What didn't match the wreckage were the knights' suits of armour arrayed before the pillars—polished, immaculate, as if the centuries had politely looked the other way.
Arthur tipped his chin at them. Hermione got the hint, shouldered the scattergun, and boom—one cuirass exploded off its stand, clattering to the marble in mangled pieces to reveal the desiccated corpse inside.
Something clicked.
Every other suit creaked to life, gauntlets tightening around swords and maces as they shambled forward. Even the one Hermione had reduced to scrap tried valiantly to reassemble itself—alas, being eighty-seven separate parts made standing difficult.
"They look like Those Who Live in Death," Arthur murmured.
Ranni nodded. In the Lands Between, Death had been broken. The Prince of Death's soul was slain, his body left under the Erdtree to be endlessly "repaired," corrupting the roots themselves; spirits no longer returned to the tree and instead twisted awake in their own flesh. These armoured husks were the same breed—undead with bodies attached.
Arthur flicked his wrist; binding force braided out—
—and shattered against a sudden white radiance blooming from the armour, the same sanctified energy that had slammed his hand off the chapel door.
"Excuse me?" Arthur blinked. "Undead running church wards without self-immolating is illegal."
Fine. If metaphysics won't play nice—try physics.
The marble floor bulged and split; stone chains erupted, whipping around each corpse. The holy glow didn't even flicker. Bound tight, they thrashed and clanked, but didn't break free.
"Hold that thought." Arthur dropped to one knee, drew a magic circle with practiced speed, and fed it power. Threads of pale blue rose like mist from each skull and streamed into the array. Light coalesced, compressed, and finally set into his palm as a pale-blue gem.
Hermione edged closer. "What is it?"
"Soul crystal," Arthur said, passing it to her. "Condensed soul force. Add an equal measure of life force and you get the thing you know as a Philosopher's Stone."
Hermione went white and clutched the stone at her throat. If that was the recipe, then—
"Easy," Arthur said quickly. "The life force doesn't have to be human."
(Even if yours is, he added silently. No need to salt the poor girl's nightmares.)
Ranni gave Hermione a sidelong, faintly mocking look. Fragile mortal sensibilities. She herself carried a knife made from a corpse-finger and didn't fuss.
With the chapel pacified, Arthur sifted the remains for answers and pried a journal from the leader's breastplate. He exhaled through his nose.
"Why is it always a diary?"
Still, this one had been smart enough to keep it on his person.
They read together.
Seventeenth century. The Church's witch-hunts had reached their bitter end—forced there. Clergy drew strength from prayer; wizards from magic. Fire met lightning. The Church had learned to suppress wizard magic—fog, wards, weapons—but they'd misjudged the hornet's nest. Wizards worldwide united and drove the Church back in battle after battle.
One final, horrifying clash: the Church's main force was annihilated. Only scattered remnants slipped away beforehand as "seeds," told to survive and rebuild. This chapel was one such seed, dug in an old mountain valley.
The wizards found them anyway. The fight went badly. Cornered, the leader chose a forbidden measure to bring everyone down together.
They closed the journal in silence.
"Then why," Arthur said at last, "are there churches everywhere today? And where are the wizard bones outside? Did that 'forbidden' thing reduce them to ash?"
"And why is none of this in wizarding history?" Hermione asked.
Ranni's voice was soft. "Some peoples choose silence. The Eternal Cities do not speak of their fall."
There was no doubting the diary itself. The fog here did block magic. The armour did carry a non-magical power—sanctified, purifying, imperious. And the International Statute of Secrecy had been signed in 1689: the exact moment wizards retreated from the world. A coincidence? Unlikely.
They canvassed the ruins. Not much left beyond holy water and a few working reliquaries; the "seed" clearly hadn't had time to stockpile before the end. Arthur still walked away with every suit of armour, a sampling of the traps, and jars of the fog itself—prime research material.
Mission objective, more or less, complete.
Which didn't preclude a detour. The three of them spent a lazy week finding pretty places, buying local snacks, taking pictures Hermione promised never to post anywhere that would attract the Ministry. When they finally flew home, Arthur's luggage bulged with souvenirs.
…
They were barely through the door before Mrs. Granger swept them into a hug. A week without her ducklings and she'd started climbing the walls—saved only by Lia's company and her husband's discovery of Snape-as-billiards-partner. Mr. Granger, now a man of leisure and cues, waggled his brows at Arthur.
"Since you're back, how about fish for dinner?"
Translation: say "garden," then say "lake."
"Come on then," Arthur laughed—and opened a shimmering doorway.
Snape stepped through behind Mr. Granger and stopped dead.
Golden leaves swayed far overhead—his first sight of the Erdtree sapling now tens of metres tall, suffusing the air with slow, warm power. At its feet, ringed plots raced through time: seedlings surged into herbs, swelled, and popped out of sight, auto-harvested into Arthur's stores the instant they matured. Snape, potioneer to the bone, felt faintly ill. So that's where the boy's ridiculous ingredients came from. Could it be… an illusion?
He tore his eyes away. Orchards to the left, Mrs. Granger and Lia already filling baskets; a lake ahead where Mr. Granger was happily setting a chair; a neat villa beyond—Ranni's quarters, now expanded to hold Arthur's alchemical workshop; and, further back, the animal grounds where Loris the once-scrawny cat now waddled, Claudia the unicorn trotted, and two serpents—one vipery, one basilisk—dozed in the sun.
Over the grass thundered Rya astride Claudia. She vaulted at the last second, puffed into a tiny lizard mid-air, and landed on Arthur's shoulder with a pleased trill.
Snape's brain quietly blue-screened.
Unicorn. Fil—no, Loris—with a belly. Two snakes, one of them that snake. And the lizard on the boy's shoulder just turned into a gold-haired girl.
By the time his thoughts rebooted, a fishing rod was in his hands and he was sitting by the lake. Arthur settled beside him, amused.
"Questions?" Arthur offered.
Snape swallowed. "This… space. What is it?"
"As you see," Arthur said. "My world. I set the rules. It's still growing."
He lifted a hand. On the empty grass beside them, a hill shouldered out of the loam. The lake reared into a column, curled on itself into a sinuous eastern dragon of glassy water, and arced overhead in a wreathing dance before splashing back into place.
Snape stared up at where the last drops glittered and fell. Growing. If it could expand, then one day this "garden" might be a continent—a planet. And all of it under one mind's absolute governance.
Which would make Arthur, in the strictest sense, this world's—
"Creator," he breathed.
Arthur only smiled and cast his line. The float bobbed once. Twice.
"Careful," he said lightly, eyes on the water. "Names like that have a way of sticking."
The float sank. The rod bent.
And from the depths of the garden's lake, something ancient and hungry tugged back.
To read 30+ future chapters, head over to Patreon:
patreon.com/WhiteDevil7554