Harry walked toward his death with open eyes.
The Forbidden Forest pressed in around him, ancient and indifferent. His feet moved automatically, one in front of the other, carrying him toward the clearing where Voldemort waited. The Resurrection Stone sat heavy in his palm, and with a single turn, they appeared.
His mother. His father. Sirius. Remus.
They walked beside him like moonlight given form, and Harry had never felt less alone or more isolated. They were here, and yet they weren't. They could comfort, but not save. They could love, but not protect.
"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly. "Dying?"
Lily Potter's ghost smiled with infinite sadness. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."
"You're so brave," Sirius murmured, pride and heartbreak mingling in his voice.
But it was his father who understood what Harry needed most. James Potter looked at his son—really looked at him—and said simply, "We'll stay with you until the very end."
"Until the very end," Harry repeated.
He didn't think about the Cloak folded in his pocket—the Cloak he'd worn a thousand times, the Cloak that had hidden him from Death itself. He didn't think about the wand that had chosen Draco Malfoy's loyalty over Voldemort's power, the wand now gripped in a Dark Lord's hand but answering to a master who walked calmly toward execution.
He only thought: *Let this be enough. Let my death mean something.*
The clearing opened before him like a mouth. Death Eaters ringed it, their pale faces turning toward him with shock and hunger. And there, in the center of it all, stood Tom Riddle. Voldemort. The Dark Lord. The thing that had shaped Harry's entire life into a weapon pointed at this single moment.
Their eyes met across the impossible distance.
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand with theatrical slowness, savoring this victory he'd pursued for so long. The wand gleamed pale in the moonlight, and Voldemort's lipless mouth curled into something triumphant.
He didn't know. Couldn't know. That the wand already belonged to someone else.
Harry let the Resurrection Stone slip from his fingers.
He closed his eyes.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The curse struck him like a locomotive made of ice and absence. Harry felt his heart stop mid-beat, felt the breath freeze in his lungs, felt every nerve in his body scream and then go *silent*—
—and then everything **shattered**.
---
Harry wasn't dead.
Or rather, he was, but death wasn't what he'd expected.
He stood in a place that *shouldn't exist*. The ground beneath his feet was solid lightning, crackling gold and white and blue. The sky above him was velocity itself—distance and motion and time flowing like rivers of pure kinetic energy. Everywhere he looked, he saw *movement*, the fundamental force that let anything go from *here* to *there*.
And he wasn't alone.
The presence that coalesced before him was impossible to describe. It was female, perhaps, or at least the part of it that chose to face him was. She was built from lightning and thunder, from the first particle that ever moved and the last light that would ever travel. Her eyes were Einstein's equations and Newton's laws and something far older than both.
**The Speed Force**.
*Harry James Potter,* she said, and her voice was the sound of worlds spinning. *You are dying. You are dead. You are caught between.*
"I—" Harry's voice felt strange in this place. "I'm supposed to die. The prophecy—"
*Prophecies are just probability calculations made by limited minds.* The Speed Force moved around him, and he could feel her curiosity like static electricity on his skin. *You interest me, child. You have died before—partially, incompletely. Your soul has been fractured and made whole. You exist in superposition, and when Voldemort's curse struck you, it opened a door that should not exist.*
She paused, tilting her head in a gesture that seemed oddly human for something so cosmic.
*But there is more. You carry artifacts of power. Ancient things. I can feel them resonating with your death.*
Harry's hand went automatically to his pocket, where the Invisibility Cloak rested. He looked down and saw the Resurrection Stone at his feet, still glowing faintly. And somewhere in the real world, kilometers away in time and space, the Elder Wand—
"The Deathly Hallows," Harry whispered.
*Hallows,* the Speed Force repeated, tasting the word. *Objects that grant mastery over death. How delightfully paradoxical.* She circled him, and Harry could see images flickering in her form—the Cloak hiding its wearer from mortal sight, the Stone calling back the departed, the Wand dealing unbeatable death. *Three objects, three aspects of mortality, and you possess them all. Do you even understand what you are, child?*
"I'm just—I'm nobody special. I'm just Harry."
