Everyone stared. No one moved. The dagger hummed like it had a tiny storm trapped inside it.
Harry reached down before he could think better of it. His fingers closed around the hilt. Cold. Too cold.
The air bent.
It wasn't wind. It wasn't magic like he knew it either. It felt like the room hiccuped. Plates rattled again. Torches stretched long like rubber and snapped back. A few kids screamed. Hermione yelled his name, and Snape shouted something, and McGonagall lifted her wand—
The floor dropped out.
Harry's stomach lurched. The Great Hall pulled away like someone had grabbed it and dragged it down a long tunnel. Colors ran. He tried to let go of the dagger, but his hand wouldn't obey. His scar flared hard enough to make his eyes water.
For half a heartbeat he was nowhere. No sound, no sight. Just a feeling like falling between blinks.
Then he hit the ground.
Hard.
Air whooshed out of him. Dirt in his mouth. He rolled over, coughed, blinked until the world decided to be solid again. He wasn't in the Great Hall. Obvious. He was outside—trees everywhere, tall and crowded, leaves whispering. The light looked wrong. Sharper somehow, like someone turned the sky up a notch.
Harry got to his knees slow. His robes were full of twigs. The dagger was still in his hand, warm now, like it had changed its mind about who was cold and who wasn't. His wand was in his other fist, because apparently survival instincts did, occasionally, show up on time.
"Okay," he said to no one. "That happened."
Something rustled to his left.
He spun, wand up, heart punching his ribs. A figure flashed between the trees—gray and green, fast. Harry stepped back, heel catching on a root. He didn't fall. Barely.
"Show yourself!" he said, voice sounding way braver than he felt.
A man stepped out like he'd just been standing behind the bark this whole time. Tallish, lean, hair silver and sticking up in the back like it couldn't be bothered to behave. A headband with a metal plate sat low over one eye. The other eye watched Harry, calm in a way that made nerves crawl up his neck. The man wore a dark mask over the lower half of his face and a sleeveless vest with lots of pockets. Not a wizard. Not anything Harry recognized exactly.
The man looked at Harry's hands. Wand. Dagger. The eye crinkled a little, almost like he was smiling. Or not. Hard to tell with a mask.
"Lost?" the man said, voice lazy, like this was just a funny morning.
Harry swallowed. "Kind of. Where am I?"
"Forest," the man said, so helpful it hurt. "Near a village. You shouldn't wander. Bandits have been cranky."
"Right," Harry said, because what else was he supposed to say. His scar throbbed again and the dagger answered with a faint hum, like they were texting each other and excluding him on purpose.
Another rustle. This time a kid stumbled through a bush like it offended him. Blond hair so bright it punched the green, orange clothes that made him look like a sign, three whisker-like marks on each cheek. He pointed at Harry's wand with big blue eyes. "Whoa, what's that stick? Is it a cursed charm? Hey, Kakashi-sensei, is he a spy?"
The silver-haired man—Kakashi, apparently—didn't move much. "Doubtful," he said. "He looks more like someone who fell out of the sky."
"That's not a category," Harry muttered. He kept his wand up anyway.
Orange Kid circled him with zero personal space rules. "Never seen clothes like that. You from the Land of Whatevers? Hey, can you do tricks with that stick?"
Harry blinked. "Magic," he said. "I can do magic."
"Cool!" the boy said, and stuck his face right up to the dagger. "And what's that? That's not a kunai. Looks fancy."
The dagger pulsed. Just once. The boy flinched back, rubbing his nose. "Ow."
Kakashi's eye sharpened. "Careful, Naruto."
So Naruto. The name fit the chaos.
Harry lowered his wand a fraction. "I didn't mean to come here," he said, because honesty came crashing out of his mouth sometimes. "There was this… person. In a hood. They said run. Then this—" he lifted the dagger a little "—fell at my feet. And everything broke."
"Hmm," Kakashi said in a way that either meant he understood everything or nothing at all. He glanced up at the trees, then back at Harry. "We should move. Questions later."
Naruto groaned. "But I wanted to see if he can explode stuff."
"Preferably not me," Harry said.
Kakashi waved them forward and started walking like he assumed they'd follow, which, yeah, fair. Harry took a step and the ground did a tiny lurch under his boots. Not the earth. Him. The dagger. Like a compass that didn't point north, it tugged his wrist a whisper to the right.
"Do you feel that?" Harry asked.
"Feel what?" Naruto said, already poking a bug with a stick he'd found, because of course he had.
"The… pull," Harry said. He shook his hand to make it stop. It didn't.
Kakashi glanced over his shoulder. "You're holding something that doesn't want to be still."
"Awesome," Harry muttered. "Love that for me."
They walked. The forest opened a little. Birds argued in the branches. Harry kept one eye on the dagger and the other on the strangers he'd apparently decided to trust for the next five minutes. The tug in his wrist got stronger. He slowed.
"Hang on," he said.
The dagger warmed. The air around it shivered with thin lines of light, barely there. Kakashi stopped. Naruto didn't, nearly running into Harry's back.
"What is it?" Naruto asked, peering around him to stare at the dagger like it might tell a joke.
"It's—" Harry started, but the word collapsed. The light lines tugged harder, and for a heartbeat he saw something in them. Not the forest. Stones. A street? Voices overlapping, too many accents, too many feet.
"Portal?" Kakashi said softly, like he was asking the morning to confirm itself.
"Is that a jutsu?" Naruto asked, immediately excited again.
Harry's grip tightened. He tried to think like Hermione for two seconds—observe, categorize, plan—but his brain felt like scrambled eggs in a hat. He didn't know the rules here. He barely knew the rules at home most days.
"Maybe don't—" Kakashi began.
Too late.
The dagger yanked. Not his hand, not his arm. All of him. The trees stretched, the sky bent, Naruto yelped, Kakashi's hand shot out and grabbed Harry's shoulder, and then all three of them were falling again. The forest peeled away. The world turned into long lines, then into nothing.
They landed in a street.
Not the nice kind. Cracked stone, puddles that smelled like they should apologize, unfamiliar buildings leaning over like nosy grandmas. People in masks on rooftops. Not Kakashi's kind—different, smooth, painted white with animal faces. Harry's spine said danger before his brain did.
Naruto bounced up like he had springs. "That was awesome!"
Kakashi didn't look amused. His eye was narrow now. "This isn't ours," he said. "Stay close."
Harry didn't need the warning. The dagger hummed again, almost pleased. He wanted to throw it as far as he could. He didn't.
A figure stepped out from a shadowed doorway ahead, the mask a plain oval with markings like tears. They moved wrong, too quiet, like their feet had decided gravity was optional. A few more figures ghosted up behind them along the roofline. The air got thinner.
The front figure tilted their head. Their voice was smooth and wrong at the same time. "Traveler," they said, and Harry felt the word stick to him like glue. "You carry the fracture key."
Kakashi shifted, barely. Naruto did not shift at all; he bounced on his heels like he wanted to punch the mask.
Harry swallowed. "I swear I didn't—"
"The key chooses," the masked one said. "Hand it over."
Kakashi's hand landed on Harry's shoulder again, not hard, but definite. "Don't," he said, quiet.
The dagger beat once in Harry's palm like a second heart.
"Last chance," the masked figure said. Their friends on the roof leaned forward together, like birds deciding the exact second to dive.
Harry licked his lips. "Yeah," he said, because his mouth ran without permission. "So… what happens if I say no?"
The masked figure lifted a hand. The street lights flickered. Something in the shadows cracked open like a smile.
"Then," they said, "we take it."
The dagger flared white in Harry's hand, and the world started to tear.