The three of them walked in silence through the corridor that led toward the infirmary, their footsteps echoing in uneven rhythm against the flagstones. The castle felt heavier than usual, its stone walls holding the residue of everything that had happened that night. Torches hissed lowly along the corridor, casting long, restless shadows that crawled along the floor as if they wanted to follow.
Harry's limbs ached with every step. His scar still burned in dull pulses, a ghost of Voldemort's touch that refused to fade. But it wasn't the pain that made his throat tighten—it was the thought of Alden. The image of him lying motionless on the pitch refused to leave his mind, his hair ash-grey and matted with blood.
Dumbledore walked ahead, his pace slow but deliberate, his hands clasped behind his back. Snape followed at Harry's side, his expression unreadable, though the sleeve of his right arm was still stiff with dried crimson. The smell of iron clung faintly to him.
They turned another corner. Ahead, through the archway, Harry could already see the faint light spilling from the hospital wing and the shadows of figures seated outside its doors—Draco, Daphne, Theo, Tracey—silent sentinels hunched together in waiting.
Dumbledore slowed, his head tilting slightly as if he'd caught a whisper only he could hear. Then he stopped altogether."Ah," he murmured, half to himself. "There is something I have neglected."
Snape turned, frowning. "Headmaster?"
Dumbledore looked back over his shoulder at Harry, and though his voice was still calm, it carried the undercurrent of sudden purpose. "Harry, I will need you to accompany me for a short while. There is something you must see, and it cannot wait."
Harry blinked, uncertain. "Sir, I thought—" He glanced toward the infirmary doors, toward the slumped forms of Alden's friends. "I thought you wanted me to see Madam Pomfrey."
"And you will," Dumbledore said gently. "In time. But this—" He hesitated, the briefest flicker of weariness passing through his eyes. "This concerns what you witnessed tonight. And I believe it will bring clarity where there is only chaos now."
Harry felt Snape's gaze on him—a cold weight, sharp and assessing. "The boy is exhausted," Snape said quietly. "He needs rest, not another round of explanations."
Dumbledore's eyes softened. "Rest will come soon enough. But if we do not anchor the truth now, it will drift beyond our reach." He inclined his head toward the stairway. "Please, Severus. You as well."
Snape's jaw flexed, but he said nothing more. After a heartbeat, he gave a clipped nod.
Dumbledore turned back to Harry, his tone gentle again. "It will not take long. I promise you that."
Harry looked one last time toward the faint golden light of the infirmary. He could almost hear Daphne's voice through the stone—low, trembling, refusing to give up hope. His chest tightened.
Then he nodded. "All right, Professor."
Dumbledore smiled faintly, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. "Thank you, Harry. Come."
The Headmaster turned, his robes whispering against the stone as he started back down the corridor in the opposite direction—the path that led toward the moving staircase. Snape followed, his expression drawn taut as a bowstring.
Harry cast one last glance toward the doors of the hospital wing, then turned to follow them, his footsteps quickening to match theirs.
The castle was utterly silent now. Even the portraits seemed to sleep. Only the faint rustle of Dumbledore's robes and the slow, echoing beat of Harry's heart accompanied them as they descended into the deeper, older corridors of Hogwarts—toward the Headmaster's office, and toward whatever truth Dumbledore believed could not wait for dawn.
The stone gargoyle leapt aside, and the spiral staircase began to turn. Harry followed Dumbledore up, one step at a time, the movement making his battered leg throb. Snape came behind them, silent and severe, his shadow gliding against the wall like a specter.
When they reached the oak door, Dumbledore pushed it open with a murmur of magic. The hinges groaned, and warm firelight spilled over the threshold.
Sirius was pacing before the hearth. His hair hung in wild tangles, his face gaunt and sharper than ever, the hollows beneath his cheekbones deepened by exhaustion and worry. But the moment his eyes found Harry, the pacing stopped as if he'd struck an invisible wall.
"Harry—"
He crossed the room in two strides, the chain of the old clock chiming as he passed. He gripped Harry by the shoulders with both hands, fierce and trembling, as though afraid the boy would vanish again if he blinked.
"You're all right… Merlin's beard, you're actually all right—what happened out there?" His voice broke halfway through, relief and fear twisting together until it came out raw.
Harry tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. Every image from the graveyard rose up at once—the cauldron, the screams, Alden's blood. He opened his mouth, but what came out was only a rough whisper."It was Voldemort. He's back."
Sirius' grip tightened reflexively. The fire flared behind him, casting his hollow eyes gold. For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the faint crackle of burning logs and the rhythmic ticking of the instruments scattered across Dumbledore's desk.
Then Dumbledore's quiet voice filled the silence."Sit, both of you."
It wasn't an order, but something gentler, like a request from someone who understood too well what exhaustion felt like.
Sirius guided Harry into a high-backed chair before the desk, still keeping one hand braced on his shoulder. Dumbledore moved behind his desk, his expression unreadable, his eyes dimmed by the weight of everything he already knew.
Fawkes stirred on his golden perch. The phoenix tilted its head, watching Harry for a long moment before gliding down in a slow, graceful arc. He landed on Harry's knee, the heat of him immediate and comforting. Harry's trembling hands rose automatically, brushing the scarlet and gold feathers.
"'Lo, Fawkes," Harry whispered.
The bird trilled softly, a single note that seemed to settle in the air like a sigh. Warmth spread through Harry's fingers, up his arm, into the cold hollow that had opened behind his ribs. His heartbeat slowed.
Dumbledore sat down, folding his hands on the desk. The firelight caught in the lenses of his glasses, turning them to brief coins of gold." Harry," he said softly, "we will not ask you to relive what you cannot yet bear. But the world must know what has returned… and how."
Snape stood near the door, arms crossed, his face cast half in shadow. At Dumbledore's words, his gaze flicked briefly to Harry, unreadable.
Dumbledore raised his wand. Its tip glowed faintly silver, the light steady and calm."Your memories, Harry," he murmured. "Let them speak for you."
Harry blinked. "My—my memories?"
