ACT4CH42 - Permanence

The concept of Permanence in magical theory could be defined as the deliberate act of halting all forms of change within an object—physical, magical, and everything in between. Essentially, you were telling the universe to take its entropy and shove it. Once bound to this so-called ‘permanent’ state, the object would laugh in the face of external forces, remaining impervious to physical, magical, or even temporal meddling. No cracks. No wear. Not even a slight warp.

Of course, it was also a giant middle finger to the fundamental nature of magic itself, which thrived on transformation, flow, and adaptation. Permanence, on the other hand, said, “Nah, we’re good,” and stomped those principles into the dirt by enforcing a state of pure, unrelenting stasis.

Some might argue that enchantments like the ‘Unbreakable Charm’ or the ‘Immovable Object’ were examples of Permanence. Those people would be wrong. Unbreakable charms didn’t make something truly unbreakable. They were glorified magical patches—an extra layer of energy that rushed in to repair cracks or fractures in the object’s structure when it was damaged. Run out of magical juice, and suddenly your ‘unbreakable’ vase was a pile of disappointing ceramic shards.

Then there was temporal magic—the act of freezing time in a localized bubble. It was flashy, sure, and great for impressing fifth-year students on your birthday, but it wasn’t Permanence. Freeze time all you want, but you were just putting things on pause, not severing them from entropy or the magical web altogether.

True Permanence, if it existed, was something else entirely. It wasn’t a spell; it was a declaration. An existential mic drop. A Permanent object wouldn’t just resist change—it would refuse to acknowledge the concept of change at all. It couldn’t be broken, transfigured, enchanted, or even decayed. Magic couldn’t manipulate it, and it couldn’t manipulate magic. The closest analogy would be a magical ghost—something that existed within the field of magic but behaved like it didn’t. It would just sit there, thumbing its non-existent nose at reality.

That was the theory, anyway.

Pulling it off in controlled, stable conditions was the magical equivalent of threading a needle while blindfolded and standing on a moving broomstick. Doing it in the middle of an apocalyptic showdown with a self-proclaimed god who had more powers than common sense, while the world teetered on the edge of annihilation? That wasn’t just difficult—it was ridiculous. Suicidal. Laughable.

The kind of thing only an idiot would try.

Then again, fools had a tendency to pull off what the wise wouldn’t dare attempt.

Harry, standing in the center of a crumbling battlefield with the Elder Wand humming in his grip and a million voices screaming in the Eternum above him, gave a weary smile. His robes were tattered, his body screamed in protest, and the Sword of Gryffindor clenched in his other hand.

“If this works,” he muttered, sweat dripping down his brow, “and I don’t die in the process... I’m going to look really awesome doing it.”

Because sometimes, being a reckless fool was the best plan you had.

Bolts of energy streaked from his wand, crackling through the air with purple brilliance. Ekrizdis dodged them with the elegance of a demented ballerina, his movements infuriatingly precise. Each shot missed its mark, slamming into the shimmering Eternum above and rippling harmlessly across its surface.

“Is that it?” Ekrizdis drawled, his many heads sneering in unison.

Harry laughed—a dry, humorless sound. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m saving the good stuff for the encore. Gotta keep the audience engaged.” He fired another bolt, this one skimming dangerously close to one of Ekrizdis’s floating heads. “Did that one tickle?”

Ekrizdis’s sneer deepened, but instead of retorting, he waved a hand, summoning yet another horde of constructs. Clawed monstrosities surged forward, their forms brimming with raw energy.

“Really?” Harry sighed, rolling his eyes. “We’ve been through this. I’m starting to think you’ve got no creativity.”

The Bison and Jaguar Patronuses charged ahead, tearing into the constructs with practiced brutality. Harry glanced up at the spectral Thestral circling above. “I’ve got an idea, and you’re going to hate it.”

The Thestral snorted, a sound that somehow managed to convey disapproval.

As Harry worked, his mind churned through the impossibility of the task before him. Creating a permanent object in this chaos would require purging it of any volatile magic, binding its flow to stasis, and capturing its very concept in the moment. No conjured object would do—too transient. And everything around him was soaked in Anima corruption.

He needed something unique, something impervious to the Anima yet capable of anchoring the denial he envisioned.

