Archive of Our Own

Number Four, Privet Drive lay beneath a sun that seemed as ordinary as everything else in that street, whose greatest virtue had always been its talent for remaining unnoticed. It was a sun without dramatic flair, without fiery undertones, without the theatrical glow of a storm gathering on the horizon. It simply hung there, round and bright, as though it had decided that it too would submit to the rules of this suburb: nothing extraordinary, nothing that stood out, nothing that disturbed the carefully drawn lines.

The hedges were trimmed as though they had been measured with a ruler. Every branch had its place, every leaf a boundary it was not permitted to cross. The windows shone immaculately, as if someone had polished them only minutes ago, while the pavement showed no cracks, no scars hinting at a before or a perhaps. Even the letterboxes seemed arranged in formation, ready to receive any post with stoic discipline.

And yet something in that immaculate order had shifted, a tremor in the air so faint it was almost impossible to grasp, as though even the silence of this suburb knew that today it would lose one of its long-standing inhabitants. It was no sound, no visible sign. Rather, it was the absence of something familiar – a tension that lay beneath the surface like a barely audible hum. Perhaps it was only imagination. Perhaps it was the echo of events gathering beyond this street, a distant rumble that no one here could yet hear, and yet somehow already sensed.

Harry stood in the hallway of the house that had never been his home.

Behind him were the familiar wallpapers with their subtle little floral pattern, which had always reminded him of his aunt’s effort not merely to live in normality, but practically to enforce it. In front of him, meanwhile, stood the open front door, through which a rush of warm summer air drifted inside, as though it meant to push him out.

The Dursleys were ready to leave.

Uncle Vernon had scarcely spoken since the morning.

His face was as red as ever, yet the familiar indignation had given way to a strange, silent hardness, as though he had realised that even his anger was powerless against whatever was gathering beyond the boundaries of his comprehensible world. He carried Dudley’s heavy suitcase to the car with an almost exaggerated determination, as though physical exertion might allow him to ignore the fact that he was fleeing from something he did not understand.

Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, had inspected every room one last time, her cool, scrutinising gaze passing over empty shelves and spotless worktops, as though she wished to assure herself that no trace of the unnatural had been left behind. Now she sat in the car, upright, her lips pressed into a thin line, her hands clasped together.

Everything was ready for departure.

Everything except one person.

Dudley, the Dursleys’ golden boy, was still standing on the pavement.

He had grown taller, broader in the shoulders, less swollen than he had once been, yet what Harry noticed in that moment was not his build but the uncertainty in his posture, a hesitation that did not at all suit the boy who had once charged at him with loud laughter, accompanied by a pack of like-minded bullies.

Harry stepped out of the house and remained standing beside the door. The familiar stone beneath his trainers felt strange, as though he no longer belonged here.

Vernon slammed the boot shut.

“Well then,” he muttered, without looking at Harry.

It was all he said.

No “And don’t come after us.” No “Just stay away from us.” No contemptuous remark about magic or madness. Only those two words, which in their brevity sounded almost more final than any of his earlier tirades.

Harry felt no satisfaction at it, only a strange emptiness.

Dudley cleared his throat.

“Harry.”

His name, spoken without mockery, without drawn-out contempt, struck him almost more strongly than any insult.

Harry raised his eyes.

Dudley took a step closer, as though even that small movement required an effort of will.

“I, er— I wanted to say goodbye, and before that… say a few things,” he began, his brow furrowing as though he had to assemble the right words with effort. “I—er—I’ve been thinking a bit. About before. About… everything.”

Harry said nothing. He made a genuine effort not to interrupt Dudley with the sarcastic remarks that were already waiting on the very tip of his tongue. After all, he was used to Dudley’s sentences ending either in laughter or in threats, not in the uncertainty he was now confronted with.

“I didn’t understand a lot of things,” Dudley went on, and there was an unfamiliar heaviness in his voice. “Er, I still don’t, to be honest. Your… world. Your abilities. The way people talked about you. Mum and Dad, or even Auntie Marge.”

He swallowed.

“I think I was jealous.”

The word seemed to hang between them, unbelievable and yet undeniable.

Harry felt old memories rising within him: kicks against his shins, the sound of laughter when he stumbled, the feeling of standing on the other side of a locked kitchen door while a celebration was taking place inside.

Jealous. Harry knew that he himself had been for years. But Dudley? What did Harry have that a Dursley could possibly be jealous of? It was a contradiction in itself. After all, the Dursleys hated everything that Harry stood for.

He had always considered Dudley cruel, spoiled, thoughtless even, but certainly not envious.

“You could do things I couldn’t,” Dudley said quietly. “And even if Mum and Dad acted as though you were a… burden, they always knew that you were different. Special. And I was just… me.”

Harry did not know what surprised him more: the honesty, or the realisation that Dudley had ever felt himself to be “just” anything. Not someone who was superior to him, but someone who saw himself as lesser. Perhaps the two cousins had more in common than they had thought, even if the way they had been raised could hardly have been more different.

“When those creatures came,” Dudley continued, his gaze avoiding Harry’s eyes, “that’s when I saw what I am when everything that usually defines me is taken away. I found nothing in myself that I could be proud of. I was just empty, I guess.”

Dementors.

Harry remembered Dudley’s horrified face, the whimpering that had not only been fear, but a confrontation with his own innermost self. He remembered the feeling of conjuring the Patronus, the silvery light that had pushed back against the darkness, not only against the creatures, but against despair itself.

“And I saw that you stood in front of me,” Dudley said. “Even though I treated you badly my whole life.”

A gust of wind swept through the street and made the neatly trimmed hedges rustle, as though they wished to fill the silence.

“I was cruel to you,” Dudley said at last. “I tormented you. And I often knew perfectly well that it was wrong.”

Harry heard the sentence echo within him. He waited for something inside him to give way, for anger to rise or relief, but instead he felt a strange clarity.

“You were an idiot,” he said calmly.

Dudley nodded at once. “Yes.”

“And you did things I won’t forget.”

“I know.”

Harry looked at him for a long time. He could not erase the past — not the nights under the stairs, not the hunger, not the loneliness. But now he understood something he had not been able to see before: Dudley had been just as trapped in this house. Perhaps in a different way, but trapped nonetheless in his parents’ expectations, in their distorted view of the world, in their fear. And the worst part of that realisation was that Dudley was still trapped. Even if he would now leave this house, the imprisonment would only end once he separated himself from his parents. For they were the true bars of the cage. Yet Harry was not sure whether Dudley possessed that strength and that courage within him. But who could really know? After all, Dudley had already come this far. It would not take much more.

“I believe you when you say you didn’t understand it,” Harry said at last.

Dudley’s shoulders sagged slightly, as though a burden he had carried since that attack had been lifted from him.

“Maybe we’ll see each other again someday,” Dudley said hesitantly, more as a question than a statement.

Harry thought of the shadows gathering over the world. Of the names that were whispered. Of the decisions that lay before him. He did not even know whether he would live to see the coming winter, spring, and summer. In short, whether he would survive the coming year. Survival was not a certainty, but a distant possibility he scarcely dared to hope for. The war was unpredictable, and in the current situation they were miles away from the end.

“Perhaps,” he answered nevertheless.

It was the best he could offer.

“Take care of yourself,” Dudley said, and this time it did not sound like a mere formality.

Harry glanced over at the car, in which his aunt sat motionless.

“Your parents’ decision to leave,” he said, “is the first time they’ve done something right.”

Dudley frowned.

“The war isn’t a joke,” Harry continued. “It’s real. And it will get worse. Even if you are not part of my world, you are connected to me. That makes you a target.”

Dudley nodded slowly.

“I hope,” Harry said more quietly, “that you'll stay save.” And by all means, he actually ment it.

Dudley held out his hand to him.

It was a simple gesture, and yet there was more in it than in all the years before. Harry hesitated for a moment, then he took it.

For the first time, this touch was not a silent test of strength, not a stubborn clash of pride and unspoken resentment. It was soft, almost hesitant and yet it carried the weight of something final. It felt like a farewell that Harry had neither longed for nor feared, because he had never believed there would be one. A farewell that simply happened, without announcement, without preparation, and precisely for that reason felt so strangely unreal.

Dudley let his hand fall. For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if he wanted to say something more, as if he were struggling with words that had never been taught to him. Then he turned away and got into the car, the door closing with a dull thud.

At the same moment, the engine came alive under Vernon’s hands with a rough growl. Without turning back, without casting a single glance behind him, he engaged the gear as though he could leave the past behind simply by letting it vanish in the rear-view mirror.