"You have seen too much for words to hold," Dumbledore said. "But the mind remembers with honesty the tongue cannot manage. Trust that."
The silver light brightened. Mist coiled outward, swirling in a slow, deliberate spiral that drifted into the wide stone basin beside the desk. The surface rippled once, then stilled—smooth as glass, but shimmering faintly from beneath.
Sirius stepped closer to the desk, wary but fascinated, his reflection bending in the surface of the liquid. "You're pulling it straight from his mind?"
"A simple extraction," Dumbledore replied, his tone patient, almost tender. "The memory remains within him, unaltered. This merely allows us to witness it together."
The Headmaster's hand rested briefly on Harry's shoulder, a steady weight. "Look into the basin when you are ready. The truth will guide itself."
Harry swallowed hard, then leaned forward. The silver vapor brightened, curling upward to meet him like a rising tide. The room dissolved around him—the flicker of the fire, the shadow of Snape against the wall, the faint whisper of Fawkes' feathers—and then the world tilted.
Sound fell away.
The marble floor became soil and stone. The warmth of the office gave way to the cold air of a graveyard.
Harry heard the rustle of grass, the low hiss of wind against cracked headstones—and the first, faint echo of a voice he would never forget.
The world tilted, and the stone floor of Dumbledore's office vanished. For a heartbeat,t there was only the sound of wind—then earth rushed up beneath them, wet and black, and the faint hum of magic filled the air like the beating of unseen wings.
They were standing inside the Pensieve memory now—Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius, and Harry—half-shadows within the spectral graveyard. The moon hung like a thin blade above, cold light spilling across headstones warped by centuries. The smell of iron, soil, and death lingered thick in the air.
It was quieter here than any of them expected. No screams yet, no chaos—only a tremor of breath as the first shapes formed: Wormtail, trembling, clutching his wand with both hands. A boy lay bound nearby—Alden—his silver-white hair muddied and plastered against his forehead, his expression hard despite the fear flickering behind his eyes. Harry's past self was visible too, trapped against the Riddle statue, cords of spectral rope cutting into his wrists.
Sirius' jaw tightened. "That's Pettigrew," he growled, taking an instinctive half step forward even though the scene would not touch him.
"Watch," Dumbledore murmured. "Do not interfere. Memory cannot be changed."
The memory-Wormtail turned, wand shaking, his voice a rasping hiss. "Avada—"
A wall of solid light burst upward between Alden and the curse, carved from raw instinct and desperation. The Killing Curse struck it, sizzling green against the barrier before dispersing into sparks that melted harmlessly into the earth. The backlash made the air ripple.
Snape's eyes narrowed, just slightly. "He conjured that… without a focus." His voice was low, but reverent. "That wasn't shield-work—it was manifestation."
Alden didn't move for a moment, his breath ragged, wrists straining against the chains that bound him. Wormtail looked stunned, terrified, his fingers twitching against his wand as if even he couldn't believe the boy had survived that.
Then the air changed. The ground beneath the cauldron began to glow, runes burning into life in a circle. Wormtail's sobs mixed with chants; the ritual began.
Bone of the father. Flesh of the servant. Blood of the enemy.
Each word tore through the silence like a wound. The shadowed figures watched in uneasy stillness as the ritual unfolded. Sirius's knuckles were white on the back of Harry's chair.
"That's what he meant," Harry whispered hoarsely. "That's when he—" He lifted his arm instinctively, fingers brushing the scar the dagger had left there.
Dumbledore's hand tightened on the edge of his desk, though they weren't truly there. "Yes," he said softly. "This is the moment."
The cauldron flared. Smoke and fire twisted upward, and from it rose the shape that none of them—not even Dumbledore—would ever forget. Voldemort.
His rebirth was silent and awful. The flesh formed first in streaks of ash and blood, then the eyes opened—red, bright, and knowing. He inhaled like a man waking from a dream he had written himself.
Dumbledore's gaze was fixed, unmoving, his face shadowed by firelight. Sirius muttered, "Gods help us…"
Voldemort's first words were quiet, yet carried through the air. "Robe me."
Wormtail scurried to obey, wrapping trembling hands around the dark fabric. Behind them, Alden struggled weakly against his bonds. The magic holding him shuddered—fought—then tightened again, silver chains hissing as they burned against his skin.
He looked toward Harry's bound figure. There was no hope there, only recognition. Alden knew exactly what was being born in front of him. His chest rose and fell with sharp breaths, each one more frantic than the last.
"This is his panic," Dumbledore said quietly, almost to himself. "He understands what that magic means. Few would."
The Death Eaters began to appear in bursts of shadow. Figures cloaked and hooded, masks gleaming under the rising moon. They circled Voldemort with reverence and fear, the air vibrating with their murmurs.
Alden's head turned as one of them stepped forward—Theodore Nott Sr.—his wand raised slightly in salute, his voice trembling."My Lord, your return… the world will kneel."
A laugh came from Voldemort, soft and humorless. "They will."
But it was Alden who spoke next, voice raw but steady, carrying across the graveyard like a curse of its own. "If you even think of making his son kneel, I'll kill you where you stand."
The words cracked through the memory like a whip. The Death Eaters froze.
Nott Sr.'s eyes widened behind his mask. "You—boy—you dare—"
"Enough," Voldemort said, raising a pale hand. He turned his gaze on Alden, studying him with a curiosity that chilled the air. "Ah," he said softly. "So the Dreyse boy does not kneel. I had forgotten that name still walked the earth."
Snape's breath hitched, though quietly.
Voldemort's tone changed—curious now, almost pleased. "Tell me, child… from what bloodline does arrogance like that come?"
Alden met his eyes, defiant even as the chains constricted. "One that doesn't crawl."
Voldemort tilted his head, snake-like. "Defiant and cold. It reeks of him."
"Of who?" one Death Eater asked timidly.
Voldemort's smile deepened, thin as a blade. "Grindelwald."
The name spread through the circle like fire on oil. Several Death Eaters stepped back. Even Wormtail dropped to his knees, covering his face as if the syllables alone burned.
