Signs Of Life

The journey from Stonehenge to London should have taken three days. It took me a week.

I spent the first three of those days huddled in what remained of a cottage on the outskirts of Amesbury, fighting infections that crawled through my blood like fire ants beneath my skin. The Erkling wounds weren’t deep, but their claws had left something behind— some corrupted residue that resisted my healing magic and turned the cuts into angry red lines that wept clear fluid and burned with a heat that had nothing to do with fever.

The Bowtruckle punctures were worse. Dozens of tiny holes dotted my arms and chest where the corrupted creatures had tried to burrow into me, and three had succeeded before I’d torn them out. Those wounds festered black at the edges, and I had to spend hours each day forcing my magic into them to crudely pull out the corruption one agonizing thread at a time.

I’d found the cottage by luck. It still had most of its roof, a working fireplace, and a cache of canned goods in the cellar that hadn’t been looted yet. The previous owner had died in their bed upstairs, but I didn’t have the strength to bury them properly. I just closed the bedroom door and tried not to think about it.

The first night, I was barely able to manage to start a fire before collapsing onto the moth-eaten sofa. My body shook with chills despite the flames, and every breath felt like inhaling ground glass.

The second day was somehow worse. The infections peaked, and I spent hours in a delirium where the grey void bled through into the waking world. I saw predators stalking through the cottage walls, wearing faces I knew. Helena stood in the corner, her translucent form flickering like a guttering candle, and she smiled at me with too many pearly white perfect teeth. Sirius sat in the armchair across from me, but his eyes were depthless black pits that leaked shadows, and when he spoke, his voice came from everywhere at once.

“You should have stayed.” He said, and I couldn’t tell if it was really him or just another manifestation of the void’s endless hunger. “You should have let it unmake you completely. Cleaner that way. Kinder.”

“Piss off. You’re just a fake, anyway.” I managed through cracked lips, and I forced my chains to lash out at the apparition. It dissolved into smoke that tasted of copper and ash.

By the third day, the fever broke. I woke to pale morning light filtering through the grimy windows, my body drenched in sweat that had soaked through the sofa cushions. The infections hadn’t disappeared entirely, but they’d receded enough that I could think clearly again. I spent that day systematically cleaning and re-treating every wound, using what few Charms I knew.

Half the time, they failed outright, but I managed to heal them well enough. The scars that remained were thin and silvery, like old burns. I added them to the collection that already marked my body— souvenirs from the void, from Stonehenge, from every moment since I’d fallen through the Veil. My reflection in a cracked mirror showed me a stranger with eyes that had seen too much. My eyes seemed to glow faintly in the dim light, causing me to shiver.

I was not him. I was not him!

“Who am I?” I whispered.

No answer came. They never did.

I left the cottage on the fourth day, my pack restocked with canned goods and a thick wool blanket I’d scavenged. I left behind what little remained of my dignity and several hours spent burying the cottage’s previous owner in their garden. It seemed like the least I could do.

May he rest in peace.

oooo

The road to London was a monument to humanity’s collapse.

I stuck to the A303 for the first day, reasoning that the main routes would be both easier to navigate and more likely to have survivor enclaves where I could potentially gather information. What I found instead was a graveyard that stretched for miles.

Cars sat abandoned in massive pileups, their doors hanging open, their interiors stripped of anything useful. Some had been burned, reduced to skeletal frames of blackened metal. Others had been torn apart by something with claws the size of dinner plates— the marks scored deep into the vehicle frames, through steel and glass alike.

Bodies were rare, which somehow made it worse. A few desiccated corpses slumped in driver’s seats or lay crumpled on the roadside, but most people had simply vanished. Had they run? Been taken? Dissolved into the auroras? Picked so clean that not even bones remained?

I didn’t know, and that gnawed at me like nothing else. Still, I walked, rested when exhaustion forced me to, and walked again.

On what I thought was the fifth day, I saw my first signs of organized scavenging. A group of six people— three men, two women, and a teenager who couldn’t have been older than fifteen— were systematically stripping a petrol station of everything salvageable. They worked with a sense of urgency, loading supplies into shopping trolleys and a wheelbarrow.

They spotted me at the same moment I spotted them.

The group froze. Hands moved to weapons— a cricket bat, a crowbar, something that might have been a homemade spear. The teenager raised a crossbow that looked far too professional to have been cobbled together post-apocalypse.

I stopped walking and raised my hands slowly, palms out.

“Not looking for trouble.” I called out. “Just passing through.”

“Your pack.” One of the men shouted back. He was broad-shouldered and bearded, with the kind of voice that expected obedience. “Leave it on the ground and back away. You can go.”

