FicWad

Molly paced the cramped room like a creature trapped, her every step echoing softly against the cold, unforgiving stone walls. The flickering candlelight cast uneasy shadows across her drawn features, emphasising the tight lines of worry etched deep into her face. Her hands twisted the hem of her sleeve in restless fingers, eyes darting again and again to the four still, unmoving forms lying side by side on the floor.

Harry lay in the centre, flanked on either side by Ron and Hermione, with Ginny at the edge. They were too still—too utterly silent. Their chests rose and fell with such faintness that it was almost impossible to tell whether they were truly breathing.

“They look as though they’re merely asleep,” Molly murmured, her voice fragile and trembling, barely more than a breath. Then, gathering strength, she raised her tone, brittle and breaking, “How much longer? How long until they wake?”

Slughorn hesitated, his usual ruddy complexion drained of colour, paling to an ashen grey. His eyes flicked nervously from one unconscious figure to the next, as if seeking answers that were nowhere to be found. “I—I don’t know,” he finally confessed, voice thin and uncertain. “The ritual… it didn’t specify what would come after. Only that it had to be completed.”

Molly spun on him, fury and fear coiling tightly in her chest. “You performed advanced magic on them without knowing the outcome? Without knowing what it would do?”

“It was the only option!” Slughorn snapped back, cheeks flushing with shame as soon as the words left his mouth. “They understood. They agreed. The stakes were clear.”

“But did they truly understand the cost?” Molly’s voice cracked, rising in desperation. “They’re still children—”

“They’re not,” Hagrid interrupted softly, his voice heavy and steady.

The words fell between them.

Hagrid stood by the wall, his enormous frame tense, hands clenched into fists that trembled ever so slightly. His gaze remained fixed on Harry, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Not anymore.”

A heavy silence settled over the room, thick and suffocating, stretching into every corner.

Hagrid drew a long, ragged breath, and his eyes searched Harry’s face as if willing an answer from the stillness. “They will wake… won’t they?” His words barely rose above a fragile breath. “Tell me they will.”

Slughorn parted his lips, then closed them again. When he finally spoke, it was with the faintest whisper, almost too quiet to hear. “If the ritual failed… if Harry couldn’t do what was needed… he may never return.”

The impact of those words hit Molly like a physical blow. Her knees weakened, and she grasped the edge of the table to steady herself. The air around her seemed to constrict, tightening until every breath felt as though it might shatter her.

“No,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “No. Not Harry. Not after all we’ve been through.”

She turned back to the boy she had long since come to think of as one of her own. His face was still, unnervingly pale. The spark that usually flickered just behind his closed eyelids—the quiet defiance, the life—was gone. A raw ache pressed against her chest, sharp and unyielding.

Ginny’s fingers twitched slightly.

Molly moved forward instinctively—then stopped. A spasm, nothing more.

“I can’t do this again,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I can’t bury another child.”

Ron’s head was turned slightly towards Hermione, as though even in unconsciousness he was reaching for her. Hermione’s brow was furrowed deeply, trapped in some silent, private nightmare. And Harry—Harry was beyond reach, lost to a place that even the strongest magic could not penetrate.

Then—

A sudden, sharp tapping shattered the silence.

It was frantic, urgent tapping, desperate and insistent against the windowpane.

Every head turned.

Outside, a wild-eyed owl beat its wings furiously, a vivid red envelope clenched tightly between its beak.

Bill crossed the room in two long strides and flung open the window without hesitation. The owl shot inside, dropped the Howler mid-flight, then vanished back into the night as quickly as it had come.

Bill caught the envelope instinctively, frowning in confusion. “It’s from George,” he said, voice low. “Why would he—?”

But before he could finish, the letter began to smoulder, faint wisps of smoke curling from its edges.

Then, with a sudden flare of fiery red light, the envelope burst open.

The voice that spilt out was twisted and cruel, laced with venom and inhuman malice:

“YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD HIDE FROM ME. YOU THOUGHT YOUR LITTLE BLOOD-TRAITOR FAMILY COULD DEFY US. BUT WE SEE EVERYTHING.”

Molly froze, the cold poison of that voice seeping into her bones.

“Yaxley,” Percy breathed, his voice barely audible, trembling with fear and recognition.

“WE HAVE YOUR PRECIOUS SON, GEORGE,” the voice snarled, triumphant and merciless. “IF YOU WANT TO SEE HIM ALIVE, BRING POTTER TO THE FORBIDDEN FOREST. YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT.”

The Howler erupted into flames and thick smoke that curled and choked the air.

The room fell once more into silence.

The last venom-laced echo of Yaxley’s voice seemed to coil through the air, winding itself into every breath and clinging with cruel tenacity. It did not fade so much as settle. Even the fire in the hearth appeared to shrink back, its restless crackle dwindling to a subdued murmur.

A small, involuntary gasp escaped Molly, and she stumbled back a step, clutching at her chest. The colour had drained from her cheeks, leaving her pale as parchment.

Bill was still staring at the scorched remnants of the Howler in his hands. The charred edges flaked away between his fingers, drifting in slow, ashen spirals before disappearing into the cold air. The hearth’s warmth no longer reached them.

Nobody moved. Nobody dared speak. They hung suspended in that moment, glancing at one another with unspoken questions, each searching the others’ faces for an answer none of them possessed.

It was Molly who broke the silence. Her voice wavered, ragged with disbelief. “M–My George…” Her knees buckled slightly, and she caught herself against the edge of the table, her breathing short and shallow. “They—they’ve got him—” Her words crumbled into silence, tears welling hot and sudden.

Arthur was at her side in an instant, his hand steady on her shoulder, though his own expression was drawn and grave. “We’ve four hours until midnight,” he said, low and deliberate, every syllable measured.

