Chapter 88: "The Last One Missing"
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"The Last One Missing"
After Stephen and the others arrived, he kicked the ones lying on the ground to wake them up.
"What's... what's going on?" asked Barty Crouch, wincing from the pain as he woke up.
At that moment, the battle had ended, and several Aurors quickly approached Stephen.
"Sir, we captured 30 Death Eaters who initiated the attack, and 20 more who came out of the noble section," reported one Auror in a low voice.
"Alright. Stay close, you may need to catch an accomplice," Stephen responded while watching Crouch wake up.
Meanwhile, Amos and those who woke up first were embarrassed, looking at Harry, who was talking to Sirius.
"Harry, where did you learn to fight like that?" asked his godfather excitedly.
"Stephen taught me how to fight, but Natasha showed me people's weak spots," Harry answered calmly, now knowing he was safe.
"Why? Do you want to learn? I'm better at pointing out pain points while demonstrating them," Natasha chimed in with a smile.
Sirius quickly rejected the offer with an uncomfortable gesture.
Meanwhile, the others who were protecting people in the forest approached when they saw there was no more danger. They seemed worried about Harry, but seeing him unharmed and hearing how he had easily defeated Crouch and his group, they began to praise him. Even Amelia arrived with more Aurors.
At that moment, an Auror sent by Stephen returned with a house-elf holding a wand in its hands.
"Instructor, I found this elf with a wand," he said, placing the elf on the ground and handing the wand to Stephen, who passed it to Amelia to handle the situation.
"Winky?" said Barty Crouch, looking around as if searching for something.
"That's my wand," Harry said, surprised to see the wand in Amelia's hands.
"Why does the house-elf have it?" Amelia asked, looking at Harry intently. Then, she turned her gaze to Crouch. "Do you know this elf, Mr. Crouch?"
"Yes, it's my family's servant," Crouch replied brusquely as he cast a spell to wake the elf.
When Winky woke up, confused, Crouch spoke angrily.
"Winky, bad elf! What did you do?"
"Winky didn't do anything, no..." she replied, trembling with fear.
"Priori Incantatem," Amelia said, causing the wand to reveal the last spell cast with it. Voldemort's Mark appeared in the air, causing expressions of surprise and horror among those present.
"You've failed in your duty, Winky! You're a useless house-elf!" Crouch shouted with hatred, throwing a piece of clothing at her.
"No! Winky doesn't want to be free... no... not the clothing, no!" the elf cried through her tears.
"It seems she'll have to be interrogated," said Amos, stepping forward to grab her.
"No... Master, don't leave Winky. Winky isn't a bad elf..." the creature sobbed.
Hermione watched the scene sadly, unable to understand how a being could be treated so badly without even defending itself. But Wanda, with a subtle gesture, signaled to her that everything would be fine as she pointed to Stephen.
Stephen watched Crouch with irritation. He knew how important it was to protect house-elves, something he constantly showed with Misty and even through his jokes with Dobby. He wasn't going to let an innocent elf be harmed.
Crouch, nervous, tried to leave the area quickly, but Stephen gave a clear order:
"Capture him."
The Aurors quickly conjured chains of light, trapping Crouch instantly.
"What are you doing?" Crouch protested furiously.
"What's the rush, Mr. Crouch? A family visit, perhaps?" Stephen said with a smile. Then, he added in a biting tone, "By the way, blaming someone found unconscious next to the wand, without checking the footprints, is pretty sad for a Ministry employee."
Crouch turned pale upon hearing those words. Stephen continued:
"Harry, what did I tell you to do in these cases?"
"Say what I saw, even if it sounds crazy. Because family will always believe you," Harry responded, somewhat embarrassed.
After a brief pause, he continued:
"I saw the one who cast the mark in the sky."
Harry's statement shocked everyone.
"Was it her?" Amelia asked, pointing at Winky.
"No, it was a young man who made a gesture like a snake," Harry explained, recalling the details.
Stephen extracted Harry's memory with a spell, showing the image of the man in the air.
Amelia and Amos immediately recognized the individual.
"He's not supposed to be dead..." Amelia murmured, her face serious.
"It seems Crouch's last visit to his son was... interesting," Stephen remarked with a sarcastic smile.
Amelia ordered the remains of Barty Crouch Jr. to be examined while the Aurors escorted the detained father.
The rest of the wizards took care of helping the injured and searching for survivors among the burned tents.