I felt the power stir beneath my skin, eager. My chains wanted to lash out, to teach these people what happened when they threatened me. I forced them down.

“No.” I said simply.

The crossbow swung toward me. “Wasn’t a request, mate.”

“I’m not giving you my supplies.” I kept my voice level and reasonable. “I need them. There’s plenty of food in that petrol station for all of us. Take what you need and let me pass.”

“What we need.” The bearded man said, stepping forward. “Is to not have some wandering stranger potentially following us back to our settlement. So you’ve got two choices: leave the pack, or we make you leave it.”

The teenager’s finger tightened on the crossbow trigger.

I sighed and let the chains manifest.

They erupted from my body like serpents, black and writhing and edged with that familiar void-light that made the air around them shimmer. I didn’t attack— I just let them coil around me, a dozen of them, whipping through the air with barely restrained violence.

The crossbow bolt fired wild, sailing past my shoulder. The teenager stumbled backward with a choked scream. The rest of the group broke and ran, abandoning their trolleys and their carefully scavenged supplies in their panic to get away.

I watched them disappear into the ruins, then dismissed the chains and continued walking.

It happened twice more over the next two days. Once, a lone man with a knife who backed down the moment he saw my eyes. Once, a woman who tried to convince me that her “settlement” down the road would trade supplies for information, but whose eyes kept darting to my pack with undisguised hunger.

I declined and kept moving.

oooo

The werewolves found me on what I thought was the seventh night.

I’d stopped to rest in a small copse of trees just off the main road, reasoning that the cover would provide some protection from both the elements and any hostiles. I’d built a small fire— probably a mistake, but I was cold and tired and sick of eating cold beans straight from the tin— and was halfway through a meager dinner when I heard the howl.

It started low and rose to a pitch that made my teeth ache, echoing through the darkness of the eternal night. This wasn’t the howl of a wolf or even a dog. This was something that learned to howl by listening to screams.

I doused the fire immediately, scattering the embers and cursing my stupidity. The second howl came from a different direction, closer. Then a third, and a fourth, and I realized with cold certainty that I was being surrounded.

The tree.

There was an old oak at the edge of the copse, its trunk nearly hollow from rot or fire, with an opening just large enough for a person to squeeze through. I ran for it, abandoning any pretense of stealth, and threw myself into the gap.

The interior was dark and cramped and smelled of decay and old smoke, but it was shelter. I wedged myself as far back as I could, pulling my pack in after me, and willed my breathing to slow.

The first werewolf appeared less than a minute later.

It prowled into the clearing on all fours, but its proportions were wrong— too long in the limbs, too broad in the shoulders, with a muzzle that seemed to split its skull in half when it opened. Its fur was patchy and diseased-looking, and its eyes glowed with the same purple light as the auroras overhead.

Corrupted. Like the Erklings. Like the Bowtruckles. Like everything else in this broken world.

Two more werewolves slunk out of the darkness to join the first. They spread out, sniffing the air, clearly aware that prey was nearby but unable to pinpoint exactly where. One of them nosed at the scattered remains of my fire, then lifted its head and howled again— a sound of frustration and hunger that made the tree trunk vibrate around me.

I pressed myself further back into the hollow, one hand over my mouth to muffle my breathing. Part of me wanted to emerge, to fight, but I knew it would be suicide. Three corrupted werewolves in close quarters, probably with more of the pack nearby? In my weakened state, I’d be torn apart before I could kill even one of them.

So I waited.

The werewolves searched the clearing for what felt like hours. They circled the oak tree multiple times, so close that I could hear their claws scraping against the bark just inches from where I hid. At one point, one of them stuck its muzzle into the opening of the hollow, and I got a clear view of its teeth— sharp and vicious and stained dark with old blood.

It sniffed deeply, sampling the air. I held perfectly still, barely breathing, and prayed that the residual smoke from the fire would mask my scent.

The werewolf’s eyes— those horrible purple eyes— swept across the hollow’s interior. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought it saw me. Its lips pulled back in what might have been a smile, revealing even more of those terrible teeth.

Then it withdrew.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t do anything except exist as quietly as possible while the werewolves continued their search.

Eventually— after what might have been hours or might have been days, for all I could tell in that timeless darkness— the howls began to fade. The werewolves moved on, either giving up the search or distracted by easier prey.

I stayed in the tree until I counted to one thousand, then counted to one thousand again, then finally allowed myself to believe that they were truly gone.

When I emerged, stiff and aching and covered in splinters and rot, the clearing was empty. I didn’t bother trying to sleep. I just shouldered my pack and started walking again, putting as much distance between myself and that cursed copse as possible.

oooo

London appeared on the horizon like a fever dream made solid.

