I stopped walking once I’d put enough distance between myself and Warminster, finding a relatively intact bus shelter to catch my breath. The purple auroras writhed overhead, bathing everything in that now-familiar sickly light. I leaned against the graffiti-covered wall and considered my options.
Yes, Jolene was likely right that any pocket of resistance, or remnants of the wizarding world, would be found in London. It made sense— the capital had always been the heart of Britain, home to the Ministry, Diagon Alley, St. Mungo’s. If anyone had survived with their society intact, it would be there.
But perhaps the trip itself wasn’t entirely necessary?
The quick skirmish against the troll notwithstanding, my magic was ready to go. I’d proven that much. The chains had answered my call without hesitation, moving with the same fluid ease they’d possessed in the void. So why walk for days when I could simply…
I could go to— where was it again?
The thought felt strange, slippery. My home. Mine and Sirius’ and Harry’s and Remus’. The place we’d made together after Sirius adopted me, after everything with Pettigrew and the exoneration. I could picture the warmth of it, the sense of belonging I’d felt there. I could remember sitting at a table, Sirius laughing at something, Harry rolling his eyes with a grin.
But I couldn’t remember where it was.
The name was at the tip of my tongue, dancing just out of reach. I frowned, pressing my palm against my forehead as if I could physically push the memory forward. Nothing. Not even a street name, a neighborhood, a general direction. Just… nothing.
For a moment, genuine panic seized me. I wondered if I truly did have amnesia, if the void had stolen more than I realized, if those endless cycles of unmaking had scraped away parts of my mind I hadn’t noticed yet.
No. I shook my head firmly. No, my memory was good. I could remember the orphanage in perfect detail— every creak of the floorboards, every face of the children who were most likely all dead. I could remember Hogwarts, the layout of every corridor, the exact shade of Helena’s silver glow. I could remember the sensation of Voldemort’s essence trying to shove my soul to the side, the taste of French pastries at that festival, the weight of Grindelwald’s gaze on me.
I just couldn’t remember where my home was.
That’s when it hit me. The Fidelius Charm.
Of course. The realization settled over me with a mix of relief and frustration. Sirius would have insisted on it, especially after everything we’d been through. The charm would hide the location from everyone not explicitly told the secret by the Secret Keeper.
I let out a long breath, watching it mist in the cold air. Another problem to eventually solve. I added it to the growing list in my mind: find out what happened to my family— if any of them were still alive, that is. Then I had to find out who knew the secret and whether it could still be shared.
But first, I needed to understand what had happened to the world.
London, then. A clear destination at least.
I closed my eyes and focused, feeling for the familiar sensation of Apparition. I pictured King’s Cross station— the muggle side, with its brick facade and platforms, the hidden entrance to nine and three-quarters. I gathered my magic, feeling it coil and ready itself for the compression and displacement that would fold space and deposit me hundreds of miles away.
I twisted on my heel—
And nothing happened.
My eyes snapped open. What?
I’d felt the magic start to gather and form the necessary framework for the spell. But then something stopped it. Not blocked exactly, not like an Anti-Apparition ward. More like the magic had tried to move forward and found… nothing to move through. As if the space between here and there had become somehow impassable.
I tried again, this time aiming for somewhere closer. A broken down radio-store, just a couple of miles away. Same result. The magic gathered, began to activate, and then dissipated like smoke.
Apparition doesn’t work.
I stood there in the bus shelter, processing the implications. So it wasn’t just muggles who had been hamstrung by this purple apocalypse. Wizards couldn’t Apparate either. That was… significant. Very significant.
Apparition had always been one of the wizarding world’s greatest advantages— the ability to travel instantaneously, to escape danger, to reinforce positions, to flee when outmatched. It was one of many reasons a single wizard could be so much more dangerous than their muggle counterparts, why magical law enforcement had been so effective despite their small numbers.
And now, it was gone.
This meant wizards were limited to the slower methods of travel. Perhaps not as slow as walking. I presumed they still had access to brooms and other such methods. Perhaps the Floo Network, if it still functioned? Though I doubted it— the Floo relied on a massive, interconnected network of fireplaces. If Apparition was blocked, the Floo was probably compromised as well.
But brooms… brooms were different. They were self-contained, didn’t rely on folding space or connecting distant points. If wizards were still around and mobile, they’d likely be using brooms.
I scanned the sky, searching for any sign of movement against the black expanse and purple auroras. Nothing yet. But I’d have to keep an eye out. Spotting a witch or wizard in transit might be a good chance of finding answers.
I tried the next thing that came to mind.
“Kreacher.” I called, putting intent and authority into the summons.
Nothing happened.
I frowned, reaching out with my senses, trying to feel for the bond that should connect me to the Black family house-elf. That bond should be there, a gossamer thread at the edge of my awareness, ready to tug on when needed.
But I felt nothing. No presence responding, no sense of connection at all.
This was different from the Apparition failure. That had felt like hitting a wall. This felt like calling into a void and hearing no echo whatsoever.
I tried again, more forcefully. “Kreacher!”
Still nothing.
A cold weight settled in my stomach. I reached further, seeking a different bond— the one that connected me to Absol, my thestral familiar. We’d bonded in my first year, a connection forged in understanding and mutual respect. I should be able to feel her, sense her general direction and emotional state even across great distances.
Nothing. The same emptiness.
Three possibilities presented themselves, each more troubling than the last.
One: something was interfering with my bonds. Some lingering effect of the ritual, or the void, or whatever had caused the purple auroras. The bonds might still exist, but I couldn’t access them through whatever interference blanketed the world.