*You are the Master of Death,* the Speed Force said, and there was something like awe in her infinite voice. *Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. You have united artifacts that were designed to conquer mortality itself, and in doing so, you have become something that exists between life and death. You are a walking paradox, Harry Potter. And I* love *paradoxes.*
The world around them shifted. Harry saw himself lying on the forest floor, his body cooling. He saw the Cloak in his pocket, still radiating its ancient magic. He saw the Stone on the ground beside him. And he saw—
Voldemort, gripping the Elder Wand, preparing to examine Harry's corpse.
But the wand in Voldemort's hand was beginning to *pulse* with crimson light.
*Watch,* the Speed Force whispered.
---
**The Forbidden Forest**
**Moments After Harry's Death**
Voldemort stared at the Elder Wand in his hand.
It was warm. No—it was *hot*. Growing hotter by the second, and the pale wood was beginning to glow with an eerie crimson radiance.
"My Lord?" Bellatrix's voice cut through his confusion.
The wand's glow intensified, deep red like spilled blood in moonlight. Voldemort's red eyes widened as he felt the magic inside it surging, building, responding to something he couldn't see or understand. The Elder Wand had conquered death a thousand times, and now its essence blazed with that power—crimson and ancient and *furious*.
The wand had never felt like this. Not when he'd stolen it from Dumbledore's tomb. Not when he'd used it to kill. It felt like it was trying to escape his grip, like it was being *called* by something—
The Elder Wand erupted with crimson fire.
Not dark magic flame. Not Fiendfyre. Something else entirely—deep red energy that didn't burn Voldemort's hand but made him drop the wand with a hiss of shock. The wand clattered to the ground, and the crimson flames intensified, spreading to the Resurrection Stone that lay half-buried in the leaves near Harry's body.
The Stone ignited with the same red glow, its power to recall the dead blazing like a ruby star.
The Death Eaters backed away, their faces masks of confusion and fear.
"What is this?" Voldemort snarled. "What magic—"
The Invisibility Cloak tumbled from Harry's pocket, caught by a wind that shouldn't exist in the still forest air. It joined the burning wand and stone, and all three Hallows began to *dissolve*—breaking apart into streams of crimson light that flowed like liquid fire toward Harry Potter's corpse.
But they didn't reach him. Not yet.
The air above Harry's body tore open, and golden lightning poured through—pure kinetic energy from a dimension that existed perpendicular to reality itself. The Speed Force manifested as rivers of brilliant gold, and where the crimson energy of the Hallows met the golden power of infinite motion, the forest lit up like dawn and dusk colliding.
---
**Inside the Speed Force**
*Do you see?* the Speed Force asked Harry, her voice filled with something like excitement. *Your artifacts recognize what you have become. They know their master walks between death and life, and they seek to follow. But look—look at their nature.*
Harry watched in awe as the three Hallows—objects that had existed for centuries, that had passed through countless hands, that had shaped history itself—unmade themselves and flowed toward him in streams of deep crimson light.
*Red,* the Speed Force mused. *The color of blood and endings, of mortality and sacrifice. Your Hallows were forged to master death, and death's color has always been red—the last thing warriors see, the final sunset, the rose on a grave. How beautiful.*
She gestured, and Harry could see her own essence—pure golden lightning that crackled with life and motion and infinite forward momentum.
*I am motion incarnate. I am the force that pushes the universe from past to future. I am speed, Harry Potter, and my nature is gold—the color of lightning, of dawn, of the first light that moves across creation.*
*I offer you a choice,* the Speed Force said. *Return as you are—human, mortal, limited. The Horcrux in your soul has been destroyed. The Hallows will remain as they are, and you can go back and live whatever life remains to you.*
"Or?" Harry asked.
*Or become my champion.* The Speed Force expanded, showing him visions of a man in red running fast enough to turn back time. *If you accept my gift, the Hallows will not simply return to you—they will merge with you, and I will merge with them. Crimson and gold, death and motion, ending and beginning. The Cloak's power to hide from death will become your ability to phase through matter, to move unseen through space itself. The Stone's power to recall the dead will become your connection to all moments in time, letting you see the past and future as I do. And the Wand's power to command death will become pure velocity, the ability to strike with the speed of lightning itself.*
She paused, and Harry felt her ancient awareness focus on him with laser intensity.