I crested a hill on what I desperately hoped was the final day of travel and saw it spread out before me: a vast sprawl of ruins that stretched to the edges of vision in every direction. The skyline I remembered was gone. In its place was a jagged silhouette of broken buildings and collapsed towers, like teeth in a shattered jaw.

Smoke rose from dozens of fires scattered throughout the city, some small and controlled, others massive conflagrations that burned unchecked. The Thames was visible as a dark ribbon cutting through the destruction, but even from this distance I could see that something was wrong with it. The water seemed to glow faintly, pulsing in time with the auroras overhead.

I stood there for a long moment, taking in the scale of the devastation. London had been home to millions. Now it looked like the corpse of a city, picked clean by scavengers and left to rot.

But there was magic here. I could feel it, faint but undeniable, scattered throughout the ruins like embers in ash. Some of it felt familiar— the signature of protective wards, the residual energy of powerful spells. Some of it felt new and wrong, tainted by the same corruption that had twisted the Erklings and Bowtruckles.

If any wizards had survived in Britain, some of them would be in London.

I descended the hill and entered the ruins.

The first thing that struck me was the silence.

A city of millions, reduced to a graveyard where the only sounds were the wind whistling through broken windows and the distant creak of unstable buildings settling. No traffic, no voices, no ambient noise of human civilization. Just silence, heavy and oppressive, broken occasionally by the cry of corrupted creatures in the distance.

I made my way through the outskirts carefully, keeping to the shadows and avoiding open streets where possible. The buildings here were relatively intact— damaged, certainly, with broken windows and collapsed roofs, but still recognizable as houses and shops. The further in I went, the worse the destruction became.

Something massive had carved a path through South London, leaving a swathe of complete devastation that must have been a quarter-mile wide. The buildings on either side were melted, their brick and steel twisted into organic shapes that looked more like wax sculptures than architecture. The ground itself was scorched black, and in some places it had been fused into glass that crunched beneath my boots.

Dragon fire. It had to be. Nothing else could create this kind of destruction.

But what dragon? And why would it attack London specifically?

I pushed the questions aside and continued deeper into the city.

St. Mungo’s was my first destination. If any wizarding institution would have survived, it would be the hospital— they had the best wards, the most skilled healers, and would have been critical to any survival effort.

I found it three days after entering London.

Or rather, I found where it should have been. The building that had housed St. Mungo’s entrance was gone. Not just destroyed, but removed, leaving behind a perfect spherical crater that had been excavated down to bedrock. The edges were smooth.

“Complete erasure…?” I mouthed in confusion. “Why?”

Once again, I had no answer.

I circled the crater twice, searching for any sign of magical residue or hidden entrances, but found nothing. Whatever had been here, whatever spells had protected this place, they had been systematically stripped away and destroyed.

Someone had wanted to make absolutely certain that St. Mungo’s could never be accessed again.

Diagon Alley was worse.

It took me two days to find the Leaky Cauldron’s location— or what remained of it. Charing Cross Road was barely recognizable, most of its buildings reduced to rubble or hollow shells. When I finally found the right stretch of street, I discovered that the Leaky Cauldron had been burned to its foundations.

The magical entrance to Diagon Alley should have been in the courtyard behind the pub. I picked my way through the debris, chains manifesting to shift aside chunks of collapsed masonry, until I found the wall.

Or what was left of it.

The bricks had been shattered, the magical archway destroyed so thoroughly that I couldn’t even sense where it had been. Beyond the wall, where Diagon Alley should have stretched in its impossible pocket of space, there was only more rubble.

I spent hours searching, growing increasingly desperate. This couldn’t be all that remained. Diagon Alley was ancient. The Wizards and Goblins certainly wouldn’t let it fall, would they? Both had a vested interest in these things?

Unless the Goblins started another war. My mind supplied. World collapse would be a good excuse for them to start another rebellion, after all…

I hated the fact that the thought wasn’t entirely unbelievable to me.

I found a single intact object in the ruins: a sign, partially buried beneath a collapsed wall. I pulled it free and read the faded letters: “Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.”

I set it carefully aside and kept searching, but found nothing else worth salvaging.

The Ministry of Magic was the last of the three locations I’d planned to check, and by the time I made my way there, I wasn’t expecting to find anything intact.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The visitor’s entrance— the old red telephone box on the corner— was a twisted wreck of metal and glass, lying on its side like a fallen soldier. The street around it had been torn up, exposing the underground passages that should have led to the Ministry’s Atrium.

