Prompt: Wizards in Space:

Beneath the Weeping Domes.

The domes over Titania were a sight to behold. They were made of a bluish, transparent membrane, the result of an ingenious mixture of the Bubble-Head Charm and the Shield Charm. This created a serene, blue-tinted environment on Uranus’s largest moon, with diffused lighting and soft shadows, transforming its surface into a scene reminiscent of twilight on Earth.

Mostly rocks and ice, it was a dark and distant addition to the Empire, cold and stark, but undoubtedly beautiful. Ice sparkled with a faint glint, while rocky areas appeared more subdued in tone.

At its highest point, in the wide crater that was part of the mountain chain Muggles long ago christened Messina Chasmata, stood Thaddeus Nott, grinning at a job well done. He stood atop a new world, in a sense—its explorer and its father, a founder nearly as great as Salazar Slytherin.

It was a fine, high spot, he thought, a good place for the Portkey to arrive at, and with it Thaddeus’s team, after he made sure the arithmancy was solid. A frivolity, really, especially after all the divination he had to employ to arrive at the lifeless rock in the first place, but it had to be done with great care, lest the rest of the party appear in the middle of the great nothingness the Emperor sought to conquer. No magic could counter that.

A tinge of uneasiness ran through his spine. As a descendant of a pureblood family—one of the first to pledge themselves to the Emperor—Thaddeus was glad for all the opportunities that fell his way, but there was no doubt at this point. The great Lord Voldemort was after something, something that still lay further away from the borders of the known world. Thaddeus was but a wand in the army of probes made up of house elves, Muggles, and Dementors, admittedly the rare one with a real prospect of ever coming back.

But what if he ran into the unknown the Emperor sought? With a frown, he suppressed a shudder. Such thoughts were unacceptable for the Senior Unspeakable of His Imperial Department of Mysteries. He steeled himself so he could make the Emperor proud. So he could leave a mark wide enough for his family to follow. Little else mattered.

The numbers clicked into their places and then it was time. Thaddeus set up the environmental charms, set the delay counter, and put the parchment with the mappings of Titania into a glass orb.

“Portus,” he muttered as he tapped it with his wand, and then it was gone, bound for Io.

And now onto the last, tedious task he had always left for the annoyingly slow period of waiting; raising the headquarters. If it were up to him, his team would be there within an hour, but instead there were dozens of safety protocols, and follow ups, and then redundancy checks as well, all of that without the delay itself.

With a sigh, Thaddeus raised his wand, and started building the lifeless cube that would serve as the center of Titania. In months to come, there’s bound to be a designer or two to follow and make it more presentable for the Emperor. There always were.

He had bigger problems to tackle.

The delay was something they first took notice of almost half a century ago, when Thaddeus’s great-great father struggled with Mars dust storms as he tried to force the stubborn planet into a Floo network.

The storm grew so bad during that pivotal moment that the Emperor had sent His Imperial Death Eaters to help subdue it for long enough to establish the connection. Out of twenty of the best witches and wizards the world had to offer, only nineteen arrived on Mars, and a full minute after they had portkeyed.

“Nonsense,” the world agreed, since everyone knew the magical travel was near instantaneous, but as the Empire stretched the delay became worse and increasingly more unsafe in larger groups. And then the Floo Network started behaving in a similar manner, only considered a touch more safe.

“Something’s eating us,” Thaddeus’s team leader, Tansy Parkinson, liked to say, “Nibbling at us where it can.”

But when Weasleys ran the muggle machines and ran the numbers, the calculated risk was deemed acceptable by the Emperor, and so the expansion continued, with increased losses and increased delay. Thaddeus had no intention to join his missing comrades in whatever hell they’ve found themselves in.

A loud pop broke him out of his musings, and his team arrived, a small distance away from the intended spot. A worry, that, but Thaddeus had to leave it for later consideration for there were procedures to follow. First, the count.

“Parkinson,” he called as the team performed their checks. “Everyone alright?”

“It would seem so,” she said, popping her Bubble-Head Charm, and offering him a hand with a thin smile. “It’s a pleasure to be here, sir.”

“Likewise,” he said, allowing himself a small smile. She was young, younger than most of the team, but about twice as competent. “What should I log in?”

A frown replaced her smile. “Fifteen departed, fifteen arrived, all in good health. All equipment present. Landing spot missed, though. You’ll have a better read on that than I.”

He nodded along, making the report, but then realized what was off. “Fifteen? Did we hire someone new? A designer with connections pulled some favors?”

“If only,” she said and shook her head, dead serious, and then dropped her voice to mere whisper. “Tall, dark bloke behind me is a Death Eater.”

