Enchanting Melodies (HP SI)

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I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.

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20 April 1995, Mount Olympus, Greece

"Well," he began casually, "I've got to give you points for presentation at the very least. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, why have you brought us here?"

They stayed silent at that, and Harry couldn't help but grin slightly. Well, in that split moment, he slowed down his perception of time, allowing him to slowly process what was going on about him. First of all, the Olympians. The fact that he confronted them so readily and directly asked what they wanted was definitely not their original plan.

From the looks of it, they didn't expect Harry to call them out on the true nature of Hera's projection, and that alone was very telling. Anyone who knew him would easily figure out that he wasn't exactly easy to be tricked with something like this. Anyone who planned on tricking him, pressuring him into something like this would have known that was a very bad idea to try out.

He had them at the backfoot, even if he didn't fully know what their main aim was or why they even orchestrated this event. Still, the Olympians spoke at once, "Ragnarök, we seek to stop it."

Harry hummed at that, "Now, isn't that a very nice idea? You wish to stop the end of the world, stop the final battle between the Light and Dark, one that is threatening unspeakable damage. That's very valiant, very noble indeed. But if you did that, you'd have gone after the Light and Dark Champions, not just four young students."

"You are the prophecy's hero," they simply replied.

"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not. But from the looks of it, you want to manipulate a prophecy. That rarely works out well."

Hera's projection appeared once more, giving him a pitying look. Harry suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the blatant manipulation. To be fair, it was pretty useless to attempt to convince someone of something as a faceless being of light. Convincing people is easier when you are relatable, "We're not planning on forcing anything on you, Harry. It's just an offer. We can tell that you don't want Ragnarök to occur either. We wish for you to join our ranks, to finally realize your full potential. As an immortal, the prophecy would either pass you over, freeing you from its shackles, or it would stay frozen forever. You could save the world."

"At the cost of staying here forever," he simply replied.

"You would be a hero. You would be 'THE Hero'. Immortality is but a small sacrifice for this outcome. You would be safe from the Light and Dark alike, for Olympus will never fall before the end of time itself."

Harry felt the world shake at that last proclamation, only to realize that it was his growing skill in divination. Grindelwald's diary was insistent on recognizing the threads of fate, and words of prophecies had a certain power. That last thing was prophetic, and Harry finally realized what all of this was about.

They were afraid.

The end of time could be expressed as the moment time itself ran out, but it could easily be interpreted as Ragnarök. They were afraid of Ragnarök officially starting since that would destroy the blanket of protection, they had built for themselves.

But why were they afraid? This realm could easily be disconnected from the material realm. They could be safe. There was no guarantee that Olympus would fall then.

Unless…

Unless they couldn't, or more accurately, they needed to stay connected to the material world. Slowing down his perception of time once more, he took a closer look with his Arcane Hearing, this time, he used the resurrection stone as a focus as well.

It wasn't pretty, not pretty at all.

Harry had thought that the Olympians were nothing more than mortals who had done what Lily Evans did, bound themselves to a realm and they did. But that came with the side effect of being unable to physically leave their realm. They were stuck in Olympus and had probably resorted to using dreams, visions, or forms of possession to interact there.

However, that wasn't all, the entire realm of Olympus was obviously corrupted by Zeus' light, and they became consumed by it. Harry could hear it, a faint echo of what he could detect when he was near Dumbledore, only it wasn't as all-present as it was for the former Headmaster.

Instead, it twisted their nature, making them rigid, unbending, and unforgiving. If Zeus had been alive, he would have acted as some kind of buffer between their connection to their realm. But since he died, they were forced to spend centuries in this place slowly being transformed into pawns of the light they were so caught up in.

They had discovered this early enough and had found out that a sufficient source of power was enough to stave off the effects, and what better power source was there other than the faith of a human soul? That was what the Academy was created for, as a faith farm. It was why religion was so fundamental in this place, and only these five gods were still worshipped there, for worship to impact them, they had to maintain a connection there, or else they would be slowly corrupted by the Light until they became nothing more than glorified slaves.