Those passages had collapsed. I could see into them, could see the massive cave-in that had buried the Ministry’s upper levels beneath thousands of tons of earth and rubble. The wards that should have prevented such a collapse were gone, ripped away or disabled.

I stood at the edge of the destruction for a long time, trying to process what I was seeing. Pieces of the puzzle were slowly making themselves known. In most places I’d gone to, the violence looked random.

This wasn’t that; someone had gone to each major wizarding location in London and methodically destroyed them, ensuring that no survivors could use them as rallying points or safe havens.

But who? The corrupted creatures? Voldemort? Grindelwald? The Goblins?

Or something else entirely?

oooo

I spent the better part of a week searching the rest of London for any sign of surviving wizards. I’d survived six years in the void and clawed my way back to reality, only to find that there was nothing left to come back to.

I slumped against a wall and let my head fall back against the brick. Maybe this was it. Maybe I’d searched everywhere worth searching, and this was all that remained: ruins, corpses, and the fading hope that someone, somewhere, had survived.

I closed my eyes and tried to decide what to do next.

That’s when I felt it.

Magic.

Not the corrupted, wrong-feeling magic of the creatures I’d encountered. Not the fading residue of old wards. This was active, powerful, and deliberately hidden.

I pushed myself to my feet and followed the sensation, letting it guide me through the ruins. It grew stronger as I walked, until I found myself standing in front of the ruins of the Bank of England. I continued to follow the trail, stopping before what appeared to be a completely ordinary section of collapsed wall.

But it wasn’t ordinary. The magic here was thick enough that I could taste it, a complex weaving of protective spells and concealment wards that made my eyes hurt if I looked too long.

Someone was hiding behind this wall. Someone with enough power and skill to maintain wards like these years after the world ended.

I stepped forward and reached out, letting my hand hover just above the brick. The moment my fingers brushed the surface, the wards responded— not attacking, but pushing back, a firm pressure that made it clear I wasn’t welcome.

“Hello?” I called out, feeling foolish but seeing no alternative. “My name is Adam Black. I’m looking for Sirius Black and Harry Potter and Remus Lupin. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

Nothing. The wall remained stubbornly solid and ordinary-looking.

I tried again, louder this time. “I’m a wizard. I survived Stonehenge. I just want to know if anyone else made it out.”

Still nothing.

I tried several more times, varying my approach, mentioning different names and places from my past, but the wall refused to acknowledge me. Eventually, I had to accept that either nobody was home, or they simply didn’t want to talk to me.

“Right.” I muttered. “Maybe the people who put this up are already dead. Another dead end, then.”

I had a few more potential locations I could check— other parts of the city, a few out of the way locations that might have weathered the apocalypse. This was just one failure among many.

I turned to leave.

The wall opened behind me with a sound like grinding stone.

I spun, chains manifesting instinctively, and found myself facing four wizards and witches with their wands drawn and pointed directly at my face.

They were hard-looking people, the kind that had clearly seen too much and survived anyway. The man in front was tall and scarred, with grey hair pulled back in a ponytail. The woman to his left was younger, maybe mid-thirties. The other two looked like siblings— same sharp features, same cold eyes.

“Wand.” The scarred man said. “Hand it over. Slowly.”

I raised my hands, dismissing the chains as I did so. “I don’t have a wand.”

“Bullshit.” One of the siblings said. “You just cast magic.”

“I cast my spell wandlessly.” I explained, keeping my voice calm. “I don’t have a wand. You’re welcome to check.”

The four shared a look. Some kind of silent communication passed between them, and then the scarred man nodded. “Arms out. Don’t move.”

I complied, opening my arms in an invitation. The woman approached cautiously, her wand trained on my chest while she patted me down. She checked my pockets, my pack, even ran her hands through my hair looking for a concealed wand.

“He’s clean.” She finally announced, stepping back.

The scarred man’s wand didn’t waver. “You said your name was Adam Black?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re looking for Sirius Black and Harry Potter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Sirius is my father.” I said, fighting to keep the emotion out of my voice. “And Harry is my brother.”

More silent communication. I could see the doubt in their eyes, the suspicion. How many people had tried to gain entry to this place with lies and false identities? How many threats had they turned away?

Finally, the scarred man seemed to reach a decision. “Come with us. The Commander will want to speak with you.”

“The Commander?”

“Questions later. Walk now.”

They formed up around me— two in front, two behind— and guided me through the opening in the wall. The moment I crossed the threshold, I felt the wards snap into place behind me, heavy and powerful enough to make my skin prickle.