*But more than that—when powers of this magnitude combine, they do not merely add. They transform. The crimson energy of death mastered and the golden energy of eternal motion will forge something new around you. Armor, Harry. Protection born from the fundamental forces themselves.*
Harry stared at the dissolving artifacts, crimson light flowing in rivers toward where his consciousness floated in this space between spaces. "They'll be destroyed?"
*They will be transcended,* the Speed Force corrected. *They were always meant to be together, Harry. Three gifts to master death—but their true purpose was never to let one person command mortality. It was to create something new. Something that exists beyond death's reach entirely.*
"Will I lose myself?" Harry asked. He thought of Tom Riddle, of how the pursuit of power had hollowed him out.
*That depends on you. Power does not corrupt—it only reveals. But I will tell you this: the Hallows chose you not because you sought them, but because you were willing to let them go. That is the paradox that death could never solve. True mastery comes from acceptance, not domination.*
Harry looked at his hands. He thought about going back as he was—just a boy who'd survived, who could live a normal life.
But he also thought about the next Dark Lord. The next war. The next time someone he loved would be in danger and he'd be too far away, too slow, too late.
He'd walked into this forest ready to die for everyone.
Maybe there was something worth living for everyone instead.
"If I do this," Harry said slowly, "if I become your champion—can I still be *me*? Can I still be Harry?"
*The Speed Force does not erase. It only adds.* Warmth filled her voice. *You will be Harry Potter. And you will be so much more.*
Harry took a breath he didn't need in this place between places.
He looked at the three streams of crimson light—all that remained of the Deathly Hallows, artifacts that had outlasted empires and defined legends.
"Then I choose to run," Harry said.
The Speed Force **smiled**.
---
The transformation began with silence.
The three streams of crimson light shot forward, piercing Harry's chest like benevolent spears. The Cloak's silver-red magic wrapped around his bones, making them vibrate at frequencies that could slip between dimensions. The Stone's gray-red power nestled in his heart, connecting him to every moment that had ever been or would ever be. The Wand's white-red energy crackled through his nervous system, teaching every cell the language of instantaneous force.
And then the Speed Force herself poured in—golden and infinite and *alive*.
Harry screamed, but it wasn't pain. It was transformation.
The crimson energy of the Hallows and the golden lightning of the Speed Force met inside him, and where they touched, they didn't fight—they *danced*. Red and gold spiraled together, weaving through his soul, rewriting the fundamental code of his existence.
His body began to dissolve, breaking down into pure energy, and then—
The armor formed.
It started at his core, materializing around the fusion of crimson and gold that blazed in his chest. A circular housing took shape, and within it, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows reformed—but changed. The Elder Wand became a lightning bolt of pure gold, crackling with kinetic energy. The triangle, circle, and vertical line remained, but now they pulsed with alternating waves of deep crimson and brilliant gold, the two colors chasing each other in an eternal cycle.
From this core, the armor spread outward like liquid metal taking shape.
The chest piece formed first—layered plates of crimson red and obsidian black, outlined in brilliant gold. They arranged themselves in a V-shaped pattern that seemed to channel energy downward through the torso, each plate edged with golden circuitry that pulsed with contained lightning. The design was simultaneously ancient and futuristic, as if Death itself had been given form in an age of velocity and light.
Black sections flowed between the plates—not fabric but something else, a flexible material that looked like solidified shadow but moved like liquid silk. It was the Cloak's essence, transformed, allowing full mobility while maintaining protection. Where the black material met the crimson plates, gold traced the seams like veins of pure energy.
The pauldrons materialized next—curved armor plates of deep red that swept outward from his shoulders, each one outlined in gold and layered like dragon scales. They gave his silhouette a sharp, battle-ready edge, suggesting both speed and strength. Golden streaks ran down his arms like lightning frozen mid-strike, as if the armor couldn't quite contain the power coursing through the limbs beneath.
Forearm bracers formed around his wrists—angular, heavily reinforced pieces designed to protect against impacts at speeds that would shatter normal matter. They were crimson with gold accents, and when Harry flexed his fingers, energy crackled between the bracers and his palms.
The leg armor was streamlined perfection—crimson plates following the contours of his thighs and shins, each piece edged in gold and connected by that same black flexible material. Gold lightning-bolt patterns traced down his legs, suggesting the incredible velocity contained within. The boots were aerodynamic, built for gripping reality itself while moving at impossible speeds.
