Harry waited in the quiet, empty classroom, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the dusty floor. His hands were casually tucked into his pockets, his eyes fixed on the door.
One by one, they entered, Hermione first, her expression a mixture of apprehension and fierce determination, followed closely by Ron, Neville, Ginny, Luna, and the twins, Fred and George. The group was a strange mix of personalities, but he trusted them. Well, mostly.
Fred and George were sharp, cunning, and fiercely loyal. They had proved that multiple times, especially when they helped him escape the Dursleys' confinement back in second year. Ginny had grown on him, strong-willed, clever, dependable, and surprisingly perceptive. Neville… he was quiet and unsure on the surface, still prone to tripping over his own feet, but Harry had seen that unshakable loyalty and quiet bravery underneath, a core of steel. Luna already knew what he was going to tell them, her ethereal gaze holding a knowing glint. Those eyes of hers that just seem to know were both impressive and concerning. As for Ron and Hermione… well, they were his best friends, his oldest allies, but even best friends had blind spots, and their reactions were less predictable.
Ron could be trusted… until jealousy crept in, a green-eyed monster that had caused problems in the past. Hermione meant well, she always did, but her fierce need to protect people often outweighed their right to choose, to make their own mistakes, or to know uncomfortable truths.
Still, he wasn't hiding this for much longer, and if any of them blabbed, he would deal with the fallout as it came. He was prepared.
They settled in a half-circle of chairs, curious eyes trained on him, their expressions a mix of anticipation and unease. Harry didn't bother easing into it. No theatrics, no slow burn, no dramatic build-up. He just came out with it.
"I'm a Campione," he said flatly, his voice calm, clear, letting the words hang in the air.
Silence.
Complete, utter silence. For a long moment, the only sound was the faint creak of the old classroom and the distant chirping of birds.
Then—
The twins burst out laughing, almost in sync, slapping their knees like they'd just heard the world's best joke, their faces red with mirth. "Brilliant!" Fred gasped, wiping a tear from his eye. "Truly legendary prank, Harry! You really had us going there!" George added, still chortling.
But Harry just looked at them. Still. Calm. Dead serious. His emerald eyes were just gazing at them.
The laughter died. Slowly. Their expressions shifted, humor faded into confusion, then realization. Shock. Awe. Even a flicker of fear. Harry had seen that before, that primal fear in the face of the truly impossible. He didn't hold it against them. He had felt something similar to that same fear when he first heard about Voldemort. Fearing something just because of the stories you hear.
Hermione seemed confused, her brow furrowed, her mouth slightly agape. "What's a Campione, Harry? Is it some kind of new magical classification?"
Ron looked uneasy, his face pale. "Mate, seriously… this isn't something to mess with. Are you alright?"
Neville's voice cut in, surprisingly steady, his usual timid demeanor replaced by a quiet solemnity. "They're godslayers," he said, all eyes turning to him, astonished by his sudden knowledge.
"What?" Hermione said, blinking again, her mind struggling to process the concept.
Neville continued, his tone even, surprisingly confident, as if reciting from a forgotten text. "Campiones are godslayers. Beings that kill gods and take their power. They're legends, they're apex predators in the world. They are the pinnacle of mankind, beings of unimaginable power."
Hermione's mouth opened slightly, then closed with a snap. "That's impossible, Neville! Gods don't exist! And people can't just… kill them and take their power!"
"It should be impossible," Neville replied, his voice low. "My gran used to tell me stories about them when I was a kid. But I thought they were just that, stories."
He turned to Harry, "I don't think he's joking about something like this."
She shook her head, her mind reeling, trying to reconcile this impossible information with everything she knew. "But… if they exist, if they're so powerful, why haven't I ever read about them? I've never heard about campiones before, not even people talking about them. I've read a lot of the books in the library, and there's nothing in the archives, nothing in the Magical references, nothing in any of the Hogwarts library books!"
