Chapter 17: Endings, Beginnings and an Epilogue

A/N: Here it is, at last, the end. This was a pain to write (and not just because my eye has finally healed (albeit with a different prescription) because of some of the concepts I have written about and tried to explain. Still, I have always found ending difficult as none as perfect, none tie every thread and there will always be complaints. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for sticking with me.

A/N 2: The poll is in and the winner is… HP/SW Harry/Ashoka Tano. I'll start handwriting that in a few days. Thanks to all that voted.

When Neville awoke, the first thing that he saw was his friend smiling at him. He had years of practice at reading his friend's expressions though and so understood that he was hiding a large amount of pain from him… or trying to.

"Hey Harry," he said while glancing around the room and taking in the fact that everyone was still out of it except for him. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," Harry answered. Neville would have been shocked by the multi-timbered tones in his voice but found something more important than that to be concerned by.

Harry was sitting on the ground, they both were, though there was some distance between them. He was close enough to make out the details of Harry's face though and because of that he easily noticed when a crack appeared in Harry's skin, like when an earthquake splits the land, though it was only an inch long and a golden-green light began to seep from it. He instinctively reached out towards his friend only to be stopped by Harry's voice. "Don't," he said harshly, "it will hurt you".

Then he watched as his friend closed his eyes and with obvious effort and concentration did… something. The light acted like it was on rewind and moved back into Harry's skin but the skin did not heal. Instead, the glow remained over the crack shifting and swelling in an ominous spectrum and matching the beat of a human heart.

"What did you do?" Neville asked, tearing away his eyes from that light and hoping against hope that his friend was okay.

"What I always do...something stupid. I took in too much Nev. I took in so much power and I'm not sure how much longer I can contain it".

"Not long would be my guess," he shrewdly answered. "Go, find somewhere to dump it, to let it out, and come back before it tears you apart. I don't care if you have to find a deep-sea trench or an abandoned island to destroy, just go now".

"'Fraid I can't do that mate. It's not like any other time I've done this. Before it was small things, not this…"

"Not what?" Neville prodded, fearing the answer.

"I tapped Ravenclaw...she begged me to. She sad that Dumbledore had abused everything that she was and I needed the power to survive to stop him". Before Neville could formulate a response to that Harry continued. "It gets worse. She was connected to the leyline nexus underneath Hogwart's Nev, directly connected, and I tapped into that. Now it won't let me go and I can't stop it, it's too vast, connected to too much and it's still changing me".

"Fuck," Neville said as they both stood up, Neville in a shocked and energetic kind of way and Harry simply because he did. Neville took a moment before he spoke again, trying to formulate a better response and failing to do so. "Fuck. So, what happens now?"

"We both know what happens," Harry answered with a soft smile that was both bitter and somehow accepting of his fate. "There is a reason that no one ever tries this, that all the stories about it end horribly".

Several more cracks appeared on Harry's skin as he spoke and it took longer for him to contain them and the power that spilt out from them. They were also larger and appeared deeper than the first and both knew that this happening was a very bad sign even as Harry almost doubled over in pain for a moment after he had managed to stop it.

"That doesn't mean," Harry said even as the glow began to shimmer around him despite his efforts to contain it as it found release through the pores of the skin on his face, "that I can't still do some good".

After Harry spoke those words Neville saw a large bolt of green-gold power whip from his friend's hand and was too slow to avoid it as it slammed into him. When it did he couldn't move or make a sound even when it spread over his skin like fire.

It didn't hurt though… in fact, it felt good.

When he was first cursed, it was like his entire being was riddled with thin black ropes that burned and drained him. He knew as soon as he tried to use magic that he was dying, somewhere back in his mind, and that if he had tried to use magic again those lines would have grown thorns and pulled him apart.

Then the runes had been branded onto his skin. They boxed the ropes, contained the darkness, and limited their effect. The drain had lessened to a tiny drip but he could still feel it, tearing at the box as soon as it was made and searching for weaknesses in its design. Its power grew day by day, he could feel it like a little niggle in the back of his mind, clawing at him and it was only made worse by the fact that his own magic was also attacking the box keeping it alive as it instinctively tried to remove the foreign construct.

The curse rebounded against the box and his magic weakened it, meaning the curse grew stronger and more vicious over time. He understood that, just as he understood that his lifespan had been considerably shortened.

When the fire touched him, that changed. Instead of burning him, it felt like soothing water sinking deep into his body. It collapsed the runes as soon as it touched them and then turned on the curse that was doing so much damage to him.

Though it fought like a wounded animal, spitting and snarling all the way, the fire was too vast and too deep for the curse to find any old or to win against. Like being swallowed in a tsunami the curse was swept away as if it had never been.

Neville's life was once again his own, his magic singing joyously as it was now back under his command. Harry had managed to give him his life back.

-HPCOD-

Harry felt like he was both a part of his body and not. He was human and yet part of a wave, part of the true definition of magic, of the power that was forcing its way into him and little by little he was being carried away by it. Helping Neville didn't solve his problem but, it did a good thing and might have bought him a few more seconds of life.

At least that was the hope, though that was not why he had acted… not the main reason anyway.

He knew that no normal spell worked this way, no magic was ever this instinctual and (for lack of a better term) smooth for a wizard… or any creature that could convey how it felt. There was no uniform structure at all to his magic, no framework save his desire, will and stubbornness that caused it to be.

It was also strangely not limited by his current form and he used that term deliberately because his body didn't feel like one anymore. In essence, it was more like the thinnest of veneers cracking and breaking randomly and far faster than he could repair it.

It obviously wasn't something that he could fully control nor did he expect to as, even now, in this form, his senses were too limited to do so. He could feel the vastness of that power, he knew without knowing how that the power stretched far beyond Hogwarts and the furthest he could sense it was the shores of Dover.

And he was not feeding on it anymore, he was part of it. It was like he was a new wave in an ocean that never slackened, he was spreading faster and faster and he couldn't see when it would end. He did know how though even as every magical enemy that fell under his new awareness was drained to a husk as soon as he was aware of them.

