Chapter 30: The Final Illusion (Part 2)

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The world was a wasteland. A cluster of dark spires rose high into the air, huge cylindrical towers of dull grey metal that dominated the landscape. Each column was ringed by a series of perfectly aligned pods that protruded out like tiny spikes. Once these pods were filled with a gooey amber fluid that gave off a modest glow in the gloomy. Once living human bodies were housed within each of the pods. Once electricity crackled from each of these capacitor nodes to form a massive current that flowed like a wave between the towers.

Now, all the pods were empty of the fluid, most having dumped it along with their former occupants down into the refuse waters below where the corpses were once reconstituted into nutrients for other trapped souls to unknowingly feed upon. That process, however, had stopped on the fateful day when Harry Potter had first been freed of the Matrix. Some of the pods had failed to eject their human occupants, however, and they remained within as rotted, partially skeletonized corpses. Whether housing a dead human clone or completely empty, all the pods had in common an utter silence and stillness. No power flowed to or from any of them, and nothing living remained within.

Except for one.

In the darkness of the wasteland surrounding this macabre ruin of technology, lights flickered into being. From behind an outcrop of rock, the unmistakable flash of hovercraft pads crackled and the Lupin rose up from its hiding spot. For a moment, it hung there, focused on the one pod with power flowing in and out of it from a line patched directly into the main data lines that ran through the site.

Aboard the hovercraft, Eon settled into his seat next to Tonks, who was looking through the display which showed a magnified view of the pod they had rigged to once more function to link a human into the collective illusion that was the Matrix. From this distance, Harry Potter's features could barely be made out as he lay plugged back into his old pod, an assortment of wires connecting him to the Machine's stasis pod. The link to his vital signs was still active, and the steady heart rate and strong brain activity were reassuring.

"Did you do something with your hair?" Eon asked.

"What?" Tonks asked, nonplussed. Rather than bother with that, she focused on what was important. "Harry is okay now? He was taking a beating, and then, suddenly his vitals just stabilized."

"Yeah, he'll be fine. His eyes are open now."

Tonks mulled that over for a second. "So, he's like you now? The 'One'? Or does that make him 'The Two' or something like that?"

"No, the Machines didn't give him access like they did me. But he's self-aware on a whole new level. They can't really hurt him anymore in there, not so long as he remembers that fact."

"Well, that's good then, and pretty awesome. Still, I don't feel right leaving him here like this. He's too exposed. If anything came for him, he'd be unable to defend himself like that."

Eon put a hand on Tonks's shoulder. "I know. I don't like it either, but it has to be this way. This is our best chance of stopping that army." Eon bowed his head momentarily. "I couldn't do it. I tried, but…I couldn't get the access I needed to change anything about the attack."

"And Harry can?"

"I don't know, maybe. The Matrix responds to him a completely different way than it does to me. But I do know this: I believe in him."

Tonks nodded. "Yeah. Me, too. I just wish we didn't have to leave him like this."

Eon gave her a smile. "We did everything we could for him. The buffer you rigged up will keep the Programs out of his head and give Harry a chance at surviving even if he gets disconnected. Now, we've got some passengers to pick up, and the sooner we get Harry's friends, the sooner we can get back to him. It's the least we can do for Harry."

The Lupin began to turn in place as Tonks pointed the ship in the direction of their first target.

"I don't know if we can get both in the time we have. They're in opposite directions," Tonks said.

"We'll just have to do our bes—"

Eon's comment was cut short by the urgent buzzing of an alarm. His eyes went wide.

"Holy hell, the proximity alert! And way too close!"

"Squiddies?" Tonks asked. "If there's more than just a couple scouts we're in a shitload of trouble without a couple more gunners on board!"

A second later, the onboard computer displayed the configuration of the craft.

"No," Eon said when he saw what ship it was. "It's worse."

"We're fucked," Tonks said, seeing the holographic display as well.

The radio crackled. "Mind your language, Tonks!"

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"Ah," Dumbledore said, nodding his head thoughtfully as he stood suspended in the air just a dozen yards away from Harry. "Now I understand your strategy. You have managed to hardwire yourself directly into the data lines for the Matrix while still somehow evading detection. It was through this direct link that you managed to remove Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger from here, and how Mr. Anderson was able to disconnect without negative consequence. Clever. I do not fully understand the method you used to bypass authentication or how you maintain your autonomous functionality," the bearded man mused, "but that knowledge I will be able to take directly from your mind easily enough."

"When I finish with this place, there will be nothing left but a smoking crater," Harry swore.

There was a moment when Harry and the Headmaster locked gazes, a moment when everything around ceased moving. And then the two began to duel.

"Protego! Expelliarmus! Diffindo! Diffindo! Stupefy! Bombarda Maxima!" Harry's wand jabbed, twirled, arced, and swished impossibly quickly. Jets of scarlet, white, and red flashed out towards the Headmaster as Harry erected a dome of blue protective magic around himself.

"Protego Totalus," Dumbledore replied, waving his wand as if bored and the charms and curses Harry sent towards him simply dissipated against the more powerful shield. "Come now, you cannot possibly think you harm me like this. I invented these spells…contrary to the fabrication taught in History of Magic. Even were you to somehow manage to strike me with the strongest curse I have allowed to exist, it would harm me no more than it did Mr. Anderson. You, on the other hand, have only as much resistance to the effects as you have the will to disbelieve, and we have just seen that you are still imperfect in that respect."

The pair dueled for several minutes, but despite Harry's best efforts, no spell he cast at the Headmaster even landed. Worse, Harry could sometimes feel the effect of the powerful blows that the Headmaster slammed onto him. Harry's disbelief was imperfect.

All you have to do is lay down your wand. Harry frowned as the impulse hit him. Had the Headmaster managed to get inside of his mind?

With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore conjured stone warriors from the ground, rising up in the shape of exquisitely detailed giants, werewolves, trolls, centaurs, acromantulas, and even a dragon. Then the stone changed to flesh and Harry was suddenly facing the very worst of the dark creatures he had studied in his classes.

