It was a planet within the Harry Potter Bubble.
It also lingered in space, just like the infinite others.
But something was different with this planet, which one could tell at a glance.
Hypersonic winds raged in the planet's upper atmosphere, roaring out of their lungs with loud BOOMS.
Under them, a thick, nearly mile-deep layer of clouds rested, so black that the only light that escaped from them belonged to themselves. And that light came from the dozens of meters-wide white, purple, and red bolts of lightning.
Once in a while, the sky would rumble, seemingly without any lightning.
It was then that the CRACK would take the most hideous turn, ripping apart the fabric of space.
Then there was rain; a downpour so mighty that it drenched the entire planet.
Despite the might of that rain, it couldn't calm the raging fire that lingered here and there… everywhere.
The rain did fill the several-mile-deep chasms to some extent, the gurgling noise echoing several million times before entering the atmosphere like a song.
Herpo the Foul, seated on a rock, listened to that song.
It was like the entire planet was crying.
Seated alone, surrounded by rain, fire, and lightning, Herpo the Foul looked nothing like the mighty existence he was known as across the Harry Potter Bubble.
Water had pasted his green hair against his cheeks.
It had also drenched his goatee, making it look like a green-bladed sword.
In his green, snake-like, slitted eyes, he held no reflection other than that of the sodden earth.
Even the green, regal robes he wore seemed to have lost their shine, especially against the bloody redness of the fire that roared around him, as if trying its best to drown the crackle of multicolored bolts of lightning and sonic booms of the hypersonic gusts of wind.
If it weren't for the Basilisk Staff, planted into the mud next to him, there was nothing that could have suggested that he was a wizard.
Not only a wizard.
But the strongest of his kind; the mightiest.
He was the only one who had done it. He was the only one who had defied his original Timeline, surpassed it, and then continued to do so with the others, despite Death lingering over his neck like a blade about to behead him.
Herpo the Foul had become a unique existence by going against all and everything.
And he had done so for what? For this? To be cast aside by his own people? To be questioned, doubted, and hated by the same people who should be thanking him? To run from timeline to timeline, hiding himself in the Fallen Keys, instead of getting a chance to be listened to? Just once?!
A hiss entered his ears, slithering through the resounding booms and rumbles and crackles.
"No," Herpo the Foul replied. "I am not… regretting. Nor I am blaming anyone, Bas. You of all should know that I… love them. These people, who do not know the kind of fate that has been forced upon them. Yes. I love them… as much as I pity them."
The Basilisk Staff blinked.
The Staff seemed to be made of wood, carved into the shape of a snake, with a Basilisk's head at its top.
More often than not, the head kept its mouth and eyes closed.
Rarely, it opened its mouth and slithered out a vine-like, black, forked tongue, blinking as it displayed its wooden, slitted eyes.
The Basilisk Staff was alive.
But it wasn't the Basilisk that Herpo the Foul had turned into the Staff after resurrecting through its dead body.
The sentience came from the gathering of Herpo the Foul's Mysteries.
And thus, no matter when or where the Mythical Wizard of the Harry Potter Bubble resurrected, he did so with the same sentience that he liked to call Bas.
Bas hissed again, scoffing at Herpo's choice of words.
The wizard frowned. "No, it isn't their fault, Bas," he said. "They are groomed to hate me. And by the time they learn who I truly am and what I represent, things always go beyond the point of no return. It's different this time. Someone… is treading on the path… the same path on which I treaded once. Black Phoenix… I hope, one day, he will realize that the true curse upon this Bubble isn't the Grand Old Contract, but… us… the Characters, who are bred to be born with the submissive ideologies… over and over again."
Herpo the Foul let the mournful song resonate with his Source.
Slowly, tears began streaming down his cheeks, becoming one with the mud beneath his feet.
He didn't cry for the way people remembered him across the Bubble.
He cried for the Bubble itself. He cried for what the Bubble could have been, if these… Outsiders… hadn't reduced it to a mere shadow of what it once had been.
These people? They didn't even remember what it had been like.
Herpo the Foul did.
He remembered everything from those times, much more clearly than he remembered yesterday.
Before Death had let Zelretch steal the Ancient Magical Script…
Before the Contestants had begun flooding the timelines, like the parasites they were…
Steps rang in his ears, then, with muddy squelches. The deafening booms, cracks, and rumbles in his surroundings couldn't hide the sound of those feet landing in the mud. Nature itself, no matter if it was experiencing an apocalypse, a Dissolution, seemed incapable of it.
Herpo the Foul suddenly realized why the song coming out of the chasms felt like a mournful one.
Because the water and fire, and all that drowned and burned in between the two, were mourning… for him.
Slowly, the Legendary Wizard looked up and saw the man who had come to a stop in front of him.
Black armored.
Blacker heart.
Herpo the Foul heard the broken, mechanical breaths that came from that man and… couldn't help but pity him as well.
"Even you can mourn for someone?" the wizard asked.
The man reached to his waist and pulled out an object before wielding it like a sword.
"I am Darth Vader," the Inquisitor said, lighting his lightsaber with a fuming, bloody hiss. "And I…
"… do not mourn for anyone."
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