Sleep did not arrive gradually.
It cut in, abrupt and absolute, like the world had been switched off and replaced before Harry could register the transition. There was no sense of lying down, no weight of blankets or mattress. One moment there was Moonstone Dunvegan and the faint comfort of wards, and then there was elsewhere.
He wasn't present in the way he understood presence.
There was no body to orient himself around, no eyes to blink, no hands unless he became aware of them by accident. Perception came in uneven bursts, stitched together poorly, as if whatever was showing this to him didn't care whether it made sense.
Stone rose around him.
Not Hogwarts. Not any castle he knew. It was too clean, too symmetrical, too… deliberate. Towers stretched upward into a sky that wasn't really a sky, threaded with slow-moving points of light that rearranged themselves when he tried to focus. The scale felt wrong. Vast in a way that ignored distance.
A castle, he thought, without knowing why that mattered.
The thought barely finished before the scene shifted sideways, like the world had been nudged out of alignment.
The room was suddenly full.
Not crowded. Present.
Embera was there. He didn't see her arrive. He simply knew she was standing somewhere nearby, like a familiar warmth at the edge of awareness. Nature too, not contained to a place so much as existing everywhere at once. Nozdrega lingered farther back, distant and watching, and Harry had the strange sense that distance didn't mean what it should here.
There were others.
Two more presences occupied the space, unmistakably there and yet impossible to define. Every time his attention brushed against them, the shape of them slipped away, leaving only the certainty that they mattered.
Five, his mind supplied, without explanation.
There was no conversation. No words exchanged. Just recognition, mutual and unremarkable, as though this were normal, as though he belonged in this moment and had always belonged in moments like it.
The castle vanished.
Not dissolved. Not destroyed. It simply stopped being the thing he was perceiving, replaced by something so different the shift felt almost physical.
Space unfolded around him.
Not empty space. Not the quiet dark he'd seen through telescopes or charts. This was dense, warped, layered. Stars bent unnaturally, their light dragging behind them like smeared paint. Distances collapsed and stretched at the same time, leaving his sense of scale useless.
He was moving.
Or space was moving around him.
Ahead, darkness deepened into something heavier, more absolute. A black hole, though the word felt thin and inadequate. It wasn't just mass or gravity. It was inevitability given form.
Harry didn't slow.
He didn't hesitate.
As he crossed into it, nothing dramatic happened. There was no tearing sensation, no fear, no pain. The universe folded inward instead, rules loosening as if they had never been that strict to begin with. For a brief, incomprehensible span, everything overlapped, past and future stacked so densely that they lost meaning.
Then the overlap snapped.
He stood somewhere else.
Ground existed beneath him, though it didn't resemble earth or stone. The horizon curved strangely, bowing inward like the world was too small to hold what was happening on it.
Ahead stretched an army.
Not people. Not creatures. Not anything with edges that could be counted. It was darkness arranged into intention, millions upon millions of overlapping forms that weren't separate so much as repeated. A single will expressed endlessly.
They noticed him.
The attention pressed in, vast and cold and indifferent, assessing without emotion. He felt measured, categorized, and found… interesting.
Still, there was no fear.
If anything, the calm sharpened, settling into something precise and controlled. Beneath it, excitement flickered, clean and focused, like the moment before releasing magic you knew would obey.
He raised his hand.
Or he intended to. The distinction felt unimportant. His palm faced the army, fingers loose, unforced. Magic gathered without effort, not summoned so much as acknowledged, aligning itself behind the gesture as though it had been waiting for this exact moment.
The darkness ahead shifted, density changing, the mass responding.
Harry felt something enormous line up behind the simple act of holding his hand out. Not a spell he recognized. Not anything with structure or name. Just an action that carried consequence.
For a fraction of a moment, clarity brushed close enough that he almost understood.
Then the dream broke.
The scene fragmented violently. The army shattered into unrelated images. The castle reappeared, distorted and incomplete. Embera, Nature, Nozdrega, all present and gone at once. The two others pressed closer and then vanished entirely.
The sense of doing something important hovered just out of reach.
And then there was nothing.
Harry woke abruptly, breath steady, heart calm, sitting upright in his bed at Moonstone Dunvegan. The room was dark and quiet, wards humming softly as they always did. The fire had burned down to embers.
He stared ahead for a long moment.
"That was…" he muttered, rubbing his face, "…a strange dream."
The details were already slipping away, refusing to settle into anything coherent. The army blurred into shapeless darkness. The castle lost its edges. The presences became impressions rather than memories.
