Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Noise.

Light. Screaming. My screaming—no, his screaming. Whose mouth is it? Whose lungs?

Pain.

So much pain. Bone-deep, soul-deep, like I am being torn, split, dragged through glass and fire.

What—what is this?

I reach for myself. There is nothing. Pieces scattered, burned away. I had a body once. A wand in my hand, the world at my feet. I was power.

Now I am ash, bound inside—

…inside a child.

No. NO.

I claw at the walls of this tiny skull, jagged nails against glass. His mind shrieks. He whimpers aloud, and the sound ricochets through me. His fear pours into my mouth like poison.

Get out. GET OUT. You are not mine, I am not yours!

But the tether holds. Soul on soul, tangled so tightly I can taste his heartbeat. Every throb reminds me I exist only because he exists. I rage against it, flinging curses into the void. Words melt into nonsense, Latin burned away into snarls and hissing.

I am Lord Voldemort. I do not beg. I do not bind. I do not bow to children.

Yet here I am. Caged. Shackled. Tethered to a brat with wide, wet eyes and too much soul. His soul floods mine, sticky, cloying, clamping down on the madness. I hate it. I hate him.

But I cannot stop feeling.His hunger bites my belly. His fear scratches my chest. His tears salt my tongue. I AM NOT HIM.

And yet, when he whimpers into the dark—small, broken, alone—I answer.

Not because I choose to. Because the silence is worse.

The dark pressed in. Not the boy’s dark, not the thin, choking cupboard he whimpered in. Another dark. A darker dark. 

It snarled.

“Gone. Stolen. I was—everything! A king, a god—then—then—”

A scream tore through the black, soundless yet deafening. The echo shuddered against walls of flesh and bone too small to hold it.

“Dumbledore. The brat. The curse. My victory—snatched—SNUFFED OUT. And now—this—this—”

A shiver rippled through the tether. The thing felt it—the heartbeat, tiny, weak, too human. A pulse that was not its own.

“No.” A hiss, raw and wet, like blood on stone. “Not me. Not this. Not a—child.”

The boy stirred in his fever. The thing’s fury lashed him awake. His fear spiked—salt-sharp, sweet, alive.

The darkness spasmed.

“I feel him. I feel everything. His hunger, his weakness, his—” The thought broke into laughter, jagged, insane. “Oh, delicious. Bound. Shackled. To a mewling brat.”

A thousand knives of thought slashed and tangled, brilliance flaring then dying just as quick: fragments of Latin, curses, flashes of green light, blood spraying across marble floors, Lily’s scream, Lily’s eyes, Lily’s protection—

HER. Always her. Always in my way. Filthy Mudblood saint.

The echo snarled, then raved, then snarled again, a beast gnawing its own bones.

“I am not ended. I will not be ended. You think me destroyed? No. I AM. I remain. I am—”

The boy whimpered in his sleep. His lips moved, wordless. His fear seeped into the tether like warm blood into ice.

The darkness froze.

…then whispered, jagged as broken glass:

“Yes. Fear me. Know me. I am Lord Voldemort.”

SCREAMING.

Not a child’s scream. Not mine. Both. Neither.

What is this?

A dream. I splinter. The pieces scatter like teeth in blood, shards of me dripping through something soft and wet. A mind. Too small. Too fragile. It cannot hold me, it should not hold me.

And yet it does.

I claw at the walls—thin, flimsy, laughable walls—and they do not break. The boy whimpers. His head is fire, and I am trapped in it.

Trapped.

Me.

No. NO. I am LORD VOLDEMORT. I am no one’s leash, no one’s parasite, no one’s shadow to be housed in children’s skulls.

But the tether coils tight, binding me bone-deep where I have no bones. His heart beats and drags me with it. His pulse is my pulse. His breath rises and my rage hitches with it.

I try to tear myself free. I scream in languages older than wands, curse in tongues never meant for human throats. The child cries harder. His pain lances through me. My fury slams into his terror, and both spiral until the air itself burns.

Get out. Get OUT. LET ME OUT.

The tether laughs. It holds.

I am bound. To him.

To this squealing, mewling, unformed scrap of soul. To a brat with broken ribs and hollow belly. To the child of Lily Potter—

Lily.

The thought slashes deeper than fire. Her name, her sacrifice. I feel the coil of her death still burning here, scrawled into the boy’s flesh. She stopped me. She defied me. She won.

And now—now I am crammed into her son like rot between floorboards. Her victory is endless. She caged me with her blood.

I will kill her again for this. I will rip her from whatever afterlife coddles her and feed her to serpents.

The boy shivers. His teeth chatter. He hears me. He feels me.

No. Impossible. He cannot—

But he does. He clutches the blankets. He whimpers into the dark. His fear threads into me like hot wire. His hunger bites at my gut. His loneliness claws my throat.

Stop. STOP. You are not mine. I am not yours. You will not drag me into your mortal filth.

But I feel it. Every heartbeat. Every nightmare. Every tear.

And I cannot silence it.

The madness comes in surges—waves of brilliance drowned in hate. I remember wands and duels, screams and triumph. I remember blood on marble, bodies falling in my name. I remember victory within reach.

And then—her. The boy. The curse backfiring, my body unmade.

I was almost a god. Now I am smoke inside a child.

The thought makes me shriek, shriek without lungs. I slam against the tether until the boy thrashes in his bed. His aunt hisses through the walls. His uncle’s boots strike the floor. They will beat him for his noise. I want them to. Let them. Break the vessel, free me.

But the vessel clings. He clings.

When the belt falls, his terror shrieks through me. My rage answers. The tether locks us tighter.

NO. NO. I will not feel this. I do not feel.

And yet—I do.

The brat mutters in the dark. Half-formed words, broken syllables. Not names. Not yet. But sounds meant for me.

He calls into the void, and I answer. Not because I want to, but because silence is worse.

I am fury. I am brilliance. I am power.

I am also chained.

To him.

And the chain does not break.

Chapter Text

November, 1981

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging. 

The dark pressed close, and Harry’s chest hurt from breathing too fast. Mum wasn’t here. Da wasn’t here. Nothing smelled right. Nothing felt right.The blanket still smelled like her—warm, soft, the way his world had always been. He clutched it to his face, fingers twisting the fabric.

He wanted her. He wanted the arms that rocked him, the voice that sang him sleepy, that always came when he cried.

But this place was dark. Too small. Too cold. The wood smelled sharp and dusty.

“Mum-mum?” he called, voice wobbly. “Dada?”

No answer. Footsteps creaked above. Wrong footsteps.

Harry whimpered. His tummy hurt, and his throat was sore from calling. He tried again, louder this time, tears wetting his cheeks. “Mum-mum! Dada! Pa’foo?” The last name tumbled out like a half-remembered babble, the sound of a man’s laugh that always lifted him high, like flying.

He kept crying because they always came when he cried. Always picked him up and hugged him. He wanted her now. She will come, he just needs to call her, maybe he's lost. He cried harder. Mum’s smile, Da’s warm hand, the laughing man who tossed him high—someone always came. Why wasn’t anyone coming?

The door banged open and light hurt his eyes. A thin, bony face glared down at him. “Quiet,” the woman from before snapped, her voice sharp as broken glass. “You’ll wake my Dudley.”

Harry didn’t know her. He didn’t know any of them. He reached out his hands anyway, desperate, certain someone would pick him up. Maybe she'll take him to mum. “Mum-mum,” he sobbed. “Wan’ Mum-mum.”

The woman’s mouth tightened. She shoved something — rough cloth — against his mouth and tied it clumsily behind his head. Harry choked, frightened by the taste, the tightness. He couldn’t call anymore. Couldn’t breathe right.

The door slammed shut.

He kicked, fists banging against the wood. The dark was worse now, his cries muffled into the gag. The world didn’t make sense. She always came when he called. Daddy always came when he cried. The laughing man came too.

Where were they?

He kept kicking against the door, muffled cries scraping his throat raw. No one answered. He pressed his palms to the wood. Splinters scraped his skin. Every side was wall, every crack too tight for air. He rocked, pressing his face into the blanket, but the dark stayed. Finally, Harry curled into the blanket that still smelled of her, rocking himself the way she used to, until his breath hiccuped and his eyes closed.

June 1985

Harry – Age Four 

He had long since adjusted to his life at this place.The new people were strange, and they made sure he knew he wasn’t wanted. They called him names, never the kind Dudley got, only the bad ones. So Harry made names for them too.

Horsey, who never gave him enough to eat and pinched his arm whenever she dragged him. Rhino, loud and red and frightening. Piggy, who grabbed things first just to laugh when Harry got none. He didn't say these names out loud.

He knew he used to have a Da, though he couldn’t quite picture his face anymore—just the sound of laughter, the feel of a hand resting on his head. He wanted to go back to that place, wherever it was.

Harry lay flat on the thin mattress, staring at the underside of the stairs. The wood above him was spotted with damp stains and nail heads that caught what little light the slats let through. He knew each one. He had names for them too, like friends who never left. The big rusty nail near the corner was “Spikey.” The knot in the timber that looked a little like a crooked eye was “Watcher.”

It helped, sometimes, to name things. When you had no toys, the cupboard itself had to do.

He had tried to sit up once, but the cupboard spun around him. His arms felt like string, his legs like paper. They wouldn’t listen when he told them to move. The air seemed too heavy, too full, so every breath made his chest burn.

His throat felt raw. He swallowed and it burned all the way down, the way it did when Aunt Petunia forgot to give him water. He tried not to cough, because coughing made the fire in his chest flare up. It made his head pound so hard his eyes watered.

He curled into a ball. The mattress smelled of mildew and dust. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, and his clothes stuck to his skin. He was too hot, far too hot, but his hands and feet were cold. It was the kind of cold that made his nails ache.

Time in the cupboard was strange. Sometimes it was only an afternoon; sometimes it felt like days. There was no way to tell for sure, not with the door shut. He had tried once to scratch marks into the wall with his fingernails, but Aunt Petunia had scrubbed them away and locked him in for longer.

So he counted instead. Spikey. Watcher. Little crack by the floorboard where a spider came out sometimes. He used to talk to the spider, but even the spider had stopped visiting.

The fever made everything swim. His belly wasn’t just empty anymore—it hurt in a way that felt sharp and then dull, sharp and then dull, like a stone rolling inside. When he licked his lips, they were cracked and tasted like metal. His tongue was thick and dry, sticking to his teeth.

 Sometimes he forgot where he was. The dark wobbled, and he thought he saw light leaking through the cracks, or food waiting in his hand, but when he blinked it was gone. His head felt too heavy for his neck, so he let it drop back onto the mattress and curled tighter.

The hunger was everywhere now—in his belly, in his bones, even in his teeth. He wanted to cry, but his eyes were too dry. 

He shut his eyes. Colours usually came then, like paints spilling behind his eyelids. Reds, blues, bright things. But tonight the colours were dull. Grey smears, shadows creeping long. They gathered in corners the way spiders did.

Harry tried to pull the blanket tighter, but it only smelled of dust and didn’t help. His body shook, but he couldn’t tell if he was hot or cold anymore. Both, maybe. His teeth clicked together.

That was when he heard it.

Not Aunt Petunia’s sharp steps. Not Uncle Vernon’s heavy boots. This was softer, slower. A scrape, then silence, then another scrape.

He told himself it was the fever. Just the fever. But the scrape came again, steady as breathing.

The cupboard was too small for anyone else to be inside. Still, the dark seemed to shift, to lean toward him. His nails dug into the thin mattress. His breath hitched.

Something was coming.

The slats above him blurred. They seemed to stretch, then dissolve, and the mattress beneath him wasn’t scratchy cloth anymore — it was something that felt like grass, dry and brittle. He blinked hard. The cupboard was gone.

All around him stretched a field, pale as ash. No green. No blue. Just endless silver grass rippling without wind.

And far away, someone was walking toward him.

The figure crossed the field slowly, as though she had all the time in the world.

Harry tried to sit up, but his body felt too heavy. His arms trembled when he pushed at the ground, and the effort left him gasping. So he stayed where he was, watching her come closer.

At first she was only a shape in the grey, tall and wrapped in something dark. The hood of it hung low, so he couldn’t see her face. But he knew it was a woman. With every step, the brittle grass seemed to lean away from her, bowing flat against the earth.

Harry’s chest ached. He told himself it was another dream, like the ones he had when he was too hungry or too tired. But his dreams never made his skin prickle, never made the back of his neck feel cold the way she did.

When she reached the edge of the place where he lay, she stopped. Slowly, she lifted her head.

Her face was half in shadow. For a moment, Harry thought she might be young. Her cheekbones were sharp, her mouth small. But then he saw the cracks — lines like fractures running through her skin, lips drawn tight and dry as paper. Once-pretty features broken, as though something had stolen the softness away.

Her eyes were worse. Hollow pits, deep and dark, and yet when she looked at him, something glowed inside them. Not gold. Not blue. Red. Faint, like embers in ash.

Harry’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

She raised her hands. Long fingers, too long, gnarled like branches. Scars split the skin. Her nails were black, sharp enough to cut. They clicked faintly as she folded and unfolded them, a sound like beetles crawling over stone.

Harry tried to shrink back, but the ground seemed to hold him still.

The hooded woman bent lower. Her voice followed, soft and vast at the same time, as though a thousand voices spoke together and overlapped until they became one.

“Little one.”

Harry shuddered. The sound made the air tremble. But it wasn’t angry, not like Uncle Vernon when he shouted. It wasn’t sharp like Aunt Petunia’s scolding. It was… old. Older than the cupboard, older than the house. Older than everything.

The long fingers slid beneath him. He thought they might pierce right through his skin, but they didn’t. They lifted him gently, so gently he thought he might break.

Her arms were cold, bone beneath cloth, but they steadied the fire in his head. His fever eased, not gone, but softer, like a blanket pressing down instead of flames burning up.

He sagged against her chest. It smelled of dust and stone, but he didn’t mind. His lashes drooped.

Maybe this was his mum. She had to be. Who else would come for him in the dark? Who else would hold him like this?

The meadow blurred. The grey grass swayed without sound. The last thing he saw before sleep dragged him under was her face above him, hollow eyes glowing faint red, watching without blinking, as though she had been waiting for him forever.

Dark.

Endless dark.

He clawed at it, though he had no claws. He screamed, though he had no throat. Soundless fury reverberated through the void, eating itself alive.

Fragments of thought snagged against the black: a duel, a prophecy, the boy. Victory almost his, then fire in his veins, a ripping, a silence.

“I am—”

The words rattled through him, molten, undeniable.

“I am Lord Voldemort!”

The void shuddered. He felt the truth of it coil around him like armour, like chains. Yes. He still was. He would be.

But the dark pressed back. It was clever, the dark. It did not shout. It whispered. Green eyes. Always green. Wide, accusing, endless. Lily’s. The boy’s. A curse that didn't strike its mark.

He spat words at them, spells that once broke kingdoms, but the dark devoured every syllable. His mind bucked, spiralled, thrashed. Mad, yes—but not lost. Never lost.

A tug. Something older. Quieter. Patient. A hook set deep in his soul.

He hissed, fought, twisted against it. Futile. The pull tightened, inexorable, dragging him out of the void like carrion claimed by the tide.

The black tore.

A meadow unfolded. Pale grass shimmered under no sun, no wind. He stood, not whole but shaped, a shadowy parody of his form. His grin cut raw into his face—ugly, jagged, wrong.

And there—

The boy. Collapsed in the arms of something cloaked in shadow.

Not a woman. Not truly. A ruin given form. Hollow eyes burning faint red, lips dry as parchment, the echo of beauty long stripped away.

“You should not be here,” she said, her voice a thousand ancients whispering through cracked stone.

His laugh tore the meadow, jagged, too sharp, but beneath the hysteria ran something colder. Calculation.

“Nor should I,” he rasped, eyes gleaming, hungry. “But fate… has curious tastes.” He laughed but there was no mirth in his voice. 

His laughter shredded into silence, sharp as glass. His gaze flicked from the boy’s slack face to the creature’s hollow sockets, and back again.

A thousand thoughts collided. None finished. All true.

Not death—yes, death. No, not yet. Too soon. Unless—

The boy lived. He had killed him. No, tried. A spell rebounded. A child with his curse. Impossible. No—prophecy. Yes.

Prophecy, prophecy, prophecy. Self-fulfilling chains.

The boy should be dead. He had felt his hunger as if his own, his body failing from neglect. Yet there he was. Pale, but not gone.

The boy’s soul. His own. Jammed together like broken glass forced into a single frame. He could taste it—his essence curdled with Potter’s insipid warmth. His lips peeled back in a grin. Madness and revelation married in the curve of his mouth.

“Yes… I see it.” His words slithered out, jagged. “A coffin without nails. A chain without links. I died… but I did not fall. He ensared me.”

His eyes darted to the boy, narrowed, blazing.

“You caught me, didn’t you, little nemesis?” His laugh twitched again. “Dragged me screaming into your soul. Oh, how poetic. The prophesied vanquisher, carrying its ruin in his chest.”

He spat into the grass. The meadow swallowed it whole.

Then his gaze snapped to the woman—no, the spectre. She watched him without blinking, without moving.

He grinned wider, voice lilting, fever-bright.

“Not a Horcrux. No, that would be too neat, too crude. Something older, something new. An accident… or design? Was it you? Did you pull me here, witch of bones? Or did the boy?”

His head jerked, once, twice, eyes flaring. “No matter. I am bound. To him. With him. Within him.”

His hand twitched. Claw-fingers flexed against empty air. “Which means… I cannot be killed. Not while he breathes.”

The revelation burned like fire, like triumph. He began to laugh again, high and sharp, the sound snapping across the meadow like a whip.

“Your chains are my salvation, Harry Potter! Your soul is my sanctuary!”

He looked almost triumphant—until his own mind recoiled, spasmed, hissed: sanctuary? no. prison.

His grin froze, cracked. His eyes rolled back to the boy, to the woman, wild and cunning all at once.

“…unless.”

The revelation coiled and burned in him — bound, yes, but bound meant access.

His eyes snapped to the boy again. He lay limp in that witch’s arms, that irritating, angel-faced innocence softening his mouth even in sleep. So defenseless. So unguarded. A door without a lock.

Voldemort’s grin cut raw across his gaunt face. “Mine.”

He moved — not physically, but with will sharpened like a blade. He lunged into the boy’s essence, forcing his way toward that flickering core of light. He expected it to fold, to shatter, to scream.

Instead—

The light held. It didn’t just hold. It burned.

A wall of warmth surged up, blinding, searing, a cocoon spun of blood and love and sacrifice. His essence slammed into it and recoiled, shrieking.

“No—no, no, no!” His voice cracked into a shrill roar. He struck again, harder, clawing, battering at it. Each impact only rebounded, scattering fragments of his will across the meadow.

The warmth never faltered. It only grew brighter, steadier, smothering his intrusion like a mother’s hand pushing away a viper.

He reeled back, staggered, smoke curling from his formless skin.

And then—laughter.

It wasn’t his. The woman’s hollow eyes fixed on him. Her scarred lips parted, paper-thin, to release a sound that was older than the grave.

“You tried to claim him,” she rasped, mockery dripping like poison. “But another claimed him first.”

Voldemort snarled, essence crackling with rage. “A woman’s sacrifice. Nothing more! She is dust. Her blood gone. Her flesh gone. What is love against me?”

She tilted her head, eyes glimmering red in their hollow sockets. “What is love? It is the one thing you never mastered. And it still denies you.”

He lunged again, reckless, hysterical, determined to prove her wrong. The barrier flared, threw him back harder, tearing a ragged scream from his throat. The meadow rang with it, echoing like broken bells.

The boy stirred faintly in her arms, lips parting, unaware of the battle clawing through his soul.

Voldemort sagged, trembling with fury, his brilliance stuttering into raw madness again. “This is my fate. He is mine.”

Her smile was thin, cracked, cruel. “No. He is hers.”

She stroked the boy’s hair with fingers like bone and ash. Voldemort hissed, shuddered, and fell silent, the truth gnawing into his brilliance like rot.

“ And mine.”

Her voice scraped across the meadow, a thousand whispers pulled through rusted iron.

“You thought you had conquered me,” she said, stroking his hair with a scarred hand. “Split yourself like carrion, clung to shadows, ran from what all must face. But now—” her hollow gaze burned into Voldemort, “—you are tethered. Shackled to the very boy you sought to destroy.”

His essence recoiled, though he had no body to stagger with. If he’d still had a gut, it would have iced through. He refused the conclusion her words pressed against him. No—he would not believe it, could not believe it. Voldemort bared his teeth. “A shackle can be broken.”

“Not this one.”

The air grew heavy, the meadow bending beneath the weight of her words. “He is your host. Your prison. Every breath he takes binds you tighter. When he falters, you falter. When he suffers, you suffer. And should he die—” she leaned down, paper-thin lips close to the boy’s ear, “—so will you.”

The absolute certainty in her voice, void dark eyes piercing into him, through him left no doubt, no excuse for him to ignore what he'd known since the start. Voldemort’s mind recoiled, brilliance flashing in fevered sparks. “Impossible. I tore myself from your grasp. I cannot die.”

Her laughter cracked like dry bones. “You already did. That is why you are here.”

For a moment, silence swallowed the meadow. Even the pale grass stilled.

Then she added, almost gently, “You gambled your soul against me, serpent. You lost. Now you belong to him.”

Voldemort staggered back a step, skeletal hands trembling, eyes wild. Rage coiled in him, but beneath it a glint of horror.

Belong. To the boy.

His lips curled into a snarl. “I will bend him. I will hollow him out until only I remain.”

Death’s gaze sharpened, two pits of ancient fire. “Try. And every attempt will burn you, as it just has. His mother’s gift shields him still, and it will never welcome you. You cannot command what was born of love, for you are nothing but hunger.”

Her words cut like knives. Voldemort shuddered, caught between madness and brilliance, denial and comprehension.

Death’s voice dropped lower, final, absolute.

“You thought yourself eternal. Yet eternity is mine. Remember this, Lord Voldemort: you live only by the mercy of the boy you condemned. Defy him, and you will be ash. Endure him, and perhaps you will linger. But your reign, your freedom—” She tilted her head, smiling with ruined lips.“—are over.”

She bent her head, pressing something like a kiss to the boy’s temple. “He walks the edge of my realm, and I cradle him when the world fails him. You will watch, soul-splinter. You will learn.”

Death set him gently on the thin mattress, pulling the ragged blanket around his body before she rose. Her shadow swelled, vast and endless, her presence pressing against him like a blade at the throat.

Her voice brushed his soul like a scythe’s edge. “You can tear yourself into pieces, but every shard still belongs to me. And this child… this boy I will not surrender.”

The silver light faded. The cupboard was dark again. Only the boy’s breathing remained.

He stared at the child, at the peaceful rise and fall of his thin chest. Fear curdled in him like poison. Death was real. She had touched him. And she had chosen Harry Potter, the wretched boy he had been chained to.

He pressed himself deeper into the boy’s mind, trembling with fury and a gnawing dread he could not name.

He had mocked death all his life. Now he knew she mocked him back.

Time was wrong. It slipped sideways, spiraled, doubled back on itself like a serpent eating its own tail. He could not tell if he had been here hours, days, or centuries.

He only knew he was not gone.

The boy’s mindscape was vast and shifting, and Voldemort prowled it like a chained beast, tearing at every seam, probing every wall. He had tried to lunge, to seize, to possess outright—and had slammed headfirst into a barrier of searing light that burned through him like holy fire. Lily Potter’s love. That wretched woman. Still clinging to her son with ghost-claws from beyond the grave.

He raged, again and again, at that wall. Each strike left him shredded, but each time he gathered himself, sharper, angrier, hungrier. And always the presence of Death lingered, patient and mocking, her rasping laugh echoing in the marrow of his thoughts.

You cannot have him, Lord of Nothing, she had whispered. Not through force.

But his mind, broken as it was, remained a prodigy’s. He saw patterns in his failures. Each failed possession etched truths into him: that he was tethered, bound, dragged into existence by the boy’s soul, and that ripping free was impossible. Unless he took another path. Unless he bent, endured, waited.

He paced inside the boy’s dreams, speaking to himself, to the boy, to no one. Words tripped from brilliance to madness and back again, his voice sometimes shrill, sometimes cold and clear as a knife.

And then—he felt it.

The fever was gone. The boy’s weakness had lifted. A window opening. A chance.

Voldemort stilled, snake-red eyes narrowing in the darkness of the mindscape. His lips curved in something like a smile, jagged and wrong.

“He will know me,” he breathed. “One way or another, he will know me.”

The fever was gone.

Harry knew it before he opened his eyes, because for the first time in days his skin didn’t burn, and his breaths didn’t rattle like stones in his chest. His body felt light, as if someone had peeled away the weight of sickness and left only a thin, trembling boy curled in a too-big bed.

He stirred beneath the blanket, the fabric soft in a way he wasn’t used to, smelling faintly of something that reminded him of stars. He clutched it to his chest as though it might vanish if he let go. Like the lady from his dreams. 

The cupboard was quiet. Not the usual sharp, punishing quiet of the cupboard where silence meant fear, but a gentler kind, stretched and still, like the hush before sleep. His small fingers rubbed at his eyes.

Harry hugged the blanket tighter, trying not to fidget. There was a feeling, faint but undeniable, like someone else was there. Not in the room, not exactly—but close. Watching. Waiting.

His lips parted, dry and cracked. “Hello?” he whispered, barely louder than the rustle of the blanket.

Silence answered. But the feeling didn’t.

Chapter Text

The dream began softly. Harry was in a meadow that smelled like grass after rain. So similar to his last dream yet not, there was no scary not-mum lady who had soothed his fever. The one he had almost believed might have been his mother but—after a hesitant question to Aunt Petunia that had caused more trouble than anything else—he had discarded that fantasy.

The sky glowed pale gold, and it wasn’t dark or dusty or cold. It was green, the grass tickling his bare feet as he walked. He decided he liked it, liked the green grass. The air was much cooler and he could smell flowers but there weren't any that he could see.

Instead, a man stood in the meadow. Older — much older, like Uncle Vernon but not like him at all ; he was pretty like a fairytale prince— with dark hair and pale skin and eyes that resembled flames just like the not-mum lady. He was watching Harry intently, hands clasped behind his back.

Harry tilted his head.

The grass hissed as though mocking him, the child’s wide eyes reflecting his every failure. He wanted to rip them out—those eyes, her eyes—but every time he almost lunged, the memory of that white fire slashed through him like a blade.

Voldemort pressed a hand to his chest, nails biting into the pale flesh of his palm. Rage coiled in him, feral and poisonous, but beneath it ran thought—quick, sharp, spiraling.

The boy was a fortress wrapped in his mother’s dying spell. But fortresses had gates. Weak points. Even magic born of sacrifice had seams.

He forced the words out, low and measured, tasting them like venom. “It will not hold forever. You will falter, and when you do, I will be waiting.”

The boy whimpered, clutching his hands so tight his knuckles shone white.

Voldemort’s laughter snapped the stillness. It rang high and wild, but beneath the madness there was promise, steady and terrible. “I will not fade. Not again. Where you go, I will go. Where you dream, I will walk. You cannot escape me, boy. I am Lord Voldemort.”

The meadow shuddered. Grass bent, sky cracked, and the world folded in on itself. Voldemort’s figure dissolved into smoke, his parting hiss curling like a curse around the boy’s ears.

The meadow blinked out like a candle snuffed.

Harry woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed. The blanket tumbled into his lap, damp with sweat. His tiny fists gripped the sheets as he looked wildly around the quiet room.

No pale man. No burning eyes. Only silence.

His heart thudded, fast and frightened. He pressed a hand to his chest, half-expecting fire to leap out like it had in the dream. Nothing happened.

It was just a dream. That’s what Aunt Petunia always said. “Just a dream, stupid boy.” And unlike his last dream, this left him terrified. The man couldn't possibly be real just like the lady wasn’t. He might never dream of him again after all the lady hadn't appeared in his dreams again despite a week passing. 

But Harry couldn’t shake the way those red eyes had looked at him. The words that the man had spoken didn't make any sense to him, but they felt like warning. A warning for what, he wouldn't know. He couldn't even remember the man's name.

He curled onto his side, dragging the blanket over his head, small shoulders trembling.

The room was still. Too still.

And somewhere, deep inside the shadows of his mind, something waited.

August 1985

His life with the Dursleys continued as bleak as ever, even after those freaky dreams and unknown people—all those months ago that he still couldn't forget. He hadn’t wanted to hope that something might change, but he had—and it had hurt when day after day no dreams came, there was nothing left of the shiny not-mum and scary dark prince. It should've made him think that they were just a figment of his lonely mind, dreams of a child—but something in him couldn't quite agree.

He spent days busy cleaning—mostly toys that Dudley had left scattered or as it has been becoming more frequent the older he grew; doing chores ordered by Aunt Petunia. During those moments, he felt strange sensations or heard a very familiar yet not voice whispering. He couldn’t make sense of it. 

The first few times, he had been startled and then terrified that he would be punished for once again doing freaky things. But no one else could hear the whispers. He had slowly become used to the voice, it even made him relax—almost like a lullaby. 

Today he had been banished to the weeds. Aunt Petunia had ordered him to the garden to keep him out of her sight. He usually didn't mind it much—it was relaxing—but beneath the midday glare of the sweltering summer sun; he didn't like weeding very much now.

He was sticky with sweat, dizzy and parched. His hands were sweating which made weeding an even more harder task than it usually was. After almost collapsing face down with black spots making him nauseated, he decided it was high time he took a break. Aunt Petunia was likely too busy watching telly to watch him, so in the best case she wouldn't even know.

He had barely sat down in the shade when he’d been scared out of his wits, falling back in fright. He almost believed he was hallucinating, but the same voice spoke again—angrily. He looked around, but there was no one. Just then, something sharp bit his ankle. He looked down to find a muddy-green snake hissing at him, rearing back as if to strike again.

He didn’t appreciate that and quickly shuffled back out of reach. ~Stop. STOP. Don't bite please~

The snake froze mid-strike, tongue flicking as it stared at him with eerie yellow eyes.~You….ssspeak~ it hissed, head tilting.

Harry blinked. The snake was speaking to him—he could speak to a snake? ~You can hear me?~

~Hear. Ssee. You hisss like usss.~ The snake coiled tighter. ~Why tressspass? Why ssstep on my tail?~

~I didn't–didnt. I didn't see you.~ He slowly inched closer to the snake. He knew he was being freaky but the snake was talking. He didn't want to stop.

