Time in the Mirage Realm flowed differently.
From the outside, not much had passed at all.
John opened his eyes, his wand nearly slipping from his grasp.
Across from him, Voldemort's face was ashen, and from his body, faint fragments like drifting ash seemed to rise.
A Phoenix's celestial music resounded as John's right hand continued to hold Harry under control.
Harry, too, had awakened from the Mirage Realm, though he was still lost in confusion.
John drew in a deep breath and reached out to the starry dome above the Ministry, pouring even more magic through the link.
A torrent of power, like a radiant rainbow, came crashing down on the three of them.
As the main conduit, John's body bore the brunt of the crushing pressure.
But Voldemort was faring no better.
"What are you trying to do?" Voldemort glared at John with unwilling fury.
He couldn't let go—if he did, he would become the direct target of that overwhelming force.
And with Dumbledore waiting outside, escape was impossible.
"Heeh~" John bared his teeth in a grin. "What you failed to do."
The golden cup floating beside him rose overhead, drawing in the torrent of magic.
A dark haze flickered across John's eyes, giving him an eerie, almost inhuman look.
"Let the stars illuminate the way home. Stellae illustrant viam!"
He suddenly raised his right hand and seized the cup. Under the flood of magic, golden sand overflowed from it as though spilling past its brim.
The sand poured down endlessly, and with it, the surroundings began to shift.
The Ministry itself seemed to retreat, the scenery pulling back at a speed visible to the naked eye.
||The Hufflepuff Cup, vessel that can bear all things—into you I cast time and soul, with magic as the furnace, let the forging begin!||
Ravenclaw's diadem settled upon John's head. From it, hundreds of silver-white soul spheres burst forth, streaming into the cup.
"What has he done? Why does he have so many souls?" Lupin cried out in shock.
They could all see what was happening inside—and what John was doing.
He was manipulating time, sacrificing souls.
"He is meddling with the forbidden," Dumbledore said gravely, unable to wait any longer.
Raising the Elder Wand, he tried to shatter the magical domain.
But John had not yet stopped.
After being infused with time and soul, Hufflepuff's Cup blazed like a miniature sun.
"Stop this at once, John!" Dumbledore bellowed.
But the members of the Constellation Society, whom Dumbledore had already struck down, now rose to their feet again.
"You…" Dumbledore froze, his expression heavy. "Do you even know what John Wick is doing?"
"We don't," Malfoy grinned, "but we do know he's doing something that no one else is allowed to interrupt. That's enough."
The Constellation Society raised their wands, declaring war on Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's face was deeply conflicted—for the sake of their king.
Yet what John was doing had already gone far beyond what Dumbledore could permit.
That power was enough to annihilate all of London.
John held Voldemort at bay with his left hand, the Cup aloft in his right, while Harry remained bound under the Cruciatus Curse.
Together, their forms formed a triangle.
And John fed the Cup its final ingredient.
A Philosopher's Stone.
Whirl Whirl Whirl~
The blood-red Stone rose slowly into the air.
From the Cup came waves of whispers, indistinct and impossible to make out.
It was an ancient tongue—one that only three people present could understand.
The sound filled the entire hall.
A magic circle flared to life upon the surface of the Cup.
Voldemort stared greedily at the Philosopher's Stone. He was certain—that was the very thing he had once longed for above all else.
If he hadn't been restrained now, he would have risked everything, even capture, to seize it.
Dumbledore struck. At the same time, the Order of the Phoenix moved into action.
Ignoring the Death Eaters, they charged directly at the Constellation Society.
Neville blocked Sirius. Fleur intercepted Tonks. Cedric clashed with Lupin. Percy, Ginny, and Malfoy together launched their assault on Dumbledore.
But Dumbledore was far too powerful. With a sweep of his wand, he repelled the three of them at once.
A surge of immense magic gathered into a spell and crashed against the vast magical domain.
The entire field shuddered.
John's expression tightened as the Philosopher's Stone sank into the Cup.
Their contact marked the fusion of the forbidden.
Overflowing golden sand, drifting souls, and the Philosopher's Stone— Boom!
The three, under the flood of immense magic, were forged together by John into a single magic array.
"The great taboos of time, of life and death, of creation—when the three unite, they become…"
John clenched his right hand tight, forcing the fusion through sheer power.
The Holy Grail.||
The sunlike radiance of gold receded, and the skies above London changed color.
A tremendous tremor spread outward, heralding the birth of something that defied the heavens.
The floor of the Ministry split open with a massive crack, and the stars painted on the dome dimmed.
John suddenly swung his gaze toward Voldemort, the golden thread that bound the two of them quivering violently— On the verge of snapping.
