Hermione Granger was a whirlwind of emotions—confused, nervous, curious, but above all else, deeply excited. The revelation Harry had shared with them was exactly the sort of thing that would have sounded utterly mad a year ago. But after everything they'd seen and done, the impossible feats of magic, the undeniable presence of Voldemort, and now that she had confirmation of gods, the boundaries of reality felt like they had been shattered, redefined in a way that both terrified and thrilled her.
Ever since that meeting in the classroom where Harry told them he was a Campione, Hermione had been consumed with the need to know. Her academic mind, ever hungry for knowledge and understanding, had been set ablaze.
She had searched the Hogwarts library from top to bottom, pulling every book she could find about gods, myths, legendary heroes, magical warriors, and obscure magical history.
She really did search, spending hours poring over ancient texts and dusty tomes, but after hundreds of pages, all she found were fragments—cryptic warnings, fragmented stories, a few vague, almost dismissive references to beings known as Campiones, dismissed as mere fairy tales.
In her frustration, unable to sate her insatiable curiosity through traditional means, she did something she never thought she would: she asked Ronald for help.
To her surprise, Ron was more helpful than expected. He, along with Fred and George, shared the old wizarding tales passed down through generations in their family, whispers of godslayers who wielded divine power, of heroes who challenged the heavens.
The stories varied wildly, filled with inconsistencies and exaggerations, but a few consistent points stood out. Campiones were beings beyond human comprehension, their existence was shrouded in myth, hidden from the general populace, and one was even said to have destroyed an entire country by themselves, reducing it to dust.
Hermione was horrified, her eyes wide with disbelief and a dawning terror. "A country? As in… a whole nation wiped out by one person? That's impossible!"
The twins exchanged a look, then shrugged uncomfortably, their usual mischievous grins replaced by a rare solemnity. "It's just a story… probably," George offered, though neither of them sounded convinced, their voices lacking their usual certainty. "Everything the wizarding world knew about them was from these old tales, and there had never been proof of Campiones as far as the public were aware. But now…"
They trailed off, their gaze turning to look at Harry, who was also in the common room with them, across the room, relaxing on a couch while reading one of those strange books she'd been eyeing for days, the one she desperately wanted to read.
She couldn't stop thinking about it, not just the destruction, the sheer, unimaginable scale of it, but the sheer power implied. And the fact that Harry, Harry, her best friend, was now one of them, a being capable of such devastation.
Later that evening, unable to stand her own gnawing curiosity, she found Harry still lounging on a couch in the common room, deeply engrossed in one of those strange, ancient-looking books. She crossed the room in a few quick steps, her mind buzzing with questions.
"Harry, I want to know. Properly this time. Everything," she said, her voice urgent, sitting down beside him, practically vibrating with suppressed excitement and a touch of fear. "What really is a Campione? How does it work? What kind of magic is it? Why isn't it in any of the books?"
Harry looked up, amused, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Took you long enough to ask, Hermione. Guess the library didn't help much, correct? Did all those hundreds of books fail you?"
She scowled, a slight flush rising to her cheeks. "Not funny, Harry. I'm serious. I found almost nothing. Just vague warnings and old wives' tales."
He chuckled and closed the book, placing it carefully on the table beside him. "Alright, alright." He leaned forward, his expression shifting to one of quiet seriousness. "You already know the basics. Campione means Godslayer. But what you probably don't know is that we're the product of a ritual created by a being called Pandora, the All-Giving Mother."
"Pandora?" Hermione blinked, her mind immediately jumping to classical mythology. "As in the Greek myth, box, hope, all that? The one who unleashed evils upon the world?"
Harry nodded. "Same one. She created the ritual that allows a mortal to steal the authority of a god after slaying them."
And then he began to explain, patiently and thoroughly, drawing upon the vast well of Jacob's memories and what he refreshed from some books at the mage association.
Campiones were born when a mortal slays a Heretic God. These weren't just figures from stories, they were real, divine beings who escaped the boundaries of their mythologies and manifested in the mortal world, endangering people, disrupting the natural order.
From myths and legends, they were born. The essence of the world and beyond, this is what comprises the supernatural core of them, thus lending form to these existences, the gods.
But for some gods, the forms and nature of their myths becomes a burden, and they rebel against them, manifesting in the world, escaping from the myths and legends, also known as the Domain of Immortality, as Heretic Gods, and bringing disaster with them.
What determines the power of a Heretic God is not their fame, or how powerful they were portrayed in their myths, but rather their own will and determination, their ego, their desire to exist outside their imposed roles. The more determined they are to exist, to rebel against their myths, the more powerful they are.
He went on to describe the different categories of Heretic Gods, his voice calm and methodical, as if giving a lecture.
"Gods of Steel," Harry began, "are warrior gods and heroes with invulnerable bodies, born through fire, blood, or battle. If I were to put which gods they would be like, Sun Wukong, Achilles, or Siegfried. Their myths and legends contain veiled references to forging or tempering a sword, and they generally play the part of heroes and war gods, often noted for slaying snakes or dragons, such as Susanoo's slaying of the Yamato No Orochi, Perseus' slaying of Medusa, or Siegfried's slaying of the dragon Fafnir. In many myths, Gods of Steel will gain weapons or powers from slaying dragons or serpents. For example, Siegfried gained his invulnerable skin from bathing in the blood of a dragon, while Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi was found by Susanoo after he slew the Orochi, an eight-headed snake monster."
