The battle had moved from the clearing to the castle, and Hogwarts itself seemed to shudder with each exchange of power.
Voldemort flew through the shattered windows of the Great Hall, the Elder Wand leaving trails of sickly light as he carved curses into the air. Behind him, Harry came like vengeance given form, the Starheart blazing on his finger, his makeshift armor crackling with emerald fire.
They had been fighting for—what? Minutes? Hours? Time had become strange, elastic, measured only in heartbeats and curses and the crash of stone as ancient walls learned what it meant to be caught between titans.
"FIENDFYRE!"
Voldemort's curse erupted from the Elder Wand in a torrent of cursed flame that took the shape of serpents, dragons, chimeras—all the monsters that had ever haunted human nightmares, given teeth and heat and hunger. The flames roared through the Hall, consuming the house tables, blackening the stone, reaching for Harry with mouths made of malice.
Harry raised both hands.
*The ring responds to will,* the Starheart reminded him, patient despite the chaos. *To imagination. To the strength of your conviction. What do you believe in, Harry Potter?*
"Protection," Harry said through gritted teeth.
The green light erupted from his palms and took shape—not a shield this time, but a phoenix. Massive, magnificent, made entirely of emerald fire that burned cold instead of hot. It spread its wings across the entire Hall, each feather a blade of solidified will, and when it screamed, the sound resonated in frequencies that magic itself recognized.
The Fiendfyre struck the phoenix and simply... stopped. Held there. The cursed flames writhed and twisted, trying to consume the construct, but Harry's will was absolute. The phoenix folded its wings around the Fiendfyre, smothering it, compressing it, and with a pulse of light, *unmade* it.
The flames died.
Voldemort's eyes widened. "That's—that's impossible. Fiendfyre can't be extinguished, it can't be—"
"Can't?" Harry's laugh was breathless, edged with something wild. "Tom, I've just spent the last fifteen minutes learning that 'can't' is more of a suggestion than a rule."
The phoenix construct dissolved, and Harry gestured sharply. The rubble from the destroyed tables—wood and stone and shattered crystal—rose into the air, glowing green, and reformed itself into a dozen spears. They hung there for a heartbeat, trembling with potential energy.
"Depulso," Harry said, and the magic flowed through the Starheart instead of a wand.
The spears launched.
Voldemort conjured a shield of darkness, and the spears shattered against it—but three got through. One grazed his shoulder. Another tore through his robes. The third would have pierced his heart if he hadn't twisted aside at the last possible second.
Dark blood, almost black, welled from the wounds.
Voldemort touched his shoulder, stared at his stained fingers. When he looked up, his face was twisted with disbelief and rage. "You... you *hurt* me."
"Yeah," Harry panted. "Turns out when you combine wizard magic with cosmic willpower, you get something that can actually touch you. Who knew?"
Around them, the battle for Hogwarts raged on. The Death Eaters that hadn't been bound in the clearing had retreated into the castle, and they were fighting desperately now—not for victory, but for survival. The Order of the Phoenix, the D.A., the professors, even the older students were pushing back, driving them into corners, cutting off escapes.
But everyone kept glancing toward the Great Hall. Toward the light show that was visible even through the walls. Toward the impossible sight of Harry Potter, wreathed in green fire, fighting Voldemort on equal footing.
"Hermione," Ron breathed, crouched behind an overturned statue while Dolohov's curses flew overhead. "Is that—is Harry a bloody *superhero* now?"
Hermione was staring through a gap in the wall, her eyes wide behind her wand. "That's a Green Lantern ring. Green Lantern. Ronald, do you understand what that *means*? The Green Lantern Corps are intergalactic peacekeepers, they're—" She ducked as a cutting curse took a chunk out of the stone above her head. "—they're powered by willpower itself, and the rings choose people based on their ability to overcome fear, and Harry Potter just got chosen by—"
"By the Starheart," said a quiet voice behind them.
They whirled, wands raised.
Luna Lovegood stood there, serenely unconcerned by the battle, her wand dangling loosely from her fingers. "It's different from the regular Green Lantern rings," she continued in her dreamy way. "More powerful. More personal. It was Alan Scott's ring, you know. The first Earth Green Lantern. My father wrote about him once. Said he was the kind of person who could make the world bend to his will through sheer stubborn kindness."
