My eyes snapped open.
For a moment I didn't know where I was—or who I was. Pain swallowed me whole, searing through muscle and bone, a scream lodged in my throat but smothered by the sharp rattle of broken lungs. Each breath felt like shards of glass scraping down my throat. My ribs shifted—wrong, caved in, splintered. Something deep inside me was punctured; I could feel blood flooding where it had no right to be.
But there was more than pain. There were memories. Not mine—yet now inseparably mine. A boy's small hands, blistered from scrubbing floors. A cupboard under the stairs. The shrill voice of a woman calling him freak. A fat, smirking boy who learned cruelty like it was a sport. A man whose piggish eyes lit with satisfaction whenever the child cried.
Harry.
I knew the boy's life in a blink, like a parasite of memory had been grafted to me. I felt his hunger, his despair, his desperate loneliness. And with it came fury—Tom Riddle's fury. My fury.
Because now there was no longer a boy named Harry Potter, nor a man called Lord Voldemort. There was only me.
Hadrian.
The name slipped into my mind, sharp and inevitable. A merging. Not Tom. Not Harry. Something stronger, bound by both bloodlines, both histories. Hadrian Marvolo Evans. Yes—that fit. Evans… Hecate's Imperial bloodline. Power ancient and unyielding.
I sucked in a ragged breath, then another, as something strange began to stir inside me. My magic. No, not just my magic—our magic, mingling, stretching, expanding like wildfire through veins too frail to contain it. It hurt—Merlin, it hurt. Bones cracked, shifted, mended. Bruises burned away into nothingness. My lungs knitted, ribs aligned. The agony was so sharp I nearly blacked out, but beneath it there was something else: release. Freedom. As if every fracture was a chain snapping.
When the pain ebbed, I was left shaking, sweat slicking my skin, but whole. Stronger than whole.
I sat up, pressing my palm to the cupboard door. Locked. Of course. My lips curled. In my other life, I'd been locked away, too. Wool's Orphanage, doors that never opened unless the matrons willed it. And in Harry's? The Dursleys had done the same. How poetic.
I pushed lightly at the wood, irritation simmering. If only I had a wand—
A sharp click echoed. The lock snapped open. The door swung wide.
I froze. My pulse quickened. That… hadn't been Harry's usual accidental magic. No wild surge, no half-controlled push. That had been deliberate. A wish, and magic had obeyed.
My mind raced. Hecate's words stirred in memory. Her bloodline doesn't require tools.
I lifted my hand, willing softly: Lumos.
Light blossomed, not from a wand, but from my palm. A sphere of soft white brilliance floated there, obedient, pure, bending entirely to will. No incantation, no wand movement. Just thought.
A grin tugged at my lips. Oh, yes. This was better than anything I'd imagined.
I stepped out, the ball of light floating beside me. The Dursleys' house was quiet, shadows long across the carpeted stairs. My feet carried me into the kitchen, where the clock read 6:36 a.m. Almost morning.
My stomach growled, Harry's body still pitifully underfed despite the rapid healing. No matter. I would eat. And why not test my new abilities while I was at it?
I moved about the kitchen, unfastening locks with the flick of a thought. Pans drifted into the air. Ingredients hovered, chopping themselves under invisible blades. Bacon sizzled, eggs cracked and scrambled. Pancakes flipped gracefully without spatula. The rich scent of breakfast filled the air.
I poured milk into a cup, savoring the first cold mouthful, when I heard it—footsteps.
I turned at the sound of footsteps, expecting the lumbering gait of Vernon.Instead—Petunia.
She froze in the doorway.
I took her in properly now—not through Harry's blurred, childish eyes, but my own. She was in her late twenties, thin to the point of sharpness, like a knife honed too fine. Her nightgown clung loosely to her tall, bony frame. Her face, plain but not ugly, carried the brittle beauty of someone who had spent her life trying to be more than she was. With a few potions—skin smoothed, hair thickened, cheekbones lifted—she might even be striking. Attractive, in a cold way.
But her eyes ruined it. They betrayed everything. Fear. Contempt. Hatred.
Her mouth opened, a breath drawn for a scream. I flicked my wrist; the silencing charm took hold like an invisible hand closing her throat. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
She clawed at her neck, wild-eyed, and bolted for the stairs.
"Oh no, Auntie," I murmured, amused.
Reality folded at my whim. One moment she was at the foot of the staircase, the next she reappeared—abrupt, bewildered—slammed into a kitchen chair across from me. Not Apparition. Not a spell. Just my will reshaping the world.
Petunia's face went chalk-pale. She strained against the invisible binds, but my will held her fast.
I sat calmly at the table, lifting my teacup with deliberate precision. "Sit," I said, though she was already seated. "Breakfast is ready."
Her glare was vicious, but beneath it I tasted her fear. Delicious.
I cut into a sausage, letting silence stretch like a noose before I spoke again."I should clarify something. I am not Harry Potter."
Her head jerked, confusion warring with horror.
"That boy," I continued, "is dead. Beaten, starved, broken. Your husband's handiwork. Your own complicity. You killed him as surely as if you had plunged a knife into his heart."
Her lips trembled, words useless without sound.
I leaned forward, eyes narrowing, voice low and cutting. "Tell me, Petunia. If the roles were reversed—if Vernon and you were slaughtered, and Dudley was sent to live with your sister—would she have done to your son what you did to hers? Would she lock him in a cupboard? Beat him? Starve him? Force him to play servant in his own home?"
Her breath caught.
"No," I hissed softly. "She would have raised Dudley as her own. She would have taken him in, loved him, protected him. Even after losing you. Even after losing everything."
Tears welled in Petunia's eyes, spilling silently down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook. She tried to speak, but only a dry rasp came out.
"You murdered what was left of your sister," I went on, quieter now but no less sharp. "You murdered her son. Every blow, every insult, every moment of neglect—you drove the knife deeper. And now here you sit, across from the ghost you made."
Petunia bowed her head. Her face crumpled. She began to cry in earnest.
I let the silence linger a heartbeat longer, then released the silencing charm with a flick of my fingers. Her sobs filled the kitchen, thin and broken.
"Eat," I said simply.
Her knife and fork trembled as she lifted them. She glanced at the food, then back at me with a mix of shame and fear. And then she ate.
I smiled faintly, cold but satisfied, and sipped my tea.