CHAPTER THREE: THE GAMBIT

Rows of monitors cast a cold glow across Coil’s office, each one a window into a different cell, corridor, or containment unit. On one scree

Rows of monitors cast a cold glow across Coil’s office, each one a window into a different cell, corridor, or containment unit.

On one screen, Harry Potter sat motionless, elbows on knees, head cocked like he was listening to something no one else could hear. The image was still, almost tranquil, if you didn’t know better.

Coil did.

The situation wasn't just wrong. It was impossible.

Dinah’s predictions degraded in the boy’s presence: percentages stalling, variables corrupting, and entire futures slipping through her grasp. Coil’s own power stuttered around him, his timeline branches collapsing without cause. And Noelle, stable for nearly a month, was now thrashing in her cell like a rabid animal.

He steepled his fingers. The anomaly was destabilizing more than just precognition.

Time to test a theory.

. . . . .

The door hissed open without warning.

Harry looked up as four figures entered: three in tactical armor, rifles slung across their chests. The fourth was taller, with no weapon, but something about him was more dangerous than the others.

“On your feet,” the lead mercenary barked, voice clipped.

Harry stood slowly, shoulders tight, and magic prickling under his skin like a warning. The tall one hadn’t spoken, but his fingers twitched at his sides, as if jittery.

They led him through a series of corridors. Large doors lined the walls, most marked with hazard symbols and warnings Harry didn’t recognize. The air grew heavy, chemical antiseptic giving way to a stink of blood and rotting meat.

When the hallway ended, they stopped before a reinforced viewing window.

Beyond it, Harry saw her.

She might have once been human. The upper half still bore the shape of a girl his age, framed in strips of fur, and a face sunken and slick with sweat. But below the waist, her body was a nightmarish and writhing mass; half-formed faces surfaced and sank into her flesh, mouths opening in silent pleas before vanishing again, while her grotesque horror of too many limbs twitched and shuddered, not in rage, but in something more desperate.  

She wasn’t like anything Harry had ever seen, not in the war, and not in the nightmares that came after. Whatever magic had twisted her into this thing wasn’t born of any spell he recognized.

The lead mercenary jerked his chin toward the chamber. “Boss wants you to make contact.”

Contact?

Harry’s stomach dropped, and his instincts screamed. This wasn’t magic, but something wrong. Darker than anything he’d felt in the war, and more alien than even a Dementor.

The tall mercenary suddenly stepped forward, putting himself between Harry and the containment glass.

“Easy, Noelle,” he murmured, though not to Harry. To her. “It’s me, Francis.”

The girl’s head snapped toward the sound, and her eyes, milky and unfocused, locked on the man. Her voice cracked like broken glass, though it was hard to make out what exactly she said.

“…”

Still, the mercenary—Francis—flinched. Harry didn’t miss the slip.

Then the hydraulic locks disengaged with a hiss, and hands shoved him forward. The door sealed behind him with a final echo.

The air inside was thick enough to choke on, clinging to his throat like mold and dragging down his lungs with every breath. The stench wasn’t just foul; it was wrong.

Harry’s magic surged instinctively in response as raw power, rising like a tide.

Noelle’s head whipped toward him, her limbs bunching beneath her bulk, and muscles rippling. 

Harry raised his hands, palm sprayed out in front of him. “I don’t want to fight you.”

She shuddered. The mouths across her body opened in unison, silent yet writhing. The air rippled with corrupted power.

Then she lunged.

Harry twisted aside, but a tendril brushed his shoulder. He screamed, a wrenching, soul-deep pain, as if a piece of him had been scraped raw.

“Protego!”

A shimmer of light flared into being, barely more than a flicker without his wand, but it was enough. The shield caught the next strike, sending multicolored flares across the chamber floor.

Noelle recoiled, face twisted with something between pain and confusion.

“W-what are you?” she rasped.

Harry didn’t answer. His magic roiled in his chest, reacting to her presence, and recognizing the corruption. It reminded him of the Horcruxes, souls torn and twisted, but worse. Alive.

On the other side of the glass, Francis slammed his fists against it.

“Open the door! Now!”

The guards outside hesitated.

Inside, Noelle convulsed as new limbs erupted from her flesh. The chamber filled with low, rasping moans from mouths that weren’t hers, and the faces in her flesh turned toward Harry, their empty eyes hungry.

She was going to rampage.

Harry’s mind raced. He didn’t have a wand, he didn’t have a plan, but he had one thing left.

He reached for it: his happiest memory. 

Flying. Laughter. A soft hand in his.

“Expecto Patronum!”

Silver wispy light exploded from his palms. A brilliant stag burst into existence, antlers gleaming, and hooves making rushing, roaring sounds as it hit the ground running. It charged Noelle with a cry of defiance.

She shrieked. The light struck her corruption like acid. The mouths screamed, the limbs recoiled, and for one perfect moment, she was still.

Then the alarms began to blare.

. . . . .

Containment was breached.

On every screen, bar one, pandemonium bloomed as every mercenary scrambled. And still, Coil leaned forward, not exactly pleased with the outcome, but focused.

This wasn’t just a failure of containment. It was a failure of his control.

There was no visual evidence of what happened, but the boy had done something. Something that destroyed the cameras in the containment chamber. 

A variable confirmed, and a theory solidified in his mind. It wasn't worth the breach, or Noelle’s rampage.

But it was close. Very close.