Chapter 68: Conceptual Chaos
The Shrieking Shack fell into an unnatural silence. The world had stopped.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione lay on the dusty floor like puppets whose strings had been cut, victims of the psychic shock of the creature's arrival. Snape, Lupin, and Sirius remained unconscious, oblivious to the horror that had just manifested.
Timothy was alone.
He was standing, his Occlumency a wall of steel against the conceptual hum the creature emitted, a sound that felt like needles of ice in his brain. It hurt, but he was standing.
The creature, that mass of impossible angles and torn static, floated in the center of the room, right where he had Apparated. It ignored the fallen bodies. Its impossible appendages slowly turned and focused on him. There were no eyes, but it was looking at him. It recognized him. It had found the beacon.
The creature moved, gliding toward the unconscious bodies on the floor, its interest centering on Hermione, the nearest.
"NO!"
The word was a guttural roar of pure possessiveness. Timothy's passion for magic was instantly eclipsed by the only instinct that surpassed it: protecting what was his.
With a massive gesture of his hand, his power was unleashed. It wasn't a spell. It was pure telekinesis. The six unconscious bodies—Harry, Ron, Hermione, Lupin, Sirius, and Snape—shot out of the room as if pulled by a giant magnet, flying down the corridor and tumbling into a messy pile at the end of the Whomping Willow tunnel.
They were safe. For now. The room was empty. Just him and the abomination.
The creature hissed, a sound like a thousand broken radios, annoyed at the interruption of its meal. It turned to face him.
"All right," Timothy gasped, his adrenaline surging. "Just you and me."
It was the moment of truth. His mastery against the unknown. He unleashed his arsenal. There was no hesitation. No mercy.
He raised his hand, a stylistic gesture he had perfected, elegant and deadly. "Stupefy!"
It wasn't a whisper. It was a command. The beam of red light that shot from his fingertip wasn't a student's spell; it was a concentrated beam, as thick as his arm. It struck the creature dead-on. And dissipated. Like throwing a stone into smoke. The creature didn't even flinch.
Timothy didn't wait. Kinetic magic doesn't work, he thought. Conceptual magic?
"Crucio!"
The white beam of the Cruciatus Curse shot from his hand. The creature shuddered when it hit. But it wasn't pain. The sub-sonic hum it emitted increased in pitch, becoming almost joyful. It was absorbing the pure emotion of the spell. It was feeding on his hatred.
Panic, a cold and unfamiliar emotion, began to seep through Timothy's Occlumency. I can't stun it. I can't torture it.
One option remained. The last resort. The word he had never spoken, but had archived from Riddle's memories. He raised his hand, his intent absolute, his will a spike of ice. He poured all his passion, all his fury, into the word.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
A beam of sickly green light, bright as Ophion's venom, erupted from his hand and struck the creature in its chaotic center.
And winked out. Like a match in the rain.
Horror hit Timothy with full force. No, he thought, his mind screaming. No. No. It doesn't work. It's immune! It's immune to the spell of Death itself!
All his systems had failed. Hogwarts magic, even the darkest, was useless. The creature, having tasted his arsenal, seemed to decide the game was over.
The Lovecraftian creature hissed, a sound that seemed to tear the air. Before Timothy could even process his next move, it struck.
It wasn't a spell. It wasn't a beam of energy. It was physical. Or at least, the closest thing to physical this conceptual horror could manage. A tentacle, seeming to be made of impossible angles and pure static, shot from the central mass. It didn't fly toward him; it simply was where he was.
Timothy had no time to react.
The blow was brutal. He didn't feel the impact in his chest so much as he felt a conceptual dissonance. He was struck by a logic that should not exist. The blow lifted him off the ground and sent him flying backward, out of the Shrieking Shack. He smashed through the rotten wooden wall as if it were tissue paper, in an explosion of splinters and century-old dust.
He flew hundreds of meters. The world became a blur of night sky and approaching trees. And then, he crashed.
The impact against a massive oak at the edge of the Forbidden Forest was so violent it drove the air from his lungs in a painful explosion. He fell to the ground, sliding down the rough bark into a crumpled heap among the roots.
Pain. For the first time since his rebirth, his Occlumency shattered, not from a psychic attack, but from pure, overwhelming physical trauma. He felt everything. He felt the sharp crunch of his ribs breaking. He felt his left arm, which had hit the tree first, bend at an angle biology didn't allow. A hot, metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
He was hurt. Badly.
He lay there, gasping, his mind—normally a palace of order—now a chaos of pain and confusion. It doesn't work, he thought, his panic rising. My systems... my magic... it doesn't work...
The creature, satisfied with having neutralized the main threat, slowly emerged from the Shrieking Shack, floating across the lawn toward him, taking its time.
That was when he heard the scream.
"TIMOTHY!"
It wasn't Harry's scream of agony. It was Hermione's scream.
He lifted his head with a monumental effort. He saw her. Hermione, who must have woken from the crash of his impact, had come out of the Whomping Willow tunnel. She was running across the lawn toward him, stumbling in the darkness, wand in hand, her face pale and bathed in tears in the moonlight. She wasn't thinking. She was reacting. A Gryffindor to the end, running to defend her wounded friend.
"Hermione, no!" he shouted, his voice a croak choked by blood. "Run! GO BACK!"
But she didn't listen. She was halfway across the lawn, raising her wand. With a scream that was pure Gryffindor fury, she started running toward him.
"Stupefy!" she screamed.
The red beam shot from her wand and hit the creature. It dissipated harmlessly, just like his had.
