Harry returned to Highlands Manor with the taste of Hogsmeade still in his mouth—cold air, old wood, and the faint metallic tang of magic that clung to the Shrieking Shack like a second skin.
He should have felt lighter.
He did feel lighter—at least for the first hour. For the first few corridors. For the first few steps across the polished floor that the house-elves had made gleam like glass. His friends were safe. They were angry, yes, but they were there, and they were brilliant and alive and still looking at him like he belonged to them.
And then Hermione's words came back, uninvited, as sharp as the crack of a wand:
"Dumbledore has it at Hogwarts. The Philosopher's Stone."
A thing that should not exist.
A miracle that did.
Harry had nodded at the time, had asked calm questions, had argued about suspects and motives like the sensible person he pretended to be. He had even left them with a joke and a promise to help with the theatre project.
But the moment he stepped through his star-shaped portal and felt Highlands Manor's wards recognize him, the truth settled into his bones.
He couldn't stop thinking about it.
Sirius had collapsed on a sofa with a book he didn't read. Wanda had vanished to the greenhouse wing to check on America—though America had been checking on her more than the plants.
Remus had retired early, claiming exhaustion, but Harry could smell the quiet worry in the air the same way he could smell rain on stone. Even the house-elves moved more softly than usual, as if the manor itself asked them not to disturb the boy who carried too much.
Harry didn't sleep.
He sat in the library.
Highlands Manor's library wasn't like Asgard's—nothing could be—but it had a different kind of power. It was personal. It remembered human hands, ink stains, coffee rings, old frustration. Shelves packed tight with wizarding history, alchemy, runes, muggle science books that Hermione had insisted on buying for him, and a small but dangerous section of Asgardian texts Harry had acquired over the years.
Harry lit a small globe-lamp on his desk. Its warm light touched the pages of a leather-bound volume: Modern Alchemy: Miracles and Catastrophes.
He flipped through it with the ease of someone who had read faster than most people could blink.
Nicolas Flamel, the book said, in respectful, almost trembling script. Creator of the Philosopher's Stone. A triumph of transmutation, purification, and eternal binding.
Harry's eyes drifted to the margin notes—old handwriting in the book, not his. A previous owner, perhaps. Someone who had underlined a passage so hard the page nearly tore.
"Immortality is never free."
Harry's fingers paused.
He stared at the words until they blurred.
Then he turned the page.
The Stone could turn base metals into gold. That part almost bored him. Gold meant nothing to a realm like Asgard, where wealth was measured in power, in loyalty, in history carved into the bones of worlds. Harry could conjure enough value in a day with enchantments and uru to make muggle kings weep.
No.
Gold wasn't why his mind kept circling like a hawk around prey.
It was the other part.
The Elixir of Life.
A sip and time could be told to wait.
A draught and the mortal line that separated Hermione and Draco from him—so bright, so fragile—could be blurred into something else.
Harry closed the book slowly.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
He had felt death too closely, too often, to treat it like a story. He had watched Asgardian warriors die and rise in Valhalla. He had watched Frost Giants fall into pits and vanish into white storms. He had seen gods bleed.
But it wasn't the deaths of strangers that haunted him.
It was the future.
Hermione's hands, ink-stained and restless, growing old. Draco's sharp grin fading into lines, his hair turning silver. Sirius… Sirius was still young now, still reckless, but Harry had learned enough in Asgard to know even magic couldn't hold everything forever.
And Harry?
Harry would keep going.
Nine thousand years, ten thousand—maybe more.
He would still be standing when their graves were covered in moss.
The thought made something dark twist in his chest.
He had been told to enjoy his Midgardian life—Odin's voice echoing like thunder in his memory.
"A hundred years is nothing for an Asgardian."
But that was the cruelty of it.
A hundred years was everything for Hermione.
Everything for Draco.
Everything for everyone Harry had ever loved on Midgard.
Harry put his hands over his face.
"Not fair," he whispered into his palms, voice breaking on the edge of something he refused to name.
Then, softer, as if speaking it aloud might make it real:
"I don't want to outlive them."
