The forests of Romania trembled.
The first cracks had been subtle spiderwebbing across the stone husks of the vampires where they had been entombed. But now, fissures split deeper, exposing pale flesh beneath, raw and blood-hungry. One after another, the stone effigies shuddered, fragments breaking free like brittle shells. Then came the movement slow at first, then a sudden snap as limbs jerked into motion.
Dozens became hundreds. Hundreds became thousands.
The air filled with the sound of stone grinding against stone, bodies tearing loose from their prisons, their blank stone eyes flashing open to reveal burning red pupils beneath.
And then, as one, the horde began to run.
They thundered across the countryside with inhuman speed, leaving shattered roots and splintered trunks in their wake. Every step shook loose more stone, flaking away to reveal sinew and skin, but still they looked half-carved, cracked figures given impossible life.
Nothing slowed them.
A ridge of mountains split their path—yet they slammed into it without hesitation, clawing and tearing handholds as they scaled sheer cliffs at unnatural speed. Trees were broken like twigs when they barreled through forests, their jagged stone edges raking the bark raw. Dust rose behind them, a rolling storm of grey and crimson that stretched for miles.
When they reached rivers, they did not pause. At first it seemed they would sink, dragged down by the weight of their stone flesh. Instead, their unnatural momentum carried them forward—running on the water's surface, their jagged feet sending up geysers of spray as they sprinted across in relentless unison. The water hissed as though boiling beneath their weight, leaving streaks of foam in their path.
To see them was to see a nightmare parade: an army of broken statues, faces frozen in snarls, hollow cracks exposing glimpses of living flesh and burning eyes within. A deathless tide, neither alive nor dead, and certainly not mortal.
Their direction was certain. Their hunger was fixed.
England.
And they would not stop until they reached it.
***
Morpheus stood before the circle of corpses he had gathered, the battlefield's silence pressing like a shroud. Human, angel, and demon alike—none exempt from his design. Their bodies lay in grim symmetry, forming the ritual's edge, their lifeless eyes staring upward like an audience forced to watch.
He breathed in deep, steadying himself. His voice began low, a whisper that trembled against the stillness,
"Lavi mouri, leve. Nan lonbraj mwen rele ou… nan san mwen mare ou."
(Life of death, rise. In shadow I call you… in blood I bind you.)
The words pulled on the air itself. A cold wind shivered across the circle. Wisps of black smoke bled from the corpses, gathering like breath stolen from lungs.
His voice deepened, growing steady, commanding:
"Kò kase, rasanble. Zo tande m, tounen nan lòd mwen."
(Broken body, assemble. Bones, hear me, return to my order.)
Bones within the circle twitched, rattling violently until they snapped into place, building a skeleton piece by piece. Vertebrae locked together. A skull cracked and fused, rising above the rest.
The chanting grew sharper, his tone rising like a storm breaking:
"Misk ak san, vini! Fè kò sa plen ankò!
Tisi mare, nè tounen! Tounen nan fòs mwen!"
(Muscle and blood, come! Fill this body again!
Sinews bind, nerves return! Return in my power!)
The skeleton quivered, dripping with strands of flesh as if poured from the ether itself. Veins spread like black rivers, blood pulsing through them. Pale skin stretched across raw muscle, taut and incomplete, quivering with half-born life.
Morpheus's eyes gleamed as he lifted his arms high, and his voice broke into a near scream, the chant no longer a whisper but a command to the abyss:
"Mò yo, reponn! Mwen se kle, mwen se pòt la!
Soti nan fon fènwa, leve, pran souf ankò!"
(Dead, answer! I am the key, I am the door!
From the depths of darkness, rise, breathe again!)
The ground shuddered. Death itself poured down, black and heavy, slamming into the forming body.
The figure arched with a violent convulsion. Eyes shot open—wide, stunned, white fire burning inside them.
Then came the sound.
A guttural growl, low and furious, tore from the throat of the resurrected thing.
Morpheus staggered, chest heaving, but his hand remained raised, claiming it. His lips twisted into something halfway between triumph and fear.
From the edge of the ritual, the bodies voice cut through, stricken, horrified.
"What have you done?"
The growl deepened, the corpse's lips curling over half-formed teeth, rage and hunger vibrating in its very marrow.
Morpheus did not answer.
But his smile was as bright as ever.
***
The walls of Hogwarts trembled faintly as distant magic rippled against the wards. In the Great Hall, students had been gathered under the watchful eyes of teachers and staff, every candle flickering in nervous sympathy with the storm of power raging outside.