It would end when he gave up or his body exploded under the weight of the ever-growing magic he was being given...becoming...being enveloped by? It was hard to tell, hard to express.

Surviving Blood Purists, their sympathisers, Dumbledore loyalists and others allied to both extremes died quickly. When their mummified bodies hit the ground, or his power touched the dead, they turned to ash only to be blown away in a sweet wind.

It was different for his allies and friends.

Those that were injured found themselves suddenly whole and healthy. Sebastian Delacour gave a great cry of pain and joy as his nerves healed. The Healers around him were in shock as his body lost any weakness and atrophy that it once had even as he stood tall and wept for the unexpected miracle.

Unaware of the world around him for so long and in a small cabin deep in the Welsh countryside, Remus Lupin felt the curse that had plagued his existence from childhood fade as if it had never been. He was a werewolf no more, a final gift from Harry in memory of his father, but no more than that and whether that would become a blessing or a curse for the perpetually self-pitying man only time could tell.

Regardless he no longer had any excuse for his actions, past and present, or his cowardice.

The only other surviving Marauder, a man with far more arrogance, yes but, more backbone and loyalty too was certainly grateful. He had bled out from numerous wounds only a few minutes before and, laying on the battlefield, was technically dead, only to wake alive and whole before his soul had taken its next step.

That being true anyone who had been hit with the Killing Curse was unaffected. Their souls had been forced to move on and were beyond Harry's power. Still, the scope of what he currently could do was not the end of what he was receiving but the beginning.

Which was the problem as such power couldn't come without a cost.

No one being, or two, or three could hold anywhere near that amount of magic and hope to live. In fact, the closer one got to the theoretical magical saturation limit the more volatile that power became and the more dangerous you were to everything and everyone in range of your gifts.

Harry's lifespan (and therefore Hermione's) could be measured in minutes now. To the current understanding of magic that would be a horrible death, not only for them but for everyone around them too.

-HPCOD-

Neville of course knew none of this.

He hadn't trained in esoteric magics like Harry and Hermione, nor was the Longbottom family particularly known for wanting to experiment with the boundaries of magic, let alone delving into ancient rituals or meddling with its raw and wild natural state. In his defence few were anywhere, the risks were simply too great for most and of those that tried anyway the majority failed because they rushed (as Dark Lord's and power-hungry idiots are wont to do) and tended to lose their sanity, at best, while gaining only a shadow of what they had originally sought.

He wasn't stupid though. He was very grateful that the death sentence (that had impacted his every action for so long) was now gone but, when Harry collapsed, the magically raised man knew that it was truly and utterly disastrous.

"Harry," he cried urgently even as he cradled his friends head. "Speak to me. What can I do?"

"Nothing," he replied. "I'm doing everything that I can to keep it contained so it won't hurt anyone else. Other than that… I think I'm done fighting mate, there's less pain this way. Besides, why delay the inevitable when all it does is increase the risk to others?"

Before Neville could respond, before he could issue any plea or objection to what his friend was saying, Harry seemed to shimmer for a moment before turning to dust and drifting away on the same wind that he had made under Neville's shocked gaze. Unbeknownst to him, but a great shock to those that were near her, the same thing happened to Hermione in the same instant that Harry had let go of the struggle.

Neville had no time to grieve though as, before he could even begin to process the great loss that had suddenly opened a pit in his stomach and a hole in his soul, someone came running up to him.

His wand, which he kept on him as a memento of what he once was and a silent promise to never allow the same thing to happen to someone else, was up and ready to cast before he could even think about it. This reaction was no doubt a consequence of his emotional state and the leftover adrenaline in his system from the battle.

"What is it, Davidson?" Neville said harshly to the raw and nervous recruit that had found him and that someone had co-opted into a runner to search...for him it seemed.

"It's the muggles sir," the young teen said in shock. "They're attacking".

"Here or in Britain?"

"Not that simple sir," Davidson disagreed with a shake of his head. "They're attacking everywhere around the globe. Their quick communications would be brilliant under other circumstances but, right now it means we are fucked if we stay here".

"There might be one place they haven't found yet," Neville committed in a hollow voice. "Sound the retreat, we are going home".

-HPCOD-

Harry opened his eyes, back in his old body. It wasn't the one that he had been transformed into at the end, nearly brimming with unrestrained and volatile power, but rather the one that he had sculpted (if unconsciously) with his first few rituals.

He was amazed that he was alive, someway, somehow, let alone looking at a bright blue sky and standing on a hill with grass so vibrant that simply calling either it or the sky such mundane things as green or blue seemed like an insult.

There was something peaceful about this place, something that forbade panic and resisted violence

More importantly to him, he wasn't alone. The first sensation that he registered was that of warmth and it came from one of his hands which was clasping one of Hermione's gently but firmly. He felt a wave of almost physical relief at this fact, nearly strong enough to make him weep in relief.

As he looked at her he understood, judging by her face, that she felt the same. They hugged each other without conscious thought and took comfort in that simple act for a long moment without speaking before they noticed more of their surroundings.

They saw that, below them, was a valley filled with water and a small island in its centre. An ancient and yet beautiful fortress sat on it. It ticked the back of Harry's brain as he knew that he had seen it somewhere before.

'Luna,' he thought even as his mind was tinged with sadness at the loss of his friend, 'she drew this years ago'.

Before Harry or Hermione could speak to each other about anything, let alone what they were seeing, their reunion was interrupted. It was a noise that they shouldn't have been able to hear (they instinctively knew that), no human should, but still they did.

They turned towards it and saw a glowing humanoid figure and, given that they had just been in a battle for their very lives, the feeling of peace that the figure exuded was the only thing that stopped them from launching a preemptive attack. Then the figure coalesced into the form of a man, average looking and wearing a chiton of all things. He also had watery blue eyes and soft brown hair shaped by a receding hairline.

In short, if not for how oddly dressed he was and the way that he appeared, he would have been completely unremarkable.