The car began to move, the tyres crunching on the gravel, when suddenly the passenger door opened once more. With a determined, almost stiff movement, Petunia Dursley stepped out for the last time.

She lingered for a few heartbeats before the open car door, as if more than just a narrow strip of metal and leather lay between her and the dark interior as though she had to cross an invisible threshold heavier than any made of stone. The cool evening air brushed around her, yet she did not move. Only after an almost imperceptible breath did she slowly turn to Harry.

For a long time she said nothing. The silence stretched between them, dense and heavy with meaning. Her gaze lifted hesitantly, finding his face, lingering there as if searching his features for something lost, something irretrievable. At last, her eyes rested on his.

Green.

A deep, luminous green, that had lost none of its intensity. Relentless and mercilessly familiar. As green as her sister’s eyes once had been.

Lily.

Petunia had once loved those eyes. She had seen them gleam in the narrow light of their childhood bedroom, when Lily stood by the window speaking of things larger than the world they knew. In that green, dreams had shone — bold, radiant, full of promise — dreams of a reality that stretched beyond the dusty streets of their childhood. Petunia had recognised that longing for something extraordinary, and yet felt, at the same time, that she herself would never be a part of it.

What had begun as admiration had quietly shifted. Imperceptibly at first, like a shadow stretching with the setting sun. Love had turned into envy, and envy into a growing coldness. She had watched the distance between her and her sister widen, year by year, word by word. She had remained silent — always silent — when Vernon or Marge added their barbed remarks, when they caricatured James and Lily to make the incomprehensible appear ridiculous.

Her silence had been consent, or at least cowardice. And she had known it.

Instead of confronting her own pain, she had displaced it. Had projected all that she believed lost onto a child who bore no guilt. Onto a boy who was nothing more than the inheritance of what she had never been able to be.

And now he stood before her.

No longer the scrawny little boy in oversized, torn clothing. No longer the supposed burden she had convinced herself she must bear. But a young man — upright, silent, with an expression on his face at once strange and painfully familiar.

In his features, so much of Lily was reflected that it almost hurt.

She would never truly apologise.

The words lay beyond her capacity, foreign and awkward like a language she had never learned. She could feel remorse — yes. But to voice it, to shape it into humility, she lacked the courage.

Yet one thing she knew with painful clarity: she had failed.

As a sister, and above all as an aunt.

“Take care of yourself, boy,” she said quietly.

There was no mockery in it, no cutting edge, no cold sense of superiority. Only weariness. A weariness that ran deeper than the years gone by as if holding on to resentment had exhausted her more than any truth ever could.

Harry knew nothing of the storm that raged behind her impassive expression. He saw only the woman who had overlooked him, scolded him, kept him small over the years. The woman whose voice often sounded harsh and dismissive in his memories. Anger stirred within him — old, familiar, almost comfortable in its constancy. And yet there was a strange exhaustion, as if even the rage had grown tired.

He did not know whether he could ever forgive her. Perhaps he would never know.

But this was not the moment for reckoning. Not for words that would attempt to organise the past.

His thoughts were already elsewhere: on the war, drawing closer like an unavoidable shadow. On those who waited for him. On the task that only he could accomplish. On what had to be done.

He nodded.

It was a small, almost formless gesture—yet all he could give.

Petunia held his gaze for one more heartbeat. Something unspoken flickered there and then faded again. Then she turned away and climbed into the car.

The engine roared to life. The tyres rolled over the perfectly paved drive, a steady, final sound.

The car slowly drew away, growing smaller until it disappeared at the end of the street.

Silence settled over everything.

Harry was left alone.

The house behind him was empty, the windows dark, the rooms stripped of voices and habits. And for the first time in his life, it belonged to him, if only for a fleeting, almost unreal moment.

The house was quiet.

It was not the familiar, tense silence Harry knew, the kind in which every creak of the floorboards sounded like a threatening reprimand and in which he had learnt to move without a sound so to give no cause for trouble. No – this was a different kind of silence. One that spread because there was no one left to break it with orders, with scolding, or with the shrill laughter from the television.

Harry closed the front door behind him – the click of the lock echoed unusually loudly through the hallway – and he stood still for a moment before finally looking around once more.

The coat rack was empty. No coat hung from the hook anymore, no oversized scarf of Dudley’s, no neatly pressed blazer of Petunia’s. The mirror above the small chest of drawers reflected only him – a nearly seventeen-year-old boy with memories too large for his eyes.

He knew this was only a moment in between. The Order would arrive soon. The plan had been worked out meticulously, every minute calculated and every route determined. He would leave this place, and if everything went well, he would never have to return here again. At least, that was what Harry told himself.

In truth, he did not know exactly what awaited him or whether such a fixed plan even existed. However, Moody had been in command of the Order ever since Dumbledore had been murdered by Snape, and Moody was known for many things, but most certainly not for improvisation.

And yet – despite knowing how little time remained to him at this gathering place of the memories of his childhood – he felt himself drawn deeper into the house. Slowly, he climbed up the stairs.

His footsteps sounded hollow, almost unfamiliar, as though he were moving through the skeleton of a building that had housed his life without ever embracing it. It had been the foundation of his existence and at the same time always a pivot point of his own alienation.

At the top he paused before the door that had once been Dudley’s second bedroom – the room that had only been given to him years later, when the truth about his life could no longer be hidden beneath the stairs. He still remembered the day Hagrid had opened the door to another world for him, and the fury of his aunt and uncle when they had been forced to accept that one could not simply deny what he was.

He pressed the handle down.

The room had been cleared out, just as was to be expected. After all, in their determined departure the Dursleys had taken everything that had found a place in their new house. The wallpaper, however, still showed faint, faded outlines where posters had once hung. The carpet was lighter in the places where furniture had once stood. And when Harry allowed himself, for a moment, to take in his surroundings with all his senses, he could still detect the smell of dust and a trace of something familiar that could not quite be named.

Here he had spent his first school holidays after Hogwarts, had lain on the bed and stared at the ceiling while the events of the school year still echoed within him. Here he had written letters, read secretly beneath the covers, had tried to hold on to the magic of the castle in his thoughts in order to make the bleakness of this house more bearable. He stepped up to the window.

From here he had often looked out onto the street and imagined what it would be like to simply leave, not only physically, but for good. Harry remembered the summer before his third year at school, when he had followed that urge for the first time, though it had ultimately been less successful than he had hoped, since he had still been forced to return to this unsettling place. For his own protection, of course, as Dumbledore had eventually confessed to him. In that moment Harry wondered whether his late headmaster had ever known what had been done to him in this house. Whether he had known how often the protection he was meant to receive here had been replaced by the bleakness of his loneliness, his neglect, and the pain of Vernon’s wretched violence. On days like these Harry thought about many things. His thoughts of Dumbledore were only a fraction of a far greater whole. He often wondered what it would be like to have a home that did not merely tolerate him, but truly welcomed him.

A home like the Burrow.

A home like Grimmauld Place – despite its hideous outward appearance – at least for a summer.

A home he had never truly been allowed to keep.

The deeper he grasped that thought at its root and the longer he turned it between his fingers, the clearer it became that it had never been a concrete, physical place he had longed for and, if he was honest with himself, still longed for. It was not a house of stone, not a particular room, not a bed or a view from a window that he lacked. What he missed, what he searched for and what something inside him reached for without ceasing, had always been the idea of belonging. That elusive and yet unmistakable feeling of having arrived somewhere. That, more than anything else, was what he had felt to be a true home.

Harry wanted to believe – more than that, he clung to the thought – that his parents had once given his younger self exactly this feeling. That there had been a time when he had found safety in their arms, comfort in their voices, and protection in their presence. Yet it could be no more than belief. Perhaps a quiet hope, a self-fashioned memory born more from longing than from knowledge. For he possessed no real memories of that time anymore. Perhaps he had never possessed them at all. Perhaps they had been taken from him before he had been old enough to hold on to them.

Thus it had been the Weasleys who first became the tangible embodiment of what a home could feel like to him. Not because their house had been perfect or because everything there had always run in proper order – quite the opposite actually. But because there had been warmth there. Because there had been people who looked at him as though he belonged. Molly’s warm, almost motherly firm embraces, in which he could let himself fall for a fleeting, precious moment without having to remain on guard. Without having to hold himself together. Without having to be strong.

The twins, who from the very first day had treated him like a younger brother – whether by entrusting him with the Marauder’s Map or by casually dragging him into one of their countless pranks. It was the natural ease with which they teased him that made him smile. And finally, of course, Ron – his best friend, his brother in spirit – who had never left his side from the very beginning. Ron, who eventually stood beside him even if they hadn't always looked each other from eye to eye.

