Chapter 417: Room for Mercy
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20 May 1995, The Otherworld
The young wizard channelled the power of the resurrection stone, slowly making her choke in pain, and float towards him, unable to move at all. He spoke up softly – a stark contrast to his mood, "Tell me, Fae, are you entertained now?"
Imagine his surprise when the woman burst into laughter, while being bound against her will and snickered, "Of course, I am. Do you think that anything you could do would be worse than what's waiting for me, for my people, the moment that stone leaves the Otherworld? Believe me, I'm the one sacrificing a lot for a chance of victory, a chance that you will smother into nothingness if you don't let me finish what I have to say."
Harry instinctively let go of the fae, who slowly floated back to her throne. She cleared her throat, and smiled back, "Good. Isn't it better when we're all being reasonable here?"
The young wizard gave her an incredulous look, "You call making me fight Fenrir of all things, reasonable?"
"My dear boy, this was not Fenrir. The wolf of destruction left Midgard alongside the gods after the Great Cataclysm thousands of years ago. What you fought was an illusion. Well, not exactly, more like an actualization of his spirit into a realm of dreams and chaos. It's a skill I perfected over the years, the ability to create an illusion of a higher being that was so complete, that it ends up possessed – for a lack of a better term – by the being itself. It was how the gods showed their wills, back when they were still worshipped, of course. Human faith is a weirdly powerful thing, all things considered. Theory aside, you fought an aspect of Fenrir, not the beast itself. That would have been a much grander battle, and you would not have fared just as well. Still, he hates you with a passion for slaying his brother, enough that he made an active effort to possess my illusion and fight you."
Daphne spoke up for him, sounding a bit angry, "Harry killed the World Serpent, though."
"And that was a fluke, a plan that was thousands of years in the making. Peverell killed Jörmungandr when he was imprisoned inside himself, bound by the commands of a boy who barely understood what he commanded, while also having the exact weapon needed to kill the serpent. It wasn't some high and mighty battle, just a foolish boy that postured so much, and your little boyfriend, who was in the right place, in the right time."
Harry could see her point. Aside from shifting ominously, the World Serpent hadn't done much during the fight in the Chamber of Secrets. Riddle had just used him as a way to brag or something, giving Harry enough time to take the killing shot. Now, the property of the fangs alone, being capable of cutting through anything, could have probably allowed Jörmungandr to negate the attack by the Colt. That's not to mention the poison infected by the Dark, that would have probably killed him with a touch. And that was just scratching the surface. The beast was created as a weapon against things that were far more powerful than Harry. It stood to reason that killing a twelve-year-old boy, prodigious magic or not, would not have been difficult.
Harry nodded his acceptance of that statement, and he spoke up, "That makes sense, but you're still evading my question. Why did you make us fight the illusion of Fenrir, then?"
"Because you needed to realize what your greatest strength was. You need to be ready for what is to come, and playing around and trying to find clever ways to defeat your enemies isn't going to be enough against the likes of Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Ragnarök is coming and you are far from ready."
"Trickery is the only advantage I have," he protested.
The fae, though, seemed to get progressively more annoyed, "Trickery isn't enough. It will never be enough. I relied on trickery before, you see, at Camlann, and it cost me everything. It started with Merlin stealing Caliburn, the sword we used to select our leaders, and twisting it into that abomination he called Excalibur. Then, Morgan Le Fey, had the gall to try to enslave my people, to use them as foot soldiers against her sworn enemy. She massacred most of my people then when we refused. And so, I plotted. I was fighting against a force of nature far more powerful than I, and I found the weakest link in her son, Mordred. The boy's sacrifice was valiant; he broke the prophecy that bound him, and we used it to weaken both Merlin and his mother, even momentarily. I was able to banish them both, hoping to bind them into eternal prisons. There would be no more champions of Light and Dark, not under my watch."
"What happened?" Daphne asked gently.
"We underestimated what it meant to be a Champion of the Light and Dark. They refused to be bound, not without a fight. I never considered that they would prefer death to an eternal prison. Most of my people died in that fight, and those who remained were so broken that they cut off our dimension, our home, from the material world, abandoning even our dead, even knowing that it would inevitably twist them in the long run. There was a reason why we settled in the material world, after all. As for me, I was a death's door, cursed by Morgan Le Fey's last act, deciding to stay behind and guard the souls of our dead for what little time I had left, lest they be used by the Light and Dark in some twisted scheme."