Two: my “death”— or whatever had happened when I fell through the Veil— had annulled all my existing bonds. House-elf bonds, familiar bonds, perhaps even the more abstract connections like the one I’d felt to Helena. When I died, or seemed to die, those ties had been severed. And now that I was returned but changed, I was alone.
Three: Kreacher and Absol were both dead.
I hoped to every power that would listen that it wasn’t the third option.
Kreacher had been ancient, even by house-elf standards, but house-elves could live for centuries if they had a family to serve. And Absol… Thestrals were hardy creatures, capable of defending themselves. But six years of this apocalyptic nightmare? Six years of monsters and chaos?
I didn’t let myself follow that thought further. One problem at a time.
So. A long trip was ahead of me. No Apparition, no house-elf transportation, no familiar to ride. Just my own two feet and whatever I could scavenge along the way.
I hefted the backpack that Jolene had given me, feeling its reassuring weight. She’d packed it surprisingly well— canned food, a water bottle, a knife, matches, a first aid kit with actual supplies in it. It wouldn’t last forever, but with magic I could extend its shelf life.
I began to walk down the broken street, leaving the bus shelter behind.
The road out of Warminster was like the town itself— cracked and overgrown, nature slowly reclaiming what humanity had abandoned. I passed a petrol station with its windows smashed in, the pumps torn from their moorings. A row of shops, their colorful signs faded and peeling. A children’s playground where rust ate away at the metal swings.
I reached what looked like it had been the railway station— a modest brick building with “Warminster” still visible on a weathered sign. The interior had been thoroughly ransacked, but I found what I needed: a tourist map of Wiltshire, the kind they’d once sold to visitors planning day trips to ancient sites.
I spread it across a desk that looked to have been cleared in a hurry. Papers scattered on the floor, a cold cup of coffee long since evaporated to nothing but a brown stain, a family photo in a cracked frame showing people who were probably dead now.
I focused on the map, tracing routes with my finger.
London was east and north, a substantial journey on foot. Days, possibly a week or more depending on conditions and how often I had to avoid danger. The main roads would be safer— Jolene had said as much— but they’d also be longer, winding around obstacles and through towns.
But something else caught my attention.
Stonehenge. The stone circle was marked clearly on the map, northeast of Warminster. Not too far, relatively speaking. Maybe fifteen, twenty miles if I cut across the countryside.
My hand stilled on the map.
Stonehenge. Where it had all ended. If there were answers to be found about what had happened, about what had gone so catastrophically wrong that the entire world had collapsed, Stonehenge seemed like the logical place to start.
And it was on the way to London besides, though I’d have to stray off the main roads to reach it.
That meant danger. These were the backroads and trails where the survivors had warned against going, where the monsters were thickest.
I found myself dismissing the concern almost immediately.
The trails were dangerous to people like Marcus and his group, armed with scavenged weapons and desperation, facing creatures that could shrug off bullets and tear through barricades. To muggles who had no defense against magical predators that shouldn’t exist.
But I wasn’t a muggle. More than that, the void had changed me in ways I was still discovering.
I didn’t have my wand— that was a loss I felt keenly, a phantom weight missing from my hand. My ebony wand, the one that had chosen me in Ollivanders, was gone. Either lost when I’d fallen through the Veil, or destroyed in whatever cataclysm had followed.
But I could still use magic. The fight with the troll had proven that. Even wandless, even with my power feeling different than it once had— wilder, stranger, more instinctive— I could still cast basic spells. I could still summon the chains that had become as natural to me as breathing.
I had advantages the muggles didn’t. I’d be fine.
I folded the map and tucked it into my backpack, then made my way back outside. I stood at the edge of Warminster, looking back at the town. Somewhere in there, Jolene and Jenny and the others were going about their day, rationing food, standing watch, trying to survive another day in hell.
I hoped they stayed safe. I hoped Jenny’s anger at me would fade, that she’d understand why I’d hidden what I was, even if she couldn’t forgive it. I hoped Jolene’s pragmatism would see her through whatever came next.
I turned away from Warminster and began my trek. The main road northeast was exactly as Jolene had described— safer, but haunted in its own way.
I followed the cracked asphalt through countryside that had once been pastoral and pleasant. Rolling hills stretched in every direction, but where there should have been sheep grazing and tractors working the fields, there was only wild grass growing waist-high and unchecked. Fences had collapsed, their posts rotting. Stone walls that had stood for centuries were crumbling, undermined by roots and weather with no one to maintain them.
I looked up. This unearthly light really made it impossible to judge the time of day. My body said it was late morning, maybe midday, but the sky offered no confirmation. Just that eternal black punctuated by writhing streamers of purple light.
I walked for what I estimated to be two hours without incident. No monsters, no survivors, no signs of life at all beyond the occasional bird cry— normal birds, I hoped, though I wasn’t sure I could trust even that.
Jolene had been right about the roads. There was safety to be found here, relatively speaking. The creatures seemed to prefer the wild places, the forests and hills where they could hunt undisturbed. The open road offered no cover, no ambush points. It made sense from a predator’s perspective.
I passed through Heytesbury as the quality of light shifted slightly— darker, perhaps, or maybe just a different shade of purple in the auroras. It was impossible to tell.
The village told the same story as Warminster, just on a slightly smaller scale. Destroyed buildings lined what had once been a picturesque high street. A church with its steeple collapsed, stones scattered across the road like broken teeth. A pub called The Angel with its windows blown out, the sign hanging by a single chain and creaking in the wind.
Total collapse of the social order, written in architecture and debris.
But unlike Warminster, where the survivors had consolidated into a single, organized group, Heytesbury showed signs of fragmentation. Different buildings had been fortified in different styles— some with neat, professional-looking barricades, others with desperate, haphazard piles of furniture and sheet metal. Territorial markers, perhaps. Competing groups of survivors, each claiming their own patch of ruins.