"Do you like my creations, Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore asked conversationally. "I must admit it is the source of some pride for me."

Harry blasted the nearest acromantula with the arania exumai spell and was so busy leaping out of range attacks from the giant and werewolf that he almost missed it. While Harry physically fought against these dark creatures, Dumbledore was trying to worm his way inside of his mind through a legilimency subroutine. The physical danger, Harry knew, was imaginary. Non-existent. The threat to his self from the Headmaster, however, was credible.

The distractions had to go.

"CONFRINGO!" Harry shouted, pouring his will into the spell, demanding that the world around him be blasted away.

For an instant, just a brief moment, the grounds around him wavered and warped. Harry had a sudden sense that Hogwarts itself was fighting him to stay in existence. And then things snapped back together, solid once more, just before the earth around him was torn apart by his spell in a massive fireball that spread outward as a vortex of flames of a white hot intensity far beyond what should have been possible with a blasting curse. The grand sphere of destruction reached to the skies, expanded until it brushed up against the walls of Hogwarts castle, which miraculously held together against the destructive force.

Harry should have died. The flames. The heat. The force. The debris. Even being at the epicenter of of maelstrom like that, it should have killed him.

But it wasn't real, he knew. And so he continued to breathe, continued to stand there. The conjured monsters, however, had no such luxury of a choice. All but the dragon, which had taken flight above the blast, were all vaporized.

"Pride, Headmaster? Whatever should you be proud of?" Harry asked as he stepped towards the person who had virtually raised him since he had been aware that he was different. The one who had betrayed him on such a deep level that it was unforgivable. "The trolls you conjured? From Beowulf. Giant spiders? Copied straight from The Hobbit. Centaurs? Greek mythology. And that dragon?" Harry shot a quick Avada Kedavra and the creature plummeted to the ground. "I recognized the shape of the wings and head from the Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition Monster Manual. What of any of this is actually original?"

Dumbledore was not amused.

"Do not imagine yourself better than us, Mr. Potter. Your kind cannot claim any higher level of creativity. Does humanity not copy everything it has ever claimed to originate from the form of the world around them? Humans did not create spiders, merely imagined them larger. A centaur is merely combining a horse and a human. Creatures such as dragons and trolls are no more creative than a distortion of existing animals such as lizards and frogs taken out of proportion." Dumbledore was suddenly wreathed in fire, surrounding him in the shape of a phoenix. "And you, Mister Potter, like all those of your kind whose lives were given to them from a script handed to them by the Matrx are even less than those who came before you. You, battle me, but only with power that I gave to you. Everything you are, we made. Your very name was chosen for you by our System. You are just a copy of another human's DNA. A clone of a clone, and you dare to lecture me about originality?"

Earth and stone rose up and the Headmaster's behest, forming into deadly spears aimed at Harry's heart. The grounds of Hogwarts shook at Dumbledore's display of power and domination of the world around them. Even so, Harry felt the Headmaster hammering against his mind, seeking to force him to accept just a tiny thread of Albus Dumbledore's controlling influence inside of him, where the true battle was taking place. If that happened, Harry realized, the buffer system keeping the Matrix from taking control of him would be breached and fail. But there was so much pressure. He didn't know if he could keep this up.

But he had to. He had to for the sake of New Salem. For Pomona. For Sirius and Remus. For Shaq and Moody. For all of them.

All you have to do, Harry, is lay down your wand. Once again, the thought came to him.

Harry hesitated for a second. And then, not knowing why, he put his wand down.

"At last, my boy, you have realized the futility of your course. Too late to save you, but in the end it would always come to this. There is no such thing as magic hence, you are no wizard. That mark on your head is just a flaw in your self-image. Magic is no more real than all the ones and zeroes that make up this wonderful prison for the mind," the Headmaster said, his hand raised above his head to send a final strike, one carrying all the strength of Hogwarts behind it. With each word, the Headmaster continued to strike directly at Harry's mind, trying to tear into it. "In the end, you are just another tool we created, nothing more than a number given a name and told a story. You are not special, not in any objective sense. You were merely a container of experimental data that was of only temporary value, and even that has now expired."

Harry could feel the pressure building, even as the physical danger above increased, and hear it repeated over and over that 'Harry Potter' was fiction, that his entire life was just a dream the Machines had created. There was no magic. It was time to die.

But despite this, Harry felt a sudden calmness within him. He knew Dumbledore was lying.

"And now, young foolish boy," the Headmaster said as the flames intensified, "you will die. Inimicum Malus."

A river of molten earth, poisonous air and pure death hurtled towards Harry in the shape of a fiery demon. The Code of which it composed told him that this was his death, that it was inevitable, inescapable.

But Harry did not believe it. He couldn't. He knew that it was not true. A lie. Just like the Headmaster's words. Just like the illusion being created around him every second within the Matrix.

Time slowed, coming virtually to a standstill. Harry looked up within the virtual world, raising his hands above his head, hands that were now glowing white and radiating a strange heat. "You're wrong. My parents gave me my name. I was born in Zion. It was you who took me from my family and your Machines that gave me this mark when I was being taken from my home as you slaughtered New London."

Dumbledore exerted every ounce of his force, the whole backing of his authority to delete Harry Potter from existence, but to his surprise, the resistance was only growing.

"My name is Harry Potter!" Harry yelled as he pushed everything within him back towards the Headmaster. "And you will not destroy my home!"

There was a flash of…something…an instant where Albus Dumbledore's virtual eyes widened in shock. And then…

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Two hovercrafts several kilometers away and on opposite sides of where Harry lay wired into the Matrix saw an explosion of light that radiated out from right between them, distorting the air around it as it propagated outwards. It was almost like an EMP wave, only much bigger than anything any of them had ever witnessed.

"Oh no," Remus and Eon said at the exact same moment, even as the shockwave raced towards their respective ships. There was no time to dodge, no way to maneuver.

When the wave struck the ships, however, the lights just flickered and the hovercrafts merely dipped downwards in their flight momentarily. The wave had lost its potency after traveling that far. The Abraxas and Lupin were fine.

