The room was still humming with residual magic when Harry sat up.
It clung to the air like static, faint and bitter, a pressure that hadn't yet decided whether it wanted to dissipate or linger. Bellatrix's bedroom was lit with warm lights providing a strike contrast to the scene unfolding inside it.
Harry rolled his shoulders once.
The bruises along his arms and ribs were already fading. Dark purples receding into yellow, then nothing at all. His skin smoothed as if the damage had never been there. No wand. No incantation. Not even a conscious effort. The magic responded the way breathing did—automatic, unquestioned.
Bellatrix watched him from where she stood in front of the couch.
She hadn't moved since the spell ended.
Her wand rested loosely in her hand, angled toward the floor, as if she were afraid to lift it again. The wild edge people remembered her for wasn't there. What remained was something sharper, more dangerous in its restraint.
Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.
"That should be enough, Aunt Bella" he said calmly.
Bellatrix blinked and sighed in relief. She wasn't so comfortable casting the Cruciatus curse on her nephew even if it was for good cause.
"Good," she said, voice tight. "Because I was running out of ways to justify that."
Harry smiled, "Don't worry Aunt Bella, it's for good cause. Soon. Pretty soon."
Bellatrix gave a sharp, humorless laugh. "That's one way to describe torturing your own nephew."
Harry chuckled. "It isn't torture if the purpose is understanding," he said. "It's data."
That earned him a long look.
Bellatrix studied him the way one might study a blade, beautiful, precise and deeply unsettling in the wrong hands.
"You say things like that," she said slowly, "and I start to understand why people are afraid of you."
He smiled, "They are afraid because I dare to do everything and anything I need to do in order to reach my goals."
He crossed the room, stopping near the window. Outside, the Dursley estate grounds were silent, immaculate, aggressively normal. The world pretending nothing was wrong.
"I have enough now," he added. "Long-duration exposure. Variable intensity. Cognitive degradation markers. Emotional feedback loops."
Bellatrix stiffened slightly. "And?"
"And confirmation," Harry smiled back at her. "Confirmation that my initial thought process was correct."
Bellatrix sank onto the couch as if her legs had finally remembered gravity.
For a moment she said nothing, just watched him. This boy who wore the aftermath of an Unforgivable like a discarded coat.
"You're terrifying," she said at last.
Harry glanced back at her, curious rather than offended.
"I've known monsters," Bellatrix continued. "Real ones. Men and women who delighted in cruelty for its own sake. I had made the mistake of following one of them." Her mouth twisted. "And even he wouldn't have done this. Not to himself. Not willingly. Not so… methodically."
Harry's smile returned, small and genuine this time.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
That did it.
A shiver ran through her, sharp and unwelcome.
He turned back to the window, hands resting loosely at his sides.
"You don't have to worry," Harry said softly. "About him."
Bellatrix stiffened. "Harry—"
"Even if Voldemort comes back," he went on, voice steady, almost conversational, "he won't touch you again. Not you. Not anyone."
She pushed herself upright. "You can't be certain of that."
Harry tilted his head, considering.
"I am," he said.
There was no bravado in it. No anger. Just certainty.
"He won't take you," Harry continued. "He won't take Snape. Or anyone else who doesn't deserve it." His eyes darkened, not with rage, but with anticipation. "Because when he returns, I'll end him."
Bellatrix swallowed. "Harry…"
"I'll kill him myself," he said calmly. "Not with some grand spell. Not with prophecy or destiny or any of that nonsense." He flexed his fingers slowly, as if remembering something intimate. "With my own hands, if I have to."
The room felt colder.
"But first," Harry added, almost thoughtfully looking out of the window, "I'll make him understand."
Bellatrix's breath caught.
"Pain," Harry said. "Not the simple kind. Not screaming and blood and broken bones. That's crude. Temporary." He glanced at her, eyes sharp now, alive in a way that made her chest tighten. "I mean real pain. The kind that lingers. The kind that teaches."
He turned fully toward her.
"I'll make him feel every life he ruined," Harry said. "Every family left empty. Every moment where someone realized too late that the person they loved was already dead." His smile widened just a fraction. "I'll let him sit with that. Long enough to understand what he actually is."
Bellatrix went very still.
The words didn't sound like a threat. They weren't sharpened, or raised, or hurled with hatred. They were delivered the way one might describe the final step of a process already completed in the mind.
"And then… when he begs for mercy," Harry continued quietly, "I'll give him the mercy of death."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Bellatrix had heard vows before. Oaths. Maniacal promises screamed into the dark by men who mistook fury for resolve. This was not that.