The passage beyond was rough-hewn stone, lit by floating orbs of pale light. It descended steeply, twisting back on itself multiple times before finally leveling out into a larger tunnel. We walked for several minutes in silence, and I used the time to study my escorts.

They moved like soldiers— careful, alert, constantly scanning for threats. Their robes were practical rather than decorative, modified for ease of movement and reinforced with what looked like protective charms woven directly into the fabric. These weren’t Ministry bureaucrats or DMLE desk jockeys. These were people who had learned to fight and survive in the six years since the world ended.

The tunnel opened into a massive chamber that took my breath away.

It was a surviving wizarding enclave, hidden beneath London’s ruins, and it was full of life.

Hundreds of wizards and witches moved through the space, going about their daily business in a massive cavern that had been transformed into a functioning settlement. Tents and makeshift shelters clustered in organized rows, with wider paths left clear for foot traffic. Cooking fires burned in designated areas, their smoke drawn away by ventilation charms. Children played in a cleared space while adults watched over them.

But it was the atmosphere that struck me most. Everyone looked worn, tired, haunted by whatever they’d endured. And they were suspicious— as my escorts led me through the settlement, I felt dozens of eyes tracking my progress, weighing me, judging whether I was a threat.

Conversations stopped as we passed. A woman pulled her child behind her, hand on her wand. A man stepped out of his tent and watched us with naked hostility until we’d moved on.

These people had learned to fear strangers, and I couldn’t blame them.

We passed through the main cavern and into a side tunnel that led to what appeared to be a command center of sorts. Maps covered the walls, marked with symbols and annotations I couldn’t read from this distance. A large table dominated the center of the room, covered in reports and documents.

And standing behind that table, reviewing a map with intense concentration, was a man I recognized.

Rufus Scrimgeour.

He looked up as we entered, and I saw the same hardness in his eyes that I’d seen in my escorts. The world had not been kind to the former Auror.

“Commander.” The scarred man said. “This one claims to be Adam Black. Says he’s looking for Sirius Black and Harry Potter.”

Scrimgeour’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Adam Black.”

“That’s right.”

“Formerly Clarke?”

“Yes.”

He circled the table slowly, still watching me with that unsettling intensity. “Parents?”

“Sirius Black adopted me.” I said. “In my first year at Hogwarts.”

“Siblings?”

“Harry Potter. We consider ourselves brothers.”

Scrimgeour nodded slowly, but his expression remained skeptical. “How did you enjoy your time in Gryffindor House?”

I frowned. “I was in Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor.”

“Hmm.” He exchanged a glance with the scarred man. “At least he’s done his research properly.”

“Research?” I felt my temper flare. “I just spent a week crawling through Hell to get here. I’ve been attacked by corrupted magical creatures, nearly died from infection, and had to hide in a damn tree for hours from werewolves. I’m not here to play games with you. I know who I am.”

“Do you?” Scrimgeour’s voice was calm, but there was steel underneath. “Tell me, how many people do you think have stood in this room and claimed to be someone they weren’t? How many times do you think we’ve welcomed someone in, only to discover they were compromised? Possessed? Replaced?”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. He had a point.

“Our former Minister, Cornelius Fudge.” Scrimgeour continued. “Was killed two years after the Fall. His body was taken, his identity assumed. We lived and worked alongside the thing that wore his face for an entire year before we finally realized the truth and destroyed it.”

That stopped me cold. “Fudge is dead?”

“Very. I’m the Commander now. I lead what remains of our forces.” He leaned back against the table. “By the time we figured it out, thirty of our people had been killed. So you’ll forgive me if I’m somewhat cautious about accepting your identity at face value.”

I forced myself to take a breath and think. He wasn’t being unreasonable. I was being unreasonable, letting my frustration and disappointment cloud my judgment.

“I understand.” I said quietly. “But I don’t know how to prove who I am. I have no wand. No identification. Nothing except my word and my memories.”

“Then let me try a different approach.” Scrimgeour said. “You claim to be looking for Sirius Black, Harry Potter, and someone else?”

“Remus Lupin.” I finished.

Something flickered across Scrimgeour’s face. It was gone too quickly for me to identify.

“How long are you going to keep playing this farce?” He asked quietly.

“It’s not a farce.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. Why would it be?”

Scrimgeour studied me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Harry Potter was taken by the enemy four years after the Fall. We don’t know if he’s still alive. Sirius Black went searching for the boy when it happened. He hasn’t returned since then. Both are assumed to be dead.”

The words hit me like physical blows. Harry taken. Sirius missing, presumably dead.

“How could this be? Where’s Dumbledore?” I managed.