Molly blinked up at him, struggling to pull her thoughts into order. “Why—why would they take George?” she asked hoarsely. “Why him?” Her voice broke on the final word, and the question hung unanswered in the thick air.

From the shadowed wall, Hagrid shifted his weight, folding his vast arms tightly over his chest. His great jaw was clenched so hard that the muscles in it twitched. “Could be a bluff,” he muttered, though the lack of conviction in his voice was plain. “Yaxley’s fond o’ playin’ games—tryin’ ter scare folk before he strikes.”

His gaze dropped to the blackened ash littering the floorboards. “But it felt real,” he added after a pause, more quietly this time. “Too real.”

Percy stepped forward so abruptly it startled them all. “I’ll check the shop,” he said, the words sharp with urgency. “George lives above it. If he’s gone—if anything’s happened—I’ll find out.”

Bill turned to him at once. “Are you sure? If they’re watching—”

“I’m not staying here while he’s out there, Merlin-knows-where,” Percy snapped, the steel in his voice betraying desperation under its polish. “I won’t lose another brother.”

Arthur met his eyes for a long moment, then gave a single, clipped nod. “Go. But Apparate from a distance—watch for traps. Don’t be seen unless there’s no other choice.”

Percy’s gaze flickered briefly to his mother. Molly’s face was tight with fear, her hands trembling helplessly at her sides. Without another word, Percy Disapparated, the sharp crack of it leaving the air oddly hollow in his absence.

Arthur turned back to the rest. “I need to get to Kingsley. We’ll need a plan—and a decoy—if Harry isn’t in any condition to be moved.”

“But they’ll kill George if Harry doesn’t show!” Molly cried, her voice raw with anguish. “You heard him, Arthur—Yaxley will make an example of him!” She wrung her hands so hard her knuckles whitened. “They want Harry.”

Arthur’s voice softened, though the tension at the corner of his jaw betrayed his own fear. “I know. But if we rush in blind, we could lose them both. We can’t afford that risk.”

“Careful won’t save him,” Molly whispered fiercely. “Quick might. Action might.”

Arthur pressed a kiss to her forehead, a brief, automatic gesture that carried little comfort. Straightening, he crossed to the door. “I’ll send word the moment I know anything.”

Then he was gone.

Molly stood unmoving, alone but for Hagrid, who watched her from the shadows, his heavy shoulders hunched with quiet sorrow.

She turned at last and drifted towards the window, each step deliberate, as though testing ground she did not trust to hold. She stopped before the glass, gazing into the murk beyond.

The stars were faint behind thick, moving clouds. Beyond the dunes, the sea heaved in the dark, its vastness swallowing all sound.

Her breath misted the glass. She didn’t wipe it away.

In her mind, images churned and spun—George leaning across the shop counter with that familiar glint in his eyes… the snap of laughter in his voice… Then shadow, blood, and the sound of Yaxley’s words curling around her heart like a noose: If you want to see him alive…

Her tears came quietly, sliding down her cheeks unchecked.

Behind her, Hagrid’s voice was low, almost uncertain. “We’ll get ’im back, Molly,” he said. “We’ve got ter.”

She didn’t answer. She stood rooted there, staring into the black horizon, waiting—aching—for even the smallest flicker of light.

The chamber Hermione stepped into was dim and round, the air cool enough to prickle the back of her neck. Its shape and size brought an instant, uneasy reminder of the first trial they had faced—not identical, but eerily reminiscent. Shadows wavered across the smooth stone walls, moving with an odd, slow rhythm.

At the exact centre stood two immense mirrors, their heights rivalling the doorways at Hogwarts. They stood side by side, their silver frames gleaming faintly, each one alive with a subtle, throbbing light that seemed to seep from within the metal itself. Fixed before them, mounted on slim pedestals, were two ornate knobs—intricately carved, almost ceremonial. They gave the unsettling impression of keys awaiting a turn that might not be easily undone.

Hermione took a cautious step forward, the sound of her footfall carrying a hollow echo across the floor.

“You took your time,” came Harry’s voice, sharp and abrupt. The sound broke through the stillness like the snap of a branch.

He was standing just to the side of the mirrors, arms folded tightly, his stance taut with impatience. There was that familiar stubborn spark in his eyes—impatience, defiance—but something else flickered there too, quick and unguarded. Worry. Perhaps even fear.

Hermione pushed back a loose strand of hair and raised her brows, her tone clipped. “Sorry I didn’t Apparate straight through several feet of solid stone,” she said briskly. “I got here as quickly as I could.”

“If you were in that much of a hurry,” she added as she approached, “you could have gone on without me.”

“I would have,” Harry retorted, his voice edged with sarcasm. “Except the room wouldn’t do a thing until all four of us were here. You were apparently the missing piece.”

Her cheeks warmed at the implication. She set her jaw. “How was I meant to know that? You think I deliberately took my time?”

“I didn’t say that,” Harry replied evenly—though the weight of the accusation hung between them like an unwelcome guest neither would acknowledge.

“Then stop acting as though I did,” she shot back, her words sharper than she’d intended. Her voice wasn’t trembling from fear but from the strain of something heavier—a tension she couldn’t quite name, pulling at the edges of her composure.

Harry exhaled through his nose, quick and frustrated, and turned away. His cloak gave a sharp twist about his legs as he strode back towards the mirrors.

From near the wall, Ginny released a slow breath. “Honestly,” she muttered, shaking her head as she moved to follow him. “You two are impossible.”

Hermione stayed where she was, her chest rising too quickly, a tightness pressing in beneath her ribs. She felt stretched thin—threads pulled to breaking point. The aftertaste of the visions clung to her, the way spider-silk clings to skin.

“You all right?” came Ron’s voice from just behind her. It was gentle and steady—the kind of tone that didn’t demand but invited.

