Harry's Human Avatar stood in the receiving hall of the Muggle World, transparent wings folded calmly behind him and his pale golden halo shining behind his head.
Tineth, leader of the House Elf World, stood beside him with her hands behind her back.
Lieutenant General Barrett stepped through the spatial gate first, followed by a small team of military officials. President Bush came last, grim-faced as he took in the sight of Harry's angelic traits.
Harry didn't waste time on pleasantries as they all sat down.
"I cannot save this planet," he stated plainly.
From a side gallery overlooking the hall, Dumbledore stood quietly with Nicolas and Perenelle. The three of them had arrived through the permanent gate just minutes before the NORAD delegation. Harry had asked them to observe but not interfere… this was a conversation between him and the people whose world was dying.
Barrett bit her lip and spoke up. "Creator, we need to discuss the next steps..."
Harry nodded and raised his hand. Fire ran down his fingers, taking shape in the air above them as a living map of North America. Rivers of light brightened across the continental United States, marking the locations where he planned to open the next round of spatial gates.
"Today we stay in America," Harry said, watching the fire-map shift to show projected evacuation routes. "The next push covers the rest of the continent. Then we build a chain down through South America, then the wider world if the sky stays kind. Tineth will post the forty-eight hour real-time windows after this meeting."
President Bush frowned at the map. "What do you mean, if the sky stays kind?"
Harry let the fire-map continue burning as he explained what the Uberpod pilot had revealed. Record and Claim were different factions within the same alien empire fighting over Earth's ownership. The gray vines were about to exhale a carrier fog that would bend Earth's atmosphere toward the Masters' specifications. A protected second wave was coming, and the microbes that were currently killing the first wave wouldn't help against them.
Every face in the room went pale.
President Bush instinctively reached for the armrest of his chair. "You're telling me this entire invasion is just... bureaucratic maneuvering?"
"Yes, your world is a ledger in a distant quarrel." Harry confirmed.
Barrett swallowed hard as she slowly asked the important question.
"…how long do we have?"
"Weeks at most. Maybe less if the gray coverage reaches whatever threshold they need."
Admiral Keating gritted his teeth, looking up at him. "And you're certain we can't fight them? Even with your abilities?"
Harry let his Presence touch the room for a breath, a wavering heat haze that stifled the air and then settled in the soul. It was not enough to spark panic, only enough to remind them what stood before them. Even so, several officers still trembled without meaning to.
"I can destroy their machines," Harry said as his Presence faded. "I can burn their vines. I can kill their pilots. But I cannot be everywhere at once, and there are billions of people on this planet. The math doesn't work, you know this."
Nobody said anything for nearly a minute before President Bush spoke again.
"So evacuation is still the only option..."
"Yes," Harry confirmed. "But let me be very clear about how this works."
He gestured toward the window. "The world I've created belongs to the people who build it. When you step through those gates, you're not entering some military zone under my direct control. You're joining a provisional society that the refugees themselves will govern."
President Bush straightened slightly. "Of course, we understand the need for civilian leadership..."
"Do you?" Harry asked coolly.
Tineth had a look of disapproval on her small face. "Yesterday, several officials attempted to provide the house-elves with priority lists. Names of individuals who should receive preferential treatment during evacuations."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
"The lists were refused," Tineth continued matter-of-factly. "The evacuation gates continued operating and no exceptions were made."
These were people who had spent their entire careers controlling resources and deciding who lived and who died based on strategic value. They were used to having influence, to being able to call in favors and move names to the top of important lists.
That was not how this was going to work.
The thing was, he understood their instincts perfectly. When you're facing the end of the world, of course you want to save the people you think are most important first. Scientists, military leaders, government officials, their own families. It made perfect sense from their perspective.
But over the past few days, something had become clear to Harry.
Justice had taught him that actions must have appropriate consequences, but he had also slowly understood what must not be betrayed.
The 'weak' could not be pointlessly sacrificed for the 'strong'!
Prudence kept him honest about means and costs. He could see exactly what would happen if he started accepting priority lists. First it would be Nobel Prize winners and military commanders. Then it would be campaign donors and personal friends. Then it would be anyone with enough influence to get their name on the right piece of paper. The evacuation would become another system where power determined who lived and who died.
Fortitude let him hold the line when it hurt. When he had to watch people die because he couldn't save them fast enough. When he had to save one city and ignore the smaller towns...
But there was something else growing in him now, something that felt different from the other three virtues. It wasn't about what he should protect or how he should act.