"Luna," Hermione said carefully, "how do you know—"
"The Quibbler has excellent sources," Luna said. "Also, my ring told me."
She held up her hand. A ring glowed there—blue instead of green, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Ron's jaw dropped. "You have a—since when do you—what—"
"About three minutes ago," Luna said. "It flew through the window during Transfiguration and asked if I wanted to join the Blue Lantern Corps. I said yes. It seemed rude not to." She tilted her head. "Hope is a powerful thing, Ronald. Almost as powerful as will. Sometimes more so."
Before any of them could respond, the wall exploded.
---
**Orbit, approximately 22,000 miles above Earth's surface**
Hal Jordan was having what his grandmother would have called "a day."
The sensor in his ring had been pinging for the last thirty seconds with an urgency he hadn't felt since the Anti-Monitor crisis. The Starheart—the *actual Starheart*, the thing that had powered Alan Scott for decades before supposedly going dormant after Alan's death—was awake. Active. And bonded to someone.
"Say that again," Batman's voice crackled through the comms, flat and dangerous in the way that meant he was already analyzing twelve different threat scenarios.
"The Starheart is active," Hal repeated, angling his flight path toward the coordinates his ring was feeding him. "Britain. Scotland specifically. Middle of nowhere. And it's chosen a new wielder."
"The Starheart was Alan's," Wonder Woman said, and there was something careful in her voice. "It was unique. Born from the raw magic of the universe condensed into—"
"Into the most powerful Green Lantern artifact ever created," Hal finished. "Yeah. I know. Which is why I'm heading there *now* instead of filing a report in triplicate first." He paused. "Anyone want to tell me why there's a massive magical signature at the same coordinates? Because my ring is showing enough thaumic energy to power a small sun."
"Those coordinates," a new voice said—young, female, with a faint theatrical inflection—"are Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Zatanna," Hal said. "Please tell me you know what's going on."
"I know where it is," Zatanna Zatara said. The newest Justice League member sounded tense. "Hogwarts. It's one of the largest concentrations of magical humans in the world. Witches and wizards—people born with magical cores that generate their own power. They're... separate from the world I come from. Homo magi like me, we're sorcerers. We draw power from ambient magic. Witches and wizards, they *are* magic. It's in their DNA."
"And no one thought to mention there's an entire secret society of magic users?" Batman's voice could have cut glass.
"They keep to themselves," Zatanna said defensively. "The Statute of Secrecy. They don't interfere with our world, we don't interfere with theirs. Separate jurisdictions. Separate problems."
"Except now the Starheart is there," Hal said, "which makes it *our* problem. Zatanna, can you meet me? Those coordinates are going to be warded seven ways to Sunday, and I'm betting 'Green Lantern' isn't on the approved visitor list."
"Already en route," Zatanna said. "Hal, if the Starheart chose someone from the Wizarding World... we need to be careful. Wizard magic operates on different rules. Different physics. And if something's happening at Hogwarts that's powerful enough to wake the Starheart—"
"Then we're probably already too late to stop it," Hal finished. "Story of my life. Superman, you monitoring?"
"Listening," Clark Kent's voice was calm, steady. "Do you need backup?"
"Negative. Not yet. If this goes sideways, I'll call." Hal dove lower, the Earth rushing up to meet him, green contrails streaming behind him like captured lightning. "But right now, I want to see who the Starheart thought was worthy."
"Be careful, Hal," Diana said. "Alan Scott was one of the greatest heroes of his generation. If the Starheart has chosen again—"
"Then we're either about to meet the next legendary Green Lantern," Hal said, "or someone who's about to tear reality apart by accident. Either way—"
He broke through the cloud layer, and his ring immediately started screaming warnings.
Below him, a castle—an actual *castle*, all towers and turrets and medieval architecture—was lit up like a Christmas tree. But not with normal light. With *magic*. Hal could see it even without his ring translating, great swirling eddies of power that bent the air itself. Shields flickered around the structure, some failing, some reinforcing, all of them straining under an assault that was coming from both inside and outside the walls.
And in the center of it all, visible even from orbit, was a pillar of green light.
"Oh," Hal said. "Oh, that's—"
"What?" Batman demanded. "Jordan, report."