“I’m fine,” Hermione answered at once, too quickly. The lie caught in her throat, rough.

Ron didn’t move away. “Something happened in that first room. You’ve been… different since.”

She hesitated. Her eyes fell to the floor, watching the faint shimmer of light from the mirrors shift across the flagstones. She didn’t want him to see her unravel, didn’t want him to ask questions she didn’t have the right words for. The images still burnt behind her eyes—fragments she couldn’t dismiss. And the strangest part: knowing Harry in a way that was impossible, as if the version of him she’d seen belonged to another life entirely.

“I… I saw something,” she said at last, the words barely more than breath. “After the first task. A vision. Like a memory—but it wasn’t mine.”

Ron frowned, his voice cautious. “What kind of vision?”

Hermione inhaled slowly, then told him—haltingly—about the flashes of something she couldn’t explain. The faint familiarity of it, the pull it carried, the ache in her chest. Harry’s face changed, softening with a weight in his gaze she’d never seen before. And threaded through it all, a quiet urgency that had nothing to do with their current danger and yet seemed entirely bound to it.

Ron listened without interruption, his brow furrowed, eyes fixed on hers as if the meaning might be hiding between her words.

When she stopped, he was silent for a long moment. Then—“You’ve never had anything like that before?”

Hermione shook her head. Her voice was wry, though it trembled faintly. “Hardly likely I’d imagine Harry Potter as a friend.”

Ron let out a short, uneasy laugh. “Fair. You two can barely get through breakfast without an argument.”

“Exactly.”

He scratched the back of his neck, still thinking. “Maybe it wasn’t a memory at all. What if it’s… I don’t know… something ahead of us?”

Her head snapped up. “You think it’s the future?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Could be. Or something like it.”

Hermione was quiet, staring past him at the strange, watchful mirrors. “It didn’t feel like something that would happen,” she said slowly. “It felt like something that is happening. Somewhere. Right now.” She twisted her sleeve between her fingers. “Does that make any sense?”

Ron’s gaze lingered on her for a long moment before he gave a slow, reluctant nod. “More than I’d like to admit.”

Hermione’s heart was pounding hard enough for her to feel it in her throat.

“The visions started after I gave them the potion,” she said, her voice low and steady, though the steadiness was forced. “I chose it to help them during the task—to keep them safe. And then I saw… that place.”

Ron frowned slightly. “You altered the process,” he said, his tone gentler now. “Maybe that’s what did it.”

She shook her head at once. “No. It wasn’t just that. It didn’t feel imagined, Ron. Not a daydream, not something conjured out of fear or hope. It felt real.”

A silence stretched between them, fine and tense, as though a single wrong word might snap it.

Ron’s eyes searched hers. “But what could you even do with something like that? You said yourself—it’s another world. Parallel, maybe. Even if it exists, how would you get to it?”

Hermione’s lips parted, but nothing came at first. Her hands, resting at her sides, were trembling ever so slightly.

“I don’t know,” she admitted in a whisper. “But I don’t think these tasks are just obstacles. They’re showing us something. Pointing towards something larger than we can see yet.”

Ron gave a slow nod, though the doubt behind his gaze hadn’t entirely lifted.

“I believe you,” he said quietly after a moment. “But if it is real—what you saw—then you might be closer to something dangerous than you realise.”

The chamber seemed to hum around them, the air faintly charged, light slipping in restless flickers over the curving walls. The others had drifted ahead, and Hermione found herself standing just behind them, her gaze pulled inevitably towards the heart of the room.

Two great mirrors towered there, both mounted on heavy, silver-edged frames. Each had an ornate knob set in a pedestal before it, polished and untouched. They stood like guardians awaiting a decision.

The mirror to the left was utterly plain—its surface bright and even, showing only the truth. Hermione’s reflection looked back at her: tired, alert, her hair more unruly than she liked, and—she noticed—the faint tremor still in her hands.

The mirror to the right, however, was alive with shifting light. It shimmered faintly, as though holding starlight inside its depths. She stepped towards it almost without meaning to, and there she was—layered, multiplied, each image a different life she might have lived.

In one she wore deep green robes, a silver chain glinting at her throat, the title ′Headmistress of Hogwarts’engraved beneath her name. In another she stood before a cheering crowd, holding aloft an award in magical innovation. Every version of her looked confident, polished, and assured—someone remembered and respected.

Then a voice rose from nowhere. Low, resonant, and without any sense of origin, it curled through the air in a way that made the hairs at the back of her neck stir.

“Who are you?”

Hermione’s breath caught.

Harry was frozen before the two mirrors, his jaw set. The question seemed to hang between them all, heavy as any curse.

To her left, in the mirror of truth, Harry appeared exactly as he was: messy hair, well-worn trainers, a faint shadow along his jaw, and those cautious green eyes taking in every detail. But in the mirror to the right, he was endless. Minister for Magic, Head Auror, famed Healer, celebrated Quidditch player. Robes crisp, smiles steady, a Harry who always knew the right answer and always won.

Yet he did not reach for it.

“Does it show the future?” Ginny asked quietly, as if raising her voice might disturb something dangerous. Her gaze darted between the two mirrors with the kind of fascination usually reserved for stars on a clear night.

“No,” Ron said flatly, though there was a tightness beneath the word that gave him away.

In his own reflection to the right, he was standing victorious with the House Cup, his parents’ faces alight with pride beside him. In another, he wore the gilded robes of a celebrated alchemist; in another still, he stood in front of a class, wand mid-sweep, every eye fixed on him.

Ginny’s eyes didn’t leave the glass. “If it’s not the future,” she pressed, “then what is it?”

Harry’s voice came at last, quiet and deliberate. “It doesn’t show what will be. It shows what you want most—whether you admit it to yourself or not.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted sharply.