What lingered wasn't fear.
He pushed himself out of bed and crossed the room slowly, bare feet quiet against the stone. The door to the terrace stood open, curtains shifting lazily with the early morning air. He stepped outside and rested his forearms against the railing.
Moonstone Dunvegan stretched below him, vast and silent. The estate lights glowed softly along the paths, wards pulsing in familiar rhythms. The forest beyond breathed, ancient and watchful. Normally, the sight settled him.
Today, it didn't.
His mind kept circling the same hollow impressions. The castle that wasn't Hogwarts. The presences he knew without knowing how. The calm excitement in front of something that should have terrified him. And that army. Endless. Wrong. Faceless.
It hadn't felt like imagination.
That was the problem.
Harry closed his eyes, trying to replay it, to force the pieces into something coherent. Every time he got close to a detail, it slid away, replaced by something else entirely, like the dream itself refused to be examined directly.
"Great," he muttered. "Cryptic subconscious symbolism."
That explanation satisfied exactly none of him.
After a few minutes, he gave up and went back inside. Whatever that had been, it wasn't going to unravel itself tonight. He dressed properly this time, then made his way out of the room and down the wide staircase at an unhurried pace.
He was halfway across the lower hall when Andromeda looked up from where she was adjusting her cloak.
Her face softened immediately. "Ah. You're awake at last."
"Unfortunately," Harry murmured. "I just slept after not sleeping for a week. My internal sense of time is… offended."
She smiled like she already knew that. "Yes. I heard."
Harry paused. "You heard?"
"I live in a house full of people who worry loudly," Andromeda said dryly. Then she glanced toward the adjoining corridor, clearly distracted. "I was just about to find you actually. Something… unexpected is happening."
Harry tilted his head. "Unexpected how?"
"Wild," she said simply, and started walking again.
That alone was enough to get his attention.
He followed her into the living room and stopped dead at the threshold.
Everyone was there.
Sirius stood near the center, running a hand through his hair in a way that suggested he was one poor decision away from a nervous breakdown. Vernon hovered nearby, tense and watchful. Percival, Amaryllis, Ted, Edmund, Petunia, Adorabella, all gathered in loose clusters around the couches.
And sitting on one of them was Bellatrix Black.
She looked wrong.
Not in the theatrical, manic way she usually did. Not feral, not triumphant. She was pale, disheveled, robes torn and stained. One side of her face was bruised, a shallow cut along her temple already half-healed. Her posture was defensive, confused, eyes darting around the room as if she were trying to place herself in a story she didn't recognize.
Harry felt the shift ripple through the room as he entered.
He let his expression freeze halfway between surprise and confusion.
"…Who's that?" he asked.
It was perfectly pitched. Not ignorance. Not indifference. Just a straightforward question.
Several people turned toward him at once.
Sirius looked almost relieved. "Harry. You're up." He gestured helplessly at the woman on the couch. "This is… Bellatrix."
Harry blinked.
"Bellatrix…?" He searched his memory theatrically, then shook his head. "I'm sorry. As in Bellatrix Black? Voldemort's right hand?"
"Isn't she supposed to be in Azkaban?"
At this Vernon's head turned to him sharply and his eyes tried to decide how in the world Harry could act like that considering he was the one that took Bellatrix away from Azkaban in the first place.
Bellatrix's head snapped up.
She stared at him.
Not with hatred. Not with recognition. With the same frightened confusion she'd been showing everyone else.
Sirius stared at Harry in disbelief. "Yeah.... But there is an issue."
"You see... she doesn't remember anything. She doesn't even know her name, much less what she used to be."
Harry's brows drew together, concern settling neatly into place.
"She doesn't remember?" he repeated, quieter now.
Sirius shook his head. "Nothing. Azkaban. Voldemort. The war. Herself." He dragged a hand down his face. "Mind Healers checked. It's real. Total amnesia."
Harry looked back at Bellatrix.
She sat rigid on the couch, hands clenched in the fabric of her tattered robes like it was the only thing anchoring her to the room. Her eyes flicked between faces, cataloguing reactions without understanding any of them. When Harry's gaze met hers, she flinched instinctively, then seemed confused by the reaction itself.
Bellatrix flinched at Percival's scoff, even if she didn't fully understand it. The sound alone carried enough contempt to make her shoulders draw inward.
No one contradicted him.
They didn't have to.
