Pain returned before memory.
It seeped in slowly, not as a single wound but as a chorus of aches—every muscle protesting, every bone reminding him it had once been broken. Harry lay still, breathing shallowly, letting the sensation map itself across his body the way instinct demanded.
He was alive.
That much was certain.
That realization snapped him fully awake.
His injuries were knitting together far too smoothly. Not the sharp pull of emergency magic, not the brutal tug of field healing, but something gentler—almost indulgent. As if the damage had been rewound rather than repaired.
No, he thought dimly. No, no—
He opened his eyes.
A corridor.
He sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it. His ribs complained, but the pain was already receding, dulled at the edges like something unfinished.
Harry pushed himself up onto one elbow.
A boy stood several feet away, frozen mid-step, clutching something metallic in his hands. He had round cheeks, soft features, and a mop of hair that refused to behave. He stared at Harry like he'd just walked in on a ghost.
They locked eyes.
Harry's heart began to race.
Neville Longbottom.
Too young.
Far too young.
This Neville had no scars on his face, no weight in his posture. He looked like a student who still believed most problems could be solved by blending into the shadow.
Neville was the first to recover.
"Oh—!" he blurted. "Er—sorry! I didn't mean to— I thought—"
He gestured vaguely at Harry, then at the corridor, then at the stone wall behind him.
"I—I forgot my Omnioculars," Neville explained quickly, words tumbling over each other. "For the task. Professor Sprout said I could run back, since everyone's at the lake and—"
He trailed off, frowning.
"You're hurt," Neville said, stating the obvious.
Harry swallowed.
He knew this corridor.
This was where Neville had stood against him—older, furious, righteous—where spells had shattered stone and time itself had broken.
But now the castle was quiet.
Empty.
Because it was the day of the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Harry forced his breathing to steady.
"I'm fine," he said automatically.
His voice sounded wrong to his own ears—too young, too unscarred by years of command and loss.
Neville eyed him skeptically. "You're bleeding," he said, pointing.
Harry looked down.
His robes were torn, darkened in places where blood had soaked through, though the wounds beneath were already sealing. It looked bad—far worse than it felt.
Neville shifted his weight, clearly unsure what to do.
"You're not… um," Neville began, hesitating, "you're not a student, are you?"
Harry shook his head.
Neville relaxed slightly. "I thought so." He squinted. "Are you here to watch the Tournament? Because if you are, you really picked a strange place to—"
"I got lost," Harry said quickly.
It wasn't even a lie.
Neville nodded, clearly relieved to have an explanation. "Right. That happens. The castle does that sometimes."
He hesitated again, then asked, "Do you need help? Madam Pomfrey's at the lake, but I could… I don't know… get a professor?"
Harry's mind raced.
If Neville fetched someone now—Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore—
No.
Not yet.
"I just need a minute," Harry said. "I'll be gone before anyone notices."
Neville frowned. "You really shouldn't be wandering around bleeding."
Harry met his eyes.
Neville flinched—not in fear, but in instinctive unease. Something in Harry's gaze didn't fit. Not threatening.
Just… old.
"Oh," Neville said quietly. "Alright. I'll… I'll leave you be, then."
He took a step back, then paused.
"For what it's worth," Neville added, awkward but sincere, "if you came to watch the Tournament, I hope you still get to see the task. It's supposed to be really something."
Harry nodded slowly.
Neville blinked, clearly unsure what to do, then shrugged it off.
"Good luck," he said, and hurried past Harry toward the stairwell, muttering about Omnioculars and Jasmine under his breath.
Harry waited until Neville was gone.
Until the corridor was silent again.
Then he sagged back against the wall, heart pounding.
The time-turner is still arround his neck. Broken.
Harry's gaze dropped to the floor.
His wand lay there, half-hidden in shadow where it had skidded when he fell. He reached for it slowly, fingers closing around familiar wood, and felt the quiet reassurance settle into his bones.
Blackthorn.
Dragon heartstring.