The woman in her own mirror looked so composed, so certain. A name people knew. A voice people listened to. Proof that she had mattered. The longing that curled through her chest in response was almost unbearable—and she hated herself for it.

Ginny moved closer to the mirror of desire. Within it she blazed across a Quidditch pitch, the Holyhead Harpies crest on her robes; in another she was scribbling furiously in a press box, her byline topping the front page of the Daily Prophet.

Her lips parted, and for once she had no retort, no jest.

No one spoke.

“Isn’t it peculiar?” Hermione murmured, forcing herself to turn from the shimmering depths of the mirrors. “That there are two of them. One shows us exactly as we are. The other—what we believe we might become. It feels deliberate. As if they mean for us to choose. Or… to be judged.”

“A path,” Ginny said softly. There was a calm certainty in her voice, as though she’d already accepted the idea. “One you commit to. One you walk until the end.”

Hermione faced the left-hand mirror again. The reflection staring back at her was no less determined than the woman in the other glass, but there was no grandeur here—no embellishment. Just herself, stripped bare. Honest. Unforgiving.

The right-hand mirror was dazzling in comparison, alive with gilded possibilities. But promises were not truth.

“You’re overthinking it,” Harry said suddenly, his tone edged with impatience. “The left-hand one’s nothing—just the same old you, over and over. The right is where we’re meant to be. Why settle for what you are when you could be more?”

Hermione frowned. There was something in the way he looked at that mirror that unsettled her—a fierce hunger she didn’t quite recognise. “That isn’t the point,” she said quietly. “Don’t you think what we want says as much about us as what we are? Shouldn’t we ask why we want it before we leap in headfirst?”

Harry’s eyes flashed. “Nothing’s stopping you from chasing those things,” he said, short and clipped. “It doesn’t matter which mirror you start with. You make it happen yourself.”

“Perhaps it does matter,” Hermione pressed, her voice sharpening. “Perhaps this is here to make us decide which part of ourselves we trust more—the dream we cling to, or the truth already standing in front of us.”

Ron shifted beside her. He didn’t speak, but his gaze kept drifting back to the right-hand mirror, as if drawn by invisible threads. His fingers twitched at his sides. She knew that ache. She could feel her own longing tugging at her chest.

Harry’s temper frayed.

“Believe whatever you want,” he said, his voice hardening to something cold. “I’m done wasting time.”

Before anyone could stop him, he strode forward, seized the ornate brass knob at the base of the right-hand mirror, and turned it. In an instant, he was gone—the glass swallowing him in a ripple of light.

Hermione swore under her breath, her pulse drumming in her ears. “He always does this,” she muttered. “Charges in without thinking.”

Ron shot her a sideways glance—part weary, part fond. “Let him. He’s doing what he thinks is right.”

“And what if he’s wrong?” she demanded.

Before Ron could reply, Ginny moved closer. She laid a warm, steadying hand on Hermione’s shoulder.

“Sometimes the only way to know,” she said simply, “is to go.” Her gaze held Hermione’s with quiet determination. “Besides… we didn’t come this far to stand still.”

And before Hermione could speak, Ginny pressed her palm to the right-hand mirror. Light flared—and she was gone.

The chamber seemed emptier without them, the air thinner.

“It’s just you and me,” Ron said at last. His voice was low, almost cautious. His eyes never left the mirrors, the reflections shifting faintly across the glass. “I want to go right. But your instincts have been better than mine lately. If you’re going left… I’ll follow you.”

Hermione swallowed. The weight of his trust was heavier than she’d expected.

She stepped towards the left-hand mirror—the honest one. Her reflection was waiting, patient and unblinking. She raised her hand, fingers hovering over the knob.

A slow breath in. A steadier one out.

“See you on the other side,” she said. The words rang more confidently than she felt.

She turned the knob—and vanished.

Ron didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, gripped the brass, and followed.

The instant the door sealed behind him, the world lurched. Light splintered into a thousand shards, colours bleeding together, spinning and tilting until the floor seemed to vanish beneath his feet. The air buzzed, carrying with it something vast and ancient, pressing against his skin.

Then the visions struck.

They came in a rush—jagged flashes of lives he’d never lived, yet felt in his bones. Faces that were strange and impossibly familiar. Moments so fleeting they dissolved before he could grasp them, and others so vivid they winded him.

He stumbled, one hand bracing against a wall that wasn’t quite there, lungs heaving as though he’d been running for miles.

And then—silence. Stillness.

The spinning stopped.

Hermione was already there.

She stood a few paces ahead of him, her shoulders drawn but her face lifted towards the corridor’s wavering torchlight. There was awe in her expression—yes—but under it, something heavier. It clung about her like the remnants of a bad dream.

Sadness, perhaps.

“D—did you see it too?” she asked. Her voice was thin, as if the words themselves cost her breath.

Ron, still trying to steady the pounding in his chest, managed a slow nod. “Yeah,” he said at last. His voice felt rough in his throat. “I did.”

The images clung to him—sharp, urgent things that refused to fade. “At first I thought I was making it up. Daydreaming, or—I don’t know. But then there were too many of them, and they… they fitted together. They made sense.”

Hermione stepped towards him, eyes bright with a searching intensity. “What exactly did you see?”

Ron hesitated. The words felt strange, as though he were giving shape to a secret he hadn’t realised he’d been carrying. “It was Hogwarts,” he began slowly. “Me and Harry—but not as we are now. Different. We were… friends. Proper friends. In Gryffindor. Laughing, sneaking out after hours, even fighting a troll. It didn’t feel like a memory, but it felt—mine. I can’t explain it better than that.”

Hermione let out a breath, the sound trembling between disbelief and relief. “So it’s not just you,” she murmured. “This is bigger than I thought.”

