Fuck yeah I want me those reviews! Let me know when they're up.

Heh. Well, if I can't mock myself who can I mock? I am intending to get back on the consistent update pony, however. I'm cheating and writing a bunch of updates ahead of time, then posting them once a fortnight, perhaps. Eh, we'll see. That's the plan.

 

As no one has posted in here for almost a year, I shall do the honors. I wrote a scene of my story I am quite proud of. Here we go!

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Voldemort summoned Harry to the courtyard on the night of the full moon. It marked the first time of their weekly meetings to be held at night, and the first outside. The moon half retreated behind the moving clouds, its pale light failing to fully illuminate the shadows.

The Dark Lord stood in a ray of moonlight. A shallow silver bowl rested in front of him, reflecting the night sky. Beside it, laid a small silver blade.

Harry waited between the entrance and Voldemort, watching as Voldemort leaned over and touched the liquid in an urn with his wand.

"Come, Harry."

Harry stepped over the line of what looked to be ash, and into the diagram. The whole courtyard was covered in strange lines, made of blackened earth and slivers of both burnt and unburnt wood. The stone was cold under his bare feet.

"It is time to see the results of your learning," said Voldemort.

Harry neared. He could now see two small sticks about the same size of a wand but thicker. They were made of different kinds of wood. The moonlight reflected the runes carved within them.

"What is this?" questioned Harry. He knew it was a ritual of some kind.

"A way to find an item that belongs to us."

"Us?" He knew not of an object that belonged to them.

Voldemort turned away from the swirling silver liquid. His twisted features prominent in the moonlight.

"Have you ever wondered why I tried to kill you that night?"

Harry's stomach lurched. The Dark Lord's eyes gleamed.

"Why?" Harry all but breathed.

"Many years ago there was a prophecy... A prophecy that told of a boy soon to be born with the ability to vanish me... "

The very air seemed to still. The voice of Sibyll Trelawney's echoed in his memories; the harsh and hoarse tones predicting the servant rejoining the master.

"I was foolish. Short-sighted. I set out to fulfill the prophecy... determined to make sure it did not come to pass. In my haste, I lost everything."

He felt as though something was closing in upon him. The desire building in his chest made it difficult to breathe. He couldn't let this opportunity slip by him again, not like the many times with Dumbledore.

"Tell me," Harry demanded.

Voldemort's lips curled like he was amused with Harry's demands. Nonetheless, he complied.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."

It felt, for a moment, as if the entire world had ended. The silence in the courtyard was absolute. Nothing could muffle the sound of his heart beating furiously in his chest.

"It means... me?" The words felt heavy in his throat.

"At the time, perhaps not," said Voldemort. "Now, it is most certainly you."

"Why?" whispered Harry, his world still spinning. "How do you know?"

Voldemort surprised him by smiling, something broad and faintly patronizing, but amused all the same.

"Did you not vanquish me for a time?"

"It's what you are after, isn't it?" Harry’s voice faltered and he cleared his throat. "It's what you've been searching for. What the Order has been talking about keeping safe? The reason you send your snake to the Ministry? It was for the prophecy?"

"Yes." Voldemort smiled approvingly.

"But... why?" Harry felt as if he was missing something. Why would Voldemort want a prophecy he already knew?

"What I have is... incomplete."

"Incomplete?"

"My loyal servant heard only part of the prophecy before being detected by Dumbledore."

Harry froze. Dumbledore had known from the very beginning... He looked towards the ground, feeling a weird sort of calm come over him. Of course, Dumbledore had known... he always knew.

Voldemort must have caught a glimpse of the emotions building on his face.

"He did not tell you." It was not a question. "Dumbledore always liked to keep his secrets... keep his control."

He did not want to think about Dumbledore, and the betrayal growing within.

"There is more?"

"Yes." There was determination in his voice. "We should know it, own it. It is ours."

Harry stared. "How can we get it? Where is it?"

Voldemort reached out towards Harry’s face, and despite himself, Harry flinched, not sure what to expect. Voldemort’s smile broadened, his fingers pausing before sliding down a strand of Harry’s hair.

Leaning into Harry, Voldemort said, “If you want to know more, you must help me to retrieve it.”