Not his first wand.
That one had died screaming.
He remembered the snap clearly—the sharp, careless crack when the Aurors had taken him, hands rough, voices righteous. They had broken it in front of him, not out of necessity but out of message.
This is what happens when we decide you're inconvenient.
By the time Hermione and the Phoenix Legion tore him out of that cell, there had been nothing left to repair.
This wand had come later.
Custom-built by French wizard. Balanced for power that did not need to announce itself. A wand made for a man who understood restraint as well as violence.
Harry flexed his fingers around it, testing the weight. The wand responded immediately, a faint pulse of recognition traveling up his arm.
"Good," he murmured. "You're still with me."
He straightened, then frowned as his cloak shifted awkwardly around his legs.
Too long. Too heavy.
The fabric pooled at his feet like a reminder of everything that no longer fit.
Idiot, he thought dryly. Anyone else would have noticed.
Then again, Neville had been nervous, distracted, running on excitement and adolescent urgency. He'd seen an injured stranger, not a walking paradox.
Harry lifted his wand.
A flick. A whispered charm.
The cloak shrank smoothly, the fabric drawing inward until it settled perfectly against his shoulders, fitting his smaller frame as though it had always been meant for it. The weight redistributed. The folds fell right.
Better.
He exhaled slowly and leaned his head back against the cold stone wall.
Time travel.
Hermione had warned him about it—lectured, really, with diagrams and timelines and increasingly aggressive hand gestures.
"You cannot let your past self see you," she'd said.
"Not talk to you. Not glimpse you. Not even sense you. Temporal resonance is unpredictable, Harry. It's not like normal magic."
He'd nodded at the time.
Pretended he understood.
Of course, it had gone straight out of his head the moment it mattered.
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Alright," he muttered. "No more mistakes."
The castle was still quiet. Everyone would be at the lake, eyes fixed on champions and merpeople and spectacles designed to distract. Hogwarts had always loved pageantry—it was one of the reasons people forgot what lurked beneath.
Harry pushed away from the wall and began to walk.
He knew Hogwarts the way soldiers knew terrain—by memory written in muscle and instinct. Service staircases, blind corners, shortcuts behind tapestries that no student ever thought to check. Routes that avoided portraits. Routes that avoided people.
He slipped through corridors that would soon echo with gossip and panic and war, but now lay untouched, preserved in a moment of fragile peace.
As he moved, the weight of what he'd lost—and what he'd regained—settled over him.
Hermione was alive.
Not a martyr. Somewhere in this castle—or near it—she was brilliant and stubborn and furious about injustice she hadn't yet been crushed by.
The Phoenix Legion didn't exist.
The Ministry still stood unchallenged.
The future he had burned himself alive to create had been erased.
Harry paused at a window overlooking the grounds. Far below, the Black Lake glittered, distant cheers carrying faintly on the wind.
He rested a hand against the glass, expression unreadable.
"I won't let it end the same way," he said quietly.
Then he turned away.
Harry slipped out of Hogwarts the way he always had—without permission, without announcement, and without leaving a trace anyone would notice until it was far too late.
The castle did not stop him.
It never had.
Harry looked young.
Beneath the scarred skin and smaller frame lived the same man the Ministry of Magic had once whispered about in locked rooms and classified reports—the wizard they feared more than any Dark Lord because he did not cloak his violence in ideology or blood purity.
Voldemort had believed in hierarchy.
Grindelwald had believed in vision.
Every dark wizard before him had drawn lines—purebloods here, others there—limits that made their cruelty selective.
Harry Potter had never cared for such distinctions.
And if the world demanded change, then it would be bought the only way it ever truly was.
He could feel the difference now.
The magic inside him was… muted. Thinner. Like a vast ocean forced through a narrow channel. His adult reserves—the crushing weight of power that once bent rooms around him—were gone.
This body couldn't hold it.
Not yet.
But knowledge?
Knowledge did not diminish with muscle or bone.