"The Starheart isn't just active," Hal said, unable to keep the awe from his voice. "It's in *combat*."
---
**Hogwarts, Great Hall**
Harry was learning.
That was the thing about the Starheart—it didn't just give you power. It gave you *understanding*. Every construct he created, every spell he enhanced, every impossible thing he willed into being taught him something new about the relationship between imagination and reality.
*You're doing well,* the Starheart murmured. *For someone who's had me for less than an hour, you're remarkably creative. Although—*
"Although what?" Harry grunted, deflecting a curse that would have turned his bones to powder.
*You're still thinking like a wizard. Limited by the magic you learned. The ring doesn't care about magical theory, Harry Potter. It cares about will. About *belief*. If you can imagine it, if you can will it to be—*
"Then it is," Harry finished. Understanding dawned. "It's not about what's possible. It's about what I *make* possible."
*Exactly.*
Voldemort sent a barrage of curses—fifteen different spells, all cast simultaneously, a technique that should have been impossible with a single wand. But the Elder Wand was the most powerful focus ever created, and Voldemort had had decades to master it.
Harry didn't try to block them all.
Instead, he *imagined*.
The constructs that materialized weren't shields. They were *mirrors*—dozens of them, each one reflecting a different curse back at a different angle. The spells bounced between the mirrors like light in a kaleidoscope, their trajectories becoming chaotic, unpredictable.
Three of them hit Voldemort.
The Dark Lord screamed and staggered, his robes smoking, his arm bent at an unnatural angle. "ENOUGH!"
He slammed the Elder Wand into the ground, and the entire Hall *shook*. Stone cracked. The ceiling—enchanted to show the sky—flickered and died, revealing the real ceiling fifty feet above. Supports groaned.
"If I cannot kill you," Voldemort hissed, "then I will bury you. I will bring this entire castle down on your head, Potter, and everyone in it will die with you—"
"No," said a new voice.
The wall exploded inward—not from a curse, but from a *construct*. A massive fist made of blue light punched through ancient stone like tissue paper, and Luna Lovegood stepped through the gap, her blue ring glowing, her expression serene.
"Hope is a strange thing," Luna said conversationally. "It shouldn't work, logically. Believing things will get better doesn't *make* them better. But the Blue Lanterns work on a different principle. We don't just hope things will improve—we make others believe they can."
Her ring flared, and blue light washed over Harry.
The Starheart *sang*.
*Oh,* it breathed. *Oh, that's—the Blue Light of Hope. Harry, do you feel—*
Harry felt it. The green light of his constructs suddenly blazed twice as bright, twice as solid. The fatigue he'd been fighting vanished. His will, already strong, became *absolute*.
"Blue Lanterns supercharge Green ones," Luna explained, walking calmly into the Hall as though there wasn't a genocidal dark wizard three meters away. "It's a synergy thing. Will and Hope working together. My ring explained it. Very educational, really."
"LUNA!" Hermione's voice echoed from somewhere behind the rubble. "GET OUT OF THERE!"
"In a moment," Luna called back. She looked at Voldemort with her wide, dreamy eyes. "You're very afraid, aren't you? I can feel it. That's what the blue light shows me—what people fear, what they hope for. And you don't hope for anything. You just fear everything. Death. Obscurity. Being forgotten. Being *ordinary*."
Voldemort's face twisted. "I am the most powerful—"
"You're terrified," Luna interrupted gently. "And that's very sad. But you made your choices, and now Harry's going to make his."
She stepped aside, and Harry rose into the air, green and blue light spiraling around him in a double helix of solidified will and hope.
"Last chance, Tom," Harry said, and his voice resonated with power. "Surrender. Stand trial. Face justice for what you've done. Or—"
"NEVER!" Voldemort shrieked, and he raised the Elder Wand with both hands, pouring everything he had—all his knowledge, all his malice, all his desperate fear—into one final curse. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The Killing Curse erupted from the wand, but this time it was different. Enhanced by the Elder Wand. Powered by Voldemort's absolute conviction that Harry Potter had to die. It was ten times larger than any Killing Curse should be, a wave of green death that swallowed half the Hall.
Harry looked at it. Looked at Luna. Looked at the faces pressed against the gaps in the walls—his friends, his teachers, everyone who had ever believed in him.
