HP/LOTM: Visionary - 386

Chapter 386: The Cave, A Letter from the Ministry, and the Final Lesson

"Right, take this," Harry said, pulling out the Felix Felicis and handing it to the two of them. "If it comes to a fight, each of you drink a little."

Hermione reached for the vial, but Ron took it and tried to shove it back into Harry’s hand. "You take it. Who knows what you’ll run into? Hermione and I still have the Order and the professors watching over us."

For once, Ron, who had always longed to try Liquid Luck, refused it.

Harry did not take the vial back. He only gave them a quick smile. "I do not need luck. I will be with Dumbledore." He turned and hurried off to meet him.

Dumbledore was waiting in the Great Hall. Harry slipped under his Invisibility Cloak and approached.

"Ready?" Dumbledore asked, turning his head.

"Yes," Harry said under the cloak, nodding.

From the outside, it looked as though Dumbledore had left the school alone. The snakes within the castle saw the phoenix depart and began to move.

They took the path to Hogsmeade. Dumbledore stopped first at the Three Broomsticks, then continued on to the Hog’s Head. In the secret back room Aberforth provided, he took Harry by the arm and Apparated them to the sea.

Jagged cliffs loomed over them. The cold air made Harry shiver. Waves surged and smashed against the rocks where they stood.

With his wand lit and clamped between his teeth, Dumbledore jumped into the icy, briny water and swam toward a fissure in the cliff.

Harry stowed the cloak and followed him into the waves.

Inside the fissure stretched a narrow waterway. They heaved their soaked bodies onto the rock beyond.

With a flick of Dumbledore’s wand, a round archway appeared. He nodded to himself, satisfied they had found the right place.

...

Elsewhere, having received Dumbledore’s letter, Aiden acknowledged that the plan had begun and set out for the Ministry of Magic.

He and Dumbledore had arranged three operations in total, each corresponding to one act required by his ritual.

Act One: Dumbledore’s "death." Act Two: the dismantling of the Ministry. Act Three: The Dark Lord’s return.

The best way to answer chaos was to rouse in wizards an infinite hunger for order.

It had been sixteen full years since Voldemort fell. Long peace and stability had left wizards, whose hearts were naturally restless, resentful of order. Or rather, those discontent with order had never truly suffered for it. They were rich, full of ambition. The sacrifices made by war never touched them.

They were the groups that had always hidden within the Ministry of Magic.

If they were not purged in one stroke, fearfully many more Voldemorts would be cultivated in the future. Desire was like a boulder rolling down from a mountain. Once it started, it would not stop.

"After all, they are neither viviparous nor oviparous, but born of transformation. Why not join them? With your identity, you would naturally be the most exalted among them," the system purred, temptation in her voice.

"Enough. You know everything I am doing is for my own advancement. As for them, they have simply happened to blunder into my sights. Nothing more," Aiden said.

He ignored the system and stepped into the Ministry.

Level Eight. The Department of Mysteries.

"Oi, dragon, you are here," the Department Head said, greeting him like a retired official.

Oliver, working through documents on the Head’s desk, shot Aiden a pleading look.

Aiden instinctively looked away and did not meet his eye.

"Ah, after being stuck in this dreadful place so long, I am almost sentimental about it," the Head said, sipping tea and peering at Aiden with a teasing gleam.

"Tch. I gave you Avalon, an entire swathe of it. And you still are not satisfied? This is just a busted Leylines node. Is it worth more than Avalon? Once you step out into the world, you can call yourselves dwellers of a blessed cave like the Orientals, can you not?" Aiden said, casting a scornful look at the fellow who had got the better end and still complained.

"Heh," the old fox chuckled, saying nothing more.

...

Unlike the two men setting scenes for their production, the actor himself, Dumbledore, stood before the cavern and unraveled Voldemort’s puzzles.

He stared for two minutes at the place where the round arch had appeared and murmured, "No. It cannot be. That is too crude."

"What are you doing, Professor?" Harry asked, seeing Dumbledore raise his wand to his own hand.

It was too late to stop him. Dumbledore cut his arm and sprinkled blood on the rock. The archway appeared again.

Harry pressed his lips together and followed Dumbledore inside.

Behind the archway was a massive hollow. Sea wind roared through it. It looked as though someone had blasted the place with tremendous magic. All around were damaged Inferi.

"It looks like someone has destroyed this place, Professor," Harry said.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, frowning.

He stepped forward and examined the magical traces.

Suddenly, runes on the floor triggered. The Inferi around them were drained in an instant. Black gel swelled from every direction and flowed toward the center.

"Dumbledore. It really is you," Tom’s voice rasped from the black mass.

"Yes, Tom. Your checkpoints are always the same, hoping to make challengers pay a price and turn back. But did you ever consider that the true champions who face you do not care about wounds to the flesh? Tom, on the path of the mind, you lag far behind them," Dumbledore said.

He swept his wand. A bright golden ring of flame enclosed the two of them as the black gel burned and shrank.

"Mind your own business, Dumbledore, you damned old man. Why can you not make way for those who come after?" Tom snarled.

The gel gathered and rose. In moments, a half-human, half-serpent monstrosity appeared before them, snake hair writhing over its head and a pair of great feathered wings flaring from its back.

"Look at her. Look straight at her, Harry," Dumbledore said.

Then a huge silver-white phoenix spread its wings and clashed with the serpent.

As a pioneer against the Deep Realm, Dumbledore had little left to teach Harry. At the end of his time carrying this burden, he chose to bring Harry to face Tom once, now half an incarnation of Chaos.

The phoenix pinned the serpent with its talons, tearing at Tom with its sharp beak. Tom’s power lodged in the cave was limited and could not match Dumbledore at all.

"Damn you, Dumbledore! Die!" Tom hissed, and blinding white light began to bloom from her body.

Harry saw the light and threw up his hands to shield his head.

But a figure, aged yet still towering, stepped between him and the blast.

"Professor," Harry cried, reaching out against the glare to catch him.

Boom.

The explosion shook the world. The shockwave rippled out and powdered the cave walls.