Evelyn McAlister stood amid the ruin that had once been a quiet stretch of Scottish coastline, the very air still humming with leftover divinity. Three days had passed since his King's brutal battle with the Heretic God, and this place still felt like death.
He looked around the area where the Heretic god had fallen and sneered, watching as Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries scurried like ants, collecting samples, scanning the soil, and muttering incantations and hypotheses they clearly misunderstood.
He had never liked them, his organization held a deep-seated grudge against the Department, whose officials always behaved as if they knew all and that it was their solemn duty to be pulling strings from the shadows.
The core conflict was in the way they when around things, the Unspeakables sought always try to control things and always pushed passed their limits and poked at others in there actions and that had made them alot of enemies, they always like to push people as if wanted to see them snap and attack them, and worse of all they didnt seem to understand what they were doing at all and that further pissed him off.
Like what they were up to now. They were trying to gather anything they could to learn more about campione and heretic gods to further prepare for them, or at least they say, he and everyone else knew the truth, they wanted to control them. A foolish endeavor.
Evelyn and the Association understood that campiones and rogue gods were no different than natural disasters, unpredictable and utterly beyond mortal control.
They had already identified the Seventh Campione, and Evelyn knew that by now, every major power structure in the magical world understood exactly who Harry Potter was.
The king's identity was no longer a secret, and word had been flying around the heads of different organizations. He sighed and turned to look at the land.
The ground here was scarred. Grass had turned to ash and rotten slime, and the earth bled rot and residue. Even the magic in the air here felt off as if it had been tainted, the air felt heavy, and that odd presence that felt like it could wither all life in its path.
The signs of death were everywhere, signs that went beyond mere physical damage. The very soil felt sterile. Even the shoreline below looked cursed, hundreds of dead sea creatures lay washed up along the coast, their bodies untouched even by scavengers.
The Unspeakables poked and prodded, running around as if they could gain some meaningful truth from this carnage. They were searching for a secret, a weakness, or perhaps a sliver of the gods' power.
This is why he hated these Winx, if something was not to their standard, then it was supposed to be looked down on. New magic users? Argh mudbloods. Convenient items? No thanks, its muggle made, so we are above it? Campione and heretic gods? Either they didn't exist because nothing could be immune to magic, or a threat to be challenged or contained?.
Why couldn't they have the sense to not be stupid when it could cost them everything.
"Idiots," Evelyn muttered, lighting a cigarette. He knew better. The nature of Campiones and Heretic Gods was not for mortal men to ever fully comprehend, let alone contain. Trying to understand a cup of water while it was submerged in the ocean, it was an impossibility.
He'd seen this arrogance before. He winced, remembering the chilling warnings etched into the history of his people. The O.B.E.L. Society had once thought they could harness the lingering essence of a god or a campione. They'd tried it with the oldest Campione alive, Sasha Dejanstahl Voban.
The old monster, ruthless, sadistic, and intellectually arrogant, had taken great offense. Trying to control the ancient tyrant had led to the death of everyone in the OBEL Society and the destruction of a city, a warning Voban had carved into history, 'Never butt into my business.'
Voban's actions were driven by a terrifying, ego-fueled sadism, he needed to see them suffer for their hubris.
Harry, on the other hand, while kind as he had been coming to learn about the young king, would kill you without warning and wouldn't hesitate about it, as he had seen just a day ago.
He was normally outgoing and a typical teenager, but he had come to learn that there was another side to the boy, a quiet boy who seemed to prefer to be alone most of the time, yet like the company of others, it was hard to put into words as his mood shifted with his emotions too quickly.
He had no doubt that if the boy found out what these fools were trying to do, well....
Evelyn exhaled a cloud of smoke, watching a group of Winx officials huddle nearby, already whispering about "containment" and "utilization," not even bothering to hide what they were discussing.
"An encore of that tragedy is going to replay itself soon," he said under his breath.
Harry Potter, the Seventh Campione, his King, was a nuanced terror. He could be kind and let things slide, but Evelyn had quickly learned that if Harry sensed disrespect or a deliberate attempt to use him, death came swiftly.
He somewhat reminded Evelyn of the brute Lord Doni, but tempered by a thoughtful action. Where Doni was a force of reckless passion and pure battle lust, Harry possessed an unsettling, surgical ruthlessness that required no grandstanding, hidden deep inside of him.
His lack of emotional reaction to murder was what truly told him that the boy wouldn't hesitate to kill a hundred if they annoyed him.
Evelyn had been studying the young King since the first meeting, categorizing every facet. Harry subconsciously preferred solitude, disliked politics, and loved battle. But above all, he loved magic. Not just liked it, loved it.
Evelyn had noticed it from day one, his eyes would light up when magic was performed, and he absorbed both Winx and Magus spells with impossible speed. He was curious about magic.
