[Complete] Ch 9.3 Ending Maker: Fate Wizardry (Patreon)

Ending Maker: Fate Wizardry

Chapter Intro:

This fic’s premise is inspired by the webtoon titled Ending Maker/엔딩메이커 by Chwiryong and their illustrator chyan. Please check them out.

Story Starts

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Ch 9.3 - A Series of Head-Related 

Incidents and Indignities

Harry looked up at the blue sky, but it wasn't the clear expanse he remembered from his previous self's original marble. Titanic gears of polished steel hung suspended overhead, turning with mechanical patience. At the horizon's edge, swords continued to rain down in an endless cascade, each one finding its place in the earth.

'I guess I inherited things from him.'

He smiled as he took in the greenery beneath his feet. Not just grass—a field of flowers spread in every direction, whites and yellows and deep reds blooming between the countless blades thrust into the soil. Every weapon his soul had ever touched waited here: the Noble Phantasms from the Holy Grail War, the bleeding memories of Counter Guardian EMIYA, and the treasures Gilgamesh had unleashed when the King of Heroes finally fell within this very marble.

In the distance, two colossal swords leaned against each other like exhausted giants. Harry knew those shapes—he looked away. Even their hollow copies gave him headaches. Somewhere deeper in the Reality Marble lurked a hollow, degraded copy of Ea itself, the Sword of Rupture, mercifully dormant. The hollow Excalibur, at least, sat comfortably within his grasp and had never once given him a headache—whereas merely looking towards the divine constructs at the Marble's expanding edge felt like inviting a blood vessel to pop.

'Now what do we do with our uninvited guest?'

"You do know that physically I'm currently sat on your head, outside of whatever this is?" The hat's tone had shifted from outraged to something approaching resignation.

'Can he read—'

"Yes, yes, I can read your voiced thoughts." The hat's fabric face scrunched into profound irritation, and the effect reminded Harry, uncomfortably, of Arcturus Black.

"Don't compare me to that misanthropic sack of shit," the hat complained. "Well—at least amongst the Blacks, he, alongside the better sister, fought for their country. Not like his fellow sacks of shit who'd prostrate themselves before the next Dark Lord that promised them—"

Harry let the hat rant. Months of exposure to Hermione's theoretical tangents and Arcturus's historical grievances had taught him how to filter background noise. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings with fresh eyes.

Something caught his attention.

He willed a broadsword into existence, floating before him. Not for combat—he needed the reflection.

The face that stared back at him wasn't the green-eyed, messy-haired visage of Harry Potter.

Auburn hair. Amber eyes. A jaw he'd seen in mirrors for decades before waking in a cupboard under the stairs.

Shirou Emiya looked back at him from the polished steel.

"Will you stop gazing at yourself like some prepubescent girl dreaming of her crush? I'm going to be stuck here for however long—"

"Wait." Harry lowered the blade. "Stuck?"

"Yes, yes, I'm a copy of the Sorting Hat—well, technically I'm currently the Sorting Hat as well, because he, I—" The hat's face contorted. "Fuck. I was not made to contemplate existentialism. Whatever we discuss here remains known to me, to him—ah, bollocks. The Sorting Hat currently perched on your physical head is aware of this conversation. Or rather, once it's removed, I become a separate entity within this thing you call a Reality Marble."

"Him?"

"Yes, yes—I have a gruff voice, and I'd invite you to argue otherwise. Though your fucking girlfriend implied that, given my shape and my function, it would make sense for me to be a girl—I was this close to just fucking with her and sorting her into Azkaban. And before you ask: no, I cannot do that. The bitch called my bluff."

The hat continued grumbling, but Harry's mind had already raced ahead. His marble copied things. That was its nature, its purpose. Within this vast field existed not just swords but armour, shields, accessories—anything that could be classified as a weapon or its complement. If the hat had been copied...

"Yes, looks like you've arrived at the correct conclusion."