This was cleaner.
She forced herself to breathe. "You're talking about this like it's inevitable."
Harry's gaze drifted back to the window, to the manicured lawn and trimmed hedges that pretended the world was safe.
"It is," he said. "Not because of prophecy. Not because he's destined to lose." A pause. "But because I'm willing to do what he never was."
That made her flinch.
Voldemort had been cruel. Brilliant. Obsessive. But he had also been indulgent—drunk on symbolism, on spectacle, on being seen. He needed witnesses. He needed fear reflected back at him.
Harry didn't.
"What if it changes you?" Bellatrix asked, the question escaping before she could stop it. "What if it costs you something you don't get back?"
Harry turned to her then, truly turned, and for a moment she saw something old behind his eyes. Not innocence. Not kindness.
Acceptance.
"It won't," he said simply. "Because I'm not pretending this is righteousness."
He looked out of the window. "You know it too Aunt Bella, the world doesn't need saving. It needs fixing. And I'll fix it."
Bellatrix closed her eyes.
For a heartbeat, she let herself remember her own past. All the wildness and power that she was drunk on, all the meaningless blood superiority that she had her head muddled with. This didn't sound that different yet was far from the same.
"You say that like it's simple," Bellatrix said quietly.
"It is," Harry replied. "Simple doesn't mean easy."
He turned slightly, just enough that she could see his profile. Calm. Focused. Entirely unburdened by doubt.
"Saving implies restoration," he continued. "Going back to something that was whole." A faint smile touched his lips, devoid of humor. "There was never a whole to return to."
Bellatrix felt a chill crawl up her spine.
"The system is broken," Harry said. "Not bent. Not corrupted. Broken. You don't save a broken thing. You dismantle it and build something that doesn't fail the same way."
"And you think you should be the one to do that?" she asked.
Harry walked towards the table that had the platter of food, "I already am."
That was the moment it truly sank in.
Not that he would do terrible things. But that he already had, and had catalogued them as necessary steps rather than sins.
Bellatrix swallowed. "People will hate you."
Harry shrugged. "They are free to hate me, but at least no innocents will be murdered in cold-blood when I'm done."
"And when they call you a monster?"
His eyes flickered back to her, as he lifted the wine bottle to pour two glasses. "I am one."
"A monster who chooses his targets," he continued calmly. "Who knows exactly why he's acting, and what it costs." He picked up his own glass but didn't drink yet. "That already puts me leagues ahead of most."
Bellatrix stared at the wine as if it might bite her.
"You're talking about this like it's accounting," she said hoarsely.
"It is," Harry replied. "Everything that matters is."
He took a sip then, unhurried, eyes never leaving her face. "History isn't written by heroes, Aunt Bella. It's written by survivors who were willing to do what heroes wouldn't."
She let out a shaky laugh. "You're supposed to deny it. You know that, right? You're supposed to say you're still good. Still clean."
Harry chuckled as he took another sip, "I'm not. You know that Aunt Bella. I have more blood on my hand than any other 12 year old in this world."
"And clean hands are a luxury," he continued. "They only belong to people who let others bleed for them and their ideals."
That landed harder than any threat.
Bellatrix leaned back against the couch, suddenly exhausted. "You don't even flinch when you say it."
He smiled and then a cigar flew into his hand. He took a lazy drag and gazed at the ceiling. "Do you wanna be integrated into society again Aunt Bella?"
Bellatrix stared at him.
Not because of the cigar, though that alone would have been absurd enough, but because of the casual way he'd asked the question, as if he were offering her a drink instead of a future.
"Integrated…?" she repeated faintly.
Her mind raced ahead faster than her words could follow. Azkaban. The sentence. Life. The impossibility of it all. She laughed then, short and incredulous, the sound scraping out of her throat.
"That's not possible," she said. "Harry, I didn't leave Azkaban. I was taken. Illegally. I shouldn't even be breathing free air, much less sitting in a house drinking wine." Her eyes sharpened. "And that's not even mentioning the fact that everyone else in there is dead."
She didn't say you killed them, but the words sat heavily between them.
Harry exhaled smoke toward the ceiling, watching it curl and thin.
"It is possible," he said mildly.
Bellatrix looked at him again. Really looked. The calm. The certainty. The way he spoke about systems like puzzles already half-solved.
"How?" she asked.
Harry finally glanced back at her, eyes bright with quiet intent.
"First," he said, "I take your memories."
Her breath caught.