I spotted movement in a second-story window— a flash of a face pulling back behind a curtain. Someone was watching me. Probably armed. Definitely wary.
I didn’t stop to make contact. Didn’t wave or call out. I just kept walking, keeping my pace steady and unthreatening, my hands visible and empty. The universal language of “I’m just passing through.”
More faces appeared in other windows as I made my way through the village. Some ducked back immediately. Others watched openly, tracking my progress. I heard voices, muffled and distant, probably discussing whether I was a threat.
A door opened ahead of me and a man stepped out— older, maybe sixty, with a hunting rifle held loosely in his hands. Not pointed at me, but ready. His eyes were hard and evaluative.
“Keep moving.” He said. Not hostile, but not friendly either. A statement of fact.
“That’s the plan.” I replied evenly.
He nodded once, satisfied, and stepped back inside. The door closed with a heavy thunk, followed by the sound of multiple locks engaging.
I continued through the small settlement, noting the attempts at survival everywhere. Gardens planted in what had been front yards, though most of the plants looked stunted and sickly under the sunless sky. Rainwater collection systems rigged from gutters and barrels. Solar panels on some roofs— useless now without the sun.
I reached the far edge of the village and found a relatively intact bench near what had been a bus stop. The shelter was long gone, torn away by wind or violence, but the bench remained, bolted to a concrete pad.
I sat and pulled out the map, along with one of the tins of food Jolene had packed. Beans in tomato sauce. I used the knife to work the lid open— no can opener, so it took some effort— and ate them cold, straight from the tin.
They tasted bland, slightly metallic, but substantial. Much needed fuel for the body.
I studied the map while I ate, tracing the route ahead. The main road continued northeast for a while longer, then I’d need to branch off onto smaller roads, then backroads, then probably just footpaths and open country to reach Stonehenge.
Four hours, I estimated, if the terrain was decent. Maybe five or six if it wasn’t.
I finished the beans, threw the empty tin into a pile of upturned trash— no point leaving obvious signs of passage— and shouldered my pack again.
Time to leave the relative safety of the main road behind.
The turning came about a mile past Heytesbury. A smaller road branched off to the right, heading almost due north. According to the map, this would take me through empty countryside for several miles before connecting to another minor road that would bring me within a few miles of Stonehenge.
I stood at the junction for a moment, looking down the smaller road. It was narrower, more overgrown, the trees on either side forming an arch that made it feel like stepping into a tunnel. The purple light barely penetrated the canopy.
This was where the danger would start.
I flexed my fingers, feeling the magic respond immediately. The chains were there, coiled just beneath the surface of reality, waiting to be called. My other magic— the cruder, more direct spells— felt ready as well, if less refined than I remembered.
I took a breath and stepped onto the smaller road.
The temperature seemed to drop immediately, or perhaps it was just psychological. The trees pressed in on either side, their branches bare and skeletal, reaching toward the sky like grasping fingers. The undergrowth was thick here, untended and wild.
I walked for what felt like an hour, maybe more. Time was strange under the purple sky. My internal clock kept trying to calibrate against a sun that didn’t exist, leaving me constantly uncertain.
The silence was oppressive. No bird calls now. No wind, even. Just the sound of my footsteps on cracked asphalt and my own breathing.
I whiled the time away forming ideas and thoughts about the current situation, trying to piece together what I knew and what I could infer.
The ritual at Stonehenge had torn something open. The Veil, yes, but more than that. Something fundamental about the barriers between worlds, between reality and… whatever lay beyond. The creature we’d fought, the thing that had promised paradise and delivered only annihilation— we’d pushed it back, sealed the Veil.
But clearly that hadn’t been enough.
The purple auroras, the eternal darkness, the corruption of magical creatures— these were symptoms of something deeper. Some lasting wound in the fabric of reality that hadn’t healed when the Veil closed. Or perhaps something we’d missed entirely, some consequence we hadn’t foreseen.
I wondered if Dumbledore was still alive. He would have answers, or at least better questions than I had. The man had lived for over a century, had fought both Grindelwald and Voldemort, had accumulated more knowledge about magic and its deeper mysteries than perhaps anyone else alive.
If he’d survived the battle at Stonehenge, if he’d survived the six years since, where would he be? Hogwarts? London? Or somewhere else entirely, working on a solution to this nightmare?
And Harry. My mind shied away from thinking about Harry too directly, like pressing on a bruise.
Harry, who had loaned me his Ancient Magic in those final moments. Harry, who had screamed my name as I fell through the Veil. Harry, who had already lost so much— his parents, his childhood, any chance at a normal life.
For all I knew, he was dead, too.
The thought sat in my chest like a stone. I’d been gone for six years. Six years in a world that had collapsed into apocalyptic chaos. Harry would be… what, eighteen? If he’d survived. If the world hadn’t killed him the way it had killed so many others.
I didn’t get to think about it for long.
The attack came without warning— a cardinal rule of ambush predators.
One moment I was walking down the empty road, lost in dark thoughts. The next, I was surrounded on all sides by a massive group of creatures about three feet tall.
I froze, my hand moving instinctively toward where my wand should have been, finding only empty air.
Erklings.
I recognized them immediately from my studies, though I’d never encountered one in person before. They looked almost like grotesque children, with oversized heads and spindly limbs, their skin a mottled grey-green. Their mouths were too wide, filled with needle-sharp teeth designed for tearing flesh. Their fingers ended in hooked claws.
Ambush predators with a taste for children, according to every text I’d ever read. They lured victims with high-pitched cries that sounded like a baby’s wail, then attacked in groups, overwhelming their prey with numbers.
