Chapter 246

Harry looked at those frozen figures and couldn't help but ask, "Can I distribute the energy in the Chronos Moment to others? So they can also respond to the call?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible, or rather, with our current technology, it cannot be done." Barty Jr. took out his wand. "You see, in this frozen space-time, we can't even cast magic."

Unable to cast magic? A thought stirred in Harry's heart; perhaps, it was possible to cast magic here using the Elder Wand.

He walked over to Deng Buliduo, who was still maintaining his posture from the fierce battle. Harry gently pulled the elder wood wand from his hand and chanted, "Lumos."

White light emerged from the tip of the wand. Harry felt a sense of pleasant surprise, then calmly tucked it into his pocket.

"Come on, Harry, let's stand together," Barty Jr. said. "If the summoning ritual begins, we can go back together. Or, you can see if there's anything else you want to bring."

Harry looked around. He saw that the tower of the final battle was missing two corners; that painting should not have entered this shattered space-time yet. And on the ground, Deng Buliduo's severed half-palm—Harry decided to take it with him.

Although he had long accepted the fact that Deng Buliduo would die, Harry did not want this widely beloved headmaster to have only an empty tomb. Even if he couldn't bring his whole body, bringing a part of it was better than nothing. Burying his half-palm and the wand he used in the headmaster's grave—Harry felt that this was all he could do.

"Quick, Harry, I can feel it," Barty Jr. shouted. "The summoning has begun."

Harry hurried to his side and grabbed his hand. Barty Jr.'s hand and body were also burning hot; some golden light began to emerge from him, which was transmitted to Harry as well.

A hand with nail polish appeared faintly before the two of them. Barty Jr. grasped that hand without hesitation, and the owner of the hand suddenly emerged. Harry saw her full appearance, and his heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

That was not anyone from the Ministry of Magic, but the girl who represented the Dire Wolf.

Harry could feel a pulling force gradually strengthening, just like a Portkey, but this power was still very weak at the moment, not enough to pull the two of them; they had to wait a while longer...

Suddenly, the girl revealed a look of surprise, and then, as if she had been struck, she fell straight backward.

That pulling force was gone; the ritual had been interrupted. Barty Jr. lunged forward, but he grabbed nothing, and his complexion suddenly became exceptionally ugly.

Harry quietly let go of Barty Jr.'s hand and took a few steps back.

"This is trouble; the ritual has been interrupted. Rose must have been attacked," Barty Jr. said dejectedly. "The two of us can only wait here to die."

"It was just interrupted; the Ministry of Magic can completely start another one," Harry said tentatively, while his right hand was already gripping the Elder Wand.

"I'm tired, and I don't want to play this role anymore," Barty Jr. said. "I'll tell you, I'm not Barty Jr."

"I know," Harry nodded. "But I think you will be my comrade."

"You guessed a bit, didn't you," he laughed. "If the recall ritual hadn't been interrupted, we could have continued like this tacitly. I'm not Barty Jr., but I can be the Doctor, the Tenth Doctor."

"The one holding the ritual is your comrade, right? Even though she failed, won't the organization arrange for someone else to rescue you?" Harry asked.

"No, because this is my own private little move. I don't want to be buried here according to the plan, and I don't want you to be buried with Deng Buliduo and Voldemort," Barty Jr. grabbed his hair in frustration. "I want to be the Doctor for once."

"There will be other ways. Let's walk around here and see if there's a way to get around," Harry was somewhat willing to believe him. He guessed that if this place and the afterlife were connected, then it was still possible to pass through the Veil and return to reality.

"Impossible, this place and the world behind the Veil cannot be connected," Barty Jr. seemed to have guessed what he was thinking. "This is the end of time, a realm that even Death cannot reach."

"What do you mean?"

"The energy of the TARDIS explosion is enough to destroy the entire space-time. If time is compared to a river, then we are now standing at the end of the river, only it is not its natural end, but an artificially created end," Barty Jr. sighed. "Can you imagine? There is a long riverbed in the void, and the water representing time is rushing out from one end, flowing tirelessly along the dried-up riverbed toward the distance."