And indeed, the robes were impossible to mistake, even without the mask to complete the regalia. As all around the figure the members of Thaddeus's team were busy with tasks small and big, he stood tall and calm, observing the surroundings with a distant boredom, one hand resting on a large chest.

“We didn’t know until the last moment,” she said, nervously putting a bang of black hair behind her ear. “But he was sent by him. Said he’ll brief you personally.”

The charm he had set before pinged, and he looked down at it. The delay was just about seven minutes, which would break the thirty minute mark, judging from the Earth. It was a breakthrough alright, and frowning at the Death Eater, Thaddeus thought it might be so in more ways than he was aware of.

Just after he sent Tansy away to finish the landing procedure, the Death Eater made it towards Thaddeus in quick, long strides. He didn’t offer him a hand.

“Senior Unspeakable,” he said in a deep, somewhat reassuring voice, but Thaddeus thought he had said rank just to make sure he was aware who was in charge from then on. “I want to extend the thanks of the Empire for your tireless work on this project.”

The thanks, too, rang to his ears just as something serving as a prelude. And then the other shoe dropped. “Now that we have reached the thirty minute delay, we are moving to the military phase of the operation.”

Thaddeus blinked. “The what?”

The Death Eater lazily waved his wand, and the heavy-looking chest made of dark wood joined them. Thaddeus could feel the menace radiating from it, and shuddered to think what was within.

“This,” the Death Eater said, tapping it with his large palm, “is just under half a ton of concoction not unsimilar to the Draught of the Living dead, brewed and cursed by the Emperor himself.

“We will tie it to thirty muggles that are bound to arrive in six hours, and portkey it to Earth together with them. If nothing happens, we will proceed to send them back to Titania, and so on.”

“To what end?” Thaddeus demanded, but he already knew the answer. They were trying to make it all disappear. They were purposefully invoking the biggest known danger to the Empire.

“While the operation is underway, The Department of Transportation will suspend every and all other means of magical travel, and after that we can expect him to arrive shortly.”

Thaddeus suddenly felt light-headed. Could be that he was still flying high on the feeling of taming the new world, or that he was talking to the Death Eater, or that he was just told he will meet the Emperor. Most likely it was all of it.

“But why?” It wasn’t that he cared for muggles much, but he somehow doubted the delay-inducing mechanism, or magic, could just be cursed to death.

“The Emperor’s plan for the expansion is two-fold. The first, of course, is to make the Empire as great as possible, and to expand our power over any and all possibilities that lay out there.” He then stopped, as if he was a bit afraid of what he was about to say. “The second one is outside of our expertise, which is why it was kept on a need-to-know basis.”

“Okay,” Thaddeus slowly said, ignoring the annoying expertise comment. “What is it?”

“The Emperor’s first priority is, and ever was, the defense and safety of the Empire and its subjects. The test we are about to perform is the first step to ensure it once and for all.”

“By destroying the uncharted space we’re in during the delay?”

The Death Eater gave a weary sigh. “By trying to hurt whatever is occupying it.”

It was knowledge Thaddeus wasn’t prepared to ingest. His legs went weak and his throat dried. As an Unspeakable, he thought he knew how the world worked, and was privy to most of its secrets, except maybe a few concerning the Emperor, but still…

“It? What is it?”

“The Emperor’s greatest, ancient adversary, we believe, is in charge of them.”

Thaddeus considered his history. “Albus Dumbledore? But he died quite publically.”

The Death Eater shook his head. “A different adversary, one that couldn’t be killed at time, so the Emperor banished him forever.”

Thaddeus had so many questions he scarcely knew where to begin. Who was he? Who were they? What was in inbetween space? He settled for the simplest one: “Banished? To where?”

“To wherever the banished things go.” The Death Eater considered time. “You may continue with your operative. We will reconverge just before the arrival of the muggles.”

After Thaddeus brought Tansy to the speed, he watched her pale and felt a little bit better about his own emotions. They sat on the simple, wooden chairs in front of the headquarters, as lifeless as the cube itself and frowned at each other.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” she said at last. “I mean I know the risks—we all do—but arithmancy of delay, and the specs from your department are one thing, and a big bad boogeyman centuries old is quite another.”

Thaddeus felt her feelings as if they were his own. Once upon a time, the Emperor had Albus Dumbledore as an enemy, and that was scary enough. He had seen pictures of an ancient, long bearded wizard with a thin, smiling mouth, and deep, piercing blue eyes, and it was enough to make him shudder.

A wizard so great the Emperor judged safer not to meet him in the open duel, the worst of muggle-lovers, and as deadly as Basilisk venom was suddenly not the greatest enemy. Who was this mysterious adversary then? How terrible was he?

