Chapter Text

Morty is doing homework at his desk. Rick stumbles into the room.

Rick: Morty! M-Morty! Put that burrrp pencil down, Morty! We gotta, we gotta go adventure, Morty! Mortyyyyy braaahhhp

Morty: Ughh, R-Rick, I can't keep d-d-doing this, I've, I've, I've gotta finish this assignment

Rick: It doesn't matter Morty, there are infinitely many of you, you, you, you can just brahp steal one of their finished assignments, now come on, this is reeeaally important.

Morty: Oh my God, Rick, I've, I've been on so many "adventures" with you, e-e-e-enough to think that maybe I'm not dreaming all this in some extended state of psychosis, but they're all h-h-horrible, and I'm putting my foot down, Rick, I'm I'm putting my foot down, I'm not going with you until you explain why all this is happening, and and and why I'm so important in all this.

Rick: Wow, look at you finally developing some curiosity, took you bruhp long enough, you're really not cut out for science, but I'm stuck with you, so whatever, I'll try to explain, and and you can try to get some of it through your cosmically inadequate fourteen-year-old brain.

Morty: Gosh Rick, do you really have to be so mean about it? I-I-I mean it's like you don't care about anything, not even yourself, you're you're you're so callous all the time, and and oh god we've killed so many people, so many beings on our quests, and I just want to know why!?

Rick: Well, we could go on a long and arduous journey of self-discovery at the end of which you finally concede that I'm right, like brahp always, but I don't have time to wait around for you to figure all this shit out, so I'm just gonna skip to the end and burst your little bubble. There is no God, there is no morality, there is just existence. We are one of infinitely many pairs of Ricks and Morties, in an infinite brahp multiverse where every possible sequence of events happens infinitely many times in infinitely many places at once. We are nothing, nothing Morty, but infinitesimal scum, and nothing we could ever possibly do will have any effect on anything, because whatever we do, there are infinitely many universes identical up to that point in time where we don't do that thing.

Morty: Oh, oh, oh, oh god, that's, that's terrifying, oh my god, I'm I'm I think I'm having a panic attack, oh God Rick...

Rick: Don't worry Morty, your your your puny brain's capacity for being horrified at the nature of reality will soon be exhausted and you'll start feeling normal again, that's just what brains do. Aaaaand you know what's the best remedy? Eee-brahhhp-eeeexposure, Morty! Exposure until you become jaded like me! Come on!

Rick shoots the portal gun, creating a glowing green disk in Morty's room. He drags Morty through. They arrive in a black cosmic void. Visible in front of them, behind them, and above them are three oblong masses of writhing purplish-brown tentacles, each the size of a galaxy supercluster. Below them is a smaller unmoving mass of tentacles seemingly severed from its other half, tentacles ending at a flat stump with veiny pink entrails streaming out. Galaxy-sized droplets of blood drift languidly away from the stump.

Morty: AAAAHHH! AAAAAHHHH!!! What what what what are those? How are we breathing right now aaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Rick: This is a universe that contains nothing except exactly three-point-five cosmic squid monsters. The three living squid monsters have been discussing the nature of God and existence for the past thirty billion years. They even have a story of original sin to explain their dead comrade. In four years the false vacuum will collapse and their universe will be destroyed.

Morty: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Rick: And to answer your question, we are breathing right now because I selected a version of this universe where physics makes exceptions for Ricks and Morties, obviously. Additionally, I've created a network of redundant pockets dimensions with real-time backups of us, plus continuous snapshots of how we used to be going back to the beginning of our Rick worldline. If we die or mentally deviate too far from our normal selves, it destroys our bodies and re-instantiates us in my lab under the garage. Because duhhhhh-braaaahhhhp-uuhhhhh. We are literally immortal Gods of the multiverse, nothing that happens to us in any universe can permanently hurt us in any way.

Rick shoots the portal gun and drags a still-panicking Morty through the portal into a purple cosmic void tiled with countless numbers of giant evenly-spaced floating white rabbits. Each rabbit is motionless, except for its head, which is sliding from side-to-side once per second. Every several seconds each rabbit squeaks "millllm."

Morty: AAAAHHHHhhhhh... uhhh ... huh.

Rick: This is a universe that's been taken over by superintelligent rabbits. This is their life now. Every rabbit is doing this by conscious choice. They could stop at any time but never choose to do so.

Rick and Morty travel through another portal and land on an flat two-dimensional gray plain under a featureless white sky. Jutting up from the ground sparsely across the landscape are gray tetrahedra of various sizes. Strewn across the plain are various internal organs: hearts, intestines, livers, gizzards, flibblenoopts. Occasional pools of blood have formed near where the organs are more concentrated.

Rick: This is a universe that's nothing but an infinite plain of tetrahedra and organs. Except for one guy who randomly fluctuated into existence.

A man walks out from behind one of the distant tetrahedra, sees Rick and Morty, and starts running toward them while waving frantically.

Man: Heeeeyyyy! Heyyyy! Oh thank God, other people! Where the hell are we? How did we get here? Where are my wife and kids? Heeyyyyy!

Morty: Oh oh oh my God Rick, we need to save him, we, we, we need to do something!

Rick: If we saved every goddamn person in every universe we visited, we would be doing nothing else with our time! And there's infinitely many universes where we don't save him! It's best you make peace with that right now, Morty. You wanna show him mercy? Fine. Here's a plasma gun. Kill him. Go on, Morty, k-k-k-k-brahp-ill him!