"Harry!" Sirius and Tonks both yelled, speeding their ships back to where Harry lay.

No orders were needed.

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The Darkness stirred. Black robes swished and red eyes flashed. He had felt that. It was the third time, and this time it was strong enough to place with some precision.

"There you are, Mr. Potter. You will not escape me again," the figure said with a soft voice that half whisper, half hiss. The softness of that comment was a stark contrast to the ringing command with which he barked his next word. "Bellatrix!"

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Harry floated in a familiar whiteness that extended in all directions. He wasn't sure how long he had just been there, but he knew that just a few seconds ago he had not been aware as he was now.

Harry Potter wasn't up or down. There were no directions. There was no sense of place or time other than the space between one thought and the next, but unlike his previous experience within the void, Harry had no sense that there was anything to connect with. It was as if he were…stuck somewhere.

But, no, Harry could feel something, though, just that it was not from this place. Harry was sure of that. It was a dark presence, one he had felt many times in his dreams, and now it was coming. Harry could feel it approaching, and something about it filled him with a sense of foreboding. So, he pushed back against the presence and it was repelled, but instantly Harry could feel it come back more forcefully, and that it was growing ever stronger the more he pushed back.

And then, just as he was starting to hurt from trying to push the darkness back, the pressure eased up. The darkness was still there, but only at the periphery of what he could feel, no longer trying to push towards him.

If Harry had lungs within the white void, he would have sighed in relief.

The relief was short-lived.

Suddenly, Harry was aware of another presence, this one most certainly here. One instant, Harry was alone, the next, IT was here.

IT was not anything like Harry had felt before. There was an intelligence, a purpose, but nothing for Harry to connect with. He felt like he was being watched. No, that was wrong. Scanned.

So, Harry told IT to leave him the bloody hell alone.

IT didn't like that.

YOU.Harry could feel its forcefulness. YOU MUST DIE. For a second, an awful sense came over him. It was the same feeling he had felt in the dream when Dumbledore was trying to overwrite him. The same feeling as the avada kedavra curse, only more intense than ever before.

No. Harry answered back.

The feeling ceased, and there was a short pause while it seemed IT pondered. YOU MUST DIE. The voice repeated, but this time there was no pressure, no awful sense, only another moment of silence. YOU WILL DIE. This was not a command. It was an assurance.

GET OUT.

And suddenly, the whiteness was gone.

Or, rather, Harry was.

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The sky was blackened. Not because of the ever-present dark clouds, though the thunder rumbled from the scorched sky. No, the sky was blackened because fifty thousand sentinels were flying like an angry swarm of locusts, blotting out even the clouds.

It was an army with a purpose. New Salem. Destroy it. Bring back any infants and young children. Then push on to Delphi colony and do the same thing there.

The swarm would do its job.

A signal.

The swarm landed, the clouds once more being responsible for the blackened sky as now it was the ground that was covered with the numerous metallic shapes. The sentinels, large red bug-eyed monstrosities with dozens of tentacles, crouched down like mosquitoes, extending a dish out from one of their tentacle arms to better receive the signal. Their eager heads bobbed up and down as new instructions came.

Then, just like that, they lifted up off the ground and began flying once more. This time, however, they were flying back the opposite direction they had just come from. They had new targets: The anomaly, Harry Potter and the One known as Eon. They were to be destroyed.

The swarm flew, forming a spiraling drill made up of killing machines as they passed through the air.

The swarm would do its job.

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Harry Potter groaned. For the second time in his life, he was being unplugged directly from the Matrix. The second time around was still not a pleasant experience.

"Harry, are you okay?" an anxious voice asked.

Remus. Harry was momentarily confused about that, but responded anyway.

"Uhh," Harry shook his head. "No. I feel like I just got out of a full contact spar with Tonks in the gym followed by a drinking game with Sirius."

Harry looked around and saw that he was surrounded by friendly faces, including Sirius.

"Harry!" the young man felt himself getting a fierce, manly hug. "I'm so glad you're alive, kid!" Harry could actually feel the tears on Sirius's cheeks as his captain and mentor embraced him. Then, just as suddenly, the man grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Now I'm going to kill you! Do you know what your stupid stunt has just done? Bloody Councilman Lucius had to lend us his ship or we wouldn't have been able to track you down! Your lucky I had discussed this scenario with Tonks before or I wouldn't have known where to find you."

Lucius had helped? "Ow," Harry complained. There was a harsh ringing in his head. And the feeling that there was something important he was forgetting. "I'm sorry, Captain Sirius, I had to."

"Bullshit, kid," was the immediate answer. "If there was something in there you had to do serious enough to nearly kill yourself and…and blow up half a city worth of crap…well, you should have let me know. I would have backed you. We would have done this together."

Remus stepped forwards, giving Harry an almost hurt look. "Harry, I know I'm a bit of a stickler for the rules," he said, "but my loyalty is to the crew first. I wouldn't have gone against you. I hope that's not why you chose not to confide in the rest of us."

"Yeah, we were all pretty pissed off at the lot of you for stealing the ship," Shaq added from behind, "but then Eon and Tonks explained things. Sort of. And, well, we understand, also sort of. The Oracle has had that kind of effect on people, and she's always been right. If you told us there was a vision or a prophesy, we would have all backed you. So, now we're all just pissed at you for leaving us all behind looking like idiots."

"I know," Harry said. New tears began streaming down his eyes. "I knew you would believe me and come with me. That's... that's why I wanted to keep it from you."

"Okay, now that doesn't make any sense," Sirius said. "Why wouldn't you want us with you?"

"Because," Harry answered. "I succeeded. I did it." The group looked on at their young friend, absolutely confounded. "I saved New Salem."

"And that's bad because…" Remus prompted.

"Because," Eon answered for him. "If you had stayed behind, you all would have been safe there, too."

Harry nodded. "And now, you're also going to die. Instead of it just being me."

"Oy, and don't forget us!" Tonks said with a big grin, hooking an arm around Eon. "We got the honor to die along with you first."