"Greetings Harry and Hermione Emrys, also known as Potter and here as the ones from Earth six hundred and twelve, fifty-third branch. My name is Hermes, the third iteration, and it is my job….for this century at least… to welcome you to Caer Sidi. That's the name of this place, one of them anyway, it is also called the Axis and the Hub if that helps. Don't worry about it…"

"Don't worry about what?" Harry asked.

"Your wife. I can see she recognises some of the names that I have spoken, some of the legends attached to them too, and I was just trying to reassure her that she needn't worry about time here. This place is not quite in tune with linear time as you understand it for the moment".

"I understood most of those individual words," Harry said back, with a furrowed brow, "but, when you put them together you still aren't making sense to me".

"Then let me simplify it for the both of you. You are here because you have done something wonderful and this is where all new arrivals begin, rare though they are".

"The only Hermes I know is the Olympian God," Hermione added.

"Guilty… and welcome to Godhood yourself my dear," he replied with a soft smile in her direction. "However, try and hold any questions you have while I ...shall we say… step you through the rest of what I said if you can?" When they didn't object immediately, shocked at what he just said, he continued. "Good. I'll start with what an iteration is… I'm the third, as I said, which means I was born a mortal and became a God and that this is the third time this has happened to a version of me".

"Does this mean that there are two other versions of you running around somewhere then?" Hermione asked, even as both she and Harry tried to come to terms with such a monumental idea, of a human achieving Godhood.

"No," he answered even as he seemed amused. "If that were the case then there would be many more of us. No, what happens normally is that the current iteration absorbs any future versions of themselves, their memories and experiences before they can ascend to this place. There is never more than one of us at a time...not here, not as we are now. It's not something you'll have to worry about for a long time, possibly ever, as any form of Godhood is rare, though apotheosis is the rarer of the two paths".

"And that's what happened to us?" Harry asked, making an intuitive leap although it wasn't a very large one given where they were.

"Well, you weren't born a God, were you? What is confusing to us is how that has happened. You skipped the usual steps and should not have been able to come together, let alone through one of the fundamental forces and we are...curious. You will likely come across three types Elder God, God and Younger God but really, the difference is more about power than anything else".

"Don't Gods know everything?" Harry snarked.

"The One-Who-Is-Above would…. but we only know our own followers, the afterlives that we have built for them and the universes that we have claimed. Before you ask The-One-Who-Is-Above is more than us, he is the one that taught the first of us what we are...though where he is now...or even if it is a he...I don't know."

"The usual steps?" Hermione asked, sensing that she would learn no more about The-One-Who-Is-Above from Hermes and pressing the point would not only waste valuable time but could also cost them information that both she and Harry wanted.

Hermes sighed, waved his hand and created chairs and a table for them on which they sat down. After that, he created food for them, though none were hungry as sensations like hunger seemed hollow and far away to them now.

"Perhaps the easiest way for you to understand is for you to hear a brief history of our kind… after The-One-Who-Is-Above left… feel free to ask your questions as we go along." When he spoke now it was with the slow measured pace of a master storyteller, the lilt of his voice was almost hypnotic to them as it drew them in.

"The first thing that you must understand is the foundation of all reality, often thought of imprecisely as a tree and colloquially referred to as the Table was not made by us but by The-One-Who-Is-Above. We are truly symbiotic by nature, we gather power, enhance it as we store it and then return it back to the Table".

"Please," Harry said. "Simplicity is your friend right now".

"Right," Hermes acquiesced. "The first iteration Gods came about the same way you have, from seed worlds, that is, worlds that have proven they can produce our kind. In this early version of the tree, there were fewer branches, fewer universes… fewer places where we could appear to gather followers and gain power".

"Why?" Hermione asked intrigued even as Harry was too. As Hermes spoke it was almost like they were there and could see those early days...the confusion, the questions and the desire for power.

"We can do many things. We can create life, set the rules for the universes we inhabit...there really is almost nothing we can't do when we reach this stage. The only thing we cannot do is create new universes but we can gut them. I wasn't lying when I said we were truly symbiotic as it is the choices of mortals that spawn new clusters from the tree… every action's possible consequence is played out on it.. even choosing to do a different one. We need their prayers to become what we are and increase in power, then we use the power we have become to enrich empty places, spawning more humans who, in turn, create more universes where we can be born. Maybe they didn't understand yet that this would change, maybe they did not care. My memories of that time are...fragmented so I'm not sure. What is known is that these Primordial Gods were led by Zeus and they went to war with each other. Whole universes and branches were lost beyond all recovery. Are you following so far?"

"Yes. There was a war," Harry answered for them both. "What stopped it in the end?"

"All the first iterations died." Hermes's voice was both sharp and blunt at the same time. "You have to understand that the branches of the tree (and the smaller branches that spawn from each one) have grown to be infinite in their variety but, the conditions to create us are the one of the rarest of things. Most fall short before reaching here or die mortal, never to ascend. These early versions weren't just fighting a war for blood but for followers as well. If you had followed the normal path you would know this as, before you two, we believed it was the only way for Gods that were once mortal to gain power. In our first world, we gain power and, when the belief grows strong enough in our divinity, we become Local Gods."

"Is that what we are now?" Hermione asked, clearly disliking the term even as Hermes smiled faintly.

"It is what most of our very young are but, no, you both skipped that step. Local Gods are...limited. They are more bound to their follower's belief's than we are. If their followers are lost so too are they. They could never reach or even sense this place. It is only when they have gained true dominion over the world they're in that they might turn into one of us and end up here as Younger Gods and until then they are more defined by what their worshippers choose to believe about them rather than what they once were as people. Gods tend to settle over time as well...we think it's due to a combination of worshiper belief, their own personality and their skill sets. Regardless they become Gods of something...like war, architecture, learning, healing and pretty much anything else you could name"

"As interesting as this is my love, Hermes, we need to understand more about the war," Harry gently chided the pair.