Harry frowned, wanting to ask more questions, but Voldemort was clearly finished with the conversation. He turned away.

For a moment Harry lingered, knowing full well he should not help the Dark Lord.

Yet, he stepped forward, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat. He pushed down any feeling of betrayal. This prophecy was the reason his parents were dead, the reason for everything in his life. He wanted to know. Needed to know.

Voldemort took one look at Harry's face, a lazy smile spreading across his face like a cat presented with a bowl of cream.

"Kneel," commanded Voldemort, himself kneeling in front of the empty silver bowl.

After Harry knelt, Voldemort removed the urn’s lid and with perfect control tipped out its contents into the shallow silver dish. The thick and shiny silver liquid pooled, slowly spreading across the whole of the dish. The musty scent of Mugwort with a hint of Jasmine filled the air.

As Voldemort stirred the liquid with his wand, he began to talk.

"The Department of Mysteries is a secret and terrible place. It is filled with magic both more wonderful and terrible than you could imagine. The Unspeakables dedicate their entire life to studying, researching and understanding what magic is, and what it can be. The Room of Prophecies lays within the Department of Mysteries. Every Prophecy in England, heard or otherwise, sits within this room, and only those who the prophecies belong to can touch them."

The moon parted from the clouds.

"Before us is an old Greek Divination ritual I have mortified to bypass the protections of the Room of Prophecies. Before us, in the bowl is blessed pure water gathered at a spring mixed with liquid silver and various sight-awakening herbs."

He picked up the two rune lined sticks and handed the lighter colored one to Harry. It matched his wand.

"This is our demand. The desire to see into the unknown... into what belongs to us."

The runes were unfamiliar to Harry. He rotated the stick slowly. It felt comfortable as if it had once been apart of him. In the back of his mind, he remembered what these were. Celtic Oghams.

Voldemort gestured to the knife. "Blood is our proof of who we are. That we are the rightful owners. There are no others."

His movements were calm and sure, as he sliced his hand, squeezing droplets of blood onto his own Yew Ogham. The blood on the knife vanished, as Voldemort passed him the blade.

For a second, Harry stared at the silver blade in his hand. This was his last chance to back out.

Quickly, he knicked his hand, allowing the blood to siphon onto the Holly Ogham. It is the runes that fill with his blood.

"Now place your Ogham into the bowl."

Harry mimicked Voldemort, lightly placing his Ogham into the swirling liquid.

The blood was leached from the Ogham, swirling together with the silver, never mixing. Something was building, a sense of something old. Voldemort grinned.

"Together, with our brother wands, we can do the impossible."

They hold out their wands. Inexpressibly Harry knows what was next.

"Incendio."

The flames leapt out of their wands, setting the Oghams ablaze. The flames spread across the liquid, growing hotter, hotter... There was a roaring in his ears. He swayed slightly under the flood of energy. It was not from his wand, or from the flames in front of him, but deep within himself and all around him. Voldemort roared with laughter.

Harry's blood hummed as it burns.

Awareness came to him, flowing into him through the vine-like magic, teaching him to sense things as never before. Where before he had felt and seen and heard, he now felt and tasted and smelled.

He could smell the scent of decay and dust and heard footsteps in the distance.

In the flames, they began to see.

They were soaring through the clouds, through the ground, stone and dirt... hurling along the corridor towards what he knew was the Department of Mysteries. They past the blank stone walls, past the torches-- the plain black door before them was growing ever larger. They were moving so fast, he was sure they would crash... soon they were a few feet from it, and they could see the faint blue light again --

They past through the door with ease. Harry felt a rush that was not his own: through... through at last. Inside a black-walled, black-floored circular room lit with blue flamed candles. There were more doors around them... They moved forward straight across the stone floor and through the second door where patches of dancing lights flickered in his vision. They glimpsed rooms filled with mysterious things, but did not stop...

They vanished through another door and Harry knew this was the place.

They were in a cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres. Harry heart raced. When they reached isle ninety-seven, they turned left and slid along the aisle between two rows.

They stopped.

Before them was a small glass sphere, glowing with a dull inner light. Their names were fixed to a yellowish label beneath the dusty ball. Harry felt winded, weak, as if he had not eaten in days, but he reached for the sphere. He needed to.

