Harry Potter Universe, Flamel Cottage
Universal Time: January 9th, 1989
Time until Hun and Po souls are deemed suitable by the laws of the Harry Potter Universe to learn structured HP magic: July 31st, 1991
Harry’s Physical/Mental/Emotional Maturity: 13 years old
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Harry blinked, a thought suddenly striking him. "Wait a second..."
He quickly pulled several crystal vials from his pouch, kneeling down to examine the black sludge still seeping into the snow. "We should collect this! The impurities might tell us something important."
Nicolas smacked his forehead. "Of course! I was so stunned by your transformation that I completely- here, let me help." He drew his wand, carefully directing streams of the dark substance into the vials Harry held out.
"Do you think this could help improve the Elixir?" Harry asked, holding one vial up to look at the… filth inside. "If we can figure out exactly what these impurities are..."
"It's certainly worth investigating," Nicolas muttered, sealing another full vial.
"Understanding what should be discarded from the body could be invaluable."
Perenelle cleared her throat. "Actually, should we move somewhere more secure for this? The garden isn't exactly the best place for experimental magic."
Nicolas smacked his forehead again. "Two obvious oversights in as many minutes! I must be getting old." He smiled at Harry's skeptical look. "Yes, yes, I know - that's what the Elixir is for. Come, we'll use my testing chamber."
The three made their way down the stone steps into Nicolas' testing chamber underneath the cottage. Harry breathed in the cool underground air, remembering past experiments with quintessence flames in this very room.
"Right then," Nicolas pulled out his wand and reinforced the protective enchantments. "Harry, whenever you're ready."
Harry nodded and fear-based Soul Resonance Mist poured off his fingers.
"Be careful," Perenelle gripped her own wand tightly. "At the first sign of whispers-"
"I know, I know." Harry focused on a spot in the middle of the chamber. "Here we go..."
The black mist condensed more and more until it formed a vertical oval about two meters tall.
"That's... different," Harry frowned. The portal wasn't shadowy like before. Instead, it shone with all the colors of the rainbow.
"Huh. Not what I expected at all." Harry reached into his pouch and pulled out a red and white sphere.
"Maybe we should test the environment first..."
"What do you mean?" Perenelle stepped closer to study the strange portal.
"Well..." Harry enlarged the pokeball with a tap. "I caught something that might help."
The ball burst open in a flash of red light, materializing into a massive horned beast. The graphorn shook out its purple-grey hide and snorted, pawing at the stone floor.
Nicolas jumped back. "When did you-"
"Before I was sent to the other world." Harry approached the creature, placing a hand on its muscled shoulder. "Found it in the forest west of here. Pretty strong too, took Chrysa quite a while to bring it down."
"And you want it to..." Perenelle's eyes widened. "Ah! Scout ahead?"
Harry nodded. "Better than risking ourselves right away."
The graphorn snorted but remained calm, allowing Harry to guide it toward the rainbow portal. Nicolas and Perenelle watched with raised eyebrows as Harry positioned the graphorn.
"Just stick your head in for a moment," Harry murmured. "That's all I need."
The graphorn hesitated, then slowly extended its neck toward the rainbow oval. The tentacles around its mouth twitched as it sniffed at the energy.
"Smart thinking," Perenelle nodded approvingly. "Much safer than jumping in blindly."
"Exactly." Harry watched carefully as the graphorn pushed its head through. The creature's muscles tensed but it showed no signs of distress. After a few seconds, it pulled back and shook itself, apparently unharmed.
"Well," Nicolas stroked his beard. "That's promising at least. The environment seems survivable."
The graphorn stamped one hoof and made a low rumbling sound. Harry patted its side.
"Thanks for the help. Return!" A beam of red light recalled the creature to its ball.
Harry tucked the pokeball away and turned back to study the portal. The rainbow colors shifted and swirled, but not in any way that made sense. Some colors seemed to exist between other colors, creating shades he'd never seen before, not even when Ran and Shaw combined their Life and Death flames.
"Right then." Nicolas raised his wand. "Basic diagnostic spells first."
A shower of silver sparks shot from his wand, dissipating as they touched the portal's surface. He frowned and tried again, this time with a steady blue beam that spread out like water hitting glass.
"Nothing dangerous that I can detect," he muttered. "No dark magic, no curses, no traps..."
Perenelle stepped forward and cast her own spell, a ring of golden light that expanded outward from her wand tip. "The space beyond seems... stable? But I can't get any clear readings."
"Should we..." Harry glanced between his mentors.
"One more test." Nicolas flicked his wand. "Homenum Revelio!"
The spell sank into the rainbow portal and vanished. Nicolas waited a moment, frowning in concentration.
"No humans detected. At least not nearby." He lowered his wand slowly. "But... there's something odd. The feedback feels almost human, but not quite. Like echoes or impressions..."
