Doom Days (Harry Potter/MCU Crossover)

A/N- Hey guys. Right on time! Expect the following update on Wednesday next week, and know you can skip the wait and read the following two chapters and continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, please don't hesitate to support it. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar. Please subscribe to my pa-treon using the website directly instead of the IOS app to avoid paying Apple tax. 

Important Announcement: Welcome to December guys. Happy Holidays! For the entirety of this month, both annual and monthly memberships on my pa-treon have been put on discount. Feel free to support me now with 20% off. Changes made to my Pa-treon structure mean it's now cheaper to read the very next chapter with a lower-tier subscription. To support this, I'll be offering a discount on yearly memberships for a week or so. 

It turns out I was wrong, I thought to myself as I stared at the Daily prophet and rubbed at my forehead. Part of me had been sure that their sense of national pride would overcome whatever urge they had to be sensational and sell copies. I had been sure that they would have leaned on the gap between Krum and me. The difference between our performances. I had laid it up for them perfectly on a platter. One didn't need to be a writer of any skill to tell the story that I knew people would have a good time reading. And yet instead of Krum's broken form next to my triumphant one, all that the front page of the prophet had been a moving picture of me wearing a flat expressionless face before shifting to a furious scowl as I tore my wand through the wand motions of the killing curse and then green flashed across my skin. 

The headline did not do me any factors either. "Boy-Who-Lived Emerges Victorious in TriWizard by using Unforgivable Dark Magic". A nice play on words there, I could admit. Unforgivable to mean bad, and Unforgivable to mean those spells that were so reviled that they commanded a lifetime stay in Azkaban for their mere use. The article entirely ignored the magic I used leading up to the killing curse. Runic magic was deemed unwieldy by most of wizard-kind, and I'd used it in combat. I used multiple complex transfigurations. I'd fucking plucked lightning from the very skies and shoved it at a mythical hellhound, and none of that mattered. Just the last three fucking seconds was all they cared to show the adoring wizarding public. 

"Fire!" Someone screamed from off to the side, and only then did I notice that the copy of the Prophet that I'd been looking at had erupted in flames. I scrambled from my wand and muttered "exstinguere" to kill the flames. 

Coming to the Great Hall today seemed to have been a mistake, I decided, as I noticed that the stares on me were shifting in nature. I had entered the hall to a smattering of applause, but even that little excitement was beginning to dry up as they read through the paper. The article was everything but charitable. It spoke about how I allowed the hellhound to disable fellow champions Krum and Diggory. There was even a seemingly throwaway line that suggested that Fleur and I had teamed up from the beginning and that it was her magic that made the Hellhound attack Krum first, and then Diggory right after. 

They even somehow managed to shoot some praise at Diggory for fucking surrendering and "knowing the time to give up" like the coward had any other fucking choice with that disgrace of a shield charm that he put up. I felt my magic rising to the front again, and this time I just gave up and let out a sigh and stood up. Rita Skeeter had written one hell of a slanderous piece. And the worst part was that as a Lawyer, I could already see how I'd have no case in court. Not in front of a court that was at least slightly biased against me. It would be 50/50 in a completely neutral one, even. She never came out and said anything that was not true. Everything that was not a direct fact, she phrased as a suspicion or supposition. She even offered alternative arguments for some of the less inflammatory suggestions, but I doubted those would be swaying anyone. 

I shuffled out of the bench and began to make my way out of the room. The Room Of Requirements was calling my name. The question that bothered me as I walked was "Why?". I teed up a perfect story for them. No risk in it at all. So why do this? Sure, I was a mostly unknown commodity, so people could believe whatever they were told by a loud enough voice, but there were those who had wholeheartedly bought into the myth of the Boy Who Lived. They wouldn't be swayed by this drivel. So why not write something less inflammatory, for the lack of a better word. 

The first suspicion was that she was being paid. Potter had cost Lucius Malfoy a house elf and probably wounded his pride by a fair bit. That would be enough to sour him on me forever, even removing whatever ill will he might have held for the whole dead Dark Lord thing? He definitely had the resources to see the Prophet cast me in a negative light. He also had more than enough motive. Of course, he wasn't the only suspect. There were dozens of wealthy pureblood, both of the death eating and non-death eating variety, who would see value in bringing the Boy-Who-Lived to disrepute. Fudge himself could even be behind it. His power tussle with Dumbledore couldn't have just been starting out in Harry's fifth year, so he was probably already beginning to pull at his leash. 

But did it even matter why? Part of me said yes. Another said no. Either way, Skeeter would pay. And she would pay heavily. I retreated from the hall towards the stairs and, once there, adorned myself with my cloak the second I was sure no one was looking. Sound muffling charms and scent masking ones flew from my wand in quick succession as I covered myself in my standard cocktail of anti-detection means. I made the journey to the room in no time at all, and once there, the books I needed revealed themselves to me. 