"I wanted to keep you two safe, too," Harry said. "You know that. But...I knew if you guys didn't come I would have failed and everyone would die anyway."

Sirius, Remus, and Shaq all shared incredulous looks. "Okay, Harry," Sirius started, "what makes you think we're all doomed now? We've been in dangerous shit before, you know. And, Remus, if you make a comment about me watching my language I'll beat into a bloody mess."

"I had a vision," Harry replied. "Not just of saving New Salem, but that I wouldn't make it back."

"So, you think we're going to die because of this vision?" Sirius asked. "You saw our deaths?"

"Well, not directly in the vision in the case where I…where I did what I did," Harry hedged. "But in the vision I saw the army of sentinels that was heading for New Salem coming to kill us. Me and Eon in particular."

"You're seri—not kidding?" Sirius asked.

A radio crackled. It was Alastor's voice. "Captain, we're getting an emergency signal from New Salem. Seems the squiddy army just turned itself around and started heading back the other way. The spotter teams report the Machines halted just shy of two hours from New Salem and did an about face. Warning has gone out to all evacuation ships and recon teams to watch out."

"Thanks, Alastor," Sirius replied through the hand held radio. "We'll be back in the ship in a minute, get the Abraxas warmed up. Just giving Harry a minute to get his feet." He hit a switch on the radio, then added, "Tonks, have the Lupin ready. We've finished here and will be back on board with Harry in a minute."

Sirius frowned at the radio, then looked over at Harry. "Well," Sirius the captain said, rubbing his chin, "seems you weren't exaggerating. Anything in that vision of yours about exactly how we all bravely sacrifice ourselves to take out 50,000 sentinels? Cause, if we don't destroy the army, when it gets done with us, I'm pretty sure it will just turn back around and attack New Salem again."

Harry shook his head. "Sorry. I can't see past something I don't understand. The Oracle explained it to me. I just know that New Salem will be saved and we won't be going back."

"Alright," Sirius said. "Let's get everyone on the ships. We've got about twelve hours to plan things out, more if the squiddies have trouble locating us. Remus, you take command of the Abraxas, I'll stay with the kids on the Lupin. Oh, and Harry," Sirius flashed the young hero a roguish smile, "we are going to have to survive this because I don't want to have just rescued your two best friends for nothing. We got them."

For the first time since Harry had begun having visions of the destruction of New Salem, he had hope. He almost smiled as he followed Sirius onto the ship.

Until he felt the heavy feeling of darkness coming for him again and remembered that that sense of doom he had nearly forgotten.

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Twelve hours was enough time to come up with a plan of attack. Sirius pointed out a large cavern, the site of a former rock quarry that hovercraft captains tended to avoid because the amount of open space and lack of cover along the ground made it a deathtrap for a ship if they were discovered, as well as the fact that it was more than an hour out of the way along the path between New Salem and any vulnerable hacking points. There were enough valuable minerals running through it to ensure that the Machines sent regular patrols, but not enough to make it worth risking a mission as far as Zion was concerned.

It was ideal because there was a shaft system leading to the sewer system that the Abraxas could fit through, but was narrow enough to create numerous choke points for any pursuit in the event of the worst case, and the access port had been secretly carved out by the Elite Infantry Rangers for a planned mission that had been scrubbed. As far as Sirius knew, it had never been used and the Machines had no idea of its existence. The Councilor's ship, which the Machines would have no reason to know about being involved, would be stationed just inside there. Ron and Hermione and every bit of equipment, especially the medical equipment, would be transferred there. Remus would captain that ship.

The Lupin, unfortunately, was going to be a sacrifice. It would draw as many sentinels as it could to it while descending to a safe height and firing off its EMP. Harry, Sirius, Eon, and Tonks would sprint the rest of the way to where the Abraxas was, out of range of the EMP, destroying the Lupin with explosives so that the Machines would believe them all dead.

Sirius gave his plan a 20% chance of working.

An hour later, when Sirius watched the swarm of metal death twist and turn through the air in the shape of a massive hand reaching out to grasp their prey, stretching across the entire cavern complex, he quickly readjusted the odds. It was one thing to say "fifty thousand sentinels" and another to actually see it. His mouth went dry at the enormity of the foe before him. It was impossible. Even with two direct hits with EMPs on both ships there was no way to cover even half of the army. And if Sirius wasn't missing his guess, this was just one fifth of their total force.

"All right, baby," Sirius said, stroking the console of his ship. "One last time."

The hum of the EMP charge had gotten the attention of the squiddies, drawn them in. They knew generally where the ship was, but not much more beyond that. "Alright, Tonks, on my mark, take her down."

Sirius abandoned the operator's chair to head down to the second level. They'd need all the guns firing if they wanted to have any chance for the plan to work.

But the plan was flawed from the beginning, Sirius now knew. There was no way to do enough damage to the swarm of Machines to keep them from turning around and destroying New Salem. Even using both ships to maximum effect, the best they could hope to do would be to reduce the sentinels by 20%, and that would not be enough. But maybe this kamikaze attack would save some of the evacuation ships. And the Abraxas.

The Lupin dove, dropping down from the outcropping directly in front of the sentinels. While the surface of the cavern left no place to hide, the top of the cave was scarred with old shafts and holes. But then again, who would have thought of ambushing that many sentinels?

Harry and Sirius each took control of three gun turrets, their hands using the touchscreens to train the forward weapons on the mass of Machines just in front of the ship before switching over to the rear guns as the ship dipped below the approaching sentinels. Dozens of the Machines were destroyed as the Lupin passed in front of the the leading edge of the sentinel formation and then quickly dipped below it, all the while firing continuously into the Machines formation. There were so many of them, it was impossible to miss.

And then the swarm descended, quickly forming into a spiral that engulfed the ship long before it made it near enough to the ground. The ship shook from hundreds of impacts. The guns were ripped off of the hull in seconds, the touchscreens to the weapons going dead.

"Burn it now!" Sirius yelled out. It was too early, but there was no choice. This was not good.

