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(Word Count: 3,006)
The night Harry had gotten his letter, something strange happened. He went to sleep, and woke up in a small gazebo. It was made of white marble, with ripples of black throughout it. On the floor, where he had been laying, was a circle of words in a language he couldn't read, along with depictions of wildlife and magical creatures etched into the stone. The etchings moved and ran around the circle, playing and chasing each other.
Though Harry couldn't read the text etched in stone around him, he could tell from the way it was structured, it seemed to tell some sort of story.
Looking around in confusion, he saw that he was on the top of a mountain. Looking out, he had the perfect view of the valley and plains below, and above, the night sky seemed so much closer. Each star was so clear that they seemed to be within reach, yet so far away. From the entrance of the gazebo, there was a smooth cobbled path leading up to a large ornate palace made out of the same white marble of the gazebo.
With nowhere else to go, Harry began down the path towards the palace. When he got close to the gates, they opened up on their own, inviting him in.
He went in.
Harry entered into a large main chamber, rows of columns. At the far end of the room, sitting in three thrones on a raised dais, were three large figures. The figure on the right was a tall, hunched, and gaunt figure draped in black robes. Its neck was far too long, and stooped out in front of it. It's face was somewhat concealed in a hood, but what Harry could see was sunken and gaunt. Its long boney fingers clacked gently on the armrest of the throne. Everything about this figure screamed DEATH at him, he felt like this being was seeing through his very soul.
The one on the left was a more feminine figure, but she had a third eye in the middle of her forehead and several sets of arms. Aside from the extra features, she seemed to be a beautiful young woman in her mid 20’s. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, decorated with a golden laurel. Though her head seemed to flicker for an instant, Harry thought he saw two more faces split out from the one in front and go to the sides of her head. The other faces were gone before he could take in much detail, but Harry could have sworn one of them was a child’s face, and the other was an elderly wrinkled face. She was wearing thin silks, which clung to her body, not doing much to hide her figure. She was lounging in her throne, one leg up on the arm rest. One of her hands was holding a glass of wine off to the side. Another pair was Idly crocheting something out of shimmering golden thread. Her posture made her seem lazy and uncaring about what was going on, but her eyes were watching him with great interest. Harry had the feeling that this being knew everything about him, both past and future. No, it was more like she WAS, IS, and WILL BE, his past, present, and future.
The last figure in the center was another feminine figure, though she was dressed in thick ornate robes, in hues of different reds and purples. Running across the surface of the robes were the same depictions of wildlife and magical creatures he had seen in the gazebo. They were embroidered in gold, so they stood out against the darker colors. The being itself, though feminine, seemed to be made entirely of silver, and instead of a head of hair, she had feathers like a great horned owl. She also had a third eye on her forehead, but it was closed at the moment. She sat regally in her throne, gazing down at him with unblinking silver eyes as he approached. Harry's own magic seemed to call out to her, like it had come home and was greeting its mother. The mother of MAGIC.
This was the first time his magic seemed to act with any sense of sapience, and Harry couldn't help but feel a little disturbed at the thought. Though people did often say that magic was alive. That magic remembers.
Taking in these three figures, Harry had no idea what to do. They were obviously expecting him, but what was the proper etiquette for addressing deities in their throne room? How close should he get, should he just bow, or fall on his face and kiss the ground? For a brief moment, he just wanted to turn back around and leave the room, but that would be an insult to the deities that had called him here for some reason.
“Harry Potter,” the silver being in the center spoke in a deeper woman's voice, rich and regal. “Come to the base of the dias, and kneel. Though you may keep your head high and your gaze level with ours.”
Harry did as told and made his way to the dias and knelt, though he continued looking at the three beings with a mix of curiosity, awe, and fear. As he approached, the multi-armed woman dropped her glass of wine and her crochet supplies, and they vanished mid-air.
The silver owl woman continued to talk. “I am Magic. This is Death, and this is Fate.” Magic gestured to the gaunt hunched figure on the right, and the lounging multi-armed woman on the left respectively. “We have called you here because you are not originally from our world. Don't worry. Creation is all connected and multiverses tend to influence each other, so it is not uncommon to receive an outsider's soul wishing to be a part of one of our worlds. We usually allow for this, and even provide blessings and boons should they prove worthy.
“We were the ones that provided you the ‘Wizarding System,’ as it were, and in exchange, we have some tasks for you to accomplish,” Magic said.
Harry recalled back to the first few moments where he gained the system. While it was “loading” one of the processes did say “Pending permissions from Fate, Magic, and Death.” They wouldn't allow this without some sort of compensation.
Fate spoke up. “When you died, and asked to be reincarnated into Harry Potter, you were sent to me! I placed you into a world that was originally on track to become a “doomed” world, where people's decisions or chance took things in a bad direction. In this case, Harry Potter was never born. I tweaked things a bit so you could be born, and it set things back on a similar path to other worlds. Now the prophecy is set in place, and you'll need to fulfill it.”
