Harry Potter's scar hadn't hurt for nineteen years.
Everything was fine.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was crowded with people.
Parents waved after the train, which, by tradition, was taking their children to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The heads and waving hands of the children were almost invisible now; the cold September sun glinted off the closed windows. And the mothers kept walking down the platform, further and further, never taking their eyes off the train's red stripe, never tiring of waving and shouting instructions. Where else could a mother's heart find peace, if not near her children? And the mothers kept walking and walking down the platform, stretching after the train in an endless line.
Fewer men followed the train. Allowing their wives to walk to the end of the long platform and see the train off in a motherly fashion, they stayed closer to the barrier.
The day was astonishingly generous with the last summer warmth, although the sky was covered by impenetrable clouds.
Waiting for Ginny, Harry Potter also remained near the barrier separating the magical and Muggle worlds.
Ron stared emptily into the distance, where the Hogwarts Express had sped away. Their quiet conversation could not be heard by anyone nearby—except Hugo, the youngest son, who was following after his mother. In truth, it was not meant for anyone's ears, and Harry kept signaling Ron with his eyes that the boy shouldn't know about the recent escape of the last Death Eaters from Azkaban. But Ron did not notice his glances.
"None of them have shown up in Diagon Alley," he reported in a low voice. "Everything's quiet for now, but this silence worries me."
"Let Hugo go; let him run to Hermione," Harry coughed into his fist, and soon they watched the boy dash joyfully to his mother. "Be careful discussing such matters in public. We don't need extra attention on our problem."
"For now it's ours, but soon it will be shared—even if they lie low for a while."
"You're too careless," Harry whispered to his friend with displeasure and smiled at the Finnegans passing by. "Shall we talk about this at work in fifteen minutes?"
"An Auror's whole life is work. My subordinates have been running themselves ragged, Harry. You took a big risk allowing mass gatherings like this this year," Ron said, gesturing at the crowd of women at the far end of the platform. "By letting him handle it…"
Him?
Ron nodded to the side, and of course Harry already knew whom he would see there.
Draco Malfoy glanced at them briefly. He guessed the conversation was about him (again), but tactfully did not approach—just smirked slightly and nodded. In fifteen minutes, they would meet at another Auror Department meeting and discuss it there.
Sometimes Harry felt that his story repeated year after year, even though Voldemort and wizards of comparable power no longer appeared in his life. An old friend would grow closer or drift away, and unfortunately, the pendulum of their friendship "leaned" more often toward the negative side, as if it stood on a crooked platform.
The cause was clearly envy.
Harry had everything: a loving wife, three children, a job that provided enough money for a comfortable life. Inheritance.
And Ron, essentially having slightly less, turned their friendship into a pursuit of something significantly important to him. Each year, less of the kind guy remained, and those closest, noticing this change before others, worried more. Of course, it was hardest for Hermione. For nineteen long years, she endured his absurd rivalry with Harry and tried to guide him.
But did it help? Not much.
Ron finally turned into a bitter grumbler when Harry appointed Draco Malfoy as his deputy. Then he faced a difficult choice. Harry was still convinced that he had acted correctly, putting loyalty to duty above friendship. It wasn't that he hadn't tried to hint to Ron, to show him where exactly he needed to improve his skills. But Ron refused to understand. In the end, Harry grew tired of waiting. The need for a smart deputy, unafraid of paperwork and tedious meetings, overcame the desire to help his friend, and with a sense of guilt, he appointed Draco to the post.
And he did not regret it.
"When the ferret becomes head, I'll immediately submit my resignation," Ron said, casting a hateful glance at Draco standing aside.
"I hope I won't leave the service soon," Harry replied, cooler than intended. "Let's keep work talk to work hours."
Ron snorted.
"As you say," he said in a tone meaning, "We'll talk later," and turned to watch the train.
The Hogwarts Express moved so far away that its deafening whistle reached their ears like the distant whine of a mosquito.
Harry watched the train with nostalgia as it passed the Scottish landscapes stretching immediately beyond the platform—a view he was not accustomed to. Not long ago, Muggle train schedules had become denser, and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Transport, responsible in part for the Hogwarts Express, had to work intensively on possibilities for its further use.