The creature, which had been floating slowly toward Timothy, seemed to grow annoyed. To it, Timothy was the threat, the beacon of power. Hermione was... an insect. Noise. It turned, not to attack, but to swat the nuisance away.
A tentacle, smaller and much faster than the one that had struck Timothy, shot from its chaotic mass. It wasn't aiming to kill. Just to clear the board.
"HERMIONE, LOOK OUT!" Timothy roared.
But it was too late. She wasn't fast enough. The conceptual tentacle struck her in the chest. There was no explosion of blood. It was a sound. A dull, sickening THUD, the sound of pure force striking flesh and bone.
Hermione flew backward, her arms and legs flailing gracelessly. She crashed into another oak with a nauseating crunch of branches and, presumably, something else. She slid down the trunk and fell to the ground, in a crumpled heap.
And she didn't move.
Timothy Hunter's world stopped.
Lupin's distant howl. The creature's hum. The stabbing pain in his arm and ribs. It all faded.
His Occlumency, his precious Archive, his "Ki" and "Senjutsu" systems, his philosophy about magic, his playful and charismatic personality... all of it burned away in an instant.
It was the fundamental rule that had defined his new personality. It was the only axiom that mattered: No one. Touches. His family.
He felt something in his mind, something he had kept chained, something that was the source of his "Talent," break free.
The creature, having swatted the insect away, slowly turned to refocus on him, the true prize.
Timothy got to his feet. He ignored the pain of his broken ribs. He ignored his left arm, which hung useless at his side. The air around him stopped vibrating. It became deathly still.
The creature stopped. It sensed the change.
Timothy raised his head. His eyes, normally bright with passion and curiosity, were now cold, empty pools, lit by a fury so pure and so absolute it was terrifying. The carefree personality was gone. The architect was gone. What remained was something far older. Something he hadn't felt since the void between lives.
The Lovecraftian creature hissed, sensing the shift from a wounded opponent to a predator. It lunged, its conceptual tentacles extending to finish the source of power that had hurt it.
Timothy raised his good hand, the right one.
There was no logic. There was no Archive searching for an answer. There was no "Ki" or "Senjutsu" system. There were no runes. There were no stylistic gestures. All the training, all the theory, all the philosophy... burned away. Gone.
One thing remained. Timothy's passion for knowledge was replaced by a far older and more terrifying passion. A pure, cold, absolute fury.
"OUT!" he roared.
It wasn't a word. It was an act of will. It was his "Talent" pure, unleashed at one hundred percent, without control, without finesse, without calibration.
It wasn't a beam of light. It was a wave.
A wave of pure conceptual reality, the raw will of a being who could rewrite the rules of the universe, struck the creature of chaos.
The Lovecraftian entity shrieked. It was a sound that tore the fabric of space, a scream of pure psychic agony. It was struck by a power as raw, as chaotic, and as furious as its own. Timothy's wave of power didn't kill the creature. It couldn't. It was a concept.
It rejected it. It expelled it.
The force of his Talent struck the wound in reality and closed it. The creature, screaming, was forced back into the crack. The crack in the air collapsed on itself with a deafening POP! that made the castle vibrate and extinguished all the lights in Hogsmeade in the distance.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by Lupin's distant howl and the wind in the trees.
The fury left Timothy as quickly as it had arrived, leaving only agonizing pain and an exhaustion so deep it brought him to his knees.
But he saw her. Hermione. Motionless. By the tree.
Ignoring the scream of his own broken ribs, he forced himself to his feet, using his shattered will. He staggered toward her, falling to his knees at her side.
"Hermione!" he gasped. She was pale, a thread of blood running from her temple, but... she was breathing. Weakly.
Safe, he thought, his mind clouding. They have to be safe.
He didn't care anymore. He didn't care about the Statute of Secrecy. He didn't care about Dumbledore, or his rules, or his games.
With the last ounce of his strength, he extended his trembling hand. He levitated Hermione, gently pulling her toward him. Then, he extended his consciousness, his magic searching through the Whomping Willow tunnel. He found them. Harry. Ron. Sirius. Lupin. Snape.
He pulled them. With an act of massive telekinesis, he ripped the six unconscious bodies from the tunnel. They floated in the air around him, a grotesque escort of the fallen.
Holding Hermione protectively against his chest with one arm, and dragging the other six in a bubble of chaotic power, Timothy looked at the castle.
And he flew.
He didn't run. He lifted off the ground, his raw magic propelling him through the air in an unnatural blur.
Madam Pomfrey was in the hospital wing, probably preparing a calming potion for Lupin's inevitable visit. She was about to close the windows when they exploded inward in a shower of glass.
Timothy floated through the hole, landing with a dull thud on the stone floor. The night wind whipped through the room. With a gentleness that contradicted the violence of his entrance, he placed Hermione softly on the nearest bed.
"She's hurt," he said, his voice a hoarse croak.
Then, with a gesture of his hand, he dropped the rest. Harry, Ron, Lupin, Sirius, and Snape landed gracelessly on the adjacent beds.
Madam Pomfrey let out a choked gasp, her hand on her heart. "Mr. Hunter! By Merlin! You're...!"
The adrenaline was gone. The rage had faded. His will, which had held his broken body together, finally gave out. The pain of his ribs, his shattered arm, and the absolute exhaustion from using his pure "Talent" hit him like a train.
"They..." he whispered, pointing at Hermione. "Help her... first."
His eyes rolled back. He collapsed onto the hospital wing floor, and everything went black.