Arthur stood before Mephisto, his shoulders sagging under an invisible weight. A tremor ran through him, sweat beading at his temple, his jaw clenched as though the oppressive air itself was crushing him.
But it was all an act.
Behind the mask of suffering, his mind remained razor-sharp. Every passing second meant magic trickling back into his depleted core, strength gradually returning to exhausted muscles. He just needed time, time to recover enough for escape, whether through enhanced Apparition or a portal.
Fighting Mephisto directly wasn't an option. That would be suicide.
Luckily, Arthur doubted it would come to that. Beings like the Hell Lord had pride that spanned millennia. They only destroyed when provoked, or when their egos were wounded beyond repair.
As long as he kept up the act of a struggling mortal, Mephisto would toy with him instead of striking him down.
The Hell Lord lounged in his conjured chair, watching Arthur's performance with obvious amusement. That ancient smile never wavered, patient as stone, certain as gravity.
Time meant nothing here. The crimson sky never shifted, the bone spires never moved. Arthur couldn't tell if minutes or hours had passed. His magic trickled back, but so too did the crushing pressure on his soul.
Whispers clawed at the edges of his mind, scraping like nails on glass.
Join us… The pain ends here… Let go…
Arthur's legs gave a genuine shiver now. The act was beginning to blur into reality.
"Have you reached a decision?" Mephisto's voice cut through the whispers like a blade. "You're looking rather… strained."
"I decline," Arthur forced out through gritted teeth, startled by how hoarse his voice sounded.
Mephisto sighed theatrically. "How disappointing. I did say we had eternity, but..." He tilted his head. "I've changed my mind. Watching you slowly unravel has lost its charm. Time to expedite matters."
The Hell Lord snapped his fingers.
The crimson sand split open, birthing monstrosities that defied reason. Too many joints. Skin like dripping wax. Faces reduced to teeth. They scuttled forward on spiderlike limbs, leaving trails of thick, black ichor behind them.
"Last chance," Mephisto said conversationally. "Agree to serve, or let my pets have their fun. They haven't fed in... oh, decades? They must be famished."
"Still not interested," Arthur said, his voice steadying now that he had something tangible to fight.
"Pity." Mephisto waved his hand dismissively. "Feast."
The creatures surged forward.
Arthur centered himself, pushing aside fatigue and that soul-crushing weight. It was time to fight for his life.
He couldn't waste his recovering reserves on raw magic—not yet. But he still had options.
Golden light erupted from his hands as he channeled the mystic arts. A shield materialized on his left arm, its surface covered in rotating mandalas. In his right hand, dimensional energy condensed into a staff that hummed with barely contained power.
The first creature leapt, all gnashing hunger. Arthur pivoted, bringing his staff down in a brutal arc that split its skull. It dissolved into shrieking smoke.
Another scuttled from the left. Shield slam. Thrust. Dissolved.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. They were weak. Suspiciously weak.
Human-level strength at best, their attacks sloppy, movements predictable.
Confidence surged through him. He moved through the pack like a dancer, each motion flowing into the next. Shield bash to stun, staff thrust to destroy.
Within minutes, the last creature fell, dissolving into the same black smoke as its companions.
Arthur stood among the dissipating shadows, breathing hard but victorious.
He didn't speak, didn't mock, didn't even look at Mephisto with defiance. Any show of arrogance might push the Hell Lord past amusement into genuine anger, and that was a line Arthur couldn't afford to cross.
Still, something gnawed at him. The fight had been too easy, the enemies too weak. This was Mephisto. Nothing was ever simple with beings like him.
"Impressive," Mephisto rose with apparent pleasure. "I'm liking you more and more. Those were only my weakest forces, of course. I have legions far stronger at my command. But why waste time with all that? Just take my very reasonable bargain."
"Not interested," Arthur replied, voice flat and controlled.
"Everyone has a price." Mephisto's tone was silk stretched over broken glass. "Your parents, perhaps? I could bring them back. Both of them. A double resurrection. I've never offered such generosity before. Normally, it's one life for one bargain. But you…" He spread his hands wide, magnanimous, mocking. "Special circumstances."
