Harry surfaced to sound before sight.
Applause, distant, thunderous, unreal, bled into the steady murmur of voices and the familiar, clipped authority of Madam Pomfrey issuing orders. The smell of smoke lingered in his hair, sharp and acrid, tangled with something warmer beneath it: sweat, blood, ozone where magic had burned too close to skin.
He opened his eyes.
White canvas stretched above him, the interior of the medical tent glowing softly with conjured light. His body felt… wrong. Heavy in places it should not be, light where it ought to ache. That, he recognized dimly, was the aftermath of transformation, of forcing two very different ways of being into the same flesh.
"Stay still," Madam Pomfrey said at once, appearing in his line of sight with a severity that brooked no argument. "Honestly, Mr. Potter, if you insist on making spectacles of yourself, the least you could do is not try to die in the process."
Harry huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. It came out thin.
She ran her wand over him, murmuring diagnostics under her breath. The magic prickled across his skin, finding burns, strained muscles, the faint fracture beginning to form along his left forearm where he had landed too hard. She tutted sharply and set to work, spells knitting bone and soothing tissue with practiced efficiency.
"You'll feel tired for a few days," she said. "And sore. Do not attempt whatever that was again without medical supervision."
Harry nodded. He had no intention of attempting anything at all for a while.
A commotion near the tent entrance drew his attention.
Ludo Bagman's booming voice cut through the air, followed by applause swelling anew as the scores were announced. Harry could not see the boards from where he lay, but he heard the numbers all the same, heard the way the crowd reacted, the sharp intake of breath, the roar that followed.
High.
Higher than he had expected.
A strange hollowness settled in his chest. Victory had meant something different on Pandora. Survival. Protection. Keeping others alive long enough to sing again beneath glowing leaves.
This felt… small. Necessary, perhaps. But small.
The curtain rustled.
Ron stood there, awkward and pale, hands shoved deep into his pockets as though he were afraid of what they might do otherwise. For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Then Ron swallowed. "I was a prat," he said, blunt and miserable. "I should've believed you. I... I didn't, and I'm sorry."
Harry studied him quietly.
Once, that apology would have been enough to flood him with relief. To make his chest ache with gratitude that Ron was back, that things could return to how they had been.
They could not.
But that did not mean the apology had no weight.
"I didn't put my name in," Harry said, simply.
"I know," Ron said at once. His ears reddened. "I know that now."
There was something raw and honest in his expression that Harry recognized, fear, shame, the realization of having nearly lost something irreplaceable.
Harry nodded. "All right."
Ron sagged with relief so visible it almost hurt to look at. Hermione appeared behind him, eyes bright and worried, and for the first time since waking, Harry felt something loosen inside his chest.
He was not alone.
Not entirely.
Dumbledore did not keep them waiting long.
They were ushered into his office just after dusk, the castle hushed and watchful around them. Harry felt its wards brush against him as he passed, testing, curious, unsettled. He did not blame them.
The office door closed softly behind them.
Dumbledore sat at his desk, hands folded, blue eyes sharp and kind and far too perceptive for Harry's comfort. Fawkes watched from his perch, head tilted, ancient gaze thoughtful.
"Sit," Dumbledore said gently.
They did.
For a moment, he simply looked at Harry.
"Mr. Potter," he said at last, "I believe it is time you told me about your Animagus."
Ron sucked in a breath. Hermione's head snapped around.
Harry did not answer immediately.
He closed his eyes.
And memory answered for him.
The forest had screamed.
Harry remembered that first, the way Pandora itself had cried out when metal bit into living earth. Trees fell with agonized groans, roots torn free as machines advanced, their noise alien and violent in a world that had once breathed in harmony.
He had been hunting when it began.
He remembered sprinting through the undergrowth, heart pounding not with fear but with fury, the forest's distress echoing through his bones. Smoke rose where there should have been leaves. Fire scorched places that had never known it.
That was where he saw Jake Sully for the first time.
Human. Clumsy. Armed.
Lost.
Jake stood frozen at the edge of the clearing, weapon half-raised, eyes wide as something massive crashed through the trees behind him. Harry had not thought. He had moved—dragging Jake down just as a viperwolf burst from the foliage, jaws snapping where Jake's head had been a heartbeat earlier.
They fought together without words.
Harry remembered the rhythm of it, the way Jake followed his lead instinctively, learned quickly, adapted. When it was over, both of them stood there breathing hard, staring at each other across the gulf of species and circumstance.
Jake had laughed, short and incredulous. "You always save strangers like that?"
Harry had snorted. "You always wander into war zones?"
That had been the beginning.
Jake learned fast. Faster than anyone expected. Harry trained him not with patience born of kindness, but with the sharp efficiency of someone who knew what failure cost. They sparred beneath the trees, learned each other's strengths and weaknesses, built trust the way warriors always had, through shared danger.
Brotherhood came later.
It came with blood and loss and shared grief beneath broken branches. It came with laughter around fires, with arguments and reconciliation, with standing back to back against enemies who saw the world only as something to be owned.
By the time the first true battle came, Harry would have trusted Jake with his life.
And Jake had trusted Harry with his.
Harry opened his eyes.
Dumbledore was very still. Ron looked as though he had forgotten how to breathe. Hermione's face was pale, eyes shining with something like awe and fear.
"That," Dumbledore said quietly, "is not something learned in a dream."
"No," Harry agreed. "It was a life."
Silence settled over the office, heavy and unbroken.
At last, Dumbledore inclined his head. "Then we have much to discuss, my boy."
And Harry knew, with the certainty of someone who had lived too long to lie to himself, that the world would never look at him the same way again.