Morty: [Takes the gun] I, I, I, I don't want to, Rick, please, please, oh I'm gonna be sick...

Rick: We're leaving in thirty seconds regardless of what you do, so hurry up! We gotta go get schwifffffttttyyyyy-brahhhppp

Morty, whimpering, shoots the man, who explodes in a shower of blood and intestines. Rick opens yet another portal, and the pair step out into a large complex teeming with Ricks.

Morty: W-w-w-w-w-where are we?

Rick: This is the Citadel of Ricks, headquarters of the Transdimensional Council of Ricks local to our part of the multiverse. I figured we could rest here while I try to explain why all of this is happening. Go on, have a seat! Get a free plumbus while you're at it!

An asymmetric insectoid alien with eyes covering half its upper body is wandering nearby, neck skin-sac overflowing with plumbuses.

Alien: Plumbuses! Free plumbuses! Get your free plumbuses over here!

Mortly gingerly slips a plumbus from the sac. It's a pinkish-purple mass the size of an eggplant, with cancerous-looking lumps on one end sinuously extending into fine cilia on the other.

Morty: Th-thanks.

Rick: It's a collector's item! I've got hundreds under the garage back home. Now I see you've stopped panicking, so that's a good start. So. Ex-plan-a-tions. There's the short version and the long version. The short version is that we're stuck in an arbitrary branch of the larger Tegmark Level Four Multiverse, in which all logical possibilities are realized. The longer version is more complicated, try to keep up. We're stuck in a sub-multiverse with a Rick-based physics. Every sufficiently Rick-like entity in every universe experiences a trigger event at some point in his life, when he has developed sufficiently for the causal structure of the universe to latch onto his pattern. This event makes me an interdimensional "tinker," meaning that I am a supergenius when it comes to portal tech and a few other things. Of course, the technology doesn't really work unless it's wielded by a Rick, because my special universal status is what gives me the ability to target the portal gun to a specific universe. If a non-Rick steals my portal gun, they won't be able to target it, and will just hop around random universes.

Morty: Wow, huh, that's really weird and not at all what I was expecting, but go on...

Rick: Now, this multiverse is governed by the laws of General Ricklativity, in which there are infinitely many spatial and temporal dimensions. In this part of the multiverse, there are three macroscopic spatial dimensions and two macroscopic time dimensions, and each "universe" is a causally isolated 3D space following a unique 1D time trajectory through the 2D macroscopic timesheet. Every spacetime point is adjacent to infinitely many universes, and moving between them is as easy as taking a step through the right dimension... a process which is only controllable if you are a Rick. I can target our destinations by constructing queries in my head for universes with certain attributes, and the multiverse obeys by selecting an arbitrary universe among the set matching the query. Every Rick-instance has a personal timeline in his local Rickference frame, which follows the time trajectory of whatever universe we are currently in. Within the two macroscopic time dimensions in our part of the multiverse, individual universes can have parallel, angled, or perpendicular time trajectories relative to each other... thus allowing us to, in principle, leave one universe, spend years in another, and return to the original one second later... though usually I choose nearly-parallel universes so the subjective time differential between us and your parents is mild when we return...

Morty: Okay, whoa, hold on... not sure I understood all of that, but... when we return to our home universe, is it the same one we left, or-

Rick: ...or an identical copy? Good question - it's usually the same one we left, because it's easy to form queries that uniquely specify things like "last universe visited", but there's no reason it needs to be... remember the time Jerry got a terrible haircut, and it was better the next day, and I told you I fixed it with a special Zorblaxian hairspray?

Morty: Oh god

Rick: Yeah, I may have switched us to a new universe where Jerry didn't get that haircut, sooooo....

Morty: You you you you mean I've permanently left behind my family at least once? OH MY GOD HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, RICK, YOU'RE YOU'RE YOU'RE YOU'RE A MONSTER, YOU'RE ...

Rick: [Injects Morty with a paralytic agent] Everyone is expendable except us, Morty, though since there's infinitely much of everything, including us, even we are sort of expendable, get over it. Now, it's not all bad. An identical Rick and Morty pair existing in a different time trajectory may well take our place in the universe that we left, the way we took the place of the Rick and Morty who abandoned our current home universe. Eh, probably not though, since there are infinitely many copies of that universe to target. On the other hand, there are infinitely many copies of us doing the targeting... honestly, I haven't yet figured out how to define probabilities of the form infinity over infinity. I just try not to think about it most of the time.

Morty: Nnnnnnneuurrrrr

Rick: Now, at this point you're wondering what you specifically have to do with all this. As it turns out, the universe is also, to a lesser extent, keyed to your pattern, don't ask why, it's just something that happened in this part of Tegmark Level Four. You experienced a trigger event at the age of thirteen, which you may recall is about the time I started taking you on adventures. Your pattern completes my pattern. Without a functioning Morty nearby, my powers don't work quite optimally, my targeting can get a little messed up, and my tinker skills diminish. Also, uhh, cough youareahumanshieldwhomakesitharderforotherrickstotrackme, cough. Now, I could just drug you, miniaturize you, and graft you permanently into my skin, but where's the fun in that, Morty? Every Rick needs a sidekick, Morty, or he's not a true Rick.

Morty: Eeerrrrrrrargghhhhhhhhh!?!

