Deep in the recesses of the Chapter of Secrets, far from the echoing corridors of Hogwarts and the living world above, a seventeen-year-old Harry Potter stood alone before his work.
The skeleton that was once the Basilisk that Harry had slain all those years ago lay to the side, but Harry did not look at it. His attention was fixed entirely on the potion resting atop the rough-hewn altar he had fashioned from broken stone. The air around it felt wrong. Too still. Too attentive. Too bizarre.
Less than an hour had passed since he had defeated Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord Voldemort, but the victory felt distant, hollowed out by the steady pressure he was feeling. He could feel it in his bones – the time was running out.
The potion was pitch-black, darker than the shadows themselves. Its surface did not reflect the dim torchlight but absorbed it, twisting the light into writhing strands of mist. Shapes formed within the liquid, faces emerging only to dissolve moments later – some human, and some animal. There was no pattern to it, no sense of rhyme or reason to it.
Harry's throat tightened.
He had brewed the potion perfectly, and after all the effort he had put into stealing the recipe, he was not about to mess it up. And the ritual had been completed less than an hour ago, but he could feel the feedback from the ritual waning away.
It won't last long, he realized.
The time was nigh.
With that thought in mind, Harry picked the crystal goblet holding the potion up. A sudden icy chill slid down his fingers and into his arm. It did not stop at the skin. It seeped inward, threading through muscle and bone, coiling around something deeper. His grip faltered for just a moment as the cold brushed against his heartbeat, curious and intimate.
"Here goes," he muttered, the words sounding thin in the vast chamber.
He drank.
Harry barely heard it.
His eyes went wide, and a sudden numbness overcame his body. The goblet slipped from his hands and dropped onto the grime-ridden floor, the crystal shattering into millions of glittering fragments. The cold feeling reached deep inside him, spreading into areas he didn't even know existed.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it ended.
And Harry was left standing there alone.
Sequence 4 – Bizarro Sorcerer.
That's what he was now.
Taking a moment to rest and recuperate.
Harry's hand suddenly flung to the side, and he snapped his fingers. An air cannon shot out of his finger and slammed into the enchanted wall with the force of a cannon. The wall shattered, the thousand-year-old enchantments being ineffective against a demigod beyonder.
He could feel it inside him, a greater pool of magic than he'd ever had before. His spirituality was also much greater now that he had broken into the first of the divine sequences.
Harry took a deep breath as he examined the changes in him, and was pleased by what he found.
Now, there was one last thing to do.
Harry steeled himself before calling for his latest Marionette.
And out of the darkness of the Chamber of Secrets walked the Dark Lord who had terrorized the entire country for decades now, Voldemort. He was, of course, dead and had been turned into a marionette, with the horcruxes he created making it easier to make him one. No one knew that he was here, or that his body was still intact – mainly because he had used illusion magic infused with his spirituality to trick everyone into seeing Voldemort turn into dust.
Voldemort was a sequence 4 of the Criminal pathway, and no matter how much Harry hated him, he was not going to pass up on getting such a powerful marionette.
The ash grey body covered in loose dark robes walked towards him, its red eyes blank of any rage, hatred and madness that Harry usually saw when he looked at them.
One thing was clear, if Harry wanted to use this marionette anywhere out of here, it needed to change.
Harry raised his hand, and a single maggot escaped his flesh, writhing around in the boy's palm before he inserted the worm of spirit into the marionette. He could instantly feel his connection with it deepen, and an instinctive understanding dawn on him before even the words came into his mind.
He could now use his Seer pathway abilities through his marionettes.
With that thought, the marionette's body began to twist and turn, as if thousands of maggots were writhing under its skin. The body began to mould according to his will and change, and after several minutes of work, an entirely new person stood in front of him.
The marionette now had the appearance of a woman in her thirties, with fair, unblemished skin and a carefully sculpted, aristocratic face. Her features were symmetrical and refined, with high cheekbones, a slender nose, and full lips set in a faint, knowing smile that never reached her eyes. Long blonde hair cascaded in soft waves, glossy and unnaturally perfect, framing her face and falling past her shoulders. Her eyes were a vivid green, similar to Harry's, but lacked the expressive emotion that shone in his, they were just empty.
Harry had modelled her after several of the most beautiful women he'd ever made, Fleur and her family, Amelie – the French bird he'd danced with during the Yule Ball, and many of Fleur's distant relatives he'd talked to during her wedding. Maybe that was why this marionette had a distinct French Veela appearance, and despite lacking the allure, was just as beautiful – probably even more, considering it was a Demigod Beyonder.
"Amelie," Harry declared, "Amelie Valois, that will be your name from now on."
Being a marionette, Amelie couldn't really respond, so Harry controlled her to make her nod her head. "Yes sir," he said through her, her voice smooth and lilting, touched by a soft French cadence that made every word sound deliberate, intimate, and faintly unreal.