“Disappeared during the Fall. We’ve had no contact with him since.” Scrimgeour’s expression softened slightly, perhaps seeing the devastation on my face. “I’m sorry. If you truly are who you claim to be, this can’t be easy to hear.”

“Remus.” I said, grasping at the one name he hadn’t addressed. “What about Remus Lupin?”

Scrimgeour exchanged another look with the scarred man. “He’s here. We’re bringing him now.”

“Bringing him?” The phrasing seemed odd.

But Scrimgeour didn’t explain further. He just gestured for me to wait, and we stood in awkward silence while minutes ticked by.

I used the time to process what I’d learned. Harry taken. Sirius gone. Dumbledore missing. In my darkest moments, I’d imagined finding a world without my family, but hearing it confirmed was something else entirely.

The void had taken six years from me. Six years during which everything I’d fought for, everyone I’d cared about, had been scattered or destroyed.

Footsteps echoed in the tunnel outside. I turned toward the sound, and two wizards entered, one of them aiding the other, who was in crutches.

The man in the crutches was elderly— far older than I expected. His hair was white, his face lined with wrinkles, his body thin and frail beneath a heavy blanket. But his eyes, when they met mine, were sharp and alert.

Remus.

“This is the one?” Remus asked, his voice rough with age as he looked at me.

“Claims to be Adam Black.” Scrimgeour confirmed and stood up, offering his seat. “I’d like you to verify his identity. Please, have a seat.”

Remus took the seat slowly, placing the crutches against the desk, and studied me in silence; I could see him taking in every detail— my white eyes, my scars, the changes that six years in the void had wrought. His expression was carefully neutral, giving nothing away.

“What did your boggart turn into…” He finally asked. “During your third year?”

The question was clever— specific enough to trip up an imposter, but targeting information that wouldn’t be widely known.

“I didn’t deal with boggarts in third year.” I said. “But my boggart was myself as an adult.”

I gestured at my eyes. “He looked something like I do now, actually. Covered in blood, commanding shadows. I saw it during… At the place where…”

I trailed off, unable to recall exactly where it had happened. Remus’s carefully neutral expression cracked. His eyes brightened with tears, and a smile spread across his weathered face.

“Adam.” He breathed.

He opened his arms, and I found myself moving without thought, dropping to my knees beside the chair so I could return the embrace. Remus felt fragile in my arms, far too thin, but his grip was strong as he held me.

“I thought I would never live to see this day.” He said, his voice thick with emotion. “They said you died at Stonehenge. We mourned you. And yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” I agreed, pulling back to look at him properly. “Remus, what happened to you?”

He chuckled, a sound that was equal parts humor and bitterness. “Got old, didn’t I? That being beyond the veil hit me with something— some kind of aging curse. Added four decades to my life in an instant.” He shifted in the chair, and I noticed how carefully he moved, as if everything hurt. “Small mercy, though. It also seems to have cured my lycanthropy.”

“Cured it?”

“Haven’t transformed in six years. My theory is that the curse aged my body faster than the lycanthropy could adapt to. By the time it tried to manifest, I was too old for the transformation to take hold properly.” He smiled wryly. “At my current age, a transformation would likely kill me anyway. So I suppose I should be grateful.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Remus had always been defined by his lycanthropy, had struggled with it his entire life. To have it removed in such a cruel way— traded for premature old age— felt like a particularly vicious joke.

“I’m glad you’re alive.” I finally managed.

“As am I, my boy. As am I.”

Scrimgeour cleared his throat, and I was reminded that we had an audience. I stood and turned to him.

“So.” Scrimgeour said. “You are who you claim to be. That raises an interesting question: where have you been for the last six years?”

All eyes turned to me. I’d known this question was coming, had prepared my answer during the long walk to London.

“I was in stasis.” I said carefully. “Some kind of pocket dimension or temporal loop. I remember being thrown into the Veil, and then… nothing. No awareness, no passage of time. I just woke up a few weeks ago in the ruins of Warminster.”

It was close enough to the truth to be believable, but distant enough to hide what I’d really endured. I couldn’t tell them about the void, about what it had done to me, about what I’d become. They were already suspicious enough— if they knew the full truth, well…

No reason to complicate things.

Scrimgeour studied me thoughtfully.

“Interesting.” He exchanged another glance with the scarred man. “That explains how you survived. If you’d been trapped in stasis, you wouldn’t have experienced the Fall directly.”

“No.” I agreed. “Which is why I need you to tell me everything. What happened after I went through? What caused all of this? I thought we’d stopped it. What happened?”

I gestured vaguely at the ceiling, indicating the ruined world above.

Scrimgeour was quiet for a long moment, and I could see him weighing his words. Finally, he nodded.