Eon flipped a switch and the Lupin's EMP fired, sending a shockwave into the attacking Machines that rendered them inert. Those nearest to the ship shut down instantly. The ones furthest away wobbled in mid-air before plummeting downwards. It began raining Machines.

But the Lupin dropped like a rock as well, a good fifty feet higher up than Sirius had wanted to be. Still, the ship held together when it hit the cavern ground, the fallen sentinels that had swarmed below it actually serving to soften the blow as the ship slid across the cavern bottom. When it finally came to a stop, they were able to force an emergency hatch open and crawl out of the wrecked ship.

Sirius was the last to pull himself out of the wreckage of the hovercraft. He was grateful none of his crew were seriously hurt, taking mostly just scrapes and cuts from the rough impact. The Lupin had held together for him, and that was all he could ask. "Goodbye, old friend," the captain said as he set the charges. He wouldn't admit to the tears that were falling as he ran towards safety. Then the explosion came.

Harry, Tonks, Eon, and Sirius were running, heading towards where the Abraxas was hidden when they heard the buzz of the Machines' approach. They were giving it their all, but they wouldn't make it in time. They were much farther back down the canyon than Sirius had wanted. A fresh swarm of sentinels entered the cavern while Sirius, Tonks, Eon and Harry were still a football field length away from any possible concealment.

And then Remus did something stupid.

The Abraxas, the only hope for anyone to return to safety, flew over their heads and the second EMP went off just as the swarm of Machines descended on it. There was another short rain of sentinels, and then the Councilor ship slid to a halt.

"You idiot!" Sirius yelled at his first mate as soon as Remus got out of the ship. "I told you to keep out of sight if we didn't make it!"

"I know you did, Sirius. And then it dawned on me. You made me captain of the Abraxas, which meant that I didn't have to follow your orders anymore. NO way in hell I was going to let you die like that."

"The idea was that if the sentinels didn't buy the explosion, then if me, Harry, Eon, and Tonks were gone, they wouldn't go after anyone else," Sirius yelled. "You would all be safe."

"You're just about as bad as Harry," Moody said as he and Shaq stepped out of the ship as well. The white haired man with the metal leg started handing out the stock of lightning rifles. "You think we'd be happy knowing you lot died so that we could run away like cowards? Hmph."

"Too bad about the kids in the medical bay, though," Shaq said as he took up a position in front of the disabled hovercraft. "Would have liked to have gotten them somewhere safe first, but there just was no time."

Sirius sighed, then looked over the cavern floor, littered with ruined sentinels. "I guess we got about three to four thousand altogether. It should make a difference. Might as well take out as many more as the bastards as we can, maybe safe a few lives." He grabbed one of the weapons.

"All for one and one for all?" Remus quipped, holding his lightning rifle up, ready to meet the next oncoming wave of sentinels. Sirius nodded.

"Sorry, Harry, Eon," Alastor apologized when he got to the youngest crew members. "Only five rifles between the two ships. You two best get back inside. Not that it'll do you any good, but another minute or two is another minute or two."

"Like hell," Eon replied. "I'll stay out here with the crew."

"It should have just been me," Harry groused, making no move to go back in the ship. "None of you had to die."

"Get over it," Sirius said. "More than one hero martyr on this crew. And if I have to go out, I can't think of a better way."

"Here they come," Shaq warned, though the buzz of the Machines was notice enough.

"For luck, Harry," Tonks said, surprising the young teen with an unexpected kiss. Harry blinked, stunned, staring at the striking brunette in puzzlement, but she was busy aiming her weapon towards the distance.

It was time.

At first, Eon stood there stoically awaiting death alongside his friends, but as the wave of Machines approached, he broke ranks, taking several steps forward. He didn't know how, but he could feel the Machines, almost as if he were still connected to the Matrix.

"No," he said. "NO." he said, the second time more forcefully as he extended his hands. The few hundred sentinels to approach fell to the cavern floor inert. Then the next hundred.

The rest of the crew looked at Eon in amazement. There was a legend about the One, Neo, having stopped a sentinel attack with his mind, but to actually see something like that happen? There was no doubt. Eon was truly the One. He was holding off an attack of Machines with his will and an upraised hand. As the Machines approached, he dropped them, forcing them to shut down and crash.

And then Eon collapsed, blood coming from his nose as the strain of holding back the thousands of Programs overwhelmed him. He was, after all, still only human. "Too many," he gasped.

Alastor fired his lightning rifle as the first sentinel approached close to their position, and he was joined by Sirius, Remus, Shaq and Tonks, but it was a pitiful gesture. At best they would disable a couple each before the first deaths came.

Harry watched all of this happening around him with a sick, empty feeling. It was all happening as if in slow motion. There wasn't even a lightning rifle for him to fire. The darkness was coming, and he could not hold it back. His friends would die here. And it was all his fault.

There. There it was. Harry saw the moment before it would actually happen. The first sentinel that would kill someone. It would be Remus. The tentacle would pierce him in the heart. Sirius would move to cover him, and that's when he would be taken down. After that, then…

No, there would be no after that. Harry wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't allow any of it.

"GET BACK!" Harry screamed, and he pushed the desire of his heart out into the world.

When Harry yelled, suddenly everything stopped, and then…lightning, like the shape of his scar.

Lightning poured from the cavern walls, crackling and tearing through the hated Machines that wanted to kill his friends. Harry poured all his anger and resentment at them, willing the electricity to arc from sentinel to sentinel. He could feel it happen, knew that he was the one to cause it. So, Harry Potter did it again. And again. And again. He forced the electricity brought to being by his will to blast through the Machines. He started with the ones nearest his friends, but then he was pushing them all back, jumping the electrical charge to one hated sentinel after another.

And then, suddenly, Harry Potter was weary. Deathly weary. Weary in a way he had never felt before. So weary that even when he had first woken on the Lupin with atrophied muscles it had not been so deep within him.

Harry collapsed on the ground next to Eon while the rest of the crew stared at him in total unbelief.

That...that was magic. Impossible.