Through the enchanted windows, they could see only faint outlines—shadows moving like titans across a hazy canvas of smoke and fire. Yet even that half-glimpse was enough to chill their blood. Sometimes, a streak of angelic light arced across the horizon. Sometimes, a demon's roar seemed to vibrate in their bones. Once, the entire hall went quiet as a godlike silhouette blotted out the moon before vanishing again.
The students whispered in hushed tones. Some pressed their faces against the glass. Others clutched each other's hands beneath the tables.
James Potter stood among them, his jaw clenched. He could feel it—the war just beyond reach, the weight of helplessness pressing down on every young chest in the room. He looked at Sirius, at Remus, at Lily, at dozens of faces staring out in silent dread.
And then, he snapped.
In one swift motion, James climbed up onto the nearest table, boots clattering against the wood.
"We can't stay here and do nothing!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the murmur of fear like a blade. Heads whipped toward him. Students froze mid-breath. Even the teachers stiffened.
At the staff table, Minerva McGonagall shot to her feet, her tartan robes billowing. "Potter! Get down from that desk this instant!"
But James shook his head, fire in his eyes. "No! Don't you see? We're not even in school anymore. Look around—this isn't class, it isn't exams, it isn't Quidditch practice. This is war! And we're sitting here like…" He searched for the right words, his chest heaving. Then he spat it out: "Like bloody snitches just hovering—waiting—waiting for someone else to catch us, snatch us, or tear us apart!"
The hall erupted into whispers, the tension snapping like brittle glass. McGonagall's lips thinned, but James pressed on before she could cut him down.
"How can we sit here, behind walls, when out there our families are dying? Our brothers, our sisters, our parents—our friends! We've been trained! We know how to fight. Maybe we're not ready for all of it, but—" his voice cracked, raw with desperation—"something has to be better than nothing!"
He swept his gaze across the hall, meeting eyes that burned with the same restless fear as his. "Are we really going to sit here, pretending we can't help, when the world outside is being torn apart?"
The silence after his words was deafening, broken only by the distant rumble of the war pressing at Hogwarts' wards.
***
Helga Hufflepuff stood cloaked in silence on a ridge just beyond the chaos, her golden wards coiled tightly around her like the folds of her own robes. England burned before her eyes.
The sky was blackened with wings—angels, brilliant and terrible, descending in streaks of white fire. Below them surged demons, their horns and claws flashing in the glow of burning villages. Where their forces clashed with mortal defenders, the land itself seemed to scream.
She saw a phalanx of witches try to raise a barrier only for a divine spear to tear through it, shattering their ranks. She saw men and women cut down by talons, their cries swallowed by the roar of combat. The angels did not pause. The demons did not falter. Blood ran in gutters, soaking the green English earth red.
Gods moved among them. Their presence was unmistakable—each stride distorted the air, each blow split open the ground. A single sweep of their power felled dozens. And still, the mortals fought back. Wizards unleashed torrents of fire, lightning, curses that rattled the very marrow of the world. Some took angels down with chains of enchanted steel; others dragged demons into pits carved by spellfire. But for every foe that fell, ten more surged forward.
Helga's throat tightened. She had walked many battlefields in her life, but this this was slaughter.
Her fingers moved, almost unconsciously, shaping a simple scrying charm. The wards surrounding England resisted her; she could not pierce their heart. Instead, she cast her sight outward, toward the place she dreaded most.
The vision shimmered before her eyes, and another battlefield unfolded.
It was worse.
Outside the wards, where Morpheus's shrine of corpses stood, the ground writhed with death. Terracotta warriors those cursed creations of ancient China marched without hesitation, ripping through demons, smashing angels, tearing creatures limb from limb. Their stone faces were unchanging, uncaring, each strike a work of precision as blood sprayed and bones shattered.
Humans, demons, angels alike fell beneath their blades. Limbs were severed, wings torn away, throats crushed in their unyielding hands. The air stank of iron and ash, of burning spellwork and ruptured flesh.
Helga pressed a hand to her lips, her tears threatening to break through the dam of her composure. The horror was unrelenting. And at the center of it all—Morpheus. His circle of the dead, his ritual, his figure wreathed in shadows of his own making.
Her voice trembled when she finally spoke.
"I can't save you… can I, Morpheus?"
The words spilled out like a confession, each syllable weighted with centuries of buried grief.
"I can't."
Her chest rose sharply as she drew in a breath that rattled with despair. Her gaze stayed fixed on the slaughter in her vision, on the man who had once been her heart, now commanding death itself.
"I just… can't save you. How could I ever save you, my dear Morpheus?"
Her tears blurred the vision, but still she watched, unwilling to turn away. The battlefield raged on, demons shrieked, angels howled, mortals died in droves and all she could do was whisper her love and her sorrow to the man who could no longer hear her.