“And yet the contracts were signed,” he said instead, swallowing his thoughts, and hoping he had sounded stern enough. “Oaths given, and magic prepared.”

“I’m no craven, you dolt,” she said, swatting away that stubborn lock of hair. “But the military phase? I haven’t cast a decent shield since Hogwarts! There was no reason to.”

Thaddeus shifted in his uncomfortable chair, made his face as smooth as if it was made of stone, and said, “That’s why there’s a Death Eater here. The Emperor himself is en route, besides. What’s there to fear?”

She opened her mouth to protest again, but Thaddeus raised his hand and stopped her. “Brief others, and set the telescopes. We’ve made a great step, but now the real work begins. You know that Neptune was never in the cards.” He looked at the opposite side of the sun, and smirked, trying to project confidence. “The next step is somewhere out there, lonely and empty and lifeless, waiting for me. For us.”

“And so are they,” Tansy whispered. “And so is him.”

It was funny that they didn’t know a single thing about the adversary and yet it was already him. It was already the aldrich horror, an unimaginable terror of the darkness.

“Ted,” she said. “This isn’t what you signed up for either.”

True, but Thaddeus was a Senior Unspeakable, and he served for the pleasure of the Emperor. No truth was beyond that. Not even his wife, and his two girls. Not even his dreams.

“Tell them the Emperor’s coming,” he said. “Tell them everything needs to be perfect.”

“And the muggles?”

Thaddeus shrugged. “They’re dead already.”

He and Tansy exchanged a long look after that, and he thought he saw uncertainty behind her black eyes, and his own reflected back to him. It was one thing to hear about the imprisoned muggles, free for the Emperor to use in whatever manner he saw fit, but quite another to witness it. They stared at each some more, as if to convince one another it was okay. It was easier that way.

Still, later when he had managed to find half an hour to rest his eyes, dreams came, dark and heavy, unwilling to grant him rest he was after.

The prisoners arrived at the delay of fifteen minutes, chained to a rope, barefoot and ragged, their weathered, leathery faces filled with awe and wonder and fear. The Death Eater flicked his wand, and their chains clicked free, releasing their ankles.

“Welcome to Titania,” he said. “Welcome to your redemption. You may have been born untouched by magic, but you shall perish as heroes, part of magic of such magnitude we haven’t yet seen.”

Thaddeus winced. The Death Eater’s speech did little to calm the muggles down, and he could see it on their faces. The utter lack of hope, the helplessness, the urge to do something only to realize there was naught but to die. It was an expression he had never witnessed before, and he realized he could have done without it.

“Perhaps in the afterlife,” the Death Eater went on, obviously with no such thoughts troubling him, “There’s magic enough for everyone.”

Behind Thaddeus, one of his team members made a loud gag noise, and all around him the others shifted on their feet, gazes firmly on the rocky ground.

“Chocolate,” the Death Eater finished, swishing his wand, and distributing bars to the muggles. Some grabbed it by instinct, while the others let it float by them as if they didn’t even see it, their eyes distant and empty. One old fellow was biting on his own bar in such small and delicate bites Thaddeus had to look away.

Tansy was looking at him, eyes slightly red and mouth set into a flat grim line. An accusation, if he had ever seen one, but she might have as well accused the moon for endlessly spinning around the Earth.

“Farewell.” The Death Eater waved his hand, mouth under the mask set in a cruel smile in contrast of his reassuring voice and kind eyes. “May magic guide you just.”

With a pop they were gone, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Something flashed bright sunwards, and Thaddeus quickly shielded his eyes before squinting at it. A blob of light hovered out there in the great open, brighter than the stars and the sun, fairer than moon. It made towards Titania at great speed, as oblivious to Thaddeus’s gaping incomprehension as to the law of physics, and then it landed on top of the headquarters.

A star, it must have been, some forgotten god of the distant lands. Thaddeus fell on his knees, and saw that he wasn’t the only one. Only the Death Eater stood tall and proud, chin high, eyes teary, mouth opened in words Thaddeus couldn’t hear.

The light slowly faded to reveal a tall, thin figure descending from the headquarters as if carried by the gentlest of winds. He was as pale as the surface of Titania, two dark red eyes burning with power and emotion so strong it made Thaddeus shudder.

His features were those of a skull, eyes sunk deep in the gaunt face, the skin stretched thin over the sharp bones, clinging like an old parchment. His cheeks were sunken, emphasizing the sharp and narrow nose. His pale, thin lips were spread in a mockery of a smile revealing white teeth that shone in the dark of Titania.

It was an appearance of death itself, a haunting reminder of an ever-coming grave. It was the Emperor of the known world and all its people.

“My Lord,” he rasped, barely forcing it out. “Titania is yours.”