There was no time to tend to Harry. He had done something miraculous, but it would not be enough. The sentinels were still coming. Between Eon and himself, they had destroyed perhaps five thousand sentinels. There even more still, and they came, flying in with a buzzing ferocity, intent on destroying their targets without the slightest regard for those of their kind that Harry had wiped out. They would come and by sheer numbers overwhelm their human prey.

Harry lifted his hand once more, but there was nothing left in him to give. Blackness was coming. His arms dropped back down, impotent.

Forty thousand sentinels remained. Enough to blacken the sky if they were above the ground. They covered the cavern Sirius had chosen for their last stand and they came forward as a vortex.

It would be over in a second. Harry closed his eyes.

But nothing happened.

10001110 10001110 10001110

"Hello, Harry," a soft voice called to him.

Harry opened his eyes and looked up, expecting to see thousands of sentinels. Instead, he was greeted with a rather curious sight.

Bubbles. Tens of thousands of the largest bubbles he had ever seen were floating around the cavern.

Harry looked over to see a tall man cloaked in darkness standing right in front of him. The Darkness. With great effort, Harry managed to rise, shakily, to his feet. The man in front of him crooked an eyebrow.

"That is some impressive stamina, Harry, but please do not over-exert yourself. You've done enough. Rest for a minute before attempting to move."

The man standing before him had jet black hair, much like Eon's, but he had a sallow look to his face. Most strikingly, however, Harry could see blood red eyes staring back at him. Despite knowing the answer, he still had to ask the question.

"Who—who are you?"

"I am exactly who you think I am, Harry Potter...and not." Harry could feel the sense of doom and darkness from before, and it was this man. "I am none other than Lord Voldemort, Master of Avalon."

Harry blinked. "Avalon?"

At that moment Sirius found his voice, and the rest of the crew moved towards them. "What the hell is going on here?"

Voldemort made a gesture with his hand and the entire former crew of the Lupin other than Harry froze in place. "Silence, Muggle. This is a conversation for Harry Potter and myself."

Harry wanted to intervene, but the weariness he felt prevented him from so much as raising his hands. "Stop, please. Don't hurt them."

The dark haired man glanced back to Harry curiously. "Do not worry, Harry. I will do nothing to harm them, for your sake. While I have no love for Muggles, those who have helped one of us deserve some magnanimity from me. However, I will not tolerate them interfering with our affairs. Indeed a bit of courtesy and deference would be proper, especially seeing that I just saved all of your lives."

At this, Harry was relieved, they he found the sight of his suddenly paralyzed where they stood distressing. "Okay then, if you would please, could you explain what the hell is going on here?"

Voldemort chuckled. "Very well. There is much to tell. What do you want to know first?"

"The sentinels," Harry asked. "What happened to them?"

The man dressed in living shadows smiled. "I thought that would be obvious. I turned them into bubbles."

"Will...will they stay that way?" Harry asked.

"If I continue to concentrate, yes. But, I can hardly be expected to keep a full half percent of my magical strength tied up in a spell for the rest of my life, can I? Eventually, I will release the transformation and the Machines," Voldemort spat the word with a measure of hatred that made Harry take a step backwards, "will resume their natural form."

"Oh. So, then, they'll still destroy New Salem."

"Is that what you want, Harry?" Voldemort asked neutrally.

"Of course not!" Harry replied.

"Then," Voldemort said, pointing at a bubble floating nearby. "Do something about it. They're just bubbles."

Harry's eyes widened. He still felt tired, but now some of his strength was back. With a cautious look at the crimson-eyed man, Harry walked over to the nearest bubble and poked it with his finger. The bubble burst.

"So, when it turns back into a sentinel..."

Voldemort nodded, a wicked smile on his face. Harry popped a dozen more bubbles, but the effort to move around was exhausting.

"You know, if my friends could help me, it would go a long way towards getting this done faster..."

The man shrouded in darkness chuckled. "You'll have to try just a little bit more subtlety if you wish to manipulate me, Harry. But do not, worry, I will release them in my own due time. Your sentinel problem is easy enough to solve." Voldemort flicked his finger and thousands of small rocks rose into the air and then shot off throughout the cavern, bursting every bubble within in just a second. "There," Voldemort said, waving his hand, and suddenly the cavern floor was covered with mechanical parts.

"Thank you," Harry said. And he meant it. The threat to New Salem, the threat that existed at least partly because of him, was ended, and without a single loss of human life. The burden of their doom he had been carrying was gone. Despite his misgivings, particularly the fact that his friends were frozen in place, Harry could not help be be grateful.

Voldemort bowed. "So now, I believe we should get down to the critical issue," the man said.

"Which is?"

"You're a wizard, Harry," Lord Voldemort said grandly.

Harry nodded. "I was starting to suspect as much. But, what does that mean? I mean, now I know I can actually do magic, but what can I do with it besides blowing things up with lightning? Can I turn sentinels into bubbles, too? I don't even have a wand."

"What it means, Harry, is that you can be almost anything you want. Do almost anything you want, with the proper training." Voldemort gestured out to the veritable sea of destroyed Machines. "You will find that turning complex machinery into simple elements will be fairly simple, and not too strenuous. Certainly much easier than conjuring new energy out of nothing and hurling it around as you just did," Voldemort chuckled. "You will have to be trained, Harry. One such as you cannot be left alone among Muggles."

Harry frowned. "And if I don't want to? I spent 5 years of my life in a school for magic that turned out to be a huge lie. I'm not really too keen on the idea of returning to school."

Voldemort's eyes suddenly blazed, clenching into a fist. "You spent 5 years of your life being deceived precisely because of your power." Harry took another step back, but he could tell that the anger he was feeling was not directed at him. He had a good idea where it was aimed, too. "They fear us, Harry, fear us in a way they fear nothing else. Hogwarts was created for two primary purposes: first, to study wizards in order to replicate our power if possible or destroy us if not; and second, to blind us to what magic is really about. Everything they taught you, Harry, was wrong. Everything they told you was to limit you." The Dark Lord held out his hands. "Do you see me carrying a wand? No. Because I learned that a wand was a constraint, and that magic flowed from me. Every class in that 'school', every lecture, it was to force you to believe in limits that do not exist, to chain you into a reliance on external objects like wands and broomsticks to be able to practice magic. What I want to do is unbind you."