"Quite right. The war went on for a very, very long time and it is hard to be precise as time does move differently here but what was unexpected was how connected to the Tree we had become. Our battles affected any reality that we had claimed. Younger Gods fought and stars died. Those who had amassed enough power from their worshippers called themselves Gods and when they died realities ended. When the oldest, most primordial of us, the Elder Gods died whole branches withered, batches of universes gone in an instant with only the echo of life left behind and we still haven't figured out how to repair them. It went on for so long that it was the second iterations that ended it at last...that version of me died on the wrong side. The group that won banded together to find a better way even as they fought in the last stages of the war. They are now the oldest of us and Zeus, the leader of the other side was killed and all of his future iterations were stripped from every world that Lord Posideon could find before they could become a threat. Rules were created for what we could and could not do, traditions established and order restored".

"Which are what?" Hermione asked.

"Well… Younger Gods are as far above Local ones as they, in turn, are above mortals…."

-HPCOD-

Neville didn't know how to feel.

Dumbledore was dead, Voldemort was dead and the majority of their own people were alive, healthy and safe. To top it off there was no longer a slow and agonizing death sentence hanging over him and Sebastian Delacour had fully recovered as well. His family couldn't be happier about that, despite the fact that they had suffered so much recently and with everything else that was going on right now they were rightly focused on the good that they had in their lives now.

Neville was further surprised when arrived and found his Grandmother alive and deliriously happy. He soon understood why she was this way as, when he found her, she was hugging his parents. His fully conscious and happy parents.

He hadn't even known that they were awake. He had known that they were transferred to Nysa's Medical Headquarters (by way of France) in the early days of the Parkinson Administration before the war began.

And all it cost him were his dearest friends and the blood of far too many witches and wizards on all sides.

It was too much right now, he needed space to breathe and think. He went to the only place that he could go when the others around him began to deal with the next problem and this one would be a bigger issue than anyone could have ever imagined.

The muggles had woken from whatever it was that Voldemort had done to him and it was as if, even after death, he was threatening the Wizarding World. Worse than merely controlling Britain (and in planning for his future conquests) he had, through the U.N., managed to get several foreign dignitaries. They couldn't have been given a worse introduction to magic.

Now that they were freed there was no Treaty, no threat, that could silence them or the news of what had happened to them spreading to all the wrong ears. The muggles were quickly realising the threat of magic and were united in one goal, to end that threat forever.

And there were plenty of disenfranchised and forgotten muggle-borns that were almost too eager to help them across Europe.

Neville knew this, just as he knew that he should be out there helping to plan the response to this new attack. He couldn't though, all he felt was numb as he entered the house that his best friends had shared until recently.

All around him were things that they had made and the memories that they caused were jagged in his mind. Things that Hermione had chosen with a critical eye or that had been gifted by their close friends including Hannah and himself were just brimming with moments of joy and happiness, all of which did nothing but highlight his grief now.

He sat in Harry's favourite chair, surrounded by the memories, and let himself feel what he needed to. For the first time, he reacted not as a member of the Ten, not as a Commander of an army and not as any sort of leader but rather as Neville the man. A man who missed his friends.

Unshared tears formed at the corners of his eyes.

There was the table where they had shared, on average, at least one dinner together a week. He could almost hear their laughter like a half-remembered dream. His nose twitched, wanting Harry to be cooking on the stove.

He stood, trying to shake it, but couldn't help but reach out and touch the firesilk throw that had been a gift from Hannah one Christmas. Then there was the charmed beer box on their porch, its bright blue colour stark in the gloom of the evening and that might be the hardest for him as they had so recently enjoyed a quiet moment or two with each other there.

What he was really trying to ignore were the clothes left haphazardly throughout the house, the plates, work and other brick-a-brack that were in mid-use. All these things indicated a life well lived that they had to drop everything and they would soon return. The fact that they wouldn't weighed down on him more than he could ever express.

The fact that lives that were so important, so wonderful and meaningful to him as well as precious could just stop was something that he was still trying to come to terms with and he knew he would be for a very long time.

'What happened to you, Harry? What happened to Hermione?' Neville thought morosely, 'What did all that power do to you, do to your souls? Are they out there somewhere or were they destroyed?'

Then he began to sob, broken at last, in great heaving gulps as his shoulders shook and his grief that had been put aside for as long as he could spilling forth into the empty house.

"Why so glum, chum?" An amused, yet sympathetic voice made his heart soar in his chest even as he understood intellectually the impossibility of what he was hearing. Neville turned and, through bleary eyes, saw the forms of his two friends barely a second before he crashed into them with a strangled cry of relief.

He felt both pairs of their arms wrap around him and, for a moment as he felt that comforting warmth, nothing else mattered to him. His friends were back from an impossible place and all was right with the world.

"Forgive my husband Nev," Hermione said. "He's a terminal idiot sometimes with a terrible timing for what he calls jokes".

"What the hell," Neville began with a watery chuckle and pulling back to take a good look at the two of them, "happened to the two of you?"

"The short answer?" Harry asked and he nodded. "We died. I swear on anything you want to name that I'm not joking."

"Really? Because you seem rather solid and fleshy for ghosts" Neville replied even as the scepticism shone through in his voice.

"That's because we are not ghosts. That would have been simple but, we did die," Hermione rebutted. "To survive we had to become something else, something different."

"What exactly?" Neville asked.

"Bearing mind that it's mostly just a name," Harry hedged as he was unsure how Neville would take the news. "We're Gods Nev, Younger Gods specifically".

"The name of your first cat?" Neville asked Hermione with narrowed eyes.

"Crookshanks," she answered easily enough.

"And your name for it that you would never tell her Harry?"

"You bastard," Harry grumbled. "The cock blocking ginger furball of fucking sharp claws and death".

"Harry!" Hermione said, judgement in her tone.

"Sorry," he said quickly while adding, under his breath, "that cat was a prick to me".

"No, he's not," Neville added with a grin. "So how did that happen?"

"You believe us?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Someone could remember Crookshanks but it took almost three bottles of mead to get that name out of Harry and I can't see him willingly tell anyone else".

"Anyway," Harry said, quickly changing the subject from talking about...that cat. "It can't have been much time for you since you've seen us but, for us, it's been hundreds of years. Time moves differently there...but we did learn it had to do with the rituals I...we… had gone through and that final battle with Dumbledore".