The Emperor slid around his kneeling subjects in his simple black cloak, barefoot and fiddling with his long pale wand, eyes wandering freely.

“Rise,” he said at last, and Thaddeus felt as if great force was released from his shoulders. His voice was high and cold, but as smooth as a Phoenix song. “Thaddeus. Elijah.”

Him and the Death Eater made a careful approach, and Thaddeus had to keep a close eye on his companion to know at what distance to stop, and how to behave. In contrast, the Death Eater, Elijah apparently, seemed at ease.

“You will be glad to hear the package has vanished completely,” the Emperor said, as if making small talk. “Only manacles and odd pieces of clothes made it to Earth.”

Elijah bowed deeply. “We had no doubt, my Lord.”

“The mission was a success, then?” Thaddeus asked, still battling all the emotion in his stomach. “Shall we proceed with our work here, then?”

“No.”

A simple word squatted all the hope Thaddeus managed to muster. It was a tiny one, but hope nonetheless, and an ugly head of fear reappeared with gusto. He glanced at kneeling Tansy, and the dots started to connect. The only times the Emperor ever left his towers was to take the field.

Elijah cleared the throat. “And the second package? What about my brothers and sisters?”

“The second package?” Thaddeus whispered.

Elijah nodded like an excited kid, eyes huge beneath the mask. “The party from Titania was but a bait. There’s hundreds of such packages arriving from Earth as we speak.”

“Thousands,” the Emperor murmured, red eyes glinting in dim light. “And more than muggles beside.”

Thaddeus felt lightheaded, and had to catch himself so as not to fall down on his knees once more. He may have arrived at Titania as an explorer, but will end as a butcher.

“I—I should have been told,” he said, mustering all the courage he had left. “This goes beyond our contract. We did not agree to this.”

His bravado did little to shake the Emperor who just stretched his lips in response. All around them the portkeys started to arrive, men and women in Death Eater regalia, and a couple of misfires as well, but no one seemed to care.

They moved through Thaddeus’ kneeling team like a river, with purpose and with no care, until they made a wide circle around the Emperor and Thaddeus. Elijah had vanished among them.

“He was Dumbledore’s star pupil, a dozen lifetimes ago,” The Emperor said conversationally. “The boy was the old fool’s last argument in our theoretical struggle. His last weapon in the name of love.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “And in that regard he failed.”

“Seventeen short years he managed to live armed with the power of love, surrounded by friends and allies, and then I killed him for the whole world to see.”

“I thought—”

Something akin to displeasure flickered for a second on the Emperor’s face. “It didn’t take at the time, and so the boy lived, again. And then he dropped his shield of love and embraced what I preached all along—if only Dumbledore was alive to see it—but no matter. The boy will brief him in the afterlife.”

Thaddeus was truly lost. He would give his arm and leg but a week ago to learn some of the Emperor’s secrets, but now he realized he was better not knowing them. He realized his whole life was a lie, and the only place he ought to have been was beyond his wife and daughters.

The Emperor suddenly looked up, and his face twitched in the first true emotion Thaddeus had seen on his face. At first he thought it was fear, but as the Emperor began to laugh he realized it was an excitement.

“Nothing burns as strong as the hate for an ancient enemy,” he whispered. “No feeling compares to this moment of calm before the storm.” His eyes narrowed. “The prophecy said neither of us can live while the other survives, but sometimes I wonder if there’s a deeper meaning to it.

“Sometimes I fear once I kill him there’d be nothing for me to do. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing else to conquer. Is this how muggle gods felt once they were done with the creation?”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Thaddeus asked.

The Emperor gave him a brief glance as the domes around Titania started to darken. “I doubt you will survive the day. Even if you do, I doubt you will be willing to talk about it. Run along now, Thaddeus. Pick a nice spot to die. I thank you for your service.”

The portkeys started to arrive once more, though it was muggles they carried this time, or at least, whatever little remained from them. Long chains popped into existence, some on their own, but most with manacles connecting them to various limbs.

Screams rang through the night, and no one was kneeling any more. Some of the ragged men from Earth arrived intact, by miracle, and were trying to break free, to tackle down both Death Eaters and Thaddeus’s staff making no distinction, and for their obsolescence they died.

They died by dozens, under the hard, uncaring eyes of their Emperor, who seemed to be sniffing the air, chaos around him not troubling him one bit.

Then his beautiful domes shuddered, and the air around them started to glisten, as if they were burning down, and the Emperor murmured, “They come at last.”

Thaddeus knew he should have been helping his team organize some sort of retreat, but the Unspeakable in him had to see what was going on with his domes. He had to understand.

