Chapter 427: Blooming Garden
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23 May 1995, Stonehenge
With that last thought, everything clicked, and Harry turned towards the god, unflinching at the power being thrown around. No, it was better than that. He was grinning. After all, he just had a very clever idea.
Harry watched as everything was being destroyed due to Heimdall's madness. The god definitely didn't handle failure easily. He must have realized that what Harry had said was the truth and that there was nothing he could do about it.
Still, the mad god was literally breaking reality apart in his grief and it was only Harry's experience with multidimensional bullshit that allowed him to think clearly about a way to deal with it. He was glad that he sent the kids away. He probably wouldn't have been able to think clearly with his friends' future children being at risk.
Lucky for everyone, Harry was very good under pressure. He had to be, or he'd have been dead a thousand times over. He had a plan, a way to deal with both the god and the entire bullshit going on, and that plan required the realm seed, the very thing that Heimdall happened to be clenching in his arms as he poured his grief and agony into the world.
With a sigh, Harry muttered, "I just wanted to go out with Daphne. Was that too much to ask?"
He shook his head and warped space towards the mad god. The god in question conjured gigantic golden flames, probably hoping to vaporize him, which Harry redirected by manipulating space around him. He ducked as hundreds of golden spears tried to impale him, and retaliated by releasing his ice age spell, freezing the entire battlefield, but that only lasted for a fraction of a second, after which the god completely negated them, and conjured a gigantic golden blade that threw a veritable firestorm at the young wizard.
Harry knew that he couldn't exactly stop this attack and instead, sang a realm to existence, a very small one, that protected him from the attack, and he dispelled it quickly enough, and released an attack almost instinctively, a song in weapon form, a sonic attack that sheered through everything in front of it, even the god's vessel before him.
However, the golden energy remained, slowly converging back into a humanoid form, and the golden lightning tried to attack him once more, only for Harry to redirect it, imbuing it with his crest's necrotic energy, and sending it back at the gigantic energy golem.
There wasn't anything material, let alone human, remaining of the god's presence, and Harry couldn't help but try to figure out how the god was even present at the moment. He needed something to anchor him, that was a fact for all outside entities, but was his rage, his failure, so great as it compensated, even momentarily, for the lack of one?
It didn't matter.
By now the god was almost a hundred feet tall, somewhat similar to the Olympians, which he had fought. Harry used his sonic attack once more, which destabilized the god's avatar, and ducked down, to retrieve the realm seed, which Heimdall had dropped when Harry erased Penelope's body from existence.
Harry ducked, dodging the bolt of golden lightning that almost hit him, and rolled, grabbing the realm seed, but was immediately caught off-guard, as a gigantic sword came down underneath him. He activated his invisibility cloak, phasing through the attack, and conjuring a gigantic blade of ice, which he channelled the resurrection stone into, and stabbed it into the golden avatar's gut.
The god roared and sent out a pulse of golden energy, which Harry was barely able to dodge by phasing through the attack. Heimdall then sent a beam of golden energy, which Harry grinned and absorbed using the Elder Wand. By the time, the god ended his attack, Harry's wand was glowing, and he channelled all that energy into the realm seed, and he impaled the glowing ball into the ground.
The moment he did this, everything snapped back into place. Stonehenge reformed, the shattered air sealing itself, and the golden avatar started to glow slightly less, before disintegrating. A shade in the shape of Penelope's body appeared, snarling at him, "What did you do?"
"Nothing much, I just changed and added a little amendment in the realm seed, you so beautifully threw away. I added a small detail that I remember seeing in the sapling of the World Tree that the kids showed me. I thought that the command I put in place to absorb large magical releases had evolved, or just been warped, but it was too precise. I had meant it to act as a last safeguard from Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's ritual, a way to weaken their last magical release, but it was surprisingly easy to make it target a certain type of energy, specifically, your energy."
"No!" Heimdall yelled, realizing what Harry had done, trying to conjure his energy, only to fizzle away as it left his hand.
"There's nothing you can do, not anymore. You were so busy in your little temper tantrum, that you didn't see me altering the enchantments. You can't leave. You can't do anything. This little seed will suck your very essence dry, not just from here, but from the future, from where you come from. After all, you were so kind to open a breach in time, to your future self, just to empower you in your rage. I wonder what it means for a god to die."
"Please," the god begged, as he slowly realized the truth of what was happening to him.
However, Harry wasn't that merciful and just ignored him, "You should have seen this coming. Was it your arrogance? Was it Time or Fate blinding you? I do not know. The fact remains that what happened here never occurred to you. For all your insight and power, you never once thought that you might have participated in the events of creating the World Tree. Your essence is altering the seed, making it flexible, and giving it the Insight it needs to protect humanity from everyone, even your kind. The insight to grow, to evolve far faster than it should have been possible, enough to stop gods and demons from interfering with this realm."
"Such a change in the timeline will have consequences."
