I woke choking on air that tasted stale and sour, my skull ringing as though I had been struck by the blunt end of reality itself.
Something hard pressed against the back of my head. Wood. Splintered, cheap, poorly finished. I groaned and pushed myself upright, every nerve lighting up with the strange, echoing sensation of too much—too much sensation, too much awareness, too much magic humming under my skin like a second heartbeat.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
Instinct rose first.
"Lumos."
I fed the spell the same measured thread of power I had used for decades.
The world detonated into light.
A miniature sun burst from the tip of my fingers, white-hot and blinding, flooding the cramped space so violently that I hissed and turned my face away, eyes burning. The air itself seemed to scream under the pressure of raw magic.
"Nox!" I barked, snapping the flow shut.
The light collapsed instantly, plunging me back into darkness, my heart pounding.
…Interesting.
I stared at my own trembling hand. The magic in this body was not merely greater. It was unrestrained. So this is what the magic of an Emyr felt like, so much untapped power.
Compared to the vast lake of magic I had before, I felt like in this body I had a vast Ocean that was far deeper than I could imagine.
I needed to learn to control it before I destroyed everything around me.
I lifted my hand again, not speaking this time. I willed a small sphere of light to exist.
A soft glow bloomed into being above my palm, a perfect sphere, hovering without heat or glare. I narrowed my focus, gently feeding it power. The orb swelled, smooth and obedient, until it reached the size of a basketball, bathing the space in steady gold.
I withdrew magic.
It shrank instantly, compressing itself down to a marble, then a coin, then a pinprick before winking out entirely.
No wand. No incantation.
I exhaled slowly.
Hecate had not exaggerated.
I surveyed my surroundings. A cupboard. Narrow. Claustrophobic. Barely tall enough to stand fully upright. The walls were scarred with old scratches, the air heavy with dust and something fouler beneath it—neglect, rot, resentment soaked so deeply into the wood it felt alive.
A cupboard.
Understanding crept in, cold and sharp.
Then the memories hit.
Not gently. Not in fragments.
They flooded me.
I staggered, clutching my head as another life unfolded behind my eyes.
A baby bundled in blankets, left on a doorstep in the cold night air. A letter ignored. A promise broken before dawn. A woman with sharp features and pinched lips opened the door the next morning, her mouth thinning with disgust as she took the child in by obligation rather than mercy.
Hunger. Constant, gnawing hunger.
Hands that shoved instead of held. Voices that screamed instead of soothed. Years spent shrinking, learning to be quiet, learning that silence was safer than existence.
A thin boy dressed in clothes far too large, sleeves rolled and rolled again. Bruises hidden beneath fabric. Meals were rationed like punishments. Cupboards locked. Doors slammed.
A fat boy laughing as he shoved him down, encouraged by a red-faced man whose rage always simmered just beneath the surface.
"Freak."
"Boy."
"Abnormal."
Each word is a lash.
I saw him sleeping on the floor of this very cupboard, knees drawn to his chest, listening to laughter from the television while his stomach burned with hunger from being denied food once again.
My hands curled into fists.
I had known cruelty. I had been forged in it.
But this?
This was systematic. Deliberate. A ritualized degradation inflicted on a child who had no shield, no wand, no understanding of what he was.
Monsters, then.
The cupboard door loomed before me, cheap wood reinforced by a flimsy lock. I placed my palm against it, feeling the grain, the weakness.
The door exploded outward in a thunderous crack, wood disintegrating into shards that slammed into the opposite wall. The force rattled the house, dust raining from the ceiling as though the structure itself recoiled from my presence.
Heavy footsteps thundered above.
"What was that?" a woman shrieked.
A man bellowed something incoherent, already stomping toward the stairs.
I stepped out of the ruined cupboard, brushing dust from my sleeves with deliberate calm.
They appeared moments later.
Vernon Dursley was precisely as the memories painted him. Large, red-faced, mustached, his eyes were small and mean, already blazing with fury as he took in the destroyed door.
Petunia hovered behind him, thin-lipped and sharp-eyed, her blond hair pulled back too tightly, face pinched by years of bitterness. Her gaze flicked to the cupboard, then to me, and something like fear finally cracked through her practiced disdain.
Behind her, Dudley stood frozen, enormous for his age, his small eyes wide as dinner plates.
Vernon pointed a shaking finger at me. "What did you do?" he roared. "You little—"
He spat the word freak like poison.
I ignored him.
My attention slid past him, sensing it instantly now. A faint spark of magic was buried deep within the woman and the younger boy. Pity that she will die without ever knowing that she and her son had the potential to learn magic.
Vernon noticed my disregard and grew purple with rage. "I'm talking to you!" He charged down the remaining steps, fists clenched, intent written plainly across his face.
I raised one finger, pointing at my dear walrus of an uncle as he glared, falbbergasted, that I had the nerve to point at him.
"Vernon Dursley," I said calmly, my voice cutting through his roar like a blade through cloth. "I do not have use for any of you, so why don't you cease exist near me?"
Vernon froze mid-step, mouth still open, eyes bulging as an invisible pressure seized him. His skin flushed a sickly red, veins standing out grotesquely as his body betrayed him.
Petunia screamed.
"No—no, please!" she shrieked, clawing at his arm, tears streaming down her face. "Stop! Please, he didn't mean it—he's just—he's my husband!"
Vernon's body began to swell.
