Young Celestial Wizard [Celestial Grimoire, Harry Potter]

Harry rested one leg on his knee as he sat on a bench in the empty Transfiguration classroom. Charlotte was supposed to meet him here after her Ancient Runes class ended, but she was running late.

Or maybe she was avoiding him again.

It had been three weeks since their conversation in his Heaven-Earth Soul, and Charlotte had been... distant. Not hostile, but she'd didn't want to talk all that much. When they did run into each other in the corridors, she'd give him a polite smile and find an excuse to leave quickly.

Harry understood why she needed time. Learning that someone you cared about was actually a world-creating being who was also involved with a princess from another universe was probably a lot to handle.

That didn't mean the waiting was any less frustrating.

While he waited, Harry kept part of his consciousness focused on his Human World. He was continuously expanding its borders using World Power, and the results spoke for themselves. The world was now the size of a country like the Netherlands, and this growth could be attributed to the seemingly endless amounts of magical energy in Earth's atmosphere that he absorbed and converted into World Power almost constantly.

If he had relied solely on his ex-nihilo generation of magic through the Magicka Pool embedded within his Source Soul, it would have taken years to match the same rate of growth.

Six centuries had passed within the Texture thanks to his Time Authority, and the ecosystem had stabilized gradually during that time. Harry had populated the world with mundane animals from blood samples he'd bought in the market. Deer, rabbits, wolves, bears, various birds, fish for the rivers and lakes that had formed naturally.

He'd let them figure out the ecosystem for themselves rather than trying to micromanage every detail.

It was a different story for magical creatures, since they could have specific food requirements or who knows what, so he would still need the help of Newt Scamander for the initial setup.

Grandpa Dumbledore had assured him they could meet after another two to three weeks, so he was looking forward to that.

The Hungarian Horntails he'd captured and created had become the apex predators, as expected. They weren't picky about what they ate, so there was now a large flight of them soaring through his world's skies, though these were no longer the first generation. The original dragon he'd captured had produced offspring, and those offspring had produced their own young.

Harry found it interesting to watch how they'd adapted to their environment over the centuries. They'd claimed the mountainous regions as their territory and established hunting territories that kept the herbivore populations in check without driving them to extinction.

In these last few weeks, he'd also established a new small-scale Texture within his Heaven-Earth Soul purely for storage.

To keep it simple, the Texture had no living beings and only the Laws of Physics. It resembled a void where everything he owned floated in dark space, organized by his will whenever he needed to find something specific.

He called it his Treasury.

Harry had created nine more spears using his Citrinitas flames, bringing his total to ten Stone Citrinitas Spears stored safely in the Treasury. To confirm their capabilities, he had tested them against all kinds of metals during his experiments at the Flamel cottage. Iron, steel, gold, tungsten, platinum... it didn't matter.

The spears pierced through them all with equal ease.

But not everything could be pierced by the Stone Citrinitas Spears.

Harry could still remember when he'd tested one with Nicolas casting the Protego Charm.

"Nicolas, could you cast a Shield Charm?" Harry asked, holding one of his spears. "I want to test something."

Nicolas nodded and raised his wand. "Protego!"

A barrier of light appeared between them. Harry pressed the tip of his Stone Citrinitas Spear against the magical shield and was surprised to feel resistance. The spear didn't effortlessly pierce through the shield like it had with every physical material he'd tested.

Harry increased the pressure. The spear began to penetrate slowly, requiring actual effort from him. The shield cracked and finally shattered, but only after several seconds of sustained force.

"Try fortifying it," Harry suggested.

Nicolas nodded eagerly. "Protego! Fianto Duri!"

The new shield appeared far more solid than the first. When Harry pressed his spear against it, the barrier held firm. He pushed harder, using more of his physical strength, but the shield remained intact.

"How much force are you using?" Nicolas asked.

"Maybe a ton of pressure," Harry muttered, still straining against the barrier. "Let me try more."

Harry's muscles tensed as he drew back the spear and planted his feet firmly. With a loud grunt, he thrust forward, focusing more than ten tons of force directly into the magical shield. Multiple spiderweb cracks spread outward from the point of impact before the barrier shattered completely.

"Your progress is absolutely mad," Nicolas said, shaking his head. "Going through the alchemical stages at such a rapid pace… I would've never believed it if I didn't see all of it with my own eyes! "

That was when Harry had a suspicion that maybe the base material limited the strength of the spear, so he broke down steel ingots into fundamental steel particles and after purifying them, made another spear.