A longsword fell from the sky, embedding itself in the grass beside the hat's wooden chair. The blade was simultaneously ornamental and brutally functional: a large ruby set into the fuller caught nonexistent light, the cross-guard gleamed gold, and the metal itself—

Harry's breath caught.

Goblin silver. He'd spent months in the Gringotts forges learning its properties, its hunger for that which strengthened it, its perfect memory of every substance it absorbed.

"Yes, because your bloody Reality Marble has deemed me a sheath." The hat's voice carried a thousand years of dignity, every ounce of it offended. "For a thousand years I've been storing that wanker Gryffindor's sword, and your soul looked at me and thought, 'Ah, yes, a scabbard. In you go.'"

Harry stared at the sword of Godric Gryffindor, planted in his soul like it belonged there.

'Well,' he thought. 'This complicates things.'

"Complicates," the hat repeated. "Yes. Let us file that under the evening's smaller problems. Do you know what I expected tonight, boy? A hundred plus nervous adolescents and the usual parade of am I brave, am I clever, please not Slytherin, my father will hear about this. A thousand years of the same evening. And then the third anomaly of the night contains an entire world."

There was a pause between them.

"Right, so do we cut the shit and get straight to whatever bullshit I've stumbled into?" the hat grumbled. "I've already told both your girlfriends that I can't discuss what I read in any student's head—even as a copy—though I can tell you that Tom Riddle was a festering little cockstain who should've been scraped out with a rusty coathanger while there was still time."

Harry quirked a brow at that image.

"And the fact that events might still line up with whatever novels you annoying shits read, watched, or whatever—it means this Dumbledore might be senile enough to hire the parasite too."

"Was it wrong of us, not to include the Headmaster?"

"Fuck if I know."

Despite not having shoulders, the hat was animated enough to convey a shrug.

"The old goat-fucker's pretty much set in his ways—he still abides by what he's decided is the more benevolent version of his dead boyfriend's idiom. And there's no peer alive he actually respects enough to be talked out of anything. The last one who could manage it, he had locked in a tower."

"Does he have the Philosopher's Stone here?" Harry asked.

"Ah, yes! The immortal frog did visit over the summer. They were in quite the argument." The hat chuckled, its fabric face creasing. "Marvellous viewing from my shelf. The senile fucker spent an hour trying to convince the French frog that death is but the next great adventure. Six hundred years old, and Flamel still had the manners not to say you first."

The hat's features twisted into something between contempt and pity.

"But he handed the stone over in the end—though if you ask me, that wasn't his only one. You don't live that long on a single point of failure. How many Dark Lords do you think have tried to steal the one alchemical agent that buys centuries with the smallest bill attached?"

"Oh, there's a bill?" Harry asked.

"Again—fuck if I know. But there's always a toll to pay." The hat's voice dropped, and for once it wasn't performing. Its gaze drifted out across the marble.

Harry frowned and followed its line of sight. The hat was staring at the hill where the hollowed replica of Excalibur leaned against Caliburn, the two legendary swords catching light that had no source. Beside them lay Avalon—the real one, not a copy, warming his chest even now in the physical world—and scattered around were the various Arthurian weapons: degraded versions of mortal blades and hollow replicas of the fae constructs he'd witnessed through Arturia's memories.

Behind those weapons stood an apple tree. The only tree in this entire field of swords, grass, and flowers.

Harry's breath caught.

"…!"

He could sense two things behind the apple tree. 'Something livi—'

"In the end, it's up to you whether you include Mr Greater Good," the hat interrupted, its voice sharp enough to drag Harry's attention back. "And we should end this. You are now the longest hatstall in Hogwarts history."

"Huh?!"

The next thing Harry knew, he was back on the stool in the Great Hall.

Everyone was staring at him.