Sirius swore under his breath. Dumbledore's eyes flicked to him but remained otherwise unreadable.
"Grindelwald?" whispered Snape. His usually impassive mask cracked for the first time. "That cannot—"
"Watch," Dumbledore said. His voice was low, but there was something beneath it now—a note of personal pain.
In the memory, Voldemort crouched before Alden, lifting his chin with one long, pale finger. "I ordered your line extinguished. And yet here you are."
Alden's lips curved faintly, though his eyes burned with exhaustion. "Incompetence breeds in tyrants. You should be used to it."
The silence that followed was unbearable. Then, slowly, Voldemort smiled—no warmth, only teeth.
Lucius Malfoy's voice was the first to break the stillness. "My Lord… the Dreyse family were not of the Sacred Twenty-Eight…"
"No," Voldemort said, without looking away. "They were older. Purer. Real bloodlines, before British nobility cheapened the word." His voice lowered, soft as smoke. "Tell me, boy, do you claim him? Do you claim Grindelwald as your kin?"
Alden's answer came through clenched teeth. "No. I claim myself."
That was the last word he spoke before Voldemort raised his wand.
The memory froze there, the moment suspended in pale light—the echo of chains, the gleam of blood, the shadow of a boy who refused to bow.
In Dumbledore's office, the silence that followed was absolute. The silver surface of the Pensieve quivered once, then stilled.
Sirius was the first to speak, his voice barely above a breath. "He… he said no."
Snape's gaze was fixed on the basin, expression unreadable. "He defied the Dark Lord to his face."
Dumbledore didn't answer immediately. When he finally did, his voice was tired, but filled with quiet awe. "No. He defied the world that built him to kneel."
The room stayed silent after that—the weight of what they'd seen too heavy for words. The fire crackled softly behind them, and outside, the night pressed close against the glass.
Harry was sitting forward in his chair, his hands trembling slightly on his knees. Sweat dampened his fringe, and the silver light that clung to his skin made him look paler than usual. His heart hadn't stopped pounding since the image of Alden had vanished into smoke.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, his voice rough. "It's—everything's sort of… mixed up. I know what happened, but—when he came back, when Voldemort—" He stopped, pressing the heel of his hand against his eyes. "It's all over the place. The order. The sounds. It's hard to tell what came first."
Dumbledore's expression softened, his hands folded neatly on the desk. "That is perfectly natural, Harry. Memory is not a clockwork instrument. Trauma does not keep time."
Sirius leaned forward in his chair, still staring at the Pensieve. "No one expects precision, Harry. You've done more than anyone could ask. Just breathe."
Harry gave a shaky nod. The warmth from Fawkes against his knee was the only thing keeping him tethered. The phoenix had not moved since he'd begun watching—its golden eyes fixed on him, steady and sad.
Across the desk, Snape's voice broke the silence, cool but not cruel. "Potter," he said quietly. "In this next memory—the duel. What exactly are we about to witness?"
Harry swallowed, looking up at him. For once, there was no resentment in Snape's eyes—only a sharp, clinical focus, the kind a man wears when he knows he's about to see something that will stay with him forever.
Harry's answer came out slow, deliberate. "Alden Dreyse," he said, and the name carried weight now. "He was forced into a duel with Voldemort."
The way he said it made the room feel colder. Even Fawkes seemed to stop breathing.
Sirius turned sharply toward Dumbledore. "A duel?"
Harry nodded once, eyes unfocused as the memory replayed behind them. "Voldemort didn't just beat him. He wanted to make a point. To prove something." His voice faltered, then hardened. "And Alden… he didn't just fight back. He turned the whole graveyard into a warzone."
Snape's eyes narrowed faintly, but there was no hint of mockery this time—only a faint, haunted disbelief. "At fifteen," he said softly, more to himself than anyone else.
"Yes," Harry whispered. "At fifteen."
Dumbledore's gaze dropped briefly to the Pensieve, its liquid surface catching the firelight like mercury. "Then we must bear witness," he said quietly. "Not to judge, but to understand what courage costs when it stands against power."
Sirius exhaled slowly, the lines around his mouth tightening. "Then let's see it."
Harry hesitated. His fingers brushed against the rim of the basin; the surface rippled beneath his touch, already beginning to pull them inward. He took one last deep breath, the ghost of smoke and blood still in his lungs.
"Just remember," he said quietly, "he didn't fight because he wanted to."He looked at Dumbledore. "He fought because he refused to kneel."
The silvery world surged upward once again—light and shadow swallowing them whole as the graveyard came back into focus.
And this time, when it did, the air was no longer still. It was alive with war.
The stone office vanished.
Cold mist rose around them, swallowing shelves and portraits and firelight until all that remained was the graveyard—moon-bleached stone, crooked yews, the lingering stink of spent ritual. Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius, and Harry slid into place at the edge of the clearing, ghost-spectators to a memory that did not know they were there.
The silence hung thick, exactly as Harry remembered it. Alden's refusal still echoed through it.
I don't kneel for anyone.
In the memory, Voldemort's laughter began—low, pleased, curling through the dark like smoke.
"How extraordinary," he murmured, crimson eyes fixed on the boy across from him. "I thought I had summoned worms and ghosts to my court, but instead…" A slight, lazy flourish toward Alden. "A relic walks in their place."
Wormtail whimpered. The masked figures encircling them did not move.
"You wear the Dreyse name, boy, but you speak like Grindelwald." Voldemort drifted closer, savoring his own curiosity. "Tell me—does his ghost whisper in your sleep? Does he tell you how to challenge gods?"
Beside the Pensieve's rim, Sirius's brows rose. "Cheerful," he muttered.
Alden, in front of them, stood barefoot on frost-slick stone, shirt torn, blood drying at the corner of his mouth. His eyes did not drop.
"You've never been a god," he said. "Just a man who couldn't stand being ordinary."
Snape's gaze cut sideways, the smallest flicker of dark amusement there and gone.
