Advanced chapters on [email protected]/Saintbarbido.
(Loth's P.O.V)
I knew I was dreaming the moment I stepped foot on the obsidian floor.
The air was too still. Too dense. The towering pillars of bone and black crystal hummed with deathly silence, and the throne before me radiated pressure like a collapsing star. The shadows here didn't just darken—they swallowed.
Hades sat slouched on his throne, clad in regal darkness, staring ahead at something I couldn't see. His hand rested on the armrest, fingers tapping slowly, like he was waiting on time itself. But he didn't acknowledge me. Not a glance. Not a word.
I frowned and took a step forward. "Hades…?"
No response.
I opened my mouth again—but another voice beat me to it.
"I'm the one who brought you here."
I froze. That voice—
From the far reaches of the throne room, the shadows thickened. And then moved.
Like silk being pulled through water, the void twisted itself into a shape. And then she emerged.
Nyx.
Mother of Night. Primordial of shadows. Living concept of the unknowable.
I instinctively stepped back—only to find I couldn't.
I was rooted.
"Relax," she said, her voice smooth and soft, laced with layered tones like whispers of the wind. "I'm not your enemy."
"You dragged me here," I said, trying to keep my voice even.
"I invited you," she corrected in amusement. "You just never RSVP'd. I even baked biscuits."
I blinked. Second time hearing that yet I still found it unbelievable.
"...You bake?"
She smiled, eyes glinting with stars. "You'd be surprised what boredom does to you when you're eternal."
I exhaled slowly. "Sorry. I've been… preoccupied."
"Oh, I know," she said, waving a finger. "The Four Horsemen, the impossible Fiend Phoenix, the school full of paranoid wand-wavers. You've been busy."
She stepped closer, her presence vast but… not heavy. More like standing in the dark and realizing the dark could see you.
"You also helped my son," she added.
I tilted my head, somehow knowing who she was referring to. "Thanatos?"
She nodded. "Indeed."
"But—he's Death, right? The Death. So who were the Horsemen? What were they?"
"Thanatos," she called softly into the dark, "bring your butt over here."
A breeze swept through the room. I turned just as Thanatos appeared from the shadows—taller than before, his form sharper, defined. Death was no longer a hollow wraith. He carried presence now. Substance. Power.
Which was why I was surprised when he bowed his head deeply. "Marcus Lothal. I owe you. Your actions… returned something that was stolen from me long ago."
"Stolen?" I asked. "By who?"
Thanatos glanced to Nyx, who answered instead.
"Eons ago," she said, "an entity—one that predates your pantheons and prayers—fractured divine concepts to create the Horsemen. Pieces of Thanatos. Pieces of others."
She turned serious.
"But now… their power has returned to its source."
I frowned. "Then why do I still feel… something? I absorbed pieces of them."
"Remnants," she waved her hand. "Shards, echoes. Not enough to rebuild them—but enough to leave marks on your soul."
So by killing Death of the Horsemen, I released Thanatos' power and it naturally returned to him.
"I think I get it," I said slowly. "But I still don't understand. What kind of being can steal from a god?"
Nyx's smile vanished.
The room chilled, goosebumps sprouting across my skin despite this being a dream.
"It goes by many names."
Her voice echoed, layered with weight:
"Armageddon. The Great Darkness. The One Below All. The First Primordial. Ragnarok."
The last one hit me like a cold blade.
"Ragnarok…" I whispered. "We found that name. Me and Snape. In the Necronomicon."
Nyx nodded. "Then you already know more than most."
Not really. I hadn't had time to ask Snape what he learned from the translation.
"What you might not know is the fact Ragnarok is interested in you."
I swallowed. "Why me? Why would it care about me?"
Nyx sighed and her voice dropped.
"Your mistake is thinking Chaos can be reasoned with. That it follows logic, or rules, or intention. Chaos is the antithesis of Fate. And yet…" Her eyes gleamed. "Your soul—at the height of your power—briefly broke free from the strings of Fate."
My pulse skipped. The Anodite form.