And finally, the helmet.
It wrapped around his head like a second skin, sleek and streamlined for minimal air resistance. The base was obsidian black, but crimson and gold swept back from his face in lightning-shaped crests that extended from the sides like stylized wings or antennae. The eye lenses formed last—glowing with intense golden light that barely contained the crimson fire beneath.
The completed armor was a masterpiece of impossible engineering—futuristic metal plating blended seamlessly with an aerodynamic bodysuit, creating something both protective and optimized for extreme speed. The color scheme of deep crimson red, obsidian black, and brilliant gold gave the suit a regal yet volatile energy, as if Harry wore the collision of death and motion itself.
But the armor was not complete. Not stable. Not yet.
Golden lightning erupted from every seam, every joint, every gap in the plates. Arcs of brilliant electricity burst outward, crackling through the air of the Speed Force dimension. And woven through the gold were tendrils of crimson energy—the Hallows' power refusing to be fully contained, leaking through in violent red sparks that collided with the golden bolts.
The lightning appeared alive, writhing around him like a corona of barely-controlled power. It suggested the armor could not—or perhaps *would not*—fully contain the forces within. Crimson and gold chased each other in spirals around his body, creating patterns that hurt to look at directly, energy so concentrated it bent space around itself.
Harry looked down at himself and saw death and motion merged, saw the boy who'd walked toward execution transformed into something that existed beyond mortality's reach.
The lightning scar on his forehead—Voldemort's mark, the place where dark magic had tried to kill him as a baby—remained visible through the helmet, but now it blazed with intertwined crimson and gold light, a brand that declared him forever changed.
*Run,* the Speed Force whispered, her voice echoing from the armor itself. *Run, Harry Potter, Master of Death, Champion of Speed. Run and show them what happens when someone refuses to be too late ever again.*
---
**Central City, Missouri**
**The Same Moment**
Barry Allen stumbled mid-stride, his coffee cup slipping from his fingers.
He was standing in his lab at CCPD when the Speed Force *screamed* through him—not in pain, but in pure exultation. He'd been connected to the Speed Force for years, but he'd never felt anything like this.
"Barry?" Iris was beside him instantly. "What's wrong?"
"I—" Barry's eyes unfocused as he felt it: a massive surge in the Speed Force, like a star being born in its depths. Not just a new speedster. Something more. Someone who'd brought power *into* the Speed Force rather than just drawing power out.
But there was something else. A second energy signature, wound through the golden lightning like red thread through cloth. Ancient power. Power that tasted of endings and sacrifice and something that should never have merged with the Speed Force's eternal motion.
"Someone just joined," he said quietly. "Someone new. Someone who was *dead*, and the Speed Force saved them. But there's something else—something ancient merged with them. Two different energies, Barry could sense it even from here—one gold, one red, spiraling together. I can feel it, like... like artifacts of immense power just became part of the Speed Force itself."
"Is that possible?"
Barry Allen, who had run through time and across dimensions, who had merged with the Speed Force and returned, who had seen impossible things become routine, could only shake his head in wonder.
"I don't know. But whoever this is—" He felt the new presence taking its first steps, felt armor forming from the collision of death and motion. "—they're not just a speedster. They're something else. Something red and gold. Something that shouldn't exist."
The sensation faded, but Barry stood frozen, still feeling the echoes of that impossible merge.
"They're going to change everything," he whispered.
---
**The Forbidden Forest**
Voldemort stared at Harry Potter's body.
And watched reality tear itself apart.
Golden lightning exploded from nowhere, pouring into the clearing like a river of pure energy. But it wasn't alone—crimson light erupted from the dissolved Hallows, surging toward Harry's corpse in waves of red power that made the air itself scream.
Where the two energies met, the world *bent*.
"No," Voldemort whispered. "No, this is impossible—"
The crimson and gold spiraled together, flowing into Harry's body, and his corpse began to convulse. Death pallor faded, replaced by something vital and electric. But more than that—something was *forming* around him, materializing from the merged energies.
Armor.
It appeared piece by piece, as if the universe was assembling it from its own fundamental laws. Crimson plates edged in brilliant gold. Black sections that seemed to drink in light. A chest piece centered around a glowing symbol—the Deathly Hallows, but changed, with a lightning bolt where the Elder Wand should be.