Fred leaned forward, his gaze serious now, the last vestiges of humor gone. "Because Campiones are myth, Hermione. Fairy tales. Horror stories whispered in hushed tones. Not something you expect to see in real life, not something that's written in your school textbooks." He stopped and looked at Harry, awe in his eyes, before adding, "At least, they were supposed to be."
George continued, his voice hushed, "Apparently, Harry here has become a Campione, if he is to be believed." He looked at Harry, a mix of fear and admiration in his eyes.
Hermione turned back to Harry, her face pale but intense, her eyes wide with a desperate need for confirmation. "Harry… did you kill a god? Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes," Harry confirmed unwaveringly.
"Where? When? Which god?" she pressed, a rapid-fire series of questions.
Harry leaned back, folding his arms casually, as if discussing the weather. "Iceland. During the summer holidays. Fenrir."
Ginny gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth. "Fenrir—as in the Fenrir? The giant wolf?"
Hermione answered for her, her eyes wide with dawning horror and understanding. "Norse mythology. The monstrous wolf destined to devour Odin at Ragnarok. The son of Loki."
Everyone seemed stunned into silence. Even Luna, who usually seemed to float in her own world, tilted her head and smiled softly, her ethereal gaze fixed on Harry. "You smell different, too, Harry. Like thunder and teeth and dreams. And a little bit like blood, too, different from before you left." She sighed contentedly. "It's nice."
As she sniffed the air around him, Harry could only ask himself how one smells dreams.
Ron hadn't said anything since Neville's explanation. He stood there, shoulders tense, eyes unreadable, a storm of conflicting emotions warring behind them.
The pride in his friend, the jealousy that it was Harry again who seemed to be in the center of things, the admiration for such impossible power, the confusion at this new reality. He understood it. He really did, but why always Harry? Ron sighed and shook his head to clear those intrusive thoughts.
It was not like it was Harry that went out looking for the god, he really was happy and amazed at what his friend had done and become, but he still couldn't help but feel envious.
Harry could see it all, he could see his friend struggling to keep his jealousy down.
But he didn't bother addressing it, knowing Ron needed to process it in his own time.
Hermione, of course, had moved from shock to full-blown question mode, her academic mind kicking into overdrive.
"Does this hurt you?" she asked, her voice soft but urgent, her brow furrowed with concern. "The process, the power, does it affect you? Is it… dangerous? Is it like your scar? How does it work?"
Harry offered her a small, amused smile. "No, it doesn't hurt at all, and it's not dangerous, well not for me anyways, the power is mine to command, not something that hurts me."
More questions followed, a barrage of queries about how he did it, what it felt like, what other powers he had. Luna asked if he could see other worlds through the eyes of the dead, or if he could speak to nargles. Harry wasn't sure if that was a metaphor or a legit question.
Ginny asked what it felt like to wield such power, her eyes bright with a daring curiosity. Neville asked how many gods he had slain. He admitted to killing another, Njörun, the Norse goddess of Dreams, without going into details about the battle, simply stating he had taken her power as well.
Eventually, the conversation wound down, the initial shock giving way to a more subdued, thoughtful atmosphere. He hadn't given them much, just enough to satisfy their immediate curiosity and to establish the new reality of what he was.
He wasn't going to be spilling all his secrets just because. After all, while he showed the Mage association his powers, that didn't mean anything.
An authority wasn't like magic, simply because you knew someone had it, that doesn't mean you can counter it.
For example, the authority of fire can do things that a person with magic control over fire could only dream of. Let's say a wizard conjures fire and manipulates it, someone with an authority just doesn't use fire itself, but the very concept of fire, what it is, what it can do, what can be done with it, twist and shape it into both physical and abstract ways.
It's difficult to explain, but imagine a god of lightning not being able to use lightning better than a wizard, that just is not possible, because that's what they are, what their core is.
Can you understand that? So it didn't matter that when he was starting out, that he showed them what he could do, he had not even found how best to use his authority at the time, and as a campione, getting more authorities was a given, so his arsenal was going to change anyway.