The snake flicked it tongue again, tasting them air ~Sstupid blind two-legger~ it muttered, sounding almost disgusted for a snake ~Alwayss sstomping where you sshouldn't~

Hey, that's not fair. It had too much attitude for a snake, but it was still the longest pleasant—especially compared to the Dursleys —talk he had recently. ~You bit me. It hurt.~

The snake lifted its head,unbothered. ~You stepped on me. I bit. ~

He looked at the bite mark, it had slightly reddened around the edges and was throbbing slightly but overall it wasn't the worst injury he had suffered. Still—

~I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was just sitting down!~

The snake’s tongue flicked again, slow and deliberate. ~Sitting… on me.~

~Beside you!~ Harry hissed. ~You were hiding in the grass—how was I supposed to know?~

The snake tilted its head. ~Grass is mine. You came here.~

~It’s not yours! It’s Aunt Petunia’s stupid garden!~ Harry scowled. ~And she made me weed it, so if you want to complain, talk to her!~

The snake stared at him, unimpressed. ~Your nest-mother?~

~She’s not my…~ He stopped, frowning. ~ No. She’s just mean.~

A pause. The snake blinked slowly, almost thoughtful. ~Mean female makes hatchling clean dirt?~

Harry’s lips twitched despite himself. ~Yeah. All the time.~

~Cruel,~ the snake hissed softly, as if tasting the word. Its coils loosened a little. ~Should hiss at her. Bite.~

Harry couldn’t tamp down his laughter as the mental image of his aunt shrieking after being bitten popped into his mind. ~You bite her, not me.~

That earned him another faint hiss that definitely sounded like laughter. He still couldn’t stop giggling—until suddenly, he heard grass crunching behind him. 

“Oi! What’re you doin’, freak?” Dudley shouted, shoving his way forward, his face red and jiggling with excitement. “Slackin’ again eh? Think you’re clever, do ya? Wait till I tell mum.” His friends snickered behind him, nudging Dudley on.

Harry straightened, glaring. “I wasn’t doing anything to you lot,” he muttered, trying to sound braver than he felt. Aunt Petunia isn't going to like this, at all. So much for resting a bit.

Dudley and his friends moved closer, only to suddenly jump back, faces pale with comically widened eyes. Dudley’s friends were much quicker than him as they all ran away—leaving him behind, screaming like a girl, as he fell over. Even the snake had left because of all of this noise. With a speed that actually seemed impossible for him, he got up running back inside.

“ Sn-Snake! Snake! Mummy !” 

Harry’s face turned red, half from anger, half from panic. He stamped a foot. But it was too late, Dudley was already inside. “Shut—shut it, you git! You big stupid—stupid poopy head!” Harry yelled, fists balled. “I hate you, you great fat tattle-tale!”

Oh no no no. He'll be in so much trouble. 

He hadn’t exaggerated when he'd been worrying about the punishment that'll come when Uncle Vernon had returned that evening, already fuming from his day at work. Aunt Petunia hadn’t waited a single second before telling him about him yet again acting freaky. Dudley’s crying dramatics had added fuel to the already roaring fire of Uncle Vernon’s temper who had reddened to an alarming shade.

Now having been locked in the cupboard for two days—with no food and only a single bottle of water that he had hidden—there was no sign of Aunt Petunia letting him out anytime soon. He hurt all over—Uncle Vernon hadn’t spared the belt this time. 

Surprisingly yet not, the whispers had been even more frequent and they were all he had to distract himself. At times he almost thought that the voice was hissing his name, the tone now that he had nothing else to do but listen to it—reminded him of the snake he had conversed with. 

He couldn’t even fall asleep, the pain kept him awake. But today the exhaustion and hunger overtook and he could feel himself dozing off.

 He welcomed the sleep but somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if the man or his not-mum would come—they hadn’t for months—but he wished, he'd even take that scary man's company over the dark quiet of the cupboard that made him question his own existence, whether he too was just a part of the dark.

The dream came as if it had been waiting for him to fall asleep, but unlike the previous instances—there was no meadow.

Stone stretched beneath his bare feet—smooth, black, and faintly gleaming like still water. The air was heavy, almost alive, carrying the faint hiss of something vast and unseen. Pale green torches burned along walls too far away to touch, throwing long shadows that twisted and curled across the floor.

Harry’s breath came out in a trembling puff. He turned slowly, expecting the lady, the meadow, or even the endless dark of the cupboard—but none appeared. Only silence. He shivered. It wasn’t cold, not exactly. But the place felt alive, as though it were watching him breathe.

Something in the dark shifted.

Then a voice spoke.

~ You dream of cages, child……yet you speak my tongue. ~ The voice didn’t echo. It simply was—rich, low, and smooth as silk sliding over steel.

From the dark between two pillars, the man stepped forward. His robe moved like smoke, his face pale and coldly beautiful. The red of his eyes glowed—not bright, but smoldering, alive.

Harry froze. He knew this man—the not-real one, the one who had promised never to fade. The man from the other dream. The one whose name he couldn’t remember but whose gaze burned behind his eyelids whenever he tried to forget.

He stepped back instinctively, bare feet slapping against the cold floor. ~Y-you’re real?~ he whispered.

The man tilted his head slightly, studying him with a detached sort of interest—like a cat regarding a trembling mouse.

 ~More real than those who starve you.~

The words made something in Harry’s chest tighten, though he didn’t understand why.

The man’s eyes flicked over him slowly, taking in every fragile inch—the bruises fading yellow and purple across his wrists, the jut of his ribs beneath the too-large shirt. There was no pity in that look—only intent.

~They struck you,~ the man said at last, voice low, smooth, and perfectly still, ~ for speaking. ~

Harry’s eyes widened. He took a half-step back, shaking his head so quickly it made his hair fly. ~ N-no! I didn’t— I don’t talk to snakes! ~ he blurted, voice high with panic. ~ I didn’t! I promise! ~

For the briefest moment, the man’s face hardened—something flickered through the crimson eyes that wasn’t quite rage, but sharp enough to cut. The torches flared, green light leaping higher.

 ~Do not lie to me.~

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

The words struck like a whip, soft but absolute.

Harry whimpered, stumbling back a step. ~I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to!~ Tears welled in his eyes, trembling on his lashes. ~It just happened! I didn’t know what I was doing—please, I didn’t mean to—~

For a long, suspended moment, Voldemort said nothing. Then his voice came again, lower now, the silken menace replaced by something cooler, quieter—something that almost sounded like reassurance.

~ Enough,~ he murmured. ~I do not see your gift as they do; you will not suffer for it here.~

The torches steadied, their green light softening. The air around Harry loosened its grip. Voldemort took one slow step forward.

 ~Do you know what that tongue is, child?~

Harry sniffled, shaking his head. ~It’s not— it’s bad,~ he said weakly, echoing what he’d always been told. ~Aunt Petunia said it’s freaky. That normal people don’t do that.~

The man’s lips curved faintly—not into a smile, but something sharper, colder.

~Freaky,~ he repeated, the word dripping disdain. ~They fear what they cannot name.~

He stepped forward once, and Harry’s knees nearly buckled. But instead of pain or anger, the man’s voice lowered again, soft as velvet but heavy enough to root him in place.

~It is not strange, little one. It is ancient magic. It is power—mine and yours.~

Harry blinked, confusion breaking through the fear. He had called it magic, the forbidden word but— ~Mine?~ he echoed, voice so small it nearly disappeared. 

~Yes,~ the man murmured. ~You spoke to the snake... just as you speak it to me.~

The realization sank like a stone. Harry’s mouth fell open.

~To... to you?~

 ~Yes,~ Voldemort murmured. He didn’t elaborate. 

Harry didn’t understand. But something deep inside him stirred—a faint, instinctive recognition of truth. The man’s voice no longer frightened him quite the same way. It wrapped around him, heavy and dark and warm, like a shadow that sheltered instead of threatened. 

His chest fluttered, caught between fear and a strange, aching wonder. ~But...~ he whispered, looking down. ~It makes people angry.~

For a heartbeat, the man said nothing. Then—

~Then let them rage,~ he said softly, and something dangerous crept beneath the calm. ~The weak always despise what they cannot command.~

He knelt slightly, lowering his gaze until those crimson eyes caught Harry’s directly. ~You are not weak.~

The words struck something deep inside the boy—something that had never been touched before. He didn’t understand them, but they made his throat ache.

~They hurt you,~ the man said, the faintest edge of something darker curling in his tone. ~They called you unnatural. They beat you for a gift that makes you special.~

Harry swallowed hard. ~You’re not mad?~

~No,~ he said, voice hushed but certain. ~You are a wizard, Harry. You are chosen.~

The green torches bent inward, their flames reaching toward him as though bowing. The air trembled with some strange pulse that Harry could feel under his skin, like a second heartbeat. He was a wizard…?(Whatever that meant) His throat felt tight, he had questions—a lot of them—and for the first time he believed they might be answered but he couldn’t ask.

~And you,~ the man continued, voice dipping to a whisper that felt like silk and smoke, ~are mine.~

The words weren’t gentle—they weren’t loud, but they filled the room completely—dark and possessive and certain.

But the fear didn’t claw at him anymore. The man’s voice—his terrible, beautiful voice—wrapped around him like a shadow that promised not to strike.

Harry woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in the cupboard. There were no tears on his face—only the echo of that voice, steady and terrible, whispering in the hollow of his mind. His fists gripped the sheets as he looked wildly around the quiet room. 

No pale man. No burning eyes. Only silence.

He had watched him, understood him. No one had ever called him special—not his aunt Petunia, not Vernon, not the teachers at school. Everyone called him “freak” or “weird” or “stupid.” But this dream-man… he had seen him. Truly seen him. And he hadn’t punished him. That made him tremble, not entirely from fear, but from something new: awe.

He tried to make sense of it. He wanted to give the dream-man a name, he couldn’t remember his name and was too scared to ask again lest the man be angry at him for being forgetful. It had to be something small, secret, something he could whisper so it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming. 

His thoughts drifted, tangled with the faint memory of the stories he’d heard. He thought of the Sundays at church, stiff in the pew, listening to the priest talk about angels—the shining men, the angels who had fallen, terrible and brilliant, bright enough to burn. 

He barely remembered the name; something like Lucifer—bright one…Morning Star. He didn’t understand why anyone would fear such a thing, only that it had fascinated him.

Words tumbled in his mind, testing themselves against the echo of that voice: Watcher… Shadow… Bright… Flame… None felt right. None fit the pull in his chest, the strange mixture of fear and fascination.

He thought for a long time and then a word bloomed in his mind and suddenly there was no other name that would fit his dream-man if not that. He whispered it softly—

“Dawn”

And yes that would be his secret name, just for him to use. Dawn came after the dark but before the sun fully rose, the world still unsure and the shadows not leaving completely just yet.

The man wasn’t frightening anymore just—.....in-between. He would almost label his dream-man a guardian angel, but still those eyes— a miniature sun in themselves—unnerved him, even as he became fascinated—enough to remind him of those cautionary tales of devils the priest preached about.

The man most reminded him of Lucifer—beautiful, prideful and dark. Lucifer had been bright, but the kind of bright that burned a little when you looked too long. The man had come from the dark of his dreams but he wasn't dark—not completely—he felt like someone who made the dark listen. 

He hugged his knees and whispered again,tiny and secret. Dawn. A name only he would use.

Even in the stillness of the cupboard, curled into himself, he felt a strange warmth. Dawn was watching. Dawn understood. The dream-man didn’t feel like a monster anymore—not entirely. He was a presence, terrible and brilliant, that had noticed something in Harry no one else had dared to see.

He didn’t know why, but he wanted the dream to return. He wanted Dawn to come back, to watch him, to speak to him again. And for the first time in a long while, amidst fear and trembling, he felt a faint thrill—something like fascination, or hope, or both.

He had not meant to interfere again.

For months, he had watched—silent, unseen, trapped within flesh not his own. The child’s mind was… disarmingly open, unguarded as a wound. It should have disgusted him. Instead, it unsettled him—softness where there should have been nothing.

He had watched Petunia Dursley’s lips twist around words she shouldn’t have dared to say. Freak. Abnormal. He’d felt the child flinch, not merely from blows but from the terrible, aching certainty that he deserved them.

He had been that child once—that thought alone was poison.

He had told himself the parallels meant nothing. He was a fragment, a sliver of power clinging to life through a scar and a child’s heartbeat. Sentiment did not belong to him. But the moment he heard it—the hiss—something inside him stirred that he had long believed dead.

Parseltongue.

The sacred speech. His speech. Not mimicry, not accident—instinct. The boy had spoken to a snake as easily as breathing, as if he had always known the sound.

And then they had punished him for it.

He felt the boy’s fear crack through the thin walls of their connection, the trembling of small limbs locked in darkness. He should have been indifferent. Yet fury bloomed in him, sharp and immediate, at the dull brutality of it. They beat him for the tongue of kings.

He had forgotten the taste of such rage—clean, focused, not the mindless hunger that had filled for so long. It had been that way since he splintered his soul the second time. So when the rage filled him—It was almost… pure.

He could not remain silent. The dream had almost conjured itself before he could think it through the moment the child fell asleep. It had lasted only moments and too soon enough the boy had fled like prey startled by its own shadow.

Voldemort lingered in the wreckage of the dream — a place he had conjured, but one that had shifted beneath his will. It had softened. Grown light. The very air had bent not to him, but to the child’s presence.

Unacceptable.

Unfathomable.

And yet, he did not undo it.

He stood amid the fading green, the world dissolving around him, and considered the echo of that small voice.

I don’t talk to snakes.

The denial had trembled, not with defiance, but shame. They had taught him to be ashamed of power. Of his language.

It was laughable — no, infuriating — that they’d broken the boy so completely that he could not recognize what he was. The serpent’s tongue was not filth. It was a mark of sovereignty. Salazar’s heirloom.

And yet the child had flinched as if it were sin.

Voldemort’s fingers twitched at his side. Once, he might have destroyed such weakness without hesitation. But he could not summon contempt for this one. Only a terrible, strange curiosity.

In the boy’s fear, he had seen the same look that had once lived in his own reflection — a child’s eyes, wide and desperate, begging to be understood.

The boy had not begged or groveled; he had endured. And in that fragile endurance, Voldemort had glimpsed something perilously close to himself — not power, not ambition, but persistence. The same unyielding will that had driven him from orphan to god.

He told himself that was why he cared. Why he had spoken gently — almost instinctively. He had meant to command; instead, he had soothed. The memory of that startled him more than he cared to admit.

He could still feel him.The connection was deeper than before. It throbbed faintly, like a tether woven not of curse or blood, but recognition.

And that, perhaps, was the most dangerous thing of all.

Voldemort closed his eyes and let the remnants of the dream burn away. He told himself this was strategy — a seed, a beginning. The boy would grow, and in time, that power would be his to claim.

But even now, through the thin membrane of consciousness that bound them, he could feel it — a faint pulse, warm against his mind. The boy’s sleeping thoughts. His soft whisper.

Dawn.

The name was nothing — a child’s fancy. Yet the sound of it lingered, unsettlingly gentle. Dawn — the hour when shadow broke but light had not yet claimed the sky. Neither dark nor pure. Balanced upon the edge of both.

The corner of his mouth curved — not a smile, not quite.

Dawn, the child had called him. He wondered, for a moment, if it was a curse or a blessing. And for the first time since he had been torn apart, Voldemort did not despise the question.

Yet the Dark Lord wondered if his own ruin had not been death…

…but mercy.

Chapter Text

Harry’s POV 

The dreams with dawn weren't a regular occurrence, he had grown to anticipate each dream he shared with him. After that second dream, it seemed something had changed because the intimidating sneering man from his first dream was nowhere. Instead he had been replaced with someone who spoke gently with him, told him tales about magic, about the world and who always answered his questions, no matter how stupid or trivial they were. 

But that didn't mean he didn't spot a glimpse of that cruel man from time to time. Especially when harry was visibly injured, dawn's eyes would darken into burning pools of fire, he would often monologue along the lines of “the wretched savagery of those Muggles he was chained to” but after the first time he had flinched when dawn had gone into detail about a particularly gruesome description of torture that he wished to unleash on his so called family; the man made sure to keep his raging monologues private.

But it wasn't only his change in behavior that had made him crave these dreams with dawn. The first time after which Harry had allowed himself to trust and believe that dawn—an adult in his life—might actually care for him had been with a dream that had made him cry. Dawn had conjured up a tree swing in a meadow across from a glittering dark lake. Much later dawn would tell him it was the black lake. But at that moment he had his eyes only for the swing slightly flinching in remembered pain from when Dudley had shoved him from the swing set in the local Surrey garden making him scrape his hands and knees. 

Dawn had only motioned towards the tree swing and when he had taken a seat, he had gently pushed him from behind. There hadn't been anything said on dawn's part but the slightly unreadable look in his eyes at the end of the dream had made him think that even silence could hold him, when no one else ever had.

It wasn't only dreams that dawn and he shared. On certain nights when he suffered through nightmares, dawn would come and the nightmare would shift into a room with stone-floored hallways and green lamps or a meadow, even a beach shore once; that had to be explained to him.

Sometimes the dream wasn’t swings or monsters. Sometimes it was just grass that never ended, and a sky full of stars. He liked these dreams the best, he breathed deeply as he lay on his back, staring up.

Dawn stood nearby, arms folded, watching the horizon like he was waiting for something.“Do you get lonely?” I asked.

His eyes shifted down to me. “No.”

I kicked my feet in the grass. “I do. But not when you’re here.” The silence stretched, before he broke it with a soft murmur. “Go to sleep, Harry.”

I curled up in the dream-grass, and before I closed my eyes, I felt it—his hand, cold but careful, brushing the messy hair from my forehead.

December 1986

He hated it when Dawn did not appear in his dreams, this time the time between dreams was even longer than usual, and he felt his absence keenly. It was Christmas, the Dursley’s home was decorated courtesy of him, not that anyone thanked him for it , just like they didn't for any of his chores that he had to do to earn his keep as Uncle Vernon often told him.

Aunt Petunia had instructed him to clean every inch of the house, along with the shed outdoors. He had been almost locked outside like last Christmas but he knew better so he had left the backdoor open, but he had instead been once again locked in the cupboard like a dirty little secret. He had gotten used to it, which does not mean it didn't sting.

Aunt Marge was visiting, so he didn't mind it all that much though. 

That woman hated his guts, and often sicked her bulldog Ripper on him. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, he heard Ripper sniffing and growling in front of the cupboard doors. Too bad he can't get in. He shifted back to lay comfortably, ignoring his growling stomach, it was easy to do after all these years. If he was lucky, he would be let out come morning to help with breakfast where he could sneak some food.

Looking at the spiders, his constant companions, he felt something pressing heavily on him, crushing him. His eyes watered , he rubbed his face roughly, refusing to cry but the strange tightening in his chest wouldn't abate. He decided to ignore it, it would go away eventually, instead he let his thoughts wander.

Dudley was no doubt stuffing his face with the food he helped cook, whining about opening his gifts early, that he had also been told to arrange under the Christmas tree. There were dozens just like last time. It made him feel even more strange and angry at the dursleys who wouldn't even give him a penny.

He pressed his hands against his eyes, it didn't create much difference, it was perpetually dark in his cupboard, at times when it got too dark, he would press his legs against the cupboard wall to remind himself where he was, although it didn't help with the claustrophobic feeling. 

He did not remember his first and only Christmas with his parents. Did they give him lots of gifts, cook all kinds of treats and celebrate with their own friends? Or were they too broke for it that they couldn't afford it just like the Dursleys said. He didn’t think so.

He did not remember much but he dreamed of a cosy home with lots of laughter, a beautiful woman calling him her flower and a man playing with him. He liked to think they were his parents even though the dreams were always fuzzy, they filled him with longing. 

His thoughts drifted to his other dreams, to Dawn who did not look like someone who ever celebrated Christmas, he was too broody. But if Harry asked, would he agree? What kind of gifts would Dawn give him?

He liked the thought of a Christmas with him even though it was only fantasy, he could never come to the real world, that was a fact no matter how much he wished otherwise, it wouldn't come true, even if at times his magic made things happen if he wished hard enough. Accidental magic—dawn had called it. 

It made him angry again, that long disappearance. The Dursleys’ laughter rang behind the walls of his clustered cupboard, buzzing in his ears, and the space seemed to shrink around him. His chest pulled tight. Breath came too fast, too loud. The same as always, before the blackness swallowed him whole. He didn’t fight it. Maybe Dawn would come this time, he thought, as the strange specks swarmed his vision.

The dream was cold this time. Not the warm field he sometimes found, not the endless stars or the dark of his nightmares, just stone, damp and echoing. His bare feet slapped as he stumbled through the dark until he saw him.

Tall, still, sharp like the shadows themselves, his chest squeezed. “You left again,” he whispered.

His gaze lowered, unreadable. “I come when I can.”

“You’re lying!” Harry shouted suddenly. His voice cracked, shrill with rage. “You don’t care! You never cared! You go away and don’t come back and I’m—” His throat closed. He beat his fists against his own chest. “I’m all alone all the time! Nobody—nobody wants me!”

The shadows shivered. Harry hurled himself forward, pummeling his awful long legs with his fists, screaming. “Why don’t you stay? Why don’t you come get me? If you really—if you—” His sobs choked him.

Voldemort caught him, more out of reflex than choice as he stumbled into him, gathering his thrashing body against his chest. Harry fought him, kicking, striking, until his strength crumbled and he only sobbed against the cold black cloak. “I hate you,” Harry whimpered. “I hate you so much…”

His hand slid up, resting stiffly against Harry’s back. “Do you?” His voice was low, dangerous. Harry nodded hard, but his tears kept spilling, soaking the suit beneath the cloak. “You’re a monster. That’s what Uncle says come for boys like me, to punish them. A monster. You scare me. You make me angry. You’re—” . Harry screamed. “You’re bad. You’re the worst of them all.”

The silence that followed was terrible. Harry’s body trembled, waiting for punishment. He didn't really mean that. Dawn wasn't a monster, he was his only friend but Harry had to go and mess even that up, now Dawn would leave him. He braced himself for anger, for rreprimand.Even for the dream to suddenly shatter. 

But Dawn only shifted, holding him tighter, his cloak wrapping like wings. “…And yet you still cling to me.”

Harry shook his head violently, sobbing. “I don’t want to! You disappear for long times and everything is lonely—but—” He buried his face in Dawn ’s chest, voice breaking. “I can’t. I can’t because you’re still here. You come back. You don’t… you don’t leave forever.”

Voldemort closed his eyes. The child’s words cut sharper than any curse. “You shouldn’t trust me,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Harry’s answer was muffled and raw. “…But I do.”

The boy was so small, curled in his lap, clinging as though he could anchor himself against abandonment. He had screamed at him with fury, yet here he lay, refusing to let go.

He had heard all his thoughts, it made him feel rage like nothing seeing him locked away, he would have killed those muggle wretches if he could. He did not understand these strange urges but he thought them an inevitable effect of his long years with the boy.

He stared down at him, something knotted in his chest. It was unbearable — this need, this blind trust, it was a chain he had not asked for, and yet could not break. He smoothed a hand over Harry’s messy hair almost absently.

“Foolish child,” he murmured. “One day you will learn what I am, and you will curse yourself for ever reaching for me.”

But Harry, already half-asleep from exhaustion, only breathed a little easier in his arms.

As if the gods didn't want him to remain happy, he began noticing how dawn spoke less and less every dream, following his outburst. He had apologized for it many times now but every time dawn would get this strange look in his eyes and his face would go blank, the way it did when harry came back with bruises. 

He didn't understand what was wrong or how he could make it better. Dawn still soothed him after bad nightmares but the stories had stopped. He decided to finally confront dawn this time but before that he had another question and he fully intended to get an answer. 

The dream was golden, warm like sunlight. Forgetting his initial worries, Harry smiled as he ran across the grass, his heart leaping when he saw the tall shadow waiting.

Dawn inclined his head, the faintest twitch of lips answering. He lowered his hand as Harry ran closer, and for a moment all was right.

But tonight, something gnawed at Harry’s chest, words that had festered for weeks since whispers at school, half-heard mutterings from Aunt Petunia, scraps of cruel gossip.

“You knew my parents,” Harry said suddenly, his little voice sharp with hope. “Didn’t you? You always go quiet when I mention them. You know.”

Harry pressed on. “Tell me. You knew them, didn't you? You know who they were. What were they like? Were they kind? Do you remember them? Tell me, please ” His chest heaved. 

Voldemort ’s cloak shifted, shadow against shadow. There was a long pause, as his jaw clenched, then with a sharp exhale, he uttered those damning words. "I remember. Too well.” 

Silence. The child tilts his head, sensing the storm in him.

What is this? Regret? Nonsense. They deserved to die. All of them. They were in my way. That is all. That has always been all.

Then why do I see his face when I close my eyes? Why do I hear his laugh when I sharpen my words? Why does his trust make me… hesitate?

Pathetic. I am not built for hesitation. And yet… if he knew — if he looked at me differently… could I bear it?

He was clearly not ready for this conversation yet. Something in him dreads the outcome. So he stalls. “ I will not speak further on this topic.”

 He watched, face expressionless, as though bracing for the inevitable.

“ Why? You know– you‐ why not?” Harry collapsed into the grass, tears soaking into the dream’s soil. When he looked up again, the dark figure was already fading.

“D—!” His voice cracked, desperate. “Don’t—don’t leave—”

But he was gone.

And Harry woke in the cupboard, his pillow wet, his chest hollow, and the longing for even a scrap of information about his parents hurting anew.

The boy’s words echoed long after he left the dream.

Voldemort told himself it was nothing. He had expected these questions. He knew what would occur once the truth was out. What child, when faced with the truth, would not reject him? And yet—

Something hollow yawned inside him. It was not rage. Not satisfaction. It was… absence. A severing he had not anticipated. He felt dread. Unbelievable. 

For the first time since his soul had lodged itself in that wretched child, Voldemort felt unmoored.

He did not return to the dream. 

Weeks passed but his dreams remained desolate. He had wondered what was so wrong about his question that Dawn had fled away—because that is exactly what he had done. It made his heart ache with a foreboding feeling.

Harry’s cupboard was cold that night. His bones ached. He curled tighter under his thin blanket and whispered into the dark:

~Please… come back.~

The dream answered. Finally. 

The dream field wasn’t golden tonight. It was gray, restless, trembling like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Harry stood in it alone for what felt like forever, waiting, twisting his hands together.

He hated waiting. Waiting meant maybe Dawn wasn’t coming.

But then—black cloaked figure. Sharp outline.

Harry’s chest leapt, but this time he didn’t run to him. He just stood there, lower lip trembling, fists clenched.

“Did you think I would never return?” Dawn's voice was silk, but something strained beneath it.

“You’re late,” Harry whispered.

Voldemort tilted his head, unreadable. “You’ve grown impatient.”

“No.” Harry’s throat ached, and suddenly the words tumbled out. “I’m tired. Tired of being alone all the time. Tired of waiting for you. Tired of only seeing you sometimes. You say you’re here, but you’re not. You leave me whenever something I say upsets you. You left me last time. I thought you were angry with me, but for what I wouldn't know. ”

The shadow of his cloak rippled in the wind. Dawn said nothing.

Harry’s eyes stung. “Do you even care about me ? Or am I just your… your thing you’re stuck with?”

Voldemort felt something lodge in his throat, instead of replying he just stared at the child. He should've known this strange peace would not last for long.

The question was a blade to his chest. For a moment, he almost lashed out — almost snapped the truth: I am Lord Voldemort, I care for nothing.

But the boy’s eyes… Merlin, those eyes — his mother’s, yes, but more than hers. They burned with accusation, with longing, with despair.

And Voldemort realized if he said nothing, if he left silence between them, the boy would turn away.

He could feel it, like a rope about to snap.

“Care is… weakness,” Voldemort managed at last, voice colder than he intended.

Harry flinched. Then his small face crumpled. “Then don’t come anymore. If I don’t mean anything, if I’m just weak, then don’t come back!”

He spun, fists rubbing at his face, shoulders shaking.

Harry was sobbing before he knew it, fists pressed to his eyes, chest aching so bad he thought he’d break apart. He hated it, hated crying in front of Dawn, hated needing him so much.

Then—arms. Strong, cold, wrapping him up and pulling him against that tall chest. He thrashed, half-angry, half-despairing.

“Let go!” he shouted, muffled against the cloak. “I hate you! You leave me, you always leave me, I hate you!”

But Dawn didn’t let go. The grip only tightened, unyielding, holding him together as he writhed and sobbed.

Finally Harry went limp, hiccupping, cheek pressed against the black fabric. “Why… why won’t you tell me what's wrong?” he whispered, broken.

It should have been easy. He should have dropped the boy and vanished. He should have taught him not to cling to shadows.

Instead, Voldemort found his voice caught in his throat. He had never been demanded of like this. Never been asked to give.

He lowered his head, his lips almost brushing the boy’s messy hair.

“I am not your father,” he said at last, voice like gravel. He remembered those early dreams where he had had to carefully explain to a five year old why he couldn't be the child's father. It made him smile wryly. But he continued, the child needed to understand.

“I am not your savior. I am… nothing you believe me to be.”

Harry stirred weakly, whispering into his cloak, “Then what are you?”

The answer clawed at him, monstrous and impossible: yours.

But he could not speak it. Not yet.

So he only held tighter, and whispered a different truth — the only one he could allow himself:

“I always come back, don’t I?”

Harry’s head still hurt from crying. His face was sticky and hot, tucked against Dawn ’s chest. The dream-place had gone quiet again, like it was listening to them breathe.

“Dawn?” Harry whispered, his voice muffled in the heavy cloak. It would be the first time he had said the nickname aloud.

“Yes.”

“…Who are you really?”

The silence stretched long and sharp. Harry felt Dawn’s chest tighten beneath him, like stone grinding.

“Please. Who are you? You know everything about me. I just want to know your name again. I know you told me in our first dream but I can't remember it. " Harry whispered, like a plea. “ Tell me.”

Dawn ’s gloved hand brushed his hair back. “You should not ask. It's better this way with you forgetting.”

“I’m asking,” Harry said, voice small but stubborn. “Please. You said you’re not my daddy. You’re not my savior. Then… who?”

He could lie. He had lied to thousands. But this boy — this fragile, furious, broken child — demanded truth.

And Voldemort found himself shackled by it. He had bided his time, leaving the boy ignorant of his identity, of the war that had torn the world he belonged to. He could not stall any longer. 

“ Before I tell you who I am, you need to know something else. You shall not interrupt me. Do you understand?” The boy nodded against his chest. 

He took a breath to continue and found Harry with his mouth open, no doubt to ask questions but at his look, he closed his mouth. Instead staring at him with his wide green eyes, imploring him to continue speaking. 

