Dumbledore did not summon the Heads of House lightly.
Harry understood that instinctively as the minutes passed, the office thick with anticipation. Ron shifted restlessly in his chair. Hermione sat unnaturally still, hands folded tight in her lap, eyes darting between Harry and the silver instruments lining the shelves as though cataloguing the moment for later dissection.
The door opened first to Minerva McGonagall, brisk and precise as ever, her tartan robes whispering against the floor. Filius Flitwick followed, curiosity bright behind his spectacles. Pomona Sprout entered more slowly, expression thoughtful, earth-stained fingers folded together. Severus Snape came last.
Snape's eyes fixed on Harry at once, black, assessing, sharp with suspicion and something darker beneath it. Disdain, perhaps. Or unease.
The door shut.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice," Dumbledore said calmly. "Please, sit."
They did.
Dumbledore turned to Harry. "Before I explain why you are all here," he said, "there is something the three of you", his gaze flicked to Ron and Hermione, "must understand."
He reached to the sideboard and lifted a shallow stone basin etched with runes that glimmered faintly in the firelight.
"A Pensieve," Hermione breathed, awe softening her voice despite herself.
"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "It allows one to remove memories from the mind and view them externally, untainted by fear, distortion, or time. What you will see is not interpretation. It is experience."
Snape's lip curled faintly. "And you intend to indulge a child's fantasy with a parlour trick?"
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened, steel beneath the gentleness. "I intend to ground speculation in truth."
Silence fell.
Dumbledore looked back to Harry. "Mr. Potter, what you have described, your transformation, your instincts, the nature of your magic, cannot be properly understood without context. I am asking you, here and now, to share your memories of Pandora."
Harry's pulse quickened.
This was not fear of exposure. He had bled and mourned and loved under open skies far less forgiving than this room. It was something else, an instinctive protectiveness, the sense that those memories were not merely his, but sacred.
He closed his eyes.
Listen, he reminded himself. Balance.
"All right," he said quietly.
He raised his wand, pressed its tip gently to his temple, and drew.
The memory unfurled in a thread of silver-blue light, thicker than most, luminous with colour. It spilled into the Pensieve like living water, swirling and deepening until the surface stilled.
Dumbledore gestured. "Together."
They stepped forward.
And fell.
The forest rose around them, vast, alive, breathing.
Bioluminescent plants glowed softly beneath a twilight sky, casting shifting light across blue skin and towering trunks. The air was thick with sound: insects humming, distant calls echoing through layered canopies. The magic of the place pressed in from every direction, not sharp like a spell, but constant and encompassing.
Harry was there, younger, newly arrived, moving awkwardly in his Na'vi body, learning through bruises and breathless stumbles how to balance, how to listen. They watched him fall from a branch and laugh breathlessly instead of curse. Watched Neytiri's sharp corrections and quieter approvals. Watched him kneel beside his first kill, shaking hands steadying as gratitude replaced revulsion.
Time folded.
They saw seasons pass in moments, Harry learning to hunt, to track, to ride. Learning the songs sung not for performance but for remembrance. Learning restraint. Learning grief.
Then
Fire.
Metal.
The Sky People.
The memory shifted violently as the forest screamed, trees collapsing under machines that tore into living earth. Harry running, fast, furious, focused, straight into chaos.
Jake Sully appeared as he had that day: human, unsteady, brave in a reckless way that bordered on foolish. They watched Harry drag him out of a killing strike, the moment of stunned recognition between them sharp and electric.
From there, the bond grew.
They trained together, Jake learning Na'vi ways, Harry pushing him harder than anyone else dared. They argued. They laughed. They stood shoulder to shoulder as trust took root where caution once lived.
They watched Jake meet Neytiri not as a storybook romance, but as a slow, earned connection, conflict, mutual respect, fire and vulnerability braided together until affection became something fierce and undeniable.
There was a quiet moment beneath glowing branches, long before war reached its peak.
Jake sat beside Harry, staring into the soft light. "If I ever end up with her," he said, half-joking and entirely serious, "you're naming the kids."
Harry snorted. "I'm not picking names."
Jake grinned. "Godfather, then."
Harry's expression softened into something rare and unguarded. "Yeah," he said. "I'd do that."
They fought together after that.
The memory surged through battle, ikran screaming through the sky, arrows streaking like falling stars, Harry moving with lethal grace through smoke and fire. They saw loss. They saw courage. They saw Jake choose Pandora fully, irrevocably, and the forest answer him in kind.
Eywa rose.
Not as spectacle, but as inevitability.
And Harry stood at the heart of it...not ruler, not saviour...but kin.
The memory faded.
The office reformed around them in a hush so deep it felt reverent.
Flitwick wiped at his eyes, unembarrassed. Professor Sprout sat very still, hands pressed together as though in prayer. McGonagall's expression was taut, controlled, but her eyes were bright with something fierce and proud.
Ron looked at Harry like he was seeing him for the first time.
Hermione said nothing at all, but her hands trembled faintly.
Snape broke the silence.
"…You survived a war," he said slowly, as though testing the words for poison. His gaze did not leave Harry. "Not as a symbol. As a soldier."
Harry met his eyes evenly. "Yes."
Something shifted.
Snape's sneer did not return.
Dumbledore inclined his head, satisfaction and gravity woven together. "Thank you, Harry," he said softly. "You have given us clarity."
He looked around the room. "Whatever else Mr. Potter may become, one thing is now certain."
They listened.
"He is not merely a child bearing a prophecy," Dumbledore said. "He is someone who has lived long enough to understand the cost of war, and still chooses to stand."
Respect settled over the room like falling ash.
Earned.
And Harry, sitting quietly among them, felt the past and present align, not seamlessly, not without strain, but truthfully.
For the first time since waking in Gryffindor Tower, he did not feel like he was standing between worlds alone.