It was such a horrible offer. For all the fancy immortality, all they were giving him was an eternity stuck fighting off the Light's influence, without even being able to leave this realm. Hell, he wouldn't even be able to use faith to protect himself, which would mean that they were planning on using him as a buffer of some sort, a way to clean up the energy, perhaps? That alone had to be one of the worst fates anyone had available.

But why were they so corrupted by the Light? Hell, why was the realm so filled with the essence of Light, and it was specifically engineered to be channelled into the realm's core? No matter how powerful Zeus was this wasn't the way energy happened. He must have known that even with his being there, it would have caused his family to be affected, even if it was by a minuscule amount. It was as if… It was as if someone wanted it to be this way. It had to be someone who knew implicitly what they were doing.

Zeus had wanted this.

He wanted all of this and there was only one thing that finally made sense, something that was niggling at him in the back of his mind, "You killed Zeus, didn't you?"

That seemed to take them all off-guard, and Hera's projection hesitatingly spoke up, "We did. It isn't something we are proud of, but it was necessary. After the war with Hades, he was different. He was my husband, and I loved him, but something broke him. It was probably Poseidon's death that did it. They were always very close. But after the war, he decided to make sure that none of us would ever die. We became the gods of Olympus. He became frantic about betrayals left and right. He ruled with an iron fist, lashing out at anyone who dared question him. He forced our people to worship him, seeing that it brought him strength and killed anyone who disagreed with him. He banned us from interacting with the mortal world, in any way really. Apollo once loved a mortal woman, a seer, and he found out and cursed her for her to live a life of torment. He destroyed the temples of anyone he disliked, weakening them, and set out monsters on people who he disapproved of. He did this for centuries, and we lived in total fear. What he did to poor Metis, was the last straw. I snuck into his bed, one day, grabbed a knife forged from Hades' weapon itself, and killed him in his sleep."

Harry shook his head, "But that wasn't the end of it, was it?"

"No, we did not expect the power struggle that happened afterwards. We thought that the others would rejoice, that they would relish their freedom, but one after another they fought. It was a very bloody war. We are all that remain."

The last Potter didn't seem convinced, "You weren't, were you? There were other survivors. After all, the myths were pretty extensive, with thousands of Greek gods and heroes to fill an entire pantheon. Assuming that even half of those stories were true, then even after a war, there should have been more than five of you left. I wonder how that came to be."

For the first time, the projection froze its expression turning blank once more, and that was enough for Harry to know that he found a pressure point. He was right there were other Olympians who survived the war but perished later.

The projection righted itself, "They are lost, faded into the light of this realm, forever out of reach."

Oh, they were cannibalized by the Light. They were so influenced by it that they barely became more than an extension of the Light's will, empty vessels of energy having lost any form of personality, being sucked into the realm's very own energy. Whenever the faith in the Greek pantheon faded from the mortals, whatever protection it offered disappeared with it. By the time it was gone, it was already too late.

It was that same fate that the five beings in front of him wanted to avoid, the same fate they were so close to suffering. But to make things worse, they obviously knew this. The five of them did and founded the Academy, prioritizing the faith of mages instead of muggles. He could see their reasoning; the mage population was limited, and sharing that faith was very hard.

An idea came to him in a second, "What about Heracles? He survived, didn't he?"

"He did," the projection responded, "He is our champion, our shield against the horrors of the Labyrinth."

Harry snorted at that, "That was funny. He isn't much of anything anymore. I killed him on the island you stuck him in."

That seemed to shock them. Even the beings of light masquerading behind the projection pulsed in anger and he grinned, "I see it now. He was your backup, wasn't he? He was supposed to be your sacrifice, the poor soul you wanted to trick into having an immortal existence with the sole purpose of protecting you from the consequences of your actions. You stuck him on an island, bombarded the partial energy of the Labyrinth, the corruption of Hades' last curse as a last backup plan. He was an experiment that you never could quite give up on, a son of Zeus' Light that was corrupted with Hades' Darkness. But you never could get it to work, could you? And yet you couldn't quite give up on the prospect and settled with trying to trick some worshipers into sacrificing themselves for you."