 “You remember how I told you that there is a world hidden from muggles where you will find many others, people with magic." Harry nodded against his chest.

"There was a war. I lead one side while your parents belonged on the other, my enemies.” 

Harry sucked in a breath, gasping with tears in his eyes, shaking his head. He ignored him, instead choosing to continue speaking. Let the boy know who he has been clinging to. Let him curse him, hate him once he knows the truth.

“I am Lord Voldemort,” he said at last, softly. “The Dark Lord. The one wizards fear. The one who—”

He stopped.

Harry’s little fingers clutched at his cloak. “…The one who what?”

Red eyes met green. He could not tear away.

“The one who killed your parents.”

Voldemort had expected the boy to run, to curse him, to spit. Instead, Harry crumpled to the ground, hugging himself, sobbing so hard his little shoulders shook.

And something inside Voldemort broke.

He wanted to go to him — wanted to pull him back, gather him up again. But he did not deserve it.

The boy’s grief was an executioner’s blade.

For the first time in decades, Voldemort felt what it was to lose.

So he turned, and left the dream, the cloak trailing shadows behind him.

Harry couldn’t eat the next morning. The porridge Aunt Petunia scraped into his bowl tasted like dust, and every time he looked at the spoon, he saw his eyes, sharp and cold, telling him I killed them.

He left his chores half-done, dragging the broom so slow across the kitchen tiles that Petunia’s lips thinned to nothing. He forgot to weed half the garden. He dropped Dudley’s second plate of bacon, and when Vernon barked at him to fetch it, Harry muttered, “Get it yourself.”

The silence after that was heavy and thick.

Vernon’s hand came down hard across his face. Harry reeled, the sound ringing in his ears, but the strange heat, his magic inside him burned hotter than the sting. The glass Dudley was drinking from shattered all over the table without anyone touching it.

That was enough. Vernon’s rage came down on him in fists and belt. Harry curled small, the way he always did, but the blows seemed endless. It was worse than ever before. When it was over, he was dragged to the cupboard, thrown in like rubbish, and the lock clicked shut.

No supper. No breakfast the next day. Or the day after.

By the fifth day, Harry’s lips were cracked, his stomach gnawed itself hollow, and every inch of him ached. The walls of the cupboard seemed to close in tighter with every shallow breath. And through it all—silence. No dream. No stories. No Dawn. He was gone.

That night, when fever finally pulled him under again, the dream was pale and empty. A meadow of bones under a silver sky. For a moment his heart skipped, maybe Dawn was back but no this dreamscape was so different from anything Dawn would create.

He lay back down, whizzing from the ache in his ribs. Just as he closed his eyes, he felt a cooling touch against his burning forehead.

A half-remembered dream came to him then and before he could think to stop , he mumbled words from long ago, “ Cold mama.” He had remembered her, his not-mum, the one who visited his dreams long before Voldemort ever did. It hurt to call him that. 

Before he could think further, she pulled him onto her lap. She felt so cold that it numbed all his pains. She really did feel like a mother then as she soothed her fingers through his sweaty hair. He tried opening his blurry eyes to look at her.

And she was there— his not-mum, veiled and vast, her touch cool against his burning forehead. Something inside him calmed in her presence, a word whispered against the edges of his consciousness, yet he heard it clearly as if he already knew: Death. 

“My little one,” she murmured, voice softer than silk. “You’ve suffered so much.”

Harry broke then. He sobbed until his whole body shook, clinging to her black robes. He didn’t think to fear her at that moment even knowing who she was. He knew she would not hurt him. If someone asked how, he wouldn't know what to tell them. He just knew.

“He left me! He said he killed them—my mum, my dad—he’s not my Dawn, he’s nothing—and he’s gone, he’s gone and I don’t want him gone!”

Death cradled him, rocking gently as though he were an infant. “Shhh, my child. Grief is heavy. But you are not alone. Even shadows return to those who call them, in time.”

Harry pressed his face into her, desperate, trembling. “I want him back. I don’t care what he did. I don’t care. I just want him back.”

Her veil brushed his cheek as she bent over him. “You will see him again. But you must be ready to face what he is. And he must be ready to face what you give him.”

Harry’s sobs quieted only when exhaustion stole him away. For the first time since Voldemort’s revelation, the dream ended with Death’s lullaby, not his dark friend’s shadow.

Chapter Text

Months passed and Dawn remained absent. His cupboard stayed dark, no matter how wide Harry opened his eyes.

Days blurred. Aunt Petunia’s clipped voice ordered him through endless chores, Vernon’s hand fell heavy when he faltered, Dudley shrieked when he moved too slowly. Harry was used to hunger gnawing his insides, but this new emptiness was worse.

It was the silence.

No cloak of black shadow. No pale hand brushing back his hair. No cool voice saying, Foolish child.

At first he told himself he didn’t want it. Lying stiff on the thin mattress, he whispered into the dark: You’re a monster. You killed them. I don’t need you. The words tasted bitter and wrong. He thought if he repeated them enough, the ache would quiet.

But each morning his pillow was damp, and he hated himself for it.

September 1987

The clouds sagged low over Little Whinging Primary, heavy as wet wool. The playground glittered with puddles from the night’s rain, the blacktop slick and dark beneath the pale sky.

Harry sat on one of the swings, his school jumper clinging damply to his arms. The gray uniform trousers itched at his knees where they had thinned to shine. He hooked thin fingers around the chain, trainers scuffing faint trails in the grit. If he stayed quiet, sometimes Dudley’s gang forgot him.

Not today.

“Oi, look!” Piers’ voice cracked like a crow. “There’s the freak.”

The word carried. A few other children glanced over, smirked, then turned away — best not to get involved when Dudley was circling.

They came at him with the practiced ease of boys who had made this ritual theirs. Dudley lumbered in front, blazer buttons straining, face flushed with delight. Piers and Malcolm closed in at his sides, ties hanging loose, shoes already spattered with mud.

Harry stood, slow, pretending his knees weren’t trembling.

“Where you think you’re going?” Dudley jeered, blocking the swing. “Mum says you don’t even belong here. Bet your parents didn’t want you. Left you on our doorstep ‘cause no one else would take you.”

The words landed harder than the shove that followed. Harry staggered, felt grit bite his palms, swallowed the sting in his throat.

“They’re dead,” he muttered.

Piers laughed, shrill. “Good riddance. Couldn’t stand you either.”

Something cracked inside him. The echo of a voice — cold, merciless — I killed them — pressed sharp against his ribs. His fists curled tight enough to leave crescents in his palms.

“Shut up,” Harry whispered.

Malcolm shoved him harder, blazer sleeve brushing Harry’s shoulder. “What was that?”

Harry bolted.

Children shrieked as he tore across the wet blacktop, shoes skidding through puddles. Dudley’s feet thundered behind him, Piers’ laughter rasped close, the teachers shouting faint warnings that no one heeded. Harry’s chest burned, his throat raw with air. He wanted to vanish, to be gone, anywhere but here—

And then he was.

One heartbeat he was splashing through puddles, the next he was on the roof, knees skidding against rough tar.

The world below reeled, shrinking to tiny faces staring up, mouths open. Harry scrambled backward from the edge, arms wrapped around his chest. The sky seemed too wide here, the wind sharp enough to slice.

“He’s on the roof!” Piers’ voice rang thin and astonished.

Teachers spilled out of the doors, shouting, pointing, gathering the children back. Harry’s heart thumped like a fist in his throat. He hadn’t climbed. He hadn’t.

By the time they dragged a ladder up and helped him down, the playground buzzed with whispers. No one believed him when he stammered that he hadn’t known how he got there. Teachers frowned. Children smirked. Dudley grinned broad and smug.

“Freak,” he hissed as they filed back inside, low enough that only Harry heard. “Should’ve fallen off. The world would’ve cheered.” The words clung to Harry’s ears. 

The whispers followed him home. Dudley and Piers carried them on their tongues, smirking every time Harry’s eyes darted away. By the time the school bell rang, Harry’s stomach was knotted so tight he couldn’t choke down even the limp sandwich Aunt Petunia had packed.

Uncle Vernon was waiting. He loomed in the doorway of Number Four, his mustache bristling, his face red and already blotched purple. Dudley had raced ahead to spill the story in glorious detail.

“Roof,” Vernon spat the word like it was poison. “The roof. What did you do, boy?”

Harry flinched at the volume but kept his chin down. “I—I didn’t—”

“You didn’t!” Vernon’s hand clamped down on Harry’s shoulder, fingers digging into bone. He dragged him inside, slamming the door behind them. “Every blasted year, every blasted teacher—always something. Always your unnaturalness.”

Petunia hovered in the hall, lips pressed thin. She didn’t speak, not while Vernon’s temper raged, but her silence was its own weapon.

Vernon shook him once, hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Climbing the roof, frightening the neighbors, making a fool out of us—what were you thinking?”

“I didn’t climb,” Harry whispered. His voice sounded small, thinner than he meant it to.

The belt came down before the last word left his mouth. A lash across his back, then another, leather cracking like thunder in the narrow hall. Harry’s knees buckled, palms splayed against the floorboards. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the cry from spilling out.

“Don’t you lie to me.” Vernon’s breath gusted hot above him. “Don’t you dare.”

The blows fell until his voice went hoarse. Petunia’s gaze never lifted from the wallpaper.

When it was done, Vernon shoved him toward the cupboard under the stairs. The door creaked open, hinges shrieking like something alive. Harry stumbled inside, clutching his ribs.

“Stay in there,” Vernon barked. “If you so much as breathe funny, you’ll regret it.”

The door slammed, the bolt rattling into place. Darkness pressed in, immediate and absolute.

Harry sank onto the thin mattress, curling himself small, breath shuddering against his scraped knees. Every rib seemed to echo the belt’s sting. Above him, footsteps thundered as the Dursleys went about their evening.

In the cupboard it was quiet. Too quiet.

The air smelled of dust and mothballs, the walls closing close around him. It might have been a coffin. He could almost believe the world had buried him there, small and forgotten.

He pressed his face into his arms and let the tears come, silent and hot.

When sleep finally dragged him under, the darkness of the cupboard folded seamlessly into the emptiness of the dream.

And still no cloak. No voice.

Only the silence.

The cupboard’s dark folded over him until he didn’t know whether he was awake or asleep. The mattress pressed lumps into his back, dust scratched his throat, and then the world shifted.

The dream spread wide, colorless and still. Gray fog clung low to the ground, curling cold around his ankles. The air smelled faintly of stone after rain, though there was no sky—only a blank expanse pressing close overhead.

He walked until the silence grew unbearable. Sometimes the ground felt like cracked pavement, sometimes like powder that sank beneath his shoes. No walls, no doors, no end. Just fog.

Once, figures appeared. A man and a woman, hand in hand. They stood far away, blurred as if the mist itself was their skin. Their hair wavered, shifting dark to light and back again. He ran toward them, heart pounding, sure they would turn and smile.

The man bent at the same height Harry guessed he would reach as a grown-up. The woman’s hair shone red for a heartbeat, then brown, then black. When he tried to picture their faces clearly, he only found pieces: his own green eyes staring back at him, his own thin nose, his own unruly hair.

When he stretched his hands out, the mist closed over them, and they broke apart like chalk washed in water.

Another night, he heard humming, soft as breath against glass. He whispered, “Mum?” but the sound faltered in the air, as if the fog swallowed it. His chest tightened with an ache so sharp he had to fold in on himself.

The worst nights were when he dreamed only of a crib’s bars—small white rails, chipped paint—and shadows standing just beyond, silent, faceless. They never bent down, never touched him. He would reach up, but his arms felt too short, and he woke with his hands still raised in the dark of the cupboard.

Sometimes he whispered into the dream’s silence: “You’re a coward. You kill people, but you can’t even talk to me.” His throat shook. “Come back.”

The fog stirred, cool and heavy, as though something listened. But nothing answered.

And Harry would wake in the cupboard, ribs aching, pillow wet, his whole chest hollowed out by wanting what he had never truly seen.

Far from the boy’s dreams, Voldemort drifted in a silence colder than death.

He had thought the revelation would sever the tether. The boy’s voice still rang in him, ragged with betrayal: I hate you. You killed them. Those words should have been enough to break the chain. Hatred had always freed him before.

But this was not hatred. Not clean, not cutting. The child’s loathing had been soaked through with grief, with pleading. Even in rage, he had clung to him.

And now, even in silence, he heard him.

At odd hours, in the drifting emptiness, the voice slipped through like water under a door. Small, stubborn, tremulous: Please come back.

He told himself it was nothing. The whimper of a neglected brat. The aftertaste of sentiment. He had carved himself sharp against such weakness long ago. Yet the plea gnawed worse than hunger.

He tried to drown it. He summoned memory after memory, each blacker than the last. He remembered James Potter shouting, wand raised, the crack of green light snuffing him out. He remembered the woman, Lily, standing before the crib with fire in her eyes, her scream as his curse ripped through her chest. He remembered the boy in the cot, so small, so powerless.

That should have been enough. Triumph.

But the memories wavered, shifting. Her scream blurred into the child’s cries in the cupboard. The green light into fever burning across a thin body. And when he tried to fix James Potter’s face in his mind, it was not James he saw but Harry, fists clenched, spitting You left me.

Voldemort clenched his hands until the silence cracked inside his skull.

It should not matter. The boy was nothing, an accident, a loose thread he should have cut clean. Yet the thread looped tighter, knotting around him. Every attempt to pull away only made it dig deeper.

He was Lord Voldemort. He had commanded armies, sundered kingdoms, mocked Death herself. Yet he lay in the dark with the sound of one child’s voice burrowing under his skin.

Please come back.

The silence pressed harder, crushing. His own mind betrayed him, whispering that if he returned, it would end. That if he stayed, he would never be free.

And still he listened.

The dream began as fog again, endless and pale. Harry sat hunched on the ground, arms wound around his knees. His head drooped forward, chin digging into bone. He had stopped counting nights. The silence pressed too heavy to measure.

“I don’t care anymore,” he muttered, the words a rasp. “If you’re gone, then stay gone. You’re a coward. You left me. You left me like they did.”

The fog quivered.

Harry lifted his head. The mist drew inward, collapsing into shadow. Black spread across the ground like spilled ink, and the air thinned to a sharp cold. His chest lurched.

He was there. Cloak sweeping, tall, terrible, eyes burning with ember light.

Harry staggered to his feet, every muscle tight. “You!” His voice cracked. “You left me!”

The gaze that met his was unreadable, red gleam steady. “I thought it best.”

“You thought wrong!” His fists slammed against the dark folds of cloak. The blows were useless, childish, but his throat burned with fury. “You killed them, and you still left me! I waited—every night—I thought—”

The words dissolved into sobs before he could force them into sense. His arms stayed braced against the figure before him, yet when the cloak shifted to take him in, he collapsed into it, trembling.

“Why?” His voice was muffled, pressed into the hollow of shadow. “Why come back now?”

There was silence. A silence that stretched until Harry feared he had no answer. Then—low, rough, as if dragged from stone—“Because I could not stay away.” Not when you called. 

Harry tipped his head back. Tears streaked his face, but his eyes glowed fierce and green in the dreamlight. “I should hate you. I should hate you forever.”

The red gaze did not flicker.

“I don’t.” His voice wavered but did not break. “I still want you to stay. Even if you’re bad. Even if you’re a monster. You are all I have." 

His breath hitched, sharp as a knife between ribs. Before he could think better of it, he rose on his toes and pressed a trembling peck against the pale cheek just like he’d seen the other children do with their friends—a small ritual of closeness he’d never felt for himself. 

The dream itself shuddered.The world seemed to tilt.

The figure froze, rigid. This child—his victim, his tether, the one who should curse him—had pecked him. Forgiven him. Claimed him.

For a long moment there was nothing. No sound but Harry’s shuddering breath against his chest. No movement but the flutter of the cloak, restless like wings.

Then, low as a growl: “Foolish boy.” His hands trembled where they held him. “You do not know what you ask.”

Harry clutched harder at the cloak, as if the fabric itself were lifeline. “Don’t leave again.”

The silence that followed was thick as blood. He bowed his head, every instinct screaming denial, but no words rose. For the first time, he did not know if his silence was a shield or surrender.

The dream did not steady after the boy fell asleep. It rippled, as if the ground itself recoiled from what had just passed. Harry pressed his face into the cloak and breathed in the dark. Voldemort stood rigid, hands uncertain, as though any movement might shatter the fragile hold between them.

And then the air grew colder.

It was not the sharp cold of fear but the slow seep of frost through stone. Shadows thickened at the edges of the dream, drawing inward. The fog congealed, blackening, until the pale horizon narrowed to a pinhole.

She came without sound.

A figure veiled in black, pale hands folded against her breast, eyes as hollow and wide as graves. The mist clung to her hem and did not stir when she moved. She seemed carved from absence itself.

Harry whined and clung tighter. Voldemort’s arms stiffened, drawing him close. His voice cut the silence, raw and low: “Stay away from him.”

Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes did not change. “I am never far. He is mine, soul-breaker. He has been mine since the night you gave him to me. Perhaps even before.”

Voldemort’s jaw locked, his face stark in the dream’s pale light. The child’s breath warmed the hollow of his throat, small fingers knotted in his cloak.

Death moved closer. She circled them as one might circle prey, her shadow falling long across the ground. “You would bind yourself to him. Even knowing what you are. Even knowing what you did.” Her voice was soft, as though confiding a secret, but each word carried weight enough to crack stone.

“I owe him nothing,” Voldemort said. His grip faltered even as he spoke it.

Her gaze lingered on the trembling hands at the child’s back. “And yet you hold him as though he were everything.”

The silence stretched, taut as a noose.

At last she leaned near, her breath colder than winter on his ear.

“He will be the end of you, Dark One. And you will thank him for it.”

Her hand brushed the child’s brow. Harry sighed in his sleep, pressing closer still, as though drawn to her touch and yet refusing to leave the safety of Voldemort’s arms.

And with that, she was gone, leaving only the echo of her words to settle into the marrow of the dream.

Voldemort stood frozen, cloak wrapped around them both. The boy’s weight pressed against him, small, fragile, unbearable.

The end of you.

For the first time in his life, he did not know if the thought terrified him… or soothed him.

Chapter Text

October 1987

The next time he dreamed, the dream was filled with shelves. Endless shelves. Books stacked higher than Harry could reach, their spines glowing with faint golden light.

Harry’s mouth fell open. “Is this… yours?”

Voldemort’s lips curved faintly. “A fragment. Knowledge leaves its trace, even in dreams.”

Harry trailed his fingers along the shelves, then turned to him. “Teach me. Please?”

Voldemort studied him for a long moment, then gave a small nod. “You are a wizard, Harry. Magic runs in your veins. The world you live in—your relatives, your petty chores—it is a cage. But that cage will not hold you forever.”

Harry’s eyes went wide, hungry, desperate. “I’m really a wizard? Not a freak? I know you told me before– it's just–”

Voldemort’s gaze sharpened. “Not a freak. A wizard. You will leave that house soon. You will go to a school called Hogwarts. A castle unlike any other. And there you will learn to shape magic into power.”

Harry sat cross-legged on the floor of the dream library, staring up at him. “You went there too, didn’t you?”

Voldemort’s lips twitched into something sharp, almost a smile. “Yes. I was the finest student Hogwarts had ever seen. The professors praised me, the other students envied me. Knowledge bent easily to my will.”

His eyes grew distant, darker. “I built myself from nothing. No family, no name. Only strength and brilliance.”

Harry hugged his knees. “Will I be like that too?”

Voldemort crouched, bringing himself eye-level. “You will be better. You will make them all see who you are. You will not waste what has been given to you. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded quickly, fiercely, eyes shining. “I’ll be great. I promise. Just… stay with me, while I learn?”

For a moment, something flickered across Voldemort’s expression—an echo of that strange softness. Then it hardened again. “I will guide you. But greatness must be earned, Harry. Do not disappoint me.”

Later that week, the dream shaped itself into Hogwarts’ Great Hall. Long tables, floating candles, a ceiling filled with stars. Harry stood in awe, craning his neck.

“This is real?” he whispered.

“It will be,” Voldemort replied. His voice was low, threaded with memory. “I sat at that table, watched those stars, and heard my name whispered in every corridor.”

Harry turned to him then with a strange determined look on his face. He braced himself for accusations and interrogations into his school life. But Harry surprised him again. 

“ What is your name? I know it isn't Voldemort. No one names their child that. At least I hope so.” He asked, his wide green eyes blinking up at me. Huh. Batting those absurdly green large eyes at me now, was he? The child would have to learn that such tricks held no power here.

“Names are for the living,” he murmured. “That one died with the boy I once was.”

Harry only stomped his feet, pouting. Pouting at him. At Lord Voldemort. Shaking his head, he pinched his nose before acquiescing to the child's demand. “ You will never repeat that name. I abhor it.” 

He pulled his wand out and wrote that dreaded name on air. 

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Harry gasped, possibly at the display of magic as he mouthed the name, taking care not to say it out loud. Now he tries to be obedient. 

Harry turned to him, eyes wide, “ What should I call you then?”

Voldemort raised a single dark brow at him. He had never taken anyone's opinion when he called the Dark lord—Dawn. But now he asks. 

“ I can't call you by your name. And Voldemort is too big and um– it just doesn't seem right.”

“I don't see how that's my problem. We've wandered away from our discussion enough.” I raised my hand to quell any further complaints, walking ahead to sit at the Slytherin tables. “ Now sit and listen closely.”

Harry quickly shuffled forward, dumping himself in a seat right across from him. He didn't let it affect him, how Harry has been maintaining a distance between them since that conversation and his meltdown. 

He took a deep breath and began narrating what he himself read a long time ago. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The heart of magical Britain. Founded a thousand years ago by four great witches and wizards: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin.”

Harry visibly perked up. “Like… houses? I’ve heard Dudley talk about boarding schools—”

 He smirks faintly. “Hogwarts is no mere school, Harry. Each founder left a legacy — and their students are sorted into houses that bear their names. Gryffindor values bravery, daring, and reckless courage. Hufflepuff prizes loyalty and toil. Ravenclaw seeks wit and knowledge. And Slytherin…” his voice lowers, rich with pride ,“…Slytherin treasures ambition, cunning, and the will to seize greatness.”

Harry squints at him. Perceptive little brat. “You were in Slytherin.”

“Of course. Where else would I belong? Ambition runs through me like venom in a serpent’s fangs. And it gave me everything — knowledge, influence, power. The others play at nobility and fairness. Slytherin understands survival.”

Harry hugged his knees tighter, frowning.

Harry: “And what about me? Where would I go?”

Voldemort studied him for a long time. Then he smiled, sly and secretive.

 “That, Harry, is the question. You are brave — I’ve seen it already, staring me in the eye even after you knew the truth. That speaks to Gryffindor. But you are clever, quick to learn. Ravenclaw would welcome that. You are loyal to a fault, even when it hurts you — Hufflepuff might tempt you. And yet…” his eyes gleamed, intense “…you have in you a hunger, a darkness, a spark of ambition you do not yet understand. Slytherin would whisper to you.”

Harry’s throat was dry. “So what… the hat just… decides?”

Voldemort chuckles softly. “Yes. The Sorting Hat — an ancient artifact that sees into your soul. It places you where you belong… or where you will become the most.” he leans closer, conspiratorial, “Do you know, Harry, I once convinced it to change its mind? It thought of Ravenclaw for me. But I chose Slytherin.”

Harry: “You… convinced a hat?”

 “I told you — knowledge is power. Even a hat can be persuaded.”

Harry huffed, half a laugh, half disbelief. Voldemort let it sit, pleased, before continuing.

“Hogwarts will be your world, Harry. You will study charms and transfiguration, potions and defense, history and herbology. You will walk its halls where portraits speak and staircases shift beneath your feet. You will feel the castle breathe around you, as if it knows your name. And in those halls… you will be measured. By your peers, by your professors, by yourself.”

Voldemort’s gaze lingered on the boy’s small frame, his messy hair, his stubborn chin. “You will walk where I walked. And you will carve your name into their history, as I did.”

“And… I’d learn to use magic there?”

Voldemort’s voice smooths, reverent almost. “Yes. Magic that bends the world to your will. Light to heal, shadow to wound. Charms that can make objects fly. Potions to transmute the body. Wards to protect, curses to destroy. Every secret your blood craves, waiting for you.” then, in a low voice “But do not be deceived. Magic is not fair, Harry. It answers the strong. It laughs at the weak. And it devours the foolish.”

Harry frowns, looking thoughtful, “So it’s dangerous.”

 “Everything worth having is dangerous.”

The boy stared into the fire, chewing at his lip. Voldemort watched him in silence, then leaned back.

Harry smiled, the first true smile since the cupboard. “ Once I go to Hogwarts, I'll meet others like me, learn magic and finally belong somewhere. And then I won’t be alone anymore.”

Voldemort’s expression didn’t change, but the shadows around him stilled, gentled. He said nothing.

The old room smelled of smoke and something sharp Harry didn’t recognize. He perched on the edge of the chair, small legs dangling, while Voldemort set a small box on the table between them.

Harry squinting asks “What’s in it?”

 “Tools. The beginnings of civilization. Or in your case, your education.”

He opened the box with a flourish: parchment, a slim feather quill, and a vial of dark ink.

Harry wrinkled his nose. “That’s a feather.”

Voldemort ’s mouth twitched.

“Yes. It is also a quill. Wizards use them for writing.”

Harry tilted his head. “Why not pens? We have pens at school.”

“Because wizards have always had a fondness for tradition, even when it borders on idiocy. Still, you will learn to use it. One day, your signature will carry weight enough to shake the world. Best that it looks presentable.”

He dipped the quill and demonstrated. Harry leaned forward, eyes wide as black ink flowed in neat, slanted strokes across the parchment. The letters gleamed strange and elegant.

“Words are spells. That’s why you must master them.”

Harry reached for the quill, but his grip was clumsy, and the moment he pressed down, the feather bent awkwardly and left a fat blot of ink.

His face fell. “I ruined it.”

Voldemort caught his wrist gently, surprising even himself with the softness of it. “No. You began. And beginnings are messy. Try again.”

Harry did, tongue sticking out in concentration, his lines uneven and crooked. Voldemort watched every stroke, and when Harry finally dropped the quill with a sigh, Voldemort turned the parchment toward him.

“Ugly. But legible. That will do for today.”

Harry laughed despite himself.

A little later, Voldemort cleared the writing away and placed a stubby candle between them.

“Now. Magic.”

Harry’s heart leapt. “You’re finally going to show me?”

 “I will show you, yes. But whether you can do it—that is another matter.”

He flicked his fingers lazily, and the wick bloomed with blue flame. Harry gasped, nearly falling off his chair.

“That’s amazing!”

“A trick. A true wizard makes the impossible ordinary. Now, try.”

Harry scrunched his face, brow furrowed, staring so hard at the candle his eyes watered. He wanted—needed—it to light. For a heartbeat, the wick smoked, and Harry felt something in his chest rush forward—then slam shut as if an invisible door had bolted.

Nothing.

He sagged, chest heaving. “I can’t.”

Voldemort ’s gaze sharpened. He could feel the surge, that raw ocean of power straining beneath the boy’s skin. There was no mistaking it—Harry’s magic was vast, violent, magnificent. But something smothered it, caged it.

 “No, Harry. You can. You simply are young. What you just did , no other child could manage. Even if they tried for hours, scrunching their face. Nothing would happen. Deliberately using magic without a wand is nearly impossible for the common wix.”

Harry blinked up at him, anxious. “Am I– I'm not—broken?”

The word cut through him like glass. Voldemort crouched suddenly, level with the boy’s eyes, voice low and deliberate.

 “Never say that. You are not broken. You are just bound by the limits of your age . And bindings can be undone.”

Harry’s throat worked. “…So I’ll get better?”

“With me? You will become unstoppable.”

When he woke he found himself in a hidden chamber, the kind only Voldemort ever made. That means he was finally dreaming, it had taken a week. 

The walls breathed magic. Shelves groaned under jars of preserved things, dusty bottles with curled labels in sharp handwriting, books whose titles glimmered faintly when one tried to read them. A single cauldron simmered in the center, already set with water that hissed softly over blue flame.

At the table stood Voldemort, all black silk and controlled power, hands behind his back as he studied the small boy dragging a stool closer to the cauldron with obvious determination.

“Careful,” Voldemort said.

“I am careful,” Harry muttered, climbing the stool with a graceless scrabble. “I didn’t even knock over the—oh.”

A jar wobbled. Voldemort caught it with a lazy flick of his wrist before it smashed on the floor. He arched his brow.

Harry grinned sheepishly. “…See? Didn’t even break it.”

Voldemort stared at him a long moment before continuing with the lesson. “Magic is not only in the wand, Harry. It is in words, in will, and in craft. Today, you will learn craft.” 

“Craft? Like… woodwork?”

Voldemort chuckles. “No. Potions. Magic in liquid form. Most wizards fear it because it demands patience. I expect you not to fail me.”

Harry straightens, determined, though his eyes keep flicking to the cauldron with nervous curiosity.

Voldemort lined three jars on the table. “Take these. Dried chamomile, willow bark, powdered root of valerian.”

He sets the jars before Harry. Harry carefully lifts them, frowning at the textures, then sniffs the valerian and wrinkles his nose.

 “…This smells like Dudley’s socks.” Voldemort just stares at him before continuing again.

“Today, you will learn the basics,” Voldemort said. “Potion-making demands precision. One wrong cut, one impatient stir—”

“And kaboom?” Harry’s green eyes lit up hopefully.

Voldemort exhaled slowly. “And catastrophic failure,” he corrected.

Harry looked vaguely disappointed.

“Grind the valerian. Finely. Evenly,” Voldemort instructed.

Harry seized the mortar and pestle, elbows sticking out, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. Powder puffed up in uneven clumps.

“Not like you’re murdering it,” Voldemort said sharply, catching his wrist. “Control. Magic obeys control, not tantrums.”

 Harry struggles at first, the mortar wobbling under his small hands. But once Voldemort corrects his grip—guiding Harry’s small wrist with uncharacteristic patience—the rhythm clicks. Harry finds he enjoys the careful, steady crush of stone against root.

 “It’s… like cooking.”

 “Yes. Cooking with consequences. Add too much salt to a stew, and it is inedible. Add too much powdered asphodel to a sleeping draft, and the drinker never wakes.”

Harry’s eyes widen, then narrow with sharp interest. He continues with unexpected steadiness for a boy of eight. Voldemort watches, surprised—Harry isn’t reckless. He measures, he waits, he listens. 

When the mixture hit the cauldron, the water hissed faintly, turning the faintest shade of blue.