And yet in the end it had been Sirius who had given him the deepest and at the same time most shattering feeling of finally having found his true place in this world. In the months Harry had been allowed to share with him, Sirius had taken on a fatherly role for him – or at least Harry imagined that a father must be exactly like that. Someone who believed in him. Who was proud of him. Who trusted him to be more than merely “the boy who lived”. Of course Harry had never spoken that thought aloud. It had felt wrong, almost like a betrayal of his real father, whose image he carried within him with reverence. Yet the truth was that Sirius was the only one he had truly known. And Sirius had been everything the young Potter could ever have wished for.

But even that, painful as it was, almost lost its meaning in hindsight. For in the end a single small foolishness had been enough – a moment of thoughtlessness, a wrong step – and his home had been torn from him once more as though he had no right to it.

By now Harry was convinced that perhaps he simply was not meant to have a home. Perhaps this was his form of reckoning. Perhaps it was the price for all that had been taken from others, only so that he might survive that night. Life had been granted to him, but not a life that could ever truly quiet his deep, unspoken longing for shelter and safety.

His gaze drifted across the empty room, and in his memory it slowly filled again – not suddenly, not like a book flung open, but gradually, layer by layer, like dust gathering in the light. There was the soft rustle of letter paper, sounding almost too loud in the silence, as though every word upon it had weighed more than ordinary ink. There was Hedwig’s gentle, patient tapping of her beak against the window, a persistent sound that told him there was another world, one in which messages did not arrive in envelopes containing bills, but on parchment sealed with wax. And there was that delicate, almost cautious feeling that somewhere in the world there were people who did not see him as a burden – people who spoke his name without letting a sigh follow it.

The air in the room was stale, as though it had ceased to move the moment the last suitcases had been carried out. No breath, no step, no word had disturbed it since. Even the light falling through the window seemed paler, as though it had noticed that no one remained to pay it any mind.

He closed the door behind him.

The click of the lock was quiet, yet it sounded final. It was not a slam, not an expression of anger or haste, merely a simple movement that nevertheless carried more weight than it should have. His hand remained on the handle for a moment, as though he needed to make certain that he truly wished to let go of it. Then he drew his fingers back.

The stairs creaked beneath his steps as he went down again.

Each step answered him with a familiar sound, as though it remembered his weight. It was a noise that had followed him all his life – sometimes as a warning when he tried to sneak down at night for a glass of water; sometimes as a betrayer when Uncle Vernon wanted to know where he was. Today it only sounded hollow. No television drowned out the creaking, no booming laughter from the sitting room, no sharp “What are you doing?” from the kitchen.

He did not hold on to the banister. He knew every uneven spot, every place where the wood had grown smoother from countless hands sliding across it. His steps were calm, neither hurried nor hesitant, yet there was a heaviness in them that had nothing to do with tiredness.

The kitchen greeted him with cold light.

It fell through the window above the sink and drew harsh lines across the tiles. Dust motes drifted within it like tiny, aimless stars. The room seemed larger than it ever had before, perhaps because there was nothing left within it to fill it. No sound of running water, no clatter of dishes, no sharp hiss of fat in the pan.

The worktops shone, just as they always had. Not a crumb, not a used dish, not a trace of life. Petunia had probably wiped them down one last time before she left – carefully, thoroughly, almost pedantically – as though cleanliness alone could banish every form of disorder from the world. As though removing stains could erase everything else as well: arguments, fear, resentment.

Harry stopped beside the cooker.

He laid a hand on the cool surface, feeling the metal beneath his fingers. How often had he stood here, even before he had been tall enough to reach the worktop without standing on tiptoe? Back then he had stretched himself up, trying to take up as little space as possible while still doing everything properly. He had chopped vegetables with a knife far too large for his hands. He had peeled potatoes, placing the skins carefully into a bowl so that none of them fell to the floor. He had stirred pans, felt the steam on his face and the heat that flushed his cheeks.

Meanwhile Dudley had been sitting in the living room watching television. The laughter from the set had drifted down the hallway, accompanied by the rustling of crisp packets and the occasional crack of a can being opened. Harry had breathed in the smell of roasting meat – rich, heavy, promising – and had known that he himself would only receive a small portion, if any at all. Sometimes he had told himself that he wasn’t hungry. Sometimes he had hoped that perhaps a piece might still remain once Dudley had had his fill.

He remembered the constant admonitions not to let anything burn, not to drop anything, not to do anything wrong. The words had not always been loud, but they had carried a weight that pressed down on him. “Mind that.” “Be careful.” “Do it properly.” Every syllable had been a warning, every movement a test.

He remembered the fear that had grown inside him whenever a pot boiled over or a cup shattered. The soft clink of broken china had been enough to make his heart beat faster. He had then tried to gather the shards as quickly as possible, hoping perhaps no one would notice. But they always noticed. And each time it had been more than a simple mishap – it had been proof. Another piece of evidence for what he had been told all his life: that he was unwanted. That he was a nuisance. That if he simply disappeared, no one would miss him.

The kitchen had absorbed those words. They had settled into the joints between the tiles, into the edges of the cupboards, into the fine scratches on the worktop. Even now, in the silence, they seemed to echo faintly.

And yet it had also been here that he had learnt to look after himself.

It had not been a kind lesson, no patient explanation. It had been learning out of necessity, through observation, through the desire not to give anyone reason to complain. He had learnt how long pasta had to boil without looking at a clock. He had learnt how much salt was enough without adding too much. He had learnt to judge the heat of an oven by holding his hand cautiously in front of it.

He had learnt to endure hunger.

Not just the hunger for food, but the other kind – the hunger for a kind word, for an approving glance, for a place at the table that was more than the edge. He had learnt that deprivation is not always loud. Sometimes it is quiet, constant, like a drop that falls again and again.

He had learnt to be silent.

To work silently. To eat silently. To vanish silently when guests arrived. His footsteps had grown soft, his movements careful. He had learnt how to make himself small, how to slip between furniture and expectations without being noticed. He had learnt not to ask questions, not to expect answers.

He had learnt not to let himself be completely broken.

Perhaps that had been the most important thing. Amid all the chores, all the admonitions, all the cold, there had been something inside him that refused to fall entirely silent. A spark that did not go out, even when he was told he was nothing special, nothing of value. Perhaps it had been defiance. Perhaps hope. Perhaps simply the quiet certainty that the world was larger than these four walls.

His gaze wandered to the spot where the kitchen table had once stood.

Now there was only a lighter patch on the floor, a rectangle marking where furniture had stood for years. Yet he could still see the scene clearly in his mind. That had been where Dudley had unwrapped presents on birthdays, stacking them like little monuments of favouritism. Colourful scraps of paper had covered the floor, ribbons tossed aside carelessly. Dudley’s laughter had been loud, demanding, insatiable.

Harry had stood beside him and watched.

Sometimes he had counted the presents, not out of envy alone, but out of a strange fascination. How many boxes does it take to prove that one is loved? How many parcels to be sure that one is important? He had never learned the answer.

That had been where Uncle Vernon had raged, red-faced, about “unnatural things.” His voice had been louder than usual, his hand slamming the newspaper onto the table so that the glasses clinked. Headlines of strange incidents, of unexplainable events, had run across the pages. Vernon had read them without knowing they were part of a far larger story – a story in which Harry himself played a role, whether anyone wanted him to or not.

The words “unnatural” and “disgusting” had been burned into the air. They had swept through the room like cold wind. Harry had often lowered his gaze, trying not to react. He had known that every twitch, every wrong word, would only fuel the fire further.

The kitchen had never been a place of togetherness.

There had been no warm exchanges, no shared laughter over failed recipes, no conversations that lasted longer than necessary. Meals had been duties, not rituals. The table – when it had still been there – had connected fewer people than it had divided.

For Harry, it had been a workplace.

A room in which expectations were clear and affection had no place. A room where he could make himself useful if he was not welcome. And yet it had been more than that. It had been a silent witness. It had watched him grow. How he had grown taller, steadier in his movements. How his hands no longer shook when he lifted a glass.

He breathed in.

The smell of cleaning products still lingered in the air, sharp and clean. Beneath it, faintly, he thought he could detect something else – perhaps a memory, not a real scent. Something warm, long since gone.

His fingers glided over the edge of the worktop. A tiny scratch ran through the wood, barely visible. Perhaps he had made it himself, years ago, when a knife had slipped from his hand. Perhaps it had been someone else. It did not matter. The scratch remained, just as so much else remained, even when one tried to wipe it away.