The projection faltered once more and Harry didn't let them finish, "I'm right, aren't I? I'm guessing that was Perseus. Anyone who would try to trick me would know that using heroics to do so was a vain attempt. My being there was a nice surprise, not because of who I am, but because of the prophecy. An infinite champion would mean that the very forces of fate would keep me alive, and if I'm bound here, to this realm, forced into an eternity of keeping out the Light's influence, then it would be an eternity without Ragnarök occurring, and an eternity without needing some other pawn, without your dependence on your worshippers. You were observing Perseus when you saw who I was, what I was. That was why the Labyrinth was so silent. You were taken off-guard and didn't want to risk anything happening other than me arriving here."

That seemed to be the final nail in the coffin and the projection disappeared. It seemed that the Olympians had given up on trying to be subtle, "Very well," the five voices spoke at once, "We had hoped with a simpler arrangement, but you leave us no choice. You need to be bound here if only to stave off Ragnarök."

Harry snorted, "And sacrifice my very soul into staying in this place, into protecting you. I'm sure you're completely unbiased here. And honestly, do you think me being bound here will solve your problems? I'm just as likely to destroy this realm as I am to save you. Believe me, you have no idea what I'm capable of when I'm properly motivated. You're just running from a fate you created, trying to twist destiny itself. But you're right about one thing—I have no interest in becoming your pawn, no matter how noble you think your cause is."

He really should stop running his mouth so much, because what he felt next was pressure. It was overwhelming, like an unbending Light trying to force him to do his bidding and Harry tried to resist, he really did. But it was simply overwhelming.

Harry tried to open a portal to get away, but it just wouldn't happen. He felt himself being pushed down as if the very sky itself wanted to crush him. He didn't know why he started to sing, and yet he did.

The pressure abated but it was still there. He could feel the world shift around him, singing the exact melody to counter the assault before him. He wasn't using a wand or any form of structured magic. He was just singing, and it was beautiful.

The world around him started to take form differently, his song gaining more influence, enough to protect his teammates. He could feel the pressure of trying to get it, but it was now at a stalemate. He could feel his magic circuits burning once more. This was far more draining than anything he had done since he escaped the Gardens of Avalon. And yet he did not stop, for he knew what his fate would be if those beings got their hands on him.

The five voices spoke up at once, "You are impressive for a mortal, but you made one crucial mistake. The legacies of Olympus belong to Olympus."

 That was the last warning he had before getting swiped by a wave conjured a Perseus with blank eyes. Harry felt his control slipping as his singing was stopped, only for him to snap his finger and the water elemental fell unconscious, from the runes he had discreetly put on him when they agreed to partner up. He wasn't stupid after all.

However, the stalemate was still broken and when Harry returned to his singing, the pressure was far more powerful than it used to be. He stood there, with Daphne and Angelina behind him, who had grabbed Perseus' unconscious body, and he knew that he needed to do something, to find something.

And as he tried to run through thousands of doomed plans in his head, something happened and for the first time, it seemed like Fate was on his side. The world around him shook, the pressure disappearing for just a fraction of a second. However, it was more than enough for Harry to conjure a portal.

Harry escaped with his allies through it, and the last thing he saw before the portal closing was the very palace of the Olympian was shattered into a giant explosion of light.

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AN: I'm not sure about this one. I like putting my spin on things, and Greek Mythology is so good at being integrated with other lore, but I don't know if I did a good job at it. Writing the Olympians was pretty hard, but I don't think I made them 'Orderly' enough if that's even a good word to describe them. I rewrote it three times before giving up and just went through with my final draft, asking for your opinion of it in case it didn't come out right. So, as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.