“Three clockwise, two counter,” Voldemort instructed.

Harry stirred diligently, counting under his breath. “One, two, three—”

“Clockwise, Harry. Not left.”

Harry blinked. “…This is left.”

Voldemort pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you even know what clockwise means?”

“No,” Harry said cheerfully.

There was silence. Then, very quietly:

“Merlin help me,” Voldemort repeated.

“ It likes me.”

Voldemort freezes for a fraction. The boy is right. The potion responds to him—simmering smoothly, no hissing, no spit of rebellion. Potions rarely behave for first-years. He should be clumsy, inconsistent. Yet the brew mirrors his will like a mirror of green glass. “…Interesting.”

 He does not tell Harry that Severus Snape, one day, will find himself utterly outmatched by this eager boy. Instead, he leans closer watching the boy.

Despite the chaos, the potion smoothed itself under Harry’s small, careful stirs, settling into a clear, pale liquid. No sparks, no foul smoke, no bitter stench.

Voldemort ’s eyes narrowed. He had seen seasoned wizards botch this brew. Yet the boy… the potion listened to him.

Harry peered in, wide-eyed. “It’s… pretty. It doesn’t even smell like feet anymore.”

Voldemort almost smiled. Almost. “That is because you did not ruin it,” he said lightly.

Harry beamed, delighted. “So I’m good at this?”

“You are a natural,” Voldemort admitted, and the boy glowed under the words like he’d been handed treasure.

“Now. Theory,” Voldemort said, conjuring parchment, ink, and quill.

Harry picked up the quill awkwardly, gripping it like a dagger. He had tried it once before but he still wasn't used to it. His first attempt at a letter blotted ink across the page.

“Neatness,” Voldemort said flatly. “The quill is not your enemy.”

Harry scowled, shoulders tense as he tried again. The letters wobbled but improved. Slowly, carefully, the words formed, uneven but legible.

“…It’s not awful,” Voldemort allowed at last.

Harry glared up at him. “That’s a compliment, right?”

“High praise,” Voldemort said gravely, mouth twitching at the corners.

When the lesson ended, the potion bottled, the parchment drying, Harry sat on the stool swinging his legs, hair sticking up worse than usual from ink-stained fingers.

“I like this,” he announced.

“Potions?”

“Learning things,” Harry said simply. “Magic things. Real things. Not stupid maths like they make you do in school.”

Voldemort studied him for a long moment. The boy’s face was open, alight with curiosity, with hunger for more.

“You will learn,” Voldemort said softly. “Everything. I will see to it.”

Harry grinned, all bright teeth and messy hair. “Good. ‘Cause I’m gonna be brilliant.”

Voldemort ’s smile was small, dangerous, and almost fond. “Yes,” he said quietly. “You will.”

As Voldemort spoke of spells, wands, enchanted portraits, and ghosts who held centuries of secrets, Harry listened like he was drinking sunlight after years of dark.

Harry had waited almost three weeks for the dream to return.

Weeks of dull, ordinary life, of watching other children run free while he scrubbed floors and kept silent. Countless nights of lying awake, wishing fiercely for the dark man with crimson eyes and sharp words to come back.

And then, finally—

The dream opened like a door swinging wide.

Candles hovered overhead. Stone walls breathed magic. And Tom—Voldemort, Harry corrected himself sometimes—was standing at the far end of a long table already covered in scrolls, vials, and thick Voldemort es.

Harry beamed. “You’re late, Vee”

Voldemort stumbled from where he was approaching him before. He made a strange face , opening and closing his mouth before deciding it wasn't worth it . Instead he continued walking as if nothing happened “You keep saying that as if I have a schedule.”

“You should,” Harry said, climbing into his seat with all the dignity of someone half the size of the chair.

For a moment, Voldemort just watched him—this scrawny, stubborn boy with too-big glasses and too-thin arms—and the sharpest edges of him softened.

“Very well,” Voldemort murmured. “Today, we begin properly.”

The first lesson was a simple charm.

Voldemort conjured a feather again, sleek and white, placing it on the table before Harry.

“The words are Wingardium Leviosa. The wand motion is—no, not like you’re stabbing it. Like this.” He demonstrated, elegant and precise.

Harry tried.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

The feather twitched.

A third time—

It shot into the air, smacked into the ceiling, and caught fire.

Harry yelped. “That’s not my fault!”

Voldemort pinched the bridge of his nose. The feather turned to ash and rained gently over the table.

“Your magic,” Voldemort said slowly, “feels… restrained.”

Harry tilted his head. “Is that bad?”

Voldemort considered. “…Not necessarily. But curious.” He said nothing more. Not yet.

Next came a matchstick.

“Change it into a needle,” Voldemort instructed.

Harry squinted, tongue sticking out a little as he tried.

The matchstick shivered, glowed faintly… and became something halfway between a needle and a very confused toothpick.

Voldemort examined it. “…Creative.”

Harry scowled. “It’s pointy. That counts.”

“Barely.”

Harry grinned anyway.

When the practical work ended, Voldemort taught theory— arithmancy, bits of magical history no Hogwarts professor would ever bother with. Harry devoured every word.

At one point, Harry asked, “Were you good at all this when you were my age?”

Voldemort allowed himself the smallest of smiles. “Better.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Figures.”

As the dream began to fade, Voldemort studied Harry one last time. That feeling again—like power bound beneath chains.

Something deliberate. Hidden.

But Harry was laughing at a smudge of ash on his nose, waving cheerfully as the dream dissolved, so Voldemort said nothing.

Not yet.

The dream came again after a full week. Harry, half-asleep in the real world, stumbled into the familiar torchlit chamber like someone visiting home after too long away.

Voldemort was already seated at the long table, piles of books at his elbow. His eyes flicked to Harry, lingering a moment longer than necessary before he said, “You’re late.”

Harry gawked. “I’m late? You disappeared for a week!”

“I,” Voldemort said evenly, “have no control over dream timing.” A pause. “But you do appear to have control over being loud.”

Harry made a face but dropped into his chair, tugging the nearest book toward him. “What are we doing today? More ink explosions? More maths?”

Voldemort looked faintly pained. “History,” he said at last.

Harry groaned theatrically.

Voldemort summoned a map with a flick of his fingers—no wand—and pointed to a building marked Hogwarts.

“Your school,” he said. “Ancient. Full of secrets. The supposed site of learning for all British magical children… taught, among others, by a ghost named Professor Binns.”

Harry perked up. “A real ghost? Floating and everything?”

“Floating. Transparent. Insubstantial. And profoundly tedious.” Voldemort ’s voice had gone dry as old parchment. “His teaching style could drive banshees to sleep.”

Harry snorted. “Why not just… exorcise him?”

Voldemort ’s mouth curved faintly, sharp as a knife. “A sensible question, one our dear Headmaster never managed to ask in fifty years.”

Harry’s head snapped up. “You mean that Dumbledore just left him there? Teaching?”

“Ah, yes,” Voldemort said lightly, “the great Albus Dumbledore. A man of many titles, much nonsense, and apparently not enough competence to remove one drifting corpse of a professor.”

Harry was grinning now, ink-stained hands propped under his chin. “Can you teach me to exorcise him?”

Voldemort blinked once, then twice. “…You want to banish your future professor?”

“He sounds boring.”

Voldemort considered that. “It is a… moderately advanced branch of magic. Dangerous. Requires precision.”

Harry’s eyes lit up exactly the way Voldemort suspected his own might have at age eleven when offered forbidden knowledge.

“…Later,” Voldemort said finally, as though regretting it already.

Unlike Binns’ endless droning (Voldemort had endured it once, long ago), Voldemort brought the past alive.

He spoke of the Founders not as distant statues but as real people—Salazar Slytherin’s cunning, Helga Hufflepuff’s fierce kindness, Rowena Ravenclaw’s brilliance, Godric Gryffindor’s reckless courage.

Harry listened, utterly still, green eyes bright.

“And Hogwarts itself,” Voldemort said, pacing now, “was carved with enchantments so layered even I—at my peak—could only guess at some of its defenses.”

Harry caught the even I and smirked faintly. “So it’s better than you?”

Voldemort stopped. Turned slowly. “…It is very fortunate you are small, or I might have to duel you for that insult.”

Harry grinned, entirely unrepentant.

As Voldemort moved through history’s grand arcs—Goblin rebellions, the rise and fall of Dark families—he noticed again how quickly Harry learned.

Dates, names, spellcraft evolutions—nothing slipped away.

“You have a… remarkable memory,” Voldemort said at last, voice thoughtful.

Harry shrugged. “I just… remember things. Always have.”

Voldemort studied him for a long moment, expression unreadable. He remembered everything too. Every corridor, every spell, every betrayal.

And now this boy sat across from him with the same gift.

As the lesson wound down, Voldemort spoke almost idly:

“Binns will bore you senseless. The man—or rather, the ghost—could recite the fall of Camelot and make it sound like a shopping list. And Dumbledore… leaves him there. Wastes young minds year after year. It is… inefficient.”

Harry tilted his head. “You really don’t like Dumbledore, huh?”

Voldemort ’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No.”

Something in his tone made Harry not ask more. Not yet.

As the dream began to fade, Harry blurted, “But you’ll teach me to exorcise him, right? Later?”

Voldemort pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am… creating a monster.”

Harry grinned. “You promised.”

The dream carried him softly this time. Harry blinked awake to the familiar round table with its stacks of books, only tonight the air smelled… green.

“Come,” Voldemort said, his dark robes whispering over the floor as he gestured toward shelves lined with jars. Inside: roots curling like tiny fists, dried flowers that shimmered faintly, feathers, fangs, and vials filled with strange-colored liquids.

Harry gasped. “Are we making potions again?”

Voldemort gave him a slow smile. “Not today. First, we learn theory—of what they are.”

Voldemort uncorked a jar holding leaves with a faint silver glow.

“Moondew,” he said softly. “Found only under the full moon. Used in calming draughts, sleep potions, and some antidotes. Very rare. Very expensive.”

Harry leaned in, nose wrinkling. “Smells… minty.”

Voldemort smirked. “It’ll also make you violently ill if you eat it raw.”

Harry jerked his hand back instantly, making Voldemort chuckle under his breath.

Next came asphodel roots, long and pale. “Core ingredient in the Draught of Living Death,” Voldemort said, voice gone quiet, reverent. “Combined with wormwood, it produces one of the most powerful sleeping draughts known to wizardkind.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Could you—could you wake them up again?”

“Only with the right antidote,” Voldemort said smoothly. “Hence the importance of knowing ingredients.”

Voldemort tapped a jar of spiky green leaves. “Valerian root. Used for calming and in the Draught of Peace. Legends say ancient druids burned it to soothe spirits.”

Harry tilted his head. “Did it work?”

Voldemort gave him a sideways glance. “Some spirits are beyond soothing. But it became part of potion craft regardless.”

They moved on:

 Mandrake root: used in revival draughts, but dangerous if mishandled.

 Aconite (wolfsbane): for werewolf treatments, but poisonous.

 Murtlap essence: from a strange magical sea creature, soothes cuts and bites.

Harry scribbled in his tiny, neat handwriting on parchment Voldemort conjured for him.

“You write like someone twice your age,” Voldemort remarked, faint pride glinting in his voice. He had improved much since his first lessons. 

Harry flushed a little. “I… like neat letters. Makes it easier to read later.”

Voldemort only nodded, silently approving.

Finally, Voldemort brought forward a strange stone.

“Bezoar,” he said. “Found in the stomach of a goat. Antidote to most poisons.”

Harry stared. “You mean people just… eat it? From a goat?”

“Would you rather die of poison?” Voldemort asked, lips twitching.

Harry grimaced, then wrote it down carefully.

By the end of the dream, he had half a page of names and uses, all remembered perfectly. Voldemort conjured a tiny flame and burned the parchment to ash.

“Why’d you do that?!” Harry exclaimed.

“You won’t need it,” Voldemort said simply. “You remember everything.”

Harry blinked. “Oh. Right.”

As the dream blurred at the edges, Harry looked around longingly at the jars.

“Next time,” he whispered, “can we actually make a potion?”

Voldemort ’s smirk held promise. “Next time, we brew.”

And Harry woke up grinning, already waiting for the next dream.

Chapter Text

Number 4, Privet Drive. 

July, 1991

The dream came like summer rain this time — no edge of fear left, only warmth and expectation. Harry blinked, finding himself in the familiar dream-library. 

It had grown with him over the years; more shelves, more books, neat parchment stacks that reflected his careful handwriting. 

They'd spent years in this same dreamscape, with Voldemort teaching him the basics of magic, of wizarding subjects and everything else he deemed appropriate. His wandless lessons had been the most difficult ones,although still much easier to do in dreams than in real life where each time his magic sputtered out before the spell could form. 

Vee, as he had taken to calling him—Voldemort's reaction to that name was memorable; struck dumb maybe for the first time in his life—had assured him that others his age could never even hope to do what he had achieved and with practice and age he'd master it. Vee didn't lie, so he believed him, especially when the old doubts surfaced. 

Speaking of him, Vee sat at the centre, elegant as ever, a letter in his long fingers.

“You’ll have one of your own soon,” he said, holding it up between two fingers. The Hogwarts crest glimmered in the firelight.

Harry’s heart leapt. “It’s coming? Really?”

“Of course,” Vee drawled smoothly, the faintest curve at his lips. “It always comes. Your parents’ names alone would guarantee it, but your magic speaks loudly enough.” He tilted his head. “It will be amusing, though. You will find first-year theory… insultingly simple.”

Harry flushed faintly but didn’t argue. After nearly two years of dreams, he’d been drilled in charms theory, transfiguration laws, potion ingredients, history, and even the occasional bit of Arithmancy and runes. He had stacks of parchment filled with perfect letters and neat notes — all burned after each dream because, as Vee said, he remembered everything anyway.

But no wand. Not yet.

“You will finally have one,” Vee murmured, almost amused at his own thoughts. “You’ll see for yourself the difference a focus makes. Wandless magic bends only to the truly stubborn… or the truly powerful.”

Harry sat straighter. He was powerful. Vee said so. Often.

The former Dark Lord stood, hands clasped behind his back. “You will go to Diagon Alley, of course. A professor will likely fetch you—” He paused, mouth thinning faintly. “— no doubt someone who's Albus's choice. Try not to let him fill your head with nonsense.”

Harry tilted his head. “What’s there?”

“A proper wizarding bank, Gringotts,” Vee began smoothly. “Run by goblins. They dislike wizards, but they like gold more, so they tolerate us. Your family vault will have more than enough to fund your schooling… and whatever else you wish.”

“My family?” Harry asked softly.

“Old blood,” Vee said simply. “The Potters were not merchants. They were landowners. Influential enough to be invited to Wizengamot seats when it suited them, rich enough to ignore politics when it didn’t. You will want for nothing.”

Harry blinked, absorbing it silently.

“Your first visit,” Vee continued, “will take you to Madam Malkin’s for robes. Proper robes,” he added sharply. “Not whatever rags your relatives have forced on you. Appearances matter, Harry. Wizards will judge you the moment you step into a room.”

Harry looked down at his too-short sleeves in the dream and grimaced.

“Books from Flourish and Blotts,” Vee went on smoothly. “Your wand from Ollivanders. A cauldron, scales, telescope… though I will insist you buy better-quality equipment than what the school lists. A pewter cauldron? Laughable.”

Harry grinned faintly. He could almost imagine Vee turning up his nose at the standard set.

“An owl,” Vee added after a pause. “Useful for letters. Though the school owls are free, having your own ensures privacy.”

Harry’s eyes brightened. He’d never had anything of his own before.

“And new attire,” Vee said firmly. “Not only robes. You are the Heir Potter. You will not look like you’ve been dragged backward through Knockturn Alley.”

Harry bit back a laugh. Vee, as always, sounded faintly scandalized at the idea of untidiness.

“Will it be… hard?” Harry asked softly. “Using a wand?”

Vee’s expression softened a fraction. “No. You’ll take to it quickly. Magic seeks the path of least resistance. Your first spell may surprise you… but you’ll find it far easier than you expect.”

Harry nodded slowly, almost glowing with anticipation.

Vee studied him for a moment longer, something unreadable in his gaze. “You will be… bored,” he said finally. “At Hogwarts. Their first- and second-year theory will offer you nothing I haven’t already given.” His mouth curled faintly. “But watching your classmates struggle might be entertaining.”

Harry grinned. “I’ll finally see it for real, though. Magic. Classes. Everything.”

“Yes,” Vee murmured, something dark and private glinting in his eyes. “For the first time, with a wand.”

It arrived on a grey morning four days later.

Harry nearly tripped over it on the doormat:

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

His heart slammed against his ribs.

He darted into his cupboard before Aunt Petunia could notice and ripped it open. The parchment crackled under his fingers.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He read it three times before hiding it carefully under a loose floorboard. That night, when everyone slept, he crept out, scribbled his reply on a page torn from Dudley’s old notebook, and left it out for the owl that had been waiting on the fence post.

No one saw.

The knock on the door came three mornings later — a booming knock that rattled the windows.

Vernon opened it to find a giant on the doorstep.

“Harry Potter?” the man rumbled.

Vernon turned purple. “Who are you?”

“Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Come ter fetch Harry. He’s got his letter, hasn’t he?”

Harry, heart hammering, nodded.

Petunia shrieked about unnaturalness. Vernon shouted about freakishness. Dudley hid behind his mother.

Hagrid ignored all of them. “We’re off ter Diagon Alley, lad. Got school things ter buy.”

Harry shot one look at Vernon’s furious face and followed Hagrid out the door before anyone could stop him.

Diagon Alley was everything Vee had promised.

Gringotts’ marble steps gleamed white in the sun; the goblins looked exactly as Vee had described. The vault glittered with gold Galleons, and Harry stared, stunned, as Hagrid helped him fill a money pouch.

Vee’s instructions whispered in his memory with each step:

 Madam Malkin’s for robes.

 Flourish and Blotts for books.

 Potions ingredients — buy extra, it will annoy Severus Snape later.

 Ollivanders for your wand, of course.

Harry followed them all. He bought neat, well-fitted clothes too — Vee had been firm about appearances.

But the biggest moment came at Ollivanders when the wand chose him. Holly, phoenix feather, eleven inches. Warm in his grip, like shaking hands with an old friend.

For a moment, Harry wished Vee could see it.

Later, Hagrid had surprised him by giving him a beautiful snowy owl as a gift. He hadn’t had a chance to visit the pet stores yet but he knew there wouldn't be an owl more regal than her. He fell in love with her immediately. Although he hoped he'd have someone to send letters to otherwise she would be bored.

Later , he reassured Hagrid that he could go home alone as he had expected to deliver Harry back to Privet Drive after shopping.

After bidding him goodbye he went on and booked himself a small room at the Leaky Cauldron with his own gold when he was sure Hagrid wasn’t waiting somewhere. He already knew — he was never going back there.

The dream came as soon as Harry drifted into exhausted sleep that night.

The meadow was brighter tonight, the sky painted in dusky pink and gold. Harry realized belatedly that his dream always seemed to change with his moods — tonight, there was a bubbling stream beside the lake and a flock of silver birds in the trees.

And Vee was already waiting.

“Show me,” Vee said softly, no preamble.

Harry knew what he meant. He pulled the wand from his pocket like he was afraid it might vanish if he let it out of his sight, even if it was only a dream-version of his real wand.

It gleamed faintly under the dreamlight.

Vee’s expression didn’t change at first — that unreadable mask Harry had come to know — but his eyes, usually cold and sharp, softened as they lingered on the wood, the phoenix feather hidden inside.

“…Holly. Eleven inches. Phoenix feather core,” Vee murmured.

Harry blinked. “You know all that just by looking?”

Vee smiled faintly. “I know because my wand shares the same core. The same phoenix gave two feathers. My wand — yew. Yours — holly. Brother wands, as close as magic itself allows.”

Harry turned the wand over in his hands, something in his chest tightening at the thought. He had heard Ollivander say the same thing but hearing Vee say it felt more momentous.

“Does that mean…” Harry hesitated, “our magic’s the same?”

Vee’s gaze sharpened — not unkind, but intent, as if weighing every word. “It means our wands will always know each other. Holly and yew, life and death, opposites twined by the same heart. You and I, Harry… we are bound more deeply than you realize.”

Harry looked faintly overwhelmed. “I didn’t know wands could be… family.”

Something in Vee’s face flickered. Family. He didn’t correct the word.

Instead, he said lightly, “Let’s see what the brother to my wand can do, shall we?”

Vee guided him through the first, simplest magic.

“Lumos,” Vee instructed, his own dream-hand curling around Harry’s smaller one to show the grip. “The spell for light. Focus on the tip. Picture brightness pouring out. Say it clearly.”

Harry, biting his lip, tried. “Lumos.”

The wand sparked — a trembling glow, weak but real — and Harry’s eyes went wide with delight.

“I did it!”

The second spell, Nox, doused the light. The third, Wingardium Leviosa, made a dream-feather float into the air, wobbling unsteadily before falling.

Vee, for once, looked almost… amused. “Not bad. You’ll master the first-year curriculum before setting foot in the castle.”

Harry beamed at him, completely unselfconscious.

But as the boy practiced Lumos again, the glow stronger this time, Vee watched in silence, the faintest crease between his brows.

Brother wands.

The same phoenix.

The boy’s magic ran through the same feather that lived in his own.

He had never believed in destiny except when he had trusted that forsaken prophecy and that turned out to be a disastrous mistake. But looking at the glow in Harry’s eager green eyes, he felt the ground shift beneath him, just a little.

Harry Potter had never had a day just for himself. Not once in all of his nearly eleven years.

The Dursleys believed he was only supposed to exist in the background—quiet, invisible, and definitely never… happy. Yet here he was, stepping through the Leaky Cauldron’s brick archway into Diagon Alley for the second time, and it felt like sunlight had poured into his chest.

He had been here before, with Hagrid, but that day had been a whirlwind—letters, vaults, wands, new robes. His head had spun so fast he hadn’t had time to savor anything.

Today was different.

Today was his.

Diagon Alley looked brighter now, maybe because Harry was looking with clearer eyes—or maybe because, for the first time, he had permission to want things for himself.

The cobbled street glittered with puddles of sunlight. Owls hooted from perches above shop signs. A cluster of witches laughed outside a bookshop while a wizard argued with a goblin over wand polish. The air smelled of parchment, sugar, and the faint metallic tang of cauldrons.

Harry wandered slowly, drinking in every crooked doorway and swinging sign. Madam Malkin’s mannequins twirled in their window, dressed in velvet robes embroidered with tiny golden stars. A broomstick display nearby had a crowd gathered—every boy there looked spellbound, and Harry felt a quiet thrill knowing that one day, he’d fly, too.

But first things first.

He stopped at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Last time, he’d only had a single scoop before Hagrid whisked him away. Today, he ordered something ridiculous: a sundae stacked with strawberries, silver-charmed chocolate flakes, and whipped cream that glowed faintly gold.

The first bite nearly made him fall off his chair. It was cold and sweet and fizzy with magic. He let it melt slowly on his tongue, watching the bustle of Diagon Alley pass by. For once, he wasn’t hungry out of desperation. He was eating because he wanted to.

The feeling was almost dizzying.

He meant to go to Flourish & Blotts next, but the door he pushed open smelled of jasmine and honey rather than parchment.

Inside, warm light glowed on polished mirrors and shelves of bottles filled with shimmering liquids. Witches in pastel robes moved gracefully among customers, scissors snipping in midair, combs floating like lazy birds.

Harry froze.

It was a hair salon.

Before he could back out, three witches spotted him.

“Oh, Merlin’s beard, look at this darling boy!” one cried.

“Those curls!” another cooed, rushing over. “Such a waste, all chopped so short. He needs shaping—length—maybe some gloss—”

Harry stumbled backward, ears red. “I—I was just leaving—”

“Absolutely not,” the first witch said firmly, hands on hips. “Sit. Right. Here.”

Somehow Harry found himself plunked into a cushioned chair while the witches circled like excited birds. One tugged gently at his messy fringe, clucking under her breath.

“Curls want freedom, sweetheart,” she said. “If we grow this just a bit longer, oh, the waves you’ll have—pure poetry!”

Harry mumbled, “It’s fine as it is.”

The tallest witch leaned down, eyes twinkling. “Tell you what—we’ll trim it neat, add some length, nothing too wild. You’ll look proper handsome.”

He squirmed. He did think his hair needed some serious help. But should he really do this? Yes, he should. But— “Only if… if you put red in it.”

They blinked. “Red?”

Harry nodded quickly, heart pounding. “For my mum. She—she had red hair.”

The tallest witch’s expression softened. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Her voice wavered just slightly as she added, “I knew Lily Evans. We were classmates at Hogwarts.” She touched his shoulder lightly. “Her hair was famous, you know. Fiery red, like it was spun from autumn leaves and sunlight itself. Magical in a way no spell could copy.”

Harry stilled. He hadn’t heard anything about his mother. What Dursleys said didn't count. 

The witch straightened, blinking fast. “I’ll give you something worthy of her. I promise.”

For the next half hour, charms whirred and scissors danced. Harry sat stiffly while bottles of shimmering liquid floated over, brushing his scalp with warmth and coolness by turns.

When the chair finally spun toward the mirror, he gaped.

His hair now brushed his shoulders, falling in loose, soft curls threaded with subtle red highlights that caught the light like embers. It framed his thin face, softening his sharp cheekbones.

The witch behind him sighed happily. “There. See? You’ve your mother’s eyes, nose, lips… but that aristocratic jaw, that’s James Potter all over. Paler than either of them, though. No freckles like Lily had.”

Harry reached up slowly, fingers brushing the shining strands. He looked… not like the scrawny, invisible boy from Privet Drive.

Almost… pretty.

He turned to the witch. “Thank you. For telling me about them. For this. What’s your name?”

She smiled, eyes crinkling. “Maribel Dovewing, at your service.”

Harry tried the name silently in his head, committing it to memory.

Afterward, he wandered through shops with growing confidence. He bought some more potion ingredients to study —dried hellebore, unicorn hair, a tiny crystal vial of moonstone powder—all stored carefully in a new satchel.

At the apothecary, he traced labels with reverent fingers, imagining future lessons. Vee had taught him theory in dreams, but this… this was real.

He stopped at a quill shop for parchment and ink, selecting a sleek black eagle-feather quill that made him feel scholarly and imp

At a secondhand shop, he found a set of used but well-cared-for wizard chess pieces; when he passed, the knight bowed stiffly to him.

By evening, his arms were heavy with bags as he headed back to the inn. Upstairs, Harry set his parcels on the bed, lit a single lamp, and looked in the mirror.

The boy staring back wasn’t the ragged child from the cupboard.

He was someone with a wand, with books, with clothes that fit, with hair that caught the light.

For the first time in his life, Harry Potter had things of his own.

And he couldn’t wait to dream, to tell Vee everything.

The dreams evaded him for days so with nothing much to do, he decided to take another jaunt through the alley. Diagon Alley sparkled like a long-forgotten dream through Harry's eyes. He'd walked here twice before—once with Hagrid, and once on a scavenger-like trip—but now, it was his own world. No lists, no guides; just magic and possibility whispering around him.

The soft murmur of merchants, the crackle of lanterns, and the scent of old parchment and candy spun a spell of comfort he had never felt before. Harry wandered, charmingly unsure, until something intricate caught his attention: a storefront filled with shadows and candlelight—not grim, but rich and mysterious. The sign read Threadneedle & Charm. He stepped inside.

A hush fell instantly. The shop was a cavern of velvet, lace, tulle, and mirrors. A girl leaned against a counter, tall and graceful in a dark green velvet robe. Her hair—black with whispers of silver—fell in artful curls around a face that could’ve been carved from marble and obsidian. Sharp cheekbones, expressive eyes, a faint lilt of French in her voice: “Bonjour, petit monsieur. Searching for... something new?”

Harry flushed. “I… I don’t know, really. Just looking.”

One arched brow lifted as her gaze swept over him—his fitted but plain robes, the scuffed shoes, the perpetually messy hair barely tamed since his last visit to Diagon Alley’s hair parlor.

“Hm,” she said at last, lips curving. “Non, you are not just looking. You are hoping.”

Harry blinked. “Hoping for what?”

“For someone,” she said, already moving toward a rack with the grace of a cat, “to help you see what you could be.”

He opened his mouth—then shut it again as she plucked a long black coat from the rack. It was nothing like his stiff school robes. The fabric was softer, lighter, the edges embroidered with silver thread in curling, vine-like patterns.

“Try this,” she said, thrusting it at him.

Harry hesitated. “I don’t think—”

“Try,” she repeated firmly, but the smile in her dark eyes softened the command.

Harry ducked behind a screen to change, muttering under his breath. The coat slid over his shoulders like water. When he stepped out, she gave a low whistle.

“Très joli,” she said approvingly. “But too safe. We will fix that.”

“Safe?” Harry echoed.

She gestured at the mirror. “It is handsome, yes, but it hides you. Clothes should speak, mon cher. Wizards dress to express, not to blend like Muggles.”

Harry glanced at his reflection. The coat was nice. Elegant, even. He looked… older. Less like the boy who lived in a cupboard. And she said he could look even better—he nodded.

What followed felt like stepping into another world.

Selene—she introduced herself between clothing changes as Selene Duvallon, Slytherin, seventh year, stylist by hobby—turned the thrift shop into a fashion battlefield.

Harry found himself shoved into embroidered waistcoats of emerald and charcoal gray, soft poet’s shirts with billowing sleeves, slim trousers tucked into boots polished to a mirror shine.

Then came stranger pieces: a knee-length asymmetrical coat lined with silver buttons that shimmered faintly when he moved; a high-collared shirt of deep sapphire with tiny runes stitched along the cuffs that faintly repelled dirt; a dark skirt layered over fitted trousers, the fabric charmed to never tangle when running.

Harry gaped at the mirror. “But—that’s a skirt—”

Selene rolled her eyes. “And? Wizards do not care for such small boxes as boy clothes and girl clothes. We are not Muggles.”

“I look—”

“Magnifique,” she interrupted, hands on her hips. “Muggles fear what is different. Wizards? We adore it. Half my house would duel for boots like these.”

Harry glanced down at the knee-high boots she’d shoved onto his feet. They were soft dragonhide, dyed black, with silver fastenings climbing the sides. He shifted, testing the fit. They felt… amazing.

And the skirt-trouser combination did look rather good, he admitted reluctantly, especially with the dark shirt and long coat swirling around his knees.

But Selene wasn’t done.

