HP/LOTM: Visionary - 404

Chapter 404: Intelligence and Special Training

"Aiden, where are you?" Harry recognised the voice at once. He shoved Ron and Hermione off and looked around.

"Aiden, where is he?" Ron said, helping Hermione up and searching for their runaway cousin.

"Here," the voice came again.

Harry and Ron looked up and finally realised the grey mass beside them was not a mountain at all, but a colossal dragon’s head.

Heterochromatic eyes on either side confirmed its identity. Razor-sharp horns speared into the clouds, making it impossible to judge how massive the body behind them was.

"You… you…" Ron’s tongue tied itself in knots. Faced with such a vast creature, human instinct flooded him with fear.

"You blew your magic up and turned yourself into this?" Hermione demanded, immediately leaping to the conclusion that explained why Aiden had not come back to the Burrow.

"Stop guessing. You’ve made it this far, and Harry’s power has awakened. It’s time to tell you the rest," Aiden said.

The dragon’s head did not move, but his voice carried clearly into their minds.

A scale marked with strange sigils dropped from the dragon’s hide and landed before them, shedding white light. A chibi Aiden stepped out of it.

"This is easier for talking. Been a while," he said, pulling out a little stool and sitting down.

"What is going on? How did you end up like this?" Harry fired off the question that had been burning in his chest.

"That goes back a long way. In the past, to explore the origin and mysteries of the mind, wizards used human society as a framework and created fourteen Protocols," Aiden said.

He unfolded a small domain around them. Sitting next to the true body of an Author, the Stone Slabs would find it very hard to detect a leak.

"Six of those Protocols went out of control and birthed six Deep Realm Kings. Harry carries Resentment. Voldemort carries Chaos."

"Resentment and Chaos?" Ron repeated, putting too much emphasis on the names.

Brown shot through with red clouds boiled into being over their heads.

"No wonder we needed a Silence Contract," Aiden sighed. He lifted his head and seized control of Ron and Hermione, making each of them drip two drops of blood onto his scales.

Sequence 1 Author power surged. A hurricane roared through the Sea of Consciousness, driving the clouds away.

Ron and Hermione stared, stunned, as if watching a myth unfold before their eyes.

After a long moment, Ron patted his chest. "I thought I’d never be able to say those two words in my life."

"At first, wizards tried to completely master that power by creating the Final Protocol. But that thing was never something they could control. They blew it again. The Final Protocol and one other Protocol were lost," Aiden said. The gem hidden beneath his reverse scale glimmered.

"So you’re saying the Final Protocol is in you. But what does that have to do with you staying here and turning into this?" Hermione asked, catching the gap in his explanation.

"Hold on, I’m not done," Aiden said, nodding, approval in his eyes at her sharpness.

"Two months ago, Tom probably found one of the missing Protocols and brought it to Britain. Remember what I told you about her plan, Harry?"

He nudged Harry to work it out himself.

"You said she wanted to become the Deep Realm King Fear. But we weren’t instantly killed, which means she failed," Harry said, voicing his guess.

"Right. She tried to fuel the ritual with the massacre at the Ministry, but the scale wasn’t enough. The conversion failed. The Thirteenth Protocol escaped and instead gave birth to a new Deep Realm King: Distorted Order," Aiden said, his gaze cutting through six layers of the Deep Realm to the silver tomb at the very bottom.

"His birth let him dig the Fool’s core out of the mental server. To stop the Converted from losing their magic and being polluted by the Deep Realm, the only option was for me to use my body as the server’s hardware."

Listening to Aiden’s tale, all three struggled to even imagine the danger. The only thing they could clearly feel was the suffocating sense of crisis wrapping around them.

It was hard to blame them. Asking three barely seventeen-year-olds to face the millennia-old enemies wizards had forged for themselves was asking a lot.

"And what about me carrying Resentment? I don’t remember ever meeting Him," Harry said, raising his hand. His mind was still full of the scene of the rebounding Killing Curse.

"Of course you do. You’ve been with Him all along," Aiden said, opening his hand.

Dumbledore’s face appeared there.

"Of course. It could only be him. Why didn’t I see it sooner?" Harry whispered.

He understood now. Everything Dumbledore had done last year had been to pave the way for Harry to gain power equal to Voldemort’s.

Tears slid from the corners of his eyes. Once again, regret and self-reproach wrapped him tight.

"So. Let’s begin," Aiden said suddenly, standing.

"Begin wha—" Harry did not finish. A small fist cracked him across the face.

Fortunately, the Author in front of him was not in full form. One punch from a complete Author could have turned this into a story set in a world without a Boy Who Lived.

"Ow!" Harry clamped a hand over his numb cheek and glared at Aiden. Hermione and Ron turned the same accusatory stare on him.

"Don’t hate me, mate. I cannot stay lucid for long. You need to get a grip on Resentment’s rebound power fast. It’ll give you a much better chance against her," Aiden said.

He vanished and reappeared in front of Harry, fist already cocked. A "physical Stupefy" sent Harry flying, crashing through several trees.

Hermione took a step forward, alarmed, but Ron caught her arm and shook his head.

Lying in the wreckage, Harry felt pain blazing in every part of his body. In the distance, the dragon’s head shone silver-white, light gathering into threads that mended his shattered bones and flesh while numbing the pain just enough to keep him conscious.

Whoosh.

Aiden appeared again. Harry shuddered, rolled on instinct, and dodged.

Before he could feel pleased, Aiden’s fist twisted in mid-air at an impossible angle and slammed into his face.

"Not like that, mate. Call on Chaos. Use your own will to control Him!" Aiden barked.

"I…"

Boom.

Harry’s words were driven back down his throat as a thin fist smashed into his gut, blasting him backwards and ploughing a deep furrow through Avalon’s soil.