A/N: As of today, 7/2/2023, this is the final chapter currently posted publicly for this story. Because of how the schedule works, Chapter 10 will come out Wednesday morning and then after that it will be one chapter every two weeks going forward.

There will always be four advance chapters on my Patreon at all times for this and my other Patreon-Funded fics.

-x-X-x-

… What was he thinking? Just because she wasn’t a candidate for the ritual didn’t mean she wasn’t his friend. Sure, she wasn’t the same Hermione he’d left behind in a future that never would be, but she was still his Hermione. A fond smile settles on Harry’s face and he lets out a soft chuckle as he realizes what an idiot he’s been.
 
The world might be ending, but it wasn’t ending tomorrow. And there was really no point in saving it if he pushed away everyone he cared about in the process, now was there?
 
“Sorry, Hermione. I didn’t mean to seem distant. How have you been? What have you been up to?”
 
Hermione frowns at that, clearly not entirely happy with his answer.
 
“I’ve been worried about you, obviously. And I’ve been researching the Triwizard Tournament. You might not be able to go to the teachers for help Harry, but that does not mean you have to do this alone.”
 
Ah, that again. Smiling, Harry shakes his head.
 
“Honestly, I’ve barely paid any mind to the Triwizard Tournament. It’s not that important, Hermione.”
 
Her eyes damn near bulge out of her head at that.
 
“Not that important?! Harry, this is a matter of life and death! If you don’t participate, the Goblet of Fire will take your magic!”
 
Amused by her reaction, Harry tilts his head to the side.
 
“Would that really be so bad? We both come from muggle backgrounds, Hermione. Is it really the end of the world if I have to spend the rest of my life living as a muggle?”
 
Technically yes. Yes it would mean the end of the world if Harry lost his magic to the Goblet of Fire. No one else knew what was coming after all. No one else knew what he knew. And sure, if he lost his magic he could tell people and hope they could avert the coming apocalypse… but Harry had long since learned never to rely on others. He was the only one who could stop what was to come and that wasn’t just his Savior Complex talking. Probably.
 
“Harry!”
 
Hermione’s whine lets him know she’s finally realized he’s messing with her. Eyes twinkling in amusement, Harry snickers and takes another bite of his breakfast.
 
“Relax, Hermione. I have no intention of letting the Goblet of Fire take my magic. I’ll participate in the tournament; you don’t have to fret. Still… I’m surprised you haven’t already figured out the obvious loophole, given all your research.”
 
As Hermione’s brow furrows, Harry reflects inwardly that he’s not REALLY that surprised. After all, he knows the girl across from him. The loophole would never occur to an over-achiever like Hermione Granger, the smartest witch of their generation. Smirking now, Harry reaches out and taps the table between them.
 
“The Goblet enforces participation. It does NOT however force me to try. I don’t have to give my all towards winning, Hermione. I just have to show up and play along.”
 
Hermione’s eyes widen and he can see her initial reaction is one of disappointment though she’s at least wise enough not to say it out loud. She’s disappointed that he wouldn’t even try, despite the fact that from her perspective, he’s three years too early to even be participating and someone is clearly trying to kill him here.
 
Of course, Harry actually hasn’t decided yet how he’ll tackle the three Triwizard Tasks. He knows he’ll need to make a decision sooner rather than later though. Will he give it his all to get the highest scores possible, so that when it comes to the Final Task he can blaze through the maze and touch the trophy-turned-port key before any of the others even get to start? Or will he sandbag so that no one knows to expect his full potential?
 
It’s a toughie, but Harry still has time to figure it out. The First Task is still ages away, and since he knows exactly what’s happening, he’s not really worried about it or the other two. Hermione though looks fit to worry enough for the both of them. She eventually manages to wrap her head around his professed game plan, and though she’s still frowning, she at least seems to have decided he’s making the right call.
 
“… You’re probably right, Harry. If you try your best to win, you’re only increasing the likelihood of death. Better to just… participate and let that be enough. After all, no one is expecting you to somehow beat three people that are all several years older than you.”
 
Harry just smiles, thinking back to the original timeline and his first time through these events. She was right but also wrong. Funnily enough, one group DID expect him to win the Triwizard Tournament… Voldemort and his toadies, Barty Crouch Jr. and Wormtail. They didn’t just expect him to win, they’d worked hard to make sure he would. Harry wondered when Barty as Moody would begin making moves to surreptitiously ‘help’ Harry… and how he might be able to troll the disguised Death Eater until Barty had outlived his usefulness.
 