A one-armed muggle came at him screaming, swinging a manacle like a whip from his remaining hand, eyes wide in pure madness. Thaddeus apparated a dozen feet farther, ducked a haywire Death Eater spell, and dropped the mad, manacle-wielding muggle with a stunner. It was the same as if he had hit him with a killing curse.

Someone stumbled into him from behind, and he banished them with a sickening crunch into the nearby rocks without looking back. On the other side of the crater, Tansy was mustering their colleagues into an orderly retreat towards the headquarters.

But not all made it. The young enchanter stumbled, and just as he was pushing himself up, another portkey arrived—a huge chain that came straight out of horror stories—and it dropped on top of the poor fellow, who was teared to death within seconds.

His domes gave another shudder, and then they gleamed violet and then the reality ripped apart. Whatever barrier the Emperor was testing gave way, and the space did something that no law, muggle or magical, allowed for.

The air started sizzling just above the crater of Messina Chasmata, then it folded itself neatly as if it were a piece of parchment ready for the professor to grade it, and in the space left behind nothing but a gaping hole.

All the chaos adjourned to marvel at the sight. Even the Emperor himself cocked his head at the sight. Thaddeus used the moment to apparate next to Tansy, and she grabbed his hand.

“Thank Merlin you’re fine,” she whispered, not moving her eyes from the hole. “I—I thought…”

He squeezed her hand, trying to put some reassurance in it. “Listen to me, Tansy. Whatever comes through that—that, might finish the domes. They’re hanging by thread as it is. Portkeys are far from safe right now, but Phoebe ought to be relatively close, do you hear me?”

Her black eyes were glued to the hole, and were starting to get wet. It seemed the composure she showed gathering the team and shifting them around was running its course. So he shook her hard.

“Listen,” he said urgently. “There’s too much traffic here for any calculation to work, but two or three hours on the carpet sunwards, and the portkey might just get through safely.”

She gave a faint nod.

“There’s a Hippogriff-grade carpet among the equipment,” he said. She knew that, but he doubted her head was clear enough to think of it. His head surely wasn’t. He swallowed. “Look for the opening.”

She slowly shifted her eyes to meet his own, and it took him as a fist into the stomach just how young she was. It was the same hopeless expression the muggles had worn earlier, but this time he could do something about it. He had to.

“Opening?”

He shook her once again, hard, but he was preparing himself as much as her. “You’ll have to start arithmancy only once you’re outside of the domes, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Phoebe is approaching the perikrone. The worst case you’ll be hitting its ring and that’s just as good.”

She nodded. The technical speech woke her from her stupor a little, just as he hoped it would.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, sir,” she said. “The opening. Where’s the rallying point?”

Thaddeus shook his head. The lie came easily. “I’m not cleared to leave. We’ll try to put the domes back together afterwards.”

Her eyes softened for a blink, and then hardened. “Of course, sir. It’s been a—”

A shadow fell over Titania, a shadow of a giant that kept enlarging as the soft steps echoed in the complete silence. Thaddeus was torn between fear of expectation and the wonder of what exactly provided the light for the shadow to exist.

Finally, like a breath held for minutes released at last, the figure appeared at the edge of the hole. Thaddeus blinked in disbelief. It was just a boy, even younger than Tansy, holding a broom in one hand, and grinning as if he was about to start a Quidditch match.

He was wearing simple, outdated muggle clothes, had long, tangled pitch black hair, and brilliant green eyes that shone on his pale, narrow face.

“It irks me,” the figure said, looking at the situation with disinterest, and then settled on the Emperor. “That I still haven’t cracked that trick of yours.” He raised his broom almost shyly. “That’s why I brought this.”

Thaddeus gave Tansy an impatient look, gently pushed her towards the headquarters, and started angling back towards the hole, closer to the Death Eaters who were dispatching the last of surviving muggles.

“Kind of you, Harry Potter,” the Emperor said with a small bow. “To accept my invitation.”

Potter shrugged, eyes scanning the gore once more. “Muggles?”

“Who else? I tried Dementors first—since they missed you—but they don’t have the proper…weight.”

All this so they could talk, Thaddeus thought with irritation. It would take Tansy another ten or fifteen minutes to make ready, but they wouldn’t be able to fly away with the domes still in place. They were still light violet, but slowly approaching glistening red, and then he would be able to punch the hole trough, if the two talking enemies didn’t decide to tear it all down on their own.

No matter their conversational tones, it was clear for everyone to see they were just a spark shy of killing each other. Thaddeus dared not imagine a power they would unleash. He dared not think what else might be skulking behind the boy, in that forsaken piece of territory they should have never noticed in the first place.

Potter nodded. “You got that right. Though even I don’t know all the ins and outs of how it works.”