Arthur's jaw locked, but he shook his head. He had long since made his peace with their deaths.
"Really?" Mephisto's brows arched. "How cold. But then again… perhaps they wouldn't want to return to you anyway."
He lifted a hand and pulled at the air. Smoke twisted, and two shapes formed from the haze. Arthur's breath caught as his parents took shape before him, translucent, wavering, too real and not real enough.
"Why?" his mother asked, her voice carrying a hurt that pierced straight through his defenses.
"Don't you want us back?" his father added, disappointment etched in every line of his ghostly face.
Arthur's mind sharpened instantly. Wrong. All wrong. His mother would never sound like that. His father had never worn that look, not in life, not even in dreams.
These weren't his parents. They were fabrications—maybe puppets, maybe scraps of souls twisted into masks.
The realization should have brought relief. Instead, white-hot anger began building in Arthur's chest. Mephisto was using his parents' images as props in some twisted performance.
As if on cue, the false souls' expressions curdled into anger, their words striking like barbs written in advance.
"Ungrateful child," his mother spat. "We always knew you never truly saw us as your parents."
"Which is why your magic only awakened after we died," his father accused, voice heavy with scorn. "You only ever cared about saving yourself."
"Selfish. Cold. Using our deaths as nothing more than a stepping stone to power."
Each word confirmed what Arthur already knew—this was all an elaborate illusion.
Maybe he wasn't on Hell at all. He hadn't felt himself move because they had never moved. Maybe they were still on the barren island. That would also explain why the creatures had been so weak: Mephisto's power on Earth was limited, so he couldn't call on stronger ones.
Everything was fake. But knowing it was fake didn't stop the rage from building. These puppets wearing his parents' faces, speaking scripted accusations—the sheer disrespect of it burned through him.
Mephisto, apparently taking his trembling for weakness, pulled more souls from the somewhere. Figures in Hogwarts robes materialized, their faces young and accusatory.
"Villain," one hissed.
"We died because of you."
"You could have prevented all of this."
"The war escalated because of your actions."
"Voldemort was more prepared, had a larger army, all because you provoked him."
"Our blood is on your hands."
Arthur's hands clenched. Even if these had been real souls with real grievances, he owed them nothing. He wasn't responsible for Voldemort's choices or their deaths. He'd saved who he could, fought when he didn't have to. His conscience was clear.
But the rage kept building. Not guilt. Pure, undiluted fury at Mephisto playing with images of the dead like toys.
"Well?" Mephisto asked, apparently interpreting his shaking as internal struggle. "Ready to accept my offer?"
Arthur said nothing, fighting to keep the rage from showing on his face.
Mephisto's expression darkened. He reached out and grasped the souls of Arthur's parents, one in each hand. They writhed in his grip, their faces contorting in pain.
"Last chance," the Hell Lord said coldly. "Accept my bargain, or I crush these souls so thoroughly they'll never enter the cycle of rebirth. They'll simply... cease."
Arthur knew they weren't real. Knew this was all a game. But he held his tongue, holding his control by a thread.
"So be it."
Mephisto's hands closed.
The souls of his parents shattered like glass, their screams cutting off mid-breath as they dissolved into nothingness.
Hearing this, even if everything was an illusion, something inside Arthur snapped.
The anger exploded outward, uncontained and absolute. With it came his magic, but different this time.
This raw emotion given magical form. Magic he had recently started to study and learn how to control, though without any success until now.
Ancient Magic.
The same power that had protected Harry as an infant. The same force that had manifested through Harry's wand against Voldemort during their duel.
Magic born from pure, overwhelming emotion—in this case, rage at the desecration of his parents' memory.
Arthur let it flow.
An explosion of golden-white light erupted from him in all directions. The crimson sky cracked like an eggshell. The bone spires shattered. The rivers of metal evaporated. The oppressive weight on his soul vanished as if it had never been.
And suddenly, he stood on the same barren island in the North Sea where he'd killed Voldemort.