"Well, there’s only one way to find out." Harry stepped forward and reached out with one hand.
"Wait!" Nicolas grabbed a length of golden rope from a nearby shelf. "Let's tie ourselves together first, just to be sure."
They quickly formed a line - Nicolas in front, Harry in the middle, Perenelle bringing up the rear. The golden rope glowed faintly as Nicolas tapped it with his wand.
"Remember the emergency portkeys," Perenelle reminded them. "And Harry? No running off ahead this time for some adventure."
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Harry rolled his eyes. "I'll be good, I promise."
The three of them stepped through the portal together. Harry expected to feel solid ground under his feet but instead found himself floating in... nothing. And everything. Colors that shouldn't exist flowed around them, through them, between what might have been up and down if such concepts had any meaning here.
"Well." Nicolas held up his wand. "This is... different."
Harry tried to make sense of what he saw. A color that felt like summer afternoons drifted past. Another shade reminded him of that moment just before falling asleep. How could a color feel like anything? But it did.
"Lumos!" Perenelle cast the spell, creating a sphere of white light at the tip of her wand. The illumination revealed... more colors. But now Harry could see how they moved, flowing in currents and eddies like air made visible.
Nicolas cast a different spell - one that sent sparks shooting out in all directions. When the sparks hit certain colors, they changed. Red sparks turned gold when touching a particularly warm shade. Blue sparks became almost black when passing through what looked like a dark cloud of color.
"These aren't just colors," Nicolas whispered. "They're... emotions? Feelings given shape?"
Harry watched a ribbon of something that made him want to laugh float by. "I think you're right. But how?"
Perenelle shot another spell at a nearby purple-gold mass. The magic interacted with whatever-it-was and sent feedback to her wand. She gasped. "Nicolas! Cast a detection charm at that green section over there. Tell me what you feel."
Nicolas did so, then nearly dropped his wand. "That's... that's rage. Pure anger with no physical form. And that blue mass next to it..." He cast again. "Despair. Raw despair."
"Wait." Nicolas shot more detection spells in rapid succession. "These aren't just random emotions. They're... specific. That rage over there? It feels like battlefield fury. And next to it… the fear of dying in combat."
"I want to try something." Harry let Soul Resonance Mist flow from his fingers. The black mist spread out, immediately starting to change color as it encountered the emotional streams. Where it touched rage it turned red, where it met joy it became golden, where it contacted fear it darkened even more to pure black...
It didn’t take long before the magic he had released resonated with his own mind in turn… and what happened next shocked him to his core. Echoes from countless lives throughout history. A Roman legionary's fierce pride as he planted his standard on British soil. A mother's joy at holding her newborn child in medieval France. The burning rage of a slave breaking his chains in ancient Egypt.
"Oh." Harry breathed out slowly. "Oh wow."
"Harry?" Nicolas reached for him. "What are you seeing?"
"Everything." Harry's voice came out barely above a whisper. "This place... it's where emotions go. All emotions. From everyone. Ever."
Every feeling humans had ever experienced found its way here. Every moment of triumph, every crushing defeat, every spark of love, every flash of hatred… all of it collected in this place. The sheer weight of human experience pressed against his mind as his mist continued spreading outward, making connections, finding resonance...
A peasant girl's terror as Vikings raided her village.
A king's satisfaction at signing a peace treaty.
A musician's rapture while composing a symphony.
A mother's grief at burying her child.
A scientist's excitement at making a breakthrough.
A soldier's determination as he charged into gunfire.
A priest's serenity during morning prayers.
A child's wonder at seeing snow for the first time.
The memories came faster and faster, overwhelming in their intensity but gone before he could grasp more than fragments. He saw faces from every era, heard snippets of languages long dead, felt emotions that had long disappeared from the annals of history...
"Nicolas!" Perenelle's voice cut through Harry's daze. "Look at that!"
Harry forced his attention back to the present. In the distance, something was forming. The emotional streams were condensing, taking shape...
"Is that..." Nicolas raised his wand. "Is that a Dementor being born?"
They watched as pure despair gathered into a dark form, wrapped itself in tattered robes, and drifted away into the colorful void where it slowly faded out of existence.
"Not just Dementors." Harry pointed to where fear was condensing into something he knew all too well. "Boggarts too. They're all born here. All the non-beings... they form from concentrated emotions, that is well known... But to think their origin is here…"
This wasn't just a realm of stored feelings… it was the source of magical creatures that fed on emotion. Every Dementor that had ever existed was born from humanity's collected despair. Every Boggart came from accumulated fear. They weren't just feeding on emotions, they WERE emotions given form and purpose.
"We need to leave." Nicolas tugged on the golden rope. "Now."
