Rebirth 3

“Welcome, Traveller, to the Bifrost Chamber,” a regal, powerful voice spoke up as soon as he crossed the threshold into the giant, golden dome. Amazed by the sight of the hundreds of thousands of runes engraved into the walls around him, Harry was even more surprised by the sight of a giant, dark-skinned man standing at the central dais.

‘Heimdall’ he observed, eyes tracing the Old Norse imprinted on the spotless, gleaming golden armor, as well as the glowing amber eyes staring at him. Another mind-boggling change from the olden tales of Asgard in his old world. Heimdall had always been depicted as a fair-skinned man, shorter than Thor and not nearly as muscular as the being before him.

“Prince Loki,” the Gatekeeper lowered his head slightly at the sight of one of the Princes of Asgard, “To Niðavellir, I presume.”

“Not right now” the green-robed Asgardian sighed, looking bored out of his mind as he looked out of one of the windows, and Harry looked at him in surprise. He had heard Odin’s words, that Loki's presence was demanded at the dwarven foun- “To Svartalfheim. We will go to Niðavellir after I have concluded my business there.”

“Ah, the Roasted Whales of the Lake of Numan,” Heimdall nodded, smiling as his eyes turned out to somewhere in the blindingly beautiful cosmos. “The Queen’s favourite delicacy. Very well—shall I direct the Bifrost to the landing platform right outside the lake, or at one of the settlements?”

“Am I supposed to catch the whales and cook them myself now, Heimdall?” Loki raised an eyebrow, meeting the Gatekeeper’s eyes as he walked towards the dais, and Harry followed his steps, adjusting his tunic slightly. “Weave the protective enchantments over the mortal would you? I would hate for the Allfather’s newest guest to die before he even gets to witness Yggdrasil.”

“I sense the mage has that well in hand, my Prince,” Heimdall commented, and Harry stiffened as those golden eyes finally focused fully on him. In that moment, as the All-Seeing’s eyes met his, something passed over him, beyond a simple scanning spell. It felt as if the giant Asgardian could peer into the fabric of his soul, part through his consciousness like the walls protecting his mind weren't even there. Scattered thoughts about Asgard’s wonder dissolved away into the ironclad discipline he had honed throughout his life, and Harry slammed the barriers around his mind shut, actively enforcing them into protecting his psyche as Heimdall just gave him an enigmatic smile.

“Fret not, Young man,” Heimdall chuckled, slowly raising his hand before thrusting it to his right, “the sanctity of one’s mind is always paramount to me. I shall never breach that privacy…not unless one is an enemy to Asgard.

“Jumpy little midgardian, aren’t you?” Loki called out, crossing his arms behind his back and giving him a smug smirk. Ignoring the Trickster god, Harry watched Heimdall smile once again as he pulled out a greatsword out of nowhere, the weapon looking as much ceremonial as it looked deadly, its fuller inscribed with azure, glowing runes.

“Come now, Midgardian. Heimdall has much better things than to look into that primitive cesspool of scattered thoughts you call a mind,” the black-haired god called out as the runes around them lit up with a soft, golden light, and Heimdall shook his head, thrusting his sword into the dais below his feet. “Watch the glory of the universe, of the Yggdrasil manifested, Midgardian—and know that you are probably the only human ever graced with its majesty.”

Not letting up on his mental shields in the slightest, Harry nonetheless walked around the Gatekeeper of Asgard and stood right by Loki, watching and feeling the cosmic energy around him gather at a focal point before him. “What powers the Bifrost?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him as he felt the layers in the energy around him, feeling the difference, yet the unification of them all.

“What gives power to the Nine Realms, Son of Potter,” Heimdall asked from behind him, and Harry looked over to find the man now facing towards them, his greatsword charging up with an array of vibrant, multicolored energies as his amber eyes shone with the same power, “The Yggdrasil of course. We harvest the ever abundant and overflowing eddies of dimensional energies formed in the wake of the World-Tree, and focus it to create bridges between the realms. This chamber is the result of the Allfather’s mastery over runecraft and the knowledge he now holds, able to withstand and direct primordial energy into a focused, controlled manner.”

“Fascinating,” he muttered, watching the wild, raw energies swirl as they were refined and directed by the runes on the walls. Closing his eyes, Harry reached out with his senses, amazed and bewildered at the same time by the cosmic scale of magic being employed around him, “How do you deal with the debris that litters the space between any two points?”