"If it was anyone else but you two I'd never believe it….but I suppose that you have always been fates bitch Harry".

"Plus, you did see me die," Harry added.

"Admittedly that does help," Neville grinned. "Do you never stay dead when you are supposed to?"

"Apparently not," Harry answered as they both chucked and Hermione smiled.

"Boys, focus," Hermione said. "There have been so-called Gods of Magic in the past but in reality, they weren't. The Gods are made up of the sixth fundamental states of matter as we understand their natures and they are solid, liquid, gas, the Force and magic but they all simply have a larger amount of the last two (to varying degrees)...not Harry. In reality, there has never been a true God of Magic because they were not made almost entirely of it as Harry is. Before you ask the current belief is that the Force is an amalgamation of people's belief and the energy of life where magic is the glue that holds everything together… constantly malleable".

"So… if he is the God of Magic what are you the Goddess of?"

"I have no idea yet. Unlike him over there I, like all others like us, will take time to settle. I'm a mixture of all the forces together though I do have a lot more magic than any of the others except Harry. What I will become will be defined mostly by my personality and my inclinations".

"So, why did you come and talk to me?" Neville asked. "I'd like to think it was just to see me but, you could have appeared anywhere and you have chosen to do it while I was alone and no one else will see you".

"Because," Harry said, even as he gestured and his wife appeared in a soft white flash, "we are here to say goodbye to you both."

"Neville what's going…" Hannah began before Hermione gently touched a single tap of a finger to her forehead and brought her up to speed with everything that had already been said in the conversation so far. "Oh…"

"Don't worry," said Harry at his friend's concerned look, "she knows everything you do about us now".

"Why didn't you just do that to me?" Neville asked.

"Would you have forgiven us if we did?" Hermione answered him.

"Probably not," he admitted.

"Why do you have to say goodbye?" Hannah eventually asked once she had a moment to absorb all of the new information floating around her skull.

"Because it breaks one of the few rules that the others have if we try and stay. This world has created our kind...that's rare and must be protected so that it might happen again. If we stay that cannot happen. If we stay this universe will imprint on us like a lost puppy. We can only create Local Gods that are a copy of ourselves or a best a reflection of us and…"

"We could have children," Harry added, "but as far as I know they would be like us and have to leave once they were born. Besides I don't think we are ready to make another one like us when we barely understand it ourselves".

"Surely others like you stay places and don't take them though?" Neville asked.

"Yep. but it's a skill that requires practice and we still wouldn't be able to stay here. We are too young. As it is I owe Hermes a favour for regulating enough of our power so that we can stay here for half an hour or rip this universe apart when I misjudge my own strength and he can't do it forever".

"Fuck that," Neville said. "Tell this Hermes that you'd never hurt your friends and to piss off. Two against one...how could he stop you?"

"He might not," Hermione said, "but the others would".

"Have you ever met these others?" Hanah asked, backing her husband up and adding her own desire for them to stay into the mix.

"Only a few," admitted Harry, "But we can feel more of them watching us, making sure that we keep to the agreement. There are so many universes Neville and so few true Gods. Some are happy as they are and just visit place after place, some create their own universes to overlay empty or failed ones and some just try and understand more of this existence. All of them obey the rules however… all enforce them".

"Can't you just gain more power, more control and come back?"

"No. it takes a very long time to learn control and when we create a new place we become part of it for centuries...even millennia. I wouldn't even have a voice for most of that, let alone a body. Time is complicated for us… we can manipulate it..like we have three seconds to your every one, but I'm part of the flow here now… language is limiting. All you need to know is that everyone and everything here would be long dead even if we could return".

"It's different," Hermione added, "when it's not our native universe. It would take us a lot longer to have an effect...it would resist us while this one is doing the opposite. When you create a universe you are weakened and spread out. We disappear or are diffused for a long time only to come out stronger".

"It's no wonder some prefer not to do it at all and just learn control… but that still takes time," Harry said.

"Is there no way to shortcut it?" Hannah asked.

"Well...I supposed you could kill another God who has lots of followers and mind-rape them as they were dying, hypothetically speaking. Realistically, that's obviously a terrible idea so… no," Hermione replied.

"Plus, we are only Younger Gods and our kind does increase in power over time regardless. I don't think the Gods or the Elder Gods would appreciate us trying to kill a different one simply to increase our abilities. Hell, to the Elder Gods we are likely gnats. That doesn't even take into account Lord Posideon, the leader of the Gods".

"If I remember muggle myth then surely…"

"Don't ask about Zeus," Harry interrupted. "Trust me, you don't want to know".

"How do you become one anyway? Normally I mean?" Neville asked, not out of any desire to become one but more out of curiosity than anything else.

"I can't tell you that," Hermione firmly answered. "It's a rule. If we tell you how it's less likely to work or, if you want to get philosophical about it, if you are told the destination you lose the journey".

"We don't want you to go," Hannah said, even as Neville nodded firmly.

"We don't really want to go either, but we must," Harry replied. "We do have a favour to ask of you though".

"But first," Hermione said, eve as she and Harry joined hands and raised them into the air. A bolt of pure power, colourless but felt by all four of them, left that joining and soundlessly hit the warded glass far above them.

Everyone on Nysa, wizard or not, could feel that power when it slammed into the glass. It spread out like a ripple in a pond to every corner of the island and the spells that it touched were strengthened a thousand-fold.

Only then did they ask their favour and, after some thought, the human couple agreed. With a wave of his hand that wasn't still holding Hermione's a small flash of light left Harry's hand and hit Hannah in the torso.

"What was that?" She asked.

"A memory," Hermione said sadly.

"Why didn't you bring back your parents?" Neville asked suddenly. "You brought back mine".

"The human soul is incredibly complex and the older the earth the harder it is to do so. Your parents weren't dead, merely in need of repair if you'll forgive the term. Added to that, I'm not and can never be the main God of this reality so much of my power cannot be here without forcing my mastery over this universe".

"And, if you do that, the others would get… annoyed," Hannah concluded.