He let his hand fall.

In the silence, he heard his own breathing more clearly than anything else. No ticking clock, no hum of the fridge. Only that soft in and out, proof that at least he was still there.

One last look around the room.

Not to check that everything was clean. Not to see if anything had been forgotten. But to remind himself that all of it had truly happened. That the years here had not been merely a cruel dream, but a part of his story.

The kitchen was empty.

Yet it was not meaningless.

It had been the place where he had learnt what it meant to have little and still go on. Where he had felt the sting of exclusion and yet had not been entirely broken. Where, between cooker and sink, between admonitions and silence, he had discovered a fragment of resistance within himself.

Slowly, he turned away.

His footsteps echoed softly on the tiles as he moved toward the door. For a moment he paused, hand resting on the frame. He felt no sudden wave of grief, no overwhelming regret. Rather, a quiet clarity. This room had shaped him, but it did not define him.

He opened the door.

Cool air flowed in, fresher than the stagnant stillness of the kitchen. It felt different – neither familiar nor hostile. Simply open.

He stepped outside.

Behind him, the kitchen remained, spotless and empty, just as it had always been, only now without the people who had given it meaning. And ahead of him lay a path that did not smell of cleaning products, did not echo with admonitions, but of something undefined, something his own.

He left it and stepped into the living room.

The curtains were half drawn, the light falling in narrow, almost cautious strips across the carpet. It was not warm, inviting light, but pale, exposing the room rather than beautifying it. The dust was visible, drifting lazily through the air, as though unsure where to settle. Without furniture, the living room seemed larger, yet oddly defenseless. Almost bare, as though its purpose had been stripped away. No sofa, no television, no table around which people gathered. Only walls, floor, window. A room robbed of its function, revealing nothing.

The living room – a place that for other families had meant warmth, conversation, and shared laughter – had always been a symbol of exclusion for him. For others, such a space might have sounded like comfort: the rustle of newspapers, the clink of teacups, voices overlapping. For him, it had been a place where he learned how to stand at the edge without being noticed. Here he had waited by the door when visitors came, unsure whether he would be introduced or sent away. Here he had finally been sent to his room, with a curt nod or a knowing look, so that no one had to see him, so that his mere presence would not disturb the carefully maintained image.

Here he had heard the Dursleys’ laughter while he remained excluded.

He stepped into the centre of the room.

His footsteps sounded unusually loud on the bare carpet. In the past, they had been swallowed by the sofa cushions, the heavy wooden table, the muted hum of the television. Now they echoed faintly, as if the room itself were responding to him. He paused where the table had once stood and slowly turned in a circle. It was strange how memory could fill an empty space so completely.

In his mind, Dudley sat on the sofa, feet on the table, knees spread wide, as though he owned not just the furniture but the whole room. The remote clutched firmly in his hand, ready to turn up the television whenever something demanded his attention. Uncle Vernon sat beside him, broad and self-satisfied, with that expression on his face that said everything was exactly as it should be. That the world ought to conform to his rules. A brief, pleased nod when the news confirmed his view, a disapproving snort when it did not.

Petunia brought in the tea, the tray balanced with care, the cups clinking almost imperceptibly. Her movements were precise, almost stiff. And if she noticed Harry still standing in the doorway, she would give him that look – one that needed no words. A look that meant he should disappear. That his place was not here. That there was no chair waiting for him.

At the time, he had not known what he had lost, not until he was old enough to understand it. As a child, before Hogwarts, he had no frame of reference. He had not known that other families were different. That living rooms could be places where stories were told, where people leaned on one another, where silence could be shared without its weight pressing down. He had only felt that something was missing. Something invisible, yet tangible, like a draught in a closed room.

Something other children took for granted: a family.

Not just people living under the same roof, but a sense of belonging that did not have to be earned every single time. A certainty that came without conditions.

Harry thought of his parents, James Potter and Lily Potter, of faces he had only known from photographs. Photos in which they laughed as though laughter were effortless. The way his father held him up in one picture as though he were the most precious thing in the world. His mother’s soft, almost radiant smile when she looked at the camera. He had studied these pictures so often that he knew every detail – the curve of their eyebrows, the strands of their hair, the warmth in her gaze.

And to this day, he thought of voices he had had to imagine himself. Of a “Harry” that had never sounded irritated or sharp, but soft. Of a laugh that was for him, not at him. He had shaped these voices in his mind, from stories and from what others had said about them and had pieced them together like a puzzle of fragments.

Harry thought of peoples' recollections, of the way they spoke of his parents as if they were alive in their memories. How their eyes changed when they talked about them – growing brighter, warmer. As if James Potter and Lily Potter were not just part of the past, but still present in every word. These memories had been borrowed treasures for him. Precious, yet never entirely his own.

He wondered what it would have been like to sit here in the living room, not as a stranger, but as a son. On the sofa, legs pulled up, while his father told a story. Or lying on the carpet while his mother laughed at something he had said. The thought no longer came with the sharp force it had in earlier years. It was no longer a pang, but more a dull ache. Yet it was still there, like an old scar that throbbed with changing weather. You grew accustomed to it, but you never forgot it.

Slowly, he turned away.

His steps carried him back into the hallway. The passage was narrow, the walls closer than in the living room. Here he had often stood, uncertain whether to move forward or remain still. The hallway had always been a thoroughfare, never a destination. Today it was both at once.

He knew which room was still missing.

And so it did not take long before his legs carried him there, as if following an invisible trail of memory. Each step brought him closer to the narrow door beneath the stairs. It was unassuming, almost hidden, as though the house itself had tried to ignore it. And yet, for a long time, it had been the centre of his small world.

He stopped in front of it.

The handle was cool beneath his fingers. The metal had taken on the chill of the house, as if it had itself become part of the silence. He felt the weight of the years in that simple touch. How many times had he pressed this handle? How many times had he opened it quietly, careful to make no sound?

This was where it had all begun, at least all that he could remember.

As a child, he had lain here, surrounded by cobwebs and suitcases. Old cases with worn corners, smelling of leather and dust. Cardboard boxes filled with things nobody needed anymore, yet which were never thrown away. He had slept among them like another object, stored and forgotten. He had watched the light through the narrow gap beneath the door, a thin strip of brightness that stretched across the floor and shifted whenever someone passed. Sometimes it had been the only thing that showed him there was still a world outside this small room.

His younger self had waited for the voices in the house to die down.

The murmur of the television. Dudley’s loud laughter. Vernon’s deep, grumbling voice. Petunia’s sharp retorts. When silence finally fell, it had not been comforting, but dense. Only then had he allowed himself to close his eyes.

Harry opened the door.

The room was smaller than he remembered or perhaps he had simply grown. The ceiling sloped downward, following the line of the staircase. The walls seemed to draw closer together, as if reminding him of the confinement that had been his first conscious state. There was no bed, no thin mattress, no blanket. Only bare floor and empty walls.

A few dust motes danced in the narrow shaft of light that fell through the open door. They swirled as he stepped inside, as if they had been waiting for this very movement.

Here he had dreamed.

Not of fame or greatness. Not of prophecies or battles. Not of a role in a story larger than himself. But of simple things. Of an actual bed that would creak when you turned over. Of a window that could be opened to let in fresh air. Of a voice that spoke his name with affection – not sharp, not irritated, but warm.

He took a step further in.

The room seemed to embrace him, as though recognising him again. He had to duck slightly, though it was hardly necessary – an old habit. His hand brushed along the wall. The plaster was cool, rough under his fingers. Here he had lain, eyes open in the dark, imagining that somewhere out there, someone was thinking of him. That somewhere, a place existed where he did not feel out of place.

He knew that this place had shaped him in a way neither Vernon nor Petunia could ever have understood. To them, it had been only a practical storage space. To him, it had been the first room he could call his own, however insignificant it might have seemed. Solitude had made him resilient. It had taught him to get along with himself, to order his thoughts, to not completely give up hope. Deprivation had taught him to feel gratitude for things others took for granted – a proper bed, a window, a kind word.

And yet there was a part of him that wondered what he might have become had he not slept here. Whether he would have laughed differently. Whether he would have been less wary. Whether he would have learned to trust more quickly. These questions had no answers, and yet they kept arising.

He pressed his hand flat against the wall, as if to reassure himself that it was really there. That all of it had been real.

At some point, Harry would have to leave this place behind.

Not just physically. Not merely by closing the door, but by accepting that this had been a beginning and that beginnings did not have to determine the end.

He knew there was no going back.

Not to this confinement. Not to that role. Not to the quiet endurance. Even if the house still stood, even if the walls were still the same – he was no longer the same.