“If we are channeling the Bifrost to create a physical link, then the energy simply disintegrates any physical matter so that no blockage may come during transit,” Heimdall explained as the energy around them rose uniformly, before evening out with a quiet, buzzing hum as the doors before them shifted apart to reveal the glowing platform stretching endlessly into the vortex of colours. “As you may now experience, Harry Potter.”

“Come, mortal. It's time I start on my business—instead of just babysitting you,” Loki drawled, and Harry just shook his head. After the first five minutes, his abrasive, sharp tongue and his attitude had just turned into a thing of amusement for him, and while he was too busy in soaking up the sights around him, Harry vowed to give back as good as he was getting.

Still, that came after this experience, he thought, walking forwards and taking a step onto the Bifros-Holy fuck. It was like stepping foot into Odin's palace, only much, much more intense. Goosebumps didn’t even begin to describe what he was experiencing as he closed his eyes, trying to make sense of all the kinds of sensations he was feeling at the moment.

“You should have not reached out with your senses on your maiden voyage, Midgardian,” Loki’s voice came from somewhere, and had he been focusing, Harry might have detected the sympathy in the god’s voice as a hand landed on his head, and a foreign pulse of energy shot into his brain. “That ought to help you. Breath now, child.”

“No-Not a child,” he gasped out through the rush of energy and sensations travelling through his body, slowly getting control of his senses as whatever Loki did helped him along, flashing out the instantaneous overload out of his nerves. Removing his hands from his head, Harry opened his eyes and looked at the rushing energy below his feet, before his tired eyes met Loki’s amused ones, “I thought Heimdall judged my wards enough.”

“Enough to save your mind from breaking perhaps, but he did that with me too the first time I travelled through the Rainbow Bridge,” he shook his head, a momentary grimace flashing across his features before he looked away into the vibrant colours or the nebulae and galaxies outside the boundaries of the Bifrost. “I think he just likes to get some entertainment from the first timers.”

“Guard duty is always boring, and we kind of do.. did, the same thing with our transport magicks and first timers” he concurred, shaking his head to dispel the cobwebs as he looked at the sights of the Universe laid bare before him, “I shudder thinking of what Thor underwent. From what I remember, magic isn’t one of his..domains.”

“Not beyond swinging his hammer around, and I am glad for it,” Loki laughed. Truly laughed, before smirking at him and raising his palm. “When mother was attempting to teach us illusionary magic, she tasked us with turning our clothes into some other color. Do you want to see what Thor managed to do?”

“I would not complain if you show it to me,” he chuckled, before his eyes widened as he beheld the bright pink gown that Thor was wearing, his blond hair clashing beautifully with the garment. “Damn…I reckon that’s as good as it gets for your patronus.”

“Patronus?”

“Oh its an expression from my world,” he sighed, raising his palm and conjuring a miniature patronus on it with a thought, the small stag bouncing around for a moment before dissolving away, “It requires a really happy and joyous memory to conjure, and is used to repel dementors…and if you are strong enough, even the killing curse.”

“If I ever had need for such magics, then I wager your thoughts would ring true, Midgardian,” Loki shook his head, turning around to watch the rushing streams of Bifrost energy around them with a laugh. “Thor’s ever increasing fumbles are a source of amusement for many a people of Asgard, especially for me. Stay long enough around him, Midgardian, and you might also develop an appreciation for his idiotic bumbling as he swings Mjolnir around with his three friends.”

Any further response from him was stopped on account of the way the energy seemed to rise once again, buffering his senses with its vibrations. Gasping as he felt the overwhelming nature of Yggdrasil again in mere minutes, Harry nonetheless managed to keep his wits about him, not losing himself to the overload like the last time.

“You adapt well,” Loki commented as the energy of the bridge evened out, and with a flash of light, deposited them onto a stone platform. The smell of smoke and sea invaded his nose, and Harry looked around at the sunny, bright realm he found himself in. “Come, the eatery is this way,” he started towards their right, crossing over a wooden bridge before pausing and looking at him with a contemplative look on his face. “If you want though, you can wander about the realm, it will take some time for my orders to be completed. However, be back here exactly at sundown, I shall not wait for you a moment more after that.”

“Thanks for the consideration, Milord,” he bowed his head and rolled his eyes, his tone sincere enough to be nothing but mocking as he straightened up, only to find the Lord of Mischiefs no longer standing there. “Asshole,” he muttered, crossing his arms before looking at the little houses and structures around him, the vibrant hues of the world around him reminding him of sub-tropical regions, especially those along the sea.