Ron shifted uncomfortably. “I saw Harry too… only, he didn’t look right. He was pale—ill. And Mum was there, looking after him. Like he was one of us. Like he belonged.”

Something flickered in Hermione’s expression—recognition. “I saw something too,” she said quickly. “A book. Anima. I was watching myself read it—only it wasn’t quite me. Another version of me. Have you ever heard of it?”

Ron frowned. “Anima means ‘soul’. At least, I think it does.” He had no idea why he knew that.

Hermione nodded, half to herself. “I think these visions aren’t accidents. They’re not side effects from the tasks. They’re… connected to the choices we’re making. Every time we do something differently—something we weren’t meant to—the visions get stronger. It’s as though we’re being… guided.”

“To what?” Ron asked warily. “Another world?”

“Not exactly,” Hermione replied, her voice careful. “Maybe a different thread of this one. The Harry I saw—he wasn’t the same. He was… open. Kind. He stood up for people—any people. Blood status didn’t matter to him. It was as if… as if the world he lived in was built on better choices than ours.”

Ron looked down the long stretch of corridor Harry had taken. The air there was still, holding no trace of his footsteps. “I know what you mean. That Harry… I liked him.” He grimaced. “More than the one we’ve got. Sounds rotten, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Hermione said gently. “It sounds honest.”

They walked on in silence for a while, the only sounds the hiss of the torches and the low scrape of their footsteps. Shadows stretched and shifted along the walls. When the shapes of Ginny and Harry appeared in the distance, Hermione slowed without warning.

Ron turned to her. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer straight away. Her gaze had gone distant, her head tilting slightly as if she were listening for something only she could hear.

“I felt it,” she said at last, barely above a whisper. “I wasn’t just seeing the vision. I was in it. I could hear them speaking.”

A chill curled at the base of Ron’s spine. “Heard what?”

Hermione’s eyes dropped for a moment, then lifted again to meet his. Steady. Unflinching. “I think Harry’s soul is damaged,” she said.

The words landed between them with a weight neither could shrug off.

Ron stared. “What do you mean, ‘damaged’?”

“I saw us—me, you, Ginny perhaps—standing together, performing a spell. Something complex. Powerful. It looked like healing magic. We weren’t just witnesses. We were doing something. Repairing something. And I think…” She hesitated. “I think the world we’re in—it isn’t the real one. Or it’s less real than the one we saw.”

Ron frowned deeply. “Hermione, that’s… a lot. We’re here, breathing, walking. This feels real.”

“I know,” she said quickly. “But the visions—they feel clearer somehow. The people. The choices. The magic. It’s as if these tasks are giving us a glimpse of what could have been—or what might still be—if we can find the right way through.”

Ron didn’t speak at once. He simply looked at her, and she looked back, neither breaking the line between them.

She meant every word.

“Try it,” Hermione urged. “Don’t just remember—let yourself fall into it. Don’t fight it. There’s something there, Ron. Something important.”

He drew a slow, uneasy breath. The edges of the corridor began to blur. His heartbeat eased. And then—he let go.

Darkness swelled around him, carrying colour and sound in its wake. He didn’t resist.

Harry appeared—thin, pale to the point of translucence, lying in bed. His breathing was shallow. Hermione sat beside him, Ginny on his other side. Both looked drawn, their worry unspoken yet thick in the air. Harry’s gaze lifted to them, and he smiled—no smirk, no bravado. Just a quiet, fragile thing.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice faint but certain. “For everything. I don’t know what comes next, but—”

The scene shifted abruptly, as though someone had turned a page before he’d finished reading.

Ron leaned forward, desperate not to lose it.

Now they stood in a circle. Each held a goblet brimming with something luminous, a potion that pulsed as if alive. One by one they drank, and silver light unfurled from their chests—threads of self, of magic, of soul. The light drifted towards Harry, seated at the centre. It wound about him, wrapping him not as a burial but as a protection, a renewal, a second chance.

Then—darkness claimed it all.

Ron gasped as the corridor returned. Torchlight stabbed at his eyes, and his chest felt tight as if the air had thinned.

Hermione was watching him. There was hope in her gaze now—quiet but unmistakable.

“I saw it,” he said hoarsely. “All of it.”

“And?” she prompted.

He hesitated, sifting through the weight of what he’d felt. “I don’t know what it means yet. But it feels like… everything we do now matters more than we ever thought.”

Hermione nodded once. “Exactly.”

The four of them stepped through the archway into a chamber that seemed almost to breathe with light.

The air was warm, gilded. Above, the ceiling soared so high it might have belonged to a cathedral, or else to the open sky above a Quidditch pitch in midsummer. The space carried the strange, heady quality of a half-forgotten dream—something golden and grand, too perfect to feel entirely real.

Four broomsticks hovered at shoulder height, turning lazily in the air as though waiting to be chosen.

Without warning, a golden Snitch streaked past, its wings whirring in a shimmering blur, the light glancing off them as though the air itself had fractured into sunlight.

Ron’s gaze followed it almost without thinking. But even as it darted away, Hermione’s earlier words clung to him like burrs in his mind:

Harry’s soul is damaged.

The phrase refused to loosen its hold. It sat heavy in his chest, unwelcome and impossible to ignore.

He turned towards Hermione, intending to ask what she’d meant—but she spoke first, her eyes still fixed on the Snitch as it swooped in a long arc overhead.

“Should we… catch it?” she asked. There was the faintest tremor in her voice, so slight it might have been the echo from the walls.

“I think so,” Ginny said after a pause, though her tone held more hesitation than certainty.

Hermione’s eyes tracked the high vaults above, her brow furrowed as though she expected the chamber to shift or the Snitch to vanish entirely.

Harry didn’t wait for discussion. Without a word, he swung a leg over one of the waiting brooms and kicked off. In an instant, he was climbing higher, his movements smooth and sure, as if gravity had decided he was exempt.

