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The mahogany podium in the center of the International Confederation of Wizards amphitheater was far too large for Hermione Granger. She gripped the polished edges. Her knuckles were white. Somewhere in the third tier, a delegate coughed, the sound echoing sharply in the vast space.
Flanking her in the sunken floor of the Geneva chamber were Ron Weasley and Minerva McGonagall. They were the last remnants of the British Resistance. For two years, Voldemort had controlled Magical Britain. For two years, the island had been sealed off by a shimmering, impenetrable ICW Quarantine Ward.
Hermione swallowed hard. She tasted the stale reek of woodsmoke and damp earth that clung to her frayed robes.
"We... we are begging for your intervention," Hermione began. Her voice shook slightly before she forced it steady. "The Dark Lord controls the Ministry. The Muggleborns... we've lost our army. We've lost Dumbledore. If the ICW doesn't send hit-wizards to break the quarantine..." She gripped the wood tighter. "Britain will die."
A heavy silence descended over the tiered seats. Only the faint shuffling of parchment could be heard.
Then, the heavy oak doors leading to the Supreme Mugwump's balcony clicked open.
"The Confederation has already evaluated the situation in Magical Britain, Miss Granger," a calm, resonant voice echoed across the chamber.
Hermione's breath caught. Ron's knees visibly buckled.
Stepping up to the marble railing, draped in the heavy midnight-blue robes of the ICW's Chief Warlock, was Harry Potter.
He was older. Broader. The lightning-bolt scar was barely a silver smudge against his forehead. He looked down at them. His green eyes were steady, though the fingers of his left hand curled tightly against the marble, betraying a faint, suppressed tremor.
"Harry?" Ron's voice cracked. He took a half-step forward. His boot scuffed loudly against the floor. "Mate... you're alive. The Ministry... they told us you died in the containment breach."
"It's Chief Warlock Potter, Mr. Weasley," Harry corrected quietly. He shifted his weight. "And there was no breach. When the ICW discovered your Ministry was keeping an untried minor in a Dementor-guarded sensory deprivation cell, they extracted me under international amnesty."
"Harry, you have to understand. We were... we were terrified." Hermione leaned heavily against the podium. The seam on her left sleeve had completely torn open, exposing pale, scratched skin. "The magic you were bleeding into the Gryffindor common room... the ambient temperature drops. We thought... we thought if we gave you time... The Auror reports Dumbledore showed us said your magic was fracturing. That the Horcrux was consuming you. Dumbledore swore the Ministry isolation ward was the only place equipped to stabilize your soul."
"It wasn't an isolation ward, Hermione." The even tenor of his voice didn't waver, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop. "It was the lowest level of Azkaban. I was chained to a wall while Dementors fed on my happiest memories for eighteen months."
Hermione choked on a sob, burying her face in her hands.
Ron stepped forward, positioning himself between Hermione and the balcony. The awe on his face hardened into something desperate. "Fine. We failed you, Harry. We were bloody kids and we listened to Dumbledore. Hate us for it." He swiped a dirty hand across his face. "But there are kids in hiding. Dennis Creevey is dead. Dean is missing. So that's it? You're just... you're just going to leave them there?"
"You think..." Harry stopped, his jaw tightening. He looked away for a second, staring at the far wall of the amphitheater. "You actually think this is about revenge?"
Harry gestured loosely with his right hand. A massive, glowing projection of Magical Britain materialized in the air between them. It sat encased in its golden quarantine dome.
"I am not letting them burn out of spite, Ronald. I am letting the quarantine hold because the Confederation cannot afford the contagion of your society," Harry said. "You built a culture that required a teenager to absorb its darkest magic. Then you grew afraid of the weapon you forged and buried him in the dark. If we break the wards, we don't just fight Voldemort. We save a Ministry that will do it all over again in twenty years."
"Then just kill him!" Ron shouted, pointing a shaking finger at the map. "You're the Chosen One! You know about the Horcruxes! Come back and finish it!"
Harry didn't reach for a wand. He simply raised his right hand.
"When I was extracted, I didn't stop working," Harry said. His voice dropped to a clinical, administrative cadence. "I spent three years tracking down the artifacts Dumbledore couldn't find. The ring. The cup." A beat. "The diadem. The locket. The snake."
