The moment Harry's fingers brushed the Pensieve, the world fell away.
Pandora rose around him not as memory, but as continuation.
He was older when he returned, taller, broader, the sharpness of youth tempered by lived years. The forest welcomed him without question. Roots shifted to bear his weight. Leaves shimmered in greeting. Eywa did not speak in words, but her presence wrapped around him like breath returning to lungs.
Fifteen years had passed since the last war.
Fifteen years of rebuilding, of children born beneath the trees, of songs sung for the fallen and new names carved into memory. Jake Sully had become more than Toruk Makto, he was Olo'eyktan in truth, a leader shaped by love as much as war. Neytiri stood beside him, fierce and unbroken.
And Harry, Harry had become something else entirely.
He was known among the Omatikaya as Toruk'tseng Sìk, the One Who Walks Between. Not just forest and sky, but spirit and flesh, magic and Eywa. His bond to the Tree of Souls had deepened over decades, threads of his wizarding magic entwining with the planet's living network until the distinction blurred.
When the Sky People returned, it was not with wonder.
It was with fire.
The memory shifted, metal ships tearing through cloud, scars carved into ocean and land alike. The RDA did not come to study this time. They came to stay.
Harry stood beside Jake as the clan debated, tension crackling like lightning. It was Harry who first felt the pull of the sea, not as exile, but as invitation.
"The water people," he said slowly, hand pressed to the glowing roots beneath his feet. "They're connected differently. Eywa is… broader there."
Jake studied him. "You're saying you can reach them."
"I'm saying," Harry replied, voice steady, "that I can be them."
The first time he shifted, it nearly tore him apart.
At the edge of the reef, beneath a sky blazing gold, Harry surrendered his forest form—not fully, not the way he did to become Na'vi from human, but sideways. His body reknit itself under Eywa's guidance, skin deepening to sea-blue, tail broadening and flattening, arms lengthening with powerful fins. Gills opened along his neck, burning for a heartbeat before breath became water.
The Metkayina watched in stunned silence.
He did not belong to them.
And yet, he did.
Tsireya was the first to approach, eyes wide but respectful. "You walk with Eywa," she said simply.
Harry bowed his head. "I walk where she asks."
He learned the sea as he had learned the forest, with humility, with bruises, with laughter and pain. The water was less forgiving than the trees, but more honest. It did not catch you when you fell. It taught through resistance.
And when the war came to the reefs, Harry became something the Sky People could not catalogue.
He struck from below and above, forest magic woven into water combat, spells adapted instinctively into currents and pressure, movement and silence. He shifted forms mid-conflict, emerging from the sea to fight among mangroves, then diving again before the enemy could recalibrate.
But war takes its price regardless of form.
The final battle burned itself into him.
Metal beasts tearing through water. Explosions shattering coral. Screams swallowed by the sea.
Neteyam.
His godson.
Harry remembered the exact weight of him in his arms, remembered screaming into the water, magic surging uselessly against a wound too deep, too final. Neteyam's hand had tightened once, weakly.
"It's okay," Harry had whispered, forehead pressed to his. "I've got you."
He did not.
The ocean accepted Neteyam's body with a gentleness that felt cruel.
Harry's grief tore through Eywa like a wound she could not close.
The memory slowed there, Harry kneeling beneath the waves, glowing tendrils curling around him, not to heal, but to hold. For the first time in decades, he had not fought the pain.
He let it become part of him.
The Pensieve stilled.
Silence reclaimed Dumbledore's office like a held breath finally released.
Professor McGonagall was the first to move. She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, eyes bright with unshed tears.
"Merlin's mercy," she whispered.
Professor Sprout wiped her cheeks openly. "So much loss," she murmured. "And he keeps standing."
Flitwick's voice was thick with awe. "The complexity of the magic alone… shifting forms tied to environment, spiritual conduits, this is beyond anything recorded."
Snape said nothing at first.
When he did speak, it was quiet. Measured. "He did not become stronger," he said. "He became enduring."
All eyes turned to Harry.
He sat very still, gaze lowered, shoulders relaxed in the way of someone who had learned that readiness did not require tension.
Dumbledore regarded him for a long moment, expression unreadable, then stood and inclined his head.
Not as Headmaster.
But as equal.
"You have lived lifetimes, Harry," Dumbledore said softly. "And you carry them with humility."
The respect in the room was no longer begrudging.
It was absolute.
And somewhere far beneath Hogwarts, water stirred, listening.