Harry knew the darkness in front of his eyes. The familiar temperature less void. Pressureless ground. The same horizon that existed and didn't at the same time.
He exhaled sharply.
He was again there. In Nozdrega's realm.
He lifted his head and stared into the gloom. Wisps of pale light drifted like dying embers, revealing cracked earth and pillars that disappeared into infinity. The air carried no scent, no sound—only a stillness so absolute that even his heartbeat felt like an intruder.
"…This never goes the way I want," he muttered.
Harry trudged forward, his steps silent against the shadowed stone as he approached the center of the realm to the altar where Nozdrega was always asleep on.
And this time too, she was coiled atop it like a massive mountain, white scales glowing faintly like starlight trapped in crystal, wings folded, tail curled around the pedestal.
Nozdrega.
Goddess of Life and Death.
Harry sighed. "Let's get this over with..."
But before he could finish the thought, a silver eye snapped open.
The great dragon lifted her head—not with aggression, but with a slow, tired annoyance, as though she had been expecting him. For the first time in all the dreams he'd had here, she didn't blast him into oblivion.
She simply looked at him instead of blasting him with her dragon breath.
And then her form unraveled—light, shadow, and something older than existence twisting like folded dimensions peeling apart.
When the brilliance faded, a woman stood before him.
Harry blinked.He had seen her before—at Nature's hut—but this version felt sharper, more defined, as if the realm here reflected her truest shape.
Her hair fell in long, weightless strands—not silver, not black, not white, but shifting between them like fluid starlight. Her garments weren't garments at all—more like a cloak woven from collapsing galaxies and yawning voids, the fabric rippling in ways that hurt the eyes if stared at too long.
Her presence was quiet.Her presence was suffocating.
Not with hostility, but with weight—like gravity bending around her soul.
Her eyes were the worst—or the most magnificent. Twin swirls of silver and shadow that held centuries, endings, beginnings… and something else Harry couldn't name. Something he didn't remember seeing before.
She studied him.
"…Why are you here again, child?" Nozdrega asked, her voice soft as drifting ash.
Harry rubbed his temples. "I didn't exactly choose to be. My dreams just… send me places. Randomly. I don't control where I end up."
She raised a brow.
A casual flick of her fingers—
And the world twisted.
The altar, the abyss, the dead horizon... all vanished in a blink. Harry found himself sitting at a long obsidian table inside a castle hall that seemed carved from starlight and bone. Torches burned with white fire along towering pillars, but the flames gave no heat, only illumination.
Nozdrega sat across from him with a grace that made the head table at Hogwarts look like a tavern bench.
She rested her chin on her hand. "What do you think of my realm?"
Harry glanced at the shadowed hall. "Honestly? It's gloomy. Really gloomy. Dark, empty… Not much else to see."
Amusement flickered in her eyes.
"And it never suffocates you? Never feels heavy?" she asked.
Harry shook his head. "No. Why would it?"
Her smirk deepened. "Do you know where you are?"
"Realm of the Dead," Harry said instantly. "You're the goddess of life and death, so it fits. Hard to miss the vibe."
She laughed. A sound like ice breaking on a frozen river.
"Correct," she said. "This is the Realm of the Dead. A forbidden place. Any living soul who lingers here for too long… dies. Permanently. Their spirit becomes trapped, unable to return to life."
Harry raised his eyes, but she continued.
"That is why I killed you, all those times before," she continued, tone surprisingly gentle. "Not out of boredom. Not out of cruelty."
Her eyes dimmed, shadowed.
"I believed your soul would die if it stayed here too long. Killing you in the dream was the only way to force you awake in the real world."
'Harry blinked slowly. "... Right... you were trying to save my life?"
"Killing you," she said lightly, "was the fastest method available."
"So comforting," Harry deadpanned.
Her smile curled, sharper. "What I didn't know was that somehow you are not affected by this realm..."
Harry shrugged. "It's not like I'm really here. I'm just dreaming so why would I be affected."
Nozdrega just smiled like Harry said something funny, and continued to look at him. Harry stared back, not wanting to back down.