"Try pissed off enough that they might remove me from existence," Harry corrected her even as Hermione wordlessly scolded him for his language with her eyes. "More importantly though… I've visited them… in the afterlife I mean… and they are happy. Why take them away from that if I'll only have to leave again or one of the others comes just to put them back?"

"And Luna?" Neville pressed.

"Also happy," Hermione said, "and catching up with her mum".

"Okay… I guess I see your point," Neville admitted grudgingly. "I can see it, even if I don't agree with it. Still, if there is an afterlife here, does that mean there was a real God here at some point...or a Local one at least".

"Maybe? Probably," Hermione admitted, "given the complexity of the rules of this universe it's likely. It would have to be way back before the war for our kind to forget, or a Local God that died though as they generally escape the notice of us. If they were here, they aren't here now".

"So what will you do now?" Hannah asked, trying to rip the plaster off so to speak. "Make your own Universe...Reality… whatever?"

"Don't worry, the terminology confuses us too. Strangely enough, the English language was not designed with our kind in mind," admitted Harry with a chuckle "and it's our life now, not yours. We won't be doing it right away, if ever, as we'd like to understand and explore more of this existence before we commit to something like that".

"Plus, just because we can't stay, doesn't mean that we can't visit," Hermione added. "Just… not like this, not in the flesh and not for a while or without help".

"Goodbye," Harry said sadly, for the both of them, before the other two could say anything else. "Our time is up. Thank you and… we love you all".

Then they disappeared in a blink, as quickly and as quietly as they came. That didn't mean that they left nothing behind, however.

Where they had been standing was the now reformed Aspect of Hogwarts staring at Neville and Hannah in open wonder. She was free now and unbound from the foundation stones that had defined her existence for so long.

She was still bound to something (as she would inform them later) but now she was connected, loosely at least, to the magic of the entire planet as she had once been to the stones. It did make her less powerful than she once was, her connection being dispersed over such a large distance, but she was alive.

And the possibility for growth, change and evolution was truly open to her. Her choices would be completely her own for the first time in her existence. All in all, it was a touching and heartfelt gift from her most recent and most beloved students.

She also appeared with a large sack that was brimming with runestones of the same type that had once created Nysa and a stack of enchanted glass that was twice as tall as her directly behind where she stood.

"We have work to do".

The first words that she spoke were full of everything that she was feeling at that moment. All of her joy at being alive again, the wonder of what her students had become, happiness at seeing her friends, sadness that Harry and Hermione could not be there and determination to fully capitalize on what she had been given.

-HPCOD-

The next three years were both unifying and terrifying.

On the non-magical side of the line, thanks to both the time between the fall of Voldemort, the Battle of Hogwarts, the time it would have taken for the Magical Community to restore order and the speed of muggle communications, they were quick to react.

The first attack that they made was on Hogwarts was executed predominantly by the British Military but they were riled up, as the greater muggle world (that had been so often ignored by their magical cousins) was in the beginnings of a massive panic over the realisation that magic was real. Granted, that panic was being managed for now but, given the number of people in the know and not disposed to be friendly to the hidden world, that would not last.

Not when, aside from what had happened recently, that generations of squibs, disenfranchised muggle-borns and other undesirables often trickled back into the British Empire (and that was still how many of the wizened old men in the Wizarding World thought of when pondering the other side of the divide). They, in turn, had no love for the world that they had left behind and not only found themselves at odds with any wizard that they met but were also a valuable resource to certain areas of the Muggle government.

Certain departments of the Military and the Security Service absolutely loved them and, given their spotty educations and difficult to explain personal histories, they were grateful for the help. They worked like demons for their 'saviours' and kept the kernel of hatred deep in their hearts, passing it down from generation to generation.

Finding and watching the hidden locations of the Wizarding World wasn't that hard, nor was keeping it secret. This was especially true when places like the Ministry, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and Saint Mungo's and, minutes after Hogwarts, all the rest were hit with coordinated strikes.

These were professional soldiers, supported by an enraged crown and a vengeful government. Against them were the battle-weary remnants of the old regime including many unqualified and idiotic pure-bloods, pieces of a devastated Auror force, shopkeepers and civilians and (in the case of Saint Mungo's) healers and parents of patients.

Only the forces under Neville's command had retreated relatively unscathed that day (as the attack had actually happened before he had returned to Nysa) and that was simply down to the fact that they were prepared, thanks to an early warning of the muggles approach, and because they had a place they could easily retreat to.

The others, simply put, were a bloody massacre and that was merely the beginning.

Given that, at its height before both the losses during Voldemort's takeover, his purge of the unclean afterwards and the fight with the I.C.W. there had been somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 wizards and witches living in the country, Wizarding Britain effectively ceased to exist once they were attacked.

As for future resistance? It was basically nil. Thanks to Dumbledore not teaching true combat, Voldemort own bloody-handed rule and the muggles, there were very few, if any, wizards that could survive true combat when the army was finished with its work.

Those that did survive were taken to detention centres and never heard from again. This wasn't the Britain of peacetime, after all, this was a snarling and wounded animal with the efficiency of a people who had once carved out an Empire that spanned the globe and created the first primitive concentration camps.

The response in the rest of the world was slower but, even more brutal because of the time that they took to plan it. The less said about certain countries with dubious track records when it came to human rights the better.

In a twisted way, the Wizarding World had managed to do the one thing that the U.N. and its predecessor had tried and failed to do. They had managed to unite the world in a newly found hatred of wizards, old grievances were put aside for the moment as they turned and cooperated in an unprecedented manner to kill or capture all the wizards that they could find.

Because of this, they were largely successful, though small pockets of resistance did manage to hold out for a while.

-HPCOD-

"How the hell did Harry do this?" Sirius groaned as he sat reviewing the days business with Hannah, Neville and his recently made wife Amelia Black (nee Bones).

It still hurt him that, eighteen months after they had left and six months after his wedding, he hadn't gotten the chance to say goodbye to the pair and they hadn't turned up to his wedding.

'Though,' he thought, 'to hear Neville tell it they didn't have much of a choice in that".