"You were unshackled," she continued. "For a moment, you existed beyond what must be. And that, little firefly, is why Chaos noticed."
I didn't know what to say.
"If you can reach that state again," she added, "you might—might—stand a chance. But don't count on rules. Don't count on gods. Count only on what you choose to become."
The throne room trembled.
Cracks spread across the marble. The dream was ending.
Nyx gave a small bow of her head. "This is my payment. You helped my son. I've returned the favor."
Thanatos glided forward again.
"If you ever need me," he said, tone solemn, "you have but to call and I'll hear. The God of Death owes you a favor."
The shadows swallowed them both.
The dream dissolved into nothingness.
And then—
Pain.
Stone. Magic. Cold iron.
I opened my eyes in a dim, rune-carved cell in the dungeons of the Ministry of Magic.
Back in the Wizarding world.
(General P.O.V)
The stone corridors of the Ministry of Magic's lower levels were darker than they had any right to be.
No torches. No windows. Just the dull clank of enchanted iron boots and the faint scrape of silvered chains dragging along runed stone.
Loth walked with quiet steps between a pair of Aurors. He didn't struggle. He didn't speak. There was no point.
A containment field of runic chains wrapped his body like a spell-forged exoskeleton. Magic swirled within, but none of it could escape—not even a spark. The runes glowed faintly, etched with precise signatures. Dumbledore's magic. McGonagall's. Flitwick's. Snape's.
The betrayal wasn't just tactical. It was collaborative.
These chains hadn't been hastily crafted. They had planned for him.
'Prepared,' Loth thought grimly. Prepared to bind me the moment I stopped being useful.
The only thing they hadn't managed to seal was his Aura Sense. A mistake—one he was already exploiting.
Even as he walked in silence, he scanned the halls.
They passed a strange section to the left—an area where magic seemed to twist and recoil. An emptiness in the tapestry of the world. The Veil. A portal to something else. Not death, not life—something in between. He felt its pull. Its hunger.
"Don't linger near that," came the first words Snape, who lead the way, had spoken since they left Hogwarts.
Loth didn't respond. Not to him. Not anymore.
They reached an ornate elevator that clattered and groaned as it ascended into the higher reaches of the Ministry. The walls grew less oppressive. Polished. Decorated. But the air remained tense, as if the building itself could feel what was coming.
When the doors opened, they stepped into a circular chamber—the High Court of the Wizengamot.
It was an execution stage dressed up as justice.
No one had told Loth why he was in custody, but he it hadn't taken long to realize he was on trial for something.
Dozens of elevated seats encircled a central platform, where the accused was to be chained.
Robes of deep purple and black shimmered in the crowd, each bearing the crest of a Wizarding House. Ancient. Proud. Purebloods. Politically hungry.
The room buzzed with mutters and sneers. Loth stepped into view, guided to the center by the Aurors.
Snape said nothing as he stepped back to the perimeter.
An Auror barked, "Kneel."
Loth stared at him, calm. Silent.
The Auror raised his wand—only to stop after meeting Loth's cool but stormy eyes.
The murmurs around the chamber rose to a roar.
"Abomination!"
"Monster!"
"He's no child! He's a creature—Dark Magic given form!"
"He murdered a Malfoy!"
Loth's expression didn't change. His heart didn't even race. This… this was always going to happen. He was just the last one to know.
From the high seat, Albus Dumbledore stood. The Elder Wand now fixed, rested against his robes. His expression was carefully neutral.
"Enough," Dumbledore said, his voice carrying weight even without magic. "This court is now in session."
The noise fell away like a curtain.
"We are gathered to evaluate the charges levied against Mr.Lothal, a magical anomaly whose origin and power remains uncertain. The primary charge—murder. The victim—Lucius Malfoy."
Loth blinked.
Lucius…?
He hadn't even thought about it since. But now, everything was coming together.
In a low voice, barely audible, he muttered to himself.
"…I see."
A small, humorless smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
It wasn't amusement.
It was the realization that in this fucked up magical society, it was never about justice.
It was about control.
And control feared what it couldn't predict.
Feared him.