"I understand," Harry said softly. "Professor Doudou explained it to me."

"Right, under normal circumstances, things are that easy to understand," Barty Jr. sat back down on the rubble, gesturing in the air. "But don't forget the word I said at the beginning: this river exists in the void."

"Now, when the river was flowing to a certain point, the TARDIS exploded. The power of this explosion was so great that the river, the riverbed, and even the surrounding stable space were destroyed. The river could not flow into the void, so the whole river stagnated. And, once the river of time stops flowing, all the river water will freeze."

"What consequences will this cause?" Harry struggled to understand these claims.

"After time is frozen, no one can ever travel through time again. Anyone, using any spell or magical item, cannot return to the past," Barty Jr. said. "But more importantly, we are also separated from future time. The 'absolute present,' whether it is still moving forward or not, has nothing to do with us."

"So the timetable is stuck. Actually, you should have discovered the problem when you came," Harry remembered the way the Doctors were anxious because they couldn't travel through time. "But why, unless you say, you did it on purpose?"

"Yes, this is to isolate Death's interference in the human world. It and its divine kingdom, which is the world behind the Veil, have their true location at the tide of time, which is that absolute present," a hint of relief appeared on Barty Jr.'s face. "After this explosion, we used the void to separate the human present from the absolute present, and it can no longer point fingers at this world."

"It seems that your research on magic is much deeper than I imagined," Harry sighed. "Not only did you discover the existence of Death, but you also found its location and managed to isolate it."

"In order to study various magic without restrictions, we formulated this plan. The Wizarding World does not need gods," Barty Jr. said seriously.

"You say that..." Harry wasn't sure if this idea was right or wrong, so he could only change the subject. "But where are we now? Are we still in that frozen river?"

"We are in the fragments of the river," Barty Jr. said. "To put it vividly, it's the water droplets splashed by the explosion, but as the river froze, the droplets hadn't had time to fall back into the river before they were frozen together."

"After the river freezes, you can no longer look at time with linear thinking. It is now a point, and everyone lives in the same minute and the same second, and this second will never pass. However, they can still move freely; as long as they don't travel through time, then everything is no different from before the explosion."

"That's true, if you don't travel through time," Harry echoed. "I never thought of or needed to understand these theories."

"Time is a point, so people in that point can pull people outside the point back. This is the principle of the ritual, but it requires a very huge amount of magic, so the ritual must have many people participating together," Barty Jr. continued. "Of course, in theory, this ritual can also be used to pull Death back, but no one is that eager to seek death, right?"

"If Death is pulled back, what will happen?" Harry asked curiously.

"For example, if Death is a father, we wizards are his favored youngest son, and Muggles are his unfavored eldest son. Usually, the father works outside and doesn't care much about what happens at home. But now, one day, the youngest son, in order to do whatever he wants at home in the future, locks the father outside," Barty Jr. laughed as he spoke. "The father comes home from work and sees he can't get into his own house; he will certainly be very angry. Now, if someone performs a ritual on Death, it's equivalent to helping him open the door again, and the angry father returns home."

"Will he punish the wizards?" Harry asked.

"If he finds that nothing happened at home, he might scold the youngest son and spank him, and that would be it. Reflected in reality, it might be that wizards will find that the birth rate of Squibs or Obscurials has become higher," Barty Jr. suddenly remembered something. "But if the house becomes a mess, and Death also has the power to manipulate time..."

"He will revert it to how it was before anything happened. Or even earlier, he will adjust time back to before the youngest son had the idea of locking the door, and then change the direction of the river of time, letting it flow elsewhere, a direction where the youngest son will no longer have such outrageous ideas," Barty Jr. said, suddenly shaking his head. "These are just my guesses; they are not necessarily correct. How can we mortals fathom the mind of a god?"

"Okay, it sounds quite reasonable," Harry thought of another question. "But, I mean, if the plan can be completed as long as the TARDIS explodes, can't you just find a corner any day and blow her up? Why do you have to sacrifice all the Doctors, and also sacrifice me and Deng Buliduo?"