It was about... direction. About the shape of the future he was trying to build.
Hope. That's what it was.
Not the shallow optimism that rose and fell with good news or bad news. Real Hope was heavier than that. It was the act of binding the present to a future that didn't exist yet and paying the price now as if that future were already real.
Hope was why he refused to rule the Muggle World directly.
It would have been easy to just make all the decisions himself, but that would have created a society that only worked as long as he was there to manage it.
Hope demanded that he build something that could survive without him.
Hope was why he told people the truth about Earth being doomed instead of lying to keep them calm. False hope clung to symbols and refused to accept limits. It tried to save a planet because it couldn't bear to grieve it. True Hope didn't worship soil or status. It guarded the living and the future even when the path was ugly.
Hope was why he put children and families first in the evacuation queues instead of accepting those priority lists. Not because children were more strategically valuable, but because a civilization that would sacrifice its young for tactical advantage wasn't worth preserving.
The officials in front of him were still waiting for his response.
Harry could see the calculation in their eyes. They were trying to figure out how to work around his refusal, how to find some angle that would let them save the people they thought mattered most.
He wasn't going to let them.
Not while he was still responsible for this exodus!
"The evacuation continues normally," Harry said firmly, the wings behind his back solidifying slightly before turning translucent again. "Families with children first. Elderly and disabled second. Everyone else in order of arrival. No exceptions."
President Bush's face darkened. "Surely you understand that certain individuals have knowledge that would be invaluable to rebuilding civilization..."
"They will still be invaluable tomorrow," Harry interrupted.
Admiral Keating coughed. "This is about more than personal preference. We're talking about preserving the accumulated wisdom of humanity..."
Harry narrowed his eyes and the admiral's words died in his throat.
"Humanity has accumulated wisdom about how to build nuclear weapons and wage wars and extract resources from conquered territories," Harry said quietly. "It has also accumulated wisdom about how to care for children and grow food and tell stories that make people laugh. It is clear which kind of wisdom will be more useful in building a new world, so the rule stands."
They both had nothing to say to that.
They weren't stupid enough to push him when he'd made his position clear.
President Bush slowly cleared his throat. "Of course. We... understand your position completely. The evacuation procedures will continue as established."
Barrett seemed more relaxed now that the priority list issue had been settled.
She probably hadn't been entirely comfortable with her colleagues' attempts to influence the evacuation process.
Actually, now that Harry thought about it, Barrett had been the one coordinating directly with Tineth and the house-elves for the past seventy time-accelerated days. She'd also been the primary military liaison for refugee management in the Muggle World. That probably gave her significant influence with the evacuated population, especially since everyone knew she was working closely with the 'Creator.'
In the end, political power struggles were inevitable when you had over two million people trying to organize a new society, but that didn't mean he wanted to get drawn into choosing sides between competing human factions.
If they wanted to gain power, then they were free to do so after the exodus was finalized.
Colonel Patricia Ashenhurst, who had been quietly taking notes throughout the meeting, finally spoke up. "Sir, if I may..." She glanced nervously at President Bush before continuing. "We have a narrow window before the protected second wave arrives. There are certain... resources that might be preserved."
Harry raised an eyebrow. Here we go again.
Ashenhurst seemed to sense his skepticism and quickly clarified. "Not people, sir. I'm talking about things like seed banks and research archives. Things that can't be evacuated through the gates but could be... collected by our aircraft while we still have operational capability."
That was different…
"Explain," he said simply.
Ashenhurst began reading from her notes. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway contains samples of nearly a million crop varieties. The Smithsonian has irreplaceable cultural artifacts and scientific specimens. CERN's research data, the Library of Congress archives, medical research from the CDC and NIH..."
Admiral Keating nodded along. "We could deploy transport aircraft to these locations while the current wave is still dying from biological contamination."
Harry thought about it. These weren't priority lists for human evacuation. This was about preserving the tools and knowledge that would let humanity rebuild properly instead of starting from scratch. The refugees in his world would need crop seeds that could grow in their new environment.
They'd need hope for the future.
And the military could handle this themselves without requiring his direct involvement or special treatment through the gates.
"You don't need my permission for this," Harry said finally. "If you can reach these locations and return to the portal sites, that's your decision to make."
Admiral Keating nodded. "Thank you, sir. We'll coordinate the resource recovery missions through existing channels."
President Bush looked slightly hesitant. "There's another matter we need to discuss. The long-term relationship between... between us. After the evacuation is complete, will the spatial gates remain open? Could people potentially return to Earth if circumstances change?"