The Death Eaters backed away, their faces masks of terror and confusion.
The helmet formed last, sleek and streamlined, with golden crests that swept back like lightning frozen in metal. The eye lenses ignited—brilliant gold with crimson fire burning beneath.
And then the lightning came.
Golden electricity erupted from every seam in the armor, arcing outward in massive bolts that scorched the earth. But woven through the gold were tendrils of crimson energy, colliding with the lightning in showers of red and gold sparks. The merged forces created a corona around the armored figure, a storm of barely-contained power that made the air taste like ozone and blood.
Harry Potter stood.
Not slowly. Not gradually. One moment he was dead on the ground, the next he was on his feet, and the transition happened faster than the eye could follow. The armor blazed with intertwined crimson and gold light, and the forest illuminated around him like dawn and dusk happening simultaneously.
When he spoke, his voice carried harmonics that shouldn't exist in human speech—the sound of velocity itself underlaid with the whisper of mortality transcended.
"Hello, Tom."
Voldemort tried to speak, but no words came. He stared at the symbol glowing on Harry's chest—the Hallows transformed, pulsing with that impossible blend of red and gold—and understood with terrible clarity what had happened.
The Deathly Hallows were gone. Destroyed. Transcended.
And in their place stood something death had never anticipated: its own master, armored in the collision of endings and eternal motion, radiating power that bent space around itself.
Harry tilted his head, and crimson lightning crackled across his helmet.
"We need to talk about how you've been spending your immortality."
On the ground where the Elder Wand had fallen, only ash remained. The Resurrection Stone was dust. The Invisibility Cloak had dissolved into shadow and light.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had become something else entirely.
The armor pulsed with each breath, gold and crimson chasing each other across the plates. Lightning—both colors, impossible to separate—arced between his fingertips.
He took a step forward, and the earth beneath his feet cracked from the speed of the movement.
Harry Potter, Master of Death, Champion of the Speed Force, armored in crimson and gold, looked at Voldemort and smiled behind his gleaming helmet.
And he was *fast*.
—
Time didn't slow down for Harry. That wasn't how it worked.
Instead, Harry sped up.
His perception expanded like a door swinging open into infinity. The world around him became a photograph, perfectly still, captured in crystalline detail. He could see individual raindrops suspended in the air from the evening's earlier shower, each one catching the crimson and gold glow of his armor. He could see the molecules of oxygen drifting between the trees, could trace the path of photons bouncing off Voldemort's shocked face.
The Death Eaters were statues. Bellatrix's mouth was open mid-scream, her wand rising in slow motion—so slow Harry could count the microseconds it would take to complete the movement. Dolohov was turning, his robes billowing out frame by frame like footage played at one-thousandth speed. Yaxley was stumbling backward, fear etched into features that seemed carved from ice.
And there—Hagrid, bound with magical chains, his enormous form slumped against a tree. Tears had been rolling down his face. Harry could see each droplet tracing its path through his beard, frozen in their descent, barely moving even to his accelerated perception.
*Time to move,* whispered the Speed Force, golden and eager in his mind.
*Time to show them,* whispered the Hallows, crimson and cold.
Harry took his first step.
---
The forest exploded into motion around him—but motion so much slower than his own that the world became a dream of momentum. Leaves drifted through the air like feathers falling through honey. The smoke from earlier spells hung in lazy spirals. Even the light itself seemed sluggish, photons crawling through space at a comparative snail's pace.
Harry walked—didn't run, just *walked*—across the clearing toward Bellatrix. Each of his footsteps took subjective minutes from his perspective, and he watched with fascination as the ripples from his movement spread outward. The displaced air formed visible shockwaves, expanding in slow-motion rings. Small stones on the forest floor lifted lazily, caught in the wake of his passing.
His armor sang with power, crimson and gold lightning trailing behind him like ribbons of frozen electricity. He could see each individual arc branching and re-branching, following paths of least resistance through the air with mathematical precision.
Bellatrix's wand was rising. Still rising. Had been rising for what felt like an hour to Harry's perception. He could see her finger tightening on the wood, could see the magical energy beginning to coalesce at the tip—a killing curse forming so slowly he could observe every stage of its construction. The sickly green light gathered particle by particle, building toward critical mass.