“Eh, who are ye?”

“What?” he turned around, finding no on—oh. Gaze snapping down to find a set of irritated black eyes staring up at him, Harry smiled awkwardly and waved slightly, “Greetings, I am Harry Potter.”

“The fuck is a Midgardian doing in Svartalfheim?!” the bearded, apron wearing dwarf asked, a variety of metalworking tools hanging from his belt as he crossed his thick, burly arms, “You get lost or something, runt?!”

“You are shorter than I am,” Harry deadpanned, getting a grunt from the dwarf as its eyes narrowed even further, “and I came here from Asgard, with Loki. He went to get some whales for the Queen, so I have been left to wander your realm.”

“Ah, from Asgard,” the little—too little—version of Hagrid muttered, the comparison sending a wave of laughter through his mind, one that he barely stopped from exploding out in the face of the clearly disgruntled dwarf. “Well,” the being began, looking past him where Loki had disappeared off to, “That little troublemaker is gone now, so what do ye want to do now human? I don’t want ye wanderin’ alone and breakin something important, or get eaten by something here. Ye humans are too fragile for the rest of the realms, honestly.”

“Have you ever met a human before, dwarf?” he asked, sighing as he looked at the distant forge, black smoke billowing out of it into the sky. Bitterness clawed at his chest as he remembered his world, where both wizards and muggles had generated enough capacity for destruction to last destruction—something which according to Odin, had attracted Galactus to them. “They had developed enough to destroy their own planet within minutes eight decades ago, let alone what they are capable of now.”

“Bah, those fission and fusion based weapons might be scary to them,” the dwarf scoffed, turning around and trotting off towards a cart, “To us they are naught but failed firecrackers, ye hear me? Gungnir could destroy a star system long before the humans built their kinetic weapons. Hah, planet ending weapons my arse!”

“Failed firecrackers?” He raised an eyebrow, following the dwarf and watching him tie one end of the cart to his belt, before grunting as he began to pull it with him, “Didn’t they achieve stable fission reactions for energy usage?”

“Who cares?!” the dwarf shouted back, swearing loudly as the cart refused to budge, before his eyes widened as it suddenly lurched forwards with his momentum. Almost toppling over from the sudden change in forces, the dwarf looked over his shoulder, and his eyes widened as he saw the cart floating off the ground. “Barzul! What in the name of the Fla-”

“You were struggling,” Harry interrupted the cursing, shrugging as the bewildered, wide eyes of the tiny blacksmith snapped to him smiling as he watched the dwarf test the levitation with jerks on the straps, he walked forwards and held out his hand, “I told you my name, what’s yours?”

“Orik, Orik Ingeitum,” the dwarf replied, staring at him warily for a moment before clasping arms with him. Jerking his head towards his floating cart, Orik raised a bushy eyebrow, “So you are a mage, eh? Been a while since we had one of you here.”

“You have said that already,” he shook his head, making the dwarf grunt as he began to walk, adjusting to the now much lesser weight.

“Aye, I have,” Orik laughed, slapping his knee as he continued onwards, and Harry matched his strides with short, lazy steps, looking around at the tiny settlement they were in. “Andeosite is much heavier than I expected, and Bruna didn't tell me she was going to drop three boxes of the stuff on my arse. Fucking cunt.”

“You never handle this ore or what?” he asked, looking past the tilted lid at the grey, chipped nodules of raw material as the flock of tiny parrots flew by their faces, and Orik stopped by a shed. Lowering the cart to the ground and watching the dwarf remove the giant, impure pieces of metallic ore from the boxes, Harry silently conjured a seat for himself and sat down.

Metallurgy had always been one of the most interesting things for him to spectate.

“You never fuck a woman or what?” Orik asked in turn, heaving and grunting as he shifted each nodule into the furnace, giving him a filthy glare as Harry just smiled placidly in response, sitting in the shade of the overhang. “I always get refined metal for working. Smelting is for the newbies, ye get it. Not a good look for a master like me to still smelt his ore and refine metal. If I do this, the FUCK ARE THOSE SNOT NOSED BRATS DOING, HUH BRUNA?!”

“Feel better?”

“I will feel better when I complete this consignment of swords for the Einherjar,” Orik scowled, pushing the last of the metal into the furnace before turning onwards him. “What in the name of Odin are you doing, sitting there?”