The door creaked.
Harry's head snapped up instantly.
He didn't reach for a wand. He didn't need to. The library's wards would have screamed if it was an intruder.
Sirius stepped inside, robe half-fastened, hair slightly disheveled, eyes tired.
"I thought I'd find you here," Sirius said quietly.
Harry tried to smile. It came out wrong. "Couldn't sleep."
Sirius crossed the room and sat opposite him. The chair creaked softly, old wood complaining in familiar comfort.
"You've been restless since you came back," Sirius said. "More than usual."
Harry's fingers tapped the cover of the alchemy book. "I learned something at Hogwarts."
Sirius's gaze flicked to the title.
Understanding dawned slowly.
"The Stone," Sirius said.
Harry went still.
Sirius didn't look surprised. Not truly. Like he'd been expecting Harry to circle this problem the moment he heard it existed.
"You already know," Harry muttered.
"I know you," Sirius corrected gently. "And I know what you carry."
Harry's laugh was humorless. "Then you know I'm thinking about taking it."
Sirius didn't flinch. He only exhaled, long and careful, as if steadying himself.
"Why?" he asked.
Harry stared at him, eyes too bright.
"Because it can make Elixir," he said. "Because it can extend life. Because it can—" His voice tightened. "Because it could let them live longer."
Sirius was silent for a moment.
Then he asked, very softly, "You mean Hermione and Draco."
Harry didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Sirius leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Harry, listen to me. Wanting that… doesn't make you bad. It makes you human, even if you're Asgardian."
Harry swallowed. "It doesn't feel human. It feels selfish."
"It's both," Sirius said, honest as always. "Love can be selfish."
Harry's jaw clenched. "Dumbledore hid it at Hogwarts. That means he thinks someone will steal it. Hermione says someone already tried."
Sirius's eyes sharpened. "And you believe her."
"I believe someone tried," Harry corrected. "I don't know who. Hermione suspects Snape."
Sirius didn't react to the name. His voice stayed level. "And Draco doesn't."
Harry nodded. "He thinks it's someone else."
"That disagreement matters," Sirius said quietly. "It means you don't have certainty."
Harry's fingers dug into the edge of the book.
"Uncertainty didn't stop the first thief," he said. "And it won't stop the second."
Sirius held his gaze. "So you'll become the third."
Harry's breath hitched, just slightly.
"Yes," he admitted. "Before someone else takes it for power. For greed. For immortality for themselves."
"And you?" Sirius asked.
Harry's eyes flashed. "For them."
Sirius watched him for a long time.
Then he said something Harry didn't expect.
"You're afraid."
Harry's mouth opened, then shut.
Sirius continued, voice steady and kind. "Not of any traps. Not of Dumbledore. Not even of war. You're afraid of time."
Harry's hands trembled, barely, but he forced them still.
"I saw what forever looks like," he said, voice low. "Asgardians talk about centuries like they're seasons. Odin told me to make memories before everyone I love dies, and he said it like it was… inevitable. Like it was nothing."
Sirius's eyes softened. "Odin doesn't understand Midgard the way you do."
"No," Harry whispered. "But I do."
Sirius leaned back, thinking. "If you take it, you set yourself against Dumbledore."
Harry snorted. "He's already against me."
"Not openly," Sirius said. "Not yet. But this would make it open."
Harry's gaze dropped.
Sirius's voice turned firm. "And if you take it—if you truly succeed—what then? You give the Elixir to Hermione and Draco?"
Harry looked up sharply. "Yes."
Sirius's expression stayed calm, but his words landed like stones.
"And you don't think they'll ask why they get it and others don't?"
Harry froze.
Sirius continued, gently relentless. "Hermione isn't cruel. Draco isn't blind. If you offer them life beyond human limits, they'll question the cost. They'll question fairness. They'll question what it does to them—what it makes them."
Harry swallowed hard.
"I'll tell them," he said, stubborn. "I'll be honest."
Sirius nodded slowly. "Then be honest with yourself too. This isn't only for them."
