abcnovels
Chapter 270: Void
Chapter 270: Void
Chapter 270: Void
If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 15 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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9th February 2013, Malfoy Manor
(Hermione Granger POV)
Hermione started panicking, "Please don't kill me. You need me. Without me, magical Britain would collapse. I am the only person who's capable of holding things together."
The woman froze right in front of Hermione's chest, "You're right, and I'm a pragmatic person. You, being in charge of magical Britain, would be the best choice, right now."
Hermione's shoulder's slumped in relief. Perhaps, she'll live another day, "but this time, I don't care. You almost got my sister killed in your foolishness and your greedy quest for power. Don't worry, though; after all, to a well-organized mind, Death is but the next great adventure. Goodbye Hermione Granger."
The Muggleborn witch barely even registered the woman's words before she felt burning in the middle of her chest, and the world faded to black. Hermione's last thoughts were of confusion and regret. She realized that in all her decades of life, she had not truly lived, being too consumed by impossible goals to do so properly. What a sad life, she had.
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(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I looked at the body of my downed opponent and felt absolutely nothing. The past few hours have been very distressful. I came into this manor to see a somewhat peaceful agreement between myself and the Court of Shadows. I didn't need them bothering me when I was focusing on more important things after all. I refrained from just killing them all, at least the members of this branch, because I didn't want to trouble myself and spend more time fixing the mess that magical Britain would inevitably become.
Sometimes, I curse the absurd number of responsibilities I have taken upon myself to take care of. And while taking care of the magical world was a big one, it was also one of the most troublesome things to deal with. Mages were inherently prideful and their isolation ever since the Statute of Secrecy didn't curb their arrogance in any way. They had this sense of entitlement, that they deserved the world itself, which also meant that any kind of change or unseen circumstances were met with a lot of opposition.
It was also why mages tended to be very power hungry, and the moment they become powerful enough for their voices to be heard, they try to change their society, mostly by force if they haven't been politically trained. It was why magical Titans tended to always break the status quo and considering the fact that their power inevitably attracts followers, they can easily become a movement, that will be abandoned the moment its leader dies or gets arrested, with everything returning back to the way it used to be, as if nothing happened, ignoring all the death and destruction from the previous conflict.
There was a reason why I left the Court of Shadows to their devices, even if their methods had room for improvement. The magical world was very troublesome to deal with, and it would take a full-time job to regulate everything like I do with the rest of my duties. I just didn't have the time to always keep watching a species that hadn't evolved or pretty much changed in any way in three centuries.
Hermione Granger was far more dangerous and ambitious than I gave her credit for, and that's not a compliment. The woman was desperate and cornered which is why she resorted to something that she did not fully understand in a foolish attempt to keep me under control.
Truthfully, she was remarkably similar to the Court that she so deeply resented. She saw me and deemed me a threat that needed to be controlled whether I wanted it or not. When she figured out the extent of my power, she tried to use the Court to challenge me, so that she could get out of her tricky situation as victorious as possible.
Honestly, the Court inviting her was a masterstroke. The girl was foolish and misguided, but also intelligent and driven, which was a very bad combination, especially with all her revolutionary ideas. Had she remained unchecked, she would have probably walked over them, but by inviting her, showing her the Court's strength and ruthlessness, they scared her into compliance and made her not rock the status quo too hard. It was too bad that they thought that she would submit when cornered, that she wouldn't have resorted to extreme measures to achieve her goals.
Because that was all Hermione Granger cared about. Her goals, her ambitions of an equal magical society, were rooted so deeply inside her that she lived for nothing else. Literally, that was all she lived for. She did not love anyone but her goal, she stopped reading books or researching magics that wouldn't advance her goals, she stopped contacting her parents because it would interfere with her dreams. I couldn't help but marvel at the miserable creature she ended up becoming. She had so much potential, and she wasted it, trying to become the second coming of Albus Dumbledore.
And that's what she was obviously trying to emulate. I didn't understand why, to be honest; I dragged that man's reputation through the mud. I destroyed any possible credibility he could have had; I showed the world what he truly was, a mad man who wished to unite and rule the entire magical world like every other Dark Lord out there, and that he was more than willing to get his hands dirty if it meant that he got one step closer to his goals. Granger reminded me of him, in both methods and execution. Outside her obvious lacking in raw power, she did target Muggleborns to achieve her goals, and she tried to manipulate everyone around her for as foolish a concept as the 'greater good'.
