The corridor was empty.
No one dared enter the lower floors now — not with the runes awake.Not with the whispers returning.
But Harry walked alone.
He had to see if the mirror was still there — the one just outside the seal chamber.The one that had always moved with him.
It was.
But this time, when he stepped in front of it…
His reflection stayed still.
The Reflection Speaks
It stared back at him. Same hair. Same scar. Same eyes.
But colder.
Older.
Smiling.
"You've remembered enough," it said."Now it's time you face what you chose to forget."
Harry backed up.
The mirror rippled — like glass melting.
And then it pulled him in.
The Echo of Ardyn
He landed not with a crash, but a silence.
All around him: black stone. Stars above. Time unmoving.
A memory-space.
And across from him stood himself — thirteen years old.
Althar Ardyn.
The boy who sealed Kaelen.The boy who created the broken pact.The boy who ran.
"I'm what's left of you," Ardyn said."What you locked away to live Potter's life."
"And now that the seal's breaking—""I'm waking up."
A Truth That Burns
Harry demanded answers.Why the seal? Why the pact? Why the broken ring?
Ardyn lifted his wrist.
It bore the same mark — but whole. Solid. Silver and red.
"We made a deal with something we didn't understand.""To stop Evaran. To save Kaelen. To preserve Selene's gift."
"But it required memory. It required sacrifice."
"So I became the sacrifice."
He stepped closer.
"And you… you got to forget."
Final Scene – The Fracture Deepens
The mirrored space cracked.
Flashes of Hogwarts flickered — fire in the halls, Blaise standing before a broken pillar, Dumbledore with his wand drawn, the runes consuming the walls.
Ardyn turned one last time.
"This isn't about which side wins."
"It's about whether you survive remembering all of me."
The mirror shattered.
Harry screamed.
And woke — not in his bed.
But lying before the seal door.
The mark on his wrist?
Whole.