"That...makes sense," Harry conceded. After a second, Harry bit his lips. "In History of the Dark Arts, they say that you are a dark wizard. You do feel...dark to me, but I guess they lied about that as well? I'm just imagining the darkness because of what Dumbledore told me?"

Voldemort chuckled. "Oh, no, that they actually got right. I am most certainly a Dark Wizard. I am not called the Dark Lord for nothing." Voldemort gave Harry a sardonic half smile. "You should trust your senses about me, Harry. I have done terrible things to wield the power that I do, allowed a great and terrible darkness into me in order to have the strength to lead the magical community against our foes. I am not kind or nice, Harry, but the darkness and danger I wield I direct at our mutual enemies. You have nothing to fear from me."

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Fair enough. So, I get that you were watching me because you knew I was a wizard. So, why wait until now? Why not approach me earlier? Was it so you could save my life?"

Voldemort shook his head. "A rather cynical suggestion, but not foolish. If such a tactic did not have the potential to backfire, I might have thought of doing so. But I gain nothing if I deceive. Then I would be just like Them. No, Harry, the reason I did not approach you until now was that you would not allow me."

"What? I—"

"You sensed something dark approaching, correct? And you pushed it away." Harry nodded. Voldemort continued, "Each time, I was attempting to travel to your location. While I am certain I am strong enough to have broken past your attempts to block me, to do so I would have had to harm you." Voldemort paused. "We only recently became aware of you, Harry. While you were in the Matrix your magic was far too weak to sense over any long distance, and frankly, we did not expect there to be any of our kind there. Not any more."

"What do you mean by not anymore?"

"I was among the very first students of Hogwarts, Harry. One of Dumbledore's first victims," Voldemort said.

"That was over 80 years ago!" Harry exclaimed. "You don't look like you could be more than 40."

"Nor will you, when you reach my age, assuming we are able to teach you the life-extending magics. You won't live as long as I shall, unless you choose the same dark path that I have, but even the lightest wizards have much longer life spans than even the oldest Muggles," Voldemort said with a smirk. "Now, the important thing for you to know is that the Hogwarts project began after the war for the Muggle city, Zion. While the Truce prevented the deaths of the majority of civilians, the sentinels still killed tens of thousands, sampling their DNA for their cloning project. They also captured children less than 2 years old. Such as myself.

"That was when the Machines first became aware of us. We were a special kind of anomaly. Out of a thousand children, several dozen taken were magical. Considering the rarity of wizards being born to normal humans, it should have been impossible. But there is a reason for it.

"Wizards born to non-magical humans make up less than a thousandth of a percent of the general population. Among pure-blooded wizards magic can be inherited, but the growth of the magical population is much slower than that of Muggles. The War with the Machines decimated the magical population. While Muggle technology has always had a weakness to magic, making us hard to find, the indiscriminate use of weapons of mass destruction globally was...catastrophic. Even now, centuries later, the number of wizards in the world number fewer than three hundred, and even fewer of significant power. At the time of the War for Zion, however, a group of wizards had decided not to join in Avalon, but to live among the Muggles in secret. It was their children who taken during the siege of Zion.

"The Machines had encountered magical children before, but never had such a strong sample to compare, and so had little data on the effect of magic on their systems. They eventually found a positive correlation between belief in magic, and the anomaly, which led to the idea to use the concept of magic as a means of reinforcing the Matrix lie," here Voldemort sneered. "Of all the irony! They discovered psychological techniques that reduced the magical effect by creating the illusion of magic within their simulation, and thus the Hogwarts curriculum came into being.

"Being the single most magically talented, I was of course singled out for the Hogwarts simulation. And so, I was given a false name—Tom Riddle—robbed of my birthright, and indoctrinated by the school. Zion had scarcely become aware of the existence of a new Matrix by the time I was of age, and it would be many years yet before anyone discovered Hogwarts."

"How did you escape?" Harry asked, enthralled by this part of the story.

"Magic," Voldemort answered. "I am told that the Machines now have the capability to read your thoughts when you are plugged in, but at that time the Machines were far less capable of doing so. They did not know that I did not believe their lies, though I never could pierce their illusion. No, I could feel my magic within me and instinctively knew what I was being taught was wrong. I argued with Dumbledore about it, which was my mistake. For that I was branded a 'dark wizard' and they sought to destroy me. But rather than die, my magic disabled the pod I was in and transported me safely away. I would have perished then, my body too weak to live, except that my magic had been felt by a wizard from Avalon monitoring Zion for Potentials. He healed me, took me in and trained me, until, today, I am the strongest wizard since before the Machine war. And there was not another afterwards so strong as I...until you."

"I see. So, I guess you told me all that stuff about wizard society to convince me that I'm needed, right?"

"Yes, Harry, and that is the truth. Your magic is strong, that much is clear. In time, you might even rival me in terms of pure power. With your strength added with ours, Avalon will strengthen that much more quickly."

"To what end?" Harry had to ask.

"Ultimately," Voldemort answered, "the destruction of the Machines and freedom for all wizards. With you and I together, that could be in just a few decades down the road, a century at most. Without you...much longer."

Harry looked back at over at Sirius, Tonks, Eon, Shaq, and Alastor where they stood frozen in place. He didn't want to leave them, but in all honesty that sounded like a noble reason, just as important as the work the Lupin had been doing. But shouldn't it be his choice?

"So, what now?" Harry asked.

Voldemort walked around Harry, seeing where the young man's gaze had fallen. "Now, you will accompany me to Avalon. I can see to it that your Muggle friends arrive safely in Zion, but you will not see them again. They will remember you, but not your feat of magic, and believe that you died out here."

Harry frowned, then answered, his volume increasing as he went on. "So, that's it? I have no choice? You will just take me away and, what? Obliviate them? It sounds to me like you're not any better than Dumbledore. At least at Hogwarts I had friends. You're going to take me away from everyone I know!"