Ron watched him go.

Harry always went first—straight into whatever lay ahead. The unknown seemed to weigh nothing for him, while for Ron, it always came heavy: doubt, hesitation, and the whisper of too many questions.

He glanced back at Hermione, the words spilling before he’d decided to speak. “Back in the corridor—I saw what you saw. Harry thanking us. That potion—or whatever it was—we drank it. Then the spell. It meant something.”

“What are you two going on about?” Ginny’s voice cut in sharp enough to sting. It wasn’t just irritation—there was something defensive in it, almost protective.

Ron startled slightly. He hadn’t realised she’d been close enough to hear.

“It’s going to sound mad,” he admitted, “but after the tasks… there’ve been these visions. Versions of us—together. Friends. Properly.”

Ginny arched a brow. “Visions. And in this perfect little dream of yours, what did you see?”

Hermione didn’t falter. “We were close. All of us. Connected. And Harry… he was hurt. Not just physically. His soul—it was fractured.”

Ginny let out a laugh, sharp and brittle, the sound ricocheting around the chamber. “Of course you’d say that. You’ve never liked him, Hermione. And now you suddenly care about his soul? Please. Sounds more like you’re trying to worm your way inside his head. Get the upper hand.”

Ron’s ears burnt. “She’s not making it up. I saw it too.”

Ginny, now drifting a few feet off the ground, crossed her arms and eyed them both from above. “Then maybe you’re both losing your grip.”

“We’re not,” Ron pressed on, his voice quickening. “We saw him—Harry. Sick. You and Hermione were there. We gave him something—magic. Light. It was real, Gin. And it mattered.”

She scoffed, but he didn’t stop. “Doesn’t this place—this world—feel wrong to you? Like it doesn’t quite fit?”

“No,” she shot back, swinging herself onto her broom with the ease of habit. “What feels wrong is you two chasing dreams while there’s work to do. We’ve got a task. That’s reality.”

And with that, she kicked off, soaring upwards in a rush of wind that tugged at their robes.

Ron exhaled hard through his nose. “She’s not going to listen.”

Hermione seized one of the brooms, her jaw set in determination. “Then we’ll make her.”

They mounted together, shooting into the golden air after Ginny. The Snitch flashed above them again, a brilliant dart of motion, almost taunting, almost warning.

“Ginny!” Hermione called, her voice whipped away by the rush of wind. “Please—listen!”

Ginny spun in mid-air, her eyes blazing. “Stop it! I don’t need your pity—or your half-baked theories. I’m notbroken. And neither is Harry!”

“This isn’t pity!” Hermione shouted back. “It’s the truth! We’ve seen it!”

“You saw what you wanted!” Ginny snapped. “If you hate your life, that’s your problem, not mine!”

Ron leaned forward, pushing his broom until he was level with her. “What if this isn’t the life we’re meant to have? What if someone—something—changed it? Changed him? Doesn’t that bother you?”

Her jaw tightened, her hands gripping the handle hard enough to whiten her knuckles. “And what—you think a dream’s worth tearing everything apart for?”

“No,” Ron said, meeting her glare head-on. “But I think it’s worth saving someone we all care about. Even you.”

For a heartbeat, Ginny held his gaze, her expression fierce and unyielding. Then, just at the edges, the fire dimmed. The certainty faltered. Doubt—thin, reluctant—found its way in.

“We think this world is… wrong,” Hermione said, her voice steady but weighted with care, as though she feared pressing too hard might make Ginny bolt. “It’s bent around Harry, somehow. The version of him we saw… he was different. Kinder. He defended people. He belonged. He was more than this.”

The air between them tightened. The Snitch hung there in the distance, its wings shivering in the light, but none of them moved to chase it.

Ginny’s eyes flicked from Hermione to Ron. There was no flare of anger this time—only an unreadable stillness, the kind that suggested she was thinking far more than she wanted them to know. “And you expect me to just… believe you?” she asked at last. The words weren’t scoffing; they were wary, measuring.

“Yes,” Ron said, the answer slipping out before he could stop it. “Believe us. And trust yourself. Deep down, you know something’s off. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? Those moments where the air feels heavier, where people aren’t quite themselves? It’s not just us.”

For a moment, her gaze sharpened—reflexive defence, an instinct to push back—but then she faltered. Ron could see it in the tiniest things: the way her knuckles loosened on the broom handle, the way her breathing slowed, and how her eyes dipped away for a heartbeat before meeting his again.

She stayed there, suspended in the still air, longer than felt comfortable. Then, at last, she gave the smallest of nods. It wasn’t theatrical. It wasn’t even certain. But it was real.

“All right,” she said, voice low, as if wary of speaking the words too loudly. “What now?”

Ron let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “Let it in. The memory. The vision. Don’t push it away when it comes—don’t force it, either. Just… let it show you.”

Hermione drifted closer, her eyes never leaving Ginny’s. “This is only the start. But if we face it together—if we choose differently—then we might be able to put things right.”

Ginny’s jaw tightened. She glanced up towards the Snitch, now flitting lazily near the high arches, but her attention soon came back to them. And something changed in her eyes—not surrender exactly, but a sliver of something softer.

A current of magic seemed to stir between them, subtle but certain. Ron felt the hairs on his arms rise. Ginny’s gaze grew distant, and he knew she was beginning to see something.

Far above the chamber floor, Harry flew.

The wind tore at him—cold enough to sting his eyes, sharp enough to cut through whatever scraps of warmth the task had left in him. His broom thrummed beneath his palms, every twist and dip sending a shiver through the handle, through his arms. But this wasn’t the sort of flying he used to dream about, when speed had meant freedom and the rush of air had felt like belonging.

He wasn’t chasing glory.