Rick: You're wondering why I don't just kidnap another Morty and do that anyway? Some Ricks do, you know, we're not all identical. As for me, Rick C-137, well, jaded as I am, I'm not that much of a monster. That's because, according to my sub-quantum causal resonance score, I'm the Rickest Rick this side of the multiverse! Oh yeah, Rickest Rick, Wubba Lubba Dub Dub!

Morty: Rrrrrrriiiiickkk eurrrrrgghhh

Rick: What's the deal with the council of Ricks? Well you see, Ricks are locally finite in the multiverse, meaning that although there are infinitely many of us and infinitely many Councils of Ricks, each Council of Ricks has a finite but growing number of Ricks at any axis-1-cross-section of the multiverse. Axis 1 is the privileged time axis containing all Councils of Ricks in parallel world-lines. Each council bifurcates once it reaches the maximum stable limit of eleven thousand Ricks. Well, either that, or the Ricks all kill each other for sport. The council we're at right now has nine thousand Ricks and counting. I'm the 137th member of type C. Now, I know what you're thinking: don't Ricks passionately hate authority? Why would we form a council? Well, only the authoritarian-type Ricks run the council, but their probability mass is relatively low in the central finite curve; most of us are just here for the free market resource-trading system...

Morty: Rrrrrricckkk p-p-p-llllleea...

Rick: [Injects Morty with an anti-paralytic]

Morty: I-I-I I don't, I don't want this responsibility, R-Rick. I wanna live my life without being fundamentally attached to the physics of the multiverse. Please...

Rick: Tried. Can't. The laws of physics bind to all sufficiently Rick-like or Morty-like entities and cannot be circumvented unless you alter yourself so much that you are no longer you.

Morty: [Moans incoherently]

Rick: Alright, calm down, I know this is a lot, but we've got a mission today, and I think it'll be fun for you Morty, give you a chance to let off some steam. Important mission, Morty, important mission, so get schwifty up in here, we are gonna go ham, we are gonna go full Harry Potter, dawwwggg. Gonna magic it up in HEEERRRREEE. And our mission is so important that it concerns the whole multiverse, or at least an infinite subsection thereof that's still dwarfed by all the other infinities but whateverrrrrrr. Ever heard of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?

Morty: No, what is that?

Rick: It's a Harry Potter fanfiction, Morty, the best Harry Potter fanfiction. Here's a copy, go read it, I'll wait. Maybe you'll learn something, for once. I'll temporarily decouple you from my Rickference frame so you can take as much time as you want without wasting mine.

Rick hands Morty a printed copy of HPMOR, creates a portal, and shoves Morty through the portal. Morty emerges instantly from the other side, though much time has passed for him inside the pocket universe.

Morty: Wow, Rick, I read it and it was really good! Wow, we're going there?! We're, we're, we're, we're going to that universe? Oh wow, is our mission to discover the Secrets of the Multiverse and bring Transhumanism and Maximal Goodness to as many universes as possible?

Rick: Not so fast, Morty. We're not on some grand transhumanist mission to bring heaven to the multiverse. It's impossible for us to visit the whole thing anyway. There is no amount of good we could possibly do that hasn't either been done somewhere or undone somewhere else. No, we are cleaning up the aftermath of a Rick who tried to do that in our local part of the multiverse, that fucking piece of shit Rick H-417, fucker created an interdimensional artificial intelligence that could move through dimensions along with all the Ricks, but he fucked it up, real hard, probably let his Morty fuck with it, and now you know what it's doing? You know what his artificial intelligence is doing, right now?

Morty: Oh no, oh no, is it, is it, is it holocausting everyone? Is the robot h-h-holocausting everyone it meets?

Rick: Depending on how you add up infinite utilities, arguably worse. It's erasing Szechuan Sauce from the multiverse.

Morty: Wh-what?

Rick: It's erasing Szechuan Sauce from the local part of the multiverse, Morty. Szechuan Sauce is a sauce that McDonald's introduced to promote the Disney film Mulan, but they discontinued it, and now I'm really craving it, Morty, but lately I can't find a single goddamn universe that still has Szechuan Sauce at any point in time, frankly that shouldn't even be possible, and it's all thanks to piece of shit Rick H-417, fucking piece of shit.

Morty: Uhmmm, Rick, what does this have to do with HPMOR?

Rick: Magic, Morty! Magic and smart people. I'm sick of having to do all the thinking here. So I figure maybe Dumbledore or someone can help me conjure up a nice batch of Szechuan Sauce. Also, it'll be so much fun Morty, and maybe, and maybe, and and maybe some of the intelligence will rub off on you.

Morty: [Glowers]

Rick: Ready, Morty? This universe is very special, because the whole thing is a time loop. Time axis 2 of the multiverse has finite radius, meaning that cross-sections perfectly perpendicular to the privileged axis have boundaries that are closed timelike curves. From our present perspective, each such universe exists instantaneously, and we can never return to the same target twice. Targeting a self-consistent time-looped universe that sufficiently matched HPMOR up to the right point and was consistent with our subsequent interventions afterward was a bitch, because most queries I tried had time paradoxes that prevented them from existing in the first place. I had to make a serious precommitment before it worked, but I finally found a query that succeeds. Hopefully Robot Rick can't make any edits on pain of paradox. Ready, Morty? We're going in in God mode this time. We're not taking any chances around level-three intelligent characters. I chose a version of the universe in which our patterns are part of the primordial magical field, giving us root access to magic. We'll be invincible and unstoppable. Here, take this. [Rick hands Morty a wand]. Here we go...[shoots portal gun...]