“A matter for another day,” the Emperor said, his red eyes narrowing, scanning the air around Potter. “Are you alone?”

The Death Eaters made a perfect semicircle behind the Emperor, some sort of signal obviously being passed. As one, they raised their wands.

Potter gave a weary smile, and Thaddeus could see it was not a mere boy. The simple smile changed his face completely. His skin turned waxy pale, distorted, as if he was halfway to being a specter. “In a sense. In a sense you’ll never understand.”

And then the shadows came, and what was before echoing soft steps was now the drums from hell, a thundering march that made Titania tremble in anticipation, and then the dark gods that were nibbling on them all along made their appearance.

At first Thaddeus thought they must have been constructs, made of steel and wood and fire, depicting things of the past he understood, but it didn’t quite fit. There was something about their movement that was simply wrong. As if it was spirits trapped in bodies they didn’t quite know how to control.

There was a great dragon, made of black and green flames, roaring so loudly it made Thaddeus’ bones shudder. There was a wax sculpture eight feet tall reinforced with steel armor and a spear that held blue flames instead of its tip. There was an ancient relic, a car, with deep sunken gray human eyes where its headlights should have been, its engine giving puffs of black smoke. And countless more, emerging from the hole in pairs, in dozens, eyes, if there were any, filled with hate and malice.

Potter’s smile dropped as he mounted his broom. “Kill them,” he said. “Kill them all.”

In the next blink of an eye, the closest Death Eater to Thaddeus simply ceased to be as the pillar-like monstrosity of metal with gaping human mouth crashed onto him, and then the magic erupted, vicious and malicious. There was not a single nonlethal spell around Thaddeus, and he quickly realized just how out of his depth he truly was.

He apparated further back, near the edge of the crater and was nearly slapped by the deadly green light for his trouble. Even at some distance, there was no safety. He ducked another spell, and then had to raise a ten feet tall wet shield to block the incoming black flames, and even then the heat washed over him, making him backpedal.

He tripped over the edge of the crater, barely caught himself and then lifted himself back on foot with a flick of his wand. Above the battle, the Emperor and Potter were at it as well, emitting waves of black and gray pillars of magic of such magnitude, Thaddeus could feel it surging through his veins. Or maybe it was the adrenaline.

At first sight, he had to admit he would put his money on the Emperor. Were such magics wielded against him, he wouldn’t have any idea where to look for a counter, but Potter somehow managed, raising a golden dome and reflecting the thunder-like spell of the Emperor at random, killing whatever it touched, both the Death Eaters and the spirit-possessed constructs, or whatever these things were.

But most annoyingly, the domes held strong. Despite the situation, he felt a small sting of pride at that. They were his domes, after all, a wonder of hundreds of hours of his time. A darker thought followed it. It was, in all likeliness, his last contribution to the Empire he had so believed in.

He had been naive. Sure, there was thrill to discovering the universe, but the Empire scarcely needed more resources or space. To think of it, there was nothing out here, no magic, no monuments of history, and no life. Nothing but his vanity.

Everything else was safe back on Earth.

Dodging the next misfired spell, and countering another, he chanced another glance at the battle above them as the domes around them grew angry red, reaching their boiling point. By now Tansy should have been ready, though he couldn’t see anything close to the headquarters.

An opening, he thought, all he needed was an opening. But what would that change? Somehow Thaddeus doubted things would change for the better were Potter to win. What if neither of them won? Thaddeus could see it clearly as day. They would go at it all over again, he had seen it in the hate their eyes carried.

And then he knew what he was going to do. When the domes boiled over, they would first explode as the generic Bubble-Head charm failed, and then, after some time, due to physics and the degrading Shield charm, the remnants would implode. All he needed to do was to patch the hole Tansy would go through afterwards, and the magic would do the rest.

If he was lucky, the force would blow the whole forsaken moon out of existence, together with them all, or turn them into a giant, dense crystal. The thought wasn’t so bad.

It was a ripe time. A crack appeared on the ecliptic north of the moon, and Thaddeus raised his wand at it, sweat pouring down his face as he waited for the explosion to happen, any second now.

When it came, it took everyone by surprise, but unlike Thaddeus, they were men of action, and as soon as it blew outwards, he could see the fight stop for a split second as everyone raised their protective spells, looking for a new threat.

Thaddeus let out a cry to accompany his spell, and gave it everything he had, hoping Tansy was looking. The blue ball of light left has a wand, nothing on scale used all around him, but enough to finish the crack. Enough to pop the balloon that kept them all alive.

“What are you doing?”

He turned around to see a tall, narrow-faced witch descending upon him with crazy eyes and shaking hands.