Voldemort's smile sharpened. "And you think yourself different?"
"I think," Alden said, voice very soft, "I know what you're afraid of."
Red eyes narrowed. "And what is that, little scholar?"
"Not death," Alden answered. "Obscurity."
The circle of Death Eaters shivered. Nott Sr. stiffened. Lucius's breath caught behind his mask.
Dumbledore's expression didn't change, but Sirius huffed. "What a lad," he said under his breath. It wasn't entirely a joke.
Voldemort absorbed the insolence like a wine he'd been hoping to taste.
"Such eloquence," he said. "The lineage shows."
He turned in a leisurely arc, addressing the circle. "Old blood should know its manners. Let us indulge in civility before correction, shall we?"
No one answered.
His wand twitched. The invisible bindings suspending Alden fell away; he hit the earth on one knee, braced a bloody hand, then forced himself upright. Wand in his right hand, shoulders squared, like he was walking into an exam he'd read too far ahead for.
"Consider this your lesson," Voldemort said. "On history. On power. On lineage."
Alden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Then consider this mine," he said. "On consequence."
"Insolent," Snape murmured. But his tone was threaded with something taut and unwillingly impressed.
Voldemort's head tilted. "Bow."
The word rolled out wrapped in compulsion. Even as watchers, they could feel that pressure—air thickening, knees wanting to bend.
In the memory, Alden's muscles locked. His wand hand shook. He stayed standing.
"I don't kneel for anyone," he said again, slower, deliberate.
Something like recognition flickered behind Voldemort's eyes.
"So be it."
The graveyard drew breath.
"Fulmen Cadens."
Lightning screamed down in spiraling lances, five converging bolts of violet flame. Tombstones flared stark, shadows knifed long.
Alden didn't flinch. Wand rose, minimal motion. "Umbra Velo."
The air folded. A translucent barrier, dark-edged, bloomed before him. The lightning hit—and froze. It crystallized into a lattice of glass-bright veins, a cage of suspended thunder webbing the space.
For a heartbeat, the world was stained violet.
Then Alden's wrist shifted. The cage shattered, raining shards of harmless light.
Harry, beside Dumbledore, exhaled hard, as if only now remembering to breathe.
Sirius let out a low whistle. "Yeah. What a lad."
Snape's stare was knife-sharp. "Shield conjured mid-falloff, then refracted. He's not showing off; he's measuring Riddle's force."
"Impressive," Voldemort said aloud, echoing him. His eyes narrowed. "Tell me, does your frost always feed on heaven's wrath?"
"Only when it falls too low," Alden said.
Voldemort's brief laugh sliced the air. "Then rise, little heir. Show me."
"Confringo."
The earth between them detonated. Dirt and bone soared; flame roared up.
"Gelum Filum." Alden's spell carved through the blast—a thin line of magic that split the explosion in two. Fire sheared away around him, leaving him standing in a charred corridor.
The Death Eaters murmured, unsure. Nott Sr. leaned toward Lucius. "This is the boy?" he whispered.
Lucius didn't answer. His masked head was fixed, rigid; only his grip on his wand betrayed him.
On the statue, the memory-Harry strained against his bindings, eyes wide. Beside the Pensieve, the real Harry watched himself watch.
This isn't surviving, he thought again, throat tight. This is… choosing.
Voldemort circled, robe hems whispering over frost and ash.
"Crucio."
The curse slammed into Alden's chest. His back bowed, fingertips clawing air—then his lips peeled open on a broken word.
"Frigus Corpus Secunda!"
The red agony rippling his nerves warped, bled out of him, steamed from his veins. His arms shook as the pain inverted, half-devoured by his own magic. The scream he should have made evaporated as vapor.
The frost along the ground crept outward, touching boots. One Death Eater recoiled before mastering himself.
Sirius grimaced. "That's not right."
"That's survival," Snape said shortly.
Voldemort's smile thinned. "So you twist pain. Good. Let us see what breaks first: your nerves or your resolve."
The duel escalated.
They watched Alden move—slipping between graves, snapping shields into place, venting and bending curses instead of meeting them head-on. "Protego Maxima" blooming bright, then cracking under a chain of vicious hexes. "Gelum Impetus" like a jagged wall, shattered by green fire. Each defense is clever, each one just a fraction too mortal against the endless, learning fury hunting him.
"Running already, little heir?" Voldemort called. "Grindelwald must be spinning in his tomb!"
He wasn't running, Harry realized. He was thinking under fire. Counting options. Burning through them.
"Mortis Umbrae."
Shadows spilled from Voldemort's feet, coating the frost, climbing Alden's legs. His own silhouette peeled up off the ground, and then another, and another—each armed, each delayed half a heartbeat behind him.
"Yourself," Voldemort said fondly. "There is no greater opponent."
They watched Alden trapped in a ring of his own copies; spells mirrored back, angles closing, momentum turned against him. He adapted. "Gravemora" heaved the graves up and slammed them down, staggering the shadows. "Sectis Nox Magna" carved through three at once, their screams like tearing ice.
Snape's lip curled, but his voice was low. "That's… obscene work. And clean."
"Still not running," Sirius murmured.
"Obsessive," Snape countered. No one missed that he sounded almost… protective.
Voldemort wiped away the remains of Mortis Umbrae with a flick, unconcerned that his toy had worked it out.
"I wonder," he said, conversational, "if your friends would still stand beside you if they saw this. The boy they call noble, using the magic of monsters."
"They already know who I am," Alden said, hoarse. "That's why they're still here."
"No one here but the dead," Voldemort replied.
Lucius flinched. In the flicker of wandlight, his mask couldn't hide the tightening of his eyes.
Above the Pensieve, Harry's jaw clenched. He thought of Draco shrieking Alden's name in the stands, of Daphne trying to claw her way down to the pitch, Theo white-faced, Pansy sobbing. No one but the dead, his arse.
The sky in the memory bruised darker. Voldemort grew bored with artistry.
"Venenum Flammae."