And just as he wondered whether he felt relief or loss, a distant sound echoed outside.

At first it was barely more than a vibration in the air. A deep rumble that did not belong to the familiar stillness of Privet Drive. It drew nearer, becoming clearer. Several engines. Heavy, powerful, unmistakable. They shattered the Sunday quiet of the street like a crack through glass.

The sound did not arrive like a thunderclap, not sudden and shattering, but at first as a distant, trembling rumble that only slowly separated itself from the ordinary soundscape of a summer’s evening. It was the deep, mechanical drone of several engines drawing nearer, rhythmic and unnatural in a street whose greatest distinction had always been that it sounded like any other proper suburban road: muted, controlled, harmless.

Harry was still standing in the hallway, the door to the cupboard beneath the stairs closed behind him, when he recognised the sound. His heart tightened, not out of fear — well, not only at least— but from the abrupt certainty that it was beginning now.

He stepped into the sitting room and pulled the abandoned curtain aside by a narrow slit.

Several dark specks were descending from the sky, at first little more than shadows against the fading blue of the clouds. Then they grew larger, took shape: brooms, a flying motorbike, cloaks billowing in the wind. To any Muggle who might have happened to glance out of the window, it would have been an inexplicable spectacle, something perhaps dismissed later in a half-muttered conversation as a trick of the light. But for Harry it was no longer a marvel, only a sign that his world had once again forced its way into this one; unstoppable and inescapable.

The first feet touched the asphalt with a dull, scarcely audible sound which nevertheless carried strangely clearly through the still evening air of Privet Drive, as though even the neat, immaculate suburb paused for a moment to register that things were happening in this seemingly ordinary street which had nothing whatsoever to do with ordinary life.

A gust of wind swept along the road, cool and dry, stirring a few forgotten leaves across the perfectly swept pavement, where normally only the neighbours’ neatly trimmed lawns or the occasional bicycles of playing children ever drew attention; yet now something else hung in the air, something that even a person without magical ability might perhaps have sensed as a quiet, underlying tension spreading across the rows of identical houses like a barely visible veil.

The door handle shifted in Harry’s hand, and before anyone outside could react he had already opened the door. They stood before him, close together on the narrow path that led to the front step: members of the Order of the Phoenix, some familiar, others less so, yet all wearing the same expression of grave concentration, as though during the whole journey here they had already been running through in their minds the dangers that might await them.

For a brief moment, nobody said anything.

Harry had not seen them for weeks, and although he had known they would come, it was still a strange feeling to see them actually standing before him now – so many familiar faces in a place that had been empty and silent for so long.

“Harry,” said Kingsley at last.

His deep voice sounded calm and controlled, as it always did, as though even the threat of catastrophe could not compel him to lose his composure.

Harry gave a brief nod.

He was not quite sure what he ought to say, and as his gaze moved over parts of the group – over Tonks with her slightly impatient expression, over Bill Weasley with his long hair, over Lupin, who looked as he always did, a little tired yet alert – he suddenly became very aware that only a few seconds earlier he had been completely alone in this house.

And now he was not.

Hermione stepped forward at once, scarcely Harry had closed the door before she did so, and stopped so close in front of him that for a moment he had no chance to greet anyone else properly. There was none of that sober, almost academic detachment in her face with which she usually regarded new situations; instead she looked at him with an open, almost cautious attentiveness, as though she wished to make certain that he was truly all right and not merely claiming that he was.

Her eyes moved briefly across his face, pausing for a moment at his forehead, as if involuntarily checking whether any new signs of worry or sleeplessness might be visible there, before seeking his gaze again.

“Everything all right?” she asked quietly, after finally drawing him into a firm embrace and pausing there for a moment, as though his presence alone helped to bring her back down to earth.

It was not a hurried question, but a calm, sincere one, and Harry knew at once that during the past few weeks she must have wondered more than once how he had been getting on here. The thought that he had been sitting alone in this house while the world outside grew more dangerous could not have sat easily with her.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but for a brief moment he hesitated.

The truth was difficult to put into a few words. It was not that anything in particular had happened; and yet everything had felt different since he knew that this summer would be the last he would spend here.

“Yes,” he said at last.

The answer came a little too quickly, almost automatically. It was the sort of reply one gave when one realised that the truth was more complicated than a single sentence, but did not quite know how to explain it.

Hermione looked at him for another moment. Her gaze remained attentive, yet at last she gave a small nod, as though she had decided—for the time being—to take him at his word.

“Good,” she said softly.

Ron was standing directly behind her.

He had drawn his shoulders up slightly, as though unconsciously trying to appear more determined, and although his face wore a broad, familiar grin, Harry immediately recognised the tension in his eyes.

“Ready?” Ron asked.

Harry gave a small shrug. Ron nodded as though that were answer enough, but before either of them could say anything more, a hard, dull clack sounded behind them.

Mad-Eye Moody pushed his way forward.

His wooden leg struck the stone slab of the front step with a heavy, unyielding sound, and as he came nearer his magical eye was in constant motion. It spun in quick, jerking movements, checking windows, gutters, street, and sky, as though expecting at any moment to catch some movement that remained invisible to everyone else.

“No suspicious movement in the immediate vicinity,” Moody growled at last.

His voice sounded rough, as though over the years it had issued more orders than it had ever held conversations.

He paused briefly before adding dryly, “But that means nothing. Inside. Now.”

It was not a request, and the group immediately set itself in motion.

One after another they stepped through the doorway, and Harry had to move back to make room as the narrow hallway of number four quickly filled with more people than it had seen in years.

All at once, the familiar silence vanished.

Muffled voices filled the hallway. Cloaks rustled, boots clicked against the tiles, someone carefully leaned a broom against the wall. From upstairs came Hedwig’s indignant screech, loud enough that several people instinctively glanced upward.

Harry closed the door behind them. His hand remained on the handle for a moment. A strange thought suddenly occurred to him that he might just have touched this door from the inside for the last time. The idea was unexpected, and he could not immediately shake it off.

“Right,” Moody said loudly.

When Harry turned around, he noticed that the others had already gathered in the sitting room, and the space which only a few minutes earlier had seemed quiet and almost empty to him now appeared noticeably smaller with so many people inside it. Where silence had reigned before, witches and wizards now stood close together, some deep in conversation, others silent, as though waiting for something. Only a short while ago Harry had been sitting here alone with his thoughts, the room around him perfectly still. Now, however, the sitting room was full of wizards, and their mere presence altered the atmosphere completely.

Unbidden, a question formed in Harry’s mind. One he had found himself asking more and more often lately, even if he rarely spoke it aloud. How many of them would actually survive the war? How many of the people standing here now would still be alive in a few months’ time?

As his gaze moved across the assembled faces, another thought crept into his mind, heavier still. Might he be seeing some of these witches and wizards for the very last time today, without knowing it?

Harry stepped into the sitting room as well and paused for a moment, slowly taking in the familiar faces around him. At that precise moment, one figure broke from the group and stepped forward a few paces, standing slightly apart from the others.

It was Remus Lupin.

For a brief moment, Harry froze, as though surprised by the sight. It was a strange feeling to see Remus again, even though he had known he would be here. Yet this reunion felt different from what Harry had expected. Remus seemed a little thinner than the last time they had met, and there were a few new lines on his face that Harry had never noticed so clearly before. These subtle changes made him look older than Harry remembered. At the same time, however, something about him remained entirely unchanged. His gaze was still the same calm, kind, and attentive look that Harry knew so well.

Remus met his eyes, and a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Harry,” he said.

There was a warmth in his voice that Harry recognised immediately, something familiar and reassuring, as if nothing about it had changed, even though so much time had passed.

“Remus,” Harry replied.

Even his own voice sounded calmer than he had expected, yet it felt strangely right to speak the name so naturally.

They both stepped forward, as though the movement required no thought at all. Remus lifted his hand and rested it briefly on Harry’s shoulder. It was a simple, firm gesture — not flashy, not exaggerated — yet in its plainness lay a meaning Harry understood at once. That brief touch conveyed a closeness that words could never fully capture.

“It’s good to see you,” Remus said.

His tone was calm and sincere, and Harry had no doubt that he meant exactly what he said.

“You too,” Harry answered honestly.

For a moment they were silent, yet the silence was not awkward. It was the kind of brief pause that could exist between two people who had not seen each other for a long time but immediately found a familiar connection again.

Then Remus withdrew his hand.