The world exploded in a clap of thunder and light.

He slammed back into his body, flat on the stones, gasping and coughing for air.

The bowl was no longer whole but shattered into countless pieces, the fire extinguished. All that was left of the Oghams were ash and dust.

Voldemort rose, his expression unreadable. With a sweep of his wand, he vanished the objects.

"Far older magic rests in that room. It will only be physical touch that will allow us the access we desire."

Voldemort speared the spot with a hard glance, the moon sliding out from behind a cloud, falling across his face in cold, hard light. He seemed older, more weary.

"Go to bed, Harry. We will discuss this another time." He clapped his hands. Mykola appearing with a pop.

He strolled from the courtyard, leaving an exhausted Harry and the house-elf behind.

 

So I had this idea for a MCU crossover, and after watching Endgame I wrote 1500 words for it (This doesn't spoiler Endgame). Basically, the three Hallows are one of the Infinity Stones, forged into three artifacts. Harry talks to Hermione when he gets a visit from Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian.

It's not polished or anything, pretty much just pasted what I wrote.



“Harry, are you listening to me?”

Harry blinked, focusing his gaze on Hermione. She was sitting across from him at the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place, watching him with a frown.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he really was. “I’m trying, but it’s getting really hard.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense! We’ve looked into everything, spoke to experts all around the world, tried spells, potions and enchantments. This shouldn't be happening.”

Her voice was laced with the same frustration that he felt himself. It was hard to think about anything else. He had spent so much time trying to find answers, had given up everything- his position in the Auror Department, his relationship to Ginny, even the weekly games of Quidditsch he used to play with Ron and some friends from Hogwarts-, and yet, he was still where he had started. The Hallows-

There it was again.

At first, it had been small things, not really noticeable: His plan to leave the three Deathly Hallows behind had been forgotten a few days after their victory against Voldemort, and he had gone back into the Forbidden Forest to pick up the Resurrection Stone. He had told himself that it was just simple curiosity, that he wanted to study the fabled artifacts he had assembled, but looking back now, he realized that this was the first sign that something was wrong. He had never had any interest or skill in studying enchanted objects, and the bloody history of the Elder wand had made it clear that the Hallows attracted trouble and violence, something of which he’d had enough for the rest of his life.

From there, it had slowly grown. After he had joined the Auror office and went on his first few missions, he had started to take the Elder wand with him on the more dangerous ones. It would be a shame not to use this powerful tool at his disposal, he had tried to rationalize, and it would be a great boon in their pursuit of the last remaining Death Eaters.

And it had been a boon. Wielding the Elder wand, he felt invincible. Some spells had always come easy to him, but with others, he had struggled, going through the motions and incantations for hours until he could produce a barely satisfactory result.

But the Hallow took all these troubles away. Suddenly, his only limit was his imagination, a single flick of his wrist enough to perform feats he’d never thought possible before. His opponents had been like children- clumsy and limited-, and the public had loved him even more.

Harry Potter, Defeater of Voldemort and Terror of Death Eaters, the newspapers had said, and he had to admit that he’d enjoyed the admiration. It was for his own actions, after all, not for some incident he had no memory of.

Only when Ron, Hermione and Ginny had confronted him about the changes he had undergone had he realized that something was wrong.

The Hallows wanted to be used. They were a constant pull on his consciousness, a whisper in the back of his head. When he didn’t have them with him, they were always on his mind and he became restless and uneasy, worrying that someone might try to steal them from him.

“You’re doing it again, Harry,” Hermione interrupted his thoughts, her voice soft. She leaned forwards over the table, grasping his hands in her own. “We’re worried about you. We all are, even Ginny. It can’t go on like this.”

Her eyes were glittering with tears, and Harry felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t right, that he caused them so grief.

“I know,” he said and sighed. “But I don’t know what to do, Hermione. I’m at my wits end. I feel like I should just carry them around with me all the time, but you know how much trouble that has caused in the past. I tried to hide them, to give them away, to destroy them, but nothing worked. I don’t know what to do.”

He leaned back in his chair, pulling his hands from Hermione’s and closing his eyes. He felt the dull pain of a growing headache, like it always was when he spent too much time trying to figure this out.