The far remained silent for a couple of seconds before speaking up, "The moral of the story is very simple. I tried to be clever. I made an overly complicated plan against things that just trampled all over it. Even now, I have no idea what I could have done differently. My biggest mistake was the fact that I was planning around Merlin and Morgan Le Fey, but not the Champions of the Light and Dark. The way they think and react all gets shredded apart the moment they let the entities consume them. I lost everything because of that. It was the day that I truly became the last fae."
It made sense. In a twisted way, Nimue was a reflection of Harry. She tried to fight the Light and Dark because they were threatening her people, she came up with a plan to make that happen, and it worked. Everything worked as it was supposed to and yet she still lost.
"And what am I supposed to do against them? They are more powerful, more experienced, more skilled," the young wizard replied, "I've been studying magic for four years at most, while they've been at it for decades."
"Why, you do what you're always meant to do. You sing."
Harry gave the fae a surprised look, to which she burst into laughter, "Come on, it's obvious. Do you even know what happens when you sing?"
"The world changes. I create a realm and change its properties," he replied.
"That's correct, but I don't think you understand the implications of what you're doing. You're creating a realm, and inside, you are effectively a god. Your song is that of creation, and you've been using it as a glorified shield against esoteric effects, but you were able to swallow a magical singularity using it. You're barely scratching the surface of what you can do, of what you need to be able to do."
The young wizard nodded in agreement. It had been something that he'd been meaning to practice for a time, only that for some reason, his magic was reluctant to express itself without a meaningful reason to. It was as if it had deemed his casual use of it to be unworthy, and he had no idea why. Every time he had sung a realm to creation; it had been because of some crisis. It was like an instinct telling him that he could do it, but given how stressful the situation tended to be, he barely had the time to really analyse what was happening, at least objectively. It was, without a doubt, a very powerful piece of magic, but one whose limits he didn't know, and he couldn't exactly rely on the instinct to sing in any of his fights.
As if reading his thoughts, Nimue spoke up, "You need help controlling it, guidance. I can offer that to you and an army of elves ready to fight against the forces of the Light and Dark."
Daphne spoke up with a confused tone, "Aren't you all dead? Will you not disappear after we leave with the Philosopher's Stone?"
Harry, on the other hand, wasn't as confused. He had been waiting for it. After all, he was dealing with a fae. Sure, it was a fae that had the same enemies as him, but it was a fae, nonetheless. He had read many records of history about their cruelty, and countless tragedies about making deals with them. That was before he knew that they had disappeared after Camlann, and he wanted to be careful. He always knew that the magical world was larger than people thought, and he wanted to know as much about it as he could.
Never make a deal with a fae, not for anything. That was the main consensus that Harry got from the dozens of books he found that mentioned them.
The fae in question spoke up, proving him right, "We are dead, but souls have possessed bodies before as long as they don't move on. The main issue was always the fact that the body was never truly compatible and always eventually broke down, but theoretically, if someone was able to enforce that compatibility somehow, and had enough power to do it, then it would be enough. Harry could theoretically use the power of the Stone to sing our bodies into existence and grant my people a new future. And in exchange, I will teach him our magic and train him to use his singing. My people get to live, and he gets an army," she turns towards Harry, "What do you think? Do we have a deal?"
There it was.
Once, he'd want someone to help him against the Light and Dark without asking for something in return. First, with Lily, then Ekrizdis, and now Nimue. He really shouldn't have hoped for more. Everything inside him protested the deal, from the fact that it would be made with a fae and the idea that he could give dead people the opportunity to live once more. The latter just felt wrong. The dead had no place in the living world. He had no idea about the consequences of doing this and there would be consequences, very severe ones at that. One did not break one of the most important laws of nature without some sort of repercussion.
Harry's answer was immediate and resolute, "No."