Both their bodies strained under crushing pressure.
With the diadem on his brow and the Grail in his grasp, John's pupils narrowed into vertical slits.
Grr..
A deadly sense of dread pierced straight into Voldemort's heart.
His mind screamed warning, and instinctively, he squeezed his eyes shut.
||O anima, ad me revertere.||
A spell cast without a wand.
Voldemort's body froze rigid, the balance of the golden thread collapsing.
It drew toward the wand, their equilibrium breaking apart, and wraith after wraith began to manifest around Voldemort.
John nearly stumbled, but his eyes never left Voldemort.
It also meant that the domain between them was about to unravel.
The Constellation Society grew even more frenzied. Kim hurled himself forward, breaking the spell Dumbledore was about to release.
Percy slid in low, clutching Dumbledore's left leg in a tackle, while Malfoy charged with a roar, trying to knock the centenarian flat—only to be seized and flung aside with brutal force.
Yet the three of them, like they could not die, kept blocking Dumbledore again and again.
John took step after deliberate step toward Voldemort, whose body was locked in backlash, unable to move.
He had never dreamed he would be outmaneuvered by a mere student who hadn't even graduated.
This fleeting stiffness—would cost him his life.
The terror of death battered at Voldemort's mind again and again.
"Tom. You've lost."
John stood before him and said coolly, "The third time."
"No—!" Voldemort could not accept it.
Heaven's timing, earth's advantage, and human will—John held all three.
He had swapped his wand core for a feather plucked from Fawkes.
And after Voldemort and Dumbledore had worn each other down, he exploited the twin-core resonance to trigger Priori Incantatem and trap Voldemort.
With both sides crushed under the same magical pressure, he struck with the Death Gaze, then followed with the unexpected casting of Oh Soul, Return.
"Third time's the charm. Your soul—I'll be taking it."
Dark mist bled from John's eyes. His expenditure was immense.
One of the supercharged magic crystals in his left hand had already gone dark.
The Holy Grail radiated a terrifying pressure, weighing down everything around it.
John released the Grail, raised his wand to Voldemort, and whispered in the ancient tongue, "O anima, ad me reverter~"
More pale smoke streamed from Voldemort's body.
And under the horrified gaze of all present, Voldemort's soul was torn free.
Harry's eyes went wide as saucers as he watched it all unfold.
Voldemort looked down at his own body, uncharacteristically shaken.
"No—this is impossible!"
But John gave him no time for outrage. Step by step, he closed in on Voldemort.
He staggered once, his exhaustion immense, brow furrowing as he swung his wand.
"O.. anima, ad.. me revertere!!!" he growled, dragging Voldemort's soul out in a stream of silver light that sank into his wand.
Voldemort's vision turned to blinding white as his soul was pulled into a strange, alien space.
When he looked up again, three figures appeared before him.
They were…
Tom Riddle.
…
Death had demanded Voldemort's soul, and John had to see it gathered whole.
Within the Grail, the essence of souls seemed to be condensing.
John wavered, dazed. Voldemort had been dealt with.
Now, only one thing remained—reviving Heinrich.
It felt as though everything had finally come to an end.
The Grail...
A forbidden fusion.
With the soul reclaimed, John could attempt what no one in all of history had ever achieved.
That colossal vision had cost him everything.
The Death Eaters looked as if the sky itself had fallen.
Their master's soul had been ripped away.
John tightened his grip on his wand. Only two more remained.
His gaze shifted to Harry, who was still under his control.
John walked over, lifted his wand, and said, "Do you remember what I told you, Harry? Keep hold of your ticket."
Harry froze, realizing now—it hadn't been a dream.
He looked at John, at that wand.
The very wand that had just ripped Voldemort's soul free.
Now... Was John going to use it to pull out Harry's soul, too?
Harry looked toward the fading ghosts—among them a pair of parents reaching out to help him.
But John didn't waver. His wand lifted, inch by inch, pointing toward Harry.
...
With Voldemort's soul gone, only an empty body remained.
The echo between them ended.
To everyone watching, it looked like John was about to strike Harry.
Dumbledore forced Malfoy back with a spell, Percy collapsed unconscious, and Ginny was pinned beneath a conjured statue of a house-elf.
With sweeping, precise movements of his wand, Dumbledore turned toward John, sorrow written on his face.
"John, you've still chosen that path."
No matter his reluctance, he could not stand by and watch John tear Harry's soul away.
The Elder Wand released a torrent of immense power, stronger than before.
It surged toward John, a beam of blinding light.
The magical domain—Boom!
Shattered!
"O... anima..
"..ad me...
"REVERTE!!!!!!!"
________
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