Harry reached out and plucked the wand from her hand.
From his perspective, it was gentle. He simply closed his fingers around the wood and pulled it away, careful not to break her fingers in the process. At his current speed, even the gentlest touch could be devastating if he wasn't careful. He'd have to remember that.
He examined the wand as Bellatrix's face continued its slow-motion transition from rage to confusion. Dark walnut, dragon heartstring core, twelve and three-quarters inches. A weapon that had ended dozens of lives.
Harry snapped it between his fingers like a dry twig, watching the pieces begin their lazy tumble toward the ground. Then he was moving again, leaving Bellatrix frozen mid-gasp.
---
Dolohov was mid-turn, his pale eyes beginning to widen. Harry walked around him in a complete circle, studying the Death Eater from every angle. He could see the curse forming in Dolohov's mind, could read his intent in the micro-expressions that crawled across his face. A cutting hex, aimed where Harry had been standing.
Harry reached out and twisted Dolohov's wand hand at the wrist—slowly, carefully, from his perspective—redirecting the aim toward the ground. Then he removed the wand entirely and tucked it into his belt like collecting firewood.
One down. Two down.
He moved on to Macnair, who was raising an axe-shaped wand. Harry watched the weapon rise, inch by glacial inch. He had time—so much time—to consider his options. He could see the future possibilities branching out from this moment, courtesy of the Stone's power flowing through him. He saw Macnair imprisoned, saw him freed, saw him killing again.
Harry grabbed the wand, snapped it, and delivered a precise tap to Macnair's temple with one armored finger. At normal speed, it would register as a stunning blow. At his current velocity, he had to calculate the exact force needed—too little and the man would stay conscious, too much and he'd never wake up.
The math happened instinctively, the Speed Force doing calculations faster than thought.
Macnair's eyes began to roll back, the unconsciousness spreading through his nervous system at the speed of neural impulses—which, to Harry, looked like watching ice form on a winter pond.
---
Avery was casting. The spell was already half-formed, purple light gathering in his wand. Harry walked up to him, studying the magic from inches away. He could see the individual photons of spell-light, could observe how the magical energy twisted reality around itself.
Fascinating.
He reached into the spell—carefully, so carefully—and disrupted it. His armored fingers, vibrating at frequencies that let them exist between dimensions, scattered the magical construct like smoke. The purple light dissipated in a slow-motion bloom.
Then Harry removed Avery's wand, considered it for a moment, and decided this one could go *far* away. He threw it. From his perspective, it was a gentle toss. To everyone else, it would be a crack like thunder as the wand broke the sound barrier, shooting off into the forest like a crimson-and-gold-wreathed missile.
Three down. Four down. Five down.
Harry walked among the Death Eaters like a ghost, like Death itself strolling through a frozen tableau of its victims. He disarmed Mulciber, then Jugson, then the Carrow siblings. Each wand he evaluated for a fraction of a subjective second before either snapping it or throwing it into the darkness.
Greyback was transforming—Harry could see it happening in extreme slow motion. Individual hairs sprouting from skin. Bones beginning their glacial shift. The werewolf's claws were extended, already swiping through the air where Harry had been. From Harry's perspective, the claws moved like they were swimming through molasses.
Harry walked around the strike, positioned himself behind Greyback, and simply *pushed*. Not hard—he didn't need to be hard. He calculated the angle, the force, the trajectory. At normal speed, it would look like Greyback had been hit by a battering ram.
The werewolf began his tumble toward three other Death Eaters, his body rotating slowly through the air. Harry watched him go, counting the seconds until impact.
---
Twenty-three down now. Only four more.
Harry paused—relatively speaking—to observe the clearing from the center. The chaos he'd created was beautiful in slow motion. Wands hung in the air mid-flight, spinning end over end so slowly he could count the rotations. Broken pieces of magical foci drifted like snowflakes. The Death Eaters stood in various states of confusion and terror, their faces locked in expressions that were just beginning to register that something was *very* wrong.
Crimson and gold lightning arced from his armor in massive branches, crawling through the air at what felt like walking pace to his perception. Where the two colors met, they created smaller bursts of energy that hung like frozen fireworks.
He could stay here forever if he wanted. Just walk among the statues of his enemies, watching them with all the time in the world.
But Hagrid was still bound. Still crying.