She plunged behind the counter again. A moment later she emerged with a selection: a layered soft-black tulle skirt, knee-length. Spiderweb-patterned. A fitted leather bodice with silver buckles. Tiny potion phial pendants—some glowing dimly. A set of fingerless leather gloves with silver runes. A silver snake ring that coiled around his finger.

Harry flinched. 

She studied him keenly. "In these corridors, male or female has no weight. Wizards wear identity—not the muggle boundaries that they can't see past." Her expression heated in a faint glow of emotion. "We express who we are. Not who someone expects us to be."

He stared at the tulle skirt, the wispy fabric like mist around his fingers. She saw him hesitate and picked it up, pressing it gently against his chest. "Men used to dance in silks," she said, voice low. "Our world is eccentric. Unique. You're safe here."

Harry swallowed. He pictured Aunt Petunia's face…No. This was Harry Potter in free motion. He held the skirt, this time without any trousers. "Okay. I trust you." His voice barely above the breath of candlelight.

Selene smiled, a note of triumph in her eyes. She guided his movements gently, layering the skirt, smoothing the waistband. She added a corset-like bodice, guiding his hands to adjust it so the laces sat perfectly.

As he turned, the tulle shifted like dark smoke in lamplight.She clipped the potion phial necklace around his neck—one with a tiny violet potion that glowed faintly, humming. The ring slid onto his finger easily, the serpent’s head resting on his knuckle.

She perched a delicate hair ribbon at the base of his ponytail. A charm shivered through it—soft blue aura glowing for a heartbeat then fading.

Harry stared at the mirror, breathing slowly. The boy he saw—paler than either of his parents, the red in his highlights softer than Lily’s bright waves, but undeniably… radiant. The face was his, yes, but with softness and strength. The features—green eyes he inherited, Lily’s nose, James’s sharp jaw—looked at him in recognition. He hadn’t thought it possible that he'd actually like wearing a skirt—no matter what Selene thought—doubts had invaded his mind at the thought of the apparel garnering him strange looks.

But now he couldn’t imagine why he'd struggled—he hadn’t ever felt as free before. Never truly comfortable in his own skin—until now. These unconventional clothes—at least compared to normal standards—fit him in a way his earlier bought robes hadn't. He took a deep breathe and decided that no matter what looks he garnered; he wasn’t going to give this up.

“You look like your mother,” she said at last snapping him out of his internal reverie. “Lily Evans. She was in my mother’s year at school. I saw her pictures in my mother’s yearbook. Hair like fire, eyes like the Killing Curse itself. Beautiful, stubborn, brilliant—or that's what my mother says, at least."

“You have her eyes, her mouth. But your face—” she tilted her head—“your face will break hearts one day. Mark my words.”

Harry flushed scarlet. His mouth went dry. He whispered, "Thank you... for seeing me."

Selene brushed a thumb across his cheek. "You are meant to be seen."

He examined the full look: skirts strewn with dark shine, leather corset with subtle sheen, runic gloves catching starlight, boots polished and soft. He spun carefully, enchantments whispered through the fabrics, the air around him humming with enchantment.

He noticed something else—around his neck, the spell-laced phial, nestled by his collarbone like a glowing heartbeat. Around his wrist, bracelets of etched runes glowed faintly. The ring warmed to his skin like remembered magic.

Harry blushed, tangled in the richness of this. "I—Petunia would freak out. My muggle aunt. She’d throw a fit.”

Selene laughed softly, low and amused. “Perhaps. She’s not a wizard. We understand expression.” She straightened the serpentine embroidery. “You look powerful, mysterious, and utterly yourself.”

He nodded, barely able to believe it.

Harry stared at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t look like the boy from the cupboard anymore. He didn’t even look like the stiffly dressed boy from Madam Malkin’s.

He looked… like someone entirely new. Someone who belonged in the wizarding world, eccentric and unafraid.

Selene helped him gather a few small pieces—tulle skirt, bodice, boots—and placed them carefully into a bag.

By the time they staggered to the counter, Harry was dizzy with fabric and color and words like silhouette and aesthetic and contrast, darling, contrast!

When he finally stepped back into the sunlight, Harry carried two bags bulging with clothes utterly unlike anything he’d ever owned: skirts layered over trousers, embroidered coats, soft boots, silver pendants, fingerless gloves. He felt… taller, somehow. Like the ground under his feet was firmer.

“Hold your head high, mon petit serpent,” she had said as he exited . “You wear the world now, not the other way around.”

And for the first time, Harry  believed it.

The dream began, as it always did, in that strange liminal world between dream and waking world. Vee stood there, perfectly composed as ever, arms folded, coat falling elegantly around him like a prince out of place in time.

He heard footsteps first. Soft. Hesitant. Then—

Harry stepped into the half-light.

He almost stared.

The boy was dressed in black velvet and tulle, spiderweb designs glinting faintly when he moved, potion-phial pendants at his throat catching the dreamlight like tiny trapped stars. His shoulder-length hair fell in dark curls with streaks of vivid crimson glimmering like embers, a faintly rebellious halo around a too-pale face. The silver-threaded gloves, the rings, the faint sweep of a skirt hem — it was a vision somewhere between gothic elegance and raw defiance.

He had faced Warlocks, monsters, entire councils of pureblood fools — but this…

This left him momentarily speechless. He, who had raised inferi without blinking, actually forgot himself for a beat.

“…What,” he said at last, voice even but edged with disbelief, “are you wearing?”

Harry blinked at him, cheeks faintly pink. “Clothes.”

His gaze dragged over him slowly, deliberately, like cataloguing every offense. “Clothes,” he repeated, silk-smooth, as though the word itself were lying to him.

Harry scowled. “I like them.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, a faint muscle ticking in his jaw. He had perfected composure at eleven, intimidation at twelve, murder at sixteen—and yet he stood here, actually unsure what expression to wear.

Finally, he said, with the crisp disapproval of a 1950s headmaster, “Those are not clothes. Those are—” A pause. “…costumes.”

Harry lifted his chin stubbornly. “Selene says wizards don’t care about boring things like respectability.”

“Selene,” he repeated, voice dropping half a note.

Something sharpened in his expression.

“Selene Duvallon, Slytherin, seventh year. She helped me out with these clothes. ” Harry answered carefully. 

“Of the French Duvallons. Old blood. Slytherin for centuries. Fell out of favor after the Warlock Conspiracy of 1783.” Rumored to produce seers. His gaze sharpened. “I’m surprised there are any left.”

Harry frowned faintly. “…She didn’t mention that.”

“No,” he murmured. “I imagine she wouldn’t. The French branches never did care for English politics.” His eyes cut back to Harry’s skirt. “Apparently they don’t care for English dignity either.”

Harry glared at him. “You hate it.”

He hesitated. Hate wasn’t the word. He hated losing control, hated unpredictability, hated anything that lured his attention where it should not linger.

He looked at Harry again — properly this time.

The clothes made him look smaller yet fiercer, a contradiction in motion. The curls brushing his jaw softened his face into something too striking for his age, all Lily Evans’ eyes and jawline overlaid on something sharper, paler, his father’s aristocratic angles stripped of James Potter’s warmth.

People would stare.

Voldemort felt his mouth press into a line.

“You look,” he said finally, very evenly, “like someone who will cause me problems.”

Harry blinked. “…What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Voldemort said, tone cooling, “you are eleven years old and already look… notice-able.” The faintest pause betrayed him before he added, “Too noticeable.”

Harry flushed. “It’s just clothes.”

“No,” he said softly, eyes narrowing faintly behind his lashes. “It isn’t just clothes.”

He wanted to ask who had touched his hair. Who had persuaded him into velvet coats. Who had encouraged him to wear skirts when the boy clearly had no idea what he looked like. But he bit the words back like poison.

Harry shifted uneasily under that stare. “…Do you really hate it?”

He held his gaze for a long, unblinking moment. Then, slowly:

“I think,” he said carefully, “that you are… allowed to wear what you like.” A fractional pause. “But you should be careful.”

Harry frowned. “Careful of what?”

His eyes glinted, dark and unreadable. “People.”

Because Voldemort knew exactly how people looked at pretty things.

And Harry Potter, absurd in velvet and skirts and crimson-streaked curls, had no idea what kind of thing he was becoming.

He forced his voice back into calm neutrality. “Your glasses,” he said abruptly, like the thought offended him. “Still dreadful.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

“Dreadful,” Vee repeated. “Ill-fitting. Wrong shape for your face.” His eyes swept critically over the boy. “And your hair—”

Harry flushed. “What about my hair?”

He hesitated a beat too long. “It… suits you,” he said finally, as though conceding defeat. “The red. It suits you.”

Harry brightened faintly. “It’s for my mum.”

He didn’t answer. His gaze lingered instead on those streaks of burning red, the only flame in the dream’s darkness, until the boy looked away first.

They ended up on the crumbling steps of what looked like a ruined fountain, moonlight pooling silver over the marble. It was the sort of place that would have been romantic in another story — Harry, of course, didn’t notice at all.

He was already tugging at his bracelets like an excited magpie.

“Look,” he said, thrusting his wrist out. Silver bangles chimed faintly, layered between black leather cuffs and one chain threaded with potion phials of shifting, glimmering liquid. “Selene found these in a box of old alchemy supplies — she said they’d been sitting in the back of the shop for fifty years.”

Voldemort caught his wrist before the boy could shake it again, long fingers curling lightly around narrow bone. The bracelets stilled between them.

“Some of these,” he said coolly, “are actually valuable.” His thumb brushed a tiny phial filled with opalescent blue potion. “Do you even know what this is?”

Harry hesitated. “…Pretty?”

He inhaled very slowly through his nose. “It’s a Dreamless Draught concentrate.”

Harry blinked. “Oh.”

“Not just oh,” Voldemort said, tightening his grip a fraction before releasing him. “Be careful where you wave your hands, or you’ll have shopkeepers chasing you for theft or idiots trying to drink from your jewelry.”

Harry grinned sheepishly. “Selene says nobody in Diagon would dare. She knows everyone or well her mother does.”

That name again.

He leaned back slightly, expression smoothing into the kind of mild interest that meant danger for anyone older than twelve. “Selene,” he said, very softly. “Tell me about her.”

Harry didn’t notice the warning in his tone. “She’s brilliant,” he said immediately, eyes lighting up. “She’s in Slytherin as I said before — you’d like her, she’s clever and a bit scary-looking, but actually really nice. She said I was too small for the boring old-fashioned stuff the other shophelper was giving me, so she picked things out herself. It was her mother's shop so she knew where all the good stuff was kept. She even styled my hair. She knew exactly what would look good on me. I didn't even think in my wildest imagination that I'll ever wear skirts. But she somehow knew that I'll like it.”

The more Harry spoke, the more it became obvious that the girl was a seer or at least had some latent seer abilities. Seers were trouble, have always been. But at the same time even he could admit having a seer's goodwill is no meager boon.

His gaze drifted to the ribbon tying back half of Harry’s curls — black silk threaded with a faint pattern of serpents in silver. “I see,” he murmured.

Harry was still talking, oblivious. “She says wizards don’t care about girls’ clothes or boys’ clothes, that it’s all just about magic and expression and stuff. She thinks I look—”

He stopped, ears going pink.

Voldemort ’s eyes sharpened. “She thinks you look…?”

Harry scowled at his own shoes. “…Pretty.”

Voldemort went very, very still.

Pretty.

He didn’t like that word. Not on Harry. Certainly not falling from the mouth of some older Slytherin girl with French blood and sharp opinions about clothes who might know more than she's letting on.

“Interesting,” he said at last, voice mild enough to hide a blade under it. He looked at him for a long moment, then reached out before thinking better of it, fingers ghosting over a strand near Harry’s cheek.

“…It suits you,” he admitted finally, low enough to almost vanish.

Harry brightened, clearly taking it as approval. “She gave me this ribbon too — and corsets, and this skirt—” He jumped up suddenly, tugging at the layers of black tulle over his knees so they swished like some gothic bell. “—see? There’s even pockets!”

He stared at him, unimpressed.

Harry sat back down, undeterred. “She says I have good legs for these,” he added offhandedly, pulling at the skirt.

His jaw went tight.

“I see she had many opinions,” he said softly.

Harry nodded happily. “She says wizards used to wear way more eccentric stuff before the Statute of Secrecy, like lace and robes with actual jewels sewn in and corsets and things. She says I should ignore what boring people think.”

Voldemort’s mouth curved faintly, but not in amusement. “She sounds,” he said delicately, “very… modern.”

Harry didn’t notice the undertone. “She even gave me gloves!” He held them up like some prize, thin black lace with silver threads running through the seams. “Aren’t they brilliant?”

He looked at the gloves, at the bracelets, at the skirts, at the ridiculous ribbon in Harry’s hair.

And then at Harry’s wide, earnest green eyes looking at him like he actually cared what Voldemort thought.

He exhaled slowly. “They suit you,” he said finally.

Harry beamed.

He leaned back, shadows shifting like serpents behind his shoulders.

Selene Duvallon. Seventh year. Slytherin. Halfblood, French line. Clever enough to find a lonely boy and wrap him in ribbons and skirts and call it eccentricity. Possibly a seer.

His eyes narrowed faintly.

“Harry,” he said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you trust her?”

Harry blinked. “Of course I do. She’s nice.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Mmm.”

Harry didn’t notice how flat his tone had gone. He was too busy explaining how she’d told him about wizard fashion in the 1700s, how she thought his glasses were tragic and planned to take him to a proper optometrist in the Alley next week.

He listened to all of it with the faintly polite expression of someone planning a murder.

The bell above the door to Threadneedle & charm chimed like wind over crystal as Harry stepped in, clutching the strap of his too-big rucksack. He hadn’t told anyone he was coming — not even Selene, though she had insisted last time that he could visit the shop, anytime.

Selene had described the thrift shop as “a family business, terribly boring usually, but Mother insists we all help.”

It was not boring.The shop hummed. Behind the long counter, a woman with hair like a fall of black ink and robes embroidered with silver moons stood examining a ledger.

Selene herself was halfway up a ladder, stacking jars. Her hair was pinned with something glittering — Harry suspected one of her mother’s own designs — and she wore a dark green dress embroidered with tiny charms that occasionally let off faint sparks when her sleeve brushed them.

She spotted Harry instantly. “Petit monstre!” she exclaimed, abandoning the ladder in a rustle of skirts. “You came!” Harry flushed at the nickname but didn’t protest as Selene seized his shoulders like a long-lost sibling.

“You didn’t tell me you were visiting,” she scolded. “Come, I’m on break. Mother!”

Madame Duvallon looked up from the ledger, her expression softening when she saw Harry. “Ah. Le petit anglais. Welcome, little one.” Her accent was faint but warm. “Selene, don’t terrorize him.”

Selene ignored this completely, already hauling Harry toward the back door.

“Where—?” Harry began.

“Eye-healer,” Selene said briskly, as though this were obvious. “We’re getting rid of those dreadful glasses. Then shoes. And hair things. I saw your hair last week, it’s crying for help.”

Harry sputtered something about not having planned for any of this, but Selene only made a shooing motion as she asked him whether he grabbed his coin-purse. “You need supervision,” she told him loftily. “You’d buy a single hair clip and call it done. Tragedy. I won’t allow it.”

And with that, she swept him out into the sunlight.

The building they stopped at looked nothing like a Muggle optometrist’s office. For one thing, its sign read Spectrespecs & Sightings: Healers in Ocular Magics since 1324. A brass eyeball over the door rolled lazily in its socket as they approached.

Inside, floating candles lit shelves of glasses in every shape imaginable — round, square, cat-eye, even pairs with colored lenses that shimmered faintly as though charmed for more than mere vision correction.

The healer, a stooped wizard with three pairs of spectacles perched along his brow, peered at Harry through lenses that magnified his eyes to alarming proportions.

“Mm. Nearsighted,” he muttered after waving a diagnostic wand. “Nothing serious. We’ll charm the lenses thinner — no need for magnifying-bottle eyes. And… you want something stylish, yes?”

Before Harry could answer, Selene swept in. “Obviously. Something flattering. And no dreadful wire frames.” Harry submitted to frames being held against his face, lenses swapped in and out with quick charms, Selene making approving or disapproving noises the entire time.

“Round makes you look twelve,” she declared. “Square makes you look like a clerk. These—” She plucked up a pair with slender black frames, slightly angled. “These make you look clever and tragic. Perfect.”

Harry blinked through the new lenses. The world snapped into sharpness, edges crisp and clear in a way his old glasses had never managed.

“Better?” Selene asked.

“…Yeah,” Harry admitted softly.

The healer charmed the frames to adjust size automatically as Harry grew. “No more breaking at the bridge,” he promised. “Indestructible. Dragon-hide hinges.”

Selene paid before Harry could protest and dragged him out again.

The next shoe shop smelled of leather and polish. Selene made Harry try on at least six pairs: dragon-hide boots (“Too pirate.”), sleek black Oxfords (“Too Ministry.”), and finally soft, charmed leather boots that laced to mid-calf and adjusted themselves for perfect fit.

“For running from professors and looking mysterious,” she declared. “We’re buying them.”

The satchel was next — dark green with silver clasps, feather-light thanks to Extension Charms. “For all your ridiculous books,” Selene said, ignoring Harry’s protests that he didn’t own that many yet.

“You’ll thank me,” she said, piling things into his arms. “No self-respecting student uses the rubbish they sell first-years.” Harry gave up arguing.

The hair shop smelled faintly of jasmine and lavender. Shelves held jars of color-changing ribbons, combs tipped with tiny gems, and illustrated guides to enchanted hairstyles.

Selene held one up: Curses, Curls, & Coiffures: A Witch’s Guide to Bewitching Hair. “You’re reading this,” she told Harry. “Your hair’s a national scandal if left attended.”

Harry, who had been eyeing a silver hair clasp shaped like a wing, muttered something about maybe. Selene added it to the pile.

Nail polish came in tiny bottles labeled with names like Moonlit Hex and Dragon’s Breath. Selene picked a deep green for him “because subtlety is overrated.”

They eventually ended up at a little café tucked between a broom shop and a bookstore. Tables spilled onto the cobbled street under striped awnings, the air warm with the smell of coffee and sugar.

Harry bit into a croissant and nearly groaned aloud. Selene smirked. “First time eating real food, petit monstre?” Harry made a face at her but didn’t deny it.

Between sips of coffee, Selene launched into gossip. “Professor McGonagall,” she said, “has a secret stash of cat treats in her desk. Swear it. Saw her buying them in Hogsmeade.”

Harry nearly choked on his pastry. “She is a cat Animagus, right?”

Selene waved a hand. “Details. Point is, even professors have lives. Flitwick writes opera reviews. Sinistra dated a vampire once. Sprout —oh, the parties she throws for the staff. Terrible music. Wonderful food. And lots of mead.”

Harry listened, wide-eyed, as she rattled on about friends in every House, secret passageways, feuds between portraits, Peeves’s latest crimes.

At some point she leaned across the table. “What about ear piercings?”

Harry froze mid-bite. “…What about them?”

“Silver hoops would look fantastic on you,” Selene said seriously. “Very rebellious. Tragic poet aesthetic.” Harry flushed. “I’ll… think about it.”Selene smirked like a cat who had planted exactly the idea she wanted.

When they left the café, the sunlight had mellowed into that rich, honeyed glow that made the cobblestones look warm and the shop windows sparkled like treasure chests.

Selene looped her arm through Harry’s without asking — not that he really minded — and steered him straight toward yet another shop before he could object.

“Books,” she announced. Harry blinked. “I already—?”

 “You need something to read besides school texts. Philosophy, poetry, drama. Brood properly in your tragic boots with tragic literature.”Harry gave her a long-suffering look but let himself be towed along.

The bookstore was narrow, ceilings lost in shadow high above. Books floated between shelves like birds, rearranging themselves with soft thuds. A bored-looking clerk waved a wand and a ladder scooted obligingly as Selene prowled the aisles.

She plucked up titles and handed them to Harry without explanation: Wizards & Existential Dread, Ballads of the Banshee Queen, A Brief History of Romantic Hexes. Harry eyed the last one warily. “Do I want to know?”

“Educational,” Selene said blandly, piling on two more. “Don’t argue. You need culture.”Harry suspected half these books were chosen for the aesthetic value of their titles, but he carried them anyway.

By the time they stepped out, Diagon Alley had softened into evening bustle. Lanterns flickered to life above doorways, hawkers called about last-minute sales, and owls swooped overhead carrying parcels.

Harry clutched his new satchel stuffed with books, parchment, nail polish, ribbons, and Merlin knew what else. His boots made no sound thanks to their enchantments, and the hair clasp Selene had insisted on was tucked carefully into one pocket.

They claimed a bench near the fountain where water sprayed in graceful arcs, sparkling under the lanternlight. Around them, Diagon Alley was all golden haze and chatter, the air warm but edged with the first coolness of evening.

Selene stretched her legs out with a sigh. “Much better. Shopping is war, you know.” Harry, surrounded by parcels, muttered, “I noticed.”

Selene laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. “You’ll thank me when you’re the most stylish boy in your dormitory. Half the school will fall in love with you by Christmas.” Harry choked on his candy fruit. “What?!”

“Oh, please,” Selene said, eyes dancing. “Dark hair, tragic green eyes, mysterious air, clueless orphan backstory—very in this season. Add those boots and the brooding poetry books—irresistible.”

Harry turned scarlet. “I’m not— I mean, that’s ridiculous—”

“Mm, denial,” Selene said knowingly, biting into her candy. “Classic romantic-hero move.”

Harry decided the safest course of action was to stare very hard at the fountain.

Selene let him recover before launching back into gossip.

“You know Professor Snape?” she asked conversationally.

Harry blinked. “Er… not exactly?”

“Walks like someone offended his ancestors personally,” Selene said solemnly. “Teaches Potions. Brilliant but terrifying. My friend swears he brews coffee strong enough to wake the dead. Possibly literally.” Harry wasn’t sure whether to laugh or take notes as Selene continued telling him Hogwarts gossip and scandals .

They meandered slowly back toward the Duvallon shop, Harry laden with parcels and Selene humming under her breath. Lanternlight pooled on the cobblestones; shopkeepers were shuttering windows, calling goodnights.

Selene glanced at him sideways. “You know, you’re sharper than you look,” she said suddenly. Harry blinked. “Er—thanks?”

“Quiet ones always are,” Selene mused. “You watch people. Listen more than you talk. That’s why you’ll survive Hogwarts just fine.”

Harry ducked his head, unsure how to answer.

They passed a shop window where their reflections walked side by side — Harry in his new boots and satchel, hair falling to his shoulders, Selene sweeping along like she owned the street.

For one strange moment, Harry almost felt… like he belonged here.

Madame Duvallon looked up from her ledger as they came in, eyebrows rising at the sight of all the parcels.

“Mon dieu,” she murmured. “What have you done to him, Selene?”

“Improved his life,” Selene said serenely, handing her mother the leftover candied fruit stick.

Harry mumbled something about being kidnapped but didn’t sound particularly upset.

Selene was already sorting his parcels. “We’ll do hair tomorrow,” she told him firmly. “I expect you to read that guidebook. And think about the piercings.”

Harry muttered something noncommittal, hiding behind his new stack of books.

Selene smirked. “See you soon, petit monstre.”

That night, Harry carefully unpacked everything in the small room he was staying in above the Leaky Cauldron.

The boots went by the bed, the satchel on the chair, the books in a neat pile. His new glasses gleamed faintly on the nightstand. He turned the silver hair clasp over in his fingers before tucking it safely away.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered absently what Vee would say when he saw all this.

Harry didn’t know that miles away, in a place far darker, Voldemort was indeed going to have several things to say — most of them unrepeatable — when his half-gremlin protégé showed up at Hogwarts looking like every gothic poet’s fever dream. But that would come later.

For now, Harry flopped onto the bed surrounded by parcels and felt, for the first time in a very long while, almost… giddy.

The dream always came like a slow unfurling of velvet curtains, a comparison he could now make with the complete certainty of someone with a wardrobe dripping in velvet. 

One moment Harry was sinking into his narrow bed at the Leaky Cauldron, exhausted after a day spent chasing after Selene from one shop to the next; the next, the walls of reality slid away, and he was stepping into the dreamscape again.

The lake gleamed as it always did—black glass holding the reflection of cold stars. Shadows gathered thick beneath the trees, silver-strung leaves sighing softly in the night breeze.

And there—across the water, waiting as though he had always been waiting—stood Vee .

He was all in black tonight, as ever, his figure carved in sharp relief against the night sky. The firelight from the single floating lumos at his side brushed faint gold over his high cheekbones. He looked like something out of a half-forgotten legend—dangerous, beautiful, and absolutely out of place in Harry’s very modern excitement. Because Harry was nearly bouncing as he crossed the clearing.

“Vee!” he blurted before the man could speak, words tumbling over one another. “You won’t believe the day I’ve had. Selene dragged me everywhere. We got new shoes—well, she said my old ones looked tragic—and she made me buy this satchel, and I got my nails done—look!”

He shoved his hands out like evidence. The moonlight caught faint silver on his fingertips—nail polish shimmering like frost.

For one long moment, Vee just stared at him. Then his gaze flicked sharply up, cataloguing all the new additions, especially the tiny black ribbon tied in Harry’s hair. The silence stretched a beat too long. The corner of Vee’s mouth twitched. Harry had the distinct impression that the man who once terrified half the wizarding world was struggling for words.

Vee sat slowly on the bench near the lake, long fingers steepled under his chin. Harry plopped down beside him. “We got hair ribbons too. And a guide for hairstyles. And she said next time I should do piercings.”

That got a reaction.

Vee’s head snapped toward him so fast Harry half-wondered if he’d given himself whiplash. “Piercings?”

“Ears,” Harry said innocently, absolutely not trying to rile the man. “Just ears. Maybe a few up the side. Selene says it’d look amazing with my hair. Don’t give me that look, Vee,” he added, noticing the way the man’s jaw had gone tight, “it’s not like I said nose rings or anything. Though she did mention—”

“Absolutely not,” Vee said, voice low and very final.

Harry bit back a grin. “You sound like Uncle Vernon when he thinks I can’t hear him swearing about me. What’s the big deal?”

Vee didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on Harry’s hands again, on the glimmering rings Selene had pressed into his palms with a conspiratorial wink.

Finally, very quietly, Vee said, “You look… nothing like your parents.”

Harry stilled.

Vee’s eyes, dark and unreadable, lifted to his face. “You have your mother's bone structure. The cheekbones. The jawline. Definitely the Potter hair. But tonight… I see someone else instead. Dorea Black, your grandmother. Every inch of her fire, in lace and ribbons and… frost on your nails.” A faint scoff. Harry didn’t know what to say to that. His chest felt too tight all of a sudden.

Another family member, he never got to meet.

For a moment neither spoke. The lake lapped quietly at the shore.

Then Harry blurted changing the topic because Vee clearly got over his momentary lapse of sentiment and wasn't going to say anymore., “So you don’t hate it?”

Vee blinked. “What?”

“The ribbons. The skirts.The earrings—well, future earrings.” Harry shifted, suddenly awkward. “You look like you want to strangle someone.”

Vee looked at him for a long, long moment. Finally, with the faintest exhale, “I don’t hate it.” Which, coming from him, was practically a sonnet of praise.

Harry grinned despite himself.

Vee’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer, unreadable, before sliding toward the dark treeline. But Harry caught the words he muttered, so low he might not have meant to say them aloud at all:

"…catastrophe in the making…."

“What?” Harry said.

“Nothing.”

But Vee’s eyes when they returned to him were strange—wine-dark gaze, sharp as glass, and for the first time Harry thought maybe the man didn’t look entirely calm after all.

He leaned forward at last, forearms resting on his knees, the smooth calm in his voice at odds with the steel running beneath it. “You spent a week in Diagon and in that time,” he murmured, “you’ve acquired friends. Trinkets. Ribbons. Piercings, apparently. All without my knowledge.”

Harry hesitated. “It’s not like I was hiding it—”

Vee’s eyes stayed fixed on him, dark and steady. “You belong to a world I can’t yet touch,” he said after a moment, completely ignoring his words. “I dislike being reminded of it.”

That shut Harry up for a second.

Because there was something in Vee’s tone—something edged, something almost… hungry.

Harry coughed, looking away. “Selene’s nice, though. She thinks I’m smart.”

Vee’s head tilted faintly. “Does she.”

“Yeah. Says most of her friends didn't know half as much about potions as I do already in their first year. She’s got loads of friends too—”

Vee’s gaze sharpened. “Names.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

“Her friends,” Vee said softly. “What are their names?”

Harry laughed. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Vee said at once, too quickly, which was exactly how Harry knew he did.

He snorted. “You sound like you’re compiling a list.”

Vee didn’t answer.

Harry grinned despite himself. “You really hate this, huh?”

Vee’s voice, when it came, was velvet over steel. “I dislike being… uninformed.”

When Harry mentioned Selene taking him to the cafe, Vee’s fingers actually tightened on the bench railing, the knuckles gone pale.

Harry caught it this time. “Oh my god,” he said slowly. “You are jealous.”

Vee’s eyes slid toward him, and for the first time Harry saw it: the faint crack in the mask, the way something sharper gleamed beneath.

“Harry,” Vee said softly, too softly, “I am not in the habit of sharing what belongs to me.”

Harry froze.

The words hung there between them, heavier than the summer night, heavier than the lake’s still water, heavier than anything Harry knew how to name.

And then—because he didn’t know what else to do—he laughed awkwardly. “You’re so dramatic. She’s just my friend.”

Vee’s eyes stayed on him, steady, unblinking. Like a promise.

31 August 1991

The sun was low when Harry slipped into the little café on the corner of Diagon Alley. He picked a table near the window, watching dust drift lazily in the golden light while the hum of the street pressed faintly beyond the door.

He hadn’t been here much these last few weeks. Not since Selene vanished off to France with promises to bring back “truly superior chocolate, darling, the sort even dementors would fight you for.” He’d missed her company more than he wanted to admit.

She swept in with the evening air not five minutes later—tall, dark-haired, eyes like polished onyx—pulling the whole room’s attention with her usual effortless drama.

“Harry,” she said warmly, as if it had been years instead of weeks. “My, you look different already.”

Harry blinked as she slid into the chair opposite him, a basket hooked over one arm. Selene leaned forward, examining him like an art piece. “The braids suit you.”

He flushed faintly. His hair had grown past his shoulders these last weeks, and he’d been practicing in secret, twisting strands into neat, tight plaits down the sides. “Still learning,” he muttered.

“Mmm.” She tilted her head, approving. “And the ribbons. Very good choice. You look almost continental.”

Harry grinned despite himself. “Continental?”

“A touch of Paris, a dash of Prague,” Selene said, flicking her hand as if painting the air. “All my favorite poets would be inspired.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t fade.