But there was something wrong with these Erklings.
Their eyes glowed with an inner light, reddish and flickering, like embers in a dying fire. It gave them an infernal appearance, as if they were lit from within by flame.
There were at least twenty of them, probably more, emerging from the undergrowth on both sides of the road. They formed a loose circle around me quickly. This wasn’t their first ambush.
For a moment, everything was still. The Erklings watched me with those burning eyes, their heads tilted at unnatural angles, assessing. I watched them back, my mind racing through options.
Then the first one opened its mouth and screamed.
It wasn’t the baby’s cry I’d read about. It was a shriek of pure rage, high and piercing, and the moment it sounded, every other Erkling joined in. The noise was overwhelming, disorienting, meant to freeze prey in terror.
And then they attacked.
The first Erkling lunged at me from the left, claws extended, and flame erupted from its open mouth.
Actual flame. A gout of fire that seared the air between us, crackling and writhing like a living thing.
I threw myself backward on pure instinct, feeling the heat wash over my face. The fireball struck the ground where I’d been standing, scorching the asphalt black.
Erklings shouldn’t be able to do that. Erklings didn’t have magical abilities. They were physical predators, relying on ambush tactics and overwhelming numbers. They couldn’t cast fire.
But apparently no one had told these Erklings that.
Three more attacked from different angles, and each one spat flame as they came. I rolled to the side, came up in a crouch, and summoned the chains without conscious thought.
They answered instantly.
Dark metal erupted from my hands, from the ground around me, bursting forth like living serpents. The magic felt wild and eager, hungry for violence after being leashed for so long. The chains moved as extensions of my will, no wand needed, no incantation required— just pure, instinctive magic forged in the crucible of the void.
The first chain caught an Erkling mid-leap, wrapping around its torso and yanking it from the air. I heard bones crack as the links tightened, crushing it. The creature’s scream cut off abruptly. I flicked my wrist and the chain released, letting the broken body fall.
But there were so many more.
They came from all sides now, a coordinated assault that spoke of unnatural intelligence. Half of them circled wide, forcing me to divide my attention, while the others pressed forward in waves. And every single one of them wielded fire like a weapon.
A massive Erkling— easily twice the size of the others, probably a pack leader— reared back and launched a fireball the size of my head. I sent a chain whipping up to intercept it, the metal links absorbing the impact in an explosion of sparks and smoke. The chain glowed red-hot for a moment but didn’t break.
Two Erklings tried to flank me from behind. I didn’t even turn to look. Chains burst from the ground beneath their feet, wrapping around their legs and jerking them off balance. They hit the ground hard and I crushed them before they could recover, the chains constricting like metal pythons.
Blood began to spatter the road.
An Erkling launched itself at my face, claws aiming for my eyes. I caught it mid-air with a chain around its neck, let the momentum carry it past me, and slammed it into a tree trunk with enough force to shatter its skull. It dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
But three more took its place immediately.
They were learning, adapting their strategy even as I killed them. They’d realized the chains were my primary weapon, so now they came in from multiple directions simultaneously, forcing me to choose which threats to address first. And they used the fire as cover, filling the air with flame and smoke to obscure their movements.
A fireball struck my shoulder and I felt the skin blister instantly, my shirt catching fire. I snuffed it out with a burst of raw magic— no finesse, just a blunt expenditure of power— and barely dodged the follow-up attack from my blind side.
I needed to change tactics.
I slammed both hands down on the ground and let the chains multiply, feeding them more power than I’d used so far. They responded with savage enthusiasm, bursting forth in a dozen— two dozen— three dozen separate strands, creating a whirling barrier of dark metal around me.
The next wave of Erklings hit the barrier and were torn apart.
Chains impaled them mid-leap, piercing through grey-green flesh with wet, meaty sounds. Others wrapped around limbs and necks, pulling in different directions simultaneously until bones snapped and bodies came apart. One Erkling managed to get through a gap in my defenses and I caught it with my bare hand, feeling its fragile ribs crack under my fingers, then threw it into two of its companions hard enough that all three went down in a tangle.
The brutality was disturbing, even to me. I fought with no hesitation, every action calculated for maximum lethality. This was what the void had taught me through endless cycles of death and rebirth— how to kill quickly, brutally, without mercy or doubt.
An Erkling the size of a large dog charged straight through my spinning barrier, accepting multiple wounds just to close the distance. It was on fire— literally wreathed in flames, its skin crackling and burning but apparently not caring. It tackled me, claws raking across my chest, teeth snapping at my throat.
I headbutted it, feeling its nose break against my forehead, then grabbed it by the skull and drove a chain directly into its brain. The flames extinguished instantly. Its eyes rolled back and it went limp. I threw the corpse aside and sent chains after the next group.
The pack leader— the huge one— finally entered the fray directly. It was smarter than the others, hanging back, observing, learning. Now it came in fast and low, using its smaller packmates as cover.
Fire exploded from its mouth in a sustained stream, not a fireball but a flamethrower’s worth of burning death. I raised a wall of chains to block it, the metal links heating to cherry red, some of them beginning to warp from the sheer intensity of the heat.
While I was focused on the flames, three Erklings attacked from behind.
I felt them coming, but I was committed to blocking the leader’s fire— if I dropped the barrier, I’d be immolated. So I split my focus, maintaining the wall with one part of my mind while directing new chains with another. Chains erupted behind me without my direct attention, moving on instinct and muscle memory drilled into me by the void’s endless training. They caught two of the three Erklings, crushing one’s throat and impaling the other through the chest.
The third got through.
