Zeus was in a truly magnificent mood.
Despite how the day had begun, with the stench of betrayal and the jarring realization that his elder brother had freed the Titans to seize the throne, the King of Olympus found himself smiling. As he lounged upon his golden throne, watching the clouds of the mortal world swirl below, he felt a sense of supreme vindication. Hades had failed, the Titans were being rounded up like stray cattle, and Olympus stood taller than ever.
But the real reason for his joy was his son.
Heracles, his son, had finally performed a deed so heroic that his divine spark in his mortal shell had ignited with the brilliance of a nova. He had ascended. Zeus's heart swelled with paternal pride at the thought of his boy reclaiming his rightful place among the stars, by his side. To see his own blood prove the worth of the Olympian line against the backdrop of Chaos was the greatest pride he could feel.
Of course, the joy was tinged with a slight, melancholic disappointment, the boy had chosen to give up his immortality for a woman.
'Mortals and their fleeting hearts,' Zeus mused, his smile softening into a rueful grin. He watched as Heracles walked back toward the world of men, hand-in-hand with his love.
It was a temporary setback, he was certain. Heracles was a god now in truth, and whether he claimed his throne today or a century from now, he would return. Immortal blood was not something one simply discarded forever, the call of Olympus would eventually pull him back.
As for Hades... well, the Lord of the Dead would be punished accordingly once the festivities concluded. He would be cast into the deepest pits of Tartarus for his treachery. For now, Zeus raised a goblet of nectar, the golden liquid shimmering with celestial light. Let the gods celebrate.
He was in the middle of a roaring laugh, surrounded by the music of Apollo's lyre and the scent of ambrosia, when he heard it.
It was a whisper, carried on by the winds into the halls of Olympus. 'Help me... brother...'
Hades' voice echoed faintly, sounding ragged, small, and utterly stripped of its usual sardonic bite. Zeus paused, his goblet halfway to his lips. The laughter in the hall died down as the other gods sensed the sudden shift in their King's aura. He was about to dismiss it as a trick of the echo or perhaps a side effect of the heavy nectar, but then the world it screamed and quaked.
A violent, apocalyptic explosion of divine power erupted from the far north, exactly where the gates of the Underworld were anchored to the physical world. The shockwave was so massive that even here on Olympus, the pillars groaned, and the very stars seemed to flicker out for a heartbeat. In an instant, Zeus vanished. he became the very lightning he commanded, crossing the distance between heaven and earth in a single, jagged strike.
He appeared before the gates of the Underworld, his brow furrowed in confusion. Laws older than the gods themselves dictated that no deity could enter another's domain without an explicit invitation.
And yet, as Zeus reached out, the gates were hanging off their hinges in a sense.
Zeus dove into the darkness in haste, but he was not met with the structured, somber realm of the dead he had visited before. The Underworld was shattered. The River Styx was no longer a flowing stream of souls. The Fields of Asphodel were cracked open as if the earth itself were trying to turn inside out to escape some unseen horror.
He froze in his tracks as he reached the center of the destruction. There, on his knees amidst the ruins of his throne room, was his elder brother.
Hades looked like a man made of glass that had been struck by a heavy hammer. There was a massive, jagged hole through his chest, a wound that leaked a blinding, golden radiance that illuminated the dark corners of the realm. His hair, usually a vibrant, flickering blue flame, was gone.
"HADES!" Zeus roared, rushing forward, his own lightning illuminating the wreckage.
The Lord of the Dead didn't look up. He simply fell onto his side, his body becoming unnaturally light, as if his very substance was evaporating. Zeus reached down, desperate to grab his brother's arm to haul him up, to pour some of his own godly vitality into him, but the moment his fingers closed around Hades' wrist, the god's flesh crumbled into fine, golden dust.
"Bro... brot... brother..." Hades croaked, his pale yellow eyes fixing on Zeus with a look of absolute, soul-shattering confusion. He looked like he was asking a question that he didn't have the breath to finish.
Then the light in his eyes simply went out.
With a soft, muffled sound like a dying ember, Hades' entire body disintegrated, bursting into a cloud of divine dust that scattered across the broken floor. Zeus stood there, his hand still shaped as if he were holding someone, grasping at nothing but the empty air and the smell of ozone.
He didn't even know how to register what had just happened. Gods didn't die. They were imprisoned, they were scattered, but they didn't die. To die was a mortal frailty, a limitation that the Olympians did not possess.
The realm began to quake with a new, terrifying intensity. Without its heart, the Underworld was collapsing in on itself. In a flash of silver light, the three Fates appeared, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, their ancient faces twisted in a rare, genuine panic.
"LEAVE! NOW!" they screamed in unison, their voices overlapping like a broken record, the threads in their hands snapping and fraying into nothingness.
The shock finally broke, and Zeus vanished just as the palace imploded. He reappeared high in the sky, suspended above the earth. Below him, the ground buckled and folded as if the planet were a piece of paper being crushed. The Gates of the Underworld were sucked into themselves before they shattered and exploded, sending a ripple of raw divinity across the entire cosmos.
Every being on Earth, from the smallest bird to the mightiest king, felt the sudden, chilling vacancy in the world. The natural order of life and death had been decapitated. The message was unmistakable, carved into the very fabric of reality for those who could understand it, Hades, the God of the Dead, was dead.