The wariness was written plainly across the room. Tight jaws. Folded arms. Eyes that never quite left her. Bellatrix noticed. Her fingers curled tighter into the cushion beneath her, knuckles paling.
Harry took a small step closer, deliberate and unthreatening, placing himself just enough in her line of sight that she didn't feel surrounded.
"And pray tell, Sirius," he said calmly, turning his head just enough to address him, "why is she here of all places?"
Sirius scrubbed a hand over his face. "Because this whole thing is a mess."
He exhaled, then spoke carefully, as if laying pieces on a board.
"She was found yesterday in Diagon Alley. Unconscious. Bruised. Wand missing. In bad shape." His jaw tightened. "Someone called it in. Aurors picked her up and took her straight to the Ministry."
Bellatrix's brow furrowed. "Diagon Alley?" she repeated softly, as if testing the words.
"Yes," Sirius said, gentler now. "Public street. Middle of the day."
Harry's eyes flicked to her at that, registering the confusion rather than the implication.
Sirius continued. "When she woke up, they realized something was wrong. She didn't know her name. Didn't know who she was. Didn't recognize anyone. Not even herself."
A beat.
"The last thing she remembers," Sirius added, "is graduating from Hogwarts."
That drew a quiet, collective breath from the room.
Harry looked back to Sirius, expression sharpening just a fraction. "And that's verified?"
"Yeah," Sirius said. "Mind Healers. Independent ones. They went over her three times." He hesitated. "It's real. Complete amnesia."
Bellatrix stared at her hands. "I'm not pretending," she said quietly. "I can tell you that much."
Vernon eyed Harry completely baffled by how his son was able to act so convincingly. If he had not known for a fact that Harry was the one who had taken her from Azkaban himself, he would have believed that Harry was hearing this for the first time.
Harry nodded once, accepting the statement without comment.
Sirius went on. "That's why she wasn't sent back to Azkaban. Amelia Bones refused to. Said it made no sense to punish someone for crimes they don't even remember committing." His mouth twisted. "Legally, that made her my responsibility."
Andromeda absorbed that, then asked evenly, "And the Ministry?"
"They're trying to find whoever did this," Sirius said. "Because it gets worse."
The room stilled.
"Whoever took Bellatrix out of Azkaban," Sirius continued, voice tight, "didn't just take her."
Harry didn't move.
"They killed the rest of the Death Eaters," Sirius finished.
The silence that followed was heavy and sharp.
Petunia was the first to break it. "Are you serious right now?"
Sirius nodded grimly. "Dead. Every single one of them. Ministry's keeping it sealed tighter than Gringotts' deepest vaults, but Amelia told me."
A murmur rippled through the room. Shock. Grim satisfaction. Unease.
"Good riddance," Percival said flatly. "Never understood why they were breathing in the first place."
Bellatrix stiffened at that, eyes flicking up, searching faces again. "They keep saying that word," she said softly. "Death Eaters. Like I'm supposed to know what it means."
Sirius started, "Well, you..."
Harry interrupted, "Sirius, don't."
Sirius looked at Harry in anger, "But she..."
Harry repeated. "Don't. She doesn't remember. It's no use. Maybe she can start over now and maybe she can do some good."
Bellatrix hugged her arms around herself. "Am I in danger?" she asked quietly.
The question cut through the room.
Harry didn't answer immediately. He considered her, then the space around her, then the people watching.
"No," he said at last. "You're just a bit inconvenient. That's different."
She blinked. "Inconvenient?"
"For the Ministry," Harry clarified. "You don't fit neatly into any box. That makes you safer than you think."
He glanced at Sirius. "Let her stay here Sirius. Maybe it's for the better. Hopefully she can do some good this time around."
Sirius let out a sharp breath through his nose, jaw working as if he were grinding down words he very much wanted to say. His fists clenched, then slowly loosened.
"…Fine," he said at last, stiffly. "She stays."
The tension in the room shifted, not gone but redirected. Eyes moved again. Calculations resumed.
Bellatrix looked between them, uncertainty written plainly across her face. "I don't want to cause trouble," she said, voice thin but earnest. "I don't even know how I could."
Harry met her gaze. "You already are," he said evenly. Then, softer, "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be here."
She seemed to process that, nodding once, small and careful.
Andromeda, who had been silent until now, stepped forward. Her expression was tight with something complicated, but her voice was steady. "You'll be safe here," she told Bellatrix. "Moonstone Dunvegan doesn't hand people over lightly."
Bellatrix looked at her for a long moment. "You… feel familiar," she said hesitantly.