"The portals close permanently once the exodus is finished," Harry said directly. "Earth cannot be saved. I've told you this repeatedly."
Barrett's face fell slightly. "Sir, we understand the current situation is hopeless, but what if the alien factions' internal conflict makes them destroy each other? What if their empire collapses?"
Harry shook his head. "Even if every alien in that first wave dies from your microbes, the second wave is coming with full biological protection. Even if both waves somehow fail completely, there will be a third wave, and a fourth, until one of those factions gets what they want. This isn't a war you can win by holding out long enough."
He gestured toward the window overlooking the pristine world. "Your people need to understand they're not refugees waiting to go home. They're colonists building a new civilization. The sooner they accept that, the better their chances of actually succeeding."
"Surely there's some possibility..." Bush said quietly.
"No." Harry said. "I will not give people false hope about returning to a dead world. That kind of thinking leads to poor decisions."
All officials were silent.
President Bush nodded reluctantly. "I... understand your position."
"The evacuation continues as planned," Harry said, spreading his wings slightly as he looked around the room at each of the military officials. "How you organize your new society, what kind of government you establish… those decisions belong to you and the other colonists."
Barrett looked slightly surprised. "Sir, surely you'll want some input on the governmental structure..."
"No," Harry sighed. "I created this world to give humanity a chance to survive. What you do with that chance is up to you."
They didn't need him to tell them how to build a civilization.
They needed him to give them the space and resources to figure it out themselves.
President Bush cleared his throat. "Will there be... regular communication between your administration and ours?"
Administration. Harry almost smiled at that.
As if he had some kind of bureaucracy running around handling diplomatic relations.
"Tineth coordinates with Lieutenant General Barrett on evacuation logistics," Harry shrugged. "That arrangement will continue until the situation has stabilized. After that..." He shrugged. "We'll see what makes sense."
Actually, he'd been watching the theological developments in the Muggle World through his Hero's Journal, and some of the trends were concerning. A few of the more ambitious Church leaders were starting to position themselves as intermediaries between Harry and the common people. They were claiming special insight into divine will and suggesting that major decisions should be run past the Church hierarchy first.
That was only going to cause chaos in such a sensitive time.
"If anyone claims to speak for me, they're lying," Harry continued bluntly. "If I have something to say to everyone, I'll say it myself. No priests or prophets or interpreters required, not right now."
The military officials all nodded quickly. They probably weren't thrilled about the idea of competing with religious authorities for influence anyway.
Harry looked around the room one more time. "Any other questions?"
Nobody spoke up.
"Then this meeting is concluded. You know what to do."
Tineth had been standing quietly beside him throughout the entire meeting, but now she stepped forward and snapped her fingers sharply.
Three house-elves appeared instantly in the center of the room, all of them wearing the same white work clothes that had become standard in the House Elf World.
They bowed politely to the military officials.
"Piper, Nala, and Jorik will escort you back to the portal site," Tineth said. "They can also answer any questions about the next phase of evacuations."
President Bush stood up slowly, still looking like a man who'd just been told his entire world was ending.
Which, to be fair, was exactly what had happened.
"Thank you for... for everything you've done," he said quietly. "We won't forget this."
Harry nodded acknowledgment but didn't respond. What was there to say? He wasn't doing this for gratitude or recognition. He was doing it because it was the right thing to do.
The military officials filed out of the hall behind their house-elf escorts, leaving Harry alone with Tineth.
"Thank you for handling the coordination," Harry said, turning to look at the small elf who had become the de facto leader of his support staff.
"It is important work," she smiled.
"The human officials will probably try to involve you in their political discussions," Harry warned. "Don't let them drag you into taking sides between different factions."
Tineth nodded seriously. "We help with their needs, but politics is for humans to decide among themselves."
"Exactly." Harry smiled. "You're free to go handle whatever crisis is probably developing in the camps right now."
Tineth laughed and apparated away with a soft pop.
He turned around to look at the side gallery where Dumbledore, Nicolas, and Perenelle had been sitting quietly throughout the entire meeting.
"Well," Harry whispered, walking over to join them. "That went about as well as I expected."
"Harry," Grandpa Dumbledore said softly. "How are you holding up?"
That was a loaded question, wasn't it?
How was he holding up? Harry had just told the most powerful Muggle leader that his entire world was doomed and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He'd been fighting alien war machines for days, evacuating millions of people, and managing a refugee crisis that kept growing by the hour.
And somehow, he felt... okay.