He snapped his fingers.
A shockwave of pure, untempered magic ripped outward from the balcony. The projection of Britain shuddered violently. Four distinct, agonizing shrieks echoed from the glowing map, followed by a series of localized, brilliant detonations that flared across the country.
Hermione gasped. She clutched her chest as the ambient magic in the room spiked so hard it made her teeth ache.
Harry lowered his hand. He looked suddenly, physically drained. He leaned heavily against the railing for a second before righting himself.
"I tagged them with a delayed sympathetic resonance charm," Harry explained. The color leached slightly from his face. "Voldemort is mortal. His anchors are ash. He is nothing more than an aging, paranoid wizard with a penchant for dramatics."
Ron stared up at the balcony, horror dawning on his pale face. "You... you could have stopped his immortality this whole time? And you waited?"
"I waited until I had international backing to ensure the resulting magical fallout wouldn't shatter the leylines," Harry said. "The immortal threat to the global community is neutralized. As for the mortal threat... that is Britain's problem."
The realization hit the three of them like a physical blow.
Harry wasn't going to save them. He had leveled the playing field and stripped the Dark Lord of his invincibility. But he was leaving them to fight the war themselves.
Minerva McGonagall finally looked up. Her face was lined with a sudden, devastating exhaustion. "Harry," she whispered, her Scottish brogue trembling. "Is there truly no grace left in you? No forgiveness for the home that loved you, however poorly?"
The silence stretched. A delegate in the second row shifted uncomfortably. Their chair scraped against the stone.
"I can't afford to look backward, Professor," Harry said quietly, the exhaustion finally bleeding into his tone. "The motion for intervention in Magical Britain is denied. The Quarantine holds. Guards, escort the delegation back to their Portkey."
"No! Please!" Hermione screamed as two ICW Enforcers materialized beside her. "Harry, you can't! It's a slaughterhouse!"
Harry turned his back.
The heavy doors to the balcony sealed shut, instantly muffling Ron's furious shouting and Hermione's agonizing pleas.
The heavy oak doors of the Chief Warlock's private office clicked shut.
Harry leaned back against the wood. He closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath. The rigid posture of the politician crumbled away. He rubbed his chest, right over where the phantom ache of the Horcrux sometimes still throbbed on cold nights.
From the leather armchair by the window, Daphne Greengrass closed a thick, leather-bound dossier. She had a faint smudge of blue ink on her left thumb.
"They're gone?" she asked, setting the file on the glass table.
"Yeah," Harry muttered. He walked over to the wide window that overlooked the gray, churning waters of Lake Geneva.
Daphne stood, her dark robes rustling, and stepped up beside him. She didn't immediately offer comfort. Instead, she looked out at the water, her expression tight. "Intelligence expects the Death Eater retaliations in London to spike by forty percent now that the Horcruxes are gone. Riddle will panic. He'll lash out at the Muggleborn holding camps."
Harry closed his eyes, his jaw working. "I know."
"Ron wasn't entirely wrong," Daphne noted softly. "There are innocent people trapped inside my ward."
"If we send the ICW armies in, the collateral damage to the Muggle population triples," Harry replied. He rubbed the back of his neck. He was reciting the argument they had debated a dozen times. "They have to break their own chains. If we do it for them, nothing changes."
"I know the logic, Harry. I wrote the brief." She turned her head to look at him. Her dark eyes searched his face. "I'm asking if you're going to be able to sleep tonight."
Harry opened his eyes, looking at his hands. They were steady now. But he could still feel the cold of the Azkaban stones if he thought about it for too long. He thought of Hermione's torn sleeve. He thought of Ron's desperate anger. And he thought of the thousands of people who would suffer tonight because he decided fewer people would die this way.
"Probably not," Harry admitted softly.
Daphne reached out. Her ink-stained fingers laced through his, anchoring him to the present, to the warmth of the office.
"Neither will I," she said.
They stood together in the quiet office, listening to the wind rattle the heavy glass. Harry watched the storm clouds gather over the lake, and wondered whether he would ever stop hearing the sea outside Azkaban.