Not all at once, but in sick, uneven increments, as though something inside him were testing the limits of skin and bone. His face reddened, then darkened, veins rising like ropes beneath the surface. His breath hitched into wet, bubbling gasps, each one sounding wrong, as if his lungs were filling with something thicker than air.
Petunia backed away first.
She pressed herself against the wall, hands flying to her mouth, eyes wide and glassy as she stared at her husband deforming in front of her. Dudley followed a heartbeat later, stumbling backward, nearly tripping over a chair as the floor beneath Vernon's feet spiderwebbed with cracks.
"V-Vernon—" Petunia tried, the word breaking apart as his stomach distended grotesquely, shirt stretching tight before tearing with a sharp rip. Something moved beneath the skin, shifting, forcing its way outward.
His mouth opened in a scream that never fully formed.
Then the pressure reached its limit.
Vernon exploded.
There was no dramatic flash of light, no clean magical release. Just a violent, concussive rupture, flesh and bone giving way all at once. Blood and viscera burst outward in a choking wave, hot and heavy, splattering the walls, the ceiling, the furniture.
Petunia and Dudley were too close.
They were drenched instantly. Blood-soaked Petunia's hair and face, slicking her clothes to her skin. Chunks of meat and shattered bone struck Dudley's chest and arms, sliding down him in thick, steaming trails. Something wet and unidentifiable hit the floor between them with a sound like dropped offal.
What remained of Vernon collapsed inward, what little structure was left folding in on itself before hitting the floor in a formless, ruined heap.
Silence followed.
Not peaceful silence, but the stunned, ringing quiet that comes after something irrevocable. Blood dripped slowly from the ceiling. Petunia slid down the wall, leaving a dark smear behind her, her mouth opening and closing without sound. Dudley stared down at his hands, shaking, slick red coating his fingers, his breath coming in shallow, panicked sobs.
There was no question.
Vernon Dursley was dead.
I felt… nothing.
No sorrow. No hesitation. Only a cold, distant satisfaction, like a star watching the world burn from millions of miles away.
Petunia's eyes found me—truly found me—for the first time. Her face twisted in terror, desperation clawing at her features.
"Please," she whimpered, crawling toward me. "Please, I'll do anything. I didn't know—he was just a child—I didn't think—please don't—"
Pathetic.
I regarded her with deliberate calm. "You knew," I said softly, my voice smooth as silk yet sharp as obsidian. "You saw. You allowed it. And now…" I let the words hang, letting the weight of inevitability sink in. "…it is far too late. Harry Potter is no more."
Her sobs hitched as understanding slashed through her mind. She shivered, trembling violently, like a leaf torn from a tree by a storm.
I raised my hand.
Dudley's scream tore through the room—then cut off abruptly as his consciousness recoiled. Magic twisted instinctively to protect itself; his body collapsed, unconscious, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. I did not harm him beyond this. A child shaped by monsters still had clay in him, still malleable.
Petunia, however, would not be so lucky.
Her punishment was precise. A subtle, surgical unraveling of everything she was. Her heart's rhythm stuttered, her breath grew ragged, yet she remained alive. Her mind shattered under the strain of terror and guilt, every memory exploding inward like glass, every thought fracturing into a thousand jagged shards. Flesh and bone trembled as though reality itself rebelled against what I was doing, and then her body convulsed violently, a final, uncontrolled spasm that flung her against the walls. Blood sprayed in arcs, hot and thick, painting the room in grotesque patterns. A scream tore from her throat, primal and raw, before it was cut short by the collapse of her mind into nothing but a broken, catatonic husk.
I turned to Dudley.
He lay still, unconscious, safe for now, his mind a blank canvas. A flick of my magic reshaped his memories, weaving a lie so complete it would remain unchallenged. His parents, he would remember, had been murdered—slaughtered by an unknown man whose face remained a shadow in his dreams. Only he had survived. Only he.
The room smelled of iron and terror. The chaos displeased me.
I surveyed the room, silent, empty.
Harry Potter was truly gone.
And in his place, I will bring the House of the Emyrs to glory.
The Emyrs were God-like, indeed.
I then began stripping the house with methodical precision. All jewelry, money, and anything of value were put into a battered backpack, which I shrank smaller and slipped neatly into my pocket.
When all was done, I picked up the telephone.
My magic twisted around my throat, pitch and cadence reshaping with practiced ease. When I spoke, it was Dudley's voice that came out. High. Thick. Frightened.
"H-hello?" I let my breath hitch. "Please help. My mum and dad… they're dead. There was a man. He hurt them and ran away. I'm scared. Please."
I listened as the dispatcher's tone softened, urgent and rehearsed. Police. Ambulances. Stay on the line.
"Yes," I whimpered, forcing my voice to crack. "I think… I think I'm going to faint."
I let the receiver slip from my hand. It landed beside Dudley's head with a dull clatter. I turned away before the dispatcher could repeat my name.
At the threshold, I paused only long enough to look back.
The house had outlived its usefulness.
I raised my hand.
The structure folded inward with terrifying neatness. Walls bent. Beams collapsed. Brick and timber compressed into themselves and then vanished, leaving nothing but disturbed air and a scar of empty space where a home had been.
I stepped away without looking again.
Magic surged around me, eager, obedient. I tested it briefly, savoring the reach and strength now at my disposal, then twisted space with practiced intent and vanished.
The Ministry would find nothing worth following.
And Dudley Dursley would wake up to a far better life that would not be connected to mine.