Its claws raked down my back, tearing through the stolen shirt and the flesh beneath. I felt hot blood pour down my spine, felt the shock of pain even through the adrenaline. I spun, abandoning the wall, and grabbed the Erkling by its arm. I pulled it off-balance, brought my knee up into its ribs with enough force to lift it off the ground, then slammed it down onto the asphalt so hard its skull cracked like an egg.
The pack leader’s flames washed over me.
I threw up a hasty shield of raw magic— not chains, just a desperate barrier of hardened air— and it held for perhaps half a second before shattering. Fire engulfed my arm and I screamed, the pain indescribable, like being dipped in molten metal.
But pain was something I’d learned to fight through in the void. Pain was just information.
I charged forward through the flames, chains whipping around me, and hit the pack leader like a battering ram. We went down together in a tangle of limbs and metal. It was stronger than it looked, all wiry muscle and desperate ferocity. Its claws tore at my face, my neck, seeking major arteries. Its teeth snapped closed on my shoulder, punching through muscle.
I got a chain around its throat and pulled.
The creature thrashed, its fire sputtering and dying as its windpipe collapsed. I pulled harder, putting my full strength behind it, and felt vertebrae separate with a grinding crunch. The Erkling went limp beneath me.
I stood, breathing hard, blood pouring from a dozen wounds.
Eight Erklings remained, circling warily now, their confidence shattered by the death of their leader. They’d lost more than half their number in the space of maybe three minutes. The road was littered with broken bodies, blood pooling in the cracks of the asphalt, the smell of burnt flesh and scorched earth thick in the air.
I extended the chains in every direction, making them writhe and coil like serpents, making it clear that I had plenty of fight left.
“Come on then.” I said quietly, my voice rough. “Who’s next?”
They hesitated. For a moment I thought they might actually retreat, these unnatural predators recognizing they’d bitten off more than they could chew.
Then they attacked again, all eight at once, in one final desperate surge.
I met them with cold steel. I impaled three Erklings before they’d crossed half the distance. A fourth I caught around the waist and simply crushed, the chain constricting until internal organs ruptured and blood poured from its mouth.
Two made it through, both wreathed in flame. I caught one with my bare hand around its throat— my skin blistered and burned but I didn’t let go— and crushed its larynx with my fingers. The other I swept aside with a chain, then pinned to the ground and stomped on its skull until it stopped moving.
The last two tried to flee.
I sent chains after them, striking like vipers. One took a chain through the spine and dropped immediately, paralyzed. The other made it almost to the tree line before I wrapped chains around both its legs and yanked it back toward me, dragging it across the rough asphalt.
It screamed the whole way, a high, keening wail that might have sounded pitiful if I didn’t know what these things did to children.
I stood over it as it thrashed, wrapped in chains, unable to move anything but its head. Its red eyes blazed with that inner fire, but the flames had gone out. It was just a broken creature now, defeated and dying.
And then something remarkable happened.
It stopped thrashing. Its eyes— those burning, wrong eyes— focused on me with sudden clarity. It raised one clawed hand, trembling, in what could only be described as a gesture of surrender.
Then it spoke.
Not in English, and not in any language I recognized. But the intent was clear, carried in the tone and body language even more than the words. It was begging. Pleading for its life.
I stared at it, chains still coiled around its body, my own blood dripping onto its mottled skin.
Erklings weren’t supposed to be intelligent enough to beg. They were predators, driven by instinct and hunger, no more capable of complex negotiation than a wolf or a lion. The books described them as cunning but ultimately animalistic.
But this one was begging.
I considered killing it immediately. It would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing. This creature and its pack had tried to kill me, had used fire magic that shouldn’t exist, had demonstrated coordination and intelligence beyond what any Erkling should possess.
But curiosity stayed my hand. If these creatures had been changed somehow, corrupted or evolved by whatever had broken the world, then maybe this one could provide answers. Maybe it could communicate more than just pleas for mercy.
I loosened the chains slightly, just enough to let it breathe easier, and crouched down to its level.
“Can you understand me?” I asked carefully.
The Erkling’s eyes brightened— literally, the red glow intensifying. It nodded, a jerky, birdlike motion of its oversized head.
“What happened to you?” I continued. “Why can you use fire? Why can you speak?”
It opened its mouth, and for a moment I thought it might actually answer. Its lips moved, forming shapes that looked almost like words.
Then it lunged.
The attack was so sudden, so completely unexpected, that it almost worked. The Erkling’s jaws snapped closed an inch from my throat, its claws raking toward my eyes, fire erupting from its mouth in one final, desperate blast.
I jerked back on pure reflex, but it had gotten one hand free from the chains somehow and grabbed my wrist with surprising strength, pulling me off-balance. Its teeth found my forearm instead of my throat, biting down with all the force it could muster.
Pain lanced up my arm.
My chain punched through the Erkling’s chest before conscious thought caught up with instinct.
The creature’s eyes went wide, the red glow fading to ember dimness. Blood poured from its mouth, hot and thick, splashing across my arm. Its grip loosened. The flames died.
I yanked the chain free with a wet, tearing sound and let the body drop.
It twitched once, twice, then went still.
I stood there in the middle of the carnage, breathing hard, staring at the corpse. Blood— mine and theirs— dripped from my hands. Burns covered my left arm and shoulder. Claw marks crisscrossed my chest and back. My whole body was a tapestry of pain.
But I was alive. They weren’t.
I looked around at the scattered bodies, counting them mechanically. Twenty-three Erklings. All dead.
And every single one of them had been able to cast flames.
I crouched beside the nearest corpse, examining it more closely. The red glow had faded from its eyes now that it was dead, leaving them dull and glassy. I used my boot to roll it onto its back, studying its physiology.
