**The Great Hall - Moments Earlier**
Kingsley Shacklebolt had seen many things in his years as an Auror.
He'd fought dark wizards in three countries. He'd survived Voldemort's first rise to power. He'd been stationed in the Muggle Prime Minister's office, walking the line between two worlds that barely understood each other.
But he had never—*never*—seen anything like what Hogwarts had become tonight.
The Great Hall had been transformed into a field hospital. The house tables had been vanished, replaced by rows of conjured cots that stretched from wall to wall. Students, professors, Order members, and even some Death Eaters who'd been captured lay in various states of injury. The enchanted ceiling showed a night sky choked with smoke from the battle's aftermath.
Kingsley moved between patients with practiced efficiency, his deep voice calling out instructions to the volunteers helping with triage. Molly Weasley was coordinating potion distribution. Flitwick was maintaining the warming charms. McGonagall was—
The Headmistress caught his eye from across the hall, and her expression made his blood run cold.
*No sign of Potter*, she mouthed.
Kingsley's jaw tightened. The boy had walked into the forest hours ago. They'd heard the *Avada Kedavra*. Felt the surge of dark magic. And then... silence. The kind of silence that meant death had claimed another victim.
He was organizing a search party when reality *shattered*.
---
**CRACK.**
The sound wasn't an apparition. Apparition made a gentle *pop*, like air filling a vacuum. This was *violent*—a sonic boom that rattled every window in the Great Hall, that made the ancient stones of Hogwarts shudder down to their foundations.
Every head in the hall snapped toward the entrance.
Crimson and gold lightning erupted in the doorway—a blinding flash of two colors that shouldn't exist together, spiraling around each other in a column that reached from floor to ceiling. The light was so intense that several people cried out, shielding their eyes.
When it faded, someone was *standing* there.
Not just standing—*arriving*, in the way that suggested they'd been in motion until a fraction of a second ago.
The figure was armored head to toe in what looked like futuristic battle plate. Deep crimson red and obsidian black, every piece outlined in brilliant gold. Layered plates that suggested both protection and aerodynamic optimization. A sleek helmet with swept-back crests that looked like lightning frozen in metal form.
The armor *pulsed* with energy—golden electricity arcing across the plates, intertwined with tendrils of crimson power that crackled and sparked. Where the two colors met, they created patterns that hurt to look at directly, as if reality wasn't quite sure how to render their interaction.
And the armored figure was holding something.
No—some*one*.
A man dangled from the armored figure's right hand, gripped by the front of his robes like a misbehaving child. The man was pale, snake-like, with red eyes that burned with impotent fury.
The Great Hall fell into absolute silence.
Kingsley's wand came up automatically, but he froze as his trained Auror's eye processed what he was seeing. The armor wasn't just decorative—it *radiated* power. The kind of power that made his magical senses scream warnings. The kind of power that suggested trying to curse this being would end very badly for the curser.
"Who—" Kingsley began.
The armored figure walked forward—no, *moved* forward. It was so fast it barely registered as motion. One instant at the entrance, the next three steps closer, covering the distance in less than a heartbeat.
The Great Hall's occupants collectively flinched back.
The figure stopped in the center of the hall, directly in front of Kingsley. It was tall—not abnormally so, maybe six feet—but the armor made it seem larger. More present. As if it occupied more space than its physical form should allow.
The helmet turned, surveying the hall. Those golden lenses—glowing with barely-contained energy—swept across the wounded, the helpers, the Order members with their wands half-raised.
Then, with casual disdain that would have been comical if it weren't so terrifying, the armored figure *dropped* the man it was holding.
The pale figure hit the ground with a heavy thud, gasping. He tried to rise, tried to summon any scrap of magic, but nothing came. He was wandless. Broken. Defeated.
"Merlin's beard," someone whispered. "*That's Voldemort*."
The name rippled through the hall like a curse. People scrambled backward, wands coming up, panic beginning to set in—
"He's mortal now." The armored figure's voice cut through the rising chaos like a blade. It was modulated, mechanically enhanced, but carrying harmonics that suggested multiple sources of power. "Every Horcrux destroyed. Every fragment of his soul returned to the whole. Tom Riddle is completely, utterly human again."