***
"Harry!"
Harry paused in his stride and turned around with a surprised expression on his face.
He had just left the Chamber of Secrets and was heading to the Great Hall to get something to eat – having heard that they had arranged food for people there after the Battle of Hogwarts – after having to use divination and his invisibility cloak to help sneak Amelie out of the castle – because she was of no use to him here, trapped in a dungeon.
"Where were you?" Hermione asked as she slowed to a stop next to him. "Everyone's been looking for you."
Harry shook his head, "Sorry about that, I just needed to clear my head."
He couldn't very well tell her about Beyonder's and the supernatural nature of the wider world now could he? She would be safer if she never knew.
There had been only three beyonders in the entirety of wizarding Britain.
Harry, who was of the Seer pathway.
Voldemort, who was of the Criminal Pathway.
And Snape, may his soul burn in hell for all eternity, hailed from the Sleepless pathway as its Sequence 7 - Nightmare. Well, he had been from that pathway till Harry killed him and took his Beyonder Characteristics for himself. He didn't know the abilities of the sleepless pathway, and call it paranoia if you want, but he sure as hell was not going to give Snape a chance to resurrect himself, should the pathway somehow allow for that.
Now, don't get him wrong, he had no plans on digesting them or anything – he knew what the consequences could be. But Beyonder Characteristics were valuable, and from the few Beyonder Gatherings he's attended, he knew that they could be sold for a high price.
"How does it feel?" Harry was snapped out of his thoughts by Hermione's question.
"Feel what?"
"To be free," The bushy haired girl smiled. "After all these years of constant danger, you are free of him. How does it feel?"
Harry smiled back at her, "Ask me in a few days."
Hermione tilted her head slightly as she searched his face - studying him the way she did when a problem refused to fit neatly into a book, like she expected to catch something slipping through the cracks.
"A few days," she echoed. "That doesn't sound like someone who's just won a war."
Harry let out a quiet breath through his nose. "I didn't say I hadn't won. Just that… it hasn't caught up to me yet."
They started walking again, their footsteps echoing softly through the door. The castle was quieter than he remembered it ever being, not silent, but subdued, like the war had taken its toll on it, too. And it had, the Hogwarts of right now lacked the feeling of home he'd always felt in his younger years. The one that made it the only place where he felt like he belonged.
Hermione clasped her hands behind her back. "You disappeared right after everything ended," she said, her voice carefully casual. "Ron and I were worried. Kingsley too, actually. He wanted to talk to you."
"I know," Harry replied. He kept his tone light. Neutral. He couldn't just say that he had a potion to brew and drink to get even stronger after all. "I just needed some time alone."
It wasn't even a lie.
Just not a complete truth.
"That's not like you."
He smiled faintly at that. "Maybe I'm trying something new."
Hermione huffed softly, though there was no real humour in it. "You always say that when you're lying to me."
Harry stopped walking.
She took two more steps before realizing he wasn't beside her anymore. She turned around to look at her, confusion flickering across her face.
He was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite place.
Not guarded.
Not cold.
Measured.
"When this is all over," Hermione said slowly, choosing her words with care, "you don't have to carry everything by yourself anymore. You know that, right?"
He nodded.
The motion came easily. Too easily.
The Clown powers made it easy to fake any emotion he wanted.
"I know."
But knowing and accepting were two very different things.
They resumed walking, the corridor now sloping gently upwards. Sunlight filtered through cracked windows, catching on floating dust motes that drifted lazily through the air. Hermione slowed her pace, instinctively matching his, as she always did.
"You don't look relieved," she said after a moment. "Not really."
"I am," Harry answered. And it was true. Somewhere inside him, the relief he should be feeling existed, clean and undeniable. "I just… think it'll take time for it to feel real."
Hermione glanced at him sidelong. "You sound like someone who's waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Harry almost laughed.
"I've spent most of my bloody life being controlled by this damned prophesy," he said. "Forgive me if I don't trust the sudden peace."
That earned him a small, sad smile. "Fair enough."
Hermione was quiet for a few steps after that, her gaze drifting ahead before settling back on him.
"There's… something else," she said eventually. "Rose."
Harry's steps did not falter, but all his thoughts paused for one unseen moment. Outside the castle, the handful of marionettes he had also stopped what they were doing. Any veneer of lightness he was feeling suddenly vanished, leaving behind only the darkness that existed when he thought about his older sister. A subtle tightening around his eyes was the only visible indicator of what he was feeling on the inside.
"What about her?" he asked, his voice a careful and controlled even.
"She's been asking about you," Hermione said, breaching the topic carefully. She knew what kind of trigger it was for Harry. "Not directly. But she notices when you're not around. I thought maybe now that everything's over, you might want to… try again."