"Not all of them," he clarified. "Just the ones that matter to the world. Your crimes. Your loyalties. Voldemort. Azkaban. Every spell you ever cast in his name." He took another drag. "Everything that makes you Bellatrix Black in the public sense."
She felt suddenly cold.
"And then?" she asked.
"Then I replace them," Harry continued evenly. "With a clean narrative. A few weeks of captivity. Confusion. Pain. Fear. Enough to make the gaps believable." He tilted his head slightly. "Those memories come from me. So I can remove them too."
Bellatrix's fingers curled into the cushions.
"You're talking about… erasing me."
"No," Harry said immediately. "I'm talking about shelving you."
He leaned forward now, elbows resting on his knees, voice precise.
"After that, I knock you out. Bruises. Cuts. Nothing permanent. I leave you somewhere visible. Somewhere public." A pause. "Somewhere Amelia Bones will hear about within the hour."
Bellatrix swallowed hard.
"And when they find me?" she asked.
"You wake up," Harry said. "You don't know who you are. You don't remember your crimes. You don't even remember why someone would do this to you." His mouth curved slightly. "And knowing Amelia, she won't send a mindless woman back to Azkaban on principle. She'll investigate."
Her heart was pounding now.
"Which means," Harry went on, "instead of hunting you, she starts hunting whoever did this. Whoever killed the Death Eaters. Whoever broke Azkaban open."
Bellatrix let out a breathless sound that might have been a laugh.
"And what about me?" she asked quietly. "What do I become in all of this?"
Harry leaned back again, smoke drifting lazily between them.
"You become a problem," he said. "A victim. A mystery." He glanced at her. "And legally, you become Sirius Black's responsibility."
Her head snapped up. "Sirius?"
"He's your closest living relative," Harry said. "And Amelia will insist on supervision." A faint smirk. "And Sirius, being Sirius, will bring you straight into Nexus because he can barely take care of himself, let alone someone else."
Bellatrix stared at him, stunned.
"And then?" she whispered.
"When you arrive at Moonstone Dunvegan," Harry said, voice calm as ever, "I give everything back."
Her memories. Her past. Azkaban. Voldemort. Blood.
"All of it," he finished. "Intact. Unedited."
Silence crashed down between them.
"And after that?" Bellatrix asked.
Harry met her gaze.
"After that," he said, "everything depends on how well you can act."
She leaned back slowly, mind reeling, the enormity of it all settling into place. Not just escape. Not just freedom.
Reintegration. A reset. A knife slipped cleanly into the heart of the system that had condemned her.
"You're insane," she breathed.
Harry smiled, smoke curling at the corner of his lips.
"No," he said softly. "I'm thorough."
"You really are terrifying," she said.
Harry didn't look at her when he spoke next. He was still watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling, as if the words required no ceremony.
"I would have killed you too," he said calmly. "Right there. With the rest of them."
The room went very quiet.
Bellatrix didn't recoil. She didn't argue. She had lived long enough to recognize truth when it was spoken without cruelty.
"I saw your mind," Harry continued. "Not the surface. Not the justifications. The part you never let anyone touch." His fingers tapped once against the arm of the chair. "You hated what you'd become. You regretted it. Not because it cost you power—but because you knew you could have been better."
He finally turned to her then.
"That's why you're here now, enjoying wine, without your bouts of madness."
Bellatrix swallowed, throat tight. "You didn't save me," she said softly.
"No," Harry agreed. "I spared you."
That distinction mattered more than mercy.
"If I hadn't seen that regret," he went on, "you would have died with the rest. No speeches. No hesitation. I don't keep dangerous people alive out of sentiment. Even if they are family."
She nodded once, sharply. She understood that too.
Harry stood and crossed the room again, movements unhurried. "This plan," he said, gesturing vaguely, "isn't charity. It's restitution. You get a chance to exist without the weight of what you did crushing every step you take."
Bellatrix looked up at him. "And the world?"
"When the cure if finished," he said, "your name will be on it."
Her breath caught. "What?"
"The research," Harry clarified. "The work on repairing minds damaged by the Cruciatus. You helped. Directly. Willingly." His gaze sharpened. "And history responds to results, not intentions."
Bellatrix stared at him, stunned.
"People won't forget what you were," Harry continued. "But they'll have to reconcile it with what you did afterward. With what bears your name."
He paused at the doorway.
"That's how narratives change," he said quietly. "Not by erasing the past. By forcing the present to contradict it."
Bellatrix felt something dangerous stir in her chest. Not hope, not relief, but something heavier.