The Hallows were a puzzle that didn’t want to be solved, he thought. It was a scary thought. Was spells could give three objects this much power, even centuries after they’d been created?

Even the monks of Hainan, known to be the greatest enchanter on Earth, hadn’t recognized any of the spells.

“I will go to Alexandria again,” Hermione said and Harry suppressed a sigh. “They possess some of the oldest magical records known to wizards. If we can find something on their creation, maybe-”

She was interrupted by a loud pop, and Kreacher appeared next to them, a silver tray with two cups of tea floating next to him. His head was bowed and his skin full of deep wrinkles, and it would probably be a matter of months until he wouldn’t be able to perform his tasks in the house any more, Harry thought sadly. Over the past years, he had grown very fond of the old House elf. After they had helped him fulfill Regulus last order, Kreacher had warmed up to him considerably, and even though he had never completely overcome his prejudice against Muggleborns, they had formed some sort of genial relationship.

But even after he passed away, he would be only three turns of the Resurrection Stone away…

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry said, giving him a small smile and forcing these thoughts to an end. The house elf mumbled something unintelligible, placing the two cups on the table, before disappearing again with another pop.

When he turned back to Hermione, she was watching him silently.

“I don’t know, Hermione. You’ve done so much, and I really appreciate that, but nothing’s worked so far. Maybe it’s just time to… accept it. I don’t want to draw you into this even more. You deserve some peace and quiet.”

“What, and you think that we will just watch and do nothing while you’re having all this trouble? Do you know us that little? Even Ron has picked up a few books, trying to do something, and you know how often that happens.”

Harry snorted, and Hermione gave him a watery smile.

“We will find something, Harry. You won’t have to live your entire life in fear, always watching your back. These Hallows have been created somehow, and for every charm, there is a counter. We will-”

Harry held up his hand, silencing her. Something was making him uneasy, a prickling in the back of his head.

“What’s going-”

Before Hermione could finish her question, the kitchen wall exploded. Harry was thrown out of his chair, the air forcefully pressed from his lungs, before he crashed on the ground near the fireplace. Stones and glass were falling down on him, but he didn’t care.

This was what he was used to.

In an instant, the Elder wand was in his hand and he jumped to his feet, a Banishing charm clearing the air from all the dust and rubble. Hermione was lying not far from him, groaning weakly, and Harry let out a sigh of relief when she pushed herself to her feet.

When he took in the kitchen, however, his mouth tightened with a grim frown. The entire room was destroyed, the furniture torn to shreds, the paintings and photos ripped apart. A giant hole gaped in the wall, revealing the street that was strangely devoid of any afternoon traffic.

No, it wasn’t empty, Harry corrected himself. A woman was laying on the sidewalk, not moving. He could smell smoke from nearby.

Someone had attacked him in his own home.

Hot, boiling anger surged up within him as he stepped through the wall and onto the street, his robes blowing behind him. Very few people had dared to attacked him in the open like this, ever since he had made a point of showing no mercy to those that tried.

But this… It was unacceptable.

“I must admit that it came as a surprise, to find the the Keeper of the fabled Soul Stone on a backwater world like this one.”

The voice was cool and snooty, and when Harry turned to face the speaker, wand raised, he had to keep the surprise from his face. Two being where standing not far from him, and it was clear that they were not human, or of any other magical race he had ever seen before.

One of them seemed more like a beast, with strong limbs and broad shoulders, his skin like dark leather. His face had nothing human to it, its features twisted and brutish. He wore strange, alien armor and lifted something that looked like a larger angkor like it was a weapon.

The other one seemed more familiar. He was tall and slender, and he had pale skin and a flat nose that reminded Harry briefly of Voldemort. But that was nonsense, of course. The man wore a tidy dark uniform that was adorned with golden rings around the collar.

“I don’t know who you are,” Harry said, “But this was a mistake.” The Elder wand vibrated with excitement as he prepared to cast his first spell, only barely keeping its power contained in the wood. “You should not have come here.”

His wand slashed down, and a flash of white lightning split the air.

 

Didn't read anything after that. Spoiler this shit.

 

...This isn't a spoiler for Endgame. It uses a scene from Infinity War. There's absolutely nothing about Endgame in this.

 

Ah good to know. Just trying to avoid being spoiled.