“Traitor,” she spat, and twisted her hand in a wide arc. The spell Thaddeus had to block was the most intense thing he had ever felt against his shield, and he didn’t want to think what would happen if it hit him. He couldn’t afford it. He tried to apparate and lose her in the chaos of battle, but she wasn’t a Death Eater for nothing.

“You’re a Nott, aren’t you?” she asked as he desperately shielded, countercursed, and dodged. “A dirty little mudblood, aiding the enemies of the Emperor.” She gave a wicked chuckle. “Who would have thought?”

He didn’t have time to tell her he didn’t even know what the word meant, let alone take care of all magic hurled his way. In mere moments, he could feel his cloak getting soaked by his own blood, though he felt little pain. His left arm dangled uselessly as she pursued him, and his apparition became worse, barely covering a dozen feet each.

It was the car with those dreary gray eyes that saved him, running the witch over, squashing her abdomen like it was made of glass. Then the eyes fell on him, considering him. The engine puffed once, coughed some smoke, and then it returned to the battle.

Thaddeus let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. If only he had seen such a thing but hours ago, it would have given him a lifetime of material to research, but now it mattered little. Now he was simply too tired to be curious, too tired to be afraid.

He had a hole to patch. It was a delicate job for a healthy man, in complete silence, but for him hurt, in the midst of smoke and screams, he had to employ every cell that made him into the slow work of stringing the half-dead dome back together.

There was but a couple of stitches left for him to do when something, almost gently, pushed him aside, down onto the hard rocks of Titania. Potter stood over him like the warrior of the old that existed only in the stories.

He considered his work with his head tilted at the side, and then unmade it with a lazy wave of his wand.

“That’s clever,” he said with a small smile. “You almost had us where you wanted us, eh? Only it wouldn’t work.”

Thaddeus coughed, put an arm on his ribs, and winced. He doubted anyone could survive the implosion of that force.

“No human could, no,” Potter said. “Likes of me and Tom, there’s not enough human left in us to be killed. Not by means known to you, anyway.”

Thaddeus opened his mouth to ask something, anything, but was interrupted by another cough, one that sounded even worse than the first one. He tried to push himself up, but it didn’t quite work.

“I reckon you’ve figured the world would be better off without either of us, and did your best to make it happen,” he murmured, giving the hole another brief glance. “I reckon you’re right. You’re aware that you’re dying, right?”

Thaddeus wanted to snort, but it would cause too much pain. He hoped he was dying, for he didn’t want to feel such pain ever again. At least Tansy made it away. That had to count for something.

“Someone made it away? Ah, of course, it’s the reason you made the hole in the first place. That’s good, that someone innocent made it out of this mess. That way I can pretend I’m not a monster.”

At this point, Thaddeus was getting weary of all the talk. Didn’t this Potter fellow have the Emperor to kill?

“He is overcooking the moon at the moment. He left as soon as he realized we would carry the day.” Potter sighed. “He has as much mercy for his allies as he has for his enemies.”

So this was the end of Titania.

“Quite so,” Potter said. “The last celestial victim in the long list of fallen rocks. Deimos, Europa, Callisto, Triton, Enceladus…and now Titania. I wonder how many more we will bring down before we undo something that cannot be fixed.”

So Thaddeus was right. Nothing will change. But why?

“I doubt either one of us cares for whys at this point. The only thing that matters is the possibility of him dying, and me living. He will never stop hunting me, and I’ll never stop trying to ambush him. You see, today almost worked, but the bastard brought too many Death Eaters. And we were worn from all those boxes of whatever it was he dropped with muggles onto us.”

Thaddeus closed his eyes, tried to picture his wife and his daughters, but the picture wouldn’t quite come to him. The tear rolled down his cheek.

“Here. Let me help with that.”

As Titania shuddered, Thaddeus felt a hand on his shoulder, and then a flash came to him, a flash of faces he held most dear. And then nothing.

 

Spoiler

I find myself having not a lot to say, tbh. Well written, nothing leaping out at me in terms of errors, although I won’t claim to have done a line by line comb through. The idea of Harry as an imprisoned horror is a fun one, and I like the way you’ve done magical space travel. The action is fun and inventive, and the car (presumably the Ford Anglia?) now having actual eyes is quite the image. Thaddeus (and Tansy’s) brief arc of developing a touch of ethical standards is quite effective. I liked it quite a bit, wouldn’t mind seeing more.

 

Spoiler

I have to say I haven't expected the second half after I was done with the first half.

There's a bit of muggle, technical jargon in there that won't mean nothing to anyone not familiar with it but I don't think it ever reached a jarring heights. There's also some altogether muggle thinking in there that might do with a touch more magic. The names remained muggle, but I guess they sound good enough for wizards, and it would all be a confusing mess were you to change them anyway.