Andromeda stiffened. Just barely.
"I suppose I would," she replied. "We're… family."
Bellatrix's eyes widened, then filled with a confusion that bordered on grief. "I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I don't remember you."
Andromeda swallowed. "I know."
Harry watched the exchange closely, face composed, eyes attentive but empty of reaction. He filed it away, just as he did everything else.
Percival shifted uncomfortably. "So what now?" he asked. "We just… keep her?"
Vernon replied, "For now. Yes."
Several heads turned toward him.
He didn't miss it. Didn't comment on it either.
"She can't go back to the Ministry," he continued calmly. "They don't know what to do with her, and uncertainty makes institutions dangerous. She's safer here than there."
"And what if her memories come back?" Petunia asked.
Vernon shrugged lightly. "We'll deal with that, when it happens."
Bellatrix looked at him sharply. "If they do," she asked quietly, "will I still be allowed to stay?"
The room held its breath.
Sirius didn't hesitate. "That depends on what you choose to do with them."
Her throat worked. "And if I choose wrong?"
His eyes met hers, steady and unreadable. "Then you won't be inconvenient anymore."
"Sirius!" Petunia and Andromeda shouted at the same time.
But Sirius looked like he was ready to kill her then and there. And Bellatrix seemed to understand that and felt chills run up her spine.
Vernon shifted, this time turning towards Harry, "Son, you free today? Or do you have something important back at Hogwarts?"
Harry meet Vernon's eyes and knew that he wasn't being let go without proper answers. "I'm free, Dad. Nothing really important back at Hogwarts."
Vernon nodded and smirked, "Then why don't we go and take in the delivery of the private jet. It's supposed to be delivered today."
Harry nodded, "Sure, Dad."
Vernon didn't wait for anyone to comment.
He turned on his heel, already moving toward the foyer. "Right then. Jet won't admire itself."
Harry followed without a word.
No one tried to stop them. Petunia watched them go with a frown she did not voice. Andromeda's attention stayed fixed on Bellatrix. Sirius looked like he was vibrating with barely leashed violence.
The moment they stepped outside the wards' inner ring, Vernon stopped.
"Side-along," he said quietly.
Harry nodded.
The world folded.
They reappeared on a stretch of private tarmac carved cleanly into green cliffs overlooking the sea. The air smelled of salt and fuel and something expensive.
Vernon did not look around.
He walked several paces away, stopped again, and finally turned to Harry.
The smile was gone.
"All right," Vernon said evenly. "Start talking."
Harry did not pretend confusion. He leaned back against a low stone barrier, hands in his pockets, posture loose in a way that did not fool either of them.
"You already know I did it," Harry said.
Vernon's jaw tightened. "I want to know why she is in our house."
Harry exhaled slowly. "Because she was the only one worth keeping."
Silence.
Vernon's eyes sharpened. "Explain."
Harry nodded once. "Bellatrix was the only Death Eater in Azkaban who genuinely regretted what she did. Not because she was caught. Not because she lost. Because she understood what she destroyed."
Vernon's expression did not change, but something cold twisted in his chest.
"She helped me," Harry continued. "Not there. Later."
Vernon frowned. "Later?"
"At the Dursley Mansion," Harry said calmly. "After I took her out."
The words landed heavy.
Vernon stared at him. "You're telling me Bellatrix Black lived in Dursley Mansion."
"Yes."
"For how long."
"Long enough," Harry replied. "She helped me work on a cure. Or at least help me with the research."
Vernon's brows drew together. "A cure for what."
"For people whose minds were destroyed by prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse," Harry said. "Not pain damage. Identity damage. Memory fracture. Cognitive erosion."
Vernon didn't move for a long moment.
Then, quietly, as if testing whether he actually wanted the answer, he asked, "How did she help you with the cure."
Harry's steps slowed, then stopped altogether. He did not look back immediately.
"She didn't brew," he said evenly. "She didn't design anything. Bellatrix isn't a healer."
Vernon frowned. "Then what did she do."
Harry turned, meeting his eyes without hesitation. His expression was neutral, almost clinical.
"She gathered data."
Vernon's stomach tightened.
"What kind of data," he asked, already dreading the reply.
Harry did not soften it.
"For me to build a cure," he said calmly, "I needed a first-person reference. Long-term exposure. Controlled variables. Repeatable conditions."
Vernon felt cold creep up his spine. "Harry."
"I needed to know exactly what the Cruciatus does," Harry continued, voice steady, untroubled. "Not the theory. Not the aftermath. The process."