Harry fought the blush threatening to colour his face. The hall wasn't silent—murmuring filled the space as students pointed and whispered, probably speculating on why the Sorting Hat had taken so bloody long. He could feel McGonagall's piercing stare from his right, and he resisted the urge to look behind him towards the High Table where Dumbledore sat.

'Get fucked! Thirty-one minutes. That record was mine to set, and no snivelling firstie will ever take it off me.' The hat projected into his mind, its voice carrying distinct satisfaction.

'What—'

'Oh yes, before I announce your house—'

'Gryffindor, please,' Harry asked.

'Interrupt me again and I'll put you in Hufflepuff. I'm sure you'll enjoy demonstrating hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play while Sprout has the lot of you queuing up to trim her minge. Word is she hasn't had a proper seeing-to since Flitwick threw his back out.'

Harry sighed, feeling distinctly queasy at the mental image.

'Also—the wrinkled ballsack of a headmaster hasn't noticed that the instrument he keeps to monitor your mother's protection stopped working a long fucking time ago.'

'What?!'

"Better be—GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table erupted. Students stamped their feet and cheered, the twins he'd seen at the apothecary leading a chant of "We got Potter! We got Potter!" The rest of the school applauded politely—minus most of the Slytherins, who maintained expressions ranging from studied disinterest to open contempt.

McGonagall removed the hat before Harry could question it further. She cleared her throat, catching his attention, and raised a single eyebrow at him. Her chin jerked towards the Gryffindor table with unmistakable impatience.

Harry stood, legs slightly unsteady from sitting so long, and made his way towards the sea of red and gold. The cheering intensified as he approached.

"Turpin, Lisa!"

McGonagall's voice cut through the celebration, summoning the next student forward.

Fleur and Hermione had already drawn apart on the bench, leaving a Harry-shaped gap between them. He slid into it. Fleur's thigh pressed warm against his beneath the table, a small comfort amidst the chaos.

"What was that?" Sally-Anne asked from across the table, her blue eyes bright with curiosity. "That was like half an hour—you do know that people need to eat, Harry. What did you and the hat talk about?"

"The hat had opinions," Harry said.

"About what?"

"Everything."

Hermione, on his other side, shot him a look that said we're discussing this later.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Lisa Turpin made her way to the blue-and-bronze table amidst polite applause.

"Weasley, Ronald!"

The gangly redhead Harry recognised from the train corridor stumbled towards the stool. The hat barely touched his head before shouting "GRYFFINDOR!" and the twins erupted again, pulling their younger brother into the seat beside them.

"Zabini, Blaise!"

A dark-skinned boy with sharp cheekbones strode forward, unhurried, as though the outcome were a formality. The hat considered for perhaps thirty seconds before declaring "SLYTHERIN!" and the final first-year joined his house.

McGonagall rolled up her scroll and carried the Sorting Hat away. Harry watched it disappear through a side door, his mind still churning over those two things behind the apple tree—something living, in a place that had never housed life. Well. Nothing sentient, at least, until the Sorting Hat had been recorded.

Dumbledore rose from his golden chair at the centre of the High Table. The hall fell silent with remarkable speed—even the Weasley twins stopped their celebratory back-slapping.

"Welcome!" Dumbledore's voice carried effortlessly across the Great Hall, warm and grandfatherly. His blue eyes twinkled behind half-moon spectacles as he spread his arms wide.

Harry's gaze drifted across the High Table. Snape still occupied his seat near the end, black eyes already fixed on Harry, openly hostile. Harry ignored him. His attention caught instead on the figure seated beside the Potions Master.

Quirrell.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor wore a ridiculous purple turban and sat hunched, flinching at nothing Harry could see. Their eyes met for a split second—

Harry's scar throbbed. Not the sharp, blinding pain he'd expected from the books. More like a dull pressure behind his eyes, an awareness of something wrong.

Slam.

Quirrell's hand hit the table, breaking their eye contact. The professor fumbled with a goblet, his face pale, and did not look in Harry's direction again.