The Steel Citrinitas Spear.

This spear was similarly capable of piercing through any mundane materials, and also required him to exert strength to break through magical barriers. But it required less strength from Harry to break through shields than the Stone Citrinitas Spear.

After that day of testing, he'd pretty much confirmed his suspicion that the type of fundamental particles also influenced the strength of the Citrinitas Spear. And if he extrapolated further from this, Harry suspected that it worked similarly to the Mending Charm.

The Mending Charm imposed the concept of 'wholeness' or 'mend this object' on whatever you pointed your wand at. If Harry was right, then the Form he fed into the Citrinitas Flames didn't just provide the material structure. It also carried his understanding of concepts. His understanding of 'Piercing' was only at the level of piercing through non-magical materials, which explained why his Citrinitas Spears struggled against magical shields.

This meant there were two main ways to improve what the Citrinitas Flame could create.

First, he could improve the Form… basically his own understanding of what he wanted to make. If Harry understood piercing on a deeper level, maybe understanding how things pierced through magical defenses, then his spears would be better at it.

Second, he could find better materials and rely on their natural properties. Even broken down into fundamental particles, some materials might retain qualities that others didn't.

Of course, Harry had immediately wondered what kind of material would work best for a Citrinitas Spear.

His first attempt had been goblin-wrought silver. If he'd been poor, getting some would have been difficult. But for rich families, it wasn't hard at all. Even the Black Family had cutlery and cups made of goblin-wrought silver from the fifteenth century, so the Flamels had plenty lying around.

But the experiment had failed. Harry had broken down enough goblin-wrought silver into fundamental particles, only to end up making a Silver Citrinitas Spear without any special properties.

Why had this happened?

It wasn't hard to guess. The effect of 'repelling mundane dirt and absorbing substances that make it stronger' wasn't a natural property of the metal. Goblins forged pure silver and then enchanted it with their magic to create the special material. If Harry wanted to find a metal with magical properties that survived being broken down into fundamental particles, he needed one where those properties were innate, not added afterwards.

So Harry had decided to try dragon horns next. They seemed perfect for the concept of 'Piercing', right? And his assumption turned out to be correct.

The Dragonhorn Citrinitas Spear went through a basic Protego Charm like it wasn't even there. It didn't take much effort to pierce through a fortified Protego either. And this was Nicolas Flamel's shield, not some average wizard's attempt.

Just like the Mending Charm worked better with a better Form, so did the Protego Charm. Would the average wizard have as good a Form as someone like Nicolas Flamel or Albus Dumbledore?

Definitely not.

The classroom door finally opened, interrupting Harry's thoughts. Charlotte walked in, her Ancient Runes textbook tucked under one arm. She paused when she saw him, then gave him that same polite smile she'd been using for weeks.

"Harry," she said. "Sorry I'm late. Professor Babbling kept us after class to discuss next week's exam."

"It's fine," Harry said, standing up from the bench. "I've been thinking about spears."

Charlotte blinked. "Spears?"

"Long story," Harry shrugged. "How have you been?"

"Fine," Charlotte said quickly. Too quickly. "Just busy with classes. You know how it is."

Harry didn't know how it was, actually. He'd never attended regular classes at Hogwarts. But he nodded anyway.

An awkward silence filled the air between them. Charlotte shifted her weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable.

"Charlotte," Harry said gently. "We need to talk about this."

"About what?" she asked, not meeting his eyes.

"You know what," Harry said. "You've been avoiding me for three weeks."

Charlotte's shoulders slumped. "I haven't been avoiding you. I've just been... thinking."

"And?" Harry prompted.

Charlotte finally looked at him. "And I don't know what to think, Harry. You're asking me to be okay with sharing you with some princess I've never met. You have a literal world inside you. Nothing about this is normal!"

"When has anything about my life been normal?" Harry muttered.

Charlotte laughed, but it sounded strained. "That's not exactly reassuring."

Harry watched as Charlotte hugged her Ancient Runes textbook tighter to her chest, like it was some kind of shield between them. He could see the conflict in her eyes, the way she kept glancing at him and then away again.

"I've tried," Charlotte said quietly. "I really have. I spent these three weeks trying to wrap my head around it. The idea of... sharing someone I care about."

Harry felt something twist in his chest. "And?"

"And I can't." Charlotte's voice cracked slightly. "I just can't, Harry. It feels wrong. Everything about it feels wrong to me."