Nozdrega watched him with an expression that did not belong to the present moment at all. It wasn't confusion, nor annoyance, nor even the lingering amusement she'd worn earlier. It was something far older—an ancient familiarity softening her gaze until Harry felt as though she were looking through him, past the skin and bones, past the magic, past the boy entirely. As if she were seeing two shapes, two souls, perfectly overlapped.
"You look at me with his eyes," she murmured.
Harry blinked. "Whose?"
She didn't answer. Instead, her gaze sharpened, weight settling into the space between them. "I understand what you're trying to accomplish."
He didn't need to guess. The answer rose in him with the certainty of instinct. "The resurrection spell."
A quiet nod. "Yes. That."
Her voice gentled almost imperceptibly, but the words carried the blunt certainty of a verdict. "It will not work."
Harry didn't look away. And then he said, simply. "Watch me. I will make it work."
The effect on her was immediate and shockingly unguarded. Nozdrega drew in a sudden breath—soft, involuntary, almost reverent. Because for a heartbeat, something shifted in his gaze. Not consciously. Not with intent. But a flicker of something ancient passed through him, brushing the surface of his expression like a shadow remembering itself—enough that the goddess of Life and Death saw not a thirteen-year-old boy, but an echo of a figure she had once known with agonizing clarity.
"Yes…" she whispered, as if confirming a suspicion centuries old. "You truly are him through and through."
Harry stiffened. He had heard this too many times to ignore. Nature. Praesidius. Even Embera. They all saw 'him' in Harry. But who was 'him'?
Harry demanded. "Whose reincarnation am I? Who was he to you guys?"
Nozdrega smiled in that maddening, divine way—an expression filled with affection, sadness, and inevitability, all threaded together. "You will learn his name when the time is right. But today is not that day."
"The day you do... It will return to you. Who you are and what your destiny is... everything."
Nozdrega didn't move at first. She simply held his gaze, the silver in her eyes deepening until it felt like the entire hall dimmed around them. Then—very slowly—she raised her hand.
Her fingers drifted through the air as though she were brushing dust from an invisible page. A simple gesture, soft and unhurried.
"Time is not ready for you to remember," she said.
Harry opened his mouth to ask what she meant—
—but Nozdrega wasn't looking at his face anymore.
She was looking directly into his eyes.
Something warm pulsed behind them—too sudden, too sharp—like a spark punching through the dream. For a fraction of a second, so brief he could never have realized it, the emerald green of his irises shifted.
A ripple of crimson.
Old. Ancient. A color that did not belong to mortal bloodlines.
Nozdrega exhaled shakily.
Her smile was wrong in every direction—too tender, too relieved, too mournful all at once. A smile carved from longing and grief and joy in equal measure, the expression of someone who had waited lifetimes for something impossible to happen.
"There you are…" she whispered. "Just for a breath."
Before he could ask, before he could even blink—
The realm shattered.
Not violently. Not with the explosions she'd used before. This time it felt like being lifted away, gently but inevitably, as if reality itself were pushing him out without a choice in the matter.
His vision blurred. Her outline dissolved. Her voice followed him, faint but echoing, like a memory sinking underwater.
"When the day arrives… you will remember everything."
Harry tried to answer, but the world folded inward and swallowed him whole.
And then there was nothing.
He woke abruptly, lungs pulling air as though surfacing from a deep dive.
Moonstone Dunvegan.
His bed. His sheets. The faint scent of cedar polish and sea wind.
Harry dragged a hand over his face and let out a long, defeated breath.
Every time he met one of the goddesses, he left with more questions than answers. Half-truths, riddles, insinuations. Threads that connected but never revealed the shape of the pattern.
Maybe divine beings simply enjoyed being cryptic. Or maybe their timelines were so vast that speaking plainly felt unnatural.
Either way, it was infuriating.
He pushed himself upright, the blanket falling away from his bare torso. Moonlight spilled through the open balcony doors, silvering the lines of his body.
For a moment, the room went still.
It wasn't vanity—Harry never paid attention to his looks—but the sight was striking enough to make any adult woman in the house faint on the spot. At twelve, he was already nearly five foot nine; his shoulders broad, his abdomen carved in lean definition, every line sharpened by the pale glow pouring over him.