Redemption that had to be earned.
"You're planning to use me," she said.
Harry nodded once. "Yes."
"And you're telling me this," she said slowly, "because…?"
"Because earlier you were Bellatrix," he replied. "But now you are Aunt Bella."
She laughed softly, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Merlin help me," she murmured. "I taught myself to live without conscience, and you come along and hand me one like a weapon."
Harry's lips curved faintly.
"Use it well," he said. "And I don't need an answer right now, take your time to think about it, Aunt Bella."
The door closed.
On the same time, the living room at Moonstone Dunvegan was warm in the quiet way only lived-in places ever managed.
Sunlight filtered through tall windows, catching on the thin steam rising from three teacups arranged neatly on the low table between the couches. Outside, the sea could be heard distantly, its rhythm steady and unbothered by whatever the world was doing beyond the cliffs.
Petunia sat upright, hands wrapped around her cup more out of habit than need. Across from her, Emma Granger leaned forward slight, listening with the earnest focus of someone who still felt like a guest in a magical home.
Amaryllis Parkinson lounged back against the cushions, one leg crossed over the other, expression amused but sharp-eyed.
Ensorcellated quiet hummed softly through the wards.
Emma was the one who broke it.
"It's been a while," she said, carefully neutral. "Since Harry and the children were last back."
Petunia nodded without looking up. "It has."
She stirred her tea once, though the liquid didn't need it.
"He must be busy," Petunia added. "Too busy to even meet them to Apparate them home."
Amaryllis tilted her head toward her. "Honestly, Petunia, every time he goes quiet like this I assume he's about to give the magical world another collective heart attack."
Petunia's smile was thin, fond and tired all at once. "If I'm being honest? When I raised him, I had no idea I was raising a once-in-a-millennium prodigy. He never showed anything like that. Not until later."
Emma blinked. "That's… not usually how it works."
Petunia finally looked at her then. "I know."
She set her cup down carefully, as if choosing her words required the same precision.
"About eight months before Hogwarts," Petunia continued, "Harry lost all his memories."
Emma stiffened. "Lost… all of them?"
"All of them," Petunia confirmed. "He didn't know who he was. Or who we were. Didn't know about magic. Didn't know his own name."
Amaryllis straightened slightly now, interest sharpening.
"He woke up one morning," Petunia went on, voice steady, "and it was like the first ten years of his life had been wiped clean. He wasn't frightened. Just… empty. Curious."
Emma swallowed. "What did the healers say?"
"They said it shouldn't have been possible," Petunia replied calmly. "Which, in hindsight, should have been my first warning."
Silence settled for a moment.
"And then?" Emma asked quietly.
"And then," Petunia said, "six months later, he Apparated for the first time."
Amaryllis raised a brow. "Accidental magic?"
Petunia shook her head. "No."
Emma frowned. "That's impossible. Children can't—"
"He did," Petunia said simply. "Soundlessly."
Amaryllis inhaled sharply. "His was Apparition was silent?"
Petunia nodded. "No crack or nothing. One moment he was in his room and the other he appeared in front of me, near the pool."
Emma stared at her. "That's not..."
"I know," Petunia said. "Trust me. I know."
Amaryllis set her cup down slowly. "Merlin's blood."
"I thought he learnt to do it without sound over time, I didn't know he did it soundless from the first."
Petunia hesitated, then added, "A few weeks before that, he scared us properly for the first time."
Amaryllis's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"He conjured Chaos fire."
The room went very still.
Amaryllis's breadth caught audibly. "He did what?"
Emma looked between them, confused. "Chaos fire?"
Amaryllis turned to her, face pale. "It drains magic. Then blood. Then… whatever's left. Even grown wizards can die just attempting the invocation."
Petunia nodded. "If you told me what he would be now, back then I guess Vernon and me wouldn't have been that surprised."
"But he cast it with Incendio," She added.
Amaryllis stared. "That's— Petunia, people need week-long rituals. Circles. Anchors. And even then it's not guaranteed to manifest."
Petunia's gaze softened, distant now. "To him, it was like meeting an old friend."
Emma felt a chill crawl up her arms. "You're saying he didn't struggle."
"No," Petunia replied. "It answered him."
Silence stretched.
Emma finally spoke, voice unsteady. "Was he always… like this? Clever, I mean. Calculating?"
Petunia considered that.
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Sometimes it feels like I raised one child from the age of one to ten… and someone else entirely from ten onward."
She looked down at her hands.