As he did so, Harry’s gaze happened to fall on Remus’ fingers. At first it was only a fleeting glance, but almost immediately it lingered. On Remus’ left hand gleamed a slender golden ring, its surface catching the light with a subtle flash.

Harry blinked, as if he had stumbled upon something entirely unexpected.

The sight surprised him so much that for a moment he didn’t quite know what to say. His gaze drifted back to the ring, as though he needed to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. Then, suddenly, he understood what this small detail meant.

“You’re—” he began.

But he didn’t get to finish the sentence.

The corners of Remus’ mouth lifted slightly, and a small, almost reserved smile appeared on his face.

“Yes,” he said calmly.

His voice was composed, yet his expression carried a quiet, slightly bashful quality, as if he were aware that this news might easily go unnoticed amidst all the other events and worries of the moment or perhaps even feel somewhat out of place.

Harry looked at the ring once more and felt a smile spread across his face before he had time to think about it.

“That’s brilliant,” he said at last.

His voice was sincere, and he meant every word he spoke.

For a brief moment, Remus’ expression changed noticeably. His smile broadened just a little, and for a moment he seemed almost younger, as though this simple reaction had lifted some of the weariness from his features.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

It was only a single word, yet it sounded sincere and calm.

The brief moment between them might have lingered a little longer, but before either could say anything further, another voice cut through the room.

“We’ve little time,” Moody interrupted, his rough, impatient voice carrying across the sitting room.

The group turned to him. Slowly, they arranged themselves in a semicircle around him, while Harry lingered a moment longer, still thinking of the ring, before joining the others.

Moody folded his arms.

“The enemy knows that your mother’s protection ends at midnight,” he said without preamble. The words struck Harry with the weight he had expected, yet they still felt uncomfortably real.

“He also knows,” Moody continued, “that you come of age then, and are no longer bound by said protection.”

A brief silence followed.

“So we assume they’ll be waiting for us.”

Harry felt the weight of those words settle in his stomach. Moody, by contrast, lifted his chin slightly, entirely unaffected by the tense atmosphere around him.

“That’s why we’ll confuse them,” he said, his magical eye swivelling toward Harry. “Seven Potters.”

A low murmur ran through the room.

Harry lifted his head. “No,” he said immediately. Several heads turned toward him, and Moody fixed him with a sharp look.

“That’s far too dangerous,” the Potter tried to explain. “If they think one of you is me—”

“That’s the whole point,” Moody cut him off, but Harry shook his head.

“They’ll try to kill you.”

Bill Weasley folded his arms calmly. “This is war, Harry. They’d do it anyway,” he said evenly.

Tonks nodded in agreement. “We’re not here to babysit you.”

Harry looked from one to the other. There was a determination on their faces that left no room for doubt. After a moment, he lowered his gaze. “Alright then,” he said.

Moody gave a brief nod. “Polyjuice Potion,” he tossed the words into the room as if three syllables were enough to make the situation clear. “You'd be familiar with it, ay?"

Harry didn't answer. Moody seemed to know the answer anyway.

"Alright then. Granger?”

Hermione stepped forward. She held a small hip flask containing a thick, murky brown liquid, which she had personally brewed in large quantities for the Order.

Harry stayed in the centre of the room, tensing. “Okay,” he said at last, glancing resignedly at the floor.

“Just a mo—” he began, but Hermione had already produced a small pair of scissors. Before Harry could react, the blade clicked quietly beside his ear.

“Blimey, Mione!”

She paused. A few dark strands of hair were already caught between her fingers. “Sorry,” she said quickly, a little flushed. “I thought if I asked, you’d just argue again.”

Ron grinned from behind her. “She’s probably right.”

Hermione dropped the hair into the potion. Immediately, the liquid began to bubble, and a foul smell filled the Dursleys’ sitting room. The surface rippled as if the potion itself were alive. One by one, the others took the hip flask.

Ron finally stepped forward. He eyed the brown liquid skeptically. “Hope you taste better than Goyle, mate” he said.

Harry snorted quietly. “Good to know where your priorities lie, Ron.”

The one addressed lifted the flask to his mouth, hesitated for a moment, and drank.

He had barely set the bottle down when his face contorted in a way that suggested he had just swallowed something that simultaneously burned, tingled, and resolved, with almost offensive determination, not to travel calmly and orderly through his body, but to work its way through every single fibre, as if carefully testing how much discomfort a human organism could endure in mere moments.

“Ugh—” he began, but the word broke off mid-utterance as his voice suddenly shot up into an unpleasantly high pitch, only to drop immediately back down again, so that the sound that finally emerged from his mouth resembled less a coherent exclamation and more a peculiar, strained mixture of squeak and cough.

As he struggled to comprehend the potion’s sudden assault on his senses, his shoulders twitched in short, uncoordinated jerks, as if his muscles were having trouble agreeing on what task they were supposed to perform at that very moment. Almost simultaneously, something began to change in his arms. At first so subtle that Harry noticed it more as a vague sensation than a clear observation, but within seconds it became apparent that Ron’s proportions were indeed shifting: his sleeves suddenly seemed too long, his hands appeared slightly closer to his elbows, and his whole body began to contract as though invisible hands were patiently, but relentlessly, squeezing him from all sides.

Meanwhile, his skin tone altered slightly, losing some of the familiar hue Harry had known for years. At the same time, his hair — just moments ago a conspicuous, reddish tangle — darkened, thickened, and grew more unruly, until it had formed a chaotic black mass that seemed determined to stand on end in every direction, as if it had decided to obey gravity only grudgingly.

The transformation was in no ways elegant.

It bore no resemblance whatsoever to those smooth, almost graceful changes described in some spellbooks; instead, it consisted of a series of jerky, sometimes even clumsy shifts, in which individual body parts rearranged themselves with visible reluctance, while Ron — if he could even still be called that in this moment — wore an expression somewhere between mounting irritation, mild discomfort, and a desperate attempt not to swear out loud.

“Blimey—” he finally said, yet the word did not come from Ron’s mouth.

It came from Harry’s. Or rather, from the mouth of a second Harry, now standing in the middle of the sitting room, running a hand over his face with a mixture of confusion and rising indignation, as though he needed to make sure that the familiar contours his fingers traced were actually real and not just some particularly unpleasant hallucination.

For a brief moment, one of those dense, almost tangible pauses settled over the room — the kind that occurs when several people simultaneously try to process what they’ve just witnessed.

Then Fred broke into laughter. It was no cautious chuckle, no restrained smile, but a full, unrestrained laugh that burst out of him as though someone had suddenly opened a floodgate.

“Brilliant,” he said at last, clutching his stomach and looking at Ron — or rather, the Harry who had just been Ron — with unashamed delight. “Ron, you look dreadful.”

The new Harry glared at him indignantly. “I look exactly like him!”

“Exactly my point,” Fred replied cheerfully, making no attempt to hide his amusement.

George, who had been standing with his arms crossed up to this point, observing the scene with an expression that was part scientific curiosity, part anticipation of impending mischief, now reached for one of the cups, lifted it slightly, and studied its contents for a moment, as though examining the colour and texture of a particularly dubious beverage.

“All right then,” he said at last, with that calm composure which usually signalled a firm determination to do something potentially foolish. “Let’s see if I look better with this hairstyle.”

“You won’t,” Ginny said dryly.

George grinned, lifted the cup, and drank the potion in a single gulp, making no attempt to brace himself for what came next.

The transformation began immediately. His face contorted, his shoulders slumped slightly, and as his body started to rearrange itself, his red hair disappeared piece by piece under a dark, unruly mane all too familiar to Harry.

Next to Harry, Fleur Delacour let out a distinctly audible sound of disapproval.

“Zis is… really most unpleasant to behold,” she remarked, twisting her face slightly as George, in the middle of the transformation, wore an expression that revealed he found the entire process simultaneously fascinating and thoroughly disagreeable.

“It gets even better,” Fred said cheerfully, already reaching for another cup, lifting it with the calm ease of someone clearly looking forward to the chaos about to unfold.

“Just imagine, Fleur,” he added, his grin widening a little more, “you’re about to be surrounded by seven Harrys at once. Many ladies dream of it, I'm sure.”

Fleur looked at him as if he had just suggested she climb voluntarily into a dragon’s cage.

“Zis sounds absolutely dreadful.”

By now, George had finished his transformation, so there was another Harry in the room, initially running a hand uncertainly through the dark hair, before remarking in a tone that oscillated between genuine amazement and ironic drama:

“I must say, I suddenly feel rather heroic.”

“You probably just feel smaller,” said Ron-Harry dryly.

Meanwhile, Fred lifted his cup.

“All right then,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to be the Chosen One.”