Magic continued. “As Fate said, there are some things you'll need to do. All three of us have some tasks for you, which you will see appear on your status screen. You'll receive yearly quests from us each school year that we want you to do. Some are optional, some are required. Fate's “Quests,” to keep in line with other systems you're familiar with, have to do with the “canon” of the story you're familiar with.”
Fate interjected, “Yup! My only required quest is for you to fulfill the prophecy about you and Voldemort. Everything else from me are options. You can choose to follow along canon or choose to go another way. You will get a reward depending on your choices.”
Death finally spoke, and despite its gaunt skeletal figure, its voice was a deep masculine voice, very suave. “My quests for you are to gather my deathly hallows, and hunt down some humans that cheated me.”
That was all the being said before falling silent again.
Magic spoke, “My quests involve learning magic, saving magical creatures, and generally performing great feats of magic. What I require of you will be revealed later. Do you have any questions?”
He had plenty.
The existence of a goddess of fate brought on an existential crisis. He turned to her. “Do we have free will, or is everything predestined at your discretion?”
Fate frowned. “As much as I want to, Magic and Death won't allow me to just keep things set in stone. I can only do that in my own realm. I mainly nudge things here and there and keep the timelines from interfering with each other. Luckily, many of the universes go as I wanted them to, but not always. Free will makes everything so chaotic and messy. Things would be so much simpler if things happened precisely when they should.”
A chill ran down his spine at the thought. If she had her way, everyone would be her puppets. He looked away. “I've already changed a lot of things in my time here. Why didn’t I get these quests before? Why call me here now?”
Fate answered, “Because ‘now’ is when the canon is officially starting, the first step of your magical journey. As for the changes, that’s alright, the prophecy will work itself out as they always do.”
Well, he's already been learning magic for three years now, but he wasn't about to contradict a goddess. She seemed to have an idea on how things should be. Based on this, Harry could guess that she'll be nudging things to happen similarly to canon, working around what changes he had caused. Considering Peter Pettigrew was currently imprisoned in Azkaban, he wondered how that would work. Will she make things happen so he could escape?
Harry looked towards Death, “You probably get this question a lot, but I have to ask it. Is there any quest that I can do that will let me resurrect someone as a reward?”
Death scowled. “No. At most, you will be able to freely travel to and from my domain, allowing you to visit your dead loved ones and return, or temporarily call spirits to you to aid you. But those that have died must stay dead. If I find you to be abusing these privileges, there will be consequences.”
Harry nodded. From the story, it didn't seem like there was any way to actually resurrect someone, meaning this god of death was a lot stricter than another might be in another universe. “Very fair.”
“The last question I can think of is where exactly are we? What is this place?” Harry asked Magic, who seemed to be in charge of this place.
She smiled. “We are in your dream. This is your subconscious mindscape, though I temporarily changed it to suit our visit. Rest assured, this didn't change anything and is purely temporary.”
The mindscape? Harry perked up. Mind magic had been one of his primary focuses these past few years, and he hadn't found anything about the mindscape so far. Harry had read a lot of fanfiction that dealt with the main characters shaping their mindscape as they pleased to create mental defenses, but that hadn't been the case for him so far. He would have thought it all fiction if it weren't for the scene in the books where the OG Harry had talked to Dumbledore in his mind. The mindscape had taken the shape of King's Cross station.
Now Harry was actually in his own mindscape! What could he do here, how would that affect him as a person in the physical world? Could he actually set up subconscious defenses like in the fanfics?
Before he could ask more about it, Magic smiled and said, “You'll learn more about the mindscape with time. You're about to wake up, so we're running out of time. Goodbye, Harry. We expect great things from you.”
The world around him seemed to collapse into mist, and faded to black.
Harry startled awake, and he found himself once again in his bed in the Grimmauld place.
He pulled up his status screen and saw that there was now another page where he could access the quests.
[Year 1 Quests:
Fate Quests: Sorting, Youngest Seeker, Troll in the Dungeon!, Golden Trio, Norbert The Dragon, Something in the Woods, Philosopher's Stone
Magic Quests: Room of Requirement, Save the Unicorns!, Philosopher's Stone
Death Quests: Philosopher's Stone, Ravenclaw's Diadem
Overall Quests:
Fate: Fulfill the Prophecy, The Snake Nagini
Magic: Ravenclaw's Diadem, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup
Death: Horcruxes, Deathly Hallows, Ghosts of Hogwarts
Completed Quests:
Fate: Captured the Rat[!], Freed Sirius Black[!], Saved Pandora Lovegood[!],
Magic: Mind Mage[!], Apparition[!] Animagus[!], Ritualistic Magic[!],
Death: N/A]
Tapping on each quest listed pulled up more information on it. Tapping on the very first quest, the Fate Quest “Sorting,” A new window popped up showing:
[Fate Quest: Sorting
As a new Hogwarts student, you will be sorted into one of the four houses. Your options are:
Go with Canon! Choose to be placed in Gryffindor!