Still, he did wonder, in a time where most days they had been saving what they could how the day that he finally married the love of his life had been so peaceful and perfect. He liked to believe that Harry and Hermione had something to do with it and that thought had been compounded by the fact that, when he thought of them on that day, a soft sweet wind had caressed his face for a moment.

"He didn't," Neville said, "he had Hermione help him with it, she insisted really, perhaps Amelia…"

"I already tried that one. Apparently, she's had enough of this and is happy to leave it to Susan for Bones, me for Black and simply be my wife".

"Oh, my poor Sirius," Amelia teased as she ignored his puppy dog look at her. "How will you live with a wife who won't do your paperwork for you and will only give advice occasionally while being completely devoted to you?"

"Somehow I think he'll manage," joked Hannah. "What's the status of our projects to date?"

"It's a bit of a mixed bag I'm afraid," Neville answered his wife. "South America has gone the way of the U.K and so has Russia, China, Germany and Spain. I think it's fair to say that the rest of Europe will follow within the month and there will be no more adult wizards there. The Conclave will take longer but, the muggles know where it is now and it is under siege".

"Is there any hope of providing aid?"

"No," Amelia answered the group this time. "They are well and truly surrounded and the same wards that protect them stop us from getting in. Once the wards fall they will have nowhere to go, there aren't any safe Portkey points left and they can't apparate far enough to make any difference".

"Why do the squibs and muggle-borns help them? Do they think that it will be any better luck with the muggles than we have?" Neville questioned the group.

"Never underestimate the power of self-delusion," Hannah answered him as the only half-blood in the room. "It's that and, frankly, there is no part of the Wizarding World where they haven't faced some sort of widespread discrimination and abuse. As foolish as it may be, I can't fault them for hoping for something better than that".

"A foolish hope if there ever was one," added Amelia. "They'll be killed or detained like the rest of us as soon as their usefulness ends. The muggles feelings towards us won't fade quickly and given the current climate I can see no other outcome".

"Is there any good news?" Sirius asked while shaking his head sadly. 'Didn't Lily mention a muggle saying once,' he thought, 'something about seeds and whirlwinds? Well, the whirlwind is here now and it was centuries in the making'.

"South America was always going to be a lost cause, we all knew that," Amelia said. "Magical Canada is in full retreat, as is the Magical United States. We are managing to help there by evacuating as many as we can through Ilvermorny. Speaking of schools, most of the major eleven are nothing buttle rubble and ash now as the muggles have stopped sending troops in until they have levelled them from the air".

"Which ones are left? By that, I mean not utter ruins and charnel houses?"

"Only Illvermorny and Beauxabons are still standing as buildings. We have to finish with Illvermorny as soon as possible as we believe that it will be the muggles next target and Beauxabons is abandoned as we have transferred as many as we could and resettled them in New France." Neville spoke softly, but with a quiet surety.

"Other than New France, how many submerged islands do we have now that Harry and Hermione left their last gifts?"

"Fifteen," Neville answered. "Though, unlike Nysa, they are barely that. Even New France, which is the most developed and is the only one with a name, is little more than a grassy pile of dirt for now".

"Speaking of bare beginnings, if we are winding down our extraction efforts due to the increasing danger, what about the muggle-borns and how many people can we take even with the new islands at the maximum when they are finished?" Hannah asked.

"We are trying to get a detection grid up and soon we will have to decide between the old route of informing the family and offering a choice…" Amelia began.

"Not a good idea, all things considered," Sirius interrupted his wife.

"Or," Amelia continued with a grimace, "we go the other route. Obliviation for the family, abduction and a blood adoption for the youngest ones that we can find… hopefully the other ones will be okay or we can find them later through other means. As for population? At the moment less than three thousand with big issues if we do but, when they are finished fifteen at maximum before we reach the point when we will have serious problems".

"That's per island?"

"Yes. his one will be the largest of course but, at anywhere approaching that point we must have the infrastructure to create more".

"Both of those options sound horrible," Neville said as he thought about the more sensitive issue before them and his wife nodded her own agreement to that. "I hate to say it though… I understand the point. Magical Britain was somewhere in the mid-range for our kind and we still only numbered around 10,000. To be left, eventually, with a population of 22,5000 not including Nysa is a gift that we have to utilise as safely as possible".

"In furtherance of safety and some much-needed breathing room the islands are already spread out as far as from here to St. Kitts," Hannah added though she, like everyone else, didn't enjoy the necessity of that or the nature of the question before them.

Magical Kind, all of it, were fighting for their very survival and allowing sentiment or morality to inhibit that might endanger everyone they were charged to protect.

"Have you heard the latest rumblings from the Gringott's refugees?" Sirius asked the group, neatly moving the conversation away from such controversial ground for the moment.

"The one where they are soon to ask for an entire island to be given over to the Nation?" Hannah clarified, "Yes. It will never pass. Not only do we lack the resources to create an extra island for the moment but no island (despite their names) have been given over to one power. Unity is our strength at the moment and to bend to Gringotts wishes would do nothing but undermine that".

"It's like they think the names are anything more than a reminder of the places and people we have lost. As if we would condone separating people that have banded together because of former nation, race, creed or culture. All magical creatures have to adapt and move past our old failings," Neville added hotly. Hannah laid a gentle hand on his arm and he calmed. "On another note, we do have some good news… Hannah's pregnancy… it's twins."

"So Harry was right?" Sirius laughed. "How did the Healers miss that?"

"They didn't," Hannah answered. "Before they left Harry and Hermione asked us a favour. One of the children I'm carrying is a Longbottom but the other… is their child. Genetic tests will confirm it".

Everyone was shocked at that and, though all were congratulatory and awaiting more explanation, the most poignant response was from Dan.

"I'm going to be a Grandfather?" He whispered and then, without waiting for a response, he buried the two in a firm but still gentle hug. "Thank you".

"Well…" said Dan Granger, speaking for the first time on Council business and once they had sat down again, "here's how I suggest we deal with the Gringotts problem…"

It was from conversations like this, both in the Council room and at small tables across every island, that a new society of magicals was born.