He drank and as the transformation began, Harry watched the process with a mixture of fascination and mounting unease.

For it was a profoundly strange experience to see his own face come into being again and again. The same forehead. The same eyes. The same scar.

When Fred’s face had finally fully taken on Harry’s features, the new Harry slowly turned to him, studying him for several seconds with a seriousness that was almost unusual for Fred, before remarking thoughtfully:

“Interesting.”

“What?” asked Harry.

Fred-Harry tilted his head slightly. “You’re much smaller than I expected.”

“I’m not small.”

“Compared to me, you are.”

Meanwhile, the others stepped forward, and finally Hermione picked up one of the cups, her expression one of focused determination, revealing that she had already resolved internally to do something unpleasant because it was necessary.

Before she drank, she glanced briefly at Harry.

“It’ll be all right,” she said softly.

Harry nodded. Then she drank.

Her transformation was less chaotic than the others’ — perhaps because she moved instinctively less, or because her body simply carried out the change in a slightly more orderly fashion — but it was still strange. Her body shrank slightly, her hair darkened and shortened, and within seconds another Harry stood in the room, immediately adjusting his glasses with a slightly uncertain hand.

“Oh,” said Hermione-Harry, surprised. “The glasses are really crooked.”

“Welcome to my life,” Harry said dryly.

“That’s deeply disturbing,” muttered Ron-Harry.

Finally, only Fleur remained, holding the cup delicately between two fingers, as if it were something better not touched for too long.

“Do I really have to?” she asked.

“Yes,” Moody said immediately.

Fleur grimaced.

“Zis is… disgusting.”

“You’ll get used to it,” said Fred-Harry cheerfully.

Fleur closed her eyes briefly, as though enduring one last test of patience internally, before finally raising the cup and tipping the potion down.

Her reaction was immediate.

“Oh! Zis is terr—”

The sentence broke off as her body had already begun to change, her features shifting, and within just a few seconds another Harry stood in the room, looking extremely displeased.

Fleur-Harry regarded herself with disgust. “I- I  look hideous.”

Fred-Harry burst out laughing again. “You’re the most elegant Harry I’ve ever seen.”

“Tais-toi!” Fleur-Harry snapped.

Now there were six. Six Harrys and the real Harry.

He stood in the middle of the room, his gaze slowly drifting from one face to another, and again and again he was struck by familiar features that were at once unsettling and fascinating; some of these faces grinned crookedly, others displayed nervousness, while still others studied their own hands or the folds of their clothing, as if they first needed to figure out how this new body felt—yet somehow, strangely, it belonged to all of them.

As Harry took in the scene, watching the mirrored versions of himself fill the room, every movement, every gesture both familiar and foreign, a sudden realisation hit him—a weight heavier than anything he had experienced before: he was going to leave this house.

For good.

He had never loved this place — the years here had been ones he would have preferred to forget entirely — and yet it had been the only place that had ever, even if only formally, been something that could be called a home: a place where his name and his past had at least held a measure of safety and constancy.

A strange pressure built in his chest, a simultaneous tugging and pressing that made each breath feel heavy, while thoughts of what was to come crashed against him like a wave: they would set out soon, they would split up, they would fly into the night, and out there somewhere, Death Eaters waited—patient, treacherous, ready to exploit any mistake.

Harry swallowed hard, feeling his throat tighten, and then, almost automatically, almost as if he had to make this decision immediately, he said suddenly:

“Give me a few minutes.”

Moody spun around, his wooden leg clattering against the floor, and his magical eye locked on Harry instantly, jerking and swivelling as though it could predict every movement.

“We don’t have time for that,” he said sharply, his voice like a whip crack. “We have a strict schedule.”

Harry was undeterred by the harshness. He met Moody’s gaze calmly, holding it, and repeated his request, firmer, more resolute:

“Only a few.”

Suddenly, a hush fell over the room, and even Moody, who seemed constantly to track every movement, allowed his arms to drop briefly, while his magical eye flitted restlessly in all directions.

Then someone placed a hand on his arm — a calm, steady touch, far from commanding.

Remus Lupin.

“We’ve got a few minutes,” he said quietly, and in his voice alone was that familiar, quiet certainty Harry knew so well, a certainty that stood in clear contrast to Moody’s harsh authority.

Moody growled something unintelligible, a sound somewhere between disapproval and impatience, but he said nothing further; his eyes remained fixed on Harry, watching, assessing, but not intervening.

Harry sought no further confirmation, no additional protest, no argument. With one last, deep breath that filled his lungs completely, he turned, feeling the familiar weight of the house in the silence behind him, and left the room.

The door clicked shut a little too sharply behind him, and for a moment the sound reverberated inside him, as if he were hearing not just wood against wood, but the closing of a chapter—final and irrevocable.

He paused in the hallway, drew a deep breath, let his shoulders fall, and felt the fleeting moment of calm settle over him, a thin layer of stillness between himself and the looming night.

He didn’t quite know why he was claiming these few, precious minutes for himself, as if they were a small, silent refuge amid all the noise and expectation waiting for him outside; perhaps to quietly say goodbye to a place that held so much of his past, perhaps to organise for a moment the thoughts that had, over the years, woven around him like an impenetrable web of memory and duty, or perhaps simply to find himself again, to remember who he had once been before the world had made him into a symbol that everyone knew but few truly understood.

Behind him came a soft, almost hesitant sound of footsteps, approaching cautiously, as though no one wished to disturb the moment Harry had claimed for himself.

“Harry.”

Remus’ voice was muted, almost a whisper, as if he wanted to be sure that no curious ear could catch the words meant only for Harry.

Harry lifted his gaze and looked toward the small door beneath the stairs, that unassuming, narrow opening he had once regarded as his refuge before the world had declared him a hero, before the shadows of his childhood had fallen upon him.

He walked toward it slowly, his hand trembling slightly — not from fear, but from the mixture of memory and feeling — and opened the door for a second time. Light from the hallway slanted into the narrow, low-ceilinged space, tracing the contours of the bare walls, where the marks of past years lingered like silent witnesses, faded but persistent.

Remus stepped beside him, his presence calm and patient, yet in his eyes there was that familiar mixture of concern and understanding that Harry knew so well.

“Everything all right, Harry?” he asked softly, then gestured toward the small, cramped space. “What is this place?”

Harry did not answer at once. He stood still, letting his gaze slowly wander over the room—the slanted walls, the traces of the past, the dull imprints on the floor, and the thin layer of dust that lay like a veil over time. For the first time in years, he did not simply let the memories pass by like fleeting shadows; he took them in, absorbed them, letting them echo within him.

“This was my room,” he said at last, and this time the words did not come as a casual remark, but as a quiet confession, a sentence carrying the weight of years.

Remus Lupin stood silently beside him for a moment, his eyes resting on the narrow space beneath the stairs, as if trying to grasp the gravity and significance of what Harry had just revealed.

It was no proper room. Not even a children’s room in the most meagre sense. The ceiling sloped, so low that an adult had to stoop inevitably to avoid hitting it, and the walls were bare, only in a few places still bearing the outlines of old shelves long since removed. In the corners, dust lay like a thin, forgotten layer of the past, hinting at the quiet endurance of time and memory.

“This was your room?” Remus repeated softly, almost reverently.

Harry merely nodded, shoulders drawn slightly back, as if to let himself feel the reality of the memory once more. He stepped into the space, almost demonstratively, to show how narrow and low it truly was, how little room he had ever had for himself. His head nearly brushed the ceiling, and for a moment, the past seemed to fill the entire space.

“For most of my childhood,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact, almost clinical, as if he were trying to separate the memory from the emotion, “until they got worried that Dumbledore might find out where I was sleeping.”

Remus’ expression shifted; not dramatically, not in a way anyone unfamiliar with him would notice, but Harry caught the subtle nuances: the brief stiffening around the eyes, the barely perceptible tightening of the jaw, those tiny signals that only someone truly observing would notice.

“I didn’t know it… was like that,” Remus said softly, his voice carrying a hint of pain and surprise.

Harry merely shrugged. “It just was.”

He leaned against the doorframe, not to withdraw completely, but to steady himself, and stared at the opposite wall, where the faint imprint of his small trunk remained, a silent witness to his childhood.

“It was mad,” he continued, his tone remaining factual, almost like a report, “even before I knew I was a wizard.”

A faint smile flickered across his face, but without warmth, a reflection of the complexity of his memories.

“I always thought I was… just strange. That something was wrong with me. Strange things happened, and I got blamed for them. My hair would grow back overnight. I’d suddenly end up on the school roof. I could make a pane of glass disappear.”