The courtroom remained oppressive as the trial commenced, heavy with bias. Yet Loth stood—or rather, remained chained—silent. Unmoving. Stoic.
One by one, the witnesses delivered their testimonies.
Mad-Eye Moody was first. His voice rasped through the chamber.
"He's powerful. Dangerous. Doesn't understand the weight of that power. Reminds me of Grindelwald when he was young. Before the ideology, before the war—just raw chaos with legs."
Next came Kingsley Shacklebolt, once a voice of reason that Loth thought trustworthy.
"The documents Mr. Lothal presented accusing Lucius Malfoy… were forged. We've reviewed them. He planted them to justify murdering Malfoy and his associates. He claimed they were involved in Xeoticus Lovegood's death—Luna Lovegood's father—but evidence now suggests he staged it himself. Possibly to manipulate miss Lovegood, who has since vanished under mysterious circumstances."
Murmurs exploded through the crowd. "Imperius Curse," someone whispered. "She was always odd. He probably took her. Good riddance, I'd say."
Loth's expression didn't change. But his fists clenched in the chains. He didn't care what was said about him, but dragging Luna through the same lies after everything she'd suffered made him burn with barely controlled rage.
Hagrid took the stand, visibly uncomfortable.
"I—I don't think he meant no harm. But… it's true, since he got to Hogwarts, the creatures of the forest've been actin' strange. Agitated. Not scared, but… expectin' somethin'. Waitin'."
Professor Sprout's voice trembled when she spoke next.
"His Phoenix's rebirth was unlike anything I've seen… wondrous, even. But… the way his magic rooted into the castle's leystrings... it was parasitic. Or symbiotic. I-I don't know. But Hogwarts has changed."
The Ministry's counsel twisted her words into something damning.
"Unnatural," they declared. "A defilement of Hogwarts."
Loth remained calm.
Until Snape took the stand.
The room tensed. Gasps echoed when they saw the book in his hand: The Necronomicon.
Snape looked out at the crowd, then at Loth.
"I am not here to condemn the boy," he said quietly. "I am here to tell the truth."
A pause.
"This Necronomicon is not simply a book of curses. It is a record. A prophecy. A warning."
The chamber stilled.
Snape opened the ancient tome. Loth's eyes were pulled to it's brown pages, and the ominous aura that he sensed coming off it.
"It speaks of a being called Ragnarok—a god of extinction. A force that consumes realities at the edge of time. And like all great forces, it needs a herald. A vessel. An Avatar."
Snape's gaze found Loth's.
"The prophecy speaks of this Avatar uniting the Deathly Hallows: the Resurrection Stone, for dominion over life. The Elder Wand, for control of death. The Invisibility Cloak—for mastery of the unseen. With these… the Avatar becomes the doorway for Ragnarok to enter our world."
Shouts. Fear. The Wizengamot began to rise to their feet.
Snape closed the book, voice low.
"Mr.Lothal has come into contact with one of the three already. And his affinity with wandless casting… of both divine and forbidden magic… aligns far too closely with the signs described in the text. For the good of our world, he must be executed."
Loth finally spoke.
Not loud. Not aggressive.
Just one word:
"Cowards."
Gasps at the audacity. A witch fainted. Dumbledore stood, expression unreadable.
Loth smiled bitterly, voice still even. "I saved your school. I spared your lives. I fought your nightmares. And this—this is what I get?"
He looked at Dumbledore.
"You were right. We're not the same. You fear power. I understand it."
Then he looked at Snape.
"And you, just when I thought you couldn't be more of a cunt, you exceed expectations."
Snape's eyes narrowed. But said nothing.
Loth turned back to the crowd.
"Execute me if you must. But know this—if Ragnarok is indeed coming… I'm your only chance."
The room fell into uneasy discussions.
(Loth's P.O.V)
I barely heard them.
The chamber echoed with jeers and verdicts, but my attention had long since shifted inward—focused on the chains coiled around me like a python of runes and silver.
I'd been probing them since this sham of a trial started. The enchantments were clever. Strong. Layers of anti-magic that blocked any outward flow of power. Any spell, even passively activated, was unravelled before it could form.