Ekrizdis loomed above, a grotesque parody of divinity, his many heads radiating scorn in every direction. “You’re predictable, Potter,” he hissed, his voices overlapping like a grating symphony. “Flailing against inevitability with your little tricks. It’s almost adorable.”

Harry snorted, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Adorable? Careful. Next thing you know, you’ll be writing sonnets about me.”

Ekrizdis snarled, his claws raking the air where Harry had been moments earlier. The ground exploded in a fiery eruption of molten rock and raw energy. Harry rolled clear, his ribs protesting the movement, and raised the Elder Wand. A jagged streak of Death magic clashed against Ekrizdis’s next attack, sending shockwaves across the battlefield.

Every dodge, every counter was deliberate. He wasn’t trying to win. Not like this. His movements were buying him time, setting the stage for something much larger.

Harry drove the Sword of Gryffindor into the ground, golden flames carving a protective circle around him. The Elder Wand rose, tracing runes into the air with meticulous precision. Isa for stillness; inverted Raido for inertia of rest; sideward Dagaz for transformation denied; inverted Algiz, cutting off communication, and Perthro, bound, preventing temporal progression and entropy. Layer after layer of binding flowed from his wand, weaving a spell more intricate than anything he had dared attempt before. As the final rune clicked into place, Harry reinforced the array with triple layers of Isa and Kenaz, stabilizing the lattice with Gebo to ensure universal application. 

Ekrizdis watched, his amusement fading into suspicion. “You aim to impose denial on flow itself. Ambitious, but ultimately futile. Without an object free of this chaos, your spell will collapse. You cannot cage the ocean, Potter.”

Harry’s smirk widened, though his eyes remained sharp. “Oceans can’t be caged, sure. But they can be frozen.”

Ekrizdis roared, the battlefield erupting in a storm of magic as his frustration boiled over. The battle had shown Harry that Ekrizdis was no fighter, and prone to repeating the same techniques over and over, despite having the most versatile power in all existence. More importantly, he was prone to breaking down the moment his plans fell apart. These combined meant he tended to not be a significant threat; when one thing went wrong, other things would go wrong, until he was buried under a mountain of his own mistakes. It tended to happen most often when he thought he had a certain victory and stopped to gloat. When he wasn’t certain of victory, he tended to do things like…

Float a hundred feet in the air and just rain fire and meteors and lightning and every offensive thing he could imagine on whatever the threat was.

Like right then.

Ekrizdis’s many heads snarled in perfect dissonance, his arms flicking outward in a grotesque flourish. From his myriad palms erupted a storm of incandescent energy, each bolt spiraling chaotically, bending toward Harry like heat-seeking death.

“Subtle,” Harry muttered, diving into motion. The Elder Wand whipped through the air, carving arcs of counterspells that shattered some of the incoming projectiles. Others slammed into the ground, exploding in bursts of searing light and shadow. The earth quaked beneath him, leaving a trail of craters large enough to park Hagrid’s bike collection.

Harry rolled, gritting his teeth against the ache that lanced through his side. His robes—well, what was left of them—fluttered uselessly. “Clever,” he muttered, noticing the pattern in Ekrizdis’s attacks. Each blast was precision-engineered to funnel him into predictable movements, a dance choreographed for his doom. “But I’m not much for choreography.”

With a snap of his wrist, Harry fired a volley of spells. The bolts streaked past Ekrizdis, slamming harmlessly into the shimmering Eternum of Souls that loomed behind him. The spectral realm rippled faintly, unimpressed. Ekrizdis, however, wasn’t.

“Missed,” one of his heads sneered. “Even your magic acknowledges your futility.”

Harry huffed, lips curling into a lopsided grin. “Don’t mind me. I’m just aiming for your good side. Still looking for it.”

Another flick of his arms, and Ekrizdis summoned more constructs—because apparently, nothing says “unstoppable deity” like sending more cannon fodder. Clawed monstrosities clawed their way out of the ground, howling as they charged.

Harry let out an exaggerated sigh. “Great. Just what I needed. Another discount monster sale.”

The Bison and Jaguar Patronuses surged forward, tearing into the constructs with practiced ease. Above, the Thestral glided in circles, its translucent form radiating quiet judgment. Harry glanced up. “Yeah, I know. Don’t start.”