The ground birthed serpents of blue-white fire, sinuous and ravenous, feeding on every charm Alden cast to repel them. They weaved through graves, devouring old frost, converging.
Alden's expression finally fractured—not with fear, but with calculation tipping toward desperation. He slashed his palm. "Sanguinis Vincta."
Blood hit the earth. Wards rose—latticed bone-light, red-veined sigils caging him in grim protection. For a moment, flame and ward clashed in a blinding corona.
"Merlin save us," Lucius whispered in the memory, forgetting to hide the words.
Sirius exhaled, low. "He's rewriting the ground."
"At the cost of his own blood," Dumbledore said, voice tight.
The wards held. Then cracked. The next impact sent marble and bone shrapnel across Alden's side. He went down and clawed his way back up, swaying.
And then came the moment.
The Pensieve drew them with Harry's gaze—past Voldemort, through the smoke, to the far edge of the ruined circle.
The Triwizard Cup lay there, toppled. Faintly glowing. Waiting.
In the memory, Alden saw it. You could follow the line of his eyes directly. Every adult in the office saw it too.
"He had an escape," Snape said quietly.
"He saw an escape," Dumbledore corrected. "There is a difference."
Alden staggered that way—one step, another, each leaving smears of red. Then his head turned, just enough.
Harry was strapped to the Riddle statue. Small and terrified and alone.
Alden stopped.
Sirius shut his eyes once, hard.
"Bombarda!"
Voldemort's spell tore the air. Alden's wand jerked up—too slow. The blast raced toward him.
Light flared at his hand.
Daphne's ring blazed, the delicate silver erupting into a translucent barrier that sprang up between Alden and annihilation. The curse hit; the shield shrieked, fractured, and shattered. The ring burst apart in a spray of broken metal and spent magic.
The explosion hurled Alden backward into a tombstone. His skull cracked on the way down. He slid, limp, leaving a vivid smear across carved letters. Shards of the ring lay scattered around his hand.
Harry, in the memory, you screamed his name.
Harry at the Pensieve flinched; the sound lived in his bones.
"Even love shatters when it touches me," Voldemort's voice curled over the rubble.
Alden's fingers twitched once toward the glittering wreck of the ring. His lips moved.
"I'll come back, Daphne," he whispered. No one in the graveyard heard him.
Everyone in Dumbledore's office did.
Sirius scrubbed a hand down his face. "Yep," he said hoarsely. "Absolute idiot."
Snape's throat worked. "He should have run," he said, but the words were sand-dry.
Dumbledore's eyes were very blue and very tired. "He is fifteen," he said again, as if that explained everything and nothing.
In the memory, Alden pushed himself upright—ruined, staggering, charred—but still dragging his wand into guard.
The duel was far from done.
The graveyard was no longer a place. It was an aftermath: marble cracked to ribs, earth blackened and torn, the faint shimmer of old frost drowned beneath scorch marks. Smoke drifted low and sluggish. The air stank of metal and burned roots.
At the center stood Alden.
He was swaying on his feet, wand trembling in his hand. Blood had glued his shirt to his ribs. Daphne's shattered ring lay at his boots like a fallen star.
Across from him, Voldemort moved through the haze as though out for a stroll. Serene. Composed. Bare feet pale against ruined ground, wand balanced between bone-thin fingers.
"So this is the boy Hogwarts whispers about," Voldemort said, his voice carrying cleanly through the Pensieve night. "The next Dark Lord. The prodigy who humiliated my borrowed face. You look very small beneath your legends."
Alden's knuckles whitened around his wand. "And you," he rasped, "look very human beneath yours."
"Humanity is a disease one sheds," Voldemort replied. "You've yet to outgrow it."
His wand flicked.
The world howled.
A wave of unseen force ripped open the ground, stone, and soil, lunging at Alden like a beast. Memory-Harry, bound to the Riddle statue, flinched. Pensieve-Harry, watching, felt his own stomach drop an echo behind it.
The adults moved with the memory, instinctively following as Alden dove sideways, rolling behind a half-shattered gravestone. Granite smashed where he'd stood.
"Protego!" Alden spat, barely in time. A green, jagged curse slammed into his shield, sparks spraying. His arm jolted; his shoulder dipped.
"He's flagging," Sirius muttered, pacing the Pensieve's edge as if he could step in. "Look at his arm."
Snape's eyes were narrowed, tracking angles. "Still placing a cover between them. He's not panicking yet."
"He is exhausted," Dumbledore said quietly. "And Tom is not."
"Purpose?" Voldemort's voice coiled through the smoke. "Then your purpose seems to be dying on your knees."
"Lacero."
The spell hissed through the air. Alden ducked, barely; it kissed his cheek, opening skin. Blood ran hot over ash. Another blast hit a monument behind him, the explosion punching shards of marble across his back.
Alden fired blindly over the headstone. "Sectis Nox Magna!"
Dark energy cleaved forward—Voldemort turned his wrist and split it, sending both arcs screaming back past Alden's shoulders to detonate behind him.
Harry flinched at both vantage points. "I remember that," he whispered. "I thought he'd cut himself in half."
"He nearly did," Snape said. "Rebounding your own curse. Sloppy."
"Desperate," Sirius shot back.
"Both," Dumbledore said.
Down in the memory, Harry's voice rang out, raw. "Alden! The Cup—take the Cup! Go!"
The Pensieve followed Alden's gaze as it snapped to the Triwizard Cup lying half-buried in rubble. For a heartbeat, everything aligned: distance, trajectory, possibility.
"There," Sirius breathed. "He had it. He could've—"
A flash of green scorched the dirt at Alden's feet. Voldemort laughed.
"Always looking for the exit," he purred. "How very Gryffindor of you."
Alden spat blood. "I told him we'd go home together."
Mocking amusement flickered in Voldemort's eyes; the words had been mostly to himself, but he'd heard. "Ah. Loyalty. Quaint."
Another spell—Bombarda Maxima—roared at him. Alden's shield came too late, too thin. The blast picked him up and flung him into stone; his wand flew from his hand, skidding.
Sirius swore.
