There is a particular satisfaction when a plan clicks into place, when the last piece settles and the board finally makes sense. I have wanted to arrange this for a long time. A collision. Dark Lord and White Lord, set on the same path, at the same hour. And fate provided me with just the path.
Spying on my parents was unpleasant, but effective. Lord Voldemort has made our English residence his operational nest, which made gathering information absurdly easy. Watching my mother look at that noseless aberration as if he were a messiah, while my father stood by with the emotional range of a brick wall, was… uncomfortable. Still, discomfort is a small price for clarity. The moment I uncovered their plan to strike the Potter wedding, every lingering doubt evaporated.
I moved quickly. Sirius Black was warned first. Then Filius Flitwick, Minerva McGonagall, Edgar Bones, and Alastor Moody.
Not Dumbledore. Never Dumbledore.
Too many things vanish into the fog of "greater good" when they pass through his hands. Information, once delayed, has a habit of dying quietly.
And it worked. Beautifully.
Yet doubt nags at me, like a splinter under the skin. I do not recall the Potters being attacked at their wedding. Not in any version of the story I remember. So is this the butterfly effect unfurling its wings? Did saving my godfather alter the weave of fate?
I stopped him from charging toward a dramatic, idiotic death. I told him about the Dark Lord's fractured soul, about Horcruxes. I nudged him toward Arcturus Black, toward caution and preparation instead of reckless heroics. Small changes, rational changes… but time is a fragile thing. Touch it, and it does not always bend where you expect.
I do not know how much the timeline has shifted. I do not know what future I have stolen or created.
What I do know is this.
Below me, chaos blooms like a violent flower. Spells crack the air. Ideals collide. History stutters.
And I watch it all through the unblinking eyes of my raven.
I scan the battlefield, searching for familiar threads in the madness. Parents. Godfather. Known figures....
Anchors..
What began as a clear tactical advantage for the Death Eaters has curdled into a rout. Masks fall, sometimes literally, as the unmasked fight with a ferocity sharpened by purpose. One by one, then in clusters, the black-robed figures are subdued, bound, or blasted into unconsciousness.
Lord Voldemort is occupied. Entirely so. He is dueling an uninjured Albus Dumbledore, and that alone explains everything.
Remove the Dark Lord from the equation and his following looks… ordinary. Dangerous, yes, but no longer inevitable. Without him pulling the strings, his ranks fray at the edges. With a few notable exceptions. My parents. A handful of others.
I catch sight of Filius Flitwick, a blur of motion. He dances like a ferret possessed, stinging like a wasp dipped in lightning. His opponent, whom I am fairly certain is Dolohov, is being driven backward inch by inch, overwhelmed by precision and speed rather than brute force.
Nearby, Minerva McGonagall is dismantling my mother.
Or the woman I believe to be my mother.
Transfiguration snaps through the air with surgical cruelty. Stone liquefies into rope. The floor rises, becomes grasping hands. Animals, birds, constructs born and reborn in rapid succession. Not one or two, but entire herds, coordinated, relentless, terrifyingly precise.
This is not a duel.
It is a lesson.
My mother responds with speed and certainty, countering spells before they fully settle, unraveling attacks that would have crushed anyone else. She survives through control, through restraint. Always defensive. Always waiting.
McGonagall gives her no such mercy.
She advances without pause, spells chaining together like muscle memory, pressure building, space vanishing. There is fury in her precision, discipline sharpened into wrath.
An angry lioness.
And my mother is a viper, coiled and lethal, but denied the fraction of a second she needs to strike.
Alastor Moody is an entire battlefield unto himself. Four opponents circle him. It does not help them. Every movement he makes is economical, brutal, and backed by decades of paranoia proven correct.
Then I see them.
James Potter and Lily Potter fight back to back, effortless and terrifying in their harmony. Sirius Black is a storm given human shape, reckless and brilliant. Remus Lupin moves with quiet efficiency, striking only when it matters. Marlene McKinnon burns through opposition with raw determination. Peter Pettigrew is there too, smaller, quicker, far more competent than history ever gave him credit for. Others fight alongside them, faces unfamiliar but resolve unmistakable.
Opposing them is another cluster, and there, unmistakably, is my godfather. Severus Snape is with him. I recognize the spells immediately. The sharp, angular signatures. The half-finished curses deliberately redirected at the last possible instant.
It is almost… comical.
Both of them are fighting hard. Convincingly so. And yet, not quite.
My godfather never quite lets a lethal spell reach Sirius. Snape's curses always seem to falter when Lily Evans, or Lily Potter now, is in their path. Both men intervene indirectly, subtly, deflecting attacks, disrupting angles, creating openings that only their chosen person can slip through.
They are protecting what they love while pretending to destroy everything else.