*What do you choose?* the Starheart asked.
"I choose to be better," Harry said simply.
He didn't make a construct. Didn't cast a spell. He simply reached out—really *reached*, with his will and his hope and every fiber of belief in his body—and he *grabbed* the curse.
The Killing Curse, the unblockable curse, the curse that had killed his parents and countless others, wrapped around his hands like rope. Harry *pulled*, and the curse came apart. Not dispelled. Not reflected. *Unmade*, reduced to its component parts—intent and will and magic—and scattered like ashes in the wind.
Voldemort stared. The Elder Wand fell from his nerveless fingers.
"How—" he whispered.
"The Killing Curse is powered by the intent to kill," Harry said softly, descending until his feet touched the rubble-strewn floor. "By the absolute conviction that someone should die. But my will—my *hope*—is stronger than your hate. It's always been stronger, Tom. You just never understood why."
He walked forward, and Voldemort stumbled backward, reaching for his wand, but his hands were shaking too badly to grasp it.
"You could have been so much more," Harry said, and there was genuine sadness in his voice. "You could have used your power to build instead of destroy. To protect instead of terrorize. But you were so afraid of death that you forgot to live."
"Please," Voldemort said, and the word was ash in his mouth. "Please, I can—we can—there are things I know, secrets, I can teach you—"
"I don't want your secrets," Harry said. "I just want this to be over."
He raised his hand, and a construct materialized—simple, elegant, final. A cage of green light, bars as thick as trees, humming with power. It dropped over Voldemort like a net, and the Dark Lord collapsed inside it, unable to stand, unable to flee.
Unable to do anything but curl up on the floor and shake.
"It's done," Harry said to no one in particular, and the exhaustion hit him all at once.
He swayed, and Luna was suddenly there, her blue ring flaring, lending him strength. "Easy," she said. "You've had quite the night."
"Luna," Harry managed. "When did you—"
"About ten minutes ago. The ring found me during Transfiguration. Very poor timing, but I suppose crises don't wait for convenient moments." She smiled. "You did wonderfully, Harry. Very heroic. Alan Scott would be proud."
"Who's—" Harry started, but then the walls of the Great Hall exploded again—properly this time, with light and sound and someone moving so fast they left green contrails in the air.
A man hovered in the opening, wearing a green and black uniform, a white symbol on his chest, brown hair slightly mussed from flight. His ring glowed with the same light as Harry's Starheart, but somehow... lesser. More focused, perhaps, but less raw.
He looked at Harry. At Luna. At the destroyed Hall. At Voldemort whimpering in his cage.
"Okay," said Hal Jordan, the greatest Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. "Someone want to explain what the hell is going on?"
---
Behind Hal, floating through the gap in the wall with considerably more grace, came Zatanna Zatara. Her top hat was slightly askew, her stage magician's outfit pristine despite the battle. She took one look at the scene and whistled low.
"*esaeler dna esrever, erofeb em yrots eht laever,*" she murmured, her backwards speech making the air shimmer.
Magic responded—not wand magic, but sorcery, pulling truth from the ambient power in the air. Images flickered around her: Harry walking to his death, the Starheart arriving, Voldemort's shock, the battle through the forest and castle.
"Oh," Zatanna said quietly. "Oh, *Harry*."
Harry stared at them both. "How—who—"
"Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Sector 2814," Hal said, descending slowly, his eyes never leaving the Starheart on Harry's finger. "And before you ask, yes, we're going to need to have a very long conversation about that ring you're wearing."
"Zatanna Zatara," the young woman added. "Justice League. Also—" She glanced at the bound Death Eaters, the destroyed castle, the unconscious Voldemort. "—also *extremely* confused about how the Wizarding World had a civil war and nobody told the rest of the magical community."
"It's complicated," Hermione said, emerging from behind a broken pillar, Ron beside her. She had her wand raised but lowered it when she saw the Justice League insignia on Zatanna's costume. "Wait. You're—the Zatanna? The one who performed at the London Palladium last year?"
"Guilty," Zatanna said with a slight smile. "Though that's my day job. This—" She gestured at her outfit. "—is the night shift."
"Luna Lovegood," Luna introduced herself, offering her hand to Hal. Her blue ring glowed softly. "I'm a Blue Lantern now. Since about ten minutes ago. It's been a very eventful evening."