Something in his eyes must have caught Hermione’s attention however, because the next thing he knows, she’s reached out and smacked his hand.
 
“I don’t like that look on your face, Harry Potter! That’s the sort of look Ron sometimes sports before one of his bad ideas. You definitely shouldn’t be looking like that!”
 
Harry chuckles and gives Hermione a fond smile. She was still his Hermione. Maybe not with all the time and years behind her that he had, but he could see the brilliant witch she would eventually grow into already shining through. He and Hermione had stayed close all the way to the end of the original timeline… but she’d never known what he did with Bellatrix. And it was only after Ron’s death that they’d… well, that was in the timeline that never would be, wasn’t it?
 
He didn’t expect anything to happen here that had happened there. Especially not how it had happened, not if he could help it. That said… Hermione meant the world to him. And he couldn’t bring himself to brush her off OR send her on a wild goose chase.
 
With the meal coming to a close, Harry lets out a low sigh and stands up. He’s not surprised when Hermione quickly joins him. Once they’re outside of the Great Hall, he leads her to a spot where he knows there won’t be any paintings or suits of armor to overhear them.
 
“Hermione…”
 
She looks at him with hopeful eyes.
 
“Yes Harry?”
 
“I don’t need your help with the Triwizard Tournament. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need your help with something else.”
 
The first sentence saw Hermione’s face beginning to fall, but the second sentence had her brightening up all over again. However, she was also intrigued, her brow furrowing cutely as she looks at him curiously.
 
“If you really want to help me Hermione… I want you to look into the effects of radiation on magic. Specifically, nuclear radiation.”
 
Hermione blinks owlishly, clearly taken aback by what she sees as a total non-sequitur. But Harry is beyond serious, and he can see that she sees as much in his gaze.
 
“Nuclear… nuclear radiation? But why, Harry?”
 
Shaking his head, Harry sighs.
 
“I can’t tell you that, Hermione. And I need you to keep this between us. I can trust you to do that, right?”
 
By this point in the timeline, Hermione had learned not to go running to a Professor every time something she didn’t understand smacked her in the face. Or at least, he was pretty sure she had. Sure, Umbridge and her particular brand of lunacy and tyrannical authority would most definitely tear away the last of Hermione’s obsession with authority figures next year, but the way they’d had to abuse her time turner to save Sirius last year should have already started her down that path.
 
And if it didn’t and she DID go and tell someone about his words, well… Harry hadn’t said much of anything at all, really. So it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Still, for now at least, Hermione nods with wide eyes.
 
“O-Of course Harry. But still, I don’t quite understand…”
 
Harry just shakes his head again.
 
“That’s okay, Hermione. I just need you to look into it for me. Start with the effects that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on their magical communities, okay?”
 
Hermione, still wide-eyed, just nods as she takes his advice. Harry, meanwhile, grimaces internally. Honestly, if Japan’s wizarding community hadn’t been quite so insular, they would have had fair warning almost a century before shit really hit the fan. Not that he expected anyone would have really done anything. But that was neither here nor there. The rapid decline and ultimate erasure of Japan’s magical world should have been the most obvious warning sign in the world that something had happened.
 
In the end… it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Harry was back and the apocalypse hadn’t happened yet. He still had time to stop the muggles from accidentally ending the wizarding world while purposefully ending themselves. And he would stop them. No matter what it took.
 
-x-X-x-
 
Bella’s moans fill the Room of Requirement as Harry grunts, fucking her into the bed that the room has made for them. Her breasts bounce up and down, looking livelier and healthier than when he’d first grabbed her from Azkaban. As he reaches out and casually gropes one while pounding into his loyal bitch, Harry also reaches out with his magic, feeling her magic in turn and strengthening the connection between them.
 
This little… encounter between the two of them was necessary preparation for when he finished things with Aurora Sinistra, or if he decided to go after another witch and bind them to him first. He still hadn’t decided on that front yet. Did he want to juggle multiple women at once, or handle each conquest at a time before moving onto the next?
 
Either way, he would be relying on Bellatrix’s magic to help him form the second connection. After all, binding Bellatrix was simplicity because of their previous connection and her physical weakness after over a decade in Azkaban. Binding a healthy witch who he didn’t have prior experience was something differently entirely.
 
As he fucks Bellatrix hard and fast, he grunts and casually speaks up, seeing no reason to hold anything back from her.
 