Harry's voice broke, just a little. "It's for me too."
Sirius didn't judge him.
He just reached across the table and laid a hand over Harry's, steady and warm.
"Love makes people do reckless things," Sirius said quietly. "Sometimes beautiful things. Sometimes dangerous ones."
Harry stared at their joined hands.
"I can't leave it there," he whispered. "If someone else takes it…"
Sirius sighed. "Then you think you're the lesser evil."
Harry met his eyes. "I think I'm the only one who wouldn't use it for myself."
Sirius looked unconvinced. Not accusing—just realistic.
"And if you could?" Sirius asked softly. "If you could make yourself something that lasts alongside them? Would you truly refuse?"
Harry didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
And that uncertainty terrified him more than any monster.
Later, Harry stood alone on the balcony overlooking the manor grounds. Wind tugged at his hair. The greenhouse domes glimmered faintly in the distance. Somewhere below, Sirius laughed at something America said—an easy, living sound that reminded Harry why this mattered.
He lifted his face to the sky.
Hogwarts lay not far away, a stone giant crouched in the hills. Inside it, beneath layers of protection, was a miracle locked behind a trapdoor and a three-headed guardian.
A Stone.
Harry's mind turned the problem over again and again, like a blade seeking an edge.
If Dumbledore truly hid it there, then he expected someone to come.
If someone already tried, then the danger wasn't hypothetical.
And if the Stone existed at all, it would always draw hungry hands.
Harry's fingers curled against the balcony rail.
"Better me than them," he murmured.
But his voice held no triumph—only quiet fear.
Because beneath all the logic, beneath the plans and justifications, there was one truth he couldn't escape:
Harry had found something in Midgard worth keeping.
And time was the one enemy he couldn't punch.
The next morning, he summoned Sirius and Wanda into the library.
Sirius arrived first, looking half-awake, hair wild, but alert the moment he saw Harry's expression.
Wanda followed, calm and watchful, eyes flicking to the alchemy book on the desk.
"You're thinking about it," Wanda said.
Harry nodded once.
Sirius finally exhaled. "You want to steal the most guarded artifact in Hogwarts. From Dumbledore."
Harry didn't flinch. "Yes."
Wanda's voice was quiet. "And you want it to extend their lives."
"Yes."
Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "Merlin help me."
Wanda watched Harry carefully. "You know immortality changes people."
"I know," Harry said.
"And you know it will change you," Wanda added.
Harry's jaw tightened. "I'm already changed."
Wanda didn't argue. She only stepped closer and cupped his cheek briefly—motherly, grounding.
"You're not wrong to want them with you," she said softly. "But you must be careful, Harry. The line between love and possession is thin."
Harry's throat tightened. "I don't want to own them. I just… don't want to lose them."
Sirius's expression softened at that, despite himself. He sank into a chair and stared at the desk.
"You're really serious," Sirius muttered.
Harry nodded.
Sirius looked up. "Then if you're going to do something this stupid, you're not doing it alone."
Harry blinked. "Sirius—"
"No," Sirius said sharply. "I'm not letting you go into Hogwarts chasing myths and miracles and traps without backup. I don't care if you're Asgardian. You're still eleven and catastrophically reckless."
Wanda gave Sirius a look that said finally, some sense.
Harry exhaled slowly.
Part of him wanted to refuse. Part of him wanted to keep everyone away from the danger.
But Remus's words echoed in his mind:
You don't get to decide alone who worries about you.
Harry's shoulders lowered slightly.
"Fine," he said. "But we plan properly."
Sirius's grin turned sharp. "Now you're speaking my language."
Wanda's eyes narrowed. "And you tell Hermione and Draco the truth. No half-secrets."
Harry nodded. "I will but later."
He looked down at the book again.
And in that moment, with his family around him and his friends waiting in a castle that didn't know how close it was to being broken into by a boy who refused to accept loss…
Harry made his decision.
He would take the Stone.
Not for gold.
Not for glory.
Not for immortality for himself.
But because the future had already threatened to steal the people he loved.
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