Hal stared at the blue ring. Then at Harry's Starheart. Then at the two teenagers standing calmly in a destroyed Great Hall while a dark wizard sobbed in a cage of light.
"Right," he said. "Okay. So. Fun fact: the Starheart hasn't chosen a wielder in over a decade. Alan Scott—the first Earth Green Lantern—was its bearer, and when he died, everyone assumed it went dormant. Apparently—" He gestured at Harry. "—it was just waiting."
"For me?" Harry's voice cracked slightly. "Why?"
"The Starheart is powered by will," Hal explained, floating closer. "But not just any will. It chooses people who are willing to sacrifice everything for what they believe in. People who have the strength to stand up when everyone else sits down. People who—" He paused, studying Harry's face. "—who walk into the dark knowing they might not come back."
"He was going to die," Hermione said, and her voice shook. "Harry was walking into the Forbidden Forest to let Voldemort kill him. He thought he had to. He thought it was the only way—"
"But he did it anyway," Hal finished softly. "That's what the Starheart looks for. That moment when you choose to do the right thing even when it costs you everything." He looked at Harry with something like understanding. "Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps, kid. You're going to hate the paperwork."
"Corps?" Harry repeated faintly. "There's more of you?"
"7,200 of us, last count," Hal said. "Spread across the universe. Peacekeepers. Protectors. We use rings powered by the Central Power Battery on Oa—that's the Guardians' planet, don't worry about it yet—to create constructs based on willpower. Your ring is... different. More powerful. Magic-based instead of science-based. But the principle is the same."
"And the Blue Lanterns?" Luna asked, looking at her own ring with interest.
"Different corps. Different emotion. Blue is Hope, Green is Will. There's also Red for Rage, Yellow for Fear, Violet for Love, Indigo for Compassion, and Orange for Greed. The Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum." Hal shook his head. "Look, this is a lot to take in. The important thing right now is that you both need training. Actual training, not just—" He gestured at the destroyed Hall. "—learning by doing while fighting a dark wizard."
"But I won," Harry said. It came out smaller than he intended. "I won, right? It's over?"
Voldemort chose that moment to laugh—a broken, rattling sound from inside his cage. "Over?" he hissed. "You think it's over because you've bested me? I have followers. Sympathizers. The moment you leave this castle, they'll—"
"They'll what?" Zatanna asked, walking over to the cage. She crouched down, meeting Voldemort's red eyes through the bars of light. "Because I've been doing a quick census while we talked, and do you know how many Death Eaters are still conscious in this castle? Seven. Out of the, what, fifty you brought? The rest are bound, unconscious, or have fled." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "And now that the Justice League knows about you, you're not going to disappear into some wizarding prison where you can plot your escape. You're going to a facility designed to hold people who can bend reality. A facility that has held actual gods."
Voldemort's face went gray.
"As for your followers," Zatanna continued, standing, "I think once word gets out that an almost eighteen-year-old boy beat you so badly you're crying in a cage, your recruitment numbers are going to plummet. Turns out fascism is a lot less appealing when the figurehead is demonstrably defeatable."
"Damn," Ron muttered. "She's good."
"We should secure the castle," Hermione said, her practical nature reasserting itself. "There are still Death Eaters loose, and injured people who need help, and—"
"On it," Hal said. He tapped his ring, and green light spread through the castle like roots, seeking. "Ring, how many hostiles?"
"*Scanning. Seven combatants with hostile intent detected. Forty-three individuals with Dark Marks incapacitated or contained. Approximately two hundred students and staff in various states of distress. Medical attention recommended for ninety-six individuals.*"
"Right." Hal looked at Harry. "Can you maintain that cage?"
Harry nodded. The Starheart pulsed warmly on his finger. *I can hold it indefinitely,* it whispered. *This is nothing.*
"Good. Luna, you up for helping corral the last Death Eaters? Blue light is great for calming people down, making them see reason."
"I can do that," Luna said serenely. "Although I should mention, I've never actually trained for this."
"You'll be fine. Just imagine what you want to happen and will it to be real. The ring handles the details." Hal turned to Zatanna. "Can you do a mass healing spell? Or at least stabilization?"