The figure nudged Voldemort with one armored boot.
"And he's going to *stay* that way while he answers for everything he's done."
Kingsley stared. Tried to process. Failed. "Who *are* you?"
The helmet tilted slightly, as if considering the question. Then the golden lenses flickered—crimson fire burning beneath the surface—and the figure raised its right hand to its head.
The helmet began to retract.
Not by unfolding or sliding back—it simply *dissolved*, flowing like liquid metal back into the collar of the armor. The material moved with organic fluidity, revealing the face beneath piece by piece.
First the crown—messy black hair, slightly longer than Kingsley remembered.
Then the forehead—and Merlin, that *scar*. The lightning bolt that every witch and wizard in Britain knew on sight, but now it *glowed* with pulsing crimson-and-gold energy.
Then the eyes—bright green, tired, but alive. So incredibly *alive*.
"Harry?" Kingsley's voice cracked on the name.
Harry Potter looked back at him, and despite the armor, despite the power radiating from every inch of his transformed body, his expression was achingly familiar. Determined. Exhausted. Still carrying the weight of everyone's hopes even though he'd died trying to lift it.
"Hi Kingsley," Harry said, and his voice—without the helmet's modulation—sounded almost normal. Almost like the boy who'd sat in Grimmauld Place listening to Order briefings. "Sorry I'm late. Got held up dying for a bit."
The Great Hall exploded.
---
"HARRY!"
Hermione's scream cut through the shocked silence. She was on her feet, wand clattering to the floor, sprinting across the hall with tears streaming down her face. Ron was right behind her, his longer legs eating up the distance despite his injuries.
Harry barely had time to brace himself before Hermione *slammed* into him—and bounced off.
She stumbled back, confused, her hands sliding off the armor's smooth plates. "What—"
"Sorry," Harry said quickly, raising his hands. "The armor's—it's solid. Really solid. I didn't think about—"
But Hermione wasn't listening. She was staring at him with an expression caught between joy and incomprehension, her hands hovering inches from the crimson plates as if afraid to touch them again.
"You were *dead*," she whispered. "We heard the curse. We felt the magic. You were *dead*, Harry."
"I was," Harry admitted. His green eyes—so human in that armored face—met hers with painful honesty. "For a while, I really was."
Ron reached them, skidding to a halt. He looked Harry up and down, taking in the armor, the pulsing energy, the way golden lightning still crackled faintly across the plates.
"Blimey," Ron breathed. "What *happened* to you?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but another voice cut through—sharp, commanding, brooking no argument.
"Mr. Potter."
Professor McGonagall strode across the hall, her robes swirling, her expression a complicated mixture of relief, confusion, and the stern disapproval she'd perfected over decades of teaching.
She stopped in front of him, looking him over with the same intensity she'd once used to evaluate transfiguration homework.
"You appear," she said slowly, "to be wearing some form of... armor. Which is glowing. And crackling with two different colors of electrical discharge."
"Yes, Professor."
"And you have just arrived in the Great Hall by means that shattered several windows, deposited Lord Voldemort—" she gestured at the Dark Lord still lying defeated on the floor, "—at our feet, and apparently involve moving faster than apparition."
"Also yes, Professor."
McGonagall's lips pressed into a thin line. For a long moment, she simply stared at him. Then—
"And you couldn't have done this *before* the battle destroyed half the castle?"
Harry blinked. Was that... was that a *joke*?
The corner of McGonagall's mouth twitched. Just the slightest movement, barely visible, but it was there.
"I'm glad you're alive, Potter." Her voice softened just a fraction. "Though I suspect we're going to need a *very* long conversation about where you acquired what appears to be Muggle technology merged with magical energy signatures I've never seen before."
"It's... complicated," Harry said.
"I'm sure it is." She glanced at the armor, at the way it pulsed with each of his breaths. "But first—"
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!"
Everyone flinched.
Molly Weasley stormed across the hall like an avenging angel, her face blotchy with tears, her wand crackling with the force of her emotion.
"You *died*!" She wasn't shouting now—her voice had gone deadly quiet, which was somehow worse. "You walked into that forest to *die*, and we had to sit here and—and *feel* you leave, and—"
Her voice broke.