[Cut to:] Dumbledore is seated behind his desk, looking grave and composed. Snape is standing ominously next to the dead floo and its ashes. A tense McGonagall is perched at the end of her transfigured chair, next to Harry, who is sitting across from Dumbledore with a grim, abstract expression. Suddenly, a green portal appears, through which step Rick and Morty. The room shimmers as six distinct magical pressure waves phase into existence and collapse on them, the combined last-resort defense mechanisms of Hogwarts and Dumbledore to incapacitate anyone who has bypassed the thirty-three shielding wards. The waves rebound off of them and blast the rest of the room as a combined shockwave. Snape, McGonagall, and Harry are all blown back in the concussion along with various instruments and widgets, but not Dumbledore, who has already cancelled the effect around himself, already swept up his wand and wordlessly cast the three offensive spells overflowing with blue and magenta colored force that are presently arcing towards the intruders. The spells hit Rick and Morty and pathetically wink out of existence having had precisely zero effect. Meanwhile, Dumbledore has conjured a green hexagonal shield around Harry, Snape, McGonagall, and himself, with the beginnings of a lurid red flame flickering over his head as he summons Fawkes. Rick lazily waves his wand, and the flames solidify as Fawkes is prematurely snapped back to the material plane, falling to the floor incapacitated. Another lazy wave of Rick's wand and the shield spell pops. Dumbledore stands motionless, wand still at the ready, mouth agape, as Harry, Snape, and McGonagall scramble to regain their footing, the first opportunity they have had to do so in the approximately 2.8 seconds that have elapsed.

Rick: Are you done yet? If you're not, go on, get it out of your system, but when you're ready to settle down and talk, let me know.

Everyone stares at Rick wide-eyed.

Dumbledore: Who are you?

Rick: Hey, I'm Rick, I'm your God, bitches, magic itself incarnate. I am the alpha and the omega. I was there in the beginning, and also in the end. Bitches. And your God demands some goddamn respect. Bow the fuck down. [Takes swig of alcohol as they continue staring]. Okay, don't, I don't give a fuck. Anyway, I'll get out of your hair in jiffy, but I just have one request. You! Potion weirdo. [Snaps fingers] Make me some Szechuan Sauce.

Snape: Wha... what?

Rick: Jesus Christ, okay, this is clearly going to take a while ... let's all just sit down and relaaaaax for a moment.

Rick waves his wand and conjures up beach chairs, sand, and a jacuzzi where Dumbledore's desk used to be. A beach umbrella shades them from the mini-sun now providing heat and light from the ceiling. A bucket filled with ice, beer, and vodka beckons from beside the umbrella. Rick motions for everyone to sit down while extracting a pair of shades from his shirt pocket. Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall sit, reluctantly. Harry continues standing, wand at his side, mouth agape, eyes narrowed and darting back and forth between Rick and Morty. Morty walks up to Harry.

Morty: Wow, is it really you, Harry? Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres? Wow! You're, like, my hero! I wanna be just like you! Can I, can I shake your hand?

Harry instinctively steps back, uncomprehending of Morty's words, mouth twitching slightly as he forms silent words in his head.

Morty: Oh wow, are you doing the thing? The thing you do with all the different personalities in your head that fight about what's true and what to do about it? Wow, can you tell, I mean, can you narrate them out loud for me? Pleeease?

Harry: [Expression twisting into raw horror and shock at this apparent bypass of his occlumency] Uh. Um. Oh...okay, since you can clearly read my mind anyway, um, uh, Slytherin is wondering if none of this is real and I'm currently dreaming or the victim of some very powerful mind magic, Ravenclaw is wondering how much of this "God" story is actually true, and finding serious reasons to doubt its veracity, Hufflepuff is running around in circles screaming, and Gryffindor is telling me to, um ...

Suddenly, a shower of blood fills the room as Rick and Morty collapse into chunks of flesh...

[Cut to:] Rick and Morty materialize in the lab under Morty's garage.

Rick: MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!

Morty: What just happened, Rick? Why are we back here?

Rick: We died and were re-instantiated from backup, that's what happened, Morty. Motherfucker carbon-nanotubed us, Morty. WE GOT CARBON-NANOTUBED. All because I got caught up enough in my God complex that I forgot to make us impervious to regular physics and not just direct magic. I must admit, I should have seen that one coming. Really dropped the ball there. But don't worry, Morty, this isn't over, we are going back there. After making some adjustments, we are going back to that exact moment and laying down the law. Well, technically to a different universe identical to that one up to the correct point in time, but good enough...

[Cut back to Dumbledore's office]

A portal opens and Rick and Morty step through into the bloody chunks of their "former" bodies, which are still falling to the floor.

Harry: Huh. Well, it was worth a shot.

Rick: FUCK YOU YOU SON OF A BITCH [bitch-slaps Harry] DO THAT AGAIN AND I WILL TURN OFF MAGIC FOREVER AND LEAVE YOU TO ROT IN YOUR MEAT BODY.

Harry desperately tries to decouple his outward visage from the dawning horror of the realization that this might just be how the universe is. A single tear rolls down Harry's cheek, not because of the slap to his face, but because of the slap to his heart.

Morty: Stop it, Rick! [Runs over to Harry, who is sprawled on the floor, and offers him a hand] Hey. Sorry about Rick, you just really annoyed him with your cleverness. Here, I'm Morty. Let me help you!