"What? Why-"
"Because your mist is starting to react with the emotional energy." Perenelle pointed at where Harry's magic had spread. The colored streams were moving faster, swirling together, creating new combinations...
"Oh." Harry pulled his mist back quickly. "That's probably not good."
They retreated through the portal just as the first wave of feedback hit. Harry felt it even as they popped back into the testing chamber, a massive resonance building up as his magic collided with the pure emotion of that other realm.
The portal snapped shut behind them with a sound like breaking glass.
"Well." Nicolas wiped away the sweat clinging to his white hair. "That was..."
A tremor ran through the ground. Then another. And another.
"What's happening?" Perenelle steadied herself against a wall.
Harry closed his eyes, reaching out with his fear sense. "Something changed. The barrier between here and there... it's thinner now. More permeable."
The tremors lasted another minute before subsiding. Nothing in the testing chamber seemed damaged, the sturdy stone walls had weathered worse during previous experiments.
"The Animus Realm," Nicolas muttered, still gripping his wand tightly. "That's what we should call it. A place where raw emotion takes physical form..."
Harry nodded slowly. If every emotion ever felt ended up there, collecting and concentrating until it became dense enough to birth non-beings... then what happened when his Soul Resonance Mist interacted with that pure emotional energy? The mist was designed to resonate with souls, to amplify and transmit feelings. When it touched the accumulated emotions of all humanity in the past and present...
"We probably shouldn't go back there," Perenelle interrupted his thoughts. "At least not until we understand what just happened."
"Agreed." Nicolas nodded. "The interaction between Harry's mist and that place... it could have catastrophic effects if we're not careful."
Harry kept quiet, still processing everything he'd seen. The sheer weight of human experience in that realm had been overwhelming. Every joy, every sorrow, every triumph and tragedy throughout history, all flowing together in endless streams of pure feeling. And now the barrier between that realm and the physical world was thinner...
"Let's head up," Perenelle suggested. "I need some fresh air after... all of that."
They climbed the stone steps back into the cottage where the comfortable living room welcomed them with warm light from the fireplace and soft cushions on chairs. Nicolas immediately collapsed into his favorite armchair while Perenelle went to make tea.
Harry sank into the couch, just staring at the wall for a few minutes. Chrysa woke up from the disturbance and ran down the stairs to snuggle her furry head against his chest.
"Here." Perenelle pressed a cup of tea into his hand. "Drink. It will help."
The taste of chamomile brought Harry back to the present moment. He took another sip, letting the warmth spread through him while he pet Chrysa. Nicolas had barely touched his own cup, staring into the fire with a distant expression.
"We'll need to contact-" Nicolas started to say, but a burst of flame outside the garden cut him off.
Dumbledore walked through the gate, and his face looked unusually serious as he approached the cottage door.
"Albus?" Perenelle opened the door before he could knock. "What brings you here?"
"The world has changed." Dumbledore sighed deeply. "The International Confederation is in chaos. Every Ministry of Magic worldwide is reporting the same phenomena. Strange lights in the sky, visible only to magical eyes. Non-beings appearing everywhere…"
He paused, looking at their faces. "But you already know something about this, don't you?"
Harry gripped his teacup so hard it nearly cracked. "How... how bad is it?"
"See for yourself." Dumbledore waved his wand, and all the curtains in the room flew open.
Harry rushed to the window, Nicolas and Perenelle right behind him. The sight made them gasp.
The winter sky had transformed. Rivers of impossible color flew from horizon to horizon… not just shades of green and blue like a normal aurora, but colors that shouldn't exist in nature. Colors that carried emotional weight. A streak of deep purple that made him feel pure joy for a second just from glancing at it. A spiral of gentle blue that emanated serenity. A crimson band of determination. The same colors they'd seen in that other realm, now painted across the entire sky.
"The reports are coming in from everywhere," Dumbledore continued quietly. "From England to Japan, from Norway to New Zealand. The entire world's sky now bears these lights. Muggles can't see them, but they're feeling the effects. Random bursts of emotion striking without warning whenever they accidentally take a glance at certain part of the skies. And the non-beings..." He shook his head. "New types we've never seen before. The Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is starting to get a bit overwhelmed, and it only happened not long ago. The only consolation is that the rate at which they’re appearing isn’t completely out of control and that Muggles can’t see them…"
"Oh no," Nicolas whispered. "What have we done?"
Harry couldn't look away from the sky. The barrier between worlds had thinned everywhere, not just where they'd opened the portal. Now the emotional realm leaked into reality itself, painting the heavens with the collected feelings of all humanity. Every joy, every sorrow, every triumph and tragedy throughout history now had a direct connection to the physical world.
They'd changed everything. Not just magic, not just the wizarding world, but the fundamental nature of reality itself. And there was no going back.
"I think," Harry said slowly, "we need to tell you what we found."