Vernon's throat went dry. "Harry. What did you do."
Harry answered him plainly.
"I had Bellatrix cast it on me."
The world seemed to tilt.
Vernon stopped walking entirely. His hand went to the stone railing, fingers digging in as if the ground itself had become unreliable.
"…You let someone cast the Cruciatus Curse on you," he said slowly.
"Yes."
"Repeatedly."
"Yes."
"For long durations."
"Yes."
Vernon turned toward him, disbelief written nakedly across his face. "Are you insane."
Harry frowned faintly. "No."
"You're telling me," Vernon said, voice rising despite himself, "that you willingly subjected yourself to one of the most destructive curses ever created."
Harry nodded once. "That's what makes the data clean."
Vernon stared at him as if he were looking at a stranger.
"She was not happy about it," Harry added, as if that mattered. "She refused at first. Took convincing." A pause. "She's my aunt after all. That made it harder."
That was the moment something in Vernon broke through shock into raw horror.
"You planned this," Vernon said. "You calculated this."
"Yes."
"You didn't just risk yourself," Vernon snapped. "You did it knowing exactly what it could do to you."
Harry's gaze stayed level. "That's why it worked."
Vernon let out a short, broken laugh. "Most people would call that self-destruction."
Harry tilted his head slightly. "Most people are incompetent."
Silence fell heavy between them, thick with unspoken images Vernon did not want to imagine. His son, enduring agony by choice. Measuring it. Studying it.
"You could have been broken," Vernon said hoarsely. "You could have lost yourself."
"I can't be, Dad." Harry replied.
Vernon squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
"You're twelve," he said.
Harry did not respond to that.
When Vernon opened his eyes again, he saw something in Harry's expression that frightened him more than the confession itself. Not pride. Not recklessness.
Acceptance.
"You didn't do this because you wanted to," Vernon said quietly.
"No," Harry agreed.
"You did it because it was necessary."
"Yes."
Vernon exhaled slowly, forcing his hands to unclench.
"That," he said, voice low, "is not how a child thinks."
Harry studied him. "I know."
Vernon closed his eyes briefly.
"And that," he said quietly, "is why she is alive."
Harry nodded. "Exactly."
Vernon opened his eyes again, dread blooming in his gut. "So you engineered this."
"Yes."
"The amnesia."
"Yes."
"The Ministry finding her."
"Yes."
"The investigation."
"Yes."
Vernon let out a slow breath. "You are playing them."
Harry tilted his head. "I am giving them what they want."
"A victim," Vernon muttered.
"A miracle," Harry corrected. "A living proof of concept. The first name attached to the cure."
Vernon's hands curled into fists at his sides.
"And once Bellatrix Black is associated with curing torture victims," Vernon said carefully, "no one will ever dare send her back to Azkaban."
Harry's mouth curved faintly. "Not without destroying their own moral authority."
Vernon felt cold spread through his ribs.
"And this isn't the only instance," he said.
Harry met his eyes. Did not deny it.
"There will be others," Harry said. "Gradual. Documented. Public. Each one reframes her story. Each one erases a line from her criminal record without touching it directly."
Vernon swallowed.
"You're not exploiting loopholes," he said hoarsely. "You're removing the need for laws to apply."
Harry shrugged lightly. "Current laws are tools. So is reputation."
For a long moment, the only sound was the distant hum of machinery around the jet.
Vernon stared at the horizon.
"You scare me," he said quietly.
Harry looked at him, genuinely surprised. "I'm not reckless."
"I know," Vernon said. "That's the problem."
He turned back to Harry, eyes sharp but steady. "She really regrets it?"
"Yes," Harry said without hesitation. "That's why she lived."
Vernon studied his son's face. The calm. The certainty. The complete absence of doubt.
"You didn't do this out of mercy," Vernon said.
"No," Harry replied. "I did it because it works."
Vernon let out a humorless huff. "Of course you did."
He straightened, squaring his shoulders. "All right. I won't ask you to undo it."
Harry inclined his head slightly.
"But hear me clearly," Vernon continued. "If this ever threatens your mother. Or this family. Or Nexus."
Harry's eyes sharpened, something ancient and cold flickering there for just a breath.
"It won't," he said.
Vernon held his gaze, then nodded once. He mentally thought about how did they raise him for him to be like this but couldn't find an answer.
"Good," he said. "Now let's go admire our ridiculous jet."
Harry smiled faintly.