“Very well. But I warn you— the full story is neither short nor pleasant.”

“I’ve got time.” I said. “And I’ve seen enough of this world to know it won’t be pleasant.”

Remus reached out and took my hand, squeezing it gently. “Sit down, Adam. You’ll want to be sitting for this.”

Someone brought another chair, and I sat. The four wizards who’d escorted me remained by the door, still watching me with suspicion despite Remus’s confirmation. Scrimgeour pulled out his own chair and sat across from me, and the scarred man moved to stand behind him.

“It began.” Scrimgeour said slowly. “The moment the Veil opened. Tell me, Adam— what do you remember about what came through?”

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to recall those final moments. “Something ancient. Something that shouldn’t exist. It was trying to cross fully into our world, feeding on the sacrifices. We fought it. All of us together— Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Voldemort, everyone. We pushed it back.”

“You did.” Scrimgeour confirmed. “You and Potter, specifically. I was there, saw the whole thing. You channeled something— some strange magic we’ve never seen— and you shoved that thing back through the Veil. It should have been the end of it.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No.” His expression darkened. “The Veil sealed, yes. But sealing a gate doesn’t undo the damage done by opening it. The barrier between our world and… wherever that thing came from… it was compromised. Weakened.”

He stood and moved to one of the maps on the wall, gesturing for me to join him. I did, and saw that it was a map of Britain covered in red markers.

“These are breach points.” Scrimgeour explained. “Places where the barrier failed completely in the hours and days after Stonehenge. Things came through— creatures from the other side, corrupted versions of our own magical beings, entities we still don’t have names for. They poured into our world like water through cracks in a dam.”

I thought of the Erklings with their fire magic, the parasitic Bowtruckles, the purple-eyed werewolves. “The corrupted creatures.”

“Yes. But that was only the beginning.” He moved to a different map, this one showing all of Europe. “The barrier didn’t just fail in Britain. It failed everywhere, all at once. Every country, every continent. The entire world.”

“The sky went dark.” I said, remembering Marcus’s explanation in Warminster.

“Approximately three hours after the Veil sealed. The sun simply… stopped appearing. We don’t know if it’s still there or if it was somehow destroyed or displaced. What we do know is that those auroras appeared in its place, and they’ve been there ever since. We have not been able to penetrate them with any of our magic.”

He pulled out another document— a report of some kind, covered in hastily scrawled notes. “Muggle technology also failed. Their aircraft fell out of the sky. Power grids collapsed. Electronic devices stopped working. We think the auroras interfere with electrical currents somehow, but we’ve never been able to study them safely.”

“And then the creatures came.” The scarred man added. “Not just the corrupted magical beings. Other things. Bigger things.”

Scrimgeour nodded grimly. “We’ll talk about them later. Dragons were the first major threat— corrupted, like everything else. They attacked cities, burned settlements, killed thousands before we managed to drive them back or kill them. The dragon that carved through South London killed nearly thirty thousand people before we brought it down. A dozen of those were our own people laying their very lives down.”

I thought of the massive swath of destruction I’d seen, the melted buildings and fused glass.

“Muggle governments collapsed within a matter of weeks.” Scrimgeour continued. “Military forces were overwhelmed or simply broke apart as soldiers deserted to protect their families. The Ministry tried to maintain order, tried to coordinate a response, but we were too few and spread too thin. Within two weeks, organized resistance had largely ceased. After that, it was just a scramble for survival.”

“And the rest of the Wizarding World?” I asked. “Surely we had the advantage. Magic still works. And you had the MACUSA on your side, still— whatever what was left of them after the New York attack.”

“Magic works.” Scrimgeour agreed, giving me a strange look. “But it’s… different. Harder to control. Spells that used to be reliable now fail randomly or produce unexpected results. Potions require different ingredients or procedures. Even simple Charms sometimes backfire. It’s as if the rules of magic itself were rewritten.”

That explained why my own magic felt so wrong, so unstable. It wasn’t just damage from the void— it was the world itself that had changed.

“As for the wizarding world.” Scrimgeour continued bitterly. “We fragmented. Some tried to help the Muggles, tried to use magic to restore order and protect survivors. Others—” His expression darkened further. “— Others saw opportunity. With governments fallen and muggle society collapsed, certain parties decided it was time to establish themselves as the new ruling class.”

“Grindelwald.” I said.

“Among others. Grindelwald’s forces were already organized, already in position. They swept through Eastern Europe in the first year, establishing control over dozens of survivor settlements. He’s built himself an empire in the ruins, and he rules it absolutely.”

“And Voldemort?”