He looked at his friends, one of the resons why he told them was to have people by his side, sure they weren't powerful but he knew them, and as much as he wanted to believe that he alone was enough that was not ture, nobody could survive alone and while the association helps him, they werent people he trusted.
So he just had to make his own small group that could help him with other things.
He looked at his friends and could see each in their own heads, processing.
He knew Hermione would spend the next week reorganizing the entire Hogwarts library, looking for any obscure references to Campiones, to godslayers, to anything that could explain what he had become. He didn't mind. Let her research, it would keep her busy and perhaps even lead her to some interesting discoveries that she would no doubt share.
Meanwhile…
Tonks sat curled on her friend Margaret's couch, a bottle of firewhiskey half-finished on the coffee table beside her, its amber liquid reflecting the dim light of the apartment. Her hair was a messy shade of red-pink, her cheeks flushed with wine and frustration, her eyes slightly glazed.
She had no desire to go to her home and get the inevitable 'I Told You So' lecture from her mum about Remus, and she certainly wasn't going to go to Grimmauld Place with the cowardly bastard there. So she had talked with her friend, Margaret, and asked to stay for a few days, and that's where she had been since she left that spineless wolf, drowning her sorrows.
So here she was, alone in Margaret's apartment while her friend was out, drinking and slightly drunk, cursing the wolf bastard under her breath. "He really was a coward," she muttered to herself, glaring at her half-empty glass. "A spineless bastard that made excuses even when there were no excuses to make. He really wanted to milk this werewolf thing, didn't he? Like it's the only thing that defines him."
She sat there alone and saddened, the anger giving way to a profound ache of disappointment. Harry had been right. Remus wasn't worth her, not if he couldn't even face his own feelings.
They had been dancing around eachother for a while so she taught he really like her, when she had expressed her interest in him, her mother had denied it and told her to shut it down that remus was too old for her, that he was not someone she wanted for her daughter, that he was not good enough for her.
She had blown up at her mother and decided to pursue him even harder, and when he started flirting back, she thought that they would get together at least, but the cowardly bastard didn't even want to give it a chance. Saying he was a werewolf like that meant he couldn't date. What was they something about being a werewolf that made one lose their balls, because if it was so, she could understand his spinelessness.
Her thoughts, as they often did lately, turned to the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry. She knew he was attracted to her, that was clear even when he was in Grimmauld Place, when they flirted, when they bantered. He had noticed her, talked to her, and made her laugh when she hadn't felt like it, after her talks with Remus, which made her annoyed. There was something in him now, something different from the Harry she remembered, though they never spoke before meeting this last month, she had seen him when he first came to Hogwarts.
He was small, skittish, looked like he was afriad of his own shadow, different from the stories that she and others had grown up hearing about the Boy-Who-Lived, But now, sure he was older but she didnt expect the presence he gave off, when they met in his reletives home, he gave off that aura she had expected of him to when she was told stories of him as a kid.
And he was interested in her.
He was younger—yes, by five years. Brighter. And when he looked at her… well, it was a look that made her skin tingle, a look that promised something exciting. Even if she agreed to explore it, would it work out. But that short 'date' of theirs and their undeniable chemistry during his stay at Grimmauld Place had shown that maybe they were compatible after all.
And it's not like the wizarding world could really say anything about the age difference, with Winx, as long as they were above 13 years, it was acceptable, so you could see men and women far older than their partners. She wanted to explore it, to see where this unexpected attraction might lead. But maybe it would be better after all to just go to her mum and get advice, because she was confused about her feelings toward Harry, about this new, complicated dynamic. Well, after the lecture, she'd no doubt give her.
She sighed as she made up her mind, a sudden surge of resolve. She stood up, pushing away the remains of the wine, grabbed her jacket, and decided to go. She needed her mother's blunt wisdom, even if it came with a side of "I told you so."
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