As the Patronuses held the line, Harry raised the Elder Wand, its tip glowing with silver energy. Binding magic surged through him, coalescing into a tangible form. With a deliberate motion, he conjured an arrow. But not just any arrow—this was a construct of pure Binding magic, its tip encapsulated in Death. It hovered in the air, humming with dangerous intent, its razor-sharp edges inscribed with intricate runes.

“Do you honestly believe that can harm me?” Ekrizdis barked, his heads twisting unnaturally to regard the arrow.

Ignoring him, Harry muttered, “Geminio Diabolis.”

The arrow trembled, then split into two. Two became four. Four became eight. In seconds, the sky above Harry shimmered with a tempest of arrows, each one thrumming with lethal energy. Hundreds turned to thousands, filling the air with a pulsing, malevolent light.

Ekrizdis faltered. “Fool! For every arrow you summon, I can conjure a hundred constructs!”

“Sure,” Harry said, rolling his shoulders as though shaking off the tension of a warm-up round. “But good luck conjuring anything with a thousand arrows in your face.”

With a sharp motion, he slashed the Elder Wand upward. The arrows surged forward, a tidal wave of silver fury hurtling toward Ekrizdis. The grotesque deity reacted instantly, summoning legions of shadowy monstrosities to intercept the storm. They collided in mid-air, the battlefield transforming into a storm of clashing energies.

The arrows struck with relentless force, shattering constructs faster than they could form. Each explosion sent shockwaves rippling through the air, raining debris like confetti at the world’s worst party.

Meanwhile, Harry launched himself upward with an Ascending Charm, a shield of Death magic deflecting the fallout around him. Ekrizdis’s heads turned, their expressions a collage of confusion and irritation. They didn’t notice Harry barreling toward them until it was too late.

Harry drove his right fist into one of Ekrizdis’s many sneering faces.

The grotesque god reeled back, heads twisting in disarray. “You dare—”

Harry wasn’t done. He gripped the Sword of Gryffindor in his left hand and, with a grimace, drove it into one of Ekrizdis’s knees.

The reaction was immediate. Ekrizdis howled, a wave of energy erupting from his form. It slammed into Harry, hurling him back toward the ground. The anti-velocity charm cushioned his fall, but not enough to spare him from the ache that spread through his body.

Harry pushed himself up, wiping dirt from his face. “Too many limbs,” he muttered. “Thought I’d help with some downsizing.”

Ekrizdis sneered, his heads swiveling toward the impaled sword. “You think this pitiful blade can stop me?” He reached for the Sword of Gryffindor, his many hands pulling at it with unnatural strength.

The sword didn’t budge.

Ekrizdis’s sneer faltered. His hands yanked again, but the blade remained firmly embedded.

“You seem confused,” Harry called out, brushing dust off his robes. “You didn’t think stabbing you was the endgame, did you? That was just step three of a four-step plan. But hey, thanks for playing along.”

Ekrizdis’s heads narrowed, irritation giving way to unease. “What have you done?”

The Black Jaguar roared, and a chain of purple energy materialized between the Sword of Gryffindor and the Thestral. Inscribed on the Thestral’s back was a glowing rune cluster, its symbols rotating into place with ominous precision.

Ekrizdis froze, his form flickering. “What is this?”

Harry twirled the Elder Wand. “Just a little denial of concept. And the best part? You helped me anchor it. That Thestral? Immune to the Anima’s corruption. Perfect for this kind of thing.”

The rune cluster locked into place, its glow radiating outward. Ekrizdis’s form stilled, his grotesque body trapped in mid-motion. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t decay. He couldn’t transform.

Harry stepped closer, his grin equal parts exhaustion and satisfaction. “And here’s the kicker: while you’re stuck here looking menacing, I’ll be up there taking control of the Eternum. You know, Nexus Child perks.”

Ekrizdis’s eyes burned with impotent fury, but he couldn’t so much as twitch.

Killing Ekrizdis was never the plan. Sure, it had its appeal—he was annoying, grotesque, and dangerous in equal measure—but it would’ve been like cutting off one of the three heads of a Runespoor and declaring victory while the other two hissed in laughter. No, the real threat wasn’t Ekrizdis alone. It was the Eternum, the hive-mind that made him seem larger than life.

