Raichel was swallowed by an unknown giant maw.
Sirius, breathing a sigh of relief, hurried over to Leonard to check on his condition.
Then, all of a sudden, the calm ground bulged upward. Under Sirius's horrified gaze, masses of plant roots burst out like tentacles and wrapped Leonard up tightly.
A giant tree began growing rapidly toward the sky.
"What... what the hell is happening now?" Sirius looked ready to cry. He felt that everything he had gone through today was even more intense than having Dementors suck at his soul in Azkaban.
"Wait, Remus... Remus is still in there!" Sirius shouted anxiously, only to see the roots intertwine and toss Lupin back out.
It looked exactly as though Lupin had been spat out for tasting bad.
Sirius caught Lupin. Seeing his face flushed with healthy color and his breathing steady, he finally relaxed, then looked up at the enormous plant mass still gathering and growing in front of him, the corner of his mouth twitching.
They could not stay here.
Raichel was dead, and the magic sealing off the Shrieking Shack had already dissipated. A disturbance this big had definitely alerted the Aurors stationed in Hogsmeade Village.
If he stayed any longer, Sirius was afraid he would turn into ten thousand Galleons.
"Tonks, come help!" Sirius called out to Tonks, who was standing there with her mouth hanging open as she stared at the giant tree.
This woman had been unconscious from before the battle started all the way until after it ended. Her luck was absurdly good.
"...Oh, oh." Tonks snapped out of it and hurried over to help support Lupin.
"What did you two do just now?" Tonks asked in confusion. "How did I wake up in a different place?"
The Shrieking Shack was gone, and in its place stood an enormous tree. No wonder Tonks thought she had woken up somewhere else.
Who could possibly have imagined something like this? Even Sirius, who had seen the whole thing happen, felt as though he were dreaming.
They were all wizards, so why were other people this absurdly strong while he could not even cast an Unforgivable Curse without having it swatted away?
How was that fair?
Sirius suddenly had the urge to find someone and test whether his Unforgivable Curse was actually normal.
Lupin was a good choice. He looked pretty sturdy.
"We'll talk about this later." Sirius let out a dispirited sigh. "Let's use the secret passage. We need to get out of here first."
The two of them supported Lupin and left through the secret passage beneath what used to be the Shrieking Shack, leaving behind only the giant tree that had wrapped around Leonard, still growing at high speed.
Suddenly, the tree's growth came to a halt. The green leaves on it began to wither, and in a very short time it looked as though the tree had already reached the end of its life.
A small portion of the roots wove together, and a Leonard appeared beneath the tree. He looked up at the tree that was about to wither away, and an arm made of roots rested against the trunk.
A voice reached Tree-Leonard's ears.
"The Philosopher's Stone. Quick, take out the Philosopher's Stone. Use it to power it!"
Inside the tree, the sleeping Leonard's fingers twitched slightly. A crack opened beside him, and growls echoed from within. Then a blood-red gem rolled out, tumbling down until it reached the roots of the giant tree.
Roots surged out and wrapped around that precious gem. The crimson magic within it was devoured, and the magic, saturated with tremendous life force, infused the withering giant tree with abundant vitality.
Life surged through the tree, causing it to grow again and healing Leonard's injuries.
The excess life split into two streams. One stream flowed toward Leonard's chest and poured into the Time-Turner there.
The metal Time-Turner was instantly filled with huge amounts of wooden fiber. Powerful magic changed its shape and fused it with the entire giant tree.
The other stream flowed toward the branches of the giant tree. Soon, a fruit formed on one of those branches. Its surface shimmered with starlight, and inside the fruit was a patchwork-like figure roaring in fury.
Only then did the sleeping Leonard within the giant tree slowly open his eyes.
He let out a long breath, his gaze seeming to see through everything.
He saw himself at Hogwarts. His gaze continued moving backward through the river of time. He saw himself walking into Hogwarts for the first time, and saw the moment he first obtained the system and evolved a single foxtail grass plant.
His gaze kept moving further back. He watched himself grow smaller, from a teenager to a child, and then to an infant...
Then Leonard saw the moment Lundo picked him up. He seemed to have drunk heavily, his eyes unfocused.
He had just received the news that his son's family had died in a car accident, but the dead in that car had not only been his son and daughter-in-law, but also their two children.
How could a son who hated his father possibly entrust his own child specifically to that same father?
Lundo's grandson had died a long time ago.
"Then I... where exactly did I come from?" Leonard looked at the scene, but there was no confusion in his eyes.
He continued looking back.
He saw the infant appear out of thin air. Then he saw a tree standing within a secret realm amid the flames of war.
That tree reached straight into the heavens. Countless fruits glittering with starlight swayed on its branches, and every single fruit represented a world.
The giant tree trembled. A ferocious black dragon coiled beneath it, gnawing at its roots, while countless Titans trampled through the forest and charged toward the tree.
But this point of view...
Leonard realized that his perspective seemed to be from that giant tree itself.
"Holy shit, I just transmigrated and I'm already getting jumped? Where the hell is this?"
The tone was familiar. The fluctuations of the soul were familiar too. Leonard knew at once that it was himself.
It was his just-transmigrated self.
Then Leonard saw an old man in armor. His hair and beard were white, one eye socket empty, while the other eye stared fixedly at Leonard, sharp as an awl.
"I never expected you to suddenly develop your own will at a time like this, my companion," he said slowly, stroking the trunk.
"Holy shit, and you're standing there talking at a time like this? Something's chewing on me down there. Get it off me, damn it!"
Leonard heard himself yelling, but clearly, the old man outside could not hear it.
"Lend me your power, my friend, just like the bargain we made back then. I traded my other eye for the power to defeat Tiamat and her spawn."
"Fuck that. I'm not lending you anything. Get lost, you bastard!" the Leonard of the past shouted, but he could not stop the old man's actions.
One of the old man's eyes suddenly burst open. A mist of blood flowed through the arm he had placed against the trunk, surged inward, then returned to his body carrying a massive quantity of silver-white magic.
Leonard felt weakness.
Not his own weakness, but the weakness of himself in that distant past.
That old bastard was drawing on the tree's magic without the slightest regard for consequences.