Scrimgeour shook his head. “He and his band have taken France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and much of North Africa. He and Grindelwald had an alliance, see; neither would interfere with the other’s affairs, and so they would take over the world.”

“Had.” I said.

Scrimgeour nodded. “Their alliance did not last. After their respective territories had grown large enough, they turned against each other. Currently, they are battling for the control of the Middle East. Whatever remains of it is still charged with significant magical power, and so that is a resource neither can ignore.”

Of course they’re fighting there. I thought to myself. “And where is he now?”

“Unknown.” Scrimgeour said. “We’ve had no confirmed sightings, no intelligence on his whereabouts or intentions.”

I processed this information slowly, fitting it together with what I’d already learned from Marcus and the survivors in Warminster. The world had ended, not in a single catastrophic moment, but in a cascading series of failures that had brought civilization to its knees within a few months.

“You mentioned Harry was taken.” I said quietly. “Taken by who?”

Scrimgeour’s expression grew pained. “We don’t know. He just disappeared. There were dozens of different factions present— Grindelwald’s people, Death Eaters, Ministry forces, unknown parties. In the confusion, someone took him. We’ve been searching for years and found nothing.”

“And Sirius went after him, you said.” I said. “Sorry, could you tell me more?”

“That’s fine.” Scrimgeour said. “Two years ago, we received intelligence that Harry had been seen in Scotland. Mr. Black left immediately with a small team. They never returned. We sent search parties, but…”

He trailed off, and I could fill in the rest. They’d found nothing. No bodies, no clues, nothing.

My adoptive father and brother were gone. And I’d been trapped in the void, unable to help, unable to even know they needed help.

“And Dumbledore really is just gone?”

“It was hard for me to believe, too.” Remus said softly. “I saw him vanish. Some saw him Apparate away. Others claim he walked into the fires. We’ve had no word from him since.”

“No word at all?”

“Nothing. The Order of the Phoenix collapsed without his leadership. Those of us who survived scattered, trying to protect what we could.” Remus’s grip on my hand tightened. “We thought you were dead, Adam. We mourned you. And now you’re here, and I don’t know whether to be overjoyed or terrified of what it means.”

I looked around the room— at Scrimgeour’s hardened face, at the scarred wizard standing guard, at the maps covered in markers for death and destruction, at Remus aged and broken in his chair.

This was what remained. This was what I’d returned to.

“Tell me about the enemy.” I said. “These other things that came through. What are they? I’ve not seen them in my travels.”

“And so you wouldn’t. They attack rarely, but when they do…” Scrimgeour shook his head. “The death toll is enormous. They target settlements, kill indiscriminately, but there’s no pattern we’ve been able to identify. No clear objective. It’s as if they exist solely to destroy.”

“There has to be something.” I insisted. “Some intelligence behind it. Someone or something directing them.”

“If there is, we haven’t found it.” He moved back to the table, shuffling through reports. “What we do know is that they’re getting stronger. The creatures are becoming more organized, more dangerous. The breaches are growing larger and more frequent. Whatever is happening, it’s accelerating.”

I thought of the Stonehenge crater, that massive wound in the world still burning after six years. “And there’s no way to reverse it? No way to restore the barrier?”

“If there is, we haven’t discovered it. Believe me, we’ve tried. Every theory, every ancient text, every desperate ritual— nothing works. The damage seems to be permanent.”

I stood there in that makeshift command center, surrounded by survivors who had fought and bled for six years while I’d been gone, and I felt the full weight of my failure settle onto my shoulders.

I’d survived the void. I’d clawed my way back to reality. But I’d returned too late to save anyone, too late to make a difference.

Harry was gone. Sirius was gone. The world was ending, and I was just one more survivor in a sea of ruins.

“Adam.” Remus said gently. “You’re exhausted. Why don’t we find you somewhere to rest? We can continue this conversation later.”

I wanted to argue, wanted to keep pushing for answers, but he was right. I was exhausted— physically, mentally, emotionally. The journey from Stonehenge had drained me, and learning the truth about what had happened to my family had left me hollow.

“Yeah.” I said quietly. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Scrimgeour nodded. “We’ll assign you quarters. Get some sleep, eat a proper meal. Tomorrow we can discuss what happens next.”

What happens next… As if there was anything to discuss?

But I nodded and let them lead me out of the command center, through the settlement where hundreds of eyes still watched me with suspicion, to a small tent at the edge of the enclave.

It wasn’t much— a bedroll, a small chest for belongings, a lantern— but it was more than I’d had in weeks.

I collapsed onto the bedroll and closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come easily. My mind kept circling back to the same thoughts, the same questions.

Where are you? Harry. Sirius.