But they weren't perfect.
They stopped my magic. Not the Mist.
And the Ministry, similar to Hogwarts was soaked in it.
However, the most I could do with the mist was illusions and those would fail against Wizards.
Through Aura sense the air shimmered with layers of magical tension—residual auras from the Wizengamot, the Order, the House Heads, all packed into this one space. So much power. It saturated the Mist like kerosene waiting for a match.
And I had a match: the bracelet on my wrist—Luna's bracelet. Still humming faintly with divine aura from Zeus.
If I could feed the Mist into the bracelet, even a little, I might… twist illusions into something more. Temporary reality.
I'd done it once before. Dangerous, if Zeus ever found out. But better than dying.
Because that's what they'd decided.
I caught it in Dumbledore's voice, false concern and subdued as always, when he raised his wand and called for the vote. Not a spell of banishment. Not exile. Not imprisonment.
Execution.
By Fiendfyre.
How poetic. The flame that gave me life, now to burn me out of existence.
A fitting end, maybe.
But I wasn't planning on dying.
I started laughing.
Low and dry at first, but it echoed off the walls.
"Sold it well, Headmaster," I said, looking up as the Aurors began encircling me. "The wise old mentor. The kindly guide."
Dumbledore didn't smile. "No one is above the laws of magic, Loth."
"You mean no one but you."
"I once made the mistake of sparing a god of magic," he continued. "He became the Devil. I won't repeat it."
"You're talking about Voldemort." I almost laughed at the scandal saying his name caused.
Dumbles narrowed his beady eyes, impatience leaking out,
"I'm talking about preventing another. I am truly sorry Lothal. This is the only way to protect everything."
"You're not sorry," I softly refused. "You're afraid."
He met my gaze but said nothing.
Around me, the Aurors raised their wands. Containment spells shimmered into place.
"Remember," I whispered out to everyone I thought were allies. Some looked away others like Snape sneered."You betrayed me first."
Then they cast it.
Fiendfyre.
Blue fire erupted like a tidal wave, roaring toward me in a twisting maw of hunger and destruction. The air turned molten. The crowd erupted in cheers as the violent inferno swallowed me.
-0-
Somewhere within the chamber, watching the swirling fiend flames was Annabeth. Hidden under an invisibility cloak, she whispered to Percy, "Wait."
The cloak was borrowed from one of Luna's friends and had come in handy when infiltrating the ministry to rescue Loth.
Percy's hand was already on his celestial sword. "We have to do something."
"Just… wait seaweed brain. Remember this is Loth we're talking about." Annabeth insisted, praying that her confidence was not misplaced and their friend hadn't been turned to ash.
-0-
The fire swallowed me whole.
And then—
Lightning.
It didn't explode—it detonated from the bracelet like a divine scream, splitting the flames of absolute destruction in two.
Thunder tore through the chamber next in a repulsive gale.
The containment spells shattered. The Fiendfyre screeched almost in pain, sucked backward by the surge of divine Mist now pouring from the bracelet.
The chains burned red under the blue flames.
Then snapped.
The runes overloaded.
The Aurors around me were flung back by a combination of flames and magic as violent winds coiled around my form, slashing the air like invisible blades.
I rose from the cracked platform, lightning crackling around my limbs. Sparks danced in my hair. My eyes glowed white-blue.
The fire backed away from me. Screamed. It remembered me.
A god of magic and energy. And now, a storm.
"Go. Burn it down." I ordered and the Fiendfyre listened almost too enthusiastically as it spread across the chamber, swallowing panicking Wizards, trying to flee.
An Avada Kedavra streaked toward me from behind. I felt the death intent within the spell and raised a hand. The green light crashed against a shield of wind and shattered into harmless sparks.
Dumbledore.
He stood at the front of the Order of the Phoenix, Elder Wand glowing with a bright white light. His eyes were hard now. Cold.
He cast the killing curse again.
I blocked again, fully turning around to face them.
This wasn't over.
No, it had only just begun.