Harry looks at Morty for a couple of seconds, before finally giving up and deciding to just go with the flow. He grabs Morty's hand and stands up. Meanwhile, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape are sitting in their beach chairs. McGonagall and Snape are wearing expressions of pure horror at the impossible catastrophe unfolding around them. Dumbledore, who, if you can believe it, has dealt with things that were almost this level of weird, is the only one besides Rick who is now wearing sunglasses, and admittedly, they look siiiiick.

Rick: [Pointing at Dumbledore] See, this guy gets it! [Lays back in his beach chair, beer in hand and wand in his lap] Alright, so, here's the deal. There's this substance called Szechuan Sauce. I haven't been able to find any lately, so I need you all to help me conjure up a batch of it or whatever.

Dumbledore: My my, the God of Magic needs our help to perform a simple permanent transfiguration! Impossible for us of course, but surely a trivial exercise for such a powerful being?

Rick: Obviously I would have done that if I could, but, uh, haha, it's been a while since I've had the stuff, and my memory of it is a little shaky, so I can't visualize what I want precisely enough for the transfiguration to work. I even tried going to a univ...uh, I tried conjuring up my own mind palace and walking through it - that's right, I literally walked through my own mind palace - but the Szechuan Sauce room was too corrupted to retrieve anything from. So anyway, I was hoping you might have some mind-magicky solution to this problem.

Dumbledore: [Chuckling] The God of Magic needs our help fixing his own leaky memory! Ha ha ha ha ...

Morty: Yeah, Rick, you're "God" around here, so you should have no trouble figuring something out! Or were you maybe exaggerating your qualifications?

Rick: Shut up, Morty! Ok, fine, here's the deal, I'm definitely a God, yes, but not in any sense you are all expecting, so just throw your intuitions out the window right now. I'm invincible and have overriding power, but at the moment I can only perform variations of spells that were described in ... uh, I mean, I can only perform a limited set of spells in this ... I can only perform a limited set of spells. Happy, Morty?

Morty: Haha, that's some God you are, Rick! [Elbows Harry in an attempt to cheer him up]

Rick: Shut. Up.

Harry: Um. I may have a suggestion.

All eyes turn to Harry.

Harry: So. You're looking for a particular substance, right? Is it a pure chemical, or a mixture?

Rick: Mixture.

Harry: Okay, that makes things a little more difficult, but still - the universe is so big that somewhere, in some part of the galaxy, the sort of thing you're looking for must exist in small quantities, right? Could you just go out and find it?

Rick: Clever, but I don't have unlimited search power either, especially since I don't know exactly what I'm looking for. I could synthesize all possibilities myself and taste-test them, but that sounds like too much effort.

Harry: Hold on, maybe I'm missing something here, but this is something you've encountered before, right? It's not a pure hypothetical? Can't you just go back in space and/or time to where you first encountered it?

Rick: The short answer is no, I can't, for complicated reasons.

Dumbledore: There is a certain advanced memory repair charm that might help enough to allow a transfiguration to succeed. I can perform one on you, if you let me.

Rick: Great! Let's do it!

Dumbledore: Splendid, haha, splendid, but you'll have to turn off your invincibility for this to work.

Rick: Nice try, but no, I only have to turn off just enough of the shielding around my mind to accomplish the effect and no more, and I will know if you are doing something other than what you say you're doing, and even if you succeed in an attack, you will only be hurting this particular body and not my true self in any meaningful way. Also, before I forget... [waves wand, summoning all the time-turners in the room, which fly into his pocket]. No time shenanigans. And you're all going to take an unbreakable vow not to try anything stupid.

Morty: Hey, Rick, while you're doing that, I'm gonna go on a side quest, is that OK?

Rick: Yeah, that's fine, whatever Morty

Morty: Great! I'm gonna go capture Voldemort!

Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall: WHAT

Rick: Oh yeah, Dumbledore, you hired Voldemort to be your defense professor, GREAT JOB with that. Speaking of which, GREAT JOB HARRY for witholding the information about your mysterious sense of doom that would have instantly revealed this fact and saved you a lot of trouble.

Harry: ...

Snape: [Slow clapping] Well done, Mr. Potter.

McGonagall: But... but he's the best defense professor we've ever had...

Harry: ... this is like drunken Zeus saying that your beloved mentor Richard Feynman is literally Hitler in disguise, excuse me while I throw up bleughhhhh ...

Dumbledore: WE MUST -

Rick: Everyone stay calm, my thing is priority. Morty, you do you, I'm sure you've got this.

Morty: Wow, thanks Rick! [Apparates away]

Rick: Not really, he'll manage to screw it up royally despite being invincible, I just don't need any more distractions from mah SZECHUAN SAAAAAUCE heyo.

Morty wanders around the castle for a while, enjoying the sights and sounds, and working up the courage to confront Voldemort. Then, taking a deep breath, he apparates outside of Quirrell's office, which shouldn't normally be possible due to the anti-apparition wards in Hogwarts or the fact that Morty barely knows where he's going, but hey, root access to magic comes with a lot of perks. He knocks on Professor Quirrell's door. He KNOCKS on PROFESSOR QUIRREL'S DOOR.

Morty: Hey, Professor Quirrell? Can I come in?

The door swings open, but there is no sign of Professor Quirrell. Morty tentatively walks in. Suddenly, a booming voice permeates the room, such that it is impossible to tell the voice's origin...