Zeus couldn't believe it, even as the silence of the world pressed against his ears. He felt the presence of others behind him and didn't need to turn to know it was the Fates.
"What happened?" he growled, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that promised a storm the likes of which the world had never seen since the war with the Titans. "What happened to my brother?!"
"We... we do not know," the Fates whispered, their voices trembling with a rhythmic, unsettling fear.
"What do you mean you don't know?!" Zeus spun to face them, his eyes glowing with a blinding, white-hot rage, lightning arcing between his fingers and charring the air as the sky clouded. "You are the Fates! You see every thread! You tell me you do not know who murdered the King of the underworld?!"
The three sisters fell silent, huddled together as they looked down at the empty, smoking spot where the gates of the Underworld had once been. Zeus stopped his tirade as he looked at them.
For the first time ever, he saw fear in the eyes of the Fates. They weren't just confused, they were terrified because they realized they did not know.
"Show me," Zeus ordered, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Show me what happened to him."
They nodded slowly, their hands shaking as they called forth their shared eye. It hovered in the air between them, glowing with a sickly, pale light before it formed a portal showing what had happened.
They saw Heracles enter. They saw the confrontation, the deal, and the hero leaving with the soul of his love. But then, the vision began to distort. The "thread" of reality seemed to fray and glitch, as if the very memory of the world was being scrubbed by a cosmic abrasive.
They saw a shadow in the shape of a man. The Fates and Zeus watched as the shadow spoke to Hades, though they could not hear a single word, the conversation seemed to be censored by the very world. Then, they watched the fight. They watched as the shadow battled the Lord of the Dead. And finally, they watched the impossible. They watched the spear the shadow had called forth pierce Hades' heart.
"What is that thing?" Zeus whispered, his rage replaced by a cold, hollow dread that made his immortal heart feel heavy. "Who was that being?"
"We do not know what that creature is," they answered. "He is not of the thread."
They could see how much the existence of this being scared the King of Gods, and they shared that fear. For the first time since creation, a god had been truly killed. It meant that none of them were safe. If it could kill Hades in his own domain, it could kill any of them.
They could only wonder what evil like being this was, and what it was now plotting.
Far away, in the quiet safety of Potter-black Manor—
BAM.
Daphne sighed, closing her book with a slow, deliberate snap that signaled her waning patience. She didn't even look up as the sound of splintering wood and crumbling plaster echoed through the hallway. She just looked at the now-familiar, Harry-shaped hole that had appeared in the wall.
"Does he do this on purpose?" she muttered to the empty room, her voice a mix of exasperation and relief. "Is there some law of his powers that says he has to enter via structural damage? Or does he just enjoy keeping the house-elves busy?"
She stood up and walked over to the hole. Her lover was lying on the floor, his clothes a charred mess and his body covered in wounds. He looked up at her, blood trickling down his chin, and gave her a weak, lopsided grin that showed he was still very much himself.
"Hey, luv," he said, his voice a raspy chuckle that sounded like it had been scraped over gravel. "I'm home."
He chuckled once more, a sound of genuine, exhausted triumph, then his eyes rolled back, and he passed out cold. Daphne sighed again, though her hand trembled slightly as she reached down to check his pulse. She knew her man, it would take more than this to keep him down, but the sight of him this battered still made her heart ache.
Yet she could only love him more like this.
She summoned a house-elf to move him to his bed and tend to the wounds, then added with a tired wave of her hand, "And please, fix the wall. Again."
Harry drifted in the darkness of his unconsciousness for a while before he found himself in a place of warm, golden light, wrapped in the familiar, comforting arms of his "Mother."
"Hello, Mother," he said softly, leaning into her embrace. The scent of spring flowers and magic filled his senses.
Pandora smiled down at him, her eyes full of maternal mischief and a great pride. "How are you, my most foolish son?" she asked, her laughter like bells ringing in a cathedral.
"Hey, most foolish? I think that title belongs to Doni," Harry huffed, though he didn't pull away. "Or maybe Godou. At least I come to visit often, Mother. I'm an obedient son compared to those two. And I even bring gifts."
His face then turned serious as he pulled back to look at her. The weight of his battle with Hades was still etched into the lines of his soul. "So... will it work? Can you process the Authority from that world?"
Pandora's expression softened as she ran a hand through his messy hair, smoothing out the tension in his body. She looked at the golden orb glowing in her right hand, the concentrated essence of Hades, stolen from a world that wasn't supposed to have a "Godslayer."
"It is different from the Authorities I usually grant," she admitted, her voice becoming melodic and distant. "That world exists outside the typical system of the Heretic Gods. But because one of my sons has slain a god upon the lands, my influence has reached it. I have a little power there now, a bridge where there was none, and it shall grow with time."
She sighed, looking at the orb as it pulsed with a cold, blue light. "I don't know exactly how it will manifest in you, since at this moment I only have a small influence in the world there. Let us hope it works the same as the others."
Harry smiled with a satisfied expression. As she pressed the orb into his chest, he gasped. A tidal wave of cold, dark power flooded his soul, making his spirit feel vast.
When he finally woke, the cold was gone. He was in his own bed, the familiar, comforting scent of the Manor. He felt the weight of three bodies around him. Daphne, Tonks, and Anya were all curled up beside him, sleeping soundly.
Harry exhaled, closing his eyes and letting the warmth of his home wash over him. He was home.
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