If he was honest, it felt more as though he were trying to outrun something. Or outfly the weight in his chest, which had been pressing heavier and heavier with each passing task.

The Snitch was out ahead, flashing briefly in the light before vanishing again. A quick, taunting shimmer. It moved as though it already knew him—knew exactly how close he’d get before it slipped away again. Each time it disappeared, he felt the same restless ache, the sense that it had stolen something from him without him ever realising he’d had it.

He bent low over the broom, urging it faster. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he caught it—not points, not triumph, but perhaps proof. Proof that there was still something he could hold onto, something he could control.

Laughter drifted up from below, breaking into his thoughts.

Harry risked a glance down.

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were hovering a few metres beneath, the brooms idling easily in the air. And—he blinked—Ginny was laughing. Not a polite sort of laugh, either; the proper kind that softened her face and made her eyes brighter. She was talking with the other two as though they weren’t meant to be in the middle of a task at all. It looked like another world entirely—one where people could just… exist, without things looming overhead. Without suspicion. Without the constant twist of wondering what someone wanted from you.

Not his world.

He turned back sharply, jaw tight.

“Focus, Harry,” he muttered under his breath, but the words felt heavier than they should, as though they were dragging at him instead of spurring him on.

His mind betrayed him anyway, sliding away from the chase—green firelight flickering in the depths of the Slytherin common room, the smooth confidence of knowing the rules and bending them when it suited. Pride. Power. Control. Things you could count on. Things that didn’t vanish when you reached for them.

And yet here you are, something in him whispered, chasing something you’ll never catch.

The glint of gold appeared again in the corner of his eye.

There.

He lunged forward, the broom angling into a steep dive, muscles coiled tight. The air roared against his ears, his grip biting into the wood. He could almost—

A streak of red shot past, cutting across his path.

Ginny.

She was closing in on the Snitch with clean, effortless motion, hair streaming behind her. She flew as though she’d been born in the air, as though the space bent itself around her rather than resisting.

Harry’s jaw set. His pride flared—hot, sharp.

He pushed harder, levelling with her. For a fleeting moment they were side by side, brooms whispering against the air, the same pulse of speed in their movements. Her eyes never left the Snitch. His flickered everywhere—her, the others below, the hollow in himself that no amount of flying seemed to fill.

Then the Snitch veered sharply left.

Harry moved before he thought, the broom jerking hard beneath him. Too hard. The sky swung violently; his balance shifted. His hands scrambled for the handle, but his weight had already gone, his shoulder tilting forward into nothing. The rush of air turned vicious—no longer freedom but threat. His stomach lurched.

He was falling.

No one was looking. No one saw—

A flash of red.

A hand clamped around his wrist, firm and unshaking even though it trembled faintly with the strain.

“Hang on, Harry!” Ginny’s voice cut through the wind, sharp and certain.

The pull wrenched his shoulder, but she didn’t let go. Her broom knocked against his in the jolt, and for a moment it seemed they might both spiral down—but somehow, breathlessly, they steadied.

They hovered, chest to chest, the space between them drawn taut.

Harry’s eyes met hers.

In that stillness, the task, the Snitch, the game—all of it thinned into nothing. There was only the fact that he’d been falling. And that she’d caught him. Not because she had to. Simply because he was falling, and she had chosen to stop it.

He let out a breath, the words rasping from him. “Thanks.”

Ginny didn’t answer straight away. She was still holding his gaze, something shifting behind her eyes. It wasn’t triumph, or mockery, or even simple concern—it was as though some thread had been pulled taut between them, something that had been there far longer than he’d noticed.

Then she blinked, and he saw it—the sudden brightness behind her expression, breaking somewhere far off.

Whatever Ron and Hermione had said to her, whatever they’d seen, it was reaching her now. Doubt uncoiled into recognition.

Her breath caught.

And Harry realised she was seeing something—not here, not in this moment, but somewhere else entirely. Something that rooted her to the air and stilled her grip on the broom.

He didn’t know what it was.

But he knew, with a certainty that startled him, that whatever it was—it had begun.

Harry hovered uncertainly, his broom trembling beneath him, not with the usual thrill of flight but with an unshakeable sense of wrongness. The air around them pressed close, dense with a tension that set his nerves on edge. Something was amiss — though what, he could not say.

Ginny remained motionless. Her broom swayed unevenly, as if caught in some invisible current that Harry couldn’t feel or fight against. Her eyes were wide, glassy and distant, and her lips parted slightly, mouthing words unheard, or perhaps unsaid. She wasn’t really present. Not here. Not with him.

A tight knot clenched deep inside Harry’s chest, cold and insistent.

His gaze flicked across the pitch. Ron and Hermione hovered nearby, pale and rigid. Their faces were drawn, etched with an emotion Harry struggled to name — fear, sorrow, understanding. They looked as if they had just awakened from a dream they wished to forget, the sort of dream that leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

His heart thudded faster.

He edged closer to Ginny, voice low and trembling. “Ginny?” His hand reached out, brushing lightly against her shoulder. Her skin felt ice-cold beneath his fingers, trembling faintly as though barely tethered to the world.

No response.

“Ginny.” His voice rose, strained with urgency. He shook her gently, hoping to break the spell.

She flinched, a faint flicker of life returning. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, struggling to focus.

Then he saw them — tears.

Not the loud, shattering kind, but quiet and relentless, tracing slow, silent paths down her cheeks.

“Are you all right?” His voice softened, though he already knew the answer.

Before she could reply, the rush of broomsticks disturbed the air behind him. Ron and Hermione drifted closer, faces as pale and distant as hers, their eyes glazed over.

Harry spun toward them, a sharp edge to his voice. “What’s happening? Is this some trick? A spell? Something to throw us off?”

The silence that followed was thick, heavy with unspoken truths.