It looked like a normal Erkling, mostly. Same basic body structure, same predatory adaptations. But there were differences. The veins were darker, more prominent, as if filled with something thicker than blood. The skin had a faint scaly texture it shouldn’t have. And when I pried open its mouth, I found the throat was blackened and scorched, as if the creature had been breathing fire from the inside out.
These weren’t normal Erklings. They’d been changed. Corrupted. Transformed into something new and terrible.
I straightened, wincing at the pain, and pulled out some of the medical supplies Jolene had packed. I had healing magic, but I was tired, drained from the fight. Better to conserve power where I could.
Still, I healed the worst of the wounds, used water from my bottle to clean the deeper cuts, and tried not to think about infection. Then I shouldered my pack and continued down the road, leaving the bodies where they lay.
Scavengers would find them eventually. Or they’d just rot. Either way, it wasn’t my problem.
I walked for another hour, my body settling into a rhythm despite the pain. The adrenaline from the fight had worn off, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and the throbbing ache of multiple injuries. The bandages helped, but I could feel blood seeping through in places where the wounds were deeper than I’d initially thought.
The road narrowed further as I progressed, the trees pressing in even closer on either side. The canopy overhead was so thick now that the purple auroras barely penetrated, leaving everything in a dim, murky twilight that played tricks on my eyes. Shadows seemed to move where there was nothing. Branches looked like grasping hands.
I kept the chains ready, coiled just beneath the surface, prepared to strike at the first sign of danger.
But nothing came. The forest was silent, almost oppressively so. No bird calls, no rustle of small animals in the undergrowth, not even the sound of wind through the leaves. Just my footsteps and my breathing and the occasional creak of branches overhead.
It was the kind of silence that meant something big and dangerous was nearby, scaring away everything else.
Or maybe everything else was just dead.
I tried not to think about that. The Erklings’ behavior kept replaying in my mind. Not just the fire magic— though that was disturbing enough— but the coordination, the intelligence behind their attack. They’d worked together with a level of tactical awareness that shouldn’t have been possible. Pack hunting was one thing; orchestrated ambush with flanking maneuvers and coordinated fire support was something else entirely.
And that last one had begged for its life, then attacked the moment I lowered my guard.
Either it had been playing me from the start, feigning surrender to create an opening, or something in its changed nature had overridden whatever plea for mercy it had been attempting. Instinct overwhelming intention. The corruption fighting against consciousness.
I didn’t know which possibility was more disturbing.
My musings were cut short when exhaustion finally caught up with me properly. My legs felt like lead, my vision was starting to blur at the edges, and the blood loss— while not critical— was definitely taking its toll. I needed to rest, even if just for a little while.
I found a fallen tree just off the road, a massive oak that had toppled at some point and now lay across the forest floor like a natural bench. The trunk was thick enough to provide some cover, and the position gave me decent sightlines in multiple directions.
Good enough.
I slumped against the rough bark, letting my pack slide off my shoulders with a groan of relief. Every muscle in my body ached. The burns on my arm throbbed in time with my heartbeat. The claw marks across my chest and back felt like lines of fire.
I closed my eyes, just for a moment, just to rest them.
The purple auroras writhed overhead through gaps in the canopy. I watched them dance and shift, trying to find patterns in the chaos. Was there meaning in those movements, or were they just random fluctuations of whatever unnatural force had created them?
My eyelids grew heavy. Just a moment of rest. Just a few minutes to let my body recover, to let the healing begin naturally before I expended more magic on it.
Just a moment…
Sharp, searing pain jolted me awake.
I looked down in horror to see something burrowing into my left forearm. A Bowtruckle— I recognized the distinctive wooden body, the twig-like limbs— but its movements were all wrong. Instead of the gentle, cautious motions of a tree guardian, it writhed and jerked with frantic, insectoid energy.
And it was trying to burrow into my flesh.
Part of its tiny body was already embedded in my arm, its branch-like fingers digging deeper, pushing through skin and muscle with disturbing ease. I could feel it moving inside me, could see the skin bulge and ripple as it tunneled deeper.
“Fuck!” I grabbed the Bowtruckle and yanked, but it had anchored itself somehow. Its fingers— or roots, or whatever they were— had spread beneath my skin like a network of thorns, making it impossible to remove without tearing half my forearm open.
Pain lanced through my arm as I pulled harder. The Bowtruckle made a sound like wood scraping against wood, high and grating, almost like laughter.
I gave up on trying to pull it out gently. I channeled raw magic into my hand and grabbed the creature’s exposed portion, pumping power directly into its wooden body. It began to smoke, then char, then burn. The Bowtruckle thrashed, its movements becoming even more frantic, and I felt its embedded portions tearing at my insides as it tried to escape.
I gritted my teeth and pushed more power in. The creature’s body cracked and split, flames licking along its bark-like skin. Finally, mercifully, it went still. I yanked it free, feeling its root-fingers tear chunks of flesh as they came out, and threw the smoldering corpse away from me.
Then I heard the rustling.
I looked up and felt my stomach drop.
The trees around me were moving. Not swaying in wind— there was no wind. Moving. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Bowtruckles were emerging from the bark, dropping from branches, crawling along the forest floor toward me.
Their eyes— usually innocent and curious— were vacant and wrong, reflecting the purple light with an eerie, empty sheen. They moved with that same jerky, unnatural gait as the first one, like puppets controlled by an amateur.
And they were all coming for me.
I scrambled to my feet, chains already forming in my hands. The first wave reached me within seconds— a living tide of wooden bodies and grasping fingers, all trying to find purchase, to latch on, to burrow in.