It was why I ended up speaking up Dumbledore's words to the woman as I killed her. There was a strange irony to it. She was probably the closest thing to a successor Dumbledore ever had, and it was fitting that she would die hearing his foolish words of ignorance regarding the Afterlife, especially when he was planning on using it to convince his charges to give their lives for his cause.
I stepped back from the recently deceased bushy haired woman and walked toward the skeleton that used to be my former twin brother. I was positive that Granger did not mean to kill him with the ritual; she was devastated every time I mentioned him. Oh, how I wished he was still alive so that I could punish him for betraying his sister like this. I looked at the ring on his finger, one that belonged to the Court of Shadows.
How curious. I knew that Nathan didn't really join the Court, betrayal or not. He was too righteous to be doing this if he wasn't under duress. And he didn't have the political mind necessary to truly understand what the Court really represented. He hated underhanded methods which was why he left so much to Granger to do in his stead, which bit him in the ass later on. I levitated the ring for a moment before sighing in disappointment; there was a very feint compulsion to obey the orders of the Court and to submit to their authority.
It seems that the Court didn't trust their threats on Nathan's family to be enough to control him and used compulsions to get him to betray his own sister. It was a very clever thing. Mages who hadn't mastered the mind arts, were forced to use compulsion charms, which only work if the target was actively opposed to what he was suggested to do. They abused this factor by constantly scaring him, and threatening his family, which made the compulsion sink deeper and deeper until it became a constant voice in his head.
At least he hadn't betrayed his sister without any influence, but it was still very disappointing how quickly he had fallen to the compulsion and became a shaky fearful worm that reminded me eerily of Peter Pettigrew.
Which brings us to, what to do now. I didn't plan on killing the Court because of how troublesome it would be to happen all at once. Even when I lost control when I figured out what happened to my sister, I planned on breaking them by letting them lose all their influence gradually, until they're nothing more than empty husks, like a victim of a Dementor's kiss. Their gradual fall would mean that they would be replaced, and that the nation wouldn't necessitate my interference.
But the foolish woman had to massacre the entire Court which was made up of the most influential men and women in magical Britain, and she had to kill them all at once which would cause the most chaos. I think that this was what she hoped would happen; that the chaos would make her the obvious candidate going forwards. It was also how she planned to force my hand. She must have figured out that I was a pragmatic person and planned on me sparing her to be the logical choice, until she tries to betray me as well later on.
But now, I was done with this woman. I tried to not get involved time after time, and she's the one who kept troubling me. Plus, what she did to my sister was unforgivable. She made her life hell, pretty much made her a target in her own country and forced her to live as a nomad for years. Adding in the fact that her little plan could have backfired in thousands of different ways, I wasn't going to let things go this time.
I snorted in derision; I can't believe the bitch wanted to bind me with a version of the ritual that destroyed my home. It was my fault, really, I didn't realize that the Peverell brothers could have made a backup to their Grimoire. It just wasn't done at the time, in fear that someone would steal it for themselves.
The question remained as to what am I supposed to do now. I have bigger problems with the convergence being so close, and the Asgardian Prince staying in my home. With my end of my agreement with Asgard getting closer, I knew that it would necessitate my entire attention to be able to fulfill it.
I don't have time to deal with the fallout. The other branches of the Court of Shadows will realize that something happened, but I will hide what happened from the world. The whole Granger massacre would destabilize things even further. In the end, I snap my fingers and the room returned to its previous state. All signs of the ritual disappeared, and the corpses disintegrated into dust and were scattered away in the garden.
I looked at my former twin's corpse. It was barely more than a skeleton with clothes, now. I didn't feel anything, that was the sad thing. I should have felt something, anger, rage, disappointment, satisfaction, anything really, but for some reason his death just didn't seem to matter to me in any way.
As estranged as we are, as different as we became as people, he was born my twin, my other half. Yes, I was disappointed in the man he grew up to become, but I always thought that deep down, I must have felt something. But all I had left was a sense of detachment to his death altogether. I just didn't care.
With a sigh, I decided to not ponder on the matter, in my long life I have only spoken to him a handful of times. We might have been born as twins, but he was no better than a stranger to me. I guess that estrangement defeats blood after all.
Still, I decide against disintegrating his corpse and instead put it in my pocket dimension. Rose might want to have remains to grieve, to bury. It could end up giving her some form of closure.
I looked back and the room looked exactly the same as before the meeting. I just disable the wards that the Court used when holding their meetings and teleport home. No one will think that anything happened, and it would take days for people to realize the disappearance of the members of the Court. Let that be an unsolvable mystery that future generations of mages will ponder on and attempt to fix. With that done, I decide to teleport home.
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If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 15 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.