Now the train passed through a magical portal and appeared just outside London, where there was no need to coordinate its movement with Muggle trains and no extra risk of the "extra" train being discovered. A portal opened a few dozen miles from London at the right time, and the train emerged directly onto a viaduct. Beyond the platform, a beautiful view of foothills and the flat valley stretched, which everyone casually called "the chasm."
On early autumn days, a thin voice deep in his soul called him to take the train and go to school. A rebellious thought flashed through his mind: to write secretly to James, advising him to misbehave more. And when the tired Headmaster summoned him to school to assign punishments, he would walk again through the corridors enchanted and dear to his heart. See the professors. Perhaps even get lucky to attend a feast or a Quidditch match…
The train honked incessantly. Harry only snapped out of his idle daydreams when some man in an old-fashioned plaid coat accidentally bumped into him. He was running along the platform, moving astonishingly slowly, as if someone had cast a slowing charm on him.
A spell?
From the deepest recesses of his memory, a familiar sense of anxiety suddenly flared. Thoughts flowed as slowly as thick jelly. Something was wrong with the space around them. Still staring sluggishly at the departing train, Harry managed to focus his gaze and noticed that the usual white plumes of steam above the train had turned into black smoke.
The train stood on the viaduct, engulfed in smoke and fire. The distant carriages exploded on the tracks one by one—and suddenly, they became clearly audible, as if he were surrounded by dead silence. But that was not so. Instead of the grating echo of farewell, cries rang out.
Harry drew his wand—drew it, of course, as quickly as he could, but his hand moved in slow motion—and rushed after the slow-moving man in the plaid coat toward the end of the platform.
He took off, but did not catch him in an instant. They moved equally slowly.
Debris from the train, burning carriages emitting foul black smoke, fell from the viaduct to the ground. Women screamed in terror. And then they appeared.
Black-cloaked figures in terrifyingly familiar masks emerged from behind the columns. Harry realized what would happen a moment before the first green beam struck the women. They moved faster, much faster than he ran or even thought, and the space around him and the others turned into a viscous substance, where even breathing was difficult.
Hell had arrived much earlier, but for Harry, it began at that very moment.
Women screamed and shielded their children; those who tried to fight or even raise their wands in self-defense fell first. Those who had lost their only child on the train silently awaited their fate, unable to comprehend their pain or its cause.
One of these women was Draco's wife, Astoria.
She was grabbed by the hair and, with a roar of "Blood traitor," thrown off the platform—not onto the tracks. Beyond the platform was the chasm. In front of everyone's eyes, the woman fell off the edge. The slow fall—not like the one that tormented Harry, but terrifyingly slow—gradually sank into understanding. Even through the deafening screams, the sound of the body hitting the ground, bones cracking, could be heard.
This was how hell began.
One by one, men fell, struck by green beams, preceded by an unknown slowing curse. Their places were immediately taken by other husbands, fathers, brothers. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Dean, Seamus, Justin, and many of his school friends sending spells ahead. The Death Eaters used the women as a living shield.
Woman after woman fell lifelessly. The bodies of children rose above their heads like puppets and fell onto the platform stones lifeless. Draco, with a crazed look, cast spell after spell; Ron had long fallen behind, and Harry no longer saw him.
The senseless cruelty was born of escaped Azkaban prisoners, arsonists of a long-lost war…
In the crowd of women, Harry's gaze caught Ginny. To his horror, she was noticed not only by him. A Death Eater in a mask swung a silver blade before her face.
"No!" Harry mentally shouted, but the scream did not even form in his thoughts.
Ginny, his Gin, stood at the edge of the platform by the portal, choking on her blood, holding the limp body of their daughter's hand. The Death Eater who wounded her turned. The mask hid his face, but he smiled, smiled with a familiar insane grin. Then he simply turned to her and lightly pushed her in the chest. And apparated.
At that moment, the spell holding him released, as if an invisible chain snapped from Harry's chest. He was thrown forward with such force that he couldn't stay on his feet and fell onto the platform.
At first, a mad thought flashed through him that… nothing had happened. She was alive; he would save her, at least her, stop the bleeding!
But the moment he rose with that thought, Ginny fell from the platform into the portal—and plunged into the chasm.