That was probably the most disturbing part.
"I'm managing," Harry said, which wasn't really an answer.
Nicolas sighed and rested his old hand on his shoulder. "You look tired. Not physically tired, but..."
"Soul tired," Perenelle finished softly. "We've seen it before in people who carry too much responsibility for too long."
Was he soul tired? He didn't feel tired. He felt focused.
Maybe a little numb around the edges, but that was probably normal when you were dealing with the end of a world.
That numbness might be a problem. Four days ago, when he'd watched those forty people die in the Hudson River before he could reach them, he'd felt genuine grief. Today, when President Bush had tried to argue for priority lists, Harry had felt annoyed but not all that angry. When Barrett had asked about keeping the gates open permanently, he'd felt... nothing much at all.
That wasn't normal.
"I think I might be compartmentalizing too much," Harry admitted. "It's easier to make the hard decisions when I don't let myself feel everything that's happening."
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "That's a common response to overwhelming situations. The mind protects itself by creating distance from emotions that would otherwise be paralyzing."
"But it's not sustainable," Perenelle added gently. "Eventually, those emotions need to be processed properly, or they'll find other ways to surface."
Harry walked over to one of the windows overlooking the Muggle World. The hall itself was located on top of a massive mountain whose approaches he had burned clear, and in the distance, he could see the small towns that had popped up alongside the major river.
It was amazing how quickly humans adapted to new circumstances.
"I keep thinking about what comes next," Harry said, still looking out the window. "After the evacuation is finished, after Earth is completely lost, what happens to me? Do I just... move on to the next crisis? Find another world that needs saving?"
He had the power to travel between universes.
He could probably spend eternity jumping from one disaster to another, saving people and building worlds and fixing problems that were too big for anyone else to handle.
But was that really what he wanted to do with immortality?
"There's no rule that says you have to save everyone," Nicolas said quietly. "Even with your power, you're still allowed to have a life of your own."
"Am I?" Harry asked. "When I know there are people dying somewhere that I could save, how do I justify spending time on... anything else?"
It was the classic problem of overwhelming power combined with a functioning conscience, and it was complicated even further with his developing fourth Virtue of Hope. Every moment Harry spent doing something for himself was a moment he wasn't spending helping someone who desperately needed it. And with infinite universes full of suffering people, there would always be someone who needed hope.
Dumbledore joined him at the window. "Harry, may I tell you something I learned during my own years of carrying too much responsibility?"
Harry nodded.
"The world will always have more problems than any one person can solve," Dumbledore said. "Even someone with your extraordinary abilities. If you try to fix everything, you'll eventually break yourself, and then you won't be able to help anyone."
"But how do I decide what's worth my time and what isn't?" Harry asked. "How do I look at a dying world and say 'sorry, I'm busy with something more important'?"
"You don't," Perenelle said from behind them. "You accept that you can't save everyone, and you focus on doing the most good you can without destroying yourself in the process."
That sounded reasonable in theory.
In practice, Harry suspected it would be much harder to actually follow that advice.
He turned away from the window and looked at the three people who were his closest family. They'd all lived long enough to understand the weight of difficult decisions, and they'd all managed to maintain their connection to humanity despite having power that most people on their world couldn't even imagine.
"Can I ask something ridiculous?" Harry said with a slight smile.
"Of course," Nicolas reassured him.
"Do any of you happen to know a magical solution for killing off trillions of alien vines spread across an entire planet while somehow preserving all the native life?"
Dumbledore exhaled deeply. "I'm afraid not. Even magic has its limits."
"There are rituals that could affect an area," Perenelle said thoughtfully. "But nothing anywhere near that scale. You'd need to somehow create an absolutely unprecedented ritual that combined the power of every wizard on Earth working together for many years, and even then..."
"And even then, you'd probably just turn the planet into a wasteland," Nicolas finished.
Harry nodded. He'd expected that answer, but it had been worth asking.
Sometimes the simplest solutions were the ones nobody thought to try.
"Besides," Dumbledore added, "you said the second wave was coming. Even if we could somehow eliminate the current invasion, it would only delay the inevitable."
"True," Harry sighed. "I just keep thinking there should be some way to save Earth itself, not just the people, even if I've already told myself nobody should harbor any false hope…"
That was probably the hardest part of this whole situation. Harry had the power to create entire worlds, but he couldn't truly save even one version of humanity's home world. All those forests and oceans and mountains, all the animals and plants that had existed for millions of years, all of it was going to be consumed by alien vines and transformed into something completely different.