Every spell. Every technique. Every dirty, efficient trick he had learned while fighting ministries, monsters, and men who believed themselves untouchable—those remained etched into him more deeply than scars.
And knowledge was far more dangerous than raw strength.
By the time he reached Hogsmeade, the cheers from the Black Lake had faded into background noise. The village was mostly empty, shutters drawn, residents gathered near the school or pretending not to care what happened beyond the wards.
Harry didn't slow.
He turned away from the road, toward the hills beyond—toward the place Sirius Black had once hidden like a hunted animal, watching a castle he loved from a distance.
A long trek for anyone else.
For Harry, it took seconds.
Magic coiled around him—In a cloud of darkened smoke, he rose.
He flew low and fast, hugging the terrain, invisible to the casual eye, the smoke dispersing behind him like breath in cold air. Hogwarts rose in the distance, familiar and infuriating, exactly as it always was before it broke people.
The cave sat where he remembered it.
Hidden. Sheltered. Overlooking everything without being seen.
Harry landed silently at its mouth and let the smoke dissolve.
Firelight flickered inside.
The smell hit him first.
Burning feathers. Fat. Charred meat.
Sirius Black crouched over a small open fire, turning a half-plucked bird on a sharpened stick. His movements were stiff like someone rationing energy. His hair hung lank around his face, too long, too dull. His cheeks were hollow, skin stretched tight over bone.
Malnutrition clung to him like a second skin.
He looked… wrong.
Harry's chest tightened.
The last time he had seen Sirius, truly seen him, he had been different.
Healthier.
His hair had fallen just right again, black and untamed but clean. His face had filled out, the handsome angles returned like a memory reclaimed. His eyes—still haunted, always haunted—had smiled anyway. Not because the past didn't hurt, but because he had finally been allowed to live despite it.
That Sirius was gone here.
This Sirius was still trapped in the in-between.
So he turned away.
He let the magic coil around him again, silent and dense, and rose into the air without a sound. The smoke swallowed him as he pulled back, giving himself only one last look.
Just to be sure.
Just to remember.
Then he flew—fast, low, and unseen—away from the cave and back toward Hogsmeade.
Harry slipped in unnoticed.
The enchanted trunk is still in his pocket. Inside were emergency funds siphoned from accounts that hadn't been created yet, provisions packed for sieges that never happened, and supplies meant to keep people alive when hope ran thin.
He opened it in a narrow alley and worked quickly.
Food first.
He bought bread. Real bread. Meat preserved with careful charms. Cheese, fruit, dried rations that would keep. Nutrient potions—subtle ones, not flashy, designed to rebuild without shocking a starved body. Clean water skins. A small warming charm wrapped carefully around the bundle.
He paid in coins no one questioned.
Then the Owlery.
The building smelled of feathers and ink and impatience. Harry selected four strong owls, old enough to carry weight, smart enough not to ask questions. He packed the parcels evenly, bound them together with reinforced charms, and attached a simple destination spell—one he knew Sirius's wards wouldn't reject.
Last came the note.
Harry stared at the parchment longer than he meant to.
He kept it short.
Eat well. Gather strength.
Nothing else.
Except—
He paused, quill hovering.
Then, carefully, he wrote the name.
—Helios
The name Sirius had once mentioned offhandedly, years ago, with a crooked grin and a distant look in his eyes.
"If I ever have a son," Sirius had said, "I think I'd name him Helios. Sun's got a nice defiant ring to it, don't you think?"
Harry swallowed.
He sealed the note, tied it securely, and stepped back as the owls launched themselves into the sky, wings beating hard as they carried the weight away toward the hills.
"Fly safe," he murmured.
Author's Note:
Enjoying the story?
Consider joining my Patreon to get early access to more chapters and exclusive fanfictions! Even as a free member you will get one extra chapter and you'll receive early access to chapters before they're posted elsewhere and various other fanfictions.Your support helps me create more content for you to enjoy!
Join here: Patreon(dot)com(slash)Beuwulf