Harry opened his eyes again and found himself on Platform Nine, standing beneath a broad umbrella. Beside him stood a young man holding it—he was the strange person Harry had seen from the train.
A single umbrella separated two worlds.
Outside the umbrella, the universe's strands of thought had turned into heavy rain, scouring everything clean.
Under the umbrella, it was quiet and desolate.
"It's over," Skyl said softly. "You did pretty well, Harry."
"Why am I here?" Harry was dazed and at a loss. His memory was still stuck in the shack—on that dreadful night.
"Think carefully. What did you go through?"
The memories that had been washed away by the rain returned. They were a little blurred, but the important events were still vivid. Harry could finally look back with a calm mind. The shock this boy had endured was simply too much—if the rain hadn't washed the emotional weight away, the sheer agony would have made remembering impossible.
"I… I killed a lot of people."
"That was the future you," Skyl said. "And all of it was only a prophecy—something divined."
"A prophecy?" It was as if Harry had heard a trigger word and snapped awake from hypnosis. Understanding hit him all at once. "Right—prophecy!"
Skyl nodded. "I shared what I saw with you. Strictly speaking, you're inside a vision. But I didn't fabricate anything. Everything in that vision would truly happen."
The question that confused Harry the most was this: "What is the relationship between Snape and my mum?"
Skyl shook his head. "How would I know? You should ask him yourself."
"Then… after I changed history…" Harry's voice turned urgent. "Does that mean all the people I harmed don't have to die?"
"For the most part, yes. You killed many Death Eaters, and Ministry Aurors and officials, and school professors. If you change history, most of them won't have to die—though their lives will take completely different paths."
"That's great!"
Skyl sighed. "But Dumbledore died—killed by betrayal and a trap. You changed history in a way that let Voldemort win. The child of prophecy never appeared. The Longbottoms, the Weasleys—wiped out. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick… all those familiar names, and every person who still carried justice in their heart, all of them were defeated by Voldemort and his dogs.
"The Ministry became Voldemort's personal dictatorship. Hogwarts became a Slytherin school. Half-bloods became vassals to pure-bloods. People like Hermione—what they sneer at as 'Mudbloods'—were broken and trained into slaves.
"And you, Harry Potter—you got a happy childhood, right up until your parents, resisting Voldemort's tyranny, left you behind to attempt an assassination of the Dark Lord. Of course they didn't survive. You stepped into the perilous wizarding world knowing nothing, punished for your parents' 'crimes' by association, reduced to an insignificant servant in the school, and in the end you died of sickness under crushing labor."
Tears welled up again in Harry's eyes. "Why? Why can't I have happiness?"
"Because you're not strong enough," Skyl said bluntly. "A warm world only exists because everyone works together to keep it that way. A brute like Voldemort brings chaos. People stop believing in friendship, stop helping one another, and instead they kill, oppress, and plunder. The weak suffer—physically, mentally, all of it—and then they die in silence, unnoticed."
The boy closed his eyes, devastated. "And I'll become a villain too. Worse than Voldemort."
"Worse? Hard to say. You built something new on top of what he was. But you're still not the same. His goal was pure-blood rule; yours was reviving your parents. Being a Dark Lord is basically a contest in who's less pathetic. The first Dark Lord, Gellert Grindelwald, had more ideology than Voldemort. Voldemort was awful, but at least he had a grand ambition. Compared to them, you were just a child starving to be loved."
"…I don't like this prophecy…" Harry's voice thinned. "Does that mean I really can't revive my mum?"
"Yes."
Skyl's answer cut off the last strand of the boy's hope.
Forget Harry—even Skyl, in The Tower of Tomes, couldn't revive someone who had been dead for years, their body long rotted away, unless there was a complete corpse or a complete memory imprint. Otherwise what you revive is only a newly born person, like that Finger Maiden.
Harry broke down. He squatted on the ground and wailed.
"Be strong, Harry." Skyl crouched too, gently patting his back. "I didn't show you all of this to crush your courage. If you want happiness, you can't drown in disappointment over the past. You didn't have a happy childhood, that's true—but you have Hogwarts. You have a group of companions who care about you. Real growth isn't gaining invincible power. It's learning to make peace with your past, and with the world's indifference."