“I asked Hermione to begin researching the effects of nuclear radiation on magic today.”
 
Bellatrix’s moans come to an abrupt end as her eyes roll forward in her head, snapping to him. She peers at him for a moment before smiling wickedly.
 
“If Master thinks that is best, this lowly slave will not question him~”
 
Harry rolls his eyes at that and turns his grope of her tit into a chastising smack that makes her moan all the more wantonly.
 
“Speak your mind, Bella.”
 
Mewling pathetically, Bellatrix’s eyes flutter. Though he knows it’s all just an act.
 
“Mmm, Master is so cruel. I just wonder if you’ve thought this through… or if you’re letting your emotions get the better of you.”
 
Harry scoffs as he rolls Bella’s nipple between his fingers.
 
“Of course I’m letting my emotions influence me. I’m not a machine, Bellatrix. I’m not some emotionless robot, to work entirely on cold hard facts and logic. If I was, I wouldn’t be as magically gifted as I am. Magic doesn’t work like science… that’s part of the problem.”
 
Bella inclines her head silently, acknowledging his point.
 
“Still, Hermione is brilliant. She might not have been able to come up with a solution in the future, but I always felt like that was because she didn’t have enough time. I’m just giving her the chance to start her research a decade earlier… and who knows, she might just save us all.”
 
Eyes lidded, Bellatrix grins and licks her lips.
 
“Unless you save us all first, Master~”
 
Chuckling, Harry continues pistoning in and out of Bella’s clenching cunny with great force, enjoying the way she wraps and tightens around his cock as he fucks her.
 
“That’s Plan A, certainly. But it’s always good to have a Plan B.”
 
Indeed, while Plan A was obviously to prevent it from happening in the first place and why he was seeking to gather as much magic to himself as possible… Plan B through Z were all about what they might be able to do if Plan A failed. If Harry couldn’t stop the apocalypse, then he would try to stop it from affecting the magical world at least. And if he couldn’t stop that… then maybe they would have to leave Earth behind entirely.
 
He hadn’t come back in time with just one plan, but several. And he was fully prepared to implement every last one of them, regardless of what they cost him.
 
“I see your conviction, Master. I wonder… if you’re letting your pet bookworm off her leash, perhaps you would do the same with me? I had an idea I would love to explore on your behalf~”
 
Harry stills at that, looking down into his mad pet’s eyes and frowning at Bellatrix’s words.
 
“… What sort of idea?”
 
Bellatrix grins wickedly and licks her lips.
 
“That’s a secre-mmph!”
 
But Harry isn’t having it. He reaches out and grabs hold of her jaw, cutting her off as he squeezes her cheeks between his fingers.
 
“Tell me. Now.”
 
You had to be careful with Bellatrix. Give her an inch and she might be happy… or she might try and take a mile. It was really quite random which it would be at any given time.
 
“Mm… I had a thought. Master’s ritual is good for helping us build a foundation of strength and power… not only will Master soon be the strongest, most powerful wizard alive by a wide margin, but he’ll also have access to all sorts of witches in… positions of influence. However, what about the wizards? Especially Master’s enemies?”
 
Harry frowns at that, not liking where Bellatrix’s mind is going.
 
“… While I acknowledge that I’m leaving quite a lot of power on the table, Bella… I don’t swing that way. I have no intention of engaging in sexual intercourse with other men for power.”
 
If the situation was insanely desperate, maybe… but he was far enough back in time that it wasn’t that desperate, thankfully.
 
To his surprise, Bella shakes her head, letting out a small laugh.
 
“Of course not, Master. Even if the mental image does make me squirm in a delightful fashion. No… I’m talking about retooling the ritual. Remove the sexual component… as well as the binding component. Rather than connect their magic to yours via sex… why not drain your enemies of their magic entirely? Make it your own and leave them lifeless husks. It’s no less than they would do to you, given half the chance.”
 
Harry opens his mouth, his first impulse to reject the proposition. But then he pauses… because Bellatrix might be onto something. As mad as his pet bitch is, she sometimes has good ideas. The question he now has to answer is… is this one of them?

-x-X-x-

The Patreon Vote:

[X] Agree to let Bellatrix look into altering the ritual - 81%
 
[  ] Deny her, it's a step too far - 19%

(From this chapter on, I will be posting the results of the Patreon Vote for the chapter to increase transparency and alleviate the issue of constant cliffhangers.)