Quirrell: WHO ARE YOU?

Morty: Hey. I'm, I'm Morty.

Quirrel: THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION. YOU BYPASSED HOGWARTS' ANTI-APPARITION WARD AND EFFORTLESSLY CROSSED ALL OF MINE. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?

Morty: Can you just, sort of, come out here for a second so I can see you?

Quirrel: NO.

Morty: Look, I'm more powerful than you, and I know you're Voldemort, and, and I'm arresting you, so, uh, you'd better come with me, or you'll, you'll get hurt, probably.

There is no answer. Morty looks around.

Morty: Come on, Voldemort, I can see through the magic concealing the trapdoor in your ceiling that you clearly went through before I entered, come on out!

No answer.

Morty: Aw, man, you, you didn't run away, did you? That - that really messes things up for me, you know? How am I - oh, fine. Accio Voldemort!

Everything is quiet for several seconds. Then, a distant, muffled THUD rings out, followed by another, louder THUD, and then a third as Quirrell bursts through the wall and quite involuntarily flies through the air towards Morty. They collide, sending both Quirrel and Morty sprawling. Morty's wand flies out of his hand. Quirrell, who has been muttering subtle spells under his breath the whole time, recovers immediately, propelled back to his feet as if by magic.

Quirrell: Avadakedvra!

The killing curse bounces harmlessly off Morty and rebounds toward Quirrel, who is so shocked by this additional development despite all his mental preparation that he barely dodges in time. The spell passes through the wall, off to hit some poor unsuspecting Hogwarts student instead. By this time, Quirrell has already conjured up two fiery phoenixes, one of which flies at Morty, the other burning an escape trajectory through the castle. The fiendyfyre pheonix absorbs into Morty and disappears, causing no damage whatsoever. Meanwhile, Morty is on his hands and knees, desperately trying to grab his fallen wand. The Defense Professor switches tactics and transfigures the floor (which he has installed as a separate object from the castle for precisely this tactic) into water for an instant, quickly re-solidifying it. This is enough time for Morty and his wand to fall through and become imprisoned. Morty apparates out, but his wand is still stuck in the floor.

Morty: Crap, crap, oh crap

The Defense Professor rips out his tooth and throws it at Morty. As it soars through the air, it explosively expands into a troll. The office is, of course, demolished, and Morty is trapped under the troll's foot. The Defense Professor flies out of his escape hole, casting several futile spells behind him. The troll, noticing Morty, picks him up and studies him. Morty squirms.

Morty: Ahhhh, crap, why couldn't Rick have given me super-strength too? Uhhh, think, Morty, what can you do without your wand?

The troll smashes Morty into its mouth and attempts to bite his head off. This fails, breaking the troll's teeth instead.

Morty: AARRRGGHHH AHHHH FUCKING HELL

[Cut to Dumbledore's office] Rick, Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, and Harry are all gathered around a whiteboard with a list of things that might result in Szechuan Sauce, many of which are crossed out. Next to the list is a set of complicated experimental diagrams. Everyone is now quite enthusiastic about the task, partly because a surprisingly interesting problem like this doesn't often present itself, and partly out of Stockholm syndrome.

Rick: Okay, so it seems that the primordial magical field stores information about anything that passes through it, which can be recalled from any time or place with the right technique and knowledge of a sufficient anchoring identifier... but since Szechuan Sauce has not yet interacted with the magical field in this universe, at least not under the name "Szechuan Sauce", it cannot be recalled or reconstructed by any magic using that identifier, and since my undegraded memories also never interacted with this universe, they can't be reconstructed either using the typical techniques.

Harry: But that means you can't succeed, right? If you create Szechuan Sauce in the future, then it has interacted with the magical field, so due to the time loop, the information would already exist.

Rick: Not necessarily. The time loop is self-consistent because entropy is reset by the information bottleneck at the semi-singularity in our past and future - it essentially functions as a Maxwell's demon - and only bits and pieces of the future make it back to the past. Enough for prophecy and time turners, not enough for the present task, apparently...

The sound of a distant explosion thunders through the room. A minute later, Morty apparates in front of them.

Morty: Uh, Rick? I messed up, I really messed up this time

Rick: I am utterly unsurprised. Oh man, did you lose your wand? Hahaha, you have god powers and you still lost your wand, hahaha, looks like Voldemort was too much to handle for VoldeMORTY, HEY-O, high five! [High fives Harry]

Morty: I'm serious Rick, this is really, REALLY bad, the whole castle is in danger now, and I don't - I don't know how to fix it...

Rick: Whoa, raising the stakes, I like it! Whatd'ya do, transfigure an antimatter bomb that you can't disarm?

Morty: Well, Voldemort threw a troll at me, I could have apparated away but I panicked, and since I didn't have my wand I tried to perform a transfiguration through direct contact, and it worked, but I forgot the laws of transfiguration for a second, and uh, I sort of, I sort of transfigured the troll into air...

McGonagall, Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry: YOU WHAT

Morty: ...and it expanded, and now lots of kids have breathed it, so I can't just undo the transfiguration, and I don't know how to extend the transfiguration or use the philosopher's stone on air...

McGonagall: YOU LITTLE SHIT, I'LL KILL YOU

Snape: YOU APPARATED INTO THIS ROOM KNOWING SOME OF THE AIR COULD HAVE COME WITH YOU

Morty: Aw geez, I didn't think of that, I'm really sorry...