Ekrizdis was powerful because he’d laid down the rules, but with the gates to the Anima wide open and the rest of the hive-mind focused on holding them that way, Ekrizdis himself had become less important. A big fish in a pond that had suddenly turned into an ocean.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Harry said, his voice steady, calm in the eerie stillness. The battlefield trembled, glowing with the chaotic light of the Anima’s outpouring. “You think I’m wrong. You think you’re the center of all this. After all, you’re connected to the Eternum. Right?” He tilted his head, an almost casual gesture, as the Elder Wand pulsed faintly in his grip. “See, that’s the problem with your kind. You’re so busy puffing yourselves up, you miss the obvious.”

Harry’s eyes gleamed, a mischievous light cutting through the exhaustion etched into his features. “Here’s the thing about me—I don’t miss.” He gestured to the Eternum behind Ekrizdis, its spectral surface rippling faintly. “All those spells you thought I flubbed? The ones that ‘missed’ you and hit that instead?” He gave a low, humorless chuckle. “Guess what they were.”

If Ekrizdis had control of his face, he’d probably be wearing an expression somewhere between alarm and indignation. Instead, he remained frozen in mid-motion, the perfect portrait of a divine tantrum interrupted.

The Black Jaguar, silent as death, leapt forward. It didn’t strike Ekrizdis. Instead, it dove into Harry, its spectral form merging with him in a burst of blinding, purple energy. A wave of force radiated outward, stirring the battlefield into a tempest.

Harry staggered, but his grin widened as dozens—no, hundreds—of shimmering strands of purple light erupted from him, connecting him to the Eternum. The glowing threads pulsed rhythmically, each one binding tighter, drawing him closer to the amalgamation of souls above. Slowly, almost reverently, the Eternum began to lift him toward it.

“You were right about one thing,” Harry said, his voice carrying over the howling chaos. “The Eternum would make you a god. You got that part down.” He raised his gaze, meeting Ekrizdis’s frozen stare with a cold, steely resolve. “But you didn’t think things through.”

Something flickered across Harry’s face then—a shadow of something vast and terrifying. Not fear, but certainty. The kind that sent shivers up the spines of anyone smart enough to recognize it.

“Ignotus warned me,” Harry murmured, more to himself than to Ekrizdis. “He told me I’d have to make a choice. Sooner or later.” His grip on the Elder Wand tightened. “Guess it’s about time I showed the world what sort of a god I want to be.”

And with that, Harry plunged into the Eternum, the strands pulling him into the swirling vortex of souls.

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The morning light spilled through the tall windows of Fleur Delacour’s atelier, bathing the room in a golden glow. It illuminated the scattered rune stones, delicate etching tools, and small vials of shimmering essences that lay across her desk. The scent of lavender and parchment hung in the air, comforting and familiar. Yet, Fleur could not shake the unease that had been growing within her.

She worked steadily, her hands deft as she etched fine runic lines onto a smooth stone. But her mind was elsewhere, tangled in a web of emotions that refused to quiet. Maman had summoned her home after the Selwyn marriage event, claiming it was urgent. And, of course, it had been—but not in the way Fleur had hoped.

One meeting with the Flamels, and somehow, Harry was embroiled in talks of an apprenticeship contract. Then, as though it were nothing, her manipulative mother had wrung a marriage contract for Fleur and Harry. Fleur’s cheeks flushed at the thought. She wanted this—wanted him—but not like this. Not with her mother scheming in the background, weaving Harry into her plans like a prized thread in her Cabal’s tapestry.

She let out a soft sigh, setting the rune stone down. Her heart clenched with a mixture of joy and frustration. Maman, as always, was impossible. Apolline Delacour’s sharp mind and sharper ambitions often left destruction in their wake, and Harry... Harry deserved better than to be ensnared in whatever her mother and her associates were plotting.

A faint tremor beneath her feet broke her reverie. The etching tool slipped, scratching the stone. Fleur frowned, her delicate features tightening. It wasn’t the first tremor she’d felt that day. The world was restless, shifting under some unseen force. The French Ministry was in chaos, the Lestrange Mausoleum in Paris was spewing dangerous radiation, and magic itself seemed to twist into aberrations. Nothing felt stable.