Snape's jaw clenched. "Get up," he hissed under his breath to the boy who could not hear him.
Alden crawled. Fingers closed over his wand. He dragged himself upright.
Now he was all instinct—"Expelliarmus! Reducto! Umbra Ferrum!"—spells snapping out through gritted teeth. Shadow-blades spun toward Voldemort; he brushed them aside, lazy, unconcerned.
"So much knowledge," Voldemort mused. "So many clever theories. And yet, when it matters… You bleed just like the rest."
The next spell twisted reality instead of flesh. Gravity lurched. Alden slammed into broken stone as the ground tilted sideways.
"Do you feel it?" Voldemort asked. "That's mastery. Not power. Control."
Alden forced his wand up, shredding the distortion with a burst of counter-magic. "Control isn't domination," he rasped. "It's understanding."
Voldemort's smile thinned. "You sound like Dumbledore."
"Maybe that's why you fear me."
"Fear you?" The Dark Lord's voice went soft and lethal. "No, boy. I recognize you."
A jagged red blast caught Alden at his feet. He flew, hit, rolled. His breath tore out of him.
The Pensieve perspective tilted with him for a dizzy moment. Harry's stomach rolled. Sirius grabbed the lip of the stone basin. Even Snape's fingers tensed on the edge.
"You see it now," Dumbledore said quietly. "He is no longer dueling to prove an idea. Only to keep his word."
In the memory, Alden dragged himself behind another grave, bleeding freely now; one sleeve gone, arm a lattice of cuts, shoulder hanging.
He tried to cast a shield. The word cracked; the magic stuttered.
You're not going to make it.
The thought flickered across both Harrys.
Voldemort's taunts spiraled above the rubble. "You disappoint me, Dreyse! Hogwarts called you the next Dark Lord, did they not? Show me!"
A silver curse slashed; Alden twisted; it flayed his shoulder open. He staggered, smearing blood on stone.
He crouched low behind a tomb, breath ragged. The ground stank of sulfur and iron. His hand shook.
"Here it is," Snape said, voice gone very flat. "The moment any rational Slytherin would cut their losses."
"He's fifteen," Sirius snapped. "His losses are his friends."
Dumbledore watched in silence.
In the graveyard, Alden's thoughts slid across his face: the whispers, the accusations, the fear. The next Grindelwald. Dark Lordling. Dreyse gone bad.
He'd denied them—until now.
He looked at his bare ring finger. Remembered who'd worn that promise.
"I promised you I'd come back," he whispered to the dirt. "I intend to keep that promise."
He rose.
Something in his eyes had changed. The hesitance was gone; the line he'd sworn never to cross was gone with it.
Across the ruins, Voldemort slowed, intrigued.
"You wanted to see the monster they whisper about?" Alden called, voice low but carrying.
"Then look."
Sirius blew out a breath. "Oh, this is going to be stupid."
"It is going to be inevitable," Dumbledore said.
Voldemort's wand lifted. "Serpens Somnia. Mors Caelum. Venenum Flammae. Fulmen Orbis."
Nightmare serpents tore from the soil. The air imploded in Alden's lungs; he clawed breath back through will alone. Blue-white fire uncoiled around him, hungry. A ring of lightning crashed down, fencing them both into an electric prison.
"This is why the world feared me!" Voldemort cried. The spells interlocked: fire feeding lightning, serpents feeding flame.
Alden, barely standing, screamed through clenched teeth and answered:
"Sectis Nox Magna!"—unraveled.
"Umbra Ferrum!"—ash.
"Bombarda!"—buys a heartbeat, nothing more.
"Expelliarmus!"—caught between Voldemort's fingers and snapped like spun sugar.
"You can't win," Voldemort told him. "You can only yield."
Alden bled on the stones and didn't answer.
Then something inside him broke—and did not shatter. It slipped its chain.
The Pensieve went very still.
"Oh," Sirius breathed. "Here we go."
Alden's magic surged dark and deep.
"Umbra Excoriatus."
Every active spell within reach—flame, lightning, serpent, curse—peeled apart, stripped into hanging ribbons of black light before dissolving. The air went negative for a blink, like someone had turned the world inside out.
Snape sucked in a sharp breath. "That—"
"I know," Dumbledore said, grave.
"—should be impossible at his age," Snape finished anyway.
"Voldemort looks… pleased," Sirius muttered, disgusted.
"Because he thinks he has made a point," Dumbledore said. "He does not see that Alden is making his own."
"Noctis Ensis."
Shadowfire condensed along Alden's arm, shaping into a blade that left afterimages of sickly light with each swing. He struck, vicious and precise. Voldemort caught the edge with raw force; where they met, violet and green bent, spitting sparks.
"Vita Reversum," Alden whispered.
Life inverted.
Grass greyed and crumbled. Roots shriveled. Even the drifting smoke thickened, slow. It was not cold—it was absence.
Alden doubled, coughing blood, the spell eating him as it devoured the field.
Voldemort's delight sharpened. "There it is. The cost. Did you think greatness came free?"
"Confringo."
The hammerblow flung Alden like a rag doll. He hit, rolled. Came up with nothing but stubbornness.
"Sanguine Aegis."
Blood laced the air, hardening into a web of crimson sigils. The next curse crashed into it and vanished, power absorbed, shield glowing brighter.
Sirius stared. "That's—"
"Unstable," Snape said. "Brilliant. Suicidal."
"Like the boy," Dumbledore murmured.
Alden emerged behind it, one eye swollen shut, the other inhumanly cold. Shadows bloomed from his back, curling like half-formed wings.
"Animus Tenebris," Snape said under his breath. He knew that one. He looked ill.
"Oblivion itself," Voldemort said, almost admiringly, as Alden's next silent pulse snuffed torches, flames, even parts of the lightning cage in a colorless wave.
Alden swayed, barely a thread holding him up.
"Intent is meaningless," Voldemort told him. "Only action endures."
"You're right," Alden said softly. "But action means nothing… if it serves no one."
"And who do you serve?"