“I like watching blacksmiths work,” he answered honestly, enjoying the skeptical and somewhat dumbfounded expression on the dwarf’s face as he leaned back into his chair, “and I have time until sundown, so why not get a free show.”

“If ye want a free show, go to a whorehouse, ye runt,” he grunted back, covering the furnace with bricks, before layering them with a layer of mortar. “Why bother me?”

“Whorehouses aren’t my thing, believe me, I tried,” he chuckled, remembering the time when his battalion had saved a bunch of sirens along the Mediterranean coasts, only to be treated by their coven to a night of pleasure, free of cost. Well, technically, that didn’t make them prostitutes, but meaningless sex with a stranger still wasn’t his thing.

Now Fleur, those had been the nights to reme-

“Ye well, stop dawdling around my shop and go bother someone else,” Orik muttered, sitting down on a mat and staring up at him, breaking him out of his thoughts about the French Veela. “Tell ya what,” the dwarf began, rubbing his beard and looking at the Sun hanging right above their heads, “if ye are gonna be a pain in my ass, at least help me with it. I need some Coralfish acid, and dragon talons and both of them can be found in a shop on that,” Orik pointed at a distant landmass, a wrecked boat visible on its shore with a red flag atop it, “island with the ship with the red flag. The Coralfish will be a little below in the reefs, and last I heard, there was a dead dragon lying around on that island, waiting for the hunters to harvest it. Get to it before I need to fork some coin for it, runt.”

“It better not be a living dragon, dwarf,” he bit back, narrowing his eyes on Orik’s beady little eyes before looking at the island.

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It was, in fact, a living dragon that he found, biting into a large whale and tearing chunks out of it like the starving reptilian monster it was—with no sign of the shop Orik had mentioned, blasted dwarf. For a moment, he had thought about returning back. He certainly owed the dwarf blacksmith nothing, especially not fighting a dragon for materials that were of no use to him.

Yet, he had nothing better to do either. Ever since he had survived and come to Asgard, boredom and anger, both had been eating away at him, with no source for him to expend either at. Odin had provided him with a few books, yet Harry was no Ravenclaw, to be sated by parchments and pens.

He was a Gryffindor.

Hell, he had been the Gryffindor once upon a time, and fighting a dragon certainly appeared to be a good outlet for his emotions and time both. Now, minutes later, cursing Orik mentally as he evaded a burst of searing, orange flames, Harry grabbed onto the sand around him and threw it into the dragon’s face.

It was a juvenile from what he had gathered until now. Besides the relatively smaller body than what he was used to back home, the scales weren’t that hard yet, and neither was it repelling magic like the Ironbelly or the Horntails had done. However, that didn’t mean it was not dangerous. Its fire still burned just as hot, and those claws and fangs could tear through bones like paper if given the chance.

A roar of irritation and fury echoed around them as the beast shook its head, rapidly blinking to clear away the sand from its eyes. Sighing as he floated up into the air, Harry raised his palm skywards, feeling his magic rush out, almost purring as he let it flow unobstructed for the first time since coming to this universe. Pulling water from the ocean around him, Harry condensed it, cooling it rapidly to form lances of super-condensed ice. Rotating them and letting them revolve around him at the same time, he watched the winged creature below him snap its head up as its poisonous green eyes locked onto him, frayed wings opening up in anger.

Fire spilling out of its maw, the dragon roared and jumped upwards, a wave of fire spearheading towards its way right as he shot the lances down. The first one was melted almost instantly by the fire, but the water and steam dispersed enough of it that the other two passed unobstructed. One spear skimmed along its side, skittering and shattering into tiny, harmless shards on its impervious scales.

The other however, found its mark, the tip lodging itself into the flaring nostril of the dragon, and skewering onwards into its mouth even as the ambient heat began to melt it. A fountain of blood erupted from its ruptured blood vessels as it roared in pain and fell back. Before it even touched the ground, Harry shot a dozen cutting curses at its arms, some of the creamy, softer scales breaking underneath his power.

His eyes locked onto its right foreleg, where two of its talons began to dangle by a strip of flesh, blood pouring out heavily from the wounds as the dragon made to turn over—curling upon itself and lashing its tail against the ground with furious growls.

He just needed a talon, there was no need to kill off the beast.