"*seirujni esruN, ydob dna tim esu,*" Zatanna said, and golden light rippled out from her, washing over the castle. Those wounded began to glow softly, their injuries mending, pain fading. Not perfect—magic couldn't replace blood loss or fix everything—but enough to keep people alive until proper healing could arrive.
"Show off," Hal said, but he was grinning. He looked back at Harry, who was swaying on his feet despite Luna's blue light. "You. Sit down before you fall down. You just bonded with one of the most powerful artifacts in existence, fought a war, and won. You're allowed to be tired."
Harry sat. His legs simply gave out, and he found himself on the rubble-strewn floor, the Starheart still glowing on his finger. "Is it always like this?" he asked quietly. "Being a Green Lantern?"
"The fighting?" Hal shook his head. "Not always. Sometimes it's rescuing people from collapsing buildings. Sometimes it's mediating peace treaties between civilizations that hate each other. Sometimes it's just patrolling, making sure nothing goes wrong." He paused. "But yeah. Sometimes it's fighting monsters who want to hurt people. That's part of the job."
"I don't know if I can do this," Harry admitted. "I just—Luna, Hermione, Ron, they're all looking at me like I'm something special, but I'm just—"
"Just a kid who was willing to die to save everyone else," Hal interrupted. "Harry, I've been a Green Lantern for years. I've met thousands of beings from across the universe. And I can count on one hand the number of people I've met who have the kind of will you just displayed. The Starheart didn't choose you by accident. It chose you because you're exactly what the universe needs right now."
"But I don't want to be what the universe needs," Harry said, and his voice cracked. "I just want to be normal. I just want to go to school and worry about exams and maybe, I don't know, kiss someone without worrying that they're going to die because of me."
Hermione appeared beside him, sitting down in the rubble without concern for her robes. "Harry. You were never going to be normal. Not after everything. But that doesn't mean you can't have a life." She took his hand—the one without the ring. "We'll figure this out. Together."
"She's right," Ron added, dropping down on Harry's other side. "Mate, you've just become a superhero. That's actually brilliant. Wait until Fred and George hear about this—they're going to lose their minds."
The words died in his throat.
Fred.
The name hit him like a physical blow, and Ron's face crumpled. His hand came up to his mouth, as though he could somehow take the words back, un-say them, make them not true. But they were true. Fred was dead. Had died in the battle, just hours ago—or was it minutes? Time had become strange. Fred had died, and George would never hear about this, not together with his twin, not the way they'd heard about everything else their whole lives, finishing each other's sentences and building on each other's jokes.
George would hear alone.
"Ron," Hermione said softly, reaching across Harry to touch Ron's arm.
"I forgot," Ron whispered, and tears were streaming down his face now, cutting tracks through the dust and blood. "For just a second, I *forgot* he was dead. I was excited about Harry being a superhero, and I thought—I thought Fred would think it was brilliant, and I forgot—"
His voice broke completely.
Harry felt something crack in his chest. The Starheart pulsed on his finger, responding to the wave of grief that washed over all three of them. For a moment, green light flickered around Ron, gentle as a touch, and Harry realized the ring was responding to his will—his desperate, aching will to make this better, to fix this, to bring Fred back—
*You can't,* the Starheart said quietly. *I'm sorry, Harry Potter. I can do many things, but I cannot undo death. That is beyond even my power.*
"I know," Harry said, though it came out choked. He pulled Ron into a fierce hug, Hermione joining from the other side, and the three of them sat there in the rubble of the Great Hall and *grieved*.
Hal Jordan watched them with something like pain on his face. He glanced at Zatanna, who had gone very still, her expression carefully neutral in the way of people trying not to intrude on private sorrow.
"There are always casualties," Hal said quietly, not to anyone in particular. "No matter how hard you fight. No matter how powerful you become. You can't save everyone."
"Doesn't make it easier," Zatanna murmured back.
Luna floated down from her cloud and settled beside them, her blue ring glowing softly. She didn't say anything—didn't try to offer comfort or platitudes. She just sat there, present and solid, and her ring pulsed with gentle blue light that seemed to wrap around all of them like a blanket.
*Hope,* the blue light whispered. *Not hope that Fred will come back—he won't. But hope that this pain won't last forever. Hope that the grief will become bearable. Hope that Ron will laugh again, will remember his brother with joy instead of only sorrow. Hope that the world they saved will be worth the cost.*
After a long moment, Ron pulled back, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"Don't," Harry said firmly. "Don't apologize. Not for that. Never for that."