It would take centuries for wizards, witches and other magical creatures to even come close to the numbers that they once had. By that time though the world outside would have moved on and the idea, beauty and danger of magic would have faded into history and legend.

The unity that the muggle world would fracture within the next ten years after it appeared that their common enemy had gone extinct. Then, the old arguments and grievances that had been put aside returned with a vengeance. As war was the mother of all invention they did more damage to each other than ever before.

But that, as they say, is another story.

Branch 8, Earth 16

Many Years Later, 2nd of February 1802 Local Timeframe

Harry hated this favour, but then Hermes had given them a lot of help in learning control (which they were still not perfect at) and other perils of this new existence and he had started to call in the debts owed.

'I also think the others are genuinely curious about my limits and capabilities and they're probably still leaning on him,' he thought.

That really irked him. He didn't like feeling like a rat trapped in a lab but then, he was honest enough to realise that it wasn't simply because he owed Hermes as he was curious too. The Gods, after all, all had magic in their nature but he was magic and magic was him in ways he was only beginning to understand.

That wasn't the main reason he was annoyed though as that was Hermione, or rather the fact that she wasn't with him at the moment, not in the same way he was.

They hadn't made a reality of their own yet, either separately or together, as outside of requests like these they were both happy enough exploring every creation that they came across. Sometimes it was in bodies made at the moment they arrived, often in spirit and one in a while they even chose infertile couples and lived a version of the mortal life once again.

Her powers had settled eventually and she had become a Goddess of Healing and Learning. In hindsight, he couldn't have imagined her as anything else and it did help when they wanted to be flesh and blood once again.

These breaks felt more like they had become some Godly response team to any problems that cropped up in the workings of the Tree.

This one was particularly tricky as he had been informed that it was likely that one of the twin Gods of this reality was going to break their founding rule and wipe the reality that they were in completely clean. They had been warned, of course, but it was at the start of their universe-building and they were arguing.

Each had dismissed it as a lie that was the work of the other and it didn't help that they were both God Born and were seemingly abandoned by their parents here before they were even aware enough to understand what they were let alone that they weren't the only Gods in existence.

Ordinarily, it would be the parents' responsibility to fix this but they seemed to have gone to great lengths to hide their actions and even Lord Posideon didn't know who they were… or so he said.

He disliked this universe because technically there were three Younger Gods (including Harry) and though the other two were in balance as they created this place, he tipped the scale. Even with near-perfect control that was too many cosmic entities for this reality and ran the risk of causing the destruction that he was here to prevent.

It was also another reason why a Younger God had to be sent rather than any others of their kind. If his controlled power would degrade this reality then it would be destroyed by the simple attempt at entry from an Elder God.

One of the ways that he had tried to counteract this was to leave even more of his power outside of this reality than he normally would ( a small portion had to be left lest he accidentally imprint on the reality) but, even that was not enough.

He was fine with that but, what he wasn't fine with was the fact that Hermione had spread herself just outside this reality to make up the difference. She was barely touching the edges of this place but managing to hold it together and fully occupied with healing the cracks made by his presence.

Any other energy that she had was used to hide the fact that they were both here. It was a waiting game for them as they wouldn't punish or stop something likely to happen, in their own minds, they would only act if it became the path that was to happen. Stopping it before it reached its inevitable conclusion was harder but, it was also fairer.

Then Harry would have to act ad quickly.

In the meantime he was here, enjoying existence and missing his wife as a man named Alexander. Alexander was the demi-god son of the local version of Hecate of all things and he was wondering what he could do to keep himself busy.

He was still thinking on that as he placed the last stone on the small mansion that he had constructed on (what would eventually become) one of the most beautiful spots on Lake Como.

He had poured his magic into every piece of mortar, every brick, beam, joist and then and only then had he constructed the wards with his willpower and immense reservoir of his power.

'And wasn't that irritating, keeping the breadth of my power from my new mother and all others that might have otherwise sensed it. The strange thing is though… I can sense the other God…. Goddess actually and her nature is perfectly balanced by her brothers. The odd thing is that it feels like she's been unwillingly dispersed somehow, like Hermione, except she didn't want it and it is within this reality rather than on the outside'.

He knew that Young Gods shouldn't be able to imprison each other like that...or make so many Local Gods. One or two maybe, especially if one was an actual copy of them but he sensed far more than that. Maybe it was the fact that they made this place together (however unwillingly) or that they were twins so their powers might magnify each other's abilities...or maybe not.

He likely would never know.

All of that aside, he did like growing up with a mother. Granted Hecate wasn't the most maternal of figures and she was unaware of his true nature and the full facts of why he was here but still, even at her most monstrous to others she was kind and loving to him. Part of him would always be that orphaned boy stuck in a dark and damp cupboard and it was cathartic for him to see a version of the other side of the coin.

Granted, that wasn't the main reason that he had chosen to be born so far back before the events that he was due to stop might happen but, it was a nice fringe benefit. It was another way that he was ensuring that his presence wouldn't be noticed as anything other than something that was meant to be here as, when that time came regardless of the choices made, all relevant powers would be on higher alert for any changes.

It would also allow him to learn more about the differences in this world from the others that he had visited. For example, a large number of magic users gained their power by making deals with demons. It was inelegant and, frankly, quite disgusting especially as they claimed the souls of humans in payment.

Because he had travelled so much he had seen worse, although not by much.

'Then again travelling so much has given me the impression that the The-One-Who-Is-Above has some sort of plan or path for all of this. It's hard not to think that with all of the repeated people with minor changes, the similar rules like gravity and magic that appear and are active in so many realities. That's not even counting the amount of Local Gods that create themselves (rather than those made by others) who are unknowing reflections of their greater selves. I've lost count of the number of Poseidon's, Wotan's and hell even Zeus's that I have met as I've explored as much as I have'.

As he entered his new home he thought about the particular questions this particular reality had inspired in him, even in this brief window of time.

"What self-respecting God," he asked aloud, "wants to be called Chuck of all things? More to the point what, or who, the fuck is a Winchester?"

THE END.