Harry's expression crumbled. "Mrs. Weasley, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
Molly grabbed him by the front of his breastplate—armor be damned—and pulled him down to her level.
"Don't you *ever*," she whispered fiercely, tears streaming down her face, "don't you *ever* do that to us again. Do you understand me? We are your *family*, Harry Potter, and family doesn't—we don't—"
She couldn't finish. Instead, she pulled him into a hug that ignored the armor, ignored the crackling energy, ignored everything except the fact that the boy she'd considered a son was *alive*.
Harry's arms came up slowly, carefully, wrapping around her with a gentleness that suggested he was terrified of hurting her with his enhanced strength.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I thought—I had to stop him. I had to end it."
"You did," Molly said, pulling back to look at him. Her hands cupped his face—the only part of him not covered in armor—and for a moment she just *looked* at him. "You ended it. You *won*, Harry. You can rest now."
"I—" Harry hesitated. His eyes flickered to the armor, to his hands, to the crimson-and-gold lightning that still danced across his form. "I don't think I'm going to be resting for a while, Mrs. Weasley. Something happened when I died. Something that changed—"
"OI!"
A new voice—younger, furious, and crackling with energy that made several people's hair stand on end.
Ginny Weasley stood at the entrance to the Great Hall, her red hair wild, her eyes blazing. She'd been outside helping with the cleanup, but now she stood frozen, staring at Harry with an expression that cycled through shock, relief, joy, and then settled firmly on *rage*.
"You *DIED*!" she roared, and actual sparks shot from her wand tip. "You bloody *died*, Harry Potter, and I had to sit there and—and *know* you were gone, and—"
She was across the hall in seconds, shoving past Hermione and Ron, stopping directly in front of Harry with her wand pointed at his chest.
"Ginny—"
"No." She cut him off, and there were tears streaming down her face now. "No, you don't get to 'Ginny' me. You don't get to walk to your death and then waltz back like it's nothing. You don't get to—"
Her voice broke, and suddenly she was *crying*, really crying, all the rage draining into heartbreak.
Harry moved without thinking. His armored arms wrapped around her, pulling her close, and this time he didn't hold back. The armor might be solid, might be alien, but he held her like she was the only real thing in the world.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. "I'm so sorry, Gin. I thought—I had to. It was the only way to stop him. The only way to—"
"There's always another way," Ginny said fiercely, her face pressed against his armored chest. "There's *always* another way, you stupid, brave, self-sacrificing *idiot*."
"I know." Harry's voice was barely audible. "But I couldn't see it. Not then. All I could see was everyone dying if I didn't—"
"We would have found another way *together*." Ginny pulled back, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "That's what you don't understand, Harry. You don't have to do everything alone. You never did."
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but Kingsley's voice cut through the moment.
"Potter." The Auror had recovered his composure, his wand still drawn but pointed at the floor. "I need answers. Starting with what you *are* now, and ending with what we're supposed to do with—" he gestured at Voldemort, still lying motionless on the floor, "—*him*."
Harry gently extracted himself from Ginny's grip, though his hand found hers and held on. He turned to face Kingsley, and the armor seemed to solidify around him—less like clothing and more like a second skin.
"What I am is... complicated," Harry said slowly. "When Voldemort hit me with the killing curse, something happened. The Deathly Hallows—I'd united them. All three. And when I died, they..." He struggled for words. "They unmade themselves. Became something else. Became *this*." He gestured to the armor.
"The Deathly Hallows," McGonagall breathed. "The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, the Invisibility Cloak. You're saying they—"
"Transformed," Harry finished. "Merged with something called the Speed Force. It's... it's a dimension of pure kinetic energy. Motion itself, given form. When I died, the Speed Force saved me, but the Hallows came with me. And when they merged—"
Lightning crackled across his armor to punctuate the point. Both colors, spiraling together.
"—they created this. Armor born from death and motion. Power that lets me move faster than apparition, phase through solid matter, and..." He hesitated. "And kill at superspeed, if I need to."
The Great Hall had gone silent again, everyone processing this impossible explanation.
"Show us," Kingsley said quietly. "Show us what you can do."