Then Ginny’s voice came, fragile and barely audible. “This… this isn’t real.”

Harry frowned, confusion knotting his brow. “What do you mean? What isn’t real?”

Her gaze locked on his, utterly broken now. “I can hear him,” she whispered. “I can feel his pain.”

His stomach twisted, cold dread curling within him. “Whose pain?”

She shook her head, wiping her face with a trembling sleeve. “This is madness,” Harry muttered, frustration rising sharply. “You all look like you’ve lost your minds.” He turned sharply toward Ron and Hermione. “What exactly are you playing at? What is this?”

Hermione flew forward, her voice steady, weighted with gravity. “Harry… we saw you. Not just with our eyes, but with something deeper. A vision or a memory, perhaps. You were ill.”

His throat constricted, disbelief flooding through him. “What does that even mean? It makes no sense.”

Ron’s voice was quiet but firm. “You weren’t yourself. Something was eating away at you, inside. Slowly.”

Ginny let out a soft sob. “You were in pain. Alone. Trapped in something you couldn’t escape.”

Harry stumbled back, voice rising in anger and hurt. “I feel fine! I am fine! Why are you trying to convince me otherwise?” His broom drifted backward, uncertain, as if even it doubted where to take him. “Is this part of the task? A mind trick to confuse me?”

“It’s not a task,” Ron said quietly. “It’s the truth.”

Harry’s eyes darted between them—Ginny, Hermione, and Ron—and found their faces etched with a raw, ancient pain that left no room for lies.

“It’s a lie,” Ginny whispered, voice cracking under the weight of it. “This world… all of it. You’re not awake, Harry. You’re trapped. Somewhere else. Somewhere far away. We didn’t understand it at first. I didn’t want to believe it. But it’s true.”

Her gaze held his, unwavering.

“I saw it.”

Harry’s breath came sharp and unsteady. His arms crossed tightly over his chest, voice cold and defensive. “This is madness. You’re just trying to throw me off, distract me. Is that what this is? Sabotage?”

“No one’s trying to sabotage you,” Hermione said, calm but urgent. “We’re trying to help. Trying to wake you up.”

He let out a short, bitter laugh. “Wake me up? From what? I was almost there. Almost caught the Snitch. You saw it. I’m winning, Hermione.”

He spun, eyes flicking to the shimmering gold object hovering near the far goalpost, gleaming under the sun’s steady gaze.

Without hesitation, Harry shot forward, the wind whipping through his hair and tugging fiercely at the tails of his robes. His broom shuddered beneath him, responding to every lean, every shift of weight, as he pushed harder, faster, chasing the elusive golden blur ahead. The Snitch darted sharply once, then again, but his hand was already reaching, stretching out with that same fierce determination that had driven him through countless matches.

Then—snap.

His fingers closed around the small, delicate object, cool against his skin, trembling slightly as if holding something fragile but vital. A rush of triumph surged through him, sharp and undeniable. For a moment, the world narrowed to just that perfect, impossible catch—satisfaction and certainty flooding his veins.

He spun in the air, the pitch spreading wide beneath him, his breath caught in his chest, pulse pounding in his ears. He hovered, clutching the Snitch, feeling the weight of it, the meaning behind it.

“Well?” His voice rang out, sharp and challenging, cutting through the quiet that had settled over the field. “Seems I’m the only one still playing the game.”

But there was no applause, no cheering. Just stillness.

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny remained motionless, their eyes fixed on him with the same haunted expression—quiet, stricken, as though a shadow had already fallen between them.

Hermione’s gaze met his, steady and serious. “We’re not trying to win, Harry,” she said quietly. “We’re trying to save you.”

He blinked, confusion flickering across his face. “Save me? From what? From being good at what I do?”

“From a life that isn’t yours,” Ron said, his voice low but firm. “From a lie. We think—well, we think someone’s put you here, inside this… whatever it is. A spell, maybe. A trap. Something that’s holding you down.”

Harry shook his head sharply, disbelief curling in his voice. “Right. And you lot are just so certain you’ve got the truth, are you?”

Ginny’s voice was barely more than a breath, soft and hesitant. “You never believe it at first.”

“Don’t start with me.” Harry’s eyes flashed dangerously. “All of this—this is madness. You’re telling me none of this is real? That I’m… what? Dreaming? Cursed? You expect me to swallow that?”

Hermione didn’t flinch. Her voice was calm and unwavering. “You don’t need to understand it, not yet. But we’ve seen things, Harry. Felt things. Please—just let us help you.” She stretched out a hand toward him.

Harry recoiled as though struck. “What do you really know about me?” His voice rose, sharp and bitter. “You think you can just waltz in here and turn everything upside down? I’ve managed just fine on my own.”

Ron flew forward, hands raised slightly in peace. “No, you haven’t. You think you have, because this place—it gives you what you want. Control. Praise. But none of it’s real. And deep down, you know that.”

A dark shadow passed over Harry’s eyes. “I’m not listening to this.”

“Harry—” Ginny’s voice cracked with effort.

He whirled on her, sudden and fierce. “Back off, Weasley.”

She flinched, just for a moment, and that flicker of hurt struck him somewhere deep. But it was gone before he could grasp it.

“It’s not a threat,” she whispered, steadying herself. “It’s the truth.”

Harry jabbed a finger toward her, voice cold and hard. “If you don’t stop pushing, I swear, you’ll regret it.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and deafening.

The wind tugged at the hem of Ginny’s robes, but her gaze never faltered. There was no anger in her eyes—only something quieter, something heavier.

Harry turned away, the weight of the Snitch firm in his clenched fist. Without another word, without a backward glance, he flew hard toward the edge of the pitch—away from their voices, away from their eyes.

Away from the part of himself that, if he let it rise, might whisper that they were right.