Harry stopped.
"No," he said. The word was calm. But it had been said with such an absolute coldness that made Hermione shudder.
Hermione turned fully toward him, frowning. "Harry, she's your sister."
"I know exactly who she is."
"That's not fair," Hermione said, a hint of frustration slipping into her voice. "She lost her parents too. She grew up in a different country, with different ideas, different expectations. You can't just—"
Rose was a few years older than Harry, and he'd met her for the first time when he was in his third year, and she was in her sixth. Before that year, he hadn't even known that she existed, and after all the years with the Dursleys, he was pretty excited to have a sister.
But as is usual with his bloody luck, it didn't turn out to be his way.
Rose was apparently raised in America, where a branch of the Potter family still lived. When she'd come to Britain to attend Hogwarts, he was ecstatic that he had family.
Their first meeting had been horrendous. Rose had been raised by a pureblood family with all the wealth and glamour they could provide, and a thirteen-year-old Harry, in his Dudley's cast-offs and messy hair, was apparently not what she had expected. Still, she'd tried to get to know him and had even given him a pendant from her grandmother.
Then she was sorted into Slytherin.
After that, things changed quickly. She spent more time with her housemates than with him, and it wasn't long before Draco Malfoy and the others were always at her side. Harry didn't know what they said to her, or how they framed him, only that she listened. When their opinions of him surfaced, she didn't challenge them.
He never heard Rose say outright what she thought of him. She didn't need to. Every time she chose to believe them over him, every time she stood with them instead of him, the answer became clearer.
Harry tried, at first. Tried to talk to her. Tried to explain. But eventually, he stopped trying to prove himself to someone who never once asked for his side of the story.
That had been the beginning of the end.
"I can," Harry said to Hermione, his voice still calm. Still controlled. "And I already did."
Hermione hesitated. "What happened?"
Harry stared at the stone wall opposite them, at a crack running through the ancient stone walls. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he spoke, each word chosen with deliberate care.
"The bathroom," he said. "Sixth year."
Hermione stiffened slightly. Of course, she remembered the incident. Everyone did, though no one knew the whole truth.
"She stood between me and Draco," Harry continued. "A marked Death Eater. Someone actively working with the people who murdered our parents. And she blamed me."
Hermione's breath caught. "Harry…"
"My older sister told me that it was my fault," he said quietly. "That if I weren't so arrogant, so reckless, Draco wouldn't have been pushed into it. As if his parents' choices were my responsibility."
His jaw tightened, just barely.
"That was the moment," he went on, "when I realized she didn't see me as her brother. She saw me as a symbol. A problem. Something that made her life inconvenient."
Hermione searched his face. "People say things they don't mean when they're scared."
"I was scared too," Harry replied. "And I still tried. I kept trying. That was the last time."
And by the gods had he tried. He couldn't remember the number of unread letters that Hedwig had brought back, the number of initiated conversations cut short so she could spend more time with Draco or Daphne or Gemma or any other of them. Of the number of gifts he'd sent to her, only to have them come back unopened. Of so many things he'd done, just for none of them to work.
He exhaled slowly.
"For a moment," he added, his voice dropping, "I wanted to kill her."
Hermione went very still.
The thought hadn't been born from rage alone. It had risen quietly, from exhaustion, from the steady pressure of the war - where betrayal was always deadly, and mercy was a liability, as he had learned at the Graveyard, and later at the Department of Mysteries.
What frightened him back then and made him hesitate wasn't that the thought existed, but how calm it had been.
How easy.
"I didn't," Harry said, turning to look at her. His expression was composed, unreadable. "That was her last mercy. And it was also the end of us."
Silence stretched between them, thick and heavy.
"I'm not angry anymore," he said after a moment. "I'm just… done."
Rose wasn't someone he hated. She was something that had never properly taken shape. A sister in name, a stranger in practice, and a connection that had withered before it ever learned how to exist. Letting go of her felt less like losing family, and more like setting down a weight he'd been carrying for no reason at all.
It was freeing, in a way – but it was also saddening.
Hermione swallowed. "You don't sound done."
Harry gave a small, tired smile. "Maybe not. But I'm finished trying to fix something that was never really there." He finished with a shrug.
They started walking again, slower now.
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it.
She nodded once.
She understood that this was a wound she could not mend for him.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"So am I."
The corridor widened ahead of them, light spilling in from tall windows that overlooked the grounds. Beyond the stone and glass, the world was moving on, unaware of how close it had come to something far worse than the Voldemort they had till now.
A Voldemort who had nearly promoted himself to Sequence 3 – Blatherer
The doors to the Great Hall loomed at the end of the corridor.
Laughter drifted through the cracks.
Voices.
Life.
Harry slowed, then reached out.
And pushed open the doors to the Great Hall.