Harry Potter with Technology System Chapter 482: Death’s Champion

"Why Technology System?"

Nigel gave a low chuckle. "Because it is. Magic created it, like she did with most things. But when humanity first ca into the picture, it didn’t all go one way. Half leaned toward spellwork, runes, intuition. The other half built tools. Machinery. Systems."

"So what, two paths, sa origin?"

Nigel chuckled. "Technology, much like the magic you wield, was one of her gifts. When humans first showed up, half leaned into spells and rituals. The other half started building things. Machines. Tools. Eventually, they called it ’technology.’ Sa roots, different direction."

Harry tapped his fingers against the side of the desk. "So both branches are just flavours of the sa power."

"In a sense, yes. They’re both expressions of creation. Magic shaped the world directly. Technology learned how to shape the world through rules."

"That is poetic," Harry said, tone dry. "You write greeting cards on the side?"

Nigel sniffed. "I would, but the market for interdinsional comntary is thin."

Harry frowned, elbows resting on the edge of the desk. "Why , then? Why am I even in this thing? No sign-ups, no ’do you fancy dying for cosmic chess’ invitation. I just woke up with a pop-up nu and a sarcastic voice."

Nigel shook his head. "Harry, this isn’t sothing forced on you. Do you rember the night I appeared? Vernon had slamd your head too hard. You were bleeding out."

Harry didn’t reply, just watched him.

"You died that day," Nigel continued, voice even. "But the Prophecy bound you to a different path. You were offered a chance. You said yes. You just don’t rember it."

"Harry?"

A soft echo. Female.

Gentle.

He blinked.

The void thinned, then peeled away like mist. Not completely gone, but less pressing.

He was smaller now, ten, maybe. He knew it the way you know you’re dreaming, without needing to check.

He stood in an endless stretch of white. The ground beneath him wasn’t cold, but he could feel it under his feet. Like standing on very old stone.

A woman stood a few feet away. She looked human enough, dark robes, long sleeves, hair bound back in a braid that shimred gold one mont and silver the next. Her face was hard to place. Not blurry, just not discernible.

"Harry Potter," she said again. "You have a choice."

He frowned. "I am dead."

She smiled faintly. "Not quite. But close."

He glanced down. No cuts. No blood. No pain.

Still, he felt... thin. Like one more step would unravel him completely.

"Who are you?"

The woman stepped forward, kneeling so she was eye-level with him. Her robes didn’t rustle, didn’t touch the ground. "A friend."

"That is not an answer."

She tilted her head, not offended. "No, it is not. But I am not here to give those."

Harry didn’t look away. "Why ?"

"Because you were seen," she said. "You were marked."

"By who?"

"By ."

"I don’t even know what I am agreeing to."

The woman extended her hand.

"You are agreeing to live." The woman smiled. "You’ve been overlooked your whole life. But you see the cracks. You know when sothing is wrong. You already learned how to hide, how to think before you speak."

Harry looked at her hand one more ti.

Then, without another word, he reached out and placed his small palm in hers.

Back in the present, he sat still, one hand resting against the edge of the desk.

"So I died," he said flatly.

"Yes," Nigel said. "But Magic intervened. That was the deal."

Harry stood, pushing the chair back with his foot. "Do you know who Death’s champion is?"

Nigel vanished. His voice lingered in the air. "I couldn’t tell you, even for a crumpet."

Harry froze mid-step. For a second, it felt like soone had just smacked him between the eyes.

"How can I be so bloody stupid," he muttered, dropping back into the chair. His eyes stayed wide, staring past the desk as his mind ran ahead without him.

"It was obvious, wasn’t it?" He let out a short laugh, more disbelief than humour. "You’ve been trying to tell the whole ti, because you couldn’t just say it outright. Dropping hints like an old man feeding breadcrumbs to ducks."

He sat forward, hands braced on his knees. "First day I et Nicholas Flal, you make that crack, ’What is next, tea with rlin?’ Then again at breakfast, ’rlin and crumpets.’ I thought you were just recycling bad jokes. But-"

The thought trailed off.

Pieces started locking into place in his head so fast it was almost dizzying. Nicholas Flal. Bottled life. The Stone.

And rlin.

The Peverell letter’s warning rang back, changing nas and faces through history. That would an ’rlin’ wasn’t even the man’s first skin. The great wizard of legend, the "god of magical people," might’ve been just one mask he wore.

Harry leaned back, rubbing a hand over his mouth. mories piled up one after another, the conversations with Nicholas about magic, always with that push to ta it, to bind it under control instead of working alongside it. Even then, sothing in him had recoiled from the idea without needing to think about it.

Then there’d been Nicholas’s apprentice, Ayo, the shaman priest. Priest of Death. A connection he had overlooked at the ti.

And Nicholas knowing about the Inventory. Not just guessing, knowing. Watching him, weighing him.

Harry sat there for a long mont, feeling the picture co together.

"Of course," he muttered under his breath. "rlin, Flal... it’s all the sa bloke."

He stood abruptly and paced once behind the chair, the floorboards creaking under his steps.

Nigel had joked about rlin twice, and now it was clear, he hadn’t been joking at all.

Flal hadn’t been so eccentric alchemist on the edge of wizarding history, he’d been the one Death had chosen long before Harry was even born. The original player in this ga. The one who’d worked out how to stall the end, not just cling to life like so parasite.

The rest of the room felt too still.

Harry dropped back into the chair again, letting his head tip slightly to one side as he stared at the desk. "You’ve been sitting there for years, Nigel, biting your tongue. All this ti."

No answer ca. Nigel had already gone, his voice still lingering faintly in mory, "I couldn’t tell you, even for a crumpet."

Harry huffed out a breath. "And here I thought the bad jokes were just bad jokes."

Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly as another thread slotted into place.

That day, when he’d used Observe on Nicholas and Perenelle, both had a question mark next to their nas. That wasn’t a glitch. It ant the nas were covers.

If Nicholas’s identity was just one of many, then Perenelle’s was as well.

His gaze drifted to the bookshelf for a mont, but he wasn’t really seeing it.

The ring Nicholas had given him, the Portkey to his chateau, the Fairy Land. A gift, he’d called it. The recall phrase was The Circle of Fairy.

Fairy...

A na slid out of mory, sharp and certain. Morgana La Fey.

Harry let out a short breath through his nose. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "rlin and Morgana."

The absurdity of it almost made him laugh, but it didn’t change the fact the pieces fit. Two people who’d supposedly been legends centuries apart, now walking around under different nas, partnered up. And not just partnered, they’d been playing this ga longer than he’d been alive. Longer than most of history had been written down.