He paused, as if he needed to place the words inside himself before letting them leave his mouth.

“I thought I was a freak.”

Remus said nothing. He knew Harry would continue as long as he was not interrupted, that the silence itself was a space in which Harry could lay out his past without hurry, letting the weight of years unravel in words.

“When Hagrid came,” Harry began at last, his voice low, almost as if he were whispering the words only to the room that had held them for so long, “I thought, everything would be better. I thought that was it. That was the moment when everything would change, the moment when a new life could begin.”

His gaze lifted from the wall, drifting into the emptiness, as if searching out there for some confirmation that could pull him back into the present.

“And for a while, it really was like that,” he continued, his voice still soft, but threaded with that mixture of nostalgia and quiet melancholy that accompanied every memory of Hogwarts. “Hogwarts was…” He searched for the right word, for a term that could even begin to capture the significance of the place, and found none strong enough. “It was the first time I truly belonged somewhere, that I wasn’t just the boy who survived, but a part of something greater.”

Remus’ lips curved into an almost imperceptible, brief smile, and his eyes rested on Harry for a moment, as if he recognised in him the same memories he had once felt himself.

“Your father always said that,” he murmured softly, as if speaking more to himself than to Harry, “that Hogwarts is more than a school, that it can be a home for those who belong nowhere else.”

Harry merely nodded.

“I thought it would stay that way forever,” he said then, his voice now barely more than a whisper, carried by the weight of experience. “That all I’d have to do was learn, that I’d have friends, that maybe one day…” He broke off, as if what followed would contradict the burden already on his shoulders. “But then I learned what really happened. With my parents. With Voldemort. With me.”

He spoke the name calmly, without hesitation, as if he were no longer a wizard but just a boy who needed to speak the truth.

“And then it got worse every year,” he added, his voice gaining steadiness as pain and determination merged into a single line.

“Cedric… he dead. Right beside me and it's my fault.”

The name hung between them like an invisible, heavy weight, stretching from the past into the present.

“That was the beginning of the end, wasn’t it?” Harry asked softly, almost hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to force an answer, but merely to share it. “The start of the Second War.”

Remus’ expression darkened, becoming serious; his eyes followed Harry’s movements,“Yes.”

“And then there's Sirius.”

The word was barely more than a breath, a fleeting syllable that seemed to overshadow everything else.

Harry’s hand clenched into a fist instinctively, his body tense with the memory of pain and loss.

“I thought…” He swallowed hard, as if he needed to shape the words before they could break the silence. “I thought I finally had someone. Someone who really knew me. Who had known my parents. Who didn’t just see the boy who survived, but simply… me.”

His gaze sharpened, focused, piercing the darkness of memory.

“I just wanted to be Harry. Not some symbol or hope or the stupid prophecy.”

Remus’ breath caught ever so slightly at that word, yet he said nothing, letting the weight hang in the air.

“Sirius was…” Harry searched for a way to express the magnitude of the loss, for words that could do justice to a shadow larger than any description. “He was everything. He was family.”

A bitter, quiet laugh escaped him – without warmth, merely an echo of the pain, settling deep into the stillness.

“It’s not fair that you had to go through all of this. It’s not fair that you had so little time with your parents and Sirius.” Remus closed his eyes for a moment, as if the memory struck him as well.

“He told me the same thing,” Harry added, his voice softer, almost like a confession.

Silence.

Only the distant murmur of voices from the living room filtered softly through the walls, a gentle reminder of the world moving on outside, while here they turned back time.

“I should've been there for you,” Remus finally said, his words quiet, yet heavy with years of responsibility.

Harry lifted his gaze, as if searching for an answer in Remus’ face.

“After your third year,” Remus continued, his voice now calmer, tinged with regret, “I kept my distance. I told myself it was better, that you needed your own life, that I… shouldn’t be an additional burden.”

His eyes swept over the small room, as if trying to trace the remnants of Harry’s past still lingering between the bare walls.

“But the truth is, I was afraid.”

Harry frowned, his voice barely audible: “Afraid?”

“Yes,” Remus said calmly, his expression serious, eyes fixed on Harry. “I saw so much of James in you. And Lily. Your laughter, your stubbornness, your loyalty. It was as if I were losing and finding them both at the same time, as if I had to endure the pain I never should have had to experience.”

His voice dropped lower, almost a whisper, carrying the proximity of despair and regret. “And that made me want to keep my distance.”

Harry remained silent, only the pulse of his own memories filling the room.

“I used to be ‘Uncle Moony', you know?” Remus said with a faint, painful smile, revealing the tornness of his own feelings. “I held you when you could barely speak. I joked with James that one day I’d teach you how to sneak through the castle unnoticed.”

He drew a deep breath, and for a moment the room seemed to gather the weight of all those years.

“And then, when you truly needed me, I withdrew and for that I'm truly sorry.”

Harry shook his head slowly, lips pressed together, eyes glistening.

“You’ve lost so much. I understand that,” he murmured, almost a whisper. “I never wanted anyone else to—”

“That’s not your choice,” Remus interrupted gently, but firmly, stepping a little closer. “You are not responsible for every tragedy in this world, Harry. Not for Cedric's death or Sirius' or anyone else's.”

Harry let out a soft, bitter laugh, void of humour, his voice heavy with all he had endured.

“Sometimes it feels that way.”

“I get that, I truly do,” Remus said calmly, his eyes searching Harry’s, “but it’s not true.”

He placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder, firm yet soothing. “We love you. Not because of your name. Not because of your scar. But because you are who you are.”

Harry swallowed hard, the words sinking deep into his heart.

“The Weasleys love you,” Remus continued, his voice now gentle, filled with warmth. “Hermione. Ron. And Sirius…” His tone softened even further, almost vulnerable. “Sirius was proud of you. Infinitely proud.”

Harry blinked rapidly, his eyes heavy with emotion.

“And your parents would be too.”

That knowledge struck deeper than anything else, piercing the weight of memory with a shaft of light – brief, yet unmistakable.

“Sometimes,” Harry said quietly, “I don’t even know if we can win. I don’t know how many will die. Wizards. Muggles. Even the Dursleys aren’t safe just because they’re related to me.”

His gaze wandered through the house, across the room that bore witness to his childhood, over the shadows of the past lurking in the corners.

“And now I have to give this up too.”

Remus followed his gaze, his voice careful, “This was never your home, was it?"

“No,” Harry admitted, his voice low, fragile. “But it’s the only place from my childhood I can remember. If I lose it…” He searched for words, struggling to articulate the feeling. “…I might lose a part of myself as well.”

Remus’ expression grew serious, almost stern, yet full of warmth. “Places don’t make you who you are,” he said calmly. “Nor do memories. You carry it all within you.”

He placed a steadying hand on Harry’s shoulder. “And you are not alone. Even if you are the boy who survived this grotesque fate, you do not have to be the boy who ends it all alone.”

Harry looked at him, the words sinking in, yet a quiet uncertainty lingered beneath them.

“You don’t have to carry this by yourself,” Remus repeated. “Never again.”, he promised.

The words echoed in Harry’s mind, a soft, persistent resonance in the silence. Never alone again. He liked the sound of it.

Deep inside, a part of him still believed this path could only be walked by him, but at the same time, he felt the relief of hearing these words—from someone who had known his parents, from someone who saw him as Harry, not as a symbol, not as hope, not as prophecy.

From the living room came Moody’s impatient voice, sharp and insistent, cutting through the thick walls of the house: “We need to get going. Now!”

Remus slowly, deliberately lowered his hand, as if releasing the weight of the moment, and turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

“We’ll get you to the Burrow,” he said quietly but firmly, his words carrying the certainty that what mattered now was the safe execution of the plan. “This is what’s most important. The plan only works if we carry it out together.”

Harry nodded slowly, and in that nod was more than mere agreement, it was a small, inner resolve that gathered him again, organizing the scattered fragments of his fear and pain into a coherent strength, ready to take the next step.

The fear had not vanished. The pain neither. But they now lay in ordered places within him, like books carefully arranged on a shelf, ready to be taken down when needed without overwhelming him.

“Ready, Harry?” Remus asked softly, almost in a whisper, as if he wanted to gently hold the moment between past and present.

Harry cast one last glance into the small, cramped cupboard under the stairs, one final look at the place that bore witness to his childhood, at the shadows and quiet memories that still lurked in every corner.

Then he closed the door quietly behind him, a soft click that sounded like a farewell to a part of his life long thought gone, and turned around, shoulders straight, eyes fixed firmly on Remus.

“Ready.”