Harry hesitated. Then he nodded.
"Everyone might want to step back."
---
Harry let go of Ginny's hand—ignoring her protest—and walked to the center of the Great Hall. He could feel everyone watching, could sense their fear and curiosity and hope all tangled together.
*Ready?* he asked the Speed Force.
Golden warmth flooded his mind. *Always.*
*And the Hallows?*
Crimson certainty answered. *We are yours. Show them.*
Harry took a breath. Then he *moved*.
---
**The Entrance Hall - One Second Before**
Daphne Greengrass and Susan Bones hurried through Hogwarts' corridors, their arms laden with potions.
"I still can't believe we're doing this," Susan muttered, adjusting her grip on a crate of Blood-Replenishing Potions. "We should be resting. We're both injured."
"We're both *conscious*," Daphne corrected. "Which means we're needed." Her own ribs ached from where a blasting curse had caught her, but she ignored it. There would be time for rest later.
They were approaching the Great Hall when the world turned crimson and gold.
Both girls skidded to a halt as lightning—*actual lightning*—blazed through the corridor ahead of them. Not flowing through the air like a spell, but moving in a *streak* that left afterimages burned into their vision.
"What—" Susan began.
The streak resolved into a *figure* at the Great Hall's entrance. Armored, glowing, crackling with impossible power.
Then it *moved*.
Daphne's breath caught.
The figure didn't walk into the Great Hall—it simply *appeared* there, covering the distance in less than a heartbeat. The sonic boom that followed rattled her teeth.
"We need to see this," Daphne said, already moving forward.
"Daphne, wait—"
But the Slytherin was already at the Great Hall's entrance, Susan scrambling to keep up. They arrived just in time to see the armored figure drop a pale, snake-like man at Kingsley Shacklebolt's feet.
Daphne's analytical mind catalogued everything at once: The armor's color scheme—crimson, black, and gold. The way it pulsed with two distinct types of energy. The symbol glowing on the chest piece—some kind of triangle with a circle and line, radiating merged power. The golden lenses that burned with intensity that made her magical senses *scream*.
"*That's Voldemort*," someone whispered.
Then the helmet retracted, and—
"Potter," Daphne breathed.
Susan's hand found her arm, squeezing tight enough to hurt. "That's *Harry*. But how—he was dead. We all felt it."
Daphne barely heard her. She was too busy watching Harry Potter—the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the boy she'd shared classes with for seven years—explain that he'd *died* and been transformed into something that apparently moved faster than thought itself.
*Show us what you can do*, Kingsley had said.
And Harry—gods, that was still *Harry* under all that armor—had nodded and asked everyone to step back.
---
**The Great Hall - Present**
Harry Potter vanished.
One instant he stood in the center of the hall. The next, he was *gone*—and the world erupted with motion.
What happened next took approximately three seconds of real time.
To everyone watching, it looked like Harry had multiplied.
There were dozens of him—*hundreds* of him—all moving at once. Blurs of crimson and gold that streaked through the Great Hall so fast they seemed to exist in multiple places simultaneously. Each blur left a trail of lightning, and soon the entire hall was crisscrossed with glowing paths that hung in the air like frozen fireworks.
Daphne watched, her analytical mind struggling to process what her eyes were reporting. The streaks weren't random—they were *precise*. Each one had purpose, direction, intent. Harry wasn't just showing off speed. He was demonstrating *control*.
One blur shot to the ceiling and back in a fraction of a second. Another phased *through* a solid stone pillar, the armor's glow flickering as Harry existed briefly between dimensions. A third created a perfect spiral pattern around the wounded Death Eaters, moving so fast the displaced air formed a visible vortex.
And then—gods—then he did something that made Daphne's breath stop.
All the blurs converged on a single point in the center of the hall. They didn't just meet—they *merged*, overlapping in the same space, creating a moment where Harry Potter existed in superposition. Multiple states collapsed into one as he decelerated from impossible speeds back to normal human motion.
The resulting shockwave blew every loose piece of parchment in the hall into the air.
Harry stood exactly where he'd started, the armor pulsing with satisfaction, lightning still crackling across the plates in lazy spirals.
Not a single person in the hall was breathing.