But Harry didn't spare it a thought.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood, stretching as though shaking off the remnants of the dream. The cool night air drifted across his skin as he stepped toward the balcony.
Behind him, the whiskey bottle on his desk clicked softly.
The cork eased itself free.
Amber liquid poured in a smooth, controlled stream into a waiting glass, which rose from the table and drifted after him like a loyal familiar. Harry didn't even glance back; he simply lifted his hand behind him in a silent, effortless cue.
The glass snapped into his palm with perfect timing.
A thin mist spread across its surface as the drink chilled instantly.
He brought it to his lips, the cold bite grounding him as he stepped onto the balcony and looked out over the moonlit grounds.
Another dream.Another goddess.Another cryptic hint about a past life he couldn't remember.
He took a slow drag, exhaling into the night.
"Fantastic," he muttered. "Just what I needed."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Far beneath the surface of Britain, deeper than any Ministry archive or ancient vault, a cast chamber pulsed with black lantern-light.
The hall was circular, an underground cathedral carved from obsidian and runes older than wizardkind. Shadows clung to the pillars like living ink, and the faint hum of layered wards vibrated through the air like a heartbeat.
At the center stood the round table.
Twelve seats.Twelve masks.Twelve figures dressed in black attire that blended the elegance of noble fantasy with the precision of modern tailoring—high collars, fitted coats, metal-threaded cuffs. Each mask was unique: beast, demon, skull, ash-white faces with hollow eyes, geometric sigils glowing faintly where mouths should be.
They sat in complete silence.
Waiting.
Not one dared to shift. Not one breathed too loudly. The throne—higher, more ornate, shaped like coiled night—remained empty.
Until the door at the far end whispered open.
A single figure stepped through.
Instantly, all twelve rose as one, heads bowing, fists crossed over their chests in formal submission.
She walked forward without hurry.
The crimson of her dress looked like liquid wine and fresh blood at once, flowing silk embroidered with black celestial patterns that shimmered like constellations drowning in dusk. Her hair fell straight down her back, glossier, longer, a shade richer than the childish form she wore at Hogwarts. Her figure had the grace and danger of late adolescence.
Lilith.
Not the girl the school saw. Not the illusion they believed. But her true self—seventeen years old.
As she approached, the runes carved along the stone walls brightened, reacting instinctively to her aura. The wards bent. The shadows leaned. The air thickened with reverence.
She ascended the single step and sat on the throne.
Only then did she speak.
"I convened an emergency convene due to one reason and one reason only."
The masks turned toward one another, murmurs slithering through the chamber like stirred snakes. Confusion. Alarm. Disbelief.
No one spoke loudly—no one dared—but the sudden tension fractured the perfect discipline they were known for.
Lilith let it build.Let it ferment.Let their fear ripen into something sharp and honest.
Then she rose a single brow, and the hall fell silent so fast the air itself seemed to stop moving.
She leaned forward, crimson elbows resting on the throne's arms, fingers interlacing.
"Harry Potter," she said softly, "knows about our organization."
A shockwave of silence.
Followed by—
Pandemonium.
Chairs scraped back.Masks snapped toward her.At least four members half-stood in instinctive denial before correcting themselves.
"They boy?! Impossible! No living archives holds our name..."
"The Shadows has been hidden since the first founding. Even monarchs didn't know..."
"Archon, that information doesn't exist anywhere and no one would betray the organization."
One masked figure finally managed a coherent question.
"…Archon," they asked carefully, "are you certain?"
Lilith's gaze cooled.
"I am. He didn't hint. He didn't speculate. He saidthe name." her voice dropped. "The Shadows"
A strangled breath echoed from someone near the far end of the table.
Another bowed his head in dread.
"Then how?" someone whispered.
Lilith didn't answer. She simply looked at them—each of the twelve—letting the weight of the unknown sink in.
Finally, she spoke again.
"Reports," she ordered. "Everything we have on him. Now."
A robed figure on her right stood. His mask was sleek and sharp, carved like a hawk's beak, the sigil of his rank shimmering faintly.
Warden—master of clandestine surveillance.
"Archon," he began, bowing slightly. "Regarding the incident at Azkaban…"
The chamber tightened. Even Lilith's eyes sharpened at that.