"The boy I raised loved puzzles. Books. Questions. But this?" She exhaled softly. "This feels like someone who woke up already knowing the answers."
Amaryllis leaned back again, thoughtful now rather than amused. "That would explain a great many things."
Emma hugged her teacup closer, unsettled. "And you're not afraid?"
Petunia smiled faintly. "Of him?"
She shook her head. "No. I'm afraid for the world."
"Yeah one day he is gonna be like, Earth really needs to be more efficient. And then he just basically deletes the planet and makes it anew", Amaryllis joked.
"I really hope he doesn't get that powerful..." Petunia shivered.
A soft pop displaced the air near the far couch.
Pandora Lovegood appeared mid-step, her hair only slightly frizzed from Apparition, and immediately dropped into the cushions with a satisfied sigh, legs folding beneath her as if she'd always been there.
"Right," she announced cheerfully, plucking an untouched biscuit from the plate. "The Sage Division is finally up for business."
Emma startled. Amaryllis barely blinked. Petunia closed her eyes for half a second, then opened them again.
Pandora beamed at them all. "Oh good, tea."
A cup floated into her hand, and she took a long sip.
"The paperwork alone was dreadful," Pandora continued, blowing on the surface of the tea. "But it's done. Potions, medicines, crossover formulations, everything Harry wanted cleared, cleared." She took a sip. "We're launching through the Magic Pavilion."
Amaryllis hummed. "The Pavilion in Diagon Alley?"
"Not the current one," Pandora said airily. "Too small. Far too small. We're moving." She waved her hand. "Bigger space. Multiple floors. Proper structure. Reopening it properly this time."
Emma blinked. "Reopening?"
Pandora nodded. "Expansion, technically. But the twins insisted on calling it a reopening. Something about branding."
Amaryllis smirked. "Of course they did."
Petunia opened her eyes again. "And funding?"
Pandora smiled, bright and unconcerned. "Oh, that problem solved itself."
She took another biscuit.
"The first cruise just left," Pandora went on. "Nexus revenue's about to spike. The casinos on Nexus Icon are already saying that they are seeing influx of people, and Jinx and Aether are pulling in far for than projected."
Emma hesitated. "Jinx and… Aether?"
Amaryllis answered smoothly, "Entertainment and leisure. Respectively."
Pandora nodded approvingly. "With excellent oversight," she added. "Harry was very particular about that."
Petunia's fingers tightened briefly around her cup.
"Of course he was," she murmured.
Pandora glanced at her, head tilting slightly. "He's not overworking himself," she said, not quite a question, not quite a statement.
Petunia didn't answer immediately.
"He never does," she said at last. "Not in the way people expect."
Pandora smiled softly at that, then leaned back, gaze drifting toward the window and the garden outside.
"You know," she said lightly, "most people think empires are built loudly. Declarations. Conquests. Very dramatic." She took another sip of tea. "But the important ones are always built quietly. Clinics. Shops. Infrastructure."
Emma frowned. "I never thought in my life that I'll be part of a magical clan, moreover be head of one of its division."
Pandora hummed thoughtfully at that, eyes still unfocused, as though she were watching something slightly to the left of reality.
"Mm," she said. "That tends to happen when you stop asking whether you belong somewhere and start asking whether you're useful."
Emma let out a small, incredulous laugh. "That's one way to put it."
Amaryllis smirked. "It's a very Lovegood way to put it."
Emma shook her head slowly. "I was a dentist," she said. "I worried about cavities and sterilisation standards. And now—" she gestured vaguely with her cup, as if encompassing Nexus, Moonstone Dunvegan, and the quiet hum of wards around them, "—I'm overseeing a division that's meant to reinvent medicine. Magical and muggle."
Emma was quiet for a moment, then asked softly, "Does it ever worry you?"
All three women knew who she meant.
Pandora considered the question seriously. "Worry?" she echoed. "No. I find worry requires uncertainty."
Amaryllis snorted. "That's one way of saying he terrifies you less than the alternatives."
Pandora smiled brightly. "Oh, much less."
Petunia's gaze drifted toward the window again, to the garden and the cliffs beyond. "The world was already broken," she said. "Harry just refuses to pretend otherwise."
Emma swallowed. "And we're… helping him."
"Yes," Petunia replied without hesitation.
Pandora lifted her cup in a small, almost ceremonial gesture. "To doing the quiet work," she said. "The kind that doesn't look like history until it's already happened."
Emma hesitated, then raised her own cup. Amaryllis followed suit with a dry smile.