"That," Harry said calmly, "is what I can do."
Silence. Then—
"Bloody *hell*," Ron whispered, and somehow that broke the spell.
The Great Hall erupted in noise. Questions shouted over each other. Exclamations of shock and awe. A few screams from people whose nerves had already been pushed too far tonight.
Kingsley raised his hand, and his Auror's authority cut through the chaos. "Quiet! *Quiet*!"
The noise died down to frantic whispers.
The senior Auror looked at Harry with new eyes—not just seeing a boy who'd survived impossible odds, but something else entirely. Something that had moved so fast Kingsley's trained reflexes couldn't track it. Something that radiated enough power to make his every instinct scream *danger*.
"How fast?" Kingsley asked simply.
Harry tilted his head, considering. "I don't know exactly. Haven't tested my top speed yet. But I just covered every inch of this hall—floor to ceiling, wall to wall—in under three seconds. And I was going *slow*." He paused. "There's someone who can help me figure out the specifics. Another speedster. He calls himself the Flash, and—"
"Flash?" McGonagall interrupted. "As in... the American Muggle superhero?"
"He's real." Harry's voice carried absolute certainty. "He found me in the Forbidden Forest right after I—after I came back. He's connected to the same power I am. The Speed Force. He's going to help me learn to control this."
Daphne found herself moving closer without conscious decision, drawn by the same analytical curiosity that had defined her Hogwarts career. Susan followed, though more hesitantly.
"Potter," Daphne heard herself say.
Every head in the vicinity turned toward her. Harry's golden lenses—she could see the crimson fire burning beneath now, flickering with each word—locked onto her position.
"Greengrass," Harry acknowledged. His modulated voice softened slightly. "Are you alright? I saw you in here earlier—you were wounded."
He'd *noticed*. In the middle of everything—the battle, the death, the transformation—he'd noticed she'd been injured.
"I'm fine," Daphne said automatically. Then, because her curiosity overrode her Slytherin caution: "The armor. It's powered by... what did you call it? The Speed Force?"
"Partially." Harry's hand went to the symbol on his chest—that transformed version of the Deathly Hallows. "The Speed Force provides the gold lightning. Pure kinetic energy. But the crimson—" his hand pulsed with red electricity, "—that's from the Hallows. From Death itself. It's... it's the power to end things. To cut connections. To kill."
The last word hung in the air like a curse.
"You're saying," Daphne said slowly, her mind racing through implications, "that you now carry the power of Death *and* the power of eternal motion. Ending and beginning. Stop and go."
"Mors Velocitas," Harry said quietly, and the words resonated with weight that suggested capital letters. "Death Speed. That's what they named me. The Speed Force and Death, working together for the first time."
"*They* named you?" Susan asked. "You're saying these forces are... conscious?"
"Very." Harry's lenses flickered. "And watching. Always watching."
A shiver ran through the assembled crowd.
Hermione pushed forward, her analytical mind clearly fighting past emotion to reach understanding. "Harry, if what you're saying is true—if you've merged artifacts of death with a dimension of pure motion—the magical implications alone are staggering. You've essentially become a paradox. Something that shouldn't exist by any law of magic or physics."
"I know." Harry's voice carried exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical tiredness. "Believe me, I know. But right now, we have more immediate concerns."
He looked down at Voldemort, still lying motionless on the floor. The Dark Lord's red eyes tracked Harry with impotent fury.
"He needs to be secured. Properly. And then we need to deal with the rest of his Death Eaters. The ones still unconscious in the forest, and—" Harry's expression hardened, "—the ones who got away."
"Got away?" Kingsley's tone sharpened. "How many?"
"Three. Maybe four." Harry's armor pulsed, and Daphne realized he was calling up memories at superspeed. "I saw apparition signatures when I arrived at the forest. Some Death Eaters fled before the battle ended. I can track them down, but—"
"No."
McGonagall's voice cut through with absolute authority.
Harry turned to her, surprised. "Professor—"
"You have been awake for over twenty-four hours, Mr. Potter. You have died—" her voice cracked slightly, "—and been resurrected. You have single-handedly defeated the Dark Lord and his entire inner circle. And you are currently standing in front of me looking ready to collapse despite that remarkable armor."
