>>6190581“And you’re willing to let your students die for it?”
“They’re <span class="mu-i">already dead</span>, Elliot. They just don’t know it yet. Just like everyone else in this timeline. Want my advice? <span class="mu-i">Run</span>. Run away. Run to somewhere the Unseelie can’t find you. Somewhere pleasant, with lots of alcohol so you can be passed out when the end comes.” There is a pause. “Those suitcases Hermione gave you would work. I assume you can brew something to get you drunk with the supplies she gave you?”
“You… You’ve been spying on us?”
“Could be. Or it could just be that I know my friend well. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” Another pause. “But if you do not intend on running, Elliot Hallaster, know this: Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I do not want my last act in this timeline to be the shedding of blood. But I won’t let you and your army stop me.”
“Even you can’t fight against all of us, professor!”
“I believe you are a few decades too young to tell me what I can’t and cannot do, Elliot. I have fought enemies more cunning than you and lost friends who were far cleverer, so listen, and listen well. Around me, I have placed the securities my foes placed around their towers, the traps which killed my friends. I guarantee you not even Ravenclaw’s sight can find them all, if Miss Cobris has recovered that power off Ravenclaw. And I guarantee that if you attack me, every single one of you will die.”
You hesitate. Could he be bluffing? Worse, could he be telling the truth.
“Ever since I heard about you after I woke up in that bed in St. Mungo’s, I wished to meet the man-who-lived,” comes a voice from Brighton, but it isn’t him who is speaking. “I was told he was brave. I was told he cared. I was told he was a protector, that he embodied the tenets of my house. I expected a hero. Instead, I find a coward. What a disgrace, you are, Harry Potter.”
“Godric? Of course. The Founder of my house. I have saved Hogwarts more times than you. I have saved more people than you. I have defeated more dark wizards than you. I do not think, by all accounts, that you have the right to lecture me, but still, tell me, Gryffindor… When is one allowed to say it is too much? When is one allowed to say that they’ve grown tired of trying to be the hero?”
“To be a hero is to fight, however long it takes, Harry Potter. We do not do it for any reward. We do it because it is the right thing to do.”
“Very well. Then consider that my actions will not change your fate. You would die with or without me, as was foretold. As such, to create what I am creating, to do what I am doing, is simply… something else. I am simply moving on with my life, without meaningfully affecting yours. I have grown tired of being the hero. I have decided to do something I find more pleasant.”
[Cont.]