Evelyn doubted even Harry himself realized how deeply that curiosity for magic ran. This trait, this love of the art of magic, was the key vulnerability they had decided to use and get closer to the king.
That was why the Mage Association had sent Anya Magnus to him in the first place. The prodigy of the Apollon School, brilliant and fearless, with an unparalleled mastery of light magic and swordmanship.
She was a genius in magic and had surpassed all her mates and her teachers, all said that in just a few years, she would be able to match the elders of the association.
It was with that hope that Harry's fascination with magic would make him more receptive to her presence. They had planned to introduce her to him officially, but the whole vision thing and heretic god, and then she decided to go and help the young king out, despite some not wanting her to, and now it seems to have worked out.
Evelyn sighed, watching the Unspeakables plan their next disaster. "Let's just hope you idiots don't get us all killed."
HOTEL
Harry sat in the luxurious hotel suite the Association had reserved for him, a leather-bound grimoire open in his left hand while his right supported his temple. It was a text on space magic he had asked for, hoping for a deep dive into that field of magic because he was curious and wanted to help clear his mind from the past few days.
It didn't help. He just couldn't help but think about the future, his future. Near future, not far future.
He'd done it after all and had no other goal at the moment.
Voldemort, Dumbledore, Umbridge, and Snape were all gone, all his major enemies were dust. The board was empty, and yet… emptiness. A hollow he hadn't expected.
Oh, it wasn't the whole revenge won't be satisfying or shit like that. No, it was sweet and joyful. No, the problem was he didn't know what to do next.
He smirked bitterly. It was a Cliché, but it was the truth.
The truth was, since awakening as a Campione. He'd always been moving. Now that the emotional, immediate threats were gone, he felt a crushing disorientation in the stillness.
His far-future plan, he knew what he wanted, but that wasn't going to be something that would come soon or that he could even put a time frame on.
But the current now was empty, and he didn't know what he should be doing.
He thought of Dumbledore's death. That hadn't gone as planned at all. His original scheme, was to stage his own heroism, appearing as voldemort, dumbles coming and they battle before he kills the oldman and then 'harry potter' steps in and after a vicious battle kills lord voldemort and be a great hero, that was the plan but it had collapsed the moment Fate itself intervened, and to be honest, he was happy it didn't work.
He'd realized something about himself, he simply didn't have the patience for politics and people like that. His power made complex schemes unnecessary, and his nature made them deeply annoying. He preferred direct action, sure, he enjoyed the occasional scheming, but he had had enough. Politics wasn't for him, so he just wanted to not worry about others that he didn't care for anymore and just relax after his fight, but his name was now out there, and he didn't care as much as he had thought he would be.
What truly irritated him were the vultures that had come afterward—representatives from minor magical orders trying to negotiate and "advise" him. A lot of them, whose organizations weren't that old, had been speaking to him as if he were a naive child.
When one official, a pompous man representing a small but arrogant guild, suggested Harry needed "guidance and accountability" to the larger magical world, Harry felt the last thread of his post-battle restraint snap.
He hadn't bothered with curses or theatrics. He simply removed his head right there. His colleagues stared at the body before they all started yapping.
When the remaining man's colleagues started screaming, calling him a killer, Harry watched them with cold, tired eyes. He didn't dignify their panic with a response. One fool tried to rally the wiser organizations present, only to find they had already begun quietly retreating, recognizing that the Seventh Campione was not someone who would simply bend to them just because he was a child.
Harry had then dealt with the rest of the vocal dissenters efficiently, extinguishing their lives with the same detached annoyance one might swat a persistent fly. Was it cruel? Yes.
He confirmed that if they disrespected him or tried to use him, they would die. But at that time, he had been very annoyed because of how his fight had gone with Morrigan.
He had always told himself that he should not underestimate his opponent, and he had nearly gotten killed for that.
He sighed and closed the grimoire. Concentration was impossible. He was pissed at himself because he had gotten cocky and would have died if not for Anya's interference.
His training was good, but in the end, his arrogance had nearly sent him to the shadow realms.
He leaned back, closing his eyes, and reached inward to the power now etched into his soul. The image appeared instantly, a triangle enclosing a circle, a line down its center. The Deathly Hallows.
At each point of the triangle, a light shimmered, three lights pulsing in harmony. His newest Authority. Not three separate Authorities, but one whole with three faces.
Surprisingly, all were from her death aspect, he didn't get anything from her other domains, and he was a little annoyed at that. He could have used the power of fate. Still.
This trinity of Death was powerful.....but limited. This wasn't like the other Authorities. he sighed and pushed the thoughts of his power out of his mind for now. 'Later. '
He exhaled slowly. "Three gifts of Death, master of death," he said amusingly, "As if… and I still can't sleep." He sighed, trying to get some rest.
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