Then, it came.

A wave of power—silent, invisible, but so heavy it stole the air from her lungs. Fleur gasped, stumbling back from her desk as her rune kit toppled to the floor. Her fingers clawed at her chest as an intense heat surged through her, burning and radiant. Her vision swam, golden light bleeding into the edges of her sight.

“Mon Dieu,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

The heat became fire, roaring through her veins like a storm. Feathers erupted from her arms, tearing through her sleeves with brutal force. Her legs buckled as her bones twisted, her body reshaping into something other. She fell to her knees, talons scraping against the polished wooden floor.

Her scream tore through the room, high-pitched and unearthly. It wasn’t a human sound. Her throat burned with the force of it, and her wings flared, golden feathers catching the light as they spread wide. She tried to focus, to pull herself back, but the energy surging through her was overwhelming. It was not hers. It was not meant to be contained.

And then, she heard it.

The scream was not hers alone. Her mother’s voice, sharp and terrified, rang in her mind like a bell. “Fleur!” Apolline’s cry was joined by others—a thousand voices, a chorus of agony and power. Fleur clutched her head, her talons scraping her temples as the sound reverberated through her.

It was them. Every Veela, screaming as the energy awakened within them. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she tried to hold herself together, her thoughts fracturing under the weight of it all. Her mother’s voice broke through the chaos again, desperate and commanding. “Concentre-toi! Tu dois—”

The connection snapped. Fleur’s wings trembled, her feathers shimmering with a light that seemed to pulse in time with the magic coursing through her. She tried to rise, her talons slipping on the smooth floor. The power within her didn’t relent—it only grew, hotter, brighter, more consuming with every passing moment.

The world beyond her shattered. A window burst somewhere in the distance, shards of glass tinkling to the floor. Magic twisted wildly, cracking the air with bursts of unpredictable energy. The walls groaned as if under immense pressure. Fleur pressed her talons against the ground, her heart racing. It was too much. She couldn’t contain it. She couldn’t breathe.

Her mind reached outward, desperate for something—someone—to hold on to. And then she thought of him.

Harry.

Her chest tightened, a fresh wave of heat flooding her as she pictured his face. If this was happening to her, what was happening to him? To the world? She needed to find him. She needed to know he was safe.

With a guttural cry, Fleur flapped her wings, sending a gust of fiery air through the room. Her body glowed, golden light radiating from every inch of her as the energy surged toward its peak. She didn’t know how to control it. She didn’t even know if it could be controlled.

But she knew one thing. Whatever this power was, whatever ancient force had awakened in her blood and the blood of her kin, it would change everything.

And she would not let it take her future from her.

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Harry Potter was gone.

No, it would have been more accurate to say that the essence of “Harry Potter” was lost. Not erased or destroyed—simply unmoored. It slipped, drifting into the Eternum, where every soul carried histories deeper, connections stronger, and experiences richer than his own. Nexus Child or not, those truths were immutable.

He was being replaced. Forgotten. A lone voice swallowed by the screams of tens of thousands, all spiraling into the Abyss. And the Abyss screamed back, relentless and unfeeling. Until there was silence.

Nothing.

I have nothing. I am nothing. I render everything to nothing. And everything is M—

No.

A whisper cut through the void, faint but resolute. It spoke from a place so deep within him that it felt like a thread he’d forgotten existed. Not nothing. Not anymore.

And then, there was fire. Not fire to destroy, but to grow, to cleanse, to illuminate. Winter rose alongside it—flumes of biting cold, sharp and crystalline. Chains of violet light twisted through him, binding what he could not see yet anchoring him all the same.

Harry existed. Or did he?

Existence was too small a word. His being was unraveling, flayed open and stretched across an infinite expanse of sensation. Concepts flickered and shifted—emotions, colors, and sounds that defied the confines of language. His body was barely a whisper of memory, a faint tether adrift in the roaring current of the Anima.

Time disintegrated. Moments swelled into eternities, then collapsed into fragments too fleeting to grasp. The Anima poured through him, not like water but something far stranger: molten and glacial, weightless yet crushing. It hummed in alien tones, whispered riddles, shrieked truths—frequencies that defied comprehension but resonated deep in his marrow.