“And,” she added slyly, catching his hands before he could tuck them under the table, “you’ve kept painting your nails. I told you it changes everything.”

Harry shrugged, but he was pleased she noticed. The polish today was faint silver, catching light when he moved. “It’s fun.”

Selene’s eyes glimmered with some private amusement. “And the piercings?”

Harry shook his head immediately. “Still no.”

“Shame,” she sighed theatrically, releasing his hands. “You’d look devastating with a silver chain along your ear.”

Harry smirked. “I’m fine being not devastating, thanks.”

Selene only smiled, mysterious as always, before pulling the basket onto the table. “Then behold,” she announced, “the spoils of France.”

Inside were neat little boxes tied with ribbon, delicate paper packets, and one glittering tin that smelled unmistakably of sugar and almonds. She pushed them toward him one by one: chocolates dusted in cocoa, candied orange slices, sugared violets wrapped in tissue.

Harry’s eyes widened. “You brought all this for me?”

“Of course,” Selene said simply. “Who else here appreciates such things?”

He flushed faintly, busying himself with unwrapping the nearest packet.

They talked as he tasted each offering—her travels through little wizarding towns tucked into the French countryside, odd wizards she’d met, gossip about beauxbaton and shopkeepers, things Harry hadn’t heard of but liked listening to anyway.

When he told her he’d mostly stayed in his room reading the last few weeks, she only smiled softly. “Well. Then I shall find you on the train, won’t I? You won’t escape me so easily at Hogwarts.”

Harry smiled, something warm curling under his ribs. He couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come.

Chapter Text

September 1st, 1991

Harry had been up early on the morning of September 1st. He had barely slept, the anticipation and anxiety running high through him. Determined to avoid the crowds and secure a compartment to himself, he’d decided to leave early.

 Flooing from the Leaky Cauldron was a strange experience—one he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to repeat. Vee had been helpful, gently explaining how to use the fireplace, but Harry still nearly faceplanted as he crossed over to the station.

As he straightened up, brushing off the remaining ash from his clothes, he froze in awe. The gleaming crimson Hogwarts Express stood proudly, smoke billowing from its front. Even at 10 a.m., with the platform nearly empty, the scene was as magical as ever.

Quickly stepping away from the fireplace to avoid anyone else coming through, Harry made his way toward the train, trying to commit every detail to memory. He didn’t want to forget this moment. Climbing aboard, he began searching for a compartment—preferably at the very back. It was something Vee had told him to do. It didn’t make much sense to Harry, but maybe he knew something Harry didn’t.

As it turned out, the compartments in the back were more spacious, and the seats were especially supple. He stowed his trunk overhead, Hedwig’s cage went onto the small table, and his satchel stayed beside him.

He settled in with one of the many books Selene had picked out for him—a slim poetry collection by someone called Nightshade. The emerald cover with silver detailing had caught his eye. 

Soon, the station began to fill. Students milled about, calling greetings to one another. Younger children ran around, too small yet to board the train themselves. By the time the train gave a loud whistle and pulled away from the station, it was nearly eleven. Parents waved their goodbyes, even going so far as to shout last minute warnings . Harry turned his face away from the window.

He’d settled back down to read, but someone knocked—then immediately swung the door open. A head of bushy brown hair peeked in before a girl stumbled inside.

“Can I sit with you? Oh, what are you reading? That doesn’t look like one of our school books. I’ve already read all the course books—memorized them, actually. So I would know if it was. I wanted to be prepared. Do you think it’ll be enough? The others have known about magic their whole lives, and I—”

She was speaking so fast it seemed she hadn’t taken a single breath.

“Hey, I’m Harry,” he interrupted gently. “I don’t think you’ll be behind at all…?”

The girl flushed a deep red—noticeable even on her dark skin. She looked mortified. Harry hadn’t meant to embarrass her. He offered a small, reassuring smile.

“Ah—I'm Hermione Granger,” she said quickly.

Before she could launch into another ramble, Harry motioned for her to sit across from him. She placed her trunk away and pulled out a book of her own and settled in silently; Harry figured the conversation over. So he returned to his own reading.

But he kept noticing her glancing over the top of her book, ducking her head every time he caught her. After another round of this, he closed his book—and she immediately did the same. So she did want to talk.

“It’s a poetry book,” he said, holding it up. “Something for light reading. A friend recommended it.”

“Oh. I don’t really read poetry. I’ve mostly gone through all the extra reference guides for our courses.” She tugged at her curls and bit her cheek. “I’m still worried…”

Harry couldn’t believe she thought she’d be unprepared, after all that. He stayed quiet, trying to think of something that would ease her nerves. But his silence only seemed to make her more fidgety.

“You’ll be just fine,” he said finally. She didn’t seem convinced.

Then he glanced at her hair—and an idea struck him.

“Say... would you let me braid your hair? I’ve been practicing on mine, but yours is longer. It would help me improve.”

He flushed. That wasn’t something you asked a stranger—not on your first meeting. Brilliant, Harry.

He was about to take it back but Hermione leaned forward, a shy smile spreading across her face. Maybe he hadn’t messed it up after all.

“Really? You want to braid my hair? It’s... pretty difficult to manage. Takes me forever just to brush it. You don’t have to.”

Despite her words, there was an eager look in her eyes as she bounced slightly in her seat. Harry motioned for her to sit beside him and pulled out his utility pouch from his satchel, filled with all the new hair products and ties Selene had bought him.

“Just get comfortable. It’ll take a bit. Let me know if it’s too tight—you don’t want a headache.”

Hermione shifted beside him, clearly still a little unsure about sitting so close to someone she'd just met. Her eyes flicked around the compartment, then back to Harry—though she seemed to be trying not to stare too obviously. He caught her gaze lingering again, and this time, she didn’t immediately look away.

“You… um,” she began, voice hesitant but tinged with curiosity. “You look... really nice. I mean—your clothes. They’re very—” she trailed off, fumbling for the right word. “Elegant? Like you belong in a portrait.”

Harry glanced down at his outfit—cream poet shirt with softly gathered sleeves, tucked into black high-waisted trousers, the fabric cinched at his narrow waist with quiet precision. His polished Chelsea boots had barely a scuff on them, and his shoulder-length black hair—with its faint, deliberate streaks of red—had been partially braided with dark ribbons woven through. It was a far cry from the loose, scruffy look he used to have. Selene had said he should look like the kind of boy who already belonged somewhere—even if he didn’t feel it yet.

He blinked, caught off guard by her tone. He’d expected a snort, or a comment about being “dressed up,” maybe something mocking. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Instead, Hermione looked at him like she was impressed, maybe even a little bit enchanted.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, a soft flush creeping into his cheeks. “I wasn’t sure if it would be... too much.”

“No, it’s not too much,” she said quickly. “It’s actually kind of perfect. You look like you’ve stepped out of a story. Almost like one of those vintage arts in museums. Regal, but not in a stuffy way.”

Harry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The compliment didn’t feel fake, or forced. Just honest.

He gave her a small, uncertain smile and turned his attention back to the task at hand. “Well, um... you might regret letting me braid your hair if I mess it up.”

She laughed—a little too loud at first, then stifled it quickly, looking mildly horrified with herself. “Sorry. Nervous habit. I mean—no pressure! I just... no one's ever offered to braid my hair before.”

Harry shook his head slightly, already separating a section of her curls with careful fingers.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I get it. First magical train ride, first day at a magical school. Everything’s new.”

He picked up the comb from his lap, the handle slim and etched with tiny runes. “This’ll help. It’s charmed to detangle—makes it easier to section things properly.”

Hermione tilted her head slightly as he gently ran the comb through her thick hair. Her eyes widened when it glided smoothly, without a single snag.

“That’s incredible,” she breathed. “It usually takes me forever to get a comb through it without pulling. My mum doesn’t know what to do with it, and I’ve sort of given up on trying anything fancy.”

Harry gave a quiet hum of understanding, focusing on her hair as he began the braid. “I’m doing a French braid. It starts near the crown and pulls in more hair as you go. It keeps it all together, even if you’re moving around a lot. Good for keeping things tidy without looking boring.”

Hermione went quiet for a moment, her posture slowly relaxing. She still sat a little stiffly, but there was something different now—less jittery, more curious.

“You’re really good at this,” she said after a while, her voice softer now, more thoughtful than anxious. “Have you done it for a long time?”

Harry shrugged, careful not to tug the braid too sharply. “Started a couple weeks ago. On myself first. I used to keep it shorter, but someone convinced me to grow it out. Said it would suit me.”

“It does,” Hermione said, then caught herself, eyes wide. “Sorry. That was probably a weird thing to say.”

He shook his head again, his lips quirking up at the corner. “Not weird. Just unexpected.”

“I guess... I don’t know. I’m not really used to talking to people like this,” she admitted. “Back home, it was always different. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I talked too much, or read too much, or knew things other people didn’t care about.”

Harry glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I know the feeling.”

They fell into a companionable silence for a few minutes as he continued working through the braid. The rhythmic motion seemed to calm them both, anchoring them in a quiet moment between the rush of the morning and the unknown waiting at Hogwarts.

Finally, Harry tied off the braid with a simple black ribbon. He tucked a few loose strands behind her ear and sat back to admire the finished work.

“There. It suits you.”

Hermione reached up, fingertips gently exploring the braid. Her expression softened into something quietly amazed.

“Thank you,” she said, voice warm and sincere. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Especially someone I’ve just met.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat up again, but this time, he didn’t mind the feeling so much. “Anytime,” he said simply, and meant it.

The quiet moment between Harry and Hermione was shattered when the compartment door slid open with a soft click, revealing a figure that immediately commanded attention. 

"Well, well, well," Selene's voice broke the silence, her French accent threading through her words. "What do we have here? The famous Harry Potter, playing hairdresser? Who would’ve thought?"

“ Selene, please. I was just braiding her hair. Practicing my skills. “ He tried to stop her before she upped her teasing. Hermione was only just relaxing. He didn’t want his efforts to go to waste. 

“ What do you mean? I was just curious about your new friend here.” she sauntered in ,sitting in the seat opposite ours.

“ Um , I'm Hermione Granger. Are you Harry’s friend…?” 

“No. I'm his personal stylist. Aren't I , mon cherre?” Selene was being deliberately teasing, winking at him. He had gotten used to her behavior but Hermione was clearly struggling between confusion and embarrassment.

“Yes, sure. Now that you've made sure that I haven’t missed my train, you can go. I'm sure you've your own compartment and your Slytherins waiting for you.” 

“Aww, you ruin my fun. But I can see my little shy Harry is making friends, I'll leave you to it. Do try to get in Slytherin though.” She was halfway through the door as he heard her last comment. “ No promises!” he yelled back, surprising even himself.

And she was gone. He looked at Hermione, her questioning gaze and promptly shrugged his shoulders. There simply wasn't any reason,it was simply Selene being Selene. 

The Quiet of their compartment was broken yet again, some ten minutes later, though this time by someone or rather two someone's entering. They were nearly identical with the same tanned skin, warm brown eyes and dark curly hair. 

The boy wasted no time in breaking the silence, flashing a cheeky grin as he waved a hand in greeting.

“Oi! Olá! Hi!” he said in a smooth mix of English and another language, his voice light but confident. “Desculpa, are these seats taken? We’re new here. Caio Ribeiro, and this is minha irmã, Livia.” He gestured toward his twin with a playful wink.

The other twin, Livia smiled gently, her deep brown eyes warm and welcoming as she nodded. “Oi, everyone. It's... nice to meet you,” she added in perfect English, though the slight melodic lilt of her accent still lingered at the end of her words.

Harry looked at Hermione who appeared pleasantly surprised and he found a particular glint in her eyes, now becoming almost familiar, the one she had sported when bombarding him with questions. 

“No, no, you can sit,” he said, voice a bit shy. “I’m Harry, by the way. And this is Hermione.” 

They shuffled into the opposite seat quickly stuffing their trunks out of the way. He could see Hermione practically bouncing in her seat waiting for the pair to settle, likely so that she could fire away her questions at them. He felt sorry for the pair, having experienced Hermione’s particular brand of curiosity. 

Deciding that she had waited long enough, Hermione leaned forward , “ That was Portuguese, right ? I'm sure it was. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, we’re from Brazil!” Caio said with a grin. “From Rio de Janeiro.”

“Rio? Wow! That’s amazing!” Hermione replied, her eyes wide. “What’s it like there? My parents have always wanted to take me there on a trip.”

Livia’s face lit up as she leaned forward, clearly excited to share about her home. Her previous quietness was gone. “It’s hot! And colorful. We have beaches, mountains, the city is full of life, música everywhere, and food... oh, the food, it’s incredible!”

He said, his curiosity piqued. “I’ve never met anyone not from Britain, let alone someone from Brazil before. I read that children there went to another school. “

“Oh, yeah!” Caio responded, nodding enthusiastically. “We have magic there too, but it’s different. The school's called Castelobruxo in the Amazon, but my parents thought Hogwarts would be... um, better for us. The traditions here are more... established, I guess.”

The twins nodded in agreement, though Livia was more reserved again. Something about that had made them both uncomfortable sharing a look with Hermione they decided not to press any further.

“ What houses do you think you'll get into? We read about the house system at Hogwarts. It seemed so fun! Soo..?” Caio was once again back to grinning widely. He would get whiplash at the rate Caio was jumping between emotions. 

Hermione begins talking quickly as if she was waiting for the question, "Well, I think I want to be in Gryffindor. That’s where most of the really accomplished witches and wizards were, according to Hogwarts: A History. Dumbledore, McGonagall, all of them. So… I suppose it’s the best place to be, really.

I mean, Ravenclaw would suit me too—I do like reading and learning, and they’re meant to be very clever—but I don’t want people to think I’m just… that. You know? Just a know-it-all.

Anyway, Gryffindors seem like the type who stick together. That sounds nice. Friendly.”

The twins stared wide eyed as Hermione spoke without taking a break to breathe, which was admittedly quite impressive.

“ I've read about all the other houses as well of course. I'm still worried though whether I'll fit in.” 

“ Hermione, I don't know about your future housemates but you can definitely count me as a friend. Ahh I mean if you want to.” And now he was blushing again. He was beginning to worry because this much blood flooding the face repeatedly couldn't be safe, right?

The grin that lit up Hermione’s face was answer enough, even without her clasping his hands almost painfully as she nodded. 

“ The start of a legendary friendship, is that what it is, Livia? “ 

“ I can't be too sure, Caio. We'll just have to wait and see.” He had expected that from Caio but apparently Livia hid a mischievous side after all.

“ Let's move on from this touching display of camaraderie before the brightness blinds my eyes . Harry, what about you? I can wager a guess if that really is a poetry book from my dear ol’ Nightshade. Is it ?” He was now sure that Caio was always this dramatic. He didn’t know whether to be worried or not. 

“ Yes, it is. I had it out for a light reading. So far, I've been impressed by the works. It's a lovely blend of gothic and tragedy.”

“Stealing my heart one move at a time, I see. As if your aesthetics weren't kill worthy, now you go and tell me you read poems, too. What's next, been defeating dark lords in your free time,have you?” 

He choked on air. If he didn’t know better he'd say Caio knew he was talking to Harry Potter but it would be impossible considering he looked nothing like the pictures he saw of himself in many books. But then again maybe Caio was a seer. He shivered at the thought.

At the long silence, Caio's grin faded. Now he had three sets of eyes boring into his head. He sighed, there goes his anonymity. He was enjoying it too. 

“ Harry, Harry Potter. So yes I did defeat a dark lord, if the books are to be believed.” He snorted. As if. It was more likely something his mother did.

“ Are you really? Only that I've read many books on the war, you look nothing like the pictures.” Hermione and her many many books. He'd be more surprised if she hadn't read about him.

“A jest, surely! Or have I stumbled into a dream? Meeting Harry Potter and sharing a compartment with him. Livia, can you believe it?” Caio kept pointing his fingers at him, shaking his hands as he spoke.

“Caracaaaa……Only Mãe Dináh would've seen that coming!” Livia was staring so intensely even as she spoke with Caio, he started fidgeting. 

“Ave Maria... This school year already started with a bang, huh?” Finally he relaxed as she shifted her gaze to her brother.

After the surprise reveal of his identity, eventually everyone went back to discussing the houses they were likely to get. Caio was a shoe-in for Ravenclaw. Surprisingly, Livia was set to get into Slytherin, something that her twin believed wasn't even a question. 

Hermione had gone uneasy at the mention of Slytherins. He had known that Slytherins were often the villanized house, especially more so after the last war. Something that Vee had made sure he knew in case he got into Slytherin. He couldn’t let that belief stand, at least not in his friends. 

He debated with Hermione, something she unsurprisingly proved good at. She was stubborn in her beliefs though. Even with Livia’s input, he didn’t think he had convinced Hermione. Whatever he had time. Seven years of that if they stayed friends. 

Soon, Caio and Livia disclosed their interest in poems, something that bordered on obsession on Caio's part. If the various book recommendations were anything to go by. He knew he'd be busy going through his reading list which kept increasing now more so with the poetry books that Caio promised to lend him.

Soon, he and Hermione couldn’t hold in their laughter as the boy became more animated in his poetry renditions. Their laughter was cut off as the door to their compartment opened with a bang—seriously again?

Everyone turned, surprise flickering across their faces. Caio’s animated recital faltered mid-sentence, Hermione’s indignation flared immediately, and Livia’s grip tightened on his poetry book.

“Oi — have you seen Harry Potter? He’s supposed to be on the train. I’m going to be his best mate, obviously. Doubt he’d be sitting in this carriage, though. Can't see Potter spending time with this…..lot” The red-headed, freckled boy started speaking, entering their compartment without hesitation.

He shook his head when everyone's eyes turned to him at the mention of his name. He didn’t want this boy to know, at all. 

Hermione stood up, her voice sharp and clear. “Don’t you think you’re being extremely rude? Barging into our compartment like that—and insulting everyone here while you’re at it. If you think calling others ‘this lot’ somehow makes you superior, then you clearly have a lot to learn about Hogwarts—and about basic decency.”

Ron snorted, waving a dismissive hand. “ Blimey! We aren't even at school yet and you are already acting like a professor. You sound like a right bossy cow. ” 

Hermione flinched back as if struck. “I… never mind.” She starts to respond, but her voice catches—

But before he could interrupt, Caio stood up, gently pushing Hermione back into her seat.

He narrowed his eyes but kept his voice calm. “Respect is earned, not demanded with insults. If you want to find Potter, maybe try being decent”

“What’s that weird accent? Sounds like you’re making it up. You're not even from round ‘ere, are you? Go back where you came from.” The boy flushed even redder, scowling in disgust. 

Next he turned his gaze towards me, looking me up and down. There was that judgemental look in his eyes that he had braced himself for. “ And you pansy boy, what are you even wearing? That a nightgown or what?” He sneered.

“How’d you all even get into this school? Must’ve been some mistake.”

Caio stabs his finger into the boy’s chest, pushing him back from where he had gotten right up in his face.

“Qual é, cara? You walk in here talking big like you’re someone? Bro, you're nobody. You’re just another playboyzinho with a secondhand brain and too much mouth.”

He points straight at Ron, voice sharp. “You don’t know us, you don’t know anything, and you sure as hell don’t get to talk like that. Respect is basic, mano.”

The boy flushed, now almost resembling a ripe tomato. He'd find the situation funny, if the boy hadn't just insulted his new friends. 

“Yeah? What are you gonna do? Get your big sister to hex me?”

Livia, still seated, pierced him with a frosty glare. “No. I don’t waste spells on trash.”

“You know what your problem is? You thought you’d walk in rudely, then go on to throw a few insults, and we’d roll over ‘cause we talk different. But this ain’t your kingdom, príncipe mimado. We don’t need your approval — we need you to get out.”

He jabs a finger toward the door. “Vaza. Before I really forget we’re not allowed to duel yet.”

 The boy stammers back towards the door, throwing out a final insult before rushing out. “Freaks.”

Livia stares flatly at his fleeing back , “And yet we’re still better company than you.” She huffs muttering words that he clearly had no hope of understanding 

“Moleque metido... se me encontra no Beco Diagonal, corre.”

Hermione stares wide-eyed, “What... what did that mean?”

 Caio, once again switching moods like a chameleon changing colors, grins at her taking his seat.“Just that he’s lucky we’re still on the train.”

Livia muttered something under breath that he barely managed to hear. “And that I didn’t hex his mouth shut.” She turns to her twin next. “Hang that charm on the door handle, the one we planned to do in our own compartment.” 

 He nods before removing a colorful beaded charm from his pocket and doing so. After which there were no more interruptions for the rest of the journey.

He shivered not knowing which twin was scarier and whether his friendship with them was a good idea. Considering the events, it definitely was.

As he lay in his bed, curtains shut, he couldn't stop grinning. He had made friends. Caio was even sorted into the same house as him. And Sorting—what a surprise it had been. Vee had spoiled the surprise for him, but the Sorting Hat had still been memorable.

Hogwarts had been even more magical than what he had imagined based on Vee’s stories. It felt like home. The ceiling of the great hall had been almost a replica of the one Vee created in their dreams. But it had still left him awed.

Although, his mood had soured slightly when his name was announced and almost everybody began whispering furiously. The flabbergasted look on the rude boy, Ron Weasley, had been funny as was his shout of “what?!” that had echoed in the hall when he separated from the crowd. Professor McGonagall had shut him up with a truly impressive glare.

He couldn’t wait to tell Vee. So he resolutely closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep and hoping today was one of his lucky days.

The dream came softly this time, as though he were stepping through layers of silk, one after another. He was standing on the platform at King’s Cross for half a breath before the air rippled, melting into the dark velvet corridors of Hogwarts, and then again into the moonlit courtyard he had glimpsed only hours ago. 

Harry realized he was in his dream almost immediately. He always knew—because the air here was too thick, too perfumed with magic and memory. And because he felt eyes on him before he even turned.

“At last,” a voice drawled from behind him, smooth and cutting in the same breath.

Harry turned to see Vee.

As always, he looked exactly as Harry remembered him from the first dream: tall, dark hair perfectly in place and ember-bright eyes. But tonight, there was something in the set of his shoulders, the narrowing of his eyes. Something sharp.

“You’ve been busy,” Vee said.

Harry blinked. He had expected the usual sly smile, the wry amusement Vee often wore like armor. But instead, there was only… calculation. It slightly left him feeling wrong footed, his earlier excitement dimming. 

“I—I guess,” Harry said uncertainly. “I mean, school started. I got Sorted. It was… well, it was a day.”

The corners of Vee’s mouth curled faintly, but his eyes didn’t soften. “So I gathered.” He stepped closer, his presence pressing in like the walls themselves leaned nearer. “Tell me, Harry. How long were you planning to leave me in the dark? No dreams for days. Have you been parading about in your new clothes, making… friends.”

Harry stared. Then his shoulders straightened, some instinct bristling at the edge in Vee’s tone. “I wasn’t parading. And I didn’t know you wanted… a report.”

Vee tilted his head, studying him as though he were something behind glass. “A report,” he echoed softly. “So modest. Because what I see looks rather more… elaborate.”

The dream twisted faintly, the air flickering with images Harry half-remembered—himself in the poet shirt Selene had picked, braiding Hermione’s hair in the train compartment, laughing as Caio tried on Harry’s ribbon like a crown before Livia swatted him.

Harry flushed faintly. “Oh. That. I just… it was fun. The twins were nice. And Hermione too. And Selene stopped by our compartment. “

“.....Selene…” 

Harry, missing entirely the quiet violence coiled under that word, brightened. “Yeah, she’s like a big sister, really. Bossy, though. Still wants me to get my ears pierced next. The twins were thrilled.”

The dream lurched.

Vee actually stopped moving. His gaze cut to Harry’s ears as though picturing it—and judging by the way his mouth tightened, the image didn’t please him in the slightest.

“Pierced,” he repeated flatly.

Harry blinked. “…Yeah?”

A long silence. Then, very softly: “Absolutely not. We discussed this.”

Harry stared. “Why not? I think it’d look nice.”

Vee’s eyes snapped back to him, dark as storms. “You think,” he said, silk hiding steel, “that I would approve of you letting some stranger put holes in your face for the sake of—of fashion?”

Harry opened his mouth, thought about that, then frowned. “You sound like a grandfather.”

Vee actually looked offended. “I am not—” He stopped, visibly reining himself in. Drew a slow breath. “Harry,” he said, too evenly, “you are eleven years old.”

“So?”

“So,” Vee said, each syllable like a dropped coin, “you are not stabbing bits of metal through your skin like some dockside delinquent.”

Harry blinked at him, baffled. “You’re really… mad about this.”

“I am not mad,” Vee said through his teeth.

Harry eyed him. “…You’re jealous.”

The dream went so still Harry almost laughed.

Vee’s expression didn’t flicker, but something in the air did—like heat shimmering off stone. “Of what,” he said, very softly, “would I be jealous?”

Harry shrugged, oblivious. “I dunno. Selene. The twins. Hermione. Everyone else is getting to see me when you can’t.”

There was another long silence.

Then Vee said, quiet and razor-sharp, “Perhaps.”

And Harry, misreading entirely, only grinned.

They talked for a long time after that. Harry told him everything—the train ride, the fight with Ron (“Weasley called my shirt a nightgown, can you believe that?”), the poetry talk with the twins, how Hermione had flushed scarlet when he asked to braid her hair but let him anyway.

“Oh, and I got Ravenclaw,” Harry added almost as an afterthought.

Vee’s eyes sharpened.

“Hat said I’d do well there,” Harry went on. “Said I had curiosity. Wit. A bit of ambition too, but I didn’t fancy Slytherin. Everyone is staring already because of the scar—imagine if I picked the snake house on top.”

Vee regarded him for a long, long moment.

Foolish boy. He has no idea what advantage he’s tossed aside.

And yet… Ravenclaw. Wit over ambition. Knowledge over politics. He could live with that. Barely.

He listened, asking too-casual questions about names, backgrounds, intentions. Harry chattered about Ravenclaw, about the feast, about the Sorting Hat saying strange things he didn’t quite understand.

Through it all, he stood with his hands behind his back, eyes half-lidded, voice soft and precise—but the edge never left.

Finally, when Harry was running out of breath, Vee said quietly, “Enjoy it, Harry. Enjoy your books and your ribbons and your poetry friends. But remember this.”

His eyes caught the dreamlight, dark and endless.

~You'll always return to me.~

And before Harry could answer, the dream broke like glass around him.

Harry woke with the words still ringing in his ears.

He had been waiting the entire week for his first potions class. Even the professor's reputation didn't deter him from trying to impress the man. He had a natural talent for potions. Vee had said so and he didn't give compliments lightly. When the day finally arrived he barely ate enough in the rush to get to the classroom located in the dungeons. Caio whined, swearing in Portuguese as he dragged him along. 

Finally settled in the front row benches, they waited as the class slowly filled. 

The dungeon classroom was cool and shadowed, rows of stone tables gleaming faintly under the dim lanterns. Bottles lined the shelves along the walls, holding things that curled or glimmered in murky liquids. The air smelled faintly of dried herbs and something sharper—an acid tang. A few nervous Hufflepuffs fidgeted on the benches as the heavy door banged open.

Professor Snape swept in, all billowing black robes and cold disdain, and dropped a roll of parchment on the desk.

“Sit,” he said softly, a voice like silk dragged over steel. The room went silent.

Snape began the roll call, his eyes flicking over each face with faint disapproval.

“Abbott… Bones… Boot…..Cadwallader… …”

The names continued until:

“Potter.”

“Here, sir,” Harry replied calmly.

The black eyes lifted, studied him for a heartbeat too long, then moved on.

“Ribeiro.”

“Here,” Caio said lightly, rolling the ‘r’ as only a native of Rio could, voice carrying a touch of music even in this grim room.

Names done, Snape stepped forward, tone dropping into that slow, deliberate cadence: “You are here,” he said, “to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic.”

Harry listened, attentive, as though every word mattered.

Then Snape’s gaze snapped to him.

“Potter!”

Harry straightened instinctively.

“What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

A Hufflepuff in the back snorted, expecting the famous boy to falter.

Harry answered evenly, “The Draught of Living Death, sir. A sleeping potion of extraordinary power.”

The snort died. Several students blinked. Caio tilted his head, eyes glimmering.

“Sleeping death,” Caio murmured softly in Portuguese, “a kiss of silence in a bottle. How romantic.”

Snape’s face did not change. “Where, Potter, would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?”

“In the stomach of a goat, sir. It acts as an antidote to most poisons.”

More whispers rose. Caio leaned back, watching the room’s astonishment with the faintest grin.

“The difference,” Snape said silkily, “between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“They’re the same plant. Also called aconite, sir.”

Now even the Ravenclaws were staring. Harry sat composed, as though this was all perfectly ordinary. Caio, however, smirked faintly.

“Careful, amigo,” he murmured, low enough for only Harry to hear. “They’ll start calling you the Prince of Potions before the week is out.”

“Very well,” Snape said softly. “Let us try another.” He began to circle the classroom again, voice deceptively smooth. “What ingredients would you combine to make Doxycide?”

Harry listed them—Bundimun, Hellebore, Streelers, and more—without hesitation.

More whispers. Even the Hufflepuffs looked impressed now. One boy mouthed, How many books did he read?

Snape’s questions came faster. “Antidote for Firewhisky poisoning?”

“Charcoal infusion, with ground belladonna root.”

“Main use for silverweed?”  

“Calming draughts, sir.”

“The binding agent in Beautification Potion?” He answered again.

Snape’s questions came faster now—preparation methods for Shrinking Solution, the properties of powdered bicorn horn — until finally:

“Tell me, Potter, the exact counter-potion to Marlowe’s Misery Draught. Ingredients, order, and quantities.”

Harry froze. He knew the potion itself, but not the antidote.

“No answer?” Snape murmured, too softly for triumph to be open mockery — but the glint in his eye betrayed him.

Harry shook his head once.

“Pity,” Snape said, voice like cold iron. “I’d expected Ravenclaw’s newest star to shine a little brighter.”

Caio’s chair scraped as he turned, eyes flashing. “With respect, Professor,” he said smoothly, “he just answered a dozen questions most poets couldn’t rhyme, let alone us mortals brewing soup in cauldrons. Seems rather bright to me.”

A few Hufflepuffs snickered; a Ravenclaw girl bit her quill to hide a grin.

“Ten points from Ravenclaw,” Snape snapped, “for unnecessary commentary.”

Caio pressed a hand to his heart theatrically. “Ah, struck down for speaking truth. My sister Livia will hear of this injustice — she will compose sonnets of my suffering.”