That wiped the smirk from Nimue's face, which turned into confusion and then barely suppressed rage, "I gave you my husband's stone. I'm letting you destroy our afterlife. I am prepared to give you an army, and tutelage in magics you cannot even comprehend, and you refuse to help me."
"I'm not refusing to help you. I'm refusing to bring back those who have passed away. No one has this power, and I'm not arrogant enough to think that even with all that I can do, I can defy Death."
The woman looked distressed and was murmuring to herself, "This doesn't make any sense. I saw my people's burdens lifting because of you. I saw the smiles on their faces. I was assured that you would save my people. Solomon said so himself."
"I don't know what you saw, but my decision is final."
"Final, is it? Perhaps, I can convince you to reconsider," she said, calmly, before suddenly turning back into her wraith form and leapt suddenly towards Daphne, only to freeze as Harry activated the resurrection stone and held her soul in place.
Harry looked at the stone and an idea sparked in his mind, a fitting one, and spoke up, "I see it now. It's the right thing to do after all."
He channelled his magic into the resurrection stone and slowly started to sing, this time on command. He understood, slightly, why his Song of Creation didn't work when he practised. It was because what he did with it had to be meaningful, it had to have a purpose beyond the act itself. It was like a lightbulb lit up in his head. Fighting for his life had a purpose, but there were other ways to do it as well, without any violence. It seemed fitting, in a way, to have something this powerful, only be able to be used in a meaningful way.
As Harry sang, the entire dimension started to shift. He used the resurrection stone to connect with every single lost soul in this place, slowly losing themselves to this place's corruption and soothed them. He slowly guided their souls and turned them from wraiths into elves. Each one of them smiled in comfort slightly, before fading away into nothingness. He could almost feel a flash of coldness when each one of them disappeared.
Soon after, only Nimue remained, frozen by the spectacle. She turned to Harry and whispered, "What have you done?"
"I saved them. I stopped them from lingering and allowed them to pass on. Your situation isn't natural. You are not from this realm, and the rules of death applying to you were wrong. It's why you were in so much pain when you died, and why this place acted like a poor waiting room, trying to force your rules into a world that didn't have them. Now, they are in peace. It's funny, isn't it? Prophecies and visions are so subjective, aren't they? You tried to manipulate me to suit your vision. I don't know if you were bound in some way to give me the stone or if you were confident enough to give it to me, trusting your visions that you'd be able to make me do what you want, and to be honest, I don't care. I got what I came here for."
Nimue's tone became scratchy, and she stared at Harry with her eyes almost glowing from her rage, "For thousands of years, I've led my people. Everything that I did, was for them. I wanted to save them and avenge what we'd been through. And you took that away from me. You took them away from me."
"I gave them mercy," Harry replied.
"Mercy? Well, here is my mercy to you. Your plan is doomed to fail. You wish to use the stone against the Dark, and the World Serpent's fang against the Light. You wished to turn them into a disease, infecting each dimension. Grindelwald will see through it, and you will lose everything, just as I have. So, take that useless stone and leave this place, for you will never know peace, boy."
Harry froze and stared at the woman in front of him who had started to cackle in delight. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. He just waved his hand and opened a breach back to the forest. With a last act, he bound Nimue's soul to the lake, not allowing her to move on like the rest of her kind. She would remain trapped there, in pain, until her time came, and even when the dimension started to collapse, she wouldn't be able to leave the physical lake surrounding it.
He was all out of mercy, after all. The young wizard felt some form of vindictive amusement when he saw her wide eyes as she realized what he had done. He could understand being desperate enough to manipulate him, to want to bring back her people and not be alone anymore, but she had also tried to attack Daphne. That wasn't something he wasn't willing to forgive.
And so, He simply closed the breach behind him and Daphne. He had a lot to think about, after all.
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AN: This chapter was weirdly very difficult to write and I'm not sure I did a perfect job at it. I wanted Nimue to be self-serving, focusing on saving her people and revenge against the Light and Dark. Solomon tricked her into following his instructions, with a vague idea of Harry 'saving her people' without her knowing that it meant that they would be 'saved of their torment', not become alive once more. I wanted her to be shaken, to have her confidence shattered as she slowly realized that she'd been tricked for centuries by a guy who died before. That's the gist of it. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.