The classroom suddenly felt too small. Harry had faced down dragons and fear spirits, but this conversation was making him feel more uncomfortable than any of those encounters.

"I grew up reading fairy tales," Charlotte continued, her words coming faster now. "Stories about finding your one true love. Not your... partial true love that you share with someone else. I know that probably sounds childish to someone who can create worlds, but-"

"It doesn't sound childish," Harry interrupted.

Charlotte's eyes were starting to shine with unshed tears. "I like you, Harry. I really do. You're brilliant and powerful and you've saved my life more times than I can count. But I can't be someone's second choice. Or even someone's equal first choice with another girl. I need to be someone's only choice."

He'd been so certain that Charlotte would come around eventually. That she just needed time to process everything.

The possibility that she might actually reject him hadn't really occurred to him.

Was he that arrogant? Had he assumed that just because he had all this power and luck, people would automatically accept whatever relationship structure he offered them?

"I understand," Harry said, though he wasn't sure he did.

"Do you?" Charlotte asked. "Because you look like someone just told you the sky is green."

Harry almost laughed at that. She was right. He probably did look shocked. When was the last time someone had told him no about something he really wanted? Not a temporary no, not a 'let me think about it' no, but a real, final rejection?

He didn't want to remember.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte said, and a tear finally escaped down her cheek. "I know this isn't what you wanted to hear."

Harry's instinct was to argue. To explain again why his relationship with Azula didn't diminish what he could have with Charlotte.

To point out that lots of cultures throughout history had practiced this kind of thing.

But looking at Charlotte crying in front of him, Harry realized that would be selfish. She'd made her choice, had thought about it for three weeks and decided what she could and couldn't accept. Trying to pressure her into changing her mind would be wrong.

"Okay," Harry said softly. "Okay, it's fine."

Charlotte wiped at her eyes. "Is it...?"

"I'm not going to lie and say I'm happy about it," Harry admitted. "But I respect your decision. We never actually dated or anything, so... we can just forget about it and stay friends."

"Friends," Charlotte repeated, testing the word. "Right. Friends."

The air between them felt heavy, like the moment before a thunderstorm. Harry wanted to say something else, but what was there to say? He'd offered her his version of a relationship, and she'd said no.

That was that.

"I should go," Charlotte said suddenly. "I have... I need to study for that Ancient Runes exam."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Of course."

Charlotte turned to leave, then paused at the door. "Harry? For what it's worth, I think whoever ends up with you – just you – is going to be very lucky."

Then she was gone, leaving Harry alone in the empty classroom.

Harry sat back down on the bench and rubbed his temples. He'd never dealt with rejection before, not like this. When people disagreed with him, he could usually prove his point through demonstration. When enemies attacked him, he could fight back.

But this wasn't something he could solve with power or knowledge or clever thinking.

Charlotte wanted something he couldn't give her. She wanted to be someone's only romantic focus, and Harry couldn't offer that.

Not when he still had feelings for Azula too.

Would it be worth it to give up Azula for Charlotte? Harry immediately shook his head. That wouldn't be fair to Azula, and it wouldn't be honest either. He couldn't just turn off his feelings for the Fire Nation princess because it would make things easier with Charlotte.

Harry's green eyes darkened as he stared at the classroom floor.

Really? Right now? The moment I get rejected, something new shows up?

The timing felt almost mocking.

[Ogre Gloves – World of Warcraft] – Costs 200CP, 300CP available to spend

A pair of magical gloves that grant you the strength of an ogre when worn.

Harry didn't need to think much about this offer. He wasn't aware of how much strength an 'ogre' had, but it probably wasn't all that impressive. His current physical strength could already exert more than ten tons of pressure. Some gloves that gave him the strength of what sounded like the relative of some troll or something like that didn't seem worth spending crucial points on.

He rejected the offer.

But the moment he dismissed it, another offer appeared. Harry blinked in surprise. That had never happened before. Usually there was at least some time between offers, but this was immediate, like it was trying to offer him something else right away.

[Magic Sustains You – Generic Wizard] – Costs 100CP, 400CP available to spend

Any of your biological needs can be replaced with consuming magical energy. You'll automatically run on magic if deprived of something vital.

This was... so useful it defied belief. Didn't this mean he was no longer reliant on food?

Harry had always required less food than others, being fine with eating once every few days, so over time he had grown to slightly dislike eating because it felt like unnecessary effort and it only polluted his own body with impurities as well, even if it was regularly being purified.