The gray sky, the endless waves, the scent of salt and kelp—all of it exactly as it had been. They'd never left. Just as he had figured.
The Ancient Magic flickered and died, its purpose served. Arthur tried to grasp it, to hold that power, but it slipped away like smoke. It came from emotion, not will, and couldn't be commanded.
"Remarkable," Mephisto said at last. For the first time, there was something different in his tone—less amusement, more genuine surprise, even a hint of respect. "You possess far more potential than I anticipated. The strength to tear apart my illusions with nothing but raw magic… fascinating."
The Hell Lord's human disguise flickered, revealing glimpses of something vast and terrible beneath—horns and flames and a darkness that hurt to perceive.
"But since you refuse my generous offer," Mephisto continued, his voice dropping to something truly dangerous, "I'll simply remove you as a future complication."
Dark power coiled around him, no trick of illusion this time but real hellfire dragged across dimensions.
Arthur had nothing left to fight with. His magic was drained once more, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. Yet instead of fear, a weary smile tugged at his lips. He raised his eyes to a seemingly empty stretch of sky.
"Had enough fun watching?" Arthur called. "Or does this end with me seriously injured—or worse?"
The air shifted instantly. Tension melted like mist under the sun.
Above them, golden sparks spun into existence, whirling together into a perfect circle. A portal blossomed outward, its rim glowing with radiant energy. Through it stepped the Ancient One, her saffron-yellow robes utterly untouched by the salt wind off the North Sea. Her expression was serene, touched with faint amusement.
"Fun?" she asked, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I prefer to think of it as educational. You handled yourself admirably, given the circumstances. Although," her eyes flicked toward him knowingly, "it did take you far too long to realize it was all an illusion. Very unlike you, Arthur."
Arthur gave her a flat, unimpressed look. "Forgive me for being distracted by a Hell Lord dangling eternal servitude in front of me."
The Ancient One's smile deepened as she turned her gaze toward Mephisto. The hellfire around him guttered out as his expression shifted from irritation to naked anger.
"Mephisto," she said pleasantly, as if greeting an old acquaintance at a tea shop. "I believe your welcome on Earth has expired."
Mephisto's human mask flickered violently, baring more of the horror beneath. His eyes burned with ancient malice as he looked from her to Arthur. Then his gaze fixed on Arthur alone, his lips curling into a smile that promised nothing good.
"This isn't over, boy," he said softly. The words carried a weight that pressed against the soul. "You have my attention now. That is rarely a blessing for mortals."
Arthur exhaled, too tired to summon much wit. "I'll add it to my growing list of problems."
Mephisto's laughter rolled out like distant thunder. "Do that."
Red smoke began to rise from the ground, swirling around the Hell Lord in the same way it had when he'd arrived. Within moments, he was gone, leaving only the faint scent of sulfur and the lingering sense of something vast and terrible having passed through.
Silence settled again. On the barren island, scorched earth marked where Voldemort had burned away into nothing, leaving only Arthur and the Ancient One standing in its shadow.
At last, Arthur's legs gave out. He sank heavily onto a rock, every muscle in his body aching.
"So," he said, looking up at her, "we meet earlier than expected—just as you predicted. Any other cryptic warnings about my future you'd care to share? Maybe a heads-up about which cosmic entity plans on making my life miserable next?"
The Ancient One's smile was soft, layered with centuries of secrets. "And spoil the lesson? Where's the fun in that? Life's greatest teachings always arrive unannounced."
Arthur let out a hollow laugh, eyes shutting against the gray sky. Tonight had stripped away every illusion of strength he clung to. Voldemort had pushed him to his limits—and against Mephisto, he had been nothing without the Ancient One's intervention.
The truth pressed into his bones, bitter and undeniable: he was still weak. Dangerously, laughably weak. Canon events might be years away, but tonight had proved that foreknowledge meant nothing when Hell Lords could step out of the dark and end him in an instant.
There would be no rest. No pause to breathe, no comfort in waiting. Every moment not spent growing sharper, stronger, was a moment gifted to the next shadow already closing in.