I swept chains through them like scythes, crushing and scattering the tiny bodies. But for every one I destroyed, three more took its place. They were so small, so numerous, that targeting them individually was impossible. It was like fighting an army of aggressive, burrowing insects.
One latched onto my leg and I felt it immediately start to dig. I crushed it with a blast of concentrated magic before it could penetrate deep. Another grabbed my shoulder from behind— when had it gotten there?— and I had to physically tear it off, leaving splinters embedded in my skin.
They were everywhere. Dropping from above, surging from below, attacking from all sides with mindless, relentless aggression. I spun, chains whipping around me in a defensive sphere, pulverizing anything that got close. But there were too many, the gaps in my defense too numerous.
A Bowtruckle made it through and latched onto my calf. I felt its fingers start to burrow and I crushed it with a chain before it got deep, but the damage was done— painful holes in my flesh that immediately started bleeding. Another got my shoulder. Another my hand.
I was fighting frantically now, all strategy abandoned in favor of pure, desperate violence. I created a ring of fire around myself with raw magic— not as controlled or efficient as a proper spell, just an explosion of heat and flame that consumed oxygen and set the nearest Bowtruckles ablaze.
The fire spread quickly through the dry undergrowth, creating a temporary barrier. The Bowtruckles recoiled from the flames— they were wood, after all, and fire was their natural enemy. But they didn’t flee. They just circled the burning perimeter, waiting, watching with those vacant eyes.
I used the brief respite to check myself for any that had gotten past my defenses. I found two more partially embedded— one in my thigh, another starting to work its way into my side— and I burned them out with focused bursts of magic, biting back screams as my own flesh charred along with the creatures.
The fire was dying down, the available fuel already consumed. The Bowtruckles were gathering for another assault.
I made a decision. I couldn’t fight them all, not like this. They were too small, too numerous, too relentless. I needed to move, needed to get out of their territory before they overwhelmed me through sheer numbers.
I channeled magic into my legs and ran.
The Bowtruckles surged after me immediately, a tide of wooden bodies flowing across the forest floor like a colony of ants pursuing prey. I didn’t look back, just focused on putting distance between myself and them, chains trailing behind me to sweep aside any that got too close.
Branches whipped at my face as I crashed through the undergrowth. My injuries screamed in protest at the exertion. Blood ran freely from the holes the Bowtruckles had left, pattering onto the ground behind me like a trail of breadcrumbs.
I ran for what felt like forever but was probably only a few minutes, until finally the sounds of pursuit began to fade. The rustling and scraping grew distant, then disappeared entirely. I’d left their territory, or they’d given up the chase, or both.
I slowed to a stop, hands on my knees, gasping for air. My whole body shook with exhaustion and pain and the aftereffects of adrenaline. I checked myself again for any Bowtruckles I might have missed and found none, thank whatever gods were listening.
But the damage was done. The wounds in my forearm, leg, hand, thigh, and side throbbed with a deep, unnatural pain. The flesh around each puncture was inflamed and hot to the touch, already showing signs of infection or worse. Something about the Bowtruckles’ touch had left a taint behind, some residue of whatever corruption had changed them.
I sat heavily against a tree— checking first to make sure it was empty of hostile occupants— and examined the worst of the wounds. The one in my forearm where the first Bowtruckle had burrowed was particularly bad. The holes were deep, ragged, and the surrounding tissue was already discoloring in a way that looked wrong.
I placed my hand over the wound and channeled healing magic. It felt harder than it should have, like trying to push water uphill. The corruption resisted my magic, fought against it, and I had to force the healing through sheer will. My power scraped away the infected tissue, encouraged new growth, knitted the torn flesh back together.
It was painful, exhausting work, and it left me drained. But eventually the wound closed, though it left an angry red scar that I suspected would never fully fade.
I repeated the process with the other punctures, each one taking precious energy I didn’t really have to spare. By the time I finished, I was shaking with exhaustion, barely able to keep my eyes open.
But I was alive. Injured, exhausted, traumatized by the experience of having things burrow into my flesh, but alive.
I sat there for a long moment, just breathing, trying to process what had happened.
Bowtruckles. Peaceful, shy Bowtruckles that were supposed to be small tree guardians, protective of their homes but generally harmless. It was the kind of creature that third-years studied in Care of Magical Creatures, that you could befriend with a few simple offerings.
Instead, I’d been attacked by hundreds of them, all trying to burrow into my body like some kind of parasitic nightmare. Everything was wrong. Everything was corrupted.
I forced myself to stand, collecting my pack and taking a long drink from my water bottle. The liquid helped, grounding me, reminding me that some things remained constant even in this broken world. Water was still water. Blood was still blood.
I was still me, whatever that meant now.
I pulled out the map and studied it, trying to calculate how much farther I had to go. According to my rough estimates, I should be within a few miles of Stonehenge now. Close enough that I might start seeing signs of what had happened there.
I decided then and there: I couldn’t rely on my learned knowledge anymore. Everything I’d been taught about magical creatures, every textbook description and classroom lecture, was potentially worthless now. The rules had changed. The world had changed.
I would have to adapt or die.
And I’d had quite enough of dying, thank you very much.
I continued down the road, more cautiously now.
The purple light intensified as I walked, the auroras seeming to pulse with more vigor. The air itself felt different, thicker somehow, harder to breathe. And there was a smell now, faint but growing stronger with each step.
Ash. Sulfur. Something acrid and chemical that made my nose crinkle in deep discomfort.
I pressed forward, following the road as it curved, climbing a gentle rise that would, according to the map, give me a view of the plains where Stonehenge stood. The road crested the rise and I stopped walking.
I stood frozen at the crest of the hill, my mind struggling to process what my eyes were seeing.