"Fred would have thought this was brilliant," Ron said, and his voice shook but held. "Harry becoming a Green Lantern. Luna with a ring too. He would have made jokes about it for weeks. Would've tried to get Harry to make constructs of—of I don't know, dancing dragons or something stupid." He laughed, and it came out wet and broken but real. "He'd have been *impossible*."
"He was always impossible," Hermione said, and she was crying too now. "Both of them were. Are." She corrected herself fiercely. "George is still here. We haven't lost both of them."
"No," Ron agreed. "We haven't." He looked at Harry, at the ring glowing on his finger. "Can you—is there any way—"
"No," Harry said, before Ron could finish the question. Before he could ask for the impossible. "The Starheart says I can't bring people back. I'm sorry, Ron. I'm so sorry."
Ron nodded, like he'd expected that answer. Like he'd had to ask anyway, just in case. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
Despite everything, Harry laughed. It came out half-sob, but it was real. "I beat Voldemort by imagining really hard. Fred would've said that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard."
"He'd have said you were showing off," Ron added, and this time his laugh was a little steadier. "Becoming a superhero just to one-up everyone else who just fought normally."
"Typical Harry," Hermione agreed, and she was smiling through her tears. "Always has to be dramatic about everything."
"You beat Voldemort by having more willpower than a megalomaniacal dark wizard who's spent seventy years learning how to hurt people," Zatanna corrected, walking over. "That's nothing to be embarrassed about. That's something to be proud of." She paused, looking at all three of them with something soft in her eyes. "And I'm sorry. About your brother. About everyone you lost tonight. Victory shouldn't cost this much."
"But it did," Ron said quietly. "And Fred would tell us to stop moping and figure out what happens next. He'd say—" His voice caught. "—he'd say we won. And we should act like it."
The castle groaned around them, settling, beginning the long process of healing. Outside, Harry could hear voices—people calling for each other, looking for loved ones, starting to realize that the battle was over.
That they'd won.
But also counting the cost of that victory.
"What happens now?" Harry asked.
"Now?" Hal considered. "Now we secure the prisoners, tend to the wounded, and figure out how to explain to the international magical community that one of their students just became a cosmic-level threat." He paused. "Also, you're going to need training. Proper training, on Oa, with the Corps. The Starheart is more powerful than a regular ring, but that means it's also more dangerous. You need to learn control. Discipline. How to use your power without letting it use you."
"I have school," Harry said automatically.
"You just fought a war," Hal pointed out. "I think they'll give you some time off."
"Plus," Luna added, floating back up on her blue constructs—she'd made clouds, Harry noticed, fluffy and absurd and perfect—"I'll need training too. We can go together. Make it a field trip."
"A field trip to outer space to learn how to be space cops," Ron said, and his voice was rough but trying. "Harry, your life is insane."
"Tell me something I don't know," Harry muttered.
The Starheart pulsed on his finger, warm and steady and patient. *You did well, Harry Potter,* it murmured. *I am proud to have chosen you.*
"Thanks," Harry said quietly. "I think."
*You're welcome. And Harry?*
"Yeah?"
*This is only the beginning.*
Harry looked at his friends. At the two Justice League members who had arrived to help clean up his mess. At Luna, floating on her cloud with her blue ring glowing and a peaceful smile on her face. At the destroyed castle that had been his home for six years.
At the cage where Voldemort—the monster who had haunted his nightmares for his entire life—sat defeated and broken.
He thought about Fred, who would never see this. About all the people who had died so that this moment could happen. About the cost of victory and the weight of survival.
"Yeah," Harry said, and for the first time in hours, he smiled properly. Not because the grief was gone—it would never be gone—but because Fred would want him to. Because the people they'd lost had died so the rest of them could live. "I think I'm okay with that."
The Starheart glowed brighter, and across the universe, on the planet Oa, a registry updated itself:
*Green Lantern 2814.2 - Harry James Potter, Earth. Status: Active. Power Source: Starheart. Threat Level: Unprecedented.*
The Guardians of the Universe read the notification and immediately called an emergency session.
This was going to be interesting.
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