But sleeping enchantments had already failed, and he was no Veela or Siren to serenade the beast to sleep. And that returned him to his earlier solution to Orik's demands. Cut apart a talon or two, and take it back to the dwarf along with the vial of Coralfish acid he had already collected. With his train of thought reinforced, Harry dove down, levelling his hand at the dragon and barraging its limbs with dozens of cutting curses in moments.

Ignoring the sand and fire that buffeted his face and fell short against his wards, he landed by the forelimb and grabbed the razor sharp talon at its base. Ignoring the heat of the blood that coated his fingers, Harry let a little of his animagus nature leak through his body, strengthening his muscles well beyond that of a human's as he tugged on the claw, willing the muscles and sinew to snap at once.

However, he had made a foolish mistake, believing the dragon to be sufficiently distracted with the onslaught of cutting curses that had struck its body.

It wasn’t.

Jaws snapped around his body in an impressive and surprising show of agility, and it was only his wards that stopped him from getting bitten through his midsection. As it was, he could feel them rapidly draining away at his energy, the dragon’s ferocious eyes staring into his surprised ones, bloodshot and slitted. Heat built up in its neck, one that he felt despite the distance between them, and Harry’s eyes widened as the first lick of fire made itself known against his wards.

‘Right, bad place to be in,’ he thought, apparating away just as the flames made its way out of the beast’s maw. Sweat beading his forehead as his wards drew on his power heavily, Harry frowned and apparated right above the dragon, launching a blast right into its already wounded nostril, and blowing a part of its upper jaw clean off. Thankfully, with another pained screech and a couple of lumbering swipes at his person, the dragon fell to the ground, spent and rapidly falling unconscious from the pain and blood loss. Sighing as he conjured dozens of chains to anchor the still growling creature to the ground, Harry looked at the churned up, bloody sand around him.

Swiftly cutting off those two talons that were already hanging by a thread of flesh, Harry sorted them into a conjured jar and looked at the dragon, half-closed, angry eyes still staring at him with murder in them. “Yeah yeah, shut up,” he shook his head, glancing at the ruined snout and the cuts that littered its underside, hot, crimson blood still oozing from the wounds. Magic gathered in his hands once more, but this time, instead of some delicate application, all he demanded of it was to heal, as he let it wash over the chained beast. Its eyes opened in surprise at the foreign magic, and obvious cooling sensation that came with regenerative magic, but Harry simply apparated away before the dragon could even move a muscle.

He had his share of blood and roars for the day, possibly even the year. Thank you very much. Merlin knows just how the dragon handlers did this kind of work twenty four-seven.

“Ah, back I see,” the dwarf’s smug, grating voice greeted him as soon as he appeared back at his shop, and Harry gave him a filthy glare as he floated over the requested items to the ground, while cleaning himself the sweat, sand and blood that clung to him. Orik on the other hand, stared at the materials like Yule had come early, rubbing his palms together before gingerly carrying them towards his workstation. “Thank ye, runt. Though you spent an awful lot of time getting those talons off the dragon. I was getting worried for ye!”

“The dragon which you told me was dead?” he muttered, taking his seat once again and watching Orik grind the talons into dust, blood and all mixed in. “If I had my way, I would take you back and drop you in its maw right now like the little morsel you are.”

“The dragon would jes spit me out fer being to tough.” he laughed jovially, giving him a wink and heaving the pestle into the giant mortar, looking comically small next the giant, bronze tool, “Fuckin’ hell. But really stranger, ye saved me a pretty day’s work and good night’s coin by helpin’ me. Tell ye what, I shall give ye one of the swords made today, free of cost even!”

“As if you now have the right to charge me, dwarf,” he shot back, before looking at the sky, the sun much further in the west than it had been before. “Besides, I don’t wield swords. I am a wizard, a mage. I turn one’s insides to their outsides, I boil blood and burst hearts to kill someone. Not hack away at them with swords and spears.”

“Hah! Even mages need weapons! Ask Lord Loki and Queen Frigga if ye doubt my words!”

“Well, they have the constitution of a god,” he rolled his eyes at Orik’s words, waving away the thought idly. “They can wield weapons easily, and Asgard’s traditions demand martial prowess. I am neither a god, nor do I need weapons.”

“Then say what, Harry, Mage of Midgard,” Orik waddled towards him, tying his apron on his chest once again and affixing his glasses to his bearded face, before giving him a grin, “if its gods only who wield a weapon, then come for yours when ye become a god.”