Where Stonehenge should have been— where those ancient stones had stood for thousands of years, where we’d fought that desperate battle on Halloween night six years ago, where the Veil had been torn open and reality itself had begun to unravel— there was a crater.
But calling it a crater felt inadequate. Insufficient. Like calling the ocean “wet” or the sun “bright.” The words existed but they couldn’t capture the enormity of what I was witnessing.
The crater was massive. Easily a mile wide, possibly more. From my vantage point on the hill, I could see its full scope stretching out before me, a wound carved into the earth so vast that it seemed to swallow the landscape. The edges were jagged and irregular, as if something had reached down from above and simply scooped out a chunk of the world. But that wasn’t quite right either— the edges had a melted quality, smooth and glassy in places, like the ground itself had been heated to liquefaction and then cooled rapidly.
And within that crater…
Magma.
Molten rock churned and bubbled, glowing with an angry orange-red light that seemed obscene against the purple auroras and black sky. It wasn’t like a volcano, with a vent and flowing lava. It was more like someone had cracked open the earth’s crust and exposed the burning heart beneath. Rivers of liquid fire flowed in slow, hypnotic patterns, following channels and depressions in the crater floor. In some places, the magma pooled in great lakes that roiled and surged, sending up gouts of flame when pockets of gas ignited.
The heat was overwhelming even from this distance. I could feel it on my face, like standing too close to a bonfire, making my already-burnt skin prickle with fresh discomfort. The air above the crater rippled and distorted, heat shimmer so intense it looked like reality itself was melting.
And the smoke. Dark clouds billowed upward from the hellish pit, thick and black and toxic-looking. They rose in massive columns, hundreds of feet high, before spreading out and merging with the eternal darkness above.
I couldn’t look away.
This was ground zero. This was where it had all ended. Where the world had broken.
My legs gave out and I sank to my knees, still staring at the crater, my mind trying and failing to construct some rational explanation for what I was seeing.
What had happened here?
We’d sealed the Veil. We’d pushed the creature back through, closed the gateway, stopped it from fully manifesting in our world. It had been desperate, chaotic, everyone fighting together in that impossible moment of unity against a common enemy.
And then Voldemort had blasted me through the collapsing Veil and I’d fallen into the grey nothingness.
But what had happened after? What could possibly have caused destruction on this scale?
Had the Veil’s closure triggered some kind of backlash? Some magical equivalent of a nuclear detonation when the gateway collapsed? That would explain the crater, the melted earth, the ongoing volcanic activity.
Or had something else happened? Had the creature managed to force its way through despite our efforts, and this was the result of its full manifestation? Had it torn reality apart so thoroughly that the barriers between our world and whatever hellscape lay beyond had simply… dissolved?
Or— and this thought made my blood run cold— had someone done this deliberately? Had Grindelwald or Voldemort or some other player I didn’t know about triggered a second ritual, a failsafe or a contingency plan, something designed to ensure that if they couldn’t control the power, no one could?
I didn’t know. I had no way of knowing.
All I had were questions and this… this apocalyptic scar in the world.
I thought about the survivors in Warminster and Heytesbury, about Marcus and Jenny and Jolene, about all the people struggling to survive in the ruins of civilization. About how they’d described that Halloween night— the sky going black, the purple auroras appearing, monsters pouring into the streets, technology failing, planes falling from the sky.
This was the source. This crater, this wound, this burning hellscape where Stonehenge had once stood. Whatever had happened here had rippled outward across the entire world, breaking everything it touched.
How far did the effects extend? Was it just Britain, or had the whole planet been affected? Were there places where the sun still shone and magic still worked properly and people weren’t fighting for survival against corrupted monsters? Or was it all like this— endless purple twilight and scattered, desperate communities clinging to existence?
I didn’t know. Another question for the growing list.
I forced myself to look away from the crater, to take in the surrounding landscape. The devastation extended well beyond the crater’s edge. The ground for what looked like miles in every direction was blackened and scorched, all vegetation burned away, leaving only ash and charred earth. In places I could see what looked like impact craters or explosion sites— smaller wounds scattered around the main catastrophe, like shrapnel from a bomb.
There were shapes in the distance that might have been buildings once, now reduced to melted slag. Closer to the crater’s edge, I could see what looked like twisted metal frameworks, possibly the remains of equipment or structures that had been vaporized in whatever had happened here.
And bones. Even from this distance, I could see them. Scattered across the blackened plain like white flowers blooming in a dead garden. Some were small, possibly animals. Others were larger. Human-sized.
How many people died here?
I thought about the battle I remembered. There had been students— the tournament participants and others who’d come to help. There had been Aurors, Order members, Ministry personnel. There had been Grindelwald’s followers, whoever had survived the fighting in the tunnels.
How many of them had made it out before… before whatever had caused this?
I thought about Harry screaming my name as I fell. Had he survived? Had he been close enough to the epicenter to be caught in the blast? Or had he been far enough away, had someone gotten him out?
I thought about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, those two legendary wizards locked in combat. I thought about Voldemort with his knowing smile. I thought about Lockhart and his unexpected competence, about Snape who’d been somewhere in those tunnels, about all the others whose names and faces I’d known.
Were any of them still alive?
The smoke from the crater shifted, and for just a moment I thought I saw something moving down there. Something large, dark, moving through the churning magma like a whale through water. But when I looked again, there was nothing. Just fire and smoke and the endless burning.
Probably a trick of the light. Probably my exhausted, traumatized mind seeing patterns that weren’t there.
Probably.
I sat there on the hill for a long time, watching the crater burn, trying to absorb the reality of it. This was what I’d been walking toward. This was the answer I’d sought.
And it was worse than anything I’d imagined.
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