"I can confirm," he continued, "that the massacre of the imprisoned Death Eaters was the work of Harry Potter."
A ripple of disbelief surged through the table again.
He held up a hand, steady and assured.
"I did not say the Ministry believes so. I said I do."
Lilith gestured for him to continue.
"There is no magical residue," he said. "No spell signature. No footprints, no aura spill, no trace of apparition. Every detection charm—both Ministry and our own—found nothing. Not even dissipated ambient magic."
The table went still.
Nothing? No one could leave zero trace. No one.
"And yet," he said, tone grim, "every known Death Eater in Azkaban was killed by the Killing Curse."
Murmurs began again—low, incredulous, horrified.
A second masked member—the one with a cracked porcelain mask, the Seer—whispered, "Impossible… the Killing Curse leaves magical traces by definition…"
"Exactly," Warden replied. "Which is why the absence of residue is even more alarming."
Lilith tapped a finger on the armrest, slow and contemplative.
"And the dementors?"
Warden hesitated—just a fraction.
"The dementors reported," he said, voice lower, "that something appeared inside Azkaban that night."
The hall chilled. Even Lilith tilted her head.
"Something," she repeated. "Not someone?"
"Yes, Archon. Their words were… vague. They saw a being arrive, but the presence was so repulsive to them—so fundamentally antithetical—that they fled. Instantly. Entirely."
A stunned silence followed.
Dementors did not flee. Not from humans. Not from magic. Not from anything mortal.
Lilith's eyes lowered, "And they could not describe this being?"
"No," Warden answered. "Only that it was wrong to them."
A heartbeat of quiet.
Then Lilith exhaled very softly—a sound like silk sliding over steel.
"So," she murmured, "Harry Potter walks the earth leaving no trace… kills without residue… and repels creatures born of death itself? Is that what you are saying?"
"I do not want to, but yes. That's exactly what I'm saying Archon. But I'd like to say that there was residue of the killing curse, just not the caster."
Lilith went unnervingly still.
Not in poise.In fear.
Only those who had seen her at her worst would recognize it. The tightening of the jaw. The faint tremor chasing through her breath. The way her fingers, elegant and pale, curled a little too hard into the obsidian armrest.
The masks around the table turned toward her, sensing the shift.
The Archon did not frighten easily.
And yet—
She leaned back, eyes unfocused for a moment, as if replaying something none of them had heard. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than before—flat, stripped of authority and dipped in something colder.
"There is something you must understand," she said.
Twelve spines stiffened.
Lilith looked down at her hands as if admitting this tasted bitter.
"Harry Potter is not… normal."
A ripple of confusion moved through the council.
She lifted her gaze, and this time there was no mask on her face—only the bare, sharp truth.
"He isn't unstable," she said softly. "Not in the way the Ministry fears. He is… wrong. In a way I cannot categorize. In a way no child should be."
The Seer shifted uncomfortably. "Archon… what do you mean?"
Lilith inhaled, steadying herself.When she spoke again, each word sounded as if it had been carved out with a knife.
"Most people—no matter how twisted—have lines. Attachments. They fight to protect their family. They threaten when their loved ones are endangered. They recoil when someone suggests hurting them."
She paused.
"Harry Potter urged me to."
The silence cracked.
Warden straightened as if struck. "He—what?"
Lilith nodded once, rigidly.
"He told me," she continued, "that if I ever wanted him to come after my organization… if I genuinely wished for a war… then I should involve his family. Touch them. Threaten them."
Her hands trembled again—barely.
"Because that would give him the excuse he needed to kill us all."
The hall felt smaller suddenly.The walls seemed to lean inward.
The Ironmask hissed, "That is—Archon, with respect, that is madness."
"No," Lilith whispered. "Madness would have been anger… outrage… protectiveness."Her eyes unfocused again, remembering the boy who had smiled at her like a blade smiling back."He wasn't emotional. He wasn't posturing. He was excited. He wanted me to try. He wanted a justification that even the world would accept."
The Seer's cracked mask tilted. "A psychopath…"
"A predator," Lilith corrected. "A patient one."
A long, grave pause.