Alden's cracked mouth lifted. "The ones who still believe I'll come back."
Then, quietly, as the Pensieve leaned in:
"I said, watch."
He pressed his wand into the ruined earth.
"Tenebris Lux Ultima."
The sound cut out.
Everything stopped.
Smoke froze in coils. Embers paused mid-fall. The lightning ring was held in a sculpted snarl. The Death Eaters were statues, cloaks suspended.
The darkness that spread was not simple black. It was thick, iridescent, folding the graveyard inward. It ate color. It devoured flame. It drank every echo until there was nothing but the visible shape of void expanding from the boy at its heart.
In Dumbledore's office, Fawkes trembled on his perch. The adults watched in absolute silence.
"What has he done?" Sirius whispered.
"Broken every rule that keeps men from becoming weapons," Snape said tightly.
"And aimed himself," Dumbledore added, eyes locked on Alden.
In the memory, Voldemort's face twisted. "What have you done?"
Alden didn't answer. The spell was pulling through him, veins glowing faintly beneath torn skin. It was too much for any human frame—and he'd cast it anyway.
Voldemort raised his wand. No words. Just killing intent writ large.
White fire met living darkness.
There was no blast, no boom. Light folded. The world buckled like metal under too much heat. Yew tree, tombs, sigils, flames, Death Eaters—all were flung, crushed, erased, held in the breathless crush of colliding absolutes.
The watchers felt pressure in their chests that wasn't real. Harry's hands clenched on the Pensieve; Sirius's nails dug grooves in the stone lip; Snape's pupils had shrunk to pinpricks.
Then the dark imploded.
It sucked in on itself, collapsing back to the point where Alden stood.
When it cleared, the graveyard was leveled. Flattened stone, ash, nothing left of rows of dead but dust.
Half of Voldemort's cloak was simply gone, scorched away. His expression was not amused now. Irritated. Considering.
At his feet lay Alden Dreyse.
He was all ruined—clothes burned through; skin flayed in lines and patches; blood pooled beneath his head. One arm hung limp, fingers still hooked around his wand as if they'd locked there. The faintest movement marked his ribs.
Harry's bindings dissolved as the last of the magic bled away. He collapsed forward, gulping air. His gaze shot to Alden.
"Oh, Alden," Sirius whispered above the bowl.
Snape said nothing. His jaw was clenched so hard a muscle jumped.
Voldemort's laugh rolled out hoarse. "Impressive. You are the first to wound me since Dumbledore himself. Take solace in that, little Dreyse."
He leveled his wand at the unconscious boy for a moment—a gesture of casual ownership—then turned toward Harry.
"Now," he said. "Let's finish history."
But Harry wasn't listening. Not there, not now. Both Harrys were looking at the same thing:
Alden's eye.
Just one, barely open, clouded with blood and grit—but fixed on him.
The Pensieve drew in tight so there could be no mistaking it: no daze, no plea. Just a single, iron command in that look.
Run.
Present-Harry felt the same electric jolt that had shot through him then. The same understanding: Alden had burned everything—his body, his ideals, his bloodline—to buy him that one moment.
In the graveyard, that eye finally slid closed. Shadow-frost clung faintly to the earth around his body, the last echo of Tenebris Lux Ultima.
"The cost," Dumbledore said softly, eyes on the boy in the dirt. "He never intended to defeat Tom. Only to deny him."
Sirius huffed a humorless breath. "Stupid, brilliant kid."
Snape's voice was low and edged. "He made himself a weapon," he said. "For Potter."
"For a promise," Dumbledore said. "And for the right, as he sees it, to come back."
Harry swallowed, throat burning. "Then I had to run," he whispered, more to himself than the others. "After that. I had to."
"In that," Snape said, "for once, you chose correctly."
The graveyard memory hung a moment longer: Alden broken at Voldemort's feet, the silent order to live still echoing between them.
"I—" Harry started, voice rough. "There's one more thing."
Dumbledore turned to him at once. "Harry, you have done more than—"
"No." Harry shook his head, harder than he meant to. "You need to see this part. All of it. Or it… It doesn't make sense."
Sirius took a step closer to him. "If this is about you going back there, we've seen enough."
"It's not," Harry said. "It's about why I couldn't leave him."
Snape's eyes flicked to him. "Dreyse."
Harry met his gaze and didn't look away. "Yeah. Him."
Dumbledore studied Harry's face for a long beat, then nodded once. "Very well."
Harry raised his wand with a shaking hand and touched the tip to his temple. The strand of memory clung, silver and thin, as he drew it out and let it fall back into the basin.
The liquid swirled.
They leaned in.
The office vanished.
The sound hit them first this time—the piercing, impossible hum of Priori Incantatem, the wands locked, the golden thread between them vibrating like a nerve exposed to open air.
Harry was there again, knees braced, arms shaking, sweat in his eyes.
Voldemort stood opposite, disbelief carved across his white face, red eyes wide as the connection held.
"The moment of connection," Dumbledore murmured, watching. Sirius shot him a glance, but stayed quiet.
The wand screamed.
Silver smoke spilled from Voldemort's wand: Frank Bryce, blinking and bitter; Bertha Jorkins, wide-eyed and furious. Their voices echoed, urging Harry: Don't let go. Fight. Hold.
Then Lily emerged.
Sirius jolted; his hand shot out, catching the air where her sleeve was not. Snape went rigid beside him, black eyes locked on her face, on the way her hair framed the green of her eyes.
"Hold on," she whispered. "Hold on for your father."
James followed, with untidy hair and hazel eyes burning with pride and terror. Harry's breath hitched; the echo of it traveled through both selves.
"When the connection breaks, we will give you time," James said. "Get to the Portkey."
Harry's knuckles whitened on his wand. "I can't—"
"You can," James snapped, sharp even in death. "When the link breaks, run. Don't look back."
Lily's voice softened the edges. "We're so proud of you. We love you."
Sirius made a broken sound, half-laugh, half-sob. "That's them," he whispered. "That's—bloody hell."