"I'm fine—"
"You are *not* fine." McGonagall's eyes blazed. "You are a traumatized young man who has been asked to shoulder burdens no one should carry. And while I am... profoundly grateful for what you've accomplished tonight, I will not allow you to throw yourself into danger again. Not until you've rested. Not until you've processed what you've been through."
"But the Death Eaters—"
"Will be handled by the Aurors," Kingsley interjected. He looked at Harry with surprising gentleness. "She's right, Potter. You've done enough. More than enough. Let us take it from here."
Harry stood frozen, caught between exhaustion and duty. Daphne watched the conflict play across his face—what little she could see around the armor. He wanted to argue. Wanted to insist he could keep going, keep fighting, keep being the hero everyone needed.
But he was also nineteen years old and *tired*.
"What about him?" Harry gestured at Voldemort. "He can't be allowed to escape. Can't be given any chance to—"
"He won't be." Kingsley's voice carried iron certainty. "I'll secure him myself. The Dementors can wait—we'll hold him in a cell guarded by every Auror I can summon. And then, when you've rested, you can help us figure out what to do with him permanently."
Harry hesitated. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay."
The armor seemed to dim slightly, as if responding to his acceptance. The lightning that had been crackling constantly across the plates settled into a gentler pulse.
Molly Weasley was there immediately, one hand on his armored shoulder. "Come on, dear. Let's get you somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe."
"I don't think anywhere is safe anymore," Harry said, but he let her guide him. "Not with what I've become."
"You're still Harry," Ginny said fiercely, appearing on his other side. "Armor or not, power or not—you're still the boy who flew a car into a tree because he thought his friend was in danger. Still the idiot who dove into a frozen lake to save someone's sister. Still *Harry*."
Something in Harry's posture softened. "Thanks, Gin."
Daphne watched them begin to leave—Harry supported by the Weasleys, Hermione hovering anxiously nearby, half the Great Hall staring after them with expressions ranging from awe to fear to confusion.
Susan tugged at her sleeve. "We should get these potions distributed. People are still bleeding."
"Right. Yes." Daphne turned away from the retreating figures, trying to refocus on the immediate task.
But as she moved through the hall, administering draughts and cleaning wounds, her mind kept returning to one image:
Harry Potter, armored in crimson and gold, standing in the center of the Great Hall while lightning danced across his transformed body.
Death Speed.
*Mors Velocitas*.
The boy who'd walked toward death and come back as something that could move faster than life itself.
Daphne had always prided herself on understanding how the world worked. On analyzing situations and finding the logical patterns beneath chaos.
But this?
This was something new. Something unprecedented.
Something that would change everything.
---
# **MORS VELOCITAS**
## *Part II: The Return (continued)*
---
**The Great Hall - Minutes Later**
Daphne Greengrass had always prided herself on maintaining composure in any situation.
She watched Harry Potter disappear through the Great Hall's entrance—still armored, still glowing faintly with that impossible crimson-and-gold energy—flanked by Weasleys and Hermione Granger like a hero being led to rest. Which, she supposed, he was.
Her hand trembled slightly as she administered a Blood-Replenishing Potion to an injured fourth-year.
"Daphne?" Susan's voice was quiet beside her. "You're staring."
"I'm not—" Daphne caught herself. She *was* staring. At the doorway where Harry had vanished. At the faint scorch marks his passage had left on the ancient stone floor. At the reality of what she'd just witnessed.
The boy she was betrothed to had just demonstrated the ability to move faster than human eyes could follow.
The boy she'd barely ever spoken to outside of formal class interactions had died and come back as something that called itself *Death Speed*.
The contract her father had shown her three days ago—ancient parchment with the Potter and Greengrass seals, drafted when she was an infant—suddenly felt far more complicated than a simple political alliance.
"We need to talk to him," Susan said softly, and there was something in her voice that suggested she wasn't just making conversation.
Daphne's eyes snapped to her friend. Susan was staring at the same doorway, her expression carefully neutral in that way that meant she was processing something significant.
"We do," Daphne agreed carefully. "Though I'm not sure 'recently resurrected and armored in divine power' is the ideal state for having... certain conversations."