With every pulse of energy came knowing. Not knowledge as humans understood it, but pure, unfiltered understanding. He felt the essence of every soul coursing through the Eternum. Each life unfolded in bursts of surreal clarity: a farmer tilling verdant fields under alien skies; a mother’s grief as her child was ripped away in the chaos of a forgotten war. He became them, and then he was neither, drifting in abstract sensations—grief that tasted of iron, joy that weighed like stone, despair that hummed like a dirge.

Harry’s thoughts fractured under the pressure, splintering as he grasped for something to hold. A memory. A name. A self. But the Eternum pressed on, relentless. It was infinite and uncaring, a tempest of existence that dissolved individuality. For a moment that felt eternal, he was certain he had died—or perhaps never truly existed.

Yet, in the storm, there was a connection.

Threads of magic wove through the chaos, impossibly intricate, like veins coursing through a living world. Every frayed edge, every luminous strand pulsed with life, humming as though it was part of him. The world itself breathed through him—not just its surface, but its bones, its memories, its ancient heartbeats. He was the shifting of tectonic plates, the birth of stars, the quiet bloom of a forgotten flower.

It wasn’t only the world. Souls pressed against him, slipping through his consciousness like liquid shadows. Their emotions washed over him—alien, yet achingly familiar. He felt the searing regret of a soul chained to its past, the blazing fury of one bound by injustice, the quiet resignation of one too tired to continue. They didn’t speak, but their presence reshaped him, bending his essence under their weight.

And beneath it all, something darker lingered. Not evil, but indifferent. The Anima wasn’t guided by intent; it was a force of inevitability—raw creation and destruction in perpetual motion. To it, Harry was nothing more than a fleeting ripple in an endless ocean. The realization should have filled him with terror, but instead, it left him strangely calm.

His awareness spiraled outward, and he felt the last remnants of his humanity slipping away. He was no longer Harry Potter, the boy who lived, or the Nexus Child, or anything he had once thought defined him. He was a fragment of the Eternum, inseparable from its flow. He was the Anima threading through the world, the pulse of alien sensation vibrating through the fabric of reality.

“The seasons turn and turn,” said a very, very familiar voice. “And you and I shall keep dancing till the End. That was my promise to you. Why must you make this so difficult? Honestly, you’re worse than a snorkack!”

The storm of the Anima stilled for a fraction of an eternity, its endless roar folding into a whisper. Directionless became left. Awareness condensed into vision. Sensations coalesced into words, and the infinite energy that had consumed him wove itself back into the shape of a body—a vessel that was his and yet not his.

Harry Potter turned, his movements both impossibly slow and impossibly swift, and his gaze met a pair of sparkling, golden eyes. They shimmered with mischief, with knowing, with something that felt like laughter but ran far deeper.

It was Luna Lovegood—or someone that looked like her.

“Luna?” His voice was hoarse, as if dragged from the depths of a void.

The figure tilted its head, the corner of its lips curving into a smile that was both kind and unnervingly sharp. “Oh, Harry Potter,” it said, with a tone that danced like a breeze over water. “You’ve always been so terribly literal.”

Something in its gaze shifted, ancient and endless, like galaxies turning in the night sky. “I foretold that you would be my destiny or my doom,” it continued, its voice deepening with a resonance that echoed through the threads of the Anima itself. “Have you finally decided which you wish to be?”

Harry stared, his mind trying to reconcile the infinite storm he had been lost in moments before with the disarmingly whimsical figure standing before him now. “Destiny or doom?” he echoed, his throat dry. “I didn’t realize I had a choice.”

The golden-eyed figure—Avatar of Destiny, Harry’s mind supplied with a chill—laughed softly, the sound like the chiming of bells. “You always have a choice, Harry. It’s the choosing that matters. And the dance.”

It stepped closer, the shimmering aura surrounding it rippling like sunlight on water. “So tell me,” it said, extending a hand that seemed to stretch across time and space. “Will you take my hand and finish the dance we began? Or will you break the rhythm and write a new tune entirely?”

Harry’s breath hitched, the enormity of the question sinking into his very soul. And still, beneath it all, there was something achingly familiar in those golden eyes. Something that whispered of friendship, of whimsy, of truths half-spoken and half-understood.

And in that moment, Harry wondered if the choice had already been made.