Harry didn't push it. No doubt Hermione would formulate a dozen hypotheses by morning.

He turned his attention back to Dumbledore—and his gaze caught on the wand in the Headmaster's hand.

DEATH.

Harry's hand twitched towards his nose. Warm liquid trickled over his lip.

'One of three,' a melodious voice whispered into his ear.

Harry's head snapped to the side, searching for the source. Nothing. No one had spoken aloud—he was certain of that.

'What?'

Silence answered him.

"Oh—my bad, this comes with the territory of age." Dumbledore chuckled, bending to retrieve the wand he'd apparently dropped. Harry watched from the corner of his eye as the Headmaster's fingers closed around the Elder Wand.

'That probably wasn't a coincidence.'

"Ahem—where was I? Oh yes! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

He sat back down. The hall burst into applause.

"Is he alright in the head?" Sally-Anne asked, her nose scrunched in confusion.

Fleur just shrugged.

"He's taking the piss," one of the Weasley twins declared. "Has to be."

"Nah, he's always like that," said the other twin. "Mum reckons he went a bit funny after the war."

"Which war?" Sally-Anne asked.

"Take your pick."

A napkin pressed gently against Harry's nose. He blinked, finding Fleur's concerned face inches from his own, her blue eyes searching his features.

"'Arry, are you okay? Your nose is bleeding." She dabbed carefully at the blood, uncharacteristically ignoring the feast materialising around them.

"Yes—thank you. I feel fine."

'I just wasn't prepared for a divinely blessed object,' Harry grumbled internally. The Elder Wand—the Death Stick, the Wand of Destiny. One of the three Deathly Hallows. His Structural Analysis had touched something it was never meant to comprehend, and the backlash had been immediate.

Hermione leaned forward, her expression matching Fleur's concern. Harry shot them both a look that said later.

Before anyone could press further, the empty golden plates before them filled with food. Mountains of roast beef and roast chicken appeared alongside dishes of boiled and roasted potatoes, platters of Yorkshire puddings, tureens of peas and carrots, boats of gravy, and—for some reason—a bowl of peppermint humbugs.

Harry's stomach reminded him forcefully that he hadn't eaten since the train.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, clearly wanting answers more than food.

Harry brought out the trump card. "Hunger's the enemy."

Fleur gave him a blank stare, her gaze flicking between his face and the roast beef.

"Fine," Fleur deadpanned, reaching for the serving platter with reluctant enthusiasm.

Harry began loading his plate, already thinking of ways to convince the house-elves to let him cook. It had taken two months to win over the Tonkses' house-elf. Beside him, Fleur was already constructing what could only be described as an architectural triumph of protein and carbohydrates—roast beef stacked atop chicken, bordered by a moat of mashed potatoes, crowned with Yorkshire puddings.

"Hungry?" Sally-Anne asked, watching the construction with frank awe.

"Like 'Arry says—'unger is the enemy," Fleur replied, and carved.

Hermione picked at her food more delicately, her attention clearly elsewhere. Harry caught her glancing towards the High Table, where Dumbledore was engaged in conversation with McGonagall.

Thankfully, the wand had been tucked away—probably in a holster. Harry would worry about it later, along with everything else currently queuing in his head. The Hallows. The hat's warning that there was always a toll. The voice that had whispered one of three.

'Later,' Harry mouthed.

Hermione nodded fractionally and returned to her potatoes.

"So, Potter." One of the twins—Fred or George, Harry still couldn't tell them apart—leaned across the table with a conspiratorial grin. "About half an hour under the hat. What's the record?"

"I don't know," said Percy Weasley from further down the table, his prefect badge gleaming in the candlelight. "Hatstalls over ten minutes are rare. I'm not sure who holds the record. I heard our Head of House was one."

"Heard she was torn between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw," Fred—or George—added.

"Makes sense," the other twin agreed. "Brilliant and terrifying. Could've gone either way."