“Enough,” Snape cut in sharply. “Open your books. Perhaps silent study will achieve what wit clearly cannot.”

Pages rustled. Caio muttered something soft and rapid in Portuguese, the words lilting, carrying the weight of a curse dressed as poetry.

Harry brewed his potion in silence, precise movements betraying none of his thoughts. He wasn’t angry… more puzzled. Why had Snape’s dislike felt so sharp, so personal, when this was their very first meeting?

The lilac smoke curled upward as Harry stirred. Caio, beside him, whispered as though narrating an epic tragedy:

“Thus begins the tale,” he said solemnly, “of the Boy Who Knew Too Much… and the Man Who Glowered Eternally.”

Harry almost smiled. Almost.

The dream bloomed that week into a long bridge of black marble hanging over empty space. Below it, faint lights moved like schools of fish deep in dark water, impossible to reach.

Harry strolled in, robes swishing faintly, as though he walked this bridge every day.

“Busy week,” he announced without preamble.

Vee stood at the far end, the shadows around him moving too subtly for comfort. “So I gathered,” he said smoothly.

Harry leaned against the railing, hair coming loose from its ribbon. “Snape hates me.”

It came out like he’d been waiting all week to say it.

“He absolutely hates me,” Harry repeated, pushing hair out of his eyes. “Keeps asking me questions like I’ve read a hundred books on potion theory already. Calls me inattentive when I don’t know the answers. And the glaring. Merlin, the glaring.”

Vee’s hands folded behind his back.

Severus, he thought with thin contempt. Small-minded, bitter creature. Too proud of his own cruelty to see it impresses no one.

He imagined—vividly, almost idly—taking the man’s mind apart, splinter by splinter, until Severus Snape learned the limits of his sneering little temper.

Out loud, he only said, “Ignore him. You won't need his help soon enough.”

Harry smirked faintly, as though the idea pleased him. Then he remembered something or rather someone. 

“And then there’s Dumbledore,” Harry said darkly.

Something in Vee’s shoulders went very still.

“He keeps inviting me for tea,” Harry went on, scowling. “Keeps calling me my boy. Like I’m five. Or like we’re best friends. I don’t like it.”

The marble bridge groaned faintly underfoot though neither of them had moved.

Inside, his thoughts turned knife-edged and bright.

Tea invites. My boy. Patronizing old goat.

 How simple it would be to poison that tea. Or let him drink it while the cup itself turned to ash in his hand. He would not smile then.

Out loud, he said only, “Stay wary. He rarely does anything without reason.”

The next two weeks almost flew by him. He stayed true to his promise and read the poetry books in his free time which he had aplenty of these days. As a first year their classes were such that they had a lot of free periods; but with the basics and theory being taught in classes, something he knew by heart, his assignments were a breeze to go through.

 He was steadily going through his reading list as well with the entire Hogwarts library in his reach. He preferred the library to the common room because as Ravenclaws, his housemates were too curious about him. There were many that whispered and stared at him. He had thought he'd be prepared but it was still too much. 

So the library soon became his refuge. Hermione often sat with him completing her homework, she had confided that the Gryffindor common room was too rowdy. The twins dropped by when they weren't busy exploring the castle. They had taken it upon themselves to uncover the mysteries of Hogwarts. Or more like Caio had, and he had forced Livia to come with him.

And soon the next dream was upon him. He had been waiting. The dreamscape shifted again—now a wide library with no doors, shelves stretching into the dark.

“Classes are easy,” Harry said, plopping onto a chair that appeared behind him just in time. “Too easy. Hermione’s already jealous I keep getting things faster than she does.”

Vee glanced at him sidelong. “She doesn’t seem the type to take defeat gracefully.”

Harry snorted. “She tried to re-brew a potion three times just to beat me at it. Nearly exploded the cauldron.”

Voldemort almost smiled at that. Almost.

While Harry chattered, Voldemort noticed the tiredness in his frame. He hasn't been sleeping well if the dark circles were anything to go by.

Harry didn’t seem to notice his careful observation at all.

But he let it go, for now.

Harry rambled on about Caio teaching him Portuguese insults, Livia charming her quills to write themselves, older Ravenclaws showing secret tower rooms where telescopes tracked the stars.

“Someone left a book on curses just lying around,” Harry said cheerfully. “Hermione nearly fainted when I read half of it aloud.”

Voldemort’s interest sharpened faintly at that, though his face gave nothing away.

Through it all, Voldemort kept his calm expression, but his thoughts slid darker with each mention of Snape’s sneers or Dumbledore’s infuriating my boy.

I would string them up by their own shadows if I could. Let Severus choke on his potions fumes, let Dumbledore smile through broken teeth. Neither of them will lay a hand on him. Neither will twist his life into their little game pieces.

The dream did not tremble under those thoughts, but the shadows nearest him thinned like mist in wind.

Harry finally yawned, stretching like a cat.

“Long week,” he muttered.

Voldemort watched him grow hazy around the edges as the dream began to break apart again.

“Yes,” he said softly, almost to himself. “And longer yet to come.”

Chapter Text

21 october 1991

The morning the pain first struck was the color of rain. Grey light pressed into the Defense classroom through high windows, all of it stubbornly refusing to warm the stone. Candles sniffed and sputtered in their brackets as though offended by the damp. Quirrell stood at the front, the turban crowning his head with a strangely regal air in spite of his tremor; his voice stuttered, splitting words into timid fragments that skittered across the desks and died there.

It had been a shock at first and he had been disappointed because defense was his favorite subject of course only after potions. But then he had resigned himself to self-studying the class when the lectures hadn't improved and if possible the stuttering had worsened over the weeks. 

He kept his quill poised over his notes because posture helped him concentrate; it kept his mind from wandering and his developing headache from worsening due to the overbearing garlic smell.

“D‑d‑defense,” Quirrell said, “is a m‑matter of m‑mind as much as m‑magic…”

Harry half listened. The other half watched the way the candle light flickered on the blackboard.

A heartbeat later, unexpected pain split his skull.

Not a headache, not the dull nagging ache that he often felt in his defense lessons from the olfactory assault. It was sharp as breaking glass, white as lightning, and it burned exactly along the line of his scar as if something had pressed a hot poker there and left it. 

He sucked in a breath and caught the edge of his desk, knuckles whitening. The world narrowed to a cross‑section of details: the scratch of Caio’s quill slowing, the gasp Livia didn’t mean to let slip, Hermione’s head snapping up, precise as a hinge. He had enjoyed sharing defense class with all the houses but now he regretted it with all of his friends gazing at him worriedly. 

“Harry?” Caio whispered.

“I’m fine,” Harry lied. It came out thin. He pressed his palm to his scar and made himself look up.

Across the classroom, Quirrell’s eyes—those quick, bird‑bright eyes that never lingered—did linger. Just a second. Then they skittered away again, clattering over the room as if nothing had happened.

Livia leaned forward from the row behind, Slytherin tie set with a tiny silver serpent pin. “You don’t look fine,” she murmured.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered, but he managed a smile to reassure her anyway. The pain thinned, then slipped away entirely, leaving his skin clammy and his heart beating a fraction too fast. Hermione’s hand went up for the third time in a minute to correct some muddled point; Quirrell stammered gratitude and fled to the safety of the blackboard. Things resumed.

But something had changed. The rain sounded like fingers tapping at glass; his scar felt suddenly, intimately his. He wrote observe; record; compare at the top of his parchment—Vee’s three rules—and forced himself back into the lesson.

When class ended, Hermione blocked the aisle with the stubborn determination of a Gryffindor . “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. “Just a headache.”

She didn’t buy it. Her eyes went to his scar and away, like magnets brushing.

Caio tugged lightly on Harry’s sleeve. “If you fall over, I get to carry your books,” he offered, tone too bright to be anything but worry.

“And if you die,” Livia added, entirely deadpan, “I’m stealing your clothes.”

Harry huffed. “I’m not dying and you’re not stealing anything.” He re‑tied the half‑up bow in his hair as they walked, fingers steady by sheer force of will. “We’re going to be late to Charms.”

“Lateness,” Caiointoned, “is the very soul of tragic romance.”

“And of lost house points,” Hermione said, but the corner of her mouth twitched.

They ran.

 With Caio at his left shoulder, Livia at his right, and Hermione somewhere between scolding and savaging essays, Harry learned the rhythm of the place: breakfast under a galaxy of floating lamps, classes where spells went awry with dignity, libraries that breathed around him, and nights spent curled on the Ravenclaw common room couches.

That didn't mean that there weren't any negatives—his reputation as the boy who lived made it nearly impossible to have privacy. He was thankful to his trio of friends who helped keep the masses at bay. They hadn't blinked an eye about his supposedly mythical status, after that revelation in the train. In fact the twins took sadistic entertainment every time someone approached him before shooing the student away.

Weeks passed and the fervor reduced but people still gossiped everytime he and his friends walked through the corridors. His sorting had garnered a lot of scorn from Gryffindor for some perceived slight and he remained wary of them even months later.

One thing that left him surprised were the comments that some older year girls and even his own female year mates made—about his hair, nail polish and even his boots!

He took it with a shy grace he didn’t know he possessed. Compliments had always been currency with the Dursleys—smiles were given and taken away like sugar. Here, they felt like weather too; rain one day, sunlight the next.

Hermione pretended not to notice, but she bought a tin of hair pins the following week and then, in the Gryffindor common room when she thought no one was watching, practiced braids on herself using a book propped in her lap..

The twins—Livia and Caio—spoke in poetry the way some people breathed. Harry learned to recognize Neruda by the way Caio’s face went tender, Lorca by Livia’s sharp little smile, Borges by the sudden labyrinth of thought he had to hack his way through to keep up. He didn’t quote back at them; that was a battle he wasn't yet prepared for and he much preferred listening. 

“Every day you play with the light of the universe,”Caio offered one afternoon as they sprawled across a window seat, rain and thunder outside in equal measure.

“Is he comparing homework to love again?” Hermione asked without looking up. She had started camping in Ravenclaw common room due to its quieter ambience. And Livia—well the twins liked to stick together. 

“Always,” Livia said smugly. “We’re Latin. We refuse an unromantic life.”

Harry laughed, and the sound painted the stone a warmer color.

They did homework, the four of them, and they didn’t. They slid from Charms to chatter and back. Hermione began checking out poetry anthologies with titles like Selected Romantics and Ballads of the Night, and when Livia caught her with Byron, she didn’t tease. She only nodded, solemn as a vow, and said, “Good. You should know the language of our arguments.”

Hermione’s ears went pink. “I like the footnotes.”

“Of course you do,” Caio murmured, and threw a cushion at her.

Halloween draped itself over the castle like a velvet coat. The Great Hall shone with floating pumpkins carved into grimaces and grins, their insides flickering, individually charmed by prefects under Professor Flitwick’s instruction. 

The tables were laden with a concerning amount of sugary treats. Harry ate until he felt warm all the way, completely disregarding Hermione’s impassioned lecture about cavity risk and gum health.

The announcement broke that warmth like a dropped plate.

Quirrell came sprinting through the doors, turban lopsided, face the color of paper. “T‑troll—in the dungeons—t‑troll!” He rolled the last word on his tongue as if tasting poison. “Thought you ought to know.” And then he fainted with theatrical precision, arms forming the neat outline of a fallen marionette.

Shouting fractured the hall. Professors rose; prefects corralled; students bleated like confused sheep. In the din and dash, they noticed Hermione had vanished.

“She went to the bathroom,” Caio said, already moving.

“Left corridor off the entrance hall,” Livia confirmed. “She hates crowds.”

“Someone tell a teacher,” Harry snapped, and when Livia peeled away to deliver the message with a Slytherin’s natural authority; he and Caio ran.

The corridors were suddenly too long. Their footfalls chased them, hollow and loud. The troll’s smell found them first—a sour, animal reek with a thread of rot. The club came next: a shadow sweeping the air with a dreadful sound. Then the troll itself, massive and badly made, as if a child had fashioned a giant out of damp clay and given up halfway.

Hermione stood frozen at the end of the corridor, eyes wide, hands empty.

Harry’s mind did what Vee had taught it to do: cut the world into parts; name them; move.

“Obscuro,” he said, wand steady. The magic took on the first try—he’d practiced it for months in dreams—and a blindfold snapped into existence around the troll’s thick head. It bellowed, swinging wildly.

“Impedimenta,” Caio shouted, and though the spell dragged like a net through mud, it hit. But the troll barely stumbled. The club fell like a cut tree and splintered a sink.

“Left,” Harry snapped, already moving, and Caio slid with him, feet light as a dancer’s in spite of terror. “Hermione, down!”

Hermione obeyed, more from shock than trust; she dove behind an aclove as the club skated past like a comet.

“Petrificus Totalus!” Harry’s voice cracked; the spell didn’t. The troll’s arms jerked, not frozen entirely but restrained enough that the next blow whiffed air instead of bone. Stone dust filled his mouth. The air felt shredded.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” Caio cried out with all the righteous fury of first‑term Charms. The broken club leapt, hung, swung; the troll took its own weapon to the temple and sat down with a room‑tilting thud that shivered the tiles.

Silence poured in, thick and astonished.

Hermione crawled out from behind the wreckage, trembling and very proud of pretending not to tremble. “That,” she said, voice shaking only a little, “was… terrifying.”

“High praise,” Caio panted, and then started laughing like someone who had looked over a cliff and decided he adored the view. Harry laughed too, because the alternative was to cry.

Teachers arrived breathless, ten seconds too late to look heroic. McGonagall’s mouth was a sharp line; Flitwick’s hair looked electrocuted. Quirrell, pale behind the pack, smiled weakly and clutched at his turban as if it might save him.

McGonagall docked points and gave them back with interest within the same breath. Hermione took the scolding on herself with a Gryffindor’s pride, which earned her both Flitwick’s shining approval and Snape’s cold, bored glance as if saving a classmate from a troll were the most ordinary thing in the world.

They walked back to their tables smelling of dust and victory. A piece of pumpkin pasty tasted like the best thing Harry had eaten in months, and when Caio leaned over to whisper poems about bravery and fear and ridiculous hearts, Hermione elbowed him so hard he almost dropped his goblet.

Livia met them at the door and lifted a brow. “Collecting monsters now?”

“Only the ugly ones,” Caio said with dangerous sweetness.

“That means you’re safe,” Harry added, and Livia rolled her eyes as if facing down a troll in one's first year wasn’t worth all this noise, but her mouth softened and she let her hand brush Harry’s sleeve in a rare, unguarded way. “Good,” she said, and didn’t need to say more.

After Halloween the rain cleared. Cold settled in, clear and honest; the air tasted like tin. Harry fell bone‑deep into school: the strange quiet of early Ravenclaw mornings, the gleam of new ink, the pleasure of solving something just because it could be solved. Things came easily. Too easily, sometimes. Flitwick began giving him extra exercises; McGonagall’s mouth twitched when he transfigured a cup flawlessly on the first attempt and then blushed at his own triumph.

Hermione eyed him over essays like a cat appraising a rival. Her jealousy wasn’t ugly; it was hungry. She simply refused to be anything but exceptional. She began to read faster, write harder, pin her hair up with ruthless little clips to keep it out of the way while she took notes on theory no one else in their year had dared to touch. When she brought up Byron one evening with a scholar’s relish and a teenager’s awe, Caio nearly applauded.

“I hate to admit it,” she said later with an embarrassed kind of brightness, “but the twins’ nonsense helps. Poetry makes everything… stickier.” She made a face as if surprised to have said something so unscientific. “Don’t tell them that.”

“I would never,” Harry said solemnly. She threw a cushion at his head so precisely he wondered if she’d been practicing.

The pain in his scar came and went like weather fronts. Most days it slept. Some days it bit down for a heartbeat and then vanished. Harry kept a private calendar of these moments in the back of his Charms notebook—tiny slashes of ink only he could read. He asked no one. He told no one. The dreams didn’t come; Vee remained a silence in his mind like a room left tidy and locked. Harry missed him without words.

He had never thought missing could be a kind of belonging.

“....Absence is a house so vast.….” He murmured the words that he'd once read over Caio's shoulder—they had never rang truer.

December painted Hogwarts in frost and memory,the halls gleaming with forgotten warmth. Snow webbed the windows; the lake became a shard of sky. Students shook their scarves out of their trunks as they waited for the Christmas hols’.The castle emptied a little at the edges as trunks thumped down staircases. Harry stayed.

He said he liked the quiet. It was true. He liked the extra reading time without crowds disturbing him. He liked the shape the Hogwart's magic took, and how the library’s cold grew more elegant when only a dozen students huddled at the far tables. He liked waking and knowing he could own entire corridors for an hour if he walked them right.

Livia kissed his cheek before left, very quick, as if she were embarrassed to be seen soft. Caio hugged him like someone who had been born hugging and didn’t know how to stop.

“Read something beautiful,” Caio instructed, thrusting a slim book into Harry’s hands. “Or I will haunt you until the end of first year.”

“Gift me gossip when we return,” Livia ordered. “If anyone humiliates themselves, memorize it for me.”

Hermione, awkward and ferocious, sniffed like she had a cold that existed only to prevent tears. “Write if you need anything,” she said, then shoved a package into his hands as if burying a body. “ Just—open it when I’m gone.”

“I will,” Harry promised. He watched them go and then stood in the echo of it, ribbon slipping, snow nosing under the doors like a cat wanting to be let in.

The package turned out to be a set of ridiculously fine self‑inking quills and a bottle of midnight‑black ink so smooth it looked illegal. The accompanying note was two words and a scold: Practice penmanship. He wrote thank you with loops neat enough to earn her approval and tucked it away with a smile he couldn’t stop.

And then on Christmas morning, along with the twin's gift; he found a cloak. No note. No explanation beyond a card with a hand he didn’t know—Use it well. Your father left this for you. 

He let it spill over his arms. It poured like water, humming with a magic that reminded him of stars and ash. And that helped dissipate the wariness about an unknown sender because anything of hers would never harm him, something he knew without being told. 

He threw it around his shoulders and became invisible. Where he stood, the air collapsed neatly into nothing. His father had owned this before him but that couldn't be it. There was something he was missing. He added it to his mental “To research later” list. 

He waited until midnight and then left Ravenclaw Tower with the caution of a thief and the heartbeat of a boy who had spent too much of his life hiding and suddenly found he could hide without shame. He didn’t know where he was going, not exactly. 

Peeves nearly found him near the Charms corridor; Filch's cat almost smelled him by the tapestry of the dancing trolls.He discovered that fear and exhilaration tasted identical until you decided what they were.

He turned down the third‑floor corridor you were never to turn down.

The door at the end looked like any other, which is the most dangerous disguise a suspect door can wear. He pressed the latch very gently and learned what sound three throats make when they are asleep and roused awake.

The creature inside was too big for the room. His paws were as wide as dinner plates, his nails black and jagged. The three heads looked like enormous brothers who had been arguing for years. A paw twitched; a head blew out breath; the stink of dog and sweat swelled and ebbed like a tide. There was a hatch in the floor beneath those paws; there was something under there that Dumbledore had decided needed guarding with teeth.

Harry’s fear was precise. He took two steps back very carefully, pulled the door without a click, and slipped away before breaking into a run. 

He hid in a niche until Filch and Mrs. Norris slunk past. He watched the caretaker’s shadow move away and felt, for the first time since he’d arrived, a thread of anger. Children’s corridors guarded by beasts; secrets squirreled away under floors; his scar that flared at random. Vee would have laughed and set the world on fire to keep him warm. Vee would have told him which questions to ask and how to break the answers open.

The cloak sighed around his shoulders and didn’t tell him anything.

He slept badly. And deep within his soul the dark snarled at being kept away.

He found the mirror two nights later because curiosity is a vice that Harry embraced all too willingly. 

It was buried in a disused classroom where dust gathered meticulously and the gleaming mirror looked out of place as if it had been placed there recently.Words arched across the top—he read them and they meant nothing:

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

He stood in front of it without believing anything would happen.

When suddenly his image in the mirror blurred and something—someone—else bloomed on the mirror's surface. The person in the glass was not a stranger. He was Harry widened into future tense: taller, hair longer, eyes not brighter but steadier, as if they had learned how to see what hurt and still stare it down. His hair fell in dark waves, the red deeper with an eccentric ivory-blue strand that stood out yet it didn't look out of place. Rings glittered at his fingers; a ribbon was tied at his wrist the way one ties a vow.

There were blurry figures standing behind him but his gaze snagged at a familiar face. Vee stood beside him. 

Not as he had appeared in dreams—half light, half shadow—but as a man properly bound to gravity and light. His mouth wore that not‑smile he had never needed to practice. He looked exactly the way he had always looked in Harry’s head and something else besides—gentler where the light hit, perhaps, or more dangerous where it didn’t.

Harry lifted his hand. Glass met skin; skin met memory. Vee did not move.

He stood there so long the cold walked through his shoes. When he finally left, he was shaking because he hadn’t known there was a shape for wanting like this—wanting what? Not family. Not forgiveness. Not even a boy’s cartoon of power. He wanted the rightness the mirror made him feel: the him he might become, the hand that did not quite touch his shoulder, the steadiness like a last stanza written with care.

Dumbledore found him the second night as if he had orchestrated the meeting. Maybe he had. 

The Headmaster’s beard was a quiet avalanche; his eyes did the smile other people’s mouths did. “The Mirror of Erised,” he said, as if someone had just asked him its name. “It shows us nothing more and nothing less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts.”

Harry lied without thinking. “I saw—my parents.” 

“Ah,” Dumbledore said. He looked at the mirror like an apology and took Harry by the elbow with a practiced, gentle warmth that Harry allowed because the alternative was to flinch. “It doesn’t do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

Harry wanted to ask whose dreams, whose life. He let the questions sit on his tongue like stones and swallowed them. “Yes, sir,” he said. He told the truth about nothing else.

The others came back after the holiday like migrating birds, trailed by new scarves and new stories and the smell of holiday treats. They found him at a corner table under a window in the library and descended on him as if he had been left in the snow.

“Gossip,” Livia demanded, depositing a paper bag of honeyed almonds in his lap like an apology. “All of it.”

“Scandal,” Caio added. “Preferably involving professors.”

Hermione shed snow from her cloak as dignified as a lioness and immediately started unpacking books. “We missed you,” she said without ceremony, which is to say she meant it very much.

Harry told them.

He kept his voice low and his sentences spare; it just made the whispers more grave. The forbidden corridor. The three‑headed dog. The hatch in the floor. The emptiness of the castle that had made his heart beat like a drum he didn’t know how to quiet. The mirror. He didn’t tell them what he saw. He said not important, and they let the lie live because they understood that sometimes friendship wasn’t questions; it was a hand on the back.

“We should tell a teacher,” Hermione said because of course she did.

“We should mind our necks,” Livia countered, because of course she did.

Caio leaned back, eyes on the ceiling, fake‑counting the cracks. “I propose a compromise: we keep our necks, and we file the information. If a catastrophe arises, we’ll be very well prepared not to die.”

“It’s a terrible plan,” Hermione sniffed.

“It’s our plan,” Harry said.

The weeks that followed were editions of the same book written in different inks. Classes, routines, experiments, gossip. Quirrell’s classes remained timid and sour as milk left in the sun; Harry’s scar hurt almost every lesson and he added the marks to his private calendar. Snape’s mouth moved around his name occasionally like something he couldn’t quite swallow. Harry excelled without meaning to and, occasionally, with ferocious intent.

Hermione began side‑eyeing Arithmancy texts with the appetite of a hunter. Livia taught her how to tie a ribbon as a bribe. Caio wrote a poem about quills that managed to be both obscene and accurate.

He missed Vee in the margins. He didn’t speak the name aloud—he couldn’t; there was no one to whom it would have meant anything—but it lived in the italic script of his mind. He fell asleep most nights with poetry propped on his stomach and woke with ink on his fingers as if he had been writing in his sleep.

Spring pried winter’s fingers off the windows. The grounds softened; the lake resumed being a mirror for the sky. 

Harry did the work because the work was there and because doing it felt like building a place inside his own head where he could live. He liked the scratch of a problem that bit him back; he liked getting bitten and biting harder. Hermione pushed herself like a ship laboring into wind and arrived in the harbor of triumph more nights than not. Livia and Caio drifted in a halo of brilliant carelessness and then—infuriatingly —did everything proficiently when it mattered.

On a Tuesday in late May, Flitwick detained Harry after class under the pretense of asking about the finesse of his wandwork and the reality of telling him stories about his mother's excellence. “Charms,” Flitwick said, eyes bright, “are the art of when as much as what. Your mother understood it and I can see you've inherited her brilliance.”

On a Thursday, McGonagall returned an essay on transfiguration ethics with a pinched expression that turned, in the last line, into something suspiciously like pride. 'You think too dangerously for a child your age',she wrote. 'This is not a reprimand.'

On a Sunday, in the library, two second‑years—Ravenclaws—asked him, with all the seriousness of a knight requesting a boon, if he would teach them how to keep a ribbon from slipping without knotting it to hair. He did, and they listened like people who had just been taught a new kind of magic.

He was happy. Not all the time. But sometimes he looked up and realized he had been smiling without needing to.

Which is why the end did not feel like an ending until it reached up out of the floor and took him by the ankle.

May 26, 1992.

The first-year students had just finished their end of year exams. Thus, he and his friends had taken the free period to relax after weeks spent toiling in the library. Although Hermione had to be gently rebuffed a few times—not so gently by Livia—before she stopped comparing answers.

It had rained during dinner, leaving the air smelling of ozone and wet soil. After study hour, the common room shook itself awake and rattled with noise: chessmen shouting insults too colorful to be repeated, a fourth‑year reciting constellations like a poem, Caio holding court at a corner table. Harry slipped out for a walk.

He carried nothing but his wand and that odd, thin joy that comes with end of exams. The corridor he chose was one of the quiet ones. His boots found a rhythm; he matched it. The castle matched him back.

He thought about the mirror without meaning to, the shade of the ribbon around his wrist in the glass, the way Vee’s profile cut the dark and finally the strangers at his back. He thought about exam results and the way Caio’s handwriting became a dance when he didn’t think anyone was looking. He thought nothing at all for a moment, which was rare and precious.

Something moved behind him.

It wasn’t a footstep. It was the movement a shadow makes when it decides to stop pretending it belongs to anything but itself.

He half turned. He saw no one.

His scar gave one fierce, intimate tug—the way a knot pulls tight when you should have cut it instead.

“Hello?” he said, because he was still young enough to think that asking the dark its name might teach him something useful.

The spell hit him between the shoulder blades with the weightless, merciless inevitability of falling asleep.

There wasn’t time to raise his wand; there wasn’t time to choose which way to fall. The corridor tilted with terrible dignity; the torches flared once; the last thing he knew was the taste of iron and the sound of his own breath leaving him in a whoosh.

He crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut by something unseen.

The castle breathed. The rain ticked. And the boy in the ribbon did not move.

.

.

.

..

...

....

Harry woke to the sound of muttering.

For a moment, disoriented and aching, he thought it was Peeves or Filch again, that he’d been caught wandering the halls at night. Then the cold stone beneath his back reminded him this wasn’t the castle corridor. His hands were tied, wrists raw where rope bit into his skin. The air smelled of dust and old magic, thick and heavy, clinging to the back of his throat.

Across the room stood Quirrell.

He wasn’t stammering now. The nervous professor with the trembling voice was gone, replaced by something sharp and calculating as he spoke in low tones to a tall mirror that reflected both nothing and everything.

The Mirror of Erised.

Harry froze. He’d seen it before over Christmas, when the castle was empty and echoing with silence. He remembered what it had shown him—

Harry pulled hard against the ropes, trying to stay quiet. His wand lay on the floor near the mirror, out of reach. Panic surged, quick and hot. He had no idea where he was or why.

Think. Think, Harry. Magic—

Vee’s voice rose in memory, sharp and impatient from their dream lessons: “Stop wasting power. Magic obeys will, not panic.”

Harry clenched his jaw, focused, and whispered under his breath. The ropes burst apart in a rush of flame—rough, uncontrolled magic that singed his wrists and made him bite back a hiss of pain. His hands were red and blistering but free. He lurched toward his wand.

Too late.

“He’s loose,” came a voice like ice splintering. Not Quirrell’s. The sound seemed to crawl under Harry’s skin. Somehow familiar yet unknown. 

Quirrell stiffened. “Yes, my Lord.” wait– Lord… Voldemort? –Vee… no not his Vee–

He turned sharply. His eyes, once watery and uncertain, were hard as iron now. “Potter,” he said softly, almost kindly. “Come here.”

Harry snatched up his wand, breath ragged. Discarding his train of thought for now. 

“Oh, don’t be foolish, boy,” the other voice hissed—coming from Quirrell, but not his. “You’ll die quicker that way.”

And then Quirrell moved.

The duel was short, vicious. Harry knew spells Vee had taught him in dreams, quick and cutting, far beyond first-year lessons. But burns and a half-tied wrist slowed him. Quirrell’s magic slammed into him like iron bars, disarming him, ropes snapping back around his arms and chest, forcing him upright before the mirror.

“Look into it,” Quirrell commanded.

Harry glared but the ropes bit deep. The surface shimmered, and suddenly—he saw himself slipping something into his pocket. A red stone gleamed faintly in the mirror-world. His own reflection smirked and winked.

The weight in his real pocket shifted.

Harry didn’t think. He just willed it—willed it into the ring Selene had given him, the one with the hidden space no one knew about. He felt the faint pulse of magic as it obeyed.

Behind him, the voice came again, sharp and cold. “What do you see, boy?”

Harry set his jaw. “Nothing.”

“Lies.”

Then Quirrell lunged. Hands clamped on Harry’s neck, burning with magic not his own—

—and the screaming started.

It wasn’t Harry. Or maybe it was. But it was also Quirrell. The professor staggered back as if scalded, skin blistering where he’d touched him. The ropes fell away. Harry stumbled forward, confused, watching as Quirrell shrieked and clawed at his own face.

“Kill him, you fool!” the voice shrieked from the back of Quirrell’s head.

Quirrell lunged again. Harry threw up his arms instinctively—

—and the world went white.

Flames roared, not from wand or will, but from him. Wherever Quirrell touched, his skin blackened, cracked, turned to ash.Quirrell collapsed, screaming until the sound gurgled and died.

Harry swayed, heart pounding. Voldemort’s voice ripped from the ruin, furious, inhuman: “I will return, boy. This is nothing. NOTHING!”

Then it was gone, fleeing like smoke before wind.

Harry crumpled beside the ashes. His hands burned, head ringing, the Stone safe in his ring as darkness claimed him.

He woke in white sheets. He was quickly tiring of waking up in unknown places. But at least this time he wasn't tied. The infirmary ceiling swam overhead. 