Stephen signaled Wanda to clean the Dark Mark from the sky. Instead, Wanda created a huge figure with the four Hogwarts animals destroying Voldemort's mark.
"How dramatic..." Stephen commented as those present cheered excitedly. After all, most of them were former students of Hogwarts.
After saying goodbye to Sirius, the Weasley family, the Greengrass sisters, and the Delacour sisters, all the Flamels were sprawled on the sofas in the dining room while Misty prepared tea for them.
"So, what's the deal with the magical version of the KKK?" Tony asked, already accustomed to drinking tea while devouring a cookie.
"Enemies of Harry. A group of fools," Stephen replied calmly.
"Did you even read the history of this world?" Wanda inquired, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
"No. Is that necessary?" Tony replied nonchalantly.
"He'll probably learn about it at Hogwarts," Natasha said with a smile.
Harry, Wanda, and Stephen grimaced upon hearing that, recalling the transparent Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
"Why don't you just defeat them all at once, wizard?" Loki asked, joining the conversation.
"I already said. They're enemies of Harry. If Harry needs help, he can ask for it," Stephen responded casually, which surprised Harry.
"Can you defeat them all?" Harry asked, confused. "Why don't you just do it?"
Stephen looked at him for a few seconds before responding:
"The headmaster, the grandparents, the elders of some hidden families, Grindelwald... Even the International Confederation of Wizards has an elder who could show up here and destroy pure-blood families as if they were just simple cabbages," Stephen explained, pausing. "Do you know why they don't do it?"
Harry shook his head, trying to process what he had heard.
"Balance," Tony replied calmly, cutting the silence.
"That's why neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort got directly involved in the battlefield," Stephen continued. "Voldemort knew that openly facing Dumbledore could trigger something worse. If either of them took too much initiative, other elders could intervene."
"Basically, it's like the weak fight the weak, and the strong fight the strong," Wanda added, reclining on the couch.
"The only thing the magical world's elders worry about is keeping magic from being discovered by Muggles," Stephen explained. "Because that would cause a war. Even Voldemort, completely insane, avoided involving himself directly with the Muggle world."
"By the way, everyone I mentioned is on a watchlist. That's why the grandparents prefer staying locked up at home," Stephen pointed out, gesturing toward Wanda and Natasha. "Those two and I are probably on the list as well. I'm sure of it. So, the only ones who can act a little recklessly are you three, youngsters," he said with a smile.
"Are you indirectly calling us weak?" Tony grumbled, irritated.
"Tsk," Loki frowned, though he didn't say anything.
"Me too?" Natasha asked, somewhat confused.
"Do you really think the destruction of such a powerful family wouldn't be questioned? I'm sure that even if they have no proof, they'll be keeping an eye on you," Stephen explained. "Remember that wizards don't think like Muggles. They have other, more magical ways of understanding things. After all, houses protected with magic don't catch fire easily."
"After all, you have to kill the owner to burn the house," Wanda added with a mocking smile toward Natasha. "What a spy—"
She didn't finish the sentence as a pillow hit her square in the face.
"So, Harry, unless we have an excuse to destroy half of the magical world in England, we can only help you behind the scenes," Stephen said with a smile.
"But wasn't Voldemort considered one of the strong ones?" Harry asked.
"Not anymore, since he was killed by a one-year-old," Stephen replied calmly.
"Is that why all the training?" Harry asked again.
"No, that's because it bothers me to see someone so weak in my family," Stephen said with a mocking smile. "Even without the training, according to the prophecy, you had a chance to win. And speaking of prophecies, I just remembered something. I'll be right back," he said, and ran off.
As Stephen left, Harry was left pensive and a bit down.
"Scared of the future, kid?" Tony asked, looking at Harry, who seemed dejected.
"No. It's just..." Harry couldn't find the words to describe his feeling.
"Do you feel too weak to face Voldemort?" Wanda asked this time.
"Well, after all, I don't have the same level of magic as you guys," Harry said, explaining his sense of weakness. Although Stephen's training had made him physically stronger, if it came to fighting with pure magic, he would be defeated from exhaustion.
"Well, wizards in this world gain more mana as they grow," Natasha explained to reassure the young man.
"But what if Voldemort doesn't give me time to grow?" Harry asked again, uncertain. After all, he had always felt secure because he thought Stephen and Wanda were protecting him. Maybe that's why he stopped thinking about Voldemort, but now he realized that Voldemort was his enemy, not his siblings'. And he started to feel a bit afraid.