The young wizard burst into laughter, "I can't believe you still don't get it. There is no change in the timeline. This is what happened, the origin of the World Tree. Your decision to come back created the very threat you wished to eradicate. Such is the fate of those who think themselves above the fabric of time. But don't be so sad. A part of you will live on, won't it? After all, I hear that the World Tree glows with such a familiar golden colour."
"Child, do you have any idea what you have done, the dangers that you have brought? You cannot simply usurp a god's authority."
Harry's grin turned vicious, "I can do whatever the hell I like. You know the stories. You know who I am, what I can do. Have you ever heard of anyone that was able to stop me?"
"My people will not take to your actions kindly," Heimdall warned, with slight defeat in his tone.
Harry smiled sadly, "But they won't figure out for decades until you fade away in the future. According to you, I'll be too dead to care, won't I? Let's leave this for the next generation, huh?"
Finally, Heimdall released a defeated breath, "I just wanted to fulfil my purpose, to serve Asgard, to protect its interest. Our goal was to protect Midgard, and we couldn't do that with our eyes blind."
"We both know that Midgard's strength would also have benefitted Asgard immensely, but even if you are right, that doesn't change that what happened here was necessary. It was always meant to happen. And maybe that was for the best. Sometimes, you have to let your kids grow up on their own. You saw it yourself; this realm is protected."
"And just as you stated, you will not stay here forever. One day, this tree will fail to protect Midgard, and your decision will be your doom."
Harry shrugged, "I just have faith that someone else will rise up, another hero, to take up the mantle. If I learned something from the past, it would be that humanity has a tendency to produce very remarkable beings when they are needed."
Heimdall gave him a sad smile, before slowly fading away into golden light, which was absorbed by the seed. Harry looked at its structure, slowly warping, learning, growing. It was a realm seed with the power of a god, but it paled compared to what it could be, what it could achieve. Like every seed, it would need energy and time to grow.
Harry slowly planted it, in the middle of Stonehenge, sighing in relief as the battle with the god ended. Honestly, if it hadn't been for his madness, Harry would have had a lot of trouble. Then again, Heimdall would have been a lot weaker if he hadn't literally ripped a hole in reality to empower himself.
Still, something was missing. The realm seed, no matter how powerful it would become, shouldn't have manifested physically into something like a gigantic tree. It should have just expressed itself with its effect. Harry didn't exactly give it a physical medium to express itself.
Unless…
Harry grinned to himself. Ah, yes, it was his turn now, wasn't it?
He took out the small sapling that had been in the time-turner prototype, a small fragment of the World Tree, and planted it right above the realm seed. Harry could feel the seed connect to the sapling, making it grow slightly, creating roots undergrounds that connected to the ley lines right underneath them, as if it was specifically designed to be integrated like this.
A question niggled in Harry's mind. Who exactly designed the World Tree?
Sure, he had his hand in its creation, specifically, the World Seed, and what he had just done moments prior, but a large portion of the tree's design was completely out of his hand, and yet it obviously had a creator. It was too perfect not to be otherwise.
The World Tree had no original creator—because he had created it by ensuring its existence in the past. It wasn't designed by some ancient power or divine architect. It existed because it had always existed.
The Bootstrap Paradox.
No one had ever "designed" the World Tree. It had simply been.
A product of its own future existence.
Harry laughed, but it wasn't amusement—it was disbelief, resignation, acceptance.
He glanced down at the sapling, which now pulsed with golden energy, its roots wrapping around the ley lines beneath Stonehenge like a living circuit. A closed loop.
It had always been him.
A self-sustaining cycle. The cause and effect wrapped into one seamless moment.
Time was a fickle, frustrating bitch.
Deciding that it was too troublesome trying to puzzle this out, Harry took a deep breath and surveyed Stonehenge. It didn't even look like it had been home to a fight with a divine being. People will never know what happened here and he was okay with that.
Thankfully, he was done with this mess. No more time loops, no more divine temper tantrums, no more gods trying to meddle with Midgard. He only had to return to Hogwarts, get those kids back to their time before they actually broke something, and hopefully, he'd have enough time to go with Daphne on their date.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He certainly deserved this date.
With a flick of his wrist, Harry opened a portal back to Hogwarts, right next to where he had sent the kids. They were all gathered in the warded room, their faces still pale, eyes wide in shock. Clearly, whatever remnants of the battle they had sensed had left an impression on them.
The silence stretched for a few long seconds before the Marinakis girl broke it, her voice careful, almost disbelieving, "What happened?"
Harry simply shrugged, offering them the only answer that mattered.
"I handled it. Don't worry about it too much."
He clapped his hands together, glancing at each of them with an easy grin.
"Now, I believe it's time to send you all home."
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AN: Well, that was surprisingly hard to write, even when I had the whole thing planned out. I'm still not sure it came out like I meant to, so, 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.