It felt like failure, even though Harry knew intellectually that there was nothing he could have done differently.
Was he supposed to fly into space and try to destroy the 'sky-watchers' to stop the second wave? But even if magic sustained all of his biological needs, could he truly find and catch up to these alien spaceships in the vastness of the black sky?
He wasn't that naïve.
"Actually," Dumbledore said quietly, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder, "I think you're handling this situation very well."
Harry turned to look at him with surprise. "Really? Because I feel like I'm barely keeping everything together."
"That's exactly what makes us proud of you," Nicolas said with a warm smile. "You're facing the literal end of a world, and you're still making ethical decisions. You're still protecting the vulnerable instead of just the powerful."
Harry looked down at the simple woven bracelet around his wrist, feeling the warm glass flame bead that Rachel Ferrier had made for him.
A reminder that real people were counting on him to stay true to his principles.
Maybe he was doing better than he thought.
"Thank you," Harry whispered. "I... I needed to hear that."
Dumbledore smiled. "Now, I think you should get some rest. You've been pushing yourself hard for days, and the evacuation will continue soon enough."
"We'll go explore a bit as well," Perenelle said, nudging the curious Nicolas.
Harry hugged each of them goodbye, feeling genuinely grateful for their presence in his life.
After they left, Harry found himself alone in the great hall.
Well, not exactly a hall anymore. Over the past few days, as he'd spent more time managing the refugee crisis, the space had evolved into something more comfortable. The formal meeting area was still there, but he'd also created a smaller alcove with soft cushions and a low table. A place where he could retreat when he needed to think.
Harry dismissed his Human Avatar and immediately reconstituted it in the alcove, settling down cross-legged on one of the purple cushions. Through the large windows, he could see storm clouds gathering over the Muggle World.
The sky was growing dark and heavy with the promise of rain.
He closed his eyes and tried to meditate, focusing on his breathing the way he'd been taught during Occlumency practice.
In through the nose, hold for four counts, out through the mouth.
Let the thoughts flow without trying to control them.
After about twenty minutes of meditation, Harry felt his mind settling into a calmer state. The tight knots of stress in his shoulders relaxed, and the constant low-level anxiety about the evacuation timeline faded into the background.
He opened his eyes and looked around the alcove.
What he needed right now wasn't more planning. He needed something peaceful.
Something that had nothing to do with saving worlds or managing crises.
Harry had always enjoyed painting, but even that hobby had become tied up with his power development, whether that was in the form of optimizing his healing or just winning competitions. Literally everything he touched seemed to become another expression of his growing abilities.
What he wanted right now was something completely separate from power.
Harry stood up and walked over to a small cabinet he'd installed in the corner. Inside were various supplies he'd collected. He pulled out a ceramic teapot and a small collection of loose-leaf teas he'd asked the Flamels to purchase from the markets in their home world.
Tea preparation. He'd studied it briefly in the Hogwarts library while learning Divination on his own, even though the connection to the Oracle had left him feeling uncomfortable about anything involving prophecy or future-sight that was reliant on outside factors unlike his own Inner Eye.
But he'd discovered that he actually enjoyed the taste and the ritual of making tea properly.
Harry heated the water slowly, watching tiny bubbles form along the bottom of the ceramic pot. The process couldn't be rushed… green tea needed water at exactly the right temperature, hot enough to release the flavor but not so hot that it would turn bitter.
He measured out the tea leaves, and his thoughts drifted to the footage NORAD had shown him two days ago. The first Tripod arrivals, captured by cameras around the world before the EMP struck. Those alien machines had ridden lightning bolts down from the storm clouds, their metal shells somehow channeling the electrical discharge without being destroyed.
Harry had no idea how the aliens had managed that trick.
Lightning was one of the most destructive forces in nature, capable of vaporizing almost anything it touched. Yet somehow those Tripods had used it as a delivery system, arriving on Earth in the middle of thunderstorms with their shields already active and their weapons ready to fire.
He poured the heated water over the tea leaves and watched the steam rise.
Outside the windows, occasional flashes lit up the sky from within the clouds, followed by rumbles of thunder.
Harry breathed in the steam from his tea cup, letting the warm vapor curl into his lungs. As he did, he found himself thinking about lightning in a completely different way than he ever had before.
He had always treated lightning as primarily a weapon. Something violent and destructive that he could summon and hurl at his enemies. In his dantian and meridians, he would separate Yin and Yang chi into opposing forces, then slam them together with tremendous force until a spark tore free from his body.