Harry kept crying. What rose up in him was the suffocating life he'd lived for eleven years under the Dursleys—never loved, raised in disgust and bullying. Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and Dudley Dursley, had inflicted deep psychological damage on him. But that alone wasn't enough to make him turn evil. Harry had always been both brave and stubborn—a real boy who refused to break.
What would have twisted him was Voldemort's soul, and the turbulence caused by Skyl altering the story.
Perhaps Harry would have become a new Dark Lord, and then another child of prophecy—Neville Longbottom—would have led his friends to defeat him.
But those stories were never destined to happen.
"Go back, Harry. Get some proper rest. After you sleep and wake up… nothing will happen."
Harry only grew sadder. He felt himself falling—faster and faster.
He shuddered hard.
"He's awake!"
Harry heard someone say it.
"Where am I?"
"The hospital wing!" Hermione's voice was urgent. "Skyl brought you here, and he said you'd wake up soon."
"Hermione…" Harry stared at her blankly.
A lot of students crowded around the bed. Ron shoved his face right up close to Harry's with a goofy grin.
George and Fred came in from outside carrying a toilet seat. Laughing and delighted, they set it by Harry's bedside to celebrate his "rebirth."
More Gryffindors piled in after them. Seeing the crowd grow, Madam Pomfrey immediately exploded and tried to drive them all out.
Harry sat up. Hermione handed him his glasses. Only then did he notice his face was wet—and when he turned his head, his pillow was soaked through as well.
No wonder everyone's eyes were full of pity.
"Harry, get some rest," Hermione said softly. "You must've gone through something really awful." She took the initiative to leave, and together with Madam Pomfrey, she chased the other students out of the ward, leaving Harry a space to rest alone.
Harry spent a sleepless night in the hospital wing, tossing and turning. The next day he went to class as usual. With end-of-term exams approaching, the professors were busier than ever.
In Potions, Snape was steady as always, picking at Harry's faults without pause.
But Harry, now, could meet Snape's gaze with quiet eyes.
"Mr. Potter, staring at me like an idiot won't teach you potion-making. When will you stop being so utterly ridiculous?" Snape looked into Harry's green eyes. Even that hateful drawling tone seemed a little calmer than usual.
"Sorry, Professor. I'll work harder," Harry said, completely unbothered by the sarcasm. Ron saw Snape's expression twist like he'd swallowed a live toad, and he nearly exploded with glee.
"…I hope you're not all talk," Snape said coldly as he returned to the lectern. For the rest of the class he didn't bother Harry again. The Gryffindors, however, didn't have it so easy—this biased professor found every excuse to dock them points.
But aside from Hermione, who was heartbroken over the house points, nobody cared. Everyone thought Harry had done exactly the right thing. Watching Snape get taken down a peg felt better than winning the House Cup.
After class, Harry went straight up to Snape.
"Professor… did you know my mum?"
Snape paused mid-motion. "That's none of your business."
"I want to know your past," Harry said. There was a sadness in his eyes that even adults rarely carried. "What kind of person was she?"
"Mr. Potter, whatever you're plotting, you won't get what you want from me." Snape looked as if he'd been stabbed somewhere tender. He shoved past Harry and hurried out of the classroom.
Snape didn't go far. He waited outside the Gryffindor common room for Skyl, and the moment Skyl stepped out, Snape moved to block him.
"Mr. Skyl, we need to talk. What exactly did you say to Mr. Potter?"
Skyl had guessed Harry's change had rattled Snape. That old snake was like this—hiding everything, swallowing every word. If he'd had the courage back then to confess to Lily Evans, would James Potter ever have gotten the girl?
"Professor, it seems you really do care about Harry. So why not talk to him properly, face to face? Don't treat him like a child anymore. He's grown up."
"I don't see a single shred of maturity in him."
"Sometimes growth happens without a sound," Skyl said. "After you've seen certain things, you can't get your innocence back. Every one of us carries pain and worries, doesn't we?"
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