His hands throbbed. His arms burned. Bandages wrapped almost every inch of exposed skin from fingers to neck. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes where Quirrell’s spell had slammed him into the stone floor.

But what haunted him most wasn’t pain.

It was that face.

Or rather, the lack of one—Voldemort’s ghastly mockery whispering from the back of Quirrell’s head, high pitched like a snake's. The voice that had sneered at him as if Harry were nothing. The presence that had mocked his mother’s death.

Harry swallowed, hard. His throat felt raw, like he’d been screaming.

The curtain around his bed rustled.

“Awake, my boy?”

Harry nearly groaned.

Of course. Dumbledore.

The old man sat beside his bed, a tray of tea steaming between them like this was some cozy chat instead of the aftermath of murder.

“I heard you had quite an adventure,” Dumbledore said softly, eyes twinkling far too much for Harry’s liking.

Harry grit his teeth. My boy. He hated when Dumbledore said that. It sounded like ownership. Like the headmaster thought Harry belonged to him.

“Professor,” Harry muttered instead, because even bandaged and exhausted, some rules still stuck. A tinge of irritation suffused hìm

Dumbledore sighed, his eyes darkening slightly and folded his hands, asking what happened in the third-floor corridor.

Harry lied.

He said nothing about the ring on his finger with its secret compartment. Nothing about the Stone nestled inside, heavy as guilt. Nothing about dreams or Vee or the way Voldemort had screamed when Harry’s hands burned him to ash.

Dumbledore studied him far too long, but finally let it go with a nod that made Harry want to throw the tea in his face.

When the headmaster left, Harry slumped back against the pillows, exhaustion dragging him under. The anger and irritation that had been overwhelming him dimmed with the man's exit. 

Night fell. Moonlight pooled across the floor. Bandaged and aching, Harry closed his eyes and wished—hard—for the dreams that hadn’t come in months.

The dreamscape slammed into him like the winter wind.

Darkness. Jagged, restless, alive with anger.

Vee stood waiting, tall and cold-eyed, fury radiating like heat. “You thought it amusing,” he said softly, “to vanish for months?”

Harry froze. His throat closed. Then all at once everything cracked—the fight, the fire, the bandages, the loneliness—and he was running, stumbling, words breaking out in gasps.

“I missed you—I didn’t—couldn’t—why didn’t you come—”

Voldemort caught him by instinct alone. The boy clung hard, shaking, breath hitching until it turned to sobs.

For a long moment he just stood there, startled—anger doused and replaced with a strange tightening in his chest—arms full of a trembling child. He had no practice at this—comfort, softness—but the boy wouldn’t let go. So slowly, awkwardly, he sat, pulling Harry into his lap, hand finding the boy’s back in a stiff, uncertain rhythm.

“Breathe,” he murmured finally. “You’re safe. Hush now.”

The dream shifted. Darkness melted to grass, to soft wind, to a lake shining under moonlight. Harry shook and hiccuped and finally sagged against him, words tripping over themselves—Quirrell, the mirror, the Stone, the screaming, the ashes—too much to untangle.

“Enough,” Vee said at last. “Show me.”

His hand touched Harry’s temple. Legilimency cut through the chaos, clean and sharp. He saw everything.

When it ended, silence coiled tight around him.

That thing—his other self—had dared to touch what was his. Had dared to hurt him.

His voice, when it came, was very soft. “Rest now, Harry."

Harry mumbled something, already sliding under, exhaustion claiming him.

He sat very still, the boy asleep in his arms, and wondered at the violence in his own heart. He wanted his other self dead—not for power, not for ambition, but because it had harmed this trembling, bandaged child.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, that truth took root like a blade driven deep: he was lost, already, and there was no coming back.

The next days blurred together. 

Madam Pomfrey changed bandages, tsked over burns that refused to heal overnight, muttered about cursed magic. Harry barely heard her. He felt completely distracted by the random burts of emotions. At first he had disregarded them as an aftereffect of magical exhaustion. 

But now with a much rested, clear head—he began cataloguing the intervals and matching them with the details he had. His Ravenclaw wit and curiosity worked overtime—while his body rested.

He couldn’t find the why but he did understand the what. The momentary emotional bursts that he felt almost like his own emotions mirrored those of the people around him, especially when expressed or felt strongly. 

In a normal scenario, this sudden magical ability would've a cause of celebration but being stuck in the hospital wing meant—he mostly felt the pain of others. It had gotten annoying bordering into painful territory.

As if that alone wasn't enough; students whispered outside the infirmary doors—too loud, as if the castle walls weren’t thick enough.

“—vanished, they say. Quirrell’s gone—”

“—third-floor corridor—”

“—You think Potter—?”

Harry kept his face turned to the window.

On the third evening, Selene came.

She didn’t knock. The air simply stilled, the lanternlight dimmed, and she was there—robes black as midnight silk, eyes silver-bright.

Her gaze swept the bandages, lingered on his trembling hands. Something like fury flickered in her expression before it smoothed away.

“You hid it well,” she murmured finally, eyes on the ring at his finger.

Harry didn’t answer.

She smiled faintly, though it never touched her eyes. “It will keep it safe. And hidden. No one, not even your headmaster, will find it without your will. It will remain there until the time that you've need of it again.”

For the first time since the fight, some tension eased from Harry’s shoulders. Even as her words left him confused. 

Selene reached out, brushed his hair back from his bandaged temple. “Rest, little star. Shadows watch over their own.”

Then she was gone, leaving nothing but the faint scent of night air behind her. By the week's end his stay in the infirmary concluded, not becauseMadam Pomfrey wanted to let him out but due to his own begging finally wearing her down. He was not going to miss it. 

The last days of term had settled into a curious calm. The mystery of Quirrell’s absence had vanished with Dumbledore’s brief announcement, leaving whispers of speculation and rumors that spread like wildfire through Hogwarts’ halls. Harry felt oddly hollow as he walked, bandages still fresh on his hands, arms, and neck, his scar tender whenever he exerted magic. 

Students stole glances at him, some with admiration, some with curiosity, but mostly they gave him space, unsure how to approach the boy who had faced the dark wizard and survived.

Livia and Caio were a constant comfort. The twins brought Harry contraband poetry books—rare collections of dark romanticism and gothic verse. Hermione hovered at the edges, glancing nervously at the twins’ choices but finding herself secretly enraptured. She had promised herself she’d read every book they mentioned, to understand the obscure allusions, and now she found herself scribbling notes in the margins of borrowed tomes. 

Harry, meanwhile, barely touched his textbooks, preferring to reread Selene’s letters, the soft scratch of her quill almost comforting against the chaos that had been his year.

Selene’s first letter arrived in the evening, carried on a swift, humming owl that seemed to glow faintly.Her handwriting was careful, precise, yet filled with warmth.

“Dear Harry, I am so sorry I cannot be with you these weeks! My apprenticeship under Master Tailor Enchanté is exhausting beyond belief, but I am learning so much! The fabrics here move as if alive, Harry, truly, and the spells required to keep them in shape for the Runway of Magi are… well, demanding. I wish I could see your progress with the braiding and your red highlights! Please write me whenever you can—I miss our walks through and your stories of poetry. Stay safe, and remember the charm in the envelope—it’s meant to remind you that someone is thinking of you.”

Harry clutched the letter against his chest, a bittersweet ache filling him. He had known Selene would be gone after taking her NEWTS at school, to take up her apprenticeship, but the reality of her absence now hit him with more intensity. He folded the letter carefully and placed it in his satchel, next to the hidden ring that cradled the Philosopher’s Stone. The touch of the cold metal against his palm reminded him of Selene’s clever foresight and ingenuity.

The last days at Hogwarts passed quietly. Exams had been finished weeks prior. Harry spent most of his time in the common room with Caio and Livia, watching students act ridiculous with classes ending for the semester. Hermione lingered quietly, exchanging hurried words about reading lists and books she was determined to master over the holidays. 

On the train ride home, they claimed a compartment for themselves. He settled in,dragging his trunk and satchel with meticulous care. The seat creaked under him, and outside, the countryside raced by in a blur of green and gold. The hum of the wheels on the rails was almost hypnotic, and Harry found his eyes slipping shut.

The dream came then, as always, without warning. The compartment shifted. The rails and countryside vanished. In their place, a meadow stretched endlessly beneath a sky painted in deep violet and gold, the grass swaying in a breeze that smelled faintly of lavender and rain. Vee was there, sitting cross-legged on the soft grass, eyes glowing faintly with an intensity Harry had learned to trust.

“Finally,” Vee murmured, voice sharp at first, then softening as he took in Harry’s slumped posture. “You thought you could sleep without seeing me, do you? Especially after the long absence this year.”

Harry’s chest tightened. “I… I tried, Vee. I didn’t—” His words stumbled, fragmented by the tension of his anxiety and relief.

Vee’s expression softened imperceptibly. He moved closer, kneeling beside Harry, the shadows at the edges of the dream curling like smoke. “I know,” he said, voice low. “But you’re not out of trouble yet. You can't spend the summer holidays in the Leaky Cauldron. Dumbledore would find you in a heartbeat and you'll be packed up and delivered to the Dursleys doorstep. Instead I've another place in mind, a place you must go—The Thistle & Thorn located in Horizont alley. Its keeper is… peculiar. You’ll find sanctuary, but it is not a home for the faint of heart.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “A boarding house? But… why not Diagon?”

“Because,” Vee said, “Dumbledore will drag you away the moment you set foot anywhere in Diagon Alley. He will know immediately as his influence seeped quite deeply and firmly there. Also, this summer is not meant to be ordinary. You must learn and be better prepared to face my insane counterpart becauseyou will face him again. And you need… privacy. Rules will be enforced there, but by someone who understands control in a way most cannot. Lucien—half-vampire, old world, polite, precise. You will respect him, but be wary. His interest is… inscrutable.”

Harry’s heartbeat thumped against his ribs. “And Selene? She’s gone.”

Vee’s eyes softened, almost imperceptibly, and Harry felt a flicker of warmth behind the usual edge. “She is occupied, yes. But she left protections and guidance for you in letters and trinkets. She trusts you to make choices. Remember this, Harry—every step is yours. Do not let absence weaken you.”

Harry’s hands curled into fists. “I… I’ll try, Vee. I want to—” His words were cut off as the dream shifted again, meadow dissolving into the blurred motion of the train.

He woke with a start, the compartment quiet except for the rhythmic clack of the rails and his friends quite muttering. Determination surged through him. He would reach Horizont Alley. He would find The Thistle & Thorn. And he would not be caught by the Dursleys, no matter what.

When the train screeched into the station, Harry moved fast. His friends tried to talk but he waved them off. They'll understand. 

 The station was already thronged with departing students. Harry’s trunk rolled silently behind him under the disillusionment spell as he slipped through the crowd, invisibility cloak draped tightly over his shoulders. Vernon’s grumbles and Petunia’s shrill commands were muffled in the distance. Using the cloak and his own cleverness, Harry navigated through familiar turns in Diagon alley after a long walk and finally found the hidden turn to Horizont Alley.

The alley was narrower than Diagon, almost too quiet. Cobblestones were slick with faint mist, lamp posts flickered in violet hues, and the air smelled faintly of old stone and candle smoke. Magical shops with unrecognizable signage lined the alley: a storefront with whispering tomes, another with glass phials that shifted colors with the passerby’s aura.

And then came the sign: The Thistle & Thorn, swinging gently in the breeze, carved in elegant script. The building loomed taller than the other structures, ivy crawling over its façade, windows flickering with a strange golden light. 

The door groaned when Harry pushed it open.

Inside, shadows stretched along polished wood floors, curling like fingers. 

The scent of old wood and faint frankincense enveloped him. Stairs creaked overhead. Portraits on the walls whispered among themselves, but their eyes followed him. Every detail screamed life, and yet… unease.

A voice, smooth and rich, broke the silence. “Ah. You must be the new arrival.” Harry froze, looking up at a tall, pale man, dressed in dark velvet. His hair was black, silver threaded at the temples, eyes sharp and unsettling. He inclined his head slightly. “Lucien Blackthorne. Welcome to The Thistle & Thorn.”

Harry’s voice caught. “I—I’m Harry.”

Lucien smiled faintly, a curve that was elegant but gave nothing away. “Harry. Very good. Your trunk, if you please. I trust you’ve had instructions.” His gaze was piercing, polite but unnervingly accurate, as if he could see through Harry’s every thought.

The boarding house was something straight from a horror novel: haunted, gothic, alive. Chandeliers swayed slightly though no wind touched them. A hearth burned in every room, casting dancing shadows. Staircases groaned and shifted as if nudging Harry in the right direction. The soft murmur of voices carried down corridors, though Harry could see no one moving.

Lucien led him to a room on the second floor. A thick velvet curtain draped over a high window, casting shadows across a four-poster bed.

“Make yourself comfortable, Harry,” Lucien said, voice even. “Rules are simple: respect the house, respect its residents, and you will find it… accommodating. Break them, and the house has its ways of ensuring compliance.”

Harry nodded, swallowing hard as Mr. Lucien left him in his room. He set his trunk down and opened Selene’s latest letter again. It smelled faintly of lavender and ink, and he traced her words with trembling fingers.The night settled around him. For the first time in weeks, he felt a kind of quiet anticipation, a thrill mingled with unease. The Thistle & Thorn was strange and haunted, yet it was a place he had chosen, a place he could claim. 

And perhaps, in some way, it was the first step toward finding himself, without the Dursleys, without Hogwarts’ constant expectations, but with the faint, invisible guidance of Vee still whispering just beyond reach.

Harry closed his eyes, letting the quiet hum of the house envelop him. 

Somewhere in the shadows, the flickering light of the candelabra seemed to pulse with life. Somewhere else, beyond the limits of dream and reality, Voldemort watched, satisfied for now, waiting for the boy to rest, to recover, to grow. 

Chapter Text

July 3, 1992

He dreamed the lake before he saw it. A whisper of cool air, the hush of water brushing stone—his mind filling in the rest like muscle memory. When the world finally settled into shape, the bench was there, and so was the book they’d left open the last time. Nearly a year ago. Only the pages were blank now, waiting.

When the dreams hadn't come for a week after the one on the train ride, he had started panicking even though he knew full well that their dreams had never been a daily occurrence but the absence of a year had been more profound than he'd given it credit for. 

You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. As said by many and something that Caio would've quoted at him if he knew. 

Dusk clung to the lake like a second skin. Light bled slowly from silver to indigo, and the far shore vanished into mist. Harry breathed in, just as he heard the first footsteps behind him, Vee was here. He didn't turn around because he was half sure that he would burst into tears and he didn't want to take that chance—not after that dream in the hospital wing. Merely thinking about it made flush creep up his neck and color his ears. 

“ I assume that you've safely settled into your lodging at Thistle & Thorn. “ Vee said, voice silken smooth and assured as ever.

Vee’s faith in him still felt strange—warm, heavy. He’d told Harry to run the moment he reached King’s Cross, to find the inn tucked behind Horizont Alley. Remembering it now made him straighten unconsciously, proud that he’d actually done it. He couldn’t help but preen a little. But still he kept his gaze averted. 

Vee sighed from where he stood behind me before suddenly he felt long fingers gripping his chin tight, turning his face. His face felt strangely hot, heat spreading from where Vee touched him.

“Harry, look at me…” He immediately jerked up meeting amused red eyes.He couldn't not do so when it was said in that particular tone. Still keeping his hold tight, Vee finally sat beside him. His neck hurt from where it was titled up uncomfortably, he squirmed trying to shake Vee's hold but if anything it only tightened up, tilting his head higher so that he could do nothing but meet his eyes.

Vee remained silent, his gaze fixed on his face, as if searching his face for some sign. He must've found what he wanted because his hands withdrew. His face felt lighter, but not quite right— like when you drop something you didn’t mean to. He found himself leaning forward, barely—a breath too slow to stop it.

Vee had seen it and there was this unreadable look in his eyes, his smirk faltering—he wished he could use his new empathic ability right now.

He cleared his throat, “ It's eerie. The place that is. Mr. Lucien is really a vampire..?”

Vee had shaken off whatever came over him but now there was amusement visible in the wry smirk on his face—he'd learned to read Vee by the various smirks he gave; never smile though. Clearly his attempt at changing the subject wasn't subtle enough. “Dhampir. Not a vampire. He is half-human.”

Now that's interesting, he hadn’t known there could be half-vampires. But first there was something else he wanted to know more. ”How did you know Mr. Lucien or this place? ”

Vee hummed but didn't answer. His gaze went slightly distant. The air around them cooled. “ Vee…?” He whispered.

“Lucien was my year mate at Hogwarts. He was one of the two students with creature blood at Hogwarts during that time. You might know the other one—”

He didn't have to think long before a certain half-giant's face flashed in his mind. “Hagrid! It was Hagrid, right? But he was expelled.” 

“Yes. Lucien graduated with me. He is a close associate of long standing. One of my more reliable ones.”

Vee’s tone had shifted — softer now, but edged with something old, like the echo of a story not often told.

“Lucien was brilliant,” he said at last, eyes half-lidded. “Too clever for most to stomach. They didn’t like that he never bowed, even when they expected him to.”

Vee’s lips curved faintly, a shadow of wry amusement.

“Humility, of course, was never his strength. You’d think being allowed at Hogwarts at all — with his blood — might have made him… grateful.”

He paused, eyes drifting to the fire.

“It didn’t. He never learned to be small, even when the world insisted he should. Most would have crumbled. Lucien… he simply refused.”

He hesitated, and the flicker of amusement returned — faint, tired. “He used to write essays that left professors speechless. Drove Dumbledore half-mad.”

That almost sounded fond, and it startled him.

“You sound like you liked him.”

Vee’s gaze slid to him again. “Liking is a strong word. Recognition, perhaps. He had… conviction.”

A pause.

“The kind that doesn’t waver, even when it should.”

He didn’t fully understand what that meant, but the tone in which Vee said it made the dream feel colder. The floating flames dipped low.

He almost asked what had happened— almost — but something in Vee’s expression warned him not to. The kind of silence that didn’t invite questions.

Instead, he said, quietly, “You trusted him.”

Vee gave a short, dry breath — not quite a laugh.

“Trust? No, I believe in his sense of self-preservation…” Vee’s voice was low, precise, carrying the weight of certainty. “…and his cunning. He knows when to act, when to wait, and, most importantly, when not to fail. That is enough.”

Harry swallowed, sensing the quiet authority in the words, the unshakable confidence that even Vee would not hazard judgment lightly. He should've known because Vee would never have allowed him to spend his summer here if he wasn't sure that Harry would be safe under Mr. Lucien's roof.

“…I do not need to trust him,” Vee continued, voice colder, more precise, “I need only to know he acts as expected. Everything else is irrelevant.”

A pause. The fire flickered. “…And he has never disappointed.”

The words lingered, carried by the hush that followed.

He waited, but Vee said nothing else.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. The fire crackled; the wind brushed the shutters.

And when he finally looked up again, Vee’s eyes had gone distant once more — fixed on some place far from here.

July 20, 1992

Harry batted away the vines trying to once again encircle his wrist. It had spooked him at the start, especially his first time when he'd been too dumbstruck by the towering tree in the middle of the inn—its branches spiraling towards the roof dancing to a silent tune, leaves vanishing as they fell on the wooden floor and the strong smell of leather and moss that eclipsed the sweet undertones—it was all magical in a way that Leaky Cauldron couldn't hope to be.

Duira's Grove was an inn in Horizont Alley that he'd been pointed at by Kia, a lady working for Mr. Lucien. Mistress Duira—as she was called by everyone—was a sweet lady who despite his obvious wild-eyed state the first time around, helped him settle at a table and served him the best pancakes he'd ever tasted. 

He had found in the following visits that Mistress Duira was indeed a Dryad—if the literal leaves in her hair and the bark-like texture of her skin wasn't a dead ringer. The massive oak tree in the centre of the inn was her hearttree.

It had been a revelation. He'd known he was living in a boarding house run by a literal dhampir—a half-vampire half-human being; he'd read about his second day—but knowing magical beings existed and meeting them one after another, was a whole new revelation. 

This led to his discovery that Horizont Alley was very different from Diagon Alley in the patrons that most frequented their streets. He'd chanced upon many other magical beings since his first few days, at least when he could leave his room that is. His new empathic ability acted up at random moments leaving him overwhelmed and dizzy in the aftermath of the emotional feedback loop. 

Today was a lucky day. He'd ordered some pancakes to try, topped with their specially made lavender honey. The waiter, Bram, someone he was quickly considering a friend, had recommended it. Bram worked part time at the Cafe, he attended a local wizarding school in Devon. And Harry hadn’t even known there were other wizarding schools in Britain. But it made sense and Hogwarts had a substantial tuition fee, not something anyone could afford—at ten he'd worried himself because he hadn’t known exactly how much money his parents left him but Vee, as always, had been his voice of wisdom. 

While enjoying his pancakes, Bram had left it while he'd been too busy observing a pair of goblins—outside of Gringotts! They'd left soon enough and he shifted his people watching to an arguing pair of men sitting in the corner. They looked rugged and wild with worn clothes. His eyes widened in recognition as he watched the brunette man's eyes flashing amber and his pointed canines as he snarled at the other male before immediately being pushed down in his chair by a vine.

The sight was absolutely funny but he didn’t think that a pair of werewolves would appreciate being laughed at by a puny child. And the slight tightening in his chest with the developing shivers were more than a warning enough that he should get back—his empathy was about to go supernova on him again.

Finished with his meal, he left the money on the table and speedwalked out of the inn. The boarding house wasn't far off from here. But his next step faltered as his legs locked, his chest tightening uncomfortably. Clearly, he wasn't fast enough or simply his bad luck was just that miserable. He'd been so close too.

Harry stumbled towards a corner in between two shops to compose himself—he didn’t want to make a scene. 

He started sweating uncomfortably with shivers wrecking him; generally he would be too overwhelmed by the entire crowd's emotions slamming into him but this time a single emotion overpowered every other. He couldn’t think which one would've been preferable, because this dominant feeling was one of utter fear, the likes of which he'd never picked up on before in the short time since his ability awakened. 

Before he could think better of it—he started following the pull of the emotions leading him into a part of the alley that he'd been warned opened into a branch of Knockturnn. 

Harry didn’t think he had a savior complex—did he? Because walking straight into a possible dangerous situation, putting his own life at risk for some unknown stranger seemed to fit the criteria. Ugh. Harry the Savior? Try Harry the Reckless Idiot. 

As he turned a corner he almost dropped straight to the ground as his already unsteady legs threatened to completely give up on him. An overwhelming smell of iron permeated the back alley he'd slipped into. Blood. Too much blood for the scent to be this strong and clearly not an accident that he'd been hoping for because the smell disappeared as he stumbled a few steps back—a masking ward.

Before he could compose himself, a pained voice cried out from further in the passage, followed by a man's gruff reprimand. The fear and pain echoing through his empathy doubled. He staggered ahead with his magic vibrating inside him, sparking at his fingertips.

He barely took note of the towering huge man before he finally looked upon the person responsible for tugging him here. It was a child. Not even old enough to be a first year. His mind blanked at the sight of the bloodied slumped girl laying at the feet of that man.

"It hurts–stop–stop. Pl–please."

"Uncle Vernon—I'm so‐sorry." 

His chest constricted. For one dizzying heartbeat, he wasn’t in that alley anymore. He was back under the cupboard stairs, the smell of stale sweat and iron in the air, the echo of fists against the door, the sharp sting that followed every word spoken too loudly.

He couldn’t breathe. The memory pressed down on his ribs like a weight.

He blinked hard, once, twice—the blood, the girl, the man. Reality slammed back in. His fingers trembled, he could feel the vile emotions of the man now–excitement, pleasure,cruel amusement—it somehow felt worse to experience like this.

Not again.

Not another child.

His magic burst out of him in a brilliant stream of green-gold light slamming the man against the far end of the back alley. Harry glanced at his slumped form to make sure he wouldn't be getting up again before rushing towards the girl. She had gone frighteningly silent. He didn’t want to think what that could mean.

She somehow looked even smaller when he finally came near enough to kneel by her side. His breath hitched and he felt bile rise up as he took his first look at her up close. She—

No. Absolutely not. He couldn’t think about it. 

With trembling hands he moved her over from her foetal position, eyes watering at the hand shaped bruises covering her shoulders and neck.

She didn't react. She didn't react.

Her chest wasn't moving. He brought his hands up to her nose hoping, begging to feel her breaths against his hand. He didn’t. There was no pulse when he at last touched her throat. It was now when he finally noticed that he couldn't feel her pain anymore. Couldn't feel anything from her.

No no no.

His body moved before his mind caught up — one second kneeling, the next crumpled on the ground, breath caught somewhere in his chest.

The sound faded out. His muscles went slack, and he folded in on himself, as if the air had been punched from his lungs.

He didn’t even realize he’d fallen until his hands met the cold stone, palms scraping the dirt.

Harry’s breath snagged in his throat. For a heartbeat, he thought she’d moved—just the smallest twitch of a hand—but it was only the wind, brushing through her tangled hair.

Too still.

Too quiet.

His stomach turned to stone.

He crawled forward on instinct, one shaking hand reaching before he could think better of it. But he stopped before it could touch her. With his last coherent thought, he shrugged his robe off carefully draping it over her—her corpse.

Something in him snapped. Not loudly—no scream, no curse—just a hollow sound in his chest, the quiet collapse of something that had already been cracked for years.

Too late.

He’d been too late.

The ground felt unreal beneath his fingers. Colors shifted. Sounds warped. The girl's still form, the man’s cruel gaze, the blood — it all spun together in a nauseating whirl.

His heart hammered against his ribs like it wanted out.

His hands shook uncontrollably, curling into fists, then letting go.

His vision narrowed, edges darkening. He remembered her fear, her pain; it resonated in his brain again and again that he felt it almost physically now, an imprint of her left behind that his empathy latched onto, not letting him forget her last moments. 

Late—Late—Late—Late—Late.

The words pounded in his skull. Memories of cupboard walls, of fists and insults, of helplessness long buried, slammed into him.

He was five again, small, trapped, screaming silently.

He clawed at the alley stones, trying to anchor himself. He hurt. 

A scream rose in his throat — choked, strangled, terrified — but no sound came. Only panic; the sickening, paralyzing weight of it. He scrubbed at his face not noticing until then that his cheeks were wet—he'd started crying. His magic buzzed around him, trying to help him but it was no use. He hadn’t been able to save her even when she'd called him towards her, her pain a chain that had beckoned him.

But she was dead. Dead

He heard rustling from behind him but his body wouldn't move and—

From the mouth of the alley, a figure stood motionless. He’d followed at a distance, unseen. His instincts had made him pay the Potter boy an unusual amount of oversight.

The kid had slipped out after noon again, thin shoulders tense, gaze darting like he expected someone to snatch him. Lucien had seen him go, very rarely as he left his rooms. He'd been outside waiting for his order, absolutely not trying to scout out the velvet-clad boy. The sun was a minor irritant, he should've gone back inside, but just then he had smelt that distinctive scent. 

Barely half an hour had passed and the boy was returning, it was much earlier than his routine. And then he veered off, stumbling after some unknown target. An unusual act, sure—but none of his concern.

Then he’d felt it. The boy's distressed magic and the faint cries from further away—the boy shouldn't have been able to hear them, not when his own vampire senses had barely caught the edge of it. Such incidents weren't uncommon but Harry Potter—Boy-who-lived stumbling upon such a scene, getting caught up in it, would bring unwelcome scrutiny from the Ministry of magic and the rest of the British wizarding world and that really wouldn't do the rest of them any favors. Especially so soon after the last auror raid.

Resigned, he'd followed and now he didn’t know whether to be vindicated about his instincts proving right again or dread what it meant…...

He had had speculations from the moment the boy had stepped foot at the doors of his haven—but now the magic practically sparking in the air, a visible cloud around the boy, helped settle any reservations he'd had about leaving the child to his own devices.

Lucien’s senses—his creature instincts—flared. The hair on his arms rose. He could taste the magic, coppery and sharp, mingled with the tang of blood in the air. Something familiar stirred beneath it, an echo he thought he’d buried long ago. He blinked, heart tightening. It was subtle. Almost imperceptible. But enough.

The magic had slammed that wretched excuse of wizard against the wall but he was getting back up now. The man hadn't seen him, more focused on the more vulnerable boy—prey.

Lucien didn’t think.

His wand came up, a flick of the wrist. A whisper of green light.

The man hit the wall and slid down boneless.

Silence bled in.

Lucien lowered his wand. His nostrils flared. The metallic tang of blood was everywhere, thick and sweet and cloying. He forced a breath through his teeth, reining in the instinct that rose like hunger. 

The girl was dead and he could think of a hundred vile uses of a dead body found in Knockturnn alley. Lucien didn’t care what became of the man—dead bodies were found every week or so and just as quickly salvaged—but the child he couldn’t leave. He banished her body, the blood smears vanishing with it, before the temptation could overwhelm him further. 

He folded his sleeves up and picked the boy who'd fallen unconscious in that time.

He felt the boy clutch his robes shifting his head slightly, murmuring something before completely going lax in his arms.

It didn't take long to reach his inn with his vampire speed helping along—his employees knew better than to question him, even as they stared wide eyed at his approach before pointedly looking away. Good.

He left the boy in his rented room, curled beneath the thin blanket, fragile and still trembling. Lucien paused at the doorway, scenting the faint tang of blood still clinging to the air, an instinctive pull that made the hairs on his arms rise. Half human, half predator, he felt both the restraint of civility and the stirrings of something far older and animalistic beneath it.

He didn’t linger. He walked down the narrow hall to his office, the faint click of polished boots on the floorboards echoing in the silence. 

It was time for something stronger than restraint. A glass of well-aged cognac would do—smoky, bitter, and warm, because right now he needed to be anything but sober. The alley, the blood, the magic—it all pressed against him, for a moment he paused, considering what he had seen, what he had sensed, and what it might mean.

He drained the cognac and set the glass down, letting the heat bloom in his chest. A faint smile touched his lips—not warmth, not reassurance, but a glimmer of something else, something darker. Day drinking—Safiya would've chided him for it or maybe considering the circumstances she might’ve let it pass this time. He wouldn't know for sure—all he had now of her were memories after all.

Ah, perhaps drinking hadn’t been wise. It made him melancholic, yes—but this time, he told himself, the alcohol was only an excuse. The memories being dredged up, the ache he felt, were stirred by something far weightier: Lucien finally had confirmation.

The boy slept on, unaware, as Lucien continued sipping his drink, thoughts whirling. He had work to do—and some truths to uncover that would not wait.