Then she added, in a voice now sharp with command again—because fear or not, she was the Archon:
"Hear this clearly. None of you—not one—will involve, threaten, manipulate, or even inconveniently touch anyone belonging to Nexus."
A beat.
"Not a sibling. Not a distant cousin. Not a supplier. Not a casual acquaintance."
Her gaze swept the round table—twelve killers, twelve elites, each frozen.
"If we give him a thread, he will take the whole tapestry. And I am not—"her voice cracked, barely perceptible,"—I am not interested in seeing what Harry Potter becomes when he feels justified."
The shock that rippled through the Shadows was immediate and profound.
The Archon, who Voldemort had once bowed his head to when she'd only been seven. The Archon—whose power even the old blood feared. The Archon...who never admitted fear
…was afraid.
Warden swallowed. "Archon… this changes everything."
"No," Lilith corrected. "Harry Potter changed everything. We are simply trying not to be buried under the consequences."
A low, derisive scoff escaped the member with the jagged iron mask."Are we really going to stop because of him?"
Lilith's eyes lifted—slow, measured, unblinking.
"Stop?" she echoed. "No. We do not stop. We adapt."
The temperature in the hall seemed to drop a degree.
She straightened slightly on the throne, crimson fabric whispering against obsidian.
"Our next directive remains unchanged," she said. "We proceed with the search. The Chamber of Secrets exists—and the basilisk within it is real. If we can locate its entrance, gain control of the creature, and weaponize it…"
A breath.
"…then Harry Potter becomes mortal again."
The masks around the table shifted. No one interrupted. No one dared.
Lilith continued, her tone turning darker, colder—practical in the way only someone raised for this life could be.
"And once he is removed, Hogwarts becomes ours from beneath the floorboards. Influence the castle, influence the bloodlines within it. Influence the bloodlines, control Britain."
Seer spoke then, her cracked porcelain mask tilted like a questioning moon."Archon… is this truly what you wish to do?"
The question landed like a pin dropped in a mausoleum.
Lilith's breath caught.
Just for a moment.
Her eyes drifted—not away in embarrassment, but inward, as though peering at something she herself couldn't name. A faint crease formed between her brows. She blinked, slowly, almost uncertainly.
"I…" she began.
The smallest tremor danced across her fingers before she curled them into her palm. Her shoulders tightened, her posture sharpening as if she physically forced her spine straight.
"…it doesn't matter what I want."
The answer felt rehearsed—yet brittle.
"All that matters is what I must do. As the last heir of my line, I am responsible for ensuring the Shadows remain unbroken. That our dominion outlasts me."
Her voice dipped for half a second, a whisper drowned in the heavy stone air.
"I do not have much time left."
It wasn't a statement of dramatics. It was something quieter. Something resigned.
Seer leaned forward. "Archon… duty and desire are not the same thing."
Lilith's head snapped up with a sudden clarity, as if the moment of doubt had been crushed under armor returning to place.
"Desire is irrelevant," she said firmly. "Legacy is what matters. Stability is what matters. The Shadows must endure. And if I must walk a path I… do not fully understand—"
Her jaw clenched briefly.
"—then so be it. Duty binds me."
The masks exchanged glances, unsettled. She sounded like someone reciting words taught too young. Too often.
Lilith lifted a hand, silencing the room.
"I'll find the chamber," she said. "And I'll find the basilisk to secure our future before I die."
The silence after Lilith dismissed them felt heavier than her presence ever had.
She swept out of the hall, crimson trailing like spilled ink, the runes dimming in her wake. Only when the massive stone doors sealed shut did anyone breathe normally again.
For a long moment, the twelve sat unmoving.
Then, softly:
"…she's changing. She is starting to doubt it." That was Warden. His voice carried none of the earlier crispness.
Seer's cracked mask turned toward him. "Yes. She's waking up."
A faint ripple of unease passed through the table. The member with the jagged iron mask leaned forward.
"Be careful how you phrase that, Seer."
"I mean what I said," she replied calmly. "Ask yourselves... why have we sought to dominate magical Britain across centuries? What has it earned us? What use did any Archon ever make of that power?"
Silence.Not hostile—hesitant.
