep Realm, but most of the Deep Realm Kings had already been crippled. Only one newly born, relatively intact being remained, and it was still sealed.

To reach into the Deep Realm and receive His answer, Tom had to pay a steep price.

"Third layer. Past. Erase."

Those three clipped words cost her the souls of three centaurs, three full chances at prophecy burned up in an instant. She would have to replenish her stock later, Tom thought, but there was something more urgent to deal with first.

"Attend me," she called from the throne.

The doors at the end of the hall opened. Several Death Eaters in metal masks strode in.

"Bring me some Muggles. Alive," Tom ordered.

In short order, they came back from the streets with more than twenty innocents in tow. The prisoners, under the Imperius Curse, shuffled to the centre of the hall.

Tom walked forward and, without a flicker of hesitation, killed half of them. Then she began to chant a strange prayer.

"King of Stillness who holds dominion over time. Invisible one who slips between past and future. For the sake of our common enemy, lend me your strength."

On the Third Layer of the Deep Realm, on the Plain of Stillness, the boundless earth suddenly shattered. Dust and broken stone flew into the air and froze in place. Everything, as if sealed in amber, fell into silence.

The giant clock made of nebulae and black holes was almost entirely ruined. A ragged hole, torn out by some beast’s claws, gaped at its centre. Without a core, Reverse Entropy could not project power across into the material world for Tom.

Even so, through the sacrifice, she felt how weak Reverse Entropy had become. She did not hesitate. She slaughtered the remaining captives, stripping their flesh and souls to prise open a sliver of doorway from the material world into the Deep Realm.

A hairline crack opened on the Plain of Stillness. Tom saw golden motes floating in the air. She flicked her wand, drawing them to her hand.

"The power of time," she murmured, staring at the particles in rapt delight.

"Pity, He is so weak. Otherwise, I could send my whole self back. No matter. A fragment will do," Tom said, smiling.

Black ooze wrapped around her body. Then she split, in the most literal sense, parting into two and peeling off a second Tom the size of a five-year-old child.

She pushed the last of Reverse Entropy’s strength into her smaller self. White light flared, and the child-Tom vanished into the past.

Of course, nothing she did escaped Edmund, who held most of Reverse Entropy’s core. Far away in Egypt, Edmund looked up at the sky.

Through the core, he saw Tom praying to Reverse Entropy and watched her fling part of herself back in time.

"This is bad," he said, rising, about to give chase, when Amin and Nura came in.

"Voldemort is launching a second assault. She is on her way here herself," Nura said at once, bringing him fresh bad news.

"She knows what I can do. She wants to keep me pinned. Troublesome," Edmund said, jaw tight.

He shoved his chair back and pulled up his personal terminal, ready to contact whoever was currently running things in Avalon. A hand and a cat’s paw shot out at the same time and stopped him from hitting send.

He turned. A girl in a dark grey suit stood behind him, a leopard-patterned cat in her arms.

"Arthursi?" Edmund raised his brows. Understanding flashed in his eyes. "I will send you through now."

He dragged the chapel of bones down into place and let Reverse Entropy’s power unfold. A dial shimmered into being behind him. White light flashed again, and the two figures before him vanished.

"Let this work," Edmund said, staring out of the window.

……

January 1980. Britain lay under deep snow. A chill of killing intent ran through the wizarding world, born of simple, shared fear, fear of the man they called the Dark Lord.

A lance of white light flashed. Two travellers from another time stepped out of one age of turmoil into another.

"So, do we go straight to Aiden now?" Lada asked, licking a paw as she sat in Arthursi’s arms.

"No. We cannot tap directly in. Have you forgotten why we are here?" Arthursi tapped the cat’s little head and set her on the ground.

"Right. We are here to weave dreams around the people of this era, then drink the potion the moment the dream solidifies," Lada said, settling at Arthursi’s feet.

“The two Sequence 4 Manipulators of the Visionary Pathway stood there, coolly watching the passers-by.”

A heartbeat later, a pedestrian walked between them and the street. When he passed, they were gone.

At that same moment, in Riddle Manor, young Tom Riddle had just finished his fortress: an alchemical array that covered the entire estate, a weapon forged to stand against the greatest white wizard of the time.

At the core of the matrix, he had set the fragment of the Deep Realm King Chaos left by his illustrious ancestor Salazar Slytherin, then fed into it the wealth he had squeezed from several pure-blood families and the alchemical materials he had traded for. With all of that, the array would not need further maintenance for decades.

Just as Tom was preparing to leave, satisfied with his work, white light flared across the ceiling. A little girl of about five, soft and bright‑eyed, dropped straight into his arms.

Tom Riddle: "…"

Tom: "…"

"Those eyes… Are you my daughter? Have you seized Reverse Entropy’s power?" he asked.

Feeling the familiar magic in the girl’s body, so clearly akin to his own, Tom was already picturing outlasting or murdering Dumbledore and reigning unchallenged.

“No. You die. And I am you,” the girl said, mercilessly cutting off his fantasy and shoving the cold truth down his throat.

"What…!" Tom exploded.

"Master, what is it?" Several Death Eaters burst in. They saw their Lord holding a girl whose eyes matched his own and, as one, adopted knowing expressions.

"Out," Tom snarled.

Magic surged. A wall of black force slammed into the Death Eaters and shoved them bodily out of the room.

"Now. Explain. All of it," he said, setting his future self down and staring at her with frozen eyes.

"Prewett. A family that has haunted us day and night, always out of reach," Tom said, her blood-red, serpent eyes glinting with murder.

“What? Them? They’ve brought a new dragon‑blooded one into the world, have they?” Tom Riddle knew the secrets of every pure‑blood line worth the name; it did not take him long to piece together a glimpse of what was coming.

"That is only part of it. The most important thing is that the Prewetts are holding the Final Protocol," Tom said.

Greed flared at once in Tom Riddle’s eyes.