Harry moved on.
---
The last four Death Eaters went down in sequence. Harry barely had to think about it anymore—his body knew how to move at these speeds, the armor amplifying every gesture into something extraordinary. Disarm, disable, move on. Disarm, disable, move on.
He saved the best for last—or rather, the worst.
Bellatrix was still standing, still processing the loss of her wand. Her expression was transitioning from shock to rage to fear, emotions crawling across her face like shadows moving with the sun.
Harry walked up to her until he was inches from her face. He could see every detail—the madness in her eyes, the dried blood on her robes, the scarring on her hands from years of dark magic. She'd tortured Neville's parents into insanity. She'd killed Sirius. She'd carved "mudblood" into Hermione's arm.
The Hallows' crimson energy pulsed with suggestions. So many ways to end her. So many ways to make it hurt.
But Harry was still Harry.
He reached out and tapped her forehead with one finger—gently, so gently—delivering a precise kinetic shock that would scramble her consciousness just enough to drop her. Then he moved on, leaving her to begin her slow-motion collapse.
Twenty-seven down. All of them.
In under a second of real time.
---
Now for Hagrid.
Harry turned toward his friend, and the world seemed to slow even further—or maybe Harry just wanted this moment to last. The armor's glow softened, the crimson and gold spiraling more gently, as if the power itself recognized this moment required tenderness.
He crossed to Hagrid in three long strides. The magical chains binding the half-giant were complex, layered with curses designed to burn anyone who touched them. Harry could see the magic writhing through the metal links, nasty little hexes that would activate the moment flesh made contact.
He reached out with his armored hands and placed them directly on the chains.
The curses activated in extreme slow motion—green sparks beginning to crawl up his gauntlets. But Harry was vibrating his hands at the precise frequency to exist slightly out of phase with reality. The curses passed through him like water through a sieve.
At the same time, he found the resonant frequency of the chains themselves—every object vibrated, and every object had a frequency at which it would fly apart. The Speed Force made the calculations instantaneous, and Harry's gauntlets began to hum.
The chains shattered into sparks of dying magic, each mote of light drifting away in lazy spirals.
Harry caught Hagrid as the half-giant's massive form began to fall—still barely moving from Harry's perspective, but falling nonetheless. He positioned himself, braced his armor-enhanced strength, and gently lowered Hagrid to the ground like setting down a sleeping child.
"It's alright," Harry said, his modulated voice gentling even through the helmet's speakers. To his ears, the words stretched out forever, each syllable taking subjective minutes. "You're safe now."
He knelt there for a moment that lasted an eternity and an instant, one armored hand on Hagrid's shoulder, watching his friend's face begin the slow process of comprehending what had happened.
Then Harry let go of the Speed.
---
Reality crashed back like a thunderclap.
To everyone watching, Harry Potter had simply *vanished*.
One instant he stood before Voldemort, the next he was everywhere simultaneously—a storm of crimson and gold lightning that exploded through the clearing in a single brilliant flash. The sound hit a fraction of a second later: twenty-seven individual sonic booms compressed into one reality-breaking *CRACK* that shook the trees and sent birds screaming from their roosts for miles around.
When the light cleared, Harry knelt beside Hagrid, one armored hand on his friend's shoulder.
The Death Eaters stared at their empty hands. At their broken wands scattered across the clearing. At each other, trying desperately to understand what their eyes couldn't follow and their minds couldn't process.
Several were unconscious, slumping to the ground as their nervous systems finally registered what had happened to them.
Bellatrix hit the ground last, her body completing its fall with a heavy *thud*.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Greyback was the first to speak, his voice shaking: "What... what *are* you?"
Harry stood slowly, the servos in his armor whirring almost inaudibly. Lightning crackled across the plates, crimson and gold dancing together in patterns that hurt to watch. The symbol on his chest—the transformed Hallows—pulsed with each movement, a heartbeat of impossible power.
"I'm what happens," Harry said quietly, his words carrying perfect clarity despite the helmet's modulation, "when Death gets tired of losing."
He looked at Voldemort—the only Death Eater still armed, still standing, still frozen in shock.
Behind his glowing lenses, Harry's eyes were still green. Still human. Still *Harry*, even wrapped in divine armor.
"Your move, Tom."
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Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!