I had been waiting for the end of the first task to pursue any of this. We'd been told in no uncertain terms that the next task we would be dealing with would be coming on the day of the Yule Ball, so that meant I had over a month to plan what I needed. A ritual. Not an especially complicated one by any means. Just a simple one to unlock the fullness of a wizard's potential. It used to be commonplace among the pureblooded until the ministry crackdowns on all forms of ritualistic magic became too much to bother with and the benefits of the ritual began to be doubted. After all, there was not much of a gap between those purebloods who carried out the rituals and their peers who did not. Of course, they never considered the simple fact that a wizard's potential was innate, so it would obviously yield differing benefits for different wizards. 

Also, the texts Tom Riddle read that contained the arguments against the ritual itself seemed to fail to consider the true nature of the ritual. It unlocked potential, but did not automatically fulfill it. Each wizard still had their work cut out for them to reach the fulness of their potential. Even if their theoretical limit was made available to them, they still had to work for it. Another benefit of the ritual was that it made it easier to achieve one's potential. Things like power and endurance and skill grew faster after the ritual. At least, that was Riddle's experience with the ritual. 

He'd only been able to complete it as of his sixteenth birthday and even then, the benefits were immense. As a Wizard's magical maturity came in line with their seventeenth birthday, the ritual could not be attempted after then. Obviously, the younger the wizard was when the ritual was attempted, the greater the benefit. Up to a point, at least. Attempting rituals on ten-year-olds would not create an army of child soldiers like Riddle had once daydreamed of. Herpo the Foul had been the one to find out this small tidbit of magical trivial. How did he find out, you might ask? Well, I'll spare you the gruesome details, but accounts from the period tell of children who would suddenly explode with no warning. Massive, magical explosions. 

Tom Riddle had searched both the Library and the Room for Herpo's own accounts from the period to figure out what had happened, but had been disappointed to only find third-party retellings. Of course, that was for the best for everyone involved not named Riddle. I had no doubts that Voldemort would have found a way to weaponise that knowledge. 

I stared down at the list I'd been copying as I thought to myself. Most of the ingredients were common enough. They could serve several purposes beyond rituals. Of course, I made sure to rewrite the list again and this time interspace the ingredients I needed with several that I did not. It ended up forming a list of about 30 ingredients, even if I only needed to purchase 12 for the ritual. The 13th was something I had in abundant supply. The reason for 30? Even if Tom Riddle's version of the ritual replaced some ingredients for what he thought would work better, it would still cause more than a few red flags to be seen purchasing those ingredients. Even if I exclusively shopped at Knockturne, word of my purchases would reach the DMLE one way or another, so I was buying so much to muddy the waters of any prospective investigation. 

After all, if someone sussed out that someone was buying ingredients for a potential unlock ritual, then their list of suspects would narrow to those below the age of 17. It wouldn't be ridiculous for Dumbledore to be placed in the know, with something like that on the docket. And after that show yesterday, I had no doubts I would be very high on his list of suspects and making an enemy of the old man right now would be so stupid it would be worthy of a Darwin Award. 

XXXXXXXXXX- FLEUR DELACOUR 

"Yes, Sophie. I saw the way he struck the beast with lightning. I was there, remember?" Fleur was at the edge of just sighing with irritation and tossing something at her friend who seemed to be taking the opportunity to tease her relentlessly for her defeat. 

"And then there was the runic magic. Who would have expected to see that kind of thing here, of all places? You know they managed to get Sophie Devereaux to comment on it, and she had a lot to say" Her friend continued, leafing through the magazine like she didn't just drop a bombshell on them all. 

"Sophie Devereaux? THE Sophie Devereaux?" Isabelle asked, shocked. 

"Well, it's not like it's a common name among witches. The Devereaux part, not the Sophie. So who else could I be talking about?" 

"Okay, that's enough" Jean cut in and snatched the magazine out of Sophie's hands and tossed it over to her as the girl rose in irritation to wrestle it from her. 

Fleur wasted no time finding the page that had the OP-ed from the famed witch. Sophie hadn't been lying in the end. 

"It's really Sophie Devereaux", she said, voice numb. Every single one of them had written to the famed witch at least once, hoping to get the woman's attention and maybe even a position as the famed charmed mistress' apprentice. But then some English boy had managed to do it without even trying. Boy-Who-Lived or not, there was something profoundly unfair about that. 

"What did she say" Isabelle asked, and Fleur devoured the contents of the page again, still stuck in silence. She wasn't surprised when Jean impatiently snatched it out of her hand after a period of silence and then began to read out loud. It took a few paragraphs for him to get to the part that she'd been reading over and over again, 

"While runic magic is not unheard of by any means, even middling wizards in the Americas have managed some form of runic magic, the discovery of a new form of runic magic is a show of prodigious skill without equal. Combining the Elder Furthrak runes with the Yoruba language of West Africa should be impossible. Both languages evolved completely independently of one another. It should be impossible for magic to be possible with those two languages. Each of them are saying something differently to magic and should not be able to come together. But then again, no one should be able to survive being struck by the Killing Curse. I welcome correspondence with Mr. Potter on the subject and would be most honored to study this achievement with him in a laboratory setting." She murmured the last sentence along with him as he read it out loud to stunned silence. 