Because this wasn't rebellion. This was truth they had all quietly felt for years.
The silent one with the serpent-scale mask finally spoke, voice a low rumble.
"The Lyralei line has ruled us since before records were inked. Every Archon demanded one thing—control." He paused. "But control to do what?"
No answer.
None had one.
Another leaned in, mask shaped like a bird skull—Haruspex."We spent generations placing strings around Wizengamot seats, Ministries, ancient families, even international trade. And what did we do with that influence?"
"Nothing," Seer murmured.
The word lingered, stark and undeniable.
Haruspex nodded. "Exactly. Every time we gained footing, the Archon of that era simply said: 'Maintain it.' Never act. Never alter. Never guide. Just hold the reins and… wait."
"Wait for what?" someone whispered.
"That is what we do not know."
The youngest member, wearing a plain wooden mask, hesitated before speaking.
"I have gone through old records," he admitted. "Handwritten journals of the third Archon. Charms-preserved letters from the eighth. They all express the same thing—private notes speaking of impulses they couldn't explain. A compulsion toward dominion. A need to command. A… push."
Warden exhaled sharply. "A curse."
"A blood curse," Seer affirmed. "The Lyralei line bears it. But we—"
"We are chained to them through oath," Haruspex finished. "We feel the tug secondhand. Told to obey impulses that even they do not understand."
A collective heaviness settled over them.
"We exist because they must command," Warden concluded slowly. "And we obey because we swore to obey."
"And so the Shadows," Seer said, voice soft, almost mournful, "have become an organization that continues simply because it has continued. A legacy that persists out of inertia. A blade held but never swung."
The cracked porcelain mask tilted upward, as if staring past the stone ceiling.
"Now the new Archon stands at the edge of her own doubt. She questions her path but continues down it anyway… because she cannot turn away."
"And Harry Potter," Warden added grimly, "is the first external force strong enough to frighten her into admitting it."
Another voice rose—careful, uneasy."Should we intervene? Should we advise her to stop the search for the Chamber? Should we—"
"No," Haruspex interrupted, shaking his head. "We cannot oppose the Archon. Our oaths bind us. Her orders bind us."
"But we can question ourselves," Seer said quietly.
They all looked at her.
She placed one hand on the stone table, fingers splayed like she was grounding herself.
"Why do we exist?" she asked."For what purpose do we fight?""What enemy? What threat?""What destiny are we following—and whose?"
The chamber had nearly emptied when a single voice stopped the last of them mid-step.
It came from the one who rarely spoke—the member in the blank mask of polished onyx. A mask with no carvings, no sigils, no expression.The Null.
"…What if Potter is the key?"
Every head turned back.Not in outrage—In stunned, brittle curiosity.
Null straightened, gloved hands clasped behind his back.
"We have danced around the idea," he continued. "Whispered it in archived footnotes, in old theories we were too afraid to test. But no Archon. Not even the strongest has ever been free from the curse."
Seer tilted her mask. "And you think Harry Potter could break it?"
"I think," Null said slowly, "that if anything in this world can crack a curse that predates our written history… it is him."
Warden exhaled sharply. "And what makes you think that?"
Null's voice was calm. Too calm.
"Because he frightens the Archon."
He continued, tone still soft:
"She is not frightened of power. She is frightened of losing control. Of being seen. And Potter…" He paused. "…Potter looks at her and sees straight through the curse's veil. He sees her as she is, not as the bloodline demands her to be."
The others exchanged uneasy glances.
Seer whispered, "You think he could shatter her binding?"
"I think," Null said, "that if he wanted to, he could obliterate it. And if the Archon was freed of that ancient compulsion…"
He gestured subtly at the round table.
"…then perhaps this organization would finally gain purpose. Not the illusion of purpose. Not inherited orders we blindly follow."A pause, then:"Real purpose."
Haruspex frowned behind his bird-skull mask. "You're suggesting we rely on a psychopath."
"Perhaps," Null said with a shrug. "But even a madman may break a chain we cannot touch."
Warden leaned forward.
"And if freeing her changes nothing?"
"Then at least we will know," Null replied. "For the first time in centuries, we will have acted for ourselves, not for a curse."