With this, he didn't have to dedicate any more time to food, and it was the same for drinking water or breathing air. Well, another biological need was sleep, wasn't it?

That meant even sleep was no longer a limiting factor for Harry.

Harry sat back on the bench and really thought about what this meant. If he took this offer, he would no longer need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. Those were the four most basic needs that every human shared. Rich or poor, wizard or muggle, everyone had to deal with hunger, thirst, suffocation, and exhaustion.

But not him. Not if he accepted this.

Is this another step away from humanity? Harry had long ceased to truly feel pain in a way that bothered him, and now this…

He thought about Charlotte's words. She'd called him brilliant and powerful, but what would she think if she knew he was considering abandoning the need to eat or sleep entirely?

Would she even recognize him as human anymore?

In the bending world, he remembered sharing meals with Azula. The taste of Fire Nation cuisine, the way Azula had laughed when he'd tried to eat something too spicy. Those were good memories, human memories.

But they were also... inefficient memories, weren't they?

Harry had spent hours of his life eating food he didn't particularly enjoy, just because his body demanded it. He'd lost countless hours to sleep when he could have been studying, training, or expanding his Heaven-Earth Soul. How many times had he been interrupted during firebending practice because he needed to drink water or take a breath?

What about the fact his enemies couldn't starve him if he didn't need to eat food or drink water? They couldn't drown him if he didn't need to breathe. They couldn't attack him while he slept if he never slept.

And was humanity truly defined by these needs anyway?

No, it wasn't. Humanity was about the ability to feel love, to have fun, to create, and even to destroy. It had little to do with breathing air, eating food, drinking water, or sleeping.

Those were just... maintenance requirements. Like how a horse needed hay or a fire needed fuel. The real essence of what made someone human was their capacity for emotion, creativity, relationships, growth. Harry had felt more human when he was painting with his flames than when he was eating breakfast. He'd felt more connected to his humanity when he was comforting Charlotte or playing with Chrysa than when he was sleeping.

The biological needs were just distractions from what actually mattered.

I accept the offer.

The moment Harry made his decision, he felt something shift deep within his Source Soul. The transformed Po Soul that anchored his physical body suddenly expanded its role dramatically.

Harry could sense that a portion of the magical energy that was normally sent to his Heaven-Earth Soul for conversion into World Power, was being redirected. Instead of flowing upward to his Hun Soul, it flowed downward into his physical body.

The change was extreme.

Harry felt his lungs take one final breath, then stop entirely. The magical energy in his body was providing everything his cells needed, whether that be oxygen, nutrients or anything else. His stomach, which had been quietly digesting the small breakfast he'd eaten that morning, simply stopped doing that. The food dissolved harmlessly as magic took over the function of providing energy to his body.

All organs in his body no longer needed to do anything.

But even with all of that, the most noticeable change remained in his mind.

Harry had never realized how much of his consciousness had been dedicated to monitoring his body's needs. There had always been a small part of his awareness tracking his breathing, noting when he was getting hungry or thirsty, feeling the gradual buildup of exhaustion that would eventually require sleep.

All of that background noise just... vanished.

His consciousness felt incredibly light. All those tiny biological processes that had been claiming fragments of his attention were gone. Harry estimated he'd gained maybe five to ten percent more mental capacity just from not having to monitor his body's basic functions.

In other words, he could dedicate more of his Will to spellcasting.

Harry was just starting to think about what this meant for his Levitation Charm experiments when his blood began to slowly burn.

The Elder Blood was acting up again.

He let out a loud sigh at the amazingly bad timing. He'd just been rejected, and now he was about to be yanked into another universe. Wouldn't Charlotte assume he had been so hurt that he couldn't even bother to stay at Hogwarts? He didn't want to leave that kind of impression…

If it was any consolation, at the very least they'd prepared for this possibility. Harry summoned a small portkey with a paper wrapped around it from his Treasury and activated it, sending the message to the Flamels that he was going to be missing for a while. The Flamels would inform Dumbledore, and Dumbledore would make up some excuse for everyone else if Harry's trip took too long.

Luckily, he didn't need to fetch Chrysa from her jaunt into the Forbidden Forest. The familiar bond they shared ensured that she would be brought with him even to the afterlife, let alone into a different world.

That had been one of the benefits of the Loyal Steed offer.

Five seconds later, the Elder Blood finished burning and his body faded into nothingness as he was sent into the Omniverse.