"Did she just-?" Isabelle asked. 

"Yes, yes she did" Fleur confirmed. 

"Studying with Sophie Devereaux? What I wouldn't give for that" Jean said, saying the words on all their minds. 

"I'd definitely give the rest of you up for the chance." 

"Same, Sophie. Same". 

XXXXXXXX- CEDRIC DIGGORY 

"Fucking Cwn Anwnn. You know, I went to the library immediately after the task to research the damn things. They're dangerous Cedric. You were right to leave the field when you did" Henry said with a scowl ointment his face. Cedric's own dace was not much better, he knew. He wore his practiced smile on his face easily, but behind it laid a maelstrom of emotions. The daily prophet and a host of other international papers were strewn around them in their own corner of the common room. He'd joined the tournament to gain some personal notoriety for himself that he could spin into a job at the ministry and then one day into a run as Minister of Magic like Eldritch Diggory before him. And now the first task was over and done with and the only paper that hadn't basically used him as a footnote was the Daily Prophet. 

The Mediterranean Manifest had even managed to spell his name wrong the one time they bothered with writing it out. The others might not have made the same mistake, but they might as well have. Even Krum with his terrible performance had more time dedicated to him than he got. Cedric knew why, of course. He had been perfectly ordinary. Delacour had used charms work that was complimented by the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself. Krum had shown off an exceptional level of skill and understanding of the dark arts. He'd even lost his wand in his refusal to surrender. Potter had….well, Potter had outshined them all. From the second he felt the hairs on his arm rise up from that first bolt of lightning he'd nailed the beast with, he'd known that the Harry Potter in the arena with him was a far cry from the boy he'd met during the summer. 

The Boy who lived had proven himself worthy of the legend that surrounded him. He called forth magic that Cedric did not truly understand, but even the magic Cedric did understand was still impressive. Transfiguration was his favorite discipline. McGonagall said he was a once-in a-generation talent. That his work was astounding. He wondered what she said about Potter's then. Three years his younger and far more capable. That transfiguration to turn the ground to quick sand. Even the snakes he made and then transfigured to stone. Those were all things Cedric could understand, and that worsened it. It meant he knew just how difficult they would be to pull off. 

"A wise choice, for sure. Let Potter and his Gryffindor sensibilities spend his time fighting a creature that's a registered Wizard killer" Delphine said, adding her own two-cents. 

"I signed up for this, guys. I put my name in the goblet. I can't just be giving up". 

"You were clearly lied to. We all were. We were told that they made the tasks safer to avoid repeating the tragedy, but a hellhound? That's not any safer than what they used to do before. You signed up under false pretenses. It's perfectly reasonable for you to pull out now" Henry continued. 

"You guys don't believe in me" He said in sudden realization. 

"No, no. We do believe in you. It's just that we're scared and worried. This thing is different from what we expected. And the other champions-they're something else." 

"Even Potter?" He asked despite himself. 

"Remember what Moody said in class? He said none of us would be able to cast the killing curse even if we tried our hardest. I looked it up. It's true. The Killing curse is real dark magic. You have to mean it. It takes loads of power and even more intent. Potter cast it with ease yesterday. I keep going over it in my mind. The wand movement, the look on his face, the way he said the incantation. It couldn't have been his first time using the spell. That means Potter's a dark wizard. That explains why he was able to do so well. Remember the story of Morgan Le Fay? Dark magic can turn a regular wizard into something extraordinary" Delphine said, making her points in that way she always did that made it difficult to argue with her. 

"You can't think the Boy Who Lived is a dark wizard, Delphine. He killed you-know-who," Marcus finally spoke. 

"By reflecting a killing curse. He's the only one to have ever survived it. We still don't know how he did it. We don't even know what effects it could have had on him as a person. Magic always leaves a trace. There's no magic darker than the killing curse. Imagine the kind of trace that would have left on him." Cedric could feel the words entering him and taking root in his mind. They were so easy to believe. Probably because he knew he wanted them to be true. That was why he stood up. 

"Where are you going?" 

"On a walk. And Delphine, please for the love of magic, stop saying that" He said, grabbing his things and moving away. Maybe he ought to seek Cho out in the library. 

Important Announcement: Welcome to December, guys. Happy Holidays! For the entirety of this month, both annual and monthly memberships on my pa-treon have been put on discount. Feel free to support me now with 20% off. Changes made to my Pa-treon structure mean it's now cheaper to read the very next chapter with a lower-tier subscription. To support this, I'll be placing a discount on yearly memberships for a week or so. 

A/N; Yes, I'm giving Fleur friends in this story. There's no canonical reason to believe she was being isolated, or whatever Fanon would say about the subject matter. If you're really excited about this, then you can skip all the waiting and read the next two chapters of this up on my pa-treon right now. And if you come from any of my other stories, please do me the favour of commenting which story that is.