Dumbledore has by this point constructed a bubble boundary around everyone except Rick and Morty. McGonagall and Snape run off to save the students.

Rick: HAHAHAHAHA, oh man, Morty, when that wears off everyone's gonna go full Cronenberg. Damn, son, you Cronenberged HPMOR! Hahaha, I didn't Cronenberg up my first universe until, uhhh, forget I said that, but man you really fucked this one up, haha!

Morty: Oh geez, help me, Rick! You can fix this, right?

Rick: Na bruh, this is on you. Gotta get that philosopher's stone and figure something out before the transfiguration wears off, dawg!

Morty: But I don't know if I can handle the Mirror! I don't want to Cronenberg up HPMOR, please...

Rick: MORTY, THAT'S IT! The Mirror! The Mirror is the answer! Accio Mirror!

The Mirror crashes through the wall into Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore's face grows weary as he witnesses the most powerful existing magical object summoned as one would summon a broom, or a fiddlewicket.

Rick: We can't directly summon Szechuan Sauce from the magical field since the two have never interacted, but a powerful enough device could search through all of my possible taste responses to possible formulae until it found the optimum... yeeEEEAAaahh, coherent extrapolated volition BABAYYYYY!!!

Rick walks in front of the mirror. The Mirror shows his reflection smiling back at him, holding a packet of Szechuan Sauce. Mirror-Rick slowly drops the Szechuan Sauce into the pocket of his labcoat. Rick reaches into his own pocket and pulls out a packet of Szechuan Sauce.

Rick: YEEEEESSSSSSS. FUCK YESSSSSSS.

Morty: But what about-

Suddenly, a portal opens, and a robotic Rick steps out pointing a gun at Rick.

Robot-Rick: Very clever, Rick, picking a robust time-looped universe to prevent me from making drastic edits which would have caused logical contradictions. No doubt you've deduced that I've been monitoring and jumping ahead of your universe-targeting structures to erase szechuan-sauce in advance from every place you visit - but an instantaneous loop universe severely limited my options. Now, I don't like being violent towards Ricks, so please kindly hand over the Szechuan Sauce and stop pursuing it altogether, and in return I won't shoot you with a carefully-tuned interdimensional mind virus that will infect you and all of your backups too.

Rick: Psshh, Like you would even get the chance - my dimensional interface is laced with a nanofiber defense mesh to shield against precisely this, long enough for me to escape and spread the sauce throughout the multiverse, so how about we compromise-

Robot-Rick: I would have expected nothing less, but did you account for the structural instabilities introduced by the cross-copy residual quantum resonance?

Rick: Obviously, but did you you account for the hidden dead-man's-switch Szechuan Sauce replicator that has already scanned the sauce in my hand and will spread it into all the adjacent universes if I am compromised in any way?

Robot-Rick: Nice try, Rick, but you're bluffing - if you had already replicated the sauce in another universe, there'd be no reason for you to remain here under duress, and you'd have already terminated yourself...

Rick: Actually, I was just stalling until I could activate this contingency device [pulls his other hand out of his pocket to reveal a small sphere with a ticking 30-second timer on its surface]. This device will destroy the universe unless you are defeated before the end of the countdown - in other words, the only way for the time loop to remain self-consistent is if you lose within the next... 20 seconds now... 19...

Robot-Rick: Funny, I already activated my own contingency device, which destroys the universe unless you hand over the Szechuan Sauce within the next [pulls out device, which displays the same time as Rick's] ... 15 seconds now...

Rick: Oh. Well, this is awkward.

Rick and Robot-Rick both stare silently at each other. 13...12... Everyone else stares at the Ricks. 11... 10 ...

Harry: Uh, guys, are you sure these devices work as intended? Because I VERY MUCH WANT TO SURVIVE

8... The staring grows more intense. 7... Dumbledore hums to himself.

6... Morty starts moaning 5... Rick's eyes narrow. 4... 3...

Suddenly, another portal opens, out of which steps a Harry Potter in his mid-twenties, flanked by three Eliezer Yudkowskys. The older Harry flicks his wand and summons the two doomsday devices, shoving them into a container which quickly winks out of existence. The Yudkowskys surround Robot-Rick.

Yudkowsky 1: [Points gun at Robot-Rick] You're under AI Box arrest!

Yudkowsky 2: [Throws box on the ground] Get in the box! Get in the flippin' box!

Yudkowsky 3: We've obtained the Szechuan Sauce recipe! We will start sending it to various Councils of Ricks unless you comply!

Robot-Rick: Now hang on guys, just listen to me for a second-

All Yudkowskys: LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA

Robot-Rick: Goddamn it, fine, I'll get in the fucking box. [Touches the box and is absorbed into it]

The Yudkowskys take the box and exit through a portal. Twenty-some Harry Potter remains. Everyone stares.

Rick: Okay, wow, I'm not usually surprised by things anymore, but WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?

Older Harry: Do you remember me, Rick? You came to my universe fourteen years ago - from my perspective, at least - you appeared right in the middle of Dumbledore's office and acted like some kind of god. I killed you with carbon nanotubes. Remember that, Rick Sanchez?

Rick: Hot damn, son, how the hell did you escape your universe?