Reward: You get 2 Skill Points to be placed as you wish.
Let the hat sort you into Ravenclaw!
Reward: You get 1 Class Point to be placed as you wish.
Choose to be placed in Slytherin!
Reward: You get +5 to Power
Choose to be placed in Hufflepuff!
Reward: You get +5 to Control]
Well, that's a bit of a spoiler. Now he knew where the hat was going to sort him: Ravenclaw. The question was, did he want to be placed there? If he looked purely at the rewards, it was obvious that the best reward was Gryffindor's option. One level in the Wizarding System gave him 1 Class Point, 1 Skill Point, and 10 Stat Points. So the options seemed to have been listed from best to worst in rewards.
To be honest, Harry didn't mind just going with canon in this. He was already friends with Ron, who didn't seem anywhere near as bad as he was in the movies, and he did like the reward the most.
The rest of the Fate Quests had to do with the major events that happened in the first book. The choices here were to let things happen as canon, or change things somehow.
Curious about the Completed Quests, he clicked on the exclamation points.
[Fate Quest: Captured the Rat!
You've captured the rat even before you've attended Hogwarts!
Rewards: You gain the Perk: Insight!
Insight: You can tell when someone is lying.]
Honestly, It's an okay perk. He could already do this by brushing on a person's surface thoughts. However, with this, he didn't have to use legilimens at all. Against someone proficient in occlumency, it could be useful.
[Fate Quest: Freed Sirius Black
You've cleared Sirius's name, even before the third year!
Rewards: One Class Point in the Dueling Class.]
[Hidden Fate Quest!: Saved Pandora Lovegood!
You've prevented the death of Luna Lovegood’s mother, Pandora. You prevented the deep mental trauma that was inflicted on Luna.
Rewards: You've claimed to have a future vision, now you can! You've gained the Perk: Seer!
Seer: You occasionally have dreams of the future. [Third Eye Opened Only: Can see beyond all illusions, grants far-seeing.]]
Harry had a feeling Fate was amused by his claims of a vision of the future. Still, with all of the changes he would be making, having a source of information about what's to come is reassuring. It looks like this perk can be upgraded even further if he can manage to open his “third eye”. Seeing as how both of the goddesses had three eyes, he couldn’t tell if Death had three as well, it was a big deal.
[Magic Quest: Mind Mage
You've become an accomplished Mind Mage even before you've attended Hogwarts!
Rewards: Two levels in the Mind Arts Class.]
[Magic Quest: Apparition
You've gotten your apparition license even before you've attended Hogwarts!
Rewards: You gain the Perk: Wide Wormhole
Wide Wormhole: The wormhole through which you apparate is now much wider than normal, at no extra cost. You and your side-along passenger(s) no longer feel like they're being squeezed through a tube.]
One of the best perks ever. Apparition is such a convenient method of travel, but it's so nauseating being squeezed through a tube like that. It's why so much effort had been spent developing the floo network. Normally, one could spend extra magic power to force the wormhole wider, which was needed in the case of a side-along passenger, but not everyone had the power to spend like that.
Now, Harry wouldn't have that issue.
[Magic Quest: Animagus
You've become an Animagus even before you've attended Hogwarts!
Rewards: The Animagus Perk has been changed!
Animagus: Gain the senses and strengths of your animal form even in your human form. Your crow form can now be enlarged up to 6 feet, as you wish. [Transfiguration Level 10+ Only: can do partial transformations between your animal form at will.]]
[Magic Quest: Ritualistic Magic
You've undergone an important ritual to strengthen your magical growth.
Reward: +5 Power]
So, in total, for everything he's done so far, Harry has gained 2 levels in Mind Arts, 1 level in Dueling, 5 Power, the perks Insight, Seer, and Wide Wormhole, and can now change the size of his crow form up to human size. It was a lot to take in.
There was a knock on his door. “Harry? Are you awake yet?” The voice of Remus came through.
“Yeah, I'm up! You can come in!” Harry called.
Remus came in. “You’re still in bed? We're all getting ready to go shopping here in a couple of minutes. Are you okay? You didn't stay up too late last night, did you?”
“I'm fine, Remus, I actually feel great.” And it was true, despite the crazy visit in his mindscape, Harry actually felt well rested, like he had gotten the best night's sleep.
Remus nodded. “Well, I just came to check in on you. Tonks is here too, so get dressed quickly, okay?”
“Right, I'll be quick.”
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