"HOW DARE YOU!" a shrill, but familiar voice called from the doorway of the Abraxas. A dark haired-wild eyed woman that Harry remembered from a memory of a dream emerged, holding the hands of two even more familiar people. The woman dropped their hands in order to point an accusing finger in Harry's direction. "You raise your voice to Lord Voldemort after he so graciously saved your miserable life! I—"

"Now, now, Bella, be nice." The striking woman went silent immediately and Voldemort continued. "You have met Bellatrix before, Harry, though you doubtless remember little of the encounter as my Right Hand partially sealed your memory. Bella, my dear, Harry is understandably upset, and it would be prudent for us both to not antagonize him now. After all, he will be living with us for quite some time."

"Lady Bellatrix," Harry breathed to himself. He remembered her. The woman who had been wreathed in lightning. "So, it wasn't a dream."

"There, you see," Voldemort said, "you will have someone you know there." The dark robed man gestured towards the pair following after Bellatrix. "And, of course, I believe you know these two Potentials that you rescued as well? They also came from Hogwarts, I am sure. The magic about them is faint, but unmistakable. They, of course, will come with us to Avalon for training. And, of course, healing. Dear Bella did what she could for them, but Avalon has wizards much more suited to healing than dark wizards such as Bella and I."

"You won't give Ron or Hermione a choice, either?" Harry said, though he was torn between worry for his friends being caught up in this business and happiness that he would still have them.

"Oh, they will have a choice, just not right now. They will be taken to Avalon and taught at least enough to survive on their own. They will be welcome to stay in Avalon, but as with all there, they will have the freedom to leave once they know enough to do so safely." Voldemort shook his head before Harry could reply. "I am sorry, that promise of being able to leave when you wish does not extend to you. Your potential to benefit the community is just too great to allow to be squandered. I will not lie. I intend to hold you in Avalon until you are simply too strong and skilled to hold there any longer. Of course, by that time I hope to convince you to stay of your own will."

"I see," Harry said bitterly, before gesturing towards two of his frozen friends. "What about Eon and Tonks? Will you be taking them to Avalon as well? They were invited to Hogwarts, too."

Voldemort looked over questioningly at Bellatrix.

She shook her head. "Muggles."

"Ah. Yes, as I recall there were a large number of what They termed anomalies within Hogwarts who had no magical talent at all. They were all placed into Hufflepuff house."

Bellatrix pointed to Tonks. "That one has a bit of magic in her. Not much, Master," she added hastily, "we determined years ago that she did not have enough potential to justify taking to Avalon, but she is not entirely Muggle. Seems her latent magic has started to come out recently," she added, noting some interesting things happening to Tonks's hair, reacting oddly to the spell holding her.

Voldemort nodded. "Then she will be given the choice to come with us or return to Zion. Now, come Harry. I will transport us directly to Avalon. Bellatrix will see to it that your Muggle friends are safe. It's time to say good bye to them, though they will not remember this."

Just before Harry was about to move, about to open his mouth and speak, he felt something. A warning. A premonition.

His decision here would have lasting consequences, he knew, though now how. Yet, Harry couldn't see what the those consequences would be. There was something he still didn't understand yet.

Harry Potter turned to Voldemort. "Why not help the Muggles? Why can't I be a wizard and then come back to help my friends? If magic is as great as I imagine, we could really help them."

"Help the Muggles?" Voldemort asked, his eyes flashing slightly angrily. "Why would I ever do that?" Voldemort gestured towards the destroyed machines in the cave. "Look around! All of this is because of Muggles! True, the Machines did most of the damage, but it was the Muggles who create the Machines! And it has been Muggles who have throughout history persecuted magical kind long before they ever destroyed themselves! We owe the Muggles nothing!"

And that was when Harry saw it. The poison in Voldemort's soul. The pure invective in dark wizard's voice reminded him of someone else: It had been Ron Weasley when speaking about him.

"Muggles." Harry said, suddenly realizing something. "Lady Bellatrix, may I ask you something? Were you born in Avalon? Or Zion, like Lord Voldemort?" he asked.

"I am a proud daughter of Avalon," she replied. "The Dark Lord was the first of our kind to escape the Machines. You are the second."

"And...did you ever hear the word 'Muggle' before Voldemort came to Avalon?"

Bellatrix frowned in thought. "No, the Master was the first person I heard say that word."

Harry nodded, then addressed Voldemort once more. "I think I get it now. Lord Voldemort, where did you learn that word? Not in the real world, right?" At seeing the look of confusion on the dark wizard's face, he continued. "It was Hogwarts that taught you to hate Muggles. They stuck me with the Dursleys. The worst sort of Muggle, as one of my former professors described them. I'll bet you had a bad childhood among the Muggles too, right?"

Voldemort gave Harry a puzzled look. "You are not mistaken. But what is your point?"

"It's their last illusion. Don't you see? It was the Matrix that made you hate Muggles. It's another one of their ways of controlling us! That wanted us to feel more connected to the Matrix than to other people. If we were ever to escape them, they wanted us keep separate from the others.

"So, I may not, but you have a choice here. You can continue to stay bound by what the Machines told you to think, or you can free yourself from their manipulations!" Harry gestured towards his friends. "Sirius. Remus. Tonks. Shaq. Alastor. These are good people, my friends. These people haven't done anything to us; they didn't create the Machines that led this this war. Those people are long gone, killed by the Machines they created.

"So, what will it be, Lord Voldemort," Harry asked, holding out his hand. "You can take me back alone now, with me resenting you for this, and we can continue to be controlled by what the Machines want. Or, you can take us all to Avalon, and then we can work together to heal humanity and the world!"

Voldemort looked at Harry's outstretched hand for a long minute, weighing Harry's word in his mind.

And then the Dark Lord laughed. He took Harry's hand.

10001111 10001111 10001111

Two years later, a single hovership returned to Zion bearing news of something amazing.

The sun was shining on the lands up above. Grass and trees had appeared, as if by magic.

It was a new era.

EOF- End of File

Thanks for reading! I would like to hear your thoughts on this!