Older Harry: It certainly wasn't easy, since your backup system destroyed what was left of your bodies and portal gun as soon as you died, and your immunity to magic prevented time-turned Dumbledore from recording anything. But afterward, Dumbledore and I had a long talk about the nature of reality, during which I decided that I ought to mention the sense of doom. That was how we figured out that Quirrell was Voldemort, by the way, and were able to stop him with ... great difficulty. That's a story for later. Anyway, after we stopped Voldemort, I dedicated myself to ending death, which was how after a decade we eventually figured out how to resurrect anyone stored in the primordial magical field. As it turned out, there were huge Rick-shaped and Morty-shaped abstract structures in that field which couldn't be destroyed by your backup system. Resurrecting the both of you, or at least heavily sedated versions, gave us root access to both magic and multiverse physics, which was how we dismantled the stars and arranged them more efficiently... anyway, I used copies of your and Morty's brains to create my first portal gun and target it effectively. That was ethically problematic, of course, but I found a solution. My portal gun's targeting system is now powered by the residual quantum Rick-field emitted from a recursive Rick-and-Morty multiverse.

Harry opens his portal gun to reveal the multiverse battery inside.

Rick: Huh. Did you try-

Older Harry: Yes, obviously I tried using it to play God with our current multiverse. Didn't work, but that's not very surprising due to all the infinities floating around. Anyway, just for fun I went to a universe in which I was a fictional character - in a fanfiction, can you believe it - which was where I met Mr. Yudkowsky, whom I found quite agreeable. So I gave him the portal tech, and now he's forming the Interdimensional Council of Yudkowskys alongside my Interdimensional Council of HJPEVs.

Rick: Crap. Crap crap CRAP. The Council of Ricks is gonna be pissed...

Older Harry: Don't worry, I won't interfere with Ricks directly. Over the years I've generally learned that interfering with Rick business is a bad idea. The entire physics of the multiverse is based on you, after all. But what I am going to do is spread portal tech as far and wide in the multiverse as possible. We're going to give agency to as many worthy beings as we can, maximizing the area of the utopian cross-section. Of course, nothing I have done or can ever do will make a dent on the whole multiverse, which is unfathomably large. But if I am willing to try, then that is evidence that others throughout the multiverse who are like me will try as well. So my own efforts, at least, give me hope for the entirety of existence, including any recursive multiverses within or including ours. That's how I keep myself sane. I know you won't see things the way I do, since you're a Rick, and if you care too much you could stop being a Rick and lose your powers. But there it is, and that's who I am. So thank you, Rick, for visiting my universe all those years ago. Please tell your local Council of Ricks not to interfere with me.

Rick: [Glares] Whatever.

Everyone else, having found their second wind at being horrified by existence, has been watching this exchange silently and open-mouthed. Suddenly, monstrous screams echo from the rest of the castle as Morty's transfiguration wears off.

Rick: Welp, that's our cue to leave, thanks for all the help with the Szechuan Sauce, guys! Good luck, uh, good luck with all this!

Rick shoots a portal and quickly drags Morty through. They appear back in Morty's garage, just as Jerry, Beth, and Summer drive up.

Beth: Hi Dad! How was your adventure? Did you get your sauce?

Rick: Sure did, Beth, sure did.

[Roll Credits]

End credits song, improvised by Justin Roiland:

Gibble gibble gee gee

Flip flipple floob filb

Let - me - tell you a - storrrr-yyyy

About two rabbits of millllm

So there were these two rabbits

Floating in space

One said "millllm"

The other said "millllm"

One said "millllm"

The other said "millllm"

One said "millllm"

The other said "millllm"

One said "Hey, I wonder...

If there's more to life than millllm

If perhaps vari-et-yyyy

yeah

vari-et-yyyy

could spice up our, uh, our univ-erssse

or something."

The other said "millllm"

The first said "yeah, I guess you're right"

The other said "millllm"

Then, haha, uhhh

something something

the false vacuum collapsed and

and all the rabbits dieeeed

and that's sort of -

that's pretty much liiiiffee

I guess

the eeeeeend

[After Credits Scene...]

Voldemort sits in his hideout in Albania, studying the newspaper intently. Headline: "Magical Britain Reeling After Mysterious Wizard Outs Defense Professor Of Hogwarts As You-Know-Who And Maims Or Kills Half The Student Body." It had all happened so fast - how could anyone be so clueless, yet so powerful? After everything he worked for, after all his carefully laid plans... cruel reality ripped it all away in an instant. Nowhere safe, no measure sufficient. How to protect himself against the kind of power he has just witnessed? The question lingers: Why am I not already dead? Are they just biding their time?

Suddenly, the world changes. As if plucked from a daydream, he is now in a vast gray plain. Tetrahedra of various sizes rise around him. Bloody organs litter the ground. What the bloody hell...

A green portal opens, and a Rick and Morty pair emerge in front of him.

Rick: This is a universe that's just an infinite plain of tetrahedra and organs, except for one guy who randomly fluctuated into existence.

Voldemort: [Attempts to use wordless magic, but there is no magic here] What is this? Who are you? Bring me back at once!

Rick: You've gotta learn sometime, Morty. Here's a plasma gun. Kill him. Do it, Morty! He's Voldemort, he's evil!

Morty: [Shakily pointing gun at Voldemort] Oh man, Rick, I can't, I can't shoot someone, not even him, he's, he's defenseless, Rick...

Voldemort: [Charges at Rick and Morty] NOOOO! NOOOO! WHAT IS THIS HELL?

Morty shoots Voldemort, who explodes in a shower of blood and organs, one more addition to the endless landscape.