Harry shrugged, and took a large bite of the prime roast he'd sliced himself, along with some roasted potatoes, to avoid answering.

"Ze 'at was thorough," Fleur offered, saving him from further interrogation. "It took some time wiz me as well."

"You were about ten minutes," Sally-Anne said.

"Were you timing everyone, or just us?" Hermione's voice carried an edge sharp enough to slice the roast beef.

Sally-Anne's smile turned knowing, almost catlike.

The look Hermione gave her in return was out of all proportion to the comment. Harry filed it away for later consideration.

A ghost drifted through the table between Harry and Fleur, making them both jump. The spectre was portly and translucent, dressed in the ruff and tights of an Elizabethan courtier, a feathered cap perched jauntily on his head.

"New Gryffindors!" he exclaimed, beaming at them. "Wonderful, wonderful! I do hope you'll help us win the House Championship this year. Slytherin have won six years running—most disheartening."

"We'll do our best," Harry managed.

"Splendid, splendid! I'm Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower. Do let me know if you need anything—directions, history, tales of derring-do." He drifted off towards the first-years further down, leaving a faint chill in his wake.

"Nearly Headless Nick," Ron Weasley supplied through a mouthful of chicken, his eyes stealing glances at Fleur between bites. "Why's he called that?"

"Nearly Headless?" Sally-Anne leaned forward, intrigued. "How can someone be nearly headless?"

The ghost paused mid-drift, apparently having heard the question. His expression turned theatrical—equal parts weary and pleased at the opportunity to demonstrate.

"Like this."

Sir Nicholas seized his left ear and pulled. His entire head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder, connected by only an inch or so of ghostly skin and sinew. Someone had clearly tried to behead him but hadn't done a thorough job. The head dangled there, grinning at their horrified faces.

"Bloody hell," Ron breathed.

Sally-Anne's face had gone pale, her fork frozen halfway to her mouth. Hermione's nose wrinkled in academic distaste rather than genuine horror. Fleur paused mid-chew, studied the display for a moment, then shrugged and returned to her food.

"Forty-five chops with a blunt axe," Sir Nicholas said, almost proudly, popping his head back into place. "Still didn't do the job. Hence—nearly headless."

"That's..." Sally-Anne searched for an appropriate word. "...unfortunate?"

"Quite." The ghost drifted away, apparently satisfied with their reactions.

The Great Hall hummed with conversation and the clatter of cutlery. Above them, the enchanted ceiling had darkened to match the night sky outside, stars beginning to emerge between wisps of cloud. Candles floated serenely overhead, their flames steady despite the absence of any visible support.

Future problems aside, it was, Harry reflected, exactly how he'd imagined it from the books. And yet entirely different, because he was here—actually here—with Hermione on one side and Fleur on the other, their presence solid and real in a way no page had prepared him for.

Despite demolishing her pile of food with an efficiency that made even Ron look queasy, Fleur managed to grab his hand beneath the table and squeeze. Her fingers were warm, slightly greasy from the roast, and utterly grounding.

Harry squeezed back.

The feast continued around them. Students laughed and talked and reached for seconds. The Weasley twins had begun some sort of competition involving the peppermint humbugs—or possibly just very accurate throwing. Percy was lecturing anyone who would listen about the importance of first impressions and maintaining Gryffindor's academic reputation.

Sally-Anne attempted small talk, much to Hermione's irritation.

"So, Hermione—any hobbies?"

"Reading."

"Anything specific?"

"Books."

Sally-Anne's smile didn't waver. If anything, it brightened—almost feral.

Fleur caught Harry's eye, her lips twitching with barely suppressed amusement.

And somewhere in his soul, beneath the gears and the swords and the endless field of flowers, a copy of the Sorting Hat had taken up residence beside a sword that had waited a thousand years for a worthy wielder.

Harry reached for the gravy boat and decided that was a problem for tomorrow.

'Yeah—that amongst other things.'

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End

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