"I have an idea," Wanda said with a smile, as she pushed the furniture aside to leave everyone in an empty center.
"What are you planning?" Tony asked.
"There's a spell from the darkho... ancient times. It's said that the witches of Salem used it to unite a new member to their coven, making the whole group share the same blood," Wanda explained as she began drawing magical symbols on the ground.
"Hey, hey, you're not going to summon some kind of demon or anything, right?" Tony asked quickly, looking at the ground and stepping back a few paces.
Loki, for his part, also stared at what Wanda was doing, with a sour expression.
"No... As long as we do it just once, it should be fine. That way, Harry will share our blood," Wanda explained, somewhat avoiding the question. "That way, he'll also be our blood brother," she said with a smile while the others looked at her skeptically.
"Wouldn't it be better to wait and see what Stephen says?" Harry asked, a little scared.
"Don't worry. Stephen's doing another spell upstairs, they won't feel it. So, he can't complain," Wanda said with a smile and then pointed out where everyone should stand.
Meanwhile, Stephen, who had also drawn a giant symbol on the floor of his room, but one different from Wanda's, said:
"Misty, the blood."
Misty approached with a vial containing a drop of a milky white liquid.
"The last drop of divine blood that exists in this world. I wonder which dimensional god it belonged to," Stephen said, eyeing the drop in the vial.
It exuded an enormous amount of magic. The spell Stephen was about to use required the blood of a dimensional god, but obviously, there were no such gods in this world. So, he had searched for something similar and found this drop, which had passed through many hands for thousands of years and ended up in a museum in Egypt.
It was said to belong to an Egyptian god, but after investigating, he hadn't found the true owner.
"With this, I'll say goodbye to the prophecies. A silly way to use it, but it's better that this blood disappears before someone discovers how to use it properly," Stephen said, knowing it would be very dangerous if a dark wizard found out another spell could be used with this vial.
So, he chose a simpler spell he knew: to destroy the prophecies that currently existed in the world.
He then threw the drop in the center of the room, which glowed and then disappeared, leaving everything clean, without a trace.
Meanwhile, at the Ministry, in the place where all the prophecies were stored, one by one, they began to explode and shatter into a thousand pieces, frightening the caretakers who were passing through.
Back to Stephen, he started to leave his room with a smile until he reached the stairs, where he saw his siblings doing something strange.
He quickly descended to get a better look and saw Harry in the center, surrounded by the others, who were staring at him.
Stephen didn't recognize what they were doing, but quickly analyzed everything.
Suddenly, his eyes widened in surprise as he realized what was going on.
"A blood union? Idiots, what are you doing!" he shouted and quickly rushed to stop the ritual, but just as he stepped on one of the symbols on the floor, it activated.
Stephen froze, unable to move, just like the others.
"This won't work in this dimension! Wanda, stop it!" Stephen shouted, unable to take another step or use magic.
"I didn't activate it!" Wanda shouted, confused, as the others began to get nervous.
Then Stephen saw how the circles in the sky began to shift. It was as if they were adjusting for this world.
"What?" Wanda screamed, seeing the same thing Stephen did.
Suddenly, a light came from the chest of each of the Flamel siblings, which then directed toward Harry, who was in the center.
Everyone was shocked to see how Harry's hair and eyes started to glow. Harry's hair, just like Tony and Loki's, became so dark it seemed to swallow the light itself, with stars softly appearing in it.
His eyes, unlike the others, remained green like his mother's, but they began to shine with a bluish light, similar to the others' eyes, creating a beautiful blend of green and blue.
His facial features remained the same, but they were more defined, as if his genetics had been enhanced to make his more attractive parts more visible.
As this was happening, Harry seemed to be in a trance, and suddenly, he said some words.
"The world accepts him as its child. Just like the others. Evil approaches, devouring all in its path. The last force of the world. Be careful, my children," Harry said in a trance, or someone was using Harry to communicate, while looking sadly at everyone present.
After saying those words, Harry slowly collapsed to the ground, and the magical circle on the floor disappeared as if it had never existed. Even those present couldn't recall its exact shape in detail.
"What happened?" Tony asked, confused.
"Sigh... It seems Harry was the last sibling missing," Stephen said, realizing the implications of Harry's words.
"It seems we didn't appear in this world by coincidence," Loki said, annoyed.
"Was that a prophecy?" Natasha asked, making sure Harry was okay.
Meanwhile, at the Ministry, in the prophecy section, all the crystal balls had exploded, except for one that was shining brightly, golden in color.
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