"Then there are Gods of Earth," he continued, "who embody nature, sky, sea, land, underworld, darkness, and the cycle of life (life, growth, maturity, death, rebirth, immortality, healing, transformations), whether in whole or in part. They are often noted as having entered the Netherworld in some fashion, either through death, such as Osiris, or being born in the Earth as Apollo or Zeus, only to return through some means to the world of the living, such as Apollo rising in the sky as the sun god, or Osiris's resurrection."
"Next are Mother Earth Goddesses," Harry explained, "female gods of earth, similarly embodying nature, but they differ greatly from their male counterparts. Often, when a Mother Earth Goddess was assimilated into a new area or religion, she would be turned into a monster, who would then be slain, and her priestess would then marry the slayer in order to make her subordinate to the ruling gods. The slayer generally being a God of Steel. Many goddesses of the earth are symbolized as snakes or dragons, with the foremost example being Athena, who was also Medusa. Religions that assimilated them would often use this trait to their advantage. They would split the Mother Earth Goddess into a beautiful maiden and a ferocious monster. The heroes would then defeat the monster (a.k.a the goddess) and then marry the maiden (enslave her) in what would become the stories we know today. Mother Earth Goddesses can take weapons of [Steel] as the heroes stole those weapons or powers from them to begin with. Mother Earth Goddesses were often paired with a male god, often a god of Steel, to act as a guardian or protector. These gods were usually lovers, brothers, or in the oldest traditions, sons."
Hermione listened in fascination as he went on explaining all this, her hands writing in a book as he spoke.
"Then we have the Sun Gods," Harry went on, "who are generally gods of light. They often have a quality of immortality similar to that possessed by gods of Steel. In at least some cases, gods of the Sun are also gods of earth, such as Apollo, or gods of steel, such as Verethragna."
"You also have the Subordinate Gods," he explained. "Not much information is known about the difference between a Subordinate God and an Individual God. It is stated that a Subordinate God can share their power with its 'Master,' the God that summoned them and controls and protects them, and vice versa; however, only the 'Master' can take all the power from their Subordinate God. Subordinate Gods are less powerful than a normal Heretic God because, since they have subordinated themselves to another god, they lack the will to succeed, no matter what others say that an independent Heretic God possesses. If a Subordinate God's leader is slain, the Subordinate God will quickly fall as well."
"And Fake Gods," Harry continued, "are not true Heretic Gods, but are magical copies that look like and have access to the Authorities of a specific Heretic God. However, they have only a fraction of that god's full power. Because of this, they are only slightly more powerful than a Divine Beast. Fake Gods seemingly do not fulfill the requirements necessary for Pandora to grant a Campione an Authority."
Harry really took time to explain all this to Hermione, honestly, it was because of Jacob's memories that he knew most of these, a vast, pre-existing knowledge he was now able to access.
After explaining all the workings of how Campiones were born and what they became, Hermione's hand was flying across the page, writing furiously in a conjured notebook, filling it with intricate diagrams and detailed notes. She stared at him, breath caught in her throat.
"And the magic we use, our Authorities," Harry continued. "Each Campione gets the divine powers of the god they kill. Not just spells, but entire concepts made manifest. Like commanding storms, bending time, turning fire to ice—whatever domain that god ruled, that concept becomes theirs to wield."
She stared at him, breath caught in her throat, her mind reeling with the implications. "So… how powerful are Campiones really? The twins and Ron mentioned a story where one destroyed an entire country. That's just a story, right? Just because no one knew about them, that wasn't actually possible, right?" She let out a little nervous laugh, hoping for reassurance.
Harry gave a small smile, but his eyes were dead serious, devoid of any humor. "It depends on the Authorities they have and how well they know how to use them, how skilled and experienced they are. But it isn't difficult for a Campione to destroy a single country, Hermione. It's entirely possible."
She froze, her pen clattering against the notebook. Her face went pale, her eyes wide with a dawning horror.
"I'm not joking," he added softly, his voice unwavering. "That's why Campiones are feared. As you can guess, that's probably why their existence is kept a secret. Not even the magical governments want people to know they exist. You can't control a Campione. You just hope they don't get angry, or that their desires don't clash with yours."
"Campiones are stubborn, hardheaded, battle maniacs, and yes, that includes me. It's just in our nature to seek out battle and hate being undermined."
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again, her thoughts racing faster than she could speak, a thousand questions forming, then dissolving, in her mind. This was too much.
She had come here to understand magic, rules, logic, structure, something she could categorize it as and master. But this… this was myths come alive. Powers that defied comprehension.
She continued to ask Harry questions, barely noticing as time passed, trying desperately to understand the limits of this new world, to find a framework for the impossible. Eventually, even her boundless curiosity began to fizzle into silence, overwhelmed by the sheer, terrifying scope of it all.
She finally understood why the others were scared, why even the twins had gone quiet when Harry first revealed the truth.
Because now that the myths were real… so were the monsters.
And Harry? Harry wasn't just that little boy she had met and became her best friend anymore.
He was one of the most dangerous beings alive, a force of nature.
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