"Is there ever an ideal state for telling someone they're contractually obligated to marry you?"
"Contractually obligated to *consider* marriage," Daphne corrected automatically. Then the rest of Susan's words caught up with her. "Wait. *You* have a contract too?"
Susan's laugh was bitter. "Found out yesterday. Apparently when Aunt Amelia died—when I became the last Bones—it triggered an old alliance clause with House Black." She turned to face Daphne fully, and her eyes were haunted. "Potter is Lord Black now. Sirius's heir. And grandson to Dorea Black through his father's side. The contract is... binding."
Daphne's mind raced through the implications. Two betrothal contracts, both activated by recent events, both pointing to the same boy who'd just returned from death wearing armor forged from impossible forces.
"Does he know?" she asked.
"About mine? I doubt it. The paperwork only finalized this morning, and he's been slightly busy dying and resurrecting." Susan's voice cracked on the last word. "About yours?"
"I only found out three days ago myself. Father waited until I was of age to tell me. Said the contract had been dormant for years, but with the war ending..." Daphne trailed off. With the war ending, political alliances mattered again. Ancient families rebuilding. Old obligations surfacing.
They stood in silence for a moment, both watching healers work, both processing the impossible situation they'd found themselves in.
"He barely knows we exist," Susan said finally. "Seven years at Hogwarts, and I don't think I've had more than a dozen conversations with Harry Potter. And now I'm supposed to—what? Walk up to him and say 'Congratulations on not being dead, also we're betrothed'?"
"It's a terrible plan," Daphne agreed. "But unless you have a better one..."
"We could wait. Give him time to recover. Time to process what's happened to him."
"And risk him finding out from someone else? From official documentation?" Daphne shook her head. "No. This is the kind of thing that needs to come from us directly. Needs to be handled with..." she searched for the word, "...care."
"Care." Susan's laugh held no humor. "The boy just came back from the dead as some kind of speed god, and you want to carefully inform him that ancient magical contracts say he's betrothed to both of us."
When she put it that way, it did sound absurd.
"He deserves to know," Daphne said quietly. "Whatever else has changed—whatever power he now carries—he deserves honesty. Especially after..." She gestured vaguely, encompassing the battle, the deaths, the war that had defined all their lives.
Susan was quiet for a long moment. Then: "You're right. Of course you're right." She sighed. "But not tonight. Look at him, Daphne. He could barely stand by the end there. The Weasleys were practically holding him up."
Daphne had noticed. The way Harry's shoulders had slumped. The way the armor's glow had dimmed. The exhaustion in his voice even through the mechanical modulation.
"Tomorrow then," she decided. "After he's rested. After he's had time to—"
"To become a different person?" Susan's voice held dark amusement. "I think that ship has sailed."
"To process," Daphne corrected firmly. "And to remember he's still human, underneath all that... whatever it is."
They returned to their work, moving through the Great Hall with practiced efficiency. Administering potions. Adjusting bandages. Offering quiet comfort to students who'd seen too much, too young.
But Daphne's mind kept returning to the same questions:
How did you approach someone who'd transcended mortality?
How did you tell them about ancient obligations when they'd just broken free from prophecy itself?
How did you look at armor forged from death and motion and see the boy underneath?
"He saved everyone," Susan said suddenly, startling Daphne from her thoughts. "Whatever else happens—whatever these contracts mean—he walked into death to save us all. That matters."
"It does," Daphne agreed softly.
And perhaps that was the answer. Not to approach Harry Potter as the Boy Who Lived, or the Chosen One, or even as Death Speed. But as someone who'd sacrificed everything and deserved to know the truth about what awaited him.
Even if that truth involved two girls he barely knew and contracts written before any of them were born.
"Tomorrow," Daphne repeated, more to herself than Susan.
Tomorrow, they would find Harry Potter.
Tomorrow, they would tell him about obligations neither of them had chosen.
Tomorrow, everything would change again.
But tonight—tonight they would let him rest. Let him be surrounded by people who loved him without complication or contract. Let him recover from dying and returning as something new.
It was the least they could do.
Even if Daphne's hands still trembled slightly when she thought about looking into those golden lenses and saying: *We need to talk about our future.*
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