It was effective, but it was also crude…
The Daodejing said that the Way bears One, One bears Two, Two bears Three, and Three bears the ten thousand things.
He had always thought of lightning as Two, the violent collision of Yin and Yang.
But what if he was missing something important?
Harry took a careful sip of his tea, feeling the warmth spread through his chest. The liquid was dark and still in the cup, but when heat entered it, steam rose naturally. Between the water and the steam was a moment of transformation.
A meeting place where one thing became another.
That was the Three.
The space between Heaven and Earth where transformation happened. The place where a human being could stand and hear both voices and choose how to answer.
Outside, another flash of lightning illuminated the clouds. Harry watched carefully this time, thinking about what he knew of how lightning actually worked. It did not just leap randomly from cloud to ground. First, a stepped leader branched downward from the cloud in faint, jagged segments. As it neared the surface, tall objects and the ground sent up upward streamers that reached to meet it. When a leader and a streamer connected they completed a path through the air. The main return stroke then surged upward along that path, bright and fast, and to the eye it looked like a bolt falling from the cloud. Subsequent strokes could reuse the same channel.
Yin yields, Yang advances, and the space between them becomes a road.
Harry set down his tea cup and considered this idea. If lightning in his body was only separation and clash, then he was still pushing against the natural order.
Pushing was slow and inefficient. The Way moved fastest when nothing resisted it.
He breathed in slowly through his nose, gathering Yin chi into his dantian. Instead of immediately forcing it to separate from Yang, he held the breath and let an empty moment grow between them.
A hair's breadth of clear sky where the two energies could stand apart without hatred.
On the exhale, Harry let a thin thread of Yang chi rise along his spine and flow out through his mouth. It was not forced, just guided along a path his breath had already marked. He felt the Yin and Yang energies standing apart in his body, and in the gap between them, something new appeared.
A road waiting to be traveled.
The lightning wanted that gap, never the substances on either side. Movement lived in the empty space.
Harry smiled and took another sip of tea. If he ever learned to move like the thunder gods in the old stories, it would be by laying a road first and then following it, not by throwing himself at the world through brute force.
It was a reply to an invitation the universe had already extended.
He set his tea cup aside and stood up, moving to the center of the alcove. First, he breathed twice softly to settle the Yin chi in his dantian. Then he rested his tongue against the roof of his mouth to close the internal circuit. On the third breath, he sent a hair-thin thread of Yang chi from his dantian to a point about five paces away.
That thread was a leader, like the invisible feelers that preceded natural lightning. If the air and the space around him agreed, a return path would form and his body could ride it.
A path opened between where he stood and where the thread pointed.
Without thinking, Harry stepped forward.
He crossed the five-pace gap instantly, with no sound and no wind on his face. His body didn't heave or strain. There was only a dry taste of ozone in his mouth and a faint softening of outlines, as if he had already been standing at his destination and had simply remembered to arrive there.
Harry blinked in surprise. He was now standing exactly where his Yang thread had pointed, with no memory of the space in between. It was completely different from his normal jet-stepping, which involved conscious movement and the roar of flames.
This had been... quiet and in utter defiance of what could be expected of moving through lightning and thunder itself.
He tried it again, this time aiming for one of the cushions near the window. Breathe twice to settle the Yin. Tongue to palate. Send out the Yang leader on the third breath. Wait for the return path to form, then step forward.
Again, he crossed the distance instantly and silently.
The technique seemed to work best when he didn't think too hard about it. If he rushed the breathing, the road didn't form properly. If he tried to bend the path around a corner, the thread snapped. But when his attention was focused into a single point and the conditions were right, the movement felt as natural as walking even if he felt a slight lag in his chi's flow.
The storm outside was growing stronger, and Harry noticed that the range of his new technique seemed to increase slightly when thunder rolled overhead. The world was already laying electrical roads through the air, and his own small lightning could follow in their wake.
Harry returned to his cushion and picked up his tea cup.
What mattered was the principle he'd discovered. Yin, empty space, Yang, then reply. Lay the leader, wait for the answer, and move with it. One day, if he developed the… Heaven-Answering Thunder Step technique further, the road might run from cloud to cloud.
Tonight, it could reach across his alcove.
That was enough for a beginning.
Harry finished his tea as the storm intensified outside. Rain began pattering against the windows, and the lightning flashes came more frequently.
He felt more relaxed than he had in days.
Sometimes the best breakthroughs came when you stopped trying to force them and simply let your mind wander…