Snape's jaw clenched. His fingers twitched like he'd hex the air for daring to show her to him.
The golden light flared, unstable. The ghosts circled Voldemort, whispering. For a heartbeat, fear flashed across the Dark Lord's face.
"Now," James whispered, hand ghosting over Harry's shoulder.
Harry wrenched his wand upward. The thread snapped.
The phoenix song cut off. The ghosts crashed in on Voldemort—Lily, James, Bertha, Frank—a wall of light and accusation.
"RUN!"
Harry ran.
The Pensieve followed.
The graveyard stretched out before them as they'd already seen it: splintered stone, ash and frost, the air still buzzing with the residue of monstrous spells. Voldemort's scream chased them, but distant, swallowed by ruin.
Harry pelted through the smoke, stumbling, clutching the pain in his leg and the echo of his parents' touch.
Then he saw Alden.
Up close, there was no mistaking how wrong his body lay, half-slumped against the broken Riddle headstone. Shirt burned open, ribs smeared with blood and blackened flesh. One arm bent, the other still locked around his wand. His hair, once silver-white, was now matted with soot and dark red.
Sirius hissed in a breath between his teeth. Snape's mouth pressed into a bloodless line; he'd seen Dark curses do less.
"For a moment," Harry's own voice murmured over the memory, "I thought he was—"
A faint rise of Alden's chest.
"No," memory-Harry whispered, and present-Harry flinched with him.
Light shifted.
Two new forms coalesced at Alden's side—pale, translucent, tinged with the leftover gold of Lily and James's magic. The family resemblance was brutal in how immediate it was: the man's pale hair and sharp posture, the woman's silver-blue eyes ,and the same thoughtful poise that made silence feel deliberate.
Dumbledore inhaled very softly.
"Harry Potter," the woman said. Her voice did not echo—no hollow distortion—just clear, steady, like she was speaking directly to his bones. "You must take him home."
Sirius blinked. "His parents?"
Snape's eyes narrowed, recognition flashing and then buried.
Memory-Harry stumbled forward. "I—he's hurt, I don't—"
"Please." It wasn't pleading so much as a command wrapped in love. "He will not ask for help. He will try to crawl, and bleed, and die before he burdens another. He has carried others far too long."
The man folded his hands behind his back, the movement so like Alden's that it hurt to look at. "He stayed for you," he said simply. "Even when you told him to run, he chose to stay. That is who he is. Do not let that choice end here."
Present-Harry hunched in on himself slightly, watching. "I told him to go," he muttered. "He didn't."
"He wouldn't," Snape said, before he could stop himself.
Three sets of eyes flicked to him. Snape looked away, jaw tight.
In the memory, Alden's mother knelt by her son, ghost fingers hovering a breath from his cheek. "Tell him," she said, looking up at Harry, "that we are proud of him. That we watch him always. That his strength is not in his power, but in his heart—though he'll never believe it."
Sirius blew out a shaky breath. "He picked good parents," he muttered, trying for flippant and not quite getting there.
Harry—the Harry in the graveyard—nodded, frightened and firm. "I'll tell him. I promise."
Her smile trembled, luminous and breaking. "Then go."
"Take him," Alden's father said. "Let him live."
Wind cut through the ruined yard; ash swirled. Their forms faltered.
"Tell him," she whispered as she faded, "we love him. Always."
Their light scattered, drifting over Alden's broken body like falling stars before vanishing.
In the Pensieve, memory-Harry sagged under the weight of it, then shoved himself forward, dropping to his knees beside Alden. The Professors saw it up close now: every inch of the boy flayed or burned or bloodied; the missing ring; the frost-burned edges of his fingers from magic no student should have touched.
Harry's hand hovered, then seized Alden's wrist in a desperate grip.
"You're not dying here," he whispered. "Not after all that."
"Stubborn," Sirius muttered. "Both of them."
Above the memory, Voldemort's scream rose, closer.
The Triwizard Cup lay toppled nearby, faintly glowing. Harry glanced between it and Alden, breath shuddering.
"I promised," he told the unconscious boy. "And so did you."
He hauled Alden upright, slinging the dead weight of him over his shoulders, half-lifting, half-dragging him toward the Cup. Every step smudged fresh red into the ruined ground.
Snape watched that, eyes flint-dark. "He could barely stand," he said quietly. "And he chose to carry another."
"Not just another," Dumbledore replied. "The boy who had been cursed to bring him here."
They watched Voldemort's next curse scorch past, shattering stone inches from Harry's head. Watched Harry not let go.
"Accio!" Harry yelled.
The Cup flew. He caught it with one hand and clung to Alden with the other.
The hook behind the navel. The wild drag of Portkey-flight.
As the graveyard blurred away, the last thing visible was the faint shimmer of Alden's parents in the smoke—her hand lifted; his slight, proud nod.
Then nothing but color and wind.
The surface of the Pensieve smoothed. The office rushed up around them again: the quiet, the ticking instruments, the crackle of the fire. Fawkes cooed once, a low sound vibrating with something like sorrow.
Harry's shoulders were hunched, fists knotted at his sides. "That's it," he said. "That's… why."
Sirius moved first, gripping his shoulder. "You did right," he said roughly. "You brought him back."
Dumbledore sank back into his chair, looking older than the moonlight. "You honored both sets of parents," he said softly. "Yours. And his."
Snape's gaze lingered on Harry, then slid away, back to the fading echo of black frost in the Pensieve glass. His voice, when it came, was clipped—but there was something raw under it.
"Dreyse is alive," he said. "Because Potter refused to leave a Slytherin in a graveyard with the Dark Lord. That is… noted."
Harry looked between the three men, throat tight. "People think he's going to be some Dark Lord," he said. "But he stayed when he could've run. He fought him. He saved me."
"He is not the Dark Lord," Dumbledore said, and there was iron in it. "He is a boy who paid a terrible price so another might live. That is all I shall recognize."
Sirius huffed, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Well," he said quietly. "What a lad he is."
And for once, neither Dumbledore nor Snape argued.