There's some abruptness to the second part, and I think it could have stretched for a tad longer, making a proper battle out of it, but it's satisfying enough as is, due to all the build up. The thing where horrors far away are okay, but not so acceptable once they're dropped on your head, is done well, and it showed that the mentioned OCs are just humans as well.

It's a nice reversal of roles, and Harry doesn't come off as a monster, even when you made him muse about it at the end, but there might be even more story in there, in between the mentioned Mars fiasco to the moment Harry became what he's supposed to be in the story.

All in all, I'm happy with it, but it would maybe be even better with a couple of thousands of more words to make it more natural in its tempo.

As far as the prompt goes: There are wizards, and indeed, they are in space.

 

Spoiler

This is wizards in space alright. I like the premise - Eldritch Horror Harry attempts to ambush Space Voldemort's forces.

I like the more magical space travel - carpets etc. is a lovely little touch. I'd have liked the environment itself being also somehow magical, though. I think the prompt would've allowed for mentions of maybe alien magical creatures or whatnot, at the very least more than a bare rock, which is what it sounds like to me.

It begins to feel a little confused after that, though, as everything ends in a haze of combat where the protagonist abruptly resolves to kill himself and succeeds without otherwise achieving altogether much. If there was a mounting sense of horror about Harry at first, it got lost along the way.

Personally, I would think there are two possible solutions to this issue - either rework the balance a bit so that it's all technical jargon that winds up showing just how wrong everything has gone (and ending on the arrival of Voldemort, descending like an avenging angel) or more of a focus on combat with less technical jargon.

Nonetheless, what's there is pretty good. I think it'd have done pretty well, in the original contest.

 

Spoiler

Wizaarrdsss in SPACE!

I love the world building. The way you use magic to help making these barren rocks livable its wonderful, same with the different kinds of magical transportation. Hell, even the reasons why Voldemort is expanding outside Earth is neat.

You also have some really great lines at times.

“Chocolate,” the Death Eater finished, swishing his wand, and distributing bars to the muggles. Some grabbed it by instinct, while the others let it float by them as if they didn’t even see it, their eyes distant and empty. One old fellow was biting on his own bar in such small and delicate bites Thaddeus had to look away.

Great imagery. Not only goes it show the bad conditions the muggles now live in, it also shows Thaddeus humanity.

“You’re a Nott, aren’t you?” she asked as he desperately shielded, countercursed, and dodged. “A dirty little mudblood, aiding the enemies of the Emperor.” She gave a wicked chuckle. “Who would have thought?”

He didn’t have time to tell her he didn’t even know what the word meant...

That one sentence explains a lot of the world after Voldemort won.

After Voldemort arrives, however, the plot falls a little flat. While Harry being some trapped monster is well done (especially with keeping him somewhat likable), Thaddeus' plotline is lacking. His decision to betray Voldemort and try to blow both Harry and Voldemort up is too quick. Same with how quickly he is defeated. Personally, I think Thaddeus' succeeding would have been better, just to see that even the explosion couldn't kill them. Then, having him survive with that knowledge would be far more of a dark ending than just his death. But that is just me.

 

Spoiler

So a thing I learned is that Uranus' largest moon is Titania. Neat. For a while i got it confused with Titan and was lost during the fic, which is not fair to you, but it happened.
Thaddeus as a character is good. He's got a simple workman trying to do his job vibe going, but also seems to be very proud of his accomplishments to get there. Which is more frustrating when it is revealed how many moons Harry and Voldemort have broken. Surely someone who takes his job so seriously would have looked at astronomy and seen that there are fewer moons, or the moons are broken, or something. That twist comes too suddenly and with our point of view character, who should have knowledge of it, blindsided.
The 'we are switching to a military op' and the bamboozlement of the conquest team was done really well. the confusion was captured well and the other team members played their parts very well.
The setting is bleak and tragic, which isn't my preferred fare, but you conveyed the hopeless cycle and struggle well.

 

Spoiler

If I had a really inappropriate Rod Stewart song in my head for the first fic, with this one there's the much better Imperial March as background music.

I think you've done a very good job with this and I would struggle to say what to do better. I'm unfortunately not very into space but I enjoyed your fight scenes and the magical bits about travel and head quarters. Maybe add a bit more to the Thaddeus and Tansy relationship? But I likely think that becaue I'm more into character driven fics ad it's very much a matter of taste.

I like your Harry a lot, very creepy and somehow there's still a bit of canon Harry in there. Maybe could have done something with Elijah, like add some call backs to a Death Eater from the books?

Great job, thanks for writing!