The battlefield does not notice. History does not pause. But I do.
Through my raven's eyes, I smile.
Then there was the duel between Lord Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore.
The one I nudged into existence.
The one I steered, ever so gently, into happening.
It was not a duel.
It was a demonstration of power that only a handful in this world would ever witness and fewer still survive remembering.
Voldemort fought like a force of annihilation given will. Brutal. Efficient. Overwhelming. What he could not evade, he obliterated. What resisted, he broke. He wrestled Dumbledore not just for advantage, but for the terrain itself, tearing control of the battlefield inch by inch. He hurled strands of light I could not name, spells so dense with malice that my instincts recoiled from them. I did not know their purpose. I only knew that nothing born of light should feel that dark.
Dumbledore answered with mastery.
Transfiguration bent to him as if eager. Earth rose into towering golems, stone animated with ancient patience. Fire, water, and air moved at his command, woven together like instruments in an orchestra. Each spell layered with intent, each movement precise. And while conducting this symphony of destruction, he was also saving lives, diverting stray curses, shielding the fallen, pulling the innocent out of death's path without ever breaking rhythm.
Time dragged.
And slowly, unmistakably, the balance revealed itself.
I could see it.
Voldemort could see it.
Dumbledore knew it had been clear all along.
The victory would not be Voldemort's.
Something in him snapped.
"Enough!" Voldemort roared.
The word tore through the hall like a physical blow.
"You will regret this, Dumbledore."
He conjured flame.
Not fire as most knew it, but something primal and terrifying. Heat rolled outward in waves, so intense I felt my skin prickle from yards away. The inferno twisted, coalesced, taking form.
A colossal serpent of living fire.
It surged forward, devouring everything in its path.
Dumbledore responded instantly.
Five golems tore themselves free from the earth, massive shields locking together into an unyielding wall to block the advance of the fire. Above them, blue fire ignited, cold and brilliant. From it rose a phoenix, wings spread wide, cry ringing clear as it clashed headlong with the flaming serpent.
Dark Red Fire met White Blue Fire.
The Snake coiled, the phoenix bit and cried.
"This is not over!" Voldemort shouted.
He poured more power into the spell, raw and furious. For the first time, Dumbledore shifted from his position, his focus tightening, magic deepening, the air around him humming with restrained force.
Then Voldemort barked the order.
"Death Eaters. Abort mission. Retreat."
Smoke exploded outward. Shackles shattered. Defeated followers were ripped free from bindings and grasping hands.
And then Voldemort was gone.
Vanished into shadow, taking his retinue with him. Death Eaters either port-keyed out or vanished in similar black smokes.
Silence followed.
Heavy. Smoking. Absolute.
The location no longer resembled a wedding hall.
What had once been a place of flowers and laughter was now a battlefield. Marble was cracked and blackened, walls gouged by spells powerful enough to leave scars in stone. The air tasted of ash and ozone, magic still crackling faintly like embers refusing to die.
Shattered decorations lay strewn across the floor, petals ground into blood and dust. Torn ribbons clung to broken pillars. Music stands were overturned, instruments splintered or warped beyond recognition, their silence louder than any scream.
Where vows had been exchanged, scorch marks remained.
Where joy had gathered, the wounded lay groaning, tended to by shaking hands and hurried spells. Shields faded one by one, revealing the full cost of the battle.
And I saw it all.
I witnessed history bend.
Because I had helped push it.
From the Château de Lestrange, through the eyes of my familiar, Rook, I watched a battle unfold that would one day find its way into history books. Pages would be filled with names, spells, and outcomes. Dates would be recorded. Victors and villains neatly assigned.
My raven took flight.
The world tilted briefly as Rook lifted into the orange glow of the sun, wings beating once, twice, then vanishing into distance.
I severed the connection cleanly, the borrowed sight snapping shut.
Rook had his orders.
Lestrange Manor awaited, where his clone and Nyx would provide me with the aftermath of what had transpired here. Accounts. Wounds. Losses. Truths stripped of chaos.
My grandfather had gone there as well.
Everything was aligning, threads converging, the next phase of my plans quietly assembling itself behind stone walls and ancestral wards.
I remained where I was, alone with my thoughts, replaying every spell, every shift of power, every moment where the balance had nearly tipped. What I had witnessed was not merely violence, but scale. Layers of magic stacked upon magic, mastery pressed against mastery.
This was the arena I had stepped into.
And I understood, now, with sobering clarity…
Just how vast the powers were that I was choosing to stand among.
I wished I could have used Sharingan to view this epic event, then I would never have forgotten the fights and spells used here, as Sharingan has the power to just record like a video player, and as if, the whole scene gets pasted in my memory like a file that can be easily accessed.