Infinite universes rushed past him in a blur of light and color. Harry glanced around and paused in surprise at the sight of what seemed to be a 'line' leaving a Universe right next to his own. In fact, now that he observed more closely, he could see that his Universe was within an infinite cluster of Universes.

Was that the local multiverse? Or was it just parallel universes? Harry wasn't sure, and he didn't know what that line was supposed to represent either.

Some kind of connection between worlds? Maybe another traveler like himself?

But it didn't take long before he was dragged further and further away, pulled past countless other universe clusters until he was sent into another universe entirely.

Harry blinked and was standing in what looked like a diner. The first thing he did was quickly cover both himself and Chrysa with golden Life Flames before anything else happened.

"We're in another world," he whispered to her. "Stay close and be ready for anything."

Chrysa nodded.

Harry extinguished the Life Flames once he was certain both of them had been purged of any foreign pathogens, then took a proper look around.

It seemed to be night time, and rain was pounding against the windows. The diner had that classic American look from the movies he saw during one of his monthly visits to the Dursleys. Red vinyl booths, checkered floor tiles, and even fluorescent lights that gave off a harsh white glow.

But something was very wrong with the atmosphere…

A lot of people were walking past the windows outside, shouting and pushing forward through the rain. Harry could even hear screaming in the distance, though he couldn't make out what they were saying.

Next to one of the windows sat three people. One adult man with black hair was clutching both hands to his forehead like he had the world's worst headache. A teenager was closely hugging a girl who seemed to be around ten years old. The little girl was sniffling with teary eyes, and the teenager didn't look much better.

The girl was the first to notice Harry and Chrysa. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of what was clearly a full-grown lion.

Then she let out a loud shriek.

"LION! THERE'S A LION!"

The adult man immediately removed his hands from his forehead, revealing traumatized eyes with slight tears leaking from them. He jumped up from the booth so fast he nearly knocked over the table, grabbing a glass cup and holding it up like some kind of weapon.

"What the hell?!" the man shouted. "Why do you have a goddamn LION with you?! HOW do you have a lion?!"

The teenager pulled the little girl closer to him, both of them pressing back against the window. "Dad, what on earth is happening? First those things, now there's some guy with a lion!"

Harry raised both hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture. "Please don't panic. She's not dangerous. Her name is Chrysa, and she's my companion."

"Your companion?!" the man repeated, still brandishing the glass cup. "Lions eat people!"

"Not this one," Harry said firmly. "I promise you, she won't hurt anyone unless they try to hurt me first."

Chrysa seemed to understand the situation and slowly lowered herself to the diner floor, resting her head on her paws in the least threatening position possible.

The man breathed heavily as he stared at them. Harry could see the exhaustion and fear in his eyes. Whatever had happened here, it had been traumatic enough to leave this adult man on the edge of a breakdown.

"Look," Harry said gently, "I know this is strange. But I'm not here to cause trouble. My name is Harry Potter. What's yours?"

The man glanced between Harry and Chrysa several more times before slowly lowering the glass cup. "Ray. Ray Ferrier." He gestured to the teenager. "This is my son Robbie, and my daughter Rachel."

"Hi," Rachel said in a small voice, still pressed against her brother.

Robbie stared at Harry. "Where did you come from? We didn't see you walk in."

That was a good question. Harry had appeared in the middle of the diner without using the door. These people had probably been watching the windows because of whatever was happening outside.

"It's complicated," Harry said, which was true enough. "What's going on out there? I heard screaming."

Ray let out a bitter laugh that had no humor in it. "What's going on? What else could possibly happen at this point?" He gestured wildly toward the window. "We just got forced out of our car by a bunch of people trying to steal it. Everyone's gone completely insane out there."

Just then, a loud gunshot cracked through the air outside.

Harry raised an eyebrow and moved closer to the window. Through the rain-streaked glass, he could indeed see a car that was completely surrounded by desperate men and women. The driver was still inside, and Harry watched as the man raised what looked like a muggle pistol and fired another shot at several people who were trying to drag him out.

The crowd scattered for a moment, then regrouped and continued their assault on the car. More people were running down the street, some carrying bags and suitcases, others just running with nothing at all.

"That's our car," Rachel said quietly, pointing at the vehicle. "We were trying to get to Boston to see Mom."

This wasn't ordinary panic or even a riot. People were fleeing from something, and whatever it was had scared them badly enough to abandon normal social behavior entirely.

What could cause this level of mass hysteria?